Life Matters by E.C.Nemeth (read aloud TXT) 📕

like I must drop this new insanity for as long as it takes to heal my old traumatized psyche I’m thrown the final reversal, the reversal of reversals, that sends me running with hands over my ears. The voice calmly explains that I am already on the other side of the mirror, beyond the darkness looking back in. For how could I recognize, however dimly, the voice of reason unless I was already sane? And, I cannot go back. Having chosen freely, I am free. I have only to realize this good news to be fully released from bondage. Thus counsels the little voice.
The value of quality
If this voice is correct, and over the years I have become convinced that it is, it would seem to suggest that my values are not even in line with my own beliefs, let alone with the truth.
I feel I should elaborate upon what I mean by this voice. My personal belief is that the voice is my higher mind, the part of my mind that is not afflicted by this grand illusion. I have come to this conclusion based on my own observations and by re-examining logical parameters that affect my ability to reason. But mostly, I am convinced because of the many experiences with that voice. The voice is never loud - I have to calm my mind and focus on hearing it. When I do hear the voice clearly, and over the years I have learned to hear it almost any time I wish, I feel embraced by peace and fully loved. The voice never contradicts itself, not ever. It is the consistency of the message and its universal application that is the most convincing. The voice cannot be conned - it sees through all my little dramas, and always speaks of the truth beneath the deception. It knows me better than I seem to know myself. It often teases and tantalizes my sense of curiosity by hinting at the magnitude of my true being, if only I would transcend the fetters of the flesh. And the clincher is that the voice speaks of its love for me as unconditional and imbued with infinite patience.
If I am truly convinced in this regard then valuing correctly is absolutely crucial because my values should, must really, reflect what I believe. Should, must - my values do reflect what I believe. So, I must bring to light what I truly believe in order to re-evaluate its correctness and its consequent importance.
With that said I am back to looking at that secret, dark, scary place where I have hidden my most cherished beliefs. As we shall see, these beliefs have nothing at all to do with the truth, or even with what I tell myself I believe. These core beliefs are purposely concealed because if they were brought to the light their function would be revealed and having been scrutinized in the presence of truth, I would certainly reject them. This is the very foundation of the thing I made. These are the premises of the ego. My core beliefs are the result of the ego’s true goal. It is not pretty and it makes no sense, but it is consistent. The only way these core beliefs can exist is if I first give my power to the ego. And the first thing the ego does with that power is hide what it believes from me. Yet since I identify with the ego, its beliefs are mine.
There, I got it out!
I still have to dig to find my particular set of core beliefs but at least I have described what it is, and where to find it. These core beliefs, which if I truly knew what they were I would reject, is what I base my life experience on. And since what those core beliefs are is hidden from me, I believe they are different than what they are. In other words, what I think I believe is not really what I believe, but I think that it is. That this is patently insane is kept from my awareness and so I project it outward and perceive a world in conflict. I perceive the world in conflict because I do not recognize that it is actually me that is conflicted.
The flower of truth
It is as if a flower suddenly found its existence intolerable because it is rooted to one spot. A flower does not despair that it might not have what it needs tomorrow. It accepts what is with virtually perfect equanimity. Flowers are relative newcomers to the plant kingdom, but even they outdate almost all other forms of life. So even rooted to the ground, at the mercy of the fates, helpless by all our current yardsticks, its kind has managed to survive quite well and to even thrive until today they cover the entire world and are by far the most abundant form of life on the planet (plant life in general).
How is it then that we consider plant life to be a lower form of life? It neither struggles nor wanders in search of sustenance. It simply lives. It does not even wait for what it needs to come to it. Instead, it takes what it wishes from what is available and is content.
Plants have an unshakable faith in truth for they are rooted in mother earth and can tap her knowing directly. They know of the seasons. They know of coming weather for they are in constant contact with all of their kind everywhere. Plants embody symbolic knowledge. Their simple symmetry is not weakness but great strength.
Plants dream. The dream of a plant is devoid of ego motives. The dreams of plants are practical. They dream of more abundance, more life, more light. Their dreams are the impetus to waking fulfillment. They know of the connection between waking and dreaming and they are artful practitioners of wish fulfillment. No one dies and no one gets hurt because there is only one life, spanning all of existence at once. That is the dream they dream, and so it is.
