The Divine Meme - Unpublished Selections Explained, Med. IX.10

Meditation IX.10 - The Divine Meme - Translated by George Long and rewritten by Russell McNeil

Both man and God and the universe produce fruit; at the proper seasons each produces it. But if usage has especially fixed these terms to the vine and like things, this is nothing. Reason produces fruit both for all and for itself, and there are produced from it other things of the same kind as reason itself.¹

Explanation

(1) Reason is Logos and Logos universal. Our humanity is defined through the Logos that is in us. We are each connected and bound to others through this divine but natural web. We become conscious and aware of these ties through meditation. Self awareness includes the realization that the Logos in us is invincible - as divine perfection must be. The fruits of reason are the virtuous actions we take under this divine guidance, and the rightly understood seminal ideas we generate under meditation. These ideas, like the meditations themselves, generate further actions and new ideas which function like divinely inspired memes (see Meditation XI.11). The memes generated under the light of unadulterated reason function like the genes in a DNA sequence and can self-replicate or even mutate in response to information and input from other memes. This is how wisdom proceeds. This is how knowledge grows. This is how humanity progresses. This is how history unfolds. This is how universal consciousness evolves. This is what we are created to do.

Russell McNeil, PhD, is the author of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained by Skylight Paths Publishing. The unpublished selections presented in this Blog are provided as supplemental material to the published selections which are annotated and explained in the book. The published selections are referenced in this Blog by page number and section.