The Search for Spiritual Security

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THE SEARCH FOR SPIRITUAL SECURITY

THE ONE, THE WHOLE, & WHOLENESS

Dane Rudhyar

The earliest Hindu philosophies probably were formulated as answers to basic questions posed by universal human experiences, the most fundamental of these being the experience of unceasing change. Various, indeed contrasting, answers arose, and in time they were codified into the six great Schools (or darshanas) of Indian philosophy. Yet a central psychological motive underlies the different worldviews presented by these schools: the search for what, psychologically speaking, it seems best to call inner security. Security here refers to the implicit belief in "something" that, because it underlies all changes, is changeless. To use a symbolic analogy, this something was felt and thought to be the absolutely solid and permanent "rock" on which the house of consciousness — and indeed the feeling of existence itself — had to rest.

Sri Aurobindo — the greatest mind and seer of modern India — stated the issue simply in his clear and impressive prologue to his translation of the main Upanishads:

To the phenomenal world around us stability and singleness seem at first to be utterly alien; nothing but passes and changes, nothing but has its counterparts, contrasts, harmonized and dissident parts; and all are perpetually shifting and rearranging their relative positions and affections. Yet if one thing is certain, it is that the sum of all this change and motion is absolutely stable, fixed and unvarying, that all this heterogenous multitude of animate and inanimate things are fundamentally homogeneous and one. Otherwise nothing could endure, nor could there be any certainty in existence. And this unity, stability, unvarying fixity which reason demands, and ordinary experience points to is being ascertained slowly but surely by the investigations of Science. We can no longer escape from the growing conviction that however the parts may change and shift and appear to perish, yet the sum and the whole remains unchanged, undiminished and imperishable; however multitudinous mutable and mutually irreconcilable forms and compounds may be, yet the grand substratum is one, simple and enduring.(1)

1. Sri Aurobindo, The Upanishads (Pondicherry: 1972), p. 1. Sri Aurobindo began his long life as one of the earliest and most uncompromising advocates of India's independence from the British empire. Jailed for his activities, then freed but still menaced after a famous trial, he left for Pondicherry (then a French colony), where he died in 1950. Profound spiritual experiences while in prison led him to forgo political for spiritual activity. After writing a great many remarkable books, he gathered around him a number of his disciples, and with the help of a French woman, Mother Mira, an ashram was organized. After 1927, Sri Aurobindo became a recluse almost completely, concentrating on "inner work." He also wrote an extraordinary epic poem, Savitri, and engaged in much correspondence with students all over the world.

       This passage is reprinted with the kind permission of Sri Aurobindo Trust.

These statements clearly establish the central position of the spiritual aspect of Indian philosophy, but they are remarkable for what they take for granted. The sentence beginning "Yet if one thing is certain" constitutes an assumption which cannot be proven or justified. Especially the statements that "the sum of all this change and motion is absolutely stable, fixed and unvarying," and that "reason demands" this basic unity, stability and unvarying fixity, are anything but evident. To say that without such a unity, stability and unvarying fixity "there could be [no] certainty in existence" begs the question: why should there be "certainty in existence"? The answer is obvious: man needs certainty in order to feel secure.

Sri Aurobindo, however, apparently did not envision such a psychological answer, nor did his predecessors in the Vedanta. Indian metaphysics and philosophy relied instead on the testimonies and discoveries of a long series of great yogis who claimed to have found a method for experiencing this absolute unity, stability, and changelessness as the ground of all existence, Brahman, "the One and Absolute. . .which alone is." Sri Aurobindo goes on to state that "if there is no reality but Brahman, the phenomenal Universe, which is obviously a manifestation of something permanent and eternal, must be a manifestation of Brahman and of nothing else."(2) Brahman manifests in different ways at each of three fundamental levels of being (or Universes). For man, Brahman manifests as the Supreme Self who is identical with the transcendent Self in all human beings, atman.

The Upanishads tell us that Brahman is not a blind universal Force working by its very nature mechanically, nor even an unconscious Cause of Force; He is conscious or rather is Himself Consciousness, cit, as well as sat [Being). . . the wider knowledge of the Universe attainable to Yoga actually does reveal such a Universal Intelligence everywhere at work. Brahman, then, is Consciousness, and this once conceded, it follows that He must be in His transcendent reality Absolute Consciousness. His Consciousness is from itself and of itself like His existence, because there is nothing separate and other than Him; not only so but it does not consist in the knowledge of one part of Himself by another, or of His parts by His whole, since His transcendental existence is one and simple, without parts. His consciousness therefore does not proceed by the same laws as our consciousness, does not proceed by differentiating subject from object, knower from known, but simply is, by its own right of pure and unqualified existence, eternally and illimitably, in a way impure and qualified existences cannot conceive.(3)

2. op. cit., p. 10.

