It could have been me – Life and death

I often come back late at night from work. Tonight was one such night. Tonight I was literally millimeters away from death. I still feel shaken. I was on an open stretch of the freeway, when suddenly I saw car lights on bright heading straight for me, at high speed, from the opposite direction the flow of traffic should be going. At first I could not believe it, what is a car doing heading in the wrong direction? At the last minute I realized that this car is not going to stop or veer out of the way, and I had to swerve off the road, but still it clipped my side. I recall saying the F word and headed straight to the nearest police station. As I walked in and recalled me story, they nodded their heads and said they just received a report that there was a fatal head on collusion where I reported it happened. It could have been me ...

When I finally got home, I sat down and thought about all the cars I overtook along my journey home ... who died instead of me? Why would someone do it? Was it a suicide, intent on not dying alone? It seems to me that it is as if there is a madness out there. More and more people thinking life is not worth living anymore.

The article on Holistic Darwinism came to me at a very appropriate time.  (Hyper communication perhaps?) For many years I lived in sheltered isolation. I practiced my beliefs, and could retain my open “innocence”, and belief that inherently all human beings are good. Of course i was not so naive to not be of the horrors that do exist in the world, after all I did grow up in the Apartheid South Africa. By some stroke of grace I was not corrupted by it. Not out of my own self but by some stroke of luck, and I am deeply grateful for that, but most of all for those people who touched my life, and helped shape my perceptions of the world.

Through a series of events, I was forced out of my isolation into the harshness of the real world and I forced experience the horror of the reality most people experience in this present world. Since than my experiences have been a myriad coloured reflection of the light and dark that constitutes this reality we live in. At times I was filled with hope, joy and wonder, and at other times my experiences left me feeling sick, tainted, and wondering whether it is worth to be alive, in such a cruel, greedy and ugly world.

After such an experience I always feel the need to withdraw for a while, release and cleanse myself from the dirt I feel sullied by, balance myself again. During those times I just feel I can't go back, and I fear that I might become corrupted by, polluted by my environment. But that's my emotions, my clear center knows that the real test of any belief is to be able to remain pure no matter what. Is my experiences in the real world in harmony with my beliefs or not? If not why not?

No matter how intellectually alluring, and emotionally pleasing a concept may seem, in theoretical appraisal, if it does not grow corn, cut it out and retain that which does.

Having been away away from the harsh real world for so long, I have become sensitized to the corruption of eternal values that I see around me. I can see clearly how subtle corruption works it ways, the slow hardening of the heart. In the outer world, the subtle Faustian seduction presents itself over and over again, artfully disguised in small traps. It is so easy to fall into one of them, and once you have fallen for one, guilt presents itself, for we do have an inner guidance system, that very same guilt we try not to admit we have, for most of us have not been taught the proper function of guilt. Our experiences with guilt has been mostly of the use of guilt as a controlling mechanism.

Guilt is probably one of the most painful emotions we can feel, for it brings with it clearly a show of our own moral vulnerability, it exposes clearly to us our weaknesses. In this world we live in, we are taught from a young age that weakness can not be tolerated, as it will determine whether we are one of the survivors or not. “Survival of the fittest.” So unless you deal with any guilt feelings as soon as you can feel it, or at least admit that you feel it, and so acknowledge it, you will begin to tell yourself at first small lies, that will grow into big ones, and so the atrophy sets in.

That is how all moral corruption begins. All dishonesty begins with a basic dishonesty to the Self.

Yet “...no matter how perfectly we may plan and build all the circumstances of our lives, always, if we use earthly materials as we must, an element of betrayal can be incorporated in them.”

At this present time it the testing field does indeed stem from the economic system we must survive in to survive at all. No part of the world is untouched, uncorrupted by it anymore, just like there is no natural environment left in the world that is totally unpolluted.

The very air we breathe, is saturated with corruption. Sometimes I have to wonder whether human beings are not the very flower of death. So beautiful, so alluring on the outside, yet so very poisonous to all we touch. It seems as if our very strivings to experience the pure, and the good brings corruption.

We will go into the unspoilt wilderness, to experience the pure, then leave in our wake a trial of our corruption. That which was pure, no longer pure. It is as if within our very essence we carry the kiss of death. It is as if we are the ultimate Free Radical element of the Universe, causing the decay of life.

The latest in the health industry is that the more fish you eat, the better for both your health and beauty. This is however, very ironic to me, since our oceans are already depleted to a point of no return. Will this new demand on the fish stocks be the final death knell of our oceans? The more we seem to strive for beauty and purity, the more we seem to destroy the very source. Why is this? It is almost as if there is a flaw in our design that will ultimately cause our self destruction.

Yet I have not seen a flaw in the design of nature. Everything has a very practical purpose even though from our limited view it mat appear as a flaw. Everything has its place and purpose in the Grand Scheme of things.

When I first heard of the term Collateral Damage I was filled with horror of the callousness of the term. As I contemplated it however, I became aware that I do in fact also practice Collateral Damage in my act of living. Collateral Damage exist on all levels of life. Although everything is equal, you have to decide in relation to yourself, what form of destruction can you live with.

When I first realized that we are all one, that I am no more important than anyone or anything, in relation to the whole, I found myself in a complete state of uncertainty. I wished that I could be a breathatarian, so that I would have to hurt nothing, but even then I realized that I might still be causing destruction. What do I breathe in and what do I breathe out?I cause destruction in my very breathe I take, every step I make. In our very act of living the constantly make choice of what is lesser and what is more important, and we do sacrifice the what we perceive as lesser.

Every act of Creation involves first an act destruction. The order of things are destroyed to to create something new. Whether it is an artist who destroy the blankness of a canvass or the act of procreation. We destroy in order to create. We can be either conscious creators or unconscious destroyers. Before you destroy something be fully aware of the consequences of your act of creation. Is the creation worth the destruction?

This is the natural course of growth, we cannot hope to have any true understanding, any depth of understanding, or real strength  without exposing ourselves to the corrosive elements the material world presents to us. Good and evil exist in all of us. In the most basic explanation, good is life affirming and evil brings atrophy and decay. Yet as Rudolf Steiner so wisely remarked, not even the most beautiful sweetly scented flower will bloom in all its beauty and sweetness without its roots planted in the manure.

 The apparent failure of our tests, our flaws, our weaknesses, is like the the symbolic bite of the poisonous snake.

“The symbol (the serpent) serves to indicate the subtle nature of that illusory lower self which first ensnares the ego, but which ultimately proves the means of enlightening the evolving soul.”

Or as R.J. Campbell says, “ We have to achieve our own divinity and we can only do so by overcoming that which seems to be the negation of it...”

In our urgency to find an antidote, a cure for our affliction, we are led deeper than we would have been if we just passed the test. Our very flaws can if we acknowledge it, can be the cause of evolvement. We are at a point of our evolution where we can become conscious creators and stop the mindless destruction we are currently engaged in, and live in synergy with our fellow men and other life forms on this planet.

If the branch is to flower, it must honour its roots. - Titinga Frederic Pacere