Underneath the Wrapping

As an extension (largely a repetition really) of the last post I thought I'd try to give some examples of conceptual wrappings and some further explanation of what I mean by “the abstract eye”.

When we look at these letters which we are currently reading, we cannot help but silently or loudly, utter or take in, the sounds and meanings we have been trained to associate with them, and their combinations (words). Looking closer at the individual letters, like this U, we can see it has a specific shape, which is really all it is – a shape, or a form. A 'u' isn't a letter anywhere but in our minds. What we see is our minds superimposed upon the form. Typographers, designers, and visual artists, have a better chance of perceiving the u as an image, while most people normally never consider the pure line or curve of it. All they see is the U.

What I'd like us to do now is to gaze at this shape: H until we can behold its form free from the concept we call 'h'. To help out we may start by picturing the silhouette of two pillars attached to each other with a thin horizontal construction binding them together. Perhaps it is the ruins of a once great temple? Try then to see the form completely free from any kind of meaning (Staring at it for a long time usually helps). If we succeed it's great, but if we don't, the fact that we can realize that H is a form, just as “meaningless” as any other form, is beneficial. Though we understand it as a letter, it is still that same and simple form, which the illiterate will confirm, if we doubt it.

We typically don't add much emotional wrapping to the forms we call letters, but some sorts of music, some kinds of food, some occupations, and some types of animals (for example), are not as easily kept free from such additions. Just like the sound added to the letter H doesn't really have anything to do with the H-form, our opinions and ideas about heavy metal, soup, police-men, and spiders, are just that – opinion and ideas. Even if it's true that spiders more often bite human beings than butterflies do, they are not nasty, disgusting, creepy, or evil, anywhere but in some people's minds. (This is also true about police-men.)

The emotional wrappings may partly or fully be caused by actual facts, but hairy, poisonous qualities don't equal fear, because if they did, all beings would fear spiders, and loath heavy-metal. That some people love it and others hate it (whatever “it” may be) should be enough really, for us to see beyond our ego-centric ideas about all things. Unfortunately, this “should be” is wishful thinking. Wrappings don't come off that easily.

When we have managed to look at an H, for a short moment liberated from our branding of it, we can use this same technique on the rest of reality. Just try to keep free from ALL ideas when entering places, and encountering people, and you will notice how strange and marvelous a phenomenon they truly are. Treat every moment as a new and unknown revelation, coming to you all-inclusive and inevitable. There is nothing we can change of what already is, but for our reception and acceptance of it.

If we keep this up, we may be invited into the next level of freedom, where form itself is recognized and experienced as a concept. This is where the H blends together with the background (which no thing can ever escape) and starts speaking to us as the Unity it is. When that happens, we ourselves, simultaneously blend together with the world before our eyes and “seeing” is transformed into “being”.

An H isn't built up singularly by dark lines, but is equally made up by the seemingly empty areas between the pillars, as well as the space surrounding it. It is also fully dependent on the reader, without whom, there could never be form, nor letters. Examining an H is examining ourselves. Let us look beyond our ideas of it. Let us take into account all that which is required for the revelation of an H, and study that boundless process in action. Form and consciousness is now shaking hands, moving closer, and as they do they begin to recognize themselves in the eyes of the other. The merger has already begun.

Developing the Abstract Eye

The main reason for our inability to experience Spiritual Reality, is our conceptualization/objecti-fication of the World, and at the foundation of this is our identification with Ego – our “separate” selves. We perceive Reality as objects, and we think of ourselves as objects. This can be overcome.

We mentally (and largely unconsciously) wrap all we perceive in layers upon layers of concepts. These wrappings are not only the words and ideas we superimpose upon all things, but also the emotions and opinions that go with them. In such a way Truth is veiled from our eyes and souls. The world we see is a reflection of the world in our minds. Instead of receiving what IS, we perceive what we have learned and our self-centered relationships to it.

How then, can we remove this obstacle to the Light? Well, why not look at abstract art? In figurative works of art, there are often a story-line taking place in time and space, and there tend to be objects which we know by name and experience. Looking at such a piece we find ourselves go into thoughts and memories. We might ask ourselves what the image is about, and what it means? In either case, the forms in figurative art are familiar to us, and they are hard to watch with the pure and virgin gaze we need develop for spiritual progress.

When we behold non-figurative and abstract art, the game is very different. Here, the nameless, unknown, or uncertain forms, do not as easily give rise to conceptual thinking. They may suggest or remind us of objects we know, but abstract works lend themselves a lot better to an open mind. The trick is to keep the verdict at bay, and to let things remain what they are – unknown. While our minds struggle to understand what they see (in the “meaningless” jumble of color and form), we should give them a fight, and let the work remain abstract – keep it in the shadows of Mystery.

Even if we succeed in doing so, we typically fall into another trap, which is that of judgment. We like this, we don't like that, we would have preferred it another way, or we are disturbed by a lack of balance, too much pink, the frame, or any other of a million reasons. Here is where we must be vigilant. Whenever we notice these judgments, we should try to let them go, and re-focus our gaze on the art before us. Remember, we want to see what IS, and get away from what we THINK about it. This may of course take some practice.

The mechanisms of mind, including the Ego itself, are much like little children. When we give them a finger, they are happy for a while, but will soon start bothering us about the rest of the hand. It is fortunately also true, that if we ignore them, they will raise their voices for some time, but eventually quiet down. With no confirmation at all, they turn all silent and crawl into a corner somewhere.

