EVOLUTION BEGINS WITH EVE (reprise)

Roger Vandersteine, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, 1975

THE GENESIS MYTH yields a rich harvest of illuminating insights. Eve is blamed for the Fall. The Serpent directs his sales pitch at her and she takes the first bite of the Forbidden Fruit which endows her with sudden self-awareness. She offers the Fruit to Adam but as he sinks his teeth into it, God's voice comes booming out from concealed loudspeakers, causing the original attack of Fear and Guilt.

"Gulp!" bleats Adam with a chunk of "apple" stuck in his throat: "She made me do it!" What else can you expect? The scriptures were authored by MEN.

From the evolutionary viewpoint, however, the Serpent is a metaphor for the Vital Force (which yogis call kundalini); and Eve is the principle of curiosity, receptivity, adventurousness. In other words, the spirit of scientific research. What about Adam? He robotically obeys his programming until encouraged by Eve to experiment. But before he can swallow and digest the Experience, he goes into a total funk and tries to pass the buck.

Quite despicable and most unmanly (or should I say unwomanly?) - but fairly typical behavior in male-dominated power politics. To cover up their moral cowardice men perform assorted acts of physical bravado. As a child Saddam Hussein had his cheeks pinched by all his aunts and uncles, but just look at him now: SADDAM! Even his name sounds like the pounding of great big guns.

People used to call George Bush a sneaky little wimp. Not any more: BUSH! and there's a great big crater in the desert. Being extremely horny may be a nice macho feeling - but it's no excuse for rape.

I know two well-circulated feminist jokes. The first is about the astronaut who encounters God in deep space. On his return to Earth he's asked to describe God and he just laughs and says: "Boy, have I got a surprise for you. She's black!" The other joke has it that women are superior to men for the obvious reason that God is a perfectionist who learns from his mistakes; when God decided to create Woman he was a little more experienced.

Consider next the structure of the sex chromosome: females are double X-rated while males result from XY combinations. Geneticists say the Y chromosome is really just a deformed and undersized X chromosome. Sorry, guys, but facts is facts.

Did I hear Harry yell, "Traitor!" Hey, I'm not undergoing a sex change. I'm quite happily male, thank you, and the preceding polemic is essentially a scheme to improve my chances of getting laid. Seriously, though, I do have genetic memories (or at least vivid fantasies) of having lived female lives and I'm convinced that individuals often switch genders in the course of their earthly incarnations. They also tend to experiment with a variety of ethnic and geographic combinations - so let's all hurry up and outgrow racialistic-nationalistic nappy-rash jingoism. It's not so cute anymore.

And while we're at it, let's declare a general armistice in the Battle of the Sexes and put sexism to bed where it belongs. Here, you can wear the pants. I'm quite comfortable in my sarong.

Another aspect of the Feminine Principle that fascinates me is the dramatic transformation that Motherhood brings about: from lithe and slender flowerbud to bulbous huge ripe pear state is an awesome procedure. And when they spring right back to fantasizable size, it's another miracle all over.

I know the institution of Motherhood is sacrosanct (after all it's a vestige of Goddess worship) and it brooks no criticism - but I can't help noticing the psychological stranglehold that so many mothers seem to maintain on their children. Somehow the influence of the Father appears easier to shrug off.

Not in every case, I agree, but the number of middle-aged men and women who can be plunged into depression with just one Christmas phonecall to their dear Momsies far outweigh those who continue to recoil from their Daddy's wrath when they're 45 years old. I'm curious to know what the sons of Deng Xiao-ping or Lee Kuan Yew have to say about this. (Pardon me? Can't hear you, the tanks are too noisy...) which leads me to wonder if humans might not fair better reverting to oviparous reproduction ("Quick, Dicky, the egg's getting cold!"); even so I can picture how some mothers may suffocate rather than incubate their offspring.

Smothering beats mothering! ("Oh oh, here comes Mum with the pillow... mmmpfff!") I can't speak from personal experience on this - but does the pain of childbirth leave permanent scars on a mother's brain, causing her to be ambivalent thereafter about her kids? Perhaps our conventional approach to obstetrics should be thrown out with the bathwater: I have friends who have given birth in a tub of warm water with surprising ease and no complications. And no nightmarish fluorescent lights or forceps or masked strangers who rudely snip your cord and spank you for the crime of being born. Surely we're not all too busy being neurotic to think about a few fundamental issues of life-and-death importance?

