Mastering the art of eternal dance between the Essence and the Expression

Mastering the art of eternal dance between the Essence and the Expression

There are two key phenomena that will make one wonder all the time, that of nature at one end and that of humans at the other end.  To make this fascination more complex, there is a question on needs to deal with, which is whether the mankind is part of the nature or outside the nature.

The age of science which wants to do justice know more about both essence and expression is showing some signs of fatigue, I believe it is not because of its inability to make inroads into either of the two, I believe the realities of current age is bit slipping in getting a grip around balancing the two. Hence, this exploratory note. It may turn out to be total bullshit, or better, it may be a turning point for the entire humanity to converge to a better balance. Let us hope for the best, if not this time, out of collection of many bullshits, it is possible a lotus can emerge in right conditions!

So, I am attempting to model the current expression of both nature and humans using the parallelism of essence and expression.

Essence is best represented by the energy. Expression is best represented by the form. There is link between the two. One feeds the other, both constructively and destructively. We can appreciate the dance between the essence and expression in any context. Since the contexts are hierarchical and nested, this phenomena make it difficult to understand the rules of the game between the two.

Let us attempt to understand this both in the context of nature and humans. Coming to the nature first, what is the essence of the nature? Essence of the nature is to express in cycles, nested within hierarchies (world within the world) with a sense of connection and continuity between these, to house living beings where possible with a cycle of evolution which has its own expression comprised of waves of expansion and destruction. So, the essence of nature can be appreciated by looking at its expression, whether it is moon going around the earth, the earth moving around sun, sun moving around in the milky way and so on. Locally, on the  earth, there is a cycle of seasons linking to weather and vegetation changes. 

Similarly, we can see the expression of different beings with these cycles and the cycles of evolution. The expression is not limited to living beings, it is extended to what we call “non-linving” aspect also, whether it is river, volcano, mountain, sea etc.  Close linkage between the living and nonliving allows us to combine all under on heading called nature, and we can simply say the nature is living breathing thing, therefore the earth also can be considered as a living thing.

If earth is a living thing, then this universe will have similar ones elsewhere. So, the painful question is why such things are so far off and why not yet visible to us. There is not much proof for one to argue that life is only on earth and not elsewhere.

What makes this question more confounding is that realms like earth, i.e. planets, stars and galaxies have their own life cycle, that means they too have their own expression of life time, so the definition of “life” we are used to is quite local, there is another altogether definition of life related to the phenomena like birth of a star to the destruction of a star.

Therefore, we can also say that one expression of the nature is continuation across multiple life spans  within its vastness and nestedness. By the same token, it is possible to imagine that the entire universe is one nature interconnected with each of its components and sectors,  and this universe can also be called as GOD for convenience.  If we do so, then GOD also is another living being, while we are in some isolated corner of such a being, GOD could also be another such isolated nothing in its own larger universe having its own another SUPERGOD.  Such is the complexity of this nature, and unfortunately beyond a point we cannot make sense experientially or even through a logical thought like a bacterium inside our body failing to understand ourselves as its GOD.

Therefore, it is easy for someone who understands the nature, to accept the concept of GOD which primarily means that our realm extends beyond our ability both in the dimensions of expansion and contraction, and acceptance of our limitation in this context helping us to acknowledge the unimaginable extension of our reality is the acknowledgement of GOD and a surrender to such a reality with the acceptance of our own limitations even beyond the pinnacle of our evolution.

If we notice the link between the essence and expression in the nature, they seem to be programmed with a set of principles, yet there is a level of randomness in the expression and also a sense of purpose hidden in the trajectory of evolution or lifecycle in the higher contexts.  Therefore, when it comes to the study of nature, whether it is through science or any other discipline, the closeness  of relationship between the two (essence, expression) are well understood and the exceptions like evolution and linkage to the life cycle at the higher realm are also appreciated. For example, it is understood that the life on earth has gone through evolution and likely to continue its journey, while the life span of the earth itself is limited owing to that of the sun and so on.

