Greater Scheme of Being

The spirit knows its own way, and what we can do is to rid it of all the obstacles our ignorance has piled before it.

D.T. Suzuki in his work, History of Zen, explains the origin of Zen Buddhism in China. He opens a window of wisdom for us so we can sense the spirit’s nature, which is the epitome of freedom and emancipation. The fruit of freedom and the nectar of emancipation are hanging in front of us, but we tend to look beyond these gifts in order to experience the contrast that sets expansion in motion. Expanding the complete self is not a vivid thought since we only use a small portion of the self in this reality.

Our educated ignorance feels like the old Berlin Wall. We build a wall around the focused self. This self is rooted in self-serving and limited perceptions of our psyche even though the psyche is a composite element that contains the spirit, soul, and mind. We are bound by the shackles of time and roped to the moving force of fictitious beliefs, which create a mental landfill of toxicity. We live in a world fill with multitudinous small deaths and births which take place in the body as well as in the psyche. We forget the circular motion of our expanding being when we are focused on linear time. Cause and effect are the result of logical thought, but logical thought has no business in the spiritual aspect of the psyche so there is no spiritual cause and effect that can be translated in terms we can understand.

Our cells know the aspects in their environment that impact the changing condition of the physical body. The psyche has a similar kind of awareness when it comes to psychological environments and events. The awareness of undetected probabilities and actions in the waking state seem to have no connection with us even though we are related to them in the greater scheme of being. But, in the playing field of the dream reality we remove all our perceived physical obstacles so the spirit can function freely. In this multiplistic reality, our psyche merges in time as well as out of it so we can experience emancipation in both realities.

Our conscious spirit sits on the invisible, unspoken, and psychological language of the psyche. We don’t have to physically define the spirit, but we should accept and appreciate it for its relentless expanding energy.

Manna That Feeds The Soul

The notion of God however inferior it may be in clearness to those mathematical notions so current in mechanical philosophy, has at least this practical superiority over them, that it guarantees an ideal order that shall be permanently preserved. A world with a God in it to say the last word, may indeed burn up or freeze, but we then think of him as still mindful of the old ideals and sure to bring them elsewhere to fruition; so that, where he is, tragedy is only provisional and partial, and shipwreck and dissolution not the absolutely final things. This need of an eternal moral order is one of the deepest needs of our breast. And those poets like Dante and Wordsworth, who live on the conviction of such an order, owe to that fact the extraordinary tonic and consoling power of their verse.

Here then, in these different emotional and practical appeals, in these adjustments of our concrete attitudes of hope and expectation, and all the delicate consequences which their differences entail, lie the real meanings of materialism and spiritualism—not in hair-splitting abstractions about matter’s inner essence, or about the metaphysical attributes of God. Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes; spiritualism means the affirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope.

William James in his essay, Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered does hit the beach of life with some powerful sand churning thoughts. Life is too busy to absorb all the information that flows through the universe. The rate of that flow is too much to process, but we do manage to process a small sliver of it. The God represented as a man is etched into the foundation our genetic pool, and we build a liquid world around it. We organize and perceive certain kinds of information in this world, and we form a contour of beliefs and events that shape our reality.

Our conscious knowledge sits on an invisible, psychological language that offers inner support for the conscious happenings we experience. This inner language is built on psychic organizational units that form events. Events are spoken components in living form. They emerge from the psyche, which is a non-physical mass of cordellas. The psyche forms events in the same way that the ocean forms waves, but our events are not confined to the surface of our reality—they are splashed out into the mass psychological reality. The effects of these events expand the psyche and they emerge like spoken words and impact our awareness.

All of these metaphysical facts fall into a pit of nonsensical gibberish to the materialist who believes that everything must be verified by facts, which for the most part are half truths. The spiritualist may accept the psyche as the instigator of events and experiences, but may not understand how all of that makes any difference in a world where exterior motivation is the manna that feeds the soul.

