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CHAPTER THREE
What Is the Form of Interrelationship?
What is the form of interrelationship? What does it look like?
What does interrelationship mean in our real world experience? How does it affect reality?
We can now see our world in a new way. We need no longer view everything in it only
symbolically. The abstract names we have given things in our world can now go beyond
symbolism meaningful only to us. In the past we had seen things simply, childlike putting
together bits of knowledge into a puzzle. From the general knowledge passed down to us, we
had given meaning to things in the world by agreeing on a thought, a word, that would
describe the thing to us. From these we had assembled these words, concepts, into a
complex of ideas which help us to understand what everything is. We had done this
naturally and successfully to the present; it is our everyday experience. Thus we have
built up an elaborate network of ideas which results both in a practical understanding of
reality and in philosophies which stem from this understanding. In our building block
fashion we have proceeded from the small to the large, the simple to the complex, yet
always maintaining mastery over our symbols. Our definitions of reality have been our
creations, creations we would not release from our control, thus making us masters of our
world. To now, understanding rested ultimately in its acceptance by a consensus, not on
how ideas existed and worked in and of themselves independently of us, but as accepted by
a general agreement testing the results of these ideas. We thus perpetuated a uniformity
in the way we saw things. By doing this, from the dawn of our time, we have
"named" things, given them a definition which had placed them in a certain
perspective within the universe. Things were not defined intrinsically, to our knowledge,
in and of themselves, but defined by the symbols and names we had chosen them. Thus, to
our minds, the universe did not exist as a definition of itself, in its own right, but
rather as a definition from us; we were the creators of reason within it. We named it and
from our bits of knowledge assembled a coherent, philosophical whole. But now, we can see
things in a different way.
Things can now have a meaning of their own. They can now fit into a complex of
understanding that is intrinsic to them, if not entirely to us. The definition of each
thing in reality can now be determined by reality, in our thinking, rather than a meaning
formed by our general consensus. We can and have been known to be wrong in our thinking
about reality; reality can now have the right to be free from our error; it is always the
ultimate judge. Rather than us being the creators of meaning, we can now see that in our
creations, we are nevertheless only observers of the meaning reality is giving itself. In
reality, each thing is defined by its presence in the complex of everything else. We can
now see it this way, through interrelationship, and see what reality is saying about
itself:
Things exist through association. The pebble lying on the beach is smoothed and rounded by
its environment. It is tossed with each
wave, chipped minutely against other pebbles, polished by wind and sand into its present
smoothness. Its shape is exactly as it is because that is how it has been molded, through
time, by the presence of all the circumstances that have been and are its environment. If
it is nearly round, then it could have been made flat or oval; but it was not. From the
distant reaches of space and time in reality came the forces and circumstances that, with
each passing wave, had lifted it and caused it to be struck again, each blow molding it
minutely, from all directions of reality, into its present, exact shape. It is there as
all the interrelationship of forces have made it, then. Now, if it is at the water's edge,
its origin may have been imbedded in some distant mountain; if it is textured smooth, it
may have been jagged and coarse; if it is light or dark, flawed or perfect, it is exactly
as it is. On the beach, it is exactly where it lay. No hand reached down to lift it and
toss it further. It is itself, there, embodying in its form the full history of itself
from its beginning to now. Not a moment was lost nor an experience not etched on its
surface. It is what and where it is from the beginning of its time to now, perfectly, in
terms of everything else.
As we lift our observation from the pebble and its interrelationship to the beach, the
waves, the ocean, shore, the planet, its solar system, galaxies, and off into the
dimensions of our universe, we can see that pebble in the image of cosmic
interrelationships, out there, that defines it as it is. That state of being, made more
pronounced and stronger with the growth of its dimensions, with the interconnectedness of
all things in reality, has sculpted delicately the smoothness that is our singular pebble.
