THE SECRET LIFE OF EARTH
by David Truman
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In the 1970s, a fascinating bestseller called "The Secret Life of Plants" revolutionized people's perception of the world forever. Plants are sentient beings, it said, and they respond emotionally to the human beings around them. Today, you are poised to take the next step in universe understanding. This article contains the rest of the story -- the big picture of which the secret life of plants is just a small part.
The way things appear on this planet is not God's plan. God's plan for this Earth, and this humanity, was closer to a love affair -- a truly fruitful and joyous marriage. The Earth was intended to be compliant: to yield easily, bountifully, to the touch of human beings. It was intended that if someone said, "Flower!" a plant would cover itself with blooms.
So what happened? The hurtful attitudes and practices of ego, of unlove, exerted a suppressive effect on the world around us. The ordeal of living -- the difficulty of working with the physical plane at great cost, laboring through great resistance -- is a result of those brutish ways. Our Earth has suffered the same tragic result as happens in any relationship of insufficient love:
Trust goes
Hearts close
Nerves froze
Resistance rose
Compliance and cooperation woes
New lows
The result? The paradise love would support is replaced with a realm of tears. Living becomes difficult. What might have been putty in man's hands turns to stone.
The physics of unlove
Since humanity would not freely and willingly live a life ruled by love, as God intended, God could only express Divine control over humanity -- and thereby help humanity -- by giving the world a rigid order.
Whenever creative power is used destructively, the natural response is a protective one, like squinting in a sandstorm. It is natural and right, for example, that a reckless teenager not be allowed to drive the family car. And it is also natural and right not to implement every wish of a selfish person.
Today's world is run by ego. Commonly, the use of power is selfish, immoral. Selfish use of power creates negative effects -- effects that must, for everyone's sake, be minimized. (When we harm others, we hurt ourselves too. Consequently, protective responses work to protect all.)
The Earth had to harden up when humanity became immoral. The speed of change had to be slowed down to offset the negative impacts of immorality. If man -- man in the immoral mode, that is -- got results faster, he'd just destroy himself and everything else that much faster. Prodigal man needed the external discipline that restrictive physical laws would impose upon him to, in effect, chasten him and keep him out of trouble.
What if?
People enjoy pondering questions like, "If I had three days to live, what would I do?" Or, "If I were king (or God), what would I change?" As you know, most people's answers tend to be terribly self-indulgent. And, just like King Midas, if they actually got those kinds of wishes granted, they might end up regretting it. (Other people certainly would.... )
What if, for example, man could easily summon rain with his thoughts? In destructive moods, man might tend to summon floods upon his "enemies." Widespread suffering and destruction would result.
Similarly, what if man, at his command, could get a plant to bear fruit? Then in the spirit of greed, he would create tremendous abundance for himself. And with that wealth, he would build fortresses, weapons, etc., to avoid sharing his hoard with others. So you see, tremendous hostility would result from the easy responsiveness of plants to the will of man.
This is why, in the world today, the intended Divine order is upside down, topsy-turvy. Everything was originally meant to be subject to man; but now man has become subject to everything. For example, he now depends on the weather, but he cannot control it; he depends on growing crops, but the harvest is unreliable. The would-be, should-be master is now a slave.
Selling oneself into slavery
This restraint of power is not only imposed upon the irresponsible from without. People who know they're irresponsible -- or choose to be irresponsible -- take away their own power at times:
Example: A girl made love with a man, and he drove her absolutely crazy. Talking in amazement to her friend afterwards, she said, "Such power he had over me. I'm so glad I don't have such power. I wouldn't want to be responsible for it."
Subsequently, this woman turned her sexual responsiveness way down. This was consistent with her concern about her likely misuse of any power in her possession, and her semi-conscious will to protect herself and her lover from the problematical effects of her abusing that power.
Often, people want to reduce their chances to fail, to hurt, to destroy. Among other things, that could mean . . .
• People MINIMIZE conversations, to avoid facing the challenges of communicating compassionately.
• People PREFER distance to closeness; they even want to love from a distance (because they're too reactive for face-to-face intimacy).
• People want DISTRACTION. They feel they need it to keep from burying themselves in obsessive self-meditation. So they need to stay busy by toiling inefficiently, so that their selfish mentality does not plunge them into depression.
Thus, the reduction of man's power is a result he, in his phases of moral infirmity, chooses (consciously or otherwise). In relation to the entire world around him, man chooses to be, for want of a better word, impotent. He chooses lack of effectiveness, inefficiency, difficulty.
Now you know why earthly living is hard, why it takes a lot to get a little. You know why man struggles to eke out a meager existence from the earth. Hard-scratch farming. Marginal living. Blood. Sweat. Tears. It's not how it was meant to be, but how our choices make it be -- for now.
What selfishness shuts down, love reopens
If man would take more responsibility, the order of things could be reversed again. What a hurtful approach shuts down -- as a natural and right protective response -- a healed and healing approach opens back up.