Anyhow, I'm of the opinion that Motherhood is vastly overrated: it should be gently phased out soon after the child is weaned (yes, I'm all for breastfeeding but that's about as much mothering as anybody really needs, I think).

Have I shocked anyone? Don't misunderstand: every child thrives on tender loving care and lots of attention unstintingly given. And that must come from more than just one source - especially if that one source happens to take the role of Mother too seriously, too dutifully (and perhaps resentfully too, since she seems to have no choice whatsoever).

My real point is this: anyone of any gender can play the role of Mother for a while. Such a vital role demands a platoon of stand-ins; no one should insist on hogging it. Most clear-thinking and farsighted mothers will applaud this trend of thought. But first, we humans have to learn to let go. Insecurity makes us clingy and possessive. Kahlil Gibran said it best:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which

you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth...

Get thee back to the grave, Confucius! Respect for our Youngers is what I preach, and I do try to practice it. Respect, in any case, has to be mutual and spontaneous. Or else it's pure intimidation.

Now, coming back to the idea of Woman as the manifestation of the Goddess. I happen to view ‘chastity’ and 'wantonness' as equally seductive attributes. The Virgin and the Prostitute. Surefire marketing concept, Ms Ciccone aka Madonna. Men, be honest and admit that you desire both these qualities in your women.  Opposites aren't necessarily contradictory; usually they're complementary. Innocence and Experience attract each other. Virgins are still being sold to the highest bidder. Prostitutes work at union rates, negotiable on cold nights. Over here we have a loose woman with tight lips and over there an uptight one with loose lips. Take your pick, brother.

The Goddess is nurturer and destroyer in one. Before the birth of the Cosmos, there was the Cosmic Womb which the Egyptians called Nuit, goddess of Night. Others call it the Primordial Chaos. I call it the Matrix of Infinite Possibilities. Maria or Kali, Fairy Godmother or Wicked Witch: she can soothe and she can torment. Like the calm or raging sea, like life or death, the Goddess is not a static reality. She is not rigid with rationality, though she can be entirely reasonable or unreasonable as it pleases her. 

The practice of automatically assigning God the masculine pronoun Him is disturbing, perhaps even dangerous. Our only chance of making it through these apocalyptic times is to restore the Feminine Principle in our religious reckonings; to acknowledge that the sphere of awareness implies a concave as well as a convex dimension, an inner and an outer form.

And most cogently, to realize that the two are an interchangeable oneness in perpetual dynamic equilibrium. Without this understanding, we shall continue to inherit a world governed by overgrown little boys with dangerous toys.

That's right. Don't you be fooled by that funny mustache. He's got a pea-shooter in his pants. And a hot date with Mae West. Or, as visionary historian William IrwinThompson puts it:

"Civilizations, like the penis, rise and fall, and when the towers and the battlements crumble into the earth, they return to the embrace of the Great Mother."  

Pretty Oedipal, eh?

[Written 6 January 1991 and subsequently published in The Star. First posted 18 May 2013. Reposted 15 August 2016 & 28 June 2023] 

UNDERSTANDING ASCENSION (revisited yet again)

HARDWARE/SOFTWARE = BODY/MIND-SOUL
by Antares

"They are among us now. In the streets of our cities there are already citizens from other worlds. They are here as messengers of the Light to fulfill their mission on the planet Earth." - Willaru Huayta, Chasqui Sun Messenger of the Incas, in the Mayan Solar Year 7 Eb of the Itza Age (1996)

CAUGHT UP in the daily grind, hacking away for pay in some partitioned cubicle in a centrally airconditioned highrise office block... it's so easy to forget that we're all already seasoned travelers in Outer Space.

Zoom out from wherever you are right now and picture yourself as a glowing whirl of vibrant atomic particles, a pinpoint of awareness on a dazzlingly beautiful watery planet, spinning a bit wobblingly around our sun Ra, on the remote fringes of the Magdalenian Galaxy (commonly known as the Milky Way) - which is herself pirouetting majestically round a Supergalactic Central Hub somewhere deep, deep in Boundless Space.

But there's a lot more to "space travel" than meets the eye. Too often we forget that Inner Space is just as vast and mysterious as Outer Space. A would-be Interdimensional Traveler must intuitively understand the subtle process of "inside outing." He or she or it must boldly defy conventional definitions of Body, Mind and Soul!

