The following served as the basis of talks and seminars about three decades ago. It is expresses some of my thinking at the time, which would later evolve into my book “All Creation, Loved into Existence”.
In any description of the person, reference, either explicit or implicit, is made to an underlying view of reality. The person exists, not in isolation, but as a participant within the world about him; he is both a part of and someone who relates to the world. An understanding of the person as a physical being, portrays him as having a particular material structure which is organized in such a way as to interact with other matter, considered external to him, and to thereby produce the observed behaviour. The set of atoms that constitutes the particular person is the figure which is set against the background of the remainder of the physical universe of which he is a part and with which he shares common underlying phenomena. In speaking about the person, one presents a world view; for the world view to make complete sense, it must, in some manner, address the three basic questions we posed ourselves. What is existence? How and why is it that we are here, destined to live out lives with so much misery? Is this the way it must be or is there any way out of this predicament?
Being as the Ground of the Psychophysiological Universe.
The view presented here is that all is centred on Being. Both the physical and the psychological are manifestations of existence; the universe emerges from, remains centred on, and is directed back to Being. This can be illustrated by examining the experience of this moment. If we try to understand this very paper as a physical phenomenon, we can get an increasing sense that there is more to the world than what initially meets the eye. There is a seemingly fixed structure that makes this paper what it is. Subjecting it to a variety of chemicals and other physical interactions something of the hidden pattern is revealed. This structure is something the paper shares with us; we too constitute a certain amount of space and react to other aspects of the physical world about us. Not only does this paper exists in itself but it is also a part of the observer’s experiential world. This experiential world of the observer includes a system of meanings; this flux of sensory data means a paper and these lines of black on white are vehicles carrying meaning through space and time. I am at this moment communicating with you. We are in essence trying to arrive at some coherent understanding of the mystery that is life. The assertion made in this paper is that this entire phenomenon and that which underlies it emerges from the void as a creative process whose primary manifestation is the fact of existence. In less abstract terms, the tiny dot that skims the page, that now is the formless awareness of thought and feeling, this tiny bit of awareness that captures this word and then jumps to sound and touch, idea and emotion, is, rather than being merely an observer or peripheral event, the actual source of this entire experience, and not only of this moment but all moments. The beingness that contains this experience is the beingness that gives rise to all experience; it is the hub that, at the same time, encompasses the entire universe. Creation emerges from and exists because of It; we as sentient beings are expressions of this Being seeking to discover the foundations of our existence.
The physical universe exists in itself but also is involved in a process whereby the universe comes to know itself. The physical makes possible the expression of the psychological, though it does not create it. Mental phenomena involve complex physical events which are governed by a set of principles of a different order than those that are described by the physical sciences. Though it is possible, theoretically, to explain an interpersonal relationship in terms of what is transpiring physically, the interaction does not make full sense unless we consider what psychological events are taking place; there is a meaning beyond that of cellular, molecular, atomic and subatomic transformations. Psychological events, though a part of the person (who is also a physical being), are phenomena involving meaning. As a system of meaning the person is a totality in which all aspects point to that totality and are understandable in terms of it. This totality is ultimately rooted in the Totality that is the universe of which he is an expression and in which he participates. The system of meaning can be understood as something which transcends the individual, gives rise to him, defines him and is inseparable from him; the situation seems analogous to that of matter, where a physical event is the physical laws which describe and give rise to it while being of a higher order than the specific occurrence. The person is a part of creation which is itself a psychophysiological system and which, through the person, seeks its Creator, the Source of its Being.
Religion, Metaphysics and Being.
Religion and metaphysics are modes of organizing and communicating the wisdom of a culture in order to facilitate the individual’s and his society’s spiritual quest. Religion can be defined as a system of rites, faith, and worship based on expressions within the historical order, of eternal truths. In Christianity, for example, the relationship between finite man and the infinite is viewed as the loving self-sacrificing abandonment of God into his creation, symbolically represented in the historical fact of Christ. In Him, we see the Absolute manifested in the transient, the Author writing Himself into and living out His script. With this event we are given an explanation as to how and why we exist and a model and means by which we can re-establish a relationship with the transcendent.
