LIFE: The Large and Small of It

[Guest guest]

Part 1/4

 

The Large and the Small of IT

 

Human Life, what is it, why is it, where does it come from?

Think of a blue ball with a bit of mold growing here and there on its

surface. The mold is like all organic life on land. If you magnify it you can

see it

is mostly green stuff that is plant life, and brown stuff that is desert,

and some white stuff that is frozen water called snow. Now if you super

magnify it, you can see living things, worms, ants, cockroaches, and in the blue

part, the ocean, you can see multitudes of sea life, fish, snail, mussels and

whales. All this living stuff is really really tiny, compared to the size of

the

ball, really really tiny.

Among the living forms is us, humans, tiny living spores,

micro-organisms, and out of all of these, if you super, super magnify it, there

you are.

Now, think of this blue ball floating in a huge athletic stadium. This

is like the earth, floating in a huge apparently empty space. That’s it folks,

a small speck floating in an infinitely large space. Now as you hold that

image, think about your human life. Can you hold both images Simultaneously?

Or

do you have to switch back and forth from one to the other. Now ask, why is

the mold growing on the blue ball. What is nurturing it, what does it feed

on? Obviously the mold on the blue ball is feeding and growing on the surface

of the blue ball itself.

In our case, there’s also the sun and the earth together, and out of

their relationship, life arises. Exactly how that happened, we do not know.

There’

s the ocean and the land, the atmosphere, the mountains, the forests, the

plains and deserts, and then, a small part is life, living things. This life

also

includes insects, worms, bugs, flies, ants and many others and us. Life in

the sea, life on the land. Out of all this life on the land, is us, playing a

very small part.

We are only recently developed. 100,000 years out of 2.5 billion. If

evolution theory is correct, before that we were less than human, more like the

other animals, indistinguishable from a rat, a lemur or a squirrel, when the

dinosaurs ran around eating the plants and each other.

Our ancestry goes all the way back to the beginning of life, without a

break, a total continuum, a pulse, a current of living forms that goes all the

way back, even into the chemicals and atoms of the primordial and beyond.

 

Part 2/4

 

That’s from the outside. From the inside it’s " where is my shirt, I’m

late to work, and let’s go to a movie. How do you feel as a body? How do you

experience yourself as a mind, as a person, as an ego, a self, and an

individual?

From the outside, totally insignificant; from the inside, " I love you, I’ve

got a headache, and who am I?

It’s all very strange - Think about it. Feel it. Obviously we have

grown from the earth and sun interacting. The earth and sun arise out of

space,

which we think is empty, but is not empty. Space is Infinite Potential,

Invisible, Nonmaterial and Void.

Infinite Space gives rise to all of this world, this life and it

continues to exist. Empty space embraces all that exists as substance and form.

It

is the original mother and original father and still IS. It exists and

maintains, and continually supports our life. What we call physical space, or

outer

space is not physical at all, it envelopes the physical and the physical resides

within it and as an expression of it. Infinite Space is not physical space.

We can think about physical space, but not about Infinite Space because there

is no thinking in it. It just IS, and is the same essence that is realized

in meditation practice as Samahdi, or Enlightenment.

Infinite Space connects with meditation practice as a human realization,

an understanding of one’s own self nature, the real existent Self or true

identity. This essence in which the planets exist, and our personal realization

of our true Self are the same, they intersect, and they are identical. How do

I know this? A combination of reason and intuition brought together through

meditation.

This space, this emptiness, always exists in all things. We know that

atoms are mostly empty space which really isn’t empty as I said. Space is

Infinite Potential. Out of Infinite Potential all things arise.

All substance comes forth. The paradox is that no matter what comes out of

it, it doesn’t decrease in its potential. It stays infinite.

That’s impossible you say. No it’s not. But, there’s no way to verify

this. It’s intuition, my intuition; that you and everything is infinite

potential

or empty space, or nothingness with a small amount of substance in it, and

that combination of substance, material, and emptiness is what we are, or, if

you want, take the substance out of it, and Infinite Space is what we are.

 

Part 3/4

 

This is one path to the idea and experience that our essential nature is

void, nothing, or emptiness, but it is not the only one. Some, a few, have

felt this, experienced it. They have experience from the inside; that there is

no there, there, or no here, here, no other, and that time does not exist. In

that sense, nothingness is the base, the root, of all manifestation, and from

that point of view, as Infinite Potential, the whole experiential realm seems

to be a dream, or unreal. It was the arising of first speech and then writing

that created the division between what is real and what we think, between

thinking and essence or Being.

But when you are identified with ordinary life, the dream is real, and

has to be dealt with, and related to, as real. Some people, a few, can

experience both realms, the emptiness and the ordinary. Which realm is more

real

usually depends on where you are in the spectrum. If you are imbedded in the

Ordinary, the Infinite is unreal. If you are imbedded in the Infinite, everyday

life seems unreal.

There are certain extremes or possibilities. A person, a being, can be

anywhere in-between Infinite Potential and the Material/Sensual realms. Or they

may flip back and forth, or experience both at once.

In India when a person body/person gets imbedded or identifies with

Infinite Potential, the Universal, they are called a Mast. Maybe it means like

a

mast of a ship, a pole, but I think it’s an Indian word. Maybe it’s their

version of " spaced-out. " Certain people, yogis, monks, etc. go around and feed

them, otherwise, they’d die. They just got stuck in it, or they choose to stay

in the expanded state because returning to everyday life is painfully

difficult or too coarse to bear. Others go halfway, come back and think or say

they

went all the way into the infinite space, but actually did not, and return from

their inward journey. It’s hard to say who did what and how far into it they

went.

So what of it? Is it useful to discover the Infinity of Life? Nothing

much is gained or changed except that you can say it is there or rather here ,

but nothing much is changed. Except that you know who you are in a deep sense

rather than in a shallow sense, and you become peaceful, helpful and kind,

when most others are just the opposite,

 

4/4

 

When Marco Polo went to China and returned, no one hardly believed him. They

said he made it all up and that it was fiction. So how did Marco Polo’s

trip to China and his return change anything? It certainly changed Marco Polo,

and I suppose as other adventurers also found China and returned, eventually the

existence of China became

accepted and trade and relationships developed. Perhaps when you discover

something, or Nothing, most people you know will doubt and refuse to accept

your story. Eventually in Ordinary life, perhaps they will learn to accept it

as

others make the journey and confirm your experience. Of course accepting it

and Being It are not the same.

Perhaps you will open a meditation school, where you have to do nothing

except talk to people and sweep the floor. Or perhaps you’ll go back to

school

and get a degree in advanced physics, or park cars.

Does it matter?

To a degree, your context defines your possibilities. If you are 60

years old, and never went to school, your work will fit your education or lack

of

it. Enlightenment doesn’t produce a creative genius. It doesn’t produce

anything, One discovers that Life just IS. As it always IS. And there’s

nothing

to it, or in it, actually.

 

 

 

 

Larry Epston

www.epston.com