[Editor’s Note: This and the next sequel is first published in She Rises: What… Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Volume 3 as an article entitled, “Finding Our Agency and Awareness in the Seeds of Self” co-authord by Deepak Shimkhada, Ph.D. and Lachele Schilling, Ph.D.]
The Source
It is possible humans might wonder how we got here: a work economy where most people spend eight-hour shifts making minimum wage, too tired and poor to tend to much beyond dinner, shower, and sleep; a concrete urban life where, yes, it is convenient to buy a carton of milk instead of walk out into nature and milk a cow, but, we feel a sense of loss for the spicy smell of grass and warm, tingling sun; a broken global structure of inequality where crumbling buildings in Bangladesh actually do crumble and catch on fire. Meanwhile, those in the Global North can buy a striped crop top for $3 at H&M.
We continue on with our ramshackle awareness, blinking towards increased knowledge about how one community’s consumption and waste can create poverty and pollution in another, while waiting for someone to do something, accepting that this way of life is perhaps too embedded to un-root itself in time, and that even if the Industrial Revolution was a moderately recent chapter, human greed for wealth, power, and control is, if we are to take any indication from ancient literature about the tendencies and practices of human beings then, irreversibly encoded within our DNA.
But we certainly do know how we got here. It’s how we always get anywhere. It is how a woman can look at her life and assess, at 40, it does not look like what she wanted it to be: she reviews the seeds that have been planted, which have been watered and which neglected. The seed is the embryonic state of all plants and vegetables, for animal, including human, reproduction. Gaia teems with life of all kinds because of the multitude of seeds intentionally and unintentionally finding placement.
Seeds of Life
Seeds are the reason we can be healthy, in taking in the eventual, after their long and hard journey to fruition, grains, fruits and vegetables in the form of food. It is also because of seeds that we might encounter beautiful landscapes in both the cities and the countryside. Gaia can breathe and dance because of the seeds of the past. If seeds were not so valuable, Monsanto would not be a billion dollar giant industry that aims to monopolize and patent seed banks. We owe all we have to seeds that we or someone else have planted. Every journey has a beginning that includes choices, even if it is the choice to be silent and not act.
In addition to its biological function of reproduction and development, some mystical orders consider seeds to hold or be consciousness or energy itself. The dialogue between a student and a teacher concerning Brahman (Ultimate Reality) in the Chhandogya Upanishad is a case in point.
The dialogue begins with the words of the sage Uddalaka:
“My child, you are so full of your learning and so censorious, have you asked for that knowledge by which we hear the unhearable, by which we perceive what cannot be perceived and know what cannot be known?”
“What is that knowledge, sir?” asked Svetaketu.
His father replied, “As by knowing one lump of clay all things made of clay are known – so, my child, is that knowledge, knowing which we know all.”
“But surely these venerable teachers of mine are ignorant of this knowledge; for if they possessed it they would have imparted it to me. Do you, sir, therefore, give me that knowledge?”
“So be it,” said the father. And he said, “Bring me a fruit of the Nyagrodha tree [fig tree].”
“Here it is, sir.”
“Break it.”
“It is broken, sir.”
“What do you see there?”
“Some seeds, sir, exceedingly small.”
“Break one of them.”
“It is broken, sir.”
“What do you see there?”
“Nothing at all.”
It is only because humans collectively or individually can wait to pause until what was destined from the seed to manifest itself in the beautiful monstrosities of creation, where the thorny brambles intertwine and serpentine around our limbs and one feels rather trapped, stuck, a lotus rooted in the mud so intimately that to break away would cost our lives. Sensory beings, humans seem to be distracted by what we can touch, hear, and see. Thus the tools of publicity and advertisement ensure we cope with the human predicament in ways that produce profit for our companies and institutions instead of our well-being. But we need to gather our focus and attend to the emptiness, the void, where possibility exists. We need to re-orient ourselves to perceive what is essential in contrast to the spectacle that lusts for our eyes.
Vedantic, Hindu and Buddhist traditions perhaps more explicitly or obviously than other traditions assert the non-duality of existence and access to the True Self (as opposed to the more monolithic, absolute, ideal false self) as being within generative energy itself.
The father said, “My son, that subtle essence which you do not perceive there – in that very essence stands the being of the huge Nyagrodha tree. In that which is the subtle essence of all that exists has its Self. That is the True, that is the Self, and thou Svetaketu art That.”
Not all significant change in the world takes highly advanced problem-solving skills. Some just take the simple wisdom that everything is connected and everything is eternal. If we can constantly remind ourselves of this, we might make the kinds of choices, plant and water the kinds of seeds that would produce a more compassionate, less-polluted and damaged world and life that we have collectively crafted of our own volition, whether we are aware or not. The dialogue goes on to say the following:
“Pray, sir,” said the son, “tell me more.”
“Be it so, my child,” the father replied; and he said, “Place this salt in water, and come to me tomorrow morning.”
The son did as he was told.
Next morning the father said, “Bring me the salt you put in the water.”
The son looked for it, but could not find it, for the salt, of course, had dissolved.
The father said, “Taste some of the water from the surface of the vessel. How is it?”
“Salty.”
“Taste some from the middle. How is it?”
“Salty.”
“Taste some from the bottom. How is it?”
“Salty.”
The father said, “Throw the water away and then come back to me again.”
The son did so; but the salt was not lost, for the salt existed forever.
If we are connected, if everything is eternal and if it is possible that greed and violence have evolved within us biologically, then this all may seem to appear quite fatalistic. But how can we rid ourselves and the world of what we find harmful is a destructive and impossible question. It is because we are connected, that we can have more agency than we might have thought at this present moment, and it is because nothing is really created or destroyed that we must alter our mindset and perspective concerning the method of transformation.
According to British scientist Rupert Sheldrake, all beings have a “tuning-in” mechanism that he calls morphic resonance that we use in order to develop, an invisible connection to other beings that is beyond genetic information. Everything has a frequency, and beings can be tuned in or not to certain ones. Sheldrake says, “for example, a chrysanthemum plant, as it develops, it tunes in to past chrysanthemums.” There are low frequencies and high frequencies. An easy way to think of it is to invoke the philosophy found in the Bhagavad Gita of the three gunas: sattva, rajas, and tamas. In the honor of the holistic and cyclical understanding of yogic perspective, there is not particularly a guna or frequency kind to avoid. Rather good health is more about finding balance and equilibrium by not having excessive amount or frequency of any one particular energy. For those who need a reminder, tamas is the lower frequency, a time of rest and destruction or death in terms of a preliminary to rebirth, but when in excess, it can mean lethargy and sluggishness. In ayurvedic diet, it might mean eating processed foods that make one feel bloated if consumed too much. That said, to be a bit carefree and have such a snack to delight in non-attachment is a part of a healthy relationship with body and food. Rajas is usually described as our passionate nature, and food that is spicy and rich. In excess, we can become dizzy with indulgence and confused, off-kilter, our hearts racing. No one can be “on” all the time. Sattvic would be characterized by creation and purity, cheerfulness and diplomacy, positive and harmonious practices and food intake. One must pause to observe our world today, how humans treat each other, and the kind of emotions that are thick within the air. Which energy, which frequency, which guna or gunas might we need to generate and focus on more so that other developing beings may “inherit” and tune in?
(To be continued)
(Meet Mago Contributor) Deepak Shimkhada, Ph.D.