The Infinite Mystery

Welcome to the Infinite Harmony Podcast! This episode lays the foundation for our podcast and explores the first harmonic principle of the Church of Infinite Harmony: "The Principle of the Infinite Mystery."

“The Church of Infinite Harmony recognizes the origins of life, Earth, and spiritual knowledge as The Infinite Mystery whose true nature can not be understood by humankind, but only felt; not defined, but only contemplated. The Infinite mystery is a paradox we attempt to decipher with our minds, only to leave our minds at the door to infinity. It is the desire to know ourselves through an infinite portal of learning, growing and becoming.”

When we subscribe to the idea that the universe is meant to be understood, that all frontiers are to be known to us, we deprive ourselves of the very understanding we seek, because there is always something beyond our understanding.

The Church of Infinite Harmony asks what are these understandings that we humans have found throughout the millennia that are more alike than different, and it honors the unique cultural practices of all living beings as well as the existence of all that is beyond human culture.

Dive deep and discover the golden threads that weave us all together.

This episode is produced by Jackie Dragon

Featuring the musical musings of AhziRa the Gonzo Musical Journalist
With Vocal dubs by Amanda Rose
With excerpts from "Finite and Infinite Games" by James Carse
and "The Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra

To become a member of the Church of Infinite Harmony visit: https://www.infiniteharmony.org/membership

Questions about this episode? Comments? Care to discuss the philosophies? Visit our Forum at : https://www.infiniteharmony.org/forum

A transcript of this episode can be found here

Transcript

Hello everyone, and welcome to the very first Church of Infinite Harmony Podcast. I’m your host Jackie Dragon, Senior Land Steward of the Church of Infinite Harmony. This podcast ultimately sets out to explore how we as humans can harmonize our relationship to Earth, as the core tenant of our church is our relationship to the spirit of this planet, which we refer to as Gaia. Of course, in order to harmonize our relationship to Gaia, we must begin with ourselves. This podcast will explore various ontologies, epistemologies, mythologies and ultimately the beliefs of the church, which as you will learn today, grow over time. Our church is not fixed in its belief, except for the belief that everything changes, and that we as a human species matter in the greater view of things here on Earth.

I would like to start by outlining the format of this podcast so you know what to expect. Though I imagine at some point this podcast will contain long form interviews, the primary content will be audio journeys spoken by me, on various beliefs, opinions, and ideas floating in the collective space. These essays are not perfect reflections of the beliefs of the church, but are simply a practice of critical thought, both for myself and the listener. These journeys will often focus on the works of great writers and philosophers that have influenced the Church, but in the spirit of the journey, I hope to uncover some Golden Threads to follow through space and time to a deeper felt experience of the anima of the universe. Golden threads. Imagine them, a path of inquiry leading to (somewhere…)

Threads of synchronicity. 

Gateways to the Archetypes. 

(Follow the white rabbit)

All roads lead to the center.

The continuity of the Universe

All things serve the beam 

You get the idea.

Now disclaimer : As one of the founders of the Church I’ll start by saying that I am not a prophet, which is what many modern churches are founded upon, nor have I received some mysteriously channeled transmission from a celestial being from the Pleiadians, or uncovered book by some previously unknown author which promises a total understanding of the universe. I am merely a level five monk with a plus two staff and some druid inclinations, but even that is up for debate… anyway, I will also say, in spirit of the methodologies of Infinite Harmony, these expressions of ideas, sometimes known as opinions, may change or grow throughout the course of time, for this is a core tenant of the church and the principle we will talk about today, the Infinite Mystery of the ever present, allowing the expressions of ideas to grow and take on new form as they meet other interesting expressions of ideas. 

If anything, this Church exists to serve as a crucible for synthesizing the edges of human thought, creativity, and spirituality into a an ever expanding mythos. This mythos isn't meant to be static or prescriptive; rather, it aims to construct an evolving narrative about how humans can achieve not just inner equilibrium but also harmonious coexistence with our planet. Synthesis is not just a methodological choice for this Church; it's a core philosophical tenet that we'll delve into more deeply in subsequent discussions. 