Somewhere, in that vast, galactic complex of interrelationship, is the image that defines
that small, round pebble. At that moment, looking back at infinity from the exact position
of that pebble on the beach, untouched, it is itself in the image of infinity as that
image has allowed it to be. That infinite pressure of forces and circumstances that has
molded it through time has done so exactly, infinitesimally from the reaches of infinity,
and molded it into its present image. What does it look like at infinity? Untouched, it
looks exactly like itself, there.
Our pebble is a definition of space and time at that point of infinity. What does infinity
look like there? It looks like a pebble, then. It is a mirror image of itself there, then,
solidified in our physical reality. That point in space and time has other definitions
but, as a physical definition, at the limit, it is a materialization of a pebble. Where,
at what dimension of infinity, is that image formed? Is the totality of that definition
small or is its interrelationship approaching infinity? How powerful is the composition
that is stone?
The compositions of atoms, molecules, and crystals, together as stone are very old. Their
image is an ancient composition in the matrix of reality. The more stable an
interrelationship at infinity, the more durable is its definition as an object of reality.
The pebble is a hard, stable substance composed of atoms and crystals whose transitory
nature is only evident in the changes of the stone's shape. Then, the totality of the
interrelationships that defines its substance must be greater and older than those that
define its shape. It is an old universe that has had the time to stabilize the matter of
its basic building blocks. Its changing shapes are newer images of interrelationship. Yet,
the space that is between the atoms that have been organized into that stone, the values
of interrelationship that define that space, is the same space that exists outside the
stone in all directions of space. The space-time dimensions of the totalities that
progress from the stone's basic substance to the definition of the pebble's final form is
only a progression of degree. One is older, the other newer; one is perhaps greater, the
other still less stable, formative; but they are all facets of the same principle: The
universe's definition of itself.
Intricately moving vast forces within
itself, the universe can define in the minutest detail each one of its interior substances
in the form of its greater images. What is inside the stone, its crystals, its molecules,
is only an interrelationship that predates the form that is on its outside. Together, they
form the definition of a pebble that, if it could look out into infinity from where it
lay, in the vast images of the cosmos, it would see itself.
If we could enter the pebble and shut ourselves off from the world outside it and call its
outer form and dimensions infinity, then we
would be in a universe within itself. Each atom would be in relationship to every other
atom, interrelated to all the atoms within its total form, each contributing to its
definition as a whole and each thus defined by that whole. Its gyrations within the whole
would be modified by the substance that is arranged around it. The pebble's shape will
exert a certain influence on the forces that affect each of the atoms in relation to the
others. Because the substance is a solid, it may seem unlikely that this influence is
meaningful, but if we enter the pebble deeper, into where this solid is now seen as but an
interplay of forces in space, and deeper still where the space between the atoms takes on
astronomic dimensions, then the forces that are created within this space respond to the
outer shape, outer dimensions, of the pebble.
Negating outside forces, as if the pebble were the only body in all space, then the
outside dimensions of that body would become the
totality image of each of its parts. Each atom would then be in some way interrelated to
every other atom in an image that is the pebble; each atom would be acted upon by the
image of that totality. If the pebble were moving in space, then the atoms and molecules
would also be gyrating and vibrating in the direction of that space.
Perhaps, the pebble being but a very small segment of reality as we know it, this
influence would be minimal, though we do not know
that each molecule within this pebble does not carry in itself an image of its totality,
much as a fragment of a hologram carries in itself an image of the whole picture. But
there is a universe outside to which the pebble must defer. The atoms and molecules within
the pebble, though they are protected by its outer form, are nevertheless acted upon from
the greater space outside. If we could see infinity as it would look from inside that
pebble at the point that is an atom, we would look past the pebble and see the image that
is the atom itself. Thus, at that point in space, the definition of infinity is an atom.
Such is infinity: Through interrelationship, every point in reality is exactly as it is in
its greater image, at infinity. Reality is the definition of infinity as seen there.
Then all things are at infinity as they are. It is a property of our universe that each
thing within it is inscribed somehow in its vast
network. The atom is not an isolated, detached singularity of our reality; it is inherent
in its total meaning. At the outer dimensions of our universe is the definition of the
atom focused at each point where each atom exists. It is a property of our universe that
what we see in our physical reality is what the arrangement of everything else at the
outer limits of our universe means. Those properties exist out there as a vast image of
itself. Nothing can exist that is not inherent in the meaning of the universe.
