Spiritual concepts
Objectives of the Great Work

The analogy
Whenever a large project is undertaken, the first activity of any good project manager is to define the objective or objectives of the system.
What do we mean by an objective? The objective is a description of the final outcome you are aiming for – the end product. What ultimately 'comes out' of that system. So, for example, in very crude terms, the objective of a payroll system is to provide pay for people – ‘paid people’.
So what is the point of creation and evolution, what is the end product being aimed at?
The fallacy of creation for the created
There is a school of thought that says that the whole of the Creation is for us – human beings and possibly at a stretch the odd animal or two. Ah no, my friend, absolutely not! There is one thing that comes out crystal clear from every observation from mystics and philosophers and that is that the Creation was not created for the benefit of the Created.
The first step in the creation of this fallacy comes from the realisation that all this around us can’t have been put there by chance, especially as it seems so ordered, beautiful and impressive. So ‘something’ had to have created it in this ordered way. So, the obvious thing to do is to look around for the ‘something’ that created it. All logical so far.

The next step, however is where the flawed logic starts to comes in. The next step is to assume that that ‘something’ has to be like a human being, with all the qualities of a human being. This assumption is the product of an overdeveloped ego. And what do we respond to – pleasure! So, the next stage is to assume there are a lot of gods [or maybe just one god] like us who respond to pleasure and that to get what we want we need to please them – give them what they want - worship them and appease them, much as you would a human ruler, to bring them offerings or hold ceremonies to entertain them.
But this course of action leaves most people progressively more bemused when things don't go their way, whatever they do. And of course things don’t go people’s way whatever they do, because creation is not here for the created – we are workers not passengers. I’m sure the Intelligences have a jolly good laugh watching everyone scrambling around on their hands and knees saying how nice they are, but after a certain stage they send the earthquake anyway because it is in the plan.
May Swenson – To Mix With Time
The universe is not about us? Then what? What is it about and what about us?

The end user is ‘God’
Since there are pretty convincing arguments that humans are not the ‘end users’ of the Creation, the Created was not created for us, the obvious next question is who is the end user? Who or what was the creation created for?
Mystics, philosophers and visionaries take the view that the 'end user' is God – the Ultimate Intelligence.
And to understand why we need to go back to the objective.
The Objective
The objective of creation and evolution is to create and evolve God. In effect, the objective is to create a God of increasing function and ‘power’. ‘Power’ in this context does not mean the corrupted and selfish power we witness on earth, but greater Intelligence. More ‘power’ means the ability to create more functions and form. The whole creation becomes even more beautiful, even more harmonious by the presence of power. There is the implication here that there is a sort of 'perfection' a true end stage of which we have no concept.
Thus the objective is to produce “a God with increasing function”. Not only is present functionality included, but past functionality, as such God is the sum total of all function and all attributes from the moment of creation. The goal is to continually increase that functionality.
But we need to add a rider to this objective to get the complete picture.

The creation process could have been one in which only software was developed with no hardware. In effect only the functions were invented. This does serve to maximise the functionality, but it cannot ultimately show that the functions are ‘proven’, ‘Form’ thus has one main purpose. Form tests function. Without form there is no way of seeing whether the function is viable – indeed is a function at all. Thus form is the means by which function is verified and confirmed as function. But form also has a useful additional advantage. Form also provides the feedback to improve function or add function. It is a sort of trigger to invention, but only one trigger of many.
Thus it is thus clear that evolution was - right from the start - function not form driven. The form was simply a means of expressing function, albeit with a certain exuberance and joy in the design process. In the design of the hardware we have artists at work not just engineers.
So the final objective is “a creation of great beauty and harmony which maximises proven function”
Why?

Ah the million dollar question. Of course I have no idea, but let me list some of the suggestions from mystics.
- Joy and love – we love creating things and we are a reflection of God, we are a tiny part of God and have inherited a minute portion of his functions – love, joy etc, so a large number of mystics also say the motive [if God needed any motive], was just for the joy of creation. Fun I guess.
- Competition – a very small number of philosophers think that our God is in competition with other Gods possibly in other galaxies. I could find no mystics who had this view. This view seems to be based on the philosophical argument that we have as one of our major driving functions the function of competition. Since we cannot have a function which God does not possess, then God too must have this function. The argument here, however, I feel tends to fall down a little, as just because God has a function does not mean he actually uses it, so this argument is I suspect a little tenuous.
Observations
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- Agassiz, Louis – Essay on Classification – Proof of a Mind acting in conformity with a Plan laid out beforehand and sustained for a long period
- Agassiz, Louis – Essay on Classification – The argument for the existence of an intelligent Creator
- Agassiz, Louis – Essay on Classification – The unity of plan in otherwise highly diversified types
- Book of Job - 38 and 39 God's reply to Job
- Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad – The Creation myth – 04 Verses 1.4.9 to 1.4.10
- Bryson, Bill - On the achievements of George Cuvier
- Bryson, Bill - On the number of configurations
- Descartes, Rene - Objectives of creation
- Eriugena, Johannes Scotus - Peryphyseon – Objectives of the Great Work
- Eriugena, Johannes Scotus – Configurations and end stages
- Gershom Scholem – On the Kabbalah and its symbolism - The Messianic Age
- Haught, John F - The next step - deeper consciousness and deeper freedom, deeper capacity to love and feel
- Hawking, Stephen - A Brief History of Time - The Great Work
- Jili, Abd al-Karim - Al-Kahf wa al-raqim - 014 Introduction [Extract]
- Khan, Hazrat Inayat - The Mysticism of Sound and Music - On the Great Work
- Koestler, Arthur - Janus - The impossibility of chance in evolution
- Leibniz - Letter to Damaris Masham - The aggregates of the body
- Leibniz - The Best of all Worlds
- Leibniz - The Monadology - 06
- Lemaitre, Georges - Letter to Nature - The Intelligence hierarchy
- Meister Eckhart - Selected writings - God created the world so that he might keep on creating
- North Whitehead, Alfred – 14 Co-creation and Temporary co-operation of organisms
- North Whitehead, Alfred – 15 Destruction of Temporary co-operation of organisms
- Pearse, Richard - The wonderful world of Richard Pearse
- Ramakrishna - Misc. Quotes - Is it possible to understand God’s action
- Rig veda - In the Beginning [Muller transl]
- Ruskin, John - Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven
- Spinoza, Baruch - Ethics - Why are we here?
- Stapledon, Olaf - Starmaker - Ants
- Stapledon, Olaf - Starmaker - Consciousness
- Stapledon, Olaf - Starmaker - Diversity
- Stapledon, Olaf - Starmaker - Objectives of creation
- Stapledon, Olaf - Starmaker - Progress
- Suzuki, D T - Misc. Quote - Trisna
- Swedenborg, Emanuel - The Infinite - Objectives of creation
- Swedenborg, Emanuel - The Infinite - Why are we here?
- The Ceasing of Notions – 02 The eradication of delusions
- Traherne, Thomas - Centuries of Meditations - This is very strange that God should want
- Vonnegut, Kurt - Harrison Bergeron
- Vonnegut, Kurt - The Sirens of Titan 01
- Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass - Do you guess I have some intricate purpose
- Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass - Urge and urge and urge
- Zohar - Bamidbar 159A - What did G-d want from man in this world?