Stranger in a Strange Land: Part 3-Thou art God

"His idea is that whenever you encounter any other grokking thing — he didn't say 'grokking' at this stage — any other living thing, man, woman, or stray cat… you are simply encountering your 'other end'… and the universe is just a little thing we whipped up among us the other night for our entertainment and then agreed to forget the gag."
-Stranger in a Strange Land

[Cover art (by James Warhola) for Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein]

I have recently finished reading Robert Heinlein's cult classic Stranger in a Strange Land and I hope the rest of his work is as good as this. Stranger in a Strange Land is one man's journey from the nest of his birth to the nest of his origins and the fire this young Prometheus brings to humanity. He is human yet he thinks in Martian. He is what we can become if we follow this 20th century Moses to the Promise Land. Only time will tell if humanity will be able to grok Valentine Michael Smith as fully Martian and fully man.

Part 1: Grokking in Fullness
Part 2: Water Brothers

::Possible Spoilers Ahead::

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Stranger in a Strange Land is a difficult book to read and even I have not grokked it completely but one of the main characteristics of the Martian Way is that it appears to resemble a form of Pantheism. In Stranger in a Strange Land, Michael teaches in his new "church" that all that groks is God. They welcome each other with the phrase "thou art God" not as a statement of theological belief but as a statement of unity which is physically expressed through the sharing of water. But if thou art God, and that grasshopper art God, and all that groks art God then who, or what, exactly is in charge of the universe?

From feelings of discomfort to just flat out heresy some here in the West may struggle with pantheistic ideas even though faint echoes of Pantheism are found in Western religions. What is so irking to the West about all reality being equated with God is just that, God can not be a dog doing his "duty" on the lawn or a blind beggar on the street. God must be completely separated from while existing (?) outside of his creation. Humanity is too sinful to be equated with God, and God too holy, either way it just sends shivers up a lot of monotheistic spines. Although I have not read much into Eastern religions the best explanation for Pantheism (or maybe Panentheism?) I've read so far is found here. Basically everything in reality is a manifestation of God with God being the sum of all parts. So the totality of reality, let's call it Brahman (or you can select your own name for God), can be found within each piece of reality but not localized specifically in one being. Tat Tvam Asi (Sanskrit: तत् त्वम् असि or तत्त्वमसि) is the Hindu phrase "that thou art" meaning that the spirit/soul, or the Atman, is identifiable with and understood to be Brahman, the soul of the universe. Michael brings a message of brotherhood, by way of Pantheism, to encourage unity among a very passionately tribal creature, Man. I don't believe, or at least I don't remember, that he goes as far as saying that ALL reality is God but that all that groks is God. So I guess a snake is God but not a rock, that is of course if a rock is unable to grok. You grok?

The heart of the message is unity and as that message is grokked the darker side of humanity begins to dissolve until one does not feel the need or want to commit such atrocious acts against his fellow man. There is no need to save lost souls, do good deeds (no Judgment day either), worship any one god, or even hold any theological or philosophical beliefs. Ultimate Truth is revealed to those who choose to accept the "fire" that Michael has brought to humanity.

We're not trying to bring people to God; that's a contradiction in terms, you can't even say it in Martian. We're not trying to save souls, because souls can't be lost. We're not trying to get people to have faith, because what we offer is not faith but truth — truth they can check; we don't urge them to believe it. Truth for practical purposes, for here-and-now, truth as matter of fact as an ironing board and as useful as a loaf of bread… so practical that it can make war and hunger and violence and hate as unnecessary as…. as — well, as clothes here in the Nest. But they have to learn Martian first. That's the only hitch — finding people who are honest enough to believe what they see, and then are willing to do the hard work — it is hard work — of learning the language it can be taught in. A composer couldn't possibly write down a symphony in English… and this sort of symphony can't be stated in English any more than Beethoven's Fifth can be. (Stranger in a Strange Land, Ch 31. Pg 347.)

It's not a theory, religion, or any other man-made philosophical belief but Truth that man has been searching for thousands of years, at least for those in the book. I'm not proposing that this would actually work in the real world because we don't have any practice like grokking to test our belief systems. We can guess, theorize, and hold onto our beliefs in faith, but imagine if we can experience Truth within ourselves, a truth that is patient, kind, humble, protective, trusting, and always, always loving. It is one thing to believe (which most of us including myself fall in this camp) and it is another to experience Truth first hand.

What I've learned from Stranger in a Strange Land.

