Is it possible for Reality to be a function of Truth, while Truth remains necessarily independent of Reality?
The Objective: Something created by thought, that is sustained in the field of reality INDEPENDENT of thought.
The Subjective: Something created by thought, that is sustained in the field of reality DEPENDENT on thought.
I am aware this will most likely be an exercise in futility but would like to explore it anyway, as it’s an idea that seems to have wormed its way into my everyday thoughts. Perhaps this will help me to be rid of it.
In exploring this I was somehow lead back to the familiar Sanskrit word and concept of ‘MAYA’. Although it has multiple meanings depending on it’s context, there are at least three distinct uses of the word that all describe the same paradoxical nature of reality. Ive come to refer to these as the ‘Holy Trinity’ of understanding:
Illusion, Time, and Measurement.
Certain Indian philosophies use MĀYĀ to describe how our perception of reality is necessarily characterized by a persistent dreamlike state in which we exist.
More specifically it is defined as a concept connoting "that which exists, but is constantly changing and thus is unreal", or the "power or the principle that conceals or distorts Truth."
So it only follows that Maya is a term that has been used to understand our relationship to both Truth and the illusory nature of reality and in many cases as a substitute for the word “Life”.
For all intents and purposes a deconstruction of the tri-aspect of the word Maya may prove most useful. If we accept for example that the illusory nature of ‘Time’ operates through a mechanism of measurement we refer to as ‘Thought’, then it must also follow that the very movement of this ‘mechanism of thought’ must disturb the field in which it lies. This profound phenomenon we simplify by referring to it as “Change”. In this context we may imagine the natural movement of water or the idea of a self sustaining bubble in mid air.
I know this sounds ridiculous but bare with me.
Let us presuppose for a moment that Maya is a mechanism that perceives reality through the creative power of illusion, both creating and consuming or producing and using:
The Image
Duality
Separateness
Ego
Self
Time
Space
Movement… blah blah blah
Ok so if we except this…so what? Even if it becomes quite clear that our very existence in the field of reality is dependent on the mechanism of Thought…What is one to do? Must we accept our very existence as a hopeless logic trap? Otherwise how can one hope to escape? Do we convince ourselves we must stop thinking? How does one stop thinking? Do we further delude ourselves into believing that we’ve found the answer to this in our seemingly noble effort to Meditate? How could this be…I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer on what meditation actually is, what’s its meant to do, or how one is supposed to go about it.
Maybe the question is why we feel the need to do something at all? Are we not then participating in the same behavior we are trying to escape? Is this not also driven by thought and desire for change?
The more I indulge, the sillier it seems. And yet, like a child I feel I cannot help myself.
What are we all doing?
The sitting practice of meditation seems especially interesting to me in this context. Especially since what is commonly practiced as meditation, is much more akin to self-hypnosis. Consider this for a moment.
Is it not?
This is not a judgment, merely an observation. Self hypnosis, after all, has been shown to yield quite positive and powerful results!
So eventhough I have made a somewhat lazy/mostly crude attempt to explore the connection between Maya and the possible role of meditation here, what I find to be most interesting once again is Maya’s relationship with Thought as a mechanism of measurement. This becomes especially interesting when we consider the word “Meditation”. As Meditate also comes from the base word ‘Meditari’ which also means “to measure”. In the case of meditation we translate ‘to measure’ to mean ‘To contemplate’
So let us consider the following related words…
Contemplate
Con-
1. (Prefix) with or together
2. Deception, an illusion, a ruse
3. An argument in opposition to…
4. To direct or steer a vessel
5. To study or examine closely
Temp-
1. to stretch*
2. to measure
3. Of Time
Plate-
1. a moveable surface used to cover or protect an underlying structure
2. a moveable surface used to hold, fix, secure, or organize.
Template-
1. A system of support
2. A constructed pattern used to produce similar models
3. A system of arranging information.
Attention
The active direction of the mind upon an object. Literally meaning ‘to *stretch toward’.
