Being in all its manifest forms
It is a common idea that the Eskimos have a vast array of words that they use to describe snow. It occurs to me recently that we seem to have the same dynamic when it comes to describing Being, though I am not sure everyone would see it that way.
As I contemplate the concept of Unity - that all is One, and that the variety we see around us is but one dimension of the manifestation of the infinite - one slice of time, one freeze frame snapshot of an infinity that is in constant motion… when I really try to grasp that we are all forms that emerge from the same field of energy… then the words we use to describe the surface representations are not quite as important or as divisive as they once were to me.
I have had this awareness with me all my life. It was greatly challenged when I went to college, and spent years studying philosophy and psychology. In so many of the academic traditions, you are trained to classify, dissect, separate. Little if any questioning or discussion goes on about that which is common to all things, all endeavors, all life as we know it. For some, perhaps it is so obvious that it requires no comment, while I suspect that for others, it is not quite a simple task to see the threads that tie everything together.
One easy example of how we are cultivated to use our brain-machines to separate and label everything - even ideas, stories, knowledge and wisdom - we are taught from our earliest school years to differentiate between fiction and nonfiction.
I first find it fascinating that the affirmative word describes “not factual”, while the negative term describes “factual”.
According to wikipedia, “the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, ‘to form, create’”.
I would argue that both fiction and nonfiction represent acts of creation - and both represent acts of representing some form of truth.
All science is first and foremost a creative act, although I am sure it would be easy to find contrary perspectives.
Many of the greatest scientific discoveries have been described as delivered in a dream or some other sort of revelation. The imagination is the first place that all ideas take form. If children did not first inhabit a world of pure imagination, than this world would have no scientists. And the greater the ability for any given scientist to return to the classroom of intuition and playfulness, then the easier their problem solving becomes, and the greater the fruit of their leaps and bounds through the fog of apparent complexity.
I would take this all one step further and suggest that all nonfiction is first and foremost a work of fiction.
All knowing is an act of forming from thought, an emergence. Some of this knowing craves facts, while other knowing knows, and is self-evident. Likewise, many so-called facts have been revealed as distortions or misperceptions (i.e. the world is flat), just as some self-evident narratives have proven to be distorted.
So what we have in some respects is a clarity of perception versus misperception. We have a knowing that is clear as a bell, some of which is supported by facts. But whether there are facts or not, the ringing of the bell is clear and resonates deeply. Misperception, on the other hand, is a distortion in the field of consciousness - it produces dissonance.
To carry this even one step further - I would argue that it is very much NOT the case that one form of knowing is good and the other is bad. Rather, clarity produces ease and progress, and dissonance produces resistance, and begs for a resolution. Clarity is the sharpness, and dissonance is the sharpening stone.
In other words, both or movements of consciousness, both represent the unfolding evolving consciousness that is US and is emerging through us.
Snow is snow is snow. But then again - H2O is H2O is H2O. This is a simple way of seeing how relatively simple units can combine and interact with the environment in a way that produces a dazzling array of forms - from two hydrogen molecules being combined with one oxygen molecule - we get things like steam powered engines, fog, clouds, dew, downpours of rain, tears from a broken heart, ice bergs, the ebb and flow of the oceans, twisting and winding rivers, and even the perfect endless works of art we see in the snowflake. And this is but a tiny snapshot look at all the amazing forms that water takes.
Imagine now we are talking about a pure stream of consciousness, an energy or awareness, a knowing… and imagine all the forms this can and does take in the world around us.
Why get hung up on the words God, or the Universe, as so many do? Whether are talking about the creative genius of our Inner Child, or the knowing wisdom of our Inner Being… whether we are talking about our Higher Self, the Universe, God, the one Source, or the Force… are we really talking about different things?
I am not so sure.
What I do know is that with words, we can slice and dice any one thing and in so doing, we can easily lose track of how it is like another thing. Language used well is a pointer to the source of the idea, and not a distraction from the source.
Going all the way back to Plato and the allegory of the cave, I feel that we are well served to understand that language can be a way of painting a picture of that which lies beyond the cave, and as such, can help us live there. It can bring our awareness and knowing beyond the cave wall. Or it can bring us only to the cave wall, with the shadows, and leave us believing that we too are mere shadows, coming and going at the will of some other source of light.