As I've said earlier I have not grokked the book completely and I will most certainly continue to learn new things along the way. Regardless of our differences, faults, and issues caused by both, we yearn to ease our collective suffering. Throughout history those who have experienced the Divine have shared their Fire with us, and now we compete with each other to see who's flame burns brighter. We all grok different paths but the differences lie within our own human diversity and our ability to grok them, not in competing Truths. As we journey through life grokking the universe dig deep down into your Atman/Soul and examine your foundation. What is it? Is it Loving? Is it Joyful? Is it Patient? Is it Compassionate? Is it Understanding? Is it all of the above? Is it God? If your foundation causes you to love your brother then look, stare, meditate, and become your foundation. Once we truly grok Love we can not help but become Love.

Stranger in a Strange Land: Part 2- Water Brothers

"This brother wanted him to place his whole body in the water of life. No such honor had ever come to him; to the best of his knowledge and belief no one had ever before been offered such a holy privilege. Yet he had begun to understand that these others did have greater acquaintance with the stuff of life… a fact not yet grokked but which he had to accept."
-Stranger in a Strange Land

[Cover art (by James Warhola) for Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein]

I have recently finished reading Robert Heinlein's cult classic Stranger in a Strange Land and I hope the rest of his work is as good as this. Stranger in a Strange Land is one man's journey from the nest of his birth to the nest of his origins and the fire this young Prometheus brings to humanity. He is man yet he thinks in Martian. He is what we can become if we follow this 20th century Moses to the Promise Land. Only time will tell if humanity will be able to grok Valentine Michael Smith as fully Martian and fully man.

Part 1: Grokking in Fullness
Part 3: Thou Art God

::Possible Spoilers Ahead::

---

Discovering and dwelling within the unity that Michael brings to humanity is a core principal to his teaching. This unity is expressed mainly in the sharing of water. Water is used as a symbol of unity and life on Mars because of its scarcity on the red planet. By sharing water they acknowledge the life force that flows through them as they grow closer to one another. As water brothers they grok that they are connected to their divine source and to each other. To harm your brother is to harm yourself, likewise to share your brother is to share yourself. All that groks is God and in this unity there is no death except for discorporation (death) of your physical shell. The Old Ones on Mars, those who have discorporated, still exist in some form and pass on wisdom to those that are still living. They are not what we would call ghosts but have returned to the plane of existence before birth, The Source. I guess it is a similar concept to the Force in the Star Wars saga, those who have died become a part of the Force and impart wisdom from beyond the grave.

Uncomfortable yet? Well, for those unfamiliar with the book, it gets worse. Ritual cannibalism, communal living, and group sex are used to help water brothers grow closer with each other. I'm sure dozens of mental red flags have already shot up but I'm not condoning these actions nor can I justify them in any way in OUR society. What I believe Heinlein has raised is the question on whether or not the Judeo-Christian ethical code is working effectively for humanity and if our problems are "rooted in the code itself rather in the failure to abide by it" (Stranger in a Strange Land, Ch. 33).

"The code says, 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.' The result? Reluctant chastity, adultery, jealousy, bitterness, blows and sometimes murder, broken homes and twisted children — and furtive little passes degrading to woman and man. Is this Commandment ever obeyed? If a man swore on his own Bible that he refrained from coveting his neighbor's wife because the code forbade it, I would suspect either self-deception or subnormal sexuality. Any man virile enough to sire a child has coveted many women, whether he acts or not.
"Now comes Mike and says: 'There is no need to covet my wife... love her! There's no limit to her love, we have everything to gain — and nothing to lose but fear and guilt and hatred and jealousy.' The proposition is incredible. (Ch.33, Pg. 366)

It does sound like Mike's "church" has thrown out all of humanity's ethics and morals to the wind. But it is their unity, their brotherhood that keeps the sinful nature of man in check and raises man's consciousness to a higher plane. There is no reason to hurt, maim, kill, or even oppress your water brother or anyone for that matter because all that groks is God. To some this may seem a bit too inclusive.

Love everything and everyone? But there's got to be something I'm allowed to hate, telemarketers maybe?

At first Michael winks his attackers out of existence based on grokking the wrongness of the person (his attackers struck his water brother, Jill). This superhuman sense acts as Michael's moral compass throughout the book, but his biggest hurdle was to learn what it is to be human. When he discovers what makes us human, our shared suffering, Michael devotes his life to removing suffering from the human experience through his Martian teachings.

Michael, our young Prometheus, has opened the path to understand one another to the point where you begin to lose where you end and everything else begins through grokking (click here for part 1 on Grokking). By grokking the universe and our place in it we begin to automatically function FOR one another in harmony instead of AGAINST in disharmony. We would put our complete trust in our water brothers, because why would the left hand tell a lie to the right? Even if lying to another water brother were possible both would grok that it was a lie because both have reached a pinnacle of understanding/knowing one another as if they were one person.

