THE DYNAMIC

THE 'UNFAMILIAR NAME'

One central theme dominated our investigation into the development of Consciousness - or Aether: there has been a single thread running through evolution, from the Big Bang of creation to the emergence, some ten to fifteen billion years later, of Adam and Eve. There has been a fundamental imperative, a natural law, a driving force. This imperative has powered evolution, has forced the development of Aether in one direction and in one direction only: from the rudimentary to the complex, towards more and more evolved states, towards higher and higher orders of Aether and thus, slowly and quietly, but relentlessly and majestically, towards the SuperAether, towards Alpha-Holon Himself.

'For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.'

This flood tide is the dynamic of evolution, an immutable attractive force, as much a natural law of the Aether as gravitation is of materiality.

And what is this mighty force of attraction?

The answer is simple: what in our daily lives, in our ordinary experience, is the one principle which draws one human Aether towards another?

Human love, of course.

In the immortal lines of T S Eliot -

'Love is the Unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame, Which human power cannot remove. '

Yes, this is the Unfamiliar Name that has been perceived and proclaimed by philosophers, thinkers, teachers and prophets in every age: not love in its overworked and debased meaning, but in its true sense: the force by which the quintessential nucleus at the central core of the continuum of Aether, Alpha-Holon Himself, draws His dispersed and primitive elements towards Himself.

It is the insistent call by the Whole to His parts that keeps every Aether on the march towards Him.

It is this imperative, Love, which lies behind and gives direction to the struggle for survival, to the drive for evolutionary development, to that mysterious a priori knowledge discerned by Kant, to the dictates of human conscience and the transcendence of ethics.

This, I believe, is the central Truth of Truths proclaimed by Christ and the great world religions.

As TS Eliot wrote of Jesus -

'In the juvescence of the year, Came Christ, the Tiger '

LOVE - ATTRIBUTE

Because all Aether is moved by the attractive love force, it follows that to move and to be moved by love is an attribute of Aether. Put another way, since it is an attribute of Alpha-Holon to radiate this attractive force and since all Aethers are parts of Him, sharing in His attributes, then the higher the order of Aether, the greater the love force it must generate and the more powerfully that force must act upon it.

For example, because the Aether of man is of a higher order than that of his evolutionary ancestors and other mammal relatives, we should expect to find that man's capacity for love was greater than theirs. And, from our observation of our animal brothers, is this not just what we do find? Nowhere in the animal kingdom can we detect anything approaching the attractive force we experience between ourselves and those we are fond of, mates, relatives and friends.

And not only can we observe this force acting between man and man, we can also see it radiating out to encompass other creatures. Yes, even when we are shocked by man's inhumanity to man or by his cruelty to other creatures, we should remember that this sense of outrage is experienced only by the higher-order Aether which is ours. Lower-order Aethers have no such apprehension of cruelty. It needs a higher-order Aether, one endowed with a greater capacity for love, to know pity and to give meaning to the word 'cruelty'.

This really is as far as observation can take my argument, for though I have the strong impression that a mammal cow or fox has a greater capacity for love than its ancestral reptiles (say an alligator or a snake), I cannot prove it.

What I can say, however, is that as regards one step in the evolution of Aether, that from mammal to man, there has indeed been a significant and observable increase in the love attribute. And if it occurs in that one step, I feel justified in deducing that it may well occur in others.

LOVE - FORCE

Since Alpha-Holon is all, the Unity which is all reality, then His laws must be universal. From this must follow the prediction that His prime law of attraction, the law of Love, will not only apply to each and every Aether, it will also have its material counterpart acting on all material entities.

And this is just what we found from our examination of material and aetheric entities. Attractive forces arise wherever there are vibrations. And since vibrations are the only reality, being manifestations of the immanence of Alpha-Holon, then it is the presence of Alpha-Holon which is the source and origin of the forces of attraction. This is the 'unified theory of forces', the Holy Grail sought by theoretical physicists from Einstein onwards.

This universality of the laws of Alpha-Holon has important implications, for it means that by investigating their manifestations on the material plane, we can get some idea of their nature as they apply to the plane of Aether. 'As below, so above !' Thus, by examining what Science has found out about physical attractive forces, we can learn something of the nature and operation of the love force.

For example, we know of the gravitational or electromagnetic forces that they increase both with the mass or charge of the bodies involved and with their nearness to one another. Applying this to the force which draws Alpha's subordinate parts (His Holon) towards Himself and towards one another, I deduce that the love force will increase firstly with the 'mass' or 'charge' of the Aethers involved (that is, with their aetheric or spiritual stature) and secondly with their nearness to Alpha. And this is really two ways of saying the same thing: for the higher the order of Aether, the nearer it is to Alpha.

