This is one of the reasons it is so important to understand what is relative, regarding the absolute. Anything that would be truly absolute (and, for the time being, we will assume that there is such a thing) could not be envisioned in comparative terms (“It’s like …”; “It’s not like…”). Therefore, obviously, there is no means of describing the absolute. All that can be accomplished in discussing it is to recognize the ways in which the relative (which we “know”) is not the absolute (which we cannot, logically, know). As sages have said: to recognize the false as false is to see the truth.
You may also appreciate the difficulty of discussing the non-relative within the confines of a language that is purely relative: our linear, rational thinking process is entirely dependent upon that very same language. Nevertheless, this has—sometimes—been the apparent means by which unitive awakening has been transmitted from one to another.
For the sake of continuing our discussion, we will assume that there is that which can be defined (which is, of course, a limitation) as the absolute: its nature, according to those who claim to have perceived it, is infinite, eternal, free of causation, and—given that it exists—actual.
For shorthand, let me refer to this as Q (since many other appellations—Tao, for example—are already “loaded” with inferences), in some of the monographs that follow.
If Q were infinite, it is not that it would be too vastly “long” to measure (conversationally, we might speak of the cosmos, say, as “infinitely wide”; that is a misuse of the word); it would be too ubiquitous to measure. That which is entirely unlimited and unbounded is uncontainable, thus unlocatable. Not restricted by anything, there could be no point at which it was not; permeating everything that was material or immaterial, no such thing as “space” would remain. There being no location at which it was not already fully present, “distance” would be irrelevant: here is there, without interface. Knowing no capability of isolation within itself, at any and every point of its occurrence it would all be entirely, one hundred percent present. And having absolutely no borders, margins or perimeters, it could in no manner be regarded a separate entity. It is not an “infinite being,” it is superlative to being. Not being any “thing,” it is never present in “part”—it has no parts. Nor can anything possibly have been apart from it: it is absolute, which means whole, complete and entire—unfragmentable, and unavoidable.
Similarly, if Q were eternal, this does not mean “lasting forever in time”; it means time-less, utterly beyond relationship to time, either linear or comparative. Neither existence nor nonexistence are relevant to Q. Being omnipresent, there is no moment when it is not present; nor is it any more nor less present at any particular instant. In fact, with no capability of not being present, it is pointless to say that it is present: it was no more present in the “past,” and will be no more present in the “future,” than it is “now.” To it, past, future and now are meaningless. Being wholly free of temporal limitation, the entirety of eternity is in no way apart from this very moment. Anything which is, ever has been, or will be actual is not in the least removed from this actual instant.
Unlimited through space and time, having no center, no point of origin, no spatial or temporal continuum for “cause and effect,” Q is spontaneously self-actualizing, without “internal” or “external” referencing. With no “other” in relationship to it, not anything is comparable to it. It is immanently present while, simultaneously, it transcends existence. Being in every place at all times, it has no separate or special identity. Having not even an opposite, there is no way in which it is incomplete.
This is the wholly non-relative, the absolute. Carefully consider it, for your own sake. If there were a possibility of anything that could be described as infinite, eternal, uncaused, and actual, what could possibly stand apart from—or in relation to—it? Except you, perhaps?
All of the things that man thinks of as relative to each other (such as “you” and “I”) are simultaneously inseparable from this non-relative actuality. This presence (or anything which we would call absolute) could not be apart from anything, however relative it may appear to, or be thought to, be. We may, consciously or unconsciously, choose to perceive from a relative viewpoint. But that is not the sole perception that we are capable of.
From the so-called “cosmic,” or non-dual, viewpoint, our chronic perception of things as relative to, and separate from, each other is false. To recognize that it is false is to open the mind to the potentiality of truth.
Where there is any possibility that the essential condition in this cosmos is the condition of an all-pervasive presence, please inform me how you could be apart from that. This is not to say that, from the relative viewpoint, some thing cannot be argued to exist apart from its “creator,” or some such. But one must recognize, as I trust you do, that the nature of the absolute does not lend itself to finite distinctions. When you refer to “me” on one hand, and “God” on the other, you are not in a discussion of the non-relative. This, again, is one of the reasons why it is important to understand the indivisible essence of the absolute.
And it is this understanding—when it is so clear as to be startling—that is the substance of unitive realization. When it is indubitably recognized that your nature and the nature of the absolute are fundamentally the same, indivisible nature, this is the “recognition of one’s true identity”: the realization that any and all identity is eclipsed by an actuality that renders separative distinctions ultimately meaningless.
Such a realization, or non-dual perspective or awareness, cannot help but have a profound effect on one’s consideration of “personal individuality.” One cannot recognize that truth, of all-pervasive indivisibility, and continue to maintain the fiction of separate personification—of the “me” that was born and the “I” that dies.
This fruit of the realization—that the absolute essence of all being does not “come” from some place, nor “go” anywhere—quenches our deepest, final fear, the fear of extinction. Then the liberated may, indeed, “take no thought for the morrow.”
Excerpted from Living Nonduality (Karina Library Press), reprinted by permission. The entire book is available for free download in pdf at www.livingnonduality.org. The website also has details on Robert’s other published works on nonduality, as well as free video and audio interviews and talks.
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