Theos-Talk Archives (November 1998 Message tt00448)

Jerry S:

[writing to Dallas]

>>What is to be gained by all this work and thought and scrambling?

>Dallas, it is the human mind embedded in time that asks this
>question. We all want to have a grand purpose or outcome
>to any effort we make. But life need not be considered effort.
>It can, for example, be considered fun. An adventure. This
>is, after all, how children see it (didn't a Master once say that
>we must become as a little child?). I follow Meister Eckhart
>who said that life has no purpose because it does not need
>one.

A quick comment ... Depending upon the role we have in
life, and on the perspective we view life with, and on
the center of consciousness we view life through, we see
life differently. Depending upon how we're looking at
life, there are differing purposes.

>From the standpoint of the personality, taking a short-run
view of things, we're engaged in certain daily routines
with specific purpose, like going to work to make money
so that we can pay the rent/mortgage and buy food. From
a different perspective, we're doing things that will
prepare us for long-range life goals, like preparing to
have a family, to go back to college, to learn a new
language, to write a book, to travel the world, etc.
Still higher, we're doing things that span multiple
lifetimes and engaged in activities that allow us to
continue in the school of life. If we don't keep up
with the "evolutionary lesson plan," we'll fall behind
and eventually become dropouts, never making it to the
Fifth Round.

>From the very highest standpoint, wherein we're sharing
in the experience of transcendence, unity, timelessness,
we're not concerned with the sweep of time, already being
our perfect selves. But that highest experience is also
the most far-removed from the external experience of life.
>From it's standpoint, we're not engaging in evolution
to get anywhere, since it has nowhere to go. The shooting
forth of a ray of consciousness into space/time, into
the evolutionary scheme, is an imperfection, an veil over
its light, and is, as you say, done out of enjoyment.

The perspective of the highest, this sense of the
timeless in us enjoying but not directly participating
in the drama of life, can become part of our awareness.
It can bring an added dimension to the experience of life.
But it *adds to* life, it's not something we dwell in
to the exclusion of the other, lower, more directly
involved perspectives. We still do things with concern
over their results; we still plan our personal and
collective evolutionary development; we still participate
in the game of life with full respect for the game rules
and play the game with vigor.

-- Eldon