The ultimate source of existence is the Void, the supracosmic Silence, the uncreated and absolutely ineffable Supreme. The first possible formulation of this source is Universal Mind. Here, too, words fail, for Mind transcends the dichotomies, polarities, and paradoxes that harry the relative world. Insofar as description is attempted, the Vedantic ternary–Infinite Existence, Infinite Intelligence, Infinite Bliss–is as adequate as any. God is not limited to his foregoing, “abstract” modes. He can be encountered concretely, as the God of the Old and New Testaments, Buddha, Shiva, or in other modes. These modes do not, however, wear the mantle of ultimacy or provide answers that are final. The phenomenal worlds owe their existence to Universal Mind, which Mind does not itself become implicated in their categories. Man, together with the three-dimensional world he experiences, is but one of innumerable modes through which Mind experiences itself. The “heavy physicality” and seemingly objective finality of mans material world, its space-time grid and laws of nature that offer themselves as if they were sine qua non of existence itself–all these are in fact highly provisional and relative. Under exceptional circumstances man can rise to a level of consciousness where he sees that taken together they constitute but one of innumerable sets of limiting constructs Universal Mind assumes. To saddle that Mind itself with these categories would be as ridiculous as trying to understand the human mind through the rules of chess. Created entities tend progressively to lose contact with their original source and the awareness of their pristine identity with it. In the initial stage of this falling away, created entities maintain contact with their source and the separation is playful, relative, and obviously tentative. An image that would illustrate this stage is that of waves on the ocean. From a certain point of view they are individual entities; we can speak of a large, fast, green, and foamy wave, for example. At the same time it is transparently evident that in spite of its relative individuation the wave is part of the ocean. At the next stage created entities assume a partial independence and we can observe the beginnings of “cosmic screenwork.” Here unity with the source can be temporarily forgotten in the way an actor on stage can virtually forget his own identity while he identifies with the character he portrays. Continuation of the process of partitioning results in a situation in which individuation is permanently and for all practical purposes complete, and only occasionally do intimations of the original wholeness resurface. This can be illustrated by the relationship between cells of a body, organs, and the body as a whole. Cells are separate entities but function as parts of organs. The latter have even more independence, but they too play out their roles in the complete organism. Individuation and participation are dialectically combined. Complex biochemical interactions bridge provisional boundaries to ensure the functioning of the organism as a whole. In the final stage the separation is practically complete. Liaison with the source is lost and the original identity completely forgotten. The “screen” is now all but impermeable; radical qualitative change is required for the original unity to be restored. Symbol of this might be a snowflake, crystallized from water that has evaporated from the ocean. It bears little outward similarity to its source and must undergo a change in structure if reunion is to occur. Human beings who manage to effect the change just referred to find thereafter that lifes polarities paradoxically both do and do not exist. This holds for such contraries as spirit/matter, good/evil, stability/motion, heaven/hell, beauty/ugliness, agony/ecstasy, etc. In the last analysis there is no difference between subject and object, observer and observed, experiencer and experienced, creator and creation. –– Stanislav Grof
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 07:50:24 +0000
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