(Written in response to the following comment by Myron Q. Synergy on the Jersey Devil BBS):

 

"By the way, you must have noticed that "nature" does NOT have what we con- consider to be our "best interests" in mind..." 

 

Why Myron Q, you noticed too! Think she's trying to tell us something? -- something to the affect that we're acting counter to our own long-term best interests. The operative words are "...what we consider...", for what we see as desirable and good for us is subject to considerable subjective bias; Nature, on the other hand, has a much longer time-horizon and is considerably more objective. Nature is an impersonal force or trend -- intelligent, but blind -- which moves according to the natural or preordained order of things, in a consistent, logical and specific pattern. It is not subject to the personal bias and individual short sightedness of mankind and, as such, can be very unfeeling with regard to personal desires that run counter to its natural movement.

 

The following thoughts also came to me:

 

1) For the scientifically minded:

 

"Nature knows and we're guessing!"

 

2) For the religious minded:

 

"God knows and we're guessing!"

 

3) From the preacher in me:

 

On what basis do we as human beings -- relative states of mind and consciousness -- with our partial and circumscribe perspective, "judge" what is ultimately in our own "best interests".

 

4) From the parent:

 

The child, being "spanked" for playing with matches, seldom sees it in his "best interest." Yet, though the child seldom considers the "spanking" to be "ultimately good", the "parent", who is concerned for the child's long term welfare, does.

 

5) From the behaviorist:

 

The pain associated with putting one's had in the fire is seldom seen to be in the "best interests" of the individual so burned. Seen from a less personal and more objective perspective, however, the pain has a very "good" purpose -- to get ones attention and prevent the loss of the entire organism (i.e. careful of the type, but careless of the individual, etc).

 

6) From the naturalist:

 

In truth, there are not two natures -- yours and natures; but one nature, and if the will of "mother nature" appears to run counter to that of her "offspring", it is fairly obvious which is the "wild hair" and must be tamed, and which serves the "ultimate good".

 

7) From the psychologist:

 

One who takes things "personally" is subject to "subjective bias". Nature, on the other hand, has no such flaw in her mental vision; as an impersonal or blind force, she is not subject to such near-sightedness -- a disorder that may be referred to as "mental myopia".

 

8) From the metaphysician:

 

There are several analogies that I have written pieces on previously that go along way towards illustrating the true futility of our present predicament -- interestingly enough, they all involve water in one form or another:

 

1) In the first case, lets suppose that we have come to the beach for the day to enjoy the ocean; not to stay, but just for a temporary visit. Lets further assume that we are in the water and after diving in hit our head on a rock; a collision that results in a temporary case of amnesia in which we forget who and what we are, why we are there, and where we came from.

 

Lets further suppose that, for one reason or the other, we come to believe that our home was not on dry land, on the beach, but far out to sea. Faced with this circumstance, we would quite naturally attempt to swim against the waves to return to the "seeming home" that our mistaken perspective created in an otherwise "blank mind". The "waves", for their part, as part of the natural or higher order, would in fact actually be an ally with respect to their natural tendency to carry us back to our "true home" on the beach. Trouble is we, in our unconscious condition -- at least unconscious in terms of who and what we were -- would not be likely to catch that subtlety. Based on a mistaken premise that our home was out to sea, we would more likely attempt to swim against and fight the waves, and see them as "bad" from our limited, partial and imperfect perspective.

 

The eventual result would of course be that the "greater aggregate energy" of the ocean, as manifest in the waves, would wear us down and carry us to where we belonged (subconsciously wanted and need to go) anyway -- to our home on the beach. Our state upon arrival, either conscious or unconscious, would, of course, depend entirely on whether we "woke up" and realigned ourselves with the "natural flow" of the ocean towards our home on the beach.

 

In this respect, the secret thus lies in consciously recognizing that our "higher nature", in the form of the "ocean" (oceanic form?) is every in the process of carrying us home -- of going were we truly want and need to go, but just don't know it -- though we certainly don't see or feel it that way. For in having done so, one may thus relax, get himself a "surf board", and, as the credit card ad says, "...master the possibilities!", and in so doing give the blind energy of nature the added dimension of intelligence -- your intelligence; the controlling and directive force that is the birthright of your "consciousness of consciousness".

