To begin with, the Goddess created the God, and then pursued the God to be re-joined as one - which is a metaphor (or allegory, if your school preferred :) ) to Deity creating the Universe, including the physical existence we live in. Now, most pagans I've come across leave it at (1) physical, and (2) non-physical including the Goddess [Note 1], and consider the purpose of existence to be to evolve until they re-join the Goddess (as so aptly expressed in the chant "We all come from the Goddess, and to her we shall return, like a drop of rain, flowing to the Ocean").
That's true enough, but I consider there is merit in looking at this in a little more. Assuming that Creation manifested downwards from the Goddess (i.e., devolution), why did the Lady get to the level of the astral world, and decide there was a need for another level of existence - the physical?
I'll pause while your heads spin round the notion that there is a purpose to each level of existence ... Settled? No? Tough :)
In my view (which, since I am currently incarnate is, by definition as it were, limited), a key aspect of the astral levels (yes, there are more than one) is that there is nothing that equates to the sense of physical distance or closeness that we have here in the physical. In the astrals, what is the equivalent of distance or closeness is harmony or disharmony: one naturally finds oneself existing only with people one is fundamentally compatible with - hence (in part) the wonderful feelings of acceptance, love and togetherness. It is possible to force oneself to change vibration and thus mingle to some extent with people who are not as compatible, but that takes effort (the more so as people become less compatible). I am of the view that the physical world was taken so we could meet and mingle and coexist with those who we are not naturally in harmony with - so we could come into the proximity of those other parts of the Universe that we may not have realised existed, or had not met, since it is - arguably, perhaps! - hard to unconditionally love that which you do not know exists, let alone know or understand ... (Incidentally, I am aware of things such as, in dreams or what is considered to be "astral" travel people can experience unpleasant things and people: in actual fact, that is actually more ETHERIC travel than astral travel - yes, there is a difference :) )
Why would the Goddess want this? Is it a case of "the magic of conflict", as one book was titled?
No, I do not consider it is. What I think this is more about is partly akin to having at least two sexes involved in reproduction, which gives a chance to mix DNA and come up with a more robust, adaptable species. By having people mingle and mix, it enables exchanges of ideas and energy and thus creation of a more robust and adaptable essence of life - which strengthens the Goddess inherently as it strengthens all of us, human and non-human, incarnate and discarnate, associated with this physical level of existence.
What this could also be about is learning to synthesise. As we evolve back towards the Goddess, eventually multiple streams of consciousness (i.e. souls) have to join together to become One with the Goddess. Initially, this is fairly easy as we merge with our parallel souls and re-join our Higher Self, but there will come a time when we have to merge with others who are not so compatible - albeit at a level of reality where they and we are both FAR more evolved than we could possible achieve on this physical level of existence. Being able to synthesise, which comes partly from things like being able to integrate our Shadow Self into our whole being and being able to exist and work harmoniously with those who are disharmonious to us, will be of key importance.
So how does this relate to the origin of "evil" (which, for my personal convenience, I'm not going to try and define in this post :) )?
Well, I consider that, when souls first came into this physical world, they came across other souls that were not in harmony with them - a bit like discovering two colours that can never be in harmony because they clash. There is NOTHING fundamentally wrong with either, it is simply that they are not in perfect harmony. Now, from the point of view of someone with some experience at living on this level of physical reality, I can say that there are lots of tools which have been developed to help people get along, tools such as communication, analysis, etc, but ultimately, it all boils down to being prepared to agree to disagree.
In those first few moments of disharmony, I think someone was unable to cope with the idea of agreeing to disagree, or to develop tools to work through difference, and thus reacted by trying to impose their ideas upon the other - i.e., "I am right, you are wrong".
That, not stuff like coming down from heaven and forgetting that one is a divine being, or the actions of some entity or other, or women, is what I consider led to what we see as "evil". Wars, violence, gossip, discrimination - they all can, in my view, be ultimately traced back to that initial inability to accept disharmony in constructive manner.
If you cannot "agree to disagree", or are not prepared to do so, then I consider YOU are continuing that fundamental flaw which led to what we consider evil. Ever give someone a hard time over which way they hang the toilet paper roll? Whether to fold, scrunch or do both? Use allegory or metaphor? You evil person you! :)
More seriously, I can also express this fundamental evil as "minding other people's business", and that is what gossip, discrimination, hate and all other forms of control are ultimately, in my view, based on.
There are a lot of other implications from this to consider - for instance, whether one should help or not in some situations (which is where karma, particularly the negative karma of inaction or failing to help, comes into consideration). There is also the fundamental purposes of learning to love unconditionally and to be all that one can be, but those purposes also apply on other levels (even more so, in some cases, than on this level), whereas the lesson of learning to cope with disharmony with grace (whilst not allowing harm to others to be propagated) is specific to this physical reality.
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")
Notes:
- I feel a little like some pagans think it is a case of ... alive ... then *pop* one with the Goddess and all of Creation - no intermediate steps ... mmmm, I don't think so
Tags: evil, planes of existence, nature of reality, harmony, disharmony,
First published: Thorsdagr, 12th January, 2102
Last edited: Friday, 13th January, 2012
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