Spirituality and Life as a Force Striving for Higher Organization

There was a time when single cell organisms… let’s start again and call them ‘individuals’…. There was a time when single cell ‘individuals’ were the highest form of life on Earth.  In some mysterious and yet to be explained way, some weird Principle of Organization had influenced molecules and compounds to come together to form a Unified Being, with a Unified Consciousness, that would coordinate its constituent ingredients for a Unified Purpose – ostensibly to move with active intent through fluids in order to procure nutrient substances in order to promote growth and to supply energy that could sustain its processes.  The Principle of Organization that created these single celled individuals we can refer to as the Life Force.

 

One can suppose that the first nutrients that these ‘Individuals’ sought out were simple molecules or compounds.  But we know that eventually Life started feeding on other Life.  This cannibalism was, at that time and under these most primitive circumstances, amoral or morally neutral.  Each Individual lived with the imperative that its own survival was its utmost priority and whatever contributed to making itself thrive was considered an unalloyed good.  It was, after all, Eat or be Eaten.

 

But then we find that the Life Force tends to promote Organization at Higher and Higher Levels.  Life goes from being Simple Single Cells to becoming Complex and Multicellular.  The more Complex Self probably felt as Unitary in its Selfness as the more primitive Single Cell had felt.  Within this new Multicellular ‘Individual’ all the various member cells would have needed to work in collaboration with the Other Cells without any sense of priority in ‘self’ – they were in fact no longer ‘selves’ but constituent parts of a larger Self, with their prior ‘Self Awareness’ subsumed by the Whole. 

 

Now what I find very interesting is, that in the Greater Organization of the Multicellular Organisms, that the individual Cells were able to suppress their old imperative for eating anything that would consist of nutrients, which in this case would be cells adjacent to them in the new Complex Life Structure.   It seems that Higher Lifeforms depended on a new over-riding internalized Moral Imperative to assure that the constituent Cells of a Complex Lifeform could exist in an inviolable state of peace and cooperation.   Suddenly there was a Right and a Wrong… a Good and an Evil.  Eating another Cell within the same Organism would make one a Cancer.  The first Demons were tumors.  

 

But, we can suppose that the development from Single Cell Creatures to Multicellular Creators must have seen a Transitional Stage in which Single Cells began to cooperate in Groups, and that there must have been, at least at first, a tension between Eating other Cells or working with them for shared goals.  It is this Transitional Phase between the Simple Unitary Identity and the Complex Unitary Identity that should get our attention here, because we ourselves may now be in this same kind of Transitional State (between living as Individuals and living as a Unitary Group with a Collective Consciousness).   

 

We can imagine what the Spiritual Experience must have been like for the Single Cell Individuals.  Since Survival is perhaps the strongest imperative of Life, their primitive Realization would probably have been along the lines of “All is One. I am One with God.  The entire Universe is Food.  Go forth and Eat”.   But what happens when numerous Single Cell Selves unite for Collective Security?  Well, then this primitive Spiritual Realization, based on the assumption that the Single Cell was the Highest Level of Spiritual Organization where being an All Consuming Predator was in that context ‘Life Affirming’, well, within the new Group Context, all of what had been implied by the old self-centric ‘Realization’ would become effectively very destructive.  For Transitional Life Organizations to thrive there had to have been some kind of Dualistic Good vs Evil Realization, or at least the Inference that Morality, in terms of abetting Group Cohesion, had become the over-riding necessity.  The Good would consist in Cooperation, and anything that would subvert that Cooperation would be Evil, especially Cannabalism!  Even just going one’s own way…minding one’s own business, as it were, would be effectively Evil as it would cause one to ‘break formation’ with the Group which would invite attack from other Groups that were able to maintain a more robust solidarity.

 

Anyway, all of that brings us to a concern regarding what our Spiritual Awakening Experiences are telling us about our Present State of Life Organization.  Do our Spiritual Awakenings show us that we are on the Verge of Rising to a Higher Level of Life Organization in a kind of shared Collective Consciousness, or are our Self-Realizations affirming our ancient and time-worn Individuality.  We can look at the effects of these Realizations on those who have had them.   In some cases there is a strong moral impulse for strengthening the Social Group.  In other cases there is a tendency for retreat into isolation and solitude.  And we would all have to be blind if we had not noticed Predators within the Spiritual Community (we can see their Enlightenment in the glint of their razor sharp teeth).  It is as though Humanity, at the Spiritual Level, hasn’t made up its Mind which way it wants to go.  But, if we need a hint, the Life Force must have its reasons for ever reaching up for higher and higher levels of Life Organization.  Unless we are moving forwards and upwards, then I think we are falling back and falling down.