early morning dream

There's much more to it all than meets the glassy eye though. It's like this. Seemingly we step back into the void to watch our movie. However, we are actually in both the void and the memory-play simultaneously all the time/not time. Both in the Noh play's auditorium (bums on seats) and ALSO absorbed in the theatricals; the passion play of life. To be aware of this duality-in-one is the foundation of mystical endeavour and its first reward. We are part of the movie and also increasingly aware that the movie is part of us and we (and it) are in essence the void. Not to put too fine a point on it; we are the movie and the silver screen and the auditorium and all this overlays and is mysteriously initiated by the void (nothingness becoming somethingness). Between nothingness and somethingness we have the mediating viewer. The finger's pointless point, indicating a location in nowhere and thus 3-D blossoming a somewhere's boundless spherical somethingness out of nothingness. Everywhere. Forever. The ubiquitous centre. The Big Bang in myriad. Now, that is funny. (Thus all the smiling in those stone effigies of enlightened sages.*)

Smiling Buddha in Bayon (Angkor Thom)

Existence

nothingness

in motion...

I was musing this as in a dream. This mythic nonexistent/existent point that initiates any cosmos (complete integrated system). According to Euclid, a point (not to be confused with the common usage of a pointing finger) has no mass or velocity, it simply indicates a position in space. Imagining a boundless darkness for nothingness (although there would not even be darkness - technically speaking), we allow a point to mysteriously emerge out of the unbounded mystery of nothing. [So, that would be a God of the gaps moment which we take for granted for the time being.] Now, we have THE FIRST DISTINCTION. Picture this: Out of nowhere a point. The mysterious 'appearance' of this point of location (locus) begats a figure and ground relationship where before there was nothingness. There's nothing in this background, however, we now have a vague something which is a background of emptiness --centred on our point-- which is the first environmental form of something. This boundless background is INSTANTANEOUSLY occupied by a expansion of the original point (regarded in the ideal form of a 3-D sphere). [Note how this happens in you mind's eye as you contemplate the first appearance of our point and its spatial implications.] This spherical expansion occurs by observing the consequence of our first cause (we need an axiom - a basic given for discourse; in this case the mysterious manifestation of a point-of-distinction in the absolute void of nothingness).

Also INSTANTLY we have the radial coordinates (radii) implied and actualised. We simplify this seamlessly glowing radial mass by regarding left-right / front-back / up-down as our symbol. In effect, a 3-dimensional circle-cross.

All these stages; from void to point to spherical expansion to radial coordinates; are more usefully understood as stages of cosmos development - although each stage is considered concurrent.

Thus we have a reasonable model of nothingness, somethingness and an interface described in terms of a point birthing a sphere. Using the term interface, of course, brings into play another model. We will leave this aside for the sake of clarity. Perhaps we can replace interface with fountain and be done with it. It is understood as a given that this process of cosmation occurs constantly, perhaps seamlessly and at all scales, without boundaries -- possibly with no ultimate beginning nor end.

The Splash Fountain in Krasnodar, Russia

All this begs several questions: What is the synthesis of nothingness and somethingness? If these two concepts are the base of an equilateral triangle, what does the apex represent? What is the centre of the triangle indicating? What of the whole triangle? What is the meta-space occupied by the symbolic triangle? If we extend our meditation into a pyramid schema - what then?

Creation myths of the world address this whole problem of origins in their various ways and understandings. The ideas we have sketched out here underly all of those figurative expositions. To intellectually understand creation myths we need to go to a higher level of mentation, namely the abstract intuitive where geometry is the vehicle of thought. beyond this we enter the ineffable which is formless and our knowledge is gained directly without an apparent explanation - we just know (gnosis). We step this direct knowledge down, so to say, into geometry and then, grosser still, into the figurative illustration of ritual myth and material projections as art and architecture and literature and so on. If we can. The understandings gained in the formless intuitive heights of consciousness are easy. Bringing the news down the mountain is another thing altogether. Each one of us knows this to be a frustrating truth of life; as anyone who has tried, or is trying, to turn a good idea into prosperity will no doubt agree.

Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam illustrating the Genesis creation myth.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

Burnt Norton, Four Quartets (1/4), T.S. Eliot

smile

*But, NOT this -- well, sort of, maybe.

more items

jp 21-06-12

This musing is a living document and as such will develop - so, be sure to return regularly to this page, if you like. Not just to note any changes, but also to review the material in the light of your own understanding.

♪

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