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The Challenge: Living
We live imperfect lives. Does that mean that the human structure conceived by Eternons is
flawed?
The whole universe is imperfect. It is a work in progress. As a matter of fact, this work is the very reason there is a universe. If Eternons had already reached the perfection of the Absolute, there would be no need for soul schools, no need for structures like us, no need for anything.
The human structure remains primitive and incomplete. Eternons are busy refining it, focusing on its intellectual power and spiritual awareness. Already, our cerebral hardware is far ahead from the rest of our genetic evolution. In clear, the power of our brain exceeds our current needs. Obviously, Eternons have designed this brain for higher purposes.
One of them is to expand human knowledge, and this is happening. With every new generation, children are accumulating more knowledge than their parents at the same age. We store and manipulate a much greater amount of information than our forebears.
Another purpose is to expand human awareness, and this, too, is happening. We meet ever more individuals attached to social justice, human rights, and the rule of law; more persons believing in health consciousness, in the preservation of our planet, and in spiritual enlightenment.
Global progress is slow only because ignorance still remains widespread.
If ignorance impairs human progress, what are the ways to combat it?
Classrooms are the arenas where the combat against ignorance must starts. Evidently, schools, colleges, and universities ought to be open to all. Teachers, who prepare the future of our species, should receive the support they deserve. But nothing will truly change until we reformulate what knowledge should be.
We must adopt a new planetary curriculum. One that respects local cultures, but embraces all humans on Earth. One that serves the needs of the group, but cultivates the talents of the individuals. One that rids the world of hatred and prejudices.
According to Eternism, what should be this planetary curriculum?
1. Family awareness. About every three years, the world’s population rises by a number equivalent to that of North America. One third of the six billions humans languish in absolute poverty. Hundreds of millions of children are growing without any hope for a decent life. Religious and political considerations may not be invoked to condemn so many to desperate living conditions. Family-planning and parental responsibility must be inculcated into younger minds, not as mere advice, but as a condition for the survival of the species.
2. Earth awareness. Imagine astronauts aboard a tiny spacecraft. Wouldn’t it be foolish of them wasting water, food, and fuel, scattering trash, destroying their equipment, and messing with life support systems? Well, this is the kind of wild crew we have aboard spaceship Earth.
Fortunately, a growing minority has figured it out and works at preserving our environment. But it is the coming generations that will make the difference. Children of the world must be taught to love and respect their common habitat. They must be shown how their home starts in their own backyard and extends all the way around the planet. They must be trained to be ecologically minded consumers and skillful recyclers. Such teaching will have to include both a universal content, to emphasize the solidarity of all humans, and a local character, to respect traditional ways of life.3. Spiritual awareness. How can there still be wars of religion? Spirituality should to be the one source of cohesion. Faiths must also cease acting as a willing masks for social and economic injustices. Our times demand an ecumenical understanding of the various creeds. The common values of the great religions transcend their historical differences. These common values represent the moral that must be inculcated into every child.
4. Communication awareness. Technology has given humans extraordinary means to get closer. Fast transportation links distant places. Electronic threads join any two places on Earth. But this is not enough. Humans need to share a common spoken and written language.Obviously, all should continue to learn and love their mother tongue. Its words represent a precious heritage. But, in addition, the schools of the world should teach a same language.
Attempts have been made to forge an idiom that every country could adopt without hurting national pride. None has been successful. For various reason there is already a language, with limited alphabet and rather simple grammar, that is already globally tested and proven: it is English. So be it.5. Personal awareness. It is amazing! We may spend twenty years in the educational system, from kindergarten to university, and learn nothing about personal powers and how to use them. The discovery of our human potential is left to books and tapes we may incidentally obtain in our adult life. Let us change this.
Let us teach children how to improve concentration and memory, how to meditate, how to develop positive attitudes when coping with life’s adversities. Proven techniques exist in all these domains.
Let us also make children aware of the subtle oneness of mind and body. Grasping their own holistic nature, children will live healthier and more harmonious lives.6. Humankind awareness. Educational systems rarely attempt to foster the understanding of the human species as a whole. Nowadays, movies and newscasts do far more than all teaching institutions to inform about the homelands and lifestyles of others. Let us bring more images and sounds of the world into every classroom. And let us not limit ourselves at boring historical highlights, geographical clichés, and economic surveys. Every nation on this Earth has much to offer in natural beauty, arts, crafts, traditions, and human genius.
7. Peace awareness. At the same time that we encourage mutual comprehension, we ought to point out the foolishness of wars. This should not be difficult. Human History is that of countless people slaughtered in the name of forgotten rulers or in defense of obsolete ideologies. School is the place to learn that conflicts, whatever their scale, must and can be resolved peacefully.
Is not society, rather than the individual, the great culprit for our problems?
All over the planet, we may witness failed political systems. Here, egotistic politicians treat the people as retarded children. There, a corrupt power oppresses the masses while looting the country. Even in the most prosperous and educated nations, delinquency is a appalling and social cohesion is decaying.
