Colony Earth - Part II:
'Canopus in Argos' by Doris Lessing
Earth's current science has now seen over 300 billion galaxies in the universe.
Can there be anyone who still believes in the absurd fantasy that we are alone
in the universe? Millions of people, myself included, have seen a multitude of
flying objects in the skies day and night that move in observable ways far
beyond our own technology. The only reason our governments are hiding this is
their fear of losing control over us. Confusion is control!
The fact that there are countless other life forms in the universe does not
imply that there is no God. If anything the stunning depth of multiplicity and
beauty 'out there' should affirm our faith and trust in the Creator. The Oneness
is! Metaphysical wisdom from many sources reveals an eternal immutable
inter-connecting force "beneath the curtain of each atom" [Mahmud Shabistari]
and this invisible 'substance' for which there are no words is what we all are.
The Nobel Prize winning author Doris Lessing wrote a series of novels that are
illuminating insights into the understanding that we here on planet Earth are
but one of hundreds of planetary colonies. By the 1970s Lessing was influenced
by Sufism and these sci-fi novels reflect her considerable and highly
intelligent spiritual wisdom. Lessing's 'Canopus in Argos' series are
captivating tales that can open our modern minds to a profound understanding of
the deeper meaning of life.
In 'The Making of the Representative for Planet 8' we are given some idea of the
ephemeral nature of our material bodies:
"Now when we looked back to that huddle of [frozen dead] bodies...we saw them as
webs and veils of light, saw the frail lattice of the atomic structure, saw the
vast space that had been what in fact we mostly were — though we had not the
eyes to comprehend that, even if our minds knew the truth."
Our consciousness is all that survives the death of the material body.
Consciousness is what we are, in truth what everything is.
"...the little dazzle or dance [of the decaying flesh] we looked at, the fabric
of the atomic structure, dissolved as we watched: yes, we saw how those old
bodies of ours ... were losing their associations with each other, and melding
with the substance of the mountain [the earth on which they rested]. Yes, what
we were seeing now with our new eyes was that all the planet had become a fine
frail web or lattice..."
***
In the earlier 1971 novel 'Briefing For a Descent into Hell' the lady Lessing
illumines her readers with an amazing and revealing insightful conversation that
takes place before the birth of those who have made the decision to incarnate in
flesh & blood bodies and the dense miasma of consciousness that now covers our
planet.
The volunteers are warned:
"...it is not at all a question of your arriving on Planet Earth [with the
consciousness you have] as you leave here. You will lose nearly all your memory
of your past existence. You will each of you come to yourselves, perhaps alone,
perhaps in the company of each other, but with only a vague feeling of
recognition, and probably disassociated, disoriented, ill, discouraged, and
unable to believe, when you are told what your task really is. ...
"Some of you will choose not to wake, for the waking will be so painful, and the
knowledge of your condition and Earth's condition so agonizing, you will be like
drug addicts: you may prefer to continue to breath in oblivion. ...
"And, when you have become aroused to your real condition, and have recovered
from the shame or embarrassment of seeing to what depths you have sunk, you will
then begin the task of arousing others, and you will find that you are in a
position of rescuer of a drowning person, or a doctor in a city that has an
epidemic of madness."
The purpose of incarnating into human bodies is: "... it will be our task to
wake up those of us who have forgotten what they went for; as well as to recruit
suitable inhabitants of Earth...who have kept a potential for evolving into
rational beings ..."
Lessing then explains to the volunteers that there would be no point in giving
them a 'Briefing' and that every word they are hearing will be forgotten once
they have descended into a human body. But they are assured that they have all
been given "brainprints" and these will be there for them when they are ready.
In my words, the eternal Wisdom-Knowledge does reside within each and every one
of us.
In the moments before birth, the dangers of volunteering are made clear:
"As everyone here knows, has had drummed into him or her from the moment he or
she volunteered — it is not at all a question of descending into that Poisonous
Hell [the earth plane] and remaining unaffected. Everyone takes his life in his
hands."
Planet Earth is a dangerous place and there are no guarantees. There will be no
one to save us, no rescues! We are on our own here and apparently when we did
volunteer, we were fully capable of independent thinking and sovereignty. We
were not fearful needy victims wallowing in self-pity and confusion waiting to
be rescued.
More warnings:
"For these creatures [the lost ones who have forgotten who they are] are for the
most part malevolent and murderous by nature, able to tolerate others only
insofar as they resemble themselves, capable of slaughtering each other because
of a slight difference in skin color or appearance. Also they cannot tolerate
those who do not think as they do."
