=kit060.txt

KIT 60 - The Astronaut of the Mind

Reflections of a nomad in a past life, having become a skipper in
this life and dreaming of becoming an astronaut (of the mind) in a
future life.

"One has seen his life's purpose as light seen in port from the
sea."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN

On watch by night, it becomes clear to me that the safety of my
fellow passengers depends upon my being awake.

As from deep under water, one may scan the shore, even so from the
abysmal depths of my slumber I espied as beyond a threshold
evanescent flashes of what the awakened state was and could be
like. A powerful thought impinged upon my dimmed consciousness
enjoining upon me to awaken to capture it. Yet what a struggle to
keep my mind alert amid the jumble of thoughts that beset slumber!
How impelling the temptation of surrender to sleep! How comforting
an escape!

Sinking, I watch the desperate struggle of the mind for coherence
against the entropy of blurred thoughts. I vaguely discern
apparently unrelated words, even gibberish sentences surfacing at
the edge of my mind, then meshing in a somewhat meaningful way,
only to vanish beyond range. Sleep seemed to befuddle the mind in
waves of nebulous inanity and lay a snare upon my faltering
resolve to rise from my torpor. But safety is at stake! the safety
of all of us, including mine depends upon both my sight and my
insight subtended by that dwindling resolve that keeps evading my
grip.

Yes it is the sense of urgency that comes to the rescue,
fortifying my determination to steer our way with foresight,
determine where I am heading for and why. I am in a desperate bid
to eschew catastrophes while off-guard. I must admit an insatiable
curiosity to make sense of life and to understand what is enacted
in the drama of life all around. And to guess why I am doing what
I am doing is also essential to my orientation.

Navigating by the planets soon proves misleading to a nomad who
places more reliance on the 'fixed stars'. Besides they would look
very different as seen from Paloma or Brazilia. Moreover the
expectation of dawn is for those who are at the time on the dark
side of the planet. For the astronaut there is no dawn because
there is no sunset with the exception of the rare case of an
eclipse. And the stars would look very different if I were
hurtling through space at the speed of light.

But if I were to space-walk, can I really say that I am flying
above San Francisco rather than London? My sense of location in
space has shifted and so my sense of meaningfulness. Incidentally
what does it mean to be located in space? Pushed beyond its
customary range, the mind reels. Planet Earth is in outer space;
ergo, am I not in outer space when my body is on the Planet? Yet
paradoxically my aura which is also my body extends in the starry
sky.

My intuition tells me that the guidelines for our joint safe
faring rests upon a sense of meaningfulness rather than aimless
rambling, and that such meaningfulness can only lie beyond my
personal horizon of meaningfulness. I ponder upon the meaning of
my life and life in general. Brainstorming my mind for
explanations within the purview of my understanding would
inevitably stand in the way of the understanding they seek to
support.

Explanations are the steps to understanding; yet lingering upon
them will obstruct the very understanding that they led to. Are we
not limiting our grasp of the meaningfulness of the universe by
our rudimentary assumptions that it should be logical? Are not
contradictions part of its meaningfulness? Is it not our aversion
to accepting the contradictions of our thinking that has so far
debarred us from accessing the thinking of the universe? And is it
not a feature of the freedom of the mind to refuse to demure to
the constraint of logical consistency?

Under pressure, I come to realize that it is my insight that
alerts my sight, spurring it to espy beyond its range, snuffing
out clues which surreptitiously spring into sight as dawn adorns
the shadow world with flashes of uncanny effulgence. By what
jugglery of mind am I able to muster these clues into guide-lines
giving me a sense of orientation beyond the range of my horizon?

But what do I mean by a horizon? It only exists in my mind, not in
reality. A horizon is function of a vantage point which spells a
limitation. Consequently it has the virtue of making me aware that
it hangs precariously on the measure of my ignorance - one more
evidence of my failure of having availed myself so far of the many
dimensions of my mind.

Indeed I had not realized that my mind is not just a fraction of
the mind of the universe, but coextensive with the mind of the
universe. Is that what one means by the mind of God? What does one
mean by God? The being of which the physical universe is the body?
Or is one not limiting what one ascribes to God by one'
anthropomorphical projection upon infinity of the finitude of what
one assumes is one's own mind? That is why theologists insist upon
the 'transcendence' of God.

