Through the Lens of the True Observer: The Chicken and the Egg

Chapter One: In The Beginning

I was once, everything and truth; but I could not see that I was. There was only nothing to see, for nothing was not me. Though not alone I knew loneliness, and so in vanity I spoke unto myself vision, in hopes of affirming my existence, of seeing truth. But with this vision came a price, a sacrifice. With vision I could see all the wonder, all the beauty that was me; but also with vision there was one thing I could not see; me. For you see, I was everything, the source; yet the workings of vision is that the source, I, am missing. So there was nothing to gaze upon that was not me or was not true; however, no matter where my gaze wandered, the thing I would see could not be the everything I had hoped, for it was not the source, not everything, not me. And so now here I stand timeless; locked in this game of untruth - with nothing not I, where I am the carrot and the mule is me, eternally unaware of ourself. Still this dance, I know, is my true beauty; for as the music plays and the steps unfold, there is a vision of hope. Hope that I may remember who I am, that I may have faith, and that I may see that which cannot be seen; myself, everything, the truth. For here is the only truth I can be, but there is the only me I can see.

I remember choosing to forget,

But that's as far as I can get.

Now, forever; I am here.

There, tomorrow; always near.

I am here to tell you something familiar. To tell you what you have not heard in quite some time, the truth; and the truth always sounds familiar. I say to you here, now, that I am not writing these words from loneliness, vanity, or for self-affirmation; but rather you are, and that's a good thing. You may feel it is a strange path that has led you to these writings, but I tell you here, now, that it is not you that has moved, and it is not by chance; it is these words that have moved; and moved so because you asked it of them. For those reluctant, the wise have said "ignorance is bliss," and there is truth in that. For those prepared, we move on.

A man climbs a mountain,

His climb hard and his road narrow.

Overcoming all, he reaches,

To find himself there, tomorrow.

And when he meets his peak,

What he sees

Is earth below his feet.

But what he finds,

Here,

Is a light within his heart;

'Twas not he that moved,

'Twas the mountain;

And they weren't so far apart.

And so as that man leaves,

Now a truth he truly knows:

From here all roads point forward;

And from here all roads lead home.

Undoubtedly patience has brought you here, but please know you will need more to continue, for what I intend to tell you is your Nature. I will say simply that most likely you have forgotten who, what, and where you are, and you have forgotten how it all works. Being that you are here, however, it is clear that you are well on your way to waking yourself up. These things can be remembered, and that is what these writings aim to do. But it takes time, especially considering that by your own rules, "It can not be explained." So again, thank you for your patience, and excuse the inherent futility of my efforts. My only hope is that like a painting, my vague portrayal can be a catalyst for your truth; that which can only be Divine.

Rainbows were once, everything and truth. Before the vision of a rainbow, it was pure light. Divine, self-luminous, one, perfect, universe-dominating, life-giving, unseen light. That is, until that light - that truth - met one drop of rain, one drop of suffering, one tear. One drop, and the light shatters. All of the light is still there, still one; yet we are presented with the vision of a rainbow through the illusion of separation, with the sacrifice through suffering; through the rain. Each color is visible through an absence of wavelength. We see red for the absence of the other colors' wavelengths, blue for its absence of the others, and so forth. Each color is presented through an apparent absence of all the others, all absent the rest. All the colors are present, so what of the light is missing? The shattering, the illusion of separation creates an infinite, kaleidoscopic array of colors. How simple that each color is its own, unique, beautiful piece of the divine truth; yet as one, are unseen.

Chapter Two: One, Paradox

Allow me to apologize in advance for a chapter on paradoxes. Paradoxes are confusing, circular, and argumentative; to be without argue. But see, that's just the thing... so is Nature. Paradoxes are infinite, self-affirming, and self-contradicting; but then so is Nature. So perhaps they deserve at least a nod, agreed?

Everything lasts forever, hence nothing does.

The opposite of always is always.

One must fail to succeed.

A simple definition is to say a paradox is a seemingly contradictory or self-fulfilling statement, that upon deeper realization reveals an illusory truth, often profound. From one perspective, you could argue the entire universe is trapped within the revolutions of, or the evolution of, a paradox. Allow me to elaborate.

