by Don MacGregor
We used to talk about ‘the Earth’ or ‘this planet’ as if it was just a lump of rock. But in recent years, we have begun to see that the planet is a living thing. There is a thin biosphere, a layer of plant, animal and human life. That biosphere exists in a complex web of cycles of life and death, of symbiotic relationships and interdependence. The biosphere itself is affected by the massive movements of the earth’s crust and the volcanic activity that ensues, by the electro-magnetic field of the Earth and the by energies of the Sun. It is all one delicately balanced system and James Lovelock gave it the title ‘Gaia’ back in the 1970s, because he saw that the planet behaved like a living, self-regulating organism. We have moved on since then in our understanding. It is not just that the planet behaves like a living organism, it is a living organism, a sentient being.
Planetary sentience is not the same as sentience in humanity, it is vastly higher. Each human being has a form of consciousness, in fact we are consciousness, it is our basic nature to be conscious. Cutting edge science now tells us that consciousness is the foundation of all being, all existence. Consciousness does not emerge from the brain, which was the old scientific paradigm. Consciousness is fundamental and matter emerges from consciousness, or mind. Ultimately in this understanding, there is a Cosmic Mind from which everything has emerged. Some of us call this consciousness the mind of God.
What this new paradigm implies is that everything has a form of consciousness in order that it exists. From a massive galaxy to an individual atom, everything has its own gigantic or tiny level of consciousness underlying its existence. This Planet Earth has Mind behind it. We are a part of that Mind – our individual consciousness is part of a greater consciousness, that of humanity. The consciousness of humanity is part of a greater consciousness of the planet. This planetary consciousness is so far above ours that we cannot envisage it, although at times we may touch into it. The planets in their turn are all part of the consciousness of the solar system which is part of a greater system leading to the vast Milky Way consciousness and ultimately to a vast, Universal Cosmic Mind. I like to sum it up in a simple little rhyme about fleas. Here it is.
Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so, ad infinitum.
And the great fleas, themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
This is the principle of holography, that the same patterns are repeated going all the way up and all the way down. The current scientific view is that we live in a holographic universe, a vast interconnected system of nested hierarchies of consciousness, beyond our understanding to fully grasp.
So when we talk about Gaia, we are referring to a vast planetary entity, an intelligent consciousness which is guiding the evolution of the whole planet and all its life forms in one intricately interconnected network of energies and forms. It in turn is part of a greater system.
But then we can take it to another level, from the physical to the metaphysical understanding. This consciousness is what has for millennia been called Soul, or that which has emanated from the Divine Source as the life force behind all Being. With this small sideways step, we tie into thousands of years of spiritual teachings and traditions that we all have a Soul, a spiritual nature. For millennia, this can lie dormant in human beings, until there is an awakening to the realisation that we are more than just physical lumps of flesh, we are eternal beings held in the One Cosmic Mind. Then we are becoming the new beings that Jesus anticipated when he said,
I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us… The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:20-23)
Many teachers now say that when Jesus was referring to the Father, it was an aspect of the Cosmic Mind that he related to in an attitude of love and interdependence. This goes beyond the traditional Christian interpretation, but was certainly in the minds of many of the mystics.
I am the supreme and fiery force who has kindled all sparks of life. I, the fiery life, blaze in the beauty of the fields, shine on the waters, and burn in the sun, moon and stars. I bring all things to life; I breathe in them all, because I am life.
Hildegaard of Bingen (1098-1179AD) (Gifts from Hildegard – Wanda Nash, p.124)
What is Love? To realise that God is one and I am one in this One.
Meister Eckhart (Meister Eckhart’s Book of Secrets, eds M.Burrows, J Sweeney, p. 84
Eternally, all creatures are God in God… So far as they are in God, they are the same life, the same essence, the same power, the same One, and nothing less
Friar Heinrich Seuse, 1295-1366, quoted in Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, p.57
To perceive the Planet Earth as a sentient being is to see the presence of God in everything, undergirding, holding, sustaining. It is how many of the mystics, within Christianity and other faiths, have understood the nature of our being. To see Gaia as a living planet is now part of the understanding of both science and spirituality.
The contemporary Sufi teacher, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, sees the need for us to recognise this and respond with spiritual understanding:
“The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. It is this wholeness that is calling to us now, that needs our response. It needs us to return to our own root and rootedness: our relationship to the sacred within creation. Only from the place of sacred wholeness and reverence can we begin the work of healing, of bringing the world back into balance.”
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, “Introduction,” in Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, 2nd ed. (Point Reyes, CA: The Golden Sufi Center, 2013, 2016), v, vi.