Spock's World

[Michael Bowen]

I am an avid Star Trek fan, and go by the log in MrSpockYouGo in some places. Mr. Spock’s home planet, Vulcan, is home to a race that at one point was quite war like, and found the path to peace many many millennia ago, actually around the time that
Jesus was on planet Earth. One of the many many Star Trek Books I have is Spock’s
World, which presents a history of the planet Vulcan. So I thought today I would
pull together some information on the planet Vulcan.
All quotes are from the book Spock’s World, by Diane Duane.

First, let’s describe the Planet Vulcan. Vulcan is a desert planet located at 40 Eri A. The star system consists of a dwarf and white giant, and instead developing one large planet and a small moon developed two bodies of nearly the same size. The other planet was called T’Khut.
Life when it developed was actually as plentiful and varied as on Earth, and then the star 30 Eri A
had a solar flare. The book says it best:

“The fossil record on Vulcan shows plainly enough how quickly the star flared, and how violently, growing ten percent in size as something went radically wrong with the fusion reaction … It took no more than ten or twenty minutes to burn almost all the forests: a day to boil the oceans again,
leaving seventy percent of the ocean beds turned into bare, scorched sand and mud.
The deserts were charred, melted to glass in some places. Metal, where it lay close to the
surface, ran molten. Trace gases in the atmosphere ignited: a great deal of oxygen and nitrogen
was ionized and whirled off the planet in the terrible heat. … Most of the living creatures on
Vulcan died.”

One thing that was unique about Vulcan’s (at least in this book) is that they were able to directly experience God – the book referred to it as the Other. The Vulcan’s called this a’Tha. Again, a quote from the book:

“He folded his hands and steepled his fingers. ‘There is no context in your translation because it is probably the one concept in the language that must be continually reexperienced to be valid. You cannot freeze it into one form, any more than you would want to repeat the same breath over and
over all your life. One must experience a’Tha differently every second. But that is not a
tradition or a stricture imposed by people – merely a function of the structure of the universe.
Your position in space-time constantly changes: a’Tha must change as well.’

Jim shook his head. ‘I’m missing something.’

‘I think not,’ Spock said. ‘I think most human languages would render the concept as ‘immanence.’ or something similar. a’Tha is the direct experience of the being or force responsible for the creation and maintenance of the Universe.’

‘God’ Jim said, incredulous.

… Vulcans experience that presence directly and constantly. Always have, to varying degrees. The word is one of the oldest known, one of the first ever found written, and is the same in almost all of the ancient languages.

McCoy looked at Spock curiously. ‘You’re telling me,’ he said, ’that the piece of information that most species spend most of their time searching for and complaining about and having wars over – and can never achieve certainty about – is the one piece of information you just happen to have.
All of you?’

‘Yes,’ Spock said,’ that is an accurate summation.’ must think it would solve a great deal. In some ways it does. But there are many, many questions that this certainty still leaves unresolved, and more that it raises. Granted that God exists: why then does evil do so? Why is there entropy?
Is the force that made the Universe one that we would term good? What is good?
And if it is, why is pain permitted?”

(end of quote)

This presence that Vulcans feel is akin to God that is present in each and every one of us. The point I am making here is that even with a race that was able to directly hear God, they still developed into a war like race. Of course that was a book, and parts of the
Vulcan history were developed over time as the series developed because that is what was
needed for the story line. And the Vulcans just about wiped themselves out. And this
happened about the time that Jesus was walking on planet Earth. The main character at this
time was named Surak. By this time Vulcan had developed into a very technologically advanced society,
but they were still war like. Surak’s family were business consultants. Surak was up late
working on something for the business when he caught a glimpse (on a news channel) of an
antimatter explosion on T’Khut that left a crater 500 miles wide and 10 miles deep.
Something like this is likely to drive anybody over the edge, and for Surak this was the start
of his journey that would transform the planet. Surak refers to this as the day he came alive.
He made a choice at that time, and he chose the path of peace.

If memory serves (in Star Trek) Earth did have a third world war that just about wiped out the planet. Of course I could point out inconsistencies in the “history of star trek” when bouncing between the books and the movies. But it is true that if we don’t listen to the God that is in each and every
one of us we could do what Vulcan just about did. And the important thing is that they did work through it
and develop into a galactic community that brought out the best in everyone, instead of the worst.

