Togetherness

Together, not separate.

Everything is together. Everything is here. Everything is now.

At dawn, the mist blends the mountain to the horizon. Like a Rothko, framed in my window.

Not two. One.

What about names?

Some things need to be named. Otherwise, we go mad. Otherwise, we can't speak: to ourselves, to one another.

Some things need not be named.  They belong with the caotic, with the chasm. They strip us bare, take away our frame of reference. We can barely touch them. And yet, they need not be, and ought not to be named.

If we want to attain contact with anything beyond our present experience, we need to balance both: the nameable and the unfathomable. 

We won't be able to expand our awareness if we always play it safe, staying within the bounds of the concepts we know. 

We won't be able to direct our progress if we surrender our aims to nothingness (or everythingness, more or less the same thing).

In meditation, we aim at something, then we let go. One, then Zero. Then we come back. And we are no longer exactly the same.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet... but if we wanted to refer to it, after losing ourselves in its sweetness, we still would need to name it.

However, we don't need to deceive ourselves by believing having a name for them means we know everything about roses. Suzanne Vega sang:

"If language were liquid, it would be rushing in.

Instead here we are, in a silence more eloquent than any word could ever be.

These words are too solid, they don't move fast enough to catch the blur in the brain,

that flies by and is gone."

Trickery

Involution wants us to believe that it is not evil, that it does not involve slipping away, covertly yet purposefully, from the One. 

There is purpose there: it is one of letting go, of renouncing one's legitimate power in favour of an involutionary force. 

This involutionary force presents options which seem easy. Slipping does not require much energy, after all. 

But reversing this process is hard. And we will all return to the One, in time. 

So maybe, we had better try not to slip as much. Because the further we descend, the harder the trip back up. 

Involution makes things easy at first. It says: "you can pay later; enjoy the 'all you can eat', the 'happy hour', now." 

This is really trickery: duality trying to make us forget its dual nature, presenting the easy choice as the natural and convenient one. 

Duality forgetting to mention the return trip. Forgetting to mention that you will, in time, need to regain your power back, and that you will have no excuse for having surrendered it.

Evolution is just what it is: an ascent. It is done in the open (at least, to oneself). It is bare, it bares one, and it takes what it takes. 

You start it on your own. There is help, but only if you ask for it. Nobody forces you. Nobody congratulates or praises you. You prod and encourage yourself.

After a while, there is no stopping you. The link is there and you cannot, you won't, forsake it. You feel it is no longer a choice. In fact, you feel it was never a matter of choosing anything.

You were always going to return to the One. Even involutioning was a part of that journey.

It is simply that now, you are making the journey with your eyes open. It still takes some effort. Yet it does not feel like an effort. 

Rather, not doing it seems like a waste.

Don't let yourself be tricked. Get tricked less and less. 

Clarity

The devil does not exist, but there are hosts of demons out and about.

The fact that One is the source of everything means that One is equally the source of good and the source of evil. 

One does not differentiate. It does not care either way. One is perfectly clear about everything.

However, Two may choose not to be as clear: it may want to appear as One. Which it obviously is not. This is how a devil can disguise itself as "another side of God". But evil does not exist outside Existence, outside the One.

Two is, potentially, the initiator of every lie, of all falsehood and confusion. No lie can ultimately prosper in One, because lying implies duplicity.

In Two, in any set of Twos, lies can thrive. And they do, of late.

Disharmony disguises itself as beauty, and people childishly want to appear more attractive than they really are.

Unfairness disguises itself as justice, and so debauchery and corruption take the place of just actions.

Big empty words disguise themselves as the soul's yearnings and longings, and so people lose contact with their true desires.

Clarity is needed, to pierce through the lies.

Three, by Descartes

 The philosopher René Descartes, halfway between the religious Middle Ages and the rationalist Modern era, decided that you could perceive, whether with your senses or your mind, three different things:

-the res cogitans: your own mind, your own consciousness, experiencing itself. Your senses, your perceptions;

-the res infinita: he called it God. It guaranteed the potency and integrity of the res cogitans.

