On the unity of all things

Written by Richard Geldard

Richard Wilbur, one of great living Emersonian poets, had this to say about the nature of
poetry:
"I think that all poets are sending religious messages, because poetry is, in such great part,
the comparison of one thing to another... and to insist, as all poets do, that all things are related
to each other, comparable to each other, is to go toward making an assertion of the unity of all
things."

We can alwys tell when a poet or writer is "Emersonian" by their grasp of unity.
Richard Wilbur, one of great living Emersonian poets, had this to say about the nature of
poetry:
"I think that all poets are sending religious messages, because poetry is, in such great part,
the comparison of one thing to another... and to insist, as all poets do, that all things are related
to each other, comparable to each other, is to go toward making an assertion of the unity of all
things."

We can alwys tell when a poet or writer is "Emersonian" by their grasp of unity.

This passage from Emerson's essay"Plato; Or The Philosopher" sets out the principle of unity
and diversity in things, the perennial tension between the One and Many:

"This defining is philosophy. Philosophy is the account which the human mind gives to itself of
the constitution of the world. Two cardinal facts lie forever at the base; the one, and the two: 1.
Unity, or Identity; and, 2. Variety. We unite all things by perceiving the law which pervades
them; by perceiving the superficial differences and the profound resemblances. But every
mental act,- this very perception of identity or oneness, recognizes the difference of things.
Oneness and otherness. It is impossible to speak or to think without embracing both."

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On the unity of all things

Written by Richard Geldard

As always with Emerson, the key to understanding reality is found in knowledge of thelaws
that govern the universe. Interested readers can find more on the subject of unity by searching
for the word in his works and by using the concordance,examine his use of the word. The Irey
Concordance on the site is a remarkable tool. Not only does it show every word in the Complete
Works (except for articles and pronouns) but it shows them in context. The useful Key shows
inwhich essay or lecture the words can be found.

[Note: The following is an excerpt from Being Consciousness Bliss (Lindisfarne, 2001) by Astrid
Fitzgersld, a valuable book which leans heavily on key quotations from Emerson in its
exploration of the unity of all things]

EXISTENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Astrid Fitzgerald

If we consider life on this earth solely as a physical manifestation, regarding

the universe as a blind mechanical mass powered by chemical reactions and
biological proliferation, we might well wonder, "What is the purpose of this
furious activity?" Some people maintain that our existence here is mere
accident and that there is no greater meaning to life or any higher reason for
existence.

We tend to believe in the sole reality of matter because our senses feed us with a continuous
stream of impressions that our minds process into a perception of a solid exterior reality. We
thrive on this input and experience great comfort in the never-ceasing flow of sensory
information, which lets us know that we are alive and well. We know from research that when
human beings are deprived of sensory stimulation for any length of time, perception is altered
and circadian rhythms disturbed; in some cases, a gradual disintegration of the personality has
been observed.

We are hardly aware that our whole lives revolve around the senses. Yet we treasure our
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On the unity of all things

Written by Richard Geldard

senses and love the objects they perceive. We enjoy the sense of comfort we feel when we
stand on a solid floor, sit in a comfortable chair, or lie in a fragrant meadow. We feel pleasure
when we smell freshly baked bread, taste a fine wine, breathe the ocean breeze, or listen to a
great symphony. We derive a sense of well-being from all this sensory input. Even the memory
of a pleasant event or the recollection of a beautiful sight will bring about a physical reaction of
ease and pleasure.

All this reenforces our trust in the senses and our belief in the phenomenal world as something
outside ourselves. Yet we know from science that, for example, there is no such thing as local
or permanent color in nature. When we "see" an object as red, blue, or yellow, we are
interpreting the stimulation of the retina in response to the refraction of light from the surface of
the chemical or mineral particles that we call pigments.

We also know from research that when perception is altered by drugs or pathological chemical
changes in the brain, the experience of the phenomenal world changes drastically. Higher levels
of experience, such as clairvoyance, can also change our view of "normal perception." We know
from reports of higher states of consciousness and mystical experiences that phenomenal
reality as we generally accept it tends to disappear altogether. Emersons observation in his
essay "Nature" addresses this point: "If Reason be stimulated to more earnest vision, outlines
and surfaces become transparent, and are no longer seen; causes and spirits are seen through
them. The best moments of life are these delicious awakenings of the higher powers, and the
reverential withdrawing of nature before its God."

Attempts in physics and mathematics to discover the fundamental laws of nature suggest that
physical reality is a nonlocal process that lies outside of the space-time continuum and derives
from something beyond space and time. As we "see" deeper into the subatomic realm, it gets
curiouser and curiouser! Here the law of cause and effect is no longer apparent; here
randomness and simultaneity rule; here mind affects matter; here there are no divisions. At the
quantum mechanical level, only energy and information exist, and our bodies are nothing more
than a localized disturbance in the larger quantum field that is the universe.

