Order

Order is an intrinsic property of Universal Being, or the Unity of Being, in the manifested universe. That is, there is a unified order of the universe, and thus of this world. But this is not a strict, rigid, determinist order. It is a loose and general order, though order still remains. The order is maintained by general principles and by a general guidance, but these general principles and guidance do not strictly determine how particular events will unfold. In other words, the general unity of order is maintained by internal and external forces which are general and non-determining of exact events. These are influencing forces which guide the overall system but do not strictly determine specific events. By this manner a unified order is maintained.

Now within the overall Order are subsidiary spheres of order, and also levels of order, each semi-autonomous in relation to the overall Order. That is, within the overall Unity there are semi-autonomous pockets of order, each pocket having its own degree of freedom (from strict determinism) and its own semi-autonomous guiding Influence. This principle of semi-autonomous freedom runs through the whole of creation. At each level of order (within the hierarchy of Unity), and within each sphere of order (horizontal in its level), there are degrees of freedom (or degrees of indeterminate chance). So in effect, regarding any semi-autonomous sphere, there is a mixture of indeterminate chance and freedom with a higher influence of determining order. Freedom and chance is mixed with higher general influences of guidance. Nothing is absolutely forced, and no specifics are absolutely determined. And yet general guiding influences (towards overall order and purpose) work to maintain a greater order of things. So there is a determinism within the whole of creation, but it is a weak determinism or a non-specific determinism. There is always a higher influence at work in any semi-autonomous system within the Whole, generally influencing its motivation and direction, but not strictly determining its specific outcomes.

The wider is the field of order, the greater is the freedom of its smaller parts (subsidiary orders). The smaller is the field of order (or semi-autonomous system), the lesser is the freedom of its parts from its own guiding Influence, and yet these parts have greater freedom in relation to the overall guiding Influences. Thus, any specific part (or individual), in the whole of creation, has greater freedom in relation to the overall Guiding Influences, but lesser freedom in relation to its closer guiding Influences.

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Within the One Whole Universal Consciousness-Being are dimensions of both depth and width, which can also be regarded as levels (or degrees) of clarity and expansion, and each individual conscious-being has a depth and width within the greater Whole. This dimension of ‘width’ is how wide and inclusive is the expansion of consciousness. The greater the width or expansion of any individual conscious-being, the more inclusive and encompassing it is in relation to the Whole, and also the more influential it is in the manifest world. The greater the depth of a conscious-being, the clearer is the divine knowingness of this conscious-being. These dimensions of depth and width are complimentarily related. By going deeper into Being, the inclusiveness of the being widens. By expanding or widening into greater Being, the consciousness of a being goes deeper into the truth and clarity of Being Itself.

Consciousness and Beingness are the two fundamental facets of Reality. Within the One Whole Universal Consciousness-Being are a plurality of individual consciousness-beings, and each individual being is a portion or sphere of the One Being, and these individual beings can be larger spheres or smaller spheres, relative to the One Whole. Each is a semi-autonomous whole system in itself, within the greater Unity of Being. Each can be called a holon.

Holons (or systems) within the One Reality exist both in the consciousness dimension and in the physical dimension. In the physical dimension there are systems within greater systems, holons within greater holons, as we find in the ecology of life and physical organization of matter. Knowledge of these systems, and how they relate causally and functionally, is objective knowledge called science. The knowledge of people in relation to their cultures is also an objective kind of knowledge. In the consciousness dimension there are also holon-systems within greater holon-systems, or fields within fields. This kind of knowledge is subjective, or knowing directly from self-experience. It is self-knowing within the greater experience of the One Self. Objective knowledge is gained by observing facts about the outer behavior of things or people; while subjective knowledge is understanding or interpreting life from the inside of life or from inner experience. Objective knowledge is about physical and informational systems, and about the causal and functional relation of these interloping systems; while subjective knowledge in the dimension of consciousness-being is a direct experience and understanding of the truth, meaning, and value of life itself.