If we treat humans as part of the nature, then all the principles of the nature can be applied to humans. The essence of the humans can be appreciated in the context of the nature, so is about the human expression, and so is the linkage between the two.

When a religion acknowledges the whole phenomena as one nature, it will attribute the characteristics of this nature beyond our senses and abilities to appreciate as GOD.  Then it will attempt to explore the pathways that are there between the nature that we can understand and that we cannot understand.  While some of these pathways can be explained by Science (like the time taken by the light from a star to reach us) or the disciplines which are quite contradictory to science (eg. Paranormal phenomenon). There is a holistic integration of all in a nature based religion allowing both science and non-science to  coexist harmoniously and work in tandem to understand and explain the nature.

When a religion moves away from the nature, when it personifies GOD, when it introduces higher truth as dogma, the trouble starts. It tends to give priority to personal GOD more than the nature and it can even attack the prevalent knowledge of nature to save its dogma (eg. Earth is flat).  Another damage it does is in the personification itself, it needs to assign a gender, male or female, the non-assigned gender becomes the downtrodden in the society. Worse, if the human nature displays a phenomena that can be gender neutral or multiple gender combined, the very nature will be attacked again to protect the dogma around GOD. That is the trouble we see around homosexuality and other exceptional  expressions of human in particular.

Another problem with the humans is that of science. The modern science equipped with industrialization, fueled by colonization and religious propagation destroyed the societies built on the concept of nature and GOD merged into one, and may be for a very justifiable reason we idiots cannot yet appreciate.  In the name of modern civilization, it even called such societies as savages and even took pride in destroying them using both technology and logic. Now a days, we see the saturation of such a science. It is failing to expand and maintain the equilibrium in the human society.  Its price is more than its value, for example modern medicine.  It also has brought the humans into the brink of annihilation through nuclear warfare, destruction of nature for building human societies and settlements, and unregulated usage of valuable an limited commodities  that are available on the earth.  So, it is not the problem of science per se, but the mindset behind the science, the mindset of arrogant and insensititive aethiesm (Please note, I am not attacking aethiests per se, I dint get a better word, may be I need to coin one) which is to declare that the collective human expression is the supreme thing. In a way, the science is acting as a devil in this manner.

Taking the clue from here, I am saying that there is a choice for humans, one to accept that human expression is part of nature and the other is to defy the nature as we understand (There is always more than what we understand). When the human expression is part of nature, there is a limit as to its expression, but it helps to conserve and harmonize. When the human expression is considered supreme to nature, it justifies to destroy the nature and also bring self destruction on self, may be with a very meaningful expression at the time of annihilation saying , “oops!”, which in no way helps.

The source of this choice among humans is also debated. One school of thought is that the humans are evolution or mutation  within this earth and therefore can be considered as part of nature native to earth. Another school says that the current humans are the hybrids between some neanderthals of yesteryear's and the superior beings coming from outside the earth, these beings are using earth as a colony to serve their ends which we are yet to fully understand and appreciate.  Well, the current human expression favors the second hypotheses, but I do currently believe that the current human expression is a localized aberration in the saga of evolution on earth. Earth can afford to lose humans altogether like dinosaurs, the key difference being  the dinosaurs were extinct due to natural phenomena like meteors, where as humans may bring their own destruction by destroying the nature through their settlements or expressions like wars or simply something going wrong with their creation like nuclear war heads.

Such a situation leads to three types of activism collectively. One is both to search for a place to live and to change our nature based living into space station based living when the earth goes bonkers, fueled by the modern science, helping us to search for future settlements in space or on Mars etc. Second one is to behave in a converging manner through limits, self governance, safety features around nuclear arsenal , conservation, and returning to nature based systems changing our collective mindset to be less audacious. Third one is fueled by the folks with access to paranormal knowledge saying that before the earth is destroyed or by the time earth is destroyed, the humans will learn to live only with the spirit and with no or limited body, the human machine interface will facilitate the spirit to express at par or better than the current or past humans. The hypotheses of management of human settlement by extra terrestrials fuels this logic further.