Religion tends to be relational in character, taking a dualistic view of the universe; it sees God and man as separate but united in love. One can also, on the other hand, speak of man’s inner-most Self as being the Absolute. There are two approaches that one can take in the attempt to understand the “Ground of Being”, which is who we really are while at the same time is the completely other God. In religion the Absolute is known symbolically; the images of God act as a bridge leading one’s awareness, through acts of love, beyond the prison of the ego. One may seek the same end intellectually, through negations and progressive doubt which leads to a state of “No-Thingness”, the Void. The Lankavatra is a Zen Buddhist text which, in a hundred-and-six statements is said to negate anything that can possibly be asserted about reality. Though considered truth, it undermines all that one might hold as true. As the short-comings of thought and knowledge come to light, the indisputable thinker, the knower is revealed.
Depending on the approach, the fundamental problem is seen as either sin or self-ignorance. Man has alienated himself from God; he has chosen a lesser, ego-centric good which leads him away from that which truly makes him happy and hence inevitably brings suffering. Because any attempt to escape this position is a non-acceptance of God’s will, it is motivated by selfishness leading one further astray. It is therefore impossible for person to lift himself up to God and salvation can be attained only through grace. The acceptance of one’s condition, the submission and resignation to God’s will is thus an act of grace which comes only from God. It paradoxically comes as a result of a failure of one’s prideful attempts to conquer one’s pride and the recognition of one’s sinfulness. We can also describe the person as being unaware of his true nature which is the unbounded and timeless universal Self. The Self has identified itself with its creation so completely that the ego’s plight is its plight. Healing is, in this case, viewed as Self-realization. The “I” is like a dream, an illusion which can be reorganized but cannot Self-awaken. This “I” is a living structure which undulates like a sine wave through degrees of wakefulness and sleep in time. While it cycles, the eternal Self remains ever conscious, ever-present, complete.
Whether it is religious symbolism or metaphysical ideas that one is contemplating, their true value lies in their ability to direct one to the Absolute. Focussing on the dogma alone, if it does not strike something in our depths, we have only a belief system, something particular to an individual within a social system. To contemplate religious teachings without using them as a bridge to God, a way of deepening one’s relationship to Him, is to miss the point. Religion then is merely a divisive force causing friction between groups. The other’s ideas will appear a collection of strange ideas and rituals, reeking of ignorance which like body odour, may be acceptable to that person but offensive to others. Similarly, a metaphysics that is not used to open the flower of consciousness, is just another structure of ideas which can be argued until the end of time. The various religions and metaphysics are really different approaches and ways of relating to the same absolute truth, which, once realized, makes them all understandable.
Eternal Being.
It is the view of man as rooted in the eternal that distinguishes religion and metaphysics from secular approaches to the question of man’s nature. In the latter, the eternal qualities that may be ascribed to elements of the person’s psychological make-up, like the unconscious or the Id, are relegated to a secondary position. The eternal in the person is viewed from the perspective of the rational ego which comes and goes, in and out of being. The experience of the eternal within the person is understood, according to this perspective, as being a regressive return to a primitive and unorganized state which has not as yet adapted to and become aware of its participation with the flow of events. The actual situation, however, is such that the eternal remains as the source of who one is. While the person is a transient being who comes to an awareness of himself as a part of creation, he remains an expression of being which is eternal. Consciousness of one’s eternity does not imply any loss of self awareness or denial of what has been gleaned of one’s transient nature; quite the contrary, an appreciation of the eternal comes about when one paradoxically gives up the shackles of unconscious identification with the eternal; one comes to know God following the realization that one is completely a creature. To assert that the person is rooted in eternity is not to necessarily mean that he is to continue in perpetuity; rather it is a description of one’s essential nature as timeless. Though one might from time to time have a sense of the infinite, which will in effect be one of many experiences, it will, at the same time, remain one’s unchanging home.
