Life Animates Creation
What is Life? Life in its purest form is the foundational Existence that underlies creation and All in creation. As Source, it is the Pure Essence of Aliveness, of Integrated Being, that Projects creation, Animates it and Integrates the Experience.
Creation projects into separation, manifesting increasingly diverse and progressively more dense, concrete and finite structures and forms. Life likewise progressively individuates and projects into these forms or bodies, to animate them. Within creation our perception is often very much limited by the range of our local sensory functions, e.g. our physical senses in physcal reality. We can tend to perceive Life only in the context of the forms and bodies through which it expresses.
Like a fish focusing on a diver’s suit and not being very aware of the personality, life experience, capability or consciousness of the person within it.
The Life Cycle within creation progresses through a number of stages. These are illustrated approximately in the attached diagram. The active phase of the cycle entails conscious projection into separation and diversity within creation. There is progressive Division of Unity and Multiplication of Diversity, illustrated approximately by the sequence of blue diverging arrows. These arrows are shown projecting outwards. But there are also equivalent arrows pointing inwards for the return Integration process. These are not shown, to avoid over complicating the diagram.
While creation originates from Source, it’s important to note that the whole of creation is contained within Source. This is illustrated by the light green background. There is no separation in Source. So, Source is equally present to all levels and forms in creation, most immediately as the pure essential Life that animates it. This does not necessarily mean that all life forms are present to Source. Some have exercised their free will to reject connection and live with the consequences.
As Life projects into creation, it animates forms or bodies at each level. The combination of animating life and local body form a local Life Expression. This is a progressive process, where the Life Expressions at higher levels individuate within themselves to project smaller units of consciousness into the more dense bodies in the next level out in creation and so on.
Separate Life Expressions can explore and interact with each other, at each level in the fields of creation. This is illustrated, for the outermost level, by the black arrows to the left of the diagram. They can use their creative capacity to build within their local environment. They can also interact to generate new bodies for the purposes of propagating Life locally.
The process of exploring and interacting within creation generates Experience. This Experience is perceived initially at a sensory level, but ultimately integrated by consciousness.
Consciousness ideally holds connection through all levels of projection from Source. It progressively Integrates Experience back through these levels. Ultimately all is integrated in the Wholeness of Source. This return completes the more passive or receptive phase of the Life cycle. In practice, however, there is significant fragmentation of consciousnessi, arising from Falls in Creation. This is discussed separately in Chapter 12.
Pure Life (Aliveness) is Eternal. Specific Expressions of Life are Transient
The Pure Essence of all Life and Consciousness Exists as Source. This transcends creation and the cycles of time within creation. As such it is Eternal.
Specific Expressions of Life and their associated Bodies and Forms arise within creation and are bound by locality and cycles of time. They are thus transient.
The Consciousness animating these Forms ideally holds connection through its levels of expression back towards Source. To that extent Consciousness and Life, free from Forms, can Integrate back to Eternity.
Principle of Unity
While specific Life Expressions are separate and diverse, the animating Consciousness is capable of holding connection and integrating all the way back to Wholeness and Unity in Source. As Consciousness integrates through higher levels in creation it expands. It expands progressively from personal to family, to tribal, racial and other collective perspectives.
All Life integrates in Source. As Consciousness reintegrates, it progressively appreciates and respects the inherent inter-connection of all Life. It ultimately comes to know the Wholeness and Unity of all Life in Source. This is often referred to as the state of Unity Consciousness.
All Life includes not only life associated with human forms, i.e. human life, but also animal life, plant life, the longer life cycles associated with natural forms, planets and so on. It can also include life associated with other physical locations in our universe, e.g. so called alien life, and life at other levels in creation. Such life forms associate with different states of consciousness and serve diverse purposes in creation.
Personal Consciousness connects to Collective Consciousness
Personal or individuated consciousness projects from and ultimately returns to the family or collective consciousness from which it came. Ideally it holds connection to this collective consciousness. Expansion and integration of consciousness occurs, as this process of integration repeats, level by level within creation. Each stage represents a state of consciousness. Ultimately all integrates back to Wholeness and Unity in Source.
Source is Impersonal, but Supremely Conscious
Source transcends creation and is unconditioned by anything within creation. As such it transcends Personality. It is neither defined nor conditioned by personal identity. In particular, it isn’t defined by masculinity, e.g. as God the Father, God the Son, and so on. It isn’t even defined by human forms, such as Father Time, an ancient man with a white beard, and so on.
These are our projections. We effectively create representations of God in our own image and likeness. These arise largely from our prevailing cultural conditioning. We are attempting to relate to higher more abstract levels of reality and to translate these into more familiar representations. This is quite understandable and useful, provided we don’t get lost in the limitations.
Most of the Gods we identify with specific characteristics, relate to Beings at higher levels in creation. Likewise with Angels. They are not the ultimate Source of life and creation.
Higher levels in creation can also experience issues and problems, comparable to what we encounter here in physical reality. This is explored further under ‘Falls’, in Chapter 12. We can assume that everything that comes down to us from higher levels is good. This is often the case, but not always. Gods that tell us to go to war, to sacrifice burnt offerings or even humans, who assert dominance, show bias and so on, for example, are not necessarily coming from a good place. Beings who hold Source connection lack for nothing and don’t need any of this.
So we need to practice discernment, make our own assessments and take responsibility for our stances and actions. There is Natural Order in creation, which manifests as Law down through levels in creation. Aligning with this at each level is generally a good basis for making progress and avoiding trouble.
Source integrates as the Pure Essence of all life. As such it is supremely conscious. Our animating Life Force (Aliveness) is capable of holding connection to this through the levels in creation and associated states of consciousness.