3. op. cit., pp. 18f.

Such metaphysical conceptions, which Aurobindo develops eloquently and logically, are based, I repeat, on premises believed to be incontrovertible: "reason demands" them; without them there would be no "certainty in existence"; and experiences of the great Yogis (and of Aurobindo himself) prove them absolutely true. But my question is: Can one speak of truth if one does not ask, for whom? The Hindu philosopher realizes that there are basic levels of existence and consciousness, that what seems separate at one level may be seen united at another. The Vedanta states that "identity is a fact in the reality of things, the world of phenomena."(4) Human consciousness, however, is said to be able to evolve from the realm of appearances to that of reality. The problem is: Why should one give to this kind of reality an absolutely positive meaning? Must we give to any experience a character of absolute validity or accuracy? Moreover, what actually is meant by Consciousness and especially Absolute Consciousness?

4. op. cit., p. II.

I do not question in any way the validity of the great yogis' experiences; any intense and illuminating experience is "true" for the experiencer. But as the experiencer attempts to formulate it, even to his own mind, the experience must be interpreted. The most sublime philosophical statement, even before it is organized into a system of concepts, has to use images, symbols, and words provided by a particular culture. Even if the experiencer can physically or spiritually induce a similar experience in the consciousness of another being, should one speak of an identical experience? For in each transmission something of the original experience seems to undergo a subtle (or crude) transformation.

Interpretation seems to be unavoidable in interhuman relationships. Sri Aurobindo's words (page 26) tell the story well. Indeed, human beings may need some kind of "certainty," and "reason" may demand the belief in some postulates; but, granted this need is universal, it can be answered in different ways in different epochs, in different regions of the planet, and thus by different cultures. Any culture's claim to absolute superiority because it enables its participants to reach what it calls absolute Truth and Reality is a form of collective pride. Whether it be Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, or Euro-American, it is still the same cultural pride. It is also an answer to the same basic human insecurity, the same need for something solid and absolutely reliable because unaffected by change and existential conditions.

The belief in a Supreme One is a religious, psychic, or "spiritual" way of meeting this all-human need. The monotheistic religions of the Near East, and before them in a more philosophical way the Bhagavad Gita, have met this need in a specific manner which today still inspires and often controls the feeling-responses and even the everyday lives of a vast number of human beings. The "one and only" God creates the world of existence for some inscrutable purpose. God is infinite, eternal, all-powerful, all-loving, omnipresent; human beings and all other creatures are finite, mortal, impermanent. At or just before a human birth, God creates a soul that, in some mysterious manner, reflects His Image. The soul is sent to earth to learn lessons and to be tested, and after death it either returns "home" to its Father-in-Heaven or, if unsuccessful, has to experience a temporary purgatory or an everlasting hell. God is concerned with the human soul and intervenes to give it a chance to reach heaven by sending His Son as a redeemer or (in some religions) by revealing something of His divine nature through a succession of prophets or divine manifestations. Nevertheless, the gulf between Creator and creatures, between the Supreme One and the myriad of entities existing in the world, is essentially unbridgeable.

This theistic world-picture offers a degree of inner security, because as the sayings go, "God is in His Heaven, all is well with the world," and "With God all things are possible." The divine, all-loving Father may be expected to help His children if they are in dire trouble, provided they have total faith in Him. All modes of existence derive from Him; and while existence is unceasing change and nothing is permanent, human beings can find vicarious strength through unshakeable belief in His changelessness. His omnipotence and omnipresence and incomprehensible but sublime Love. Their personhood, so often racked by conflicts, can find in God's supreme Person an ideal to work toward, and in God's Revelation, a set of principles by which to live. For the true believer, divine Presence is a certainty. Many experience it in a mysterious "dialogue" between their feeble "I" and the sublime 'Thou" of a God who is always present and reliable, who never disappoints those who implicitly and totally accept Him. Through this acceptance they can be blessed by Him or (in the cases of great mystics) can even experience a temporary union with Him.

