The Analogy of the Moon's Reflection

"Being verily one, the Self-of-all-beings-and-elements is present in every being. It is beheld onefold and manifold simultaneously, like the moon reflected in water."

- Amrtabindu Upanisad 11-12

"There is but one moon in the nightly firmament, yet it is reflected in numerous water jars standing in the moonlight. The jars, perishable clay, are compared to individuals."

- Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India

The Absolute

All is verily the absolute Self.
Distinction and nondistinction do not exist.
How can I say, "It exists; it does not exist"?
I am filled with wonder!
It - the universe.

The essence and the whole of Vedanta is this Knowledge,
this supreme Knowledge:
That I am by nature
the formless, all-pervasive Self.

- Avadhuta Gita

HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi has said that, at the level of Sahasrara (the seventh subtle centre), one realises the Absolute Self, which, because it is not relative to any other, can not be conceptualised or compared to anything.

Time

Physicists have long struggled to understand what time really is. In fact, they are not even sure it exists at all. In their quest for deeper theories of the universe, some researchers increasingly suspect that time is not a fundamental feature of nature, but rather an artefact of our perception."

It is not reality that has a time flow, but our very approximate knowledge of reality. Time is the effect of our ignorance.

- New Scientist January 2008

The persistent illusion of ego is also due to ignorance about the nature of reality.

Thoughtlessness

The mind of man searches outwardly all day.
The further it reaches, the more it opposes itself.
Only those who look inward can censor their passions.
Being able to cease their thoughts, their minds become tranquil.
To tranquillize one's mind is to nourish one's spirit.
To nourish one's spirit is to return to nature.

- a Daoist poem

Emergence

The universe is my mind; my mind is the universe.

-Lu Xiangshan, 1139-1193

Science is unable to explain how consciousness and a sense of self emerge from insentient matter. According to many Self-realised teachers matter emerges from consciousness and Selfhood. Until science recognises the Self as the substrate of the universe, from which things emerge, and not as an emergent property of the universe, it will not solve the problem of emergence.

The Inexpressible Self

This Self has no other,

this First has no second,

yet It is not alone,

yet It has no peers.

It is not empty

nor does it contain anything.

It is inexpressible.

- Shri Adi Shankaracharya

The Vastness of Self in Dickinson

The Brain - is wider than the sky -
For put them side by side -
The one the other will contain With ease -
and You - beside -

In this small poem Emily Dickinson tells that the Self is vast, perhaps
coextensive with all space and time.

On the egolessness of great things she writes:

By intuition, Mighty Things
Assert themselves - and not by terms -
"I'm Midnight" - need the Midnight say -
"I'm Sunrise" - need the Majesty?
Omnipotence - had not a Tongue -
His lisp - is lightning - and the sun -
His Conversation - with Sea -
"how shall you know"?
Consult your eye!

Realising that the oceanic Self contains/owns all things
and all possibilities, Emily felt a great satisfaction that dissolved
all desire for ownership.

'Tis little I - could care for pearls
Who own the ample sea -
Of Periods of seas -
Unvisited of Shores Themselves the Verge of
Seas to be

Eternity - is Those -

The Constraint of Language

Physicist David Peat wonders if the language that physicists think in could be part of the reason that a grand unified theory of physics has eluded them.

The American quantum theorist David Bohm pointed out that quantum effects are much more process-based than those of classical physics, and they require a process-based language to describe them accurately.

In European languages nouns (objects) predominate over verbs (processes); however, the native American Algonquin family of languages "have a wide variety of verb forms, while they lack the notion of dividing the world into categories of objects."

"The world view of Algonquian speakers is of flux and change, of objects emerging and folding back into the flux of the world. There is not the same sense of fixed identity - even a person's name will change during their life. They believe that objects will vanish into this flux unless renewed by periodic rituals..."

New Scientist, Jan 2008

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The mind - and so the individual self - does not exist as an object, but as a process.

The Force

"I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the noblest driving force behind scientific research."

-Albert Einstein

Becoming and Realising

"There is no such thing

as becoming one with God;

there is the realisation that the mystic

is already one with God.

This is why we speak of 'realisation'

and not transformation,

though external transformation occurs."

- Ikkyu, Japanese Zen master.

Ikkyū (一休宗純, Ikkyū Sōjun?, 1394-1481) was an eccentric, iconic Japanese Zen Buddhist priest and poet. He was also one of the creators of the formal Japanese tea ceremony. Ikkyu was born in 1394 in a small suburb of Kyoto. He was the illegitimate son of Emperor Go-Komatsu.