Journey of the Universe Page #5

from different eras of time

are all folded together here.

Out of this powerful alchemical mixing,

human consciousness

complexified into new forms.

Just think of it.

For billions of years,

rocks were just rocks.

And then, in a geological instant,

all of the planet that began to appear

with these scratchings on them.

Even more amazing, these little marks

were organizing entire civilizations.

With the appearance of the human,

the coding process of life

burst beyond the DNA molecule

and began carving its

information into stone.

Symbols not only enabled humans

to accumulate knowledge through millennia,

they also offered a final

and explosive possibility

for human emergence.

Symbols enabled humans to

concentrate their consciousness

upon consciousness.

This was a development with magnificent

and yet unexpected consequences.

Like a magnifying glass

focusing the sunlight

upon a leaf.

Symbols set fire to human possibility

that had slumbered for 100,000 years.

Look at this colossal form.

It's almost 15 feet high.

Now imagine dozens of such statues.

As the Greeks moved and lived among them,

their self-conceptions would be changed.

They would begin to imagine

they were godlike,

capable of anything.

Such systems we call in science

self-amplifying loops.

Consciousness giving birth to symbols

which then magnify consciousness.

In this way, humans were

not simply evolving.

They were consciously participating

in giving birth to themselves.

And what was coming forth was

a planet-altering species.

For this activity was taking

place not simply here

on the ancient island of Samos,

but actually throughout the planet

in every civilization.

Supercharged with confidence,

coming from the reverberation

of such symbols.

Human presence burst forth and altered

the very face of the planet.

Pyramids rose up from the African desert.

Ancient rivers were diverted.

Land as large as the eye could see

was watered by irrigation systems.

Even the forest scattered across the oceans

in the form of sailing vessels.

For the first time in Earth's history,

seeds were not subject to

the vagaries of climate

but received their watery nourishment

with the precision and

inevitability of logical thought.

Soon, even the inner order of the seeds

was captured by the science of genetics.

What does it mean when even the seeds

began to live not just in the Earth,

but in an Earth shaped

by human consciousness.

With their equations and

their measurements,

the early scientists discovered truths

none of the classical scholars had known

in astronomy, chemistry, physiology.

Humans began to understand the world

with their numbers and patterns.

The defining characteristic

of this new modern

form of consciousness was the decision

to employ our science and technology

to control nature for our own use.

The widespread conviction

of the industrial world

was that nature was inferior to us.

Such a world-view, in which only humans

have sentient feelings,

allowed all of nature

to become nothing more than a resource

we could exploit in anyway we wished.

Even Rene Descartes,

the most significant

philosopher of the modern age,

believed that when animals

made crying sounds,

they were not suffering.

They were simply malfunctioning machines.

Humans were gaining control

of Earth's processes

into what purpose?

To create a better world.

To eliminate hunger, to

provide for our children.

To have fun, and to fulfill this dream

we poured forth all of our energies,

all of our technologies,

and with stupendous results.

In the blink of an eye, we

exploded to seven billion humans.

The irony of it all,

housing and feeding this many humans

has already gutted our oceans and forests.

We've ended up achieving something like

the opposite of what we dreamt of.

It's not just that we're using

up all the energies of Earth.

It's much deeper than that.

We're changing life's dynamics,

and in an irreversible way.

We're just beginning to realize

that over the last few decades,

we have profoundly altered

the evolutionary dynamics of Earth,

the air, the

climate, the rivers,

the oceans, even the DNA.

We live on a different planet now.

A planet where not biology

but symbolic consciousness

is the determining factor for evolution.

This great reversal has taken place.

In the far distant past,

life drew forth a symbolic consciousness.

But now symbolic consciousness

has seized control of life.

With our languages and our machines,

we have become as powerful

as the planet itself.

Because of us icecaps are melting.

Because of us coral reefs

the size of mountains

are bleaching white.

But nothing shows this

disaster more clearly

than life itself.

Because of us, thousands of species

are going extinct each year.

Nothing this devastating

has taken place on Earth

since the extinction of the

dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

We are faced with a collective challenge

no previous generation even contemplated.

How are we to use this

symbolic consciousness

to create a human presence

that will enhance

the well-being of the Earth community?

We are beginning to understand

the profound powers

of the universe.

And just as these powers

have brought forth galaxies,

stars and life itself, perhaps the universe

is now unfolding towards some new destiny.

What if our ultimate

destiny is to experience

the universe so deeply we come to realize

that we are, in some

sense, the mind and heart

of the universe?

Our deepest yearning is for a

whole-hearted participation

in this flourishing.

As we float in the midst of

such mysterious immensities,

is there any deep wisdom that might

help us align our consciousness

with the grain of cosmic evolution?

Wonder will guide us.

The human species has a genius when

becoming astounded by almost

anything in the universe.

What can this mean?

The body of the universe

gave birth to our bodies.

The self-organizing

dynamics of the universe

gave birth to our minds.

We belong here.

We've always belonged here.

These deep discoveries of science

are leading to a new story of the universe.

It's a story that can be

summarized in a single sentence.

Over the course of 14 billion years,

hydrogen gas transformed itself

into mountains, butterflies,

the music of Bach, and you and me.

And these energies coursing through us

may indeed renew the face of the Earth.

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