March 26, 1992
Archive Note
This text is drawn from earlier manuscript materials and is presented largely in its original form. It reflects an exploratory raw stage of thinking rather than a finished or fully developed argument.
There is no inside or outside; no compulsion stemming from within or without; no inner or outer worlds in fact;–there is only experience. The “subjects” of experience–ourselves, and the “objects” experienced–world, are one and the same thing taken from two differing perspectives.
But why and how do we come to have differing and opposing perspectives if it is all one to begin with?
“Afterthought” or “afterexperience” is how it is done. With memory comes repetition (re-experience) with its attendant `illusion of sameness’. This `relative sense of permanence’ enables us to identify and distinguish `existing things’, which, of course, are all owing to the original illusion. Thus, we are forced to conclude that “illusion” is at the core of all belief and knowledge!–that it is through `illusory consciousness’ that we are given the means for anchoring ourselves to an ever-changing world–and that without this `imaginary buffer’, all would be chaos.
But why? Why must nature choose delusionary means to unfold?
Well, given that the world is as it appears to us, we can readily understand why this must be so. So long as we experience a world in constant motion; a world which is undergoing constant change; always becoming something else from one moment to another, how could it be otherwise? If we could not oppose the flow of events, stand apart from them, perspective would be impossible. But…
======================================
Where am I going with this thinking? Sure, I’m convinced that it could reach rather sophisticated levels–I’ve done some reading, and I’ve made some comparisons. But who am I kidding! I’ll not reach any valid conclusions. I’ll always come up short of fully grasping even the simplest of matters. Haven’t I learned my lesson yet? How many trials do I need to remind me of how tenuous this enterprise is? Am I adding anything to knowledge? Am I providing bridges or rungs which will lead me or others to new experience? Is there at least a `relative value’ in this?
My god, look at the beautiful expressions which are available to us at present, but which are all but ignored. While our schools have all but given up any semblance of providing education, Emerson’s words (along with many significant others) lay dormant. Why haven’t his essays been translated into simpler terms so that all may derive benefit from his greatness? Because we disagree with his values? What in all hell have we put in its place! Little or nothing. We have left a void to be filled by chance, only we restrict even chance from entering the field by holding on to whatever structures we choose to maintain. We are destroying ourselves from without, for the sake of illusions which we know little or nothing about. We are held captive by the stagnancy of our past experience and dare not risk present experience.
In our lowness, we would rather hide the achievements of humankind from view rather than admit to the void existing within ourselves. We try in vain to elevate our own shallow stature by withholding elevating knowledge from others. We would rather cut-off our own life-lines rather than face the emptiness within. In such a way, our schools become places where the goal is to subjugate rather than elevate; places where students are taken only as far as their teachers can understand or withstand; where anything less than oneself is permitted and anything more abhorred. In such an environment, nature is not merely restricted–she is tormented. But nature is never stopped by the buffers we put in place. She springs back on us with a vengeance equal to the crimes committed! Our children grow up to haunt us. They become nature’s mirror to remind us of what we have done.
How much more can we withstand? What further evidence is needed to understand the errors of our ways? What is preventing us from righting these situations? Why do we continue to cling to the errors of our ways? Why continue to withhold and deny what we know to be the case?–what we experience to be the case over and over again! What have we become that we are so entrapped within ourselves? What is life doing to us and why? Which comes down to asking: Just who is in control?–who is responsible?
This question is a nuisance. It is always interfering with us. Not only is it perplexing–it holds us hostage! We something which we need to settle once and for all, even if our answers turn out to be insufficient. Even insufficiency can provide a basis for consequent actions and belief. So be it!
The first fact to lay down is that nature is larger and superior to ourselves inasmuch as we can see our origins in her rather than the other way around, and can see our dependency or sustenance coming from her rather than from ourselves. Furthermore, we understand by nature something which always is beyond our understanding.
Second, knowledge is most certain the closer it is to the present and is least certain the further removed it is from the present. As Emerson put it, life is like a continuous wave; it moves, but the molecules of water making it up are always changing. Thus, its identity remains the same even while it undergoes countless changes. In like manner, we are able to identify things in the world even though they are never the same things,–which is to say that life is a flowing continuum which is carrying us with it. As such, our viewpoints or perspectives regarding it, although of relative permanence for a brief time, must in turn change with it. And because we are always within the continuum, we can only see just so far backwards and just so far forwards. This imposes strong limitations on our ability to uncover past knowledge or to know what lies ahead of us. It is a hindrance which we continually struggle to overcome. But what is too easily overlooked is the fact that it is the present moment which becomes both inheritance as well as a prognosticator of future events. At the same time as its parameters impose limitations upon us–they also enable us to KNOW! It is here, and not in some imagined past which can never be sufficiently reconstructed, that we need to concentrate our efforts. Only to do so is to risk hurting our ego’s which for us, may be more important than truth itself.