LOVE - ACCELERATION

Science also tells us that all forces accelerate the bodies they act upon; and that so-called 'central' forces, like gravitation, act only in the direction of their source. It would follow then that the more powerfully the love force acts upon an Aether, the greater its acceleration towards Alpha. And is there any evidence pointing to the truth of this prediction: that the more evolved the Aether, the greater its evolutionary acceleration, when we look back over the vast sweep of the history of the cosmos and its evolution? Perhaps there is.

You see, the best estimates of Science at the moment are that it took about 10 billion years from the Big Bang to the appearance of life, the first discernible higher-order Aether, on this planet. Thereafter it took a further 3 billion years of evolution before the first multicellular creatures appeared, while the mammals appeared a mere 100 million years ago. And the still higher order Aether of man has only been around for less than a trifling million years. It does seem therefore as if the pace of the development of the Aether has indeed been hotting up, as would be predicted by applying the natural laws of physics to the attractive love force.

Compared then to the inching of the atom, the creep of the amoeba and the placid walk of the cow, man is perforce running towards Alpha. Extrapolating into his higher order futures (what we are calling the angelic followed by the archangelic and their ever more sublime and unimaginable superiors), it can be deduced that the attractive force will be growing ever stronger, the rush upwards of higher and higher beings ever more swift and explosive. We are caught by the love force and seem destined to be whirled faster and faster to ever greater heights by the mighty force and attribute: Love. Willy-nilly, little gods in the making, racing towards Alpha, the ineluctable source of the love force: a prospect of awful and terrifying beauty for that still tiny little spark of the Divine which is the spirit of man.

So does this mean that man is simply a helpless straw on the surface of Alpha-Holon's river of love, being whirled willy-nilly towards the ocean?

No, not quite. For free-will is another of the attributes of Alpha-Holon, of which man must have his little share. The higher the order of Aether, the stronger the love attribute and force, but equally, the greater the free-will.

This would mean that we can, if we wish, swim against the current. Any individual would have the choice, by virtue of his Alpha-Holon-nature, of resisting the attractive force, of slowing down, perhaps halting, possibly even reversing his progress towards higher and higher orders of spirit. But since he remains a part of Alpha-Holon, he cannot shed his own intrinsic love attribute, which will at all times be subjecting him to the attractive force and will sooner or later persuade him to resume his upward progress.

It was because he perceived this fundamental truth that St Paul could write to the Romans:

'There is nothing in life or death, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the Universe, in heights or depths - nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God'

Or, again and again in the Holy Koran, these words:

'To Allah you shall return'

Man cannot escape from the God of whom he is a part, nor cast away the love attribute in which he cannot help but share.

LOVE - BINDING ENERGY

We have seen that on the material plane, attraction is a characteristic of the vibrations which constitute all reality. It is the exchange of physical vibrations between individual bodies that generates the attractive force between them.

If such a law has its counterpart on the spirit plane, on the plane of Aether, what would be analogous to such vibrations, attracting and binding together two individual spirits? In fact, I know of only one thing that mediates contact and attraction between human spirits: intercommunication of thoughts and emotions.

As a matter of everyday observation and experience, it is what for want of a better word we call 'chemistry'. And what do we mean by this? Surely we mean the presence of mutually attractive vibrations? And vibrations cannot be mutually attractive unless they are sensed. And they cannot be sensed unless they are exchanged.

So the engine of human love is the exchange of vibrations comprising thoughts and emotions: a love song evoking harmony of notes and tones. It is the exchange of vibrations that fires the 'binding energy' of the love force.

LOVE - PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

The implications of all this for our daily lives are surely very clear. They are very simple and, because of the subconscious communication between each human spirit and Alpha-Holon, they have always been well known to all men and women at all times and in all places, for they stem from true conscience and from true morality.

If we would swim with the current, if we would promote our evolution, if we would fulfil our potential, if we would fit ourselves to ascend to the next higher order of spirit, then all we have to do is so to cultivate the love attribute that is within us as to increase the power of the attractive force upon us.

At our human level, one indication we can get as to how we are succeeding in this endeavour must be the feed-back we get from our fellow human beings. Since the greater the love attribute, the greater the generation of the attractive force involved, then the touchstone by which we can judge our own actions and behaviour is the extent to which they draw other human beings towards us and win their love and affection. And we generate such attractive force by communication, by the exchange of vibrations, of our thoughts and emotions.

It follows that social intercourse is no hedonistic pleasure, but a moral imperative: the pub and the coffee-bar take their place with the church, the mosque and the temple as places promoting the development of the attractive force! Of course, places of worship have been built by every religion and cult in the history of man: precisely because all have recognised the central importance of communication. Moreover, pivotal to the practices of all have been the act and encouragement of prayer -and what is prayer if not the attempt to exchange thoughts with Alpha? The attempt by our lower-order Aethers to exchange vibrations with the SuperAether.

