"I think that all poets are sending religious messages, because poetry is, in such great part, the comparison of one thing to another... and to insist, as all poets do, that all things are related to each other, comparable to each other, is to go toward making an assertion of the unity of all things."

We can alwys tell when a poet or writer is "Emersonian" by their grasp of  unity.

 "I think that all poets are sending religious messages, because poetry is, in such great part, the comparison of one thing to another... and to insist, as all poets do, that all things are related to each other, comparable to each other, is to go toward making an assertion of the unity of all things."

We can alwys tell when a poet or writer is "Emersonian" by their grasp of  unity.

This passage from Emerson's essay "Plato; Or The Philosopher" sets out the principle of unity and diversity in things, the perennial tension between the One and Many:

" This defining is philosophy. Philosophy is the account which the human mind gives to itself of the constitution of the world. Two cardinal facts lie forever at the base; the one, and the two: 1. Unity, or Identity; and, 2. Variety. We unite all things by perceiving the law which pervades them; by perceiving the superficial differences and the profound resemblances. But every mental act,- this very perception of identity or oneness, recognizes the difference of things. Oneness and otherness. It is impossible to speak or to think without embracing both."

As always with Emerson, the key to understanding reality is found in knowledge of the laws that govern the universe. Interested readers can find more on the subject of unity by searching for the word in his works and by using the concordance, examine his use of the word. The Irey Concordance on the site is a remarkable tool. Not only does it show every word in the Complete Works (except for articles and pronouns) but it shows them in context. The useful Key shows in which essay or lecture the words can be found.

[Note: The following is an excerpt from Being Consciousness Bliss (Lindisfarne, 2001) by Astrid Fitzgersld, a valuable book which leans heavily on key quotations from Emerson in its exploration of the unity of all things]

EXISTENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS

We tend to believe in the sole reality of matter because our senses feed us with a continuous stream of impressions that our minds process into a perception of a solid exterior reality. We thrive on this input and experience great comfort in the never-ceasing flow of sensory information, which lets us know that we are alive and well. We know from research that when human beings are deprived of sensory stimulation for any length of time, perception is altered and circadian rhythms disturbed; in some cases, a gradual disintegration of the personality has been observed.

We are hardly aware that our whole lives revolve around the senses. Yet we treasure our senses and love the objects they perceive. We enjoy the sense of comfort we feel when we stand on a solid floor, sit in a comfortable chair, or lie in a fragrant meadow. We feel pleasure when we smell freshly baked bread, taste a fine wine, breathe the ocean breeze, or listen to a great symphony. We derive a sense of well-being from all this sensory input. Even the memory of a pleasant event or the recollection of a beautiful sight will bring about a physical reaction of ease and pleasure.

All this reenforces our trust in the senses and our belief in the phenomenal world as something outside ourselves. Yet we know from science that, for example, there is no such thing as local or permanent color in nature. When we "see" an object as red, blue, or yellow, we are interpreting the stimulation of the retina in response to the refraction of light from the surface of the chemical or mineral particles that we call pigments.

We also know from research that when perception is altered by drugs or pathological chemical changes in the brain, the experience of the phenomenal world changes drastically. Higher levels of experience, such as clairvoyance, can also change our view of "normal perception." We know from reports of higher states of consciousness and mystical experiences that phenomenal reality as we generally accept it tends to disappear altogether. Emerson’s observation in his essay "Nature" addresses this point: "If Reason be stimulated to more earnest vision, outlines and surfaces become transparent, and are no longer seen; causes and spirits are seen through them. The best moments of life are these delicious awakenings of the higher powers, and the reverential withdrawing of nature before its God."

Attempts in physics and mathematics to discover the fundamental laws of nature suggest that physical reality is a nonlocal process that lies outside of the space-time continuum and derives from something beyond space and time. As we "see" deeper into the subatomic realm, it gets curiouser and curiouser! Here the law of cause and effect is no longer apparent; here randomness and simultaneity rule; here mind affects matter; here there are no divisions. At the quantum mechanical level, only energy and information exist, and our bodies are nothing more than a localized disturbance in the larger quantum field that is the universe.