Everything we see, all of creation, consists merely of phenomena that have their origin in the
noumenon. But the two are not separate in reality. We may find that the unified field currently
sought by science is just another designation for the pure consciousness of metaphysics.
Quantum physics seems to be on the verge of "proving" the existence of pure consciousness,
sometimes referred to as "the field of pure potentiality" or "the creative principle," which exists
everywhere in the universe, as it does in every human being. The cause, however, will most
likely remain elusive to science, since our perception is not yet attuned to this level, and our

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On the unity of all things

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present state of mind does not penetrate the dimensions of space, time, and causation.

The Upanishads declare that all this universe is maya - the web of illusion - offering the image
of the spider who spins his web out of himself and then uses this self-made structure as his
world. This suggests that
maya exists in
our collective consciousness, but has no absolute existence. The Vedas teach that the whole
creation and everything we behold is held in our own
prakriti
or Nature. The Buddha taught that "All is Mind."
Advaita
- the nondual philosophy of consciousness - declares that "One alone" exists. This "One" is both
noumenon and phenomenon and manifests itself in multiplicity as many different forms.
Advaita
propounds that there is only one consciousness. Human beings have their lives in this
consciousness and by it cognize and experience the various aspects of consciousness, which
are information, awareness, knowledge, and wisdom.

Paul Brunton, one of this centurys most dynamic spiritual thinkers, who successfully
synthesized Eastern and Western ideas, clarifies our understanding of consciousness and mind
in his voluminous notebooks. He writes: "The individual mind presents the world-image to itself
through and in its own consciousness. If this were all the truth then it would be quite proper to
call the experience a private one. But because the individual mind is rooted in and inseparable
from the universal mind, it is only a part of the truth. Mans world-thought is held within and
enclosed by Gods thought. Our idea of the external world is caused partly by the
energies of our own mind and partly by the energies of the World-Mind. It is not caused by a
separate material thing acting on our sense organs. It is a generative idea. Here is a whole
philosophy congealed into a single phrase: the world is an idea."

Eastern teachings propound that the Creative Principle - the Absolute - is everywhere;
everything begins in the Absolute, is sustained by the Absolute, and returns to the Absolute. Yet
another principle states that all actions take place in the mind. These ancient truths are
universal and manifest at every level of the creation. The Creative Principle is a point, a void
beyond time and space that expands by the force of the Logos, the will or desire to become
manifest in time and space. This same Creative Principle - that "unmoving from which all
movement comes" - lies hidden in the center of every human being.

As we go about our human affairs, we get lost in phenomena and are totally unaware of this
grand design. In our ignorance, we believe in an inverse order of existence: we literally get the

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On the unity of all things

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whole picture backwards. This is quite evident from the fact that we expend most of our energy
tending to the material world, devoting little time to the development of our minds and almost
totally neglecting the care of our spiritual nature.

The Creative Principle or Void is beyond time and space, without limit or bounds. Pure
potentiality is everywhere, yet rests coiled up and hidden, a principle that may be confirmed by
the latest discoveries in astrophysics, which have led to the conclusion that space contains
invisible matter that is far more abundant than visible matter. This "dark matter" also
corresponds beautifully to the ancient Eastern concept of avyakta prakriti - unmanifest nature as well as to Vedic references to "the unseen remainder." The ancient sages reveal the
splendor of their seemingly unlimited knowledge about the nature of existence, when they
declare in the Eesha Upanishad, "That is perfect. This is perfect. Perfect comes from perfect.
Take perfect from perfect, the remainder is perfect."

In its universality, the statement also describes the properties of the Golden Mean proportion
and can be used to demonstrate this enigmatic mathematical/geometrical principle. The Golden
Mean proportion (whose mathematical symbol is the Greek letter N or phi) has fascinated
philosophers and architects from the Egyptians to Pythagoras to Plato, who in the Timaeus
elaborates on the relationship between the regular solids (three-dimensional forms relating to
the phi proportion) and the elements. This proportion has also inspired the builders of the Gothic
cathedrals, the artists and thinkers of the Renaissance, and architects and artists of the present
day.

{mosimage}

The Golden Mean proportions appear everywhere in organic and inorganic matter, in the
structure of the human body, and even throughout the intergalactic worlds. These "divine
proportions," as they are known, in combination with the Fibonacci numbers,* can be found in
our solar system, in growth patterns of flora and fauna, in viruses, and in DNA. The Golden
Mean spiral is most evident in the patterning of seeds in the center of a sunflower, in the shell of
the nautilus, in vortices, and in galactic formations. It may well be the matrix underlying the
outward thrust of the ever-expanding universe. All this suggests that human beings are
intimately linked with this law of Unity and regeneration. We might thus consider the expanding
Golden Mean spiral as a symbol of the lawful evolution of human consciousness and its inward
movement as a sacred symbol of the return of the individual to the source of being.

