Friday, June 16, 2006

WHAT IS THE ABSOLUTE…THE “THAT”? Part Eleven—A Pause to Review

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From a site visitor: [The visitor is reading Volume One of the DAILY MEDITATION GUIDE and makes reference to an entry http://www.floydhenderson.com/twicestolen1.htm ]

“In entry #175, Vol. 1 regarding the "I Am That":

1. Is the That the unmanifested?

2. What is the essence of the semicolon in "I Am That; I Am?"

3. Does this mean- I Am the unmanifested; I Am?

4. So before Abraham was, I AM means- I Am the unmanifested, and the unmanifested is always present?

5. You wrote, "We are That; thus, we Are and always have been, One. Only That is Real, whether manifest or unmanifest. Are You understanding You?" So to sum it up I guess, what is the That which creates the oneness, manifested or unmanifested? How does this link to the understanding as stated above?

The responses:
1. Is the That the unmanifested?
F.: The “THAT” is what can be unmanifested and is often used to refer to the Absolute, a pure, universal (and multi-universal) pool of energy with potentiality. It is the energy that can manifest in a space and—while manifested thusly—can be aware of its own presence. Because it has the potential to manifest as conscious-energy and be aware of both its manifested state and its unmanifested state, the consciousness called “Krishna” was able to say, “I, the Absolute…etc.” From that pointer you can realize that the consciousness which spoke and which identified itself as THAT/the Absolute does not amount to two different things but is actually “not two.” The Realized abide “in” the Absolute (i.e., know the Absolute and know They Are THAT) even while abiding temporarily as the “I-Amness.” What I AM is simply THAT…manifested, so while manifested I AM THAT and I AM as well.

When this particular quantity of I AM-ness called “floyd” is no longer manifested, THAT is what I AM. No "I-Amness" or "Is-ness" or beingness will remain. (THAT merely points to the pure potential energy “at rest”; “I AM” refers to THAT energy when it is manifested, in motion, but still pure; and the “I am this or that” is the statement that evolves from the energy in motion, manifested but corrupted by the belief in assumed identities and belief in the lies of enculturation.) Even if that potential energy does move and manifest, however, it will still eventually unmanifest. It is the energy which cycles. (Energy—not persons—cycle.) Since there is no duality, then there is only THAT, even when it is manifested and knows the I-Amness…knows that it IS. It is the manifested conscious-energy which becomes aware of its presence; unmanifested, there is no “form” by which the energy with the potential to be conscious of can know itself…or anything else; and it is the corrupted consciousness that can become aware of a role, can forget Who/What It Is, can claim "I am this or that," and can be programmed to believe it is what it is not.

Take THAT to be a pool of energy which has the potentiality to manifest and which may manifest or which may not manifest. If it manifests within a space—be that space called a “plant,” an “animal” or a “human”—the conscious-energy can become conscious of itself. (Yes, even a plant is conscious of itself. A plant will change the direction of its leaves by a micro-degree each day before sunrise in order to maximize the amount of light that it can gather during the daylight hours. It knows—is conscious of the fact—that the sun will rise at a slightly different point on the horizon each morning. At night, the energy moves to the lower regions of the plant and is “at rest,” and as the plant “awakens,” the energy moves back up and throughout the plant and makes its pre-sunrise adjustments. Wherefore any "pride" or "acclaim" for "humans" whose existence is no different from that of a mindless plant? Rest, allow the conscious-energy to cause all movement without any thought required, work and gather, and then rest again. Cycle after cycle after cycle.)

THAT is all there is, whether manifested or not. Manifested, it can be aware of its Is-ness or beingness. (A bird, for example, knows that it IS, but it does not know of any roles. Only when humans follow the I AM with some word does it become a lie: “I am…a boss”; “I am…a spouse”; “I am…unhappy”; “I am…happy,” etc.) Everything is that energy which, if manifested, has an ability to know itself and an ability to act spontaneously and automatically. Even an acorn acts spontaneously to perpetuate physical continuity, so it will eventually grow into an oak which will drop more acorns and cover them with leaves, and some of those will cycle into oaks as well. But it all happens spontaneously. The consciousness as the acorn knows what is required to produce a forest, just as humans know what is required to produce a population of people. No thinking or analysis is required. Humans--nor any other breeders--have to be taught how to copulate. Only the functioning of the manifested consciousness is necessary for the unending cycles to continue. It’s all conscious-energy in motion, and it’s all functioning spontaneously. Eventually, the physical elements involved with the trees will decay and return to the elements, and the physical elements involved with humans will do the same.

