GENIUS FORUMS

Some seeds will grow into large strong trees under a wide range of environmental conditions. Even if the young plant is introduced to many environmental challenges, the plant is strong enough to survive. Other seeds are very weak so they produce dwarfed handicapped plants. Each unique environment will produce a unique plant, and even if the seeds are switched in terms of environment then you will have two totally different outcomes. Historically farmers have always saved the strongest seeds for the next season and it would be these seeds that would live on.

Now one has to ask what role does the overall health of the forest play in all this? if a seed germinates in an old growth forest with lots of protection and diversity then obviously the plant has a higher probability of growing strong than if it germinates in an young forest that is plagued with environmental damage and disease…

Symbolic relationships are key, a seed born isolated is doomed to grow handicapped, twisted and deformed.

So one has to ask, what is the stronger determining force? The seed or the forest? perhaps it is beyond measure entirely…

I say this because the forest is the seed in that generations upon generations of forests have molded and modified the information encoded in that seed so one cannot talk about the health of the seed without talking about the health of the present forest and health of past generations of ancestral forests..

Now another point to consider is that the seed is the fruit. The quality of the fruit produced will be determined by the quality of that initial seed. Fruit is an important component, it aids in sustaining life for an entire ecosystem.

so the seed is the tree; the seed is the fruit; the seed is the forest and finally the seed is the ecosystem.

Cory Patrick wrote in another post:

Each thing is the expression of everything else, there fore a particular thing doesn’t ‘inherently’ exist.

I say that one particular ‘thing’ is the expression of that which is constant and changeless, namely; cause and effect.

One particular thing has no inherent, independent power to act and thus the expression of one particular thing is only the expression of everything else.

And everything (the totality of causality) is essentially without cause, purpose or reason.
I can’t see how I will not always find this essential truth irrational.

Metaphorically the irrational would be the root system of the tree. The deeper ones root system the bigger, stronger and more complex the branch system will result.

The branch system represents ones understanding which is quite ‘phantom’ like. This is true because most of the time the sage is rooted in the irrational, rooted in the unknowing root system.

The root system is dark, cold, mysterious, uncertain, wonderous, etc.. whereas the branch system is certain, observable, factual.

Moreover one factor in determining the size the branches is the result of being in contact with the light. Light (insight) occurs after a strong rain.

If you ever watch plants grow which I make an effort to do you will notice that a plant will only grow after a strong rain (suffering/discontent). Immediately after the rain, the sun (insight) will burst through the clouds causing the branches to grow and divide through a period of expansion.

The 300 year old redwoods that exist in British Columbia Canada are notorious for their massive branch systems which are only possible due to their massive root systems.

So the massive root system creates the massive branch system, not the other way around.

If one is rooted in the rational meaning rooted in the branches, the conceptual, then their root system will be incredibly shallow and overall the tree will end up being deformed. Tragically the extent to which this tree can grow is limited because the tree has never established that primary connection with the irrational, the root system.

If one is rooted in the branches, conceptual, rational, then ones suffering/discontent will not be as intense and therefore their periods of growth will be shoddy in comparsion to someone who is rooted deep into the root system.

It is rooting oneself in the uncertainty of the root system that creates discontent/suffering and thus causes one to investigate, research and all the rest of it.

A developing tree will be malnourished if they are not rooted properly in the irrational because there will be an inadequate amount of rainfall.

However biologists speculate that those 300 year redwood trees need very little rainfall because their root system is so deep that it has penetrated the groundwater table completely, while the small trees that are still developing require frequent rainfall because their root systems are still so shallow.

if a seed germinates in an old growth forest with lots of protection and diversity then obviously the plant has a higher probability of growing strong than if it germinates in an young forest that is plagued with environmental damage and disease…

I do not think this is true. Many seeds will germinate but few will have a clearing to see the light and grow due to the fact of the old trees blocking their sunlight.

This is a reason why more often than not it is wise to reject the cloudy traditions of one's elders. But only if they are blocking your light.

As per jesus I regard the word light as meaning wisdom. wisdom is personified knowledge.

I wrote and Jamesh responded:

if a seed germinates in an old growth forest with lots of protection and diversity then obviously the plant has a higher probability of growing strong than if it germinates in an young forest that is plagued with environmental damage and disease…

Actually I didn’t realize, but this statement is quite hypothetical in that there has never been a society of wise sages so to speculate on such a situation doesn’t make sense.

One could interpret this as saying that capitalist democracy is more favorable as an environment to produce a wise man than a third world country…

The logic is less friction more leisure. More leisure equals higher chances of an individual dedicating their life to higher contemplation.

This maybe more relevant to how the world currently is.

The devil says to Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov:

Just so. But hesitation, suspense, conflict between belief and disbelief- is sometimes such torture to a conscientious man, such as you are, that it's better to hang oneself at once. Knowing that you are inclined to believe in me, I administered some disbelief by telling you that anecdote. I lead you to belief and disbelief by turns, and I have my motive in it. It's the new method. As soon as you disbelieve in me completely, you'll begin assuring me to my face that I am not a dream but a reality. I know you. Then I shall have attained my object, which is an honorable one. I shall sow in you only a tiny grain of faith and it will grow into an oak-tree- and such an oak-tree that, sitting on it, you will long to enter the ranks of 'the hermits in the wilderness and the saintly women’, for that is what you are secretly longing for.

Who provides the soil for these roots God or as Dostoevsky postulates the Devil? Well it is a mute point and I am sorry for bringing it up because you are using a metaphor but grounding it in reality – not fantasy (hence God and the Devil are mute points).

Cosmic Prostitute is this anecdote about the tree a metaphor you created, was it inspired by the film Being There (or maybe the Japanese film Charisma)? Either way it is a beautiful metaphor and worth contemplating. I read this blurb recently:

in a Portuguese TV channel web site is claiming that a group of NASA scientists along with a Mexican group from UNAM are studying the possibility of sometime in the future planting a special species of pine trees (that grows on the Orizaba Mountain in Mexico) on Mars.

This species of pine trees grows at 5000 meters altitude, in extreme cold and in an atmosphere which bears very low levels of oxygen. Apparently these trees serve as hosts to a particular species of bacteria that helps them survive in such harsh conditions (the article doesn't go so far as to explain what kind of exchange between tree and bacteria goes on, but hints that the bacteria are able to provide nutrients to the trees).

In this case is the symbiotic bacteria a metaphor for thetans? Can Scientology give us such wisdom that we could survive on Mars after we render Earth inhabitable? That’s not funny. I apologize. I'll get back to you when I find something useful to say.

AlyOshA wrote:

In this case is the symbiotic bacteria a metaphor for thetans? Can Scientology give us such wisdom that we could survive on Mars after we render Earth inhabitable?

I also suspect that as technology keeps pushing forward humans will attempt to colonize other inhabitable planets such as Mars….

However it is unforunate that collectively we are incapable of putting all that energy into sustainable methods to prevent the beautiful planet we are on now from being destroyed…

If we could stop fantasizing about far off lands and deal with the land in front of our very own eyes then perhaps humanity would have a prayer…