The world of appearances is made up of objects -- "things" "out there." The world of appearances is teeming with objects: baseballs, persons, coffee cups, God, and so on. Any time there is an object, there has to be a subject, someone or something perceiving the object. If there is no subject, there is no object. It takes a perceiver for there to be the perceived, a conceiver for there to be the conceived. That's why some of our wise guys in the past said, "When I die, a universe disappears."
Stay with me here. The 64 trillion dollar question is who is the subject? Your answer might be, why I am of course. So who are you? As soon as you start to answer, you are describing yourself as an object. You cannot accurately say who you are. All you can do is endlessly create descriptions. You never can catch hold of the describer. It is like an eye trying to see itself, or a hand trying to hold itself.
Of course, you can, as most do in the world of appearances, glom on to a set of descriptors and say that is you. You de-cide who you are, which given the realm of infinite possibility, is a form of sui-cide. You kill off part of yourself in order to fashion a "vehicle" to putter through the world of appearances. By defining yourself, you have spurned, denied all aspects of you outside those strict bounds you have created.
You do not know who you are. You have settled on a definition and plan to live out "your life" (another object) within the bounds and bonds of that definition.
This is what it means to live within the world of appearances.
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Oh, you make me laugh.
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha ha ha!
I do not laugh at you, though.
I laugh at me.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
For I am a fool, no The Fool.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
I laugh the belly laugh of George Breed and all those before him, a joyful and loud laughter.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
The lamp that flashes on and off so quickly gives the 'APPEARANCE' of being always on, the appearance of single state when it is really dual state, like television and computer screens and all light, it flickers on and off, pulsates, vibrates, oscillates, but the perception, the illusion, is 'ON.'
I've been trying to change, 'fix,' my ego, my 'self,' which I am beginning to see is like trying to rearrange the scenery of a movie projected on a wall, like trying to reset the table in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
Ha ha ha ha ha !
I am watching myself watching a movie of myself while trying to edit the movie. Its a comedy!
Bwaa ha ha ha ha ha!
I am watching you watching yourself watching a movie of yourself while doing your darnedest to edit it. It IS very funny, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteLike the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, the entire body disappears and all that is left is one Big Grin!
Or just a big circle, that is coiled and goes upward round and around and around. LG
ReplyDeleteGeorge and LG,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the laughter! Such wonderful stuff.
This won't sound funny to begin with, but years ago one of my brothers died. Sometime after his death, I had a dream about him. He was standing in an airport singing. He was not much of a singer in life, but in this dream his voice was the most beautiful voice I had ever heard. He was surrounded by many people I knew, all of whom were gazing at him with awe. As he sang, his body started falling away. An ear dropped off. Then a shoulder and arm fell away. Then part of his face slid to the floor. He just kept singing beautifully while his body fell away, and everyone remained awe struck.
That dream suddenly came back to me reading “The World of Appearance” this morning. It made me think about what a great metaphor the dream is. My brother was losing his “object” and in doing so, unparalleled beauty – in this case a song – was pouring from that which exists beyond the object.
As I think about this, I am filled with joy. I am sitting here laughing at my “self” or my “object” now; joining in your joyous laughter. My object, held fast together by the glue of my self-importance all these many years, does not like to be laughed at. I think my object dislikes laughter because it knows that laughter dissolves that glue. Laughter allows pieces of my object to fall away. I wonder if the perceiver can come out to play? I bet he/she/it is a great “laugher”, and not a bad singer either.
Patrick, what a powerfully beautiful dream! That he was in an airport adds to the transfiguration metaphor. The dream also shows the state of your own being as a Seer (and Hearer, touched by music).
ReplyDeleteI am happy for you that your "face" is also falling away -- the face you have presented to yourself as you.
You are correct -- our face does not like to be laughed at -- that discomfort is a strong sign the face is present and assists in its location.
LG, the spiral is a symbol rich in its representation of the nature and ways of spirit. The Eagle of the Spirit soars high in widening circles bumping into the limits of the physical and the opening of the doors of the spirit-ual. The border disappears.
ReplyDelete