Principle of Creation Part 3.2

So how do you explain this? You can say, well, either the sound is coming from within the radio, like a cassette player, or it's picking up these radio waves, and you can prove it. In that sense, somehow we are, I don't know, to what extent animals are spiritually sensitive or able to pick up the spiritual world, but there is some way in which human beings, because of our brain or whatever it is, are able to interact with the spiritual world. This idea of the microcosm of the universe is a little bit more interesting. For me, anyway, it's the idea of the microcosm of the universe. There are lots of different levels in the cosmos in which we live. At the very basic level, everything is an expression of God. When we look at minerals, we can see that they are made up of atoms, molecules, and particles, which have an inherent directive nature. When people study nature at this level, they study it through physics and chemistry. There is a sense among some scientists that you ought to be able to explain everything just in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry.

Then we look at the world in which we live, and we can see there's another level: the level of plants. Plants have an external form, the cellular body, and then some kind of inherent internal nature. The question is, is it possible to explain all the ways that a plant behaves in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry? Is it possible to explain chemistry just in terms of the laws of physics? Is it possible to explain botany just in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry, or not? That's why you have the subject. There is a sense then that there are different levels at which you study things. If you look at DNA, for example, DNA is an extremely complicated molecule, but also it's the bearer of information. When people try to understand what is the basis of life, there are two streams within science trying to understand it: one with people interested in genetics and information, and the other who are interested from a chemical point of view in what is the chemical basis of life.

When you unravel DNA, is it possible to explain what can be understood by looking at it? Can you predict what kind of properties are going to emerge from a particular combination of the molecules that DNA is made up of? Yes, you can learn about that. How does it work? They don't know how it works. What I think it means is that there are signals of what is going to happen or predictors. They can see them as predictors or identify them as predictors. You have these four base pairs, which are made up of molecules, and these molecules are made up of atoms. If you were to study the nature of these atoms, could you predict how these elements will combine to form a particular molecule, and how these molecules will combine to form a particular base pair? From that, how would this particular base pair influence the colour of a person's eyes? Is it possible to do that? Not from first principles. The question is, is it possible that physics can explain biology?

For example, they try to find out which particular genes are connected to which particular characteristics. But just by studying the gene itself, just by studying the chemical structure of the DNA, they cannot predict it. What they do is look at the characteristic and find out which particular part of the gene it comes from. But just by studying the gene itself, you can't predict. Does that make sense? They do it by trial and error, don't they? Yes, by trial and error. So there are lots of things. Genes convey information, and you can't actually explain or articulate that information in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry. It's a bit like Chinese medicine. They analyse the ingredients in medicine and try to work out what the active ingredient is, and they use that, but they don't get the same result even though it's the active ingredient. There are some other elements in there which they don't understand.

When we look at an animal, it also has an outer form, a body, and instincts. When you study animals, it's zoology. For example, when you look at a wolf, you study it and find that wolves have a social life. Is it possible to predict the social life of a wolf by studying the wolf's DNA? Is it possible to predict, just from the laws of physics, how a wolf is going to behave in terms of its social life? These ideas of properties cannot be reduced to the level of physics. When you move to another level, you get laws that interact. Have you heard of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle? You can't actually predict where a particular electron is going to be. If you look at the electrons in my arm, it's impossible to predict where they're going to be, but it's also possible for me to move my arm. At the very lowest level, you can't predict the higher-level things. There are higher-level laws that explain all this.

When we look at a human being, we could say we have a physical aspect, our physical body, and also a spiritual aspect. Can you explain all of human behaviour in terms of the laws of physics? No. Can you explain all of human behaviour in terms of the laws of chemistry? Can you explain human behaviour in terms of the laws of biology? You can explain quite a lot, but there's a limited amount you can explain. Can you explain human beings in the same way you can explain any other animal? What's the difference between trying to explain and understand human beings compared to understanding other animals? What sort of differences are there? Well, there are some choices. Animals are predictable, fairly predictable, but human beings are not. When you read books about animals, what kind of title might the book have? You might have a book about tigers, and it tells you all sorts of things about tigers. But when you think about the human world, what kind of books might you have that describe the human world? Different aspects of society, race, and culture.

For example, you'd have the history of human beings in a particular country. You wouldn't have that about any other animal. Or you'd have biographies of individual human beings. Is it common to have a biography of the life of an individual animal? You don't do it. You just look at the species as a whole. There's very little distinction between different ones unless they happen to become a pet, in which case somebody might write the biography of my pet cat or some particular significant animal. But generally speaking, you don't write those kinds of books. Whereas for human beings, you can actually write a book about the life of every human being, and it would be quite different. You also have this idea that to understand the human world, you study culture, art, philosophy, history, and sociology. All these are different ways in which you're trying to make sense of what human beings are.

You look at human beings from a sociological point of view to try to explain how they behave. You look at them from a historical point of view to try to explain how they behave. You look at them from a philosophical or religious point of view to try to explain how they behave. You also look at them from a biological point of view. Some people say, well, the reason why Churchill made a particular decision is that he happened to be drunk on that day. Sometimes people try to reduce things down, or Napoleon had a particular illness, and that explains all these sorts of things about him. That's a more reductionist kind of approach. To try and explain human beings, you can do it at many different levels. When you're studying science at school, you look at the digestive system and all these different things. You explain the biology of a human being, but that only explains the physical side, which isn't all that different from looking at the biology of a cat, a monkey, or an elephant. It's not all that different. But when you take into account the spiritual aspect or spiritual dimension of humanity, you have this whole other realm which we study in order to try to understand it.