-the res extensa: the universe, the world.

If this philosophy was an hourglass, the res infinita would be the sand above, dropping its grains through the narrow neck of the res cogitans, so it accumulates below in the form of the res extensa.

Res infinita and res extensa are two sides of the same thing. Both immense, both being looked at by the small eye of the res cogitans. Another way of saying this is: superconsciousness and subconsciousness touch each other and communicate through a back door.

The trick of Two

The trick of Twoness, of Duality, takes place because it can envision itself as a whole without Oneness.

Which is, of course, as any geometer knows, absolute nonsense.

Given the fact that One has no need to assert itself or fight back, Two can roam freely and thus create havoc. As much as it departs from One will it, eventually, need to return to it. There is no departing from One, not really. You can pull it off for a span of time, but that's about it.

Maybe embracing the One is a better option. Two within One.

Oneness

Every need, every desire, ultimately leads to the One. It is an attempt to make progress towards one goal, which is Oneness.

Even the urge to be in or with another (another being, another place, another situation) is only a move towards the One. A way to embody the attributes of the One, of the Circle coming full circle: wholeness, expansion, completion, harmonic cyclicity.

Because we have signed in for this experience, or at least I have, we go through many instances of the opposite: separation, disgregation, constriction, cycles which run too fast or too slow. It is all so we can move, slowly (not so slowly, of late!) towards the One. The way towards the One runs through Two.

As soon as I realise this, I get a weight off my chest. I do not float away, there are still mass and volume in my world, in my body; they behave as they should, and do not weigh me down, but rather anchor me in a healthy way.

I also feel light. Oneness is simultaneously light and heavy. It is fine.

Apprehension

We are owned by that which we study, by that which we ponder on.

We might think we apprehend the contents, the ideas, the interrelatedness. It is the other way around. These things shape us and then we shape our world, through them.

Then apprehension takes on a different meaning, that of being arrested, stopped. Not by the police, but by the structures we call our own.

So we need to pay attention to what we study, what we ponder on.

Life/form

The expansiveness of Life is useless without the limits of Form.

The limiting abilities of Form would not last, if they had no Life to contain.

Life looks at its own unravelling and yet pushes outward.

Form sees the outside limit and does not cross it; it keeps it in check.

There is no fight between them, only balance.

This is the ultimate equilibrium within duality.

Above/within

Inasmuch as we let go, our personal density diminishes, and it becomes easier to rise upwards.

In other words: inasmuch as our personal weight gives way to a different density, the density of "consciousness being conscious"... as we accomplish that, it becomes easier to go toward the within.

Above and within are truly one and the same, macrocosm and microcosm, macro=micro.

Us humans, the link between above (heaven-cosmos) and inside (the most intimate, the chemistry of beingness, at a molecular, atomic and subatomic level).

And soaking, soaking, soaking everything, conscience...

Coexistence

The modes of consciousness are simultaneous.

Some of them we are aware of, others we are not.

But they do not compete: they share the total task, so that humans may use them, to the best of their abilities.

Such interrelation without competition is a powerful lesson.

Rational

Both rational and ratio share the same Latin root.

So if something is rational (sensible, coherent), it takes proportion (ratio, balance, correlations) into account.

Proportion is a relationship between elements. It is often linked to beauty and harmony. It implies a harmonious integration of the parts in a whole.

Thus, true rationality regards both the whole and all of its parts. Rationality is, in this sense, inclusive.

Irrationality at its worst would then mean disregarding a part or several parts of a whole, in favour of others. Deviating visibly from an equilibrium, slanting markedly.

There is, of course, another ingredient to add to this: time. Time usually corrects excessive slanting by turning it around and promoting slanting in the opposite direction.

Is small beautiful?

Small is beautiful... true. But is big not beautiful, too?

Today I heard a wise woman say (I am very loosely quoting her): "the higher you go, the less detail you see; that is why the universe includes small creatures: because God loves detail, as well as wideness and heights".