You see this principle operating between men and women. As you know, an immoral man meets with considerable resistance in women. They will refuse his advances naturally. On the other hand, if a man truly and sensitively loves a woman and she is receptive to him, she comes alive. She gives herself. She becomes open, malleable, amenable, devoted -- and all this, too, is natural. Of course, as you know, things don't always go naturally. A woman may actually be determined to not give herself, to withhold. But all things being equal -- meaning, if the effect is allowed to be as true as the cause -- the fullness of a woman is evoked and allowed by love.
In the same way, the Earth Herself -- Gaia, our Mother Earth -- is alive, and responsive to love. Love is what allows Earth to be Herself, to give of Herself, to respond freely, naturally, to man's touch. And that love would at the same time replace the selfishness that currently prevents Gaia from being Herself, from giving Herself, from responding to man's touch.
Love, or selfishness -- which will it be? It will be one or the other.
The wonders love has wrought
What a wondrous, bounteous provider the Earth was meant to be, and would be, if She were properly, responsibly, lovingly husbanded! If we loved What Is as it should be loved, then before long, What Is would yield to our touch in a way that is unimaginable now. The customary resistance of the physical plane would vanish -- imperceptibly at first, but more and more obviously in time.
History contains plenty of evidence that this is true. Entire civilizations have operated in ways that are lost now to man. Archeologists marvel at the technical achievements of certain ancient peoples -- like the Egyptian Pyramids, the structures of Machu Picchu in Peru. In those places and many others, stones of tremendous size were cut with a precision that would be nearly impossible to duplicate today. Whatever happened there, the power of love must have moved in the heart of it.
The power of love works even on the individual level. Certain people, within their own sphere, have actually been able to make bountiful the life around them, and apparently transcend "the laws of nature." Certainly this was true of Jesus in his many miracles -- healing the sick, reviving the dead, multiplying food, and so on. American horticulturalist Luther Burbank talked cactuses out of making spines! Those plants were miracles of love.
Real love, sincerely given, has always made great things happen. Love is the headwaters of all that is called "miraculous." Even relatively ordinary persons can and do escape the world's usual limits and restrictions, if they love generously enough. (Most of them are under the radar, as they should be. That protects the miracles of their lives from the slander of skeptics.)
We still have the power
It's no wonder that we find certain marvelous achievements unimaginable. Presently, as we've said, the entire physical plane is suppressed, oppressed, devitalized, by the power of man's unlove. The collective vibration of negative egomind hovers over the Earth like a toxic cloud, exerting a deadening effect on the physical environment and all of its inhabitants. It impacts all things, all people. This perpetuates life on Earth as we know it: a world of resistance, disease, difficulty -- impossibility even.
Of course, man considers himself to be at the effect of it all. But in reality, even in present time, he wields a mighty sword before which things are cowering, fading, and dying. That mighty sword is his mighty will. And now, everything is set to resist him. When he says jump, everything says, "No way!" So he feels disempowered. But you see, little does he know that this so-called disempowerment is really evidence of his power!
And little does he know that he has so much more power and potential with love and creative will. Love can do many wonderful things with one finger that unlove couldn't accomplish with a whole fist. Man construes everything to be mechanical. He would pour out chemical fertilizer instead of love, exert physical force instead of surrender to the Divine plan. He fights things in a relatively muscular, unloving fashion; he expects to overcome instead of love. Taken as a whole, all this effort and resistance is the way of ego. Ungiven, unloving, all around.
Earth does not want to be muscled in wrong directions by a foolish humanity. Earth cannot be Herself in such hands. Just as a woman needs a good man to manifest her beautiful potential, Mother Earth -- Lover Earth, we could say -- needs a good, loving mankind to be what She really could be. Every part of this planet is like a wife waiting for her husband to take charge. And in response to love from Her husband, the Earth would more openly show Her real care, Her real affection.
Love, our saving grace
If mankind would take true moral responsibility for this world, then the nature of this world would change significantly, even at a cellular level. First, all the immediate consequences, such as pollution and global warming, would be reversed. And then, the world would begin to change in deeper ways. It would become, once again, more receptive, more workable. It would require less time to grow crops, less effort to build a home. The world would cooperate, instead of resisting every effort. Things would fall into place.
That was Jesus' natural life. It was the natural life of Luther Burbank, Mahatma Gandhi. And it is the natural life of every person who would live it.
May the circle be unbroken
To the extent that we take truly loving care of the Earth, She will feed and nurture us much more readily and abundantly than we can imagine. This is true environmentalism, which stands way beyond conventional notions of environmentalism. This is love.
Love expresses a higher law than the Law of Attraction and most of the so-called spiritual laws that excite people these days. Personal power doesn't hold a candle to the power of love.
All true power is circular, never linear. We do not empower ourselves with love -- at least that is not love's true intention. With love, we empower others; and they, in turn, empower us. Together, we empower each other. Together, we create a whole environment that is mutually useful and beneficial, in fact, to all. This is as God intended: a life that is joined together, and mutually empowered -- all by the spirit of love.