So, when we observe the human expression today and compare it  with the essence of humans or the nature in general, we are living through a confusing time, allowing us to be bombarded by multiple conflicting paradigms, each one vying to outwit the others.  It is only possible that one can focus on the art of peace for self among this confusion, it is very unlikely that there is clarity for anyone single individual, including a godman or a super human serving the extra terrestrial. Even if such superior knowledge exists with a few chosen ones, they can only have a logical explanation to explain our current mess, but will not have clarity as to bring collective clarity to the whole civilization as such, in that sense, they too are messed up.

This article originally aimed to seek an art of balance between the essence and expression for humans. But, it got derailed first on the issue of whether humans are part of nature or not, if part of nature the balance is built in, and if not, the destruction or escape is inevitable, it is very unlikely that humans will master the nature to the level of slavery to suit themselves.

The article also got derailed on the second aspect which is our inability to link the phenomena of higher or lower realm to our current realm, which is likely possible to explain either as a nature, or as a slavery to superior beings out there.

But the question remains and needs to remain, which is what is the art of balancing between essence and expression in this confusing time.

So, the rest of the article will attempt to ruminate with what is reasonably known.  Embracing the essence is to embrace the nature with all its knowledge, limits of the knowledge, its possibilities and limitations and the conflicting expression within the nature. This is very well laid out to some extent as an art of living by the eastern religions and the natural sciences.

Embracing the expression is to optimize the human experience and productivity both at the individual and collective level.  The concept of “Devil” helps to understand the relation between the human psyche and its impact to the expression, and the art of influencing human psyche towards local gains. The advertisements industry thrives on such knowledge.  Therefore, it is reasonable to say that the human expression devoid of linkage with essence is satanic and is destructive to self and others in the long haul, while it brings unreasonable benefits and thrill in the short run.

Therefore, human societies built on such satanic ways need superior hierarchical control and will need dumbing down of the human as a creature of productivity and behavior under control. Such a human society is very unlikely to evolve to higher possibilities in the long run other than only serving other beings with more productivity like the chicken in the modern day hatcheries having less quality life but bringing better productivity to greedy humans. Here, in this example, such a mechanism can bring disaster to the masters too, in this case too much antibiotic usage damaging the human genes towards wrong direction in the evolution. Similarly, the human greed beyond a point could damage their masters, if any in the form of superior beings, in such a case, superior beings will have to abandon the dependency on us, and when they abandon, our societies will go through a run away condition in a worst hit natural condition, therefore human destruction is again inevitable on this earth with the greed fueled approach to build our future societies. There is a limit in this logic like the smart ants who have created a colony in our garden saying that "there is a way to live ourselves, else our master, the gardener who stomps around us quite often may destroy us, so we need to think of being useful to our master, but we dont know and that is depressing."  I am going this way only to highlight how screwed we can be for no mistake of us, but definitely due to the very limit built into and around us.

What will make this article a bigger joke is if there is a higher knowledge already available with selected humans to which this joker is not a party to, and this could be quite likely. In such a case, everything is understood as hunky dory by such people, and this joker will keep writing this kind of mad muse into and beyond admission to mental asylums. That is the risk of thinking at the edge of our thinking limits, the risk of free fall to the bottomless pit at the other end always exists, bringing total death or bed ridden disability for the rest of the life.

So, we need to go forth with two possibilities, one that everything makes sense to someone, just not me or us, but to the superior beings among us; the other one is that nobody makes sense and we are living with an attempt towards sense of balance until we can balance, and beyond the balance, we surrender to the fact that we submit ourselves to major disaster if and when it happens. This dichotomy of thinking can coexist in an individual or in different shades of mix across the human collective.  I cannot help this dichotomy beyond a point other than asking a pertinent question as to what is the art of living within the lunacy of this dichotomy, both at the level of individual and overall human society at different levels.

