REFLECTIONS ON THE OSMOSIS OF HUMAN LIFE AND THE PROCESS OF ABSORPTION By Observers The Metamorphosis of Creation continues and Life goes on. Around and around and around we spin, with feet of lead and wings of tin. Emergence is distant, yet very much at hand.But, at last, the chrysalis is finally starting to emerge from the cocoon. We hold tight now, for in many ways, these are both the very best and the very worst of times. In the outer world, technology and understanding are progressing at warp speed. The consuming public can barely keep up with the pace of Change in the electronic world. One barely gets a new item home and begins to use it and there on the television is a commercial for a newer product that is better and makes our new thing obsolete. Every day we hear or read about a new scientific discovery that Changes our Life in the outer world. Oftentimes these discoveries contradict presently accepted understanding. It takes a while, as we are so stubborn about our set, outmoded ways but gradually our understanding grows and we evolve.We have reached a stage in our evolution where we cannot go farther without an understanding of our inner world. We begin to understand at a snails pace. It comes slowly at first. It is as though we were in a dark tunnel with a flashlight that came on only sporadically for just a few seconds and then left us in the dark again. Sort of like going out to boogie at one of those dance places that has a strobe light, only the length of darkness is much, much longer. We can sort of tell what we think is going on, but our light won't stay on long enough for us to really know what is happening around us. Gradually, as our understanding grows, we will have longer periods of light and shorter periods of darkness. Eventually, if we really work at it, we will be able to see clearly. With a clearer understanding of purpose will come a profoundly different way of thinking. This is twenty-first century thinking. This is the thinking that will allow us to truly feel the presence of the Organic Process of Life as it works its wonders within us and in all of the Universe.Those of us now living will soon enough be gone, replaced by others, just as we replaced those who came before us, and we multiply. We experience the effects of our own over-population as our ranks swell, and we remain the same undirected mass of stagnating beings. If we choose, we can open ourselves to the Process of Absorption and allow the Osmosis of Human Life to begin working within us. If we are working toward maturity, we must begin to consciously direct our own evolutionary process. So we had better hubba-hubba and begin to move in this profoundly new direction or the impending implosion of human emotion will cause an explosion of interpersonal violence which is likely to spill over into the rest of Nature and cause us all a great deal of unnecessary pain. You know how we tend, like a flock of birds, a herd of cattle, or a school of fish to move in mass, almost as though we are a single unit. As with the rest of the Life, it takes just a few individual cells of the unit to get movement in a different direction underway. It is up to those who have already significantly evolved and become maturely fit to begin guiding the human movement in the direction it needs to move in to survive in the world of the twenty-first century and beyond. The evolution of significant variations is based, after all, upon the survival of the fittest individuals. In the case of the evolving homo sapiens continued existence, fittest would describe the condition of the more inwardly mature individuals, not necessarily those most physically fit.As individual animals, our time is short. Years fly by and we are middle-aged before we realize just how short our time really is. We see others around us passing from this Life every day, the young treading dutifully after the old like a bunch of preprogramed lemmings, yet we all tend to mistakenly think that we, ourselves, have plenty of time. But time waits for no one and like the dwindling sand of an hourglass, we are running out of time. So just what have we done with the time that we have been given? Look around. What do you see? If only we would give the same amount of energy to developing our inner selves as we do to the outer world, Life would indeed be different. How incredible that would be. However, such is not the case. We do all live in the outer world and it is, indeed a wondrous, multifaceted place, but again, as Sharon Faris so aptly tells us, "Inner development should proceed or certainly accompany material and scientific progress but human consciousness has been ignored" This is what our problem is. We have become such a materialistic, youth oriented, money grubbing, outer dwelling bunch of self-centered degenerates that even the idea of real maturity seems outmoded today. It also seems as though the whole world has developed a bad case of the 'gimmies'. Gimmie this and gimmie that, I want this and I want that. There is nothing inherently negative in wanting a good Life or in wanting the many good things of the outer world. But when we live in that outer world wholly, to the exclusion of any inner development, rather than regeneration, we get degeneration. Our culture has indeed degenerated to the point that we really have very little culture at all. We haven't grown up to a rising culture. We have only brought it down to our own decadent level. Most of humanity has yet to wake up and Change direction. Perhaps we are on the threshold of a new, tolerant, multifaceted culture that will uplift and enlighten us, but at this stage what we appear to have no real culture at all. No culture? No, no real