Where does the physical end and the metaphysical begin? How can we separate one dimension from another? Reality comprises multi-layered webs of interwoven energy and consciousness vibrating at different frequencies, so how can we expect to comprehend the workings of the Whole System simply by analyzing its myriad minute parts? Without our physical brains and the billions of neural interconnections in our nervous system, can we possibly experience Mind? Without this phenomenon called Mind, would we require all the sophisticated hardware that so many of us have fallen into the habit of identifying as "ourselves"?

And what about this mysterious essence we call Soul or Spirit? In an age that doubts and questions the soul's very existence, can we trust our materialistic sciences to uncover transcendental truths? Yet we can complain that the food or music we're being served is "utterly soulless" and be perfectly well understood.

The age of computers has given us access to powerful new metaphors that effectively wed the world of dense matter with the realms of spirit. Today we can think of the physical body and brain as a computer server system: the hardware which can be taken apart, repaired, modified, reconditioned, or junked. The Mind would thus be the vast array of software programs the system can operate - anything from simple calculations to multimedia transactions using superfast chips that function at near lightspeed. Soul would then be the original inspiration (the indwelling Spirit) behind and within and beyond all this - the ultimate arbiter of the cosmic shelf life of both hardware and software.

Take your personal computer. With the power off it's just a hunk of hardware, mere furniture. Turn it on, install a word processing or graphics program. Now... you're ready to produce an exciting piece of electronic art, write a 50,000 word thesis or best-selling novel, produce some funky techno-trance music, or insult a few fellow nerds on the Net. But where do you, as the Operator, feature? It is your intention, your will, your aspirations and desires that the computer serves (though cynics might aver that the only person whose will is genuinely served by computers is Bill Gates).

Extending the Mind-as-Software metaphor a little further, we can understand how our Thought Patterns are determined by our Mindsets - which obey the genetic, social, cultural and religious formatting (or preconditioning) we're all subject to. However, once we're aware of our programming, it's possible to break through to the level of the Metaprogram whereat we may radically alter the operational pathways of our Biocomputers. A good example of this is when a yogi learns to control his metabolism through pranayama (the discipline of fully conscious breathing): he can then keep his body in suspended animation indefinitely, while his Mind-Soul moves freely in any chosen direction or dimension.

This is the approach to space travel - or, more accurately, interdimensional travel - taught in ancient Mystery Schools, whether in Egypt or the Andes or the Himalayas.


Peruvian chasqui (spiritual messenger) Willaru Huayta (pictured above) says: "Many noble people in South America have conquered infinite space, visited other worlds, and have brought knowledge back to benefit humanity. They travel without the necessity of space ships. Some Indians in the Andes travel to distant planets and learn much about the universe, while official science still investigates the superficial level of the material plane. Investigations in three-dimensional reality are always incomplete."

Note that Willaru describes these spaceshipless travelers as "noble people" - NOT "technologically advanced" or "militarily powerful" or "economically privileged."

Does he mean that a prerequisite of interdimensional travel is Moral Quality? Perhaps the capacity to feel openhearted compassion and freedom from finicky ego trips? The implications are, if one seeks to travel Beyond, one needs to travel Light!

Now, in Drunvalo Melchizedek's Flower of Life teachings, the same emphasis is placed on "nobility" - though in this instance, the necessary state of being is described as "Christ consciousness." Drunvalo, like Willaru, states that spaceshipless interdimensional travel (known as Ascension in the Bible, as well as in New Age circles) doesn't negate the existence of UFOs or Flying Hardware. But we are gently reminded that just as Troy fell for the old Wooden Horse ploy, modern humanity is susceptible to being bamboozled by extraplanetary "Greeks" bearing gifts.

INDEED, THE WORST HAS ALREADY HAPPENED!

Apparently - or, rather, not-so-apparently - a bunch of fetus-like aliens popularly (or unpopularly) known as the Zeta Reticulan Greys made contact with high-level military officers and politicians many decades ago (in the 1930s, some say, but the truth is, such contacts with extraterrestrial Trojan Horses have been occurring on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years). After the expected exchange of pleasantries, the aliens ordered a top-secret closed-door conference with a handful of extremely influential Earthians whereby a Memorandum of Understanding was signed. The Greys offered their services as "technical consultants," giving elite members of the human race access to hitherto undreamed-of scientific secrets that would enable certain humans to conquer space and time. In return they only wanted the right to conduct genetic research on this biologically diverse planet. Of course, this Special Project required absolute confidentiality.

