THE ILLUSTRATION OF THE SYMPHONY
Once upon a time a weary old near-sighted mule was confined to a small barbed-wire enclosed pasture filled with brambles. One day the mule unwittingly backed into the briars. In surprised pain, it leaped over the fence to find itself in a pasture infinitely lusher than the one before.
Question:Should the mule condemn the brambles for their thorns, or thank them for being the instrument to a greater sense of freedom?
Thank them, certainly. But humanity as a whole doesn't do that. Why not? The answer isn't as obvious as it seems, and the question deserves a careful answer. Subjectivism offers an answer which will also serve as a primer for answering many metaphysical questions that arise in our study of Truth. Here is the answer, delineated backward, as metaphysics often does things. I call it the Illustration of the Symphony.
A knowledge of the Symphony begins as knowledge of the individual or personal notes that delineate the Symphony. One cannot separate the Symphony from the notes that delineate it—but the “power” (authority) lies with the Symphony which is being the notes. The notes “live, move and have their being” because the Symphony, Godhead exists. The Symphony is eternal and so are the notes that make it plain. But the notes are finite and tangible while the Symphony is infinite and intangible.
How so? Because infinite means “whole, all, complete, all-inclusive” and one note is not the whole Symphony. Since that note is not infinite, it is finite, measurable, possesses form and is concerned with sequence or time.
Every musician knows that as the notes are seen, understood and heard, the Symphony “behind” them begins to come to conscious attention—and once the intangible Symphony is memorized, our dependence on the tangible, finite notes has lessened, but the notes still exist because the Symphony is eternally Self-known, Self-delineated. That is, the Symphony will forever know itself in its wholeness and in its detail.
Likewise, as with the Symphony, our knowledge of the infinite IDENTITY begins as a knowledge of the individual, “finite” people, places and things within awareness. Who can deny that the tangible universe appears as the delineation of ISNESS, the INEFFABLE? One cannot separate images from the Isness-being-images that delineate It—but the power lies with Isness being the sights, sounds and images of awareness. People, places and things have their being because Isness (Symphony) is.
Godhead is eternal, and so is the essence of “matter” (form) as today's grade school student knows. But Godhead is infinite and intangible, while the images of awareness are apparently finite and tangible. How so? Again, because not one “thing,” nor all of them together, can be all there is to Godhead, any more than all the notes on the entire score of the symphony (Symphony) can be all there is to the symphony sounded, heard, lived!
As with the Symphony, when the sights, sounds and feelings of the “world” are seen and understood, Godhead comes more to conscious, tangible attention, and line upon line, precept upon precept we find our dependence on “things” has also lessened. This includes our dependence on liquor, drugs, lawyers, wheelchairs and hospitals—not to mention the need to attack other images or to suffer confusion about how to defend the Child-Self from situations that delineate our immutability.
MORE ABOUT THE SYMPHONY
Consider an INFINITE and LIVING Symphony. Living means awareness, life. Awareness means knowing. Our Symphony knows Itself. That is what “delineation” is all about in the first place. That is why the measurable, finite notes on the paper, why the appearance of a finite world of interrelated people, places, things and combinations of thereof. The Symphony knows Itself in its intangible wholeness, and this means (listen, listen) that the Symphony also knows what KNOWING is.
If the Symphony knows all it is, doesn't it know what “knowing” is as well? Of course. Therefore, since “knowing” is not all there is to Symphony, the Symphony not only knows itself in its wholeness, it knows itself in its parts, in its infinite variety, in its individual notes that delineate itself to Itself—Itself to itself. Consequently, the Symphony knows finite form, time and sequence as well as Intangibility. Furthermore, It knows it knows!
Patient reader, no illustrations is perfect in every detail. They can all be picked to pieces. Ponder this one gently and find the Glimpse it discloses. Follow it with the heart, not the intellect that insists on a limit. Because our analogy is presuming an infinite Symphonic Godhead, we perceive that “knowing” is the only real knowing going on. An infinite symphony knows that its knowing is without limit, restriction or boundary, yet that knowing is not all there is to Godhead.
At this point we are able to ask the intellect a question the Heart can answer already: Does an infinitely wise Symphony know what it is NOT and could never actually BE? Yes. It would also know its “is nots” were fictitious IMPOSSIBLES—the delineators that allow wisdom (knowing) to be infinitely wise. Of course it would, else its knowing would not be unlimited knowing, hence not OMNISCIENCE at all.
And finally, to the awakening “point of difference” here: Would not our omniscient Symphony perceive (without fear of confusion) that a sharp or flat note was but an obverse delineation of the correct note? And would not the wise Symphony perceive that the fiction, no matter how it sounded, was naught but a marker of the real? Yes! Yes! Such a Symphony would know exactly what delineates (identifies) itself to Itself in its detail to infinity.
Consequently, for each “note” there is a knowledge of fictitious, but seemingly real “is-nots” to outline it—wheat and tares—and the Symphony knows the IS from the hypothetical is-nots necessary to define itself to infinity. Reader, let us be very simple here. This isn't as difficult or as twisting as it sounds. It is the knowledge that our hand is not yon bird, mountain, meadow and all else that renders the total knowledge of the form called “hand.”
When we speak of Symphony and its multitude of notes, we are not talking “duality” or “multiplicity,” but referring to one Symphony in the action of knowing itself. Mind and its Self-awareness are one Mind being all knowing. Omniscient means infinite knowing. Infinite means without limit. Knowing, limited to only what IS, is limited knowing. To unlimitedly know what IS is, means to automatically know what is not and could never be—and within the arena of tangibility (which is what “knowing” IS), the latter appears just as tangible as the “real,” yet it is a holographic fiction; LIMITED light attempting to outline Light.
So it is, our CONSCIOUS experience, so much concerned with finite images of perception, is like looking out upon a vast Symphony of that which, in our wisdom, we can examine in its wholeness, or sprig by sprig—and this gleaming field of wheat is the WHAT Identity knows Identity to be. Even as we know what the field is, we know what it is not and could never be—the appearance of tares strewn throughout, tares outlining every sprig, and even the tares pointing to the REAL, exactly as poverty delineates Sufficiency; as hatred delineates LOVE; as fear clarifies confidence and trust; as death points to LIFE!
Heretofore, the old objective teachings had us busily pulling up the brambles and tares, rooting them out, trying to heal them, change or destroy them, in the name of God, good, of course. Now we see them as the powerless delineations of the REAL—and remain untouched by them. We finally understand the strange admonition to leave the tares alone until the harvest. The apparent dualism is ended. It is no longer light and darkness; it is every bit Light and its infinite Self-distinction. It is no longer Life and death; it is all LIFE and the powerless delineation of all that Life knows it is not and could never be. It is no longer a matter of “peace beyond understanding” and an unremitting warfare against terrorism, disease, agony, principalities and powers, sin, sickness and death; it is all the Childlike Peace we eternally are—and “the world,” which is everything that makes the Peace fully KNOWN. Finally “the two are becoming a single one” as Jesus put it—and, great God, what a day this realization is!
If you would like further guidance in understanding any of William Samuel's work based on Self discover you are welcome to contact me, Sandy Jones - samuelandfriends@gmail.com - Ojai, California -
Read more by William Samuel books available on Amazon
