How Separation Reveals Unity by Lonny J. Brown Author of Enlightenment In Our Time We've all seen those clever optical illusions that can completely change "right before your very eyes." A classic example is the outline of an old woman's face, forming the "inline" of a young girl's body. Of course it's not the illustration that switches, but our perception of it. Some modern, computer-generated optical illusions (called random dot stereograms) rely on a subtle shift in your focus to make an entire vivid, three-dimensional scene pop out of a previously formless field of lines and colors. There's a hidden wisdom in these startling visual tricks. It's the "ah ha" moment of realization that what you see is not absolute: it depends on how you look at it. Properly appreciated, this can be a most enlightening spiritual insight. Indeed, the vital lesson is built into the traditional Taoist (Yin Yang) symbol that resembles two fish swimming in a circle: There is an example of each in the "eye" of the other, while the "two" define a single whole circle. The universal duality-resolving message: Despite appearances, opposites are not separate! One could spend a lifetime cultivating the priceless fruits of this simple truth. Dissolving Duality Artists and designers know that background, or "negative space," is an essential dimension in the visual effect they create. Pottery is the fine art of defining usable empty space with a thin sheet of wet clay. Architecture is the structural art of creating and protecting human spaces. Structural steel girders are stronger with holes in them and intervals between them. In fact, most man-made artifacts as well as nature's creations have emptiness in the middle, including flowers, plants, vegetables and fruits. Slice a cross-section of almost any living thing and you'll see a void at the center. (Potatoes are a rare exception.) Your own central spinal column is a hollow tube. Similarly, sound relies on its absence, as illustrated by classical physics: pressure is repeatedly imposed upon still air, propagating pulses of peaks and troughs, resulting in beautiful music. An uncanny flip occurs when we realize that music has a life of its own. At a certain point in a musician's development, it becomes a lot easier to get out of the way and let the song play itself! It is just such transcendent moments that audiences come to experience in great live musical performances. The Sufi poet Rumi knew all about this spiritual reversal, as he so eloquently aspired to become a flute played by God. I + Thou = One A bit of wise Native American advice is to "walk a mile in another man's shoes." In Mahayana Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a renunciate who lives in service to the liberation of others. A typical exercise is to cultivate empathy through the deliberate exchanging of self for other, even consuming their pain and darkness. The proposition of such self-sacrifice (the word derives from "sacred fire") is anathema to the conventional separate ego, yet it immediately reveals the true, greater Self. Lovers know something of this exchange and ultimate merging, and mystics know God as the ultimate lover. The Greatest Magic Trick of All The mind/body interface also turns out to be totally reversible, as the latest brain research is rapidly confirming. The new holistic science of Psychoneuroimmunology has obliterated the classical functional (and perceptual) distinctions between the mind, the brain, the nervous system, immunity, and bio-energy. Does consciousness inhabit the body, or does the body inhabit consciousness? The sweet paradox of an answer is that both possibilities are equally true. These reflective inquiries hint at the ultimate figure/ground reversal: self & Universe. Most busy modern Western humans live completely within the "common sense" paradigm that the world is "out there," and "my thoughts" and "I" are "in here." This convincing separation (defined by our skin) is so universally assumed as to seem ludicrous to question, except perhaps by idol philosophers who need to get a life! Nevertheless, it takes only a slight perceptual side-glance to see through the arbitrary distinction between the teeny weenie little "me, and the entire rest of the universe, and literally turn it inside-out. (Remember those optical illusions.) After all, in a very real sense, every impression, sensation, memory, experience and bit of information you've ever known, learned or otherwise acquired about that great "outside" world actually happens in your own head. Are you a product of a material Universe, or is "it" a figment of your vivid imagination? Were we born into this world, or are we creating it every moment? Is there life on Earth, or is the planet alive? Is the Universe objective or subjective? Again, the only answer is both, because ultimate reality - the whole Truth of all that is - must be, by definition, beyond opposition. Of course all these ambiguities confound the rational, logical mind, but they are no problem at all to enlightened mind, and contemplating them might just throw a switch for you. In fact, it's generally a good habit to question all appearances of separation, and see if the underlying, unifying principle doesn't just pop into view. You wouldn't be the first to discover that there's more to existence than meets the "I." Lonny J. Brown is the author of Enlightenment In Our Time (www.BookLocker.com/LonnyBrown), Self-Actuated Healing (Naturegraph, Publ.), and the online column, The Holistic Mystic (TheMetaArts.com). His writings on holistic health have appeared on AOL’s Alternative Medicine Forum and in Alternative Health Practitioner, Yoga Journal, and many other progressive publications. Brown teaches holistic health, mind/body healing, yoga & meditation, and stress reduction courses at hospitals, schools and businesses throughout the US. See his website at LonnyBrown.com RETURN TO OMPLACE HOME