The dualism inherent in the Christian formulation of the relationship between God and man can never be resolved into unity. God is in the world, but at no time can He be said to be the world, even in its state of unity. The world can be envisioned as "the Whole" because it was created by "the One" God, somewhat as a novel constitutes a whole created by one author. But "the Whole" is not "the One"; the idea of their identity is strongly condemned by Christianity as the pantheistic fallacy; the novel is not the author. God may create other universes and is neither less infinite, powerful, and loving nor diminished by these creations, to which He is essentially external. Similarly, the novelist is external to his or her novel, even if it is autobiographical; more novels may follow, or several may be written during the same period.

In the most traditional Hindu worldview, Brahman has a manifested and a nonmanifested aspect. In the former He encompasses the whole universe, and the Hindu mind readily accepts the concept of pantheism: the One differentiates into the Many, and in their togetherness the Many constitute a Whole; at the close of the infinitely varied manifestation of the One, the Whole is recondensed into the One. This world-scenario (from the One to the Many and back to the One) may, however, be stated differently. Instead of considering the universe the quasi-infinite self-multiplication of the One, it may be considered a Play (lila) which Ishvara performs, somewhat as a dramatist would conceive a puppet play and perform all its roles after which He returns to his serene state of world-transcending unity — only to start the process again later on. Even if the One seemingly becomes the Many in a relatively real universe rather than in a Play, this One does not cease to remain an undisturbable unity which never loses Its changeless identity. The ineffable Reality of an Absolute remains beyond manifestation, neither diminished nor increased by Its periodical manifestations. This Absolute neither "is" or "is not"; It is both in a supremely transcendent, timeless state;

Here the human mind is confronted by a paradox, which is inherent in the ambiguous meanings of the words unity and one. Unity is primarily defined in Webster's New International Dictionary (Second Edition) as "the state of being one," and also as "the quality or fact of constituting a whole. . .a totality of related parts, a complex systematic whole; a thing that seems complete in itself." It also is said to refer to "a uniting or being united in one body, unification" and the result of this unification. Another of its many meanings is "the absence of diversity," but a current and indeed today fashionable phrase or motto is "unity in diversity." Thus the word unity can refer not only to the state of being one but also to the process of becoming united and the quality required for the fulfillment of the process in a union. Above all, unity is confused with the term whole, which the dictionary defines as "the entire thing without loss of parts, without any impairment of its integrity; a totality; a complete organization of parts or elements." Only at the end of the entry for unity, under the heading Mathematics, is the term unity defined as "any definite quantity or aggregate of quantity or magnitude taken as one; numeral one."

The basic and original meaning of the word one does indeed refer to the first numeral, number one. But number one is not merely the first of an infinite series of numbers; all numbers are produced by the addition of one to itself. Therefore, in an abstract sense, one can be considered the principle of numeration. It generates all numbers, which can be considered differentiated aspects of it. But if one generates all numbers, such a process is obviously a kind of self-multiplication. The tendency inherent in number one to generate all numbers, seemingly ad infinitum, clearly shows that unity and multiplicity are both inherent in number one. Thus we are faced again with a paradox, the realization that one is a "whole." Nevertheless, the human mind cannot conceive of absolute "one-ness," because any conception by a mind implies that one already has a second, indeed a multiplicity of potential seconds. Therefore the metaphysician has to infer two levels of oneness — an absolute level at which one is not even a principle of numeration, and a level at which, as such a principle, it contains all numbers in potentiality.

The human mind cannot fathom or know such a state, yet a realization of it can be experienced by a human being whose consciousness has become like an absolutely quiescent lake or mirror. Such a quiescence implies a momentary separation of what in the human being operates as the Many and what (either relatively speaking or in absolute identification) "is" the One, atman. There must be separation, yet also that which is able to perceive both separate terms in relation to each other and to give form to that relation: this is what I call the "mind of wholeness."

The Mystical Experience Of "The One"

The vision of the mystic — the "mystical experience" of the unitive state and of the way in which it flows into the world of manifestation and multiplicity — has been formulated beautifully and vividly, to the extent to which an interpretation of it is possible, by the neo-Platonist metaphysician, Plotinus, who lived in Alexandria between 205 and 270 A.D. His vision is expressed clearly by Lex Hixon in his book Coming Home:

In Plotinus, the One is not an abstraction, nor an empty or static Absolute. The One is that Power, utterly simple yet rich in potentiality, that generates Being and the various planes of Being — not physically or psychically, but more as a mathematical principle generates a series of numbers. Unlike a mathematical formula, however, the One is a living principle and the infinite series of beings It entails are radiantly alive... The One is not a philosophical category but a spiritual reality that Plotinus directly realized as the intrinsic nature of all beings and all planes of Being. . . We can call it "One" if we remember that it is not something that possesses the attribute of unity. . .it is through the illumined intellect that we touch the One, which is the principle of all wholeness. The One overflows spontaneously and eternally as several planes or levels of Being, . . .the Realm of Intellectual Vision, the Realm of Soul. . .the Realm of life. . .