The Church operates on the premise that human ideological diversity is not a cacophony but a chorus, each voice contributing a unique timbre and pitch. Whether it's insights from religion, philosophy, or even scientific inquiry, each has intrinsic value. The Church's role, as it sees it, is to curate these diverse ideological artifacts, distilling from them the most enduring and universally resonant principles. Think of it as a form of intellectual and spiritual alchemy. The goal is to blend these principles into an amalgam that is not only greater than the sum of its parts but also expansive enough to be inclusive of a multiplicity of human experiences and cultural contexts. This is about slowly crafting an ontology that resonates with all of humanity, while still allowing for the idiosyncratic expressions that are the lifeblood of individual cultures. 

Yet, what sets this Church apart, especially in discussions about human progress and spirituality, is its focus on our relationship with the non-human world. Anthropocentrism is not the focal point of our narrative. It asserts that any credible philosophy for the future cannot be subjectively human-focused; it must account for the intricate web of life of which we are but a single, albeit influential, strand. 

In this end, our Church aspires to transcend the human-nonhuman dichotomy, recognizing that our fate is intrinsically tied to the wellbeing of the entire planet. The Church's doctrine isn't just a narrative about human potential or an ethical guidebook for human interactions; it's a comprehensive vision that incorporates both the anthropic and non-anthropic facets of existence. It looks at the world with a gaze that seeks to encompass both the human and the more-than-human, aspiring to create a spiritual and ethical framework that honors and sustains the intricate relationality between the two. Welcome to the Infinite Harmony Podcast

I’ve heard that every generation feels like the end of the world is right around the corner or that their catastrophes are the greatest of all catastrophes, and perhaps their right, but it goes without saying that as the first Global generations, we face a rather unique set of problems and are quite possibly watching the our very ecosystem changing before us, because of us. In these podcasts we’ll talk often about Gaia and theory of the Earth as a living system, with its own intelligence that is likely far different from our own, and how we fit into that system. The Church believes that the only way we can attain an expression of existence here on Earth that no longer involves humans going hungry, dying in war and living in opposition to each other is to consider Earth or “Gaia” as a living being, just like us, with all the rights and privileges we would give ourselves, which includes every plant, animal, insect, rock and amoeba an so on. But before we dive into Gaian Theory and its place in the Church we’re going to dive into some abstract principles of humanness that can help guide us toward harmony.

The Church is built upon 9 principles, which we call the harmonic principles. Now, that may evolve over time, but the first principle is likely to remain as a fundamental ontology of our belief, or in other words, a foundation upon which we build our view of existence collectively. The 9 Harmonic Principles are not laws per se, nor are they some moral code that we must act upon, but observations on the nature of the universe and how our actions and thoughts interact with time and space. They are by no means complete, and the church expects that they never will be complete, for as we’ll discuss today, the first law teaches us that a final understanding of the universe is not currently within the grasp of our limited human mind, and may never be. In an ever expanding universe, so might our understanding be ever expanding.

So, as both a topic of conversation and a meta narrative for what lies in front of us, today we’ll talk about the first Harmonic Principle…THE PRINCIPLE OF THE INFINITE MYSTERY!

Sorry… I just had to to that…

“The Church of Infinite Harmony recognizes the origins of life, Earth, and spiritual knowledge as The Infinite Mystery whose true nature can not be understood by humankind, but only felt; not defined, but only contemplated. The Infinite mystery is a paradox we attempt to decipher with our minds, only to leave our minds at the door to infinity. It is the desire to know ourselves through an infinite portal of learning, growing and becoming.”

Another way of saying this, is that we know nothing.

Yes, you heard that right, we know nothing.

It does, however, acknowledge a feeling of something. 

Something vast beyond words, something just out of the reach of the human mind and all its rationality, but somehow, some way, understood. 