culture. Only pretense. And no real direction, either. No conscious direction, that is. It is as though 'consciousness' is only something that was talked about by the ancient intellectuals or dreamed about by yesterday's youth. In reality, we know that consciousness is the 'quality or state of being aware, especially of something within oneself'. So, 'conscious direction' could imply the ability to be both aware of and to then guide the world of things that cannot be seen nor felt, things not located in the outside world. It has to start within us, as individuals. We have to become truly conscious observers. Osmosis begins as we learn the process of absorption It's a matter of opening our minds to a different way of thinking and then observing the Universe to find a new understanding of our own selves and our evolving purpose. And then to influence, with whatever powers we might have, the outward direction of our own, individual evolvement. This is my [and your] responsibility, for as Brock Chisholm so plainly puts it, "Our own responsibility - is clear. Whoever is reasonably informed in any aspect of human emotional-mental-social development, whoever can do something to clarify thinking, even a little -, whoever can help to remove a prejudice, soften a hate, increase the total of understanding and tolerance in the world, by that knowledge, training, insight or ability is made responsible for doing what he can in all possible places and time is short.Whoever can - is obligated by his ability, to serve the human race where he can to the limit of his equipment. Dare any of us say that he or she can do nothing about the desperate need of the world for better human relations" And someone else said, "The best example is a good example." This is what we can do, to the limit of our equipment, we can live a good example. We can consciously direct our own, personal evolvement, which will then lead us to the path of the future so we can explore the next level of human evolution. We are pioneers on the evolutionary frontier of human existence. But don't bother looking for the elevator. Neither is there an escalator to the next level. We have to take the stairs.So one step after another, we force ourselves to move on, knowing that, as Orpha Schreen tells us, "Sometimes the body sits on a stump and has to be told by the happy spirit, "March on, brave one" Now we take it one step at a time, following the path toward wisdom.The acknowledgment of our two natures is the step we must take if we are truly seeking knowledge and understanding of our selves.We might listen to James DuPont, writing of his own reflection, when he says, "I believe there is good and evil in all of us. Thomas Mann comes close to expressing what I'm trying to say with his carefully worded sentence about the 'frightfully radical duality' between the brain and the beast in man - in all of us. - So I always remember that there are certain forces of evil ever present in me - and never to forget that there is also a spark of goodness in me, too." "The time for prophecy is past, and the time for wisdom has arrived," advises John Middleton Murry. "It is not that the world is old; it is probably very, very young, but it seems to be at the end of one phase and at the beginning of another. The signs are now multiplying that the intellect is becoming dubious of it's own sufficiency."As we become more and more aware of the magnitude of the obstacles before us we would do well to listen to Lewis B. Hershey when he says, "We shall overcome one of the largest obstacles - - when we know and acknowledge how little we know about ourselves. The step to follow our admission of ignorance is to seek the knowledge and understanding that we have concluded we do not have. This will be a long and difficult road, as long, perhaps, as from learning how to make fire to learning how to fission the atom. As man has already made more gadgets than he understands or knows how to control, he must turn his eyes and interest inward." And then once again we hear those words, "Nothing avails from without, All is within."Norman Cousins lends us his insight here, telling us that, "The philosophers have been debating for years about whether man is primarily good or primarily evil, whether he is primarily altruistic or selfish, cooperative or competitive, gregarious or self centered, whether he enjoys free will or whether everything is predetermined.As far back as the Socratic dialogues in Plato, and even before that, man has been baffled about himself. He knows he is capable of great and noble deeds, but then he is oppressed with the evidence of great wrongdoing.- - The debate over good and evil in man, over free will and determinism, and over all the other contradictions - this debate is a futile one, for man is a creature of dualism. He is both good and evil, both altruistic and selfish. He enjoys free will to the extent that he can make decisions in Life, but he can't change his relatives or his physical endowments - all of which were determined for him at birth. And rather than speculate over which side of him is dominant, he might do well to consider what the contradictions and circumstances are that tend to bring out the good or evil, that enable him to be nobler and a responsible member of the human race."As our Global Society proceeds into the twenty-first century and more and more individuals around the world become increasingly self-conscious, (and therefore also less and less arrogant), larger numbers of people will wake up to our present, outmoded direction. Only then will the osmosis of human life begin again to move us forward (upward) in our search for the answers within us which will quench our