“爱与合作的定律”——指引所有生命的内在自然律

此段摘自《个人与群体事件的本质》

第九章第863节

当我说到自然律的时候，我指的可不是科学家们所说的自然定律，比如“万有引力”——那根本不是一种自然律，而是一种显化，作为器官感知的结果，从某个意识层面的视角显现出来。就这一点而言，你们“偏颇的知觉”也嵌入了你们的科学仪器里。

我所说的是内在的自然律——遍布于“存在”的自然律。当然，你们所谓的自然是指你们特定的实相体验，但在那个范畴之外，各种不同的显化也是“自然”的。那么，我正在解释的自然律存在于所有实相之中，为各式各样的“自然”夯实了基础。不过，我会从你们的参考角度来讲。

在每个生灵的生命体验中，它自身都仿佛处于生命的中心。这适用于壁橱里的蜘蛛，就像适用于任何男人或女人一样。这个原则也同样适用于每一个原子。每个意识显化进入存在，它都感觉在生命的中心是安全的——透过它自己体验生命，透过它自己的本质觉察生命。它带着一种迈向价值完成的内在动力进入存在。它在自己的环境里天生就有一种安全感，且那个环境是适合它去处理的。它被赋予迈向成长与行动的动力，并且充满了去影响其世界的欲望。

“价值完成”这个词很难解释，却是非常重要的。显然它涉及价值的发展——不过并非道德价值，而是一些你们实在没有恰当文字来形容的价值。十分简单地说，这些价值与增进生命的品质有关——让这生灵感觉处于中心的任何生命。这种生命品质不仅是指要把生命传承下去或加以体验，而是要创造性地增益、增长，以一种完全与数量无关的方式。

照此说法，动物也有价值感，如果它们的生命品质衰微到超过某一限度，那个物种的数量就会逐渐减少。我们在说的并不是适者生存，而是“有意义的生命才能生存”。对动物而言，生命即意义，两者是难以区分的。

举例来说，如果你说蜘蛛本能地织网是因为蜘蛛必须吃昆虫，而最好的织网者将是最适于生存的蜘蛛，那也不是什么创见。我真是很难逃开你们的信念所织就的那黏糊糊的网。不过，那个蛛网以其自己的方式，代表了蜘蛛一个实现了的理想——而如果你不见怪的话，我要说那也是一张艺术的网。苍蝇如此仁慈地掉进那张网里，实在令蜘蛛惊奇。你可以说，那蜘蛛很惊讶艺术竟然可以如此实用。

那只可怜的、毫无提防的苍蝇又是怎么回事呢？它是不是对蛛网如此迷恋，以致失去了所有的警戒心呢？因为苍蝇无疑是这种邪恶的美丽丝网的受害者。我们的确缠上了黏糊糊的东西。

你们面对的是和自己不同类的意识，此其一。当然，它们是集中焦点的意识，每一个都感觉自己在生命的中心。不过，虽然如此，不同形式的意识却都认同孕育了它们的那个自然源头。以一种不可解释的方式，那苍蝇与蜘蛛是相连的，并觉察到这种连接。不是作为猎者与猎物，而是作为更深过程里的个体参与者。它们一同致力于一种共同的价值完成，两者都在其中获得了圆满。

这里面有一些不为你们所知的意识沟通。可是，当你们相信适者生存这类理论，相信进化的伟大空想时，就会把对世界的觉知拼合起来，使得它们好像证实了这些理论。举例来说，你们在一只为实验牺牲的老鼠的生命里看不到价值，而把齿爪相搏的战斗投射到自然界，完全忽略了其中涉及的伟大的合作性冒险。

When I speak of natural law, I am not referring to the scientists' laws of nature, such as the law of gravity, for example — which is not a law at all, but a manifestation appearing from the viewpoint of a certain level of consciousness as a result of perceptive apparatus. Your "prejudiced perception" is also built into your instruments in that regard.

I am speaking of the inner laws of nature, that pervade existence. What you call nature refers of course to your particular experience with reality, but quite different kinds of manifestations are also "natural" outside of that context. The laws of nature that I am in the process of explaining underlie all realities, then, and form a firm basis for multitudinous kinds of "natures." I will put these in your terms of reference, however.

Each being experiences life as if it were at life's center. This applies to a spider in a closet as well as to any man or woman. This principle applies to each atom as well. Each manifestation of consciousness comes into being feeling secure at life's center ? experiencing life through itself, aware of life through its own nature. It comes into being with an inner impetus toward value ful-fillment. It is equipped with a feeling of safety, of security within its own environment with which it is fit to deal. It is given the impetus toward growth and action, and filled with the desire to impress its world.

The term "value fulfillment" is very difficult to explain, but it is very important. Obviously it deals with the development of values ? not moral values, however, but values for which you really have no adequate words. Quite simply, these values have to do with increasing the quality of whatever life the being feels at its center. The quality of that life is not simply to be handed down or experienced, for example, but is to be creatively added to, multiplied, in a way that has nothing to do with quantity.

In those terms, animals have values, and if the quality of their lives disintegrates beyond a certain point, the species dwindles. We are not speaking of survival of the fittest, but the survival of life with meaning. Life is meaning for animals. The two are indistinguishable.

You say little, for example, if you note that spiders make webs instinctively because spiders must eat insects, and that the best web-maker will be the fittest kind of spider to survive. It is very difficult for me to escape the sticky web of your beliefs. The web, however, in its way represents an actualized ideal on the spider's part ? and if you will forgive the term, an artistic one as well. It amazes the spiders that flies so kindly fall into those webs. You might say that the spider wonders that art can be so practical.

What about the poor unsuspecting fly? Is it then so enamored of the spider's web that it loses all sense of caution? For surely flies are the victims of such nefari-ous webby splendors. We are into sticky stuff indeed.

For one thing, you are dealing with different kinds of consciousness than your own. They are focused consciousnesses, surely, each one feeling itself at life's center. While this is the case, however, these other forms of consciousness also identify then with the source of nature from which they emerge. In a way impossible to explain, the fly and the spider are connected, and aware of the connection. Not as hunter and prey, but as individual participants in deeper processes. Together they work toward a joint kind of value fulfillment, in which both are fulfilled.

There are communions of consciousness of which you are unaware. While you believe in theories like the survival of the fittest, however, and the grand fantasies of evolution, then you put together your perceptions of the world so that they seem to bear out those theories. You will see no value in the life of a mouse sacrificed in the laboratory, for example, and you will project claw-and-fang battles in nature, completely missing the great cooperative venture that is involved.

编译：Laujenny婷/    美编：周周

《赛斯说●第168期》

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