Emptiness

When we fill things, it is because we believe them to be empty. Yet in reality, they are empty only after we decide to fill them. When something needs to be filled it is because it is empty. Yet what defines this emptiness? Is nothingness itself lacking, for lacking substance? Or is nothingness full of emptiness? It's hard to be sure. Yet what I know, is that we as human beings often make ourselves emptier in the service of our fulfillment. We are born complete, lacking nothing. Yet the more time we spend in our fully realized bodies, the more we seem to believe that we are missing something. We focus intently on what is lacking from our hearts, and who is lacking from our beds. We focus on what is lacking from our memories, from our pockets, and from our relationships. We focus as well, on what is lacking from our bodies. We imagine somehow, that if we had these things, or if these people were greater presences in our lives, then things would be different. And perhaps they would be. But they are not, and they will not be. Our belief in the very concept of lacking is what leads us astray. Lacking may exist on the minute scale, yet never at the scale of the human, or the divine. Nothing is missing from the universe. There is only what is, and what is not. What should, would, or is supposed to exist, simply does not exist. Except when it should, would, or is supposed to. We are not truly missing anything. Yet our belief that we are, causes us to miss everything that we are not missing.

Thought as well, is an illusion. To think is to forget, and to have thought is to have remembered. There is a misguided idea quite pervasive in Western societies, that thought will bring us closer to knowledge. Yet to know, and to think, are entirely different things. No amount of thinking will cause one to know something which they did not already know. All thinking does, is bring the past tense into the present. We as organisms know a million things. We have never been blank canvases, as fools imagine babies to be. For every baby is painted over with billions of years of evolution. Even chance is predestined, for chance still acts within a material world, and all materials have memories. All of us are still alive today, because we know how to survive. We know also, how valuable life is. If we had not known, we would have died. One does not need to think when they are dreaming. When human beings are unbound from time the need to think simply dissipates. We never think in dreams; we only know, and we forget. All of thought, and all of consciousness is a dance between these two states, or formless entities. Knowledge, and ignorance circle each other endlessly to the music of the divine. Everything that has ever been known, and everything that will ever be known is known to someone or something, someplace or somewhere. We are all part of a greater omnibeing, who holds within herself/itself a memory of everything that has ever had the capacity to become knowledge. Yet true knowledge, like the states of emptiness, and fullness, exists only in relation to other states of being. When there is no delineation between knowledge, and ignorance, they become the same thing. We are often able to perceive these ephemeral moments as they float upon the winds, or come to us in strange shapes beneath blankets of sleep. Knowledge has no border, no definition without ignorance. In fact, it could be correct to state that knowledge is the absence of ignorance, or an emptiness of ignorance. Just as ignorance is the absence, or emptiness of knowledge.

In light of all these revelations, I am learning something. It can be very hard to translate knowledge into thought, or action. To know something, and to think something are such different positions, and we often ignore what we know, in favor of that which we think. Letting go of thought, and longing is a highly difficult process. The tides of the ocean are a comforting analogy. When one drops something into the tides, they are not throwing it away; far from it. No instead, they are suspending its arrival in our terrestrial world. Through casting it into this other world, we place its fate directly into the hands of god, through the windows of our perception. To give something to the sea is an act of love. One knows that it will come back, yet the chance of ever encountering it again is blatantly slim. Yet one also knows that it will not be wasted on the sea. It's important I believe, at this time, to remember that all life stems from the churning oceans. The rhythm of the tides is the song that played through our creation. Perhaps that song could even be our creator herself; that incomprehensible, dynamic divinity who exists between the pull of the moon, and the froth of the sea. It is her breaths which give the world life.

We must learn to give our longings, and thoughts to the sea. They will come back, as things inevitably do. Perhaps to us, and perhaps to someone else. Yet by casting them from ourselves, we realize that they never came from us in the first place. If they can exist outside of us, then we can exist outside of them. What we need from those roiling waves will always arrive before us, precisely when we need it. Yet by holding onto the tides, and refusing to let them go, we procrastinate this natural cycle; wrestling with the inefable in cosmic mud. We have never been in control, and we never will be. We are puppets of the tides; we do not move ourselves but are moved instead by a million external factors. Life itself, in the biological sense does not need to move in order to reproduce; to live on. So why do we find ourselves moved? The answer is unimportant, for we are always moving, and there is no way for us not to be. Yet, by releasing inner longing we apprehend the engine of this Sisyphean reality. Organisms, yet perhaps even entities more broadly, all possess the intrinsic longing to differ, and the intrinsic longing to remain the same. Space, time, and geography are a series of interlocking mirages. In truth, there are only two directions in the universe. The direction of in, and the direction of out. The direction of smaller, and the direction of bigger. All of existence is bound somehow, by this simple scale. The universe strives endlessly to become one with itself, as it has always, and never been; while at the same time it strains to become different. Yet, because it has always differed, true difference continues to evade it. What is the solution? Great release, and nothing more. Let go of your desires, and let go of your desire to let them go. Make peace with the reality of violence, so that you come closer to inner peace. Finally, let go of love, and let go of the fear that you could let love go. It will be ok, perhaps. The things you think you need are already here, or you never needed them. Pour your longings, deep and boundless, into the sea. Learn to live without needing what you want, and what you need will come closer with every sunrise. Everything you have ever wished for, will be possible because you have wished it. Some day. Fate cannot escape you, my friend. Have faith in blue.