 

2) The other analogy that comes to mind, is in the case of a man who finds himself in a river and believes that his home is in the mountain from which the river seems to originate, and not the ocean, where the rivers truly originates. He can "see" where the river obviously comes from -- at least in terms of relative sight and sense -- but he can't see, or for all intensive purpose forgets, that "river water" is just "ocean water" that has undergone a rather length process of evolution. That the "river", in reality, is just the "ocean" in another form, and a temporary one at that; a form whose very nature causes it to ever seek and return to the sea.

 

This evolutionary process of the "river" evolving back into the "ocean", is, of course, preceded by what may be called an involutionary (conscious involvement and personal identification, if one were talking in terms of Universal Consciousness or Spirit?) process whereby the "ocean water" evaporates, is distilled into rain and transported to the "mountain top"; where upon it once again beings its long journey to the "sea".

 

To return to the analogy of the man and his circumscribe sense of being, he would quite naturally come to think that his home was on the mountain. After all, that is obviously where he and the river have come from. As a result, he would have a natural (unnatural is truer) tendency to swim against the natural current or order of things and so run counter to Nature. Again, as in the case of the waves and the ocean, the river has a lot more latent and potential energy going for it, and so our ignorant swimmer must eventually exhaust himself and pass into relative unconsciousness. At that point, he would be carried to the ocean in a relatively un-evolved state of awareness.

 

The secret, again, lies in recognizing the natural order of things -- aligning yourself with that natural order, which may be viewed as your "elder brother" or "higher self", as it were -- and enjoying the trip and the lovely scenery along the way. This is truly learning to go with the "flow of nature" -- the Taoists call it the "watercourse way"; truly learning to align oneself with the latent power of the "river or wave" and so becoming its master. This, by first giving into it, becoming one with it (in mind, as well as fact), and having done so, using ones mind and conscious intelligence as a directive and controlling force for the evolutionary advancement of all; thus, in effect, giving blind and mindless nature a vehicle through which it may manifest conscious intelligence -- which, after all, is and always was the intended function of "man" (I use the term generically, for a woman is and always was exactly that -- a womb-man).

 

Seen in this light, we, as conscious states of mind and being are nothing more than "nature" become conscious of itself as such. This river and wave analogy also pretty well describes the idea of "fate and predestination", as related to "free will". Put simply, we're all going back to the "ocean", whether we like it or not; how we get there, on the other hand, and in what relative frame of mind or state of consciousness - -conscious, unconscious, or somewhere in between -- we arrive is entirely up to us.

 

Truth of the matter is, the "ocean" is our "true nature"; and our manifest destiny, as it were, is to return to that original state of mind, consciousness and being. Or, to put it more nostalgically, our destiny is to return "home", to return from whence we came. Though we may not know it not, this is what we seek subconsciously in everything we do, in every attempt to find peace and rest, in every attempt to be done with constant "becoming" and finally to "become" -- to become fulfilled, whole, complete, perfect and done with all lesser states of mind and being. Recognizing this, any conscious reluctance or resistance to this trip must be "born of ignorance.

 

3) This has nothing to do with nature, per se, but our present circumstance may also be likened to a drowning man clinging to what he thinks is a life raft -- a life raft which in the higher scheme of things is really an anchor. Given such a mistaken perspective, it matters little whether his ultimate good is served by taking it away from him. Just try to take that apparent life raft away and see how rational his response is?

 

In a similar vein, we all mistakenly cling to the "false gods" of relative consciousness -- temporal and transitory states or conditions of mind and being -- in the unreasonable and illogical hope that they will eventually bring lasting peace and permanent happiness. Thus, do we unwittingly, attach ourselves to "dead matter", that which by its very nature must eventually fall back into the "divine dust" from which it necessarily arose.

 

The true sorrow in all this is that if we insist on on our attachment to matter and the things of matter, matter will inevitably bring mind and consciousness -- as a "higher form of being" -- down with it. Worst yet, by so defining happiness in temporal terms -- relative states and conditions of transitory being -- we, as fundamental states of mind and consciousness, unwittingly decree our own unhappiness as a function of their relative and inevitable absence. This, in turn, has the very real and practical affect of turning what was originally intended to be a "joy ride", into a "nightmare".

 

Unpublished Work, Copyright 1986, R.F.Hay