Consider the interesting likeness between the following two words as well…
Concentration- focusing mental effort. Literally collecting towards a center. Bringing together to form a center. “The intensification of”.
Confuse- bewilder, perplex.
Literally “bring together with”. From the Latin ‘Confundus’- mingle together.
“To Stretch Towards”
Does this break down do well to illuminate and connect these concepts? In the end, are they not for all the same thing! Maybe it’s role is to call our attention back to the role of Order and Organization in this seemingly inescapable paradox? Maybe it helps us understand that meditation resonates more with the way we measure our lives, the way we process, order, and organize space in real time, whether we are sitting still with our legs crossed or moving about our daily lives.
Mindfulness is another good word we like to use in this context. Also painfully contradictory, is it not?
What is the actual goal here?
Some say to ‘empty the mind’.
if ‘Mindful’ means having knowledge, remembrance, and recognition. Literally a full mind.
Are we not doing just the opposite of what we are intending? and what exactly are we “emptying the mind” of?
Some say Negative thoughts/Illusions.
But we have already established that duality is an illusion. So emptying the negative without the positive would just be another illusion, would it not? And if thought itself is an illusion.
How can one use illusion to disillusion oneself?
Others say we meditate ‘to center oneself’.
But what does that mean? Haven’t we established that the ego or the ‘self-center’ is also illusory?
Some say to ‘quiet the mind’.
What does this mean? This one is interesting. I am assuming it refers to the cessation of conflict in exchange for clarity. But if thought itself is an illusion how does one do this? Perhaps this is where the role of order and organization come into play.
And yet the question remains:
As someone who is blind and has never seen light or color, how can I be moved by any description of its beauty or the mechanism of sight!?
Will that help me to suddenly see?
All of our saints and all of our gurus seem to revel in this paradox: You Desire to Know Truth!? Just Follow me! I can Show the Way! Just remember to give up Desire, and Follow No-One, for Truth is a Pathless land...
Am I destined to be the fool delighted by such an answer?
Yes! I do Desire to give up Desire! Please Tell me! Are you this No-One that I must follow? Please Show me! Show me the path to this pathless land! Our destination? A place called Truth? When can we leave? What shall I pack? How long will it take to arrive!?…
I know I am the fool and yet I still wonder…
Can one who is conditioned by desire ever WILL oneself to become desire-less without first desiring to be so?
To Will is to Desire.
And so, if it is true that we are stuck in some cyclical manifestation of illusion or some terribly persistent pattern of thinking… Do we simply lack the energy and intelligence to see or understand what is necessary to break this cycle?
How is freedom possible if the very movement by which the cycle continues to operate and imprison, is required as our means of escape?
And what would happen, I wonder, if we were to suddenly REALIZE that we have already ‘escaped’?
Not if we imagined this to be so, but if we actualized this.
Would we imprison ourselves all over again out of mere conditioning? Or would forgetting be impossible when desire and conditioning ceased to exist? Would we even ‘know’ it happened at all? Or would that question and answer cease to exist as well?
Ah to be the fool. Wondering endlessly through a nightless desert of self fulfilling prophecy…
Needless to say, any true realization of this kind of freedom would be revolutionary. It would not only require tremendous energy but a new kind of intelligence.
would it not?
Is this what we experience in our self described moments of transcendence?
Is this the essence of our peak experiences? our epiphanies?
or are these only heightened illusions?
* See post on the Inner Game of Tennis.
Does it follow that once you have broken free from the cycle, the cycle cannot be unbroken? The Truth cannot be unrealized or forgotten? The Reality bubble’s forever burst? Maya ceases to exist?
Does all this wondering, bring me further from the Truth? Is it a coincidence that wonder and wander sound the same? Is it my endless search for self that keeps me from ever truly knowing where I am?
I don’t know! And such is life, I suppose…
until it is not.
until I stop searching, I cannot be free. I can only be free in the Truth. The Truth that I am no one in particular, no where in particular, at no particular time.
until then…
Happy April, fellow fools!
I love you I love you I love you