The Infinite Heart
A Journey Into the Teachings of 150 Great
Mystics, Masters, Poets and Saints
WEEK ONE: Wednesday
Did you have strange dreams last night?
I didn’t notice. I was too busy screaming. So, I have a question. Well, actually I have a ton of them, but this one’s been the most annoying. I can sort of get an image of the Source being like an infinite field of Light, and I can at least try to get a sense of it being like a great empty void. Not that I’ve been particularly successful with either. But when I try to put them together, forget it. How can it be both?
First let me say that there are many ways of perceiving Pure Essence. Through visual images, through sound, through feelings, and through more direct and immediate senses and experiences that have no physical or mental correlation on this level. And of course, no direct experience of the Source can be accurately described with concepts. But we must settle for the awkward blunderings of words when trying to describe that which is so far beyond them. That said, two of the more frequent ways it is experienced might be conceptualized as the Light and as the Void.
But they sound like total opposites.
Many people who experience the ocean would describe it as vibrant, ever-changing, and shimmering. They might describe the splashing waves and the cool, fresh, energizing breeze. This would all be true. And yet, if they experienced the ocean in its depths, they would have a very different perspective. Perhaps they would describe it as still, silent and dark. Both of these experiences are of the same ocean.
So the Void and the Light are like two different aspects of the same thing? Two different perspectives?
Yes. They are two different perceptions one might have of Ultimate Reality.
The Light is experienced as a medium, or as you said, a field, that is radiant, infinite, simple, empty, and completely clear. Saint Teresa of Avila described it as an “Infused brightness, a light which knows no night, but rather, as it is always light, nothing ever disturbs it.” And the tenth century Christian mystic, Symeon, the New Theologian,–
–I think his title might be a little outdated.
But his wisdom is not. He said “Our mind is pure and simple. When it is emptied of thought, it enters the pure and simple light of God, and finds nothing but the light.” This Light is pure, infinite Awareness. Consciousness without thought. It is vibrant, resplendent Oneness. It has no separation, no boundary, no structure, no duality, no subject or object, and no action. There is only fresh, luminous Being. Shankara wrote “The Atman, shining with its own light, causes this apparent universe. Its power is infinite. It is the source of all experience.” And the twelfth century sufi, Suhrawardi, wrote “…The Essence of the First, the absolute Light, God, gives constant illumination, whereby It is manifested and brings all things into existence, giving life to them by Its rays. Everything in the world is derived from the light of His Essence, and all beauty and perfection are the gifts of His bounty.” And Emerson tells us, “From within or from behind a light shines through us upon things and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all.”
How come nobody knows about this stuff when so many people know about it?
What bottom dweller in their right mind would believe such a tale?
Well, sure, but when you have all these different people, from all these different centuries and cultures and backgrounds, describing the same things, what bottom dweller in their right mind would be content to keep on bottom dwelling like that’s all there is?
There are very many bottom dwellers among us who would prefer not to be told that there is more to dwell on than just bottoms. Maybe that should be rephrased. In any case, I do find it surprising that these maps are not known to more of those who are aware of a deep longing within them that nothing in this world can completely quench. They are longing for Home, and yet so many of them don’t understand what it is they are actually longing for. But as I’ve said, this is beginning to change.
Now, when one experiences this infinite Ocean of Light, it feels buoyant, spacious and free. There is no structure, no weight, no boundary. It feels absolutely liberating, absolutely energizing, and absolutely exhilarating. And yet, there is a calmness about it. A naturalness. One feels completely at home, completely relaxed, completely safe, completely loved, completely whole. One experiences a profound and unshakable well-being. The phrase “Perfect Peace” is understood through direct and intimate experience. And yet, this experience is so infinite and pure, such descriptions are far too limiting and heavy and complex to accurately express it. One simply IS. Satchitananda– Being, Awareness, Bliss. Complete contentment. Complete well-being. Pure Presence. Pure Awareness. Pure Love. No effort, no action, no trying, no shoulds, no form, no structure, no thought, no need, no longing. It’s the water that quenches our deepest thirst. We plunge into its luminous vastness, and dissolve into the Self.
Swami Yogananda said “Samadhi but extends my conscious realm, beyond the limits of the mortal frame, to the farthest boundary of eternity, where I, the Cosmic Sea, watch the little ego floating in me.” This Cosmic Sea is our origin, our Essence, and our destiny. It is our Home. The Upanishads tell us “As soon as you find it, you are free; you have found yourself; you have solved the great riddle; your heart forever is at peace. Whole, you enter the Whole. Your personal self returns to its radiant, intimate, deathless source.”
But this infinite ocean of luminous, immediate Awareness is not the only way Ultimate Reality is experienced. There is something even deeper, even more fundamental that can be experienced.
The Void.
The twentieth century German poet, Rilke, said “Be– and yet know the great void where all things begin, the infinite source of your own most intense vibration, so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.” And Leonardo Da Vinci wrote “Among the great things which are to be found among us, the Being of Nothingness is the greatest.” This Nothingness might be described as being even more simple, more pure, more fundamental than the Light. It is experienced as a majestic emptiness. An infinite, aware darkness. Lao-tzu said–
–Who’s this Loud Zoo guy?
He is said to be the author of the “Tao Te Ching”, written around twenty-five hundred years ago. In it, he wrote “Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.” This darkness is the Absolute, Brahman, that without qualities, the Nameless, the Godhead, the Uncreated. Philo wrote “He who thinks God has any quality and is not the One, injures not God, but himself.” And very similarly, in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said “Whoever believes that the All is deficient is himself deficient.”