Events occur in sequential order; they have a beginning and an end; there is cause and effect. In our imagination, beads of experience are strung on a chain of time which we can picture stretching from the dark unknown of the past into that of the future. This infinite collection of instants only symbolically describes the eternal which is, in fact found in every moment. Eternity has been called the ever-present Now. Born within a moment which was then “now”, one may grow up, thinking at different times, “Now I am ten.” “Now I am eighteen.” As I write this I am cognisant of doing so “now”, just as I am aware that at a point that is now in the future I will be reviewing it and thinking to myself “I am reading this now; I wrote this in the past.”. Someday I will think to myself, “Now I die.” If I try to catch this “now”, it eludes me; what is now, has changed in the next instant. What was, is “now” no longer. I find that though I cannot hold it, neither can I escape it. The past is gone; anything that exists does so “now”. The eternal underlies and is inseparable from the duality of what is and what is not. It underlies the past-present-future of this moment, of every moment, here and everywhere.
We conceive of our universe as being created with the Big Bang and rushing forward to some final dissolution. Creation in this sense, occurred long ago and we find ourselves far from our origin, our source. Another way to look at the history of our world is to imagine it to be like the rays emanating from the sun. History, like the shower of photons, is being added to from the present. Out of the present emerges the Big Bang; out of the present a barren world is covered in foliage and dinosaurs come into and go out of being. Out of the present, man evolves and out of the present each of these words follows the other. This is the moment of creation. We are seated in the Heart of the Godhead right here, right now.
As things come into being, so too they cease to be; creation and destruction, the alfa and the omega, all transpire within the context of the eternal which encompasses and lies within the largest and smallest of moments. It is the unchanging Ground of Being, beyond any limitation, boundless. It is the pure blue sky in which our human soul soars and plunges.
Being and Hinduism.
Brahma is the Hindu name given to the Totality, the infinite Reality. He is engaged in the process of taking points of view and as such is known as Atma, the Self. He is never born and never dies; He is changeless, beyond time, found in the heart of all things, smaller than the smallest atom and greater than the greatest spaces. Each point of view, each frame of reference, each individual self is called the Buddhi. Symbolically the Atma is a blazing pure white sun; each Buddhi, a ray from this central Self. The jivatma is one’s inner life as the object of knowledge: one’s feelings, dreams, hopes, and fears. It is what one knows; the consciousness which knows, is the Self, having restricted its viewpoint. When it is spoken of as knower or witness, it does not mean that the Self is separate from the known; there is nothing outside of Him. The Self or Atma is described as the absolute subject to emphasize that the “I” of the person is a creature, an object a mental structure.
“I”, “me”, “mine” are words that are tied to a vast complex collection of feelings images and perceptions organized through the miracle of memory and having physical, social, and psychological dimensions. There are numerous explanations describing how different aspects of paticular experiences of “I-in-the-world” develop. Whatever the intricacies, the end result is the same: an “I” emerges, having a sense of relative permanence and continuity. This sense of “I” need not be clear or cohesive within the individual; it may be in conflict within the world and/or within itself. It’s content may appear extraordinarily bizarre in certain instances. In all cases, all personalities can be thought of as masks covering the one true Self. Eastern and other mystical traditions see the entire universe as lying behind each individual experience, totally aware as a whole and at the same time remaining completely involved in each individual existence. The absolute Brahma remains omniscient but this omniscience does not enter into the individual ray or Buddhi. It cannot be comprehended by the intellect; nor can It form a part of one’s imaginings or ego. It comprehends; It is the comprehension, what is being comprehended, and that which is beyond comprehension.
Christianity and Being.
