Dancing With Maya

DANCING WITH MAYA
EMBRACING THE POWER OF

NON-CERTAINTY
BETWEEN
FREEDOM AND ILLUSION
! THE CREATION AND TRANSFORMATION OF REALITIES THROUGH
THINKING.
! INDIAN MAYA, TIBETAN TANTRA, AND QUANTUM THEORY:
METAPHORS OF DIALECTIC HARMONY.
! SENSUALITY AND SPIRITUALITY: SHIVA-SHAKTI, YAB-YUM, YIN-
YANG.
FIFTH, REVISED EDITION
by
FRITZ WILHELM, Ph.D.
FRITZ WILHELM: DANCING WITH MAYA PAGE -ii-
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Copyright by Fritz Wilhelm, Ph.D. 2002
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
Requests for permission to make copies should be addressed to:
ZERO & ONE
1298 Windermere Way
Concord, California 94521
Phone: (925) 671-7309
Fax: (925) 671-7309
Fredmaya@pacbell.net
ISBN 0-9669544-2-4
FRITZ WILHELM: DANCING WITH MAYA PAGE -iii-
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Figure 1 Spirits Through Time, Oil Painting
By M. Heising
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Above all I wish to thank my wife Margrete Heising, who has been an untiring
inspiration in discussing the various ideas of this book, for her support and encouragement
during its genesis. I thank her also for providing photos of a painting and the prints "LOVE,"
which in many respects are modern versions of the Yab-Yum idea of Tibet, and are central to
my discussions.
Another person who was immeasurably important for the development and guidance
of my own thinking was the German philosopher Karl Jaspers, whose writing truly opened up
my mind to the great philosophers of East and West. What Karl Jaspers did in terms of
Western philosophy, Heinrich Zimmer did in terms of Indian and Buddhist philosophy and
religion.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
I was born in West Germany where I received my basic education. I obtained my Bachelor
of Science degree at the Sorbonne, my Master and Ph.D. degrees in Theoretical Physics at the
University of Karlsruhe, Germany. I have lived in Mexico and Guatemala for a year. In the summer
of 1975, in Saanen, Switzerland, I met the Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti and the physicist
David Bohm. We soon became friends, and in 1977 I accepted an invitation by J. Krishnamurti to
come to the United States.
In 1980, I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I have worked as a physics professor
at Diablo Valley College since 1986. I have been able to combine my physics teaching with my
work in philosophy and mythology, thus giving my audience a much richer experience in learning
about reality.
In 1982 I published a book of poetry and art "Next Step" together with my wife Margrete
Heising, an artist painter, who created the linoleum block prints Love on page iii and the painting
Spirits Through Time on page V.
To see more of her paintings and prints visit her website at:
http://heisingart.com
FRITZ WILHELM: DANCING WITH MAYA PAGE -v-
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Figure 2
LOVE, Linocut by Margrete Heising.
Eternal Love, Mayas Mystery
FRITZ WILHELM: DANCING WITH MAYA PAGE -vi-
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PRONUNCIATION OF SANSKRIT TERMS
I have used a simplified transliteration commonly used in the non-scholarly literature.
For pronunciation, the following simplified rules can serve as a guide:
Vowels are pronounced like in German or Italian:
a is pronounced like u in but
i like i in pick
u like u in rule
e like e in they
o like o in go
ai like ai in aisle
au like au in how.
A consonant followed by h indicates aspirated pronunciation; the h is audible, like in
Buddha. Exceptions are ch and sh, which are pronounced as in English.
CONVENTIONS
Key notions which have an uncommon meaning will be in this italics typeface, whenever the
difference is of crucial importance.
Notions and expressions which I want to emphasize will be typed in boldface.
If both characteristics apply, I will use boldface and italics.
I put words between 'apostrophes' when I refer to their common usage which I consider to be
wrong or misleading.
Words in a foreign language and direct quotations appear between quotation marks.
To facilitate the approach to this book an extensive index is provided at the end. A collection
of the basic definitions and Sanskrit terms can be found in a glossary starting on page 513.
References to literature in footnotes are abbreviated, for example KV stands for I mmanuel
Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft. All references can be found in the bibliography, appendix B
and C, starting on page 520, tabulated according to authors and abbreviations.
DESCRIPTION OF THE FRONTISPIECE
We see the Goddess Maya in her form as Avalokiteshvara on top of a Shri Yantra, the
symbolic representation of an enfolding-unfolding eternal movement of the universe and beyond.
The four equations are, in clockwise fashion, starting at the top left corner: Heisenbergs
uncertainty relationship ()x A)p $ S/2), the Schrdinger equation, the de Broglie formula linking
the momentum p of a particle to its wave behavior (k is the wave number) p = Sk, and Einsteins
mass equals energy equation E = mc
2
.
The underlying ideas of the spiritual and mathematical symbols are revelations of the amazing
human mind, the universe, the unknowable mystery of What I s. This whole book tries to
communicate some insight into this mystery.
FRITZ WILHELM: DANCING WITH MAYA PAGE -vii-
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LIST OF FIGURES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
All photographs and illustrations are by F. Wilhelm, and M. Heising, unless abbreviations of
references are given as below:
AOI : Sivaramurti, Calambur, The Art Of India, Harry Abram, New York, 1977.
PRT: Phillip Rawson: Tantra, Thames & Hudson Ltd., London, 1973 (in German), by Droemer
Verlag, Munich, 1974.
PY: Pandit, M.P.: Kundalini Yoga, Ganesh & Co., Madras, India, 1972.
TAN: Sinha, Indra: The Great Book Of Tantra, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, 1993.
YAN: Khanna, Madhu: Yantra, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1979.
ZAI A: Zimmer, Heinrich: The Art Of Indian Asia, volumes I and II. New York, Bollingen Series,
Princeton University Press, 1955.
Fig#1 Spirits Through Time, Oil Painting by M. Heising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -iii-
Fig#2 Love, Linocut by Margrete Heising. Eternal Love, Mayas Mystery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -v-
Fig# 3 Chintamani Avalokiteshvara, Bronze, 16" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -xx-
Fig#4 Chintamani Avalokiteshvara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 2
Fig#5 Green Tara, Standing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 4
Fig#6 Vajradhara and Vajradhari, Brass, 9" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 18
Fig#7 Green Tara, Mudra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 20
Fig#8 Kali in Her Wrathful Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 23
Fig#9 Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri Black Bronze, 9" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 34
Fig#10 Shiva-Nataraja, 1, Bronze 14", 20
th
Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 60
Fig#11 Amitabha Buddha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 69
Fig#12 Triadic Model of Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 73
Fig#13 Descent of the Ganges; Mahabalipuram, 7
th
Century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 85
Fig#14 Descent: Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 86
Fig#15 Sarasvati, the Goddess of the Creative Arts, Bronze, 14", 20
th
Century . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 96
Fig#16 Vajrakila, 1, the Wrathful Aspect of the Buddhas in Yab-Yum, Bronze, 17" Ch. 2 Pg. 104
Fig#17 I Ching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 126
Fig#18 Yin-Yang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 127
Fig#19 Vahni Triangles, Shri-yantra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 131
Fig#20 Vajra-chopper, Ego-flayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 148
Fig#21 Avalokiteshvara, 9 Faced, 8 Armed, Bronze, 15" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 158
Fig#22 Green Tara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 159
Fig#23 Kali, Sitting in Sexual Union on Shiva's Corpse (Shava). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 162
Fig#24 Ganga, River Goddess, AOI Plate 36 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 164
Fig#25 Parvati, 1, from ZAI A II, Plate 421, Southern India, 15
th
-16
th
Century. . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 167
Fig#26 Pythagorean Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 179
Fig#27 Nandi, Shivas Bull . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 188
Fig#28 Garuda, the Bird-man, Vishnus Mount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 189
Fig#29 Kali on Shiva, from PRT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 205
Fig#30 Chinnamasta, 1, from PRT Plate 22, Gouache on Paper 12" X 8";
Cankra, 18
th
Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 209
Fig#31 Naga-Kanya, Triadic Oneness, Brass, 19" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 213
Fig#32 Cartesian Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 217
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Fig#33 Tara, 3, Green Tara, Six Arms, Bronze 15" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 219
Fig#34 Schrdinger Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 220
Fig#35 Samantabhadra, Faces, 96 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 244
Fig#36 Princess and Maid, AOI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 245
Fig#37 Woodnymph from Gyaraspur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 246
Fig#38 Linga in Yoni, Ellora, India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 254
Fig#39 Helix Model of Unfolding SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 283
Fig#40 Snakes, Couple; Stone Relief from Mysore, South India; PRT Plate 40. . . Ch. 4 Pg. 285
Fig#41 Virtual Creation of an Electron Positron Pair by an Energetic Photon,
out of Nothingness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 286
Fig#42 Kundalini Energies, Chakras, PY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 288
Fig#43 Hexagon Model of Thinking and Sensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 289
Fig#44 Hexagon Model of SAT (Sensing, Acting, Thinking) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 290
Fig#45 Yantra Dance of Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 291
Fig#46 Yab -Yum, Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri (1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 294
Fig#47 Ardhanarishvara; AOI Plate 61 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 296
Fig#48 Ardhanarishvara, 2, AOI Plate 68 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 297
Fig#49 Rukmini, Krishnas Wife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 303
Fig#50 Khajuraho, Lovers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 305
Fig#51 Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri, Thangka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 317
Fig#52 Vajrakila, 2, Yab-Yum, Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 322
Fig#53 Vajrasattva, Adi Buddha, Bronze, 19" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 338
Fig#54 Shiva Dancing on Bull, Bangladesh, 10
th
Century C.E., AOI Plate 70 . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 346
Fig#55 Nandi, Ellora, India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 352
Fig#56 Love, Linocut by M. Heising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 355
Fig#57 Vajradhara and Vajradhari, 2, Brass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 357
Fig#58 Vajrasattva and Vajradhari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 358
Fig#59 Vajrasattva-Vajradhari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 360
Fig#60 Shamvara and Vajravarahi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 367
Fig#61 Naro Dakini (Vajravarahi, Vajra-Yogini, Wrathful Form ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 368
Fig#62 Vajra-Yogini, Buddha, Erotic Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 369
Fig#63 Apsara (Yakshi or Nymph), Kamas Companion, with her Parrot. . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 371
Fig#64 Buddha Shakyamuni, Bronze, 11" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 387
Fig#65 Uma, Parvati, from Sinha, TAN Page 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 397
Fig#66 Tara, Wisdom of the Buddhas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 420
Fig#67 Double Slit Experiment with Electrons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 431
Fig#68 Schrdinger Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 456
Fig#69 Feynman Diagram for the Creation of a Force Between Two Particles.
Mediation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 458
Fig#70 Vajra-Varahi, Buddha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 470
Fig#71 Parvati, 2, 15-16th Century, ZAI A II Plate 419 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 474
Fig#72 Shivalinga, Trimurti Cave, Mahabalipuram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 475
Fig#73 Ushnisha Vijaya, White Tara, Bronze, 9" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 478
Fig#74 Chinnamasta, from PRT Plate 22, Gouache on Paper, Cankra, 18
th
Century Ch. 7 Pg. 480
Fig#75 Samantabhadra, Yab-Yum (1996) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 488
Fig#76 Green Tara, Sitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 489
FRITZ WILHELM: DANCING WITH MAYA PAGE -ix-
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Fig#77 Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri, Faces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 491
Fig#78 Shiva Nataraja, 2, Bronze 14" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 494
Fig#79 Shiva Nataraja . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 496
Fig#80 Chintamani Avalokiteshvara, Thangka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 499
Fig#81 Shiva-shakti in Yab-Yum as Vajrasattva and Consort (1996) . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 500
Fig#82 Shakti-shiva Triangle. Nava-Yoni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 504
Fig#83 Shri Yantra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 505
Fig#84 Shri Yantra, the Unfolding and Enfolding of What I s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 511
Fig#85 Tara, Wisdom of the Buddhas, Action of Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 512
Figures in Alphabetical Order
Amitabha Buddha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 69
Apsara (Yakshi or Nymph), Kamas Companion. Conversing with Her Parrot. . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 371
Ardhanarishvara;1, AOI Plate 61 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 296
Ardhanarishvara, 2, AOI Plate 68 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 297
Avalokiteshvara, 9 Faced, 8 Armed, Bronze, 15" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 158
Buddha Shakyamuni, Bronze, 11" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 387
Cartesian Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 217
Chinnamasta, 1, from PRT Plate 22, Gouache on Paper 12" X 8";
Cankra 18
th
Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 209, Ch. 7 Pg. 480
Chintamani Avalokiteshvara, Bronze, 16" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. xx, Ch. 1 Pg. 2
Chintamani Avalokiteshvara, Thangka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 499
Descent Of the Ganges; Mahabalipuram, 7
th
Century C.E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 85
Descent Of the Ganges: Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 86
Double Slit Experiment with Electrons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 431
Feynman Diagram for the Creation of a Force Between Two Particles. Mediation. Ch. 6 Pg. 458
Ganga, river goddess, AOI Plate 36 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 164
Garuda, the Bird-man, Vishnus Mount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 189
Green Tara, Standing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 4
Green Tara, Mudra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 20
Green Tara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 159
Green Tara, Sitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 489
Helix Model of Unfolding SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 283
Hexagon Model of Thinking and Sensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 289
Hexagon Model of SAT (Sensing, Acting, Thinking) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 290
I Ching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 126
Kali in Her Wrathful Form, from PRT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 23
Kali, Sitting in Sexual Union on Shiva's Corpse (Shava), from PRT . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 162
Kali on Shiva, from PRT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 205
Khajuraho, Lovers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 305
Kundalini Energies, Chakras, from PY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 288
Linga in Yoni, Ellora, India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 254
LOVE, Linocut by M. Heising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 355
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-x-
LOVE, Linocut by M. Heising. Eternal Love, Mayas Mystery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. -v-
Naga-Kanya, Triadic Oneness, Brass, 19" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 213
Nandi, Shivas Bull . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 188
Nandi, Ellora, India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 352
Naro Dakini (Vajravarahi, Vajra-Yogini, Wrathful Form ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 368
Parvati, 1, from ZAI A II, Plate 421, Southern India, 15
th
-16
th
Century. . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 167
Parvati, 2, 15-16th century, ZAI A II, Plate 419 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 474
Princess and Maid, AOI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 245
Pythagorean Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 179
Rukmini, Krishnas Wife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 303
Samantabhadra, Yab-Yum (1996) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 488
Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri, Thangka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 317
Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri, Faces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 244, Ch. 7 Pg. 491
Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri Black Bronze, 9" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 34
Sarasvati, the Goddess of the Creative Arts, Bronze, 14", 20
th
Century . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 96
Schrdinger Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 220, Ch. 6 Pg. 456
Shakti-Shiva Triangle. Nava-Yoni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 504
Shamvara and Vajravarahi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 367
Shiva Dancing on Bull, Bangladesh, 10
th
century C.E., AOI plate 70 . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 346
Shiva Nataraja . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 60, Ch. 7 Pg. 494, Ch. 7 Pg. 496
Shiva-Shakti in Yab-Yum as Vajrasattva and Consort (1996) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 500
Shivalinga, Trimurti Cave, Mahabalipuram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 475
Shri-Yantra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 505
Shri-Yantra, the Unfolding and Enfolding of What I s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 511
Snakes, Couple; Stone Relief from Mysore, South India; PRT Plate 40. . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 285
Spirits Through Time, Oil Painting by M. Heising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. -iii-
Tara, Sitting, 1996 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 512
Tara, Wisdom of the Buddhas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 420
Tara, Green Tara, Sitting, Six Arms, Bronze 15" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 219
Triadic Model of Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 73
Uma, Parvati, from Sinha, from TAN, page 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 397
Ushnisha Vijaya, White Tara, Bronze, 9" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 478
Vahni Triangles, Shri-Yantra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 131
Vajra-chopper, Ego-flayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 148
Vajra-Sattva and Vajradhari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 358
Vajra-Yogini, Buddha, Erotic Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 369, Ch. 6 Pg. 470
Vajradhara and Vajradhari, Brass, 9" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 18
Vajradhara and Vajradhari, 2, Brass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 357
Vajrakila, 1, the Wrathful Aspect of the B
ddhas in Yab-Yum, Bronze, 17" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 104
Vajrakila, 2, Yab-Yum, Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 322
Vajrasattva, Adi Buddha, Bronze, 19" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 338
Vajrasattva-Vajradhari, Yab-Yum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 360
Virtual Creation of an Electron Positron Pair, out of Nothingness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 286
Woodnymph from Gyaraspur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 246
Yab-Yum, Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri (1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 294
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Yantra Dance of Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 291
Yin-Yang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 127
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pronunciation of Sanskrit terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Typographical and other conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Table of content for figures and illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Alphabetical index for figures and illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
CHAPTER 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 3
1.1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 3
1.1.1 THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS OF WISDOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 5
1.1.1.1 THE PHILOSOPHICAL CONNECTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 7
1.1.1.2 THE MYTHOLOGICAL CONNECTION WITH INDIA, CHINA,
AND TIBET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 7
1.1.1.3 THE THEORETICAL PHYSICS CONNECTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 8
1.1.2 TECHNOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 10
1.1.3 EASTERN AND WESTERN APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION . Ch. 1 Pg. 12
1.1.4 THE IDEA OF MAYA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 23
1.1.4.1 MAYA OF PHYSICS, AND CIPHER LANGUAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 24
1.1.5 PRELIMINARY BASIC QUESTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 25
1.2 RATIONALIZATION OF THE WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 26
1.2.1 THE POWER OF 'REASON' AS RATIONALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 27
1.2.2 CONDENSED OVERVIEW OF THE BASIC IDEAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 30
1.2.2.1 THE IDEA OF MOVEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 30
1.2.2.2 HOLOMORPHISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 32
1.2.2.3 THE BASIC TRIADIC MOVEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 34
1.2.3 TRUTH AND REALITY, ALETHEIA AND MAYA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 38
1.3 PROBLEMS OF THE MODERN WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 43
1.3.1 CONFUSION OF THOUGHTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 43
1.3.1.1 DIALECTIC FORCES AT WORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 44
1.3.1.2 IDEAS OF FREEDOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 45
1.3.2 BENEATH THE SURFACE OF MEDIOCRITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 46
1.3.2.1 KNOWLEDGE WITH INTELLIGENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 47
1.3.2.2 EDUCATIONAL FRUSTRATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 47
1.4 A CLASSIFICATION OF THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 49
1.4.1 MOVEMENT AS FUNDAMENTAL IDEA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 50
1.4.1.1 LOCALITY AND CREATIVE SPACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 51
1.4.1.2 CREATIVE THINKING-SPACE AND MECHANICAL
THOUGHT-SPACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 52
1.4.1.3 CREATIVE THINKING-TIME-MATTER-SPACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 54
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1.4.2 THREE MOVEMENTS OF THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 54
1.4.2.1 MECHANICAL THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 56
A) Western Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 56
B) Asian-Indian Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 57
1.4.2.2 GENERATIVE THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 58
B) Asian-Indian Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 58
1.4.2.3 CREATIVE THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 58
B) Asian-Indian Approach, OM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 60
1.4.3 CIPHER AND SUNYATA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 61
1.4.3.1 CIPHER AND SUNYATA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 62
1.4.3.2 CIPHERS OF TIBETAN ART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 63
1.4.3.3 CREATION AND TRANSFORMATION OF REALITIES . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 64
1.4.4 EXAMPLES OF CREATIVE THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 65
1.4.4.1 PLATO'S IDEA OF GENERATIVE THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 65
1.4.4.2 A POETIC DESCRIPTION OF THINKING BY H. HESSE . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 66
1.4.4.3 AN EXAMPLE FOR CREATIVE AND GENERATIVE THINKING,
BY H. POINCARE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 66
1.4.4.4 BUDDHIST IDEA OF CREATIVE THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 68
1.4.4.5 CREATIVE THINKING AS CREATION IN INDIAN
MYTHOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 70
1.4.4.6 LIMITATION OF THOUGHT AND FREEDOM FROM ILLUSION Ch. 1 Pg. 71
1.4.5 TWO MODELS OF THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 71
1.4.5.1 A HIERARCHICAL MODEL OF THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 71
1.4.5.2 A TRIADIC MODEL OF THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 72
1.4.5.3 THE OBSERVING MIND (Heisenberg) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 75
1.4.5.4 UNCERTAINTY OF THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 79
A) Formal thinking: Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 79
B) Non-formal thinking: generative and creative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 80
1.4.5.5 PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 81
1.4.6 THE TRIADIC MOVEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 82
1.4.6.1 DIALECTIC BETWEEN MECHANICAL AND
CREATIVE THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 82
1.4.6.2 PROPER KNOWLEDGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 83
CHAPTER 2 IDEAS, METAPHORS, AND KNOWLEDGE . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 87
2.1 MECHANICAL MOVEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 1 Pg. 88
2.1.1 MECHANICAL REALITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 89
2.1.1.1 CONFUSION BETWEEN THE THOUGHT AND THE THING . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 90
2.2 NON-MECHANICAL MOVEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 91
2.2.1 THE FIXATION OF THOUGHTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 91
2.2.1.1 THE VORTEX OF THOUGHT AND SELF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 91
2.2.1.2 A CLASSIFICATION OF NOTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 92
A) Mechanical words: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 92
B) Generative words: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 93
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C) Creative words: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 93
2.2.1.3 METAPHORS, IDEAS, AND ART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 93
2.2.1.4 SARASVATI, THE GODDESS OF THE CREATIVE ARTS . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 95
2.2.2 THE ACTUALIZATION AND REALIZATION OF IDEAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 96
2.2.2.1 TIME, SPACE, AND THOUGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 98
2.2.2.2 CERTAIN AND UNCERTAIN FORMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 98
2.2.2.3 METAPHORS AND CIPHERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 100
2.2.2.4 INTELLIGENCE AND INTELLECT, Vernunft and Verstand . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 100
2.3 ONE-NOTHINGNESS, FUNDAMENTAL IDEA OF INTELLIGENCE . Ch. 2 Pg. 102
2.3.1 CONSCIOUSNESS AND ONENESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 102
2.3.1.1 BETWEENNESS: EROS, YAB-YUM, MAYA-SHAKTI . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 103
2.3.1.2 THE STRUGGLE FOR CERTAINTY AND TRUTH . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 104
2.3.1.3 DIALECTIC BETWEEN CERTAINTY AND TRUTH, ALETHEIA Ch. 2 Pg. 106
2.3.1.4 CERTAINTY AND CAUSALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 109
2.3.2 THINKING ONENESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 110
2.3.2.1 THINKER, THOUGHT, AND THING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 111
2.3.2.2 DESCARTES' OVERSIGHT Cogito, ergo Sum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 113
2.3.2.3 THINKING AND NON-THINKING IN MEDITATION . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 114
2.4 MEDITATION ON THINGS AND MATHEMATICS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 116
2.4.1 THE NOTION OF CERTAINTY. 0 & 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 116
2.4.1.1 THE MATERIAL OBJECT AND ITS DESCRIPTION . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 117
2.4.1.2 THE STORY OF HELEN KELLER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 117
2.4.1.3 IDEAL NOTIONS AND REALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 118
2.4.2 INTRODUCTION INTO THE PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 119
2.4.2.1 THE NUMBER 'ONE' AND 'ONE' OBJECT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 120
2.4.2.2 THE THOUGHT OF 'ONE' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 120
2.4.2.3 FORMAL THINKING AND MATHEMATICAL STRUCTURE . . Ch. 2 Pg. 122
2.4.2.4 CERTAINTY, REALITY, AND "I" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 123
2.4.2.5 THINKING THE NUMBER 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 124
2.4.3 THE CHINESE 'BOOK OF CHANGES': I CHING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 126
2.4.3.1 YIN-YANG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 127
2.4.4 MODES OF THINKING IN RELATION TO ONE-NOTHINGNESS . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 128
2.4.4.1 ONENESS AND SECURITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 129
2.5 MEDITATION ON ONENESS, NOTHINGNESS, AND
BETWEENNESS (NOB) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 132
2.5.1 THINKING ABOUT NOB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 133
2.5.2 UNIVERSALITY AND TRUTH AS EXPRESSION OF NOB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 133
A) Correctness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 134
B) Rightness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 134
C) Metaphoric Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 134
2.5.3 FREEDOM, UNITY, AND COMMUNITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 138
2.5.3.1 MORALITY AND FREEDOM, INEXHAUSTIBLE IDEAS OF NOB Ch. 2 Pg. 138
2.6 POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 140
2.6.1 POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 140
2.6.2 NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 140
2.6.2.1 ANALYSIS OF IDEAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 141
2.6.2.2 RATIONALITY OF SOCIETIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 142
2.6.3 RATIONALITY AS A FORM OF NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 143
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2.6.3.1 LIMITATION OF SCIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 144
2.6.4 ABERRATION OF PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 145
2.6.4.1 CONFUSED RELIGION AND INTELLECTUALISM . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 146
2.6.4.2 THE CENTER OF DOGMATISM: THE EGO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 146
2.6.4.3 THE EGO AND MAHAYANA BUDDHISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 147
2.6.4.4 ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY AS NEGATION OF REALITY . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 150
2.6.5 POWER OF POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 152
2.6.5.1 FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF MANKIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 153
2.6.5.2 JASPERS, NIETZSCHE, SCHELLING: POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY Ch. 2 Pg. 154
2.6.5.3 VAJRAYANA BUDDHISM AS POSITIVE-NEGATIVE
PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 155
2.6.5.4 TARA AND AVALOKITESHVARA AS TRANSCENDENTAL
IMAGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 157
2.6.5.5 BETWEEN KNOWING AND TRUSTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 160
2.6.5.6 THE MEANING OF HUMAN EXISTENCE; SHIVA-SHAVA . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 162
2.6.5.7 MEANING AND MAYA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 165
2.6.5.8 WHY MEANING? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 168
2.6.5.9 FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 2 Pg. 169
CHAPTER 3 IDEALITY AND REALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 171
3.1 UNDERSTANDING, CLARITY, HISTORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 171
3.1.1 RATIONAL THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 171
3.2 UNDERSTANDING AND LEARNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 174
3.2.1 LEARNING AS CONDITIONING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 174
3.2.1.1 MECHANICAL UNDERSTANDING AS CONDITIONING . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 174
3.2.1.2 MAGIC AND MECHANICAL LEARNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 176
3.2.2 LEARNING AS COMPREHENDING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 177
3.2.3 LEARNING AS INSIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 177
3.2.3.1 GENERATIVE AND CREATIVE SYNTHESIS IN
MATHEMATICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 179
3.2.4 ORDERING PRINCIPLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 180
3.2.4.1 THE LIMITS OF CERTAINTY AS ORDERING PRINCIPLE . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 182
3.2.5 CONSCIOUSNESS, TIME, AND CONFUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 183
3.2.5.1 STANDARD CONFUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 183
3.2.5.2 CLARITY AND MYSTERY OF HISTORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 185
3.2.6 PRINCIPLES OF A HUMAN REALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 191
3.3 UNDERSTANDING LOGIC AND SCIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 192
3.3.1 THE CHALLENGE OF MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 192
3.3.2 BASIC FORMS OF LOGIC AND SCIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 194
3.3.2.1 HOW CERTAINTY AND CORRECTNESS ARE POSSIBLE . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 195
3.3.3 A TEST FOR THE QUALITY OF A THEORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 196
3.3.3.1 TEST OF A THEORY AS A WHOLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 197
3.3.4 PHILOSOPHICAL TEST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 197
3.3.4.1 EXAMPLES OF INTELLIGENT AND UNINTELLIGENT
THEORIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 198
A) In mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 199
B) Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 199
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C) In physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 199
D) Intelligence in a governing structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 199
3.3.4.2 Some examples of such unintelligent manifestations are: . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 200
3.4 COMPUTERS AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 201
3.4.1 THE AGE OF 'REASON' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 202
3.4.1.1 THE AGE OF THE COMPUTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 203
3.4.1.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 206
3.5 IDEAS AND CREATIVITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 208
3.5.1 IDEAS AND CHANGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 208
3.5.1.1 METAPHOR OF SHAKTI-KALI-MAYA: CHINNAMASTA . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 209
3.5.1.2 TIRESIAS, METAPHOR OF TRUTH UNVEILED . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 211
3.5.1.3 NAGA-KANYA, THE METAPHOR OF SNAKE-EAGLE-MAIDEN Ch. 3 Pg. 213
3.5.1.4 IDEAS AND TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 215
3.5.1.5 SCIENTIFIC CORRECTNESS IN A FORMAL REALITY ONLY Ch. 3 Pg.216
3.5.1.6 KANT'S 'IDEAS' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 219
3.5.2 ABSTRACT METAPHORS AND ABSTRACT CONCEPTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 220
3.5.2.1 ABSTRACTION FROM NON-MECHANICAL THINKING . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 220
3.5.2.2 ABSTRACTION FROM MECHANICAL THINKING . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 222
3.5.2.3 INTELLIGENT ABSTRACTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 223
3.5.3 SOLVING PROBLEMS THROUGH IDEAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 224
3.6 KNOWING, TRUSTING, AND ACTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 226
3.6.1 TRUST OF TRANSCENDENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 227
3.6.1.1 ALTERED STATES OF THE MIND AND TRUST . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 228
3.6.1.2 DIRECT KNOWLEDGE OF TRANSCENDENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 228
3.6.1.3 DIALECTIC BETWEEN ESSENCE AND KNOWLEDGE . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 230
3.6.1.4 THE ILLUSION OF MILITARY SECURITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 231
3.6.1.5 THE MEANING OF HUMAN EXISTENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 231
3.6.2 THE OBSERVER AND THE OBSERVED; CAN ONE BE CERTAIN OF
ONE'S TRUST? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 232
3.6.3 UNCERTAINTY AND ACTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 234
3.6.3.1 MYTHICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS OF INTELLIGENCE . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 234
3.6.3.2 THE WESTERN IDEA OF FREEDOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 237
3.6.3.3 DIFFERENT FORMS OF REALITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 238
3.6.3.4 REALITIES AND MAYA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 238
3.6.3.5 BUDDHIST IDEA OF FREEDOM AND INDIVIDUALITY . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 239
3.6.3.6 FROM DESCARTES TO NIETZSCHE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 3 Pg. 241
CHAPTER 4 TRIADIC MOVEMENTS OF SENSING, ACTING, AND
THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 247
4.1 INTERDEPENDENCE OF SENSING AND THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 247
4.1.1 GENERALIZED SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 248
4.1.2 BEING AND THINKING As Shiva-Maya-Shakti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 249
4.1.3 BETWEEN SENSING AND THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 252
4.1.3.1 SENSUALITY AND SPIRITUALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 252
4.1.4 THE ONENESS OF ALL BEING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 255
4.1.5 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THINKING AND SENSING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 260
4.2 A TRIADIC MODEL FOR SENSING, ACTING, THINKING; SAT . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 262
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4.2.1 TRIADIC MOVEMENTS OF SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 263
4.2.1.1 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SUBJECT, THOUGHT, AND
OBJECT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 263
4.2.2 IMPOSSIBILITY OF UNDERSTANDING THE WHOLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 264
4.2.2.1 UNCERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF CERTAINTY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 264
4.2.2.2 THINKING AS PART OF THE WHOLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 266
4.3 THE THREE LEVELS OF HUMAN SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 266
4.3.1 THE MECHANICAL LEVEL OF SENSING AND ACTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 267
4.3.1.1 ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY AND DESIRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 268
4.3.2 THE MECHANICAL WORLDVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 269
4.3.2.1 THE SELF AND THE MECHANICAL WORLDVIEW . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 269
4.3.2.2 MECHANICAL THOUGHT-REALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 270
4.3.2.3 THE EGO-CENTERED WORLDVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 271
4.3.2.4 THE POSSIBILITY OF EFFECTIVE ILLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 272
4.3.3 THE GENERATIVE LEVEL OF SENSING AND ACTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 273
4.3.3.1 FROM IDEAS TO ACTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 274
4.3.3.2 FROM CREATURE TO CREATOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 276
4.3.3.3 FROM PRIMITIVE TO INTELLIGENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 277
4.3.3.4 CYCLES OF UNFOLDMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 279
4.3.4 THE CREATIVE LEVEL; MODELS OF UNFOLDING ORDERS . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 281
4.3.4.1 HELIX MODEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 282
4.3.4.2 KUNDALINI MODEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 284
4.3.4.3 TRIADIC UNFOLDMENT OR YANTRA MODEL OF SAT . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 288
4.3.4.4 YAB-YUM, DIALECTIC OF NOTHINGNESS-ONENESS . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 293
4.3.5 INTELLIGENT ESSENCE OF SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 295
4.3.5.1 NOTIONS OF INTELLIGENT THINKING AND SENSING . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 296
4.3.5.2 VALUES AND MEANING, CREATIONS OF THE FREE
HUMAN MIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 298
4.3.5.3 REALIZATION OF IDEAS OF FREEDOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 299
4.3.5.4 TRUTH, INSIGHT, ACTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 300
4.3.6 UNIVERSALITY OF IDEAS EXPRESSED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 300
4.3.6.1 EXPRESSION OF CREATIVE IDEAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 301
4.3.6.2 ACTIVE COMPREHENSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 302
4.3.7 FORM AND IDEA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 303
4.3.7.1 ART AND THE IDEA OF TRANSCENDENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 304
4.3.7.2 SCIENCE AND ITS IDEA OF TRUTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 306
4.4 SUSPENDING' MOVEMENT OF THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 307
4.4.1 THREE KINDS OF SUSPENDING' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 308
4.4.1.1 CREATION OF SUBJECT, OBJECT, AND I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 309
4.4.1.2 SUSPENSION OF MECHANICAL SEPARATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 310
4.4.1.3 CREATION OF SELF AWARENESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 310
4.4.1.4 THE SELF AS A WHOLE MOVEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 311
4.4.1.5 REINCARNATION AND SUSPENDING
IN INDIAN MYTHOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 311
4.5 THINKING, SENSING, AND THINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 313
4.5.1 SPEAKING, READING, WRITING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 313
4.5.2 THING AND THOUGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 314
4.5.3 CONFUSION BETWEEN THINKING AND SENSING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 318
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4.5.4 CONCEPTS AND CONFUSION OF THE SELF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 319
4.5.4.1 CERTAINTY AND SECURITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 320
4.5.5 DESIRE AND EGO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 323
4.5.6 FREEDOM AND EVIL; EGO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 324
4.5.7 AN INTERPRETATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONFUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 328
4.5.7.1 LYING: INTENTIONAL AND UNINTENTIONAL
CONFUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 329
4.5.8 EXISTENTIAL SUFFERING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 330
4.5.8.1 SUFFERING ON VARIOUS LEVELS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 333
4.5.8.2 ATTENTION, THE EGO, AND SUFFERING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 334
4.5.9 TRANSFORMATION THROUGH IDEAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 337
4.6 CHANGES OF AND BETWEEN LEVELS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 341
4.6.1 CONDITION FOR CHANGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 341
4.6.2 CREATIVE CHANGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 4 Pg. 344
CHAPTER 5 COMMUNICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 347
5.1 RELATIONSHIP OF HUMAN BEINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 347
5.2 LOVE AND RESPONSIBILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 348
5.2.1 IDEAS OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 349
5.2.1.1 NECESSITY OF COMMUNICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 350
5.2.1.2 THE ORIGIN OF FREEDOM AND TRANSCENDENCE . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 351
5.2.2 ANIMALS AND HUMANS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 352
5.2.3 LOVE, EROS, AND SEXUALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 356
5.2.4 LOVE-EROS, AS A TRUE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 358
5.2.4.1 LOVE AND EROS, WEST AND EAST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 359
5.2.4.2 MYSTERY OF LOVE AND SEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 361
5.2.4.3 HOMOSEXUALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 363
5.2.4.4 PORNOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 363
5.2.5 EROS AS WILL TO OVERCOME SEPARATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 365
5.2.5.1 EROS (KAMA) AS ENTICEMENT TO DANCE WITH MAYA . . Ch. 5 Pg. 366
5.2.5.2 LOVE IN A MATERIALISTIC WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 369
5.3 RELIGION BETWEEN TRUTH AND SUPERSTITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 372
5.3.1 RELIGION AS IDEA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 372
5.3.1.1 THE POWER OF MYTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 372
5.3.1.2 TRUE RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 373
5.3.1.3 TRUTH AS NECESSARY CIPHER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 374
5.3.2 RELIGIOUS THINKING VERSUS THINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 377
5.3.2.1 THE ORIGIN OF IDEAL QUESTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 378
5.3.2.2 TRANSCENDING POSSIBILITY OF THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 379
5.3.3 GOD AS CREATION OF THE MIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 379
5.4 RELIGION: THE UNFOLDING MIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 383
5.4.1 RELIGIOUS VALUES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 383
5.4.1.1 MEDITATION ON ONENESS AND NOTHINGNESS . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 385
5.4.2 MYTHOLOGY AND THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 386
5.4.3 RATIONALITY AND RELIGIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 388
5.4.3.1 KANT'S APPROACH TO FREEDOM AND RELIGION . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 389
5.4.3.2 RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 390
5.4.4 IDEAS OF GOOD AND EVIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 391
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-xviii-
5.4.4.1 METAPHYSICS OF GOOD AND EVIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 392
5.4.4.2 ECSTASY AND EVIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 394
5.4.4.3 RESPONSIBLE FIGHTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 395
5.5 ONENESS AND FREEDOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 396
5.5.1 MORALITY, LAW, AND FREEDOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 396
5.5.1.1 UMAS SEDUCTION OF SHIVA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 398
5.5.1.2 THE ONE HUMAN BEING AS INDIVIDUAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 399
5.5.1.3 ONE MORALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 402
5.5.2 SOCIETY AS ORGANIZED COMMUNION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 404
5.5.3 A TRIADIC SOCIETY STRUCTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 406
5.5.3.1 ACTING, THINKING, AND SENSING OF A FREE SOCIETY . . Ch. 5 Pg. 408
5.5.4 RESPONSIBILITY OF ALL FOR ALL IN A FREE SOCIETY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 410
5.5.5 BETWEENNESS THROUGH WORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 411
5.5.5.1 CONSUMERISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 412
5.5.5.2 MECHANICAL, GENERATIVE, AND CREATIVE WORK . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 414
5.5.6 MONEY AND ITS VALUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 5 Pg. 417
CHAPTER 6 PHILOSOPHY of QUANTIZED THINKING and THE
QUANTIZED MIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 421
6.1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 421
6.1.1 THINKING TRANSCENDENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 422
6.1.2 TRANSCENDENT MEDITATIVE VISUALIZATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 422
6.1.3 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MIND AND MATTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 425
6.1.3.1 THE ACCIDENTAL VERSUS THE ILLUSORY MIND . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 426
6.1.3.2 CONSCIOUSNESS AND ITS CONTENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 426
6.2 QUANTUM PHYSICS AND PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 427
6.2.1 THINKING AND QUANTUM PHYSICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 428
6.2.1.1 QUANTUM CAUSALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 428
6.2.1.2 THINKING AND QUANTUM PHYSICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 430
6.2.1.3 THINKING AND THE DOUBLE SLIT EXPERIMENT . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 433
6.2.1.4 MANIFESTATION OF THE SELF THROUGH OBSERVATION . Ch. 6 Pg. 433
6.2.1.5 UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE OF THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 434
6.2.2 DANGER OF COMPLETE EXPLANATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 435
6.2.2.1 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 436
6.2.2.2 SCIENCE AND ETHICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 437
6.2.2.3 COMPLEMENTARITY BETWEEN SCIENCE AND
PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 438
6.3 CORRELATION AMONG MOVEMENTS OF SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 439
6.3.1 CLASSICAL TRANSITIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 439
6.3.2 QUANTIZED TRANSITIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 440
6.3.2.1 QUANTUM LIKE BEHAVIOR OF THE MIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 440
6.3.3 QUANTUM PHYSICAL INTERFERENCE OF SENSING AND THINKING . . Ch. 6 Pg. 442
6.3.3.1 THE MIND AS QUANTUM FLUID AND THOUGHT WAVES . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 443
6.3.3.2 A CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM PHYSICAL HOLOGRAM . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 445
6.3.3.3 THINKING CONSIDERED AS QUANTIZED WAVES . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 445
6.4 MATTER AS MOTHER OF THE UNIVERSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 446
6.4.1 SCIENCE BETWEEN SOMETHING AND NOTHING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 448
FRITZ WILHELM: DANCING WITH MAYA PAGE -xix-
-xix-
6.4.2 TRIADIC MOVEMENT COMMON TO MIND AND MATTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 448
6.4.3 HOLOMORPHIC UNFOLDMENT TOWARDS THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 449
6.4.3.1 APPARENT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MIND AND MATTER . . Ch. 6 Pg. 450
6.4.3.2 FUNDAMENTAL IGNORANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 451
6.4.4 TIME, THOUGHT, SPACE, AND MATTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 453
6.4.4.1 MECHANICAL SPACE AND TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 454
6.4.4.2 QUANTUM THEORY OF SPACE, TIME, AND MATTER . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 454
6.4.4.3 SUBSTANCE OF SPACE-TIME: ONENESS OF THE UNIVERSE Ch. 6 Pg. 458
6.4.4.4 TOE, THEORY OF EVERYTHING; SYMMETRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 459
6.4.4.5 THE CIPHER LEVEL OF MIND-MATTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 461
6.4.5 GRAVITATIONAL QUANTUM-WAVES, SPACE, AND NOB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 461
6.4.6 EPILOGUE: MATTER AND THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 6 Pg. 469
CHAPTER 7 SHAKTI-MAYA-BUDDHA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 471
7.1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 471
7.1.1 TRIADIC THINKING AND TRIMURTI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 472
7.1.1.1 BRAHMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 475
7.1.1.2 SHIVA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 477
7.1.1.3 USHNISHA VIJAYA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 477
7.2 THE DIALECTIC ENERGIES IN ASIAN ART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 479
7.2.1 REALITY AND TRUTH; SHAKTI AND SHIVA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 479
7.2.1.1 CHINNAMASTA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 479
7.2.1.2 SHIVA-SHAKTI AND YAB-YUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 481
7.2.2 REVIEW OF THE THREE MODES OF THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 483
7.2.3 CREATIVE THINKING AND SHIVA-SHAKTI-BUDDHA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 485
7.2.3.1 CONTRAST WITH CHRISTIAN MYTHOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 485
7.2.3.2 FURTHER EXPLORATION OF THE YAB-YUM SYMBOLISM . Ch. 7 Pg. 487
7.2.4 SHIVA-NATARAJA AND YAB-YUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 493
7.2.4.1 SHRI-YANTRA AND YAB-YUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 503
7.2.5 ENERGY AND MATTER, SHIVA AND PARVATI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 505
7.2.5.1 MAYA AND SHAKTI: THE TANTRIC VIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ch. 7 Pg. 509
APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page -513-
APPENDIX B: BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page -520-
APPENDIX C: BIBLIOGRAPHIC ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page -523-
APPENDIX D: INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page -527-
FRITZ WILHELM: DANCING WITH MAYA PAGE -xx-
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Figure 3
Chintamani Avalokiteshvara, Bronze, 16"

