It's all theory Joachim, all talk and no substance.
Really?
Yes. The minute you get sick
you'll be off to the doctor like anyone else.
Don't hold your breath.
Well if you don’t, if you dig in
your heels stubbornly and attempt to prove you’re really part of infinity,
you're just going to make a fool of yourself.
You may be right, Masha, we’ll
see, but the fact is that...
What?
Never mind. A fool and his thoughts
are soon parted.
Actually it's money, not thoughts.
That as well.
So, you can't admit you’re wrong?
Too proud are we?
Well, I’m without a doubt proud
and stubborn, and about as foolish as they come, but this isn't about being
right.
No?
No.
Then what?
Infinity is about being alive.
Until you’re in need of medical
treatment, at which point it'll be a sure path to death.
That’s the thing Masha – we’re all
on our way out.
Here we go.
None of us are immune to death,
and as far as infinity is concerned...
Death is a non-issue, yes, I
understand, but try to be reasonable. We’re just talking about being sensible and
seeking healthcare when the need arises.
Yes, I certainly intend to.
Seek healthcare?
Yes.
Really? That’s good. For once you're
sounding like a rational human being.
Just not in the same places you
might seek it.
I might have known. You'll be off
to the faith healers I expect. Or heading for the mountains.
Who knows. I’ll listen to the voice.
What voice?
You know...
No I don’t know. Don't tell me
you're hearing voices now, please.
Not voices. It's just infinity is
an interactive experience, and once you embrace it and immerse yourself in her
waters, things have an uncanny way of taking care of themself.
Do they? Is that why you've been
groaning in pain all week?
Ah, you noticed?
Well it wasn’t exactly hard to
see.
The thing is, Masha, that the path
to infinity involves certain hurdles, certain critical junctures where things
come to a head.
You’re not the saviour of the world. You’re just a man with a bad back.
Bad back?
Yes – isn’t that what was making
you groan?
Goodness gracious, Masha, have you
so little imagination?
Evidently yes, if I call a spade a
spade and not a tool of intergranular transformation.
The physical body is real. Its
limits and processes are real too, but so is the mind, the soul and spirit.
No one here present disagrees with
that.
Well, the way it works – you come
into your body with a whole set of limitations. Some people call it karma,
others call it original sin, others DNA – it really doesn’t matter what you choose
to call it. The body adjusts to the limits imposed by the energies, structural contradictions
and story threads comprising you. The body is like a bridge or a lattice that
fits across this metaphysical self as best it can.
If you say so.
Well, it ain’t perfect and there
are always areas of vulnerability.
You don’t say!
But if you get better aligned, better
attuned to God, to All that Is – to your true self n' true nature – your isness
of be...
Yawning.
Then your body is suddenly in
the wrong spot. It needs to shift. It needs to readjust its points of attachment,
it vertices, its… you get the message?
You have a bad back.
No Masha. I’ve gone through a wilderness. I've reconfigured reality.
You don’t say!
Basically, out of one energy
system into another.
What difference does it make
Joachim. It’s all the same.
Is it?
Yes, can’t you see? You’re old and
getting older. You’re body is cracking up. Face reality.
Ah – but the body is soluble.
What?! Give me a break.
No, it's true. The body is soluble. Otherwise
we’d all be slaves: prisoners in a world of unyielding matter, hopelessly trapped by form and substance.
No Joachim – we’d just be normal
human beings able to face physical reality and accept the aging process with grace and humility.
You say you believe in God, Maria,
but you don’t, you know.
What kind of nonsense is this?
Oh, you’re devout. You pray. You
go through the motions of being religious and virtuous, but what of that? Is
that really God?
This is getting ridiculous.
You’re every bit as much a
materialist as the Bolsheviks were, the Communists, if you prefer.
Now you’re going too far Joachim.
I find that deeply insulting.
Because you hate to face the
truth. You hate to admit that your God is in practical terms finite – is not that which
enables you to connect directly with spirit – with the other side – the greater I am.
