LIVING WITH LIFE I AN STRATHCARRON

LIVING WITH LIFE IAN STRATHCARRON www.ianstrathcarron.com UNICORN PRESS LTD. 66, Charlotte Street, London, W1T 4QE ISBN 978 -1-906509-20-0 A multimedia version of this e-book is available at the iBookstore Living with Life Copyright 2012 F&J Productions Smashwords Edition © F&J Productions Ltd, POB 108, Tortola, BVI TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. WHY WE ARE THE WAY WE ARE 2. AND WHY WE’RE JUST FINE, JUST AS WE ARE 3. AND WHY THAT`S ALL WE NEED TO KNOW 4. HANDHELD AWARENESS WHY WE ARE THE WAY WE ARE The miracle that is your experience of consciousness starts with the miracle that is your life. If your parents were at least biologically typical, your mother would have been born with well over a million eggs in her ovaries and would have released about four hundred of them during her fertile years. Once a month, as the moon above waxes and wanes, down below her hormones would have combined to release a particularly ripe one of these eggs. This leisurely egg, minuscule beyond belief yet boasting twenty three of her chromosomes, had a life expectancy of a day during which time it needed to be fertilised if it was to fulfil its ultimate aim, the reproduction of her genes. Your father on the other hand would have approached the opportunity that became you from an entirely different perspective. Born without the male counterpart to the female egg, sperm, he would have spent – and may well still be spending – his longer fertile years constantly producing them by the billion. The moment you were conceived forty million of them – each one in itself a miracle of ingenuity and perseverance, carrying his twenty three chromosomes with admirable single-mindedness - would have rushed headlong towards that one waiting egg, an incredible journey – a biological steeplechase - of 18 cm that the fittest reached in under an hour. In scenes resembling a queue at an Italian ski lift the strongest sperm pushed its way to the front and burrowed into the egg, its few remaining rivals vying for position close behind. The perseverance was worthwhile; with the fittest sperm cell inside it, the egg closed its doors and devoted all its attention to nurturing the winner, egg and sperm by now a combined set of forty six chromosomes…in short time about to begin to resemble what one day will become your good self. For the next nine months the miracle continued and through a process that need not detain us here, one fine day out you pop. Those forty six chromosomes have determined your sex, your features, your shape and size, your bodily destiny, your intelligence, your intuition, your characteristics and later your ability to access two features new to you, personal and universal consciousness. Even more remarkable is that not only will you able to access this consciousness but you will be able do so knowingly – and in doing so knowingly, will realise that personal and universal consciousness are one. This knowing of the experience of consciousness brings bliss, or the famous Sanskrit formulation sat, chit, Ananda – a subject to which we will return. You are of course in these very early days absolutely helpless, totally dependent on the unconditional love of others for your very survival - and this desire for unconditional love is something that will never leave you; more than that, subconsciously it will be your guiding light throughout your life. For most of us, most of the time, in our early days this unconditional love is given freely but as the days become weeks and the weeks become months and the excitement of us wears off and the tediousness of our practicalities becomes less joyful and the responsibility of caring for us becomes more taskful, the unconditional part of the love we need dissolves – not with ill intentions – into coping love. Unconditional love would hear a baby cry and meet the baby’s needs by attending to it with a smile and as we say now tender, loving care. Coping love would hear the same cry and meet the adult’s need by attending to it with the pursed lips of resignation. The baby will have noticed and registered: love for me is now conditional, to some extent and at certain times, on me not crying. The merest hint of repression has planted its first seed; whether the seed grows or withers on the vine depends entirely on how the unwitting adult treats you thereon as she or he tries to cope with you and a demanding world at the same time. Meanwhile you have had your first inkling of what the rest of us already know: that this world ain’t perfect, that the love you crave is nearly always compromised, conditional. As the early years pass you remain helpless, dependent on love, unconditional or coping, for your very survival. You grow, you learn to toddle, you learn to read and write, you learn to mix socially. Most importantly, for your future happiness or otherwise, your ego - your sense of self – develops. Not until your body tells you years later in puberty that you are capable of survival and reproduction yourself, will you be free of dependency from those older than you and capable of giving it to those younger than you. Now this ego, that most influencing aspect of our conscious mind, that sense of self ... - tailieumienphi.vn