THE GREATEST MAYA OF ALL IS WOMAN
CHINTAMANI AVALOKITESHVARA
The all merciful Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara takes on any form necessary to lure a person into the right direction.
In this symbolism we have a typical example of the combined spirituality and sensuality of Indian and Tibetan art,
developed to its most beautiful in the figures and paintings of Tantric Buddhism. (For more information see the later
section Tara and Avalokiteshvara as Transcendental Images on page 157.)
FRITZ WILHELM: DANCING WITH MAYA PAGE -1-
-1-

DANCING WITH MAYA
Maya is the Goddess;
If you want to use the name of your personal God,
She does not mind.
Now, Dance With Maya!
You may worship her, love her, fear her.
She invites you to be with her
To participate,
To dance with her
And create a world of freedom.
We are her children, her creation.
To be worthy of her we must accept her invitation.
Dancing With Maya
is Freedom from Ignorance and
FREEDOM FROM
ILLUSION
Ch. 1 Pg. 2
Figure 4 Chintamani Avalokiteshvara
In this manifestation below, Chintamani Avalokiteshvara, a being capable of enlightening
insight, has taken on a seductive female form. Her body posture indicates flight meaning that she
will fly to the aid of any person who strives for clarity of mind and soul. In her hairdo she wears
the magic jewel Chintamani which grants any wish. In her right hand she carries the little hand-
drum reminding of the primordial sound through which all existence came into being. The Lotus
flower below her right knee, as well as the double Lotus pedestal show her divine nature, and her
oneness with the ultimate creative power of What I s. See the section 2.6.5.4 Tara and
Avalokiteshvara as Transcendental I mages on page 157; see also page 499.)
1
) "Was knnen wir wissen? Was sollen wir tun? Was drfen wir hoffen?"
Ch. 1 Pg. 3
CHAPTER 1
"THE UNFOLDING OF THE PLAYFUL
ILLUSORY MANIFESTATION
OF TRUTH
ON THE EARTHLY PLANE."
(Lalita vistara sutra)
BETWEEN ILLUSION AND INTELLIGENCE
"What can we know?
What should we do?
What can we hope for?"
Immanuel Kant
1
1.1 INTRODUCTION
For time immemorial people have sought to find the ultimate truth under the name of
Wisdom, fountain of youth, God, eternal bliss, happiness, nirvana, heaven, etc. There are
innumerable systems, usually called religion, which pretend to be in the possession of that truth. But
alas, reality is not truth, and nothing in reality is truth. This mysterious relationship between
truth and reality is the theme of this book.
To hold any knowledge or system of any kind for absolute truth is one of the preferred
activities of what is called maya or illusion in Indian philosophy. This concept is so powerful that
it is being represented by the Goddess Maya, the greatest, earliest and most powerful of all Gods
and Goddesses, who, if taken as knowable truth, is the ultimate illusion.
My 'personal' insight that 'Reality Is Not Truth' is the foundation of this book. I will show
how the most advanced theories of human insight, from the Indian Upanishads of three thousand
years ago and older times, to modern quantum theory support this view. I will also show that if we
assume that life has meaning for an actual individual human being, and I suppose almost everyone
assumes that, then human thinking cannot ever lead to absolute knowledge about the actuality of
What I s, from the smallest atoms to the beginning of the universe, from human freedom to human
reality. Conversely, if there is meaning to a human being, then there is also meaning to the smallest
pebble of sand, atom, and particle in the universe.
The unknowability of the truth which underlies reality was seen in many ancient cultures,
and has now been confirmed by the discoveries of quantum theory early in the twentieth century.
I will show why it is impossible for human thinking to arrive at cogent knowledge about the most
urgent, i.e. meaningful, questions of human societies. In order to do this we must explore the issues
in a somewhat circular fashion and be clear about some basic assumptions.
Ch. 1 Pg. 4
TARA, in Tibetan mythology and Buddhism, personifies the wisdom of the universe, and the wisdom
of enlightenment itself. Thus, she is often called the mother of the Buddhas. She is the Goddess Lotus (Padma).
The posture of her right hand indicates the granting of gifts. Her left hand is raised and makes the symbol of
teaching the Wheel Of Law. The cause of human suffering lies in the illusion of the ego, the confused self.
Tara is a figure who in Indian mythology is represented by the Goddess under many names: Shakti,
Devi, Parvati (in her beautiful manifestations), as Kali and Durga (in her fighting and wrathful manifestations).
In the Western world she is Aphrodite or Medusa, and in Egypt, which is one of the origins of the Mother
Goddess, she is Isis. In Tibet she is also the consort of Avalokiteshvara when he appears in his male form. Both
together embody the complementary oneness of opposites. See the section Tara and Avalokiteshvara as
Transcendental Images on page 157 and 499.
Ch. 1 Pg. 5
One of these assumptions is that our thinking should be consistent with the findings of
science, in particular quantum physics, because thinking is based on material processes in and of the
brain, which must follow the laws of physics. Quantum physics generally governs microscopic
processes at the atomic level and smaller. The rules of quantum theory are supposed to be of
unlimited generality. As material processes can be subdivided into three modes of operation I will
assume the same for thinking. Actually, I will show that it is possibly the other way around: Because
our thinking operates in three different ways, whatever it discovers in reality and beyond will fall
into the same three categories. I call them mechanical, generative, and creative modes of
operation, or movements.
It turns out that the ancient insights of the Indian Upanishads, Tantra Buddhism, Greek
philosophy, and idealism support such a view. This is why I use mythological and philosophical
ideas of those areas throughout this book. They provide complementary models for the ideas
presented and help the reader to look into his or her own mind to find the same mystery, to which
some of the great philosophers of all times allude.
Mind you, it is quite a rare and precious event to find a truly great philosopher in ones life.
It is rather easy to fall for ideas which appear to be profound and true, but which are actually a form
of deceptive propaganda. To see the difference between wisdom and a pathological foolishness often
requires more than following the so-called truthful path of a holy man or book. We always have
to investigate carefully for ourselves. And this can only happen if we are able to free ourselves from
much of the conditioning of the culture and religion into which we are thrown by the accident of
birth.
While we contemplate our thinking and sensing processes we use our own mind-body as the
basic laboratory and reference for all our thinking, sensing, and acting. The problem is that the
setup of the experiments, the underlying theories and ways to look at results, are conditioned by
human thinking and society: language, morals, education, indoctrination, and even genetic
instructions. The confusion, ignorance, and illusion which this conditioning produces is called maya
in India, a power which is personified in the 'Goddess Maya.' All of what we call reality is affected
by her. I will show in Dancing With Maya how we can live in a reality, knowing that it is not truth,
and yet have meaning in our lives. The relationship between reality and truth is a dynamic
tension, for which I use the term complementary.
The passionate loving embrace, Yab-Yum, between the Buddha and his consort in Tantra
Buddhism is an extraordinary example of esthetic ideas which express this complementarity between
truth and reality just like the advanced formulas of quantum field theory or the texts of the
Upanishads. These symbols are metaphors that attempt to communicate the mystery of human
thinking more directly to the senses and our intelligence, which is more than the intellect.
To dance with Maya is an act of freedom, to deny her is the essence of illusion. To find
the harmony between freedom and meaning, between Nothingness and Oneness, is the invitation
by Maya to dance with her.
1.1.1 THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS OF WISDOM
"Look at the do-gooders and righteous! Who do they hate most? The one who breaks their canons of
values, the destroyer - but that is the creator!".. "I want to join the creators, the harvesters, the
celebrators: I want to show them the rainbow and all the steps to the Man beyond
(bermensch)."...This Zarathustra had spoken from his heart, when the sun was high at noon: and
he looked up, questioning - because he heard the sharp call of a bird. And lo! An eagle soared through
the air in wide circles, and at him hang a snake, not like a prey, but like a girlfriend: because she was
encircling its neck. "They are my animals!" said Zarathustra and was happy deep in his heart. "The
proudest animal under the sun and the most intelligent animal under the sun - they are looking for
2
) Translated by FW from Friedrich Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) chapters 9-10.
3
) In The Teachings of Don Juan (CCM) and A Separate Reality (CCS) by Carlos Castaneda.
4
) Aryan tribes started to invade India during the second millennium B.C.E. They did not penetrate much to the south
of the Ganges, where the culture of the aboriginal dark skinned Dravidic tribes survives to this present day.
5
) Zimmer, ZP, page 219.
Ch. 1 Pg. 6
news. They want to find out whether I am still alive. Truly, do I still live? I found it more dangerous
among people than among animals; dangerous paths walks Zarathustra. Let my animals guide me!"
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
2
After I had studied quantum field theory and obtained my doctorate in physics at the
university of Karlsruhe in Germany, my thirst for scientific knowledge was temporarily satisfied but
only to leave me with a much greater thirst for meaning. I did not know that at the time, but, guided
by some good destiny, I took off to an exploratory journey to Mexico. I did not know what I was
looking for, but, strangely enough, I carried a complete edition of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche
in my backpack, and carried the whole twelve volumes in and out of the Copper Canyon in the
Sierra Madre. I was fascinated by his beautiful and powerful, inspired language together with his
sarcastic irreverence for any institutions of state, education, or religion. One idea, which captivated
my imagination, was his profound trust in the "unknown and unknowable God." The other idea was
contained in his appeal to every human being to "become who you are."
In a little apartment in Oaxaca, Mexico, where I stayed with a friend for more than six
months, I painted those words on the wall. I saw that the relationship between "the seer" introduced
by the Yaqui Indian and brujo (shaman, sorcerer, magician, wise-man, mystic) Don Juan
3
was very
close to Nietzsche's idea of the "Super-man and Super-woman" (bermensch). I see this notion as
a metaphor for "Man and woman who have gone beyond the conditioning of reality."
It was there in Oaxaca that Maya revealed herself to me.
Later, back in Germany, I delved into Indian, Tibetan, and German philosophy, and I
rediscovered the German existential philosopher Karl Jaspers. In his philosophy there is one
sentence which highlights his ingenious insight into the mind of true human beings of all times,
namely that "there is no existence without transcendence." One does not truly live up to the
human potential, one does not exist, unless one can see transcendence which gives meaning to
reality.
It took me a while to find out that these statements were about the fundamental
complementarity of all Being. They were made by Western philosophers but have also quite a
tradition in Asian Indian philosophies where they culminated in some forms of Mahayana
Buddhism, the so-called Vajrayana or Tantra Buddhism. It is in Tantra Buddhism that the ideas of
complementarity have found their most profound and beautiful expressions. They include the
complementarity between sensuality-spirituality, God-Man, God-Goddess, Matter-Spirit, Oneness-
Nothingness, and so on. Heinrich Zimmer says of this Tantra philosophy:
It is "an extraordinarily sophisticated application of the Aryan-Dravidian synthesis
4
, which
shaped both the Buddhist and Brahman philosophies and practices of the medieval period, and to
this day inspires not only the whole texture of the religious life of India but also much of the popular
and esoteric teaching of the great Buddhist nations, Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan."
5
I use the ideas of some of the great philosophers of human history to penetrate into this
uncertain mystery of Maya. I show that the modern theories of quantum physics and the old
metaphysical ideas of East and West are rooted in the same or at least similar ideas, the same genius
of the human mind. What separates us is less important than what makes us one. I understand the
Man of Power of the Yaqui Indian, Nietzsche's Superman (bermensch), and the Tibetan
6
) Yoginis and Dakinis are divine females who move on the highest level of actuality. They are helpers of the Buddhas,
and their task is to persuade people to wake up to their spiritual nature.
7
) See the beautiful Yogini Vajravarahi on page 369 in section 5.2.5.1.
8
) In the quantum physical operator language of theoretical physics, we have developed a description of quantum-fields,
which has many similarities with the three operations of human thinking. I will make the case that this resemblance is
no coincidence. For more on operators see the glossary on page 516 under Lie algebra.
9
) 'God' and 'Goddess' are only appropriate notions in the context with Hindu philosophy and religion, not with
Buddhism. In Buddhism there are no Gods. Buddhas are no Gods. They are human beings who have awakened to the
truth of What I s. The Gods and Goddesses referred to in Tibetan or Tantra Buddhism should be considered as personified
and deified energies, used as teaching devices.
Ch. 1 Pg. 7
sages,' male and female Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, Yoginis
6
, and Dakinis
7
as metaphors and
ciphers for human beings who have learnt how to live in reality in awareness of
transcendence.The oneness of human thinking comes to the fore in women and men who have
transcended the conditioning of their particular times and cultures, their reality.
Nietzsches Zarathustra, the destroyer who is the creator, is of course Shiva, the dancing
God, and Maya-Shakti-Kali, is his female representation, or he is hers (See pages:60, 346, 494).
They are both separate and one.
1.1.1.1 THE PHILOSOPHICAL CONNECTION
Thinking about ideas like "Become who you are" can only have meaning if we comprehend
that such notions are of a different category than those used in everyday language. A different way
of thinking which uses reason much more freely and creatively is implied. I try to draw attention to
such thinking here. Guided by direct observation of thinking I introduce the idea of three
qualitatively very different modes, corresponding to three categories of thinking. We must be aware
of such differences if we want to understand the world and ourselves. I call the different operations
mechanical, generative, and creative thinking modes
8
. These modes of thinking are closely
related to degrees of uncertainty which characterize them. Briefly put: In mechanical thinking
certainty is possible, in creative thinking it is not. Generative thinking is sub-certain and falls
between the two extremes. (See 1.4.5.2 page 73)
To these various modes of thinking correspond different kinds of possible functions, values
and meaning. Unless we recognize these differences we are confused, and our societies are confused.
Knowledge, science, philosophy, mathematics, religion are created through thinking but have
different functions according to the predominant modes of thinking which create and maintain them.
Unfortunately, language itself has no built-in characterization of the different categories. Much of
human confusion, self-deception, and deception can therefore be traced back to a confused
interpretation of language. Such confusion can have horrific consequences. At the least they create
confused and confusing 'realities.' In spite of the tremendous discoveries of science in recent times
the general confusion in human thinking and behavior does not seem to have changed to any
appreciable degree. I see some of the metaphysical and spiritual ideas, which have been present in
human consciousness throughout the ages, as attempts to clear up this almost all-pervasive
confusion.
1.1.1.2 THE MYTHOLOGICAL CONNECTION WITH INDIA, CHINA, AND TIBET
The confusion of human thinking and acting is a central object of Indian philosophy. This
confusion has a name and is represented by the most powerful of all Gods
9
and Goddesses. When
She represents this confusion she is called Maya, but this is just one form and name of the many she
carries as Mother Goddess, Maya-Devi, Shakti, Shri, and so on. She is all action, the creator of
Ch. 1 Pg. 8
actuality and reality, of time and thought. As such, she is also the mother of confusion, but not in
the sense that she creates confusion, but that she creates the condition for confusion which is
reality. The basis for such thinking is the insight that any action which leads to consciousness
leads to duality, which is the quintessential setup for certainty but also for confusion, permeating
all reality in as much as it is the object of consciousness.
The greatest confusion exists between the certain and uncertain categories of the human
thinking process itself which is responsible for creating consciousness and its world. It is just one
manifestation of the fundamental problem which arises when the mind grapples with the mystery
of reality and truth, sensuality and spirituality, and many other apparently opposing dualities. Much
of the confusion arises in thinking because of one of its intrinsic functions to rationalize and to make
everything certain. In this process thinking tends to overlook its own properties, which allow for a
thought to be forgotten, hidden, recovered, and so on, properties which I later discuss as the
suspending powers of thinking. In mythological stories these properties are subconsciously
represented by the lives and deeds of Gods, Goddesses, and demons. If we don't understand the
metaphoric ground in these myths, we miss their point. The numerous Gods and Goddesses are
manifestations and externalizations of human thinking rather than separate entities. These
Gods and Goddesses do not have static characteristics but are dynamic energies which can change
their form, powers, and names. To place these powers outside of ourselves as completely separate
forces is the prime confusion about reality. They are part of us and they are us, and we are
they, ultimately unknowable.
In some of Indian and Tibetan art this problem of mis-understanding is alleviated by
representing spiritual ideas in artistic form, as architecture and decoration of temples, through
paintings and sculptures. These expressions can bypass the intellect and speak directly to the senses.
Just as the sight of a beloved person has an immediate effect on the psycho-somatic being of the
lover, filling him or her with affection, desire, passion, and general well-being, so does the sight of
a beautiful deity affect the mind of the worshiper. The rationalizations of the Gods and Goddesses
(or their rejections) are the result of the dominance of mechanical thinking. Where this rationality
is likely to lead to confusion, as in spirituality, the mind's own capability to transcend reality can be
more efficiently expressed through poetry, paintings, and sculptures, in combination with each other.
This deed has been achieved in a unique way in much of Indian, Chinese, and Tibetan spiritual art
with a tradition of almost three thousand years. The Upanishads, Shaktism, Hindu and Buddhist
Tantra, and Taoism contain ideas which comprise philosophy, mystic insight, spirituality, and art
in a unique blend and vision which ultimately tries to clear up the confusion of human thinking
about itself, reality, and truth. I will show here that modern physics has elements in it which can be
seen as supporting those mystic insights. To show the various modes of human thinking in action,
I use all three different approaches mentioned: philosophy, mythology, and theoretical physics.
1.1.1.3 THE THEORETICAL PHYSICS CONNECTION
The connection of these metaphysical ideas with theoretical elementary particle physics lies
in the fact that in physics all major quantities, energy-time, momentum-space, etc. can be
categorized according to their compatibility with each other, their simultaneous measurement. The
rules of quantum physics apply to all observable and non-observable real and actual systems in all
generality. In its terminology two quantities are compatible if they can be measured simultaneously
with arbitrary accuracy, limited only by the precision of the measuring instrument.
There are three different categories of physical quantities:
10
) See section 6.3.3.1 page 444.
11
) These ideas are discussed in greater detail as we go along, particularly in chapter 6.
12
) This length is called the Planck length, it is the smallest possible length. See glossary, black hole. Even at much longer
distances like the 'diameter' of an electron which is about10
-18
meters, time and space become sub-certain quantities.
Ch. 1 Pg. 9
(1) Those that can be measured simultaneously to arbitrary accuracy, limited only by the
measuring apparatus; in classical physics all quantities fall into this category. There, any mechanical
system can be completely determined by the knowledge of the coordinates and velocities. This is the
domain of Newton's laws, modified by Einstein's theories of relativity. This is the domain of
causality, certainty, and separation. The world is being analyzed into separate objects connected by
causal, continuous links, even though continuity and separability cannot both be correct
simultaneously.
(2) There are those quantities which are complementary. The Heisenberg uncertainty
relations and the Schrdinger equation
10
are characteristic for these quantities.
11
The accurate
measurement of one quantity limits the simultaneous determination of the other. In quantum-physics
observations at the atomic level cannot be made with arbitrary theoretical precision. (Even if one
could construct an ideal measuring instrument, one could still not make those measurements.) The
knowledge of the position of an electron with precision )x allows only a precision of )p/S at the
same time. This means that the results of observations, carried out with different experimental
setups, cannot be combined into a unique picture which would correspond to actuality in a one to one
relationship. However, the different pictures must be considered to be complementary, i.e. only the
totality of all observations does justice to the actuality, even if they seem to contradict each other, in
the sense that they cannot be merged into one unique image in a reality. As the best images we can
obtain in reality stem from physical observation at the quantum level, we must conclude that reality
as a whole can also not be a unique image. This includes dynamic changes. Reality is fundamentally
as non-certain and complementary as the complementary images which constitute and generate it.
(3) There are those quantities (ideas) which cannot be measured, because they belong to
dimensions where time, space, matter concepts as even potentially observable break down, which is
at distances of about 10
-35
meters.
12
Neither the rules of causality (predictable with certainty and
objectively verifiable), nor quantum theory can penetrate into this area and be experimentally
verified.
It is because of the existence of categories (2) and (3) that there is mystery in the world
together with freedom. This is the fundamental No-thing-ness aspect of nature. Everything that can
appear in the framework of space-time-thought follows the same physical laws of nature. All things
come from, or are unfolded by the underlying ocean of immeasurable energy, so-called quantum
fields, in unobservable ways. This is, so it seems, as close as we can get to the idea of No-thingness
and Oneness of All, of What I s, of Being.
All phenomena of reality are being recognized as such through the thinking human brain in
conjunction with the senses, which are all material processes. Therefore, the human brain itself must
be operating in similar ways, obeying the same laws of physics and beyond, representing, unfolding,
and enfolding Nothingness and Oneness. Thus, one should also be able to discover the same
categorization introduced above in the brain's operations and in the thinking processes themselves.
13
) See Bohm, DBCC, Causality and Chance in Modern Physics, and BQT, Quantum Theory.
14
) The Sanskrit word 'ma' also means mother, and is as such known in all Indo-European languages.
15
) Plato: Laws; book 4.716 c.
Ch. 1 Pg. 10
By all indications it seems that some mystics throughout the ages were able to observeor intuit these
categories in thinking. Many scientists would reject category three.
13

