Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Flow And Consciousness

For a long time, I had been saying that everything is "thought" in essence, and "energy" in nature. But somehow I knew that that was lacking something. "Thought" is either too intellectual, lacking heart and soul, or it is too much information oriented, i.e. only memory or data, thus lacking substance.

Also "energy" is somewhat too physical. Furthermore, "energy" itself is really of the same essence as everything else, namely the so called "thought".

Until it dawned upon me that the problem had been that I was trying to understand the world in a quantitative way. I was being a reductionist without realizing it. How can I even try to reduce things to "thought" as the "thing" which is the essence of everything including energy, and "energy" as the "thing" which is the nature of everything, including "thought".

The flaw however, I realized was not in my definition of things so much as in my approach. If I want to define the world and everything in it, I can only define it qualitatively, in terms of an intangible, not a thing.

Now I realize that where my thinking was leading to was right, but the milestone that I had reached was not the end, but simply a stepping stone to move from quantity to quality.

Now I realize that the essence of everything, physical or non-physical, tangible or intangible, is "consciousness". "Thought" is simply an aspect or dimension of "consciousness". This new definition, namely "consciousness", has a heart and a soul, because other dimensions or aspects of "consciousness" include "love" and "faith".

Furthermore, the nature of everything is "flow" or "flux". "Energy" is simply a physical entity that flows. But so do life, matter, knowledge, money, power, relationships and everything else, physical or ethereal, tangible or intangible.

Not only that, the essence of "flow" is "consciousness", and the nature of "consciousness" is "flow", whether it is thought, love or faith.

It is interesting to see that the whole physical, quantitative universe that we live in is made up of simply qualitative and descriptive definitions. And that these definitions are inter-related and interdependent. That one describes the nature of the other, while the other defines the essence of the first.

How sweet it is to realize that all that exists can only be reduced to quality, if it can be reduced at all.

No comments: