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Humanity's Mighty Struggle to Evolve
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." These famous words
of former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt are still revered for their
power to inspire people to rise above the challenges of their environmental
circumstances. Those who know the true history regarding Roosevelt's
presidency and the Depression and War he presided over will see those
words as empty political pandering. The plain fact of the matter is
that Roosevelt got it wrong. Fear need not be feared but rather understood.
For some cutting edge scientists, understanding fear begins in our genes.
According to the research of Dr. Bruce Lipton and others, what determines a whole host of genes to express themselves in one way or another is not the genes themselves, but the environment they are exposed to. This breakthrough research contradicts the zealously defended scientific dogma that human traits are determined solely within our genes and that we are at the mercy of heredity. The central premise of this concept comes from studying the biological make-up of cellular organisms and the latest quantum theories. What modern research is discovering is that all structures, from the atom to our greatest galaxies, are held together by forces or fields that are not in and of themselves "solid" structures. The solid structures that arise all around us, both organic and inorganic, exist simply because these fields create a "space" in which light particles may express themselves in varying densities of vibration. From this position, the formations evolve from single atomic structures all the way up the chain as the measure of "consciousness" or "awareness" increases. Evolution then, is not properly the study of species and how they developed, but the study of consciousness manifesting itself in ever increasing states of complexity. Such an understanding has the potential to turn "traditional" science and medicine, for starters, on its head. That the established order will resist such an understanding for years to come is without question. Too many minds have been brainwashed by their textbooks or silenced through the fear of losing research grants and academic reputations. Finally, the protection of profit margins must be chief concern of pharmaceutical giants that fund the studies which endorse the dumping of toxic medications into our biological systems. The truly liberating principle emerging from this research is that genetic expression is controlled by factors related to our environment, both in its actual structure and how it is perceived by the individual. As far as perceptions go, it is being discovered that fearful or stressful perceptions limit growth and ultimately lead to a body's breakdown, while perceptions of love and joy can bring the most dynamic forms of healing and growth to an individual. When reflecting on this point, one must be impressed with how far the human being has come. Geologist Bill McGuire, writing in his book A Guide to the End of the World, Everything You Never Wanted to Know, tells the story of a truly traumatic history of geological violence unleashed upon humans for hundreds of thousands of years. If you believe that human existence and civilization extends farther back from that, the lesson is even more enlightening. Humans have lived through ice ages, floods, tsunamis, asteroid impacts, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and volcanoes, not to mention sharing the planet with other species that sought us out as prey. If the research of Dr. Lipton and others is correct, then it is clear to see why humans act in such fearful ways even to this very day. This fear in not encoded into our genes, but exists on the surface of our genes in the protein sheaths that cover the DNA. Fear is encoded in the epigenetic layer of our chromosomes. The promise of this discovery is that this encoding does not need expensive genetic manipulation to remedy itself. Simply by expanding our environmental perception of who we are, the fearful signals of our environment can be muted and positive, joyful signals can be created to induce optimal states of living for us all. Here then is yet again the great challenge for unlearners everywhere. Can we as individuals and then collectively as a species engineer environments that promote joy instead of fear? Can we remove the thought forms, behaviors and social/political/economic structures that do not serve the agenda of joy? Such thinking would not only render the War on Terror obsolete, but would relegate much of the monumental suffering on this planet to nothing more than a bad memory. Perhaps this was and is the greatest challenge of the evolutionary spirit in human form; can we transcend the apparent "solidity" of our physical nature to realize that we are not indeed our bodies, but the field that surrounds it? If we can transcend it, then what messages would we like to, perhaps for the first time in our history, CONSCIOUSLY send into that field? Joy may, in the final analysis, not do a blessed thing to lengthen the human lifespan. Then again, it may be the single simplest means for doing so. Whatever the case, the benefit of joy seems to be the satisfaction of a life well lived, regardless of its duration. There seems to be nothing sadder than a life that was spent in the confines of fear and sadness, watching one dream after another fall into the wastebaskets labeled COULD HAVE, SHOULD HAVE, and WOULD HAVE. May the answer to the question at the end of this editorial be one that is filled with joy! Whose Life are You Living? |