My interpretation of physics is not as far fetched as it may seem for the modern reader. In
ancient Greece and Asia this relationship between energy and God or Goddess, the oneness and
mystery of all, must have been closer to human consciousness than it is today.
The syllable 'Phy' means action in Greek, an acting oneness of nature from which we are not
separate. This feeling for nature and oneness with it was prevalent in early Greece, even until the time
of Aristotle. The word physics should imply this same oneness, and actually until the 18
th
century,
physics and philosophy were inseparable. In Sanskrit the word shak means about the same as phy
in Greek. The word Shakti became to mean action, energy, but is also the name of the Female
Goddess: Shakti, Devi (Goddess).
Another one of her names is Maya; the root 'ma' in Sanskrit is related to the word for
measure.
14
We also derive our word 'magic' from it. In Greek philosophy the idea of measure was as
important as in Buddhist philosophy. The sophists in Greece maintained that "The measure of all
things is man." Plato held against this that "the measure of all things is God.
15
" What he meant with
"God" is not quite clear. The feeling that "there is nothing at all in the universe including matter and
human consciousness in which there is not God or Goddess" has always been an essential part of the
perception of all mystics of East and West.
I will make a case in this book that philosophically speaking "The measure of all things is
Maya-Shakti." My point here is that the study of physics should not exclude considerations of
thinking and spirituality. The reality of physics, particularly so in its most advanced forms of
quantum field theory, tries to tackle the innermost movements of matter and is forced to enter fields
of philosophy or spirituality. Heisenberg has proven that the concept of causality is non-certain
in the context of quantum physics, or in other words, that causality does not exist in a
fundamental sense, i.e. at the level where Nothingness creates, maintains, and reabsorbs the
dimensions of potential reality: time, space, matter, and thought.
1.1.2 TECHNOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
The Western worldview has advanced the idea of individual freedom and human rights to
successes which we have never before seen in the history of mankind. The Western ideas of freedom,
business, free enterprise, rational government, technology and science, law, education, social values
and so on are spreading around the globe like wildfire. These ideas are not promoted or sold by power
hungry colonialists but are eagerly embraced by people who see beneficial values in them. A great
number of positive developments for the largest number of people have their roots in European ideas,
similar to those mentioned above. People all over the world spread them through modern
communication devices, like radio, television, fax machines, and computers, inventions of the
technological and computer revolution of the Western world.
But any idea needs to be balanced, lest it becomes destructive. The perfect match for ideas
of pragmatic free enterprise, for example, comes from ideas which have been around for a few
thousand years as well. Actually, it is the idea of balance, of harmony, and of a middle path between
extremes, which needs to be energized during any period of rapid human development and change.
In our times, around the turn of the second to the third millennium of the Common Era, we
witness the accelerating breakdown of illusory absolute values and customs. Through the free flow
16
) In chapter 7 I provide additional information on Indian mythological concepts, in as much as they relate to the ideas
developed in this book.
17
) Veda means knowledge and wisdom. There are four parts to the texts of the Veda: The Rigveda (the wisdom of
praises), the Samaveda (the wisdom of the songs), the Yagurveda (the texts of sacrifices), the Atharvaveda (the wisdom
of magic). Within each Veda there are four sub-divisions: Mantras (hymns and prayers), Brahmanas (directions for the
use of the mantras), Aranyakas (forest texts for the forest dwelling hermits), and Upanishads (secret teachings). From
a philosophical and spiritual point of view the Upanishads are the most important ones.
Ch. 1 Pg. 11
and exchange of information among the nations of the world everyone on this globe can be in
immediate contact with everyone else. Constraints of time and space have lost their limiting power,
when it comes to communication of data, information, news, etc. Values of one country are exposed
to the glaring light of another country without the conditioning forces of tradition, habit, and age old
power structures being able to exercise control. What works in one country can be transferred and
adopted by another.
In the past, a religion or belief system could dominate in a civilization that was rooted in the
absolute ideas and dogmas of that specific religion. No other really different belief system was
available for comparison. It looks as though all that may soon be gone forever. This has caused a
great deal of confusion about some fundamental questions which ultimately boil down to questions
of "what is reality?; what are values?" Today we see a slow breakdown of many dogmatic belief
systems, much to the dismay of those who administer them to their own benefit.
There is great fear among believers in the supremacy of their particular God. All values may
be relative, and may be there is no unquestionable idea on which our mind can rely as anchor-point
for our lives. Women may be equal to men, what blasphemy! As long as this fear brings about more
scrutiny and investigation of taboo institutions and belief system, it may be beneficial.
The comfort of certainty, which absolute values of the various religions used to offer, is
slipping away. The great Nothing, a power of emptiness and meaninglessness, as so nicely illustrated
in the "Infinite Story" by Michael Ende, seems to be threatening our lives and creates alarm in the
circles of undisputed or absolute power and influence. Once again we hear the battle cry of spiritual
and nationalistic institutions to return back to the old values and holy books.
In order to address some of these fears I embark on a speculative journey through cultures
and psychological attitudes. In a playful comparison and dialectic synthesis of Oriental and
Occidental thinking I attempt to use varying experiences of our common histories to understand
ourselves better. It is a contemplative study and proposal of some uncommon ways of looking into
ourselves and our realities.
I use many myths and symbols from India, which is so creatively and beautifully rich in them,
to illustrate our own spiritual thinking.
16
Some Indian thinkers have been pondering the question
of the illusory nature of reality for more than four thousand years, and we have records of their
spiritual passion. India probably has the oldest and richest philosophical tradition of any country. The
writings of the Veda
17
alone occupy more than six times the volume of the Bible. The myths and
symbols serve the same purpose for speculative thinking as the examples from mathematics and
science, which I use to illustrate the power of formal thinking. Furthermore I see in some of Indian
and Tibetan mythology and its artistic expression an astonishing representation of the various modes
of thinking. The longing for oneness among what is separate, the power to create, destroy, and
resurrect under a different form seem to be the fundamental themes which permeate those cultures.
I try to transcend the cultural and personal differences among individuals and societies so that
we can explore the transcendent mind which we have in common. In this I wish to comprehend the
human mind and our illusions, frustrations, and fears. I hope that this will not lead to another set of
absolute values but rather to the insight that for consciousness there is an unresolvable harmonic
18
) Nietzsche, Friedrich: Menschliches Allzumenschliches,Human, All-too-human, NMM, Aphorismus 23.
Ch. 1 Pg. 12
tension between the realities which our mind creates and the unfathomable truth of which the
same mind is an integral part.
We human beings, as tribes and races, have all been victors and victims in the past 10,000
years. We don't know which paths our ancient ancestors have walked or what triumphs and defeats
they have experienced. But we can realize that we all participate in the true adventure, an adventure,
which the human mind has been creating since the first human being asked the question:
"WHO AM I? WHERE DO I COME FROM? WHERE AM I GOING?"
In different times, under different circumstances, we have found a variety of temporary
solutions to our problems and our dreams. Some of those dreams may have been universal, and it may
be of help to rediscover them. My goal is to reach more clarity, more honesty, and more freedom in
our thinking and in our value systems.
In some respects I also try to follow Nietzsches prophetic ideas in his work dedicated "to the
free spirits"
18
:
"the various worldviews, manners and cultures are to be compared and experienced side by
side, in a way that was formerly impossible when the always localized sway of each culture accorded
with the roots in place and time of its own artistic style. An intensified aesthetic sensibility, now at
last, will decide among the many forms presenting themselves for comparison: and the majority will
be let die. In the same way, a selection among the forms and usages of the higher moralities is
occurring, the end of which can only be the downfall of the inferior systems. It is an age of
comparison! That is the pride - but more justly also its grief. Let us not be afraid of this grief!"
1.1.3 EASTERN AND WESTERN APPROACH TO PHILOSOPHY AND
RELIGION
Philosophy is a field of human endeavor with its own independent origin between scientific
thinking and the trust in divine revelation. Love of wisdom engages all movements of human
thinking, sensing, and acting. During the classic Greek period wisdom became more and more an
endeavor for thinking alone. Pleasure, which comes through the senses, became ever more suspect
during the following Christian period. Nevertheless, there are great examples in Western churches
and temples which are tributes to beauty, though mostly to celebrate the glory of God.
There are some exceptions to the rule notably the temple Hagia Sophia of Constantinople built
by the Roman emperor Justinian (527-565 C.E.).
The Hagia Sophia is a remarkable artistic and spiritual representation of the idea of wisdom
combined with beauty. This church was dedicated to Holy Wisdom and was designed to surpass any
other church or temple in beauty. This was achieved by using innumerable precious stones and thirty
six tons of gold in its decoration. Being located at the junction point between Eastern and Western
religions and civilizations it is a symbol for both. Beauty, wisdom, spirituality and craftsmanship
have converged into one masterpiece of the European and Asian genius. It is a legacy and reminder
of what we could and should do. The history of this church shows that the human spirit fails most of
the time in reality and instead of oneness brings about fragmentation. Most of its interior decorations
have been stolen during the many upheavals and conquests of the middle ages. The worst damage
occurred at the hands of Venetian and French nobles at the ransacking of Constantinople during the
Fourth Crusade in 1203 C.E. The last remnants of its decorations were taken by the Turks in 1453
C.E., who converted the church into a mosque.
Ch. 1 Pg. 13
The oneness of beauty, sensuality, spirituality, and wisdom was never vanquished in India,
whose temples and sculptures show the unique blend of these great human qualities till today.
The love of wisdom, the startling revelations of the human mind about its own mysteries and
those of the surrounding world and universe, have been catalysts for artists and philosophers in their
creation of works of beauty and spirituality.
But it seems as if beauty and its enjoyment has always been stifled by guilt and fear, the other
great motivators in the creation of organized spirituality. Wars, natural catastrophes, starvation,
sickness, and death must have been dominating the consciousness of peoples at least as much as their
search for enjoyment and pleasure. These fears and pleasures had to be held in check, lest they would
lead to the collapse of society. Thus, the giving and receiving of the most intense pleasures, i.e.
sexual pleasures, was turned into a degrading, humiliating, and sinful activity. When men were the
perpetrators their behavior was ignored, frowned upon, or more or less tolerated. If women were
the sinners' they were usually severely punished. The conditions of meekness, poverty, and death,
on the other hand were given a positive twist.
One may say that even though people have started from great spiritual ideas, they tended to
succumb to organized systems of metaphysical security and control, ultimately dogmas which
subjugated freedom and creativity. The enjoyment of the presence of the Gods and Goddesses took
backstage to fearing their wrath and revenge. Worship of and sacrifice to deities were supposed to
sustain people in their daily fears and anxieties and allow them to face sickness, calamities, and death
without falling into panic and paralysis. But what was conceived as metaphysical security became
a means of control among oppressive religious organizations. They created, intentionally or
unintentionally, a pervasive fear and mindset demanding control, certainty, and security in all our
activities as human beings. The struggle for power and control through means of deception and
misinformation always played a major role in any political power structure but in organized religion
as well. Fear of real or imagined dangers and guilt are great devices in controlling people. They play
into the hands of those who pretend to know solutions and who sell them at a price. No wonder that
all religions have had periods in which their predominant thinking approached the level of idiocy and
totalitarian terror.
The search for security and certainty has had a positive impact on the development of cultures
and civilizations as well. But it has also let to further deception, self deception, illusion, and even
destruction. What fascinates me most in the context of human reality, is the Indian idea of Maya, the
dual concept of a metaphysical idea and its representation by the Goddess.
The Asian Indian concept of Maya, crudely translated as illusion, ignorance, or conditioned
self-created reality, permeates all of Eastern thinking. But illusion should not merely be seen in its
negative sense. The word itself is related to the Latin word 'ludere' (to play). Like in a theater, Maya
produces a play, an enchantment and spell, in which we are not the spectators but in which we are
the unsuspecting puppets. To advance from puppets to conscious actors requires that we understand
how our mind is working. The stage is our own consciousness, the various plays range from comedies
to tragedies. The director behind the scenes is Maya-Shakti, the Mother Goddess as personified
energy of reality but also of actuality and beyond. The word shak means "to have force to do," "to
be able." Thus, an adequate translation of shakti' is 'energy.' Maya-Shakti is the intelligent energy
which creates out of the primordial Nothingness-Oneness the first complementing duality of Shakti-
Shiva. Then she allows this oneness to separate and simultaneously creates the energy of Love, Eros,
Kama, which for always seeks to reunite the two apparently separate manifestations. All this is a
mysterious happening for which there is no other but a metaphoric comprehension. From there on
every thing is created in the magic web of time and space. All this is Maya. The Nothingness-
19
) From the "Lalita vistara sutra.
20
) 'Buddha' should be read here simply as 'What Is.' Even though this is a text from Tibetan Buddhism, it represents
exactly the characteristics of Maya, which is a Hindu concept going back to pre-Aryan times. Tibetan Buddhism
absorbed much of Hindu mythology and philosophy and recreated it with much enriched ideas.
21
) dharma: A Sanskrit term which means 'holding,' 'carrying.' In Hinduism it refers to the essence of What Is. For the
individual being dharma is inseparable from karma, a conditioning resulting from innumerable reincarnations. In
Buddhism 'dharma' is a key notion which stands for the teaching of the Buddha, the 'law.' It might also be translated as
'moral or ethical law.' The Buddha saw this law in operation, had direct insight into it, and expressed it. Buddha, dharma,
and sangha (the community) are the three key elements of Buddhism.
Ch. 1 Pg. 14
Oneness of creating intelligence is the Goddess Maya. The products of her show are called maya,
with lower case m.

Maya-Shakti puts on the dramatic show of
" THE UNFOLDI NG OF THE PLAYFUL I LLUSORY MANI FESTATI ON
OF THE BUDDHA ON THE EARTHLY PLANE."
19,

20
And she invites us to join in the performance and dance. There is joy in this dance and
playfulness and laughter. Fear and guilt are products of the confused mind, and the goal of the dance
is to have insight into their origin and be free of them. Maya, in one of her many Tibetan-Buddhist
incarnations as Tara, is a spiritual creation to help us to reach such insight.
It is the christianized Western mind which has a problem with this positive and affirming
world view which puts the remedy to human problems into human hands. The Western mind wants
absolute truth, here and now and forever. Thus, it tends to regard this Eastern view of the world and
reality as a profound ignorance. The fundamental uncertainty in this Eastern world view is suspect
to the Western mind.
But in the East this idea of uncertainty and Maya is often regarded as a positive idea. She is
the essence of wisdom, represented by the female lover of the Buddha. She is wisdom (prajna), he
is compassion or artistic methods (upaya). Together, in love and beauty, they form the essence of
What I s, and of the reality, the theater, the show. The essence of this has also been called dharma.
In Tantra Buddhism the two elements of insight into What I s, and its expression in reality are
represented by the female and male Buddhas in erotic union. Insight and wisdom is a female energy
and compassion or artful, skillful means is a male energy. Together, in love and beauty, they form
the essence of What I s, and of the reality, the theater, the show. All this is dharma
21
. It is the insight
into What I s and the transformation of that into cipher, metaphor, and symbols, i.e. forms which
accessible to the mind and senses. Whatever can enter the confines of formal conscious thinking can
at best be an expression of dharma but never dharma itself, though the idea of dharma tries to
convey the oneness between the essence of What I s and the perceiving mind. This oneness is the
mystic non-certain 'experience' in which the conscious mind and its object merge into Oneness-
Nothingness. Of this experience the mind cannot know with certainty, because certainty
requires the repeatable form in reality in which Maya is always present.
Some statues of Tibetan and Hindu art seem to be as close to the idea of dharma as is possible
for human consciousness. This whole idea of dharma and Maya has been profoundly well explored
metaphysically in the East and has let to psychological insights, which we in the West have started
22
) Maya is also recognized as the supreme Goddess Devi, Maha-Devi.
23
) The Rig Veda is the oldest of the Indian scriptures, 1200 - 800 B.C.E. It comprises 1,028 hymns, mostly directed to
personifications of natural forces: e.g. Agni, Soma, Indra.
24
) This sense may go back tens of thousands of years in the case of the aborigines in Australia.
Ch. 1 Pg. 15
to systematically investigate only in the last few centuries.
22
I prefer to use the Western term truth
for dharma and the term realityfor Maya.
In the creation myths of the Rig Veda
23
we find a text which expresses this uncertainty in a
most fundamental form: the creator of What I s may not know its own origin. It is not far from this
knowing ignorance to the idea of emptiness or Nothingness. The notion of emptiness is misleading
because it is a notion borrowed from reality in which it implies the existence of a container which is
empty. Nothingness, on the other hand, is a notion which defies and denies all reality, and points
beyond it. The insight to be had is the difference between saying There is nothing beyond
reality, and What is beyond reality is Nothing.
From the insight of the Rig Veda one may conclude that What I s does not know its own
origin. As thinking is being, at that level, one may conclude further that the origin of What I s, is
unknowable. This is its essence.
The ultimate mystery forces us to say: It is neither this nor that, no opposites can contain it.
Even the word "it" is already saying too much. If it cannot be thought, or sensed, it is neither thought
nor thing. I t is No-Thing, Nothing. Thus, the essence of all things, including human beings and their
consciousness, are all the same, they are all No-thing. Thus, What I s, is this ONE-NESS which is
NO-THI NGNESS.
The Hindu view of Maya and the Buddhist view of the empty self with its empty reality are
somewhat similar to Plato's idea of reality as shadow play. These views put human existence and
values in serious question at roughly the same time in history, i.e. about 500 before the common era
(B.C.E.). Nevertheless, the common view of human existence was mostly positive in these ideas,
which were appeals to the divine nature in human beings and all things alive. Underneath it all, a
divine oneness was felt, which can be traced back to the Egyptian Pyramid scriptures of around 2,300
B.C.E.
24
. The idea of one truth and transcendence, one What I s, had started to emerge, and people
were struggling to make this idea manifest in the world, through their references to Gods and other
powers beyond reality.
But the oneness had to develop into a freedom from oneness in order to allow consciousness
to see itself as subject, and the outside world, including gods, as objects or otherness. Once that path
away from oneness had been taken, the direction towards nothingness was open. Thus, human
consciousness found itself immersed in the dialectic struggle of its own making, between oneness and
nothingness. This is the conscious human mind, and anything that enters its sphere will be immersed
in the same dialectic. To comprehend this is the goal of a free mind.
In spite of the incredible progress we have made in the sciences, it is generally overlooked
that the boundaries of our understanding have not been eliminated but merely expanded. Even though
the potential of our understanding can grow indefinitely, there is a mysterious domain which is not
part of the world that can ever be understood. Why that is, we can understand and comprehend by
looking at how our knowledge comes about. The particular mode of thinking which allows for
rational and cogent explanation is simultaneously also the limitation of that thinking. We know from
modern physics that there is a fundamental uncertainty governing the laws of nature, which
cannot be overcome by any more sophisticated tools. I am making the case that we must come to
an even deeper understanding of this uncertainty in psychological and philosophical terms. I t is the
25
) In German this can be said better: "Das Wahre ist das Unbedingte. Was unbedingt ist, wie Nichts, ist das Freisein
von allen Dingen und Bedingungen."
26
) Hegel, Logic; HW vol 8, page 178.
27
) This image and its characterization as male and female Buddhas may be controversial, but it is supported by the
Paramasukha-Chakrasamvara Tantra. See the picture of Shamvara Yab-Yum and the text on page 367. See also Rhie-
Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion, RWC page 215.
Ch. 1 Pg. 16
power of Maya-Shakti which guarantees human freedom. Conversely, without uncertainty there
can be no freedom; without Maya reality is dead and with it human consciousness.
The world shaped by our knowledge is what I call reality. It has to be questioned as a whole:
what it is, how it comes about, how it is maintained, changed, transformed, destroyed.
I refer to this reality in question as "nothingness." It had been felt already early in the
unfolding of human consciousness that, what the mysterious oneness contained or was, were not
things, that could be described. Some sages saw that the mysterious oneness was not a world of
things, or reality, which is the world of conditioning.
What I s, is not conditioned, but free of any conditioning,
25
the essence of freedom. This is
why this oneness of What I s could and can also be seen as a no-thing-ness or nothingness. (In
German the word for no-thingness is Unbedingtheit, which is used in the meaning of the
unconditioned, which means literally un-thinged-ness.) The oscillation of human consciousness
between nothingness and oneness had as intermediary stages the ideas referred to as polytheism,
monotheism, atheism, and nihilism. The ultimate truth is not a world of things or ideas, it is not
anything that could be properly expressed through cogent thought or any thought.

"The truth of Being as well as of Nothingness is that both are one."
Hegel, Science of Logic
26
The harmonic dialectic truth of this statement is what the spiritual artists in Tibet tried to
achieve in their bronzes of Yab-Yum. The erotic union of a male and female Buddha
27
, the union of
wisdom (she) and compassion (he), is the ultimate image of the dialectic unity of Oneness and
Nothingness. This image, the enciphered actualization and realization of a truth, is the mystery of
Betweenness.
It is easy to misinterpret these statues and to reject them. It is just as easy to reject the ideas
of oneness-nothingness. This easy rejection is the working of the conditioned mind which can only
deal with "real things" in a "real reality."
Plato's shadows were the things of reality, and what created these shadows was the light, the
oneness which contained no things. The things in their appearance to human consciousness were
created by the human mind.
The basic mystery of all being was not seen as something which wasn't there and which
should be, or as a negative void and punishing hell, imposed on us by some other gods. No, this basic
mystery is what every human being and any part of the world, including gods, demons, and Buddhas
truly was and is. The underlying mystery is positive yet uncertain. This mystery has to be seen or
"experienced" directly without the intermediary of thought by the human mind in a logic transcending
vision outside of the sphere of certain and cogent knowledge.
It was and is the dynamics of any spiritual existence: the experience of identity with the
oneness-nothingness of all being, the direct perception of the mystery, leading to a profound
comprehension and insight which gives liberating meaning and which sees the limitations of
28
) This wisdom has been called gnosis in Western antiquity, jnana and vidya in Hinduism, prajna in Budhhism.
Prajnaparamita, the wisdom of beyond reality, in Tantra Buddhism is the highest wisdom of Nothingness.
29
) Uma appeared in a Indo-Aryan document for the first time in the Kena Upanishad 600 B.C.E., she predates Aryan
influences and goes back to Bronze age times; it was she, not the Vedic gods, who knew brahman, the divine essence;
see page 186. For a picture of her see Figure 65 on page 397.
30
) I rely here on the knowledge and wisdom of Heinrich Zimmer and Joseph Campbell.
31
) Mohenjo-daro, an ancient culture of the Indus Valley dating back to as early as 4000 B.C.E. Excavations started in
1924. The city of Mohenjo-daro is together with Harappa (400 miles away) the most important city of the Indus culture
32
) Shiva and Shakti represent two aspect of the transcendent absolute. Shakti, Kali, Durga is the female part which
corresponds to the active powers of the absolute. Shiva is the more inactive contemplative aspect.
Ch. 1 Pg. 17
thought together with its powers. This wisdom
28
is not an end but a beginning which allows new
thinking, new perception, new action, which can be called compassion. In the Christian Western
world such a view was never really taken seriously except by some mystics from Meister Eckehart
to Jacob Boehme and Friedrich Nietzsche, very different personalities who had in common that they
had "seen the Unknown God." For Boehme "Nothingness was God., the Oneness of all opposites."
I want to make the point that this insight is not something to be acquired through 'mystic'
preparation and exercises. It is part of all creative thinking which operates in the mind of every
human being, but it is covered up by conditioning. Put differently, intelligent creative thinking is
mysticism for mechanical thinking. Only intelligent thinking can see the oneness of opposites as
they appear to mechanical thinking.
Some Hindu and Buddhist traditions share(d) the view with many Christians that reality, the
world of society, was something negative and to be avoided. Maybe this was the result of Aryan and
Semitic influences. The driving force in this worldview was that the certainty about the evilness of
worldly reality provided the necessary spiritual comfort. If I know through my God or religion that
the world is ruled by evil, then, by following the guidance of my God, I can hold that evil at bay.
In many Eastern religions, life and reality affirming tendencies, which I summarize as the
Mother Goddess aspect, were always very strong. She is called by many names, from Isis in Egypt,
Ishtar in Sumer, Aphrodite in Greece, to Shakti-Maya, Lakshmi and Shri (prosperity, fortune, beauty,
virtue), Uma, Parvati, Durga, Kali in Indian Asia
29
. This idea of the Goddess Devi could never be
quite suppressed by the life denying religions of the likes of Jaina, Hinayana Buddhism, or the
various ascetic Yoga systems.
30
Even in the Greek orthodox Christian church this idea stayed
somewhat alive in the form of the divine Sophia as creative wisdom, in whose honor the emperor
Justinian, during the sixth century CE, built the magnificent temple, the Hagia Sophia in
Constantinople, today's Istanbul. In the catholic church females such as Mary, mother of God, Fatima
in Spain, or La Virgen de Guadalupe in Mexico, were reluctantly tolerated as holy because the deep
seated instincts of common people demanded as much. The many cathedrals called Notre Dame bear
also witness to this ancient idea. In the protestant churches such ideas have no place at all. In any
case, Mother Goddess symbols were found in Hacilar (Turkey) dating back to 7000 B.C.E. In
Pakistan-India the earliest finds of Mother Goddess artifacts come from the Indus Valley cities
Harappa and Mohenjo-daro
31
.
In India, the Mother Goddess Shakti, the energy of What I s, in conjunction with her other
male persona Shiva
32
, the immovable absolute, is the creator and lover of all, and also its destroyer.
They are One, often shown in sexual union. Shiva as well as Shakti (Kali) are also often represented
as containing both aspects as one in themselves. Both are creators and destroyers, immovable movers.
The profound meaning of this lies in the complementarity between absolute
incomprehensible transcendence and manifestation as reality. Human attempts to reconcile,
Ch. 1 Pg. 18
Figure 6
Vajradhara and Vajradhari, Brass, 9"
comprehend, and understand these two 'forces' and ideas have given rise to philosophy, mythology,
and religion.
The similarities
between the images of
Shiva in India and Dionysus
i n G r e e c e , b o t h
androgynous, wild, life
affirming divine forces,
seem to be giving us a
glimpse into a possible
world of a creative
har mony b e t we e n
sensuality and spirituality.
There is no Oedipus
complex here. Nevertheless,
I need to point out that
female power and influence
has been oppressed in
Indian society at least as
much as in the Western
societies of yesteryear. The
Aryan and Brahmanic
influence since about 1500
B.C.E. has suppressed much
of the original culture of the
Mother Goddess. Still, the
dialectic harmony between
the aggressive paternal and
more nature oriented
Mother Goddess ideas gave
rise to the Indian, Greek,
and Chinese cultures.
In India, the rather
pessimistic dualism of Jainism and early Buddhism, as well as Islamic influences have created and
tolerated a social system of castes in which the woman was not much valued at all. She was rather
enslaved to her husband, father, or brothers. From the sale of girls into prostitution to the Sati rites
of widow burning, the spiritual importance of Shakti was and is turned into a farce of oppression and
cruelty against women in general and against the free expression of their sensuality in particular.
I should also mention here that the oneness of Shiva-Shakti is not at all universally accepted
even in India, where the social oppression and suppression of women has been at least as bad as in
most other European countries. Indeed, the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, lent his name to
the confusion which arises through the separation of those two energies, which are one.
He wrote:
"The male Deity (Shiva) who was in possession was fairly harmless. But all of a sudden a
feminine Deity (Shakti) turns up and demands to be worshiped in his stead. That is to say that she
33
) See Shakti and Shakta, WSS page 121.
34
) A Bodhisattva is a person who has had the fundamental insight into the nature of human consciousness, but who
refuses to die to the world out of compassion for all other sentient beings, who will benefit from his or her continued
presence in the world. The thought of ending the wheel of suffering is a thought which is caught in the illusion of Maya.
The idea of a Bodhisattva rectifies and transcends the original idea of Buddhahood with its distinction between samsara
and nirvana. It is an affirmation of the value of the Dance With Maya.
35
) See Zimmer ZMS, page 100.
36
) The historical Buddha was born in an area of Northern India, which today belongs to Nepal. He lived from about 566
to 486 B.C.E. and is often referred to as Shakyamuni (belonging to the Shakya clan) or Siddhartha Gautama.
Ch. 1 Pg. 19
insisted on thrusting herself where she had no right. Under what title? Force? (i.e. Shakti) By what
method?"
33

