When the Ocean of Life "peoples"

Peopling as a form of waving

When causes and conditions are right, the great oceans of our earth manifest waves.

When causes and conditions are right, the great Ocean of Life-Force manifests people. This ocean permeates the entire universe, and is the "place" where our life forces go after we die.

To put it more succinctly: When causes and conditions are right, the great oceans of water wave, and the Life-Force Ocean peoples.

I cannot remember where I'd first heard this comparison. Nor can I recall having ever read it anywhere. But it's always rung true to me, so I offer for your benefit what I've heard - adding a little of my own.

The Wave Aspect of our Lives

Each of our individual lives can be thought of as a single wave on a body of water. When causes and conditions are right, a wave rises above the surface of the water. In other words, a birth takes place - the birth of an entity similar to other such entities but not entirely identical to them. Just as a wave is born and keeps growing then later declines and dies (as part of its life cycle), so do each of us. We, like that wave, are born, grow, decline, and die.

In the case of the wave, we simply see that it is no more. But by that, we can only mean we no longer see it above the surface of the water. However, even though that unique wave no longer towers above the surface as a unique "body," that wave still exists under the surface in some diluted form. It's true that some of that deceased wave will give up some of its water to the ocean; it's also true that some of that wave's water will re-wave (that is, it will reincarnate when causes and conditions are right). In its newly-manifested, visible form, it will contain water it didn't have in its previous incarnation as well as water it did have.

We are like that watery wave. We are born, we grow, decline, and die. But what happens to us when we die - when our life force loses its body and disappears from view? We are simply under the surface in a manner of speaking - in a dormant, potential state of being. When causes and conditions are right, we rise once again to distinguish ourselves and enter plain view - this time with a different body. We lost a little to the great ocean of life, yet we gained a little too.

Not only are our lives and deaths comparable to the visible and sub-surface parts of a wave, so too are all of our waking and sleeping periods. When we wake up in the morning, that's like being reborn - like a wave first starting to appear. As our day wears on, we become more active, as does a wave as it rises and increases in strength. Then we tire and pass into sleep, as does a wave which crashes to the surface and is no longer visible while it sleeps below the surface. It will gather strength and reappear, just as we do when we sleep then awaken in the morning.

Those Born for the First Time

Maybe some of what we lose ends up animating "water" from the deep - so far from the surface, it never had a chance to become part of a wave or, to continue our metaphor, to ever be born. This wrinkle occurred to me after my 85^th oral recitation of the Lotus Sutra*, which speaks of those "born for the first time." This must have something to do with the concept that inanimate objects can attain enlightenment. Since even rocks are imbued with Life Force (but not consciousness), they too can eventually attain Buddhahood (but not in their rocky form).

What would it be like to meet someone who had never had a prior existence as a human being - someone who was born for the first time as a human being? Someone who had never had a prior incarnation as a person? Don't suppose for a moment that they would only have the capacity of a retard. Consider children. I'm amazed at how quickly the very young catch on. Perhaps those born for the first time are like these very young who catch on so quickly. Of course, there are others among the very young who are not so bright.

I suppose it all boils down to what kind of karmic stuff these First-time Humans brought with them into this world. Some of their karma was acquired while they existed in an inanimate state. But that could be said of all of us, First-time Human or not (even those born without bodies, having only consciousness).

The Consciousness of "Mere" Water

Is it at all accurate to compare the human life wave to a watery wave? Water is not conscious and cannot control its own destiny. In fact, it only rises to become a visible wave due to forces outside itself: wind, temperature, earth's rotation, and the moon's tidal effects (to name a few).

Before we become too smug as to how superior we are to the water in the ocean, we should consider Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Written in 1951, it's about a planet of that name in another solar system which is inhabited by only one intelligent living being. That being is an ocean which almost completely covers Solaris. But this ocean has not only intelligence but power. It can move things - for example, it can "adjust" (by mental telepathy, for lack of a better term) Solaris's orbital path around its twin suns.

This ocean can even probe the minds of the human beings from Earth who are manning a space station trying to communicate with the Solarian Ocean (but the ocean won't comply). More than probe their minds, this Ocean can conjure into being walking, talking copies of people these astronauts had known on earth (or who'd existed only in their imaginations). When one astronaut meets a copy of his wife who'd died ten years earlier...well that's when this book becomes more human, so to speak.

NOTE: Don't bother with the movie version of Solaris, starring George Clooney - the Russian version directed by Tarkovsky is far superior.

Do nations and societies have karma?

Do families and nations have a group karma? That might sound like: "Can my stomach have its own karma, separate from that of the rest of me?" If my stomach developed cancer, then it would seem to be manifesting its own destiny. If my stomach's karma were too strongly connected to the rest of me, I would die. In a sense, my stomach would take me with it. If it weren't too strongly connected, I would continue to live - though my poor stomach might cease to exist by being cut out of me.

So the answer is yes, and I'll continue with this example: I am a citizen of the USA. I was born here and was influenced by that. But I was influenced by other things as well. Each of us is part of many bodies, some being more influential than others.

Think of a truly huge wave in the Pacific Ocean, perhaps a 40-footer. If you look closely, on the surface of that wave are smaller waves. That huge one is the USA; one of those tiny ones is me (another tiny one is you). Though we are part of that huge wave and have our roots in it, other waves in our immediate vicinity will influence us. Some of these other waves are as small as we are, while others are larger in varying degrees. All of these influence us relatively powerless, tiny individuals. Not to mention the influence of the howling wind and the driving rain from above (which isn't part of the American wave you and I live on).

Though each of us lives on the American wave and were born from it, not all of us are equally affected by various causes and conditions external to the American wave. How we're affected depends on where it is on that wave we happen to live.

Steven Searle, just another member of the Virtual Samgha of the Lotus

“The trick is to dwell on such matters – mercilessly – in order to ‘get it.’ Persist long enough, and a tidal wave of meanings will wash over you" - Steve.

* The Lotus Sutra refers to the Burton Watson translation of this sutra © 1993