Something from the time before time, before logic and mathematics, before man was alone unto himself in the universe. A time when Ravens brought the stars into the heavens and stole the moon, so that man might walk illuminated through the darkness and feel the tides pulling them forward.

Something from a place when Gods walked among us, woven of clouds and space dust. The infinite mystery of the vast void, the time of Chaos and Erebus, of Tiamat and Set.

It asks us not to know with our minds, but to feel into the infinite nature of all things, to, when we speak of such things, know that the thing, can never truly be spoken.

This, of course, is not a new idea. The Tao Te Ching, a collections of texts that date back over 2400 years ago and one of the foundational texts of Taoism, states in its first line “The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao, the name that can be named is not the eternal name”

In the words spoken to his student, the realized master Tilopa, who lived over a thousand years ago said “Mahamudra is beyond all symbols and words, but your you dear Naropa I shall say this…”

In each of these ancient teachings we see a reluctance to claim an objective knowledge of truth. Instead we see a deeper understanding of just how elusive truth is, and even more so, that which we call truth or the ultimate understanding, can not be captured in language, and yet somehow we must find a way to speak them.

When we subscribe to the idea that the universe is meant to be understood, that all frontiers are to be known to us, we deprive ourselves of the very understanding we seek, because there is always something beyond our understanding. Consider the idea of the horizon. The horizon is never a place we can go to, or find. In fact, the horizon is the very thing we cannot see, or rather, what is just beyond our line of sight. As we walk toward it, we go nowhere. This is a key to the door of finding a true presence in our lives and it is here where I will reference Finite and Infinite Games and author James Carse for the first of many times throughout this podcast, as the book was very instrumental in formulating this Harmonic Principle and many concepts introduced in the church’s metaphysics. Many of our golden threads will lead back to Carse and his work. Carse died on September 25th, 2020 which became the first unofficial holiday of the Church, James Carse day. So yeah, we love him.

Carse says “One never reaches a horizon. It is not a line; it has no place; its location is always relative to view. To move toward a horizon is to simply have a new horizon. Who lives horizonally is never somewhere, but always in passage.”

Consider this against a metaphor living vertically, of attempting to transcend what is in front of us through divine understanding, arriving at enlightenment and no longer wrapped in the woes of human existence. From the monk at the top of the mountain or the philosopher in his ivory tower, many metaphysics point to a transcendental moment that overrides all the flaws of humanity and brings to us    m  a state of non-duality or non-suffering. But to live horizontally is to live among the people, to create a culture of belief that is dynamic and synergistic. Carse’s definition of culture further outlines this idea. Now, there are many definitions of culture and its origins throughout academia that often encompass the study of people and places and their habits, customs, social institutions and achievements in art, music, and the humanities, as well as the religions that occupy them. But it is Carse’s definition of culture that we will study for our purposes, because it is a core lens at which to look upon the Church of Infinite Harmony as not just a religion, but a culture and way of life firmly rooted in the first principle of the Infinite Mystery, a culture that does not look for answers, but lives to play unto infinity as a culture ever present with the unknown, that looks backwards and forwards through time and sees what unfolds as perfect and unique in every way, and therefore willing to experience the present moment with a heart full of gratitude.

Carse says, “Culture is whatever we do with each other by undirected choice.” And here he distinguishes culture from society. A society is understood by some form of public constraint such as laws, or national boundaries. Culture is boundless and society is bound. What does it mean to be an American? Well, for one, you either live or have been born within the bounds of America. Maybe you drive a pick-up truck and love cheeseburgers, or advocate for civil rights and equality under the constitution, or blow fireworks on the fourth of July… but are these really what it means to be an American. The culture of America is hard to set boundaries around. I mean, the have cheeseburgers in Canada, and I bet you can find a pick up truck in China, maybe even a cowboy hat if you look hard enough. But we can certainly all agree that America falls within the boundaries of “sea to shining sea” and has Canada to the North and Mexico to the South. We’ll analyze more deeply Carse’s distinctions between culture and society in a different episode. For now I want to focus on the idea that culture has no bounds. It is a form of infinite play. It is a perpetual horizon. Culture is a narrative as Carse would say, that “has begun but points always toward the endlessly open”. This is important in understanding the first principle of the infinite mystery as a foundation of the church, because in this way, the traditions of the church are endlessly open. It is the participants in the church that are free to agree and free to amend the nature of the church, not based of course on some arbitrary decisions of randomness but through the adoption and experience of what is, and the willingness to allow the experiences of adoption to transform the traditions across time, always relevant to those who are practicing them. In this way the Church of Infinite Harmony does not have a creation story, it recognizes all creation stories, including the creation stories of science and technology.       