It is because it has no attributes that it is sometimes thought of as Nothingness or Emptiness. John Erigena wrote “The term ‘Nothing’ signifies the ineffable, incomprehensible, and inaccessible brilliance of the divine goodness, which is unknown to all intellects, whether human or angelic, because it is super-essential and supernatural… What is properly judged to be above all essence is also known properly in every essence, and for this reason every visible and invisible creature can be called a theophany, that is, a divine appearance.” And the early twentieth century Jewish philosopher, Simone Weil, wrote “The good seems to us as a nothingness, since there is no thing that is good. But this nothingness is not unreal. Compared with it, everything in existence is unreal.” Listen to one of my favorite poems, attributed to Tzu Yeh, a Chinese woman who lived around the fourth century B.C.:
All night I could not sleep.
Because of the moonlight on my bed.
I kept on hearing a voice calling.
Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered “yes”.
I don’t get it.
Just let it be, without trying to get it. If I remember, I’ll say it again in a week or two. It might mean more to more to you then. So, this absolute nothingness is experienced as completely empty. It is the absence of all substance. It’s the absence of everything. It’s even the absence of absence! The ninth century Zen master, Huang-po, said “It does exist, but in a way too marvelous for us to comprehend. It is an existence that is beyond existence, a non-existence that is nevertheless existence.”
It’s incomprehensible to the intellect. No descriptions of it are adequate. No metaphors are satisfactory. This is why it has often been described through negation. It is not presence, not absence, not being, not non-being, not nothing, not something, and so forth. The sixth century Chinese Buddhist monk, Seng-ts’an, said “If you want to describe its essence, the best you can say is ‘Not-two’.” It is experienced as absolute emptiness, and yet often, simultaneously, as being dense and full. It’s full of its emptiness. It’s overflowing with emptiness. Plotinus wrote “It is exactly because there is nothing in It that all things come from It.”
And even though this nothingness is often experienced as dark, it can simultaneously be experienced as luminous. Shimmering. Scintillating. It is majestic, luminous Pure Darkness. Dionysius the Areopagite wrote “The simple, absolute and immutable mysteries of divine Truth are hidden in the super-luminous darkness of that silence which revealeth in secret. For this darkness, though of deepest obscurity, is yet radiantly clear; and, though beyond touch and sight, it more than fills our unseeing minds with splendors of transcendent beauty.”
How can it be luminous and dark at the same time?
This is how it is often experienced. It is darkness, and yet, it is completely overflowing with Energy and Awareness, which is frequently experienced as subtle yet exquisite luminosity.
The only way I can kind of picture this is by thinking of outer space. It’s vast, and mostly empty, but there is tremendous energy, and there are sparkles of light.
We can imagine space before there were any stars. A blackness alive with ungraspable amounts of simple and unstructured energy and potential.
So, there’s the Light, which is Ultimate Reality, and then there’s this luminous darkness, which is even more ultimate?
Sol as in Sun of Light. Many people have experienced this Sun. All of them experience Pure Awareness, Pure Being, Pure Love. All of them experience existence beyond duality, beyond dichotomies, beyond time, beyond space, beyond structure, beyond everything that has been created. There is only Oneness.
Now, some people who experience it find themselves in the brilliant light of the periphery of this Sun. They experience the radiance, the pure energy, the vibrancy. This is their experience of Ultimate Reality. Others experience the center of this Sun. There, all is still, silent, unchanging and dark, like the depths of an ocean. It is a shimmering, living, beautiful, gentle, loving, tender, peaceful Darkness. From this darkness, the infinite Pure Light can be perceived as the radiance which emanates from this Absolute Center. Or, the Light may be perceived as a luminous, wavering, shimmering surface, as the surface of an ocean looks from the depths. So, are they two different things? Yes. Are they two aspects of the same thing? Yes. Are they precisely the same thing perceived with different levels of clarity? Yes. Are they both Ultimate Reality? Yes. Is the Void more ultimate than the Light? Yes.
Thanks for clearing all that up for me.
The mind struggles. The heart nods.
The bladder cries out in dismay.
Shall we take a break?
No, just take it easy on the water metaphors for a while. I guess I shouldn’t drink so much pop for breakfast. Just trying to get the Recommended Daily Addiction of the essentials.
Sugar and caffeine?
Not to mention artificial preservatives. Let your skin drink it in.
In any case, let me try to describe the Indescribable in a different way.
* * * * * *
Mystics in every major spiritual tradition describe experiencing two aspects of Ultimate Reality: First, the formless, empty, motionless Godhead, the Pure Brahman, the Creator, the Absolute, the Source, the Ground of all being. And second, God, the Light, the Spirit, the Living Word, the Sustainer, the Flowing Fountain of Essence. For the mystic, there is so much inexpressible beauty, so much absolutely exquisite bliss in the Flow of the Light. Yet, they want only to surrender it. To let go even of that most divine of forms. For beneath that final, most subtle veil lies the Formless, the Pure, the Unnamable, the Source, the Godhead. That which gives birth to all form. That is the Purest Truth, and so it is their greatest Beloved.
So the Godhead is like Absolute Reality, and then from that there’s like a flow of Essence that comes into the world. And you could call that God or the Spirit or the Light or whatever.