undeniable thirst.As we grow, we are slowly learning the answers to many of our deepest questions, questions about our true selves and about our place in this Universe. This newfound process will continue to proceed for us, but only, as Thomas Powers tells us, 'If We Qualify'. "Unless the sanest element in the human race is crazy," says Mr. Powers, "real answers - - are possible. Not just intellectual answers, but answers involving the entire being, answers that satisfy the intellect, the emotions, the instincts, and the deepest longings of the human heart. If we qualify, it is possible to reach such answers.What does it mean - 'If we qualify'? It means first of all trying to be honest with ourselves and asking ourselves some questions. - The first question is, "Am I honest?" And if the answer is a quick 'yes', we face the unpleasant fact that this answer is probably a lie. For the question of honesty is never that easy. Lying and self-deception are built into us deeply. An impressive majority of us people are to some degree liars. -There is no concern at this point with philosophy or morals, but only with a cool fact of experience which may be verified by any of us who will take the trouble - say, a week of alert observation - to notice how much plain and fancy lying we and our neighbors are doing. It will be seen more easily and clearly among the neighbors of course, but with careful attention the same beast will be discovered in our own back yard, too.This is not to take a dim view of our situation but to face a fact that must be faced, or no progress toward knowledge - is possible. Unrecognized or unadmitted dishonesty obstructs the pursuit of any kind of knowledge. In our pursuit, it is a fatal obstacle. Until the problem of honesty is sincerely faced, we are not qualified even to make a start toward finding real answers to our questions.To paraphrase Austin Perdue, 'Any movement that does not constantly seek to lead individuals to face the truth about themselves is not fulfilling its fundamental responsibility. It is entirely possible to be an academic, or an intellectual and still miss the point - - which is to be open to the truth about oneself, regardless of how much it hurts.'"Are we willing," asks Thomas Powers, "to raise the issue of honesty with our self, really raise it and keep it raised, and to learn from other people who are also sweating out this elementary discipline? Are we willing, steadily and patiently and relentlessly over a long period of time, to look squarely into our own honesty and dishonesty, even when this involves painful discoveries and hard effort? If so, we are qualified - and may proceed. But if we proceed without this qualification, our subsequent efforts will lead not to real answers but to confusion, disputation, and high soaring followed by great crashes."So know we must say to ourselves, "As surely as I am reading this page, unless I am alert to the rigorous necessity of honesty, my efforts toward the knowledge I seek will run into subtle self-deceit - - the fact is that I have to be crudely, brutally, mercilessly honest with myself, even to make a beginning at absorbing this universal knowledge. Each person thinks that they are the exception, but no person is. Unless I put myself on the honesty carpet, I will never get off the ground."( "I hear you crying, and I am full of sympathy, "says Thomas Powers. "In fact, I am crying with you. This is my problem, too. The only comfort I can think of is that we all have so much company.")"In the inner drama," advises Fritz Kunkel, "our conflict forces us to search for a synthesis, a point of reconciliation which can be found only on a higher level of consciousness. This new center of gravity, however, must have existed long before we were able to face the inner conflict.""Our present [course] is obsolete, " says Benjamin Bloom, "because it has evolved for conditions and purposes of a world which no longer exists." Our lives have been grounded in the outer world, but here and now, in the twenty-first century, we must develop the inner domain. "The inner domain," advises Carl Jung, "contains the unity of Life and consciousness, which, though once possessed, has been lost, and must now be found again.The union of these two, Life and consciousness, is intended to make visible 'the creative point' or that which has intensity without extension."With the separation of selves comes a Change in our person that is of such magnitude that it is almost overwhelming."The unexpected result of this spiritual Change," continues Jung, "is that an uglier face is put upon the world. In the end there is nothing in the outer world to draw us away from the reality of the life within. Here, we have the true significance of this spiritual change. - -Just as great personality acts upon society to alleviate, liberate, transform and heal, so the birth of personality has a restoring effect upon the individual. It is as if a stream that was losing itself in marshy tributaries suddenly discovered its proper bed, or as if a stone that lay upon a germinating seed were lifted away so that the sprout could begin its natural growth."If we are to grow, we must learn to quiet our minds. "I know of none more solid and fundamental," declares Edward Carpenter, "than the fact that if you inhibit thought (and persevere) you come at length to a region of consciousness below or behind thought and different from ordinary thought in its nature and character - a consciousness of quasi-universal quality, and a realization of an altogether vaster self than that to which we are accustomed. And since the ordinary consciousness, with which we are concerned in ordinary Life, is, before all