Moral order is something that we all have an opinion about, but most of us don’t dig deep enough into the self to recognize that moral order is the fruit of the psyche where the soul, mind, and spirit produce a Zentopia of personal as well as mass events. When we identify the self using specific beliefs we limit our personal moral order, but we still continue to expand the psyche. The fascinating aspect of the psyche is the fact that it is experiencing several selves in spontaneity and each one is different. Just like a sentence where the beginning and the end are know simultaneously, our psyche uses the circular knowledge of religion to point us in a direction that creates life events worth experiencing, as well as non-physical events that are precisely poised to expand our beliefs structure about God.

Energy Enriched Reality

Let me pass to a very cognate philosophic problem, the question of design in nature. God’s existence has from time immemorial been held to be proved by certain natural facts. Many facts appear as if expressly designed in view of one another. Thus the woodpecker’s bill, tongue, feet, tail, etc., fit him wondrously for a world of trees with grubs hid in their bark to feed upon. The parts of the eye fit the laws of light to perfection, leading its rays to a sharp picture on our retina. Such mutual fitting of things diverse in origin argued design, it was held; and the designer was always treated as a man-loving deity.

The first step in these arguments was to prove that the design existed. Nature was ransacked for results obtained through separate things being co-adapted. Our eyes, for instance, originate in intrauterine darkness, and the light originates in the sun, yet see how they fit each other. They are evidently made for each other. Vision is the end design, light and eyes the separate means devised for its attainment.

It is strange, considering how unanimously our ancestors felt the force of this argument, to see how little it counts for since the triumph of the Darwinian Theory. Darwin opened our minds to the power of chance-happenings to bring forth ‘fit’ results if only they have time to add themselves together. He showed the enormous waste of nature in producing results that get destroyed because of their unfitness. He also emphasized the number of adaptations which, if designed, would argue an evil rather than a good designer. Here all depends upon the point of view. To the grub under the bark the exquisite fitness of the woodpecker’s organism to extract him would certainly argue a diabolical designer.

Theologians have by this time stretched their minds so as to embrace the Darwinian facts, and yet to interpret them as still showing divine purpose. It used to be a question of purpose against mechanism, of one or the other. We know now they are both. Without nature’s stupendous laws and counterforces, man’s creation and perfection, we might suppose, would be too insipid achievements for God to have designed them.

William James in his 1907 essay, Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered brings the lava of religion to a boil with his thoughts about nature and man. The question of evolution and man’s place in the scheme of nature has been a hot topic for centuries. We like to separate our humanness from nature, but when we take a closer look, we see that nature is an extension of our consciousness. The qualities of humanness and nature manifest from a stream of consciousness where all consciousness flows in a tub of probabilities. Quantum mechanics shows us that our reality is based on probabilities.

The vision of us as creators is blasphemy to some. There’s a God out there somewhere and we are always putting words in his or her mouth. But when we pull the controlling powers of religion out of focus, we realize that this God figure is in nature as well as in our psyche and our psyche is in God as well as in nature. They can not be separated, but religion does a good job by fueling a reality full of guilt and contrition. Western as well as Eastern religions are pushing the envelop of separation to the point where God is a two-headed judgmental figure that has distinct likes and dislikes. We project our beliefs about separatism into this reality, and we find ourselves caught in guilt-ridden mental masturbation. God has turned into an extension of our ego and is dipped into this fear based reality as a savior. In certain beliefs God is a diabolic savior that chooses between good and evil even though man is the creator of these dualistic choices.

We ignore the fact that we live in the psyche in almost the same way we live in the world. There are many languages and substances and a master essence, which we can call God in our psyche. This psychological reality is filled with interconnected consciousness and everything in this energy enriched reality is in a state of expansion. The energy within our interconnected consciousness never denies the validity or the expansion of what we consider God.

All life forms are consciousness and manifest from our non-physical cellular attuned consciousness. The purpose of physical consciousness is expansion and physical reality is the playing field for that expansion. The players are different, and yet they are the same. Consciousness is not limited by our distorted concepts of what it is. Each of us is part of a living God, which shows us the meaning of life through the incredible diversity in nature.

Restless Facts

The energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness which in this obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contended silence of the universe will be at rest. Matter will know itself no longer. ‘Imperishable monuments’ and ‘immortal deeds’ death itself, and love stronger than death, will be as though they had never been. Nor will anything that is, be better or be worse for all that the labour, genius, devotion, and suffering of man have striven through countless generations to effect.

