Is it a bird? is it a plane? Or is it Quantum wave/particle theory?
The whole wave/particle thing is such a wonderful metaphor for how we experience our own being. If you seek to measure light as a particle, it behaves as one. Think of light charging photovoltaic cells. Yet if you try to measure it as a wave, it is that. Think of colour - different waves of light. But not both wave and particle at the same time.*
My point is, of course, how it relates to being and becoming: can you be consciously in both modes simultaneously? Let us presume being is a state, while becoming is a process. When the torch of consciousness is shone upon your existence at any one time, either the state or the process will seem to dominate. When you are abandoned into the fullness of the moment, the boundaries of self and other blur into one harmonious flow, and the quality of beingness comes to the fore. When awareness rises that you are in the midst of an unfolding, of separation and distinction, then the quality of becoming dominates.
To put it in another way: unity is the fundament of all existential experience at all time (pure consciousness), but it presents dually as soon as 'self ' awareness is applied (individuated, conditioned consciousness).
Perhaps one precludes the other only in terms of awareness. They are not mutually exclusive. There is no monolithic divide. Rather the boundaries between being and becoming keep oscillating. Observing light as a particle we can only say is it particle-like, and when viewed as a wave it is wave-like.
There's a tremendous practical usefulness in this inbuilt dichotomy of perception. Managing the world and its mechanical processes requires logical application and separation. And included in this is managing the 'self'. But there's also a tantalizing mystery inherent in this dichotomy, something deliciously elusive. Think of the verse of light (24:35): we cannot truly 'see' the light but only refracted through the glass shade within a niche. The source of this light is beyond space and place, beyond our perceptory apparatus. Seeing it in any measure requires the constructs of time and space - mostly obliquely, sometimes or rarely, in an obliterating flash. Wanting to capture the truth of 'it' keeps the inner fire stoked. We have to know: what is it? And no sooner than we think we get it, it eludes us and behaves differently. Reality is tirelessly, endlessly new and surprising. Intoxicating. Balletic. Dazzling!
* I know there have been recent experiments that show how you can indeed detect both at the same time, but the science is so far above my ken that I'll stick with the orthodoxy for now.
The whole wave/particle thing is such a wonderful metaphor for how we experience our own being. If you seek to measure light as a particle, it behaves as one. Think of light charging photovoltaic cells. Yet if you try to measure it as a wave, it is that. Think of colour - different waves of light. But not both wave and particle at the same time.*
My point is, of course, how it relates to being and becoming: can you be consciously in both modes simultaneously? Let us presume being is a state, while becoming is a process. When the torch of consciousness is shone upon your existence at any one time, either the state or the process will seem to dominate. When you are abandoned into the fullness of the moment, the boundaries of self and other blur into one harmonious flow, and the quality of beingness comes to the fore. When awareness rises that you are in the midst of an unfolding, of separation and distinction, then the quality of becoming dominates.
To put it in another way: unity is the fundament of all existential experience at all time (pure consciousness), but it presents dually as soon as 'self ' awareness is applied (individuated, conditioned consciousness).
Perhaps one precludes the other only in terms of awareness. They are not mutually exclusive. There is no monolithic divide. Rather the boundaries between being and becoming keep oscillating. Observing light as a particle we can only say is it particle-like, and when viewed as a wave it is wave-like.
There's a tremendous practical usefulness in this inbuilt dichotomy of perception. Managing the world and its mechanical processes requires logical application and separation. And included in this is managing the 'self'. But there's also a tantalizing mystery inherent in this dichotomy, something deliciously elusive. Think of the verse of light (24:35): we cannot truly 'see' the light but only refracted through the glass shade within a niche. The source of this light is beyond space and place, beyond our perceptory apparatus. Seeing it in any measure requires the constructs of time and space - mostly obliquely, sometimes or rarely, in an obliterating flash. Wanting to capture the truth of 'it' keeps the inner fire stoked. We have to know: what is it? And no sooner than we think we get it, it eludes us and behaves differently. Reality is tirelessly, endlessly new and surprising. Intoxicating. Balletic. Dazzling!
* I know there have been recent experiments that show how you can indeed detect both at the same time, but the science is so far above my ken that I'll stick with the orthodoxy for now.
