January 31, 2006

LINES, NOT BOUNDARIES

THE UNIVERSE IS ONE

Lines: There are many kinds of lines in the natural world B the shoreline between continents and the oceans surrounding them, outlines of leaves, the skin of organisms, skylines, tree lines, lake lines, surfaces of light and shade, and lines setting off all objects from their environment. These lines separate (distinguish, mark off) opposites, while at the same time implicitly joining (uniting, binding, unifying) them in an inseparable unity. The shore is where land and water touch each other. Such, for instance, is a line drawn to show concave and convex (pp. 25-26).

Boundaries: A line becomes an illusory boundary when we imagine that its two sides are separate, unrelated B when we think that the inside and the outside do not co-exist, that the line separates without also uniting, when we imagine that the outer difference of two opposites is all there is, and do not also acknowledge their inner unity. Boundary lines, of any type, are never found in the real world. They exist only in the imagination of map-makers (p. 26).

Opposites: Boundaries mark off areas which in themselves, are not separate B were not separate until the boundary was drawn. It is the boundary which creates the seeming existence of a pair of opposites. In ultimate reality, there are no boundaries, anywhere (p. 19).

Each boundary is a potential battle line, and hence a world of opposites is a world of conflict. We live in a world of opposites and conflict because we live in a world of boundaries. We pit pleasure, goodness, success, joy, health, life, against pain, evil, failure, suffering, sickness, death (pp. 10, 19-21).

Western civilization (in its religion, science, medicine, industry), characteristically separates opposites and then either clings to, or pursues, what it judges to be the positive poles. Treating the boundary as real, it attempts to eradicate one of the opposites, defining progress as an advance toward the positive pole, away from the negative. AHeaven@ then consists of a place with only the wanted poles, AHell@ that with only the unwanted poles (pp. 20-21 and 25).

The Implicit Identity of the Poles: However, to destroy the negative is also to destroy all possibility of enjoying the positive, because the opposites are not irreconcilable, set apart, divorced from each other. They are the two ends of one event B like buying and selling are the two ends of one business transaction. The two ends may be Adifferent,@ but they share an implicit identity in that both represent one and the same single event. One could not exist without the other, and in this sense, the poles are both inseparable and completely mutually interdependent (pp. 21-22).

Descriptions:

* Lao Tzu (fl. 550 B.C.E.), founder of Taoism: AAll opposites arise mutually and simultaneously.@ Opposites come into existence together (p. 25).

* The Lanka-Vatara Sutra (50 B.C.E.), one of the most important sutras (sacred texts) of Mahayana Buddhism, a text which espouses Aconsciousness-only@ as its chief doctrine: ALight and shade, long and short, black and white . . . are terms of relation, not of reality. Conditions of existence are not of a mutually exclusive character. In essence, things are not two but one.@ Ultimate reality is a union of opposites (pp. 28-29; Encyclopedia).

* Bhagavad Gita (Sanskrit poem incorporated into the Mahabharata, the classical Sanskrit epic of India, probably composed between 200 B.C.E. and 200 C.E.): AHe that is freed from the pairs is easily freed from conflict.@ Liberation is not freedom from the negative, but rather freedom from the pairs. To disclose reality as having no boundaries, is to disclose all conflicts as illusory (pp. 28 and 41).

* The Gospel of Saint Thomas (50-140 C.E.): AThey said to Him, >Shall we then, being children, enter the Kingdom?= Jesus said to them, >When you make the two one, the inner as the outer, the outer as the inner, and the above as the below, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, then you shall enter the Kingdom.=@ This is the discovery of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth (p. 28).

* Nicholas of Cusa (?1401-1464), German humanist, scientist, statesman and philosopher, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church: AReality is the coincidence of opposites.@ Ultimate reality is a unity of opposites (pp. 23 and 25).

* Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), English mathematician and philosopher: AAll the ultimate elements are in their essence vibratory . . . [Each element of the universe] is a vibratory ebb and flow of an underlying energy, activity.@ Our Airreconcilables@ (cause/effect, past/future, subject/object) are like the crest and trough of a single wave, a single vibration, a single event expressing itself through the opposites of crest and trough, high and low point. Reality is neither in the crest nor the trough alone, but in their unity. Opposites are the inseparable aspects of one underlying activity. Thus, pleasure and pain are the two inseparable crest and trough of a single wave of awareness. To try to accentuate the positive (crest) and eliminate the negative (trough), is to try to eliminate the very wave of awareness itself (pp. 23-24).

* Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950), Polish-American linguist: Our words, symbols, signs, thoughts and ideas are merely maps of reality, not reality itself B Athe map is not the territory.@ The word Awater@ does not satisfy our thirst (p. 27).

* Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Austrian philosopher: AOur goals are illusory (not lofty), and hence our problems non-sensical (not difficult).@ To try to separate opposites and cling to the poles we judge positive, is to strive after phantoms which are void of reality (p. 24).

AAt the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.@ These laws describe not reality but only our boundaries of reality. ALaws B like the law of causation, etc. . . B treat of the network [of boundaries] and not of what the network describes@ (p. 37)

* The Gestalt Theory of Perception: The term AGestalt@ was coined by philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels in 1890. Gestalt theory points out that we are never aware of any object, event or figure, save in relation to a contrasting background. In the perception of stars in a dark sky, Alight@ and Adark@ are two correlative aspects of one single sensory Gestalt. Likewise, we cannot perceive motion except in relation to rest, we cannot perceive effort except in relation to ease, complexity except in relation to simplicity, attraction except in relation to repulsion, pleasure except in relation to pain. In each case, it is in the mutual contrast and alternation in each pair that the existence of each pole can be recognized (p. 24).

* Lancelot Law Whyte (1896-1972), mathematical physicist and philosopher: AThus, the immature mind, unable to escape its own prejudice, . . . is condemned to struggle in the straitjacket of its dualisms B subject/object, time/space, spirit/matter, freedom/necessity, free will/law. The truth, which must be single, is ridden with contradictions. Man cannot think where he is, for he has created two worlds from one@ (p. 27).

* Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972), biophysicist, founder of General System Theory: AOpposites are complimentary aspects of one and the same reality@ (p. 23).

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The different levels of consciousness are basically the many ways we can, and do, answer the question, AWho am I?@ Our self-identity depends entirely upon where we draw the boundary across the whole field of our experience. Everything on the inside of that boundary, we call our Aself,@ while everything outside of it, we feel to be Anot our self@ (pp. 3-4).

Description:

* William James (1842-1910), American philosopher and psychologist: AOur normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, while all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, are potential forms of consciousness which are entirely different@ (p. 2).

GROWTH

Growth means an enlargement and expansion of one=s horizons, one=s boundaries B each increment providing a person with a greater outward perspective, and a greater inner depth. Growth is an acknowledgment of ever deeper and more encompassing levels of one=s own self. It is an ascension to a higher level of consciousness (p. 13).

SELF-IDENTITY

Where One draws the Boundary: One=s level of self-identity depends on where one draws the boundary between the Aself@ and the Anot-self.@ The five principal levels are:

1. Persona/shadow.

2. Ego/body.

3. Centaur/environment.

4. Self-transcendence (transpersonal bands).

5. Non-dual (unity) consciousness (pp. 8-9 and 14).

THE TRANSPERSONAL SELF

The transpersonal self (witness) is pure awareness, it is a single center which shines through us all across space and time. It is immortal.

Characteristics of the Transpersonal Self: The transpersonal self is characterized by being:

1. A Center of Pure Awareness: The transpersonal self is a center of pure awareness, an unmoved witness of one=s thoughts, emotions, feelings, and desires. The sense of I-ness is not either memory, thoughts, mind, body, experience, surroundings, feelings, conflicts, sensations, or moods B for all of these objects can change and do change without affecting it substantially. The sense of I-ness is the transpersonal self, the witness of all that we experience (pp. 115 and 120-122).

