LEST WE FORGET

GODSAVEME
Oct 15, 2024
7 min read

Editorial Avenue : No. 13, 15th October 2024

" God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget! "

Rudyard Kipling, “Recessional” (1897)

“And yet, we did forget …”

When the ‘God’s Save Me’ project first embarked on its remarkable journey one year ago on September 15th, 2023, there was an urge to perform an act of service towards Humanity through saviorship. Humanity needed to be saved before it was too late, before all of our humanness and goodness and the divine-ness from which we were originally conceived would dissolve into the ethers and thereby cease to exist. The paradox with that statement was that Humanity in itself is the form or representation of the divine act of saving. We are born human not only with the aim of spreading love and light onto the paths of the societies we build but we are born human in order to save the world from all that is inhumane. However, as the years have gone by, there has been a sickening feeling in people who still hold good in their hearts and minds that humanity is a lost cause. Humans seem to be the one that desecrate all that is sanctity on earth. Humans are the ones who violate and respond to violence with even more hatred and violence. Humans are the ones who loot, pillage and plunder. Humans are the ones who draw from the adage, divide and conquer. And yet, the nature of humanity itself remains fundamentally that of good and goodness. The nature of humanity is a part of the God-Head or an expressive response of how the core natures of divine love, divine light and divine altruism manifest when allowed to exist in a physical reality. To be born human is to be born with the nature of humanity. To act in a non-human manner however does not necessarily emerge from the loss of innocence as one grows up or even stem from the peer groups or communities, we are part of but is generally associated with darkness or the mirror side of our own state of good and light. The problem we have with that statement is that, though darkness may be a counterpart of light, it is still not part of the original Form or Nature and Identity of Humanity. In Kipling’s poem for example, he asks for divine consciousness to manifest within human consciousness so that there remains awareness of the ravages of war and the necessity to use that knowledge for guaranteeing virtue, ethics and wisdom above our own sense of pride.

As history has shown though, there has been a manifestation of dark conscience within human societies since the beginnings of time. This naturally leads to the easily accessible idea that human nature is geared both towards evil and towards doing good and our circumstances are what force us to choose either the path of righteousness or the path of individuality. But is that truly the case when we think of the concept itself of humanity? In Jungian analytical psychology for example, we do not talk of humanness but of the Self. It is understood to be more than the physical expression of life but instead the totality of the psyche, encompassing both conscious and unconscious aspects of the individual. The Self transcends the ego and is comprised of innate archetypal ideas that influence its energy and what it will be predominantly seeking. One of these primary archetypes is that of saviorship whereby the individual, through the process of individuation, integrates all aspects of the psyche (conscious, unconscious, shadow, animus/anima) and becomes whole again or what Jung calls the Imago Dei (in the image of God). The Idea of being part of the Imago Dei is said to be a permanent imprint within the mind. It remains accessible for thinking it when one’s reflections bring one towards it. We do not see the prominent manifestation of this within humanity though. What could be happening?

Though there is a part of truth in the following, it would be too simplistic to assert that we are simply being punished and banished from the Kingdom owing to long forgotten misdeeds and that all of our future generations are therefore doomed to experience a life of misery and suffering until the bad karma created by the original family line has been cleared, released, healed and essentially redeemed in the Book of the Universe. If that were the only occurrence for pain during the course of existence, it does not adequately reflect why Humanity continues to re-enact the same traumas, fear-based responses and outdated coping mechanisms that it once was forced to learn through the experience of the Original Trauma. The nature of humanity is such that even if the forefathers bore evil, the children do not necessarily accept life with the aim of perpetuating this evil. Very often, there is a genuine and instinctual desire to be restored to the divine blueprint of the true nature of humanity. Could the more complex response then instead be that our misery stems from an inability to remember, to recollect, to recall? If one does not remember, how can one be salvaged? If one’s memory blocks access to the necessary resources for understanding the dehumanisation of one’s own nature, how does one get restored through the power of redemption?

“For alas, we keep on forgetting …”

Human beings overall will believe in truth, yet most will in all likelihood reject Absolute Truth. In the first instance, truth is shaped by the narratives, experiences and creations of the human societies with which we have contact with during the course of our existence. Absolute Truth though is simply God’s truth. But to connect to God’s fundamental truths is to indeed to be able to unveil the illusions that blacken our minds and to find our way back to the memories of who we are, how we came to be and what our respective divine purposes on Earth are meant to be. It comes down to memory. One cannot find the path of redemption or be saved if one is unable to even form a conscious idea of one’s own nature. The majority of you would still ask though: “But why do I need to be saved?” This question in itself points to the idea that we no more remember who we really are or how we came to be born here. The true and fundamental nature of humanity is to align itself with the constant and continual seeking of all that is part of human/divine excellence and all that performed from an ethical standpoint that is both caring towards others as well as seeks the Highest Good for all. Our current forms of existence do not necessarily allow for this though. One would only seek for the highest ideals should one remember how they look like. Humanity, at least real humanity, has as such defaulted to what has the most meaning in human life: caring for one another. We do not look into achieving ideals but we do care, yet our caring comes burdened with the unshakeable feeling that life is fragile and the lives of our loved ones will not always be sheltered from the harms of larger society. And so we put our minds to task and we develop and enhance our societies with amenities meant to improve life. Yet, something remains missing still and memory calls out to us that what we seek can only be found within.

Is enlightenment then the better answer?

As per Buddhist philosophy, the path to being enlightened starts with the Four Noble Truths namely that (i) life is full of suffering, (ii) the cause of our suffering is attachment to earthly desires, (iii) relinquishing desire towards what is illusory (as compared to the eternal Soul) is the solution to achieving liberation from suffering and lastly (iv) Righteousness in eight different aspects of being are what lead one to the ultimate goal and purpose which is a state of complete peace and liberation. Should we take another example, the literature review available on setting the stage for peace negotiations within armed conflict is clear on two things: negotiators rely on the ability for both parties to have a certain level of trust in each other and that trust is directed towards a mutual intention for predominantly seeking Good above all. If we strive to understand the manifestation of the dark counterpart of the human, there is a predisposition towards causing harm and destruction. Darkness neither chooses nor seeks Good above all. So, would the right question in that case be that we are currently – and have been in a while now – in a state of deadlock in between the nature of Light and the nature of Darkness? In both cases, Light and what constitutes light (the path of good and righteousness) is the only path to go to for liberation and elevation into the higher spheres. Whilst the manifestation of darkness can lead to achievement of power and absolute power over the all, its fundamental nature implies that desecration, disintegration and destruction are ultimately the end result. Darkness does not elevate consciousness; it absorbs it and modifies its constituency. Darkness does not lead to progress and development either. It absorbs the fundamental nature of light responsible for this and generates the illusion that darkness is the true leader of all that existentialism can offer. The root to this dilemma may as such be found simply in the concept of memories, our ability to remember the fundamental truths that govern us and our ability to bring back the souvenirs of who we were and how we became who we are.

Lest we forget...

And hence we ask the following: May our inability to remember be restored in the midst of the obscure forces that cover our minds.

« God save me… »