Even that “matter” called a steel girder is really a swirling mass of energy, and all the particles of energy that are swirling are functioning spontaneously and automatically with an awareness of all the other particles of energy which are the one, same thing. That “sustains” the appearance of the “form” or the “shape” of the beam and prevents it from flying apart. (Contrast that with what happens if a triggering device interrupts the “harmonious” manner in which the atoms are functioning: trigger the process of fission or fusion and the harmonious swirling is interrupted and an explosive amount of energy and radiation are emitted.)

As your electric power company can tell you, they do not create energy. They merely move energy that already exists from one place to another or from one form to another (moving energy from gas or from coal via an electric energy format). That’s all that is happening in the case of the manifestation of THAT in a human space: energy moved from one location to another. The same, simple process of energy moving and manifesting in a space called a “newborn” is in contrast to the misperception held by persons who think they are earthly creators working in conjunction with a non-earthly Creator to “make a baby.” How complex the simple is made when concepts are dreamed up by persons who have been fooled. Energy may seem to take varied “forms” (electrical energy, gas energy, radiant energy, and nuclear energy as well as gravitational, thermal, radiant, chemical, light, heat, sound, motion, etc.) but ultimately, energy is energy.

To help clarify the I AM THAT; I AM, consider two categories that scientists use: kinetic energy and potential energy. Take kinetic energy as energy in motion and potential energy as “stored” energy. Then, imagine energy in motion as it moves from “storage” (seemingly in the Absolute but actually as the Absolute pool of pure energy with the potential to be conscious of) and then manifests as a result of that movement into a plant and then into another space such as an “animal” or a “human.”

Why do so few not understand the simple process? (1) Lack of exposure to scientific facts. (2) Association with persons who despise facts and prefer blind acceptance of fiction as fact. (3) Learned ignorance around "spiritual" topics. (4) Fixation with body identification. (4) The erroneous influence of the “mind” and assumption of roles as identities. (5) Programming, conditioning and enculturation. (6) And even those who transcend those obstacles of body-"mind" identification and shift into religious roles or spiritual roles continue to be separated from reality because they think their newly-assumed identities are real ones. [That is not to disparage those two roles that must be played by those who would move along the “path” to Realization. Consider religious or spiritual roles to be like a door to an exclusive club in L.A. that you’d like to enter. At one point the door bars you from moving on, but at another point it can serve as the portal for actually continuing the “journey” to where you want to go.] (7) The belief by persons that the things they perceive as being different are really different and not the one, same “thing.”

For example, persons walk about and think they see scores of different things involving water throughout the year. Persons think they see puddles, clouds, rainfall, snow, ice, drinking water, colas, waterfalls, rivers, streams, branches, hail, snow cones, snowflakes, ice cubes, Alaskan igloos, crystals, sleet, fog, floods, oceans, condensation, perspiration, reservoirs, groundwater, ponds, swamps, seas, vapor, lakes, glaciers, avalanches, moisture, wells, snowballs, snowmen, slush, slushies, ice caps, steam, waves, ripples, surf, currents, aquifers, tsunamis, and drips. But persons are only seeing one thing that appears to be many different things. They are merely “seeing” two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom functioning together with a consciousness that—under varying temperatures and temporary conditions—know automatically and spontaneously what “form” or “shape” to assume. Since energy can neither be created nor destroyed, the pool of energy which is capable of manifesting and then being conscious of itself is infinite and eternal. Rather than create the kind of confusion that exists such as when H2O is mislabeled as the dozens of things above, the term THAT can be used as a pointer toward THAT which is eternal but have no name. That is why the truth is not—and cannot—be spoken. All names and labels are dreamed up—usually by men—and have nothing to do with the truth which cannot be spoken and cannot be named. Manifested or not, the Absolute is what it is. Those who have been fooled, however, will not see the unicity but will believe that the imagined multiplicity is real. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]

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