The One, although not characterized by substance or by existence, exposes boundless power, not physical or psychic power but the metaphysical fruitfulness of ever-expanding implications or horizons. Writes Plotinus: The One must be considered infinite not by unlimited extensions of size or number but by the unboundedness of Its power. The cosmic process through which energy and eventually matter are created is the smallest fiber of the One's generative power. But this power has no object, no direction. As Plotinus explains: The One, perfect because It seeks nothing, needs nothing, overflows, as it were, and its superabundance makes something, as it were, other than Itself, which is Being. This overflow of the One is intrinsically nothing but the One. Nor is the One in any way aware of having overflowed and generated what we call Being. Plotinus, however, does not develop the Indian notion of maya, the sense that manifest Being is somehow illusory. He may consider that there is illusion involved in the separation of beings in the space-time realm, which is the intersection of Being and nonbeing, but the primal realms of Being, where archetypal structures interpenetrate spacelessly and timelessly, are for Plotinus completely real. These realms are as real as the One, for they are the One. These realms of Being, which are the One as It eternally overflows, can never be withdrawn, because the One is superabundance of Power. Although the One thus inevitably emanates as Being, It cannot be defined in terms of Being, nor can It be limited to Being. Nonetheless, beings are not separate from the One, which is their own beinghood. As Plotinus remarks: . . .it is by the One that all beings are beings.(5)

5. Lex Hixon, Coming Home (Doubleday & Co., New York, 1978) pp.ll Off.

I have tried to make a less paradoxical, more concretely imaginable picture of reality according to the philosophy of monism — a monism which has to include the plurality of a myriad of beings if it is to make any sense — by thinking of an immense globe of undefinable energy-substance. The core of this globe is absolutely homogeneous and unchanging, yet it is endowed with the mysterious capacity to exteriorize itself without these exteriorizations ever leaving the globe. A center of consciousness going from the core of the globe to its circumference would detect different levels of progressive differentiation of the energy-substance and an increasing multiplicity of activities or operations. It would be aware of unceasing changes. These could be said to manifest in cyclic series. Thus time would be implied. However, the ideal observer could also realize that an activity in one direction is always (instantaneously or in cyclic time) polarized and balanced by another activity in the opposite direction. Thus the wholeness of the globe would never be essentially altered. In this sense, change and the activities producing change could be considered illusions. They would be illusory and without real meaning as apprehended by the center of the globe, yet they would be real to any section in the vicinity of the circumference, where indeed tumultuous motion would take place — yet each motion would be exactly balanced by one of opposite polarity. From the point of view of a consciousness operating in a vortex of motion near the circumference, the core of the globe could be imagined as being either absolutely solid or absolutely void; it would make no difference as long as the state of being at the center, whatever it is, never changes. From this central core, power could be imagined to radiate in all directions as a kind of "superabundance" of being, but (as Plotinus said) "this overflow of the One is intrinsically nothing but the One," because the whole globe is of one energy-substance. Nothing can occur that is extraneous to this globe — to this one and only Reality.

According to this picture, a human being would be a microcosm of the whole globe but would operate at a level not too distant from the circumference. He or she would operate where the energy-substance of the globe is agitated, thus in a state of change. Yet because any change experienced there would be balanced by another of opposite polarity, nothing would actually happen in terms of the unchanging wholeness of the globe. This compensation of every action by its polar opposite would be the metaphysical meaning of karma. Once a human being becomes aware of this, he would theoretically cease to be attached to the results of his or her actions — as Krishna demands of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.

Because the level of the globe of Reality at which human beings operate is constantly in motion, a human being cannot avoid moving, that is, being active. But if his or her consciousness is attuned to the state of being of the core of the globe, that consciousness "knows" that nothing "really" happens. Astrophysicists now believe that a particle of antimatter corresponds to every particle of matter; if the two meet they annihilate each other, releasing an energy which balances the energy required for their prior existence as separate yet complementary entities. In this context the ideas expressed above should not be startling.

