"A Rambling Conversation, Part I"
by Govinda and Harmon
Dear Friends,
In response to the article, "What's So" in The New Paradigm vol. II #15, on Thursday, 01 July, 1999, a Subscriber named Govinda, also known as Jos, wrote:
Harmon,
The feeling that I exist is that forever or is that also gone when your chemical structure your body is gone?
Who can tell me that after disappearance of my non-spiritual matter the spiritual thing of myself is still in nowness? maybe it's gone! and I have then no feeling any
longer as my body is gone?
Can you share and shine some light on this topic? Thanks already.
Love & Light,
-Jos email: govinda@skynet.be
I responded, as indicated below, and so we commenced a fairly lengthy conversation that leaped midway from one general topic to another. Consequently, in sharing our conversation with the tnp readership we dicided it would be best to break it into two separate editions, which should come to you in fairly swift succession. Here then, without further preamble, is the continuation of our discussion.
On Saturday, 03 July, 1999 Harmon wrote:
Dear Govinda,
Very thought-provoking questions you have there. I'll see what I can do with them, but please bear in mind that ultimately, all I can do is offer a personal opinion based upon my experience in life and my sense of the meanings of the words I use to describe the concepts in my mind. I'm formulating a forthcoming tnp edition to be titled (tentatively) "Words" to address in some way the strengths and limitations of verbal communication. [It turns out this will probably be it, at least for now.] For the moment, let me remind you of the final paragraph in #15:
"Be careful of words, though, if You'd like My advice; they only appear to have meaning. Actually (in My opinion) no word has exactly the same meaning to any two People, nor to any one Person at any two times; so it is very easy to deceive, and to be deceived, by words, even Your own. Just as knowledge is internal and springs from Your inmost Self, so is meaning. You, or I, or anybody may choose and use words well or poorly, but it is the meaning and the knowledge that are important and spring from within, not necessarily the words with which they are expressed. Seek within, and You can know "what's so," whether You can say it or not; and You can do "what works." It is nice to know that, isn't it?"
Communication (in my opinion) is something magical, or mystical, or miraculous, and also very natural, which occurs when a thought or idea or emotion or vision is transferred intact between minds. This can happen with or without words, but it is my experience that words can as easily obstruct as facilitate genuine communication. Thus if I, or anybody, knows something, because we have "delved within" and found an item of knowledge, a "Cosmic Fact," such as the prototypical "I AM" - something we know without the need for any "external" referents - I see no way to reliably transfer that "Cosmic Fact" to another mind by any verbal, visual, or otherwise symbolic means. I like the way Hermann Hesse expressed this in his novel, Siddhartha:
"Not for one moment did I doubt that you were the Buddha, that you have reached the highest goal which so many thousands of Brahmins and Brahmins' sons are striving to reach. You have done so by your own seeking, in your own way, through thought, through meditation, through knowledge, through enlightenment. You have learned nothing through teachings, and so I think, O Illustrious One, that nobody finds salvation through teachings. To nobody, O Illustrious One, can you communicate in words and teachings what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment. The teachings of the enlightened Buddha embrace much, they teach much - how to live righteously, how to avoid evil. But there is one thing that this clear, worthy instruction does not contain; it does not contain the secret of what the Illustrious One experienced - he alone among hundreds of thousands. That is what I thought and realized when I heard your teachings. That is why I am going on my way - not to seek another and better doctrine, for I know there is none, but to leave all doctrines and all teachers and to reach my goal alone - or to die. But I will often remember this day, O Illustrious One, and this hour when my eyes beheld a holy man."
[Siddhartha, Translated by Hilda Rosner, A New Directions Book, New Directions Publishing Corporation, New York, 1951.]
With those prefatory remarks as a starting point, I can reiterate that it seems to me that existence has no opposite of which I can conceive. I can say that I know this for a "Cosmic Fact" - and for all you "know," maybe I do. But in order for you to know it too, you can never gain that knowledge from me, or from anybody else; you can only obtain it the same way I did (if I did): by "delving within." Nevertheless, I can go on and attempt to describe to you in words what that means to me, and maybe some or all of my meaning will lodge in your mind, or rise to your conscious awareness; in which case we may have the sensation of having communicated. If so, however, I think you will have "gotten" "my" meaning, not from "me," but from the same Source "within" from which I "got it." "Get it?" Good.
