Continuous and Discontinuous

 

Space is continuous and vast. Time is continuous and eternal. Consciousness is continuous through different levels of awareness, illuminating everything and itself. Energy is all pervading, fluctuating, non-diminishing.

Consciousness is not thought. It is the illuminator of thought. It is by which we know we are aware of ourselves and of our thoughts. Thought is made of information. Both information and thought are discontinuous. Consciousness is continuous. 

Gross Matter is the only item that is discontinuous. It gets recycled and occupies space, thus creating discreteness. It moves and gets moved by exchanging energy. But it changes, comes into being (form), grows, decays, and disappears (dies?), but only to take another form. It is impermanent in the background of continuous time.

Yet we get attached to the form which changes (discontinuous) and tends to disappear. All our worldly struggles, happiness and sadness come out of this relationship. We break it up into components and study and consider that to be knowledge.

What if we let go of focus on the Matter with its form (that includes our own body form), understanding it for what it is and its nature of discontinuity? What is left will be the cosmos of continuous, eternal reality of space, time, energy, and consciousness. We are inside of that reality. All those continuity factors are in us, made of matter. It is as though without form and its nature of discontinuity we cannot have the bliss of experiencing the continuous and the constants.

It is still a mystery. As the wise ones told us: “mystery is to be experienced”. Mystery is not a problem to be solved.

My mind still wants to know: “How did it all come about? Why? Who or what is behind all this? I prefer to leave it to our rishis who asked the same questions thousands of years ago at the foothills of the Himalayas on the banks of the seven sacred rivers. They called the “who or It” as Brahman.

Brahman is the continuous, constant behind the everchanging forms which are discontinuous. Brahman (He/She/It) is a composite of Space, Time, Energy, Consciousness and Matter.

But why all this? Why the cosmos, the stars and the sun, the earth, and the life? Why this human form?

I surrender to that Brahman with infinite gratitude and thanks for this life and the privilege of thinking. Thanks to my family which gave me an ishta devata (personal deity) to cling to and sail this ocean of life, to our ancestral rishis who set the standards for thinking and the tradition which encourages finding our own path to the shore.