July 1 2018
The I asks, what am I? What is the universe, and what is my place in it? What is my purpose, and where am I going?
The Universe is One-Turn, and this is what it does, its purpose. Where it is going is Re-Turn. The entity called I is a reciprocal behavior of the universe, and its purpose is returning, participating in the constant cycling of creation. The behavior is an automatic function, it is breathing. The ego in the skin sack is breathed whether or not it knows it, whether or not it gives consent. The I exhales as the rest of creation is inhaling. The rest of creation exhales as the I inhales. It – the I and the rest – can’t will it, can’t help it. It is an organic function. The exchange of breath – one turn, in and out, is the universe, happening over and over incessantly. It is constantly being re-created, from the vast reaches of space flowing and returning on itself, to the instantaneous coming into existence and transmutation of subatomic phenomena. Breathing is its own re-creation – this is what the universe is doing. This is its purpose, and so far as there is an I, it is the purpose of I.
Why? It is Gods nature and pleasure, it is God dancing. This process is true glory, it scintillates with bliss, it is ecstasy, out of the self. It is the music of the spheres, the union of the source with that which springs forth. But is is veiled by the mind of the I. The first thought hides the reality and the self forgets the dance.
Recognizing is re-cognition, knowing again. When thinking stops, the veil is lifted and I can remember. One of the implications of recognizing the process and the dance is that there is no place to go, everything is already there completely, and the I is there completely. There is only this divine process, there is no end state. There is no destination, there is no future fulfillment, theres nothing to achieve, nothing to do. All grasping, reaching, striving is to no end. All notions of personal and social progress are utterly irrelevant and are further investments of the ego in itself. The idea of progress is a doing, it is the product of linear and sequential, cause and effect thinking and has nothing to do with reality. All that there has been, is now, and will come, already is. Since theres no thing, and since no thing has no beginning and no end, there is no cause and no effect. What causes a rose?
The universe and I are blossoming and flourishing as a natural and spontaneous process now, without direction, without knowing how, without the need for a why, without volition. These innumerable blossoming gestures incessantly recreating the universe look very much like a wonderfully intricate and magnificent dance. Out of the shining world of pure being, the Tao springs and flows. Out of the essence of God the universe sparkles forth. Out of the Brahman, Shiva dances destruction and creati. Shiva and I are the same, and our purpose is the dance.
The I doesn’t like this notion, especially the I inculcated in the Western traditions. The dance is all gesture, nothing about it survives nor should. It is breathed into existence and passes out of existence in an instant, and the next gesture takes its place, perfumed by its predecessor. This all happens naturally and is a gesture filled with grace, graceful and no-thing.
But the I thinks that there is something there, that the something has a history and a future, and that it is important, that there is something that must be achieved, and that there is a desirable end state to be met. The I thinks that its existence has to be justified, that it has to get something done, that it must know the way, and that it all must be explained.
All this thinking about something is completely misdirected. There is no thing to think about. But the I persists in indulging in the illusion, and thereby creates its own separateness. It begins to believe that it is lost, and that there is something dreadfully wrong. The products are guilt and anxiety, and the sense of emptiness and being lost. The I begins to think that something must be paid for, propitiated. The I begins to think that it needs desperately to be saved. The I begins to think that it is a separate creature apart from God, a stranger in creation. This is all the product of thinking, it is all the result of the mind. It is called the fall from grace.
Occasionally, mostly by accident, there is the experience of not thinking. When the I finds itself in a state of relaxed alert attention, when it is noticing, the dance can be seen again. The veil of thought is lifted and the I awakens. Vision is cleared and the universe can again be seen as it is, endlessly cycling in and out of existence. Shelley saw that “Worlds on worlds are rolling ever from creation to decay, like the bubbles on a river, sparkling, bursting, borne away”. The first response of the I to this magnificent scintillating bounty may be to be struck dumb with awe. The second response may be to participate in the dance. The I in its true natural state, awake and alive, finds its meaning and purpose in this reciprocal interaction with itself in the form of the Uni-Verse. The I is dancing the dance of itself. God is dancing the dance of God. It is the same.
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