THE LAW OF THREE (68) Depth or The Third Dimension of Wholeness

LAW OF THREE (68)

DEPTH OR THE THIRD DIMENSION OF WHOLENESS

"Our ordinary looking is almost two dimensional; in it there is very little sense of depth. We talk of the ordinary "personality" world where we are occupied with thoughts and reactions as flat - with

good reason. But when the transition comes and there is depth, we find ourselves in a different state. We feel different. Indeed, the feelings become awakened, and a freshness comes."

Anthony Blake A Seminar On Time

Most of our life seems to take place in the confines in a world with very little sense of the spatial reality or depth, where we miss the sense of wholeness 

With the sudden awareness of the dimension of depth* our experience is comparable to waking into a new dimension of ourselves.  From which perspective the two dimensional world of thoughts seem like a dream.

With this experience of depth our perception changes. A third dimension has been added to our body experience and our field of our awareness is expanded. In this new configuration our body seems much less solid than before, and its borders less defined.

Perhaps Raimon Panikkar referred to this experience when he wrote "The spiritual experience that we may call "mystical" does not put us in touch with a third world, but let us experience the third dimension of the one and the same world, opening us up to a more real union with reality."

The experience of the third dimension of the one and the same world referred by Panikkar is depth.     It is the experience of depth that makes us aware of what it really means to be in a body.

"There is a factual change which comes into the transition to an awareness of depth, as well as in the quality of feeling" Anthony Blake

*Third dimension of space.

LAW OF THREE (67) Dying and Rebirth

LAW OF THREE (67)

DYING AND REBIRTH

"We do not have within us a principle of stable existence. What we find in ourselves, on the contrary, is a principle of renewal, of return, of being lost and found again. This principle we can really only understand if we experience it in ourselves; and we know its taste as the taste of rebirth: whenever we come back from a state of oblivion, or forgetfulness. This happens again and again, to such an extent that we become accustomed to it and cease to see how important it is - and how really wonderful it is - that we should be able to come back again after having been lost."

J.G. Bennett

We cannot be aware of the instant of falling asleep or the instant of waking up.  All we can say on returning to our own awareness is  'I am here, now! '  .

We are unaware that our life does not run in a continuous line, but that it is constantly interrupted, renewed or given back.

Dying and rebirth is a constant in our lives without our being aware of the extraordinary miracle that it represents.   It is  'the action' of an independent creative force which does not come from ourselves.* and that constantly brings us back to life.

The continuous interplay of the three independent cosmic forces (life-birth-death), that makes possible the experience of being here now:

'I am here now in this immediate space in contact with a life force which supports, enlightens and unifies my presence' John Pentland

*Everyone who begins to study and know their own states is well aware that our experience is a constant dying and rebirth. We must not be frightened as we come to see this, although it is really a terrifying thing that we have no power to keep hold of our life: that it has to be renewed or given back to us by something that does not come from ourselves.

But even when we see the helplessness with which we fall into oblivion, at that moment when we are most trying to hold on to ourselves, we must learn to trust that there is something that calls us back. And if it calls us back from sleep at night, it will call us back from that other sleep into which we shall enter,

J.G.Bennett

THE LAW OF THREE (66) Who Is The Third One?

THE LAW OF THREE (66)

WHO IS THE THIRD ONE?

WHO IS THE THIRD who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together

But when I look ahead up the white road

There is always another one walking beside you

Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded

I do not know whether a man or a woman

-But who is that on the other side of you?

"The Waste Land" T.S. Eliot

According to the law of three, every phenomenon and event in creation is the work of three independent forces: active, passive, reconciling. A dual perception is only aware of one or two forces: the initiating force and the resisting force. Awareness of the presence and action of a third force requires developing a non dual perception. It is from a dual perspective when Sta. Teresa of Avila says: "We pray to God as if He was absent."

Duality is the world of thinking governed by the the illusion that 'I can do'.  St. Paul said : " I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." 

The eye of duality is unaware of  presence and action of a third or independent force,  The Upanishades speaks of an underlying

presence which makes the action possible: "That which makes the eye see, but needs no I to see, that alone is Spirit" 

The seer that sees though all eyes cannot be seen*, but it can be revealed in the suddenly insight that we are neither the seer nor the seen, but the seeing which enables the seer and seen to unite in an indivisible seeing.  The experience detaches from our identification with the"doing of the action" to the "contemplation of the action."

* "The observer that can be observed in not the observer." Dvid Finkelstain.

