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Chapter Three |
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 Calmness
is a blue wash that surges before me to the horizon. I have come home to
the ocean, from which all creatures ultimately spring. The salt-laden breeze
invigorates me as I stroll barefoot upon the sea-rimming sand, gazing out
over the fluid vastness, thrilling to the inexplicable sense of soul-felt
familiarity which the ocean instills.
This is the fateful meeting. I have known so all along. One may receive instruction from the soaring mountain or the wending river and remain unchanged in one's essence. But the mighty sea, ancient source and tender of all planetary life, will allow no such aloofness. My coming here was inevitable, I think to myself. As my eyes sweep up from the cobalt surface to the mist-swollen clouds above, I ponder the workings of the great, globe-spanning, terrestrial hydrologic cycle. Employing diverse powers, this metamorphic waterwheel raises vapors from the ocean, gathers them into clouds, wrings out raindrops over the planet. Pursuing age-old tasks of collection and disbursement, it urges fallen rain into rivers, which it conducts through blossoming lands to accrue in reservoir oceans. I have lived such a fluid progression. Like a raindrop come to earth, I poised upon the crown of the towering mountain, then sought the swirling press of the tumbling river. Now I trudge the shore of a silver-splashed ocean as silicon microspheres crunch beneath my feet and mantle the sea in a collar of gleaming purity. Above the liquid surface, circling gulls cry sharp mewings into the windy hand that sustains their flight, while below them, long, sparkling swells roll shoreward. Here is the fullness of what I glimpsed through the eyes of my other immense advisors. From here all things emanate: the noctilucent clouds pondered from the mountain, the evolving procession of life considered from the river, all rising from here, assuming diverse forms. This plumbless progenitor of life completely encompasses its myriad creatures, radiated bits of life who perceive their vast parent as environment. As provider. As source. Silvery fins cleave its buoyancy-giving depths, which support countless smooth bodies engaged in a fluid matrix of maneuverings and travelings. Nutrients drift everywhere. In the sea depths, wind disappears. Storm vanishes. Only the nurturing remains. Ocean, I know where you are taking me. You move my heart in a way more real than words. Your speechless eloquence transports my soul to the depths of the universal ocean of being. This limitless oneness that my seeking heart encounters on the peaceful beach presses upon my awareness with an intensity, not of violence, but of absoluteness of being. Inspired by the heaving blue sea before me, I am contacting the true reality of my being. And I learn about unity. Unity is the ultimate of being. A unified consciousness is a mind. A unified organism is a person. A unified creation is a--but why put a word to it? It is more of a person than a person, more of a being than a being. It is what we reflect in our individualities and also in our collectiveness. Am I touching God? Yes. I am experiencing the ground of my being, the presence of the Infinite: the limitless, beginningless reality from which all things come and in which all things consist. 2. The Two Keys to Eternity |
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I
suppose I knew all along somewhere, below the swirling surface of my consciousness,
that the search for values would lead to the realm of universal unity.
But in my case, it required the high perspective of the mountain and the
event streaming of the river to lead me to it. I have always had difficulty
in relating to an impersonal universal unity. Now I perceive that absolute
unity is, by definition, absolute personality--plus.
In the presence of this spaceless, timeless unity, even the word, God, seems demeaning. This source of all beings, this one absolute being, towers above word-names formed by human lips. Now that I perceive the object of my search, how do I consummate my quest? How do I unify with the absolute unity? To do this would be to associate my very being with the ultimate of values. The absolute of timelessness. The supreme of meanings. In the intensity of being that I am encountering, I see clearly that to establish and maintain a relationship with the Infinite is the purpose for which I was created. What ritual on my part shall seal the accord? What deed or word shall set my feet on the path of endlessly true choice? Where is the key to this door of infinite unity? I shall look to the ocean for answers. It has brought me this far and will not abandon me. In my imagination, I travel to the inmost depths of the sea. From all sides press the forces of fluid containment. Ceaseless currents course past me, seeking mysterious destinations. Temperature gradients ripple up and down the thermal scale, prickling my senses. Everywhere, in this heaped liquidity, marine commerce bustles, as beings great and tiny swarm, forage, hunt. The mightiest of them, the blue whale, drifts in majesty, straining gushing water through baleen to obtain nourishment in the form of one of the smallest, the ubiquitous krill. Huge cycles drift across the waterborne populace. Periods of light and dark punctuate the flow of existence. Warm follows cold and returns to warm, and calm stirs to turbulence and recedes once again to calm, as circling passages grip the watery world in irresistible sway. Each denizen gives to the sea as well, with the same tenacious honesty with which it expects that the sea gives to it. This reliability in giving is the biologic precursor of sincerity. The shrimp, a multi-segmented crustacean, keeps reliable habits; the sea may consistently draw upon it to feed the wandering sea bass or the hunting grouper. The equally reliable shark labors unremittingly, removing waste from the ocean's alleyways. I, too, must give life to sincerity and trust, not only embedded in my biological function, but also blooming in the rarified heights of intellectuality and spirituality. These are necessary foundations for the relationship that I now seek with the Infinite. 3. The One Most Worthy |
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The
sea spreads all ways in vastness. Uncapturable in its wholeness, still
it is unequivocally one. This mirrors the truth that the Infinite
is one; if it were not so, no relationship with infinity would hold
meaning. But I have seen, in the depths of my soul, that the Infinite is
the maximation of unity: a person.
