We, the human species, are the result of a long and arduous process of evolution, and now we can be best described as little more than a race of human hybrids: half-man, but with a very deep-rooted entail that leads us would-be humans in the ways of our less presentable past!
Our nature is divided into two contending strains - the animal and the angel. Both are essential to the equipment of every man coming into the world. The animal is obviously resident, restive, reactionary and acquisitive, the angel is a quality deep hidden and mainly undiscovered. This is the urge behind our aspirations and our endless search for the Reality that goes on Living - Living that knows no dying.
‘Angel’: the word means messenger, the bearer of a message, the message of the Spirit that is the Cause of all creation, the Essence of all becoming, the object of all being. This angel quality lies hidden in the depths of unknowing, insensitive man, ever urging him to grow to conscious being, beyond the backward pull of his elemental beginnings.
Many are unaware of this angel born of Life itself, the angel that makes the meaning for coming into this world. And the animal endlessly chases its own tail, to the denial of the imprisoned angel that suffers while we heedlessly indulge in fights and feuds, the elemental impulses and instincts which belong to our past natures.
Nature Dominance
We who optimistically call ourselves homo sapiens have become so used to our assumed role of superior creatures with a wealth of resources and skills at our disposal, that we tend to ignore our background and nature ancestry. We have in the last hundred to two hundred years, almost unbelievably subdued, adapted and exploited nature to serve science; but we are apt to forget that, in spite of all our triumphs, we ourselves are still under its dominance. In the nature realm, everything preys upon something else; to kill or be killed has always been its ruthless regime for sustenance and survival. Man, as the offspring of nature, has had to follow, albeit involuntarily, that line of heredity and inherit nature’s instincts. But the urgent question now is: How long can we afford to go on blindly repeating the habits of our nature mother, when we have in so many outstanding and dangerous ways transcended her limits?
True, we have attempted to deal with our elemental instincts by innumerable moral and religious means. But nature’s tendencies are always liable to break out, and when fear, suspicion, hate or revenge lay hold of the reins of emotion, then at nature’s behest, we resort to any or all of the behaviour patterns that pertain to the ignored ancestry of the would-be superior homo sapiens.
Truth to tell, we like friction more than harmony. Watch an audience listening sleepily to some informative lecture. See what happens when someone interrupts and says: ‘I don’t agree with you’. The sleepers immediately sit up, open their eyes and alert their ears! Conflict, argument, friction are actually stimulating. Our strife with our neighbour is, more often than not, the spice of life. Indeed, if anyone should threaten what we regard as our rights, most of us show zest for the battle!
Man has taken enormous strides in subduing the forces of nature to achieve civilisation, but he has not yet managed the lower creation that lingers and lurks in his psyche.
Heeding the Message
In this perilous nuclear age, one thing becomes unmistakably clear: We must discover new and different ways; not merely, as has too often been our habit, by camouflaging, concealing or repressing the conflicting instincts and predatory appetites that the animal strain in us has inherited. It is no longer just morally wrong to commandeer, retaliate or murderously annihilate. In view of the forces that man has unleashed, it is unmitigated insanity to indulge, implement and ‘scientise’ the old nature instincts, the dubious remnants of his primitive beginnings.
Man is now compelled by the pressures of the new age he has inherited to grow to human estate and to realise his destiny as Life’s latest, most companionable achievement. The challenge of the angel in man is to evolve a mind that can control and direct the nature forces within him, and prove his manhood by transcending their now obsolete domination.
Peace on earth can only come true when we heed the message of the angel within ourselves.
Ian Fearn
© New Renasence Trust (Registered Charity No 256640)
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