THE LAW OF THREE (65) Manifesting God

LAW OF THRE (65)

THE CENTER IS EVERYWHERE

"Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance and there is only the dance."

T.S. Elliot

What is a point? A point has no dimension. It is the source of all shapes and the beginning of all dimensions. The point is not an object.  The subject is not an object.  The subject experiences itself in relation to the manifest creation.

The point is our centre.  It is the eternal now. "If we cannot live in the present now we cannot live anywhere,"  Huang Po

Where is the point?  In a conversation with Raimon Panikkar,  I referred to  Centering Prayer.  "Ah,"  he exclaimed,   Centering Prayer,  and added,  "the Center is everywhere!"

The center being everywhere conveys the idea of eternity.  Eternity brings into relationship time and space.  Eternity awareness is the gate that offers relief  from the limitations of time-space which is the place the ego resides.

Find the center or "seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness and all things shall be added unto you" (He will give you everything you need) Matt 6 (33)

LAW OF THREE (64) Making One Out of Two

LAW OF THREE (64)

MAKING ONE OUT OF TWO

"When you are able to make two become one, the inside like

the outside, and the outside like the inside, the higher like

the lower, so that man is no longer male, and a woman,

female, but male and female a single whole. When

you are able to fashion an eye to replace an eye, and form

a hand in place of a hand, or a foot for a foot, making one

image supersede another -then you will enter in."

The Gospel of Thomas (22)

The task of the Triad is to make one:

"When you are able to make two become one...then you will enter in."    Making one out of two is not a question of eliminating one of the two opposing forces (as in war) but by bringing them together into a relationship by the power of a reconciling force to bring opposing forces into a relationship.

The well known pronouncement: "love your enemies..." describes the nature of the reconciling force of Love.  Love is indivisible.. If we only 'love' our friends we fracture love.  We find no use for our enemies.   We cannot evolve.  We cannot make one out of two.

The task of the Triad is to make meaning:

In the statement "I and my father are one", the third force is the power of meaning of the word father. Father brings into a relationship God and (I), giving rise to the form of One. Three distinct and mutually 'related' terms giving rise to a unit of meaning.

Raimon Panikkar's reflection:

The relation between God and man, therefore, instead of being one of pure transcendence (which does not admit any relation) is one of immanence. God is the transcendent mystery immanent in us. Hence there is a conviction common to different religions that someone that claims to have seen the transcendent God is not telling the truth...

It is in immanence that transcendence is discovered. We realise that we 'remain' in something that, being within us, is greater than we are, transcends us.

Immanence is the link which transcends the duality of God and Me and brings the unitive (triadic) experience of God in Me and I in God.

THE LAW OF THREE (63) Transforming Suffering

LAW OF THREE (63)

TRANSFORMING SUFFERING

"If thou hadst known how to suffer thou wouldst have been able not to suffer. Learn thou to suffer and thou shall be able not to suffer." Apocryphal Gospel of St. John.

"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you and that persecute you." Sermon of the Mount. Matthew 5:44

The above quotations challenge our attitude to the obstacles we encounter in life. They suggest we need to welcome them. Without enemies we cannot grow.

"We are always fighting the negative part of us, and therefore we cannot grow. The one who rejects is the ego who feeds on rejection" J.G. Bennett

"In no way can we eliminate the second or negative force: life would loose interest if anything we wanted were instantaneously produced without any effort from our part to overcome resistance.

P.D. Ouspensky

"Suffering is never an end in itself, but a stepping stone to transformation. In this view it may be the necessary step to force us to let go of what we overtly depend on (ego) for the fulfilment of our idea of happiness." Thomas Keating

LAW OF THREE (62) The Still Point

LAW OF THREE (62)

THE STILL POINT (1)

"One who sees inaction in action and action in inaction, is intelligent among men, and he is in the transcendental position, although engaged in all sorts of activities." Bhagavad Gita (400 bc9

 

"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascend nor decline. Except for the point, the sill point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance." T.S. Elliot

The still point brings time and space in a relationship with eternity, the third dimension of our experience.  In the Gita "the transcendental position'' is free from tensions between absolutes. Neither action nor inaction, at the point where the dance flows.

The still point is where all working surfaces meet (active-passive-neutral). It is where we reside. It is our home. When T. Keating later in life was asked if he was longing for home he answered: 'I wold like to think that I am already at home.'

The Centering Prayer method taught by T. Keating aids the practitioner to return to the absolute centre from which we have never departed, by letting go to all attachments to the transient and repetitive thoughts.