Theos-Talk Archives (December 1993 Message tl00094)

It is difficult to explore the nature of space, because of our
materialistic western training. Without the proper groundwork in
metaphysics, we cannot obtain the proper appreciation of what it really
is. And with pure mathematics often associated with it, we are often
misled as to its nature.

Space is formless, without attribute nor dimension. When we speak of
a three-dimensional space, we are really talking about matter that
is restricted to behave in that manner. In thinking about mathematics,
we may picture in our minds an abstract space with three dimensions,
having an X, Y, and Z coordinate for every point, but such a space is
just that, an abstract picture in our minds, and not a living reality.

Consider for a moment a two-dimensional space formed of grains of sand
between two panes of glass. It is the glass that constrains the sand to
only move in two dimensions, and also exactly where and how those
two dimensions are positioned. Without this contraint, the sand could
move in an arbitrary number of directions.

When we imagine space bending to form black holes in space, to show the
effects of gravitation, we are really making for ourselves an
unnecessary paradox, for there is *nothing* to space that could be
bent. What we really have is the strengthening or weakening of the
forces that hold matter to our three-dimensional world or universe,
and is it these forces that vary, not anything that happens to space
itself.

Now picture the matter of our Globe D earth, and the universe in which
it finds itself, on this, our physical plane. If it were not for
the constraining forces that shape and fashion the behavior of our
matter, we would not have a three-dimensional world. We would, instead,
have everything capable of interpenetrating everything else, and a
loss of objectivity. We would have the condition of matter in the
astral light, apart from physical manifestation.

Where these forces that contrain matter to be withdrawn, our world would
cease to exist. Even thought the matter it was composed of had not
dissappeared, every object would be on its own.

Should a different set of constraints be applied to matter, to the
material forms that everything is composed of, we would have existence
on some other plane, although we would interpenetrate the physical
plane and pass right through it. We occupy the same space, but our
forms are tied together by different forces.

Our earth is the embodiment of a greater being. When that being dies,
its form dissolves and its contents returns to the elements of nature.
Its indwelling life has been withdrawn and the substances that compose
its body go back to the bigger world or universe in which our earth
has lived its life.

This is saying, in effect, that the constraining forces of its life
are gone, and what remains is matter of a bigger world, matter still
under the contraining forces of our solar system or universal solar
system. This matter was drawn together and given a higher form during
the life of the planet, and now returns to its solar state, the state
that it had been in before the planet came into birth.

The worlds and universes, then, are fashioned out of matter, and given
their behavior, their characteristics, their intrinsic natures by the
forces that draw them together and contrain their independent action.
Space is not involved in this, for we are talking about matter and
energy, not about what contains them.

When we attempt to define space in terms of coordinate systems, where
we might say that this point is at X1,Y1,Z1 and that point at
X2,Y2,Z2, we are dealing with something that is relative and subjective.
We have to pick a frame of reference. The measure is meaningless
without objects to be subject to it.

We may apply mathematics to physical objects and find that we can only
carry them so far. The mathematical relations and approximations
break down after a certain point.

Consider a basketball. It could be called spherical, but with sufficient
magnification we will find a roughness and irregularity to its
surface and never an exact match to a sphere.

Look at a coastline, which may have a fractal nature to its
irregularity. This fractal nature may be true for a few scales of
magnification, but soon the coastline dissappears, at the atomic
scale, if not much sooner.

Think about the chair that you might be sitting on. It may seem solid
enough, but with sufficient magnification we come to see that it is
empty space filled with interconnected atomic forces and particles.

The mathematics does describe the physical objects, but just in general
terms, and for a few scales of magnification. After a certain point,
the mathematics no longer applies and the nature of the object itself
disappears.

Mathematics descibes general principles, and they have approximate
application to the physical world. The nature of the approximation
depends upon the type of object we are observing.

Coming back to that basketball, we can say that it has the same number
of mathematical points as does a baseball, the moon, or our sun. But
these objects certainly do not have the same number of atoms! The
objects are of different sizes, as they are known on our plane, even
though the mathematics of a sphere may apply to all of them equally.

Finite things are fashioned out of raw materials of the plane on which
they come into existence on. They are subject to various higher forces.
The effects of those forces may show various aspects of mathematical
principles at work, as well as, for the inner side of the object,
higher elements including desire, volition, and understanding.

No matter how perfect the finite object, though, manifest existence is
always an approximation to the inner forces at play. Considering the
sphere, no matter how perfectly we may measure the circumference of one,
we will never exactly reach pi, although that is the mathematical ideal,
the true ratio, apart from any physical object, of the diameter to the
circumference.

The distinction that we are dealing with is between the ideas that
seek manifestation, and the nature of life, which is always an
approximation, an expression ever-seeking to better represent the
inner life, but always falling short of the mark, due to the imperfect
nature of manifest life.

For a conscious entity, with his full ten principles, that ever-present
ideal is swabhava. It is more than what we've accomplished, more than
the karmic treasury of personal experience, stored in the Auric Egg,
it is our Ever-Present Ideal Nature, our essential being, that is
beyond the sweep of time itself.

What we find ourselves to be now, at this moment in time, is the
seven principles, the manifest consciousness that we've emanated from
within during our present lifetime, which includes the substances of
life or skandhas out of which the principles were fashioned.

Space is not a mystery. We've just been led to misunderstand it.
Space is not a mere container. Things originate out of it. It is
consciousness itself, pure consciousness, and not an emptiness in the
usual sense of the term.

The spaces of space are the planes or realms of consciousness. We find
ourselves in such a subspace or subplane, wherein there is a unique
collection of laws of nature, which are due to the action of the
architects of our world, the Dhyani-Buddhas.