What we see is its real image. If it is not some imperfect shadow of reality, then the
question arises: Do we see it exactly as it is? We still do not know. The subjective mind
strives to influence reality with its own design. But we can know with confidence that
whether or not what we see in our mind through our senses is the exact image, the object
we are observing is the reality defined there by interrelationship from the infinite
reaches of our universe. At each point of reality, the image of infinity materialized
there is the object we see. In a world untouched by hands, this is always so. Each thing
is defined physically, at its point in space and time, as that point is defined at
infinity. We can give it a name, but now we are only the observers. Reality already
"named" it; our name is only a shadow of that name. As we name it, reality is
naming it physically, molding it into its present form. If we do not touch it, then we do
not affect its real definition from infinity. There is a real definition of things. It is
defined by its meaning in the universe materialized exactly as we see it.
If we do not touch it, unobserved, the meaning is actually more itself. If we could turn
our mind away from it, not influence it, then it
will not be moved in its definition within its matrix; its definition will be perfect. The
forces and circumstances that have affected it from the beginning of time will have worked
it exactly, undisturbed, infinitesimally into its present image. Think of it; at infinity
it is almost a memory of itself. Undisturbed, the meaning inscribed in a natural form
dates back to its beginning and its experiences registered in all dimensions of space.
Untouched it is itself perfectly in its natural, almost supernatural, setting. As a part
of this reality, we are then able to observe it. The universe is its own sculptor, but
once sculpted, each form within the matrix of reality has a special meaning in itself. If
we could see it with our senses and mind the same way it is seen by the universe, its form
would take on a special meaning, almost alive, of an almost magical quality. Untouched,
lying on the beach, the energy of each wave passing through it, millions of years old,
sculptured by sun and storm, tied into an infinity...our observation falters but the real
definition is there.
But we do touch things, if sometimes indelicately so. Our bodies occupy and displace space
in time; to negate our existence from the definitions of reality is to omit a very real
influence on the universe's definition of itself. We have been naming and touching things
for more than a million years, consciously, and thus have made our subjective presence a
part of our universe's reality. We are known in reality. In some small way, our mind's
subjective presence is the force that has intruded itself upon that orderly universe
interrelationship is describing for us. In our thinking, we have evoked an interplay of
forces that had not existed prior to our conscious evolution. If each thing in reality is
a perfect representation of the universe there, then our touch is an additional effect, as
if from outside, on that representation. To touch that pebble on the beach is to reach
back through vast dimensions of space and time incorporated into that pebble at that
moment. To caress its smoothness is to trace the dimensions that are its definition at
infinity. In that touch we have reached far back; we have communicated through our
fingertips the perfect orderliness of the universe imbedded in its vast memory and
represented there; with that touch we have also added to its definition a new dimension.
Through interrelationship, we have communicated to all infinity that touch and our being
behind it and have redefined it within the infinite matrix of our universe. We have lent
ourselves to it and given that pebble a new meaning in reality.
What is that meaning? What have we added to reality? If our touch penetrates deep within,
into the atoms and the space between the atoms, with our being, then the warmth of our
being's energy exchanged for the stone's coldness is a real interaction. It happens in
between where the tips of our fingers are in contact with the smooth surface of the stone.
But it also happens in the realms of our mind that grants us understanding, and in the
dimensions of space that are defining that moment. It is more than just meets the eye; we
have done something more. We still do not know what. But we do know that we live, each one
of us conscious of our touch, though sometimes reaching out only to blindly and
unwittingly destroy that which we are trying to hold. But we see things differently now,
no longer as a child. We can be conscious of our touch and name things in a new way. We
can become conscious beings, conscious of more than just ourselves. Through our presence
in reality, each one of us is tied into that infinite matrix that is our universe. It is a
property of our universe that each thing within it is inscribed somehow in its vast
network. We are more than just ourselves. We have a meaning out there.
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