Ataraxia Part II

Forget you're a human being for a moment and come with me, into the space occupied by an atom of matter.

This space, perhaps as large as a town square, contains many feathery dust-like particles whirling in an apparently random dance. Right at the centre - where the town cross would be - is a something the size of a grain of sand. This is the atomic nucleus, and it contains most of the mass of the atom. The feathery dusty motes whirling all about us now are electrons. What is interesting about them is their inability to be pinned to one position or even a shaped orbit, as we know the word orbit in connection with our planets. They may be whirling up here.

Or over here.




and definitely down here


all at the same time.

They don't have positions as such, they have probabilities of being within a defined space and time.

Also, every particle is interchangeable with every other particle of its type.
Each electron is, in a sense, one electron, and every muon the same muon.They are indistinguishable one from another.

The more we learn about the 'structure', for want of a better word, of matter, the more we realise that it is undifferentiated, interconnected...it's all One Thing.

Pull back, now, and re-enter your human body. Our biological beings use a classical operating system - otherwise I wouldn't be here, now, typing at you. I could be anywhere, at any time.

For incarnation, however,we need to switch viewpoints - operating systems - from the quantum to the gross.

Here we see a tendency for particles to be discrete individuals, and each discrete individual thinks -believes with every fibre of its being - that it is an autonomous, distinguishable something which is different from, for example, that autonomous, distinguishable otherthing over there, which is trying to break into my house and murder me.



I was about to start the next sentence with In reality... when I realised that I can't.

In effect, then, we are striving, with our high walls, electric fences, razor wire, vicious (or viscous as my armed reaction writes on the notes it leaves in my gate) dogs and firearms to protect ourselves (and our property, as if the stuff didn't own us as much or more than we think we own it) from ourselves.

Why we are striving to steal from ourselves is an equally hilarious question.

Indeed, the more I think about it, the funnier it gets.

Caught at this moment between the transcendence of observing lila - the kindergarten play of Being - and the immanence of adoration for the Cosmos and all its dirt and rain and storms, the most appropriate action for me appears to be to throw back my head and laugh and laugh and laugh.



Hey -Thou art Me, and Thou Art God.