Yes. Of course, from the purest perspective, there is no difference, no duality. There is only the One. The eleventh century Jewish mystic, Ibn Gabirol, said “There is no distinction between Godhead, Unity, Eternity or Existence; for all is one mystery; and although each of these attributes is variously named, yet all of them point to One.” And listen to Ramakrishna: “When I think of the Supreme Being as inactive– neither creating nor preserving nor destroying– I call Him Brahman or Purusha, the Impersonal God. When I think of Him as active– creating, preserving, destroying– I call Him Shakti or Maya or Prakriti, the Personal God. But the distinction between them does not mean a difference. The Personal and the Impersonal are the same thing, like milk and its whiteness, the diamond and its luster… It is impossible to conceive of the one without the other. The Divine Mother and Brahman are one.”
But the way we’re talking about it now, Ultimate Reality is like the center of the sun, and the Light is like the rays.
Right. Eckhart wrote “Creatures speak of God– but why do they not mention the Godhead? Because there is only unity in the Godhead and there is nothing to talk about. God acts. The Godhead does not.” And the fourteenth century Christian mystic, Henry Suso, wrote “The immediate vision of the naked Godhead is without doubt the pure truth.” And Saint John of the Cross: “The Soul that is attached to anything, however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union.” Eckhart agrees: “… any object you have in your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the Inmost Truth.”
But hang on. It kind of sounds like if you’re really longing to be one with God, that will keep it from happening.
Exactly. The seventeenth century German priest, Johannes Scheffler, also known as Angelus Silesius, wrote “God is a pure no-thing, concealed in now and here: the less you reach for him, the more he will appear.” And the eleventh century Sufi, Hamid al Ghazali, wrote “The final goal of love is to become bare as a desert. Just before this ultimate station is reached, the form of the Beloved appears in all its perfection and falls as an obstacle between lover and love.” He goes on to tell us that we must remove this final veil. When you let go of your attachment to every face of your Beloved, you dissolve into that Faceless Truth, the Pure, unchanging, infinite Still Point at the center of existence. Saint Augustine wrote “That alone is truly real which abides unchanged.”
As long as there is something, anything, that you are holding onto or trying to get, there is more to let go of. There is farther to fall. The fourteenth century friar, John Tauler, put it this way: “… Never cease to enter in; entering ever further in, ever nearer, so as to sink the deeper in an unknown and unnamed abyss; and, above all ways, images and forms, and above all powers, to lose thyself, deny thyself, and even unform thyself… In this lost condition nothing is to be seen but a ground which rests upon itself, everywhere one Being, one Life.” Says Eckhart, “Here the soul and the Godhead are one.” Hadewijch the Second, the name given to an anonymous thirteenth century nun, wrote–
–So there was a Hadewijch the First? You don’t hear about a lot of mother-daughter nuns these days.
Some of the writings that had been attributed to the thirteenth century nun, Hadewijch of Antwerp, have a different style and vocabulary. So scholars think it was a different writer, that they call Hadewijch the Second. Whoever she was, she was unwavering in her free fall into the Divine Depths . She said “If I desire something, I know it not, for in boundless unknowing I have lost my very self. In His mouth I am engulfed, in a bottomless abyss; never could I come out of it.” The true lover of God or Reality or Essence wants nothing more than to let go of every form of God, and die into the Superabundant Abyss of the Godhead, the Absolute, the Nectarous Void of Pure Being.
Listen to the fourteenth century Christian mystic, John Ruysbroeck. “The infinite Undifferentiation of the Godhead is so dark and so naked of all image, that it conceals within itself all the divine qualities and works… and here there is a death in fruition, and a melting and dying into the nudity of Pure Being; where all the Names of God, and all conditions, and all the living images which are reflected in the mirror of divine truth, are absorbed into the Ineffable Simplicity, the Absence of image and of knowledge… There is nothing else here but an eternal rest in the fruitive embrace of an outpouring love; and this is the wayless Being that all interior souls have chosen above all other things. This is the dim silence where all lovers lose themselves.”
I didn’t follow most of that, but that last part sounded more scary than comforting.
There can be terrifying moments at first. Resting in the infinite, superabundant, gentle Emptiness of the Mother of Existence is only possible when we have shed all of the false skins we believe ourselves to be. In “The Chronicles of Narnia”, the greed of the boy, Eustace, turned him into a dragon. Aslan the great lion came to him and cut deeply into his tough dragon skin with razor claws, peeling away layer after layer of all that was not an innocent child. We can imagine it was the most excruciating, terrifying ecstasy. The pain of liberation.
The anonymous fourteenth century author of “The Theologia Germanica” wrote “No one can be enlightened unless he be first cleansed or purified and stripped.” The pure child within is completely unscarred by this stripping away of our heavy dragon skins. But no matter how many times we hear this, as these false selves begin to fall away, it usually feels as though we are being torn away from Life. All that we thought we were is cast aside. We believe this will be the end of our existence, and so we resist it with all our might. And Aslan, would never free us of our skins without our absolute permission. The truth is, once we’re honestly willing to let them fall away, they do so on their own. They only cling to us because of our desperate grip. And once our old skins are gone, there is finally room for something new and pure to replace them.
That kind of reminds me of the seeds of some pine trees. They can’t break out of their cones until they’re exposed to the heat of a forest fire. So they can’t grow till all the life on the surface gets burned to the ground.