Until this moment, my ideas of divinity have been haloed in the mist, perhaps, of too many competing models born in too many minds, in too many ages of humankind's history. A sense of remoteness and sophistication seems inevitably to crystallize around any attempted description of one's insight. The simplicity and immediateness of the reality, like the sun in the blue sky, are left behind. It is like the million starbursts of life swimming interminably throughout the ocean depths. One may describe them, but the soul of the reality remains in the ocean. It does not transmit. Thus I perceive, for the first time, the intimacy and reality of my relationship with the Infinite: that of a child and a parent. It is so uncomplicated. Infinity has produced me. I am literally a child of the universe. Crafted by an unseen, loving hand, today I walk the earth in this body. Think with this mind. Tomorrow I shall slip from these vestments in cosmic nakedness, wrapped only in the character I have built, and speed, like a dawning thought, through the starry interregnum of his creation to the galaxy, world, body, mind and life that the Father-Infinite has ordained for me. Knowing his love for me, I shall go gladly, giving all of myself sincerely and trustingly. How else can one transmute from one phase of being to another, except to leave behind all clinging to the vanished past and to limited, personal ambition? Unity with the Supreme Person, I perceive, is not submergence of identity. It is association with divinity. Exaltation of being. Uplifting of purpose and value. My part is to trust, his to fulfill. Realizing this, I understand for the first time the quiet peace with which Chuang Tzu must have confided, twenty-three hundred years ago: If He takes me apart And makes a rooster Of my left shoulder, I shall announce the dawn. If He makes a crossbow Of my right shoulder, I shall procure roast duck. If my buttocks turn into wheels And if my spirit is a horse, I shall hitch myself up and ride around In my own wagon! In my search for values, I have come upon the value of values and the source of all value. To think of incorporating into my life values that articulate with the values of the Infinite is breathtaking. Meaning upon meaning would buttress my being and relevance imbue my undertakings--relevance, because my undertakings would ultimately be God's undertakings, though they be but the tiniest threads trailing from the cables of his purpose. As these thoughts cross my mind, I remember a tale I read long ago. The abbot of a Tibetan monastery had reached an age where he had decided that he must turn over the reins of spiritual leadership to someone younger. Therefore he interviewed each of the monks in his monastery, asking each, in turn, the question, "What is the meaning of life?" Each priest, when polled, produced a personal and elaborate theory for the abbot. Still the old monk continued his search, for none had yet proven himself equal to the task of spiritual leadership. Having interviewed all of the monks in his monastery, the abbot then queried the servants, finally calling a certain kitchen helper into his private quarters. "What is the meaning of life?" he asked the servant. Without a word, the kitchen helper knelt down and removed one of his sandals. Rising, he placed the sandal on his head and, smiling, walked from the room. The abbot chased after him down the hall, calling excitedly: "You rascal! All these years here, and you never made yourself known to me." The abbot subsequently turned over the leadership of the monastery to the kitchen helper. This always seemed obscure to me. But now I suddenly see. A sandal is designed to hold a foot. The sandal on the kitchen helper's head held an infinite foot, beneath which the man was voluntarily and totally subservient. No ritual is necessary, I see now, to seal the relationship, only my heartfelt decision to uphold my part. He is always carrying out his part. Have I not known this always, in one form or another? 4. Trust Transcended |
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Gazing
down the beach and back through time, I see a different beach. The year
is 1968, and the social restlessness and adjustment that periodically grip
our democracy were in bloom. It was the year of the flower child, of the
distrust of institutions, of yearnings for the materialization of the invisible
unity behind all things.