Turning to Christian cosmology, we see, at the centre, Jaweh, the “I am”, at the centre. Unknowable, omniscient, omnipotent, He is infinite; nothing is outside Him and He is in everything. Light of lights, He is ringed by countless choirs of angels who eternally emerge from and merge with the holy bliss, joyously praising the wonderous beauty, love, and self-sacrifice by which this sacred universe is created. Lucifer, the most beautiful of all creatures, bestowed with a free will, chooses himself over God. It is intolerable that Christ, and not he, sits at the right hand of the Father. He is the primal expression of pride, the basis of malice. Though created by God, he would have himself be worshipped, not as an expression of God, but in his own right. In order to establish his own kingdom, he must find someplace where God cannot be found. He therefore attempts an escape into what alone is his – his own free will. Since God is everywhere, the “Bringer of Light” must shun the truth and is therefore known as the father of lies. Leading a myriad of angels deeper and deeper into darkness, he establishes hell, a perpetual separation from eternal joy. Eve and Adam, eternal, dwelling in paradise choose to know good and evil and awaken to a world of life and death, a world in which they must toil and where new life comes only with pain. They were pure and open without self-consciousness but, separated from the cosmic will, become naked, objects which are seen and judged. Unable to return, to truly regress, man is reconciled with God, saved, fulfilled in the Vine of life: Christ. Love and self-sacrifice are His fruits and they provide the Way forward to eternal life. With the incarnate God, begotten through the union of the Father, the Word and the eternally virgin Mother of Being, the Totality enters creation as one among the many and in the act of surrendering itself to the Totality is One again. The person becomes one with God, through Christ, in the reenactment of God’s surrender to the finite.
Contemplation of this complex Christian metaphor can tell us much about the mysteries of Being, love and will, of the relationship between the finite and the eternal, between the person and God. Though the symbols differ from those of Eastern traditions, they can all be seen to point to the same truths. In Christ, as is with the Atma and Brahma of Hinduism, the eternal is described as surrendering its omniscience to the finite. The Totality of Being abandons itself to the multiplicity. Being, therefore, is One but becomes the many. It is through an act of love that the many are created and through it are reunited. There are paths that take the person to and from the Centre of Being. One makes one’s path through acts of will and thereby chooses to move closer or further from God.
Being, Will and Separation.
The universe exists as a whole but, in the person, Being is in a state of separation from the whole. My thoughts exist as do those of the reader; the feel of the chair beneath me is part of the conscious sphere which also includes these thoughts. This experiential whole does not include the thoughts and sensations of the reader. Though our two realities clearly exist and are part of a larger psychological and physical structure which makes communication possible, there seems to be no continuity in terms of actual consciousness. We are here confronted with the limits to our awareness, with the nonbeing that is necessary for our existence as individuals. Though we are part of a whole, we remain separate beings joined ultimately through our common ground in Being.
A realization of separation can evoke powerful emotions of loneliness. The experience is uncomfortable and one may desparately yearn for a return to unity. There may result intense needs to reach out to the other in order to fill the emptiness. Contact with others, however, rather than alleviating a sense of separation, can, in fact, compound it by making one’s existential position even clearer. Retreat into solitude may be sought in order to avoid the contact which only reinforces the loneliness. Paradoxically, it is through the recognition of one’s existential aloneness that one is fulfilled. The nonbeing is accepted as an essential part of oneself. With this reintegration, one abandons the attempt to avoid oneself as an unpleasant reality; one finally becomes oneself. Increasing his self awareness, the individual comes to understand his own particular situation and, in the process, comes to know the universal. Knowing oneself, one knows others. The person is a finite being who finds himself in an alienated condition and is able to transcend it through the very acceptance of this condition.
Whenever separation from that which is beloved, occurs, the person experiences want and need. We suffer the losses of those we love. Faced with such a situation, tries to maintain or reestablish the relationship. Even with death the initial response is usually one of denial- a way of maintaining the relationship in fantasy, it not being possible in reality. Where it is the will of the beloved that, running counter to one’s own, takes her away, one has, as options, manipulations of various kinds to assist in recovering the once idyllic state. At any point, acceptance of the other’s choice and its ramifications for oneself is the alternative to the begging, demanding, seduction, and violence to which one might resort. Though the underlying desired condition was one of love, the motivation in such cases is egotistical; the other is considered, not so much as another person, but rather as an object by means of which one is gratified. The love that made the now alienated relationship so wonderous ebbs and one is left again face to face with one’s solitude. Whether or not a temporary victory is won, ultimately pain is inescapable; those very feelings that one wished to avoid, are eventually thrust upon person, since they, in fact, represent the nonbeing which defines him.
