The Cosmic and the Terrestrial:
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Chapter 4: The Inner Cosmic Environment --- ||| --- Chapter 1: The Outer Cosmic Environment .............
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Chapter 3: The Inner Terrestrial Environment --- ||| --- Chapter 2: The Outer Terrestrial Environment ........ | |||||
The Cosmic & Terrestrial Environments |
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(1) We may imagine our body as we imagine the planet, and
(2) We may imagine our planet as we imagine the body.
You may think there are no correspondences between your body and the planet. If you think this way, please read on.
The Inner Terrestrial Nature |
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The Inner Terrestrial Nature is shown to the left hand side of the diagram above, a mirror image of the right hand side of the diagram, which has been labeled as the Outer Terrestrial Nature. We have commenced this article with a discussion of the Outer Terrestrial nature first, because most people are familiar with external landscapes, not landscapes of the inner world.
The Outer Terrestrial environment is characterised by the interplay of the at least four elements of nature, fire (here defined as the Electromagnetic energy which is continuously being transmitted from the sun, as sunshine, to the earth directly, and to the earth indirectly via the reflection off the moon. This cosmic energy continuously enters the Terrestrial planetary environment in the same manner of a cosmic waterfall flowing into a terrestrial pond.
Analogously the Inner Terrestrial environment is characterised by the interplay -- in one primitive sense - of the management of the need for food (the ingestion of earth), the need for water manifested as natural thirst, and the need to breathe air. Therefore part of our inner terrestrial environment concerns the management of the processes of the exchange between the primitive elements of nature within the body, and the immediate environment.
The physiological nature of the various circulatory systems, including the blood to and from the heart throughout the entire living organism can immediately be likened to the water-cycle system of the planet. The planetary water cycle is powered by sunshine. Analogously the physiological blood circulation is powered by the spirit of life, an inner sun burning in the heart of all living creatures.
Another factor associates the heart and conscious inner world with he relationship between the sun and the earth, and that is sleep. Most living beings require a period of complete shutdown of the mind, at which time consciousness and physiological functions are refreshed and replenished in a natural and free manner. The earth spins and our collective species have all been influenced by the circadian rhythm of life. We like the earth have our time of energy and activity and light, and a complimentary period of rest and peacefulness. Of course I am here refering not to the dream states of sleep, and restlessness, but that period of really deep sleep that the body sometimes, sometimes often, finds in the hours of the night.
The heart is often associated with the intuition, the feeling center, and the "left-brain of two hemispheres of the physical brain. It contains storms and peace, waves and winds, rocks and ploughed fields. It contains fallowed fields and orchards and gardens which bring forth living sustenance for many other living beings. It is often barbaric and blind to its higher nature. Perhaps one of the earliest and most renown expositions on this subject matter was by Plato.
Plato shows that the emergence of civilisation from barbarism involves the taming of the "Many Headed Beast", and the transcendence of the powerful lion (of man's ego) in order to find the real man (male and female) in the equitable persuit of critical question of higher intellect.
The Many-Headed beast, The Lion and the Man as Parts of the Psyche (person)
Parts of the Psyche
| Virtues (Excellences at)
| Highest Values
| Parts of the polis (city-state)
| The Allegory of Symbiosis
| Reasoning part
| Wisdom
| Truth, Goodness, Beauty
| Guardian class
| The Man
| Energetic part
| Courage
| Glory, honor, fame
| Military class
| The Lion
| Appetites
| Temperance
| Possessing, Consuming, Enjoying
| Producer/ Consumer class
| The Many Headed Beast
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The mind and the heart are two systems - in union they represent a binary system, analogous to the earth/moon binary system earlier discussed. We appear to have access to a mental and intellectual energy which is akin to light by which we may discern another aspect of the nature of things. The intellect or mind appears to have the property of a great perspective (not necessarily right) at times concerning the events that are unfolding on the earth fields or elsewhere.
The mind is often associated with the intellect, the thought center, and the "right-brain of two hemispheres of the physical brain. It appears to be a processor with a great deal of memory (which sometimes deteriorates with age) capable of loading in thoughts and ideas, concepts, hypotheses and complex theories constructed out of these building blocks.
What are they doing that the average living being is not? The answer has been given that they are more efficient in the process of living. The average person appears to a great extent to be unaware of, and to a certain extent at the mercy of feelings and thoughts which emerge into consciousness. A high degree of peace and natural contentment is often only realised in deep sleep, or in dream state, and the number of deep and meaningful experiences are often infrequent and illusory.
A number of authors have recently put together some quite useful charts which they term "Maps of Consciousness". The principles put forward by these authors are reasonably simple and straightforward. Consciousness may be described as a spectrum of energy states ranging between the lowest states of energy to the highest states of energy which have been enjoyed by self-realised and enlightened beings, such as for example, Buddha.
AGFLAP-CAP is an acronym for the following energy states of consciousness, proceeding from the lowest energy level to the highest energy level. AGFLAP stands for apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger and pride. The second group commences with courage, and then acceptance and finally peace. When consciousness involves itself in the lower energy states of AGFLAP then the being who associates herself or himself with that state is invariably enmeshed in the lower resonant energy.
The higher parts of the spectrum of consciousness are associated with the courage to be responsible for the condition of one's own state of being, and with the acceptance that arises from the perspectives which are afforded by the release of these lower energy states in one's being. Peacefulness of mind and heart in a balanced condition is essentially the names on the signposts in the foothills of an objective acceptance of the environment both within and without. This may be called the higher country of being. There is a great deal more energy in peacefulness that might be imagined by those who are satisfied with anything less.
A separate article entitled a Mud Map of Consciousness presents a slightly more formalised and incremented version of this concept that the nature of consciousness in fact involves a spectrum of enrained energy capable of being described in an agglomeration of various states.
In these above approaches it might be seen that the lower energy states correspond to the more terrestrial concerns while the higher energy states correspond to the cosmic aspects of consciousnes, which is the subject of the fourth article.