Oh the joyous wonders of music! When the quantum physicists recognize Bach and Beethoven in their equations then truly will we have sciences of a sparkling vitality. Just why is it that the rhythmic patterns that make the most sense to the human ear always resolve themselves to a beat of four counts? I think it is because we are primarily made out of carbon atoms. And every first year student in chemistry learns that carbon has a valence of four. The connection is almost too obvious! The music we make is a reflection of the lives of the atoms that make up our physical being! And when we stop for a second and consider the overwhelming diversity of music, then the diversity of carbon-based life does not seem so much of a surprise.
There is much to gain, from science's point of view, by reconciling itself with the occult. Both study vibrations. Yet to the scientist the study of vibrations usually amounts to the manipulation of very dry and abstract equations and the readings of jiggly patterns on cathode ray tubes. Thus, the miracles of music are all but lost from science. But in the occult, the miracles of music-the infinity of shapes and textures, interwoven harmonies, points and counterpoints, the dynamic rhythmic motions from the grand and sweeping to the minute and subtle, and even the endless droning of monotonality-are seen as only one set of examples of the infinite flexibility of the mind. Music as a whole represents only the smallest crosssection of the set of thoughts and emotions swimming and jiggling, wagging and dancing on the inner planes. Yet a crosssection it is indeed. As I sit here and write, it dawns on me that both science and the occult could gain much by seeing the world of music as a microcosm of their respective fields of intellectual endeavor. To the scientist music represents the endless combinations of physical matter. To the occultist music is a constant reminder of the endless and myriad forms and dimensions that fill the inner life of the human being. There was indeed a time and a civilization in which the study of music stood alongside the study of scientific, philosophical and religious matters.
And whether we are a scientist or occultist or neither, or both, it does us all much good to glance at the endless diversity of the human experience reflected symbolically in the endless diversity of music. From this perspective, it actually matters little what we would like to believe ourselves to be. Imagine feeling all the feelings of all the people who have lived and who live now and who shall ever live. Imagine all of the things thought about, all of the experiences experienced. Imagine living each person's life, seeing the world through their eyes, thinking through their thoughts, wearing their body, suffering their sorrows and celebrating their joys. Imagine doing this for every conceivable person in every conceivable age. Imagine you are the King and you are the Peasant, you are Man and you are Woman, you are the Babe, the Teen, the Adult, the Senile, you are the Sage and the Idiot, the Teacher and Student, you are the Genius and the Insane, you are the Middle American Consumer and the Starving Ethiopian, you are you, and you are me, and we are all people.
Let's take this game of imagine even further for it is our game and we can do with it as we please. Let us imagine as well, all the things not human and how existence appears to these things. How does the Sun see the Earth? We are so used to seeing the Sun only in the day, but the Sun always is looking at us. Or imagine the brief life of a wave on the ocean or of a rain drop falling from the sky. Imagine what all the animals might think and see and feel. Oh what stories they could tell us if we would only ask! How about the sidewalk outside your house or the trees you pass by each day. Do you think that they do not notice you? Or perhaps they ignore you as we ignore them, maybe they are too concerned with their own personal affairs to take notice. See and feel this endless panorama of sensation and awareness in your mind's eye. The question I would pose to you is : What does it all mean? This, as you shall see, is a trick question and if all goes well, by the end of this dialogue, you will know what I mean!
For countless ages now the mystical tradition has been the heritage of Humankind. In all civilizations, in all periods, in every age have been those claiming to have experienced the absolute oneness of the universe, of reality. Whatever this thing is, it defies a name, for whatever you may call it is simply only another one of its infinite manifestations.
And each age has its own unique reaction to such claims. At times it is a revered event marking the climax of an individual's experience in that culture. At other times such a claim is the mark of the heretic to be burned at the stake. Still in other periods such a claim is the mark of a neurosis, a repressed tendency from childhood, a thing to be worked out in the Discussion Group. And even somewhen, far removed from our collective memories, there is a time where such an event is so commonplace that it elicits no more excitement than taking your morning shower.
The experience itself is as varied as are the reactions to the event. Obviously one's report of the experience will be colored by one's culture and symbology, couched in the terms that the individual understands and uses as a means of expression. Whatever the individual mode of expression, ultimately what will be told is a story, a story of the experience of the oneness of whatever it is that is one.
However, it does not take mystical insight to conceive of a story. Granted, the mystical insight provides impetus to tell a story about the ultimate nature of reality. But there are countless other stories as well. All of the ideas available to our species can be permutated again and again to construct myriad uncountable stories: stories about what you and I are, stories about the meaning and purpose of life, the nature of reality and existence, stories about every conceivable topic. Then there is the realm of stories about the mind, stories about consciousness, stories about understanding, thinking. Here is a paradoxical realm and the paradox is: No matter what stories we concoct about the mind, we are still always within the confines of our minds. Can the mind make up a story that takes it outside of itself? This is a level of insight where there is not quite anything to "grab onto"; for no story or set of stories can quite capture "what is going on here" within the actuality of our experience. This effect is illustrated most clearly when we tell stories about the mind or the nature of consciousness, because at these levels of conceptualization, the normally operating mechanisms of selfhypnosis are potentially the thinnest and easiest to see through if we only follow our thoughts about such matters to their rightful end. And this end is us, whatever that may mean.
For no matter what the story, the ultimate reality behind any story is US, we are creating the story and giving the story meaning within our experience. The emotions that fill our stories, our hopes and desires and motivations, our fears and prejudices, our ignorance or our understanding; the hidden essence behind all of our stories is a reflection of our inner essence, an expression of us; the story teller's being--you and me. When we tell stories all we are really doing is illustrating the inherent, inescapable and ultimately undefinable CREATIONAL nature of our conscious awareness and being. It is us creating the meaning, filling the story with the meaning that is inherently us.
All of this amounts to the great vast paradox of our being because, even though our nature escapes definition, in reality it does not need to be defined because we live it! Our being is ultimately mysterious, undefinable, if not completely magical. Our experience cannot fit into words. Words exist to embroider, to decorate experience. This we have forgotten, this we need to remember and many of our socalled problems will simply disappear. They will disappear because, as van der Leeuw said, we will realize that we have been asking the wrong questions all along.
The fact is you, the reader, giving meaning to this or any other idea. An idea does not give reality to your experience. You give meaning to ideas and bring the realm of ideas into the scope of your experience. The bottom line is that ideas will control you to the degree that you blindly accept them. The alternative is for you to control ideas and use them as you see fit.
All there really is, is us, you and I, and our experience, and
how we decide to conceptualize this is essentially arbitrary and
a function of us whether we know it or not. But this is
something we have forgotten, or perhaps never even realized. We
are so entranced, enchanted and hypnotized by our own mental
creations that we have forgotten the fact that it is we who have
created and given meaning to these ideas in the first place.
Breaking through this hypnosis is the essential "mystical
experience", and such a breakthrough will inevitably lead
you into the infinite and undefinable mystery of your own
inexplicable and yet, completely obvious, being.
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