Now; as to whether your present identity will survive the dissolution of your biochemical body...I can say that (again, and always, in my opinion, or from my point of view) a great deal of the "answer" depends upon how you yourself view things. It is a biochemical fact (is it not?) that your physical body is in a constant state of flux. Cells are dying and replacing themselves continuously. I don't know exactly how much credence to place in this, but I have read that within seven years every cell in your body has been replaced; and certainly any of us can verify from our own experience that we do not have the same bodies now in which we romped in our youths. Where are our youthful bodies? Have they "died?" And if so, what of "us?" Have we "survived?"
Come to that, where are "ourselves" of yesteryear? I don't know about you, but I certainly am not at all the same "person" I was 30 years ago; although I can clearly remember what it was like to have been that "other person." Where did he go? Did he "survive?" Or not? Depends upon how you want to look at it - I guess....
So as I revolve these matters in my own mind, I find myself orbiting again, and again, and again, around the single immovable, fixed point in the universe: I AM, right here, right now, regardless of "yesterday" or "tomorrow" or what anybody else has to say about it. This much, anyway, I know with every fiber of my being: I exist. And as I contemplate this "Cosmic Fact" of my own self-experienced existence, I realize that I cannot remember ever having "not existed." I can't even imagine such a thing. True, I don't have very vivid memories of events in my existence that must have occurred before the date of my "birth." But then there's lots of things I "know" I really did experience since that date which I can't remember either. So faulty memory isn't a very convincing argument - to me - for "non-existence."
Then another line of thought that intersects all this at an interesting angle is the discovery, as I "delve within," that my existence has no discernible borders: there is no point in either time or space where I can draw a line, so to speak, which divides "me" from "not-me." Can you? If I say something like, "What is within my body is 'me' and what lies outside my body is 'not-me,' I find myself faced with my point of contact with the Planet (often, but not always, and not only, the soles of my feet). If the Planet were not there (didn't exist) there is no way I could exist either - at least not in my present or remembered or anticipated bodily form; so I don't see how I can separate the Planet from the domain of my body: the Planet is in that sense the most vital of my "vital organs."
Another point of bodily contact I have with the Planet is with my lungs and the ocean of air that envelopes the Planet; and the entire complex of ecological systems which seamlessly incorporates the entire web of life on the Planet. With all this is my body inextricably entwined. Similarly, the Sun 93,000,000 miles (150,000,000 km) away, is no less a vital bodily organ than the Earth; and the Galaxy no less than the Sun and the Solar System; and all Existence no less than any of these!
So when I "delve within" to discover the "Cosmic Fact" that I AM, Govinda, I can say that I really have hit on something BIG! So: do I "survive" the biochemical dissolution of my body? Depends on how I decide to look at it; but my inclination is to identify with my larger, higher Self, which must include everything and exclude nothing in all Existence, than with any particular "locality" in the flux of space-time. But even so, the "local person" I and my friends call "Harmon" is a useful item too, and the means whereby I am able to have a wealth of detailed experiences that would not be available to me were I "only" All Existence, but "nothing in particular." Of course, anything I say about myself must apply equally to you ...ah, if you want it to. I hope that "shines some light" for you?
Love & Light,
Harmon
Sunday, 04 July, 1999 Govinda wrote:
As I can conclude My or Our existence makes only sense in relation with Others existence and according to Your words and also Wingmakers we as entities are always in Nowness as Outposts of Spirit or Source Intelligence and time and space are simply concoctions of our genetic mind and we as human instruments have calibrated this time in seconds. Spirit or All has divided itself in The Many to experience existence and to give meaning on the creation.
We can go on and on with this, but this does not solve our ultimate question of our personal feeling when our material body stopped to exist, what then with our Spirit (if there is one?) or is Spirit also a concoction of our genetic mind?