things, founded on the little, local self, and is in fact self-consciousness in the little, local sense, it follows that to pass out of that is to die in the ordinary sense, but in another sense it is to wake up and find that the 'I', one's real, most intimate self, pervades the Universe and all other beings - that the mountains and the sea and the stars are a part of one's body and that one's soul is in touch with the souls of all creatures. Yes, far closer than before. -"Here again, the words of Carl Jung are apropos when he says, "In accordance with the old mystical saying, 'Give up what thou hast, then thou shall receive', we are called upon to abandon our dearest illusion in order to let something deeper, fairer, and more embracing grow up within us. For it is only through the mystery of self-sacrifice that a man may find himself anew."Of this self-sacrifice Hugh L'Anson Faucett wrote, "This dying to self by dying into Life results in the birth of a new self. For the mind through which man acquires his sense of personal identity is not luxuriously relaxed. There is an intensity of effort involved. But this effort implies something other than the negative concentration of self-restraint. It is a positive crucifixion of self, where the mind ceases to be conscious of its own petty rights and scruples, and knows in itself the mind of Life laboring in the imperfect matter of humanity toward a perfect realization of Being.For every moment of pure consciousness is a kind of death. The self dies as a separate entity. It lives as a perfect Unity. By giving itself to the death that is in Life, it receives the Life that is in death, and receives it, not with clouded faculties or in some swoon of sense, but with a heightened awareness of reality. The self is so disinterested that nothing is alien to it; it is so conscious of its own and so of Life's Creative process and purpose that nothing is meaningless to it."And Lao Tsu advised, "Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub; It is the center hole that makes it useful. Shape clay into a vessel; It is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room; it is the holes which make them useful. Therefore profit comes from what it there; Usefulness from what is not there."So, even if we are not presently feeling any particular sense of accomplishment, we must know that our labors are not in vain. If we are working toward maturity, then we are indeed going in the correct direction. Not in the direction of those of whom Randall Jarrell spoke when he said, "You are not willing to labor to be wise; you are not even willing to be wise. It would be a Change, and you are not willing to Change; it would make you different from others, and you are not willing to be different from them in any way. You wish to remain exactly as you are, and to have the rest of the world Change until it is exactly like you; and it seems to you unreasonable, even perverse, for the rest of the world not to wish this too."We are headed in a direction of almost unbelievable Change. We are headed for the experience of our lives, the experience of the new life of the new self. All of our old rules are void now. As John Middleton Murry tells us, when speaking of the new man, "Plainly there can be no rules. His task is now his own pure self-creation, and that is not his own at all. The worst of his crises is over. He has attained a fundamental certainty that can never wholly leave him. In his depths, he is himself; and therefore, not himself. - -"Being 'in search of maturity’ we learn to bridle our self in search of what is real within. 'Life is intense; It demands the creative reactions that issue from our real self.'Here the words of Bramauanda are apropos, "The mind rules the senses, therefore must be controlled. Always be on your guard until you have transcended the mind."The words of Paul Tillich remind us that, "Every psychiatrist and confessor is familiar with the tremendous force of resistance in each personality against even trifling self revelations. Nobody wants to be known -. We do not even wish to be known by ourselves. We try to hide the depths of our souls from our own eyes. We refuse to be our own witness." When we become our own witness, this is, as Tillich says, when "the unconscious creativity of Nature breaks into the consciousness of man."And then, "Suddenly, there is a solution of the insoluble," says John Middleton Murry, "there is created within the subject a new kind of consciousness, in which emotion and thought, previously in absolute opposition, become one and indistinguishable. The subject experiences a new Unity, in which the previously separated heart and mind are one. And this Unity is not distinct from the Universe, but an inseparable part of it. At one and the same moment, the subject experiences himself as a unity, and this unity of himself as part of an all-pervading Unity."This uniting of our selves with the Universe is, again, in Tillich's worlds, " - the paradoxical act in which one is accepted by that which infinitely transcends one's individual self."We begin, in the words of Murry, "the task of maintaining oneself as a locus for the free resolution of conflicting responses will make a far greater demand upon one's 'moral' energy than any that has been made before. For the good person to realize that it is better to be whole than to be good is to enter on a straight and narrow path compared to which one's previous rectitude was flowery license. To have no more responsibility for oneself is to become incessantly responsible; and from the place where that paradox has meaning it is easy to discern that what is called 'moral responsibility' is only a somewhat crooked expedient