Though respectful of those youthful outpourings, even then I sought growth in my own way, individually and privately. So it was that I walked the shore of a deserted beach that day under a subtropical sun, alert for the lesson that nature would bring. A small, dark object moved near my feet. A newly hatched sea turtle, still wet from the egg. Rapidly it slid across the sand. Under the urging of drives fashioned at the dawn of life, it sought union with the sea, even as I now do with a greater ocean. Tiny flippers, textured with delicate, olive-brown beadings, stroked the hot sand rhythmically in swimming motions as it scooted along in a series of jerks. Though it did not know it, danger threatened. The cool wetness that the animal sought lay not before it--but behind. The hatchling's urgent race pointed up a sandy slope to a highway and the terrible wheels of passing automobiles. Beyond lay parched sand and dry weeds--no ocean anywhere. I did not wish to interfere. The journey of discovery was an important part of the turtle's birth. But I picked the gently rocking infant up with two fingers, unnoticed by it in its intense pursuit, and walked into the waves. The tiny flippers swam through the air as we went. Beneath the surface where I stood in two feet of water, coral outcroppings lay visible--perils against which the surging undertow could smash a vulnerable body. For a moment I hesitated, but then released the turtle below the surface, out of reach of the frenzied waves. I did not know if the little turtle could breach the barrier between the world of land and sea, could breast the powerful undertow and sharp coral to reach calmer depths. Even if it could, another danger remained. Will it swim out to sea--or back to shore? I wondered. I could not protect it, could not shield it from the flowing violence. That would deny it the destiny that sang in every curve of its streamlined body. The sea-baby's flippers caught the surging fluid for the first time. Without pausing, it pushed forward into the wateriness which tossed it about even as it determinedly struggled in farther. Quickly it moved out to sea. I caught a few brief glimpses. It would disappear in the roiling liquid, then appear again momentarily, farther out. Then it was gone. Somewhere not far ahead of me, I knew, it was swimming with exhilarated strokes in ever-calmer, sheltering depths, to its future life. The innocent bravery and genetic wisdom of the baby sea turtle that I encountered on the beach that day have inspired me. Tiny beyond measure and fragile in comparison with the enormous, heaving sea, still it knew its place and without hesitation entrusted itself to the vastness of its great, watery mother. Through that encounter, I have been born into the fraternity of the sea turtle. With saurian wisdom I know that I can accept my destiny and, with supreme trust, embark into the great sea of the unknown. As I ride the currents of life into mysterious and threatening domains, I will take heart from the cheerful inspiration of the young sea turtle on the beach that day so many years ago. 5. Unity Comprehended |
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As
I ponder the relationship between the ocean and its creatures, considering
the total spontaneity with which each gives every shard of itself to the
others, I am beginning to learn about unity. One commonly thinks
of unity as a form of mutual interest, as in the unity of the members
of a club. But this is not a unity, not a cosmic reality, but a
taxonomic invention, a concept only, an idea of a type that
mathematicians call an intersection. No special bonds of reality
reach out and interconnect persons or things just because one decides in
one's mind that they share a common trait.