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Intelligent Organization

There is a tendency in existence for decay and entropy. Chaos, disorder, and accident are part of such tendencies. These tendencies are simply in the nature of existence or physical circumstance of things. Yet also in existence is an Intelligence towards order; an intelligent ordering power in existence. In classical thought this was called the Demiurge of creation, the intelligent power organizing [loose, random] matter. Now as we know from physics and biology, forces of organization and ordering are evident throughout the cosmos, most notably in life here on earth. Whether or not there is a transcendental Intelligence responsible for such organizing forces is of course debatable in science and probably improvable by mere evidence and reasoning. But few will deny that there are these evident forces of organization – which counteract opposite forces of entropy and decay.

In esoteric science and in process theology, the universal Power (or powers) of intelligent organization are essential in the overall understanding of our life and purpose. First to understand is that intelligent organization [of matter and life] is not merely a past occurrence. In other words, it is not merely confined to the first moments (or “days”) of creation. Rather, intelligent organization is an ongoing process throughout time. In figurative-theological language, God’s Work is an ongoing process of organizing, rather than a momentous final decision and organization at some pre-beginning of time. Thus, if we take a picture of the whole creation at any one moment, this is not the final Work. It is always somewhat incomplete, simply because the Work is not yet finished. Therefore, all things at present are not completely organized in the most divine way possible; but rather, things are in a process of becoming what is divinely potential.

There is an intelligent organizing power within creation, and this is always at work. But what we need to also understand is that this organizing power is not strictly enforcing everything; it is not forcibly micro-managing the process. Thus, the figurative image of an all-powerful God continually molding creation into what He wants is a misleading image, because it gives a false impression that everything is God organized or molded by God. Instead, the intelligent organizing power [of God] is a general influencing force, not a strict determining force.

Our role, potentially, is to consciously participate in this, by consciously and willingly invoking this divine organizing influence in ourselves, and allowing it to work in us and transform us. This can also be understood as coming into alignment with Higher Will or Higher Intelligence. Our threefold vehicle, of mind, emotion and physical activity, then comes into alignment with Divine Organization, coming closer to being a fully divine form on earth, or better manifesting the general ideal of Being, or becoming a more perfect divine architecture. In hermetic terms, one becomes the divine order, the divine form, the divine architecture. So through oneself the Demiurge (or Divine Power) of organization manifests its potential Ideal (called the divine form in neoplatonic terms). Thus, divine intelligent organization is further fulfilled.

Consciousness, Intelligence and Being (as a triad) tends to coalesce into semi-autonomous wholes, as spheres of being and thought. This occurs at all levels of Being. Two impulses are at play within each semi-autonomous whole. There is a self-transcending impulse to integrate and cooperate with the surrounding sustaining context of Being, or to harmonize and come into union with this greater context. This might also be experienced as a concern for a greater purpose beyond the limited self, or feeling that one is part of something bigger than oneself. There is also a self-assertive, self-interest, or self-concerned impulse, a looking out for number one (me). This impulse of self-interest may develop into a group-interest, a tribal or collective interest, which then is a greater self-identity; but this then becomes the new self-interest and self-assertive impulse, and then the self-transcendence impulse works to bring about the next level of self-identity. This play of impulses continues all the way to Universal Identity, whereby one is at-One with Universal Being Itself and fully cooperating with the Universal Purpose, and the physical individual is fully expressive of all the Divine Qualities, and the individual will is none other than the Divine Will expressing in the world of manifestation. This explains the metaphysical levels of Being and the evolution of beings within Being.

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So what we find in the world of individuals, or in the universe of particulars, is a vast range of intelligences, anywhere from very small (and self-absorbed) to very large (and world-inclusive). The greater is the intelligence, the wider is the knowledge and more Holistic is the action. The opposite is true for smaller intelligences. And thus we find in the world examples of lesser intelligence and un-holistic action. God is not creating those lesser intelligent or unintelligent actions. Nor is God giving stage directions for the overall learning process. Instead, the development (or actualization) of Intelligence and more holistic fitting action is an organic evolutionary process. One can better understand this with the image of individuals gradually waking up to that which is around them, as the capacity of intelligence gradually awakens. Or imagine millions of little individual specks of light, each gradually increasing in light and gradually connecting with other lights to form larger lights. This is how unification-integration is evolving, or coming about, or becoming actualized in an organic process. Things are not going to be perfect in the world, nor immediately intelligent and harmoniously integrated; -- because this world is in the middle of an evolutionary process {I’m primarily talking about an individual and social evolution-development}; whereby there are individuals at all stages of the process: small lights to bigger lights, small intelligences to wider intelligences, lesser spiritual intelligences to greater spiritual intelligences.