Lessing grew up in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and was involved in politics
for many years. She brings her wisdom, experience, and knowledge of these
matters to the larger perspective of an off-world colony given here.
Another warning:
"This means that unless we can perfect our own adaptation to them, they will
attack us...This we must expect."
How many great ones have been tormented, persecuted, and murdered by the
ignorance of mob consciousness? Even those who are volunteers cannot always be
trusted. The "poisonous brew they call air" [meaning the consciousness of the
planet] will have infected previous volunteers and that they may "devote all
their energies to elaborate systems whose function was once to keep them sane,
but which now have become their own justification."
The birth process itself is described by Lessing's inimitable genius and
insight: "Each held his or her mind steady in the thought: Don't forget, keep
the memory of this moment, keep it steady ... but the golden spin of the moment
swept the whole space they occupied into a vortex of ringing Light in which they
were spinning atoms. The pressure increased. The Sound became higher ... The
light was like an explosion ... pulsed and beat ..."
Thus the vast majority of us are born as human babies remembering nothing, and
in that moment our struggle to Remember and become useful begins. We have
forgotten that we volunteered to come here freely in order to create life,
civilizations, and forms containing increasingly higher states of consciousness.
Through us the Oneness is eternally seeking and enjoying It's own beauty and
perfection. We come here to contribute, to create and manifest over vast
expanses of time an infinite spectrum of various forms — and in the cyclical
processes of our creative adventure, we sink into a miasma of amnesia.
In her novel 'The Making of the Representative for Planet 8' Lessing gives us an
enlightening conversation between one of the volunteers, Representative Doeg,
and Johor, a highly evolved being who has come from the home planet Canopus to
counsel and observe. This particular colony has been engulfed in an Ice Age
caused by the misalignment of some distant star, "a cosmic accident". The colony
is dying, the people helpless, freezing to death.
Representative Doeg: I was thinking of our poor peoples; the pain of their fate
invaded me, the waste of it, the waste ...
Johor from Canopus: This is a lavish and generous universe.
Doeg: You mean you can afford the deaths of a few million people? ...You cannot
be saying to me that it does not matter if the populations of a whole planet
have to die — a species?
Johor: I have not said it did not matter. Nor that we, Canopus, do not feel pain
at what is happening. Nor, Doeg, that we have not done everything to prevent
this happening.
Doeg: But indignation made me cut him [Johor] short. But you are not able to
space-lift off this planet its doomed millions? You do not have some unwanted
planet somewhere that could be given to us ...?
Johor: No, we are not able... We do not have the resources.
Doeg: We have always thought of you as all powerful, able to do what you like.
Limited by what Johor? ... You are the creation and creatures of something, some
Being, to whom you stand in the same relation as we stand to you? ... Yes, that
must be so.
Johor then explains that indeed there was another planet that had been prepared
for such an emergency, but in spite of the best efforts of the volunteer
Representatives from Canopus, this planet had gone wrong and was no longer a
viable alternative.
Johor: There is nowhere to take you. Our economy [the evolved advance benevolent
Canopus civilization] is a very finely tuned one. Our empire isn't random, or
made by the decisions of self-seeking rulers or by the unplanned developments of
our technologies. No, we have a very long time ago grown out of that barbarism
Our growth, our existence, what we are is a unit, a unity, a whole — in a way
that, as far as we know, does not exist anywhere in our galaxy.
Over the past 30 years, I have taken part in similar conversations many many
times. Sometimes I am Johor and sometimes I am Doeg!
If you are still reading this, then perhaps it is because Lessing's brilliant
lines of wisdom have struck a chord in the very heart of your being — as they
did mine so long ago. It may be that you have always known or at least suspected
throughout your life and these words have delivered you a kind of respite, a
nurturing healing reassurance to what may have become a lonely effort. For
making of a great and noble effort is what we came here for.
Earth is only one of hundreds of colonies. Now is the time for this self-evident
truth to be made known. Beyond all the fear mongering, we are indeed the One. So
it has always been, now and shall ever be.
***
'Canopus in Argos' by Doris Lessing;
Alfred A. Knopf; more recent paperbacks published by Flamingo, Harper Collins
Publishers, London:
Shikasta (1979)
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five (1980)
The Sirian Experiments (1980)
The Making of Representative for Planet 8 (1982)
The Sentimental Agents of the Volyen Empire (1983)
'Briefing for Descent into Hell' by Doris Lessing; Alfred A. Knopf, Vintage
Books, 1971; Vintage International 2009.
Mahmud Shabistari: The Secret Garden
Translated by Johnson Pasha
Octagon Press; 1969, London
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