Which Way Is Up?

Growing up, I was a good son, an earnest student, healthy, well behaved and totally embedded in a vibrant social network.  Life was good: all I needed was provided before I even asked. I perceived myself to be successful, progressive and modern.  But in my second year of university I began to experience acute existential longings accompanied by the feeling that something really central, vital and essential was missing from my life. 

 

I really, really, really wanted to know the "TRUTH".  Who was I, what was I, where had the "I" in I come from and what was my ultimate destiny?  What did the word 'meaning' actually mean, and where could I find real value?  My worldview was beginning to unravel and I felt like I was falling off the edge of the known universe.  It was scary but exhilarating- frightening and exciting.  A grand adventure with no map to show the way forward.

Eventually the lure of the unknown overcame my fear and I broke out of my comfy stall in search of answers.  It wasn't until I encountered the 'Urantia Book' that I found satisfactory answers to my questions.  The Urantia Book is a hefty tome of 2000+ pages, a collection of papers authored by various celestial beings that covers topics such as the nature of God, cosmology, the history of this planet from the nebular stage to the 20th century, plus religion, spirituality and much, much more.  I studied it for years.  It became the bedrock for and framework of my intellectual understanding and provided me with a cosmic perspective that just made sense.

 

One concept from the Urantia Book relates to the existential angst of my college years: Humans are endowed with 'perfection hunger'.  Perfection hunger is not just the physiological drive for homeostasis, the mind's search for equilibrium or the desire for emotional stability.  Perfection hunger also operates in the spiritual domain, ever drawing us upward (or inward) towards the Divine, towards the Beloved, expressing as a yearning for union.  Perfection hunger is the precursor to many mystical and religious experiences.

Perfection hunger sets humans apart from their animal cousins.  It is the secret of personal growth and progressive civilization.  It enables us to fulfill the divine injunction: "Be you perfect even as I am perfect."  In one sense it is a circuit into which we are all connected, originating in Source and terminating in Source, a circuit that came into existence when the One became the Many, when the "I Am" became "We Are".  Originating so close to the source of All That Is, perfection hunger connects us to the primal forces of creation.  Perfectly awesome!!

Creating Community

One of my favourite TV shows is National Geographic’s The Dog Whisperer, with Cesar Milan.  In each episode Cesar works with dog owners whose pets are wreaking havoc in their lives.  With few exceptions the actual problem and its resolution originates with the humans, not the dog.  I resonate with Cesar’s focus on the emotional and spiritual inner work that is necessary before the dog handling techniques he teaches can be effectively implemented.

In the world of natural horsemanship, the same dynamic prevails: the human who wants to have a balanced relationship with horses must first attain their own inner balance, trust, calmness and relaxation.  Again, from Abraham/Hicks and the Law of Attraction we learn that it is our inner feelings, thoughts, beliefs and attitudes that actually construct our experience of the universe.

So, how to create community? Can’t be done.  You cannot create community.  You can experience community, you can acknowledge community, you can allow community to blossom, but you cannot create it.  You can nurture community, deny it, refuse it or fall in love with it, but cannot make it happen.  You can regulate community, build walls around it, place it on a pedestal, write poems to it, study it and immerse yourself in it, but never can you force it to appear.

In that sense our community is who we are and there is no separation.  I have no way of defining my ‘self’ without including the community I am embedded in.  As we change our inner world, our experience of community will shift accordingly.

Choosing My Community

In 1970 there were lots of choices when it came to communal living.  One could always go the traditional route and live in a village, town or city.  Voila! Instant unintentional community.  Maybe you didn't know your neighbours (or even want to know them) but all the necessities of life were available, close at hand: food, shelter, work, culture, religion, school.  Police to keep order, water, sewage treatment, paved roads and lots of shopping. Of course, along with all of that came air pollution, traffic jams, noise, crowds, crime and lineups at the checkout counter.

Or one could find a commune in a rural or urban setting; groups of idealistic young people sharing resources, attempting to live co-operatively, even raising children as a collective experience.  Then there were the more structured "intentional" communities, in urban and rural versions.

If none of these were suitable, well, Canada is a big country and you could always find a place to start your own version of community.

We checked out a few communes, toyed with intentional community, but ended up living as a nuclear family on a series of farms in Eastern Ontario, Southern Ontario and Cape Breton Island Nova Scotia.  We often took in stray humans to help out, and depended on our immediate neighbours for assistance in our various farming endeavours.  Even though I sometimes envied people who spent decades in one place (imagine being able to watch a tree grow up!) my restless search for the ideal life kept me on the move.  Finally I realized my true community consisted of all humans on the planet.  In that sense it did not matter where or how I lived, I would always be living in community.

What about the other creatures that shared the world with me: the four-legged, six-legged, eight –legged, multi-legged and legless beings who occupied every nook and cranny of every single habitat in the sea, on the land and in the air?  Weren’t all of them, plants, animals, insects and bacteria, a part of my community?  Even my own body was a community, a collection of co-operating and sometimes competing organisms that travelled everywhere together.

Seems community is inescapable.