Many ideas about love and separation, many ideas about di-vision and duality in manifest Uni-verse and concomitant suffering. Perhaps we explore the meaning of Advaita, the re-semblance of separation demonstrated via musical consonance and dissonance, and many of the finite and thus finished signs an other has coined to mark static moments of existence. This will probably be exceedingly esoteric.
Been doing much study of musicality and manifold existence. Geometers map this world of forms in many ways. Korzybski has illumined distinction between map and territory for us exquisitely, but let us not assume he was the first. Essentially we suffer as result of di-vorce of Subject and Object. Some traditions agree on the illusory nature of this dis-tinction. In fact, the Upanishads exposit the essential equality of Subject and Object in their mantra "Tat Tvam Asi" meaning "That Art Thou."
The essential characteristic of the World is its mystery. Infinite means in-finite, unfinished, ever dynamic. All static representation of nonstatic existence is doomed by its very nature to failure. Only the unfinished is perfect. All expression, beit through glyph, image, act, even human life itself is doomed to finitude. Thus it suffers an impossibility of perfection. By their very nature all expressions of the Infinite (Absolute under any name) are assured inadequacy. Perhaps this is the Secret which a-muses mystics, quite literally ceases their thinking and sets them alaugh.
Advaita, as we mentioned earlier, is quite literally "non-duality." An essential aspect of tolerance, altruism, and love of fellow beings is recognition of similitude. All being and becoming are part and parcel of the One Song, widely known as Uni-verse, the singular Unity ever turning incapable of representation in static symbol. Much artistic practice since time immemorial, and especially, and quite curiously, in contemporary practice attempts to re-present this dynamism. The classic symbolism of the yin and yang we find here applicable. Another theme touched on repeatedly by Mowlānā is the coincidence of opposites.
Essentially all manifestation suffers this illusory duality. Conceptions of "good" have no hope of existence without concomitant "evil." The same is true of ideas of "right" and "wrong," "beautiful" and "ugly," and even "true" and "false." An acceptance, and perhaps prostration, submission, to the Uni-verse, the one song, a true tolerance of necessity must embrace all aspects of the Universum. The ugly is necessary for the existence of the beautiful, just as evil is necessary for the existence of good. Passive is necessary for the existence of active, favoring either principle sets one off balance and perhaps this is the meaning of the Buddha's "middle way."
We may explore, as I've mentioned, the patterns of manifold existence in many ways. Perhaps the most universal of these means of approach is that of music. A tonality is the establishment of a base unit and the dance of a music is quite literally differing relations in sequence about this Source. For example, a consonant re-lationship such as a fifth has a close relationship with the dynamic cycle of the tonic. This is represented by the ratio of 3:2 and we hear the ease of the interval and characterize it as consonant. The nature of music proceeds likewise in a similar fashion.
Other intervallic relationships we hear suffer a quite literal dis-integration of base consonance. Other ratios imperfect into dis-ease, so we find that a third suffers a 5:4 ratio, while a relationship we tend to hear as dissonant, a minor second, suffers further a 16:15. Perhaps this separation from Source is what gives differing musics their character. In consonance we hear the near-union of separated pitches, in dissonance we hear the agony of their separation. It was Rūmī and the other Persian expositors of ghazal who focused their art on themes of love and separation. In music itself we hear differing cycles in differing relationships, different degrees of separation.
Perhaps, indeed, the nature of a tonal music is an apt analogy for our intervallic re-lationship with the Divine, Brahman, the Universal Ground of All Being. Each and every one of us, all aspects and degrees of manifestation relate in some degree to the Absolute. Some have an apparent relation of ease and this is perhaps voiced, as in music, as a con-sonance. Some, however, have a relation of dis-ease, and this is voiced as a dis-sonance. While one we may judge as "pleasing" or "beautiful" and the other as "displeasing" or "ugly," both owe their re-lationship to Source, the Silence that underpins them, the Nothing that allows them. In this sense it may be valuable for us to recognize the debt owed Source for both ease and dis-ease. In fact, even the most dissonant of intervals (some explored by La Monte Young and others) must at some point re-meet the Source...
Beauty and truth are tremendous re-minders of the Unity from which we emerge. Theories of the Big Bang and the birth of our body's elemental building blocks in the stars are merely scientific re-presentations of our emergence from the Source, our di-vergence from primordial Unity. It is perhaps valuable for us to re-mind our selves and others, continually re-member the base, the tonic about which we dance, to which we relate. As the Tao Te Ching voiced: paths that may be taken are not the only paths, names that may be named are not eternal names. In this sense all paths and names become essentially identical, and each becomes a mode or tool for remembrance of God. All voicings are necessary, and their necessity is their beauty. I've decided I must love always, I must love all ways, and only hope a demonstration of this behavior benefits an other.
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