Exactly! The old must die for the new to be born. Before the butterfly can emerge, the caterpillar must fall apart and die to itself. It must allow its outer structure to dissolve into a chrysalis that is completely helpless, completely vulnerable, and absolutely lame. To the old you, it’s hell. The hell of metamorphosis.
.There’s this joke: These two young caterpillars are walking along and they see a butterfly fluttering around. So one says to the other, “You’d never catch me up in one of those things!” I guess the point is, before it’s happened, you don’t really have a clue what you’re going to become.
That’s true. You just know that the old you, the only one you know, will be finished. So let me return your story with another one. One morning, an old caterpillar was crawling along when a beautiful butterfly fluttered down beside him. The caterpillar looked up, startled and amazed. “Are you an angel?” he asked. The butterfly asked him, “What is an angel?” “Well”, the caterpillar said. “I’ve never seen one, but some say they are real. I’ve heard they look like us, except they have beautiful wings. And they use them to fly to places we can only dream about. And I’ve heard, that instead of eating leaves, they actually drink the sweet nectar of flowers!” The butterfly laughed and said, “Well then, I must be an angel.” Then, with a gentle smile, she asked him, “Tell me, old worm, have you ever thought of spinning yourself a nice warm cocoon?” At this, the caterpillar sighed heavily. “Beautiful creature,” he said. “I have often felt the longing. But I have no time for just lying around in a hammock. It takes me all day just to crawl from tree to tree.”
But we’ve jumped ahead again. We’ll talk more of this shedding of our false skins in the coming days. So, let’s move on.
* * * * * *
I want us to discuss a basic conceptual model of how the Source manifests itself into reality. Now as I’ve mentioned several times, all of the layers of reality and everything in them are all Essence. So, we have the Source as infinite, pure, aware Oneness, and we have the Source as it exists in all the levels of manifest reality. This post-prism part of Sol, vast as it is, is an infinitesimal part of the Essence.
Now, in simplest terms, we may understand the post-prism Essence as consisting of two different aspects, that might be called Pure Awareness and structure. Pure Awareness retains all of the original attributes of the Source. It’s the Source unaltered. Pure Awareness is Essence. However, structure, while it is still Essence at its most fundamental level, organizes itself in a way that it no longer has the properties of the Source, just as, in our level of reality, energy organizes itself in a way that gives it the properties of matter. It is still energy, and it becomes matter. Likewise, structure is still Essence, and it becomes something different. It takes on different properties. So, the post-prism Pure Awareness never becomes something other than Solness, while the post-prism structure does. Are you following me?
If I am it’s from pretty far behind. I mean, that was in simplest terms? I guess I’m out of shape for these mental marathons. These days, just about everything comes in easy to swallow, pre-dissolved info-bites. The modern motto is, “If you can’t sum it up with a slogan, simplify it till you can.” It’s all ten second sound bites nowadays. If you want to reach the masses, you’ve got to cater to their short attention span.
And you’re asking me to cater to yours?
Sorry? I tuned out in the middle of your question.
I’ll take that as a “yes”.
At least take it a little slower. What do you mean by “structure”?
We spoke the other day of the post-prism Essence being both a matrix around which everything in every level of reality manifests, and the stuff out of which everything that is in reality is formed. Both of these are structures. By structure, I mean any kind of form. Any kind of matrix, pattern, formation or system. Every thing in every layer of created reality, from the most subtle to the most dense, is all structure. Structures range from the most simple, which are the least removed from the Essence, to the most complex, which exist in our level of reality. What we normally think of as solid matter is made of complex energetic structures, which are made of more simple structures, which are made of more simple structures, all the way back to the most simple structures, which are organized into existence directly out of the Source. Everything that is not Pure Essence is structure.
Okay.
Now, if there is only Oneness, Beingness, Essence, how can its infinite superabundance overflow in a way that creates? If it only creates more Essence, then that Essence would stay merged within the Oneness and nothing new or different would be created. It would have only created more of its infinite self. So, it must create something from itself that is different than itself. Otherwise, it isn’t creating. It’s just adding to its already overflowing self. Does that much make sense?
I think so. If it’s overflowing with infinite creative potential, it has to create something other than itself, or else it really isn’t creating anything, it’s just adding to itself, and it’s already overflowing. If all this superabundance just keeps going back into itself, sooner or later it’s bound to be so overflowing, so superabundant, so charged, if that word works, that all of that creative impulse and ability creates something beyond itself. Different from itself. The cosmic sneeze.
Yes, exactly. Now, Infinite Essence is all there is. There is nothing else. There is nothing beyond it. The term “beyond it” doesn’t even apply. It cannot create anything outside of itself. It cannot create something outside of its boundaries, for Essence has no boundaries. No edges, no end, no external limits at all. So, whatever it creates must be within itself. It cannot create something “over there”. Anything created by Pure Being must be created within it.
Yeah! You’ve said we’re always in this Essence. Well now that makes some sense. It’s infinite. There’s nothing beyond it. So everything finite must be within it!
Exactly. The fifteenth century priest, Nicholas of Cusa, wrote “I see Thee to be Infinity Itself, wherefore nothing is alien to Thee, nothing differing from Thee, nothing opposed to Thee. For the Infinite allows no otherness from Itself, since, being Infinity, nothing exists outside It: absolute Infinity includes and contains all things.”
So we’re always within the Source! It’s not up there somewhere, someplace else. We’re in it! Everything is in it! It seems so obvious now. So simple.