It should be clear, however, that what is usually called the universe refers only to the external layers of the globe of Reality. We cannot perceive the globe's core; yet (the mystic says) if through meditation and intense concentration a human consciousness totally withdraws its attention from the objective and external activities of its existence and focuses its energy upon its own center (the essential "I"-subject), this consciousness can resonate to the changelessness and undisturbable peace of the core of Reality. In a sense, the resonance is always there at the center of the individualized consciousness, but the noise of the activities at the surface of human nature makes it impossible to experience the mysterious "silence" of changeless being.

Such a picture or model of Reality is monistic because it does not involve two metaphysical realities in irreducible conflict, one termed good and light, the other termed evil and dark. The one globe of Reality includes all conceivable modes of being. It also includes what to us seems to be non-being, since we associate being with activity and therefore with change, time, and conflict. The globe is the Whole, even though we may identify it with its central core and think of it as the One. Nevertheless, a fundamental metaphysical problem remains and plagues any monistic philosophy: Why is there motion, change, and a multiplicity of beings if in reality all is changelessly "the One?" Why did the one God "desire" to create a world of multiplicity? Why does the One which is (as Plotinus said) "perfect because it seeks nothing, needs nothing, overflow, as it were, and its superabundance make something, as it were, other than Itself?"

The only possible answer is that there are inscrutable, ineffable, and alogical mysteries that the human mind cannot fathom or explain. I believe, however, that as insufficient and (as Nietzsche said) "human, all too human" as any explanation may be, still we can formulate one that as an interpretation meets human needs, which today urgently call for a significant, transformative answer. The purpose of this book is to offer such an interpretation. No absolute "truth" is claimed for it, only validity in terms of a kind of mentality which is emerging from both Western and Asian traditions. This new mentality is oriented toward the building of a consistent and all-inclusive foundation for a new civilization, which itself would be all-inclusive, not exclusive as all past cultures have been.

Wholeness

This book, Rhythm of Wholeness, is founded upon the realization that Wholeness is the ultimate idea we can have of the meaning of being. To be is to be a whole unfolding its inherent potentialities through cycles of changes (time) and in a state of unceasing relatedness to other wholes (space). Wholeness is the being-ness of all wholes. Nothing more can be said of it, except that it is and that it is all-inclusive.

A great yogi or mystic in meditation or devotional ecstasy may totally dismiss anything objective from his or her-mind and sever subjective consciousness from everything having an objective character. Such a person may reach a state of extreme subjectivity in which mental processes lose all objective character and all that remains is the realization of "Self" — that is, of "being I" in an unconditioned sense, free from all that is involved in personhood. Nevertheless, reaching such a state does not destroy the world of objective existence to which the yogi or mystic, sooner or later (and in most cases very soon), has to return. He or she may call the experience timeless, but the earth keeps rotating on its axis and revolving around the sun. Motion has not ceased. Even if the yogi's heart stops beating, the atoms of his body still whirl at fantastic speed. A human center of consciousness may reach an utterly disobjectivized experience of Oneness, but while this experience may introduce a new and transformative element or quality into the whole being of the experiencer, the fact remains that he or she is a whole on a planet that is a still more inclusive whole. The wholeness of the more inclusive whole encompasses this experience of extreme subjectivity as well as the more "natural" objective experiences referred to a physical body, its sensations, organic feelings, and the fulfillment of its biological, psychic, and sociocultural needs.

Wholeness includes the subjective and the objective, the "I" and the "Other" — all others, the entire universe. Wholeness encompasses all forms of objective existence revealed by our senses, measured by our sense organs, and interpreted by our minds; and it also contains the consciousness which is experiencing itself as subjective being.

On the one hand, the human organism registers a multiplicity of impacts, sensations, and feelings produced by and producing ever altering situations; on the other, a human being is conscious of himself as a single, unchanging subject experiencing all these changes. Situations and experiences change, but that which experiences — the subject, "I" — apparently retains a persistent character that is not essentially altered or erased by impacts and experiences. A clear contrast between the one permanent experiencer and the many entities it experiences would have to be made, were it not that at least some of these many entities also act as and claim to be experiencers in the same way as "I." Thus there are many experiencing subjects as well as many objects being experienced; every subject is also an object to another subject, and every "one" is part of the category of "many" for other "ones."

In Wholeness, the one and the many are unceasingly, eternally interrelated, and they are interrelated in wholes. The wholeness of a human whole includes both the state of "subjecthood" and that of "objecthood." A whole is neither "one" nor "many," it is both; each whole is more or less "one," more or less "many." But various types of wholes differ from one another according to the proportion of "oneness" and "manyness" within their constitutions.

