Why does it make more sense to believe that entire creation must be inside the Creator and not outside of Him?
There's
a philosophical problem with the idea of something being outside the
Creator. Such an idea ends up shifting the ground under very notions
of the Creator's Infinity and Oneness. To say that any entity has an outside also means
something else. Namely, that the entity also has a border, which could allow for
something to be outside.
Any entity which has a border cannot be Infinite, as Infinity means borderless - no beginning,
middle or end.
When
Westerners contemplate infinity, they most commonly tend to think mathematical infinity -
"oodles of numbers" spanning out forever in both the negative and
positive directions. However, the Creator's Infinity is more than that. His
Infinity is not mathematical, but,
rather Absolute. Even when math is highly abstract, it still
functions as a measure to
constrain entities into individually parceled forms. Absolute Infinity is the
very opposite of constraints. In fact, it transcends any notion of measurement altogether.
Part
of transcending measurement is freedom from anything measurable. Something is
measurable when it has a beginning, middle and end, i.e. boundaries or seams.
This excludes the possibility that the Creator's Being includes parts or
pieces, for what identifies a part or a piece is that it’s a defined fragment with a
beginning, middle and end.
In the absence of parts or
pieces, the Creator must be Absolutely
One. Any of the many versions of oneness that humans can conceive are
merely relative ones because they are composed of parts. They
are not in states of true oneness. For example, one finger is composed of
many cells, which in turn are composed of an many orchestras of
sub-cellular components, which are in turn composed of a dazzling array of
organic molecules, which are in turn, are built from complex arrangements of an
unimaginable number of atoms. Each of these atoms themselves are smears of
sub-atomic components. Even the most fundamental
sub-atomic components of these atoms, still contain individual beginnings,
middles and ends. Each beginning, middle and end itself contains its
own beginning, middle and end. Drilling down to the smallest drop of
energy/matter still yields a divisible entity. There's no entity in all of
reality which is perfectly "one", other than the Creator Himself.
Every other entity that's referred to as "one", is just borrowing the word as a convenience of
speech.
In fancy English such a perfect Oneness is called a
"non-composite unity", i.e. devoid of parts or pieces. The notion of
Perfect Infinity ends up meaning the same thing as Perfect Oneness, as without
borders ends up also meaning without parts or pieces. Thus, the Creator
is Infinitely One!
So
where's the world? If it's outside of Him then a boundary has
to be introduced and we can no longer truly say about Him that He's Perfectly
Infinite and One. The only option left is to say that the world is inside of
Him. However, doesn't a world inside Him create the exact same problem, by
introducing a boundary, only this time inside of Him - a hole inside
Infinity?
The
answer to that question all depends on how the
world is inside of Him. If a space needs to be carved inside the Creator to
house the world then that would be logically
problematic for two reasons:
A)
The Creator is beyond space. Carving a space into Infinity is essentially
trying to carve space into non-space. This doesn't logically
work. It’s like trying to carve a physical ball into thought.
B) It
would also introduce a "hole inside Infinity", a finite island in the
midst of an Infinite sea. This introduces boundaries, undermining the whole
notion of Infinity.
However,
it actually turns out that the Creator's Oneness and Infinity exists
undisturbed by the presence of world. How? It works by the world being
seamlessly continuous with Him - like a thought which is seamlessly continuous
with a thinker or a dream character in seamless continuity with a dreamer.
The thinker or dreamer doesn't need to compromise the presence of his/her
core identity to make room for a
thought or a dream character. The core identity doesn't get in the way of these
mental processes. So
there's no need to withdraw to allow them to occur. The core identity runs
through both the thinker and the thought or the dreamer and the dream character
equally. Similarly, there doesn't need to be a space literally carved out
of Him for the world to exist because the world is Him.
The
world doesn't look that way to us because our sensory perception limits what we
see. Our partial view makes what's a whole, appear fragmented - what's seamless
riddled with seams. This partial view fosters the illusion of independent
entities. It obscures the view of connections and continuity leading to a seamless whole. The entities themselves are not illusions, just a series of
partial views - lulling the viewer into the illusory experience of the finite.
Since
finite is about variation and change, there are a large variety of experiences
of our world, which creatures perceive as neatly framed examples of what it
means to be finite. These experiences of the world depend on an individual
creature's perceptive capacity.
Humans
perceive a physical universe, precisely responsive to known laws of physics.
Souls and angels have higher perceptive capacities than humans and perceive the
exact same universe as a spiritual realm. Since souls and angels exist on a
wide variety of levels, each level has its own unique perceptive capacity. To
lower souls and angels our universe is perceived as a lower spiritual realm. To
higher souls and angels our universe is perceived as a higher spiritual
realm. The same universe perceived with a different set of perceptive
capacities literally becomes a "different realm".
Beyond
the perceptive ranges of the highest souls and angels exist pure divine forces.
These forces are not as affected by the illusion of separation because they
experience themselves as mere appendages to what's beyond their perceptive
range - like an arm experiences attachment to its own the body. However, their
perception still has boundaries. Like angels and souls, these forces also have
levels and levels of perceptive range. There are higher forces which are beyond
the perceptive grasp of lower forces.
Beyond
the perceptive ranges of the highest forces is the Absolute Oneness/Infinity,
i.e. the Creator. At this very highest level, there's only Him. Anything
else, no matter how spiritual, loses any semblance of individual
identity and becomes like a ray of sunlight living within the body of the sun.
All other identities are seamlessly absorbed in their Source, without even
a lingering trace. Multiplicity yields and disappears into Oneness for
truthfully there never was any multiplicity to begin with. On this level it's
clear that there's only the Creator and nothing else.
This is why I was once taught
by a teacher that when the Jewish mystics, whether Prophets or Kabbalists,
entered into a higher realm they didn't "fly" there. Rather by
attaining a heightened state of holiness, they expanded their perceptive
range until they were just there.