In this podcast, we will undoubtedly talk about creation stories, about myths and stories that shape us, and perhaps we will even walk away when it is all said and done able to feel our origins and beings, perhaps if we follow the white rabbit far enough, we will find home.

But maybe the rabbit hole has no end. Maybe there is no rabbit. Remember, we don’t know. What we do know is that humans have a propensity for myth and meaning making. Our world is wrapped in myth, wrought by our minds through symbols and language. Myths carry us on their waves through existence like a magic carpet into the unknown and back to the known. They are the threads of culture, weaving through our relations as humans and mapping out the quilt of relations to ourselves, each other, and the world around us. Through myth we spiral upward, forever returning to the beginning with a deeper understanding of the journey, yet ready again to make the journey. For if we truly never claim to know, then the quest for understanding never ends. New stories are told, and within them are the old stories. The tao te Ching, the mahamudra, particle physics. There is a thing, and yet there is something beyond the thing, and we stand in the center.

Myth is at the heart of everything. Now back to Carse…

From Carse’s perspective,  to understand the sentence within our harmonic principle “The Infinite mystery is a paradox we attempt to decipher with our minds, only to leave our minds at the door to infinity,” one must understand the nature of myth and it’s distinction from knowledge. 

The last chapter in Finite and Infinite Games is Myth Provokes Explanation but Accepts none of it. 

The first line of the chapter says, “Myth Provokes Explanation but accepts none of it. Where explanation absorbs the unspeakable into the speakable, myth reintroduces the silence that makes original discourse possible.”

Now, to truly understand the depth of this statement as Carse sees it will require its own episode. A little side note here. As I’m narrating this podcast, I’ve mentioned a few times that certain topics will be covered in other episodes. This is not a preconceived notion, it’s a spontaneous one. There is a Japanese word “Shizen” which is used to describe our natural state. But it also connotates that our natural state is a state of spontaneity, a theme we will visit many times. Whatever unfolds from this podcast will be spontaneously drawn from the contemplations and conversations had as we move along. In other words, I don’t claim to know what lies beyond the horizon of today. I’ll do my best to follow the genius of infinite speech, another Carse concept. To enact a poiesis…

But back to Myth and its importance in the evolution of culture.

A myth is recognized as not a means to an end, but a means to something unending. An explanation, by contrast, is an end. Now, if the “Infinite” in the Church’s title wasn’t a giveaway, we are studying that which does not seek to end. The church, in honoring the Infinite Mystery seeks to provoke its members to accept no explanation of reality as truth, and instead view explanations as a plot on a course charted toward a deeper and deeper resonance with being. Joseph Campbell illustrates these ideas in the Power of Myth by telling us, “Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told.”

In this Campbell and Carse agree. Myth is our way of experiencing that which cannot be defined. Myth is everything we see before the horizon, the limits of our vision  which grow as we move through time and space. If we look at all the great religious stories through the lens of myth, we see that each one contains an explanation worth hearing, a basis upon which we can enrich our culture, but accepts none as absolute. On a recent trip to Alaska I had the pleasure of taking a tour of the Tlingket Heritage center and hearing stories of their culture’s origin in Southeast Alaska. The Tlingket trace their creation to the Raven, or Yeil. That is, they see the raven as the one who brought the world as we know it to the people, who gifted the sun and moon and stars to the people so that they would have light.

