Friday, November 2, 2012

Zero and Infinity

In the Beginning

Life is meaningless at the beginning. In other words, it has no meaning, no reason for why it appears and how it appears. Life just is. This is because as infants we have yet to develop those faculties of the intellect that are able to take this holistic view and break it down through analysis. From that very first glimpse of an undifferentiated world our mind quickly learns through its surroundings to differentiate.

Prior to the beginning of perception there is truly nothing. The Zero. Yet, in that first moment, when the infant emerges from the womb and the world is felt for the first time there emerges the One. It is an overwhleming sense of existence, of one existence. This is the is-ness or the such-ness that the buddhists speak of. Yet even this undifferentiated sense of existence has emerged from the void of the Zero. In this primal state, the infant has yet to draw a clear line of demarcation between himself and the world. Everything internal and external is felt as one, as yet unbroken, experience. The sights, the sounds, the smells and colors of the outside world as well as the sensations, feelings, yearnings and pain of his internal system. The infant does not know that they are separate.

Yet, as the mind develops, so the infant develops self awareness. And as the awareness of the Self is born, so is born the awareness of the World = that which is not the Self = the other. And so 1 becomes 2.

The infant's rapidly growing self awareness now shines light upon its own needs and desires. It perceives certain factors/events/people in the environment as ones that can satisfy its needs and others that cannot. Its capacity to discriminate and divide the outside world increases in direct proportion with its ability to become more subtly aware of its own needs and desires. And so the 2 becomes 4 and then 8 and begins proliferating at an exponential rate. 

Yet, other than in moments where needs are felt strongly in which this awareness of separation arises, the infant's mind remains blissfully vacant and observant. Its awareness is open, unbiased and curious. You may have witnessed a baby wailing for a bottle becomes immediately quiet and at ease the moment its needs are met. It effortlessly returns to its natural open undifferentiated self. This is because it is as yet unable to use thought.

The Technique of Differentiation

However, as the child grows its mind develops the ability to think. Thinking is a curious activity because it allows the being the ability to construct abstract realities. Once this abstract reality has been constructed the being can make the choice to either experience the actul reality or an abstraction of it. It is a truly powerful ability that infants don't possess. When an infant's needs are met it doesn't choose to drop the issue and move on out of some deeper wisdom, it drops the issue and moves on because it doesn't have the ability to hold on to it. Because it can't formulate a thought (a combination of image, sound and language) its tools for abstraction are very rudimentary.

The growing child comes face to face with the greatest reality of life. The reality that all beings feel need and that needs are not always met. The infant feels this too, but its only mechanism for coping with unmet needs is to wail. Children, as their minds begin to develop, also begin to develop more sophisticated mechanisms for coping with this sense of unmet needs - the sense of lack. While most will still respond with some amount of chagrin, tantrumming, wailing, they also learn to develop techniques of denial, suppression, avoidance, self-identification and self-criticism. By seeing that externalizing doesn't always work, they begin to realize that sometimes internalizing can help distract the mind from that very raw and powerful sensation of lack.

Finally, as he develops into an adolescent and finally and adult the mind has reached a high degree of sophistication in its abiltity to differentiate. Yet somewhere along the way, that sense of self, which the infant could always default to so effortlessly, has become scattered and lost in the labyrinth of the mind. The thought processes that began with a very specific purpose have instead hijacked the entire experience of "living" for this person. No longer is he able to abstract at will but rather everything has become an abstraction. Thinking has taken over the act of perception so every sensory input is now forced through the additional filter of the thinking mind.

But why did this thinking begin in the first place? It began with the innocent desire to fulfil lack. There is an underlying assumption in every self-referential thought, that somehow the more true a thought is the closer it brings the individual to a resolution of that lack. But thought is an energy. And a thought believed gives rise to another thought. And like a chain reaction thoughts trigger one another creating a thought process. Each thought process feeds another need. And in turn is fed by need. And so while the innocent desire of every thought is to fulfil a need, the effect instead is that it magnifies it and makes it more acute.

This is easily observable in your own mind. Lets say you are starving and the need for food preoccupies your mind. The need is real and yet your mind generates a certain momentum of thinking around this need which magnifies it. Perhaps, it weaves a story around this need, of your plight, your poverty, of a past when these needs were not met, or of a world in which there are others who suffer just as you do. Immersed in thought this need becomes the most overarching concern of you life. You are no different than the infant who was wailing for his bottle. Yet your techniques are far more sophisticated and effective. Using a simple need that all creatures feel your mind has used its powers of abstraction and created an entire worldview and self-view based on it. And so while starving is painful, it is the mind made abstraction that creates the real suffering. At this moment, you get a call from someone telling you of some great news. Immediately, your mind shifts its focus. The pain of starvation is still prevalent yet the awareness of it has receded. Now you find youself immersed in a different story.    

This sense of lack translates into our material lives, political lives, family lives, spiritual lives. Every opinion we hold of the world is inextricably linked to an opinion we hold of ourselves which in turn is rooted in lack. Most begin believing that material ambition is the key to addressing material needs which is what they primarily classify this lack to be. Somewhere along the way, we realize that this is not just a material issue but is larger - it is perhaps an economic or political issue. And we then turn our ambitions towards solving the problems of the world. After spinning our wheels in desperation and finding no fulfilment to the sense of lack - we decide that perhaps the issue is not something out there but rather something that goes deeper - an existential/philosophical issue. And we immerse ourselves in the spiritual life and seek to find an end to sufferng.