This should not be at all surprising. The idea I put forth in this book is that absolute
separation in any of its forms, exemplified here in Tagore's mind as the separation of Shiva and his
Shakti, is at the root of confusion. This confusion is as pervasive in the old times as it is today. It
knows no national or racial boundaries but is (or seems to be) an unavoidable stage of human
consciousness.
In Tibetan Buddhism the positive worldview of complementary opposites is best expressed
in the provocative religious metaphoric symbol of the naked Buddha (representing compassion) in
Lotus position with his equally naked female consort (representing supreme wisdom, prajna
paramita). She sits on his lap, embracing him passionately with arms and legs, in evident sexual bliss
and union, called Yab-Yum, father-mother, in the Tibetan language. She is the active energy (shakti)
of the supreme wisdom of the Universal Buddha. The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
34
are projections of
her operation. She is the very meaning of the Buddhist law.
35
Shiva (the Indian deity in love with
his Shakti, who in Tibetan Buddhism became the Buddha
36
with an immensely enriched philosophy)
and Shakti-Maya do love each other in every sense of the word. It is in ecstasy that the brain can let
go of its self images and the fixed images of the world. The most extreme opposites must become
one, our grandstanding ethical images must soften. What better image to use than the shocking love
making of our holiest deities, who in most religions would come down with thundering punishment,
fire and brimstone, to destroy and punish the evil thinkers and fornicators. Most religious authorities,
who generate much of their psychological power through their anti-sexual and anti-pleasure
doctrines, would throw anyone into the deepest everlasting hellfire - burning them at the stake or
simple hanging would have to suffice temporarily on earth - for even thinking about sexual pleasures,
let alone attribute them to their highest deities.
The theme of the oneness between the Buddha and his loving female persona, or of Shiva with
Shakti-Maya, or of Yang and Yin, is the symbolism of the middle way, the harmony between
opposing uncertain forces of life and in the universe. It is the bliss of the union between wisdom
(Shakti) and compassion (Buddha), between the creation of illusion (Maya) and its destruction
(Shiva). To comprehend and live this harmony is to dance with Maya. The particular form of
Buddhism which is centered around similar ideas is called Vajrayana Buddhism.
Vajrayana Buddhism, also called Tibetan or Tantra Buddhism is the latest form of Mahayana
Buddhism. Vajrayana means "The way toward the adamantine (vajra-like) essence of Transcendent
Truth." The vajra scepter (Tibetan: Dorje) is a symbol carried by almost all representations of
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in Tibetan Buddhism. It is a symbolic diamond standing for the perfect
translucence of nothingness, untainted by all forms of appearance and reality, including all
things and all thoughts. The symbol came originally from the Vedic God's Indra thunderbolt.
37
) Heinrich Zimmer, on whose work I base many of my interpretations of Indian philosophy and religion, regards the
Tantras as "the latest crystallization of Indian wisdom," ZM page 247.
38
) samsara means literally the unending 'moving on' or wandering. (Shakti and Shakta, WSS, page 449.)
39
) Avalokiteshvara, Tara, Padmapani, Samantabhadra, Vajrasattva, Vajradhara for example.
Ch. 1 Pg. 20
Figure 7 Green Tara, Mudra
It appears as a magic wand for the
exorcism of evil forces (Vajrakila and
Vajra phurba) or as the handle of a bell
(drilbu) used to mark time in the recital of
sacred texts. Tantra Buddhism can be seen
as the mystic and esoteric component of
Buddhism.
According to the ideas of
Vajrayana Buddhism every human being
can reach enlightenment in one life time.
Like in Mahayana Buddhism, active
participation in reality is encouraged.
Vajrayana refers to all the Tibetan Buddhist
teachings around this idea of Nothingness-
Oneness. Also called Tantra
37
Buddhism it
is a form of Mahayana Buddhism (Maha =
great; yana = vehicle or means, methods
and tools) which also maintains that insight
into oneness-nothingness, which is
enlightenment, can be achieved in a life-
time rather than in an almost infinite cycle
of births and rebirths. However, even the
idea of enlightenment, when manifest in a
reality, is already part of Maya's illusion,
samsara
38
. In Vajrayana Buddhism, the
historical Buddha Shakyamuni is only
one more appearance, part of Maya, of
the many transcendent Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas. The primal or Adi-Buddha
represents with his numerous male
and/or female successors
39
the reality
transcending power of wisdom.
Generally, when reference to the historical Buddha is made, he is called Buddha Shakyamuni or
Gautama.
The prevailing Western Christian view, on the other hand, has been that human reality is
sinful and condemned since the expulsion of Adam and Eve out of paradise. When they recognize
their nakedness, sexual difference and sexual attraction, the original sin has been committed. Ever
since, sensuality associated with the naked body, in particular the sensuous female body, has in itself
been sinful. This is an interesting case of confusion between cause and effect. The naked body, its
depiction and appreciation lead to sin, is the trivialized view of many religions.
I will clarify that the underlying fact of the so-called sin' is that dualityenters the world of
human awareness and is necessary for a consciousness to function.
40
) The Egyptian cobra was the symbol of power for goddesses and queens and also signified female attributes in general.
The uraeus is the figure of the sacred serpent worn on the headdress of ancient Egyptian rulers and deities.
Ch. 1 Pg. 21
This duality is in itself neither sinful nor bad; it is the condition for anything to happen. Pure
Oneness, like pure symmetry or pure Nothingness, are ideas without attributes, and cannot even be
thought. And when we try to think it we see that unless the perfection is violated, Nothing remains
Nothing. Evidently, there is something, which means that the Nothingness has divided itself, or the
perfect symmetry has broken itself spontaneously, to use the language of the theoretical physicist.
To blame Adam and Eve and all humankind for the fact that there is a reality and a consciousness is
itself missing the mark. Blaming reality on the sexual and erotic desires is ridiculous, but this
attempt has had horrific and deadly consequences for mankind and even more so for
womankind. If there is a fundamental sin, then it is the one of imagining such blame.
In Tantra the symbol of nakedness signifies that the naked person or Goddess/God is free of
illusion, free of maya. Thus depictions of the naked body in all its beauty and attractiveness is a
common attribute of Buddhas, Dakinis, Shiva, Shakti, the highest representatives of human
aspiration.
We have similarly opposing psychologies operating in the representation of the other most
important 'icons' in the two religions. The symbol of the Christ nailed to the cross as a symbol of hope
for paradise after death; Yab-Yum, a Buddha and his female counterpart in sexual union as a symbol
of the oneness of all opposites. Despair and torture there, i.e. Christ suffering for all, the highest being
suffering at the hands of sinners. Beauty, grace, and love here in Tantra Buddhism as appealing
symbols for human inspiration. Buddhism wants to end suffering in real life and draws
attention to the confusion causing it. Christianity rejects happiness in life and advocates belief
in the absurd as a means to happiness after death. The life denying aspects of the Christian and
related religions are obvious.
In Christian mythology the paradise was lost when the "evil" snake talked Eve into seducing
unsuspecting Adam to eat from the tree of knowledge. Ever since, women have been seen as seducers
and were blamed for the pleasures they gave men. The more pleasure they gave the more they were
vilified. The more beautiful and therefore seductive they were, the closer they were to the devil.
Scientific knowledge, the undogmatic investigation of reality, or any knowledge which could be
perceived as being in conflict with a particular biblical verse, has similarly been rejected and
characterized as the product of the devil.
The symbol of Yab-Yum, on the other hand, is a guide to the tree of knowledge and self-
comprehension, to wisdom and artful action not away from it. It is a guide to the sacredness of all life
and its manifestations. The reward is the union with the paradise which we have never left. To be
able to act with artful wisdom is nirvana, paradise.
One should recognize here that both the serpent and the tree are much older positive 'pagan'
symbols for the creative female powers of nature
40
. The combination of those powers with the powers
of the intellect was indeed the beginning of modern consciousness. The paradise of ignorance was
lost with this powerful marriage, which should not at all be seen as a deceitful seduction, but as the
creative unification of two vital energies, which helped the human species to evolve.
The paradise of wisdom was opened from the moment of this sacred marriage. The
female creative power of nature seduced the abstract powers of thinking into her embrace. What was
lost in this union was the world of unquestionable submission to magic powers, the world of blissful
41
) The Gnostic interpretation of the seduction of Adam by Eve is actually very close to the Buddhist idea of female
wisdom being paired with male skill into a powerful and enlightened union. See for example "The Gnostic Gospels" by
Elaine Pagels, chapter 2.
42
) Campbell: Creative Mythology, CCM, page 338
Ch. 1 Pg. 22
ignorance, but above all, the sense of being an integral part of the Nature Goddess.
41
Ever since, the
cognitive mind has made ever more successful attempts to understand what was and is going on.
What was forced into submission through this relentless drive to understand all and everything
without any limitation in sight, was the creative power of the Mother Goddess, a name as good as any
for the mystery of consciousness. From that mythical moment onwards Man had to understand, to
know, had to question everything divine or human. He had to speculate and reason. He was left to
believe and fear where he could not know. Thus, knowledge and fear, are intrinsic functions of a
consciousness awakened to its powers of creating realities. This consciousness had to create a web
of meaning to replace paradise lost and to create the expectation for regaining access to it. Little does
consciousness suspect that its loss and its redemption is its own product. Little does it know that most
of Man's realities created in this fashion were and are cobwebs of its own illusions and lies,
masterfully held together by strings of causality. Consciousness is actively and ignorantly trying to
cover up its own underlying ignorance.
Thus, in essence, Christian thinking interpreted the mythical moment of awakening of
consciousness as the end of paradise and as a condemnation; mystic thinking sees the potential for
a new paradise in which wisdom and active participation in the universal play of realities and truth
could be united. Christianity rejected the world with the hope for heaven and the fear of hell, whereas
a mystic view tried to transcend the world, heaven, and hell, to make room for a life in actuality
without dogmatism and without escape from the world.
In modern times, Kant and Hegel explained again that all reality is conditioned, through and
through. It seems that Schopenhauer was the first philosopher in the West who understood that the
"Kantian concept of a-priori forms of sensibility and categories of logic are practically identical
with the Hindu-Buddhist philosophy of Maya," of which we heard in the West reliably only two
hundred years ago.
42
I will use examples and illustrations from Tibetan Buddhism, and Hindu mythology on
occasion, because of their often times very visual and dramatic metaphors, for which the Western
mind-set seems to be more receptive than ever. I think that readers in the West are ready to consider
them with great benefit, along with the insights of Eastern and Western philosophers from the
unknown yogi saints of the Upanishads to Nagarjuna, and from Plato to Kant.
Western symbols and concepts may have become stale and suspect to many who feel that they
have been used too often to deceive and enslave us, rather than to help us free ourselves. The all too
common idea that we are victims of outside forces which control us and lead us into temptation has
chained our minds to the illusory hope that all our problems can be solved through rational
approaches or through a divine savior, be that in the manifestation of a Messiah, a duce, a religion,
or a sociological theory.
1.1.4 THE IDEA OF MAYA
Knowledge as we commonly use it, is our reality as presented to our conscious and even to
a large extent sub-conscious mind by our self and ego. The structure of any reality is based on the a-
priori conditions of experiencing and thinking: the basic structure of time, space, and causality. This
is the unescapable creative work of immeasurable Maya, the unfolding of the unknowable
Nothingness into what can be experienced through consciousness as actuality, reality, and complete
Ch. 1 Pg. 23
Figure 8
Kali in Her Wrathful Form
illusion. The process of unfolding is represented by the female energy of creation and action (Maya-
Shakti, Mother Goddess) out of the immovable energy of the absolute (Shiva).The Sanskrit word
'Maya' is also related to the word "measure."
Anything that can be measured, i.e. reality, is therefore the product of Maya. All things and
thoughts are subject to the influence of Maya, which makes it impossible to know anything with
certainty if it has meaning. In the conditioning imposed on us by our senses and by the rules of
mechanical thinking, we experience space as three dimensional and time as independent of space (and
matter). We even regard the thinker and thought as being independent of space, matter, and time. The
sum total of the basic structure of all human realities can be called rationality. On top of this basic
matrix of a reality the individual person and society create the reality which is being experienced by
each person in his or her historical, environmental, and personal context, the personal Maya.
This reality - created by ourselves -
conditions and channels our thinking, sensing,
and acting, in a circular process. Even what we
term our free will is not free but is subject to this
subtle self-conditioning. By creating and
maintaining this reality we are actually
constructing an invisible barrier to our freedom
and intelligence and are setting ourselves up for
failure, for psychological and physical pain and
suffering. In this way we are creating our hell,
our concepts of sin, and our pathological
groveling for salvation. To understand this
requires that we somehow remove the self-
perpetuating concept of a single reality "out
there" to which we respond and react and
against which we have to defend ourselves. I
shall explore the term reality later in greater
detail. Let me briefly indicate what I mean by it:
There is an independent world outside of the
human mind. In its unexplained forms this world
acts and interacts with itself; and we humans
with our consciousness are a part of that; I call
that world actuality. The human mind through
its consciousness makes this actuality part of
itself as objective reality.
The objective reality as it appears to our
consciousness is part of the rational and
rationalizable aspect of actuality. It depends on
the a-priori conditioning of human
consciousness in terms of time, space, and
causality. This objective reality of which we
can be conscious can be shared among human
beings, who all have powers of rationality in common, and this rationality is one and the same. It
operates according to rules which can be discovered, exactly described, taught and learnt through
cogent processes. Mathematical and scientific discoveries can be shared through reason across all
times and all locations throughout the world. Newton's laws of classical physics, Euclid's theorems
43
) I use the word 'irrational' preliminarily as the opposite of rational. I use the expression non-rational to indicate with
the word non also those forms of thinking, which though not rational, can nevertheless convey meaning to the mind.
Poetic, artistic, speculative, and mythological thinking can be non-rational and at the same time not be irrational.
44
) See also the discussion of Maya and Shakti in section 7.2.4 page 495 ff.
Ch. 1 Pg. 24
about plane geometry are universal descriptors of that reality. Once we learn about them we cannot
reject them any more. This is the reality of rational Maya. If we want to operate in the world, it would
be foolish to contradict or ignore her.
On top of this objective reality the individual mind establishes a subjective psychological
reality which is dependent on irrational and non-rational feelings, hopes, desires, traditions, societal
values, and so on.
43
In many respects this is a self-created prison, from which the mind has great
difficulty to break out. The particular language a society uses has implicit rules, barriers and
directives built in, which try to allow only one set of realities to develop. This is where the
illusory Maya starts to reign supreme, unchecked, ignored, all but invisible.
The so-called reality which we experience in our daily lives is a mixture of objective and
subjective realities, and irrealities. A human being who is controlled by such conditioned and
mechanical behavior, developed and enforced by traditions and norms of behavior in families and
societies at large, has abandoned thinking in favor of mechanical repetitions of thought patterns
which are scattered in consciousness as separate pieces. Ideas of freedom, honesty, and truth can only
exist as distorted meaningless forms.
The life of such a person is governed by the Maya in her horrible form as Kali. In Tibet,
Shakti becomes the consort of the Buddha(s). She appears in a beatific and in a wrathful form,
depending on the need to encourage or to forcefully dispel illusion.
Our subjective reality furthermore is a mixture of ego driven desires and emotions which I
call irrational, as well as of human feelings and ideas, from love and compassion to the honoring of
truth. The latter category of feelings, though also non-rational, is not irrational. Some of the important
issues to explore will be the relationships which our mind establishes subconsciously among these
aspects of reality.
I will show how objective realities, subjective realities, and irrational realities tend to become
increasingly empty and devoid of true meaning, which, as I see it is not to be found in any reality.
This meaninglessness is in itself one of the most sublime and powerful manifestations of Maya.
44

1.1.4.1 MAYA OF PHYSICS, AND CIPHER LANGUAGE
Let me show how Maya has unexpectedly entered even the field of science. During the first
half of the twentieth century Werner Heisenberg discovered that the notion of causalitydoes not
apply at the fundamental level of physical reality.
Causalityis the notion that there are predictably measurable characteristics of a substance
like e.g. location and velocity. They follow a continous chain of causes and effects. These
characteristics can be predicted and measured at any point in time. The motion of planets is a good
example for such causal behavior. When we deal with atomic physics and even smaller dimensions
this causality breaks down.
Even the concept of material substance, the most cherished concept of solidity, vanished
literally into nothing during the beginning of this century through the insights of physicists, who
discovered the wave-particle nature of all matter and energy.
Thus, causality, material substance, location, movement, time, and space, our whole concept
of reality became questionable at a fundamental level. One can say that not only individual reality
but also so-called objective reality broke down. What was left was nothing, no-thing, and thinking.
Ch. 1 Pg. 25
But whereas irrational individual realities are empty in the sense of personal illusions, the
material actuality is empty in a sense of an ultimately unknowable and immeasurable no-thingness.
All matter is at the subatomic level an invisible web of quantum-physical probability amplitudes or
quantum-fields which can only be forced into certain realityby destroying their pre-measurement
non-observable actuality. The description of this realityis itself highly mathematical and so abstract
that most people will never be able to understand any of it. Our mind, nevertheless, being a
product of this actuality, shares in this ultimate no-thing-ness. It is of the same nature. To see
this is the beauty of it all.
One of the easy traps of human psychology is to jump to the objectively invalid and irrational
conclusion that the human psyche and soul is an (absolute) illusion and not more than an accidental
conglomerate of neuron firings in the brain.
To this, what one may call nihilistic worldview, I say that ideas of the human psyche and soul
are not objective real things but metaphorsand cipher. We must learn to adapt our mode of thinking
to the mode which can deal with ciphers. This mode is neither rational nor irrational. I call it non-
rational. It is required when we try to understand the meaning of the human mind, and it applies when
we try to decipher the mysteries of sub-atomic matter and the whole universe.
A cipher can carry the power of Nothingness into reality. Even though language ciphers
consist of words put together in a comprehensible fashion, their logical content is like nothing and
can bring mechanical thinking to an end. They are meant to suspend logical thought and to give the
mind the energy to look beneath the surface of reality. Thus, when I use cipher language, I may even
be in agreement with Wittgenstein's warning, that "about things about which one cannot speak,
one should be silent." I do not talk about no-things to convey content or knowledge. I talk about them
to show that they are empty from a point of view of logical reason, but full of uncertain meaning from
a point of view of intelligence. It should be clear that I don't use "intelligence" in the conventional
sense of very smart, but with metaphysical and spiritual undertones.
1.1.5 PRELIMINARY BASIC QUESTIONS
In our exploration we shall encounter questions like: Is spirituality incompatible with
science, or is the apparent contradiction between spirituality and science based on irrational traditions
and habitual emotional and cultural reactions? Does the separation arise from concepts of religion
and science gone astray? How can a person in the modern world of space flight, computers, robots,
and genetic engineering be connected to the deeper meaning of life, of which sages, poets,
philosophers, priests, gurus, shamans, and witches have talked throughout the ages?
I think that the answers to these questions lie in the original insights of science and
mythology. Thinking creates our realities, our religions, our science. The perceived incompatibility
between thinking and spirituality is itself a product of thinking. Thinking about thinking should
therefore be at the beginning of any discussion about religion, science, and spirituality. Thinking
is much more than just logic or a concatenation of thoughts. Thinking in its widest aspects has created
the world (the phenomenal world) and all realities since time immemorial. It has created heaven and
hell, gods and demons, beauty and misery, love and suffering, reality, truth, and deception. It has
created hope, despair, and paralysis. Through thought we live and we die, and yet thought generally
eludes us and deceives us into believing that it is an independent agent that willingly and objectively
carries out its master's will and command. To reveal thinking and thought as the great deceiver, the
great maker, and destroyer of the world is one of the goals of this book. If in this process, which is
as much intellectual study as meditation, we can comprehend thinking, then our own thinking may
take the step of transcending itself.
Ch. 1 Pg. 26
MAYA THE MISTRESS OF MYSTERY