Of course this is a work of science fiction but I do hope that we find a way to grow closer to each other and learn to purge our inner demons without the need to purge our fallible brethren or even have our God do it for us (Sheep from the Goat, the unsaved, those who do not follow the "True" faith, etc). I believe it's fine to believe in Judgment Day and the hereafter, but let us also seek to improve societal relationships here on Earth so that our children may be given the chance to grok the universe.

Stranger in a Strange Land: Part 1- Grokking in Fullness

"He was not in a hurry, "hurry" being one human concept he had failed to grok at all. He was sensitively aware of the key importance of correct timing in all acts — but with the Martian approach: correct timing was accomplished by waiting. He had noticed, of course, that his human brothers lacked his own fine discrimination of time and often were forced to wait a little faster than a Martian would — but he did not hold their innocent awkwardness against them; he simply learned to wait faster himself to cover their lack."
-Stranger in a Strange Land

[Cover art (by James Warhola) for Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein]

I have recently finished reading Robert Heinlein's cult classic Stranger in a Strange Land and I hope the rest of his work is as good as this. Stranger in a Strange Land is one man's journey from the nest of his birth to the nest of his origins and the fire this young Prometheus brings to humanity. He is man yet he thinks in Martian. He is what we can become if we follow this 20th century Moses to the Promise Land. Only time will tell if humanity will be able to grok Valentine Michael Smith as fully Martian and fully man.

::Possible Spoilers Ahead::

Part 2: Water Brothers
Part 3: Thou Art God

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Stranger in a Strange Land follows the life of Valentine Michael Smith back at home to live among his own kind after being raised on Mars since his parents, on a manned expedition, crashed on Mars. If being raised by Martians is not enough to gain the world's attention he is also the sole heir of the expedition team's fortunes and their inventions making him the wealthiest man on the planet. The world government wants full control over his fortune and Michael's ownership rights of Mars. Of course there plans were disrupted when he met the first woman he has ever laid eyes on, Jill Boardman, his first human Water Brother.

But what does it mean to be Martian? Michael groks, speaks, and reacts as a Martian, but he is still human. And as Jill teaches him to become "human" those he grows closer with learn what it is to be Martian. Language is an important gate to understanding each other and is vital to understanding what Mike is trying to teach humanity. This causes enormous difficulty for Mike at first but soon he is able to communicate how it is to think in Martian.

"Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man (Stranger in a Strange Land).

To Grok something, or someone, is to move beyond basic sensory information to the point where the object grokked becomes a part of you. Once you are able to "grok in fullness" just about anything is possible. Michael is able to perform tasks which to us seem almost supernatural. By grokking his own body he can repair injuries, control the length of his hair, change his appearance, and even age slower than us. The potential of the human mind is a common theme in science fiction which also appears in Frank Herbert's Dune series and in the TV sci-fi drama, Kyle XY. But Michael is also able to manipulate the world around him. He is able to wink objects and people out of existence, levitate objects, and even communicate telepathically. This, Michael says, is not hard to do once you learn the language and the basics taught to him as an egg (child), and so he begins teaching this way of life to people in the guise of a church.

The Church of All Words that he starts is not a new religion but merely a method to deliver his teaching to humanity how to rise above worldly pain and suffering. The only reason why he started a church was because humans are familiar with religion and humans would only accept his message in this form. The "church" teaches its members the Martian language first as this is the foundation to the Martian Way. Eventually members move up through several levels before becoming full water brothers, those who participate in the Water Sharing ritual. At this level many things in a normal person's life become unnecessary and are shed which also removes the pain and suffering associated with them: clothing, money, and even monogamous marriages. Greed, jealousy, anger, hatred, envy, lust and every other negative attribute that comes with being "human" all melt away when you become a full water brother. The superhuman abilities that comes with this way of life are also at your disposal but they are not used for acts of wrongness (even though at this point the term evil, acts of wrongness, is almost alien compared to what we may call evil). Though you have the ability to kill someone with a mere thought you don't because you realize and understand the unity of all life, all that groks is God.

Can we evolve to the point where we are no longer jealous, greedy, angry, lustful, and full of hatred? Is it possible to overcome these human characteristics just by grokking our fellow man?

I believe humanity thirsts for this progress but is trapped in its own collective ego to leap forward so we're bound to crawl on our hands and knees. Each religion/philosophy states that their packaged truth will lead humanity to the next level while every other belief will lead only to failure. Humanity has made progress and will continue to do so but first we must be able to grok each other fully. By understanding our fellow man we may be able to collectively pull ourselves up by our own boot straps. This can not be done by force but only with the collective love we should have for each other. We now have to ability to destroy life at the push of a button but hopefully soon we will progress past the urge to push it. Do you grok?