One clarity emerges. Let us accept that we are rendered lunatic both at the level of individual and collective. Therefore, let us examine all our truths again and again to be manageable, conducive to accommodate all lunatics under the roof of one large asylum on this earth. Let us allow each lunatic to play a role, one as a doctor, one as a sooth sayer, one as a nurse, one as a philosopher, one as a story teller and so on. But, let us not give right to one particular lunatic or a set of lunatics to go against the diversity of the lunatics , but still understand that loony folks will still attempt to harm each other based on their roles and the logic of that role with limited knowledge, so let us attempt to refine our living style to accommodate more respect, space and expression to all the diverse loonies out there, and whenever  hell brakes lose in the asylum, we go after the ones who violate this rule of tolerance first and not based on who is more loony than the other. Let us also look out for the loony who bring more damage in the name of tolerance, but brimmed with intolerance for the other kinds.

The sanest person in such a case is the one who admits he is insane and is willing to work with self and the rest with and in spite of such limitations.  Basing one’s expression on essence helps one to learn that mindset.  Mending the current expressions to align to a set of essence also helps, as the alignment happens, the choice of essence can bring in further reforms. The one with such a mindset can also help to educate the rest on their lunacy and teach the art of living. It is also important to maintain distance and protection against the loonies who have gone further crazy.  It is also possible to build a collective agreement to limit or even destroy in exceptional cases, the loonies who do not allow other loonies to coexist. The phenomena around ISIS in today's world gives significant clues in this direction, both as what is built in already and what may further evolve.

So, bottom line, we all are screwed beyond hope in a way, but we can still make a decent living with an art of living within this individual and collective lunacy. And that requires us to be dedicated to master both our essence and expression, and this path is endless while our lunacy remains in spite of mastery.

Watch out for a master who claims to help other loony’s  but not willing to accept self also as one among them, he is very dangerous to begin with.

No need to say that one needs to keep safe distance from all the loonies who are not willing to accept that they are one. Such people will have a tendency to attack anyone as anyone can be easily proven to be loony at any time, because one is already.

So, coming to the essence requires a set of values. Eg. Humility, surrender, faith, linkage of self with the infinite, everything connected with each other, accepting imperfection yet commitment to move towards perfection in a harmonious manner.

Coming to the right expression requires  a set of values: Love, compassion, hope, oneness,  detachment, humor, balance between opposite values, creativity, realistic, Tolerance, diversity, collaboration, harmony, balance, negotiations, art of war, art of communicating in an asylum  etc. etc.

When these two converge and merge, let us hope that the higher knowledge the possibility of which still always exists to anyone in the maturity curve though that in itself has limits will dawn to guide further. In contrast to such an optimism, if someone is attacked with a depression packed with pessimism, moving towards essence helps, whether it is singing in praise of God or learning to live in a cave or off-grid.  Too much optimistic one is likely to be beaten badly by other lunatics, so he or she is likely to learn to mix with right amount of pessimism as the beating intensifies. Cant help that some perish in such a beating.

Bottom line, do not stick to one side of the scale; Rather, as the scale moves, move across the bar to balance self with the moving scale. So, be alert and stay on the move. To sit still, is to invite death, totally or in some partial manner! So, let us live fully while death keeps attacking  on a daily basis, and let us make it merry with all loonies around!

It is loony times on eternity. While we live with it, there is a sense of sanity inside, let us hold onto it all the time, even when we are unnecessarily getting beaten by other loonies who think they are saner than us. When time comes to save ourselves, let us manage our expressions as needed, but never give up on that sense of sanity burning bright inside, that is one thing that keeps all these things worth all the trouble.

I bow down to that sense of sanity experienced by every loony out there including self!

Namaste!