Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog

It is good to be in “right relationship” with everything.  All too many were educated wrongly, and they continue to view the world with a psychology immersed in separation.  Beyond the basics, in education, there must be an exploration into what “right and true relationship is.”   Without this the mind remains rather lopsided and trapped in falsities; then all kinds of problems emerge in society… with violence, theft, deceit, indifference, drugs, and abandonment being common.

It is interesting, in a big way, about how there are a good number of people who say that they are “one with everything”… that they are “one with the whole;” yet, for most all of them, the benediction of enlightenment has never taken place.  One of the fundamental reasons for this (among other things) is that even people who maintain that they are “one with everything” are still perceiving the world through concepts, symbols, and images that they have learned (and have absorbed from others).  It may be that, with these conceptions and symbols, they look… and what they see is what they were taught.  When they say that they are one with that…  it may be that they are one with all of these myriad (learned and second-hand) images, symbols, concepts, and frameworks that others have helped to instill within (and “as”) what they are.   There is nothing very profound in that.

Being “one with everything” is to be admired and appreciated.  However, we have to be extremely careful with this.  Because if we are merely continuing to view everything with isolated images, symbols, and concepts… being “one” with that is not sufficient; and it may not be being in “right relationship” whatsoever.  Too many of us view the world through, and as, and from, symbols and learned images.  One can say, as so many easily do, that everything is sacred.  However, once again, we must be extremely careful with this.  It could be that everything we perceive consists of recognition based on learned images, patterns, and symbols (that were taught).  The truly sacred, however, may not merely be something that is within the relatively superficial realm of images, symbols, and learned patterns.  Learned symbols and concepts — though very necessary for daily functioning — may not ever be in a direct relationship with what is truly sacred.  That flame of timeless blessing exists beyond mere symbols and dead concepts… and shadows can never be in direct relationship with it.  It is, fortunately, possible to perceive without mere learned recognition, without the shadows that such recognition exclusively consists of.  Most all of us are locked in (and “as”) recognition; we see through (and “as”) second-hand symbols and patterns.   We can, if we are prudent and truly perceptive in the deepest sense, perceive without mere second-hand symbols and images; then pristine, uncorrupted perception (though not necessarily sacred in itself) may open the door for what is sacred to visit.  The sacred will not visit, enter, (and be in direct relationship with) what is second-hand, symbolic, stale, and rehashed.   It is too fundamentally pure to be able to be in direct relationship with what is very sullied and tainted.   That is one of the reasons why so few are ever directly visited by that majestic, uncorrupt, infinite energy of timelessness.

We human beings are something else!  We are always thinking about and using energy (from what we taught each other).  However, we are never the actual energy.  That energy is timeless and (unlike the energy that we think we use) it is beyond the corruptions of man.

Eye 2 Eye. (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Eye 2 Eye. (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

So many of us live in — and “as” — fear without ever fully realizing it.  Most of us remain in the structures and patterns of what we were taught… and comfortably remain there; we are either afraid or indifferent about going beyond.  The older we get, the more set in our ways we get.  So many of us — as we age — lose our mental pliability and flexibility; we become rigid, rather robotic followers of old, worn-out traditions that supposedly exist to save us and protect us.  (Unfortunately, many of these traditions keep us in our place and fill certain individuals with power, money, and prestige.)  

When fear exists, are you something separate from what that fear is?  Most of us were taught that we are separate from our fears, desires, and systems of thinking.  A truly wise human being can realize that fear (and what he or she is)… are not two separate things.  (Of course, one is not merely just “fear.”) We run from our fears without truly facing them, without really being in an orderly relationship with them.   A man might say, “I am dealing with my fears.”   Therein, a learned image, involving self, is a separative part of a conditioned system that includes conditioned fear.  However, one part of a conditioned system cannot “get rid of” (or “adequately resolve”) another part of a conditioned system.  There might be alteration, subjugation, and the appearance that it did (get rid of something), but two wrongs don’t make a right, not in the long run.  Ultimately, there is still disorder in (and “as”) what uses disorderly (i.e., false) means as a way to resolve psychological issues.   