The question now becomes: Can we be nurtured and borne by nature and still be in control of ourselves? Can we oppose the very thing we are a part of, or is the opposition we experience not really stemming from ourselves? I think that the answer to this question can come from just a moment of honest reflection. Just take a moment to recall the usual way your decisions come about. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts, that your “intentions” derive from some physical sensation felt within you, from something perceived in your immediate environment, or from some spontaneous image or intuition which suddenly presents itself to you. Admit it! When, if ever, can you credit yourself with making a choice? After calculated thought, deliberation, research, discussion, etc.? Admittedly, these seem like good examples of personal control, but look closer. Break these so-called activities down into their constituent parts. Where did the idea to do research on this or that subject come from? What led to the next step, and next, and next! Or were your “intentions”, “purposes”, “desires”, “motives”, etc. more descriptions after the fact than before it. Admit it! While “self-crediting” words such as these abound in our language, we know instinctively that something is amiss. Nevertheless, we still feel a reluctance to do anything about it. And why should we? After all, it’s not as though nature were about to complain. Since it can’t hurt, why not take credit for our intuitions, insights and ideas however they may come to us!
This view of ourselves at the pinnacle of nature, with “personal experience” held to be supreme, has been a prevalent notion fostered through the ages. Experience becomes the major focal point because this is all we are. While nature is undoubtedly stronger and more powerful than we, still, we are more important because we are the reason for nature! However else this sleight of hand is performed, the end result is always the same–humankind is supreme. To be sure, we were helped to this view through religion, but religion is no longer required to maintain it. We’ve got hold of a good thing, we think, and we are not about to let go of it.
But at what cost to ourselves? To maintain this preposterous view of ourselves, we have had to inflate our true significance (namely, the “peep hole” which determines the parameters of experience) way out of proportion. To simultaneously take from nature and deny that anything is taken, is to beg confusion. This “passive” view of nature is backfiring on us because it is a lie, and the lie is once again based upon a limited view of what constitutes life. And, yes, you can guess where the “standard” comes from? We think that the fruit of the acorn (which is the oak tree) is its fulfillment, and therefore more important. Are we not nature’s fulfillment? Well, we seem to want to stack the cards this way; but, in truth, we can’t say. We may be everything and may be nothing!
“But if we are in nature’s throes, then everything we do is really her doing, and not our own!–her confusion and not ours!”
This brings us back to experience. If nature works us through experience stemming from without and well as from within, and she is in active control of the situation rather than a passive entity, then everything must be as it should be. Thus, we are back to ground zero inasmuch as we now have to allow that there is such a thing as personal choice or abandon responsibility altogether! In addition, nature must come very much alive inasmuch as she is seen to be in opposition with herself, or, at least, that opposition exists within herself–opposing elements, as it were.
To be sure, there are opposing elements everywhere surrounding us as well as within us. There are no certain boundaries by which we can locate where one source of conflict begins and where one ends. We distinguish elements in relation with one another, but understand the relationships to be somewhat arbitrary. We note relative perspectives and viewpoints while also recognizing that these have been “carved” out of experience. We recognize the ways in which structures determine outcomes or various type consequences while not understanding how or why. We understand that we are first and foremost passive receivers of experience, but haven’t a clue as to what results from the same, where such experiences are heading, or what can be done about the same. We see the results of exaggerated behavior or abnormal behaviors and can’t begin to place them into an “appropriate” context of life. We see purpose in nature and we see absurdity. We find that we are always at a loss, a disadvantage, for understanding life. And when we look to understanding itself, to its constituent components, we find that we arrive back at the beginning of our quest.
The only thing certain is that certainty is unapproachable–that nature is not understandable–that we are limited even as we progress by our limitations–that we are always becoming something new–that each moment seems to make the world anew–that we are in the throes of fate–that we have no choice but to flow with what is given us–that, perhaps, whatever is possible for us to do within our channeled parameters, is alright–that the insanity, strife, anguish and suffering felt throughout nature has its place–that positive can derive from negatives and vice-versa–that we can’t understand whether or not we are progressing or regressing–that we can’t understand whether suffering is a good or bad–whether evil and good may not be meaningless terms to nature, of no significance–that humans may only be the measure of all things to themselves, and nothing of consequence to the universe–or that because the universe is unfathomable to ourselves, we will strive to overcome it and ourselves in the process.
So here we find ourselves with an inflated consciousness filled with a sense of identity, continuity, and a whole storehouse of former experiences which can be called into consciousness at a moments notice. We locate ourselves here–not in the outer world someplace, but here within the space we occupy. We recognize dreams, images, memories, etc., which are sometimes are called up by their associations to things experienced, and sometimes simply of their own accord it seems. But these too, we feel are located within us rather than without. Most believe in a physiological, psychological, or religious view as a source of such information. In the latter case, God is either within us or working through us much as nature does. To others, God and nature and ourselves included are all one and the same thing. On the surface, it appears that all of these views suffer the same limitations as knowledge and experience, but in reality, what comes to each of us through experience is only known by us. To impose “collective” concepts and notions on individual experience is to limit nature in a way which does not seem appropriate. If the middle ground of experience is to respond to natural events without opposition, and its outer parameters the result of an extended consciousness, it behooves us to explore just how far this extension has proceeded, and at what cost, if any, to ourselves.
It would seem that our futures may very well rest with our ability or inability to come to grips with consciousness. We are beginning to understand how it can be a major source of confusion as it comes into conflict with other kinds of experience and also the conceptual knowledge we bring to it. If restrictions are deemed necessary in order to make room for other forms of experience and perspectives, it may be through new conceptual constructs that allows it.
Third, all experience springs from this “peep hole” on life, either by the direct experience of sensation, or by means of various apparatuses extending the same. Thus, experience is in principal, unlimited.