Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Kaleidoscope

I am formless intelligence - no shape, size, color, height, weight - no limits in terms of time nor space - no boundary, no border.

With no means of knowledge available, I am the Absolute itself, Brahman, Oneness, Wholeness.

The means of knowledge comes - called Consciousness - Consciousness requires that Absolute to be objectified - in objectification I possess shape, size, color, height, weight, time, space, boundaries and borders.

Like an image viewed through a kaleidoscope, I take on shapes and sizes, yet the reality is still prior to the limited measurement. The reality is never dependent on the limited means of knowledge.

In other words, I do not become split up through measurement.

Through the kaleidoscope view of Consciousness, I appear as all forms, all power, all forces at play. The intelligence that I am is the changing states of energy, the flowing waves of IS-ness which we call a Universe.

Yet I never become anything new.

As the tree is born, only a shape has evolved from that intelligence. No new existence has been created. When that tree decays, only a shape has dissolved. No existence has been destroyed.

I am existence itself. I am the Life of all lives.

I am the seeing of all eyes, the hearing of all ears, the tasting of all mouths, the smelling of all noses and the feeling of all touch.

This is the kaleidoscope of Consciousness.

Consciousness itself is that intelligence again - the way I know my own Self. When that Consciousness arrives, I enjoy my own play, my own dance. When Consciousness is gone, I am once again in my natural state, formless, boundless, limitless.

The play and the natural state are not two states. Consciousness never creates a new subject-"I". There is only one "I".

You who would read these words are not a reader, not an independent subject-"I". You have no existence apart from the Absolute. You know well the arrival of Consciousness, the kaleidoscope which reveals a play of existence. You know well the departure of Consciousness and the natural state of formless existence.

You and I are the same reality. You and I are that same boundless Absolute Brahman.

Don't get lost in the kaleidoscope. When you have realized your true identity as the Absolute, the kaleidoscope view remains available.

Then as a child, the wonder of the kaleidoscope view is once again only a play, once again something to marvel at. And once the kaleidoscope is laid aside, you rest as you always have been. You know that the kaleidoscope view was only that formless existence seen through a limited means.

You rest as that Absolute itself.

Then the shapes in the kaleidoscope are not resisted, there are no conditions placed upon any color. What appears in this view is the natural play of existence. There is no rejection of a particular combination of attributes. The play plays out as it does - the wonder and marvel remains - unconditional acceptance is called Peace or Love.

When you are not lost in the kaleidoscope, the kaleidoscope view plays out unconditionally, because it has ceased to be ABOUT you, in reference TO YOU. That YOU is what you take yourself to be - that YOU is one shape, one color, one segment of the kaleidoscope.

How can you be just one segment?

13 comments:

Roeland said...

Wonderful, thank you.

Guille said...

"I am the seeing of all eyes, the hearing of all ears, the tasting of all mouths, the smelling of all noses and the feeling of all touch".

Thanks for this post.

su said...

what is understood (rightly or wrongly) from your writings is that it is all consciousness.
arising and falling.
and to resist none of it.
so many pointers point to stilling the mind, striving for peace, ignoring desires or any of the arisings.
which i am unable to do.
so when you bring in the image of the kaleidoscope and prior to it - well something is understood and upon that understanding an enormous relief arises.
thanking you again my friend.

Randall Friend said...

Su,

Mind and desires are all reflections in the kaleidoscope. That multi-colored image need not be manipulated. The point is that there is something prior to the measuring of the kaleidoscope - the image seen in the kaleidoscope is only a representation of that "something".

That "something" is the absolute nature of existence. It can never be "seen" because any "seeing" provides only a limited view, as in the kaleidoscope. Yet the kaleidoscope view IS a view OF the Absolute, only broken out into shapes and colors.

So to want to manipulate any part of the kaleidoscope is to deny the Absolute itself.

We only see that all means of measurement provide a seemingly divided view - yet that view is OF the whole itself, known through a limited means.

That means is Consciousness - it comes and goes and while it remains, the world appears. That world is the whole appearing through this limited means.

The whole doesn't come and go - only the kaleidoscope, only the means of knowing. Without the means, there is no appearing of a world.

Yet you remain.


love
randall

Anonymous said...

How this Consciousness came to be? Is a question that arises in the 'Kaleidoscope'. Any forth coming answer or explanation will also be within the Kaleidoscope, such as "Consciousness has spontaneously appeared in or on the Absolute". Do you have any thing to say to that Randall, clarify or elaborate on this point?
Cheers - Suki

Randall Friend said...

Hey Suki,

Yes, any answer comes in and AS Consciousness and therefore is limited as well.

Nothing comes in the absolute. The absolute is what IS - all that comes, comes AS the absolute yet the so-called coming of it is only known through a limited means. Due to this equation the "thing" seems to be of itself, standing alone, simply because we cannot get a look AT the absolute AS IT IS.

Yet we are always "looking at it" anyway. We just are no longer caught or bound by the appearance AS absolute in itself, by the appearance AS existence in itself.

A good analogy is of a blind and deaf man. He cannot get a look directly at the world therefore he creates a representation of it in imagination, imagining what the color blue looks like, what a birdsong sounds like. At some point he may take those imaginings, those mental pictures as actual reality, forgetting they are limited representations of actual reality.


love
randall

Anonymous said...

Thank you Randall,for clarifying this point further.
Peace - Suki

No One In Particular said...

Keeping in mind all the caveats and codicils with non-dual language usage - you sure have a way with words, Randall! Big fan.

Randall Friend said...

Hey Suzanne - good to hear from you. Nice pic.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this post.

I get confused on this point - "prior to, but not separate from the world."

Whenever I look for something prior to the world, it seems by definition separate. How can something be prior to be not separate from?

Mary said...

What a beautiful post, Randall. Thank you!

Love,
Mary

Randall Friend said...

Prior to, but not separate, means what?

It means that there is something there always, whether the "world" is appearing or not. Then the world comes but that coming is not something other than THAT.

YOU are that which is always there to know the world as it comes and goes. The ideas you have about yourself, the feelings and perceptions we call body, thoughts, the images, the facades... these all come and go. You remain as that presence by which they are known.

And that which comes and goes cannot by itself be real - it depends - it has it's reality upon that which remains invariable.

Therefore you are that which is prior to but not other than the world.

love
randall

Randall Friend said...

Hi Mary - good to hear from you my friend.

love
randall