In a recent article in the reputed Quanta Magazine the author explored the concept of “agency” as one of the possible things that could define what “life / living “ means. This in the context of no universally agreed upon definition of what is living versus what is inorganic. This sounds a little strange because all of us have an immediate intuitive understanding of what is alive and what is not. Many words could be found to express it and some could be debated but this does not change the fundamental fact that we somehow know what is alive and what is not. And we could add this very fact to the list of its own features - only the living can know what living is….
In fact agency is much harder to define and agree upon. Technically is about establishment and pursuance of goals. The living definitely pursue goals, but do they always establish them as well ? Can the 2 be completely separated ? Can we cope with and make sense of the idea of some degree of randomness, thus freedom, from the lowest forms of life to the highest ? Does that even matter for truly understanding the world around us and how we relate to it ?
From the perspective of our subtle body and its functioning, existence in the living sense comes from the left side, from our heart. Carbon is the element of the first chakra, which is the beginning of the left side. The left side is also where our intuition rules, the immediate knowledge beyond intellectual pursuit and debate. So it is perfectly natural that we have the intuitive understanding of what is alive, it is almost literally a direct sense from our left side. Conversely, actions and goals are the natural domain the right side, together with the pursuit of intellectual debate. And the linear nature of thinking makes the divergence of arguments inevitable even when the departure points seem close to begin with. In a world that has drifted to the right for a while now, the consensus driven by intuition has fallen out of favour compared with the intelectual arguments. The trouble is that those cannot be definitively won by themselves….
This is where we need a unifying framework, where intuition and linear thinking can both be supported by the inner light. Where very delicate distinctions and subtleties that live in different planes can all be recognized and dealt with in practice. Where we can all agree that some things are just beautiful and need to be enjoyed without thinking and others are legitimate drivers of logical progression of argument for a positive non-destructive goal. That light that we get after Self realization and cultivation of balance and meditation makes it possible to accept apparent paradoxes. In that light we can see that the apparent contradiction only stems from a reduction in depth of perception and that when we add another dimension we see the beautiful fit between the parts of the Whole, including our own place in it.