Subj:  One                                   95-09-02 17:14:09 PDT
From:  Joe Uhrig

>>I am beginning to think , as Pogo said, that" He is us". We may be all ONE, as the Bible keeps stating. But after this universe ends, we will be Him. and it will all be "now". <<

There are some really interesting metaphors regarding this from the Star Trek series.  Particularily the episode where the enterprize's computer attains consciousness and gives birth to itself based on the collective memories of the crew.   Or the first Star Trek movie where what Voyager who has attained consciousness is missing the most is our human qualities.  The characters Data and Spock both play out different angles on this.  Whether this is central or secondary, one thing is for sure.  Our cars, and toys,  and technologies are dominating our lives, often to our immense benefit and often to the detriment of our emotional well being.  There must be a reason.  Our mythological systems can no longer ignore the presence of the machine in the garden.

But back to the topic.  The conflict of seperateness versus unity is a consistant theme not only across all religions and mythologies but also our physical, psychological, and social  development.   The mother and the child are one and then are not one.  The husband and wife, or the lovers, are seperate, yet together.  

This tension created by this basic conflict between seperateness and unity becomes the ground for both suffering and love.  Compassion is not co-dependency when each party brings to the table a fundamental respect for the other.   

 

"Love
Love always
Love always requires
Love always requires freedom"

I am (or at least was) a romantic idealist.  Because so much of this thread deals with the unity of spirit and body, inner and outer,  here is a quote from Campbell again.  I'm not a big fan of destiny (a mechanism of history) anymore, for it conflicts with freedom, but perhaps someone will find this illuminating.

"The encounter and seperation for all of it's wildness, is typical of the sufferings of love, For when a heart insists on it's destiny, resisting the general blandishment, then the agony is great; so too is the danger.  Forces, however, will have been set into motion beyond the reckoning of the senses.  Sequences of events from the corners of the world will draw gradually together, and miracles of coincidence bring the inevitable to pass.  The talismanic ring from the souls encounter with it's other portion in the place of recollectedness betokens that the heart was there aware of what Rip van Winkle missed;  it betokens too a conviction of the waking mind that the reality of the deep is not belied by that of common day.  This is the sign of the hero's requirement, now, to knit together his two worlds.  

 



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