Wholly-ness

Wholly-ness

A part can never be anything—even though given a new identity—but a fragment of a shattered whole. The meaning of part is “a portion of the whole.” Even a “complete” portion is only an incomplete part of wholeness. If we were to shatter a vase and reassemble it, even though all of its parts were present, we would normally say that the vase had lost its wholeness. A vase which is truly whole contains all elements, including its wholeness. In a sense, a universe contains all elements, and no parts are in conflict, because there are no ‘parts’ to be found. It is the nature of the human mind to separate everything into parts. Every “thing” in the universe is the thing, or fragment or shard, that it is, because the mind of man has extracted “objects” from wholeness and has named them as such. A thing, if we refer to its meaning, is “that which is distinguished to be a specific entity.” And it is the mind of man which does the distinguishing (L.: “pick apart”, differentiate), through the process of thought. And so it is the mind of man, his thought, which seizes ahold of a fragment of the actuality of the whole universe; and he identifies or names it as a separate, existing entity. This can be a convenience. Say, a baby is born at home. The father calls to report to the mother’s doctor. “Is the baby okay?” the doctor asks. By baby, he means this newly born “body.” “Yes, the body is whole,” the father replies. By body, he means every portion of the whole baby: arms, legs, head, eyes, toes, etc. “But,” the father continues, “there is a strange spot on the body.” The doctor says, “Oh, where is the spot? What part of the body?” But the body has no

parts, in that there is not anything separate from it, nothing that could be handed over “in sale.” Yet the father and the doctor fracture the wholeness of the meaning of body (or baby) by agreeing to distinguish, as a specific entity or thing, that which has utterly no independence from the condition of wholeness. “The chest,” replies the father. “It’s a blemish,” he adds, further removing the spot from what might otherwise be an unbroken wholeness. Even the cosmos—though its identification by a word reduces it to a thing—is not a part, since it represents all that exists, or is: the whole of actuality, in as broad of a linear perspective as the imagination of man can conceive it. Yet we (agree to) say that a ‘part’ of this cosmos is mankind; and a part of mankind is me. This is a convenient artifice, to the practical extent to which I wish to ignore the wholeness of the universe. But when, through customary usage, I lose awareness of the whole because of my chronic concentration on the ‘parts’, I have lost what is essential (L: be-ing.). Another word which derives from the same root as whole is “health,” which is “absence of dis-order.”

A partial, or partisan view, is a conflicting view (in that there can be no conflict in something which has no opposing parts). To the extent to which you and I understand, thus agree upon, the order or nature of things, there will not be opposition and conflict. But where divisive thinking (however un-conscious) is at work—whether among one mind or more—there will be proportionate conflict, strife or strain.

For some, who have barely recognized the truth of this, there is the strain or conflict of endeavoring to restore to

wholeness that which has never—except by determination— been severed from the start. And so the realization of wholeness is: “the condition which cannot in actuality be divided or differentiated in any meaningful or absolute way.” This would even mean, by extenuation, that the baby’s blemish is not something which ought to be regarded as something un-wholesome in the universe. Wholeness is not something that has to be contrived or engineered. It is present naturally. But this will not normally be admitted. This indivisibility can be—and usually is—ignored by the mind which has been conditioned to habitually and chronically focus on “parts.” In our concentration on the world of the material, we thoroughly ignore the essential nature of existence: not anything is important in itself. The meaning of universality is that not anything assumes precedence over anything else. Put another way, no part of existence can have more meaning than the whole of existence, nor any other ‘part.’ Ignoring inherent wholeness by focusing on supposedly independent parts, we strive to glue the shards together and to restore wholeness. Wholeness, universality, indivisibility need not be restored: it has never, for a moment, been absent. But it is constantly being “under-looked.” And, viewing only division wherever he looks, man is consequently in constant conflict—with “self” and “other.” Thus, he is continually in search of wholeness because he neglects to see it in himself, and in others.