This may be the most important thing I ever say, in my whole life:

So I get an email from the JazzLion, dropping his phone number, asking me to call. His words are brief but intimate. I take notice.

I last saw him in December 2014, right before he split to BC for a series of adventures which attempted to bridge the natural world which he tries to hang on to, and the sleazy commercial world we humans have insisted on letting dominate ourselves. Early reports were promising. I began to think he would not be returning. Apparently so did he, at least for a while. I telephoned.

In his words, he hit rock bottom in Calgary, knocked out of employment by the third boss in a row to con him with false promises, at least according to his perception. With no home or money and a head full of destructive thoughts, aimed at himself and others, he called on Mom for a loan for a coach ticket back to Ontario where his greater support system lies.

His considerable intelligence never seems to match up to his emotions. His goals never seem to match up to both his perceived purpose and circumstances simultaneously. The gifts he offers never seem to match up to the wants of his neighbors.

We seem to meet up on a little better than annual basis. He will spend the next few days on a bus and then we’ll get together. I know he is feeling lost and hurting and questioning his purpose in life. I know where I want to start in terms of trying to help him find his way toward life pursuits that might work for him, and I shall write it here and now, for his benefit (review) and mine (reminder) and hopefully others (something to think about):

Purpose

If you want to get at the truth of anything you have to start by identifying the appropriate context which is always the largest relevant context. In this case, the universe.

The universe is mind-bogglingly huge and relatively empty of life; to what degree we are not sure, but we can be almost certain of one thing: There is no species in existence in the universe quite like us. That is a logical near-certainty. Because in order to be wrong about that, the other humanoids would have had to come into existence at right about the same time we did, so close to the same time that this would represent a wildly unlikely coincidence when mapped on the scale of the universe’s immense duration. We can observe enough of the universe and of earth to know that life occurs in the universe in extremely unlikely circumstances and intelligent conscious life in staggeringly unlikely circumstances; a staggeringly rare event. But given the immensity of opportunities in the universe: trillions of trillions of trillions of worlds (we can predict); such unlikelihood may happen more than once. But given the humanoid passion (and rate) for exploration and expansion (no doubt a primary factor in what we’ve become; what we are), any similar humanoid species not of Minerva (or Earth as you might say) has to either have killed itself off by now (as we have proven to be fully capable of and are currently forecasted to do) or else has simply not yet evolved anywhere else in the universe. We know this is a mathematical near-certainty because otherwise we could not have avoided this race because to be anything like us and thus with a similar rate of expansion capacity, it would have flooded the universe by now. And we have not run into them.

So trusting we occupy a rare supervisory role in the universe, what does that mean for us?

It means that something brand spanking new is happening in the universe which is well beyond its previously normal scope: that of swirling matter snowballing according to gravity and densities and explosiveness with one or more isolated oases of death-life where cellular organization takes rapidly altering compositions as different forms rapidly consume the prior forms and are rapidly consumed in turn: evolution as we know it. The brand-spanking new thing is consciousness and it has the ability to utterly transform the nature of the universe but might tragically decline to. Consciousness is subject to evolution of an intentional form without need of countless generations and has proven to me, and (I interpret) to others, to be capable of very rapid evolution.

Consciousness enables a web of intelligence, love, empathy (much more love and empathy than most people even begin to realize), communication and cooperation; the kind of cooperation which can put a man on the moon, set its sites on Mars, and soon beyond, with startling growth of reach (technological advancement).

Consciousness, though infantile at this early stage, in the care of humankind, has the capacity to perhaps sadly disappear, or else evolve and flood the universe with harmony and benign intent instead of this cold physical circular causality with rare blips of death-life.

This is a drama of utterly epic proportions which affects the entire universe and makes all other dramas, especially the contrived human societal ones, completely irrelevant, as much as we pretend otherwise. And we are at the centre of it. We are the universe’s witnesses to this event, as well as in the starring role. And the thrilling thing is that we participate in that role at every moment, no matter what we do, and we are able to witness this drama at every waking moment (and arguably when dreaming, perhaps) if we choose to! Because everything we do, if you break down the components fine enough (not a lot of work in most cases) either propagates our normal beastliness or else propagates the evolution. Everything.

At every moment we can be slave to our instincts or else be mindful. (Speaking from a variety of established perspectives:) We can be spiritually asleep or spiritually awake. We can be animal or truly human; a grown child or a true adult. We can experience living death or be poetically alive, serve our internal devil or internal godliness. And every choice, every moment, is huge! Every one of our actions, in adherence with the laws of causality, are potentially eternal – or awfully damn close to eternal; eternal for all intents and purposes.

Eckhart Tolle, who has earned my immense trust, would tell JazzLion that being this witness is his internal purpose, with an outer purpose being his duty to design. I would add that choosing a side in this cosmic fork in the road, must form a basis for his purpose, whether you call it inner or outer.

Tolle says that some people who recognize the human purpose will involve this spiritual reality as a core component of their outer purpose. I know that that has to be true of me; that I must make it true, and given JazzLion’s capacity for intelligence and empathy and wakefulness, I would suggest the same of him.

Frankly, I would say this of quite a few of the special people I know. And I know that some of you read this blog. I really hope you are listening!

Love you.