Thanks Harmon and Love & Light, (This I have taken over from You!) :)
Love & Light,
-Jos email: govinda@skynet.be
Friday, 09 July, 1999 Harmon wrote:
Dear Govinda,
I gather your primary concern at the moment is the "nuts and bolts" question of whether or not the local personality identified as "Govinda" will "survive" the dissolution of your body, or will simply "evaporate into the ethers" and assume the "anonymous identity" of the All-That-Is, yes? The picture may be somewhat analogous to that of a single drop of rain falling into the sea: we know that one identifiable "drop of water" is now somewhere in the sea - but where is it; and will it ever emerge again? Is that a fair restatement of your question?
I can't answer your question "authoritatively," for "I myself" have not been able to "remember" with any clarity my own local identity prior to some time during the first year after my (most recent) "birth;" and even such "early" personal memories are so scattered and anecdotal that they more resemble fragments of imperfectly remembered dreams than "actual experiences." However I am aware of numerous individuals who have reported "past life" emories, and although this is "second-hand" information, it is so commonly reported a sensation, and the reports are so rich with common elements, that they are in their aggregate quite persuasive. So there is at least "hearsay evidence" for "life-to-life" continuity. Similarly, there is "hearsay evidence" for "life after death" continuity.
One of the best accounts in the latter category I have so far encountered is a book titled Life in the World Unseen by Anthony Borgia, Psychic Press, Ltd., London, 1954, 1978, 1981, 1984, 1985, which may be still in print. And of course another, more recent, published treatment of these matters, and others, is the three-volume work, Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue by Neale Donald Walsch, Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc., Charlottesville, Virginia, 1995, 1997, 1998; which I cannot recommend too highly - or should I say, highly enough! Of course, my recommendations are subjective, because they happen to resonate with My "local" consciousness; but that's the best I can do along those lines just now.
Anyway, the "God" with Whom Walsch converses makes a great deal of sense to Me when "He" emphasizes repeatedly that Our only real identity is that of the One, the All That Is, "God." The identity of the "drop of water" is that of the Sea; and not only the Sea, but the Ocean Basins that contain the Seas; and the Planet that forms the Ocean Basins; and the Solar System that cradles the Planet; and the Galaxy that gave birth to the Solar System;... And so it is with "Govinda" and "Harmon" and "Sue" and "Karen" and all the rest.
Another point the "God" with Whom Walsch converses makes, which I have seen nowhere else, but My Inmost Self responds, "yes! Yes! YES!" is that We have each taken physical form, deliberately and intentionally, in a personal local identity for no other reason than to experience being in a specific detailed circumstance of Our own choosing. We remain in Our current "local identities" for as long as it suits Us to so remain; and We change "identities" when and as it suits Us to do so. (We actually do this all the time "in this life," from year to year, and hour to hour, incrementally and to varying degrees.) In this view, so-called "death" is not something that overtakes Us unawares, but is the "event" We summon when it no longer suits Our purpose to continue Our current "local identity." If it suits Us to retain Our "local identity" beyond the dissolution of Our (current) body, so shall it be; if not, not. The point is, as I understand it at the moment, everything - everything - is a matter of "My" choice and intention; the only "choice" not available to Us is to "not be."
In this cosmology, "Govinda" will "live" as long as "Govinda" wishes, with body or without - or, if You like, with a succession of bodies, male or female, in a succession of circumstances of Your choice, subject to change at any moment, for any reason. That's how I see it - which, really, is neither here nor there. How do You see it?
Love & Light,
Harmon
P.S.: By the way, Govinda, our conversation seems to be developing such that it may interest others besides ourselves. How do you feel about pasting it together in the manner of Karen's and my recent dialogue about the WingMakers (Part III, vol. II #12 4/26/99) and publishing it in a forthcoming edition of tnp? Just a thought. L&L, H.
Govinda's response was affirmative; but then our discussion took an abrupt turn at this juncture, and so is continued in the following edition.
Love & Light,
-- Harmon
J. Harmon Grahn |