So we come to our story. What is our story of this? It's rather a powerful story. It evolved basically in a sequence of events. Begins with some of degrees of heat. The ultimate mystery is not present, we can only go back to a certain point. But we can actually hear and be in contact now, even physically, with the beginnings of the universe. Stupendous thing, of billions of years, how many billions is not entirely clear, maybe 15, maybe 20. But certainly a very long time, where we have a physical communication and experience of this. And what is called the background radiation. And we have a story that unfolds basically in a four fold sequence. The Galactic Period, the shaping of the Solar System and planet Earth. Then the emergence of life. And then finally of consciousness, in its human phase. We would need to suppose a basic something capable of evolving in the consciousness from the beginning. Something that is not revealed to us, there are dimensions of the universe that are progressively revealed to us. And we must read this story, both forward and backwards. A difficulty of the scientist is that they read the story in an analytical way backward to the component elements of the universe. And say, these particles are the reality and holes are advantageous. Or that these particles with minimal in earth articulation are the reality and the later articulation in human consciousness is somewhat unreal. It's only a random activity of purely physical elements. It needs to be read the other way, that is, that the human is articulating the deep dimensions of the universe that existed from the beginning. And the story of the universe is the story of the progressive emergence of a mode of articulation. Whereby the universe is able to reflect on itself, to commune with itself. To celebrate itself in conscious experience of itself, and of its deep mystery. So, that celebratory intercommunion of the universe, with itself, in and through human consciousness as a high phase of this expression is the story. So it's a story of celebration and it's, in that sense it identifies with all the great stories. All out of which, humans and human communities have articulated their basic sense of reality, their basic sense of values. The basic direction of their life, the basic sense of what things are all about. And this is what enables them to do what I mentioned before in here. Something I'd like to repeat. What did the story do? It shaped our emotional attitudes. And this story shapes our emotions in that sense of participation in stupendous sequence of events. But which are caught up in an overarching unity of events that is celebratory in its nature. It provided us with life purpose, what is our life purpose? Our life purpose is to fulfil the role that human consciousness is called upon to fulfill. Which is to enable the planet to celebrate its existence or enable the universe to celebrate its existence as manifestation of ultimate mystery and its expression of ultimate. Wisdom, beauty, power, and so forth. It's a self recognition of the universe of its own beauty and joy and movement and so forth. That's why nothing is complete until this takes place. And that's why humans are so absolutely important. And that's why geology, that studies just the physical structure of the planet, is an abstraction. There's no planet without the human. And if you're going to study geology, it must be recognized that the human is part of the geology. It's integral with the geology, it's integral with the chemistry of the planet. It's integral with the biology or the life systems of the planet. We can not understand them adequately unless we include the relationship with the human. And the way in which they return to themselves in and through human consciousness. And so this is the sense of life purpose and energizes action. This question of action of energy is so absolutely important. In fact Tallard, throughout the many years of his life was particularly concerned with energetics. He said that one of the things most needed is science of human energetics. Because the dying down of the zest for life is the greatest danger to the whole human venture and to the whole venture of the planet. The dying down of the zest for life. And this comes to us spontaneously within our being and we can observe it particularly in children. That's why children are so utmostly important to ourself and to our whole lifestyle, our whole life program. Because they reveal to us something that we tend to forget. They reveal to us the deep spontanaities and interest in existence. And it consecrated suffering, we must go through a great deal of suffering or pain, for certain there's a deep pain in existence. And with consciousness, somebody like Jung would say every rising consciousness brings with it, it's painful. It comes with a certain amount of pain, Tallard would say the same thing. There's something to be paid for every advance in development of life. And if we can appreciate some of this, it will enable us to sustain that. And to sustain even those deep mysteries of suffering that we can find no obvious meaning for, but once there is understanding and meaning in suffering, it can be endured. And in many cases it eliminates the pain, at least to a very large extent. It integrates knowledge-guided education. We woke in the morning and here we were. We wake in the morning now, [LAUGH] We're not quite sure. We can answer the questions of our children, we could identify crime, punish criminal, everything was taken care of, because the story was there. But that's our problem now. And this is a problem of the transition that we are making from what I would call a spatial, Consciousness of the universe, to a time-developmental mode of consciousness. This is not so absolutely exclusive, these two. It might appear at times, but there is a sense in which in a spatial mode of consciousness everything can be clear. It's not that there's not dynamism and movement and so forth, but it's not exactly the type of developmental sequence that is available in a type of developmental process. But when a person's in what might be called a spatial mode, the spatial consciousness had to come first. It's like a child perspective. A child does not get perspective, depth perception, until later in life, well, at least, it's not the first thing that comes. At first, it's rather two-dimensional and then space perception. I tell you I wanted to mention that one of our difficulties is overcoming the illusion of nearness. Like the stars, they don't seem to be