Real, pristine awareness, without needless friction, can shed a light on things and renew the mind (helping it to exist as order).  However, if one is burdened with needless friction, conditioning, and false separation (and overburdened with symbols) — such as a concept of “me” or “myself” being something separate from the fear — then conditioned, learned images interfere with that spontaneous, pure awareness that is not merely a part of some (man-made) or primitive process of reaction.  So, the enlightened being perceives without all that accumulated rigamarole that takes time.  Transcending false values and conditioned reactions need not take time; but using erroneous, internal, false procedures depends upon time.  For instance, with a wise being, there is often an intense awareness wherein conditioned, manmade (internal) symbols instantly (without taking time) dissipate (without some separate, internal entity trying to end them).  (Any images “trying to end them” are merely part of the whole of the conditioned structure.  One part of this conditioned structure thinking it is separate from another part — trying to control it — furthers erroneous division and extends conditioning.)   So, with an entity who is truly wise, there exists a timeless “dying” or “ending” of the conditioned.   No separate image of self or absorbed method is doing this; (otherwise it is merely just a part of the conditioning).  Most people (in their acceptance of tradition and as part of their conditioning) put “dying” far away from daily life.  However, a truly perspicacious individual is daily dying (with a huger than huge smile)… psychologically dying to (and “as”) false, dead symbols, methodologies, and rudimentary reactions.  Such timeless dying (beyond any archaic, dead methodology of the stagnant past) is what is truly living (in the deepest, true sense).  Observation without a pattern, without a method, without learned separation and symbols… is effortless and does not involve a technique to robotically practice over time.  The masses, with their conditioned, fossilized methodologies and antiquated systems:  that may be where the nasty (most real) kind of death is.  That (unfortunately) is the fossilized matrix where most of them are buried, while thinking they are alive.  Unfortunately, for the most part, pointing out about leaving it, to them, is like explaining the value of gold to frogs.

So, in this, living and dying are one.  (The previous statement has a double meaning.)  However, for the masses, they are something separate… as are so many things (for them), including their limited concepts of self.  

Tree Frog climbing around the porch (1). Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Tree Frog climbing around the porch (2). Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

(This posting is dedicated to the late Professor David Bohm, Theoretical Physicist, who specialized in Quantum Mechanics.  I used to have some very good one-on-one conversations with David.)

In quantum mechanics, when a separate observer looks at (or tries to measure) subatomic phenomena, the (endless) waveform collapses and there is an object that, for instance, exists in a distinct place, duration, or time.  (The waveform can exist at many places at once and has qualities of infinity.)  We are perpetually measuring things, even when we are not fully conscious of doing so.  Labeling things, identifying things, naming things, existing from one word-oriented symbol to the next… are all (in their own way) forms of measuring, categorizing, and assessing.  We were taught that the observer is doing the measuring, doing the categorizing, and doing the assessing.  However, is the observer truly separate from what the measuring, categorization, and assessment are constituted of?  Without measurement and assessment, without the usage of symbolism, the (separate) observer does not exist.  (Selfishness, by the way, requires the measurement that forges and invents a separate observer; therein, limitation is involved.)

Measuring (and all that type of process) is necessary at times.  Measuring, calculating, labeling, assessment (and all that) was drilled into us throughout our education.  However, they never taught us, or seriously suggested, that there are times when we can go beyond these things.  They had us live in thought, exist in thought, and worship thought.  They never suggested that we need not put all of our eggs in that one basket… the basket of thought (as measurement, categorizing, and assessing).  They never suggested that thought and thinking is a tool… (and need not be the essence of the organism).  You know, when you make tools all important, and forget about the living thing, you become rather robotic and mechanized… rather unalive.  Our “self concepts,” too, are all (basically) learned symbols.  Symbols are not the actuality; a description of an insect isn’t the insect.  But so many of us exist from one symbol to another; even when we look at things, we tend to see through (and “as”) a screen of learned symbols. 

We can exist beyond symbolism, measurement, and tool utilization… though symbolism, measurement, and tool utilization is often very necessary and prudent.  This is not some fanciful living the the here and now.  (Psychologically clinging to the here and now is rather like the collapse of the waveform; often involved in it are learned measurement, categorization, and assessment.)  Most minds will not be appreciative of this.  Most minds were indoctrinated by measurement (“with” and “as” measurement).  This is unfortunate, because the measureless has a quality of true infinity to it.  Limited — rather virtual — symbols (involving “self” or “not self”) can never capture or grasp that nonsymbolic, real, illimitable quality.  

Empty Exoskeleton of a Grasshopper (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015

Empty Exoskeleton of a Grasshopper (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015