The Infinite is absolute Simplicity. It’s the finite that becomes so complex. Now, for the Source to create something different from itself, with different properties than itself, but that is also within itself, it must create something that allows difference, separation, boundary. It must create some simple membrane, some wall, some division that allows for separateness. It must create structure. Structure doesn’t retain the infinite and boundless properties of Sol. We could say that structure takes that infiniteness and focuses it on developing more structure, on becoming more complex, on creating all that can be created from itself. It is the very nature of structure to create infinite combinations of structure with all of the creative energy and power of its inherent and infinite Solness. In a sense, this is its program, its directive. To organize itself with ever increasing complexity. So, the creative tension, the uncontainable impulse of the superabundant, overflowing Source resulted in the creation of something from itself that had different properties than itself, and that would continue to be an outlet for its limitless creative energy. And this happened through the arising of structure, with its inherent tendency towards diversity and complexity.
This is kind of scary. I think I’m actually starting to follow you. You know, I remember reading that in the beginning of the universe, hydrogen and helium were the only two elements. Then they formed stars that created more complex elements. And from those elements planets were formed, and on our planet those elements combined in more and more complex ways, until eventually life developed. And life has evolved into more and more complex systems as well, which led to a species that actually consciously creates more and more complex physical and mental structures. My theory is that all of this is leading up to us reaching the pinnacle of human ingenuity, which will happen with the arrival of the implanted computer/iphone with built in surround sound and a contact lens screen display. At which point things will pretty much start to fall apart and go in reverse until there’s just a lot of helium and hydrogen again, so that if any humans do manage to survive, they’ll talk really funny.
Anyway, what really hit me about this is that all of the atoms that make up the Earth were once in stars. So, our skin, our eyes, our blood, our hearts, our entire physical bodies, are made up of atoms that were once part of a flaming sun! We literally came from the stars! I think that’s amazing.
What a gift, friend! The atoms in the air we breathe, in the water we drink, in the food we eat, each one of them has had an amazing journey! What secrets do these atoms hold? How many lives have they lived? And what is this body I wear, but a trillion sparks of an ancient sun, dancing together in celebration and remembrance. Ahhh, we have danced together before, long ago. And with every breath, new atoms join in the dance, and others whirl outward for a new adventure. Rich journey friends! I have been honored by your shimmering presence!
Twinkle, twinkle ancient star, how I’ve wondered where you are. Now I know the answer true. You’re inside me! I’m inside you!
Our bodies came from ancient suns. Suns the Source created. But we, we are the ancient ones. The stars are over rated!
“The stars are over rated”?
It was all I could think of. Here’s a better one:–
–Maybe you should quit while you’re behind.
No, this one’s from Rilke: “A billion stars spinning through the night, blazing high above your head. But IN you is the presence that will be, when all the stars are dead.”
I actually like that one. Anyway, I just mentioned that because you were talking about structure becoming more complex.
Yes, and what a wonderful example! Amazing. All right. Let’s continue.
* * * * * *
Now, because of the infinite creative potential within the Source, it can’t help but create ways to manifest this superabundant potential into actuality. Plotinus wrote “The One, perfect because It seeks nothing and needs nothing, overflows, as it were, and Its superabundance makes something, as it were, other than Itself, which is Being.” The existence of structure or form or being provides an incredible outlet for this creative potential. And yet, the limitless creativity of the Source found a way to increase the creative potential of this outlet to an ungraspable degree.
You recall that the second post-prism aspect, what I’m calling “Pure Awareness”, retains all of the original attributes of Essence. And yet, this awareness, which is not different from Essence, becomes an aspect of created reality. How? If the superabundance of Sol is unceasingly creating more Solness, what could keep some of that Solness, which we could also call Pure Awareness, from melting right back into the Source? What could let it become differentiated? Separate? Distinctive?
I don’t know. Some kind of a boundary. Some kind of structure, I guess.
Exactly. Structure. All that is needed to separate a little ocean water from a vast ocean is a small container. The water is still in and of the ocean, but the container around it creates different possibilities for it than it had when it was completely undifferentiated from the ocean. Likewise, all that is needed to separate some of the Essence from the entire Essence is a basic structure, a boundary, a container of sorts. If the Essence is like an ocean, structure is like ice, made of the same element, but organized more solidly. Structural boundaries open the door to entirely new creative possibilities.
So, we have the Essence. Then we have structure, which is created from the Essence. And even though it is Essence, structure doesn’t keep the attributes of Essence.
Like energy that makes up matter is still energy, but it doesn’t keep the attributes it had when it was just energy.
Right. So structure begins very simply, and then organizes itself into more and more complex patterns and forms. And through this process, the various levels of reality were created, and filled in with an endless variety of structures.
And because the Source is absolutely infinite, without end or boundaries, all of this is happening inside of it.
Yes. There is no outside. Now there are also simple structures that serve as boundaries or containers which keep the Pure Awareness or Solness that is within them differentiated from the rest of Essence. Since one way to understand Sol is as the Light, one way to conceptualize these many individual, separate, differentiated parts of Essence is as sparks of Light. The structural boundaries that allow for the existence of these individual sparks of Light allow them to have different experiences, different configurations, different qualities. In other words, uniqueness. Now, what is another word we might use to refer to one of these individual sparks of Light? What else might we call it?
A soul! You’re talking about souls!
Exactly!
