"Mindfulness and Meditation allow us to open our hearts, relax our bodies, and clear our minds enough to experience the vast, mysterious, sacred reality of life directly. With Practice we come to know for ourselves that eternity is available in each moment.

Your MMM Courtesy Wake Up Call:
Musings on Life and Practice
by a Longtime Student of Meditation

Friday, January 17, 2020

It Takes One to Know One

“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” 
― Albert Einstein
 
  “The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it Intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don't know how or why."
― Albert Einstein

As a kid I was immensely curious.  I think we all were--although many of us were quickly conditioned to drop it and "get with the program." It seems parents and schoolteachers couldn't deal with our incessant questioning.

I remember stumbling across a broken camera in the alley when I was about 9 years old.  I took it home and immediately took it apart.  I then wondered why the heck the world was upside down when I looked through the lens. What? I then extracted the other lenses from the viewfinder, and after fooling around for a while, I figured out how to right the image and make a telescope.  I then plotted the movement of a planet across the sky outside my bedroom window for a couple of weeks.

Later that same year, I discovered that a battery-powered car I'd received as a Christmas gift made static on the radio's speakers whenever its path took it close to the radio.  What? Again curious, I took the car apart and discovered that the sparking of its electric motor created radio waves! Before all was said and done, I had extricated the motor from the car, cobbled together a homemade keying device, and learned Morse code so that I could send messages through space using these invisible waves of energy.   

This early interest in invisible waves of energy continued.  In junior high school I became a ham radio operator -- and learned to play the guitar.  Sound waves, radio waves, light waves.  They all fascinated me.  The idea that invisible waves operated at different frequencies, at different rates of vibration was clear to me. I learned how to tune my guitar.  I learned how to tune my homemade transmitter to deliver maximum power at a particular frequency. There appeared to be certain principles involved. 

So, by the time the Hippies were happening in Haight Ashbury a handful of years later, even at a distance, I was quite inclined to believe in "good vibrations."  I didn't find it odd at all to believe that there was a dimension of experience that involved invisible energies.  I was soon exploring yoga and meditation practice. 

In the course of the next few years, with the support of a number of friends/kindred spirits (we actually formed a short-lived "commune" in the early 70's), I learned that one didn't have to do drugs to be in touch with a subtle dimension of energy.  If I paid attention, at times "the vibes" were (and are) as perceptible as the wind on my skin.  Then, I came to see that, just like in music and radio, there were certain principles at work.
(READ MORE)
Principles Matter

The Perennial Philosophy traces its roots from the Neo-Platonism of the middle ages in Europe through the Transcendentalists (Emerson, Thoreau, etc.) of 19th century America into what many have called the New Age Spirituality of our times.  Its basic premise is that all the world's religions share a single, fundamental Truth, a Truth directly perceived through the "mystical" experience of its founders and subsequent prophets, seers, sages and saints.  

I think a whole lot of us who came of age in the psychedelic 60's and 70's tapped into that experience -- with or without drugs.  Put simply, that experience involved the deep recognition that we are, each of us, inseparable parts of an Essential Oneness.  We are not only "all in this together", we are all this -- together.  

It takes One to know One.

So, this being the case, its not surprising that each of the world's major religions place a fundamental importance on Love and Compassion.  Jesus, for one, claimed it all boils down to loving God (the All) and loving one another.  Buddha said that the only eternal law is that hate doesn't cease by hatred, it only ceases through love.  The other major religions seem to agree.  They all go on to propose some form of the Golden Rule and lay out pretty similar ethical frameworks for our behavior: don't kill, don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, etc.   

It only makes sense, right?  That part of us which experiences ourselves as individuated focal points of awareness, separate from the other beings "out there," should be kind and caring.  After all, at the deepest level you and I are the One Being, totally interconnected, the warp and weft of the same tapestry.

So what does this have to do with telescopes, radios and guitars?

Albert Einstein, a man who never lost a childlike sense of wonder as he danced along the edge of science and mystery came up with his famous equation, E=mc² in 1905.  With this he theorized that matter and energy are not fundamentally separate.  They are inter-related aspects of a single reality.  This was mind blowing.  (Unfortunately, it also directly led to more powerful ways of blowing things up as well.)

Physicists and engineers have been fooling around working with matter and energy for a long time.  To me, Energy has always been particularly fascinating even though it often operates beyond the normal range of our five senses.  There are principles that describe its behavior.  In theory and in practice, it's all about vibrations, waves, and fields:  

     Energy can be focused.  Did you ever focus sunlight through a lens?
     Energy radiates.  Throw a rock in a still pond and watch the ripples expand outward.
     Energy resonates.  Sing a G note into a guitar and listen to it sing back. The "screech" 
     of amplified feedback operates on that principle, too.
    

Energy = Matter() = Attention

Although science is still grappling with how to define consciousness, the hippie Spiritual Teacher Stephen Gaskin, among others, pointed out that awareness is also part of that mind blowing equation.  Attention = Energy = Matter.  That being so, where and how we focus our attention becomes profoundly important.  We energize what we focus on. What we pay attention to matters.  

A quality of awareness that is truly attentive, kind, and caring has a tangible effect not only on our own experience -- it radiates.  It touches others.

Going further, the Spiritual Energy of Love not only palpably touches ourselves and others, it also resonates deeply with something deep within and beyond us, a field of energy that seems limitless, infinitely expansive.  (God? Allah? The Tao? Shunyata?  You name it.  A rose by any other name...)  As we grow in our ability to "vibrate at that frequency," it has a profound impact on our life and the lives of those around us--and even beyond that.  If you're paying attention at all, you can see that play out directly at times.


Although any attempt I've made to answer the question "why is it this way" dissolves into the Great Mystery and continues to brings forth a sense of childhood wonder and deep curiosity, I certainly have witnessed a basic truth in my life: the kinder I can be, the better things get.

The impediments to being kind are, of course, many, varied and deep in our conditioning.  Opening the Heart and Clearing the Mind aren't easy.  Kindness is an exacting discipline.  It takes Practice. It is something I have to work at every day. 

Yet, I can't think of anything better to do with my time.  That's why I Sit most every day -- as best I can figure it out at this point. 

But, who really knows?

First published January 2014. Revised.

2 comments:

Carol said...

Yet, I can't think of anything better to do with my time. That's why I Sit most every day -- as best I can figure it out at this point.

Descartes: "I think, therefore I am." That one statement blocked humans from expansion in reality. Letting go is about just that, letting go. To fall and realize there is no ground. Co creation of life leads the imagination into traveling eternally, with 'all' the senses, not just the ones we have reduced ourselves to in the present human constructs of limited time. Love the galaxy pic. To be part of such violent,destructive, creative, imaginative, oneness, is the AWE in AWESOME.

Robair6969 said...

Fascinating, don't stop now!