Everything we see, all of creation, consists merely of phenomena that have their origin in the noumenon. But the two are not separate in reality. We may find that the unified field currently sought by science is just another designation for the pure consciousness of metaphysics. Quantum physics seems to be on the verge of "proving" the existence of pure consciousness, sometimes referred to as "the field of pure potentiality" or "the creative principle," which exists everywhere in the universe, as it does in every human being. The cause, however, will most likely remain elusive to science, since our perception is not yet attuned to this level, and our present state of mind does not penetrate the dimensions of space, time, and causation.

The Upanishads declare that all this universe is maya - the web of illusion - offering the image of the spider who spins his web out of himself and then uses this self-made structure as his world. This suggests that maya exists in our collective consciousness, but has no absolute existence. The Vedas teach that the whole creation and everything we behold is held in our own prakriti or Nature. The Buddha taught that "All is Mind." Advaita - the nondual philosophy of consciousness - declares that "One alone" exists. This "One" is both noumenon and phenomenon and manifests itself in multiplicity as many different forms. Advaita propounds that there is only one consciousness. Human beings have their lives in this consciousness and by it cognize and experience the various aspects of consciousness, which are information, awareness, knowledge, and wisdom.

Paul Brunton, one of this century’s most dynamic spiritual thinkers, who successfully synthesized Eastern and Western ideas, clarifies our understanding of consciousness and mind in his voluminous notebooks. He writes: "The individual mind presents the world-image to itself through and in its own consciousness. If this were all the truth then it would be quite proper to call the experience a private one. But because the individual mind is rooted in and inseparable from the universal mind, it is only a part of the truth. Man’s world-thought is held within and enclosed by God’s thought…. Our idea of the external world is caused partly by the energies of our own mind and partly by the energies of the World-Mind. It is not caused by a separate material thing acting on our sense organs…. It is a generative idea. Here is a whole philosophy congealed into a single phrase: the world is an idea."

Eastern teachings propound that the Creative Principle - the Absolute - is everywhere; everything begins in the Absolute, is sustained by the Absolute, and returns to the Absolute. Yet another principle states that all actions take place in the mind. These ancient truths are universal and manifest at every level of the creation. The Creative Principle is a point, a void beyond time and space that expands by the force of the Logos, the will or desire to become manifest in time and space. This same Creative Principle - that "unmoving from which all movement comes" - lies hidden in the center of every human being.

As we go about our human affairs, we get lost in phenomena and are totally unaware of this grand design. In our ignorance, we believe in an inverse order of existence: we literally get the whole picture backwards. This is quite evident from the fact that we expend most of our energy tending to the material world, devoting little time to the development of our minds and almost totally neglecting the care of our spiritual nature.

The Creative Principle or Void is beyond time and space, without limit or bounds. Pure potentiality is everywhere, yet rests coiled up and hidden, a principle that may be confirmed by the latest discoveries in astrophysics, which have led to the conclusion that space contains invisible matter that is far more abundant than visible matter. This "dark matter" also corresponds beautifully to the ancient Eastern concept of avyakta prakriti - unmanifest nature - as well as to Vedic references to "the unseen remainder." The ancient sages reveal the splendor of their seemingly unlimited knowledge about the nature of existence, when they declare in the Eesha Upanishad, "That is perfect. This is perfect. Perfect comes from perfect. Take perfect from perfect, the remainder is perfect."

In its universality, the statement also describes the properties of the Golden Mean proportion and can be used to demonstrate this enigmatic mathematical/geometrical principle. The Golden Mean proportion (whose mathematical symbol is the Greek letter N or phi) has fascinated philosophers and architects from the Egyptians to Pythagoras to Plato, who in the Timaeus elaborates on the relationship between the regular solids (three-dimensional forms relating to the phi proportion) and the elements. This proportion has also inspired the builders of the Gothic cathedrals, the artists and thinkers of the Renaissance, and architects and artists of the present day.

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The Golden Mean proportions appear everywhere in organic and inorganic matter, in the structure of the human body, and even throughout the intergalactic worlds. These "divine proportions," as they are known, in combination with the Fibonacci numbers,* can be found in our solar system, in growth patterns of flora and fauna, in viruses, and in DNA. The Golden Mean spiral is most evident in the patterning of seeds in the center of a sunflower, in the shell of the nautilus, in vortices, and in galactic formations. It may well be the matrix underlying the outward thrust of the ever-expanding universe. All this suggests that human beings are intimately linked with this law of Unity and regeneration. We might thus consider the expanding Golden Mean spiral as a symbol of the lawful evolution of human consciousness and its inward movement as a sacred symbol of the return of the individual to the source of being.