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We have been discussing how particular-individual intelligences begin from small and very local concerns, then gradually expand to include more of their inter-related context or world. The concern, the knowledge and the aim all become wider and more inclusive. And as well, greater systems of intelligence and harmonious order come about, as the smaller individual intelligences group together and cooperatively integrate. What is being described here is the metaphysical movement from lesser to greater, and how each individual has the capacity to evolve its intelligence and work in a more integrated way with its living context.

Next we need to discuss the polar opposite metaphysical movement, which is complimentary and equally significant. We can call this the hierarchical creative principle. The story of creation cannot just begin with individuals or individual intelligences, who then evolve to create greater harmony and order. For how did any intelligence arise in the first place? Individual intelligences do not just arrive on the scene, unconnected and separated from wider contexts. They come to birth as descendants from an a priori context of intelligence. They emerge out from a greater existence already in place. But let us back up in the story.

The metaphysical story of creation begins with One Being. This One Being must possesses consciousness, intelligence, and creative power. Otherwise, the consciousness, intelligence and creative power existing in the manifest universe cannot be explained. These Attributes must first ‘subsist’, a priori, in order that they ‘exist’ in manifestation. We might also say that the One Being, in Essence, is Consciousness, Intelligence and Creative Power. Love can also be added to this.

But let us for now just review the metaphysical story of creation. The One Being differentiates into plurality. The One Being explodes into plural fragments of Itself. Yet each of these fragments retain in their essence the Consciousness, Intelligence and Creative Power of the One Being. Each of these fragments are existentially separate from one another, but still retain an essential relatedness and family connectiveness with each other, and most essentially are related with the One Being. The One Being is still essentially within each of the fragments. Now let us add some layers of complexity to this story, in that each of these first fragments create their own progeny, or their own differentiations into further plurality, and these then do likewise, and so on.

Now we have a plural complexity of distinct individuals or particular intelligences, though remember that they each still possess the potentials or essences of the One Being, and they are still essentially related with one another. What we have here are systems within Systems, holons within Holons, each propagated by a greater System (Holon) hierarchically above it. Each of the created descendants are, metaphysically, a movement from Generality toward more specific and diversified manifestation. This is a movement from General, Universal, Essence [of Intelligence] to a more specific and particularized diversity of manifestation (or intelligence). This movement has also been called the Descending Principle, whereby the One creates multiple and diverse descendents, out if Itself, in an expanding complexity of Being-emanation.

Yet there is an added significant point to this story, which is that at each level of descendency there are further degrees of individual autonomy from the General Universal Aim. The succeeding freedom at each further level of descendency is necessary for the purpose of creative diversification, but this also allows for the possibility that the descendents can become too concentrated in their limited self-concerns and out of touch with the greater Aim for which they were created. Each descendent is born from an essence, but then must wake up to it. In the meantime, though, things can temporarily go astray. Each individual, as semi-autonomous and limited in its actualized intelligence and concern, must begin waking up to its inner essence (its connection to the One being-Essence) and to the wider needs of its existential context. And so the story returns to the movement of evolving intelligence. Metaphysically, these polar movements, of descent and ascent, diversification and unification, are ongoing rhythms in simultaneous activity.

Copy { any individual intelligence is derivative from its existential group intelligence from whence it was born; that is, any individual intelligence must have emerged as a semi-autonomous function derived from some wider group intelligence or social environmental context}

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What we have here is a universe that allows undetermined, semi-autonomous diversification; that is, un-manipulated freedom within the system. The alternative to this would be a system that is rigidly determined, in all of its parts, by a commanding intelligent Will. But this latter scheme is not how it all works. There is no fixed plan, there is no rigid determinism, and there is no continuous manipulation of the smaller parts by an over-arching Power. Instead, there is semi-autonomous freedom and individual responsibility.