Raven is the trickster born before the time of man, born before time and space.

Raven, who becomes a drop of water swallowed by the daughter of a man who hoards the light. Yeil, the shapeshifter, the trickster. One who moves glaciers, dances with chaos, teaches the value of working together, of respecting the boundaries of the sacred and mystical.

Raven, who taught the people where to find good food, to maintain balance with the natural world. 

Raven, who taught both through wisdom and through folly.

Now, those of us whom pledge their allegiance to a big bang creating everything, or an omniscient being who made the world in 7 days, may chuckle at the idea of a Raven, having a hand in creating the world, but thousands of years later, these stories persist through art and symbolism everywhere in Tlingket culture, and through the very names of the Tlingket themselves. They have a rich culture literally woven in storytelling and art that brings meaning to their existence and the universe itself. The stories of the Tlingket are a mythology for every generation to tell a little differently, and what is built culturally is not a linear advancement of the story into something more enlightening by changing the characters or endings, but a newfound interpretation, what Carse calls the “silence that makes discourse possible.” Because the myth does not by its nature declare truth, its telling us leaves a silence of deep contemplation in our hearts, so that we may discuss the meaning and share how we are touched by these myths. 

In another thought provoking book, “The Tao of Physics”, Fritjof Capra uses myth to make a distinction between Rationalist or scientific knowledge and Mystic knowledge by looking at the nature of knowledge involved and the language in which knowledge is expressed. He say on mysticism and myth, “Indian mystics, and Hinduism in particular, clothe their statements in the form of myths, using metaphors and symbols, poetic images, similes, and allegories. Mythical language is much less restricted by logic and common sense. It is full of magic and of paradoxical situations, rich in suggestive images, and never precise, and can thus convey the way in which mystics experience reality much better than factual language. Myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words.”

Capra looks at our constant desire to rationalize nature and the infinite. He uses the metaphor of a cartographer. The natural world is a cacophony of variations and complexities all interacting with each other and influencing each other in a way that cannot be measured or accounted for all at once. Capra says its like trying to map the curved surface of the earth on a two dimensional piece of paper. When we look at such a map we see only an approximation, and more importantly, a map is exactly that, just a map, and a measurement or idea is just that, it’s never the real thing. This of course has been a long debate in the realm of philosophy, the use of language and abstraction to represent real things and how often we confuse what we think about for what is real. In this way, our representation of reality, our abstract ideas in physics that make up the theories of how stuff works are exactly that, just ideas. 

Knowledge is limited by our ability to describe it. The use of words itself is a limitation and therefore as Lao Tzu so eloquently say in the very first stanza of the Tao Te Ching, the ultimate reality can never be articulated by the human mind, it is beyond the mind, which is why we must “leave our minds at the door to infinity,” as the first principle teaches us. This is a fundamental perspective of the best of Eastern Religions and Philosophies seen again and again.  Though as as Campbell points out, Every religion bears truth    as metaphor of the cosmic history. The Tao of Physics is an excellent book in this regard because it analyzes the differences between the eastern and western minds and brings them together in synthesis to look at modern physics and how the qualities of Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics look similar to the qualities of Western Reductionism and Eastern philosophy, respectively. At the end of the road of quantum physics and eastern mysticism lies the same experience of dumbfoundedness, where modern language ceases to be able to describe the experience and thus a new way of seeing must be found. I recommend a deep dive into the subject matter, but for now, to understand our first principle, we must root our senses and thoughts not in what we know, but what we don’t know, or as Joseph Campbell would say, “He who thinks that he knows doesn’t know. He who thinks that he doesn’t know, knows.”

So some of you might be asking, “well, if the truth is unknowable, what’s the point? What use is knowledge? Why are humans so obsessed with truth and understanding?” 