Since when was religion about
connecting with “the other side” or “spirit”? Joachim, have you taken leave of
your senses?
Maria – our God is not God – He is just creator and head of our state of things, of our ego too, no matter what we claim, believe or think.
Joachim, you never know when to stop.
Not because the belief is wrong.
Then what?
Because it is right.
You just don't like belief in God.
Believe in what you like, let's call it God – or else science, or enlightened rationalism, if you prefer, but in the end it all boils down to the same thing: to some thing or other, no matter how high or ineffable you might claim that something to be.
God is not "something".
Agreed. But the God I can talk of rationally is. He may still be omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient because he, she, it is infinity, from our limited perspective, being the absolute to our system, to our entire reality.
You mean you think God is not
infinite from beyond our limited perspective?
How can I know? It’s entirely
possible that in God’s own world or realm he, she, it, even "they" is as we are here
in our world – that God there is a being who himself – to keep the pronouns
simple – himself has a Creator over and beyond his particular level of being – but what’s
the problem with that? It doesn’t alter the fact that there’s always a point of
origin which is removed from the progeny, a zero point, the absolute. It defines every aspect of that realm being present throughout. But it suffers one fatal drawback...
Which is?
That it's the right way to see and think things.
Exasperated...
Whereas, beyond or besides the point of origin so favoured by our rational mind there is?
The unoriginated?
Correct.
But that's how we define God, or one of His qualities.
Yes, but our conscious-ness isn't able to handle the split between right and left, between male and what you could conceivably call female.
No?
Not really. Not in reality. Our mind is too close to the face of me, the self-identity and inadvertently uses God to ignore or deny the other side of is, the ever-present, the isness – what for want of a better name we might call the left bank, where mindful-me cannot tread. Unless, we take the calculated risk of mentioning, dare i say it again, spirit. Unless we accept that without the left bank, God's realm betwixt mindful-me and objective reality grows ever flatter and, paradoxically, ever less Godly.
Ok – who knows, maybe this is true – but that’s
no reason to accuse me of being a materialist. How dare you!
I agree – how dare I! It’s
shocking. I feel deeply uncomfortable suggesting that I’m in any way, shape or
form superior, or less materialistic, or better attuned to spirit than you.
Spirit – but why on Earth do you use
that term? We’re talking about God. We’re not pagan, neither are we shamans.
Because when you address the
nature of God – and how God has to be present in all of us and all things – you
realise, you realise and have to accept that... that alongside God himself – the supreme
being – the Father – the King – there has to be something else, more than a mechanism, what i sometimes call infinity drive, too – a breath – an
essence – a way to unlock the gates of Hell.
Now, Joachim, you're sounding positively satanic.
Yes, more's the pity. But I'm not referring to anything of the sort.
Then what exactly are the gates of
Hell you’re referring to?
Why – the matrix of course – the gates
that keep us locked in our physical or material moment in time – our physical
or material mould – the form that imprisons us like an iron mask – there has to
be or else…
Or else what?
Or else my soul, my heart, my essence
is lying to me. Or else conscious-ness is phoney, and we've been suckered beyond belief.
What on Earth are you talking
about?
Because my soul, my heart, my essence
tell me that in God, in truth, in isness there is no binding power, no prison,
no thing keeping us from God, from All that is – from… Joachim
says a word silently and seems to float into the air for a minute or so while
Mary looks on transfixed, not quite sure what she is seeing, not sure but
sensing, perhaps, sensing or hearing the silent word – the silence that transcends, the
silence that peacefully compels. –
that which cannot be captured in thought, mentally, cannot be contained in
theories, philosophies, words or even beliefs…
This makes
Mary grow uneasy – to believe in God is to believe in everything, surely? How
can there be anything else – anything beyond? It sounds… sacrilegious – she mutters under her breath.