So a soul is just a part of the Essence that has a boundary around it that makes it separate!
Right. Or, more accurately, that structural boundary, that thinnest of structural membranes, creates a powerful illusion of separateness. As we will discuss, structure can never truly contain or limit Pure Awareness. But you are correct that the essence of a soul is the Essence itself. They are the same Essence. Plotinus wrote “The differentiated souls issue from the Unity and strike out here and there, but are united at the Source much as light is a divided thing on earth, shining in this house and that, and yet remains one. One Soul is the source of all souls; It is at once divided and undivided… All Being, despite this plurality, is Unity still.” And Saint Bernard wrote, in the twelfth century,–
–There was really some guy named Saint Bernard?
Yes.
Did he slobber?
I will continue.
Please do.
He said “In those respects in which the soul is unlike God, it is also unlike itself.” And the thirteenth century Sufi, Ibn Arabi, said “When the mystery of the oneness of the soul and the Divine is revealed to you, you will understand that you are no other than God.” And Eckhart wrote “The Ground of God and the Ground of the soul are one and the same.”
Our Essence is the Essence. This may be the most important and fundamental truth of reality. Our true identity is the Source. The Center of our being is Pure Being. This has been discovered and rediscovered countless times throughout the centuries. The Upanishads: “You are That.” Muhammad: “Whoever knows himself knows God.” Jesus: “I and my Father are one.” Eckhart: “My eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.” Saint Catherine of Genoa: “My Me is God, nor do I recognize any other me except my God Himself.” The tenth century Sufi, Mansur al-Hallaj: “I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I.” Shankara: “As Brahman constitutes a person’s Self, it is not something to be attained by that person.”
All who have deeply experienced the Source intimately realize that it’s not separate from their own being. Jesus: “The kingdom of Heaven is within you.” Kabir: “My beloved master lives inside”. Walt Whitman: “There is no other god any more divine than yourself.” Yazid al-Bistami: “I sloughed off my self as a snake sloughs off its skin. Then I looked into myself and saw that I am He.” And again, Eckhart: “Simple people imagine that they should see God, as if He stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one.”
In Saint Teresa of Avila’s writings, God tells her “And should by chance you do not know were to find me, do not go here and there; But if you wish to find Me, in yourself seek Me.” And Rumi echoes, “…Finally, when I peered into my own heart, there and no where else was His Home.” Saint Augustine put it this way: “Too late I loved You, oh Beauty so ancient yet ever new! Too late I loved You! And, behold, You were within me, and I out of myself, and there I searched for You.” And Madame Guyon Du Chesnoy, a seventeenth century Christian mystic, wrote “O, my Lord, you were within my heart, and you asked of me only that I should return within, in order that I might feel your presence. O, Infinite Goodness, you were so near, and I, running here and there to seek you, found you not!
The ninth century Zen master, Tung-shan, wrote “If you look for the truth outside yourself it gets farther away. Today, walking alone, I meet him everywhere I step. He is the same as me, yet I am not him. Only if you understand it in this way will you merge with the way things are.” And the thirteenth century Sufi poet, Fakhruddin Iraqi, said “Beloved, I sought You here and there, asked for news of You from all I met. Then I saw You through myself, and found we were identical. Now I blush to think I ever searched for signs of You.” And similarly, the fourteenth century Indian poet and mystic, Lalla, said “Playfully, you hid from me. All day I looked. Then I discovered I was you, and the celebration of That began.”
They’re all saying the same thing. I looked everywhere, then I found you in me. The Real me is You.
Yes, it is such an amazing, profound moment when we truly realize:
For so long, I searched for you
But you always seemed another step away
Until somehow, through Grace, I saw the Truth
And I’m grateful and humbled more than words can say
You’re closer than the wind on my face
Closer than these tears in my eyes
Closer than the tightest embrace
Closer than this heart that keeps me alive
You are the Mother of all that lives
The Essence of all that flows
The Pure Heart in all that lives
You are the Center of the soul
So when mystics talk about being one with God, they’re talking about being one with this Center. With Essence.
Yes. One with the Divine. One with the Source. One with Ultimate Reality. One with the Uncreated. One with Pure Being. One.
When all the layers of structure you have been attached to are released, you experience Pure Layerlessness. Pure Structurelessness. Limitless, boundaryless Oneness. All is One. All is Essence. All is Self. All is the Purest Love, the Purest Being. Saint Catherine of Genoa said “Sometimes I do not see or feel myself to have either soul, body, heart, will or taste, or anything else except Pure Love.” Am I overloading you with all these quotes?
No, I like them. It’s kind of in one ear and out the other, but it’s interesting to hear how all these different people are basically saying the same things. Although, I think I’ve got it figured it out. You’re really reading all these quotes from a prototype pair of nano-computer contact lens screens.
You’re on to me.
You know, you can probably get them cheaper if you don’t mind advertisements flashing on them all day long.
I’ll have to look into that. In any case, once we deeply realize that our true self is actually Essence, the small self can be seen as a vessel for its spontaneous expression. Shakespeare wrote “The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.” We are no longer attached to this vessel. We no longer grasp it tightly with our own agendas and control. We let the Flow of Essence move through us, as we endlessly fall into the fathomless depths of Pure Being. Eckhart wrote “… For though she sinks all sinking in the oneness of divinity, she never touches bottom. For it is of the very essence of the soul that she is powerless to plumb the depths of her creator. And here one cannot speak of the soul anymore, for she has lost her nature yonder in the oneness of divine essence. There she is no more called soul, but is called Immeasurable Being.”