There is no river to cross
No goal to reach
There is no-thing
That must be achieved
Can be explained
What is the meaning of life
The meaning of love, suffering
The mystery
Is the path
The river
The light
Life and Death and Beauty
Mystery.
1.2 RATIONALIZATION OF THE WORLD
During the last few hundred years Western societies have witnessed a process of
rationalization in almost all aspects of human affairs. In this time period rational and logical
approaches to all human activities have become increasingly important. This process was
accompanied with increasing individual freedom and has been of particular predominance in
European and North American countries. Originating in Greek culture of two and a half millennia
ago (Socrates, Plato, Zeno, Aristotle) objective observation and calculation, as well as accountable
reporting and planning have been at the root of European and American (US) power in as much as
they let to scientific, economic, and political results. For example: The invention of the printing press
by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450 C.E. helped the power of objective knowledge to become
available to anyone who could read and write. Up to that point in history the civilizations of Europe,
China, India, Japan, and maybe even of the Incas and Aztecs were similar.
One should just recall that it was only in the thirteenth century C.E. that the Mongols
governed the largest empire ever ruled by one people, covering most of Asia, Asia Minor, and
Europe. With the invention of the printing press and the gun military strategies using guns tilted the
power in favor of European countries. Since the Age of Reason this process continued to accelerate
up into our time, culminating in the age of science and technology, which started about two hundred
years ago with Newtonian physics. Science and technology together with free market ideas led to
increased wealth, economic freedom, and liberty for more people than ever, women included. They
have become the decisive factors of power in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The rape and exploitation of countries, which still went on during this time, was not a new
factor in history, the looting, the rape of women and children, their subjugation into slavery, the
killing of able bodied men, had always been standard procedure, since the Egyptian pharaohs, the
Trojan wars and earlier. The priced booty of any war was, until very recent times, the gold and the
women of the defeated enemy.
The new conquest is a conquest of freedom and rationality: science, technology, mathematics.
Ch. 1 Pg. 27
1.2.1 THE POWER OF 'REASON' AS RATIONALITY
It is clear today that any society which wishes to partake in the financial wealth and political
freedom associated with this movement of rationalization must for better or for worse integrate
rational methods into its political, social, and economic structure. This integration is not possible
without radical changes in the ways people perceive themselves and their place in the world.
Furthermore, a rational approach to problems will increase the demand for freedom on an individual
and global level, because rationality and dogma are fundamentally exclusive modes of operation.
Rationality is a universal power independent of tribe or race, though it was brought to the center of
human consciousness by the pre-Socratic Greeks as logos in its form as logic. (The original idea of
Logos encompasses all of thinking, creative, generative, and mechanical. Thus, the modern meaning
of logic does not correspond to the idea of Logos) Rational thinking can free the mind of dogma and
particular rules of operation. When guided by intelligence, its drive and goal is freedom, universality,
and consistency. Belief is then on the defense, rational persuasion is on the offense, so to speak.
Nevertheless, rationality has by no means established an unchangeable situation. It is conceivable that
people prefer dogmatism and superstition. Under most circumstances, the only reason why the
majority of people would be willing to embrace new ideas is the promise that they could benefit
personally on an economic or social level.
Science and technology are the most important aspects of the rationalization process. The
exact reasons of this development are by no means well understood, and being an outcome of the
totality of human thinking and acting, will always be open for dispute. Let me outline what I think
may have led to this.
The invention of the alphabet and of a written counting method together with the written
fixation of rules of conduct and business must have played a predominant role in this revolution.
Once these rules were fixed, only reason was necessary to apply them or to contest them. These
objectively usable written rules were transferable to any society or country, which led to the
modification of said rules but also to the modification of societies. Trade and commerce, or rather
the forces of doing successful business, helped to open up language barriers, custom barriers, and so
on. The centers of trade and business have changed throughout the centuries. They were concentrated
for hundreds and thousands of years in the middle East: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia. They traded
with India, China, and the Mediterranean world. In the fifteenth and sixteenth century of our
Common Era (C.E.) the centers of trade shifted to Western and Northern Europe and from there to
the United States. Since the second world war the economic centralization in one country or another
has slowly given way to a globalization. Helped by ever more powerful, cheaper, and faster financial
transactions among all parts of the globe, trade and the production of goods do not have to be
controlled through on-site measures any more. Worldwide production lines can be controlled by
people located anywhere on the globe where there are efficient means of communication such as
telephone lines or satellite links. The Internet is in the process of bringing people and peoples
together like never before in an uncontrolled fashion.
We hear in the daily newscasts about other countries, their cultures, religions, and problems,
and we begin to realize that local economies have become dependent in many respects on what is
happening in other countries and continents. Information about any events flash across the computer
screens linked to the Internet instantaneously. The whole world is as close to us today as was our
county, state, or country just one hundred years ago to our ancestors. We know more today about the
history of other cultures and civilizations than at any other point of time. We have available studies
of the myths, religions, sciences, arts, social structures, of practically all cultures that have ever
45
) Conventions: Key notions which have an uncommon meaning will be in this italics typeface, whenever the difference
is of crucial importance. Notions and expressions which I want to emphasize will be typed in boldface. I f both
characteristics apply I will use boldface and italics. I put words between 'apostrophes' when I refer to their common
usage which I consider to be wrong or misleading. Words in a foreign language are put between quotation marks
and/or italicized. "Direct quotations appear between quotation marks.
To facilitate the approach to this book an extensive index and a collection of the basic definitions and Sanskrit terms are
provided at the end of the book.
Ch. 1 Pg. 28
existed, we can learn from each other and about each other to a degree never dreamed possible just
a few decades ago.
One side-effect of this process is and has been the intermingling of human values in the
various systems of traditionally separate societies. This has led to a weakening of those systems,
which were mostly based on tradition and convention. The word system as used here stands for
patterns of thinking, sensing, and acting. It includes forms of government, traditional racial and
religious concepts or prejudices, feelings of nationalist or tribalist superiority and identity, habits and
conventions as they rule the collective subconscious of a group of people. Their unquestioned status
has been shattered in this confrontation of value systems and world views. The individual today has
more opportunities than ever to liberate himself or herself from this yoke of unquestionable and hence
irrational psychological forces. The strongest force behind this liberation, which brings with it the
decay of tradition-based value systems, has been the process of rationalization itself. It has given
every single human being the possibility and the power to effectively put thinking according to
convention in question.
As a matter of fact, it is ironic that rationalization has become so strong a force that it shows
tendencies of developing into an unquestioned world view itself - thus becoming irrational - and is
as such about to endanger its own beneficial effects. The dominating economic and scientific
successes of the West have also contributed to the weakening of its own cultural and spiritual
traditions, as well as of those in Asian countries and societies. Traditional values have to deal with
the constant and disrespectful challenges by rationalistic thinkers who often attack those values.
In the sciences and in the economies at large, rationalization on the basis of numbers and
accurate calculations with money - those two most abstract things of a reality - has led to
unprecedented success, and inadvertently numbers, money, and rationality have become absolute
things
45
. This absoluteness of things implies an absoluteness of the value of these things and is as
such also irrational.
The results of rationalization, including the increasing demystification of the world, our
knowledge of other religions, the discovery of a sub-certain and uncertain reality through quantum
physics, the decoding of the genome etc, demand from the religious and creative consciousness of
a human being that it abandon its irrational beliefs in any absolute knowledge in a reality and that
it reconsider its concepts and ideas of rationality and reality.
Friedrich Nietzsche intuited this fact and described it in his famous and provocative words
of "God is dead," which I interpret to mean:
Our knowledgeof God, of an absolute idea, has been revealed as illusion. The unquestioned
foundation of much of Western thought, namely the authority of a personal God and above all our
only relationship to him possible only through an exclusive church has become shaky and suspect.
Nietzsche himself talked about "Gtzendmmerung" the "Twilight Of The Idols," the "Waste
Land of the modern soul." The old myths are at their end because they have been corrupted and lost
their relationship to truth.
46
) Nietzsche was deeply spiritual, not at all nihilistic.
Ch. 1 Pg. 29
This shocking discovery may lead to nihilism
46
, to more rigid indoctrination, but maybe also
to a new awareness and openness to the creations of the human mind and to the process of creation
itself. Not the Gods are on their way out, but the Idols, their images and superstitions, and the
beneficiaries thereof. The old questions of philosophers and religious thinkers must be asked
anew but cannot any longer be answered with the traditional certainty, rooted in very localized
realities. Ideas of Maya as mentioned before will guide us in our questioning of old fashioned
rationalistic certainty, stupid irrationality ("I believe because it is absurd" or "Repent and
believe the Gospels"), and all-pervasive religious dogmatism.
The unquestioned foundations of Oriental and Occidental thought and tradition are under
siege by the successes of science and rationality, but also, and probably even more so, by the
unprecedented flow of information among all cultures and societies.
I try to show philosophically that the old certainty, which is still the most powerful
psychological drive of habits, traditions, and religious beliefs may have been adequate in former
realities; who is to judge, and by what criteria? In those times certainty was not reducible to numbers
and logic, and rational thinking may not have been advanced or widespread enough to consciously
question itself and give a rational account of that questioning. (Accounts and proofs in rationality and
mathematics were not systematically available yet, much remained to be discovered.) That certainty
is not adequate anymore. It must be clarified and supplemented in such ways as to make it into
only one ordering principle among others, valid only in a relative sense under well definable
circumstances within a reality. Above all, its absolute status must be abandoned.
All this implies that in some important respects reality, certainty, and human thinking,
including our spirituality, are functions of one another. We must therefore find a true clarity
regarding the following issues:
! What is certainty, and how certain is it? Is it justified and wise to demand certainty
in all aspects of human thinking?
! Has certainty a universal meaning?
! How can we approach meaning, ethical values, ideas, responsibility, if the demand for
certainty is misleading?
! What is reality?
! What is truth?
! What are the roles, if any, of mythologies and religions. What can we learn from other
mythologies and religions?
! What is spirituality?
As all of these questions are deeply interdependent we are forced to explore them all to some
limited extent. However, I shall attempt to show that various modes of thinking are associated with
these issues, and that the exploration of that thinking will give us a natural access to the questions
involved. Therefore, the focus of this book is thinking in its various modes, its possibilities, and its
relationship with sensing and acting, activities which together form a reality, and through which truth
and freedom can manifest themselves.
47
) Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher and politician, who lived around 544-483 B.C.E. in Ephesos (Greek Asia Minor,
today W Turkey.)
48
) Pythagoras, 580-500 B.C.E. on the island of Samos, E Greece in the Aegean off W coast of Turkey; philosopher,
mathematician, and astronomer.
49
) We owe the notion of 'philosopher' as a 'lover' (philos) of 'truth' (sophia) to Pythagoras who refused to call himself
a sophos' or wise-man, saying that such a notion would be too presumptuous.
50
) This thinking is the 'Maya' or illusion of Hindu mythology and her power, a female creative, concealing, and
destroying energy.
51
) See also the discussion on "being" (Sein, SAT) in chapter 4.
Ch. 1 Pg. 30
1.2.2 CONDENSED OVERVIEW OF THE BASIC IDEAS
Let me describe in the form of a very condensed overview, and at the risk of its being difficult
to understand, the general direction of my thinking. I explore the question: "How does thinking,
the mind, create the objects of thought and then forget that it has created them, treating them
as though they were independent entities"?
1.2.2.1 THE IDEA OF MOVEMENT
A fundamental idea and starting point of this study is that the underlying reality of all is an
unspecified energy, a movement of matter or rather its associated quantum fields, and maybe spirit,
all of which need yet to be defined either from within an accepted set of logical symbols or through
metaphors and myths which reach beyond the rational horizon.
Let us start with Heraclitus
47
statement that: "What I s, is movement" or with Pythagoras
48
:
"All things change, but they are one. The one wax takes many molds."
The essence of things is their changing nature, not the fixed appearance which is only relative
and temporary. As to human thinking, which creates reality, it is a movement whose content is even
more ephemeral than the movement of things. In physics we know that there is no absolute
reference point anywhere, neither with respect to constant motion nor accelerated motion.
Actually, this principle is one of the major symmetry principles which demands a certain
invariant form from all fundamental laws of physics (those are the laws of quantum field
theory.)
Heraclitus, Pythagoras
49
, and the Buddha have expressed this idea of fundamental movement
in one way or another two and a half thousand years ago (not the laws of physics !).
I want to emphasize that I don't refer to movement in the usual sense of the word as being the
movement of "something" in a time-space reference system. I consider movement to be in itself the
source of that "something" as well as the source of time and space. Underneath the wax and the
changing things there is a movement of What I s, before time and space. I might also say that
movement is energy, a potential to act, to sense, to think, to become. An integral part of that unfolded
movement is thinking, which, as human thinking, is the creative link between What I s and our mental
representation of What I s.
50
This What I s unfolds and enfolds quantum fields, matter, time,
space, and thinking. Our thinking refers to various stages of such unfoldment as actuality, reality,
truth. By choosing the idea of movement as a starting point for this investigation I want to emphasize
that the topic of this whole investigation - being
51
- is not a static thing which could be looked at and
examined objectively at will. Movement, as the essence of change, cannot be brought to a
standstill, and therefore, in some sense we cannot under-stand it. We can move along with it in
a spiritual dance, it being our thinking in its deepest sense, and learn about movement while moving
in a sort of meditation, the voyage and the goal being one. The ancient Vedas called this: "Tat Tvam
Asi," "this is you," (Chandogya Upanishad) the essence of being is you. They balanced this
affirmative statement with the simultaneous negation of all knowledge about the essence of What I s:
52
) Vedanta "the end of the Vedas" can be regarded as the culmination of the Vedas. A main proponent was Shankara
who lived around 800 C.E. (time of Charlemagne). The basic idea was the oneness of All in Atman (the soul') and
Brahman (the 'Absolute').
53
) Shankara formulated a similar idea in the Advaita, which means, "without a second. Shankara: 788-820 C.E. one
of India's greatest saints and philosophers. His name means "he who brings blessings" and is also an epithet for Shiva.
When Shankara was eight years old he renounced the world and began to wander through India. He was at once a
philosopher, poet, scholar, saint, mystic, and reformer. He was the main representative of Advaita-Vedanta and the
renewer of Hinduism after that tradition had been replaced for a time by Buddhism (which in turn had been wiped out
by the Islamic conquest). Hindu philosophy became increasingly a world-renouncing, cold, and ascetic doctrine, which
rejected the life-affirming ideas of the Vedas and Upanishads. It was this Vedic embrace of sensuality with spirituality
which found in Hindu and Buddhist Tantra its best and enriched expression.
Ch. 1 Pg. 31
"Neti, Neti" (Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad); it is neither this nor that. Still, some of the Vedas embrace
a degree of duality between matter (prakriti) and mind or spiritual energy (purusha). This duality was
overcome in the later philosophy called Advaita-Vedanta founded by the great Indian mystic and
philosopher Shankara
52
. He described the entire observable cosmos as maya, an illusion superimposed
upon true being by Man's deceitful senses and thinking process.
However, even in Vedanta philosophy a duality crept in when the metaphor of 'neti, neti'
became the essence of a life rejecting, intellectual, abstract, and ascetic doctrine. It maintained that
it had overcome the ideas of the life affirming Vedas, which were still much closer to the sensual-
spiritual Maya-Shakti.
It is in the Tantras that the idea of Oneness became truly encompassing. Thus, one could say
that Tantra Buddhism is the combination of the Vedas, Buddhism, and Advaita-Vedanta, preserving
many of the original ideas of Shakti-Shiva-Maya, but moving them to higher levels of manifest
insight. As I see it, Tantra Buddhism (at its essence, not its organizational practice!) represents
the most advanced form of the insight into the Oneness of Oneness-Nothingness.
I am not talking here, of course, about the practices of any of these religions in their organized
form. In my view any such organization involves and creates the corruption of the underlying ideas
which is again an unavoidable effect of the omnipresent power of illusion, maya, inherent in any form
of thought and reality. What remains as positive option is the Dance With Maya, an individual,
existential affirmation of life and death in the awareness of an all-pervading non-certainty.
Thus, from the first ideas of Maya-Shakti of 3000 B.C.E. to the Vedas (1500 B.C.E.),
Buddhism and Taoism (500 B.C.E.), Vedanta (700 C.E.) and Tantra (800 C.E.) we have a dynamic
and continuous unfolding of human spirituality in Asia which is unparalleled anywhere else in the
world. All of these ideas are still alive in one mostly hidden form or another, not only in Asia, but
practically everywhere. They have even resurfaced in modern physics.
With this historical interlude in mind let us go back to slowly introduce the basic ideas. We
were discussing movement.
The movement of What I s, is a holo-movement. It has the basic characteristics of a
holographic image, i.e. any part of this movement contains the whole movement, though in a non-
certain mode. This corresponds to the mystic perception that God is in everything and in everyone,
is everything and is everyone.
53

But again, one should not be caught in this new trap of the imagination which tries to tell us
surreptitiously what the Self is, just like our imagination tells us what or who God is. One needs to
go further and look through any imagery as a product of human thought and consciousness, always
limited by its innate duality or maya. The fundamental idea of God or the human essence, any
essence, is unknowable. Whatever we think it is, it is not.
54
) vajra, in Tibetan Buddhism
Ch. 1 Pg. 32
1.2.2.2 HOLOMORPHISM
Our description of human consciousness is itself a holo-morphism, a 'mapping' of the whole
of our uncertain thinking processes, onto submovements of our consciousness. This consciousness
preserves characteristics of the whole super-movement. It is different in many aspects, because it has
an observable form, but preserves the main characteristics of being capable of moving mechanically,
generatively, and creatively. Saying that every part contains the whole is the expression of similar
static relationships. The content changes, but the relationships and interactive or correlating
movements among the different forms of the content retain a fundamental similarity, which I call
holomorphism.
This reflects the generally accepted conviction among scientists that there is only one set of
dynamic laws governing all aspects of nature. The laws which govern the intrinsic thought processes
of the brain and their underlying biochemical changes are the same as those which create the
thermonuclear reactions in the billions (10
22
, to be a bit more exact

) of suns in the universe. Just like
the forces of gravity affect any aspect of matter or energy, so do these laws affect every aspect of the
actuality of What I s. There are no separate laws for a spiritual' world in contrast to a
'material' world. There is only one'What I s.' The ultimate order which underlies the phenomenal
universe, or infinitely many universes, will never be known. But my point is that this unknowable
order, which I call Oneness-Nothingness, gives rise to all the thinkable and observable laws of the
universe.
The movements of our mind and the movements which the mind finds in nature are
similar. The movements of What I s create the movements of matter, of the mind, and of
actuality, and of reality. It is in the human mind that these movements can become conscious
of themselves and are representative of all movements.
The human being and its consciousness is the first holomorphism in terms of a rational
accounting of genesis, the creation of the universe; God makes Man in his/her image. To
understand this as meaning that God looks like a man or a woman, is a naive mis-interpretation,
which regards an appearance as the essence of a movement. Neither the appearance of a man or a
woman, or of the God or Goddess is of fundamental importance. The essence of either is not in the
appearance but in their non-certain dynamics, which is not accessible to any mechanical kind
of human thinking or sensing. To repeat: the holomorphism refers to movements and
relationships, not to fixed content or appearance.
Our own comprehension of ourselves and the universe is another such holomorphism. I.e.,
an inferior image serves as symbol, metaphor, and cipher for a higher idea, which is beyond the realm
of rational thinking. The meditating mind is capable of doing this intelligently through myths and
metaphysical speculation. This meditation can have meaning if the meditating mind is of the same
quality of what it is meditating on, and as long as the meditating mind does not remain in any of its
modes of operation, either exclusively or for too long a time. But alas, this is easier said than done.
Whenever we look too closely, impudently, the fluid intelligent perception of life itself turns into
stone under the stare of the Mother Goddess Medusa. Then, ideas and myths become rigid thoughts
and deadly religious doctrines. The ultimate truth cannot be touched by mechanical thinking. For
such thinking it is like a diamond
54
; just like no tool can scratch a diamond so can no thought do
justice to the ultimate truth or being. In the Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad this has been expressed as
"Neti, Neti."
It is neither this nor that, nor is it not-this or not-that. But every human being (any
sentient being) is, what he or she can never properly think without uncertainty.
55
) See e.g. the books of Rhie and Thurman: Wisdom and Compassion, The Sacred Art Of Tibet and Zimmer: The
Art Of Indian Asia, ZAIA.
56
) Section 4.1.1 on page 248.
Ch. 1 Pg. 33
This premise is what I call the holomorphic structure of being, which includes the universe,
the human mind and all that is directly accessible to this mind as reality. The structure of What I s
reflects itself in the movements of the human mind. And What I s is oneness and nothingness and
neither. The whole of What I s cannot properly be thought or expressed in any form, which, by
necessity is a part or fragment. The part cannot contain the whole; it can reflect it and or be an
uncertain holomoving image of it. This non-certainty about What I s should therefore be present in
any attempt "to talk about that which calls for silence" (Wittgenstein).
It is difficult if not impossible to find adequate words to describe something which is actually
the precursor and the matrix of that thing, i.e. no-thing. This is why all notions here should be taken
in a poetic sense, as allegories and metaphors. I hope that the whole meditative description in this
book will be able to convey the music and not just the tones, so to speak. Another way of putting it
is that this whole study is a device for meditation for those people who are comfortable with rational
abstract images of science and/or people who are open to mythological approaches. The mental
images are as concrete and real and transient as the churches, and temples, or the beautiful bronze
sculptures and statues of Tibet and India
55
. I present thought-ideas; art, in the way I see it, presents
sense-ideas.
Idea, insight, all, is, movement, time, space, matter, thought - all are key notions which
will be examined anew under this basic premise of non-certain wholeness.
Implied in the idea of "What I s, is movement" is the idea that thinking is movement as well.
Furthermore, What I s cannot be fundamentally separated. Therefore, I consider thinking and What
I s to be one movement. I do not restrict the notion of thinking to human thinking alone. Later on, in
chapter 4, I will define the notion of a generalized thinking
56
to include the thinking of creation,
which, metaphorically speaking, is the 'thinking of the Gods.'
Locality and movement are dialectical and complementary notions. Therefore, to ensure
the existence of one, the other must become uncertain.
1.2.2.3 THE BASIC TRIADIC MOVEMENT
At first, the content of such an idea of "What I s, is movement" must appear to be quite
empty, as though it meant nothing in the conventional sense. Whenever our rational thinking has
difficulty to comprehend statements of non-rational thinking, it tends to treat them as though they
were nothing, implying that they are non-sensical, irrational, meaningless, and irrelevant. The
characterization as 'nothing' is inadvertently almost a correct description of what I actually mean. But
I will show that this perception of 'no-thing-ness' is the product of an energy which is behind the
demand for certainty in all of our rational thinking. This demand for certainty, though appearing to
be a safe and sound approach to the world, can be fundamentally misplaced and mis-applied. It can
be outright destructive for the mind.
"I f it means nothing, it is nothing," and vice versa, if it is nothing, it means nothing is a
common logical device which helps thinking to bring order into itself and into the world. In this basic
order thought throws out what has no tangible meaning. Thought discards it and separates it from
itself, because uncertain content cannot add to its solidity, security, or certainty. The tacit assumption
of this conventional thinking is that what has meaning amplifies the power and value of thinking.
Certain meaning will be added to itself, and increase its whole order, its wholeness and oneness. But,
in pursuing the idea of one-ness we arrive at the apparently irreconcilable opposite of nothingness.
Ch. 1 Pg. 34
Figure 9
Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri Black
Bronze, 9"
Rational thinking wants to be certain of itself. It does not understand that this will lead to the demand
for absolute certainty in everything it touches, and will therefore result in deception and illusion.
Rational thinking wants oneness for its security but ends up with uncertain nothingness, which tempts
it into nihilism. Horrified by nihilism the mind then takes refuge in irrational belief systems, (Blaise
Pascal comes to mind). Thus, rational thinking is threatened from both sides.
Ideas of Nothingness and oneness
are creations of the non-certain
contemplative and intelligent mind. If
rational thinking usurps the energy that
comes from those ideas it oversteps its
boundaries and enters dangerous
territory. Nothingness, as the drive for
certainty is as important a foundation
for our thinking as is oneness, which is
behind the demand for order.
Both are borderline experiences
of the meditative mind in self-reflection,
which can only come to peace with itself
when it has found the harmonious
movement between them. But
nothingness and oneness, the basic
structure of What I s, must also go
together in the mind's creation of the
world as reality. The mind needs an
orderly certainty, i.e. a dynamic order
with a relative certainty, open to change.
Wherever these ideas are being used in
isolation from each other and in isolation
of the intelligent non-certain movements
of thinking, they lead to deceptive and
destructive results.The mind's own
n o t h i n g n e s s - o n e n e s s i s a
holomorphism of What I s. And the
mind should attempt in its creation of
realities to establish a structure which
is orderly and yet free.
Let me dwell for a moment on this mysterious dialectic nothingness-oneness. The two
absolute opposites are one. They are unconditioned and the source of any conditioning. This logic
defying mystery of the "one who becomes two and the two who are one" has occupied human kind
as far as we have records dating back to mythical times. It ranges from the abstract nothingness-
oneness idea, (What I s is Sunyata, in Buddhism) to the idea of the sacred struggle between God and
Satan. It involves questions between meaning and no-meaning, goodness and evil, value and no-
value, and so on.
This abstract mystery of the mind has been translated into images of art, poetry, and ritual
since the beginning of civilization and earlier. Most striking by their beauty, power, and daring
57
) The word 'upanishad' implies a teaching which a teacher passes on to a student who sits (shad) close (upa) to him or
her. Thus, this is quite a personal and this sense secret instruction.
58
) see Campbell, CPM page 82.
59
) It is interesting to note that it is man who desires - and is in need of - the oneness with the Supreme Self, who thus
is female. This is again consistent with the mythical view of the mother Goddess as the active creator, even though the
Vedas reflect the Aryan male dominated view of the universe.
60
) See Shakti and Shakta, WSS page 146 ff.
Ch. 1 Pg. 35
artistry are expressions in oriental myths and religions, from the lingam-yoni rites of the Indus valley
3000 B.C.E., to the Shiva-Shakti images in South India, to the Yab-Yum figures in Tibet.
The mysterious non-duality has been seen by some of the world's mystics, and has been
explored in philosophies of both the Orient and Occident. It has given rise to dialectic thinking, from
the passionate thinkers of Aryan tribes of old, according to Heinrich Zimmer, to the grandiose
intellectual works of Nagarjuna, Shankara, Heraclitus, Friedrich Hegel, and others. In the Brhadan-
anyaka Upanishad
57
(800 B.C.E.), to cite just one example, we read about the mystic experience of
oneness with that, which cannot be expressed in words, in terms of the most basic human experience:
"Just as a man, when in the embrace of a beloved wife, knows
nothing within or without so does this being, when embraced by
the Supreme Self (Atman), know nothing within or without."
Brhadan-anyaka Upanishad 4.3.21
58, 59

The author of this Upanishad talks about the mystic oneness in which all knowledge
dissipates. All that should be said about this is the reference to this oneness-nothingness, and
whatever is said about this is metaphor and cipher, tantalizing images of illusion. Some of these are
more truthful than most if they help to dispel the illusion and reveal the oneness-nothingness.
The idea of the Supreme Self (Brahman or Atman), alluded to in this Upanishad, actually puts
somewhat more emphasis on the oneness aspect of the dialectic pair oneness-nothingness, whereas
the Buddhist idea of Sunyata (Nothingness as emphasized by the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna),
or Sunya-sunya (Nothingness which is not Nothingness) emphasizes the nothingness aspect.
Brahman is seen as being itself beyond mind and speech, that from which the universe is born,
by which it is maintained and into which it is dissolved. In Taoist philosophy nothingness
corresponds to the idea of Wu. Tao is the underlying oneness which manifests itself as the
dialectically opposed principles of Yin and Yang, which corresponds to Shiva and Shakti
60
,
Oneness and Nothingness, Zero and One.
It is interesting to realize how little these old insights have actually found their way into the
consciousness of most people in the course of almost three thousand years.
In the Orient this mystery of power - "becoming something out of nothing," or of "opposites
being one and influencing each other" - was often represented in most striking images meant to
appeal directly, existentially, to the powerful forces between life and death and beyond.
Nothingness and oneness are not merely ideas of the mind, reaching far beyond the mind of
the individual human being, but are the source of its energy, its movement. The demand for universal
order and absolute certainty is an outward expression of the inner irreconcilable creative energies
of the mind. The absence of such order (oneness) and certainty (security) leads to the feeling of fear,
the power which suppresses love. And the order breaks down when the meditative mind awakens to
its consciousness and forgets about its source. Being conscious means for the forgetful self that the
oneness has been irrevocably violated by the creation of the other. Because of the existence of the
other, there is no more absolute certainty or security, therefore there is the notion of fear and the
escape into the belief of the gods outside, separate from oneself. The powerful truth of this property
of our mind is revealed in ancient myths. In the Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad, for example, we read:
61
) See Joseph Campbell, Creative Mythology, CCM, page 631.
62
) See Schelling, SFM I, page 180.
Ch. 1 Pg. 36
In the beginning, the universe was nothing but the Self in the form of
Man. It looked around and saw that there was nothing but itself,
whereupon its first thought was, "It is I!"; whence the concept I
arose...
Then he was afraid. (That is why anyone alone is afraid.) But he
considered: "Since there is no one here but myself, what is there to
fear?" Whereupon the fear departed. (For what should have been
feared? It is only to a second that fear refers.)
However, he still lacked delight (therefore we lack delight when
alone) and desired a second. He was exactly as large as a man and a
woman embracing. This Self then divided itself in two parts; and with
that, there was a master and a mistress...
Anyone understanding this becomes, truly, himself a creator in this
creation...
Whoever knows "I am Brahman!" becomes this All, and not even
the gods can prevent his becoming thus, for he becomes their very
Self. But whoever worships another divinity than his Self,
supposing "He is one, I am another," knows not. He is like a
sacrificial beast for the gods. And as many animals would be useful to
a man, so is even one such person useful to the gods. But if even one
such animal is taken away, it is not pleasant. What then, if many? It is
not pleasing to the gods, therefore, that people should know this.
61
Yajnavalkhya, the speaker in this creation myth, struggled with the idea of the one and the
nothing, and the unfolding of the one mind into subject and object. And he knew that his insight was
contrary to conventional dogma.
"In the beginning there was Nothing but the Self (Atman or Brahman) in the form of man."
There was this Self and nothing else, therefore this Self was One. But as something is only with
something else, the One was also Nothing.
Two and a half thousand years later, the German philosopher Schelling should ask his
audience in the lecture hall of the university of Berlin:
"Do you realize, that the I , in as much as it appears in consciousness,
is not anymore a pure and absolute I ; do you realize that for this
absolute I there cannot be an object anywhere at all; and that much
less it could ever be object itself?"
62
63
) Hegel, HPG, page 521.
64
) Martin Heidegger and Wolfgang Schadewaldt.
Ch. 1 Pg. 37
Hegel, Schellings contemporary philosophical adversary, wrote in his "Phenomenology of
Mind"
63
:
"The Self is the Absolute Essence."
This is the same old ancient and eternal, almost incomprehensible insight.
Yajnavalkhya of the Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad (800 B.C.E.) could have asked Schelling's
question or uttered Hegel's phrase. Shankara the Indian philosopher (around 800 C.E.) said it.
However, it must be noted here that neither Hegel nor Schelling had apparently any inkling of the
destructive danger of the I and ego, which the Indian philosophers make the center of their
philosophy of liberation and freedom. On the contrary, it appears that both philosophers were
extremely self-centered and almost ego-maniacal people.
With the concept of 'I ' the concept of separation and of fear arose as well. Once he (the
hypothetical person who contemplates his thinking process) realized again that this division in his
consciousness, which had created the concept of I , did still not involve any other but himself, he
developed desire, for another, and thus became the creator of the world as thought, in pairs of
dialectic opposites. The notions of the self, of separation, of subject-object, of fear, and of desire
arose, and indeed arise, simultaneously. Desire wants the other, wants to own it, now and forever.
Fear is the desire to keep it, to be certain of ones ownership, now and in eternity. The foundation
for knowledge, ignorance, certainty, etc. are being laid in this moment of self-realization. It is the
self-contradicting now and forever, which creates the confusion.
The ambivalence of nothingness and oneness, contained in this mythical truth, highlights the
dialectic nature of thinking itself and of anything it expresses, i.e. the world and reality. Whenever
we talk or think about What I s, the object of our thinking will follow the nature of our dialectic
thinking. No matter how we try to express a truth, it will never be the truth, but, at best, a form of a
dialectic energy which mirrors itself. Attempts to arrive at a final logical truth lead to rigid systems
of thought and belief, maybe best represented in the dualistic world of Zoroaster, and Judeo-Christian
traditions. But the philosophies of Schelling and Hegel also became rather dogmatic. The mind
creates a world of duality through consciousness. Duality is the price for consciousness, and, in
its attempt to secure its world, consciousness becomes oblivious to the fact that itself has created
this (dualistic image of a) world. This forgetfulness is at the heart of human ignorance, illusion,
and sorrow. It creates the whole content of thought, the self, the ego, and its worlds conditioned
and framed by the ego's emotions, paralyzed into words and language, set and dead. But this
same forgetfulness is also at the heart of all human knowledge.
1.2.3 TRUTH AND REALITY, ALETHEIA AND MAYA
In Greek the word 'aletheia,' roughly translated as truth, is regarded as an energy which
reveals itself for a moment and in this revelation withdraws again. What remains after it has
withdrawn is reality; its truth must be discovered from moment to moment.
6464
Friedrich Nietzsche
had a mystical revelation in Sils Maria his Italian mountain retreat, and the outcome of this insight
was "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." In this master piece of poetry, philosophy, and mythology Nietzsche
expressed and communicated his insight in the most ingenious form. But still, to get a true glimpse
of Nietzsche's insight, reading or studying his work is not enough. There is no cogent pedagogical
method to convey any insight. The insight of the original mind must in one way or another resonate
in the mind of the reader and be recreated. This is only possible when the listening mind is in a free
65
) Schadewaldt, WS, page 364.
66
) Heraclitus, Fragment 17 in WS, page 366.
Ch. 1 Pg. 38
and creative mode itself. Freedom can only speak to freedom, creativity to creativity. Truth
cannot be expressed in cogent form, only in metaphors and ciphers. The supposedly correct
expression of truth in cogent form leads to deception, dogmatism, and superstition.
This view of reality and truth is close to the Indian view of Maya, which represents the
various layers of deception are contained in the human concepts of What I s as reality. The analogy
goes further: Heraclitus states that those who are awakened share one cosmos, whereas those
who are asleep have many separate and different ones
65
. This is Buddhism! The word Buddha
means the 'awakened one.' No doctrine, no thought, including the dharma of the Buddha, can reveal
the truth of What I s. It can only point to what it is or is not. As long as we are caught in the web of
Maya, we live in our idiosyncratic world of separate selves and egos bound by time, space, and
innumerable conditioning constraints. (For example: I am a brown female of the nineteenth century
living in Bangkok, and my mind is completely conditioned by being brown, female, living in a certain
time in a certain environment.) Heraclitus, the Buddha, Plato, and a few others call on human beings
anywhere and through all times to wake up, to look through the veil of Maya, and to see the common
Logos, Dharma, Truth, the common time-and- space-transcending truth shared by all waking human
consciousness.
But Heraclitus states also:
"But most people do not have any insight into this truth, no
matter how many times they encounter it, and even when they
have learnt it, they do not comprehend it, but they merely imagine
it.
66
Similar things are said about Buddha's teachings. It is told that nobody could understand them.
So he created simple rules while giving the true teachings to the king of the snakes. It was almost one
thousand years later that Nagarjuna, under the instruction by the snakes king ('Naga' means snake,
'arjuna' is a kind of a tree, under which he was instructed) was able to interpret the Buddha's teaching
in what then became Mahayana Buddhism whose most important branches -for our purpose here- are
Tibetan and Tantra Buddhism, also known as Vajrayana.
When thinking cannot 'under-stand' itself through static logic it tries to super-stand' itself
through superstitious belief systems. In both cases it wants security and certainty; it gets both at the
prize of paralyzing itself.
Before I elaborate on these issues further let me summarize and anticipate very briefly:
Thinking is a movement,
it is one,
it is nothing, in the sense of no-thing.
It comprehends oneness and nothingness as and through a dialectical and complementary
movement of which it generally is unaware.
It cannot, through an exclusively logical process, understand itself with certainty, neither its
oneness in concepts of absolute all-encompassing ideas about religion, God, etc., nor its nothingness
in concepts of absolute negation of all. But what is this thinking which can comprehend, create, and
see its own limitations?
67
) The deepest comprehension of physics would say that this movement is a dynamic non-observable web of quantum
fields out of which time, space, matter, universes, the mind, unfold and into which they enfold.
68
) 'Persona': the mask through which one speaks (per = through, sonare = to sound); original meaning in Greek theater.
Ch. 1 Pg. 39
Thinking is a holomorphism of being, i.e. the movement of thinking is a material
67
movement and is similar to the movement which created the universe with the human
consciousness in it. If one accepts this premise it makes sense to speculate beyond what thinking can
directly analyze. This speculation is not knowledge but rather a metaphysical art-form which should
therefore remain non-certain in form and content. This is often achieved by using circular or even
contradictory statements. The Kena Upanishad, for example, expresses some of these mysterious
ideas:
"Who sees that 'It' is incomprehensible comprehends
Who understands 'It,' does not.
To those who know 'It,' 'It' is unknown;
They comprehend who know nothing."
Kena Upanishad, 2.3
Any expression of thinking contains similar elements of oneness and nothingness - of order
and of certainty - enfolded in itself. The degree to which they are present in a thought and the degree
to which they are transparent to the thinker in a given context determines the quality of the reality
defined by such thinking. Numbers and scientific formulas are at one end of this quality spectrum,
while ideas, existential-transcendental trust, or faith in Oneness-Nothingness are at the other.
By Oneness-Nothingness, I do not mean to say that there is one God, like for example the
Jewish or Christian god, but that there is ONE UNKNOWN AND UNKNOWABLE GOD-
GODDESS, One with our mind and One with What I s. All particular gods of the various religions
are images, illusions of Maya, whether they be called one supreme God or not. The ONE GOD
as moving idea tends to get lost in the moment we give attributes to 'it' in terms of 'he' or she,' and
in the moment we claim to know what this God/dess wants from us and with us. The idea of Sunyata,
as Nothingness, or the idea of Oneness, are impossible to grasp by the mechanical thinking process
because they are intelligent ideas. When we use the word God, we imagine wrongly that we know
more than when we say Nothingness. This is illusion. The abstractness of the word Nothingness saves
us (to some degree) from this particular illusion. But illusion comes with any thought which tries to
reach transcendence.
The mind as self and ego does not want to liberate itself from fixed images, because it has
found the only certainty of its existence in these images. The ego is the mask (persona)
68
of the self,
created and maintained as an absolute concept of individuality and personality. This personal mask
creates belief systems about its eternal existence in heaven or in hell. Apparently, the ego finds it
preferable to believe that it will suffer in hell for eternity, rather than face the possibility that it is a
construct of thinking. The meaning of human existence is uncertain and belongs to the realm of
unknowable Nothingness-Oneness, the source of freedom and intelligence, and of maya. This is why
freedom and intelligence in the deeper sense are so difficult to embrace.
(I do not use the term 'ego' in the Freudian sense, but in the sense of a confused self. The
confusion lies in the fact that the self believes in the absolute separation between itself and the
things of the world. In the ego's attempt to give itself certain meaning, it separates itself from its
source which is intelligence. The idea that the world consists of separate parts and can be analyzed
69
) See Heinrich Zimmer, ZMS, ZAIA and Joseph Campbell, COM.
Ch. 1 Pg. 40
and understood accordingly is very useful in some areas like classical physics. There are however
areas where this premise is wrong and can have disastrous consequences.)
If we pursue a meaningful thought far enough we will encounter its dialectic complements,
which form an insurmountable barrier for static logical thinking. All we have to do to confront this
wall is to keep asking for the ultimate constituents and causal connections of a thought with
questions of "What is it and why is it?" It is such questioning which let Nagarjuna to proclaim that
"all is nothing," because every thing exists only in relation to its opposite. That which has no
opposites is Nothingness or Oneness. It cannot be separated or analyzed. Even here we can see that
the terminology, our thinking process, requires opposites. The closest we can come through conscious
thinking is to comprehend that these opposites are dialectic in nature, representing the dynamic
qualities of thinking.
Let me clarify at this point what I mean by the dialectic of thinking. Thinking, in its
conscious form, cannot comprehend itself because it cannot be object and subject of itself
simultaneously. When consciousness attempts to get hold of truth or absolute meaning, it is called
upon by its own energy to keep moving between irreconcilable opposites. This particular act of
thinking, in which consciousness is created, creates the world for this consciousness as well. It is the
step from the absolute unknowable oneness to the world of duality, the limited reality vision of the
two eyes. Mythologically this corresponds evidently to the creation of the world, extremely well
expressed in this context in Indian philosophies.
In the mythologies of the Hindus, more specifically in Shaktism, as well as in Vajrayana
Buddhism the dialectic tension between opposites is an integral part. Vishnu, the absolute God-
energy, creates Shakti-Shiva out of itself/himself, Shakti is the female principle of creation,
destruction, and concealment (as Maya). Shiva is the male energy of preservation, compassion, but
also of destruction. Shakti and her Maya is discretely indispensable in all these actions.
69
Shiva
appears sometimes as male energy, sometimes as female energy, and sometimes as both. (In another
variation it is Brahma who creates, assisted by Vishnu and Shiva. See section 1.4.4.5. on page 70.)
The dialectic draws and guides thinking towards a self-deceptive attempt to find one absolute
order which would be absolutely certain. In a system of absolute and certain order, freedom would
however not be possible. On its way to freedom the human mind needs to understand the dialectic
dynamics between opposites. The gods can evidently not help Man in this quest for freedom, any
help or directive would deny and destroy their most magnificent creation, the human being with the
potential to be like God, free, oneness and nothingness. They are caught in the same dilemma.
Richard Wagner's "Ring der Nibelungen" dramatizes this dialectic problem: The Divine gift
to Man is freedom; by giving it to Man, the Gods forego their exclusive directing power over them.
From now on Man is free, potentially like Gods, but the freedom does not come automatically,
because Man is free to be free or unfree. So free even to kill the Gods, or freedom. Nietzsche calls
this dilemma the 'origin of tragedy.' It is the unfolding of a moment in reality, in which we are free
to choose between two equally evil alternatives, each one leading inevitably to the destruction of
a sacred form in this reality.
Ultimate order would be Oneness, and ultimate certainty would be empty thought. They are
dialectic opposites and are impossible to achieve in a reality except through self deception. Thinking,
having its source in both ideas, is forever moving to reach and realize this impossible idea, of which
even the impossibility itself cannot be proven. It is easy to misunderstand any dialectic as a
70
) Thus, my concept of dialectic differs radically from that of Hegel. In my view, the intelligence and freedom of
the mind precludes any such determination. I understand 'dialectic' as an intelligent non-certain movement of
the mind.
71
) See Jaspers, JG, page 179.
Ch. 1 Pg. 41
mechanical determinable movement whose general direction of unfoldment could be known, as e.g.
Hegel thinks in his later works.
70
Let me quote Karl Jaspers on the dialectic movement of thinking:
"Wherever there occurs a contradiction for (intelligent, open, free)
thought it wants to be resolved. Thinking cannot bear it. Unless this
contradiction can be resolved in terms of one correct and one incorrect
side of the issue at hand, thought enters into a movement which is
called dialectic.
71
" (Parentheses by FW.)
One of the problems of human consciousness in general is that it assumes implicitly or
explicitly that it does or can know and understand completely, absolutely, and finally. It disregards
the dynamic and creative nature of thinking, acting, and being, the movement which I call intelligent
dialectic, thus putting in effect an artificial end to this dialectic movement. Normal consciousness
does not see the gift and challenge of thinking as an infinite and inexhaustible appeal to understand
completely (complete in a relative sense) wherever possible, and to radically and dialectically change
when it encounters the limits of its ability to understand. This is a mental inertia and inattention,
sustained by fear and tradition, which leads to a general confusion of thinking, the manifestations of
which we can find in all aspects of a society and of the world.
The hope for and drive towards certain and secure knowledge, i.e. rationalization and
scientification of all aspects of human reality is a potentially infinite process. I see the energy behind
this force as a fundamental drive and demand in the sense of a movement of intelligent thinking
towards an objective and universal understanding. But this positive drive turns easily into stagnation
and the quicksand of confusion, if thought does not comprehend and understand its own categories
of operation as being a certainty which is meaningful only within subcertain and uncertain
limits.
This confusion deceives thought into attempting an absolute certainty of understanding,
feeling, and acting with all the means available to it, including irrational ones. The rational dynamic
process becomes a stagnant automatization and technocratization which confuses mechanicalness
with security and success. Confusion blindly pursues and constructs an irrational certainty through
an unquestionable belief system, be it scientific or religious. This process, initiated through
thinking itself threatens its own essence, its freedom and oneness, and intelligence. Human
consciousness spends most of its time and energy in building illusions of certainty, the ego or self
(the ego being loosely defined as the irrational, confused aspect of the self) with all its ramifications,
i.e. psychological and psychosomatic defensive mechanisms. These mechanisms ultimately destroy
what they are erected to protect. If the whole consciousness of a human being has been dedicated
to building this mechanism, its destruction results in fear, pain, suffering and utter confusion of the
person underneath it. From confusion to confusion. Such a consciousness does not want to "see" and
learn, no matter how painful the current situation. And yet, even illusion can bring about positive
change, or can sustain a consciousness in an otherwise unbearable situation.
72
) Sanskrit per se is the language which was artificially established with fixed grammatical rules in the first millennium
B.C.E. The Vedic language on which Sanskrit was based is much older, going back to the times of the Aryan invasion
of India.
Ch. 1 Pg. 42
It is interesting to note that thinking, knowing, and seeing are not as different as common
language suggests. Sometimes the relationship between seeing and thinking is preserved in the usage
of a word. For example, the word veda as in the Vedic Hymns of ancient India (1,500 B.C.E.),
means knowledge in Sanskrit. The root meaning is vid (compare the Latin video which means
I see), which means "to perceive, to know, to regard, to name, to find out, to acquire, to grant," all
attributes of thinking.
72
In many European languages, for example, English, we say I see when
we want to express that we have understood something. We furthermore talk about insight and
vision, terms which are much more uncertain and unspecifiable than I know.
Yet we use exactly such metaphoric non-certain terms when we want to indicate that we are
dealing with some truly important and meaningful ideas. We make a clear distinction between
knowledge and wisdom.
End of introduction.
73
) Max Weber; MWP page 189.
74
) Geist: The German word 'Geist' (rhymes with the English word heist) has many meanings which together form an
important whole; It means intelligence but also ghost or spirit. A person who has 'Geist' has wisdom; more than the
equivalent French word 'esprit' indicates. This wisdom displayed has a magical, dynamic, quality, which is as invisible
as a ghost. Geistlich means spiritual'; geistvoll means 'full of wisdom and intelligence.'
75
) Gilgamesh epos. The mythology of Astarte, the mother Goddess, goes back to the Sumerian Ishtar (Inanna), mother,
wife, and lover of the Sumerian dying God Tammuz (Dumusi). See J. Campbell, CCM, p. 628.
Ch. 1 Pg. 43
1.3 PROBLEMS OF THE MODERN WORLD
1.3.1 CONFUSION OF THOUGHTS
I have succumbed to the temptation of characterizing the true believers in a modern highly
industrialized and rationalized world by quoting from Max Weber's essay The Protestant Ethic.
73
"Specialists without intelligence (Geist
74
), sensualists without heart:
This Nothing imagines that it has climbed to a level of humanity
(Menschentums) never before attained."