Yes, that, and only that, is the true purpose of prayer. Not to beg for personal advantage, whether for forgiveness, good harvests or relief from sickness. Not to obtain help, whether spiritual or physical. Not to expect life to be changed or made easier. But simply to try to amplify the communication between ourselves and Alpha, which I have shown to be necessarily and always present, but which I now assert to be the 'binding energy' powering the love force.

And so my hypothesis has come full circle. Just as we saw earlier that communication between the omniscient Whole and His parts provided the explanation for the phenomena of parapsychology and was a necessary consequence of the hierarchical unity of all Aether, so now we find that communication, the exchange of thought and vibration, is the real generator of the force of attraction which powers the evolutionary development of the soul.

LOVE - CONSCIENCE

Let us now take a preliminary look at those attributes which, in our human experience, encourage attraction and therefore promote the development of the love attribute. There is nothing new about them: unselfishness, courage, candour, sincerity, friendliness, a sense of humour, sympathy, tolerance, gentleness, optimism, modesty, loyalty, wisdom, kindness, generosity, charity, forgiveness, affection, benevolence, vivacity .... ... the list is long and well-known.

There is nothing new in this, indeed. But it is important that we can now see how these recognised moral attributes fit into the scheme of things, how they are based on a firm metaphysical foundation. They are generated by Conscience, which derives its knowledge and inspiration from that subconscious but ever-present communication which exists between the Whole and His parts.

It is important to stress the paramountcy of Conscience, for without its guidance even the love attribute can be misdirected. The desire to attract can result in the mere quest for easy popularity. Communication can be degraded into no more than saying what others seem to want to hear. Behaviour meant to be attractive can translate into a grovelling servility to the views and standards of others. Indeed, it is fair to say that unless the effort to develop the love attribute is guided by Conscience, it can even be highly dangerous. The yearning to be admired, to be loved, above all not to be rejected, can provoke horrible excesses of group or gang behaviour: - witness the mindless violence and cruelty of the mob.

Conscience is the personal subconscious knowledge of the individual, not to be surrendered to others. Just as we must develop love and respect for the spirit of each man and woman as an individual part of Alpha-Holon, so also must we accord to ourselves the love and respect due to our own high calling.

For example, all Christians accept that Jesus declared that 'The Law of God' consists of the two great commandments:

'Love God'and

'Love your neighbour as yourself' These represent the core of his teaching. Yet throughout the centuries, most of the Church - and most Christians - have contrived to distort this central message. Assuming that man self-evidently loves himself, they have believed that the commandment prescribes solely that we should love other people. Believing that it is man's nature to love only himself and to disregard others, they have striven to redress this assumed imbalance by teaching that man must at one and the same time love his fellows as children of God, while regarding himself as nothing but a 'miserable sinner', to be 'saved' only by divine intervention.

But the truth with most men and women most of the time is quite otherwise. They are fearful, fully conscious of their own imperfections, frightened by the unseen forces which surround them, appalled by the prospects of eternity and infinity. Most often they feel themselves tiny specks of impotent unimportance in a vast and terrifying Universe.

No, what Jesus said was 'Love both yourself and your neighbours'.

And why?

This is a central pillar of the world scheme I am placing before you: it is because each one of us individual men and women is a unique, divine part of God Himself:

I, no less than you. You, no less than me.

* * *

I should like to close this section on 'the Unfamiliar Name' with Khalil Gibran's famous lines from 'The Prophet':

' Then said Almitra, speak to us of Love.

And he raised his head and looked upon the people and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you, follow him.

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you, yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you, believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays

waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself. He threshes you to make you naked. He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness. He kneads you until you are pliant; And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure

Then it is better for you to cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears....

.... When you love, you should not say 'God is in my heart' but rather 'I am in the heart of God'.

I D O L A T R Y

When we were discussing the creation of the Universe, I suggested that it occurred in three phases, culminating in its third phase: Materialisation. Then Creation was followed by Evolution. The first event of Evolution was the fusion of the newly created quarks as they obeyed the First Law of their Creator "Associate! Collaborate! Evolve!" I described how this Law was consistently obeyed in the long march of entities to ever more complex levels of associative activity, arriving eventually at the first cell and later at the structural hierarchy of the multicellular organisms.

But what has been happening since the evolution of the first multi-cellular creatures, 500-600 million years ago? Can we really discern all that much structural evolution since then? After all, man himself is structurally no more than a multi-cellular organism. So, if the mark of evolutionary progress was simply the number of cells collaborating for the good of the whole, then we should be obliged to award the crown to the giant dinosaurs or to the whales as the most evolved of all creatures!