What I would say is that we can come to know things as a culture, not as truth, but as mythical representations of who we are. Our ability to seek answers has led to great discoveries. Science has led to a a world where humans can fly in the air and communicate over thousands of miles instantaneously, we’ve even left the planet. Some even think we are on the verge of generating consciousness through technology, or AI as it were… that we are on the verge of a self realized glob of silicone. 

If that’s not mythical I don’t know what is.

It cannot be argued that our command of language, of rationality, of science is part of who we are, of what we’re destined to do in these bodies, but it is not all of who we are. This is modern man’s mistake, this mechanistic view of reality, as it has led to the distinction between human and nature, human and universe, of observer and observed, and the catastrophes of the 21st century. It has led to the death of hundreds of cultures rich in mythology, slaughtered for their supposed savagery or ignorance, silenced utterly and completely for what they supposedly did not know. This is the weaponization of knowledge. When one knows, then what is left to know? If I am right and true and good, then exists the possibility of someone else being wrong or bad.

This idea, we will visit again and again. By declaring that we know nothing, because truth cannot be abstractly known, we as an organism hope to circumvent what is currently the thorn in the side of many claiming wisdom or knowledge. 

The thorn of the flesh. 

The thorns of satan. 

The thorns of the false gods.

The thorns of righteousness. 

Or simply, rightness.

We’ll dive deeply into the philosophy of Carse and Finite and Infinite games, because it is foundational to the church and it's tenants, but for now consider this. 

Consider for a moment the notion that all forms of knowledge—be they grounded in scientific empiricism or woven from the threads of mythology—have a legitimate place in our collective consciousness. Extend this thought to language: whether it's the global reach of English or the regional richness of Quechua, each linguistic system offers a unique lens through which to interpret and interact with the world. Moreover, let's recognize that every unique expression of culture, irrespective of how it manifests, holds an inherent right to flourish and be experienced. 

    Imagine a world history untainted by the religious zealotry that fueled the Crusades or the colonial avarice that led to the conquest of South America. Picture a human tapestry that was never frayed by the eradication of countless cultures, nations, and religious practices simply because they didn't conform to another group's constrained notion of truth or knowledge. The human experience would undoubtedly be richer, more diverse, and perhaps more harmonious.

The Principle of the Infinite Mystery champions humility as a cornerstone of human interaction and understanding. It suggests that our comprehension of the world will always be a work in progress, ever-evolving but never complete. It reminds us that what we don't know is as important as what we do know. It challenges us to keep an open mind, entertaining the possibility that others possess insights that could fill the gaps in our own understanding. 

This isn't a call for moral or intellectual relativism, but rather an urging toward a nuanced view of right and wrong, a spectrum rather than a binary. It implies that any claim to a 'complete' or 'ultimate' way of being is fundamentally flawed. True completeness, if it can be approached at all, can only emerge from a humble receptivity to all viewpoints, ideologies, and life forms, whether they are part of the living world or exist now only in memory or record.

Imagine for a moment the only genuine evil reside in our impulse to label others as 'wrong,' effectively silencing their perspectives? This impulse can manifest in overt ways, such as through persecution or violence, or in subtler forms like telling a child to be quiet.

Imagine a more permanent silence. The silence the Europeans inflicted upon hundred of tribes, languages and cultures of the first peoples.

Imagine the silence felt in Tibet as the Chinese armies bore down upon the temples. 

The same silence felt in the empire of ZangZhung as the modern day tibetans conquered the Himalayas in 600 AD

And so the wheel goes around and around. Perhaps it’s inevitable? The inhale and exhale, the rise and fall of ideas and empires, the permeation of knowledge to unveil the unknown, of the conquest of chaos in the name of order.

Of the distinctions between right, and wrong.

But take a moment to feel what it means when a language and a culture is lost. An entirely unique way of seeing the universe, of interpreting it and speaking of it. Creation stories disappear, the songs of a people end in an unheard silence.

These cultures are not lost because they were swallowed by the earth or the sea, but because they were deemed wrong by there fellow man. They were deemed savage, or uncivilized. Entire cultures, some thousands of years old, rich in knowledge of medicines, stories, destroyed, often brutally, for what?