Descriptions:

* Chuang Tzu (c.369-c.286 B.C.E.), Chinese Taoist writer: AThe perfect person employs the mind as a mirror. The mirror grasps nothing, refuses nothing, receives, but does not keep@ (p. 118).

* Patanjali (150 B.C.E.), Indian, author of the Yoga Sutras: AIgnorance is the identification of the Seer with the instruments of seeing@ (p. 116).

* Saint Thomas (c.50 C.E.), one of the Twelve Disciples: AWhatever knows certain things cannot have any of them in its own nature@ (p. 116).

2. A Single Center: Since consciousness transcends the separate organism, it is single. Every person has the identical intuition of an I-ness which transcends the mind and body. Therefore, the recognition that the self is transpersonal, leads to the realization that there is but one single Self which, although it takes on different outward forms, is essentially the same in all conscious beings, and remains untouched by either the passage of time or peripheral fluctuations within each person (pp. 116 and 120).

Description:

* Shankara (788-820), master of Vedanta Hinduism: AThere is a self-existent Reality and it is the basis of our consciousness of our self. That Reality is the Witness, . . . the Knower in the three states of consciousness [waking, dreaming, sleeping]. It is aware of the presence or absence of the mind. It is Atman, the Supreme Being, the Ancient@ (p. 51).

3. An Immortal Center: The insight that the transpersonal self passes beyond the individual organism, carries with it an intuition of immortality. There is but one immortal Self common in and to all of us (pp. 120-121).

Descriptions:

* The famous paradox: AIf you die before you die, then when you die, you won=t die.@ We have to Adie@ to our false, separate self in order to awaken to our immortal and transcendent self (p. 121).

* Shankara (788-820): A[Reincarnation does not mean that your ego moves through successive existences, but that] the transcendent self is the one and only trans-migrant@ (p. 121).

* Erwin Schroedinger (1887-1961), Austrian theoretical physicist: AIt is not possible that this unity of knowledge, feeling and choice which you call your own, should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment, not so long ago. Rather, this knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings. The conditions for your existence are almost as old as the rocks. For thousands of years, men have striven and suffered and begotten and women have brought forth in pain. A hundred years ago, perhaps, another man sat on this spot. Like you, he gazed with awe and yearning in his heart at the dying light on the glaciers. Like you, he was begotten of man and born of woman. He felt pain and brief joy as you do. Was he someone else? Was it not you, yourself?@ (p. 122)

NON-DUAL (UNITY) CONSCIOUSNESS

The Perennial Philosophy: In non-dual (unity, ultimate) consciousness, the transpersonal witness collapses into everything witnessed. The individual comes to feel, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he/she is fundamentally one with the entire universe B with all worlds, high or low, sacred or profane. The sense of identity expands far beyond the narrow confines of the mind and body, and embraces the entire cosmos. It is what Richard Bucke (1837-1901), Canadian physician, called Acosmic consciousness.@ It is what the Muslims call the ASupreme Identity@ (pp. 2-3 and 115; R. M. Bucke, quoted pp. 1-3).

This type of experience, knowledge, is widespread and is central to all the major religions B Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Together with the doctrines that purport to explain it, it represents the transcendent unity of these religions, and the general unanimity of opinion about the primordial truth. It has come to be called the Aperennial philosophy.@ The insight that there is no separate self, only unity consciousness, is the core point of the perennial philosophy (pp. 3 and 49).

Non-dual Consciousness: Non-dual consciousness is not a state different, apart from other states, but the condition and true nature of all states. It is the ultimate state of consciousness, the final truth, AGod=s will,@ Athe flow of the Tao@ (pp. 126 and 139).

Non-dual awareness recognizes that the inside and outside worlds are two different names for the single, ever-present state of no-boundary awareness. Reality is non-dual. Reality is no-boundary. Reality is no-boundary awareness, and this is our Real Self (pp. 54-55).