The Zero that became the One and then the Two has now proliferated into the several thousands. The differentiation of the Self and the world knows no limits. the human mind has learned to differentiate reality into finer and finer layers. From the macroscopic to the microscopic, from the universal to the quantum and everything in between. Even our powers of self analysis have become exceedingly more intricate, subtle and sophisticated. And yet what is driving this growth and this over-arching need for differentiation is, paradoxically, a need to integrate - to become whole again.

The Art of Integration

At some point, in every individual's life the differentiation reaches a critical mass, a tipping point. Until now, the individual's entire focus was projected outwards into the world. Its drives were internal, mostly fed by lack, but its focus and solution-seeking was pointed outwards. The tipping point happens suddenly and is usually catalyzed by some traumatic external event or a culmination of significant psychological suffering. When this happens, the individual suddenly becomes aware of the lack as an entity, this bottomless void of need. Until now it has always been driven by it, but for the first time it becomes aware of it as a primary operating principle in its life.

Coming face to face with this void is a tremendously sobering experience. And can cause a deep sense of emptiness, meaninglessness, listlessness. In other words, the experience is one of deep depression. Because in perceiving the void, we have perceived, for the first time since our minds fully engaged as infants, the Zero. And this seeing is not something we are ready for. We are confronted with the meaninglessness of life for the very first time and it is unacceptable to us. And we respond the way we have been taught by our minds to - with denial, suppression, wailing, blame. And we may somehow learn to ignore what we've seen and find some way to rationalize it away for the time being but that can only be temporary. Because what has been seen once can't be unseen.

When we glimpse that void what we have really glimpsed is the end point. Where the journey reaches its final purpose. Now, the process of Integration begins. The process of becoming whole again. And for this purpose the mind becomes the secondary tool of choice. The primary tool is the heart, the tool of intuition.

This process of integration is not all that straightforward. The mind which has always been in charge is resistant to let go of its domination. The heart is a much gentler tool that does not assert its views as obviously. Yet, its motivations are deep and its currents powerful. If the mind is like a gushing stream which carries you away, the heart is like an ocean current that grips you and drags you into the depths of your self.

Yet we are more inclined to follow the motivations of our minds initially than the murmurings of our hearts. And so there is a bit of stuttering, of integration and differentiation and integration and differentiation. Somewhere along the process the benefits of the integration become evident even to the mind. It realizes that it needs to get on board with the program. And yet therein lies the ultimate paradox. Because the mind can never integrate. The integration must happen in spite of it and not because of it. And that is the ultimate dilemma. Because true integration can only happen once the mind has relinquished its throne and taken a backseat to a far more powerful force.

And so even in mystics or spiritual seekers there is a strong sense of identification that persists. Where the mind continues to entertain the fantasy that it is somehow in control of the integration. That it is responsible for it. In this way, it becomes the final barrier to the integration. Because it continues to differentiate its own existence from that of the being. It believes that there is the I and there is the Self. And as long as this separation exists, the seeking of the I for it's Self exists. "I am searching for myself", "I am trying to find myself". This is the differentiation created by the mind. It is a fiction. And the most obvious fiction of all.

Integration is the process, where the heart takes over. Intuition now begins to guide the being into a fuller realization of its self. And with each phase as the being integrates, there is a gradual dissolution of boundaries. The things/events/people that it previously perceived as separate and alien now begin to resonate with it. There is a deeper understanding an empathy less rooten in judgment which is a function of the mind and more rooted in wisdom which is function of the heart. Acceptance becomes a more prevalent state as opposed to the resistance energy of the mind.
Realization of Self

However, while integration is a process that eventually must reach its natural conclusion, its conclusion isn't necessary for the Self to realize its true nature. Rather at some point the Self sees what it is, with profound clarity. Let us return to that moment when the individual reached the critical mass, the tipping point. At that moment, as I mentioned it came face to face with the void. And it turned away in denial. That glimpse is what becomes the driving force for the integration. Because in glimpsing the void what the being has really glimpsed is into the entire nature of reality. It has seen that everything is ultimately void. Is nothing. Is Zero. Through a trust in the integration process, we are able to allow for the first time the inherent emptiness of everything. It is the same emptiness that is the basis of our entire experience.  From this emptiness the Self arises. And with the Self the world arises. And with the arising of these two, arise the infinite possibilities. This is the great realization that buddhists refer to as the No Self, the hindus as the Higher Self.

Quantum theorists have discovered that reality exists only in a potential form. That everything potentially exists in wave form and it is the act of observation or awareness that makes a wave collapse into its particle form. Until the moment of observation Nothing exists and everything only potentially exists. And yet in the moment of observation everything comes into existence. The Infinite is born out of the Zero. Reality only exists in the moment. Past and future are only abstractions of the mind. In every moment, it is our awareness that creates the reality of the infinite.

In university, I remember sitting in calculus class pondering the concepts of zero and infinity. Studying limits and functions, differentiation and integration I realized somewhere is my subconsciousness that all this had a profoundly deeper implication than we were being lead to believe. It is only through my own introspection and experience of life that I am able to see what all this was implying. The differentiation and the integration is the universal story of proliferation and a return to wholeness, of orginal sin and redemption, of the Big Bang and the Big Crunch, of birth and death, of suffering and enlightenment. The individual in this story is the function whose limit tends to infinity and then tends once again to zero always arriving from moment to moment yet never reaching its final destination. Because to be human is to grow incessantly, relentlessly.

But somewhere along the way there is a realization that what we truly are is beyond all of it. We are the awareness itself, the awareness of the Zero, of the One, Two and the Infinity. It is the play of Life. It is how the source of consciousness recognizes itself, becomes aware of itself. It sees itself by playing this game. By performing the calculus of the soul.