Inner Space

"True intelligence operates silently.
Stillness is where creativity and
solutions to problems
are found.

...

Wisdom comes with the ability to be still.
Just look and just listen.
No more is needed.
Being still, looking, and listening
activates the non-conceptual
intelligence within you.
Let stillness direct your
words and actions.

...

When you look and listen in this way,
you may become aware of a subtle and at
first perhaps hardly noticeable sense of calm.
Some people feel it as a
stillness in the background.
Others call it peace.
When consciousness is no longer
totally absorbed by thinking,
some of it remains in its formless,
unconditioned, original state.
This is inner space.

...

Stillness is the only thing in

this world that has no form.
But then, it is not really a thing,
and it is not of this world.

...

Become at ease with the
state of 'not knowing.'"

- Eckhart Tolle (1948 - )
A New Earth

Entanglement

"Indeed, it is the quantum entanglement between the 'object' and the 'agencies of observation,' in this case, between the atom and the apparatus that is precisely what we need to attend to in making the interference pattern evident. Once again we see evidence for the ontological priority of phenomena over objects. If one focuses on abstract individual entities the result is an utter mystery, we cannot account for the seemingly impossible behavior of the atoms. It’s not that the experimenter changes a past that had already been present or that atoms fall in line with a new future simply by erasing information. The point is that the past was never simply there to begin with and the future is not simply what will unfold; the 'past' and the 'future' are iteratively reworked and enfolded through the iterative practices of spacetimemattering—including the which-slit detection and the subsequent erasure of which-slit information—all are one phenomenon."

- Karen Barad (1956 - )
 Meeting the Universe Halfway

Distortion of Reality

"Mysticism tends to combine the strictest concept of the Absolute, one that points to transcending any polarity, duality and distinction, and a vision of relativity that both denies the reality of the world of manifestation, when considered independently from its Source, and affirms an essential continuity or unity between the Ultimate and that which is not in an ultimate sense.

The Absolute is literally ab-solutum, which means that it is 'unbound,' 'detached' and 'free.' Although most often understood as 'complete' and 'self sufficient,' and therefore also 'cause of itself,' the Absolute must also and consequently be approached in terms of its perfect freedom, which is itself a dimension of its transcendence vis-à-vis any “relationality.” In this connection “relationality” entails an aspect of 'obligation' or 'reciprocity' by virtue of the 'relationships' and 'relations'  it involves. Therefore, our understanding of “absoluteness” as utter freedom immediately brings the central question of this inquiry to the fore by highlighting the apparent logical impossibility of positing concurrently the ontological reality of both the Absolute and “non-absolute realities” –including ourselves.

...

Metaphysical relativity is, in Advaita Vedānta, primarily identified with Māyā. Now Māyā is most often approached by Shankara as an epistemological phenomenon of superimposition upon Reality.  In other words Māyā is that which makes us mistake 'the rope for the snake.' It is a principle of distortion of Reality that stems from one’s inability to recognize Reality as it is, that is as the non-dual Self or Ātman. On the one hand, Māyā is the 'epistemological' fruit of a false identification of the Self with the body, on the other hand it is Māyā itself, or more specifically tamas - the lowest, most opaque of the three cosmological elements that enter into the composition of Māyā’s world of relativity, that is constitutional of delusion as such: 'The power of tamas is a veiling power.  It makes things appear to be other than what they are.  It is this which is the original cause of an individual’s transmigration and is the cause of the origination of the action of the projecting power.'

It must be noted ... that the ontological status of Māyā is incomprehensible: 'She is most strange. Her nature is inexplicable,' to use Shankara’s words. Māyā is fundamentally the unintelligible, and this lack of intelligibility is a function of  the 'obscurity' or uncertainty of its origin, as well as being bound to the  undecidability of its ontological status. "

- Patrick Laude
Shimmering Reality: The Metaphysics of Relativity in Mystical Traditions

Transcendent Patterns

"To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation; we need to see over-all patterns in our lives. We need hope, the sense of a future. And we need freedom (or, at least, the illusion of freedom) to get beyond ourselves, whether with telescopes and microscopes and our ever-burgeoning technology, or in states of mind that allow us to travel to other worlds, to rise above our immediate surroundings.

We may seek, too, a relaxing of inhibitions that makes it easier to bond with each other, or transports that make our consciousness of time and mortality easier to bear. We seek a holiday from our inner and outer restrictions, a more intense sense of the here and now, the beauty and value of the world we live in."

- Oliver Sacks (1933 - 2015)

Secrets of the Trees

"If you reveal your secrets to the wind,
you should not blame the wind for
revealing them to the trees."

- Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931) 
The Wanderer

Soft Stillness and the Night

"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here will we sit and let the sounds of music

Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st

But in his motion like an angel sings

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;

Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."

- William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)
The Merchant of Venice

Imperfect Concepts

"To Taoism that which is absolutely still

or absolutely perfect is absolutely dead,

for without the possibility of growth
and change there can be no Tao. In
reality there is nothing in the universe which
is completely perfect or completely still;
it is only in the minds of men
that such concepts exist."

- Alan Watts (1915 - 1973)