Mathematicians converse, in their essays on jointness and disjointness, about something called a union. Unlike an intersection, a union is a reality, one that comprises the combined totality of its members. I observe a union before me now, extending to the horizon like a rippling sculpture of textured glass. It is the ocean, a reality consisting of the union of countless drops of water, each of which, withholding nothing of itself from the joining, has vanished as a discrete individuality. A union is not quite right. It is not a unity, not the rare relationship whose whisperings stir at my intuition, just beyond the light of conscious recognition. It is something else. I sense this strongly. A unity must be a continuous joining of separate realities, and this cannot be so in a situation where the separate realities have, in their joining, ceased their individual existences. With this realization, I perceive in a flash the additional characteristic of a unity that is not found in a union. A unity, I perceive now, amid a bright thrill, is a special kind of union, in which the members, though offering up all that they are to their oneness, still retain their individuality. Members of a family ideally share all of themselves, yet retain their individuality--as also do persons unreservedly committed to a common spiritual cause. Synergistic power, it is therefore clear, flows into true unities, charging them with qualities not found separately in the members. A unity is a cosmic reality. It possesses its own objective existence. Like an organism, it harbors in its unseen depths a pool of attributes that emerge only as they are needed. Specific talents and resources of the members come to play on behalf of the unity only as the situation dictates. Like an organism, a unity thus adapts to its environment. Under the vast tutelage of the ocean, I am beginning to perceive that a unity is the highest of all relationships. Our world hardly recognizes unities. Much easier to perceive have been taxonomic categories, qualifications of being that define areas not of selflessness but of self-interest and uniformity. The primary impetus to mobilization throughout the history of the human species has always been self-seekingness through identification with others of a given category, whether it be race or social class, gender or age group. The awareness of this reality, the concept of a unity, sweeps through my consciousness like a Gregorian chant, trembles in musical mutters, profound whispers, flashes of insight, glows of promise. A unity stands revealed to my inner gaze in only its major outlines, but these, in their bright luminance and noble lines, are sufficient to reveal that it is a selfless giving that results in an exaltation of the unifying members. 6. The Infinite Parent |
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The
sea permeates all that inhabit it. Minerals that drift through its formless
substance infuse marine creatures with properties. Life-sustaining oxygen
bubbles from its hidden folds into its dwellers, upholding their essential
vitality. Even the forms of its swimmers, smooth and graceful, echo the
flowingness of the sea.
A visualization of the Infinite as an affectionate parent is short of the true relationship, I know. But the relationship that I now sense, with increasing discrimination, is at least this and inevitably more. Finite mind can never completely comprehend the more-than-finite. The concept of the Infinite as my parent vibrates with connotations. Among these intense bursts of meaning is the perception of the Infinite as my source. This does not designate simply an event that happened and is done, as in the human experience of biological conception. It encompasses conception, but more. As tiny fibers of Manila hemp uphold the thread that is their assemblage, and as they in their identity as the fibers and also as the thread uphold the higher-level twine, then the bulking strands, and finally the thick rope, so the Infinite in the form of nascent forces, energies, and materials upholds my being in and with his being at every instant. Each one of my cosmic qualities is upheld by, and in, a corresponding quality of the Infinite. But I exist and act as more than just a slavish piece of his cosmic body. This is so because among his qualities sparkles the jewelled treasure of free will. And uttering the mandate of my emancipation, his limitless, boundless, free will ordains and upholds my free will. I am a bird. On the high wind of noncausal being I soar--flying, dipping, turning, and traveling as I choose--with the wings of volition. Thus his hand sets me apart from the inert imprisonment of the valley, the plain, and even the towering prominences of the earth. My volition circumscribes my private realities and constitutes me an individuated reality. A person. 7. Destined for Eternity |
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The
waves scud over the trembling sea mass, whispering to me with watery lips.
With each swishing utterance they reiterate the amazing truth that has
emerged to my vision, that union with separateness is the sublime
secret of unity. This is the lesson of the ocean.
As the sea flows tranquilly through its deep turnings, wafting all things within it in harmonious, billowing cycles, so does unity manifest through its members in graceful actions of cooperation. Unity is invisible to the eye, but it is perceptible to the mind and spirit as an inexplicable harmony over, and between, its members. The ocean is harmony embodied, even amid the apparent ragings and contentions that play out within its encompassing bounds. Even the violence between predator and prey, when viewed with eyes attuned to age-old cycles, gives way to the higher perspective of the harmony of the species. The ecological balance scales take reverently from some individuals so that members of their cousin species, also, may survive the tides of time. In any contest, I must learn to look not only upon the contestants, but also to the higher level, where contenders are not adversaries, but partners. The immediate view, though important, is less significant than the higher framework. Its value, by comparison, is relative. I see, now, as I drift, in my imagination, through the sheltering, crystal-blue ocean depths, that all things join together in unity in one way or another. The manner in which each accomplishes this determines what each is. Like a sudden, shimmering gong summoning forth the voice-configured pattern of a mantra, my sense of the Infinite, enhanced by my ocean teacher, suddenly reveals to me that the olden seers were describing a true reality in their teachings about universal unity. With this understanding, I come into the knowledge of an incredible but incontrovertible fact: that it is written in the books of eternity that I shall unify with all things. And it is, I see, up to me how I shall do this. I can join the universal unity as a volitional being, as myself--or, alternately, depending upon my choosing, as my impersonal elements, my mass. If I should choose to remain aloof from the universe and its beings, pursuing solely the things of self, then my unity with all things would be a lower reality, consisting merely of the obedience of my body to the physical laws of the cosmos. But if I should choose unity, should subserviate myself to the creation and its creator, then, through this continuing action of volition, my mind and soul, while continuing to be individual realities, would also become one with the cosmos. I would become an agent of universality and infinity and a friend and child of God, as well as a server of all about me. This relationship, articulating with the values of the Infinite, would be eternal. 8. Divinity Perceived |
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For
the Infinite to unify with a finite creature is an unimaginable partnership
of being. But my ocean teacher tells me that this is true, that the Infinite
Person experiences volitional sentiency with a million personalities, walks
the earth with a billion feet, gazes up at the galaxies embedded in his
own being with a trillion creature eyes. Every one of my trials, joys,
and experiences, he shares with me, in all of their fullness.