We come therefore to the realization that Wholeness includes the One and the Many, indeed that it is their dynamic interrelationship. Philosophically speaking, Wholeness includes and integrates two fundamental principles, the principle of Unity and the principle of Multiplicity. And as change is the primary and most essential fact of human experience, the interrelationship of Unity and Multiplicity is a dynamic relationship that ceaselessly changes. In terms of consciousness, it is the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity. In terms of universal motion and change, the relationship between Unity and Multiplicity is structured and essentially cyclic. The dynamic interrelationship between them is contained within fields of activity, wholes — wholes of time (cycles) and wholes of space (units or cosmoi). The principle of Unity gives to motion a rhythmic or cyclic character. It also provides defining boundaries for the fields of activity, large or small, microcosms or macrocosms, in which the principle of Multiplicity produces ever more differentiation and expansion.

Because of the principle of Multiplicity, the world of existence is experienced in terms of a multitude of entities; because of the principle of Unity, these entities are wholes, integrating parts (or rather subwholes) differentiated by the principle of Multiplicity. At the human level of being, the principle of Unity operates in the organized whole, the person, as a subjective sense of identity, of being "I." But because the principle of Multiplicity can never be totally inoperative — dominant and for an instant all-powerful as the realization of unity may be — there ultimately can be no one-and-only absolute subject, "the One." Similarly, because the principle of Unity can never be totally inoperative, neither can there be absolute multiplicity. If no principle of Unity were in operation, there could be no unity of being, only an undifferentiated, infinite extension of nameless substance. No experiencing subjects would exist, because without defining boundaries there could be no even minimally integrated wholes, no entities, no experiences because no experiencers.

All wholes are and must be finite. The very fact that an entity is a whole implies that it has limiting factors or boundaries, as abstract or supersensible as these may be. But Wholeness is not finite, because it applies to all wholes and is not limited to any particular whole or condition of being. Yet neither is Wholeness infinite, because the concept of infinity (to which human beings usually attach a powerful emotional charge) is only one pole of an intellectual dualism whose other pole is finitude. For a human mind moved by the uncertainties of existence, it is much easier to postulate infinity — thus to negate finitude — than to understand what is implied in existence as a finite whole and in Wholeness as the undefinable beingness of all wholes. For Wholeness is no-thing, and no-one, because it encompasses all things and all ones, be they predominantly objective or predominantly subjective. Yet without Wholeness, nothing or no one could exist.

In this sense, the idea of Wholeness is not essentially different from the true Hindu concept of Brahman. However, a basic difference does arise when the Indian philosopher speaks on the one hand of the manifestation of Brahman as Ishvara, the Lord, He, or Ish, and on the other of the non-manifestation of Brahman. In the philosophy of Wholeness I am presenting. Wholeness can never "nonmanifest" — Wholeness can never "not be." There is only being, but being oscillates, as it were, between two poles. Unity and Multiplicity, subjectivity and objectivity. This oscillation is cyclic, and at no time is non-being possible. There are only phases and conditions in which being is predominantly subjective, and others in which it is predominantly objective. The latter constitute what we, who are operating in them, call existence or the world.

When the strictly monistic philosopher or the monotheistic theologian tries to persuade us that the part of our total nature which is under the sway of the principle of Multiplicity is an illusion of no real validity, he actually contributes to a tragically dualistic situation. For all that in human nature is subject to the still powerful trend toward self-multiplication, analysis, reductionism, and materialism inevitably fights back. Unqualified monism thus leads to a state of psychological conflict; it defeats the purpose of integration and forces the One more apart than ever from the Many.

At the present stage of the evolution of human consciousness, we must accept the fact that the principle of Multiplicity is still a dominant factor in human nature. However unified our sense of being — our awareness of being "I" — may be, it still has to deal with and emerge from a multiplicity of organic and cellular voices, each seeking its own satisfaction. The unity of human consciousness is precious; to make it tyrannical is to call for "revolution" — neurosis or even total breakdown. We should try to imagine unity's dominance without forcing the issue unnecessarily. In so doing we are wise if we do not claim to understand fully a condition of being in which Unity is lord and master, for such a condition transcends the "human condition" as it actually is today. Nevertheless, a sufficiently developed abstract mind can interpret such a condition in terms of a change in the balance of power between the principle of Unity and the principle of Multiplicity, even though the mind would not be able to experience the "feel" of being in these states.