This statement is only too accurate also today. Many of our specialists in education and
private industry do not know or have even an inkling of what heights of humanity other cultures
have reached in the past eight thousand years. The fact that those cultures lie in the past and are
usually not even exemplary civilizations today is reason enough for those specialists to not even
waste time glancing at their achievements. This is very unfortunate, for, when it comes to richness
and depth of insight into the human psyche, a good number of ancient cultures have or had achieved
levels of great humanity. The highest achievements of cultures like Egypt, Sumer
75
, Greece, India,
China, Tibet in human activities which give meaning to our existence like art, religion, and
philosophy seem to have been of a level not reached anywhere in the modern world.
As I see it, we live in a time of transition again, at a crossroads, which may lead us either into
a new period of worldwide communication, increased freedom and oneness, with cultural and
economic exchanges never seen before in the history of mankind, or into new chaos. One has to
recognize that during the last decades of the twentieth century computer and biological technologies
have made unprecedented advances which have the potential to radically change human societies
to the better.
Today's spiritual problems may appear to be more prevalent than in times when knowledge
and technology were not as wide spread, when there was more of a sense of the mystery of nature,
of the Gods, and the stars, prevailing in people. A danger may be the technological illusions, the
automatic and habitual beliefs that there can and will be technological and mechanical solutions for
all human problems, be they religious, spiritual, ethical, or psychological. The accompanying belief
is that spirituality and ethics are merely convenient deceptions of antiquated minds, reacting to a
sense of fear. Still, superstition and ignorance have dominated societies of all types. It is quite
unusual that the last fifty years of the twentieth century have advanced the cause of freedom,
tolerance, and prosperity as much as they have.
The promise for a new beginning in relationship among the cultures and civilizations of the
earth is also real. The collapse of the communist systems in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
may be viewed as prime examples of how a mechanical and even totalitarian system cannot maintain
the status quo or change the system in a mechanically predictable manner. It may be a symbol of our
76
) It was not understood in the West either. The communist system essentially self-destructed.
Ch. 1 Pg. 44
times that one oppressive political system after another collapses under the onslaught of seemingly
unstoppable and uncontrollable information that is flowing through the airwaves. The floodgates of
correct information, beginning with knowledge of effective economic free enterprise systems are
opening. Once modern communication systems, from fax machines to computers, have been
installed at the universities and business head quarters, they will soon also be in the homes of
average people. Then, no one will be able to control knowledge anymore, and knowledge is power.
I trust that this development will bring increased openness and freedom everywhere. The greatest
obstacle to freedom and happiness is ignorance, and stupidity, some of which can be dispelled
through access and use of correct information. The propaganda machines of the power brokers
anywhere will automatically become less effective.
But even though accurate knowledge may be accessible anywhere (together with propaganda
and misinformation, of course) it is by no means necessary and inevitable that intelligent behavior
will become more widespread. The ego and superstition are very hard to get rid of. They are almost
immune to proper knowledge. Arent most organized religions based on the most irrational
superstitions and absurdities?
1.3.1.1 DIALECTIC FORCES AT WORK
The early Hegel was right: intelligent dialectic, the mutually influencing and driving of
uncertain forces of societies and individuals, does not stop.
Ironically enough, the dialectic materialism of the communist doctrine contains in its
theoretical structure some of Hegel's thoughts on dialectic. The mechanical dialectic of the
communist regimes, which their pundits thought they understood and could control, has proven
through the actuality of its self-destruction that it was neither mechanical, nor understood, nor
controllable.
76

The true dialectic of life and society is dynamic and no thought or theory can grasp it
or force it in a predictable direction for long. Whether one tries to explain the behavior of
societies through chaos theory, or through the subtle quantum-mechanical interactions of the human
mind, the strange fact remains that people and societies behave in non-predictable ways. This fact
is strange only for those people who believe that any behavior can be explained mechanically,
predictably, causally.
The last three thousand years of human development is an indication to me that intelligent
forces of freedom in individuals and cultures are gaining ground. People seem to be freeing
themselves increasingly from hierarchical and oligarchic secular and religious ruling structures. A
long way remains to go.
It seems to me that the foundation of any modern society should rest on the ideas of
individual freedom, a trust in the potential sacredness of the human being and all sentient
beings, and the recognition that every man and woman has a natural right to pursue
happiness. These or similar ideas are required and designed to keep the raw and chaotic forces of
the human animal under control. In modern Western societies they have been developed as self-
controlling contracts among people. Individual freedom, the sacredness of the individual, the
organization of a society, and the pursuit of happiness of the individual, are ideas which are in
conflict with each other. This conflict is the dialectic energy which keeps a society moving. Human
thinking tries to shape the world, including the ideas of Man and societies, according to itself and
according to the notions it can develop and stabilize in fixed thoughts. At first, these different
movements of thinking are hidden from itself. Only with a sufficiently complex repertoire of
77
) I use the expression 'empty chaos' as opposed to 'full, or meaningful chaos,' which is What Is.
Ch. 1 Pg. 45
thoughts and thinking skills, can thinking reflect itself on itself and understand some of its own
movements and tricks. In doing so it creates the individual and societies but finds itself in a natural
conflict with the 'diabolic' forces, the forces that throw everything across our little rooms of security.
Thinking, despite its constant attempts, cannot control the forces of nature, nor understand them to
a point where it could save itself from them. Human sensing and acting seem to be closer to the
forces of nature than thinking, even though, evidently, thinking is part of them. We just tend to
overlook that.
Thinking likes to think that it can reign supreme with perfect control over the senses and
nature. It does not like to remind itself of its transient and ephemeral nature and wants stability,
certainty, forever now.
1.3.1.2 IDEAS OF FREEDOM
Ideas are intelligent perceptions and expressions of the mind. Ideas like freedom and
individuality are intelligent as long as they remain dynamic and open to change, thus undermining
the deceptive hope for certainty. I will show that they then correspond naturally to the quality of
human thinking.
But we must bear in mind that an idea can take many different forms in a reality and yet be
a true expression of that same idea. The development of ideas in realities and even as realities can
lead to a deeper understanding and comprehension of the original idea. For an idea to be expressed,
a person or a group of people must assume the risk and responsibility for it. In a sense, one might
say that by trying out a particular form of an idea in actuality one may be led to a new reality.
However, when all there is left of such an idea is its form, then that form endangers the original idea
and the reality resulting from it. This is the situation which I refer to as being empty chaos
77
, and
such chaos is a constant threat to all societies of the world. For example, Greece after the occupation
by Rome, as well as the Roman or Chinese Empires fell into such chaos from the height of their
power.
The idea of freedom is at the root of the foundation of the United States. From its outset this
idea threatened the conventional society because its practice and implementation did not exclude
in it the freedom of colored people or of women. These groups had to wait for two hundred years
before their freedom was included in the laws of this country.
Too many people take freedom in our society for granted, as something given by the state
as a right that could never be taken away. Evidently, human freedom is not a right but an illusive
challenge, hope, and guiding light for our personal actions in a confusing reality. We haven't even
begun to understand what it might mean, and already we claim it as a right, thus almost guaranteeing
its demise and destruction.
Unfortunately the people of the United States, which is the most important formal bastion
of these threatened ideas, appear to be at the forefront of taking freedom for granted.
Whatever is happening in this powerful country is bound to have consequences for the rest
of the world. Leaving the positive aspects aside for the moment I feel it important that we bring
some dangerous symptoms to light and that we go beyond the symptoms to the possible causes of
this elusive 'chaos.'
As I see our society today, the great ideas of freedom, tolerance, and compassion seem to be
losing their meaning. They are of course always threatened, because they depend on free minds. The
values of freedom are ultimately intangible and are hard to define and therefore to implement and
to defend.
Ch. 1 Pg. 46
In too many minds, democratic freedom has been turned into the 'idea' of license for all and
rights without responsibility. The rule of ever-worsening mediocrity has become the standard
endorsed by professionals, professors, specialists, and technocrats alike. We determine standards
of behavior through the use of statistical curves, and declare the law of averages to be the measuring
stick for democratic freedom. The push towards relentless consumption at any cost has become the
driving force, almost exclusively, of our society. To consume means to be successful, and success
means above everything else money, with which one can presumably provide for one's complete
physical security, and for the satisfaction of all one's needs and desires.
One need only watch the most popular television shows to see this neurotic celebration of
money and success with its outright spiritual' and 'religious' overtones. The stories of the futile lives
of many of our stars and so-called heroes are sold to the masses as role models of achievement.
Since modern consciousness is shaped mostly by television, a look at the list of our highest rated TV
shows reveals what the vast majority of people are dreaming of, hoping and striving for. Many
Christian television programs, which were supposedly generated as an alternative to the sinful and
evil programs of secular television, have actually made things worse. Having linked money with
salvation, and spirituality with narrow-minded superstition, often called fundamentalism, these
Christian programs are preying on the ignorance and gullibility of the masses and have become
extremely successful financial enterprises. They preach intolerance and call it compassion.
Religious organizations become corrupt because spirituality exercised as a profession in a
reality is intrinsically dishonest and a conscious and/or sub-conscious deception. They destroy the
power of the non-certain myth by elevating it to certain and rationalized but irreal reality.
The issues which I offer for our consideration are not unique to our times, only their
particular manifestations are different. The actual problem is an intrinsic difficulty which the human
mind experiences in its non-conscious creation of a reality, torn between the demands of physical
comfort - after issues of basic survival have been taken care of - and the desperate longing for
meaning.
1.3.2 BENEATH THE SURFACE OF MEDIOCRITY
The more subtle creations of the human mind, those which give meaning to our lives as
communal beings in relationship with each other and with nature around us, the true products of art,
music, literature, philosophy, and religion have been replaced by products whose conditioned values
are predominantly or exclusively determined by dollars. Hired specialists - behaviorists, sociologists,
and psychologists who have categorized society by means of statistical curves, from which they read
normal, to mean mediocre behavioral characteristics - tell the public what it should consume, buy,
follow, listen to, and so on. The laws of statistics have come to mean that the majority (i.e. the
mediocrity) is right. They smother difference, dissent, diversity, and true originality. Experts are,
of course, a necessary part of any rationalized society, but they become dangerous to that society
if they extend their 'expertise' into the non-rational areas of humanness and human relationship.
When this occurs, those members of the specialist community who have strong egos begin to impose
their unquestioned values on the weaker members of society under the pretense of their superior
knowledge.
Scientific research, for example, is increasingly falling into the hands of powerful special
interest groups whose interest is neither science nor truth but money and dominance. Scientific
thinking as the rational playful investigation into a limited domain of problems with defined or
definable assumptions and methods, is itself threatened by a lack of comprehension of these
Ch. 1 Pg. 47
scientific processes. Too many people have been unwilling for too long a time to think critically and
objectively.
All this may be the result of unleashed and uncontrollable forces of rationalization, in
addition to a global population explosion. There would seem to be a trend in our modern societies
to pacify and control the masses through talk of equality and majority rule. At the same time, the
idea is all but forgotten that the individual human being is essentially much more than a point
on a statistical curve or a number in an opinion poll.
Men and women in such societies are in danger of losing touch with their mass-transcending
individuality, their spiritual nature, and their common sense. Most countries seem to be sold on an
exclusive technological and mechanical thinking which gives in to the absolute power of numbers
and number-logic, accepting these as the only and absolute all-encompassing problem solvers.
Science itself as well as the positive result of the rationalization process, is threatened by such an
uncritical and unthinking attitude. It seems that we are in danger of losing our spiritual wisdom
along with our rational reality and our scientific, technological achievements.
In order to find a way out of this dilemma and to discover our true source of humanness, we
must not use the methods of science and logic alone to the exclusion of those faculties of our mind
which have made science and logic possible in the first place. I do not propose as a solution that
we return to the 'old time values.' It is evident that they have not only been unable to prevent
this present dilemma but that they have actually been a part of its cause.
I propose that we occasionally stop for a moment in this race toward technocratization and
that we open up our mechanical, habitual, and unreflective way of thinking, laboring, and living, to
what we as human beings are. Only then do we have a chance to find out what it is for which we
truly want to live.
1.3.2.1 KNOWLEDGE WITH INTELLIGENCE
To do this we must employ the full capacities and possibilities of human thinking, sensing,
and acting, never losing sight of logic, but never using logic in an attempt to prove what is beyond
its realm. We must uncover the art of intelligent philosophical thinking together with the roots of
science and of true creation. We must get in touch with the art of art. We must begin to learn again
and to educate ourselves. To open ourselves not merely to knowledge but, above all, to
intelligence, which is at the inception of thought as its creator. We need knowledge with
intelligence and intelligence with knowledge.
When we see how reality is being confused with truth, knowledge with intelligence, and
average human behavior with human essence, we are looking at manifestations of a fundamental,
extremely complex and illusive problem.
1.3.2.2 EDUCATIONAL FRUSTRATION
A good illustration of conventional thinking that confuses knowledge with intelligence can
be readily found in our educational system. Let me mention a simple and typical example:
In the field of education a generally observable decline in statistical test-scores, measuring
the so-called basic skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic, is treated as though it were merely
a mechanical problem of management, money, and organization. It often seems that school systems
exist primarily for the benefit of its employees rather than for that of the students.
The fact is that many students are bored, repelled, or frightened by the mechanical and
despiritualizing nature of our educational institutions, which nurture and then test measurable
78
) Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight Of The Idols, 1888; Gtzendmmerung.
Ch. 1 Pg. 48
knowledge at the expense of the creative individual mind. Our students correctly see no meaning
in such an education.
Even knowledge has been watered down in most schools, and teachers hardly ever dare to
challenge the intellectual skills of students, lest they might discriminate against disadvantaged
students. When some schools introduce methods of 'creative learning' the result is often that the
students don't learn anything at all.
We allow so-called objective test-score averages to determine the lives of human beings who
have become mere dots on a statistical "normal curve," which is rather a curve of mechanicalness.
By mechanical measures, that is by more organization, more supervision, and more statistical
testing, the school districts want to forcefully produce better test scores. This will probably work to
some degree, but it will not truly improve learning and education. Our public schools have become
baby sitting institutions. Increasingly also our colleges and universities are becoming factories
producing specialists who have invested a lot of money in their 'education' with the promise that they
will be able to make even more money.
Money has become the name of the game, and our God. The foundation of all true learning
seems to get weaker. This may be the result of our mass education system. After all, Friedrich
Nietzsche complained and polemicized against the decline of the German educational system more
than one hundred years ago. The dangerous conditions of a sterilized and despiritualizing teaching
industry, where mediocrity is the norm, have in the meanwhile conquered the world.
78
Apart from learning about facts and figures, language, mathematics, science and history, we
should challenge the mind to think critically, openly, and carefully. Of all the animals we are the
only ones who have a history, and even a history of learning. Learning is an integral part of thinking
and should be seen as a fascinating and fundamentally human experience, which can bring us into
contact with the ideas and actions of exemplary human beings, people who give 'measure' and
reference to the rest of us through their achievements and tragedies, which are essentially our own
as well.
Learning should bring us in contact with ourselves: with who we have been as a human race,
with who we could be, and with what our responsibility is for one other, for the whole earth, for
nature, and even for the universe. Thus, learning is about listening, communicating, and acting; but
above all it is about human beings who can and ought to be free, and who are therefore responsible.
For this we need the best teachers in all areas of human endeavors from mathematics to philosophy.
We should understand that all intelligent learning, including the learning of science and
mathematics, is based and grounded on the ideas of truth, freedom, and communication.
Teachers ought to communicate this to their students together with any subject matter of a particular
field. Only then can learning occur to the benefit and improvement of ourselves, of our society, and
of mankind. It is these ideas about which we must learn. This kind of education should be our
overriding goal and commitment.
Learning ought to address all levels of human thinking, sensing, and acting, carried
forward by a relentless will - guided by honesty, and the love of truth. A studying that over-
emphasizes formal topics and formal learning ignores creative aspects and excludes the joy of
learning. This joy arises when we accomplish something genuine and non-mechanical; that is when
we truly learn. To make ourselves and our students aware of this creative aspect of the human
mind we need metaphors and ciphers in addition to facts and figures. No mechanical
knowledge can ever communicate the fundamental ideas of humanness. The attempt to do so
ignores that we can only hint at human creativity and essence through a poetic cipher language. The
Ch. 1 Pg. 49
pretense to know human freedom and essence atrophies the human mind and society. Metaphor and
cipher, which are expressions of an uncertain groping and hoping for a truth to reveal itself, are at
the basis of all great humanness. Without this any society is bound to decline to a state of mere
physical survival. Forms of art from the earliest cave and temple paintings, sculptures, myths,
inspired writings, tragedies, poems, music, dance, and so on, express the human soul and its
relationship to reality and transcendence. The meaning of these metaphoric expressions cannot
be acquired in a formal way but requires the resonance between the creating mind manifest
in the work of art and the mind contemplating the intelligible form. Mathematics and science
are different from the art forms.
Even though they are also creative and metaphoric in their foundations, they lend themselves
to an exclusively mechanical presentation, memorization, and application. They can effectively be
used mechanically with great success, fortunately. It is unfortunately this mechanical (and for
students particularly boring) aspect with which most teachers confront their students almost
exclusively, and it is this aspect of 'learning' which tends to dominate society. Every true teacher,
politician, priest, in short, any real educator, thinks and lives with ideas of humanness. Their acting,
thinking, and teaching ought to convey, above all else, ideas of freedom and truth, i.e spiritual
values, which are our heritage and hope, and which are the 'truest' expression of human thinking.
1.4 A CLASSIFICATION OF THINKING
I begin this investigation by introducing some of the key notions which are of central
importance for the rest of this book. The way in which they will be used differs from their use in
everyday language, and will become clearer as the work proceeds. The uncommon meaning of such
notions is not an artificial construct but a necessary outcome of the thinking processes under
investigation. When some new ideas manifest themselves in a reality, a fresh emphasis and meaning
must be attributed to conventional words, which then reveal the dynamic origin and the thinking
behind them. Initially, many words will be definable in vague or flexible ways only. In spite of their
uncertain character - and actually because of it - they fulfill a crucial function: They are meant to
open up different ways of thinking for the reader. (See also section3.2.4 on page 181, also 145, 202)
The main topic of this book is thinking in its various movements, its uncertain idealities,
and its certain realities. We shall see the main issue and challenge of thinking as being the
following: Only if thinking understands itself, comprehends itself, and has
insight into itself can it move freely and at the same time limit
itself through itself. In this process, thinking creates a part of
itself as object and another part as subject without being
deceived by the products of its own creation.
This is the kind of thinking which we have to learn to employ in communication with each
other, thereby transforming and opening up our normal thinking which is full of confusion and self-
deception. While I explore thinking first, we must always bear in mind that thinking, sensing, and
acting belong together. I will explore this connection in chapter 4. The ultimate challenge in our
exploration of reality and truth lies exactly in a comprehension of this connection.