It might seem that there are multiple unities inhabiting the corridors of being; and there are, relatively speaking. But as I gaze upon the all-encompassing ocean, with its speeding currents, dizzying vortices, and yawning depths, I recognize that all unities are members of larger unities. Ultimately, one unity cascades down from infinity like a giant waterfall, a substance of infinity that manifests in ever-more-derivative unities. This all-encompassing, ineffable unity, I recognize with sudden understanding, is what humankind refers to in hushed awe as divinity. With transcendent power it holds its ardent devotees fast and intimately. Perceiving this, I become aware that divinity--unity--inhabits an existential, changeless dimension which impinges upon our evolutionary realm of time and space as activator. Indweller. Immanence. It is the flame on the bush that crackles and burns but does not consume and is not consumed. The boundless ocean of unity is an ocean of energy, in reality the precursor of energy. 9. The Infinite Person |
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Now
I recognize that the vast overbeing of whom we are all a part, whose astronomic
visage I have glimpsed during my encounters with my montane and riverine
instructors, is not the Infinite. Like us, he is a being in the ocean of
life. Part god and part creature, he is the reflection of each to the other,
the summation of the finite, the encompassor of all of time and space.
This larger person--and we--are experiential expressions of the Father-Infinite,
who projects into and upholds many planes of being in his
immense creation but, being existential and boundless, is not of it.
The magnitude of the picture before me is stunning. It would be dismaying to discover the immensity of that which my finite mind can never truly understand, if I did not know of the Father's love for me. Though I cannot know all of the details about my infinite Father, I can know him qualitatively. His personality blazes in the God-knowing men and women through the ages who have revealed him through exemplifying him in their lives. Through them, we perceive him as through a lens. The greatest portrayal of the Infinite Person was given when he walked the earth as Jesus of Nazareth. Knowing the personality and spirit of Jesus as they were exhibited to the eyes of humankind, I come to know the personality of the Infinite. Thus I am assured in the warmth, character, love, and accessibility of the God of Infinity, assured that he values me as an individual, assured that he cherishes each of his children and has laid great plans for us. 10. Transformation |
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It
is peaceful here on the seashore, as twilight gently approaches. The sun's
topmost curve takes one last look over the rim of the world, as faint darkness
paints the sky. Contentment warms me. My long search, my intense quest,
is finished. I have learned, from the ocean, the final motivational lesson,
been presented with the ultimate value. Now, I know, I shall be able to
exercise choice based on true values.
It seems strange, in a way. Such a profound and far-reaching readjustment to my life. Attained so quietly. But only part of it has been attained, I suddenly realize; for as this thought plays through the reverie in my mind, awash with contentment, the ocean interrupts with one last communication. Its echoes grow quieter, but will, I know, never cease to be. For the nature of the communication is one of disquiet rather than quietude. The sea is alerting me to more work ahead, much more work, is informing me that, in the experiential sense, the quest is not finished, but only now just begun. For, my watery advisor tells me, a unity has three parts--is not just one featureless togetherness. All three phases exist simultaneously. At the first and lowest level are the members of the unity in their individual wholenesses, as they live and function without regard to the unity. This is the level that maintains the respective individual identities so necessary to the unity. The second level is the members as one: indivisible, indistinguishable. This level is existential in nature--not truly existential in terms of being beginningless and endless, but rather in terms of being non-evolutionary. This phase is the commitment to unity. It springs into full-blown being in an instant. It is qualitative--not quantitative. The commitment simply exists or does not. |
