The State Of Infinite Regress

How do you relate to other people? He was a holy man, and his eyes were so bright with transcendent knowledge that none of the guards dared stop him or lay a hand on him. He made his way to the durbar dark room of the sultan’s palace and pounded the floor with his staff. Bring him here at once. Various ministers came and then the vizier, but the holy man impatiently shooed them off. Again he demanded to see the owner. At length, intrigued by the strangeness of the event, the sultan himself appeared in his royal robes. Are you the owner of this caravansary? the old man queried. I seek shelter for the night and will leave in the morning. Gladly will my men provide for you this night, said the sultan amusedly. But know that you have entered the royal palace. This is no caravansary. The sage squinted.

Life Is Like Riding A Bicycle

He came closer and peered at the sultan’s face. I recognize you, he exclaimed. I was here three decades ago, and you gave me accommodation then. That was my father, said the sultan. May his soul rest in peace. I came two decades before that also, remembered the mystic, and sojourned for the night. Was it then your father who made me welcome? That was my grandfather, replied the sultan. My father assumed the throne when his father crossed the great divide. And this place where people tarry for a while and then leave, thundered the seer. You are consciousness. But what does that mean, and how can you make any practical use of this knowledge? This is where we start going deeper down the rabbit hole. Certainly you will feel uneasy about accepting it.

Back To Zero

Recognize also that your intellect is a powerful tool, and you have made good use of it. What am I doing here? Think of your intellect as a powerful sports car. You want to visit your friend on the other side of town. The sports car will get you to his house, perhaps even into his driveway, but then you have to leave it to enter the house and meet your friend. In similar fashion, I’ll use logic to satisfy your intellect for much of this journey we’re about to begin. But it will only change your life if, after you get to a certain point, you can drop your thinking, calculating, analytical mind and step into the unknown. When the fire is not burning well, you pick up a stick from it and stir the fire. That gets the blaze going. When the flames start dying, then you throw in the stick you picked up and that gets burnt as well. The stick you picked up is your intellect. It too has to go if you are to reach the final destination of knowledge. Let’s start with Aristotelian philosophy and the acceptance that for every object there is an efficient cause and a material cause.

No Feeling Is Final

The efficient cause is the agent that brings something about. Thus, if the object you’re considering is a statue, the efficient cause is the sculptor. If you contemplate a gold necklace, the efficient cause is the goldsmith. The material cause is the substance of which something is composed. For the statue, it might be marble or stone or bronze, and for the necklace, it’s gold. This holds for all things. If you pick an automobile, the efficient cause may be General Motors and the material cause is steel, rubber, glass, and so on. Now here is where it starts getting interesting. Every material cause also has an efficient cause. So the answer to the question Who made the necklace? is the goldsmith. The answer to What did he make the necklace out of ? is gold. But then we run into Who made the gold? and What did he make that out of ? It’s readily obvious that there is a whole chain of players behind the simple act of getting the gold into the hands of the goldsmith so he can fashion the necklace. There are mining companies, refining processes, manufacturers of chemicals, and so on. Who made the quantum soup, and what was the material cause of that? It quickly becomes obvious that we are now in a state of infinite regress. No matter what we postulate as the material cause, we get stumped by the Who made it? question. Spend five minutes really thinking about this. It’s simply a refined, more complex version of the Which came first, the chicken or the egg? question. Now we come to the part that will really blow your mind. At least, it will if you truly open yourself up to all of the ramifications of the postulate I’m about to share with you. Recognizing this commonality beneath the surface is the great unity that mystics proclaim. Many spiritual masters proclaim that you can. They assert that this deep realization is, in fact, the purpose of life itself. But it’s neither easy nor certain and could take many lifetimes to attain. Here’s how you can profit. Many stratagems have been developed to show you how to transcend your mind and reach such awareness. Take note of your chattering monkey mind and see how calculating it is. See how you view other people as mechanisms for achieving what you want. This worldview is deeply ingrained in every aspect of our culture. Do you have people reporting to you at work? You have to manage them well so they’ll perform at high levels. When they do perform well, they reach organizational goals that show you in a good light. You get promoted or given more responsibility or better pay or some combination of the three. This forms the background and gives context to all your interactions with your subordinates. Do you hang out with friends? They have to call you and spend time with you and make you feel good and cater to your many whims. If they don’t, you feel let down.