Not because spirit is above or
beyond God – not at all – but because the very processes of naming, and
visualising, however vaguely, of daring to touch the infinite with the grubby
fingers of our mind – as if they can touch and grasp the sacred fire without
tainting it or getting burnt – that is either supreme hubris, or itself
sacrilege.
We’re not trying to limit or touch
God in any way by calling him God. We're not creating God in our image or diminishing Him by praying and worshipping.
Tis no matter. The mind is a mechanism
of supreme control. It takes sides. Always. It cannot be avoided. It's only able to perceive, to name or consider a squished, conceived, rendered version cos the mind relates to things, no matter how hard it tries to hide the fact, or to pretend that it's the same as conscious-ness...
And you think you’re not doing the
same with your spirit thing.
Ah – my spirit thing, dear Mary –
is neither mine – nor a thing.
Then what, pray tell, is it?
Nothing whatsoever. No one.
So you’ve plumped for Eastern Daoism
it seems.
Ah – the Dao…
The Dao that can be spoken of is not the ever-constant Dao.
The name that can be named is not the ever-constant name.
That which is without-name is the beginning of heaven and
earth.
That which possesses a name is the mother of the ten
thousand creatures.
Therefore : always without-desire, thus you observe its
subtle mystery.
Always possessing desires, thus you observe its external
appearances.
These two, they arise from the same source but have
different names;
This sameness is called their deep mystery.
Rather beautiful, is it not?
Well – what if it is? Is that your
new religion?
Religion?
Yes.
I don’t see how it can be a
religion when it’s simply an elegant way of describing the underlying nature of
things. The isness.
Then you’ve swapped your religion for
a metaphysical philosophy, it would appear.
Not so, Maria. I don’t stop being
religious because I study science and take certain aspects of science and maths
as interesting ways of describing this world, or explaining certain mechanisms
that seem to define how the material world operates. Nor do I stop being
religious when I listen to classical music or read poetry, and sense, at times,
a deep level of truth and beauty therein. None of these are mutually exclusive.
But this goes deeper than science,
music or poetry.
Yes. And yet in their own way –
they all touch our soul and enable us to go deeper or higher than our intellect can
possibly travel.
But the Dao – or your spirit thing…
Do you have to personalise
everything Maria?
Well I don’t see how we can avoid
it – we are, after all, people.
Yes, but not if we’re allowing God,
or whatever you choose to call the infinite, to speak to us, through us, or to move us.
That sounds like a rather
dangerous proposition, Joachim.
Yes, it does indeed, if your God is
the Creator of all things n' all matter, and you have managed to expunge spirit from
the historical record.
Expunge spirit? What on Earth do
you mean by that?
Before we started talking about "God" – before we had reached the stage where we imagined we were separate from
nature or creation – there was, and still is, if I’m not greatly mistaken, a
very delicate, gentle mechanism that holds all things together, holding everything
in harmonious unity – which is not possible when the mind kicks into gear and
starts thinking, nor when the physical body kicks into gear and starts doing
what bodies do… thinging, perhaps.
Then this is a meaningless
discussion as we cannot possibly think about anything without our minds, and likewise,
without our bodies there is no mind.
Indeed – that’s what the logic of
God seems to imply.
The logic of God?! Please, Joachim
– go no further. This is upsetting me.
There is a logic to God – not because
God himself insists – but because the God we refer to by whatever name we call
him or her – necessarily goes through the logic gates of our brain, through the "mechanism of mind" – and thus binds
us to a way of thinking, a way of perceiving, a way of speaking and doing
which, paradoxically, separates us from God himself.
You mean that by saying the word "God" – we separate ourselves from God?
Paradoxically, yes. In the very
same way the Dao De Jing by Lao Zi describes this very phenomenon:
The Dao that can be spoken of is not the ever-constant Dao.
The name that can be named is not the ever-constant name.
That which is without-name is the beginning of heaven and
earth.
That which possesses a name is the mother of the ten
thousand creatures.