To keep in line with an evolutionary view of consciousness, we must rethink society and culture. Let us put an end to political decadence, religious bigotry, and social perversion. Instead, let us expand our true conquests: superior spirituality, peaceful science, and enlightening art.
Art appears both superfluous and indispensable. What is its significance in the world of Eternons?
Creation is an encounter between the artist and her or his Leading Eternon. The artist contributes talent; the Eternon brings inspiration. The artist chooses the medium; the Eternon provides the spark that will bring this medium to life. Art as such is universal. We find it in the paintings of Paleolithic caves, in the feather ornaments of the rain forest, the clay constructions of Arabia, the dances of Bali, the rugs of Persia, the carvings of Africa; even in the drawings of children and the mentally ill.
Then, there is the communion between the Leading Eternon of the creator and the Leading Eternon of the spectator. It is intuitive. There is nothing to understand and everything to feel. The unpredictability of this emotional resonance explains why perception of beauty is so relative, why art may be as puzzling as compelling. It also explains why works of art do not have to obey ordinary rules. They may imitate, symbolize, even idealize. It does not matter: in art, the essence always transcends the appearance.
Occasionally, as we stand before a work, listen to a composition, attend a performance, or simply watch the artistry of nature, our aesthetic experience becomes mystical. Nothing else touches our senses and our soul in such way. Art proves to all of us that indeed there is another realm of awareness than the worldly one we relish so much.
We seem to be the only Eternon structures to create other ones. What is the place of our creations in the Eternon universe?
Humans did not design this sophisticated equipment. Arachnids did. It is a spider web.
We have not the privilege of creating products, tools, and architectures. Bacteria synthesize countless substances and even fabricate magnets. Insects erect buildings and entire cities. Birds sculpt and weave perfect dwellings.
Actually, there is no fundamental difference between the way birds build nests from clay and straw, and the way humans build computers from silicone and metal. We all are Eternon structures creating other Eternon structures. Perhaps, our own extraordinary technological mastery is modest compared to what may have achieved more advanced Eternon structures elsewhere in the universe.
How come our technological progress is so robust while our spiritual progress is so halt?
There is nonetheless a feeling that we are not evolving in the right direction. Why?
Let us start with population. In the last 10,000 years, slowly at first, and then at an increasingly frantic pace, population has passed from a few tens of thousands to several millions of thousands. An increase of that kind naturally magnifies every problem. But Eternons know where they are going,. Although far greater problems are challenging us, far more people are working at solving them.
As for information, things were far worse in the past but we would not have known about it. Life was bad enough in our corner, with snow drifts sweeping our cave and wild beasts trying to devour our family. Or, we would have been too busy fighting local plagues, famines, and tyrants. Why should we have worried about what was going on elsewhere? Communications have made for a smaller world. Nowadays, even if all is quiet for a while in our backyard, media will expose us to woes on the other side of the planet. Relentless global information keeps us abreast of conflicts, disasters, and injustices that otherwise we would be ignorant of. In addition, almost nothing is said about happy people and great human achievements. In such condition, how could we have positive feelings about our world and its prospects?
By the time we solve our population problem, shall we not have ruined our planet?
Earth has known at least twenty crises since its formation. One annihilated dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. It was a mild crisis, though, compared with another which had wiped out 90% of all living species 180 million years earlier. Scientists do not know for sure the causes of these massive extinctions. One thing is sure, humans are not the ones to be blamed.
We need not self-destruct to disappear. Plenty of objects keep flying in the Cosmos; even a small one could crush the Earth. A mere 20,000 years ago, Canada and Scandinavia were under a mile thick coat of ice; this could repeat anytime.
Perhaps the destiny of our species is to be supplanted by another one with broader awareness. But even this, would not mean our final doom. As an essential Eternon, each of us would be part of such a mutation.
There are many claims that we are on the eve of a great change. Is it true?
Eternons are not hurried. Their venture has already last billions of years, and it is far from over. No doubt, the rise and fall of human empires or the vicissitudes of human enterprises are prosaic events when measured up to Eternons’ cosmic project.
Evolution, not revolution, is what Eternons are working on. The steadiness of evolution, however, does not imply that all transformations occur at the same pace. Eternons do not polish all facets of their creations simultaneously. At present, our empirical knowledge is far ahead; soon our spiritual awareness will catch on. We already observe around us signals of this forthcoming correction.
Does that mean hope for the future?
Discoveries in biology and genetics are translating into spectacular agricultural and medical improvements. Electronics, the science of our essence—that of particles and fields of energy—is transforming our lives. The circulation of information is crumbling national borders and erasing political divisions. Prejudice and hatred will become ever harder to sustain in a world where every individual is in constant, rapt communication with the others.
We have always been capable of both the worst and the best. Fools and geniuses, we have created havoc and miracles. We have reduced Hiroshima to rubbles, but we have erected cathedrals. We have exterminated millions, but saved many more from diseases. We are vulgar and mindless, but write symphonies and invent computers. We oppress and torture, but have unlimited reserves of love and altruism. Yes There is hope for the future!
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