Imagine, then, a world that rejects this form of intellectual and spiritual tyranny, a world where our diversity—of thought, language, and culture—is not a threat but a treasure trove, one that enriches us individually and collectively. In such a world, the aspiration isn't to unravel the Infinite Mystery, but to engage with it in a continual dance of discovery, one where every step is both an ending and a beginning, and where the music is composed of a multitude of voices, each contributing its unique note to an ever-expanding symphony. 

In the beginning of the episode I expressed that the church hopes to one day usher forth an effective ontology for all human beings, expressed uniquely by every culture. It's important to note that ontology, means, in simple terms “the study of being,” or more importantly and for our purposes, what aspects of being-ness does everything have in common. 

It's important to note that this ontology does not need to be agreed upon or expressed in the same terms by all human beings to still be accepted and practiced by all human beings. This is the power of culture and myth, of the meaning making capacities of human beings. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the practice of different religions until those religions decide they’re right and others are wrong and begin to impose their beliefs upon others by force, or worse, violence. 

Ironically, many cultures and   religions seemingly have the same principles practiced differently, such as a devotion  or prayer to a higher power or or being. 

A being that is without beginning and without end.

A being. that pervades all.

A being with an adversary, a polarity…

The Church of Infinite Harmony asks what are these understandings that we humans have found throughout the millennia that are more alike than different, and it honors the unique cultural practices of all living beings as well as the existence of all that is beyond human culture. To know ourselves through learning, growing and becoming, forever. And not with the idea that we are never complete, because I do believe at some point, in our lifetime, our personal work can be done, and we can turn our attention to guiding the next generation. To live infinitely is not to be forever seeing, but forever aware of the change that ensues. The world moves again and again from the hands of the elders to the hands of the youth, but that’s a story for another time.

So let’s look at it again: 

“The Church of Infinite Harmony recognizes the origins of life, Earth, and spiritual knowledge as The Infinite Mystery whose true nature can not be understood by humankind, but only felt; not defined, but only contemplated. The Infinite mystery is a paradox we attempt to decipher with our minds, only to leave our minds at the door to infinity. It is the desire to know ourselves through an infinite portal of learning, growing and becoming.”

This Principle, the first principle, is a fair warning to never be too big for our britches, as they say. A warning rooted in humility to prevent the constituents of the church from ever assuming they are right, and thus ever assuming righteousness. The path of the church urges us to learn, grow and become more, but to honor the paradox of not knowing, so we can experience what is known in others. It does not attempt to unify all thought into one thought, quite the opposite really, it attempts to guide us into embracing all expressions of existence, and extend that embrace well beyond human culture and humanity itself, but into all the plants, animals and minerals, because as we’re experiencing in the 21st century post common era, it is not enough to fix the bad blood between the human tribes, we must find a way to relate to what we label as nature or the environment as if it’s just the opposite, as if there is no “out there,” but only here.

In our next episode we’ll discuss the next two principles which look at exactly that, the vital and sovereign nature of every particle in the universe and the relationships between what we label humanity and well, everything else. I hope you’ve enjoyed our first podcast and I look forward to hearing from you. As the feedback rolls in and questions arise, please reach out to me and let me know what’s on your mind and if there are bigger questions or ideas you would like to see covered in this podcast. I’m sure down the road we’ll also get some live conversations going with other members of the church and the thinkers and influencers of these philosophies. 

I’ve set up a blog on our website, infiniteharmony.org that will include the transcripts of each episode and some bonus content a little later down the road.

If you’re interested in supporting this podcast, or our work, you can become a donating member of the church of infinite harmony. You can donate any amount you want, once a month or as often as you want. Feel free to take a look at our website, infiniteharmony.org to learn more about us.  No Patreon here, no paycheck for me to make more episodes, just our little website and the community that supports us. All this will be in the episode notes of course. Thanks for listening, until next time. Peace.