January 18, 2024
Principle 1. The Principle of Adaptation. Third Week.
“To Go Against the Evolution of Things is to Go Against Oneself”
Last time: Stories and the Game of Ask!
This time: Is it dusk or dawn? The Game of Name It.
Over the previous two weeks we focused on the general structure, and implications of the principle, and we also investigated how this principle worked (or didn't) in our past. We also played a game of Ask!
Did you try it out? Did you restrain yourself from sharing, teaching, or explaining? Did you listen? Did you hear?
This Week:
As for me, I’m going turn to considering how I might apply this principle in my current situations. I’ll try and list some the pressures, challenges, or difficulties that I am facing. I’ll ask myself how might this principle apply? What light does it shed on these circumstances? How might it change things and so on? Equally I might consider what the consequences could arise from misapplying or ignoring it?
Personal Reflections:
Here’s some more raw material that I hope you will find useful in your own reflections.
It was previously noted that the first three principles seem closely related. Take a look,
-To go against the evolution of things is to go against yourself.
-When you force something toward an end, you produce the contrary. -Do not oppose a great force. Retreat until it weakens, then advance with resolution.
It seems to me that among other things all three require measuring the forces at play in order to actually apply them.
For example, am I applying the right amount of effort, or am using too much and forcing things? Is this force I’m confronting really a great force or can I manage it? Or in the case of the principle of adaptation: Is this the evolution of things, or simply a passing tendency? Its like the difference between climate and weather, between a change in some intellectual fashion, and the birth of a new mental form. Imagine the result if I believe every momentary trend or little breeze is a hurricane or the inevitable “evolution of things”. A misjudgment like that would leave me totally passive in front of every situation. If I’m wrong, and I confuse something positive and inevitable for something negative, or something that’s only a momentary blip than I really will be like the bird trying to crawl back into its shattered egg. And if I do the reverse, and take some momentary upheaval for the inevitable direction of history itself, who knows what disproportionate actions I might take?
Last week when I was reflecting on past situations, I at least had the advantage of hindsight. That is, looking back in the past I could discern, to some extent, the path that events followed. That allows me to say that what I thought of as inevitable direction was just a hiccup, or what I thought was just a fad was the first stirrings of a historical trend. Looking at my present situation it can be much more difficult to make those judgments. How can I know when a tendency is “the evolution of things” and when it’s just a possibility, an accident, a passing fashion?
For example, given the ecological, economic, political and social chaos of our times it’s easy enough to believe that the world is inevitably heading toward destruction.
Is that what is happening?
What looks like we are falling head over heels into the apocalypse can just as easily be understood, not as the fall of humankind but, as the much overdue collapse of outgrown institutions and ideas making room for something new. Certainly civilizations run their course, and people outgrow their ideologies but that’s not the end of the world… perhaps as some of us believe it signals, on the contrary, the real birth of the human being.
The consequence of mistaking the end of certain institutions for the end of history could prove ridiculous, or even tragic.
Third Game. Name It.
The idea is easy, come up with an alternative name and wording for the principle. It should synthesize your understanding of a central aspect of what it means for you.
A year ago Peter J reminded us about the utility of trying to rephrase the principle into other words. This kind of reformulating, or reframing, can have interesting results. Peter was still exploring exactly how to word his insight but it was something like:
To Go With the Evolution things is to Go with Yourself.
The phrase, "go with yourself” might sound a bit awkward, but certainly the idea that this action is in your favour is interesting. And that formulation “go with yourself” put me in mind of Kate R’s comments about how going against the evolution of things (since it is against yourself) involved an act of contradiction.
Those comments made me think about the principles from new perspectives. Certainly that is one of the benefits of group interchange as well as in synthesizing things in our own words, or images.
This exercise is helpful in getting us to articulate something of our understanding of the principle at this moment. Even if our formulation only addresses a particular aspect of the principle it can be interesting, satisfying, and sometimes amusing.
Of course, as you know it is not the finding of the right answer, or even any answer that is important in games like this. It is exploring the possibilities, wrestling with the implications, feeling out alternative perspectives that produces interesting results.
Coming Up:
Next week we will look at what it might mean to apply this principle in relation to our future. We’ll also play a round of the third game.
Remember:
Close your eyes
Dive deep inside and discover the source of inner peace, vital force and real joy.
Open your eyes
Live intensely and discover how to transform the ordinary circumstance of your daily life into your spiritual path.
Worth Repeating:
…Though you may be wise and powerful, if happiness and liberty do not grow in you and in those around you, I will reject your example… …Follow the model of that which is being born, not that which takes the path toward death…
Internal Landscape Chapter I The Question
Evolution or Apocalypse?
Is it the end or a new beginning? Is it dusk or dawn? Take a look at the picture. Is the cat going up or down the stairs? Look again you might be wrong. What about the people in the Escher drawing?
Want More:
Join us at our weekly meeting. Every Wednesday at 6:30 PM ET.
Ask me for a Zoom link, or find it on our Facebook Page
Note:
These notes have been posted on Facebook (Community of Silo’s Message Toronto Annex) and sent to our email list. You will also find them along with other comments, and reflections on my website: dzuckerbrot.com
Coming up next week…
