We now have two closely interlinked divine aspects; firstly, the infinite consciousness (the God transcendent) and secondly, the entire material cosmos (the God immanent), a crystallization of divine intelligence, reflecting itself in infinite consciousness. But these two aspects are not enough to make the Divine whole. In order to understand this, I need you to participate in a thought exercise. Imagine for a moment you were infinite consciousness, the God transcendent, cosmic consciousness, if you so wish. Being this cosmic consciousness, you are now conscious and aware of the sum total of the God immanent, the entire material universe (or to be more precise, the sum total of all parallel universes, but this thought can make the exercise somewhat mind-boggling).
Rest in this sensation for a moment until you understand that the transcendental can only be aware of the immanent in a general form as in “I am aware of the whole cosmos” but you cannot zoom in and be aware of, let’s say, a particular person on Planet Earth reading Gregor’s book and reflecting on its content. This is really important to understand. In many ways, this is the key to finding your life’s divine purpose. Because you are (for the purpose of our thought exercise) cosmic consciousness, you can only be aware of the material world in a general form seeing the whole of the cosmos, but you cannot be aware of its particulars. You cannot be aware of a particular situation in time and space, for example, now on planet Earth in a particular place and time.
And there is an important reason for this that has been overlooked. As cosmic consciousness, you cannot focus on a particular situation in time and space because you do not have an ego. If you did have an ego, you could not be the God transcendent, the Cosmic. Ego is a piece of software that limits consciousness in time and space. You can only be one or the other, either cosmic consciousness or consciousness identifying itself with a particular body/mind in a particular spatial and temporal setting.
A brief interjection here: as humans, we can temporarily suspend the ego and for a limited time abide in cosmic consciousness. During that time, we are unable to identify with our current body and mind, we are beyond time and space. During that time, we are also unable to direct body and mind and attend to our survival. During a peak experience of cosmic consciousness, eating, walking, speaking, thinking, etc. is impossible. However, once the peak experience is over, the mind and ego will quickly reboot. Otherwise, we could not come back from this state. This means that the normal day-to-day egoic body/mind state and the mystical state can take place sequentially but never simultaneously. They literally exclude each other, one is egoic and the other is para-egoic (beyond ego).
Because the God transcendent, the infinite consciousness, the Unified Field does not have an ego, it cannot experience itself as a particular being within the God immanent other than through us. In other words, an individual such as you or I is nothing but the God transcendent individuating through us within the God immanent. It is exactly for this reason that theology began to talk about the Divine child or the son of God. Shame only that theologians misunderstood Jesus to be the only begotten son of God. This is a theological error. God does not have an ego from which to bestow son-hip on Jesus and withhold it from the rest of us. We all are collectively the Son begotten of the only God or better to say, we all are the Divine Child, the third aspect of God. Jesus actually knew that when saying, “and have I not said, ye all are Gods ye all are children of the most high”. Important also to understand that the sonship does not only accrue to humans, but it accrues to all living beings, including animals, plants and microbes (we still tend to think in terms of speciesism, i.e., discriminating on the basis of species). To invoke now the holy trinity, infinite consciousness is the father, the material universe is the mother, and all life is the divine child. Rather than saying we are all children of God, it is scientifically more accurate to say that all life, humans, animals, plants and microbes, (i.e., the entire biosphere) are jointly and collectively the divine child.
You can observe that at play everywhere in nature. For example, the physical parameters here on Earth allow for life to exist. But most of them are not produced by the bare rock of planet Earth. Instead, they have been created and are maintained by the biosphere. For life to continue to exist on this planet, we are relying on a process called homeostasis of the bio parameters. Homeostasis means that the bio parameters, such as temperature, chemical make-up of the atmosphere, salinity, ph and temperature of the oceans, precipitation, seasons, soil consistency, etc., oscillate and fluctuate only within a very narrow band.
That the bio parameters stay within that band is not due to the geological formation of the planet but due to the sum total of Earth’s organisms. So is the atmosphere on Earth created predominantly by plants and animals. In the beginning, there were plants only. They created so much oxygen that the air become oxygen-hyper-enriched. A single lightning strike set the whole world alight. After that, animals came about. Animals take up the oxygen, turn it into carbon dioxide and feed it back into the system. Then plants metabolize the CO2 and turn it back into oxygen. Note that for plants, oxygen is a useless by-product, and so is CO2 for animals. But together, they metabolize each other’s metabolic wastes and use them as food to thrive.