In this most pristine, intimate, immediate experience of what is, the perception of separation and duality dissolves. Hamid al-Ghazali wrote “When multiplicity has been eliminated, unity is established and relationship ceases… There remains only the One, the Real, and the meaning of the words ‘All things perish except for His face’ is known by experience.” And Saraha wrote “In this state of highest bliss there is neither self nor other… Everything is Buddha without exception.” The subject and the object, the actor and the action, the cause and the effect, the creator and the created, are all seen in their pristine unity. Seng-ts’an, wrote “When the ten thousand things are viewed in their oneness, we return to the Origin, and remain where we have always been.” Listen to Ramakrishna: “It is God Himself who has become everything; whatever I see is only a form of God. It is He alone who has become maya, the universe, and all living beings. Nothing exists but God.” And Rumi: “I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one: one I seek, one I know, one I see, one I call. He is the first, he is the last. He is the outward, he is the inward.”
Okay. That’s probably getting pretty close to quote overload. Or at least maybe just spread them out a little more. So what’s maya?
This dream. All of the created levels of reality that seem as an illusion when compared to the Pure Light of the Real. But they are not separate from this Ultimate Reality. Nothing is other than the One. And when we’re fully resting within the Heart of Pure Essence, we see this to be true. I can’t help quoting Rumi again here. “Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down on that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense.”
This is the place the maps lead to. This is the place where the journey of the soul begins and ends. We lie on that grass, close our eyes, and imagine grand adventures. And Essence is our very being, and it is the grass, and it is a cozy blanket that embraces us while we dream. It creates for us a magnificent stage, on which the fable of a great journey is enacted. Very convincingly. But in truth, the prodigal son never left. No ray of Light ever leaves the Heart of Sol. For that Heart is endless. And we are never other than it.
Okay. I can understand the idea that, if our essence is the Essence itself, we’re essentially the Essence. But obviously there’s something else going on. I mean, what the hell happened? We don’t exactly have the same qualities as you say the Essence has. Personally, I don’t feel particularly blissful or luminous or infinite most of the time. Although my bladder is getting pretty close to overflowing with superabundance.
We’ve been discussing how reality can be seen as dimorphic, meaning existing in two different forms: Essence, which some traditions refer to as “the Self”, and structure. Your Self is the Self. However, our individual selves, or souls, are encapsulated in structure. The farther we enter into manifest reality, the heavier and thicker structure becomes, and the stronger the pull to identify with structure as opposed to our True Self. In this level of reality, most of us are so immersed in structures– physical, psychological, and energetic– that we have all but completely forgotten what we really are. It’s not actually the heavy structures of this world that are the problem. It is our identification and attachment to them. It is the supreme value we give them. We’ll discuss this more in a few days.
So, a soul is encapsulated in a structural boundary that creates the experience of being a differentiated individual. It can now have unique experiences, and create in unique ways. It can now interact. It can make choices. It can dissolve into and withdraw from the Source as it likes. It can commune with other souls if it wishes. It can explore the various levels of reality if it chooses.
How can a soul enter and leave the Source if it has a structural boundary around it? And what makes one soul different from another if they all have the same Essence? And what do you mean by communing with other souls? And while I’m at it, where did moths gather before there was artificial lighting? You know? Where did they hang out? I mean, did they try to fly to the moon? Did they try to catch up with lightning? Did they chase fire flies around? It’s a hell of a mystery. And why do fire extinguishers have a warning that says “Keep away from high temperatures”? Now there’s a well designed piece of equipment.
And here’s another one that really bugs me. Why are hunters most proud of themselves when they hit the biggest target? You know? I mean, how hard can it really be to shoot an elephant? Or a moose or a bear? When you think about it, if they really want to prove how good they are, they should see how small an animal they can kill. They could go on their hunting trips and come back with a little hamster tied to the roof of their car. “Hey, Billy Bob, what’s that mounted on your wall there, next to the cock roach?” “That there’s a Southwestern Grasshopper. Two point buck.”And see that little black speck mounted next to it? That’s a flea. I shot that sucker right in the air, just as it was jumping off Junior! And see that tiny dot next to it? Here, use my new Swiss Army knife with an electron microscope.” “Damn! You shot yourself a cold virus! Looks like strain 266B, if I’m not mistaken. They’re quick little suckers too. I shot one once. Used a Smith and Wesson Micro-Dart. I just wounded it though. It probably got an infection and died later on.
Maybe we could get back on track.
Are you sure? I could go on for a while if you want.
Quite sure.
Alright, but it’s your loss.
* * * * * *
So how can a soul enter and leave the Essence?
Clearly, if people can experience the Source, in spite of all of the structures between it and our level of reality, a soul unencumbered by all those layers can as well. Plotinus wrote “You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer– in which the divine essence is communicated to you. This is ecstasy. Like can only apprehend like; when you thus cease to be finite, you become one with the infinite. In the reduction of your soul to its simplest self, its divine essence, you realize this union– this identity.”
There is so much in these words! This reduction of our soul to its simplest self is the dis-identification from structure. Our simplest self is nothing other than Pure Being. When we let go of all that is not our True Self, our True Self is all that remains. The twentieth century sage, Ramana Maharshi, described this as a process of letting go of our habit of seeing the unreal as real. He said “When we stop regarding the unreal as real, then reality alone will remain, and we will be that.” To put it another way,–
–Please.
