A spiritual perspective on extraterrestrial life – aka intelligence in the universe

Just watching this video by Stephen Hawking made me realize just how different my perspective on intelligence in the universe is from that of mainsteam science…

[Video since became unavailable]

From a material perspective Richard Hawking has several great points. He notes that the next hundred years are going to be crucial in determining whether we will survive on this planet. He asks whether the fact that we haven’t communicated with any other intelligent species so far shows that civilizations generally just don’t last long enough to be at a stage where they can communicate at all. In other words: social and technical capability has to reach a similar stage simultaneously. The chances of contact are slim if civilization self destructs automatically at some point which includes our current technical capabilities.

What I don’t think Hawking takes into account in enough is the difficulty of definitions. From a theosophical perspective humans are merely the most evolved physical consciousness on this planet. Consciousness that isn’t localized in a physical structure – like a community consciousness in a certain geographical area for instance – may be more intelligent or wise than the humans in that area, but still be powerless to communicate with most.

I don’t think it’s speculation to go so far as to say that planet earth itself has a consciousness. We contribute to that consciousness and are a part of it – but from her perspective we are perhaps more like annoying viruses than constructive cells. We’re literally causing her to have a fever right now.

Because it’s Friday, let me close with an important quote from H.P. Blavatsky on extraterrestrial life from her classic The Secret Doctrine.

Since no single atom in the entire Kosmos is without life and consciousness, how much more then its mighty globes? — though they remain sealed books to us men who can hardly enter even into the consciousness of the forms of life nearest us?

We do not know ourselves, then how can we, if we have never been trained to it and initiated, fancy that we can penetrate the consciousness of the smallest of the animals around us?

3 thoughts on “A spiritual perspective on extraterrestrial life – aka intelligence in the universe”

  1. An alternative theory is that they (extraterrestrials) are “out there” and they are even visiting us right now…I heard a fella on the radio last night who was talking about how Extraterrestrials have influenced man kind, guiding them on a path towards universal brother/sisterhood by creating or influencing our religions–or something like that. So that in the end we can join the galactic society.

    The radio personality, I don’t know his name, as I was just channel surfing the AM dial, claimed to be a Christian, and also claimed that his theory of alien involvement did not diminish his faith whatsoever.

    I don’t know. I just don’t understand how some people think.

    But it may be that the technology is so superior that if there are alien civilizations out there we can’t see the signals they give off –so when we look for them with our primitive radio devises we don’t find anything. Maybe. I have to be completely agnostic about it.

    But as far as the self destructive nature of life–I think, and can only hope, based on the only “intelligent” species I know–the human variety–who can say how other varieties of life would act. But maybe at a point of crisis our consciousness would shift, and we would do the right thing?

  2. The extraterrestrial life issue seems to be simple yet so complex to me. I would think there is life elsewhere, as we understand life on the material plane to exist. Have they contacted us from time to time? I believe so, but its just a guess on my part. I also believe that there are many more dimensions we are not privy to on this plane. Its the dimensions that we are not awhere of that are the highways used by other beings to arrive here (if they do come here at all.)
    On this plane we know we can’t exceed 186,000 mph (the speed of light) if we were to try, we would gain mass. In our cosmos as we know it, you couldn’t get very far at that speed in my opinion. Thats why I believe if there are extraterrestrials arriving here, they have entered from another dimension. Im not an expert on any of this (as you can tell : ) but thats my take on it.

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