Convergence, part 1

The majority of speeches which I have listened to in recent years have commenced with an introduction of the speaker; this format is given as a courtesy and in gratitude to the speaker, to inform or to draw attention of the audience towards given accomplishments, qualifications and employment and to distinguish merit. Whether it is intentional or not, an audience member is being encoded with ‘listen to this person and digest what they are saying: information which they are providing is valuable, interesting and pertinent’. Remember the story about the blindfolded men who were asked to feel the skin of an elephant and to describe what they thought it was? Each would have an opinion and anyone else that is blindfolded and listening to the collection of stories would formulate an opinion: the blind are leading the blind. Human beings have an unquestioning tendency to refer to a database of extrapolated information whenever trying to make sense of the world and to navigate a journey within it.

A few years ago, I watched a television show to do with political and economic affairs. The studio microphone was passed to an audience member so as to allow her to give her opinion on a particular subject being discussed. The sweat literally broke out on this person’s brow as it was clear that she was concentrating so hard on remembering and regurgitating in her own words the information or narrative that had been playing out in tabloid newspapers for weeks’ prior.  Like much of our food produce and consumption nowadays, information being passed as knowledge was heavily processed, packaged and was stale. We exist within a massive and constantly interacting field of information. Given that we have free will, it is ultimately our choice as to whether we absorb and regurgitate information that has been or is being provided to us - or whether we acknowledge information within its context and permit ourselves to comprehend what is being revealed to us from a source that is richer than any given perspective.

How is human progress being defined, if this is possible at all? We have more gadgets than previous times; we have knowledge of the intricate workings of and composition of various things (we’re great at reducing things to the smallest measurable component and building them up to estimate probabilities and trajectories). I have to ask, is something that is and has always been present in our midst being obscured from our vision, because its nature is more vast than our comprehension permits, particularly given our inclination to calculate and control? 

What if our human ability to be willfully blind or oblivious to reality is what is meant by ‘original sin’? Put aside the game of Chinese Whispers for a moment and consider: is what we typically comprehend as the nature of thought simply a maze or an endless loop through which we perceive movement or travel? Is it an intoxicating distraction, a teaching tool, an implement of self-awareness? Why do people from all cultures and time periods feel a sense of emptiness inside themselves which they try to solace through medication, addictions, keeping busy or pursuing an ideal interpretation of relationship with another person? Is this not an impossible task, given as right relationship rests within?

In the Gospel of Thomas is a line which has always resonated with me.  Verse 18 is where the disciples ask Jesus, “Tell us how our end will be.” Jesus responds, “Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death."

I know that there are many who hold an interpretation of what Jesus is saying as that which calls for them to live in accordance with what they believe to be a path of righteousness. So too, an acolyte can be convinced that obedience has greater merit than of examining the nature of thought. How often has such a position entailed a sense of struggle between body, mind and heart – a dark night of the soul? Activity has been given precedence and used as a distraction from being. 

What is meant by the fall of grace and of Sophia? Why have patriarchal communities been so antagonistic towards the feminine? If you chop off your own hand, is it the fault of the hand or of the one delivering the blow? What would it mean to raise the temple or to restore the sanctity of the world soul? What if simply ‘carrying on but doing it better’ is not what Jesus meant when he was encouraging for the disciples to look for the beginning? In the book of Revelation 22:13 it says “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End”. 

What has all of this to do with the symbolism of the Ouroboros (the snake that eats its own tail), as used by Cleopatra the alchemist who lived in Alexandria in the 3^rd century and is associated with the motto ‘the divine is hidden from the people according to the wisdom of the Lord’? Further, how does everything which I have been writing about here tie into what Heidegger was pointing towards when he said, “to think is to heed the essential”?

When Heidegger was looking at the poem of Parmenides, he said that how the words of Parmenides were said and how the said was thought can only be made clear if we first know what is thought and what has come to speech. This is interesting and is revolutionary; the conventional way in which we are taught to relate to and understand what somebody is thinking about or are trying to communicate is by comprehending language that they are using; we assess this according to whether it makes sense to us through our experience. In other words, we trust (almost without question) that our filter is adequate to allow us to navigate through life and glimpse reality. 

Heidegger seems to be suggesting that instead of accessing and interpreting language to retrace the steps to the source of comprehension (illumination), we move into the place (state of being) of that which is being spoken of and then we understand. To think is to heed the essential: this is not analytical. We don’t have to think about what is essential, but rather pay attention to the context in which something is being said; this opens up meaning and potential for authentic relationship and dialogue that would otherwise have been obscured. 

I can see evidence in the world of how language is taken for granted and how we believe that what we are reading and listening to and how that makes sense to us is an indication of truth. It is the left part of our brain which acts as a filter and is always busy informing and selecting what is relevant for us when we are opting to function from a particular level of consciousness (which we are trained to do from birth and which we assume is appropriate). What if much of the human conflict in the world emerges because we are almost perpetually caught up in some kind of cognitive struggle with one another, implementing our own overlays (which have to do with value) and interpreting reality, rather than perceiving it as it is? 

Thought is a conduit by which we are able to communicate with one another and reach consensus, but it may not be the predominant way (at least as we are given to understand it). What is coming to mind here is resonance, some means of allowing for instantaneous ‘knowing’. Consider for a moment how it is that some mammals and our own technology has the potential to ‘see’ by interpreting the echoes of sound waves that bounce off of nearby objects in a given medium. What if we too, have a capacity for reading and comprehending frequencies – allowing for authentic being – that we have either forgotten about (primitive humans may have used these capacities prior to spoken and written language) or have not yet tapped into? It would put a new spin on the idea of worm holes and of how we interact with one another through time. For instance, how is it that we are able to know things without any tangible communication that can be accounted for? 

Is knowing and communion with reality what is meant by the resurrection of the world soul, the restoration of grace and that ‘beginning’ to which Parmenides and other primordial thinkers were communicating from? Consider again: ‘Have you discovered, then, the beginning?’, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End’ and how it would be that ALL thought and dialogue is in its service. Reality cannot be objectified, but this is troubling is it not, as knowing implies ‘one state of being’ and ‘another’! Perhaps the closest that can be put into words is that reality is a labyrinth; choices bring about particular outcomes and all of this is a (I am called to use the word ‘lila’, although I do not as yet comprehend the meaning of this word – how do I know that I know this?).

A quick search of the word ‘Lila’ reveals that Lila or Leela can be loosely translated as the ‘divine play’…. Within non-dualism, Lila is a way of describing all reality, including the cosmos, as the outcome of creative play by the divine absolute (Brahman). In the dualistic schools … Lila refers to the activities of God and his devotee, as well as the macrocosmic actions of the manifest universe…’

I know ... and now it appears that I find out how I know…