As we become experienced with watching abstract art, we tend to discover other pleasures, than those previously known to us. There arises a joy in watching the balance of composition by itself, and the play of simple fields of color, and brush-strokes, are suddenly enough to bring great and satisfying experiences. The openness and suggestive power of nameless forms is a great adventure to the mind, and we learn how to receive the artwork without interpretation. This is a great step. Those of us who have learned this skill, have a great tool when tracking the steps of The Lord, and those who doesn't might still have some leads on where (how) to look.

Now let's leave the gallery and go for a meditative walk in nature. While we see trees, bushes, rocks, sky, lakes, and all the other things we know, we can learn how look at them as we do an abstract piece of art. Think of them not as these things you have knowledge about, but perceive them as patches of form and color that together make up the undivided weave of reality – the very fabric of Creation. We are so accustomed to evaluate and judge that, even were we to walk through untouched lands, most of us would fall into these habits of “too barren, too dense, too green, too chaotic, too murky, etc”.

Allow me therefore to repeat: The world is not a piece of art for you to judge as a critic. It is not a meal cooked to please your personal taste. The world wasn't molded to suit your specific body or mind. The world is the reality from which you have grown, just like the straws of grass on the ground. For you to even think about judging it, or having opinions about it, is great and swollen pride. For millions of years it has prevailed, silently, perfectly, until right now, when you and I come here and start uttering our preferences, as if they somehow mattered. Who cares if we dislike the autumn, if we find birches more pleasant than spruce, or robins more likeable than crows? Life is not about our opinions. If we can bring ourselves to understand that, we may also be able to behold nature (and art, and people) with less of a labeling and judgmental gaze. Again, it is about being receptive to what is. It is about listening with our eyes, and to do so as if all the forms of life were equally important.

If we practice this, and continue to do so, there is a great chance that the Lord will let His Presence be known to us. All things in Nature sing His tune, and when we become aware of that, we also hear that same voice answering from within. That's the first step of true freedom, and a spring of deep and saturating joy. Whenever we make an effort to listen, we can now make out the Piper's flute on the wind, unwrapping the veils of Paradise, and its piercing benevolent Beauty!

The Ways of Knowing and Unknowing

"Using the mind to look for reality is delusion. Not using the mind to look for reality is awareness.", says the legendary Bodhidharma.

Jesus puts it like this: “"I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants...” (Matthew 11:25)

With infants he means those who keep their minds free from conceptual thoughts and judgment – those who manage to enter every day and moment as if they had just been born. Here follows an attempt to demonstrate the weakness and limitations of conventional knowledge, and an invitation to un-know the world in our minds, which is the world of separation, and the world of yesterday.

Imagine for a while that the gray area above represents the “empty” Universe. In this example it is all that exists. Even the beholder of this unknown reality is part of the grayness. There is nothing we can say about this Universe. There is nothing to make out, no context, no nothing. We do not even understand it as gray, because this is all we “know”.

Now we add something for the sake of perspective. Looking at the Universe this way we suddenly have a world of form - a world of concepts. The gray area in the middle remains untouched and unchanged, but the surroundings are different. Looking at this we now understand the unknown grayness as bright. This is how we perceive it. The surroundings we understand as dark. Observe that these two definitions appear together. By separating one from the other, two identities emerge. Brightness and darkness can only be understood when they exist together. They are dependent on each other.

What if we had added something else? While the gray area in the middle is still unchanged, we now understand it as dark. Dark, is how we perceive it, but what is its true nature? Is it bright or dark? We can point to it and call it dark, but do we now actually know this unknown “stuff” of our Universe? Its character seems to change with the alterations of its surroundings.

What about this? Another context and a new number of descriptions are suddenly possible. Our non-changing grayness can now be understood as calm, pale, boring, sharp, uniform etc, and yet it remains completely unchanged. This is something we can experience in real life too. We walk along, feeling fine, and comfortably dressed, when we happen to enter a fancy store or restaurant. Suddenly we become very aware of our clothes, and how bland or sloppy they feel. As the context changes so does our self image.

Observe that the noisy, vivid background in this example needs the straight grey to be understood as such. If our entire Universe was noisy and vivid, we would never know it. It would simple be, as it is. (It is not the case that it would truly be noisy and vivid beyond our understanding of it. Without any other element to inter-exist with, such characteristics as noisy and vivid simply do not exist.)

Exploring the world through our senses and understanding it through our minds, we are confined to this domain of relative conclusions. We are limited to a dualistic image of the world and life in general. We do not make our verdicts about the objects we encounter based on the immidiate surroundings alone. We compare also with of our entire culture of memories, and so we can relax our experience in the fancy boutique with memories of the bums in the street and our circle of similarly dressed friends. In such a way we get a wider perspective - a bigger picture, but it is still based on the same relative understanding.

(There are also the actual illusions of vision to take into account. Do the many grey discs in the image above have the same value and color?)

So, what is the true nature of this stuff, which we cannot truly see? Is there a way to understand this unknown grayness of our symbolic Universe in a more Absolute fashion? Can we know at all without the help of dualistic comparison?

Well, there are those who say we can. By spending time with stillness and silence, one can become aquainted with it. By beholding the world without prejudice, criticism, and labelling, and accepting what IS, one can ”see” beyond the concepts of the mind. This is the way of Unknowing, which has been advocated by Mystics in the East and West for millenia. It is the way of mindfulness and meditation, and holistic communion with reality itself. It is a completely wordless way of penetrating into the core and mystery of Being itself.

Look again. What do you perceive? If you cannot go to your mind, memories or feelings to tell you what you are, then what ARE you?

I'll end this post with a suggestion, or perhaps it is only some questions: What if the essence (grayness) of God is so dynamic in its nature, that it can be perceived in a multitude of different ways? What if no actual change is required to bring variation/creation about? What if the entire Universe is only a matter of perspective?... one's set of mind.