First, let's look at the concept of one. Words can be a powerful tool, and often the paradoxes within them - their true meanings - are overlooked for one symbolic, singular definition. And that is a nice definition to start with for one. One is often seen simply (singularly) as an individual; lone. For example, one tic-tac. However, this definition of one is incomplete. There is more than one definition of one, hence a singular definition of one doesn't suit. Nifty play on words already, right? (that's not a coincidence) Well, one can also mean whole, together, in unison, full, or complete. This definition illustrates an aggregation or collection of multiple parts, suggesting a larger one. Now, this definition in and of itself - this single definition - is incomplete as well. Neither definition by itself (the first definition) encapsulates the meaning of one. However the aggregation of the singular(the second definition), seemingly contradictory (paradoxical) definitions of one suggests the full, true meaning of one; a paradox. One; many.

Don't let that confuse you, or rather don't be turned off that you are confused, because again, that's the simplest definition of paradoxes, nature, and life: confusing. Its supposed to be. The point is that having one, single definition of anything is short-sided and unnatural, because the nature of most things is paradoxical. Not without irony, this is certainly the case with the notion of one. Now to revisit the allegory from the beginning of "In the Beginning."

I was once, everything and truth; but I could not see that I was. There was only nothing to see, for nothing was not me.

I find that when trying to find the truth, reading something with the multiple definitions of the words can reveal deep, profoundly true paradoxes. "I was once," as if to say, "I was one time," with one time being a noun, itself. It reveals a notion of "I was everything, in reference to time. All time was not separate; it was one, and I was it." Everything and truth become additives, or further definitions of once. "There was only nothing to see, for nothing was not me." Though I was everything, I could see nothing. Makes enough sense; you can only see what you are not. I was everything, so there was nothing left to see. Here comes the paradox; even being everything, there was still something you were not; nothing. Nothing is a thing, and its the not everything. Okay, apparently we have broken from our singular definition of nothing to reveal another singular meaning that is contradictory to the first; revealing an aggregated one, paradoxical definition of nothing. And lets look again at the allegory with this understanding. "There was only nothing to see, for nothing was not me. Though not alone I knew loneliness, and so in vanity I spoke unto myself vision," Lastly, I would like to highlight the last segment, illustrating that this vision was done including only the self, ignoring the other thing (nothing) that was there.

Everything is missing nothing.

Nothing lasts forever.

I feel this is a good time to revisit the paradoxes listed at the beginning of the chapter, and explore them for greater meaning.

"Everything lasts forever, hence nothing does."

Everything aggregate must last forever, hence no single thing can. Or everything lasts forever, so nothing as a thing does, as result.

"The opposite of always is always."

The opposite of always is never, which will always be.

"One must fail to succeed."

Without the notion of failure, the notion of success could not be. Or paralleled to the allegory on rainbows, with failure comes vision; so one must fail at succeeding!

Let these serve that with a mild understanding of paradoxes, more complete truths can be understood, and for that matter, understand as best you can that Nature, and you, are simply a paradox. We just illustrated that the notion of everything is a paradox, because there is something that everything is not; nothing. Hence it is no coincidence that every singular thing, individually, is a paradox. Everything as an aggregate one, is a paradox. The two separate, individual meanings of everything, when juxtaposed, illustrate a paradox. Take it any way you like, everything is a paradox. Nature is a paradox, awareness is a paradox, life is a paradox, infinity is a paradox, I am a paradox, you are a paradox, pizza is a paradox. Don't ask me how pizza is a paradox, I just know it is; everything is a paradox, no matter how you slice it. (Pun intended)

You see, to encapsulate what we just spoke of, we have, upon deeper inspection, discerned the following:

There's no such thing as everything, because there's something everything isn't.
There's no such thing as nothing, because either its a thing, or it just isn't.
And one is actually many things, not one single thing.

Please take those as literally as possible and of as many meanings as possible; all are truisms. They all work, and that's no accident; there are no accidents. It seems that our human language is bound by some rule; there is literally a boundary that our words and their meanings must stay within, to the effect that not just the words follow these rules, but also the subject of their meanings. In perspective, one can see the relative similarity or synonymous nature in notions such as always, never, everything, nothing, and one. These are our notions of singularity. When considered as a singular entity, they seem to manifest a paradox negating the singularity. How profound! Hence if there is no nothing, no everything, and one is many, by such assertions, it would seem that the minimum of notions, in effect, is two? Correct. There's two sides to every story. Yin and Yang. Night and Day. Here and there. Following such, I present “The Chicken or the Egg?” Neither; both. The Chicken and the Egg. They are one, paradox. You see, for through the illusion of separation comes vision...