The object of one's attention may be small. Scientists know about this. They deliberately limit their view, that they might penetrate the nature of their field of study through sheer concentration.

There are advantages to contemplating the universe in small chunks. So long as we don't lose perspective: every morsel belongs to the whole. All numbers stem from the one.

What about madness?

Madness is an inability to grasp reality, to face it and come to terms with it. To a certain extent, we are all mad. Shared madness results in collective delusions... and those who don't share them will probably be labelled as "mad".

Turning from slavery to dominion is the privilege of those prepared to look at things as they are. There is often suffering involved, because of the division between "what I wanted" and "what is".

However, if I am prepared to accept my present limitations unconditionally, they cease to limit me. If I am prepared to see, to really face and understand whatever is there... then I cannot go mad.

They say four rabbis went to heaven while they were in meditation. One died. One would not believe it and fell into skepticism, which led to heresy. One went mad. Only the fourth one was prepared to say "yes" to the full extent of the experience and come back to earth with it, prepared to share it, to use it.

Let me not deny what IS.

Trial and error

The only mistake possible is misplacing one's attention.

It is a common mistake.

We might think we were concentrating on something, and we were not. Real concentration is rare. The mind tends to flicker.

We might believe we were looking at something, and we were not really paying attention to the outside, but rather falsely corroborating some inner image. So then we act surprised at the fact that it was not what we thought.

We might make a decision based on another's judgement, and then have regrets, when things did not work out as we wanted.

Until we can focus properly, we will not know reality.

So let us welcome the process of trial and error. Acknowledge the fact that, often enough, our right hand has no idea what our left hand is doing.

And, even so... make choices, even if they are erred.

Existence learns, also, through our mistakes.

Bumpy times

Life moves on. There is ever more and more, coming from the fountain. Make way!

Thus, we can leave some space for the new. It will come, anyway. We might as well save it the trouble of making space for itself...

Or, if it does, welcome the change. However bumpy.

Holding and letting go

There is no letting go without a previous attachment. Yet no attachment is possible if things were not previously separate, unattached.

Is this the way out of anything? First, holding it fast, looking into it with intention, willingly; absorbing it, becoming one with it... Then, setting it free, becoming one with the One, surrendering ourselves and our troubles to the vastness. Beyond a particular understanding or a specific feeling.

The movement that appears is that of a cycle, holding and letting go embracing each other. Each impossible without its counterpart.

Expression or equation?

I can see the universe as a mathematical expression. Something that is. The equivalent to a number, to a given (though sometimes unknown) value.

I can also see the universe as a mathematical equation. A balance. A set of scales. A riddle that could be, perhaps, worked out.

The first view stresses the result, the second one focuses on the process. Both are beautiful.

"Light descends through 6 and ascends through 8", I was once told, by someone who had read about sacred architecture.

The expression will always point to number 1, which is closely related to the hexagon (6) because the radius of the circumference is also the side of the six-sided regular polygon.

The equation will, I believe, change in time, according to my level of understanding. I may start out with a polynomial function, go through a phase of inequations, then dive into systems with three variables... This "building up one's structure towards unity, in small steps" is very much the feature of number 8, the octagon, the octagonal support for domes in churches.

6 or 8, all is 1. And 0 is everywhere and nowhere.

Am I concentrating?

Mercury is quick. No wonder they call it quicksilver.

The feature of our attention, also known as our Mercury, is quick, too. Sometimes it can outrun us!

Attention wavers, flickering back and forth, left and right, up and down. Without us noticing, it has travelled far, and back.

Keeping one's attention pinned down to a specific reality is truly something.

Inbetween

If all consciousness is, in fact, One, but we subdivide it according to its function, and thus obtain the subdivision superconscious-selfconscious-subconscious... is there a land between these modes?

If consciousness is a continuum and not a set of separate boxes, are there borderlands between our selfconscious and our subconscious minds? More importantly: are there places between our selfconscious and our superconscious minds?