There's a difference between metaphysics and physics. Physics is all about literally physical laws. Yes, it's philosophy. Metaphysics is basically philosophy. What is the nature of reality? What exists? You can't reduce human beings to the laws of physics or to the laws of plants or the laws of zoology. There are lots of different levels on which you have to explain. You get all these different emergent properties, which makes it much more difficult to explain human beings. In that sense, there is a microcosm of the cosmos. We have all these things, but also we're more than just that. The whole is more than the sum of the parts. What are the different stages of life? We get this idea: we're born, we are conceived, and we grow and live within the womb, spending about 40 weeks living on the placenta. Life in the womb is preparation for the physical life of the physical self.

Supposing, I mean, it's hard to imagine, just imagine you were living in your mother's womb. What do you think it would be like? Warm and cozy, and lots of space. You can go swimming and back crawl and front crawl and breaststroke. You don't have to worry; you're never hungry. It's warm and cozy. But after a while, how does it feel? You feel a bit squashed. Not much space in here anymore. I need bigger accommodation. Then suddenly, one day, somebody lets out the plug. What happened to all the water? It's all drained, and suddenly you feel you're being compressed. You're getting squashed. It's like being in one of these dustbins, getting compressed and squeezed out. You see a bit of light down at the end of this tunnel, and you think, I can't fit down through that. You probably feel that you're going to die. Then suddenly you come out into all this bright light, and it's harsh air. You start having to breathe, which is hard work. Then suddenly someone goes snip. That's my food supply you just cut off. Within a few minutes, you start to feel hungry, which you never felt before. This new world isn't as pleasant as life in the old world. It feels like dying, but actually, it's the entering into this new world where we have a physical body prepared while we were in the womb, and we have a mind and a spirit self. We live in this world for anything from one day to 120 years.

When you get old, your physical body doesn't seem to work as well as it used to. After a while, you also feel like dying because you are dying. When you die, you go into the spiritual world, have a spiritual body and a spiritual mind. The whole purpose of this world, just as the purpose of being in the womb was to prepare for this world, is to prepare for the next world. All the things you can learn to do in this world, you can do in the next world. It's a bit like The Matrix. Remember when Trinity is trying to fly that helicopter? She can't do it, can she? So what does she do? She says, please, you know, what's his name, please install the program. He installs a program, and she can fly. I often thought, wow, that's like the spiritual world. Everything we learn how to do in this world, we'll be able to do in the next world. This world is a world for installing lots of programs. When we get to the next world, we can play all these games. I think that's what Father does. He tries to do everything. He tries his hand at everything. I'm thinking that's what he's doing. He's trying to learn how to be able to do everything so when he goes to the next world, he can have fun doing all sorts of different kinds of things, going to all sorts of different kinds of places. In that sense, developing his potential to the max. I think we should do the same sort of thing because when we're in this world, our body after a while starts to become a limiting factor. As much as I used to enjoy playing rugby when I was at university, I wouldn't dream of doing anything other than watching it in front of a television anymore because one just can't do it. But I'm sure in the next world, I'll be able to get my boots on and be in the line-out, having fun again. That's the way it is with these different stages of life. How does spiritual growth take place? It's about the relationship between the spiritual body, world body, and the physical body. We look at our physical body. How does that develop? Well, for the physical self to develop, it needs to have light from the sun. What happens if you don't have light? You turn out very anemic, don't you? Pale. You need to go and lie in the sun a bit, otherwise you fade away. You need warmth and light from the sun. You need to breathe.

You need to eat food, drink water, and take some exercise for your physical body to grow naturally. Similarly, in the spiritual realm, we require various elements to foster our growth. By analogy, God can be likened to the Sun, and truth can be seen as spiritual light. When someone sheds light on a situation, they clarify what is happening, allowing us to understand better. In this way, the truth serves as spiritual light, while God's love provides spiritual warmth. We need both God's love and truth to grow spiritually, which is why people dedicate time to studying scriptures and praying.

However, it's important to note that we also require negative vitality elements to balance our spiritual growth. If one were to spend all their time reading and praying, memorising scriptures, and receiving love, they would only grow to a certain level. True growth also necessitates engaging with the world through our physical bodies. By doing good deeds and helping others, we generate vitality elements that nourish our spiritual selves. For instance, the classic example of helping an elderly person across the road illustrates how our physical actions contribute to our spiritual vitality.

Even as our physical bodies age, our spiritual selves can remain vibrant. Take the example of the Queen Mother; despite her wrinkles and crooked teeth, she was beloved because of her life of public service, which illuminated her spirit. This reflects the idea that, as Jesus said, 'My food is to do the will of him who sent me.' Just as we require physical food, we also need spiritual nourishment, which comes from performing good deeds. Engaging in acts of kindness not only revitalises our spirits but also energises us physically.

Conversely, living a selfish life can lead to lethargy and apathy. When we generate energy through helping others, we find ourselves more invigorated and capable of further acts of kindness. Additionally, for our spirits to flourish, we need an atmosphere of freedom, culture, and intellectual exploration. The way we conduct our physical lives significantly influences whether our spiritual selves develop positively or negatively. If we live selfishly, using others for our gain, we risk corrupting our spirits. In contrast, if we strive to make others happy, our spirits can shine brightly. Thus, it's essential to balance vitality elements with life elements for holistic growth.