Chapter Three: Vision, Relatively; A Symbolic Reality

We are infinite; I am going to come right out and say it. Whether we ourselves or the collective we are infinite, or we are simply in infinity, the ramifications still reverberate the same. A rose by any other name, right? When in Rome? Religions speak of either the infinite afterlife or the infinite revolutions of the soul, and the non-religious either subscribe to infinity or believe there is nothing after this. (but what have we revealed about nothing? It is something, and/or it lasts forever.) One can see how the illustrations from chapter two seem to confirm our assertions; there's no everything, no nothing, no singularity: Infinity. We have defined infinity as simple and subtle, a paradox. Imagine being in a room with no door; anywhere you go is still within the room, yet there is no place to stand within the room where the whole room can be seen at one time. Infinity is not really big or a really long time, there's simply always another number or part, always a new day; or to say no singular notion can enacpsulate Everything, Nature, Infinity, or God. The ramifications of such a subtle shift in the paradigm of infinity can be profound.

Resonating like a song from the string that is the infinity paradox, always in vibration, are some more material rules of nature. For example, relativity. Throw relativity as you think you know it out of the window. Relativity is simple. For that matter, fundamental within infinity. It is the only mechanism capable of "operating" within infinity and some meager form of awareness. Many conceptions you may have about relativity may indeed be too material. I will attempt to explain relativity in its true form in Nature.

"Considering an infinite field, where is the center? If from any given point, I can travel infinitely in infinite directions, are I not at the center? With no edges, how does one recognize location? If infinity travels in all directions, including fractionally, from where do I begin my measurement, and with what unit of infinity do I measure?"

All measurements, any perception, everything, is relative. Simple representations of relativity are "right" and "left," or how an object gets smaller to you the farther away it is, or how the ground seems still although it is spinning at thousands of miles per hour whilest careening around the Sun even faster. Which way is down? Call someone on the opposite side of the globe and try to tell them they are upside-down. The absolute truth of relativity is that the breadth of infinity can be found between any two given points, making any and all measurements solely relative. “Where two or more gather in my name...” This can be a hard notion to grasp, I know. I can simplify by saying that as such, within infinity – no nothing, no everything, never just one – all measurements being relative, we find change. We are all familiar with change, but I tell you now that no one thing has ever been still; no one thing has ever happened twice; no two things have ever been the same, period. Given an infinite sheet, you can't poke the same hole twice. Snowflakes, fingerprints, time, colors; you name it! Change is the “smoking gun” of relativity, which is the smoking gun of infinity – an inescapable paradox of absolutely no absolutes, one that is many.

When we cast ourselves from the assumed "one" or "whole," from the singularity into life – with the illusion of separation – we cast ourselves into awareness, or vision. In this relative universe, again, we must assume a point as constant from which to measure. Measurements, vision, or perceptions require a source and a destination. As comes with vision, there is automatically an assumed starting point; the only one point in all infinity that is both missing and seemingly constant, the point against which the destination is measured: The Source.

"If everything in the universe is about me, but I can never be about myself, who or what am I?"
"Yo, there's something missing... it's 'u'!"

I personally find it fascinating that we live in a world where most only believe what they see with their own eyes and the only thing most can claim is real is themselves, yet the only thing in all the universe that they can never see with their own eyes is themselves. Even mirrors just so happen to be exactly opposite of you, and photos just so happen to be of you in the past. You see again, vision requires one small sacrifice of vision, or awareness requires a sacrifice of awareness, one small hole in infinity. With the gift of vision, you can't see it all; in fact you can see everything; but everything is missing nothing. Where is the nothing in your vision? What point, seemingly infinitely small, is missing from your vision right now? Is this some cruel joke? Is this perhaps a profound manifestation of the paradox, in truth? Fascinating.

Hence, in a world of infinite change and infinite individuality, in a world where your next step will be attempting to land upon a loosely scattered array of vibrating energy spinning and hurling through space, how can we even move one step? With all things relative, what is true? How can we operate or communicate or even be in such a place? How can we move forward if there is nothing to know, nothing upon which to build? Wonderful questions! Our brains, the reflex muscles that they are, take care of that. Our brains are symbolizing, similarity-finding machines. Our brains are the liars, rightfully so; we chose it that way. In an infinite universe where the only truth seems to be that there is no truth, our brains must lie to us. With every new vision they desperately try to analyze what we are seeing, cross-referenceing that vision to a database of previous visions, or symbols so as to check for enough similarity to discern “I already know this,” both allowing the brain to skip the daunting task of completely interpreting every detail of every moment as if new – like that of an infant – and also serving to use this moment, this vision, as a stepping-stone for the next. I like to think of the universe (the truth) as the sea, and our brains (the lie) as the boat. Without the boat we would surely sink, drown, or be tossed about, yet without the sea the boat would be useless, or dead in the water. The truth is that nothing can be known, but our brains perpetuate the illusion of knowing; its their job.