Lucifer incorporates the world, the beloved into himself and is paradoxically driven into increasing separation in keeping with his self interest. Ultimately there remains a unity but each member’s will brings him closer or further from the whole. There is a quest for union but there are two opposing directions the will can take in any relationship. Lucifer represents action that seeks to incorporate that which would make one again whole. The glory that came in being one with God is now sought for himself now that he rejects God. Christ, on the other hand, symbolizes the act of surrender to the Totality; wholeness is accomplished through the death of finite consciousness and rebirth into a larger sphere of Being. Freud supposed that there exist instincts or drives towards life and towards death. The aim of Eros would be that of preserving and adding to one’s life. Contrary to this, Thanatos would seek to return life to an inorganic state. According to the Christian symbolism described above, Eros is Lucifer, who is ultimately Thanatos and the counterpart is Christ, self-sacrificing surrender, the love of Agape. Drives and instincts are here seen as being paradoxical: grasping life leads to death and ego surrender leads to greater life. They are choices made deep within our hearts and ultimately by the unknowable Self, though to the buffeted ego, you and me, they seem extraneous forces or drives.
Being and Transcendence.
Being is timeless, formless, universal and in a state of separation while remaining whole. Each finite individual expression of eternal Being participates in Creation, generating its own existence through the action of its individual will. The existence that is created is one of physical and psychological finitude. The person is defined by nonbeing. Nonbeing is present within the person as death which sets a temporal limit to his being and thereby defines his existence in space and time, guilt which accompanies the restricted self-affirmation of the person’s free individual will which sets his life’s course, meaninglessness which is the inevitable consequence of restricted awareness which provides one with only a point of view or system of belief, and loneliness which emerges out of our existential solitude, the truth that, though we may share ourselves with others, we remain ever alone with ourselves. Because we are individuals we are ultimately alone in birth, death, guilt, and in relation to one another. It is through love that we are truly united; at the foundation of one’s individual existence lies the Foundation af all existence.
Through acceptance of nonbeing the person gains transcendence. Death, which inspires so much fear and anxiety, is, in the end, that which defines the person; it is that outline that creates the image of figure against background which is the person. We miraculously emerge for whatever brief interval, from the Godhead, the Spring of eternal Life. To know God is to lose all fear of death; these few moments pale in the sight of this awesome beauty and power that is about us. The doubts that torment us are merely the cracks in the armour that we have developed in order to bolster our courage and allow us to act in the face of nonbeing in its divers forms. It spurs us on to find the real truth, what is concrete reality. The negative feelings that come with the recognition of separation from others are manifestations of limited affirmation; envy, jealousy, loneliness, rejection, indifference, and so on are products of a consciousness which is absorbed with itself as central character in the cosmic dance. Others are perceived only in so far as they exhibit certain particular traits. The other’s attributes are compared to one’s own; one feels oneself deprived of a satisfying relationship; one is not the centre of another’s attentions and affections. Through the graces of self-acceptance and surrender to the Absolute, one is confronted with one’s solitude; and in that solitude he meets all humanity. In the person, we see a world in which the individual is given a set of tasks and possible outcomes. Though fate determines various innate qualities in addition to the time, family, and culture he is thrown into, it is through the action of his will that the person determines which direction he takes and hence the choices that are open to him in the future. Though he does so in a limited, finite way, the person willfully creates himself and his place within the larger structure. Being, ultimately omniscient and omnipotent, watches and participates in Its creation. The conscience that knows every thought, no matter how guarded and distorted, is grounded in the awareness that is universal Being. That light which we would shun is in the end the Light of infinite love and unending compassion.
Who is the person? Who is it that acts and experiences the consequences? The answer in the words of the Upanishads: “In the Centre of the castle of Brahman, our own body, there is a small shrine in the form of a lotus- flower and within can be found a small space. We should find Him who dwells there, and we should want to know him. And if anyone asks, “Who is he who dwells in a small shrine in the form of a lotus-flower in the centre of the castle of Brahman? Whom should we want to find and to know?” We can answer: “The little space within the heart is as great as this vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun, and the moon, and the stars; fire and lightening and winds are there: and all that now is, and all that is not: for the whole universe is in him and he dwells within our heart.”
Louis Canella, M.D. 