So what is it then that has really characterised evolution over the 5-600 million years since the first multi-cellular creatures first appeared on this planet? It has surely been the development of Aether, by a process of innovation and learning, resulting in the emergence of creatures of ever increasing adaptability, intelligence and sophistication of behaviour.

For you see, the invention of the multi-cellular organism marked the virtual end of evolution of the purely material or structural kind. It ended because its purpose was achieved. Because a suitable habitation for evolving entities had now been fashioned.

And more than just 'suitable'. Consider what wonders the multi-cellular body puts at the service of the growing Aether.

(1)

First, through the mechanism of the genes, it provides a habitation that is almost infinitely variable, endlessly adaptable, giving free rein to the ascending spirit's delight in playing, in innovating, in experimenting, in creating.

(2)

Second, the invention of sex not only promoted genetic variability and speeded up the game of the soul, it also gave an outlet for the soul's compulsion to obey the First Law, by offering it opportunities for physical fusion with others.

(3)

Third, through the development and activity of the five senses, it has flung windows open onto the rest of Alpha's creation, enabling each entity to sense the hierarchy of other entities which sum to the manifestation of Alpha-Holon in His Universe, enabling each spirit to bathe in the richness of their vibrations and harmonies and thus to drink at the cup of experience and awareness, to learn, to absorb, to grow.

(4)

Fourth, by the mechanism of nutrition, it furnishes each higher-order entity with the energy to drive its brain relay-station and thus to sustain and enrich its own aetheric body.

(5)

Fifth, by the cycle of birth and death, it provides a reliable and orderly mechanism for the soul to journey back and forth between term-time learning at the School of Earth and holiday-time composing creative vibrations in the 'lands of summer' of the spirit plane.

Because Alpha-Holon's laws apply to all His parts, His First Law "Unite, Collaborate and Serve" has continued to govern all Aether. It can also be seen at work in man as an urge to associate for the higher good, as a yearning to subordinate the self as part of some higher entity. This hierarchical urge is lucidly described by Arthur Koestler in some of his books. But alas, as he points out, it has been attempted obedience to this sublime imperative, to the virtue of unselfishness, of self-sacrifice for the supposed good of a higher 'whole', that has led to man's most impressive crimes: that has justified the villanies of war, of slaughter and of the torture of our fellow-men, all in the name of patriotism, of liberty, of king, or ruler, even of God.

It is ironic, for example, that the Jewish prophets, proclaiming the One God and tearing down idols, should have prostrated themselves before one of the most subtle and pernicious of idols, the concept that one group of people could be chosen above others by God. Latter day prophets of this "chosen people idol" have included Hitler and its worship still seduces men in every land.

And it was Jesus who attacked this idol, crying out that the First Law is the Law of Love, demanding only that it flower between man and his neighbours and between man and God. For there are no Children of Israel, there is only the all-embracing Family of God.

Yes, the truth is that ever since structural evolution came to an end, all the higher creatures have been on their own, part of and subordinate to nothing except Alpha Himself. A tortoise is not part of some higher "tortoise-entity", of some Jungian "tortoise racial memory". A mosquito is not part of some unseen "master mosquito". A cow is not part of some bovine divinity. No, all are parts of Alpha-Holon and of Alpha-Holon alone and all stand as individuals naked in His sunlight.

And for man, who is self-aware, this is the terrifying thing. Liberty is truly fearsome for one who knows that he has it. And Alpha-Holon, the omnipotent Whole, immanent throughout the vastness of His universe, seems inhuman, remote, unimaginable, awesome.

And so, in his fear, man distorts the First Law and huddles for warmth before invented idols: personalising them, calling them King or President or Pope or Fuhrer; or idealising them, calling them community or clan or nation or religion.

But of course man is not part of a community or society in the way that his cells are parts of his body. And this difference is vital. The cells are parts of a whole which is indeed of a higher order than themselves. But human society is neither higher nor better than the men and women who comprise it. Society is no higher-order entity demanding reverence. And as for presidents and kings, cardinals and imams, often villains who have trampled their way to power - what absurdity that men should tip-toe in and out of their presence, for all the world as if they beheld some divine higher-order entity, instead of the reality, a fellow human being, a fellow student at the School of Earth.

No, we must respect and love our fellow men, but never venerate them. For if they were worthy of veneration, they would simply not be here on earth. Of course there are angels and archangels, spirits of higher orders than our own, but they do not generally dwell among us and we are not parts of them. We are individuals, no less than they. They can perhaps teach us, if we can hear and understand them, but it is Alpha alone who commands our obedience - and theirs.

For they are what we are becoming and we are what they have been.

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