{ We are saying ‘semi’ autonomous - because the autonomy of any particular entity or system can vary from almost no autonomy to almost absolute autonomy. There can be no absolute autonomy because this would be an absolutely closed system, but there is no such thing. It is possible for something to act without connection to the aims of the greater environment, but no system can sustainably exist without be at least somewhat related and dependent on other systems. So there are no completely closed systems, though it is possible for a system to act autonomously until other systems intervene or effect the system. }

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Why is individualization and semi-autonomous freedom necessary to the Divine Purpose? As analogy, think of a tribal group wherein all people share the exact same beliefs and cultural conditioning, such that there is no real individuality but only a unified group consciousness shared by all the people. This group, or these people in this group, would never change because there would be no freedom in which to change. So it would simply continue along in the same cultural way year after year. Individuality and semi-autonomous freedom of mind are necessary for a group to diversify and experiment with new ways. The stability of group consciousness must be abandoned, at least to some extent, in order for individuality to experiment in new ways. Sometimes the new ways happen to be quite dumb, but sometimes they are quite brilliant. Maybe you can now see some spiritual truths from this analogy. But lastly, let it be pointed out that individuality cannot exist just on its own. It can only exist within a group or culture. The very activities of communication, learning and teaching can only exist in the context of a group language. So individuality needs a group or other individuals to work with, and the re-mergence or re-integration of individuals with others is the other half of the spiritual reality. The original group acquires new creative diversity, and it may even merge newly with other groups.

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Varying degrees of freedom and autonomy are necessary in the overall system of creative manifestation, because of two reasons. First, without any degrees of freedom and autonomy, the whole system would be deterministic and completely predictable, and thus we would be simply playing out deterministic actions. Second, freedom and semi-autonomy provide a greater richness of possible diversity by allowing for creative aliveness and unpredictable mystery in the system. Also necessary in the overall scheme of things is the freedom of individuals to focus their attention, intelligence and concern on more specific and local matters. This localized concentration is necessary to achieve the smaller practical goals important in life. So we should not mistakenly diminish the significant value of narrow, localized, concentrated concerns and uses of intelligence. To use a vernacular phrase in this metaphysics, ‘somebody has to take care of the little things’. The smaller practical matters of life are just as significant as the larger concerns. So within the overall scheme, it is necessary that Intelligence be both wide and narrow in its concerns, and all of the levels between the bigger picture and the smaller ones. The larger concerns and goals can only be fulfilled by achieving the smaller goals necessary to these larger goals. Therefore, smaller, narrower focuses are needed, as part of the greater Aim. And degrees of semi-autonomy are also needed, so that pockets of intelligence can concentrate and take care of the more localized concerns within the overall Aim. But a possible problem arises from this. The narrower focusing of intelligence can become automatistic and unconnected to the larger Aims of Divine Intelligence. As well, the semi-autonomy that is allowed in the smaller systems of Intelligence can lose connection to the larger Intelligence and Aim. Freedom for creative diversification is allowed for good reason, but going completely astray from the greater Aim, or opposing the greater Aim, is quite another matter.

When individuals (or fields) become overly opposing to the greater aims or purposes of creation, this is called evil. These overly autonomous and self-serving powers may work in opposition to greater purposes, or even manipulate and oppress greater fields of being. But in time these temporary forces of evil (in opposition to Divine Purpose) are transformed by the unfolding Divine Power of healing and integration. Eventually these evils are eliminated in the unfolding healing and evolutionary process. The greater Aim of Divine Being is to expand into semi-autonomous diversity, while simultaneously bringing this diversity into unified integration.

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Each being-consciousness is a semi-autonomous entity, and there are two kinds of forces (or modes) at play. One of the forces is self-autonomy, which is the consistent, repetitive, autonomous pattern of a self. It could also be known as automatism or mechanicalism. If this were the only force, then each self would merely keep repeating the same patterns again and again, and there would be no significant change or evolution of the self-system. There would be no learning or increase of intelligence. The other force is sensitivity, which also involves vulnerability, and this opens the self to other influences – from the depths of Universal Spiritual Energies within and/or from external influences (either spiritual or not-spiritual).