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The Golden Mean or Phi proportion can be illustrated by a point on a line asymmetrically divided such that the shorter segment is to the larger segment as the larger segment is to the whole. The point on a line (measuring one unit) in which this statement is true is expressed as .618.... . This asymmetrical division is what makes dynamic expansion possible. Robert Lawlor, the author of Sacred Geometry: Philosophy and Practice, puts it as follows: "In a sense, the Golden Proportion can be considered as suprarational or transcendent. It is actually the first issue of Oneness, the only possible creative duality within unity. It is the most intimate relationship, one might say, that proportional existence - the universe - can have with unity, the primal or first division of One…. An asymmetrical division is needed in order to create the dynamics necessary for progression and extension from the unity. Therefore the N proportion is the perfect division of unity: it is creative, yet the entire proportional universe that results from it relates back to it and is literally contained within it, since no term of the original division steps, as it were, outside of a direct rapport with the initial division of unity."

Thus the Golden Mean rectangle demonstrates geometrically and symbolically what the verse from the Upanishad states poetically and philosophically: when we take a perfect square which represents This or the visible universe which is the manifestation of the Fullness of the Absolute from the Golden Mean rectangle which represents That or the Supreme Brahman, or pure consciousness, what remains is another perfect rectangle. The integrity of the proportion remains the same: the remainder is perfect. In other words, the manifestation of the universe does not affect or diminish in any way the Infinite or Brahman.

The question "what is existence?" and "what is consciousness?" can never be fully answered by science with its reliance on the senses and sense-enhancing instrumentation. We are slowly beginning to realize that the information we receive through ordinary perception may not give us an accurate view of reality or at least not the whole picture. Some are beginning to explore new paradigms within their fields. Others have found ways and means to explore a vast universe within themselves, gaining knowledge and wisdom through exalted experiences.

As human beings we have the ability to turn our inquiry inward and address our higher nature. By referring our inquiry further up the line - bypassing the discursive mind, evaluations based on the dead past, or stale emotions stored in memory - to the highest principle in us, the Self, or that which alone is real. Here in the light of consciousness resides the higher intellect or higher reason and all knowledge.

The sages teach that union with the Self is attainable to those who desire it. While we lack an intimate connection with reality, with the one Self, a small act of faith is required to bridge the gap until such time that we experience it for ourselves. We also need to hypothesize for the time being that an evolution of consciousness is a real possibility. We are told by the Wisdom tradition that in this expanded state of human consciousness - the "objective consciousness" of P.D. Ouspensky, the "pure Reason" of Plato or the "freedom from ignorance" of the Vedas - it is possible to know everything fully about everything and apprehend the world as it is. The sages saw this search for truth as the highest form of inquiry.

The reductive modern idea of a fortuitous accident propelled by a blind force hurtling through space in an endless orbit does not hold up in light of many recent scientific discoveries in physics and the study of consciousness. Whether science explains existence in terms of energy, randomness, chaos, waves, superstrings, particles, or some other concepts, all these seeming "realities" or matrices exist simultaneously on one level or another, conjuring up a magnificent and eternal differentiation manifesting as the invisible and visible substance we call the universe, nature, and life. But these tendencies are just the observable phenomena of the interaction of "information" and energy and represent but a few glorious and extraordinary facets of the One Perfection, the One Intelligence, and the One Consciousness that lies behind them.

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Adapted from Chapter Eight, Part One of BEING CONSCIOUSNESS BLISS - A Seeker’s Guide by Astrid Fitzgerald. Copyright © 2002 by Astrid Fitzgerald

Astrid Fitzgerald is an artist, writer, and a passionate student of the Perennial Philosophy who has applied its principles to her life and art for more than thirty years. The author of An Artist’s Book of Inspiration - A Collection of Thoughts on Art, Artists and Creativity - , and Being Consciousness Bliss - A Seekers Guide - , Fitzgerald’s writing is based on the philosophy and practice of self-development, study groups, as well as individual self-inquiry and reflection.