so far away. They're way away. The earth doesn't seem so old, it's here and fresh and lively. But it has a great story, it has a long history. And it's also, this movement into time-developmental processes is both exciting and disconcerting. Because whereas you're going to have a mandala symbolism, which is so powerful in spatial mode of consciousness, and in all modes of consciousness it plays a very great role, but it is particularly a spatial metaphor. A spatial metaphor that gives a way of integrating the physical, the human, and the trans-human forces. And bringing them to a presence to each other, and a communication of power, mutual sharing in a common presence, a common power, a common creativity. And in all creative moments, that's what happens. The trans-human powers, the powers of the physical, natural world, the powers of the human come together. Great art is created, literature, dance, music of the great metaphysical insights, the great religious experiences, all come out of that type of thing, which is associated with, particularly with what might be called a mandala symbol, a symbol of the journey to the center. That's what we are doing, we're going to the center. However, things are almost too clear in what I would call the spatial mode of consciousness. That is, we know we can establish moral codes. We have a natural law that says, everything in a space is what it is. It's also participating in everything else, but basically its role is clearly articulated. And you can have ethical codes, you can have ethical codes that are very clear. And a person can know where they are in a spatial world, like in geography, you can know in a certain sense where you are. But when you go through a time-developmental universe, you have a difficulty. Because things are coming into being, they do not exist, there is not the clarity in an abiding way. There is a certain creativity, the world is being created at every moment. We are creating a new, with every act, we are creating a new morality. With every act we are creating a new world of beauty, or art, or of truth. And, but also we are lacking in normative references such as we have in a more spatial mode of consciousness, as I would describe. Now, there's, a lot of discussion can take place on this point. But when a person enters into a time-developmental world, we move from a morality of stasis to a morality of movement, where the norm of reference is the creativity inherent in the emerging universe, which is the primary consideration. What enables the creativity to take place? It's not exactly acting according to a fixed nature, because the fixation of things is not there. And so we have very different problems. And also, there tends to be a certain confusion, because creativity comes basic out of certain chaos. And that is where our creativity has to be at the present time, and it's the function of contemporary chaos to provide the backgrounds for creativity to which we are called. But to establish a context of action and a context of reality, a context of value, one of the things that we need to do particularly is to know the story. because to know the story, to know the arc of the trajectory of the past, becomes extremely important in knowing how to create the future. And it gives us direction. Our direction is contained, to a large extent, in the sequence of events that have brought us to where we are at the present time. And we can see this in our personal life to a large extent. There's a trajectory in our lives. And we have to be guided by that experience to know how to move on from one thing to another, how to create the next phase of our existence. As we know the story of what has transpired in the past phases of human development, we have the indication of where we're going. So my suggestion is that we be very careful to learn the story. The story has to be a fascinating story, that's the other aspect of the thing. And the evidences of the validity of the story are largely constituted by the extent does it really fascinate? Does it really convince in such a commanding way that we can live life, and create in that context, are we excited by the story? One of the difficulties that we have had in the recent past, is that the story has been told simply in its physical dimensions. The scientists have given us a quantitative story, and not a spiritual story, it has not been the real story of consciousness. It has been a story of randomness, and to some extent meaninglessness. And in fact if a person reads something about science, a pair of scientists occasionally read the story that the more we know about the universe, the more insignificant humans appear. That can't be a very inspiring position [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> That the more you know about the universe, the more insignificant we are, well obviously that can't be the story. So what is needed is to find a deeper perception of the story. And what is happened is that the difficulty is not the date of the story, but the attitude toward the story, and the limited powers of assimilation and interpretation of the data of the story. And that is the way in which we get into what I would consider to be the new story. That is a new paradigm, that is the context in which the human venture can continue into the future with some expectation of providing for ourselves and for our children. And it's that level of excitement and fulfillment and our human existence that makes life possible for us. So, I've suggested that we consider this in its galactic phase, in fact, my own library now is in this sequence, the galactic phase, the Earth, the shaping of the Earth, of life, and consciousness. And then the different phases of consciousness, and with special reference to the phase that I would call the ecological phase, or the phase of the intercommunion. A phase of the great intercommunion, or where the great numinous quality of the universe becomes radiant, or it's perceived an experienced in its radiance throughout the natural world and throughout the human. So, that we have in that sense, a radiant world in which we can live, in which we can find some basic fulfillment. And then once a person has that basic outline, my suggestion is that it can be interpreted, and I put the whole story as I would consider it on this page. >> [LAUGH] >> So that I'm not asking that we read 20 volumes, or even 20 pages, that you can reduce it, as all stories, you can put it down. Any story can be written in 1 page or 1,000 pages, if a person knows the story. [MUSIC]