1.4.1 MOVEMENT AS FUNDAMENTAL IDEA
At this point it should be clear that the previously mentioned basic ideas of "thinking is one
movement" or "What I s, is movement" make indirect reference to this open thinking and are only
correct if they include in their meaning that thinker, thinking, and thought are parts of a whole.
79
) See also Friedrich von Weizckers article "Parmenides and Quantum Theory" in WUN page 399.
80
) Mathematically, quantum physics is accurate, logical, causal, and certain. It is the interpretation and translation into
reality and actuality which has sub-certain elements. Some characteristics cannot be measured individually anymore,
others cannot be measured simultaneously. Some, like the quantum potential in David Bohms approach, cannot be
measured at all, as far as is known at this point in time (1998).
Ch. 1 Pg. 50
Thinker, the thinking process, and thought are all part of one movement. Thus, when our
consciousness perceives a separation between these components of a whole process, this perception
is the result of a thinking, which has suspended its oneness. Once consciousness has been
established it functions in a mode of separation, that governs all of its reality. For the mind to see
the underlying oneness it is necessary that this separation, i.e. consciousness, be suspended in its
turn. This explains why we can say that all movement is fundamentally one movement, even though
to consciousness the world appears in terms of separation and division. I want to highlight these
ideas in a more specific and reality-oriented principle in the following form:
The concept of absolute separation is a deception and self-deception of mechanical thought.
This deception is real and necessary for us to create an order in which we can operate through our
senses and thoughts. Truth is beneath this order of separation.
Just like there is no absolute separation between thinker and the object of thought, there is
also no absolute separation between objects in the universe. In other words: space is not an inactive
absolute background on top of which the world unfolds. This is merely a secondary reality. Space-
time unfolds from a deeper level of Oneness. Once space and time have become real, interactions
between its objects can be observed in terms of measurable forces and energy changes. But if we
want to look very close, at a quantum level we find that the actual connection between subject and
object occurs in a space of non-certainty between. I.e. the meeting 'point' between subject and
object is not a point but a general non-measurable and uncertain interference of Betweenness.
Observable space with its objects in the physical world corresponds very much to human
consciousness with its content in the case of the human mind.
We cannot meaningfully think about an entity, idea, or object which would be absolutely
separate from us. The prime example of something' separate from us is illustrated by the notion of
transcendence or God. Either transcendence is absolutely separate from us, in which case the word
transcendence is without meaning, or there is some kind of a correlation between transcendence and
our thinking. Then the word and idea of transcendence do have meaning. Only in this latter case can
we talk about transcendence meaningfully. The same is true with the idea of Oneness or
Nothingness, which cannot be thought without introducing separation
79
. Any thought introduces
implicitly the separation between thinker and thought. While creativethinking is one with the idea,
mechancial thinking is separate from it. It has the illusion of separation built into it, so to
speak, and therefore does not recognize it.
The analogy with physics can be found in the fact that we cannot physically see the moon
without there being a connection between the moon and our body. In this case the connection is
established by light-waves, which travel in an apparently empty separating space. The mechanical
description of the universe and reality is very successful and correct, to a point, but ultimately it is
embedded in the sub-certain description of quantum-theory
80
and the non certain ciphers of the
contemplating human mind. In addition, moon, earth, and all other objects and energies interact
with each other through gravitational fields (gravitons).

81
) The names of Bohm and Aharonov should be added because they have made such profound contributions to the
comprehension of this idea. Thus it is the EPRBA experiment. See D. Bohm, BQT, Quantum Theory; A. Einstein, B.
Podolsky, N. Rosen, Phys. Rev. 47, 777 (1935). D. Bohm and Y. Aharonov, Phys. Rev. 108, 1070 (1957).
82
) See section 6.4.4.3 QUANTUM THEORY OF SPACE, TI ME, AND MATTER on page 458 ff.
Ch. 1 Pg. 51
1.4.1.1 LOCALITY AND CREATIVE SPACE
An important example of the underlying oneness of the universe which seems to indicate
non-locality is given by the Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen (EPRBA) experiment
81
. Einstein used this
thought experiment to argue against the completeness of quantum theory, which he regarded as
being fundamentally flawed, particularly in the interpretation given by Niels Bohr. It is an example
in which there seems to be an immediate instant action from one spin state of an electron to the spin
state of a positron across any distance. We assume that this positron and electron originated from
the disintegration of a single photon. Even though the two particles may move apart from each other
for a great distance they remain connected, or correlated, in the sense that the change of spin of one
particle results in an immediate and instantaneous change of the spin of the other particle. This
appears to be an action at a distanceacross a separating space. It may be that the quality of space
which is relevant in this situation is not the normal separating mechanical space but rather a
'creative' kind of space which is non-mechanical and non-separating and therefore also non-causal.
In the particular example of the EPRBA experiment this space is the quantum-mechanical spin-
space, which may be more than just a mathematical construct. The two particles occupy the same
spin-space (and have the same wave function), even though the physical normal three-dimensional
space separates them.
82
In the language of physics, the fact that apparently separate entities influence each other
without there being measurable connections (particles or fields) is called non-locality. (Einstein
called this spooky!) This non-locality is part of the sub-certain actuality, already contained in the
Heisenberg uncertainty relations and the whole rest of the quantum physical description. This fact
constitutes Bells theorem. Thus, quantum theory suggests an underlying wholeness of the universe.
The puzzle of non-locality should lead us to the questioning of our space-time-matter-thought
concepts as separate, independent parameters of a reality.
The assumption of a non-certain Nothingness-Oneness quality of time-thought-matter- space
(TTMS) helps us to comprehend the mysterious behavior of particles in quantum-theory and in many
other instances as well. Thus I regard space, time, and thought, as quantities of reality. The
underlying actuality, and What I s, can be thought of as undivided wholeness. This idea of wholeness
or oneness implies that the concepts of locality and non-locality are meaningful and puzzling in a
reality context only. Oneness cannot be thought or expressed properly. All things in reality are in
a space-time framework, in which separation, distance, movement etc. are definable. The underlying
Oneness is not something in such space and time. It is the creator of space and time. Therefore, we
are forced again to regard the Oneness as a No-thingness or Nothingness.
Neither locality nor non-locality should be looked at in their certain definitions of
mechanical reality. Both concepts of classical connectedness through a continuous space or absolute
separation must be modified through a thinking of a Nothingness-Oneness-Betweenness (NOB),
which is a thinking of uncertainty. Part of this thinking works effectively in terms of complementary
pairs. Thus locality and non-locality can be looked at together as complementary notions,
similar to reality and actuality. Even if we create a mathematical formalism which establishes a
time independent connection between objects across spatial separation, thus providing a seemingly
causal mathematical connection, causality in the conventional sense remains uncertain as long as
the elements performing the connection cannot be measured simultaneously.
83
) See Generalized SAT section 4.1.1 page 248.
Ch. 1 Pg. 52
This example from a highly advanced branch of physics illustrates a simple idea, namely
that there is a fundamental oneness of all movements of being. The intrinsic difficulty lies in our
thinking which, in the final analysis, cannot grasp the idea of a fundamental oneness with logical
conclusiveness. After all, if it is one, then how can it have different constituents? I propose to allow
the thinking of oneness to have as important a role in our worldview as the thinking of separation.
In all this we must not forget that thinking Oneness means also thinking Nothingness
simultaneously, and vice versa. The uncertainty in this thinking is fundamental and cannot be
overcome.
What I suggest here is that thought, objects, and separation are unfoldments of one
movement through which relatively fixed and separate realities can be created. Their oneness is
fundamental and ideal; their separation is part of appearance and reality, but both oneness and
separation are different aspects of What I s. Thus, the separation between transcendence and human
consciousness is part of appearance. It is thought-space which separates thoughts. But while
thought-space can disappear through another act of thinking, actual space separates actual objects
in a reality.
In a quantum field theory of gravitation one finds that actual space-time needs to be thought
of as being established by gravitons or similar quantized wave-particle fields. Strangely, while these
gravitons 'are on their way' from one particle to another, neither space nor time associated with these
virtual gravitons can be measured, and are therefore not real either in the conventional sense of the
word. While these particles are on their way, they create time and space and correlate
simultaneously all forms of energy in it. According to the Big-Bang theory for the creation of the
universe, all particles and other forms of energy were contained in the moment of birth, as yet non-
manifest, as a non-specifiable non-object, no-where and at no-time. They have moved apart from
each other, unfolding the actual universe, and on top of that the real observable universe. The
real and actual universe is connected through quantum physical interactions, while the even deeper
Oneness is eternal. Ultimately all three are inseparably one. As this oneness is not in time and
space, it cannot be an object. It is therefore a no-thing-ness, a Nothingness. One can show that the
smallest observable object in the universe must be slightly larger in radius than 1.14"10
-35
meters.
(See p. 449)
All measurable phenomena occur in reality-actuality, on top of or inside or perpendicular to
this underlying Oneness-Nothingness. Just as we do not and cannot know where an electron is while
it is jumping from one energy level in an atom to another energy level, we cannot know where a
graviton is while it is connecting any two points in our universe. This similarity between the material
behavior of matter at the quantum level and the behavior of thinking at the subcertain level is no
accident. It merely illustrates that thinking itself is a material process. The converse is true also,
material processes can at some level be looked at as generalized thinking processes.
83
1.4.1.2 CREATIVE THINKING-SPACE AND MECHANICAL THOUGHT-SPACE
The connection through space between the moon and our eyes can be studied scientifically
and rationally. We can create various models of space, from the absolutely separating space in
Newtons theory to the underlying quantum-fields which unfold that space out of an unobservable
Nothingness-Oneness.
The connecting space between our thoughts can be compared to this physical space. Except,
one has to see that the space between thoughts is created by thoughts as well. Therefore, its study
is often more a study in possibilities and plausible associations, rather then the establishment of
Ch. 1 Pg. 53
cogent cause and effect sequences. Only in the areas of logical reasoning, whose content is based
on knowledge, can we follow a reproducible trace of our thoughts. On the other hand, when we are
dealing with sensations, emotions, feelings as well as with artistic, creative or spiritual ideas, the
connection between the thoughts associated with them and our conscious thinking eludes a logical
reproducible approach, and leads me to the introduction of the notion of a creative thinking-space.
Evidently, thoughts are not constantly and continuously being generated. We cannot assume that
thinking in terms of specifiable thoughts is going on in the mind all the time.
I want to call thought-space (not thinking-space) the separation between thoughts or the
separation between consciousness and thinking. It corresponds to the notion that the thinker and
the thought are separate entities. This separation is of course also created by the correlation between
consciousness and its thoughts. Such a space would have qualities which fluctuate between the
certainty of mechanical thoughts and the uncertainty of creative thinking. In mechanical thinking
the space and separation between thoughts is very certain. In creative thinking the space between
thinker and thought can all but vanish. Mechanical thought-spaceis like the certain 'space between
the numbers 0 and 1, or the space between moon and earth, presumed empty ; creative thinking-
spaceis space without discernible separation between thinker and thought.
When we dream, for example, the space which separates the dreaming consciousness from
its objects, could be regarded as such creative thinking-space. During a meditation or contemplation
this creative thinking-space plays a role.
In Tibetan Buddhism a person is asked to learn how to visualize the form of a particular
image, a Buddha figure, until consciousness can hold that image steady in the mind. Then, the
student learns how to bridge the space between the image and the mind until consciousness and
image merge into one. The encounter between consciousness and its image occurs in creative
thought-space. The observer and the observed are simultaneously separate and yet one. Neither is
real in a substantive way; both are no-thing and both are one. Thus, in this meditation, nothingness
and oneness are created by the mind, and seen simultaneously.
The creative thinking-space is the space of ideas, of ideality, just like the mechanical
thought-space is the space of fixed thoughts and forms, which ultimately constitute reality. Once the
thoughts have entered the thought-space, they follow (through consciousness) the rules of the
prevalent reality. The mechanical and even quantum-mechanical understanding of the universe and
its content depends on the possibility to define and measure space and time. At the boundary (which
is everywhere) of this space time structure, Nothingness takes over. The idea of creative space in
thinking is comparable to the idea of this 'empty' space or Nothingness. The Nothingness of the
physical universe can at that point not be distinguished from the Nothingness of the Mind. Thus, we
come again to the existential conclusion that Nothingness is true Oneness.
This creative space is not empty but contains or is the underlying energy out of which real
things can emerge creatively and freely, but also orderly. The material observable reality which we
refer to as the universe, is merely a ripple effect of this sea of unlimited energy. Human
consciousness is also just a little ripple on top of an infinite creative thinking potential.
The idea of a creative space of thinking is a speculative tool to allow rational thinking in a
non-rational domain.
In reality-space thoughts have been separated from consciousness and can be acted on
consciously by other thoughts and can be memorized. As long as thoughts have not been formed and
been separated from the observer, the creative space is active, and consciousness is not clearly
established.
We understand the world by experiencing it through a combination of thinking, sensing, and
acting under the guidance of thinking. The oneness of this movement then means that thinking,
Ch. 1 Pg. 54
sensing, and acting together are able to create, access, and experience the world. Whatever we
think and experience the world to be is partly a creation of thinking. By exploring our
experiencing we also explore thinking. Any movement of thinking will sooner or later be reflected
as content of thought, revealing its different modes of operation. We want to find out what those
differences are. For example, when thinking moves mechanically, it creates concepts of
mechanicalness as its content. When the quality of thinking is creative, it is able to project new
concepts into consciousness. It functions then as the linking movement between uncertain
intelligence and certain thought. This transient mode of our mind is what I call generative thinking.
Consequently, I distinguish between three kinds of thinking:
(1) The final product of awareness as conscious thought, (physical and psychological reality;
mechanical space and time);
(2) the intermediate process of subconscious thinking; dreaming and meditating are
examples; and
(3) an uncertain thinking of which the thinker is not and cannot be consciously aware. This
is the space of creative thinking, which is unknowable, and in whose actuality or 'being' we can only
trust.
1.4.1.3 CREATIVE THINKING-TIME-MATTER-SPACE
We talked about the creative space underlying the material universe and we talked about the
creative thinking space of a human being. Ultimately, we have to admit that there is little or no
separation between the two, if we accept that human thinking is a material process. The Oneness-
Nothingness of What I s encompasses both ideas. Thus, we can talk about an undivided holo-
movement of a creative and intelligent Thinking-Time-Matter-Space (TTMS). Any of these notions
can be defined separately in a reality, but the deeper we explore reality the more we find that these
concepts of reality become ideas of non-certainty. They become indistinguishable in the non-certain
thinking of Oneness-Nothingness-Betweenness. It is interesting to note that in modern physics,
specifically in relativistic quantum field theory, the concepts of time, space, matter, and thought
become also a non-certain Oneness-Nothingness-Betweenness. Creative thinking is one with the
eternal Oneness of the unobservable quantum-field-ether which enfolds and unfolds time-space-
matter-thinking, from the smallest graviton to whole universes, from the laws of quantum-physics
to the laws of thinking. Whatever we think it is, it is not. It is not a thing and it is not inside any
space-time-matter-thought delimitation. For a human consciousness it is also a thought, but it points
beyond any thought content and is a cipher of creative thinking. We can think it as such a cipher
of undivided, unlimited, eternal, energy and intelligence which unfolds similar forms of energy
and intelligence in and as reality, actuality, and truth. We can put our trust in this insight.
1.4.2 THREE MOVEMENTS OF THINKING
The distinction of three different movements of thinking, which can be observed through and
in thinking, is not primarily based on the product or content of that thinking but on the qualitative
differences of its movement: The movement of thinking is the relationship between the thinker
(subject) and the thought (object). It is also the uncertain internal dynamics of thinking, in
which subject and object are yet to be created. One may call this differentiation into three parts,
which remain one, the triad of consciousness. One might also say that content-free thinking is the
84
) just as physical space - including creative physical space - is what is between objects and their existence.
Ch. 1 Pg. 55
creative space which is between conscious thoughts and before them.
84
What is before thoughts and
before physical objects can be adequately labeled an unknowable no-thing-ness. This is without any
'otherness' and is therefore also a oneness, thus a nothingness-oneness. The thinking which
contemplates these ideas is between them and part of them, a betweenness.
A similar distinction of three modes of consciousness is that of the waking state, the dream
state, and the deep sleep state. In Indian philosophy these three states are represented by the letters
A-U-M which together form the sacred mantra OM. A fourth movement of thinking is contained
in this syllable which is the silence, or unknowable nothingness-oneness behind and beyond any
manifestation.
Only after thoughts and time, objects and space, have been created out of that nothingness-
oneness is there a consciousness with its objects of thought. These processes may occur
simultaneously: Thoughts, time, space, consciousness, and things in space.
It is consciousness which then feels compelled to explore its own essence, and the essence
of things, which are ultimately like reflections on its own space time perception. Consciousness
comes up with notions oscillating between no-thing-ness and oneness. Our consciousness and its
objects may therefore adequately be called a Betweenness. As there is no absolute separation, the
content of consciousness must be between the idea of its own oneness and the idea of its own no-
thing-ness. This Betweenness is the self, the self-conscious reference of thinking to itself, between
the certainty and uncertainty of its own existence.
To explore difference or separation as qualities of thinking seems to be an unavoidable first
step in the classification of thought. The goal is for the mind to truly comprehend its own nature
and the products of the mind as such Betweenness. Our consciousness vacillates between the
certainty of fixed thought and the non-certainty of self-reflection. To remain for too long on one or
the other side of the middle path fosters illusion and deception.
Depending on its dominant mode of operation, an observing consciousness may see thinker
and thought related in different ways, with different degrees of self-deception:
! As being totally separate, (e.g.: I am in complete control of my thoughts)
! as being totally one, (e.g.: I am God)
! or as being neither totally separate nor totally one. (e.g.: Who am I?)
The modes of separation correspond to degrees of certainty. The more a thinking
consciousness is separate from the content of its thinking the more this consciousness can be
certain of that content, and can imagine to be in complete control of its thinking. The more
consciousness is one with the content of its thinking the less is its demand for certainty. Certainty
(security or fear) has no meaning for a holistic consciousness. The self can see that it is the sum total
of all of its thinking. It starts to see that without thinking there is no self, there is no reality. What
is when there is no thinking is evidently no reality and no thing, both of which are products of
thought. However, this state of nothingness excludes reality, and is therefore also limited and not
holistic. The mind can move from one state to the other to some degree. It is the flexibility which
maintains the health and creativity of the mind, the middle path. The state of mind, when thinking
appears to occur without the self, is not absolutely separate from the thinking self. Otherwise, there
would be no access, no memory, no reference possible to it. We cannot abandon the modes of
operation of rational thinking, if we want to communicate.
We can classify the movements of separation between thinker and thought according to their
effect on thinking and arrive at three qualitatively different movements of thinking, the triad of
thinking :
85
) In quantum field theory, theoretical physicists make effective use of generators of physical entities, the Lorentz and
Poincare group descriptions, for example. The algebras involved are called Lie algebras. [A, B] = C; see glossary on page
516.
Ch. 1 Pg. 56
(1) Mechanical thinking is a thinking in terms of fixed rules. It preserves traditional and
habitual thinking and can be mechanically described as a movement of thought based on cause and
effect, which may be imagined or real. This thinking can be correct and certain within a limited area.
Opposites can not be thought together. This is the domain of logic. In the world of reality
mechanical thinking in its rational, mathematical, and scientific forms can help to discover the truth
(correctness) of real relationships. This correctness is the classical certain correspondence between
thought and thing.
(2) Generative thinking extends and modifies rules of thinking and thought-forms. It is a
sub-conscious, sub-certain movement between mechanical and creative thinking and displays
properties similar to those which can be found in the quantum physical description of phenomena.
Correctness in the single event (in contrast to events in the statistical aggregate) becomes necessarily
sub-certain.
(3) Creative thinking cannot be described adequately, but we can allude to it indirectly
through dialectic metaphors and ciphers. On this level, the uncertain creation of radically new rules
and thought-forms begins. The concept of correctness must be replaced by the uncertain dynamic
idea of truth. This thinking is closely related to dialectic thinking, in the sense that opposing
thoughts and ideas can be mirrored on each other (mirroring = speculating) and be seen as one and
separate simultaneously. Creative thinking is part of what I call insight and intelligence. It is
mysticism for mechanical thinking.
85

Unless human freedom and the meaningfulness of human life are part of non-mechanical
actuality these ideas cannot be saved and become superstition.
All the key notions mentioned in these short definitions serve as a means to our
investigation. In the process of this exploration they will lead to a clarification of the problematic
issues at hand and of themselves. Let us now look closer at the different kinds of thinking.
1.4.2.1 MECHANICAL THINKING
A) Western Approach
Mechanical thinking is based on fixed and certain definitions and ratios and is dominated
by the undoubted divisions between thinker and thought, between subject and object, between mind
and matter, and so forth. It is a dualistic thinking in terms of mutually exclusive opposites. If we
apply such thinking to a reality in general, it leads to the appearance and experience of absolute
divisions in that reality. This is the domain of a particular kind of knowledge, which I call certain.
Certainty requires the possibility to discern, to distinguish, and to separate definitely. However, the
thinking of certainty can be easily confused with opinions in connection with strong sensations and
emotions. In general, mechanical thinking is most often based on an unquestioned conditioning, on
habits, and on conventions.
The fundamental importance of mechanical thinking lies in the fact that it gives us the
possibility to arrive at certain and correct knowledge by means of universal methods of
rational thinking. Mechanical thinking, in conjunction with sense impressions, produces the
experience of facts with their appearance of certainty, which cannot be rationally put into doubt by
that same thinking. The 'facts' can be opposed and attacked by other mechanical thinking, based on
different sets of habits and conventions, but they cannot be seen to be relative and dependent on
fixed parameters of mechanical thinking. Whatever is accessible to such mechanical thinking will
Ch. 1 Pg. 57
be called reality. The facts of a reality can only be changed through a transformation or revolution
of thinking with a different reality in its wake. This revolution is the unpredictable result of creative
acts, in which thinking and acting merge into an uncertain whole.
The certainty of consciousness has no meaning or absolute value in itself, whereas the
uncertainty of intelligence is What I s. But without becoming real to some extent the uncertain
creativity has no significance. The problem is that we are desperately seeking absolute certain
meaning, and this despair is one of the sustaining powers of the rational self and the irrational ego.
The rational self is a product of the search for meaning, whereas the irrational ego is the result of
the desperate search for absolute meaning, which would give absolute meaning and certainty to the
self.
B) Asian-Indian Approach
On its own, this movement of reality is in Hindu terminology called Maya, also avidya
(ignorance but also active contribution to the mechanical web of conditioning). This is not wrong
thinking per se but conventional thinking which closes itself off to the transforming powers of
change as contained in the non-certain modes of thinking. The lover and husband of Maya is Shiva,
the dispeller and destroyer of illusion. The mythology of India describes the endless stories of
separation and reunion between Shiva and Maya, the endless struggle between the creation,
transformation, and destruction of illusion. Maya in its purest form is also comparable to the state
of waking consciousness, characterized by the letter A in the sacred Indian-Asian syllable AUM
or OM. (Mandukya Upanishad.)
The irrational ego is the most prevailing veil of Maya, with which she, i.e. our ignorance or
avidya, cloaks actuality. As we shall see later, there is a layer of this veil of Maya, which even our
greatest intelligence cannot lift. But we are not speaking of that Maya here, to which even the Gods
are subjected.
The challenge is therefore to think both intelligently (with uncertainty) and rationally
(with limited certainty):
We must learn to intelligently choose limited meaningful areas of thinking and to define the
means and rules by which to explore them rationally. Within these limits, certain results are
possible, but as a whole this process is non-certain. The results of a limited exploration must again
be evaluated rationally and intelligently. The actual life-experience of a human being will always
be contained between the ideas of certainty and uncertainty. As we are generally only conscious of
mechanical thought, we tend to believe that all activities of thought are activities of the intellect
alone and, as such, are mechanical. In the subsequent chapters it will become clear that such a belief
is misleading and contains serious dangers for the individual and general consciousness of man. But
we shall also show that, on the other hand, a mystification of the human mind and a rejection of
scientific methods is a murky and even more dangerous approach to man's problems as well. To
oppose scientific and rational methods as being the quintessentially bad and mechanical ways
of operation, which are responsible for all the ills of our times, must lead to a new era of
superstition and ignorance. It seems that in order to keep fundamental ideas of truth alive in
science, philosophy, and religion, but above all in human relationships and society, one must
constantly reflect on these ideas, lest one fall prey to the somnambulance of convention and make-
believe facts. One does not need to be a philosopher or scientist to be able to think about such
'deeper' ideas. Every human being who is able to enter an honest inner dialogue with him or herself
is open enough to dispel confusion and illusion. Indeed all that is required is that a person enter into
this inner dialogue. The first step is the essential step, or, the goal and the path are one and the same.
Ch. 1 Pg. 58
We must never allow the specialists: philosophers, priests, educationists, or politicians to
define meaning for us.
1.4.2.2 GENERATIVE THINKING
A) Western Approach
When we think of the non-certain and essentially unknowable area of truth and intelligence
we are using formal words and yet we want to communicate through these mechanical forms an idea
which is not at all mechanical. Herein lies hidden the difficulty of all true communication. The
meaning of truth and intelligence reveals itself only when the separation between thinker and
thought is in suspension. Meaning can therefore not be cogently captured or conveyed through
logical terms alone. Formal language, or any finite thing of any form, can only serve as a pointer by
means of which individual human beings can intuit a meaning of truth and intelligence. I conclude
from this that there must be some kind of a transition between the unknowable movement of
thinking without subject-object split and the formal thinking of a consciousness. This is the
intermediate movement which I call the generative mode of thinking. I call it a particular process
of betweenness. Generative thinking can be thought of as being the mediator between intelligent and
mechanical thinking. It is acted upon by intelligence, and, utilizing parts of mechanical thinking, it
can extend, modify, and change mechanical thinking. One might say that in this thinking the
separation of consciousness from its objects is in a state of suspension. Thus, generative thinking
comprises the area between certainty and uncertainty which means that it is sub-certain. The sub-
certain thinker of sub-certain thoughts will be referred to as sub-consciousness. As that thinking is
sub-certain, we must bear in mind that we cannot describe and study it as an object which follows
rules of causality exclusively. We cannot arrive at universal and certain conclusions about it without
violating truth.
B) Asian-Indian Approach
In Hindu terminology this mode of thinking is called dhyana, inner seeing, contemplative
or meditative thinking-seeing-sensing; dhyana is intelligent attention. It is the letter U in the syllable
AUM. Without this thinking actively participating in consciousness, the mind remains in the state
of illusion of deceptive Maya and avidya (ignorance). This thinking is the transition between
samsara (world of ignorance and suffering) and nirvana (world of wisdom and bliss); it is the
vehicle ('yana,' like in Mahayana, Hinayana, etc.) to take the mind to the other shore from where the
mind can see that all is one, that there is no shore, no vehicle, that even samsara and nirvana are both
concepts which are ultimately empty. This thinking is the energy which binds Shiva and Shakti
dialectically together and suspends that union again intelligently.
As long as thinking goes on in a living mind with a conscious self, this consciousness has
to acquaint itself with those less certain dream-like modes of thinking. The pathless land begins here.
1.4.2.3 CREATIVE THINKING
Let me quote the poet and historian Ranke Graves on creative thinking:
"Indian mystics hold that to think with perfect clarity in a
religious sense one must first eliminate all physical desire, even
the desire to continue living; but this is not at all the case with
poetic thinking, since poetry is rooted in love, and love is desire,
and desire is hope for continued existence. However, to think
with perfect clarity in a poetic sense one must first rid oneself of
86
) Robert Graves, The White Goddess, GWG, page 409.
87
) This is in contrast to generative thinking which creates out of something under the guidance of creative thinking.
88
) 'nous' in Greek; (like in noumenon which is the opposite of phenomenon ) or 'Vernunft' in German.
Ch. 1 Pg. 59
a great deal of intellectual encumbrance: political party, religious
sect, or literary school deforms the poetic sense -as it were-,
introduces something irrelevant and destructive into the magic
circle, drawn with a rowan, hazel or willow rod, within which the
poet insulates himself for the poetic act. He must achieve social
and spiritual independence at whatever cost, learn to think
mythically as well as rationally, and never be surprised at the
weirdly azological beasts which walk into the circle, they come
to be questioned, not to alarm."
86
Needless to say, that the characterization (by Robert Graves) of Indian philosophical
thinking attacks the ascetic kind, the one which is as confused as most of the similar Western
approaches. I want to show that the culture and religion around Shiva-Shakti Maya, is the
more profound attitude. According to Heinrich Zimmer this thinking is more deeply rooted in the
Indian psyche than any other thinking. The images which are omnipresent in Indian temples and
myths support this view. This is the Indian and Tibetan thinking which I use in my approach. It is
certainly dominant in Mahayana Buddhism, in Shaktism, Tantra, and Vajrayana Budhhism.
A) Western Approach
Creative thinking is even more difficult to characterize and eludes a strict definition
altogether. We can speak about it in terms of what it is not, and allude to it through metaphors like
Nirvana, nothingness, truth, divine wisdom, etc. As the name conveys, this thinking can create, by
which I mean that it can even create out of nothing.
87
When creative thinking is operating freely,
being non-exclusively together with the other modes of thinking, it is intelligence
88
in action.
Clearly, a subjective consciousness in opposition to its object thought cannot be aware of this
thinking at all. A mind that is functioning predominantly in this creative mode at a particular
moment is at that moment a world in itself and is one movement, in which thinking is being and
being is thinking; it is the mystics experience in which thinking of truth is truth, but which does not
know itself. This thinking-thinker is not in a reality and is therefore not limited by ordering
principles. This thinking occurs in creative thinking space. But without reality this thinking is
irrelevant. Where there are no differences nothing can be revealed. Thus, for such thinking to affect
reality, it must take on a form; and the thinker must come into reality.
But for a consciousness which is dominated by certainty, creative thinking appears to be not
only uncertain but even non-existent, as though it were nothing, and yet, this creative thinking is the
source for that consciousness.
What I mean by uncertainty - and this is important to understand - is not merely the opposite
of certainty but a different quality, a different space of thinking altogether. Throughout this
book I use the word non-certain to imply a thinking which is beyond all mechanicalness
(dialectically opposed to it) and which I subdivide further - as I have already indicated - into a sub-
certain (generative ) and an uncertain (creative) thinking. This creative kind of thinking cannot be
an object to conscious thought without losing its direct contact with uncertain creativity. Any
content of conscious thinking can therefore only point towards creative thinking or its essence,
which is truth. I call such pointers ciphers, ideas, and metaphors.
89
) Paul Deussen, The Philosophy Of The Upanishads, 1906, DPU.
Ch. 1 Pg. 60
Figure 10
Shiva-Nataraja, 1, Bronze 14", 20
th
Century
B) Asian-Indian Approach, OM
"The Self, beyond all words, is the syllable OM. This syllable,
though indivisible, consists of three letters A-U-M...
Whosoever knows OM, knows the Self, becomes the Self."
Mandukya Upanishad.
In Hindu terminology this thinking or non-thinking can be called nirvana, highest wisdom,
nothingness and oneness in union. In the context of the syllable OM or AUM it is characterized by
the letter M, but also by the
whole syllable AUM itself,
and the empty space
surrounding it. This means
that this thinking does not
exclude the other two states,
but embraces them as
movements. Such thinking is
not a thinking which could
be arrived at by the two other
movements, or even be
described by them in
adequate terms. For them it
appears to be illusory. But
this thinking can influence
and radically alter the more
mechani cal f or ms of
thinking. The consciousness
t hat ' advances' f r om
mechanical to creative
thinking is that all inclusive
thinking already. In other
words, the thi nki ng
unfolding from mechanical
to creative is creative, the
path and the goal are one.
As this thinking cannot be
controlled by the thinker, it
represents unconscious thinking without the thinking self. As such it is called prajna in Sanskrit.
It can be described metaphorically as the essence of the soul (atman), the soul in deep sleep,' or the
'objectless subject of consciousness.'
89
90
) See for example the figures on pages 34, 338, 358 and 500.
91
) Translated from: Wolfgang Schadewaldt, SW, page 384.
Ch. 1 Pg. 61
The oneness of seemingly polar opposites is dramatized by the Yab-Yum figures of Tibet,
the Buddha and his consort in erotic embrace
90
. The central Buddha figure sitting in Lotus position
on a Lotus throne is the Nothingness of creative thinking or nirvana consciousness, symbolized by
the Vajra, the diamond of unbreakable translucency, which he often carries in his hand or on his
headdress. Many times he carries a bell with a Vajra handle in one hand and a Vajra scepter in the
other, symbolizing again the oneness of the complementary principles of female (bell) and male
(Vajra), nothingness and oneness. The female figure sitting on the Buddhas lap encircles her lover
with her legs and embraces him. She also holds the diamond of Nothingness, often attached to a
skinning knife in her right hand. In her left hand she carries a skullcup filled with blood and brain
tissue. She represents the action of generative and mechanical thinking, the Maya of the world,
which presents itself to the waking consciousness as separate. She cuts off the ego from the self like
the skin from the flesh. Nothingness is in loving embrace with Oneness. All aspects of love are
included in Yab-Yum, from carnal to divine. We are dealing with an awareness of the correlation
of dialectically opposed principles at every level of the visual representation. The same idea is
represented in the famous Southern Indian bronze statues showing the dance of Shiva.
The dancing Shiva's facial expression shows the serene aloofness of the mind immersed in
nothingness, the incarnation of the yogi who has renounced the world. His beautiful floating long
hair, on the other hand, defies this same asceticism. So does the whole body of Shiva, dancing
ecstatically the dance of the world, accompanied by a swaying cobra, celebrating creation, action,
joy, and exhilaration. He stomps down on a dwarfish figure lying on his fat belly and representing
the repressive forces contained in both asceticism as well as in overindulgence. That little figure,
representing mankind, tries to strangle the forces of nature represented by another cobra, to no avail
of course. This diminutive figure is in terrified awe of Shiva and his dance on the razor's edge
between exhilarating life affirming action, and the unfazed meditation of Shiva's head which is one
with the whole of creation.
Both kinds of statues, the Yab-Yum statues of Tibet and the Nataraja images, show the
oneness of seemingly opposing forces, as well as the oneness between the world and paradise.
Heaven is hell, nirvana is samsara, there is no path from here to there. To see this is the invisible
path.
1.4.3 CIPHER AND SUNYATA

