More on the Beaver Principle
A reader takes exception to my post on the Beaver Principle stating that humans could easily figure out how to build a beaver damn. In fact we have built many dams more complicated than any beaver has.
Actually, we agree here a hundred percent. If you completely misunderstood the Beaver Principle as I presented it maybe others did too.
First, I thought I made it clear that the abilities of the lower can be retrieved by the higher when I said this:
“When we become masters, we will take our attention off some of the things we do well now and learn some higher things. When this happens many of our current abilities will go below the threshold of our consciousness. We will appear to lose them, but will not lose them. Abilities that go below the threshold of consciousness are not lost, but can be quickly retrieved if attention is placed upon them.”
The higher has all the abilities of the lower, but many of these abilities are hidden below the threshold of consciousness. For instance, many think the natives living in jungles are more evolved than us because they have certain instinctual abilities in harmony with nature that civilized man does not. What the many do not realize is that civilized man lived close to the earth in past lives, but because he does not need all those native abilities while living in the cities he lets those abilities slip below the threshold of consciousness. This gives him the advantage of having the time to concentrate on learning new abilities the native cannot do.
The thing to take into consideration is this. Each individual can only focus on a limited amount of learning, so when we want to learn something new we have to take our focus off some things that may have been important to us in the past.
If the civilized person were thrown back into the survival mode in the jungles, he would not immediately have the abilities of the native person but could quickly retrieve them because he had them before.
It’s a little like learning a language. A person may spend a couple years in a foreign country but after being home for ten years it may seem that he has forgotten all he learned. But then when he returns to that country the language quickly comes back.
When I said a human cannot build a beaver damn as good as a beaver I was speaking of the present tense. If someone told you or I to go build one right now we could not do this in the present. However, all the knowledge in the animal kingdom is in humans, but below the threshold of consciousness, and can be retrieved.
We can never just jump in and do all the animal kingdom does in the present, but could if we wanted to take some time and shift our attention away from higher learning.
Now let me restate the Beaver Principle.
All living things are limited on where they can place their attention as far as their progress and accomplishment goes. Therefore, it is important that each of us place our attention on matters most beneficial to overall progress. In order to do this those with higher abilities must forfeit some work that can be done to the lesser evolved lives. In letting go of the lesser work the skill is not permanently lost, but goes below the threshold of consciousness and can be retrieved fairly quickly when needed. This relinquishing of work allows the higher lives to move forward with their own progression and learn the new.
The Beaver Principle thus spreads the work of creation evenly through the living kingdoms of the universe giving all important work and learning to do.
Example: The president of a construction company who laid brick 30 years ago no longer works as a bricklayer but concentrates on more important work for the company. It’s been so long since he laid brick that be couldn’t do it in the present nearly as well as his employees. However, if he lost everything and had to start over he could retrieve his skill quite quickly.
What were once vices are now the manners of the day. – L.A. Seneca
July 7, 2007
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