He started writing, and distributing his material on the Nets. He was not listened to at first, but eventually he was. And it grew, slowly at first, eventually catching on like wildfire. Surak was eventually called in to mediate a dispute, and he negotiated a settlement. And then they were contacted by an alien race.
These aliens were Duthuliv pirates, and did not have thoughts of peace. And this brought about a war
that eventually lead to those wanting to embrace war leaving, eventually becoming the Romulans.
Surak was eventually killed by the Yhri faction. When this happened, it brought about a major
transformation. They just kept sending emissaries, who were killed, and the Yhri faction
eventually just gave up.

Again quoting the book: “… the Yhri’s heart simply seemed to go out of them. … Yhri talked at length about Surak, before going into self-exile themselves. They said they could never shake the feeling that no
matter what they did, something associated with this man knew their deepest secrets,
and all the evils they had ever done, and still forgave them.” My take is that what Surak,
and his followers, found was the love that comes from God. They were able to tap into
that unconditional love and use it to fuel love of self, and love of their neighbor.
And when love of that magnitude is used, they have no enemies, for everybody is one with
God and each other, they all become one.

So now that we have described what happened, let’s explore some of his quotes:

1. “The Spear in the Other’s heart is the spear in your own: you are he.” I always took this as meaning you spear him you are spearing yourself, which is certainly true. But as I was typing this in the first letter cap indicates that this refers to God’s heart. So when you kill someone you are really killing God. For God lives in each and every one of us.
2. “There is no other wisdom, and no other hope for us but that we grow wise.”
3. “Here is the first part of the secret …. Cast out fear. There is no room for anything else until you case you fear … But until you admit that it is there, you are going to have a lematya in your bed every night. It may save your pride not to admit it is there, but your bed will be increasingly crowded.” The lematya is a lizard like creature of Vulcan that has poisonous fangs and a leathery skin. In one of the books Kirk was attacked by one. Of course, he lived, but just barely. Of course, that is another story.
4. “So it is with fear as well. To cast it out, you must first accept it; you must admit it is there.”
5. “And the rest of the secret, he concluded, is that all of us fear one another more than anything else in the world. The fear of the Other, of what the Other will do if he finds out we are afraid of him – that is what has brought us to this pass. We must turn and realize that the Other is afraid – and then say to him, ‘you have nothing to fear from me,’ in such a way that he knows it to be true.” This part I feel is true as an instigating factor in many, if not all, wars in human history. FEAR, being False Evidence Appearing Real, leads us to distrust the other person on the other side, which leads to mistrust, which leads to war. And if we had learned to cast out this FEAR our human history may have been rendered a little bit less bloody. And some trekkies are going to recognize that as a basis for a Spock quote in one of the shows, but I will also leave that for another Blog, since I would have to dig it up.

Surak’s Guidelines:

1.  Ideally, do no harm. Harm speeds up the heat-death of the Universe, and indirectly, your own.
2.  More practically, do as little harm as possible. We are creatures of a universe where entropy exists, and therefore see no way of escape, but we do not need to help it.
3.  Harm no one’s internal, invisible integrities. Leave others the privacies of their minds and lives. Intimacy remains precious only insofar as it is inviolate: invading it turns it to torment. Reach out to others courteously: accept their reaching in the same way, with careful hands.
4.  Do no murder. The spear in the other’s heart is the spear in your own; you are he. All action has reaction: what force you inflict, inevitably returns. The murder of the other is the murder of your own joy, forever.
5.  As far as possible, do not kill. Can you give life again to what you kill? Then be slow to take life. Take only life that will not notice you taking it. To notice one’s own death increases entropy. To die and not notice it increases it less, but still des so.
6.  Cast our fear. Cast out hate and rage. Cast out greed and envy. Cast out all emotion that speeds entropy, whether it be love or hate. Cast out these emotions by using reason to accept them, and then move past them. …

Any one see similarities with many religious principles today, most notably the ten commandments?

This is my Journey of Faith