Those thoughts were expressed by Arthur James Balfour, the 1st Earl of Balfour, who served as Prime Minister of the UK from 1902 to 1905. Our thoughts about the nature of our world have changed dramatically over the last one hundred plus years. The notions that thoughts die, and energy decays, or consciousness has an end are in the same category as the earth being flat. Balfour’s beliefs were commonplace back in those years, and people experienced those beliefs using the turmoil they created during the 20th century.

Negative thoughts move slower than positive thoughts, so remnants of those antiquated and guilt-ridden beliefs still linger in this era of self awareness. We are more than our fear-based ancestors thought we are, and the universe, especially the universe within our consciousness, is far more extensive than science and religion claim they are. A greater field of perception, which springs from our imagination, is revealing itself. We now sense a different framework, and it is ready to be experienced. The flower of innate truth sits on a stalk in an opening region of consciousness, and as it opens we realize that we dwell in more than one reality at a time.

In our dream reality, the psyche brings new facts into existence. Reality and imagination are synonymous. Without one there wouldn’t be the other. Facts are beliefs that give us guidelines for our perceptions, and they allow substances to react differently, which means they vibrate slower or faster depending on the associations within the beliefs. What may be a fact in one moment may not be a fact in another moment. Balfour thoughts helped glorified negative expression, and other natural impulses and emotions were blocked in the process.

Physical life is not about finding the nature of the self; it’s about creating and then expanding the essence of the self. There are no signs of a butterfly in a caterpillar. That transformation is a metaphor for the self. The alteration of antiquated facts is part of shift in awareness. Beliefs are guidelines that help us experience the physical world. Our first belief is about the self, and when we close the separation that exists within the self we alter our awareness, and we begin to trust our dreams, feelings, and imagination. We give our intellect wings, and the psyche static we have been receiving begins to unravel restless positive facts about the nature of the expanding self.

Understated Reality

When Zen unconditionally emphasizes one’s immediate experience as the final fact on which it is established it may well ignore all the scriptural sources as altogether unessential to its truth.

D. T. Suzuki in his 1927 essay Doctrine Of Enlightenment gives us a juicy tidbit to sink our mental teeth into, but our teeth never touch anything but the nothingness of a thought. Suzuki is considered an expert on Buddhism, but he is much more than that. He is able to describe Zen using our primitive language, and that in itself is a monumental achievement. Zen is an aspect of consciousness. Consciousness is the energy that fuels as well as experiences this physical reality.

Our physical life implies a source where the physical originates. Suzuki called Zen the act of doing without doing, which is a function of the psyche. Zen is non-physical energy that functions between the creases of the mind, and fuels it with high-test awareness. Zen consciousness is always in a state of becoming. It has no precise boundaries in the action of becoming.

Waving To The Soul

When the gods come among men, they are not known. Jesus was not; Socrates and Shakespeare were not. Antaeus was suffocated by the gripe of Hercules, but every tie he touched his mother earth, his strength was renewed. Man is the broken giant, and, in conversation with nature. The power of music, the power of poetry to unfix, and as it were, clap wings to solid nature, interprets the riddle of Orpheus.

The philosophical perception of identity through endless mutations of form makes him know the Proteus. What else am I who laughed or wept yesterday, who slept last night like a corpse, and this morning stood and ran. And what see I on any side but the transmigrations of Proteus? I can symbolize my thought by using the name of any creature, of any fact, because every creature is man agent or patient Tantalus is but a name for you and me. Tantalus means the impossibility of drinking the waters of thought which are always gleaming and waving within sight of the soul.

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1842 essay History stokes the fire of thought within us, and we experience the burning coals of remembering. We are alive because of our psychic, spiritual, and biological substructure, but we don’t adequately comprehend any of those innate structures. We are what we are because of the existence of what we are not. Our greater reality is measured in terms of intensities, and our psyche puts us together in different ways. Time is not marked in the psyche, but the consciousness of all forms of life blend there and form inner rhythms which manifest as adjacent identities. These subspecies of consciousness operate in a trans-species fashion.