Once we are able to truly see structure for what it is, subordinate to Pure Awareness, to Essence, to our True Nature, to our Self, then we will no longer be confined by it, and it will no longer keep us from realizing our true identity, Essence itself. This is the meaning of Self realization– to experientially and continuously realize that our self is the Self. In the ancient Indian epic, “The Ramayana”, Hanuman tells the Lord, “When I identify with the body, I am your servant. When I identify with the soul, I am a part of You. But when I identify with the Self, I am truly You.”
Will you say that one again?
“When I identify with the body, I am your servant. When I identify with the soul, I am a part of You. But when I identify with the Self, I am truly You.” Beautiful, isn’t it?
So all those people you were quoting were basically saying they were one with God. That they were experiencing themselves as the Self, which is the same as Pure Being. It’s like the purest part of us that’s always there.
Exactly. The Center of the soul. This is not just being aware of our soul as a part of God, but dissolving away even those boundaries, so that there is no longer any boundary between our consciousness and Pure Consciousness. This is re-membering our True Self. In the twelfth century, Hugh of Saint Victor wrote “To ascend to God is to enter into oneself, and not only to enter into oneself, but, in some unsayable manner, in the inmost parts to pass beyond oneself. He who can, as it were, enter into himself and, going deeper and deeper, pass beyond himself, truly ascends to God.” And Eckhart wrote “As the soul becomes more pure and bare and poor, and possesses less of created things, and is emptied of all things that are not God, it receives God more purely, and is more completely in Him; and it truly becomes one with God.”
But even when we aren’t there yet, our Essence is still always that.
And so it is not truly locked into this world. Even when we’re identified with our small selves, what we always truly are is never actually trapped in these heavy bodies and minds. The Self, the Essence, is the first cause, the most fundamental. And so it cannot truly be contained by structure, which is less fundamental, and therefore subordinate to it. A dream is subordinate to the dreamer. Without the dreamer, there can be no dream. But when we find ourselves in a dream, we usually forget that our dream is subordinate to us. We forget our primacy. And so, we find ourselves subject to and confined by the plot and limitations of the dream. We become stuck within it, at its mercy. We have forgotten that there is so much more to us than the way we are presently experiencing ourselves.
Compared to Essence, structure is superficial. But through the process of identifying with structure, the soul begins to forget its True Nature. It begins to forget that structure cannot confine it. It comes to believe that the immediacy and intensity of the world of structure must be accompanied by the primacy of it. And, as it believes, so it is. But before a soul begins to sink into complexity, it finds it quite easy to dis-identify with the thin membrane of structure that creates the experience of separateness. And so, it can fully experience itself as its True Nature, Infinite Essence, as it wishes. Listen to Plotinus again: “Souls are apart without partition; they are no more hedged off by boundaries than are the multiple items of knowledge in one mind. The one Soul so exists as to include all souls.”
That actually makes some sense.
Good. Now, I believe your second question was how can each soul be unique. Care to give it a try?
I don’t know. But it seems like the individuality would have to come from the structures and experiences and all. The pure Essence might be all the same, but the structures wouldn’t have to be. Like you might say: One Light. Many sparks.
Yes, exactly.
Feel free to use that in your next talk. No charge.
The twentieth century Indian master, Meher Baba, said “All souls are infinite and eternal. They are formless. All souls are One; there is no difference in Souls or in their being and existence as Souls. There is difference in the consciousness of Souls… there is difference in the experience of Souls and there is difference in the state of Souls.” So the Essence of each soul is identical. It is their different experiences, their different interactions, and their different structural patterns that create their uniqueness.
I believe your third question was about souls communing with each other. When one is fully experiencing Essence, one experiences absolute intimacy. We tend to assume that intimacy requires two: yourself and another. It’s true that this is the way we usually go about experiencing it. But the feelings of connectedness, contentment, well-being, security, peace, openness, armorlessness, tenderness, meltingness, boundarylessness, and love that merge together into the feeling of intimacy do not require an other to experience. The Essence is “not-two”. There is no other. There is also no separation. When one merges with Essence, all of the layers have been removed. All of the structure. One experiences Essence fully and completely, without the slightest boundaries. This experience is one of absolute intimacy.
Now, a soul can choose to experience this absolute intimacy of Oneness. But it can also experience otherness, differentiation. This creates a new possibility for intimacy: that of merging into another. Two beings come together and experience the Oneness, the Essence, that is the True Nature of them both. While their structures are different, their Essence is the same. This communion is exquisitely beautiful. Two hearts literally merging into one, while simultaneously dissolving into the One Heart of God. It is experiencing Pure Being, while sharing this experience with another, while also experiencing the subtle flavors, the aromas, the colorings, the textures, the harmonies that are unique to the other. Of course, communion is also an important part of the human experience. But the dense structures of this level of reality usually greatly dilute and diminish the experience of merging hearts. Yet we can often still sense the truth and beauty in it, the pure communion into Oneness that it represents and sometimes touches.
All right. Enough for today. Now, my friend, I shall take a walk towards the evening sun, in gratitude for its radiant sustenance. And I will send it greetings from the ancient sparks of its ancestors, that now dance within me.
The early twentieth century Russian poet, Anna Akhamatova, wrote “Sunset in the ethereal waves; I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.”