Language is based on distinctions. Its structure cannot grasp the nature of unity consciousness. Mystics must be content with pointing and showing a way whereby we ourselves may experience it. They point to the inside of us. They urge us to look inside, deep inside. Absolute Subjectivity is that which can never, at any time, under any circumstance, be a particular object that can be seen, heard, known, or perceived (p. 52).

Descriptions:

* Zenkei Shibayama (1894-1974), Japanese Zen Master: AReality is >Absolute Subjectivity,= and it transcends both subjectivity and objectivity, while freely creating and using them. This >Fundamental Subjectivity= can never be objectified or conceptualized, and is complete in itself, with, in itself, the full significance of existence. To call it by these names is already a mistake, a step toward objectification and conceptualization. Master Eisai (Eisai Zenji, 1141-1215, Japanese Buddhist priest), therefore, remarked, >It is ever unnameable.=@

AThis Absolute Subjectivity . . . is free from the limitations of space and time. It is not subject to life and death. It goes beyond subject and object, and although it lives in an individual, it is not restricted to the individual@ (p. 51).

* The Hindus: ATat Tvam asi@ (You are That). Your real Self is identical to the ultimate energy of which all things in the universe are a manifestation (p. 50).

Characteristics of Non-dual (Unity) Consciousness: Non-dual consciousness is characterized by:

1. Liberation from the Pairs: Non-dual consciousness is the ground which transcends and encompasses opposites. When the world is seen to be void of boundaries, then all things and events, just like all the opposites, are seen to be mutually dependent and inter-penetrating. As pleasure is related to pain, good to evil, and life to death, so all things are related to what they are not (pp. 4, 9, 28, 39 and 43).

Descriptions:

* The Lanka-Vatara Sutra (50 B.C.E.): ABy appearance is meant that which reveals itself to the senses and the mind, and is perceived as form, sound, odor, taste and touch. Out of these appearances, ideas are formed, such as >clay,= >water,= >jar,= . . . Things are named and discriminated. As these discriminations [boundaries] are seen as empty of self-substance, . . . the wise cease to regard appearances and names as reality. When appearances and names are put away, and all discriminations cease, that which remains is the true and essential nature of things. As nothing can be predicated as to the nature of this essence, it is called the >Suchness= of Reality. This universal, undifferentiated, inscrutable >Suchness= is the only Reality@ (p. 39).

* Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947): Reality has no boundary, and any conceivable sort of boundary imposed on it, is a mere abstraction from Athe seamless coat of the universe.@ The boundaries between opposites and the boundaries between things and events, remain deceptions in depth (pp. 37 and 41).

* Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986), Indian sage: AAnd in that distance, the division between the seer and the thing seen, in that division, the whole conflict of man exists@ (p. 68).

2. No ASelf@: Non-dual consciousness recognizes that there is no separate Aself@ set apart from the world. The world is only given once. Whenever we look for a self apart from experience, it vanishes into experience. There is no Aseer,@ who Asees,@ something Aseen.@ There is only one single activity, the experience of seeing. Similarly, what we think of as a Ahearer,@ is actually just the experience of hearing. There is only a stream of sounds, and it is not split into a subject and an object. There is no boundary. When we look for the experiencer of the experience, we find only another experience B the subject and object are always one. And when we think, we cannot find a thinker, only an experience of thinking. There is no thinker apart from the present thoughts. There is only the stream of present thoughts. We are our experiences. The separate self is an illusion (pp. 46-49).

Descriptions:

* Chuang Tzu (c. 369-c.286 B.C.E.): AIf there is no other, there will be no self. If there is no self, there will be none to make distinctions@ (p. 68).

* Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986): A>The little man within= is composed entirely of memories@ (p. 65).

* Alan Watts (1915-1973): AThere is simply experience. There is not something or someone experiencing experience . . . No one has ever found an >I= apart from some present experience, or some experience apart from an >I= B the two are one and the same@ (pp. 46-49).

