This article concludes a three-part series on Contemplative Cultures. The preceding two posts are: Contemplative Plant Cultures, and Contemplative Animal Cultures. In each of the three posts, I address the essence of the three cultures similarly. The perceived differences between them relate to form and function, not the unifying spirit of life. I employ similar descriptions and phrases throughout, somewhat repetitively, because this general topic is reflexively dismissed by many of us. Please read each of the three articles carefully in order to feel their similarities.

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We think of this world as our own.

But beyond ourselves, the vast, and entire neighbourhood is completely non-human!

And almost all those non-human beings exist in natural states of contemplation, wherein ordinary participation in the Mystery is the fulcrum of life.

Humans once participated in such natural contemplation of Infinite Mystery, also.

I have written a good deal about the presence of innate contemplation throughout nature – of living beings’ spontaneous (non-strategic) participation in states of sublime awareness.

But what is it that evokes, and activates, this innate self-yielding invocation?

Some assume that “natural contemplation” describes an ideal, utopic way of life, but this intrinsic capability of all living beings is only the essential, uncomplicated response to our universally-felt fragility and mortality.

As such, it is a most practical and honest response to the endless stream of struggles and deaths within this life – surrendering felt fear to Infinity.

Among the ways that most non-humans respond to tangible threats is through the intelligence of their acute fear – arousing flight or fight – for basic survival.

These astute surges of fear heighten and clarify the living body’s endogenous chemistries and energies, eliciting a profound lucidity that facilitates a deeper sensing of bodily vulnerability. And this simple, intense awareness, free from mind, thoughts, and imaginings, is not resisted or argued with – the body is structurally designed for it.

In this clearness, animals spontaneously feel through the fear, with a quality of attention and energy that conveys the being beyond distress, into the perpetual state of natural contemplation – in, and as, the Mystery.

Also supportive of the positive energetic effects that stem from acute threats, non-humans’ fundamental awareness is generally informed by their already steady contemplation.

And, although barely exercised by us in these times, those superb capabilities of non-humans are absolutely the potential of all humans, as well.

Theories and anecdotes about human prehistory provide unreliable portraits of how ancient people lived. While some theories describe earlier humans as grunting cave-dwellers, others like to suggest that prehistoric people were superior to us. But the truth rests elsewhere.

Assumptions about humanity’s prehistory are based on minimal and often erroneous research, combined with our limited understanding of ourselves as humans.

Before the development of larger complexly-organized tribes and man-made religions, including shamanism, human life was of a very different character. Barely discussed by philosophers and researchers is how most human cultures formerly lived as natural contemplatives – of varying degrees. Intellectually, psychically, spiritually, and practically, humans were likely, in almost every way, more radiantly alive than we are today.

Because their sentience was so fully embodied, they felt much less need to seek the kind of distractions and “achievements” that we pursue presently.

Australian Aboriginals, for example – humanly, culturally, and technologically – changed little through the millennia, probably because they simply did not need to. Immersed in the sacred “Dreaming Awareness”, their lives were more complete, and, beyond essentials, they were significantly unconcerned with material things.

In the vast deserts, where they slept on the ground, they were native walkabout travellers within the Milky Way. Because they were minimally terrestrially bound, the Earth did not much restrict their participation within the realms of great space. And in this same fashion, they were also attuned to the mountains, coasts, and waterways.

The many existing tribes developed differences regionally, but all of them existed within the contemplative wisdom that allowed for profound connections across time and distances.

Intercultural disputes were resolved through mutually accepted lore that was informed in complex and elegant ways, rooted in the simplicity of a universal contemplation. Continent-wide, tribe-to-tribe, life was similarly informed by a shared involvement in the Mystery.

Conditional human interactions will never be perfected, but people can grow and deepen, and living in, as well as yielding to, the Mystery was our ancestors’ central purpose.

Instead of continuing to flounder through fear, sorrow, and anger, every one of us still has that inborn potential for deeply yielding through chronic fear, individually and collectively, realizing life in natural contemplation.

But chronically, almost to a person, we reject this possibility.

As our societies have become more “civilized”, technological, and increasingly abstracted from the natural world, chronic fear has become what now drives us.

Acute fear in response to sudden threats is mostly beneficial.

But collective chronic fear deludes our bodily and social systems, making us increasingly deranged – unable to contemplate and participate in the Mystery.

For hundreds of thousands of years, humans existed in hunter-gatherer walkabout cultures, living simply, elegantly, and almost timelessly.

Like the non-humans, we also lived and yielded to the endless Mystery.

Under sun and stars, we wandered the landscapes, contemplating with sacred awe.

Before the more recent arisings of civilizations, with their organized governments, ordinary religions, and esoteric meditative and yogic practices, the human walkabout cultures simply lived more contemplatively than we presently know how to do.

Aboriginal people the world over upheld an elegant spirituality that was constantly free from repressive institutionalized society and religion, and even esoteric exercises and mind-made philosophies.

In ancient rhythms, they simply remained in the natural-contemplation that all humans once knew.

Their “deep listening” was their innate capability to yield into Mystery, existing deeply in the human body and within the greater Dreaming – a “spiritual skill” rooted in their profound trust and respect of the Nameless.

Culturally, this inner quiet of profound awareness was accessible to almost everyone.

All naturally-living people – wherever they lived – maintained their Mystery-contemplating cultures directly alongside all the contemplative non-human cultures.

Humanity’s more recently generated spiritual paths and esoteric yogas, which endeavor to “return” us to the simplicity of our intrinsic, fear-free, naturally-contemplative existence, were previously unnecessary.

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