Spirit-uality

Spirit-uality

No, I needn’t complete what you’ve said “in its correct form.” What you are expressing is well said, at length. Perhaps it will satisfy you if I restate it in my own words. I’ll try to, generally, follow your outline. First, let me say that the word spirit can be misleading in its use. My dictionary has a column of meanings three inches long. It is sometimes a synonym for a Jehovah-like Godfigure; it is thought of as “apart from matter,” especially the body; and sometimes conjures an image of a ghost (a separate entity). The word soul is similar (two inches in my dictionary), considered to be “part of a person,” which (at death) “goes somewhere.”

Because of the distinctively separative nature of these words, their use can be unnecessarily confusing in a nondual context.

However, I take your use of these words to be indicative of what I would refer to as “omnipresence,” the eternally infinite actuality (which I generally call the Absolute). So, I’ll try to retain the word you used, Spirit. In speaking of the manifestation of “Spirit into form,” I would tend to speak of it rather, Spirit as form. This helps to clarify that Spirit (always) is form; form (always) is Spirit; these have always been one actuality, never separate. It is in Genesis that Spirit precedes form, rather than is “coexistent” as form: the Creator and created are apart from each other initially, in the Biblical tale.

As you’ve said, the formless aspect of this actuality (Spirit) is unchanging: eternal, thus permanent. (The process of change itself is a form, in the relative arena of time and space.) And every aspect of form is changeable (and thus impermanent). As you put it, Spirit “being all, there is nothing that it could change into.” (Thus, not Spirit into form.) Most people think of “creation” as a completed act (some, “in six days”). But what is continuing-to-be-reality is a creative activity; the manifestation of formlessness as form (or, the Absolute as the relative) is an on-going activity— ”eternally,” as you wrote; and Spirit “is the only active principle.” Spirit and activity itself, in fact, are the same. At the core of all spiritual disciplines it is said that Spirit (Absolute) is omni-present, omni-potent, omniscient. Being All that is—in every place at every time, permeating every thing (material or immaterial)—it is ever-present, allpowerful, and knower/known of all. As you said, it is allknowing because it is Self-knowing: all “knowing” forms are its form (“Self-conscious forms,” as you put it). It is not that forms are “subject to its will,” it is that whatever wills (and consequently what is willed) is It, in its manifest activity. There is no thing that is subject to it (it not being an object); it is the subject (“condition”) of all things. This then brings us to your (poetic) expression: “The Spirit is conscious of its own thought, its own desires, its own manifestation of action; it’s conscious of that which is manifest…”—because it is the manifestation of all that could be conscious; and is even consciousness itself.

“But it’s not conscious of any effort, or progress, in its manifestation.” As you’ve indicated, the formless is not of itself concerned with such ideas as effort or progress (being all-powerful, what relevance would that have?)— except to the (relative) extent that it is the essence of the forms which are concerned so. You continue, “It’s necessary that soul and body should exist because Spirit, without manifestation, could construct only a dream world—never resulting in Self-realization.” “Soul” and “body” (et al) are expressions of the formless; without conscious forms, there could be no such (reflective) reality as Self-realization. The point of the non-dual realization, of course, is that “Spirit,” “soul” and (intelligent) “body” are not three separate things, but one (Absolute) actuality. Buddhists have chanted for centuries: “Form is formlessness, formlessness is form.” No contradiction there, where there is non-dual clarity (so-called enlightenment, Buddha’s real-ization). As you’ve noted, this is really self-evident; it is intuit-able, realize-able. You’ve been contemplating these matters (many hours a day?) and comprehending them.