We find in a space that from the emptiness side arises law and order
and from the fullness side arises the root substance out of which
everything is formed. This duality forms the womb out of which new
worlds arise.

It might seem a paradox that our world is built up out of root
substance, itself build up of root substance of a greater scheme of
things, and that too of a still more primeval root substance. No matter
how far back we trace the root material of our world, we find ourselves
never reaching the final basis of matter, but always further steps
that we could take.

It might seem a paradox that our world, then, is formed of substance
that is built up of matter in a bottom-up fashion, yet can only
exist via a tree of life, formed in a top-down fashion. For the
infoming life that fashions the universe and lends its Atman as the
root consciousness of the world, this life cannot exist and come into
birth unless it has a greater world into which to be born. And that
greater world cannot exist without yet a still greater one to be
born into. We have a golden tree of life, where each world is a
branch off of a greater branch, where we never reach the root trunk,
where there is no top-most being.

It is a paradox that a world can only come into being where the
endless tree of life reaches down and meets the bottomless nature of
physicality.

In our physical world, we have particles that come into being for a
moment and then are gone. Perhaps they *pass through our space*. Are
particles really transformed into other particles, or are they
replaced by others that are allowed to enter our plane?

The principle of the conservation of energy implies that any
transformation leave the same amount of energy as before, but in some
new form. But it is an explanation of what appears to happen, when we
only see those energies that exist on the physical plane. Perhaps if
we were able to see other planes as well, we'd see that the energy is
not transformed, but rather exits our plane, as other energies
enter our plane.

Consider electricity in a wire, coming to a coil and producing a
strong magnetic field. Say there's another coiled wire around the first
coil, and we find the magnetic field converted into electricity in the
other wire. We're talking about a transformer. Did electricity turn into
magnetism, and that magnetism into electricity again? Or did the
electricity leave our plane, replaced by magnetism, which then left
our plane as electricity entered again?

This might be considered a subtle distinction, to say that forces are
not transformed, but are replaced by others in the manifest world,
but has important significance when considering the way that things
come into manifestation, and the nature of the elementals.

Taking a philosophical standpoint, when we speak of entry into or exit
from a plane, we refer to a being partaking of the nature of
consciousness of that plane, and giving manifest expression to that
consciousness.

We might define a plane, then, as the collection of lives, energies,
and forces that act upon matter in such a way as to constrain it to
take on the form and function of a world or universe, and all that
can be perceived in interacted with thereon. We might call a plane
the range of consciousness that can be experienced within those
constraints and using those energies and substances.

Don't think of a plane, or think of space ass an empty container for
so-called real things to possibly be in. In a way, though, space does
*permit* objects in it to exist. Out of space its contents arise.
It is the void, the emptiness that manifestation happens in.

Space really has no position and is everywhere. When we talk about
distance, we are speaking of a relationship between two objects, as
measured in terms of a third object. Distance, apart from comparing
objects, has no intrinsic meaning.

Space is something that we cannot grasp, cannot contain. It is
created or formed out of an object's existence and its privation,
what the object is and what it is not.

The spaces of space, the subspaces are the space or plane or
consciousness that contains a collection of beings, all of which
coexist, which cocreate each other, and arise out of the same sense
of Atman.

Space is the same as pure, unconditioned conscousness, and not at
all a physical thing. It is the unmanifest side to life and nature.
The memories of events inher in objects and in substance, like the
astral light, but not in space itself.

Any plane, any subspace, has, for practical purposes, a finite
extent. Like our aura, which has an effective range, but a faint
reach, as well, to the very ends of all that is, the same is true of
planes or spaces. A space has its effective range as well, after
which things can no longer exist.

There is a practical extent to the end of the universe, where all goes
dark and drops off into chaos. This is at the outer boundary to what
can be. At the other end, the center, there is a laya-center out of
which cosmos arises, from the heart of the world. At the heart of
space is a laya center that takes us to other planes. At the outer
fringe is a fractal-like boundary separating the space from chaos
and non-existence.

There is no universe with infinite extent. What we know of our
universe and its outermost boundaries is our ring-pass-not of
perception. That unverise is a world like our earth, but many scales
of life bigger. And there are even greater scales than our universe,
but our vision cannot penetrate to them.

We could say, then, that a plane is the perceptible universe that we
reside in, and all its worlds and beings. And it is a subplane of
a still greater universe. And our world or globe is a very minor
subplane of the universe that we find ourselves in.

The idea of a plane as all of space, invluding all we see and more,
without mathematical end, is wrong. There is a limit to any thing
that exists, even a universe of however grand a scale.

Each world is a being that exists in a bigger world or universe,
and provides a home for lessor beings. To them, it is their world.
To it, it is a single being in a greater world.

When we broaded our minds to take in all that we can, when we
contemplate the vastest reach of life that we can contain, we still
embrace a universe that is highly impermanent. It is like the surface
of a soap bubble, quickly to go away and be replaced by others.

All of life is impermanet, at however deep a level, and we never reach
the impermanent by going higher in scale of being, to bigger and bigger
universes. Rather, we reach the impermanent by going into that part of
our nature which is impermanent, our uppermost triad, principles
eight, nine, and ten, the unmanifest parts of ourselves.

Looking about us, we find ourselves contained by grand mysteries of
life that embrace us. We do not sit in a empty, meaningless physical
shell of dead, inert matter. We are surrounded by our true home and
bodies and forms are merely a distraction. And we are no closer to
our home regardless of what bodies on whatever plane may be the
distraction.

There is a mystery of life that is behind all things, and we are a
part of it, regardless of where or what we are. And we have an equal
right to realize and partake of it, no matter what our status is in
the evolutionary scheme. Do it!

                        Eldon Tucker (eldon@netcom.com)