Unfortunately, these states usually are spoken of in negative terms — nonbeing, nonmanifestation, nonactivity, timeless, unconditioned. Such negations, together with the concept of nothingness, merely reflect the bondage of past and present human consciousness to the state of objective existence and reveal its incapacity of conceiving positively of predominantly subjective being in the same way it considers positive the various aspects of predominantly objective existence.(6) It indicates only the limit beyond which the human mind encounters its incapacity to imagine alternatives to its inevitably limited experience of reality. This incapacity should be understood rather than glorified under the convenient mask of negative statements.

6. Henri Bergson pointed out long ago that the concept of nothingness (le Neant in French) is a pseudo-idea, a mere word. See his Creative Evolution (Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1911), Chapter 4, "The Idea of 'Nothing'."

Thus in contrast to the state of existence, I shall call the state of predominantly subjective being inistence. But inistence is not a negation of being. In Wholeness there can be no essential or absolute negation, for in Wholeness all possible states of being — that is, of activity and consciousness — are implied. The philosophy of Wholeness presented in this book is a total affirmation of being: Wholeness always is.

Wholeness is in every whole, but it also is in what are inadequately called the "parts" of a whole. The term part is confusing because parts are also wholes. The concept of part actually refers only to the character of the relationship between a narrower field of Wholeness (a less inclusive or "lesser" whole) and a wider field (a more inclusive or "greater" whole) within which it is contained and functionally operating. Accurately speaking, there are no parts, only wholes — a hierarchy of wholes — that is, of organized fields of activity and consciousness having a limited span of existence. (This span might refer to trillions of years or fractions of a second or to fields encompassing spaces measurable by millions of light years.) A smaller whole is always encompassed by a larger, which contains other lesser wholes, and the lesser whole also encompasses still smaller ones. The hierarchy is one of containment, not (as in the military or government) one of rank or command.

The question raised by the concept of a hierarchical series of wholes is: Can one conceive of an end to the series? Is there a greatest whole of which there would be no greater? This is an intellectual and abstract problem because living experience presents to human consciousness, only levels of wholeness — spheres and cycles of being which are either to some degree higher (more inclusive) or lower (less inclusive) than the ones in which human beings function. The degree of magnitude or inclusiveness changes as the human capacity for perceiving and experiencing reality increases. Significantly, the size of a human body stands about midway between the largest and smallest wholes human beings can perceive (metagalaxies and subatomic particles). As these perceptions increase in the direction of the greater almost simultaneously they extend in the same degree in the direction of the smaller. Only the intellectual mind ever has to deal with the abstract possibility of "greatest" or "smallest," neither of which has a realistic meaning.

Reality is where one stands. Inevitably it is finite because human experience is finite. A superhuman being no doubt would live in a more inclusive reality; but when human beings experience any organized system of activity and consciousness — that is, any whole of being — the nature and scope of the experienced whole inevitably reflects the particular character and limitations of the human state. All wholes project their limitations upon their experience and understanding of the greater whole of which they are component parts. Thus the human capacity for perceiving and experiencing other wholes is not only limited but essentially affected by the difference of level between the experiencer and the experienced. Both knowledge and truth are conditioned by the character of the knower and relative to his or her position at the moment.

Metaphysicians and mystics speak of knowledge through "identification" of the knower with the known. Instead of identity, they should speak of resonance. The resonator vibrating when a particular tone sounds does not "know" the nature and principle of organization of the emitter of the tone to which it resonates. Sympathetic resonance deals with activity (rhythmic motion), not with consciousness. The consciousness of the resonating whole remains its own when it is set into vibration. If the resonating whole is a human mind, it can make only intellectual deductions concerning the nature of what it resonates to.

Wholeness in any whole can resonate to the wholeness in any other whole. But the form (the mental consciousness) this resonance assumes in the resonator's mind is essentially a projection of what is already inherent in that mind — which is always a finite mind, since all wholes are finite if they are to be called wholes. But Wholeness is undefinable. It is "transfinite" in the sense that it can only "be" through wholes — any and all kinds of wholes operating at any and all levels of wholeness. Thus in the philosophy this book presents, there is no room for absolute truth or for the absolute value of knowledge. Knowledge has value only to the extent that it meets the need of the person or society to which it is given and by which it can be assimilated, at least gradually.(7)

7. For a discussion of two basic types of knowledge and the relativity of truth, see my book The Planetarization of Consciousness (Aurora Books, New York, 1970), Part Three, Chapter 8. Much that is relevant to these issues also is implied if not directly stated in my book Culture, Crisis and Creativity (Quest Books, The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Illinois, 1977).