This principle occurs everywhere on Earth. Let’s look at ocean salinity. Ocean salinity has been more or less constant, operating in a very narrow band for 2 billion years. In periods when ocean levels drop or when giant continental salt deposits crack open through tectonic movements and subsequently get washed into the oceans, salinity will rise. All oceangoing organisms will sense that and, as directed by a common intelligence, they will filter out salt via their kidneys and deposit it in their bones. As they die, their bones sink towards the bottom of the ocean and get sequestrated away through sediment. This process goes on until salinity is returned to the average level. If Earth heats up and ice shields are melting, water levels rise and salinity in the oceans decreases. Maritime organisms will then exude salt into the oceans until salt levels are back to normal. This way, maritime organisms have maintained ocean salinity as if directed by one common intelligence. And not only “as if” but as directed by such an intelligence.
It is important that we humans understand that the entirety of life constitutes the divine child, directed as it is by the cosmic intelligence of the Divine Mother. Have a look now how this plays itself out as biodiversity. If the sum total of all organisms will excrete a by-product that is toxic to all existing organisms, a new organism will appear that is able to metabolise the new by-product. It will then return the metabolized substance into the biosphere in a form that can be consumed by the existing organisms. In this way, as time goes on, more and more organisms get introduced, and the biosphere becomes more and more complex, i.e., biodiversity increases. The more biodiversity, i.e., the more different organisms there are, the more stable the joint superorganism will be. That is, the more it will be able to weather crises. Hence, as humans, we should not think that we don’t need the delta smelt or the monarch butterfly (two of many endangered species) just because we can’t put a monetary value on them. Their purpose is in supporting an extremely complex superorganism, Gaia, which in turn supports us.
Next, let’s consider methane. One of the greatest concerns climate scientists have is that the rising temperatures on Earth will lead to a release of giant amounts of methane, which is many times more toxic than carbon-dioxide. Methane is locked into the frozen tundra but also into ocean floors. Recently, these areas have begun thawing, and methane is starting to be released into the atmosphere. The process is well out of humanity’s hand, and no present technology would be capable of harvesting and sequestrating away such enormous quantities of methane. The only question is: will methane-consuming microbes multiply fast enough to metabolize the methane and return it into the biosphere in form of harmless compounds? Theoretically, this is possible, but it is made less likely through our war on microbes. Microbes are our friends; they are on the same team. We need to support them. Without microbes, we are stuffed.
To take this subject further, consider that the more specialized an organism is, the narrower a band of homeostasis it requires. The more specialized an organism is, the more sensitive it is to fluctuations exceeding that band. The most specialized organism on Earth are we, humans. Hence, it is in our interest to support the stability of the current biodiversity as we need it more than any other organism on Earth.
There are organisms such as archaea (a basic single-cell lifeform) that can live millions of years without oxygen, deep down in the Earth under massive tectonic pressure, in extreme heat and under extreme toxicity. For example, in the Mariana trench (the world’s deepest oceanic trench between Japan in the north and Papua New Guinea in the south) are located undersea volcanoes that exude toxic, sulphuric burps. On the spouts of these volcanoes, archaea have been found flourishing not only in the presence of this toxic cocktail but also under atmospheric pressure 1000 times higher than what we are used to. Imagine how a human would fare under those circumstances?
Archaea have also been found when drilling through the sediment under Lake Titicaca in the Andes, the world’s highest navigable lake. The lake is situated at an altitude of 3500-metres above sea level, and it is 280 metres deep. The sediment deep under the lake has not been in contact with oxygen in hundreds of millions of years. It also is exposed to one of the highest tectonic pressures on Earth (which is still raising the Andes skywards). In this sediment, archaea have been found happily flourishing. They are being squeezed a bit, but they are good sports and don’t mind a bit of foul play. Again, imagine humans under these sorts of circumstances. What I want to show here is that we are an incredibly fragile species, yet for the last 400 years, we have been throwing our weight around on this planet as if we are the crown of creation, which we so obviously aren’t. There are much, much tougher guys on this planet, and most of them are microbes.
It is we who are supported by all of the other organisms on Earth. It is we who are standing on their shoulders, but at this point, we are not returning the favours. We are making 100 species of plants and animals extinct every day. 100 species less every day who were working on keeping the biosphere safe and stable so that complex organisms like us can thrive. Again, we can see that the indigenous people who looked at themselves as the guardians and keepers of the garden were on the right track. But we modern people always seem to know better because we supposedly know progress. At least that’s what we are duping ourselves into.
God as life does not mean God as an individual or God as humanity. It means the sum total of all lifeforms, the complete community of life. The purpose of each life form is to create more life, nurture life in all forms and to create more life forms. To place oneself into the service of that means to foster biodiversity and the blossoming and flourishing of all lifeforms.
This is an excerpt from my book How To Find Your Life’s Divine Purpose.