[center][center][size=5][size=6]The One and the Innumerable[/size]
By JosephMattioli[/size]
[/center][/center]
[center][center][size=5]Within this world one perceives innumerable individuals identified much like oneself but appearing with different discriminating thoughts and appearances of infinite varieties. As one looks into the vastness of space one perceives stars and planets and with the aid of science one perceives other galaxies also. With such immensity of the universes so seemingly endless in size and populated with such diversity of beings ‘here’ and perceived or believed to be ‘there’, how can one but think of himself otherwise as but an innumerable particle of sand in the sea? So then in our mind it appears that we are minuscule and many in number while the universe itself is quite large and beyond comprehension. Howbeit that the very opposite of that assumption is true?
A man considers his waking state as reality and his dream state as fiction and knows little of his sleep state and therein lays the key to the One and the many. In the wake state, one is aware of a body and mind that senses and perceives images. One is aware of a mind that has a continuity of time and space so that it appears as reality. One is aware of an individual identity with a name and character considered as I and gross body that is subject to well defined limitations and teachings of Newtonian principles. The eyes point outward and discriminate images that give the perception of a ‘here’ as being the location of the senses or ‘I’ and a ‘there’ as the object of witness being others or objects. How could one not but assume that ‘this’ duality of existence is reality?
On the other hand, when one is in the dream state, there is also a body and the senses of taste, smell, sight, hearing, and touch. In this state the body is more subtle and has fewer limitations. It can move from one scene to another without consciousness of the moving. Its physical appearance is not always the same. Limitations of gravity and other restrictions seem to have only minor influence and can be negated. Death seems not to be possible as one never dies in his dreams no matter what seems to happen. Other people are present and it is known who they are but their appearance is sometimes quite different than in the waking state. If one were to awake and then go and ask that person if he or she was with you in your dream they would certainly deny it to be true. In fact even people who are known in the conscious state as dead sometimes appear in the dream state. In the dream a world exists and one is aware of an existence and identity and familiar surroundings that are often quite different from the waking state.
From a perspective of the waking state, one must wonder how all these people and that great big world can fit into that tiny little body and mind laying on the bed in the dream state. One must wonder how one can see, smell taste, hear and feel with such clarity while the eyes are closed, the doors are shut and the world is actually outside ones room. One assumes it cannot be real because of this and it must be just ‘imagination’ or some function of the mind and therefore not reality. On the other hand from the perspective of the dream state it is most convincingly ‘real’. There is a ‘here’ and a ‘there’, people and the five senses and a world still remaining outside of oneself. In contrast the waking state perspective of this dream state shows the world as certainly ‘within’. Which of these two states is closest to reality? Obviously ones response might differ depending on which perspective state one is looking from. Nevertheless, it is not difficult for the spiritual aspirant to see that truth is not found in the waking state as it is filled with as so many different limitations, views and thoughts and perceptions as there are people. How can truth be that state which is constantly evolving, changing, in a state of flux and impermanence? As the Mystics and avatars and great men of old have repeatedly said, “Truth is found within”.
In the third state, deep sleep, individual identity is lost. There is no ego/mind or conditioned perception to err. There is no ‘here’ or ‘there’. There are no people and the world disappears. There is ‘being’ but there is no concept such as time. There is no beginning and there is no end. There is no location to be found. There is only presence, silence, perfect peace and completeness.
This is the state we know little about because it is beyond the ego/mind of consciousness. This is the world beyond mind yet is the source of all that appears both of form and formless including mind. This is the indescribable One from which the innumerable many seem to appear. This is the Self, God, Atman, Christ, the Buddha, Truth, the unconditioned, Reality, Krishna, All that is, I or whatever name one would apply. It is the realization for which individual identity eventually seeks. It is the end of all paths. It is the end of all drama and seeking. It is the end of all suffering and the source of light that makes possible the illusion of both the dream and waking state.
It cannot be described in words just as the smell of a rose cannot be described and understood by the speaking of words. Being beyond mind such a state can only be experienced by the mind as a subjective transformation. It cannot be found because it is not something that is lost. It cannot be lost because its existence is present and eternally always. One can realize that that which is eternally present cannot be gotten otherwise it would not be permanent and that which can be gotten is subject to loss. Realize it here and now and one will see there is nothing to get that one does not already have.
Discover who it is that seeks and asks all the questions and all questions will disappear. When one admits the existence of the world one must admit a seer who is none other than oneself. Find oneself so that one may know the relationship between the world and the seer. When one seeks the Self and abides as the Self there is no world to be seen. Reality is then the seer and not the world.
Liberation or enlightenment is abandonment of the false and remaining as ‘Being’. Enlightenment is the point where the One and the innumerable are one and the same. Where neither subject nor objects exist and all is complete as ‘One’ expressed as the infinite ‘I’.[/size]
[/center][/center]
Recommended Comments
There are no comments to display.