Liberation from Time: Non-dual consciousness is not temporal. It is timeless, eternal. The present moment is timeless, and a timeless moment is eternal. Direct, immediate awareness has no time, only an endlessly changing present. Memory is our evidence of a past. We would have no idea of time were it not for memory. And memory itself is a present experience. At no point are we ever directly aware of an actual past. In the same way, we never know the future, only anticipations or expectations, which nevertheless are themselves parts of present experience. Anticipation, like memory, is a present fact.

To see all memory as a present experience is to collapse the boundaries of this present moment, to free it of illusory limits, to deliver it from the opposites of past vs. future. It is to realize that there is nothing either behind or before us in time. We stand in the timeless present, that is, in eternity (pp. 56-57, 61-62 and 64- 65).

The present is the only reality. There is no other. Parts face death, not the Whole. We use the illusion of time to frighten off the illusion of death (pp. 58 and 69-70).

Descriptions:

* Bhagavad Gita (200 B.C.E.-200 C.E.): AI am come as Time, the waster of peoples, ready for the hour that ripens to their ruin@ (p. 59).

* Saint Augustine (354-430), one of the four Latin Fathers, bishop of Hippo: AWho will hold the heart of man that it may stand still and see how eternity, ever still-standing, neither past nor to come, uttereth the times past and to come?@ (p. 56).

* Zen Buddhism (700-900 C.E.): AHonsho-myoshu@ (true spiritual practice springs from B not toward B enlightenment). Spiritual practice is an expression of non-dual consciousness. Non-dual consciousness is not a future state which results from some practice. It is always already present. Practice is an expression, a manifestation of non-dual consciousness. The end and the means are one (pp. 129-130).

* Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207-1273), Islamic Persian sage and mystic poet: AThe Sufi is a child of the Moment@ (p. 58).

* Hijiri Ippen (1239-1289), Buddhist hermit: AEvery moment is the last moment and every moment is a rebirth@ (p. 70).

* Meister Eckhart (c.1260-c.1328), German mystical theologian: ATime is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God [non-dual consciousness] than time. And not only time but temporalities, not only temporal things, but temporal affectations, not only temporal affectations, but the very taint and smell of time@ (p. 57).

* Nicholas of Cusa (?1401-1464): AAll temporal succession coincides in one and the same Eternal Now. So there is nothing past or future@ (p. 62).

* Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), French scientist and religious philosopher: AConsole thyself. Thou wouldst not seek Me if thou hadst not found Me@ (B. Pascal, quoted p. 129).

* Jean-Pierre de Caussade (d. 1751), Jesuit ascetic writer: AO all ye who thirst! Know that you have not far to seek for the fountain of living waters. It springs close to you in the present moment . . . The present moment is the manifestation of the Name of God and the coming of the Kingdom@ (p. 58).

* Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), Indian sage: AThere is neither creation nor destruction, neither destiny nor free-will, neither path nor achievement. This is the final truth.@ There is no path to unity consciousness (p. 126).

* Erwin Schroedinger(1887-1961): AEternally and always, there is only now, one and the same now. The present is the only thing that has no end@ (p. 55).

* Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951): AEternal life belongs to those who live in the present@ (p. 58).

* Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), English author: AThe eternal now is a [unity] consciousness@ (p. 64).

REFERENCES

All page numbers refer to:

Wilber, Ken. 1979/2001. No boundary B Eastern and Western approaches to personal growth. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Other references:

Bucke, Richard Maurice. 1901. Cosmic consciousness B A study in the evolution of the human mind. New York: Dutton, 1969.

Columbia Encyclopedia. 2000. 6^th Edition, New York: Columbia University/Gale Group.

Pascal, Blaise. 1670. Pensee No. 552. In Pensees de M. Pascal sur la religion et sur quelques autres sujets. W. F. Trotter, translator. New York: P. F. Collier, 1958. Harvard Classics, Volume 48.

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