for avoiding all real responsibility whatever."Once we begin to understand our real responsibilities as human beings of the twenty first century, this is the beginning of our own personal renunciation of our animal self.Here, Joshua Voth Liebman has some inspiring words for us. "Every person," he says, "must learn the art of renouncing many things in order to possess other things more securely and fully. This is a most important step. As we grow older, we learn that every stage of human development calls upon us to weigh differing goods in the scales and sacrifice some for the sake of others. - - -The person who wishes to achieve stature in the mature world will have to renounce many careers in order to fulfill one. - - renunciation is often painful, and we cling stubbornly to the romantic cloak-and-dagger characters of our fantasy life.But it should be noted that there is a difference between renunciation and repression. A person who represses all his ambitions and wishes and denies any reality to them is on the road to misery. The person, on the other hand, who consciously renounces unrealizable and unworthy desires, has strengthened their self by daring to face their life as it is and making clear to their self why they have chosen that course of action.Time is an irreversible arrow, and we can never return to the self that we sloughed off in childhood or adolescence. The man trying to wear youth's clothing, the woman costuming her emotions in dolls’ dresses - these are pathetic figures who want to reverse time's arrow. They have not yet learned to renounce the desires that were appropriate for an earlier level of being but are utterly out of place in succeeding chapters. Human existence means the closing of doors, many doors, before one great door can be opened - - the door of mature love and adult achievement.We shall become free of inner conflict and burden only when we have looked renunciation directly in the face and persuaded ourselves that it is essential for the true fulfillment of our true and permanent happiness. Persons who have made such renunciations have learned to live, not to live for the fleeting and perishable ecstasy of the moment, but for the eternal and abiding values which alone are the sources of self respect and peace of mind.The spiritual type of character - - may have many inward struggles, many defeats, many bitter renunciations and regrets. It may appear far less peaceful, orderly, and self-satisfied, than some of those who are secretly following the other ideal. Many a saint in the making seems to be marred by faults and conflicts which the smug, careful, reputable sensualist is exempt. The difference between the two is not one of position. It is one of direction. The one, however high he stands, is moving down. The other, however low he starts, is moving up....Which type of character do we honestly desire and expect to reach? Let us not indulge in any delusions about it. Just as surely as our faces are hardening into a certain expression, ugly or pleasant, and our bodies are moving toward a certain condition of health, sound or diseased, so surely are our souls moving toward a certain type of character.""There is many a man who stands upright only because the pressure of the crowd makes it inconvenient for him to stoop," instructs Mathew Adams.Time waits for no one and we are running out of time. Anyone who really thinks about their own existence knows that time is of the essence. Our allotted hours here upon this Earth are numbered, so we must make the best use of the days and hours we have. Just listen to Francois Fenelon tell us about the lives we live when he asks, "What difference is there now between two people who died during the last century, one some twenty years, say, before the other? Both are dead now; their departure seems to us now but as one and the same thing; and soon all that is separated will be reunited, and there will be no trace left of that brief separation. Men seem to think this Life immortal, or at least likely to endure for ages! Yet every day the living are treading rapidly after the dead: and the man who is just about to start upon a journey need not feel so very far off from him who went yesterday. Life rushes on like a torrent; already the past is but a dream; the present, even while we think we grasp it slips from us and becomes the past, and it will be not otherwise with the future. - Days, months, years hurry on like the surging waves of a flood; a few moments more and all will be ended. What now seems long, by reason of weariness and sadness, will seem short enough when it is over." "It is owing to the sensitiveness of self love that we are so alive to our own condition. The sick man who cannot sleep thinks the night endless, yet it is no longer than any other night. In our cowardice we exaggerate all we suffer; our pain may be severe, but we make it worse by shrinking under it," concludes Mathew Adams."- the terrible wheel of providence is grinding me out of myself," declares Chundar Mogoomder, "I bleed well-nigh unto death. Let me alone, for it is better thus. Every atom of vanity and evil will be crushed in me, I become truer, - every day."- - - "Thus', advises fritz Kunkel, "the mature personality, through his own development, shows his fellow men the path to the future.He is the pioneer exploring the next step in evolution.By doing so he furthers Creation. - " He evolves upward toward the future and the life of the superhuman. Next; Forward to Reflections On The Evolution Of The Superhuman at http://www.mysticwizardmusings6.blogspot.com/ Or Back to Reflections On God, Mythology, & The Organic Process Of Life at http://mysticwizardmusings4.blogspot.com