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On the unity of all things

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{mosimage}
The Golden Mean or Phi proportion can be illustrated by a point on a line asymmetrically
divided such that the shorter segment is to the larger segment as the larger segment is to the
whole. The point on a line (measuring one unit) in which this statement is true is expressed as
.618.... . This asymmetrical division is what makes dynamic expansion possible. Robert Lawlor,
the author of Sacred Geometry: Philosophy and Practice, puts it as follows: "In a sense, the
Golden Proportion can be considered as suprarational or transcendent. It is actually the first
issue of Oneness, the only possible creative duality within unity. It is the most intimate
relationship, one might say, that proportional existence - the universe - can have with unity, the
primal or first division of One. An asymmetrical division is needed in order to create the
dynamics necessary for progression and extension from the unity. Therefore the
N
proportion is the perfect division of unity: it is creative, yet the entire proportional universe that
results from it relates back to it and is literally contained within it, since no term of the original
division steps, as it were, outside of a direct rapport with the initial division of unity."

Thus the Golden Mean rectangle demonstrates geometrically and symbolically what the verse
from the Upanishad states poetically and philosophically: when we take a perfect square which
represents This or the visible universe which is the manifestation of the Fullness of the Absolute
from the Golden Mean rectangle which represents
That or the Supreme
Brahman, or pure consciousness, what remains is another perfect rectangle. The integrity of the
proportion remains the same: the remainder is perfect. In other words, the manifestation of the
universe does not affect or diminish in any way the Infinite or Brahman.

The question "what is existence?" and "what is consciousness?" can never be fully answered by
science with its reliance on the senses and sense-enhancing instrumentation. We are slowly
beginning to realize that the information we receive through ordinary perception may not give us
an accurate view of reality or at least not the whole picture. Some are beginning to explore new
paradigms within their fields. Others have found ways and means to explore a vast universe
within themselves, gaining knowledge and wisdom through exalted experiences.

As human beings we have the ability to turn our inquiry inward and address our higher nature.
By referring our inquiry further up the line - bypassing the discursive mind, evaluations based on
the dead past, or stale emotions stored in memory - to the highest principle in us, the Self, or
that which alone is real. Here in the light of consciousness resides the higher intellect or higher
reason and all knowledge.

The sages teach that union with the Self is attainable to those who desire it. While we lack an

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On the unity of all things

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intimate connection with reality, with the one Self, a small act of faith is required to bridge the
gap until such time that we experience it for ourselves. We also need to hypothesize for the time
being that an evolution of consciousness is a real possibility. We are told by the Wisdom
tradition that in this expanded state of human consciousness - the "objective consciousness" of
P.D. Ouspensky, the "pure Reason" of Plato or the "freedom from ignorance" of the Vedas - it is
possible to know everything fully about everything and apprehend the world as it is. The sages
saw this search for truth as the highest form of inquiry.

The reductive modern idea of a fortuitous accident propelled by a blind force hurtling through
space in an endless orbit does not hold up in light of many recent scientific discoveries in
physics and the study of consciousness. Whether science explains existence in terms of
energy, randomness, chaos, waves, superstrings, particles, or some other concepts, all these
seeming "realities" or matrices exist simultaneously on one level or another, conjuring up a
magnificent and eternal differentiation manifesting as the invisible and visible substance we call
the universe, nature, and life. But these tendencies are just the observable phenomena of the
interaction of "information" and energy and represent but a few glorious and extraordinary
facets of the One Perfection, the One Intelligence, and the One Consciousness that lies behind
them.

----------

* Fibonacci series are a set of numbers in which each number is the sum of the
two previous ones: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc. Any number divided by the following one
approximates 0.618, and any number divided by the previous one approximates
1.618 ad infinitum, these being a mathematical expression of phi or the Golden
Mean.

Adapted from Chapter Eight, Part One of BEING CONSCIOUSNESS BLISS - A

Seekers Guide
by Astrid Fitzgerald.
Copyright 2002 by Astrid Fitzgerald

Astrid Fitzgerald is an artist, writer, and a passionate student of the Perennial

Philosophy who has applied its principles to her life and art for more than thirty
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On the unity of all things

Written by Richard Geldard

years. The author of An Artists Book of Inspiration - A Collection of

Thoughts on Art, Artists and Creativity
- , and
Being Consciousness Bliss A Seekers Guide
- , Fitzgeralds writing is based on the philosophy and practice of
self-development, study groups, as well as individual self-inquiry and reflection.

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