BEING ON EARTH - THEME OF WEEK 12 - 2018
Being on Earth, what does that means? In my imaginary world, you and I have taken the same choice, namely to incarnate as humans on earth. What does this choice means?
In the coming week no 12-2018, my Instagram posts will reflect on the theme Being on Earth. I do the reflections through quotes and captions, linked to illustrative images. Feel free to follow me on https://www.instagram.com/mostadjon/.
In previous blogs I have pointed out the Souls three tasks following an incarnation on Earth. Our one task is to be light workers that transform the Earth from dark to light. The other is to be co-creators of the consicous Universe and the third task is to educate ourselves as souls for new tasks in coming incarnations. In this blog, I will seek an answer closer to how the ancient Chinese natural philosophers understood what Being on Earth is to be.
Let me start with something simple and with the same time so complicated as a seed. A symbol of how life begins and how life unfolds on Earth.
The seed knows how to become a tree. The seed knows how to become a big tree, and the seed knows how to become a forest. The seed just knows, nobody tells the seed what, how or why. Uncontrolled and undeserved, the seed just know. What does the seed knows? What is the seed that we can learn from? What is the secret of the seed.
Does the secrete of the seed hides a knowledge?
The path to a greater understanding of Being on Earth gives you access to the dimension where you can hear what does not sound, see what does not form and know what is not thought. In this dimention, your consciousness is transformed. The path to a greater understanding of Being on Earth is an easy way to walk, but at the same time very complicated to know. The path to a greater understanding of Being on Earth is easy
to describe, but at the same time incomprehensible before you are part of it.
In this preliminary and simple text, I will try to get you into Taoism's thoughts about the road to understand yourself as Being on Earth. Such awareness is necessary in order to grasp and accommodate the great image of yourself.
Man has always been philosophed over the meaning of life. Ever since our ancestors climbed down from the trees, via cave paintings to recent beliefs about the conscious Universe, a continuous story is wondering what it means to be Being on Earth. The performances of the ancient Chinese scholars are gathered in the work Tao Te Ching. I would recommend you to study Tao Te Ching and create your own thoughts. Unfortunately, it is far beyond the reach of my short text to lead you into its metaphysical imaginary world about the universe's creation.
Tao probably means the Path Ahead, or short and good The Road. Te can means Know or Virtue. Ching may means that the work is one of a Classic. Perhaps the translation may sound "The Classic Knowledge of The Virtue as The Path»? The translation from Chinese is controversial and has many possibilities.
If you read Tao Te Ching Chapter 1, you read:
The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The name is the origin of Heaven and Earth. The name is the mother of myriad things.
It is this mystery we need to understand. The key to seeing ourselves as Beings on Earth is to understand what is incomprehensible. But how can we understand what is incomprehensible? By renouncing understanding, understanding may comes to us. Just that kind of verbal contradictions is among other things, Zen-Buddhism is filled with. Through avoidance of the struggle of understanding, you might understand. We must be able to "see" how the opposites dissolve, to develop like Beings on Earth. One of the beautiful Zen proverb that I enjoy goes like this:
Before studying Zen, the mountain is a mountain
In what you study Zen, the mountain is not a mountain
After studying Zen, the mountain is a mountain
Be by no means confused by me bringing Buddhism into a text where I tell I will seek answers that are close to Taoism. When the Indian Buddhist philosophy and religion came to China, it was welcomed as a sibling. Many of the passages in Taoism and Buddhism are mirroring each other.
We are unable to understand the path, what is called Tao. Nevertheless, it is a part of Being on Earth to seek for understanding. Before you seek understanding of the Tao, there is no mystery. While you search for the understanding Tao is a mystery. Once you have applied for understanding, the mystery is itself a mystery. What is the purpose of seeking understanding under such conditions? What is the purpose of this explorational process? To me the key to understand myself as being on earth, is within this contradiction.
How?
I have to invite you into one of The Taoism's paradoxes, called Wu Wei, which involves Action through No Action. We can create a greater understanding of ourselves as Beings on Earth, by understanding Action through No Action.
When Taoism sets out a perspective that almost resembles a principle - such as No Action, I must immediately assert that principles are one of the obstacles Taoism states that we need to remove. Yes, in fact, it is necessary to free ourselves from principles in both thinking and action, whether we will find Tao.
Wu Wei - Action through Non Action, involves neglecting influence. We shall not impose a preference on our surroundings. We can understand Wu Wei by studying the child's wonder about what's coming in its path, so to leave it in its own form and in its own expression. Nature is self-sufficient, self-renewing and self-reliant. It is born, grows, dies and resumes through Non-Action. Nature knows what it means to be nature. Nature knows its form, goes into its shape and develops its form. In this way, nature develops itself and creates the Universe in its own image of imagination.
How is it possible to act through Non-Action? I think I must try to answer very easily, with a counter-question, because the question is almost impossible to figure out. How is it possible to become a tree ? From the seed falls on the ground until it becomes a big tree and eventually becomes a big forest, the seed knows in itself how to act. No external force tells the seed how it will be a big tree and from there become a big forest. The seed acts through Non-Action. The tree is and the tree becomes. Here the mythe of the creative source is revealed.
The reason we humans are separated from Tao and no longer know the path and need external influence, is the result of the development of senses as a basis for complicated consciousness and the process of winding us into principles of how to think and be humans. Modern man has developed ego who knows, believes and controls. Here lies the breach of Taoism's thoughts about Tao and Te, the great Ching. We have left the path and now we do not know how to merge with the mystery.
Study Taoism and you will find clues and wizards that can bring you back on the path. It may be easy to read, but a job to obtain.
Jon
