Holy Shit!!! Week 5 has hit with the power of Zeus. And it just keeps coming. (Perhaps its more like Poseidon, coming like a Tsunami that just won’t quit?).
Emerson’s essay on Compensation contains a lifetime of learning potential. Why is this not taught in schools instead of how the Hudson’s Bay company traded fur hats for coal (or, however the hell that went down)!
Admittedly, I’ve been through the essay a couple of times now, and my next trip through will be with dictionary in hand, as some of the language is lost in the de-evolution of English competence. I am so excited to dive into this further, parse the wisdom, meditate, evaluate, ponder, and let this flow through my consciousness. I would like to do that now please, but apparently “I must practice the art of patience for nature acts never in haste“. Damn you nature!!
There are so many aspects to Week 5 that I would love to address, and over time I shall.
Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.
Then there can be enlargement, and the man of to-day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday. And such should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment day by day.
Man’s the elm, and Wealth the vine; – An Elm is a fruitless tree, whilst a vine grows many fruit. But if the vine lay across the ground, the fruit it bears is rotten. If the vine is tightly woven to the tree, it bears fruit upon itself, as well as the elm.
But where to begin for today? For no good reason, other than the topic happens to be current in my thoughts, I was captured by Emerson’s assertion;
“Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin, and when the would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise.”
Our power lies within this Polarity. The fact that within every weakness lies our strength. The whole contains the part, and each part contains the whole.
Years ago, I read a book called the Holographic Universe. It suggests the notion that the entire Universe (read- Reality) is actually nothing more than a Hologram. It’s a concept worth studying in it’s own right. But I borrow from this for a moment, to illustrate a reality I was not aware of. Holograms (yes… they are real things, and not just reserved for Mark’s Holodecks), are a 3D image or photographs. They have some very unique properties.
From the book, the Holographic Universe (Michael Talbot);
” If a piece of holographic film containing the image of an apple is cut in half and then illuminated by laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the Apple! Even if the halves are divided again and again an entire Apple can still be reconstructed from each small portion of the film (although the images will get hazier as the portions get smaller). Unlike normal photographs, every small fragment of a piece of holographic film contains all the information recorded in the whole.”
There is no separating the part from the whole. They are one. And what we emanate in our lives is not a result of our ability to sever the part from the whole, but more from what we allow to flow through our Solar Plexis. We earn no credit for developing it. It was never, is not, and never will be, ours to create.
5-20 : “It is the benignant force which decrees primal creation. It thrills down from the Divine, direct into every created being. It originates life, which the physical scientist has not done, nor ever can do. It stands out among all the forces supreme, unapproachable. No human heredity can approach it. No human heredity measures up to it.”
EVERY CREATED BEING. Neither heredity nor evolution grants us greater access to it. It’s an energy that flows. All we are capable of doing is either blocking, or unblocking it.
5-25 : “This power is from within, but we cannot receive it unless we give it. Use is the condition upon which we hold this inheritance. We are each of us but the channel through which Omnipotent power is being differentiated into form; unless we give, the channel is obstructed and we can receive no more.”
Weoponizing wisdom granted to us from the Omnipotent is akin to cutting off a piece of the hologram for our own use. You are left with nothing more grand, but only a faded version of truth. Your loss.
You could not have achieved the wisdom without the weakness. They are fruit and seed. To abhor one is to deny the other.
Zeno of Elea is considered to be the founder of Stoic Philosophy. As a young man, a merchant, he found himself shipwrecked, and stranded in the city of Athens in the year 303BCE. It was while he was there, that he came across Xenophons’ Memorabilia. From these writings, he was so impressed by the character of Socrates, that he abandoned his former life as a merchant, and made the study of Philosophy his only interest. He has been quoted as saying;
“I made a prosperous voyage when I was shipwrecked.”
Belittle not the hard times, the challenges, the weaknesses. Neither those of your own, nor those of others. They are part of the journey. You deserve neither the blame for these, nor the credit for their counterparts. You have one role… find the courage to face your fear, and let them flow.
Fear of failure.
Fear of being like everyone else.
Fear of shame.
Fear of poor health.
Unblock the energy. Let Omnipotence flow, and do not try to claim it. Water parted by your hand comes together behind it. Bask in it… but do not own it.
“Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.” … T. H. Huxley