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So freedom is the autonomous ability of a self-system to ignore the spiritual evolutionary forces from within, or to ignore the external influences, and therefore continue along the same conditioned path (that which was built from earlier influences). Or, one can open to the higher/deeper spiritual influences and follow the higher/deeper guidance. Or, one can be open and influenced by newly presented external forces and conditions. These are the possibilities of freedom for the semi-autonomous self.

The indeterminate creativity of life emerges from the indeterminate mixture of self-autonomy and inner-emerging spiritual influences and external influences from the world.

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note importantly that the Absolute Being has to limit Itself in varying degrees and diversity, or allow itself to be veiled, losing its omniscience, in order to experience Itself in multiple, diverse, relational ways.

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The One Being/Reality/God also divides into polarities: on one hand, the emanating Source, the Provider of Love Essence and other Divine Qualities; on the other hand, the divided world of limitations and the multiplicity of receivers. We could also understand this as the Poles of Revealing and Concealing.

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Metaphysically, the One Being-Essence differentiates, diversifies and particularizes Itself in the expansion of Its outward creative Breath. This creates concentric spheres (or levels) of being within Being. Each level is more general, universal and inclusive in relation to the levels subsidiary to it. And the more outward levels are more particular and exclusive in their focus. They are more particular and specific in their concern. They are focused more on the particular practical concerns of their specific limited context. This limited and specific focus is often necessary to accomplish specific goals. But from the overall view of greater purpose, these specific concerns should be integrated with wider aims of the whole.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case, because particular beings (or fields of being) can become autonomous in their limited aims and activities, and even become opposing to the greater aims of the whole. This is when intervention and healing is needed to cure the problem. This is simply a possible problem in the overall scheme of things, because the Universal Being allows semi-autonomy or freedom within the whole of creation, so there is always possibility for individual autonomy to get far removed from the greater aims of the Holistic Intelligence. Though the Holistic Intelligence will eventually bring about intervening healing and evolution.

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But to return to our cosmological subject, the One Divine Being-Consciousness is in a continuous play of contracting and expanding, of limiting itself and then returning to its wholeness. This is the Vibration of God/Being, which is the Root of manifestation. On an absolute dimension, the One Being is eternally Conscious in Itself or Self-Knowing. This never diminishing or goes away. God is eternally God, and this absolute Consciousness is present everywhere, for all existence is actually within It. Yet from the Absolute a vibrational dimension spontaneously emerges, which creates polarity and movement, also contraction and expansion. All metaphysics comes from this fundamental polarity of spiritual movement. In this dimension and in those proceeding, the Fully Conscious God/Being loses its absolute fullness in the continuous play or vibration between wholeness and limitation, or between knowledge and ignorance, or between concealment and revelation, or between falling asleep and waking up.

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It is the Nature of God/Being that It fluctuate or vibrate between expansion/wholeness and contraction/limitation. It is also natural to God/Being that It diversify into parts and partial consciousness’, which will be limited forms of being. These forms are the developing manifestations of Ideas spontaneously emerging from the Creative Imagination of God/Being, the first cause of diversification in creation; and make note that manifested forms are most often in process of development rather than being perfected forms of divine Ideas. Furthermore, each of these will remain stable as a unique form, depending on the stability of their ignorance. But since God-Knowing is nonetheless inherent in all forms and places, there is an inevitable process of awakening, or learning, or which can also be described as a dissipation of ignorance.

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Metaphysics:

Intelligence in creation. The universe is being guided toward maximizing integrated complexity (or organized variety). And promoting physical environments capable of complex biological formation and development.

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Emergence:

Process of emergence is….. the inherent tendency toward an increase in complexity, self-organization, and the production of emergent wholes that are more than the sum of their parts.

to produce new types of entities and new levels of complexity.

What is emerging in the universe and our world is the gradual embodiment of God, a development of God’s Self-manifestation or God’s Body.

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