A plant’s existence, which we would consider meager at best, is best described as a constant state of bliss and joy. A plant is aware of the incredible mystery of its own existence and what a magnificent testament it is to the unimaginable powers of the Source. It knows that its experience of isness is unique and momentary, only to be replaced with yet more marvelous expressions of fullness. The awareness of a plant is continuous and spans eons. Plants are a multitude of individual awarenesses flickering on and off across the globe, greening here only to wither and green elsewhere. A plant is not its manifestation, that converts sunlight in its leaves and draws nourishment from the soil. It is a divine pattern, a fundamental archetype, an expression of isness.
A plant values light above all else except life. Plants value life to the point of complete selflessness. They do not consider their present physical manifestation their only expression or their final form. The form of a plant is to them but a momentary perspective, soon to be replaced by another unique perspective. A plant’s perspective is contextual and spans a knowing beyond continuity to a quality of doing that is pure and simple beingness. There is merit in doing nothing but experiencing being life.
As such, a plant does not love for to them separation is a vague understanding. Its leaves are separate but they act as one. Its main root divides into numerous branchings of smaller roots yet they all participate in a co-operative venture with a single function: to sustain life. They know the joy of life lies in its oneness, in its constant completion. Love draws ghosts together, fleeting figures that romp across the vegetation and are gone. These phantoms, the plants know, are the caretakers that have forgotten their function, and their Source. Love is not for plants that are proud and sure of their unity in eternal life.
A plant’s value is in its existence, by virtue of its Source. The only measure of value is the value the Source places upon it. And the Source places equal value on all creation. The Source created only the valuable. The Source created life and only life exists. All life is equally precious to the Source. This a plant knows without question.
A plant’s life is without question.
A plant's life is the answer.
Threshold #1
The first five chapters described aspects of creation and the immediate fundamental platform made manifest as a result. These were intellectual components of a spiritual context. They were as objective as truth can be made to be. However, truth is not objective. If it were, the individual components of truth would be mere means to some other end. The truth is that I am the end, as is all life. The means is our Source. For the Source gave All to all. Nothing being held back, creation extends forever. Such statements transcend objectivity, yet they are comprehensible.
Life is personal. It is not some psychological trick of a deluded mind. Our job is not to prove the unimportance or insignificance of life but to shout its praises from the rooftops and defend its right to freedom with firm resolve.
Take life out of the equation and you are left with a science devoid of value. Science based on the value of little strips of paper or disks of metal will prove the value of its idol. That is why science seems so successful, because science removed value from its guiding principle and substituted a symbol of value that it created. But the symbol is lifeless and without meaning, as are the facts science has accumulated in its name. The search for objective meaning is meaningless. If meaning is pushed outside of the observer to the object observed then it is not the meaning of the observer. And since the observer and the observed are separate so is the meaning thus obtained - it is not the same and must conflict. Is this meaningful?
No. This chapter marked a turning point for this book. To reflect that, I began writing in the first person. If life is important then my life is important and my perspective is as worthy of being heard as any.
The level of understanding in the arena of Flora requires the attainment of the first threshold of truth. To arrive at this place takes a great deal of personal diligence and perhaps a streak of stubbornness. This threshold, like all the ones to come, cannot be gained by feats of intellectual largesse no matter how acute they may be. The surrender of personal authority is absolutely critical as is the direct experience of truth. Truth is experienced in situations as a result of being open and receptive to it. To be open to truth requires honest seeking and the cultivation of a fertile mind. A fertile mind is one that allows a seed of another thought system to be planted within it and one that can tend and nurture the seed to sprout. But a fertile mind is also one that can discern the difference between a weed and the seed's shoot and knows to pluck the weed out root and all.
Science, the objectification of reality, is so seemingly successful because it is considered valuable. Scientists assert the right to objective authority based upon the fact that their feelings, their intuitions, are kept repressed and unexpressed, being at best of secondary importance. Thus, personal and objective value are separated. Suddenly, objective value is free to leap forward, divorced from the mediating effect of its counterpart. Value becomes how many symbols of value can be accumulated. The amassing of strips of paper and disks of metal has become the meaning of life