The yolk, the egg, the bird are one. But try telling them that.
The caterpillar, the cocoon, and the moth are one. But try telling them that.
Egg shells. Cocoons. What can these fragile living containers tell us about our lives?
Everything we need to know.
There is the organism, the space containing the organism, which is also the organism, and the “whole” state of the organism outside of that container—which still includes the container in its genetics. Some folks, and maybe some yolks, ask why they would want to become a transcendent, Spirit-alive person under the assumption that they have a choice, but that Spirit-alive person is them already. Let’s call the transcendent person our adult self, but understand that unlike how we physically grow from baby to adult through time, the radical transformation happens all at once. Why? Because physical growth—which includes psychological growth—unfolds in time, and transforming into Spirit-alive adulthood is the stepping out of time. Humans are birthed beyond the physical, beyond time, through total, timeless transformation, not slow, procrastinating evolution. If we, the species, do not transform, our current form will stagnate and die off—just like the chick who does not peck his was out of the egg shell or the pupa who does not chew his way through the cocoon.
Those who believe that physical birth is the only birth neglect to factor in our vastness beyond the physical, even though it’s Physics 101. They call trans-physicality “imagination” or “delusion” or “story-telling” or give some physical reason, usually located in the brain or cultural myths, for why we believe we are more than the body alone.
But we are more than the physical. Matter, which is comprised of particle/wave duality, is by definition more than physical. Wave form is not physical, but there it is. And since organisms are made of matter, we are made of particle/wave duality. We are physicality and more than physicality at the same time. We don’t need to jump to any fantasies about how this gives us super powers to acknowledge the facts staring us in the face.
What is matter? Physicists say it is energy governed by math. In other words, physicality is actually a display whose base is nonphysical energy and instructions. Will and rules. At our subatomic core, we are nothing more than will and rules. Physicists also tell us that there is no such thing as time, so these rules (and this will) are not much more than a pretty design on a canvass that looks like it’s got substance and is doing something.
We’re still-life, people, we’re still-life.
The canvas (particle) isn’t even real. It’s an aspect of the will and rules (wave). We might call this canvas “plasma” or “Silly Putty”. And this plasmatic putty that is our existence is molding into all shapes all the time thanks to will and rules. All of this is happening at once because, truly, it’s all emanating from waves—waves on the tide of one consciousness expressing as “itself”—or formlessness expressing as all forms.
If time is an illusion then going through the motions is an illusion. That is the message of the egg and the cocoon. There is no before-and-after. There is only the organism. The caterpillar is always already the moth. The yolk is always already the chicken. That whole spectrum is its true nature; the step-by-step process is an illusion. But just try telling them that.
And so it is with us in the spiritual context. There is no pre-enlightened/post-enlightened person. There is one single brush stroke creating numerous designs, not a series of strokes creating divided designs. The illusion of movement from pre to post is produced by looking at the designs incrementally. When we don’t take in the whole picture and notice it’s all of a single stroke, we create the illusion of separate strokes and divided designs. Since the stroke includes pre-enlightenment, what that really means is that this illusion—us seeing the world wrongly divided—is included in the picture. The whole thing is one picture and that picture is us, warts and all. Warts and all, including the probability that we will never know the post-enlightenment design of us because we’re too infatuated with the look of pre-enlightenment art.
See, there is no time, only transition. One stroke may change from one intricate pattern to another to another. We may study it and try to pinpoint where exactly one design becomes another, but the more we narrow our focus and hone in on that dividing point, the more dividing point we see, for the looking creates an eternal fractal—a repeating pattern going down, down, infinitely down in scale because the pattern, the stroke, the looking—they are all us. And when we live in denial of that we live in illusion. And when we live in illusion, we see illusion all the way down. Truly, there is no separation between objects.
And there is no enlightened being or unenlightened being. There is only one Being being both. Being understands this and we are Being. But just try telling us that. It’s like talking to a rooster about how he’s also a yolk and an egg and how if that were not true he wouldn’t be here. It’s all cockadoodledoo to him and that’s okay, for these genetically-encoded instructions play out whether he is conscious of them or not. Humans also come into existence through unconscious knowledge encoded in the fabric of our genetics, but we’ve got another psycho-spiritual aspect to our design that is not readily apparent. That aspect is not contained by knowledge or time. In fact, it is blocked out by them. Knowledge and time are our shell, our cocoon, and unlike the bird who pecks his way out, or the moth who chews her way through, the only way out of knowledge and time is the type of stillness that becomes one when one fully and completely—haltingly—understands all of this.
The bird and the moth, you see, are performing movements to enter the illusion of time, the dance of forms, the Silly Putty world. The way out is no way. The way out is no movement at all.
Being is us all the time. The self-aware aspect of Being is us when we stop doing.
Or as the rooster might say, “Cockadoodle-undo.”