The public must never hear of this. If any word leaked out, it had to be quickly smothered by massive disinformation campaigns. It sounded fair enough at the time. After all, vivisection and animal research are commonly practiced in our own research laboratories. So are secret experiments with viral warfare, genetic cloning, social engineering, ideological imprinting and so on. What the kids don't know won't alarm them.

All very Faustian, don't you agree? Where did Christopher Marlowe and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe get their inspiration for Mephistopheles from? An archetype, you say? But of course. Seems like it's the same everywhere in the universe, archetypical behavior! Anyway, the Greys began to feed the Inner Core members of the Pentagon-sponsored scientific cabal with very interesting information - but they kept the flow gradual.

"You need time to absorb all this high-tech stuff," the Greys intoned. Meanwhile, they went on a rampage with their genetic research. Cattle mutilations, human abductions, crossbreeding experiments.

Crossbreeding? That's right. The Greys knew they were doomed as a species. Their destructive technologies had laid waste to their home planet and made every man jack of them incapable of fertilizing even a toad's egg.

They needed hospitable human ovaries to produce a viable hybrid Grey-Earthian, a veritable Neo-Tech Man, that would quietly and efficiently take control of the planet and turn our future Bleak and Grey.

Only a few weeks ago at the local night market - and later aboard the Tanjong Malim bus - I saw people wearing black and grey T-shirts that gave me quite a start and prompted a sardonic smile. They featured an embossed depiction of fetus-like creatures, with the legend: "Alien Workshop Mind Control Laboratory." Ha! I see they're ready to advertise their presence. However, please don't panic. The Movie isn't over yet and some of us are betting on a Happy Ending.

I realize this is beginning to sound like an allegory of our times.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS IS NOT AN ALLEGORY OF OUR TIMES!

This is bona fide information which has been effectively kept out of your school curricula for decades, if not eons. Due to certain mitigating circumstances and mysterious factors in the cosmic scheme of events and schedules, the information is now DECLASSIFIED. But it may do little good, considering how resistant human egos have grown to any news that threatens the Status Quo or, worse still, jeopardizes Economic Growth.

However, I am encouraged by my optimistic Higher Dimensional Aspect to discuss it openly with you without fear of rejection or reproof.


Remember, I started out explaining how the boundaries are blurring between the operational parameters of Body, Mind and Soul. How the lines between Hardware and Software need to be redrawn, so that we shall be less willing to sacrifice the Spirit for the Form - and vice versa, since it's never either/or but always both/and.


Messengers like Drunvalo Melchizedek and Willaru Huayta are only here to remind us that we have a divine birthright to reclaim, which entitles us to craft our own 'lightships" from pure intention married to fully conscious imagination - rather than depend on a sneaky, secretive mafia of rocket scientists.

Freedom from hunger, envy, fear, jealousy, poverty, discomfort and suffering does not entail a multibillion-dollar budget. It requires the cultivation of "a noble spirit" in all humanity. "Noble" does not mean "snootily aristocratic." It means something far humbler. The readiness to lay down arms and surrender to the inspiration and guidance of our own "higher nature" - to heal our wounded hearts so that we can FEEL again. To redirect our attention and energies towards the Whole, towards the Total Unity of Life - rather than remain paranoically fragmented behind security alarms and barbed wire and steel-plated doors.

To address our highest integrity towards maximum honesty and openness, and our greatest ingenuity towards restructuring our lifestyles and values so that we shall once more tread gently, lightly, lovingly - creatively rather than destructively - upon our gracious Mother Earth, our living goddess, our once-and-future Garden of Eden. In the course of moving in this general direction, we shall find ourselves ascending as a collectivity - as well as individually. We shall be moving not so much from "here" to "there" but from a coarser to a finer vibration, from the gross to the subtle frequency bands.

Yes, call it a major Change of Octaves that's impending. Happy travels!


[First published in JOURNAL ONE, February 1997. Reposted here 12 September 2008, 1 January 2014, 19 March 2016, 12 June 2017, 9 March 2020, 4 June 2022, 24 July 2023 & 12 March 2024]