Incidentally, could it not be that it is my reliance upon the
impact of the mind of God upon my mind that stays me within that
illusory horizon? Such an horizon does not really exist except
from my perspective. That is: it is because I assume that my mind
is limited that I call upon 'other than myself', when in fact
these are further dimensions of me.

"Since all is God, thou art not other than God."
IBN 'ARABI

Yet one still needs to account for transcendence - "beyond the
beyond".

The way I think of myself changes with my perspective, and so my
understanding. But if the safety of my fellow passengers depends
upon my sense of meaningfulness, and this depends upon how I think
of myself in the universe, imagine the challenge I am facing!

How could I not feel unequal to the challenge to my mind? It is in
a spirit of modesty (of which I clandestinely pride myself) that I
pretext that my mind is limited, comparing it with the mind of the
universe. Do I realize that it is my assumption of being what I
think I am that spells my ignorance? Imagine it is my self-image
that screens my own self knowledge that keeps striving to make
itself known to me? Is it not this very assumption that obstructs
my accessing the boundless reaches of my mind?

By positing that my mind circumscribes a limited range within an
unlimited compass, by assuming that the universe or God is 'other
than myself', I fail to apply the holistic paradigm: namely that
my mind like a wave in the ocean expresses the mind of the whole
universe albeit less well than the mind of the universe. Yet I
must ever remind myself to leave room for the majesty of the
divine thinking: divine transcendence way beyond the holistic
level that I share. The two areas of my thinking: the
circumscribed and the boundless work against each other!

Yet I can see why many mystics await the grace of divine
revelation, thinking of God as 'other'. Maybe this is a worthy
means of accessing further reaches of understanding by by-passing
the limiting effect of the personal self-image. Maybe applying
passive volition unleashes further dimensions of being. Some Sufis
however change the terms of this antinomy by imagining what the
converse perspective would be like.

I follow the clue: I flip my sense of identity to the other side
of that fictitious horizon; suddenly I watch those emerging
thoughts that now aver themselves clearly to be contrivances of a
hologram projected from my real being, not the thoughts of my real
being! I observe that they obey certain rather rudimentary laws of
the middle range mentation programmed into humans within a
bearable measure like radio sets for domestic use, not for high-
tech users. How on earth did I allow myself to be fooled all this
time!

Now I realize that the limitation I ascribed to my mind was due to
my using it as a buffer to protect me against the power of
boundless thought lest it annihilate my view-point? It is like
emerging from Plato's cave into the glaring sun, overwhelmed but
shattered by the magnificence. It would take the released prisoner
time to cope with the bounty of meaningfulness, hypothesized the
philosopher, but what a wonder! Yes life does make the most
ultimate sense, but it takes this altitude to encompass it! I can
see why when entrapped in the middle range thinking, it could not
possibly make sense.

As I watch by night while my fellow passengers are sunken in the
slumber of blissful oblivion, while our safety depends upon the
prospect of exploring the unchartered reaches of the mind - of the
universe? of me? my understanding struggles to shake off its
support system: lo there is a moment of illumination - a flash of
meaningfulness at a cosmic scale. Is this illumination? Then the
gravity pull of the non-existent yet fictitious ego takes over -
back to mediocrity.

O to roam in the outer space of intelligence at a cosmic scale as
an astronaut of the mind to contemplate the sun of sheer
perspicaciousness forever but for the short spell of an eclipse
rather than being immersed in the arctic winter when the sun
emerges but a few minutes above the horizon to plunge one back
into the dismal night! But why the eclipse? How could one know of
light if not for the contrast of darkness?

By the way, I have being absent-mindedly referring to 'me',
speaking about reaching beyond 'my understanding' throughout, but
if my understanding is co-extensive with that of God or that of
the universe (except less efficient), or is this further
transcended by divine omniscience? then what do I mean by me? - by
me in the universe?

As I watch in the night of understanding while my fellow
companions trust themselves to my looking beyond my self-styled
horizon, flashes of lucidity beset my soul as I leave my mind
behind; it is not the light I see, though, it is the light that I
am in reality, if only I knew that I know!

"When the unreality of life pushes against my heart, its door
opens to the reality."
PIR-O-MURSHID INAYAT KHAN
    
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