Part 3
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About this creative Cosmic Knower, Teilhard talks in terms of
"creative transformation." He does not believe that creation was
a "periodic intrusion of the First Cause," rather "it is an act
co-extensive with the whole duration of the universe." Referring
to the Cosmic Knower as "God" in the following statement, Teilhard
continues. "God *has been creating* ever since the beginning of time,
and *seen from within,* his creation (*even his initial creation>*)
takes the form of a transformation. Participated being is not
introduced in batches which are differentiated later as a result of
a non-creative modification: God is continually breathing new being
into us."
There is little doubt that Teilhard considers this pure energy, this
active Intelligence, this Cosmic Knower, which is the Cosmic Apex, as
Holy. It is also an AHEAD!
Teilhard's cosmic paradigm shows a steady process which points in the
direction of the Ahead. As Teilhard said, "the universe is no longer
an Order but a Process. The Cosmos has become a Cosmogenesis." For
Teilhard the long dreamed-of-higher life, that which has been considered
as holy, had hitherto been sought Above now directs itself toward the
Ahead.
Teilhard's cosmic model also suggests that the Ahead has existed since
the foundation of the cosmos. The Ahead is present in the cyclical
process of the universe. The Ahead is pure, active intelligence from
which all that is manifest in the cosmos comes. The Ahead acts upon
universal matter, both animate and inanimate. It acts through a kind of
"spirit," an inwardness in consciousness. It enfolds information into
the many explicate levels of consciousness, into all of life. The Ahead
is both the Ground of All Existence and the beckoning Cosmic Apex.
The Ahead is both Alpha and Omega simultaneously.
Now Humanity is a pilgrim in this cosmic process. What are the
implications for humanity in Teilhard's cosmic vision?
IMPLICATIONS: An aspect of the cosmic entity, humanity walks down the
evolutionary path, grasping and growing, making mistakes but yet
achieving mastery. Humanity is body and mind, manifest and nonmanifest.
Humanity is not whole, but knows that it can be Whole. Humanity is a
great mystery. In humanity's immediate world there is evil and evolution.
There is ignorance along with consciousness and creativity. And war
and destruction accompany the construction of civilization. Keeping
these paradoxes in mind, how can the acceptance of Teilhard's cosmic
vision modify humanity's circumstances and mindset?
Teilhard addresses the place and part of evil in the cosmic process.
To begin, Teilhard describes what he considers to be the different
categories of evil: The Evil of Disorder and Failure is engendered by
a cosmic process that is groping, taking chances, and making choices.
The Evil of Decomposition, which is sickness and corruption, results from
some "unhappy chance," and death, which exists because of the "indispensible
condition of the replacement of one individual by another along a
phyletic stem." The Evil of Solitude and Anxiety is basically the
great anxiety of a "consciousness wakening up to reflection." And the
Evil of Growth is that which is symbolically suffered in the "pangs of
childbirth."
Teilhard especially considers that the deeply engrained notion of
*original sin* "translates, personifies...the perennial and universal
law of imperfection which operates in mankind in virtue of its being
in the process of becoming." Salvation beckons for Teilhard, precisely
because evil (disorder) is perceived to be caused, because the creature...
along with the cosmos...is in process. He believes that once this
perception is fully understood, than we will be able to comprehend the
other side of this evil. Teilhard notes that "Evil, in all its
forms...injustice, inequality, suffering, death...ceases theoretically
to be outrageous from the moment when *Evolution becoming a Genesis*...
displays itself as the...price of an *immense triumph.*" Then life on
this planet will no longer seem a "meaningless prison," but rather
the "matrix in which our unity is being forged."
For Teilhard, the tragic, real evil in this life occurs when humanity
fails to acquire a sense of the true value of the universe. Teilhard
portends that for the "man who sees nothing at the end of the world,
nothing higher than himself, (than) daily life can only be filled with
pettiness and boredom."
The way beyond the ignorance, for Teilhard, is basically an individuation
process. Teilhard opines that the human ego must make the pilgrimage
into *Self.* He says it thus: "my ego must subsist through abandoning
itself or the gift will fade away." The gift is the Self. It is the
"very center of our consciousness...that is the essence which Omega, if
it is to be truly Omega, must reclaim." Teilhard is not asking the
human ego to self-destruct; rather, by climbing to a higher level of
consciousness the ego becomes greater. The more the ego is connected
with a sense of cosmic insight, the more it finds its true Self...and
via the Self the more connected humanity becomes with the Cosmic Mind.
To be fully ourselves, according to Teilhard, we must head in the
direction of "convergence with all the rest...towards the other."
He puts it grandly: "The peak of ourselves, the acme of our originality,
is not our individuality but our person; and according to the evolutionary
structure of the world, we can only find our person by uniting together.
There is no mind without synthesis."
The danger, or the evil, is not so much the ego as it is egocentrism!
Teilhard denotes that egocentrism (or egoism) confuses "individuality
with personality." Becoming separate, the ego "individualizes itself."
It is a fatal move, it is regressive. It seeks "to drag the world
backwards towards plurality and into matter."
For Teilhard, the point of the individuation process, or being open to
universal insight, is to further the evolution of cosmic (and human)
consciousness and creativity.
Teilhard believes that there is an enfolded creative Intelligence within
the depths of the cosmos...and that every aspect of human experience can
be affected by this creative Intelligence, mainly via a "breakthrough"
experience.
For Teilhard this special *breakthrough* creativity is an "act co-extensive
with the whole duration of the universe." This creativity takes the
form of a transformation. Teilhard calls it a "creative transformation"
that brings real emancipation. "It puts an end to the paradox and the
stumbling-block of matter." For Teilhard this transformation, this
"growth of powers of *foresight* and *invention,*" can prompt and guide
the evolutionary process.
This special creativity is also part and parcel of Teilhard's vision of
the noosphere. Now rather than again looking once again at Teilhard's
vision from the perspective of the cosmic process, it may be more
fruitful to examine the noosphere from the angle of how humanity directly
contributes to and benefits from its development.
According to Teilhard, what is really going on in the building up of the
noosphere is the "super organization of matter itself," and this is done
via human collectiviation...collective cooperation! Using Teilhardian
language: the "process cannot achieve stability until, over the entire
globe, the human quantum has not merely closed the circle upon itself...
but has become organically totalized." Only through collectivization
(collective cooperation) can humanity achieve this total, planetary
development of the noosphere. It cannot be builty by people who think
only of themselves; yet every person "on earth shares, in (*hirself*),
in the universal heightening of consciousness."
And finally, using anthropomorphic terms, Teilhard believes that the
noosphere is not only the "stuff of the Universe...not only of *men,*
but of the *Man* who is to be born tomorrow." And through the efforts
of humanity building the noosphere, the earth "finds its soul."
The bottom line of Teilhard's vision is that the *point of the cosmos
is to achieve multidimensional wholeness.* Humanity, as an aspect of
of the cosmos, is part and parcel to this process towards wholeness.
Bibliography
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,
CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION.
THE FUTURE OF MAN.
THE HEART OF MATTER.
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN.
-----Finis-----
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Beatrix Murrell // murrell@netcom.com
RestonScholar Alternatives Research