These problems refer to epistemology; while they cannot be discussed extensively here, neither can they be ignored. They will be discussed again at the close of this book, after Parts Two and Three provide a frame of reference to which the traditional philosophical mentality of the Euro-American intelligentsia is not accustomed — a frame of reference founded upon the dynamic aspect of Wholeness, which I call the "cycle of being." After that, these problems should be seen in a new light.

*

In the second section of this chapter, I attempted to present a symbolic picture of reality which to some extent would solve the conundrum involved in all monistic metaphysics — the paradox of the concept of a timeless, changeless "One" formulated by human beings for whom change and ever-present motion is the basic and primary experience. In this picture, reality has many levels; at the center, all that has existed, is existing, and will exist "is" in a changeless, motionless state of being. The more distant any level of reality is from the central core, the more complex the forms taken by the movement of becoming — and the greater the confusion and "ignorance" of what is in this process of becoming, that is, of "the Many." The pure monist philosopher and the mystic may accept the concept of the cycle — the "wheel" of existence, samsara — but they apply it only to the levels of becoming; for only there are they willing to accept the reality of change, though this change would appear to be illusion to the changeless consciousness of "the One." Thus the changeless stance of "the One" somehow — ineffably and alogically — is both essentially different from the cyclic movement of universal becoming and mysteriously pervading it. The two are absolutely different and cannot be related in any way, because "the One" is beyond any possibility or need for relation; otherwise It would not be "absolute."

From the point of view of the mind of a truly individualized person, this is really an impossible situation. How can everything be changelessly "now" and yet the individual human being have "free will" — that is, the ability to decide between alternative futures? This makes no sense whatsoever. All any philosopher ever has been able to say is that "somehow" this is what is. Thus it is a situation in which the individual, aware of his or her essential selfhood and the problems it brings, must admit logical defeat: Credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd).

Such a picture can bring a sense of spiritual security only through an attitude of total denial. It is not the kind of denial of which the Bhagavad Gita speaks when Krishna asks of his disciple Arjuna that the latter, while acting, leave to him the results of action, thus any concern with them. In his aspect as the Supreme Being, Krishna already has determined the action. There is action; all Krishna asks of the human being is not to be concerned with its results, but simply to perform the works required by his fundamental nature — that is, what he is born for, his dharma.

In the philosophy presented in this book the essential factor in a human life is the performance of dharma. The picture of being that the philosophy outlines is meant to bring to the performer: (1) a vast, cosmic, totally ordered picture of the meaning of the dharma of Man, archetypally considered; and (2) a full grasp of the cyclic interactions of all the constituents of an individual human whole (detailed in Part Three) in relation to humanity-as-a-whole, the planet earth, and by implication the whole cycle of our universe as we are able to perceive it.

This picture does not negate anything. It accepts everything — in its proper place and according to its essential function. It is an unceasing affirmation of being. Even when the concept of the "inevitability of failure" is introduced, it is presented in an ultimately affirmative and positive way, for it is shown to be the polarizing factor of "divine Compassion" — the essential nature of spirit, which itself is simply an aspect of the omnipresent polarity of being. Because this aspect is focused in a particular way during the phase of the universal cycle of being which witnesses the development of archetypal Man, the crucial but inherently magnificent characteristic of what "being human" means is presented in a dramatic, and, even more important, a ritualistic manner. Such a presentation may not appeal to weak minds as providing the "spiritual security" for which they yearn; but this philosophy of wholeness is not meant to appeal to weakness. A total affirmation of being under any and all conditions needs an epic quality: Man wrestles with change. His glory is that he can be defeated temporarily, for this alone makes victory possible.

Victory, human style, is never achieved unless the full meaning and implications of what one has fought for are understood. The whole situation has to be understood. In that understanding, Wholeness is revealed. From Wholeness there is no escape. All concepts of absolutes are escapes. Immobility is an escape from change. Now — the "eternal Now" of popularized mysticism — is an escape from the performance of dharma, for dharma can be illumined only by the revelation of meaning and purpose. Wholeness is dynamic. It is always in the making and remaking; motion is unceasing. Yet Wholeness is also the cyclicity of motion, and the Movement of Wholeness is the cycle of being. The one spiritual injunction, however formulated, is always, "Walk on!"

       Rhythm of Wholeness