It has nothing to do with what you
think you believe, or want to believe, or believe you believe – but the actual physical
manifestation of that belief is always going to be skewed sideways, or
displaced by the mere process of naming that which needs must be unnamed if we're to avoid inadvertently homogenising it.
Well, even if you’re right – we can
hardly not name God? It isn’t practical.
I agree. Besides – God is not
a name.
No?
It’s more a title, isn’t it. A
descriptor.
I suppose it is. So why all the
fuss?
Because, Mary, there is a vital
aspect of God that has been eliminated, or inverted by allowing the very idea
of God to become religion, by allowing the mechanism of mind to nullify the left bank.
Wait a sec. How can the idea of
God be anything but a religion?
Because “God” is, first and
foremost – a descriptor which we have somewhat lazily allowed to substitute that which it is describing – that which requires infinitely more patience and tenacity on our
part to handle than the three-lettered descriptogram.
Er…
Because God refers to alpha omega –
to that which not only created all that is – but which is somehow present in all that
is – holding it all together even now – which cannot be allowed to sink to the
bottommost level of facile
comprehension – but which needs to be first and foremost breathed and
experienced directly, un-finitely as isness.
As isness?
The isness of be.
Oh dear. You lost me completely.
Isness – a place where breath – the breath goes back and forth across a boundary of sorts – like a bow crossing the strings of a violin making music if there's just enough rub – where spirit and matter meet – where spirit and matter dance, connect and interact.
Ah. That’s what you mean.
A place that is real – as real as
breath itself – as real as conscious-ness, or soul, or whatever name you prefer
to use.
And you think this is important?
Think? What has thinking to do
with it? How long can you live without breathing?
But breathing is just a physical
function – to keep the blood oxygenated.
The cult of science, in fellowship with
the cult of materialism, and even the cult of institutionalised God would like
you to give credence to such thoughts – as, inevitably you will, if thoughts
and matter rule your existence – if you fail to sense the simpler truth – what Shakespeare
calls “the rub” – where the tyre of conscious-ness meets the asphalt of self-ish-ness
– where matter, the vehicle in motion, ensures that things adhere to a certain fixed,
predictable path we might refer to as “road” – in short – “ten thousand
creatures” being thought.
And your blessed “spirit” – you think
it avoids this pitfall? You think it's superior?
My blessed spirit – which is
neither mine, nor blessed – is the other half – the other side that balances, ineffably, the necessarily Self-ish me. A zero to hold fast the split-ones of subjective and objective ity-ness.
And you think you’re so special –
that you can somehow escape the gravitational pull of matter and things, and
avoid falling into the overweening pride of Lucifer – who thought he knew
better than God?
On the contrary – I choose to accept
God more deeply – with my very breath, my very essence, rather than my mind and
soul. If I do so, if I succeed – my body will have no choice.
No choice? What choice can a body
possibly have?
It will have to adapt to whatever spirit throws at it and evolve – for the body, as we’ve already discussed, is soluble in spirit, the same way salt is soluble in water.
Is soluble in spirit? Such utter
nonsense I’ve never yet heard, Joachim, which is indeed saying something, after
all these years.
Which is saying some thing in deed – or nothing much – in fact – yet the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. If, after a week of groaning and moaning under the gentle urgings of spirit to let go of my fallacies, to release certain finities, certain things I’ve been over-attached to, if finally i allow spirit to open the sluice gates in my soul releasing waters to flow into my parched desert lands, restoring them to life and growth – then we shall see a rebirth – a renaissance of sorts, shall we not? Then the pudding will be round and full-bodied, will it not?
道 可 道 非 常 道
名 可 名 非 常 名
無 名 天 地 之 始
有 名 萬 物 之 母
故 常 無 欲 以 觀 其 妙
常 有 欲 以 觀 其 徼
此 兩 者 同 出 而 異 名
同 謂 之 玄
玄 之 又 玄
眾 妙 之 門
or would be
