by Bob Fergeson
I have often marveled at my ability to repeat the same mistake, often repeating a pattern of mistakes steadily down through the years. This observation runs contrary to a feeling that I’m actually getting smarter, or better, as the years run by. One also hears this from ones’ peers, that we used to be pretty stupid way back when, but now, thank God, we’re better. As we look at the younger generation, we see them repeating the patterns of folly we suffered through, and realize we can do little to help them with our experience. A little self-observation, and honesty, will also show us that we ourselves are only getting better relative to our own mistakes. The man we were 5 years ago was not as smart as the man we were yesterday, but much better than the one of 10 years ago.
This apparent progression from the ignorance of our past to the sureness of our present state can be seen to be only a relative shift. Though the mistakes I made in the past month may not be near to the seriousness or frequency of the time of my adolescence, I still made them. I will most assuredly make more in the future. If we look at this seeming progression from relative ignorance to relative wisdom, we see that it is still not a real change. We are still functioning with a limited finite mind, even though it is seems to be becoming more efficient. This seeming movement is merely a statistical one if we look at it a little closer.
There is an old illustration we might find useful in better understanding this. If a ball is dropped, it appears to travel through space until it finally hits the ground. If we look at this in another light, we can see that this apparent movement, leading to a contact between ball and ground, is not as it seems.
If we take X as being the distance between the ball and the ground, and then look at the ball when it has traveled one-half X, and then repeat this several times, we find that the ball, according to this system, will never hit the ground. It will always be only halfway there, regardless of what numbers we assign to X.
No matter what numbers we give to the distance between the ball and the ground, if it only travels half of these numbers at a time, it will still not be in a different position relative to the ground. To finally make contact with the ground, a total change of being will have to occur. The ball and the ground will have to enter into a common relationship, or they will have to become one unit.
Let us look at our three objects, the ball, ground and seeming distance between them, in another light.
If we take the ground to be another ball, but of infinite mass and circumference, from the perspective of the smaller one, we would see a plane stretching in all directions, from horizon to horizon. The finite mind, or smaller ball, could not conceive of this in any real way, it would be unaware of the ground, or infinite mind, having nothing to gauge it against. Its only relation would be one of attraction, a gravitational pull leading from multiplicity and ignorance back to the state of contact and oneness.
If we equate the state of wellness with that of Enlightenment, and the state of sickness with that of ignorance, we can get a better look at the illusion of getting better. When we read of the experience of men who have made the change to the Absolute state as described in works such as Cosmic Consciousness, by Richard Bucke, we find they describe it as sudden. There is no “better” state, but a sudden, complete change. The ball hits the ground and is a separate thing no more.
We are also told by men who have made the trip to Reality that there is no learning about it, you become it. The ground is always halfway away until you merge into it. The ball cannot learn about the ground, it cannot get better, it can only get well, or become. This sudden Wellness, or Becoming, is spoken of by the Zen teachers of old as Satori.
If we view the ball as having freedom of choice between directions, either moving towards the ground or away into the void, we can see another fallacy. The ground, or infinite ball, would appear to the smaller sphere to be so uniform, motionless and never changing as to be practically invisible. A projectile cannot be fired at an invisible unknown object, it has to have a direction to its movement. The best way the ball would have to facilitate movement towards the Infinite would be to retreat from that which it knows, this knowledge being finite. Since the ball has been existing in the realm of the finite, it need simply move away from what it thinks, or knows not to be the Infinite, and in this manner back into the ground by a retreat from error.
The gravitational field of the ground would also attract the ball, if the ball would allow control of its actions to be governed by it. This could be compared to the surrender of our will to a Higher Power, or the allowing of something greater than ourselves to run the show. This would necessitate the perfection of not only the reason, but also the intuition, to screen out other attractions of a less desirable nature. Much time and effort could be wasted on tangential directions perhaps prompted by less than infinite objects.
Let’s look at this from another angle, one of the ball, or finite mind, being ego. The ego is best described as the relationship between the sentient and insentient. From this point of view, the ego’s efforts to become less finite, or more clever, are still seen to be a hopeless struggle. We can look at the man who comes to that point in his life where he realizes how much he is like his father. Perhaps not liking this state of affairs, he may devise new schemes to escape. He becomes more clever. Still, if he is honest with himself, he will see that not only has he learned the ego-tricks of his father, he has added new ones of his own. He has mired himself more completely into error, and still is only half-way home, heading more and more deeply into multiplicity.
The men who have made the leap into the Infinite speak not only of having made a relentless inquiry into their own nature, but also of a surrender. The ball may find that the Ground of All Being will come to it, when all is said and done.