"I am the way, the truth, and the life."
Chapters 14 to 17 of the gospel of John is a veritable patchwork quilt of Messianic sayings. It reads as if John had cut up a papyrus of Jesus quotes, dropped them in to a bag, and then dipped his hand in to see how they would come out, à la David Bowie's Life On Mars. Then he would absent-mindedly drop the quote back in the bag. Subsequently Jesus keeps repeating himself.
I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. John 14:6When Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," he meant he was. He meant you are the way the truth and the life. The way, the truth, and life, can all be found within you.
He wasn't saying, "no one can come to the Father except through me," as if he were the means - the only means - by which others could get to the Father. He was saying the only way to get to the Father is to go inward - to go in to the "me".
"You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
The truth is, "I and the Father are one." One and the same. You and the Father are one. You are God. Or with a little "g" if you prefer it. Or not at all. God is nothing, and everything. The alpha and the omega. The yang and the yin.
The truth is, you are nothing. (And you are everything.) But this is not a conclusion arrived at and understood academically - anyone can do that. It is a fundamental realisation that arises unbidden. And then you are free.
I matter!
I, matter.
A COUPLE OF ESSAY IDEAS, (ONE SHORT ONE LONG)
First, the short - a title, basically:
The human race: Taking the game to evolution
"Survival of the fittest" is not a pithy summation of the evolutionary process. It is a frickin' movie tagline.
Second, the long - a collection of notes and shards of ideas:
Tracing the origins of human consciousness
It all starts with a thought. Yet, what is a "thought"? What is thinking, conscious thought, awareness? Animals do not think, or reason, or work things out. They are affected by circumstances.
Humans are animals with added sensations. (What is a sense?)
Humans want to maintain an animal instinct - the ability purely to exist, to be - but with the added benefit of joy, happiness, appreciation.
Conscious awareness can bring nothing but satisfaction and joy. We can learn and understand. Ignorance invents gods. Growing in knowledge brings calm, relief, clarity - "like a light that gets brighter." It is never meant to puff up, or give an attitude of, "I know more than you."
The problem: Awareness of ourselves has separated us. We each become an individual world/universe, fearful of our own destruction. Primarily, we believe we are in danger. We have not just become aware of ourselves as a species, but as individuals within a species. The first person to have experienced this would have been thrown in to confusion. It might not have been an overwhelmingly pleasant experience.
Perhaps it can be perceived through the eyes of a baby: The frown, the confusion, the fear. It can be soothed, pacified, by love. Reassurance. But, where did love arise from? Such a thing never existed. Love is not an individual emotion - it is an overarching definition.
Love draws from stillness, peace, security, nurture, reliability. What does a baby respond to? Having its needs satisfied, reassurance, skin-on-skin touch. Gentle touch, tenderness. Quiet.
We are fragmented within ourselves. At-one-ness.
Did self-awareness first arise when we encountered our reflection? When we first began to realise what we saw reflected was ourselves? Did this give rise to the archetype of the reflection - "image"?
There is a constant need to drink water. The repeated act of going to the source to drink - bending over, seeing the reflection...the hand moves here, the hand moves there...I do this with this part, it does that with that part...
This would gradually begin to register.
What would cause - or increase - man's fear? Sudden death. Attack. Sense of his own mortality. Detachment from life - a feeling of detachment (again, separation.)
Self-awareness translates into self-importance. He is not a part of life, he is all life, the only life that truly matters - all springing from not wanting to die.
The fear of sudden death meant having to defend himself from such a fate. Having to defend himself would soon turn into eliminating even the threat of death. Hence, attack.
This sense of his own mortality, his memory of fear, memory of pain, is then passed on to offspring, and so the continuation begins - the cycle.
Life experience teaches us in the most crucial years that we get everything for nothing - sustenance, covering etc. Then, at some point, it takes a radical about face. Evolution has done the same thing. All life simply exists...but in this incarnation we are left to fend for ourselves and consciously work to live. What happened?
Nature spat man out. After gradual awakening of consciousness - the knowledge of good and bad, or basically, everything - man gets thrust out of the Garden of Eden and its abundant security.
A baby experiences anguish and anxiety when its needs are not met. So it is with man.
Man is caught within a framework of evolution. He is experiencing it as it happens. It is as if he is trying to see the outside of the house while looking out through a window.
He is experiencing what it was like to be rejected because the eye did not work. Worse still, it is as if he has purposefully constructed things so that it guaranteed his failure. As if a particular strain of bombardier beetle had adapted in such a way as his self-destruction was inevitable. The bombardier beetle knowingly manufactured its own lethal combination of chemicals in order to guarantee its own self-destruction. Man's self-destruction is guaranteed, but out from the ashes will arise a strain of homo sapien with a fundamentally advanced thinking process. And even if that incarnation fails (because among them are gun-toting survivalists who have carried forward the sickness of this system) and the one that follows, the next will be more successful.
A monkey baby might die. The parent might prod it, turn it over, carry it around for a while - but is it fundamentally altered at its core?
Penultimately...
TAKE A PEEK AT GOD'S BALLS
I had set myself a tentative goal of writing a book by the time I was fifty. A sort of hodge-podge of old and new essays from this website amalgamated in to a book that I had planned to give away for free.
I was going to give it the title, "God's Balls".
The idea was that, "If there is a God, then he's got some chutzpah, courage, cojones," or, as I decided to go with, "spunk."
I was very amused by this title. The advertising campaign was all planned, and everything. "Have you seen God's Balls? Grab yours." Or, "Get hold of God's Balls!"
That sort of thing. Hilarious.
It's a blog, basically. Just not this blog.
God's Balls launched today (there's another one for you.) For one week only.
One morning I arrived at the house of one of my window-cleaning customers. As I set up my ladders he opened the front door.
"This'll be the last time you clean these windows," he said in his languid Suffolk drawl.
"Oh," I said, slightly crestfallen.
"We're having new ones put in. Should be ready next time you come."
I am not planning to pull the same fast one. I am not disappearing here at A carpenter from Nazareth only to resurface somewhere else.
And, finally...
THE OFFENDED ARE GENTLY ENCOURAGED TO GROW A PEAR
If there is a God he/she/it is certainly not offended by this infantile joke of a website title: God's Balls. If there is a God, he is complete, fully rounded, absolutely comprehending of his own self. It is people who are offended.
How to grow a pear
You could stick a seed in the ground and hope for the best. Better to ready the soil. Turn it over. Identify all the rocks and stones that could impede growth. Dig in to the past and see what makes you you. Ask, "Why am I offended?" With understanding comes forgiveness. Dig deep - go back far. The stones are not removed, they are pulverised - reduced to dust and mingled with the soil. They are not pulverised because it is believed they must be. They are naturally pulverised by identifying them without judgement.
Then plant the seed in the rich soil. The seed is there - it's why you're here.
Throw off every belief, nitwit. Nothing is the way I think. Faith as small as a singularity.
And then wait. Sit in silence. Slow down. Stop. Give yourself plenty of time to do nothing. Without you noticing, your pear will grow.
There is simply nothing else that needs to be said.