Tag: nature

molecules

“The First Glimmer is Found in the Lowest Molecules.”

December 12, 2024

Consciousness developed very slowly.  The first glimmer is found in the lowest molecules, in their ability to interact with, to respond to, their environment.  Whitehead and Teilhard are on the right track in this regard.  (Leibniz is not.)

I had to look again at these thinkers to see what God was getting at.  Rejecting the mind-nature dualism, the twentieth-century philosopher-mathematician Alfred North Whitehead held that, even at the micro level, every event is a pulse of existence, feeling and responding to its environment.  These “prehensions” are not so much states as vectors, arrows pointing to connections with the surrounding world.  The Jesuit scientist-philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin spoke of the “within” of things, their interiority, which “appears at the heart of beings”:  “Co-extensive with their Without, there is a Within to things.”  In every part of the universe, “the exterior world must inevitably be lined at every point with an interior one.”  By contrast, the seventeenth century philosopher-mathematician G.W. Leibniz believed that everything in the universe was made of elementary particles that were not matter or energy, but minds, centers of consciousness, each of which internally mirrors all the others.  In short, Whitehead and Teilhard believed that physical (or psycho-physical) nature has levels of awareness—and they were on the right track—whereas Leibniz held that there is no physical nature other than points of consciousness.

As God went on, He sounded a lot like Teilhard.

What happens is that reactions have an internal dimension—responding to the environment, the molecule begins rearranging its internal parts and configurations and processes.  This is the beginning of interiority.  Ultimately, interiority involves the second-order process of monitoring and directing inner processes.  But, even at the beginning, prior to the emergence of second-order processes, there is an emerging consciousness.  To be conscious is not the same as and does not require self-consciousness.  It can be very dim and limited and still be consciousness, because something new and remarkable has arisen—the pre-sentient and then sentient awareness of the environment.  Don’t worry at this point about what is meant by “pre-sentient” awareness.  Your understanding is necessarily anthropocentric, using human consciousness as the standard by which to understand all forms of consciousness.

“Everything is a manifestation, not just an effect, of Me.”

September 14, 2023

I found a very fine collection of cave paintings and other prehistoric art in Journey Through the Ice Age, by Paul G. Bahn and Jean Vertut.  There is a breathtaking simplicity and grace to many of the paintings.

“Lord, these cave paintings also have an aura of holiness.”

That is right.  My first approach is to give humans the sense that nature is special, sacred, that there is something more than trees and clumps of grass, that there is also a spiritual presence.

“Lord, were the cave-paintings inspired by You as a way of expressing how You saw animals?”

These questions about whether I caused something or the person did are not as valid as you think.  I often think through people.  Your thoughts are often My thoughts.  Remember that, in a sense, everything is a manifestation, not just an effect, of Me.

In spite of my own experiences, I was still disturbed by the idea of God being present in or entering people and things.  “Lord, Your spirit entered the cave artists?”

Well, if you want to put it that way.  But it is not like possession or automatic writing.  At times, individuals are “filled” with Me, “in-spired.”  What they do at those times is therefore also something I am doing.

“So these inspired individuals saw animals the way You do?”

They saw them as they are.  They saw their souls, their moving spirits, like looking into the eyes of your beloved.  These animals have beautiful souls.

 

 

Farmer talking to children

“Let Me Tell You What the Story Is.”

September 7, 2023

In a few days, I asked again about God’s story.

The story begins with creation, the evolution up to life, animals, early man.  Then to the very ancient communications that require language and memory.

They (My communications) occurred rather simultaneously, and each communication was tailored to and by the recipients.  So the precise sequence for telling My story is more a question of narrative strategy than of accuracy or significance.

“But I will have to tell a story that makes sense.”

That makes sense to whom?  Let Me tell you what the story is.  I am burgeoning forth, reaching out to matter, plants, animals, activating their interiority, giving them direction.

As I have explained, I grew as a Self in response to the interiority of others, and I wanted to communicate, interact, more fully and at a higher level.  This (communication) is somewhat possible with early man, who recognized My presence in nature, in life, and also heard, if somewhat dimly and inchoately, My other promptings such as conscience, (the sense of) right and wrong, fine sensibility, appreciation of nature and beauty, love amongst creatures, and mystical union.

Experience God: An Autobiography

“Do you think I could come to the ancient Jews in the same way I came to the seventh century Chinese? to Americans today?”

October 19, 2022

How God Comes To Different People:

I had been told that culture is a factor in divine revelations.

“Lord, why is culture so important?”

That’s like saying, why language?  If I am going to communicate with people, they need a language.  For the same reason, they need a culture.

“They need a culture, but why such a variety of cultures?”

There are many ways of realizing (actualizing) the human story.  Culture enables lives of different (types of) significance (meaning).

“But why, in terms of Your story?”

I need to come to people in all their particularity, not to mankind-as-such.  The Chinese is one way of being.  The primitive is one way of being.  I come to each in its own terms.  Each enables Me to show a different side of Myself.

Do you think I could come to the ancient Jews in the same way I came to the seventh century Chinese? to Americans today? to you?

Learn more about how God comes to different people.

Evolution, Animals, Creation

“Man is important, but so is the rest of creation.”

October 21, 2014

The previous prayer continued, but something I received later might be helpful here.  I had been guided to read about evolution and animal behavior.

“Why read this, Lord?”

You need to understand—to have enough concepts to understand—My history with the world, including all forms of life.  Part of the distortion in religions is they are homocentric (anthropocentric).  Man is important, but so is the rest of creation.  My history involves close interaction at every level.  Every level is part of the healing, re-creation of the world, its unfolding, fulfillment.

an inconvenient God

Being facing Being

April 4, 2014

I wondered what it could mean for “Being as such” to be a Person, a Thou, as surely, from my own experience, God is.  Then it struck me that this rushing Stuff, this force of Being, is also the being of me.  And I am a person.  So why shouldn’t the rushing Stuff, the Being of—of what?—the World, of Being itself, be a Person writ large?  I don’t mean the World merely in a physical sense, since my own being is not merely that of my body.  Similarly, the Being that animates everything could be a Person.

Looking out the window at the passing trees, it struck me that their very leaves are full of Being as such, the Being that is also a Person, and that it made sense for them to be a Thou for me.  And, more remarkably, for me to be a Thou for them.  I felt that Being facing Being, not necessarily speaking but simply facing, is what personhood is.