Meanwhile, Back in the Garden

Solving the puzzle... from our hearts.

I’m no Biblical scholar but I, like millions of others, have been fascinated by the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, particularly their banishment.

God comes across as a pretty mean dude, very upset because they did something described as “eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” And, as you probably know, God was the first chauffeur in recorded history because he drove Adam and Eve out of Garden. Ouch, sorry, couldn’t resist.

Here’s the key phrase: ““The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

Here’s my take on this metaphor: humanity internalized its own guidance system. “Eating” might actually mean just that. How about this warning to not let the man “take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” That’s a caution about “the man” post eating the good/evil tree. So, as long as we’ve internalized guidance and shut out the frequency from Source, we’re denied access to eternal life, as that constructed human being.

Hmn, seems like a great segue to A.I. Here’s an instructive quote from scientist/visionary Ray Kurzweil: “Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.”

He also said” “Does God exist? Well, I would say, 'not yet'.”

Put these two comments together, consider that he represents many others active in the A.I. world, and we begin to glimpse a persistent agenda, dating right back to The Garden: to become immortal software-based humans, to be as God, to replace God. When Kurzeil predicts “ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light” I’d like to ask him, if I had the chance, just how he would define “ultra-high levels of intelligence?”

Would this be the same intelligence that created what deep thinker Charles Eisenstein recently described this way, commenting on some of the darker aspects of civilization: “the “baby factories” in Nigeria where teenage girls, usually mentally handicapped, are imprisoned, repeatedly raped to make babies who are then sold to human traffickers or dismembered to harvest their organs. … children addicted to their video screens, the 90% c-section rates in some places, the degradation of food and soil, the pervasive ugliness of the modern built environment, the phoniness of political speech…. the confinement of exuberant life into the boxes of modernity. That’s just the way it is done here.”

So much for human intelligence disconnected from natural intelligence, a separation that the Genesis story describes in harrowing detail.

Well, if Einstein is right, that we can’t solve this problem with the same thinking that created it - and I agree with him - what would new thinking look like? Actually, it wouldn’t even be “thinking” as we know of it because we’d have to activate our hearts and choose to be directed by them, rather than our minds.

What is my heart saying in any moment? It is giving me clues about how I am feeling in response to … to what? Not just to sensory data that I react to but to a whole other world, an invisible dimension of natural intelligence, God activating life moment by moment.

Hearts beating, lunch digesting, snow falling, flowers blossoming, stars being born and dying … seriously, how can someone as smart as Kurzweil be so dumb? How can anyone deny the reality of God, by whatever name? Just what/who do we think is managing the trillions upon trillions of life functions going on in the universe? Is it all just accidental? Is it running like a giant machine… created by who/what/when/where and Why?

Crosby, Still, and Nash sang Joni Mitchell’s famous lyric: “We’ve got to get ourselves back to the Garden.” Not really. As romantic as this sounds, it suggests figuring out how to regain a wonderful experience … with our thinking minds.

No. Instead, I believe, we’ve got to enjoy being in the Garden right now. That is, quit believing that we ever left it. Here I am, here it is. What’s the problem? And what am I talking about, exactly? The natural world. Nature. Life in abundance.

That’s our back yard here in Oregon and the feral woman is Sharon, visiting our forest.

So, I ask you, dear reader, how much time do you spend in the natural world every day, compared to time inside buildings, on screens, in a car, etc.? Here is, IMHO, our urgent priority: be in the Garden! This is not some location in the Holy Land, unless we agree that all land is holy, starting with right where we are. So, you might want to get out more to enjoy it!

Meanwhile, back in the Garden… here we are. So, my Thought For the Day: “give up the search, let go, breathe, accept that you are here and the Garden is here and that’s that. Think from your heart, focus on feelings, care about each other and yourself.”

Of course, cynics will scoff - “What does all this have to do with fixing our many problems?” Uh, absolutely nothing. Because trying to fix problems is the problem. Being the solution is the answer. When I live heart first, guided by natural intelligence, I synchronize with the life flowing through every living form everywhere in the cosmos. I live in harmony with life. So I will be guided to do what I need to do when I need to do it.

And … I will die. My human body will die, that is, but me - an aspect of interwoven life - I will continue eternally. How will that look post body, exactly? It will be a blast to find out!

Meanwhile, back in the Garden …. doesn’t that sound like a great mantra for life?