Joachim and Maria

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

0=1
or would be 

if breath permitted

thinks to thing