Our biological body is a blend of mineral, plant, and animal consciousness, and it maintains its stability because of the give and take of the materials of the earth, which is another quality of consciousness. We are part of the world and yet we are ourselves, just like our psyche, which is part of other worlds that contains other identities besides the one we think of as our own. We contribute abilities and experience in this focus, and help form our mass reality, and that process expands our psyche. Our thoughts are energy that ripple outwards in ways we don’t comprehend, and interact with the experiences of others and form world events.

Our various identities are psychic environments not physical ones. They mix and then merge with each other, but still maintain their own focus. They interact without physical restrictions. Even though we are just a portion of our psyche, our identity is inviolate. It is never annihilated or submerged in another identity. It has its own integrity and follows its own focus and knows itself. We are Antaeus, Proteus, and Tantalus as well as other identities that hang on the vine of the psyche like grapes that continue to move through their cycle of life.

We explore these other selves and grow from that experience, but the psyche or the soul never exists as finished products like our ripened grapes. Like the grape vine our physical life implies a non-physical one. Each identity has an eternal validity within the greater reality of the psyche, and when we focus on the pauses in our inner language we can theoretically contact any of those identities. There are no impossibilities in those realities since all identities occur at once. Those worlds are full of energy, and it is always waving to the soul.

Precious Myths

The universal nature, too strong for the petty nature of the bard, sits on his neck and writes through his hand; so that when he seems to vent a mere caprice and wild romance, the issue is an exact allegory. Hence Plato said that “poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.” All the fiction of the Middle Ages explain themselves as a masked or frolic expression of that which in grave earnest the mind of that period toiled to achieve. Magic, and all that is ascribed to it, is a deep presentiment of the powers of science. The shoes of swiftness, the sword of sharpness, the power of subduing the elements of using the secret virtues of minerals, of understanding the voices of the birds, are the obscure efforts of the mind in the right direction.

The preternatural prowess of the hero, the gift of perpetual youth, and the like, are alike the endeavor of the human spirit “to bend the show of things to the desires of the mind.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1841 essay History points our thoughts to a target that seems to vacillate within the corners of the mind. All the myths and stories of the past tell us what we already know, but have forgotten. Various aspects of consciousness merge in this temporal reality, and we perceive an individual reality we call our own. We develop a language of symbols as a substitute for direct cognition in this time-space world. Words and symbols created from our thoughts express our choices, probabilities, and experiences, and they act as protectors as well as communicators. Thoughts are non-physical energy that continues to move endlessly through the stream of consciousness.

Objects are symbols and visual perceptions. They give us a sense of realness in the outside world of learning. There are gaps in our awareness, and they are filled with data, but we ignore those messages in order to focus on our separated reality which is filled with metaphors. We try to find the self that is embedded in the myths of God in this world, but all we find are manmade laws that separate, control, and limit our beliefs about the nature of the self.

We take the existence of the psyche on the same faith as we take God, and continue to try and find the ‘self’ that is buried deep in the crevices of our sub-consciousness. But,consciousness is never ‘sub,’ and it is always conscious of itself. Consciousness is energy that manifests in order to expand.

That energy is filled with regions and patterns as well as qualities that interact with each other. All these qualities form myths from the distinct aspects of the limitless nature of consciousness. Our psyche forms our personal myths from other regions of our consciousness. The psyche and God are unknowns in our language because they do not conform to our temporal limits and restrictions. Our language imitates in a very limited way the realities that exist within our psyche myths.

We do sense the qualities and patterns that make us who we are, as well as the sheer unutterable uniqueness that makes us a part as well as the whole in the stream of consciousness. The psyche and the self are in a constant state of expansion, and are always becoming as our awareness of self manifests. We are always becoming more than we are, but we can’t keep up with this psychic and psychological activity in this physical life since our focus is experiencing our individual desires tangibly.

Our precious myths are painted with the paint of the psyche, and the nectar of consciousness, and we live them in our physical experiences in one way or another. We live the myth of God, and become an aspect of that belief. God runs through our psyche like water runs through this world; ever-changing and limitless in the quest to be. The energy of the psyche is always in motion and has no time limits.