Most elementary schools begin with kindergarten. It provides children with the opportunity to play while it instills in them confidence in the school environment and prepares them for first grade and its more disciplined behavior. Blocks serve as one of the primary toys used to engage the thinking and imagination of children.
Children attempt to create with blocks objects that see outside of school. They build houses, bridges, walls, fortifications, vehicles, steps, tables, and a multitude of other things they have seen. The children also experiment with the characteristics of different shapes such as triangles, squares, rectangles, cubes, and cylinders. They experiment with balance, stability, rigidity, and utility of the different blocks and the structures that can be made with them. All children given the opportunity, at one time or another become block players.
Eventually kindergarten comes to and end and the children are promoted to first grade. Some instinctively look forward to this advancement in learning, some are motivated by their teachers to move on to greater learning, others are cajoled by their parents through a system of rewards and punishments to move on but some refuse to let go of their toys, especially their blocks. The blocks were their environment, which they fell in love with and did not want to leave behind. They would only leave kicking and screaming as they went.
Our creator has given us a material world or blocks to play with as part of our development. We build houses, bridges, walls, fortifications, and tables just as the children did. Our thinking being more developed that that of the children enables us to build much more. We build automobiles, ships, and airplanes. We build a host of material things, and only material things, because nothing else can be built with blocks.
Like the children, we fall in love with these material things, but unlike the kindergarten children who were taught to share their blocks with others, we are told to amass as many blocks as we can. The term frequently used to motivate children and young adults in the school system is: “Go to school, get and an education, make some money (a lot of blocks), so that you can be somebody (have a lot of blocks).”
There are institutions whose fulltime activities consist of motivating people to retain and increase the number of blocks they earned. They influence people to exchange their blocks for gold, silver, gems, artwork, real estate, stocks, bonds, and other blocks. Insurance and retirement plans serve as other vehicles for preserving blocks and protecting against the loss of blocks.
Most of the problems and illnesses of society relate to concern over its blocks. Anxiety, depression, loneliness, and fear all result from thinking about the amount of blocks we have, need, or want. Even generous people can only think in terms of blocks in helping others. They offer food, shelter, and clothing—all block materials. They do not understand that there is an unseen aspect to existence and that people might want love, appreciation, recognition, consideration, nurturing, security, belongingness, constancy, and stability, which cannot long be supplied by blocks if at all.
Block people—most of who were raised in a cubicle—have little awareness of the world that God created because they are so focused on the world that they created. Spiritual texts warn us about the preoccupation with the material world. The Bible states, “What does it suffer a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” In the Koran we find the words, “Your worldly riches are transitory.”
Various enlightened personages from the beginning of time have become ascetics as a result of their realization of the insignificance of wealth. Ramakrishna, the famous Hindu guru used to mix money with dirt and throw it into the river; it was not permitted to mention money in his ashram. The famous woman Muslim ascetic Rabia Al Basra’s only possessions were a torn mat to sleep on, a brick for a pillow and a chipped water jug. Hillel, the great teacher of the Talmud was so poor that he could not afford to attend the basic teachings of the Torah. The disciples of Jesus were penniless.
The block players are not deterred by these examples. They do not even see them, let alone understand them, so engrossed are they in the amassing of blocks. A block value is placed on every type of work and activity. Sports, entertainment, information, medicine, health, and recreation all have a block value.
Some block players have gained great power. They control the use of blocks throughout the world; they even control governments. They exploit the environment for the purpose of amassing blocks. They have polluted the air, water, and food chain all in the name of making it more efficient to produce and amass blocks.
The block players have suppressed the natural differences between men and women necessary for the proper propagation and preservation of the species while on its spiritual journey. They are not interested in any spiritual journey or condition of the human race. They have reduced men and women to work digits—they are even referred to as human resources—necessary in the calculation of the cost of production of blocks.
The world of the block players is deteriorating. People are developing respiratory problems from the polluted air, intestinal problems from the polluted water, a breakdown of bodily functions due to the polluted food, and mental breakdown do to the electronic media coupled with the materialistic value system that they are subjected to, which is unnatural to the human psyche.
Kindergarten will soon be over.
Like the children leaving kindergarten some people will intuitively know that blocks are transitory and that there are steps ahead to greater unfoldment. Others follow the teachings of enlightened masters, gurus, saints, and godmen who are advanced spiritually and can explain the reason to leave things behind. Still others will be cajoled by various religious influences through fear and punishment to let go of the blocks and move on. And still others will remain behind screaming and kicking fighting amongst themselves for more blocks.
We are living at the end of an era. Are we going to hang onto the blocks or let go and prepare ourselves for the growth that lies ahead? Are we ready to work together to foster a more natural way of life for humankind?
E.G.
