Session 726

Unknown Reality, Session 726

The unknown reality: It cannot be expressed in the cozy terms of known knowledge, and so you must stretch your own imagination, rouse yourself from mental lethargy, and be bold enough to discard old dogmatic comfort blankets.

Imagine that you are a small sandy island with softly graded shores, some palm trees, and a haven for traveling birds.  Pretend further that you are quite content, though sometimes lonely.  A fine fog encircles you, though it does not prevent the sun from shining directly down.  You feel quite independent, and you think of the fog as a kind of cocoon that gently shields you from the great expanse of an endless sea.

Then, however, you begin to wonder about the other islands that you know exist beyond your vision.  Are they like you?  Your wondering forms a tiny window in the fog, and you look through.  Astonished, you discover that a small coral path unites you with the next island that is glimpsed, shimmering now through the ever-growing window in the mist.  Who is to say where you end and the other island begins?

As you wonder, more astonishing still, you discover other coral paths extending from you in all directions.  These lead to further islands.  “They are all me”, you think, though each is very different.  One may have no trees at all, and another be the home of a volcano.  Some may be filled with soft grasses, innocent of sand.

Now this first island is very clever indeed, and so it sends its spirit wandering to the closest counterpart, and says: “You are myself, but without sand or palm trees”.

Its neighbor responds: “I know.  You are me without my towering volcano, ignorant of the thundering magic of flowing lave, calm and rather stupid, if the truth be known.”

The spirts of the two islands join for a journey to a third one, and there they discover a top-heavy land filled to the brim with strange birds and insects and animals that neither knew at home.  The first island says to the third: “You are myself, only unbearably social.  How can you stand to nurture so many different kinds of life?”

The second island-spirit says, also to the third: “You are myself, only my excitement, my joy and beauty, are concentrated in the magic of my volcano, and you instead stand for the twittering excitement of diverse species – birds and animals and insects – that flow in far less grandiose fashion across the slopes of your uneasy land.”

The third island, startled, replies: “I am myself, and you must be imperfect versions of my reality.  I would no more be a dull island of only sand and palms, or a neurotic landscape of burning lava, any more than I would be a snail.  My life is far the better, and you two are only poor shadowy counterparts of me.”

The first island responds, in our hypothetical dialogue: “I suspect that each of us is quite correct.  And more, I wonder if we are really islands at all.”

The second island says: “Suppose my spirit visits your island for a while, to discover what it is like to possess palm trees, a few birds, and a tranquil shore.  I will give up my volcano for a while, and try to make an honest evaluation, if you will in turn come to my land and promise to view it without prejudice.  Perhaps then you will understand the great majesty and explosive power of my exotic world.”

The third island says: “I am myself too busy for such nonsense.  The many species that roam my domain demand my attention, and if you two want to exchange your realities that is fine – but leave me out of it, please.”

The spirit of the first island visits the second one, and finds itself amazed.  It feels an ever-thrusting power, rushing up from beneath, that erupts in always-changing form.  Yet it is always itself, comparing its experience to that it has known.  When the volcano itself, ceaselessly erupting, wishes for peace, the spirit of the first island thinks of its own quiet home shores.  The volcano learns a new lesson: It can direct its power in whatever way it chooses, shooting upward or lying quietly.  It can indeed be dormant and dream for centuries.  It can, if it chooses, allow soft sands to lie gracefully upon its cooling expanse.

In the meantime, the spirit of the volcanic island is visiting the first island, and finds itself enchanted by the still waters that lap against the shore, the gentle birds, and the few palm trees.  However, it seems that the palm trees, and the birds and the sand, have dreamed for centuries.

One day a bird flies out further from that first island than ever before, to another one, and comes back with a strange seed that falls from its beak.  The seed grows.  From it springs a completely new and unknown species of plant, as far as the island is concerned; and the plant in turn brings forth flowers with pollen, fruits, and scents that have a different kind of creativity that is still its own.  The spirit of the second island, then brings forth elements in the first island that were not active earlier, but it becomes homesick, and so it finally returns to its own land.

The spirit of Island One says: “I quite enjoyed my venture, and I’ve learned that the great explosive thrusts of creativity are good – but, oh, I yearn for my own quiet, undisturbed shores; and so if you don’t care I think I’ll return there.”  And so it does – to find a land in some ways transformed.  The sands still lie glittering, but the fog and mists are gone.  The beloved birds have multiplied, and there is in the old familiar sameness a new, muted, but delightful refrain: new species in keeping with the old, but more vigorous.  The spirit of Island One realizes that it would find the old conditions quite boring now, and the new alterations fill it with pleasing excitement and challenge.  What a delightful interchange.  For the spirit is convinced that it definitely improved the condition of Island Two, and there is no doubt that the spirit of the second island improved Island One beyond degree.

In the meantime, Island Three’s spirit has been thinking.  The sprits of Island One and Two did not appeal to it at all.  It was determined to retain its own identity.  Yet it too has become lonely, and it has seen endless coral paths reaching out from itself.

It spirit followed one such path and came upon a desert island upon which nothing grew.  Figuratively, its image was appalled, “How can you stand such barrenness?” it calls to the spirit of the fourth island.

That island spirit responds: “Even the vigor of your question sickens me.  I sense that you come from a land so overcrowded and tumultuous that it makes my sands blanch even further, and the knuckles of my rocks turn white.”

Island Three’s spirit says: “You are myself, utterly devoid of feeling – dead and barren.”

The spirit of the desert island replies: “I am myself.  You must be some counterpart, drunken with sensation, not realizing the purity of my own stripped-down nothingness.”

The two confront each other sideways, for neither can look in the other’s eyes.  What opposites, what contrasts, what fascinations!  So they strike a bargain.  The spirit of the desert island says: “You are all wrong.  I will go to your land and prove it, and you can stay here and partake of the joys of my peaceful existence – and, I hope, learn the value of austerity.

So the spirit of Island Four journeys to that other reality, where all kinds of life swarm over shore and mountain, and the spirit of the Third Island visits a world of such peace that all motion seems stilled.

What peace!  Yet in the peace, what power!  And so little by little cacti grow where there were none, delicate buds opening, filled with water.  The spirit of the third island immediately begins to transform the desert island.  Great changes appear, and showers of power – quick bursts of rain, explosive inundations of energy.

In the meantime, the spirit of the desert island is almost overwhelmed by the teeming life forms on Island Three, so next it visits the volcanic one; and when the volcano becomes frightened of its own energy the spirit of the desert island says: “Peace.  It is all right to sleep, all right to dream.  You do not need to be so worried for your energy.  It can flow swiftly, or slowly, in surges of dreams that take ages.  Do as you will.”

So the volcano throws its energy into the formation of new species, while the desert spirit sings its calmness through their tissues.  But this new life confounds it also, and it yearns to return home to its old quietude.  There, the spirit of the Third Island has quickened the desert’s abilities so that it blooms with muted flowers not present before.  The two spirits meet.  Each island is changed.  “We are counterparts, each of the other, yet inviolate.”

And the spirit of the volcanic island says to the spirit of the first island: “My volcano knows, now, how best to use its energy.  It can shoot into the heavens in great displays, or creep into the tiny crevices of earth, equally powerful.”

And the spirit of the First Island responds: “You have taught my island that life is not something to be afraid of, though still it is translated in my own familiar gentle terms.”

This is the end of our analogy.  The spirt of each of the four islands was itself intact, and the interchanges were chosen.  You are not islands unto yourselves, except when you choose to be.  Each counterpart views reality from its own viewpoint, and there is never any invasion.