Hey Platt --
It may be very much like, if not the same, as your Essence.
At least, I'm leaning that way.
[Ham, with minor revisions]:
Did you ever drop a silver Christmas ball from the tree
and watch it shatter into slivers at your feet?
Each of those shell-like fragments mirrors the illuminated
tree standing above it. You and I are broken fragments
from the tree of Essence mirroring the value of our source.
What we reflect of Essence differentially, relationally and
conditionally, is what we ARE (absolutely) in Essence.
[Platt, slightly abridged]:
An example of DQ working its will on you, Ham! Not only
is that a great metaphor created on the spur of the moment,
but very much like another metaphor that Marsha has
referred to from time to time:
The Jewel Net of Indra:
"Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra,
there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some
cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out
infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the
extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single
glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net
itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number.
... Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this
one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that
there is an infinite reflecting process occurring."
Alan Watts created a similar metaphor:
"Imagine a multidimensional spider's web in the early morning
covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the
reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected
dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that
reflection. And so ad infinitum. ..."
As all three metaphors imply the existence of a central light,
I was prompted to recall one of my favorites:
"The spiritual world is one single spirit who stands like unto
a light behind the bodily world and who, when any single
creature comes into being, shine through it like a window.
According to the kind or size of the window less or more
light enters the world. The light itself however remains
unchanged". -- the sufi mystic Aziz Nasafi:
This in turn led to our friend, Mr. Pirsig who describes the
Dhamakaya light:
"In other cultures, or in the religious literature of our past,
where the immune system of "objectivity" is weak or
nonexistent, reference to this light is everywhere, from the
Protestant hymn, "Lead Kindly Light," to the halos of the
saints. The central terms of Western mysticism,
"enlightenment," and "illumination" refer to it directly. ...
"In a Metaphysics of Quality, however, this light is important
because it often appears associated with undefined
auspiciousness, that is, with Dynamic Quality. It signals a
Dynamic intrusion upon a static situation. When there is a
letting go of static patterns the light occurs. It is often
accompanied by a feeling of relaxation because static patterns
have been jarred loose." (Lila, 26)
I don't know about you, Ham, but I see a connection between
Essence, Asian mysticism and the MOQ. We probably can't
wrap them all up in a neat bow and put them under your
Christmas tree, but the similarities are striking enough to
conclude they are all views of the same luminous elephant.
< (I just made that up.)
What do you think?
I think you read a lot more than I do and are ever on the lookout for
similes of mystical experience. No question but that we're all talking
about the same "illuminating concept" -- Differentiation and its
transcendent source, Pirsig's "jarred loose patterns" perhaps being somewhat
less illuminating in this respect.
Aside from what we can experience (mystically or sensually), the point I
wanted to drive home is that the essence of the individual is not his/her
subjective "being-aware" but the Value of that being's unexperienced object.
As I illustrate in my on-line thesis, WE serve as the "prism" that divides
the pure light of Essence into a spectrum of many colors. We can only
"experience" Essence as the value of its colors to us. But the prism itself
is not Essence, it's only the "agent" of Essence realizing its Value. As an
agent it must exist separately from that which it realizes.
Frankly, I don't think the DQ/SQ metaphor quite captures this concept. That
Quality may be viewed as a whole or as patterns isn't the point. Quality or
Value is a realization -- specifically, the realization that we as
individual subjects are NOT Essence. A human being is a 'not-other' negated
from Essence to appreciate its Value relationally. Our value-sensibility
affirms this truth with each and every experience. Is it stretching logic
to conclude that this is man's role in existence?
I hope the above sheds more light on my concept. Thanks for the quotes,
Platt. They're all great metaphors.
Enjoy the weekend,
Ham
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