Everything is 1
Thoughts and theories on meditation and how it reminds us of the nature of existence.
Everything is 1. In an ultimate sense. We differentiate because it’s useful for a relative understanding of reality, yet, life itself cannot be contained by man made designations of relative truths. When we separate life and its parts through dualistic thought, we forget these parts still add up to the oneness of life. Therefore, we become trapped in a relative reality, inviting the constant suffering that results from ignoring the ultimate reality. Ultimately, everything is connected and part of an inseparable whole. It's okay to separate things to aid understanding, but we must take care to put them back together again. Lest we forget the ultimate truth, and accept ignorance that traps us in a world of illusion, giving us no choice but to be delusional in response.
Meditation helps in many ways, one of which being a reminder of this oneness within ourselves. It helps us embody the universal oneness on a personal level, by addressing and correcting the dualism based, mistaken notions that mind and body are separate. This allows us to experience the peace of a connected mind and body through regulation of our nervous system.
The science behind meditation is unassailable. The many benefits are proven by any number of machines and measurements. Yet , its benefits have been known and observable for thousands of years. The power and peace resulting from the mind ceasing to compete with itself have been clearly observed for thousands of years. The mind ceases competition with the body, realizing the body simply as an extension of mind. The irony of only believing something when “proven” by a machine invented 20 years ago, when known to be true for thousands of years, is a microcosm of how disconnected modern humans and our societies are from our natural human intelligence.
Modern humans wait on human creations to tell them what is true, when the human itself, the universe's creation, has been gifted this ability intuitively. This part of human nature secured our survival over millennia. This ignorant attempt to play god, to create ultimate reality rather than accept it, is the foundation of humanity’s downfall. A refusal to recognize powers higher than us.
Even religion is an example of this refusal. Especially those placing human desires, attitudes, and faces on higher powers impossible for humans to define. We could never begin to understand such an awesome power, so we fabricated stories in an attempt to control the narrative of something we did not create. Frustrated at our own ignorance, we refused to accept the ultimate truth that humans cannot control everything. We humans cannot force everything into the boxes/prisons that give us comfort and alleviate our fear of not knowing. Humanity would rather trample on freedom by telling stories that misshape reality and concoct false understandings, building illusory worlds out of a desperation for control. A concept which for so long has been confused with power.
Meditation, and the one pointedness of mind it cultivates and strengthens, brings us closer to the stream of oneness that carries us to the ocean of understanding. The ocean encompasses the oneness of life. Impossibly deep, yet extremely shallow. Peaceful, still, and calm, yet raging and dangerous. Your understanding of the ocean must include knowledge of both, otherwise it will be incomplete and you will remain ignorant as to its true nature. We cannot enter into understanding unless we renounce the dualistic mindset we have been indoctrinated by.
Meditation is about connection. Within and without. But to enter the ocean and eliminate dualism in life, you must eliminate dualism within yourself. Before you sustainably connect with life, you must be connected within. I use sustainable because our human experience will allow us glimpses of oneness, even when not cultivating this mindset within, because oneness is the ultimate truth and the ultimate reality. We will inevitably come into contact with it at some point, somehow.
But due to our lack of training, we cannot remain in the stream. We cannot sustain this connection. We only dip our toes in it, some confusing the stream for the ocean, because it's the only water of truth they’ve been exposed to. We either don’t consider reaching the ocean because it is a foreign concept, one we are ignorant of, or we don’t believe it exists, so far away it sounds. Or we believe it exists, but we fear leaving the shore. That seemingly solid ground provided by humanity’s concocted relative reality. They use this shallow understanding of life as a foundation to build monuments worshiping themselves. They build totem poles, mansions, and hierarchies, desperate to become equal with god.
But the earth near the stream is not solid. It will eventually fall into the stream. If you fall in, you are more likely to drown due to panic. Yet, if you remain calm, you’ll realize you can swim and be carried to the ocean. Some are forced into a deeper understanding so they can survive this life. Others do their best to return to the shore and its illusion of safety. Then they move further inland, further from the ultimate understanding available in the ocean.
The irony is, if you remain calm upon entering the stream, it will carry you forward. By working with nature , we get much further than any attempt to control it, saving our vital energy in the process. We can use our vital energy to partner with nature, not being solely carried by the stream, but moving with its current. Then our speed toward the ocean of understanding can increase. This effort to understand deeply moves us further in our journey. The beauty is, when we’re tired, we can rest and still be carried forward by the natural current. We must rest when necessary or even those who enter the stream of their own free will can drown on the journey. A respect of nature is required, our human nature included.
The feelings resulting from entering the stream on purpose will differ from those occurring when you fall in . Yet we’d be surprised at the ratio of those who chose to enter the stream and those forced in by life. But both parties end up in the same place because they choose to move forward at some point.
Ben Bover “Evolution hasn’t adequately prepared us to easily understand things like quantum mechanics, curved space time, or even the age of the earth, let alone that of the universe… metaphor helps , but it’s really just a crutch, emphasizing more often than not the limits of our imagination when confronted with the overwhelming vastness of the cosmos.”
Does this not describe the human creation of religion? A metaphor used as a crutch for humans to appear in control of the cosmos? Or an extension of a human desire to control the cosmos?