"THE LORD, WHOSE IS THE ORACLE OF DELPHI,
NEITHER DEMONSTRATES NOR COVERS UP, BUT
SPEAKS IN CIPHERS."
Fragment 93, Heraclitus.
91

In this introductory description the dialectic nature of thinking begins to emerge: Thinking,
as seen from the standpoint of mechanical consciousness, appears to be a movement between
the uncertain nothingness of creativity (chaos and revolution) and the certain oneness of
consciousness, absolute law and meaning. It seems elusive, if not illusory.
Seen from the sub-certain viewpoint of generative and creative thinking, it appears to be the
other way around, i.e. consciousness appears as empty nothingness (meaninglessness) and creativity
92
) In Hinduism, in particular Vaishnavism, with Vishnu at the center of worship, the action of a divine being or Avatar,
who has come to this world out of an act of free will, not out of karmic causality, is required to set a human being free.
This is similar to Christianity. In Buddhism, every human being is essentially an integral part of this freedom, and can
therefore see his maya and ignorance.
Ch. 1 Pg. 62
as full oneness (order and beauty). If thinking comprehends that both appearances and the
corresponding viewpoints are meaningful and subcertain, the absoluteness of either one has been
suspended and thinking can start to free itself of its errors and illusions. Then thinking has found the
third energy source between and beyond the mechanical dialectic of rational thought. Indian sages
as well as mystics during all times and civilizations use this sub-certain domain as their prime
reference and regard reality with all its strife and suffering as illusion. They call this reality the Maya
and mean illusion. From here comes the Buddhas statement that "All life is suffering."
From here also comes Heraclitus' insight which proclaimed:
"We must know that war is common to all, and strife is justice, and
that all things come into being according to this strife as well as
deeds and indebtedness." "All is one." (Heraclitus, fragments 80 and
58. Translation by FW.)
The Buddha and Heraclitus were both aware that their teachings would be very hard to
understand and comprehend. We can see that both viewpoints, the one with reality as true reference
and the one with the mystical experience as true reference, are simplifications, clouded by the tricks
of Maya, whose powers stretch from the mechanical to the creative domain, or our understanding
thereof. Wherever there is self-consciousness in a reality, the web of Maya is already stretched. The
Buddha did not merely describe what he saw, namely human suffering. He also saw its cause in
human ignorance which leads to the illusion of the ego and to wrong action, wrong Karma, and a
never ending wheel of cause and effect. A person has to awaken to this truth, have insight into it,
comprehend it, and understand it. (Buddha means, the awakened one.) This is the ultimate
act of freedom.
It seems to me that Heraclitus' insights are very close to the Indian, more specifically
Buddhist, ideas of karma and enlightenment.
92
Particularly so, if taken together with the inscription
at Apollos temple at Delphi, which reads GNOTHI SEAUTON, meaning "comprehend yourself;
have insight into who you are; know thyself."
1.4.3.1 CIPHER AND SUNYATA
Sometimes the etymology of a notion reveals the dialectic character of thinking. This is most
strikingly the case for the words zero and cipher which have the same root. Indeed, the very word
cipher is a cipher. It derives from the Sanskrit word sunya which means empty. The noun sunyata
came to mean the emptiness of the meditating mind. For the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna
(second to third century C.E.) this sunyata, in which "nothing is" and "I s, is nothing," is nirvana.
The word sunya found its way into the Arabic language as as-fir, which means emptiness. From this
the notion unfolded via the Latin word cifra to the English word cipher, which can mean zero,
number, non-entity, code or a message in code. The German philosopher Karl Jaspers introduced
the word into his philosophy in the sense I want to use here:
Cipher is a word, a sentence, or a message of any kind which tries
to convey and communicate meaning of What I s. The meaning of
a cipher is inexhaustible and cannot be reduced to formal logic.
93
) Parmenides, 540-480 B.C.E., of Elea, lower Italy.
Ch. 1 Pg. 63
The limited logical contents of two ciphers can even contradict each other while their
meaning may be similar.
Let me illustrate this with a historical example: The philosopher Parmenides of Elea
93
used
a statement to describe the core of his enlightening insight - revealed to him by the Goddess - which
is logically the opposite of the Indian philosopher's Nagarjuna statement. Parmenides said "I s, is"
and "I s Not, is not," and he meant to say that conscious thinking can only explore that which it
encounters as object. Nothing is not an object and can therefore not be explored.
If we contrast this with Nagarjuna's "nothing is" and "I s, is nothing," we can see that both
philosophers seem to be in irreconcilably separate camps. But the meaning of these ciphers
transcends logic. In typical dialectic fashion the nothingness of Nagarjuna, i.e. Sunyata, became also
Sunya-Sunya, Nothingness which is not nothingness, the negation of Nothingness; being
negation of all, it must also negate itself.
About the essence of What I s or the essence of Nothing, cogent statements which can be
checked out with dualistic logic, lead to emptiness. The statements of the two philosophers are truly
dialectic opposites. Both try to fathom the unknowable dynamic intelligence of the human mind,
faced with the equally unknowable cipher of What I s. The forms through which they expressed their
insight and the general thrust were different. But the idea behind the form, the energy of thinking
which expressed itself as meaning of the cipher, was essentially the same. The level of abstraction
in both statements is pushed to the limits of human comprehension, the limits where the difference
between 'Is' and 'Nothing is,' is between 'Is' and 'Is-not.' The difference does not exist; it is and
is not.
I regard both statements as existential appeals to human transcendence. Parmenides (like
later Wittgenstein) tried to warn against entering the pathless land of Nothingness, saying in essence
"Don't go there," which could be interpreted as meaning "there is nothing there." Nagarjuna said that
the mind has to undergo a transformation, thinking must change in order to see that 'Nothing I s,'
and 'I s, is Nothing.'
1.4.3.2 CIPHERS OF TIBETAN ART
What is relevant is not the form of these statements but the fact that a human being takes
them seriously and places his or her honest trust in them and then approaches those limits of thinking
through genuine thinking. Right now, this example may serve as an illustration of how I intend to
use the notion of cipher and idea. What we can know of an idea is always just its manifestation. It
requires trust and courage to 'endorse' such a manifestation by living according to one's
understanding of it, but by always being alert to possible self-deception.
This trust is inseparable from the actual insight. Trust and truth of intelligent thinking are
one with that thinking and open to communication. The Buddhist notions of "dharma," and of
"wisdom and compassion" come to mind, when alluding to this energy between trust and truth. The
particular form of trust in an idea - truth - must prove itself in a reality. But the trust carried over into
reality as an absolute certainty is altogether a different thing and is deceptive in its isolated and
isolating knowledge.
The cipher language is even more pronounced in the works of religious art as shown
throughout this book. Tibetan art in particular shows this capacity of speaking to all levels of a
human being. The Yab-Yum statuettes, for example, can be seen as highest revelation of wisdom,
94
) See Shaw, Miranda: Passionate Enlightenment, SPE, page 132.
95
) See chapter 4.
Ch. 1 Pg. 64
or they can be seen as the pornographic pagan celebrations of sexuality in its Christian association
with devil worship. With ciphers of any kind we come to the insight that the observer is the
observed; what an observer is able to see in a cipher is a reflection of the degree of wisdom of the
beholding mind. Thus, a cipher is a mirror, as well as a light which the mind can follow in its search
of nothingness and oneness. As Goethe said: "Anything transient is merely metaphor" ("Alles
Vergngliche ist nur ein Gleichnis.")
Tibetan art is created with this comprehension. The statues are educational devices, not
meant to be prayed to from the outside. Just like in any true learning, the mind of the student must
get existentially involved. It must immerse itself in the ocean of wisdom which is alive underneath
the superficial appearance of reality. The historical Buddha can be seen in the same light as a cipher
emerging in and as reality. All reality is ultimately cipher. The female Tantric teacher of the monk
Saraha said: "The Buddha's teaching can be known through symbols and actions, not through
words and books."
94

This is true in the sense that actions are more encompassing than thoughts, but only if we are
considering holistic actions. But then again, any holistic movement, be it in thinking or in acting,
can bring about radical change. As a matter of fact any creative acting is also a creative thinking,
and thus holistic, and vice versa.
95

1.4.3.3 CREATION AND TRANSFORMATION OF REALITIES
Different manifestations of the same idea might create whole new realities, be incorporated
in a reality, or be quickly forgotten. The idea which may have led to the earlier-mentioned
rationalization of all aspects of modern societies arose possibly out of the ideal demand for a
verifiable truth, at the roots of which were probably questions such as these: "How can one be
certain of some concepts or observation in a reality; is there a certainty which can be verified
objectively by every person who desires to do so?"
To make progress toward a true and correct reality such as the one mentioned may take
hundreds or thousands of years of trial and error. The insight, trust, skills, and intelligence of
generations of people are required for its implementation. Such an evolution of reality is evidently
not an easy process. It is usually people who live at the edges of reality, who dare to propose some
new idea. They do not propose it out of a whim or as an opinion, but because they trust in their
insight, live it, and risk their lives for it if necessary. Having that insight allows them also to see the
weaknesses of a particular reality and its potential destructiveness. To live at the edges of reality
means to be free of reality, in spite of living in it, and to be open to cipher and transcendence. Even
a reality in itself, our understanding of it and ourselves, remain fundamentally cipher. We must
embed our reality in the creative space of ideality. There is no point in fighting Maya. But to dance
with her may lead to a moment of bliss, in which confusion gets cleared up.
It is this lived sub-certainty which makes us human and free: To function in a reality but yet
not to confuse the certainty which is possible within it with an absolute certainty in the reality-
transcending areas of values and ciphers. We are tempted to build our lives and realities on values,
good values, on which we all hopefully can agree. But then we must define the values, and this is
where the trouble begins.
In our lives as individuals and as groups, as societies and as nations we are often challenged
to change our realities when we are confronted with disasters, catastrophes, or simply some
96
) Campbell, CCM, page 84.
97
) This translation follows closely a text by F.W. von Schelling in his Philosophy Of Mythology lecture #14. (The
words in parentheses are transliterations of the original Greek words.)
Ch. 1 Pg. 65
unexpected changes. The death of a beloved spouse or the realization that a trusted friend has
deceived one can be such incidents in which our realities are shaken and we are called upon to look
at life with new eyes.
When Germany was transformed into a totalitarian system during the Third Reich many
Germans did not understand that their outward reality was changing to a degree that threatened their
existence and transcendence. In order to meet that threat they had to see and understand this threat,
which led to an immediate change of their way of thinking and living, i.e. a change of their personal
reality. If they had been law abiding citizens before, they were suddenly confronted with the task
of fighting against an oppressive system with all possible means, including disobedience,
underground resistance, and even the taking of human life. Such a radical change of one's reality
requires insight, creative thinking, courage, and daring. For the person who is flexible and generally
open, the change may seem relatively easy; but the person who does not want to be confronted with
the facts and consequences of what is happening, the demand to change means either the agony of
helplessness, frustration, and despair, or it results in a conforming to the new situation. Avoiding
to see the facts relieves one psychologically from the dreaded responsibility to act and change.
Inertia is security.
1.4.4 EXAMPLES OF CREATIVE THINKING
These examples should make clear that creative thinking is not limited to people such as
artists, poets, and novelists, but that it is absolutely relevant for every human being. What sets
(some) poets and philosophers a little apart is that they have always to some degree been aware of
this important and extraordinary faculty of the human mind, and that they have tried to express and
communicate it, tried to "open their own truth and depth to the depth and truth of another in such
a way as to establish an authentic community of existence
96
and transcendence."
1.4.4.1 PLATO'S IDEA OF GENERATIVE THINKING
Let me give some additional examples of generative and creative thinking. It should become
quite clear in these following excerpts that the boundaries between creative and generative thinking
are fleeting. Plato describes the realm of generative thinking at the end of book VI of his Republic:

"Hear now what I call the other part of the intelligible, namely that
which intelligence (logos) itself touches. It does so by creating
propositions and preconditions (hypotheses) through its own dialectic
powers (dialectic dynamics), propositions which are not principles
but truly (to onti) mere propositions, like attempts and accesses, to
move with their help to that which is without propositions and
preconditions; to the beginning of all, the principle of all-being."
97

In the allegory of the cave (book VII of the Republic) Plato states that those who have
been outside of the cave are ridiculed when they return, since their eyes, having been exposed to the
true light of transcendence, are now disaccustomed to the darkness in the cave. They can no longer
rightly discern and judge the shadows on the walls, which for the cave dwellers are the only true
reality. The people who have been outside of the cave are the truly creative people. They live in the
Ch. 1 Pg. 66
common reality but they have somehow avoided to block their access to the creative movements of
their mind. Their mechanical thinking is relatively open to creative change. Plato may have had in
mind only intellectual, highly sophisticated, rational thinking, because he condemned the old
mythologies, and he was very suspicious of the senses. Whether he wanted to attack only the literal
understanding of mythologies, or the mythologies and the ideas behind them, I don't know.
Be that as it may, from the point of view of the mystical insight, normal reality is merely a
play of shadows, an illusion, but as I have said before, this characterization is deceptive itself.
1.4.4.2 A POETIC DESCRIPTION OF THINKING BY H. HESSE
Hermann Hesse describes a movement of thinking, which is an excellent expression of what
I want to allude to by the metaphor of creative and generative thinking. In his Glass Bead Game
he writes about a new awakened energy in Joseph Knecht :
"He felt changed, growing; he felt new tensions and new harmonies
between himself and the world. There were times, now, in music,
Latin, and mathematics, when he could master tasks that were still far
beyond his age and the scope of his schoolmates. Sometimes he felt
capable of any achievements. At other times he might forget
everything and daydream with a new softness and surrender, listen to
the wind or the rain, gaze into the chalice of a flower or the moving
waters of the river, understanding nothing, divining everything, lost
in sympathy, curiosity, the craving to comprehend, carried away from
his own self toward another, toward the world, toward the mystery
and sacrament, the at once painful and lovely play of the world of
appearances."
1.4.4.3 AN EXAMPLE FOR CREATIVE AND GENERATIVE THINKING, BY H.
POINCARE
In his book Science And Method Henri Poincar describes the ways in which he came to
some important mathematical discoveries.
"For a fortnight I had been attempting to prove that there could not
be any function analogous to what I have since called Fuchsian
functions. I was at that time very ignorant. Every day I sat down at
my table and spent an hour or two trying a great number of
combinations, and I arrived at no result. One night I took some black
coffee, contrary to my custom, and was unable to sleep. A host of
ideas kept surging in my head; I could almost feel them jostling one
another, until two of them coalesced, so to speak, to form a stable
combination. When morning came, I had established the existence of
one class of Fuchsian functions, those that are derived from the
hypergeometric series. I had only to verify the results, which only
took a few hours... When we arrived at Coutances, we got into a
break to go for a drive, and, just as I put my foot on the step, the idea
came to me, though nothing in my former thoughts seemed to have
prepared me for it, that the transformations I had used to define
Fuchsian functions were identical with those of non-Euclidian
geometry. I made no verification,... but I felt absolute certainty at
Ch. 1 Pg. 67
once. When I got back to Caen I verified the result at my leisure to
satisfy my conscience."
I chose this example because it demonstrates the movement between conscious,
subconscious, and unconscious thinking with little interference from the senses. The thinking in
terms of numbers or rigid building blocks exists in its pure form in mathematics. This is mechanical
and generative thinking at its best. The creation and generation of new entities, laws, and
relationships is in analogy named creative and generative thinking. Creative, generative, and
mechanical thinking are always present simultaneously in the human mind, even though a
particular mind in its form of consciousness might never become aware of a creation of its own.
But the insight, which seems simple, that certain thoughts can be manipulated through fixed abstract
symbols, denoting pure quantity, is an act of creative thinking. This is of course the beginning of
counting.
In the previous example, taken from mathematics, which in its formal aspects is a thinking
with and between the numbers 0 and 1, I showed that the idea of creative, unconscious thinking is
well known.
A mathematician may, through playful creative thinking in the unknown area of truth, arrive
at a correctness, a formal theorem, which can be conveyed to anyone in a cogent way. A physicist
may connect the abstract notions of mathematics and re-discover them in nature, and vice versa, he
may find that to an insight into nature there correspond mathematical equations. To understand the
fact that some differential equations of mathematics contain our deepest knowledge about
nature is in itself one of the most profound acts of creative and generative thinking.
Philosophy on the other hand is, as I see it, a self exploration of the whole human being,
which leads to a truth revealing itself in communication. This communication is with life and other
human beings. A mathematical and scientific truth differs therefore fundamentally from a
philosophical truth. The former can be possessed, known, and used in terms of definite statements
and laws without which the mind loses its mechanicalness. A philosophical truth engages the whole
person, including the operations of sensing and acting.
The form of the particular mathematical truth is so efficient and powerful that it
appears to be the actual truth itself. Such a truth and its form are universal within limitations,
which can sometimes also be known. A philosophical truth, on the other hand, begins at those
limitations and goes beyond them to the unknowable center of creative space of the human
being where any correctness, logic, and reason originates. A statement which is a potential
philosophical truth requires a change in thinking, in which mechanical thinking loses its
dominating function. The form of its truth is meaningless per se and can only serve as a challenge
and appeal to let go of the mechanical reality and self and to open up for freedom and creativity.
1.4.4.4 BUDDHIST IDEA OF CREATIVE THINKING
The essence of Buddhist thinking is in my terminology to overcome the illusory certainty
and security of a mechanical world view. This worldview is avidya (ignorance) or Maya. Both form
the reality called samsara. The transcending comprehension of the truth behind samsara is the
goal of Buddhism and is called nirvana.
The Hindu term Maya has the clear connotation with the active principle of creating a
mechanical world through restrictive mechanical thinking. It alone is actually void and empty and
in addition has a tendency of being utterly destructive for all living beings.
98
) This is the essential insight of Vajrayana Buddhism, which is a form of Mahayana Buddhism. For most more
traditional forms of Buddhism the goal of 'enlightenment' remains.
Ch. 1 Pg. 68
Avidya and maya is not merely the lack of knowledge or deceptive illusion, but the
separation (by consciousness) of a oneness into a fragmented world of separate things,
thoughts, individualities, which have the appearance of being absolutely independent from
human thinking.
It is the goal of true thinking to see the danger and destruction which can arise from
mechanical thinking. The mechanical self and ego must be overcome, i.e. understood and
transcended. Nirvana is creative thinking and the comprehension of emptiness of the self. It is the
opening of the mind to its own unconditioned creativity and clarity. In this comprehension the empty
self, a negative concept, is transcended to a oneness-nothingness, sunyata, a positive concept. The
empty self is controlled by fear and the desire to fill its emptiness with the never-ending diversion
of the day: power, money, fame, and superficial pleasure.
But there is no self or individual which could ever reach nirvana, because the concepts of
self, nirvana, goal, etc. are themselves part of maya. There is no goal to reach, no river to cross;
samsara is nirvana.
98
The notions are at best temporary sign posts, which have to be understood in
their limitation.
This is why it is impossible to talk about creative thinking or enlightenment, or any spiritual
matter, without entering a world which is characterized as dhyana: meditative, dreamlike, mystical.
But this mode must be complemented by clarity, rationality, sharpness, and profound knowledge.
The clear mind must not be sacrificed to an irrational mind, which often stands for mystical.
Intelligence with knowledge, and knowledge with intelligence must move harmoniously together.
To achieve this, the mind must shift gears, so to speak, in moving away from its predominantly
mechanical and conditioned mode.
But this cannot be done through an act of will, which would be an activity of the mechanical
self. This belies the fact, of course, that so-called spiritual authorities, from priests to shamans to
psychiatrists have offered innumerable methods, procedures, rituals, and ceremonies which pretend
to lead a person from here to there, from an empty meaningless life to a meaningful fulfilled life.
A different, creative and free thinking is needed. It will lead to different acting in existential
situations. Life as a whole with all its uncertainties can in the best and clearest moments be seen as
the mystery, the beauty, the challenge, the dance. All of this is the doing of creative thinking in
conjunction with creative acting and sensing. And the creativity is also an openness to the
mechanical aspects of our thinking and existence, which are ultimately as sacred and necessary as
the creative aspects.
Ch. 1 Pg. 69
Figure 11 Amitabha Buddha
This kind of creative thinking (holy wisdom, dhyana, gnosis (Gnosticism), bodhi
(Buddhism), nous, Vernunft) is simultaneously a sensing and internal acting. In the Western world
we often talk about intuition to allude to such thinking. This thinking, dhyana, involves paying close
attention to the activities of the psycho-somatic entity, but
attention in such a way that the conscious self is not in exclusive control over its activities. Rather,
in this attention the rigidity of the self dissolves. Then the mind can see that the object of thinking
and sensing is partly created and maintained by itself. Such attention has been systematically
explored in Vajrayana Buddhism. Dhyana Buddhas are Buddha images, or rather tangible ideas in
the most profound sense, created to facilitate this thinking and living through contemplation and
meditation.
The Buddha's basic recommendation was, as paraphrased by me:
"STOP IGNORANCE, SUPERSTITION, STUPIDITY, INSANITY."
There are three major areas to this recommendation;
1) Simple ignorance and superstition which can be remedied by a good educational system,
i.e. good schools; accurate knowledge about things and history.
Amitabha Buddha: The figure shows a standing Amitabha
Buddha on a four layered Lotus bud (the symbol of Padma
Pani, Lakshmi, Shakti) which in turn sits on the cosmic
tortoise. Amitabha Buddha is a transcendent or meditation
(dhyana) Buddha of Vajrayana Buddhism; he represents the
Buddha of Immeasurable (amitha) enlightening splendor
(abha) or Amitayus the Buddha of immeasurable life duration
(ayus).
"The Buddha realm of Amitabha came into being when he
refused enlightenment for himself unless by his Buddhahood
he might bring to nirvana anyone who appealed to his name.
The power of his yoga was such that a purely visionary land,
the Land Of Bliss (Sukhavati) came into being in the West,
where he now sits forever, like a setting sun - never however
setting - forever enduring (Amitayus), immeasurably radiant
(Amitabha) on the shore of a great lotus lake." (H. Zimmer)
The Cosmic Tortoise Kashyapa is the second avatar or
manifestation of Vishnu who carries the world with its time,
the first manifestation being that of the fish. Another avatar is
the Cosmic Snake (Ananta, Vasuki, Shesha ). The face of the
tortoise shown here resembles that of Mahakala, the great time.
By placing Amitabha on this tortoise, the connection and
oneness with older Hindu traditions are maintained.
99
) See The Involuntary Creation, ZKC, page 243. Translation by H. Zimmer of the Kalika Purana. Other parts of this
story can be found in sections 5.2.5.1 on page 366 and 7.1.1 on page 474.
Ch. 1 Pg. 70

2) Rigid Self and ego controlled insanity (insane means lack of wholeness) comes about
in great part through the conditioning in a particular socio-economic and cultural
environment. In a free modern society much of this insane and often pathological
behavior can be dispelled through accurate information together with psychological
and possibly medical treatment.
3) The profound ignorance of a thinking process which cannot reflect on itself.This is
where meditation, wisdom (dhyana ), and creative self reflection must come in as a
remedy. The liberating thinking which performs this miracle is the thinking which
does not address content, but the mode of thinking itself. In some ways this could
be described as a thinking about no-thing in which there is neither thinker nor object
of thought. It is what Aristotle called "nosis noseos" the thinking of the Gods. It
is what the Mandukya Upanishad calls the fourth state of non-conscious
consciousness, represented by the whole syllable AUM and the Nothingness in which
it is embedded. It is ultimate healing energy contained of the mind and What I s.
Without the actual self-observation and self-reflection the self and the ego-controlled
problematic behavior cannot change to appreciable degrees.
1.4.4.5 CREATIVE THINKING AS CREATION IN INDIAN MYTHOLOGY
Heinrich Zimmer has translated a Hindu creation myth which is an excellent example in the
mythological realm for the action of creative thinking, which is simultaneously an uncertain sensing,
and acting. It is the thinking of the creator God Brahma and is fittingly called The I nvoluntary
Creation
99
:
"Brahma, sinking still deeper into the limpid darkness of
his own interior, struck a new depth: suddenly the most beautiful
dark woman sprang from his vision, and stood naked before
everyone's gaze.
She was Dawn, and she was radiant with vivid youth.
Nothing like her had yet appeared among the gods; nor would
her equal ever be seen...
Brahma became aware of her, arose from his yogic
posture, and fastened on her long and earnest gaze. Then with his
physical eyes still fixed upon her, the Creator permitted his
spiritual vision to fall back again into its own profundity; and he
searched to know what the task of this apparition would be in the
further unfoldment of the work of creation, and to whom she
would belong.
When lo! a second surprise: out of Brahma's inner search
sprang another being - this time a youth, splendid, dark, and
strong...
Brahma remained silent for a moment, astounded by his
own production. What had slipped from him? What was this?
Then he gathered and constrained his consciousness, and brought
his mind again to center. Surprise was conquered. Again in
Ch. 1 Pg. 71
mastery, the World Creator addressed this remarkable creature
and assigned to him his field."

Out of the uncertain, uncontrolled, nonconscious consciousness of Brahma emerges a vision,
and that vision becomes flesh and reality. This is exactly the process of creative thinking which I
allude to. The very first driving force of the emerging reality is the beautiful woman and
Goddess Maya. She is even behind the dreaming consciousness of Brahma. The youth created
next is the God of Love, Kama. Kama and his wife Rati, delight, are the all-encompassing forces,
who generate reality with all its chaos, unpredictabilities, and passions. They are the forces behind
the continuing creation of all living things. Even Brahma, who gives his powers to the God of Love
and his mate, is not immune. For short moments he falls into passionate love and lust for his own
daughter Dawn, the Goddess Maya.
1.4.4.6 LIMITATION OF THOUGHT AND FREEDOM FROM ILLUSION
It is the movements of thinking itself which are at the center of my discussion here. All
content of thinking is necessarily limited and cloaked by the activities of Maya. The only reliable
content of thinking is the one based on the rules of logic, and the laws of science whose limitations
are part of the content. In the very moment that logic or science pretend to cover in a cogent way,
i.e. through mere reason (ratio), the whole of existence, the whole of time, the whole of reality, they
overstep their bounds and entrap themselves in illusion. Telltale words in the vocabulary of such a
confused self are: always, forever, absolute, the whole, eternity, heaven, nirvana, enlightenment,
and many more.
If someone claims to never make a mistake, and not to have an ego, watch out, you are
dealing with a con-artist.
A content of thinking which points at the limitation of thinking and at the movements of
thinking themselves calls for an action, namely the action of observing. It tries to educate the mind
to detach itself from the products of thinking, thought and reality, and to understand how they come
into being through the various operations of thinking. It says, "Watch the flow of your thinking,
watch its source as unspecified transient center, as self or as ego, watch its objects as abstract
thought, associated with the senses, feelings, and emotions, and thoughts attached to the
center."
Only by learning and observing the movements of thinking can thinking free itself from
illusion. No content of thought, no pointing, can ever replace the actual doing. It is only thinking
itself which must act and look at itself. No person can do this for anyone, no faith or belief, no
memorization, no knowledge, or system, or method can substitute for the actual self-
observation of thinking. The actual thinking and observing can lead to a transforming insight.
1.4.5 TWO MODELS OF THINKING
1.4.5.1 A HIERARCHICAL MODEL OF THINKING
Considering the three qualitatively distinct modes of thinking one might feel tempted to
construct a model in which mechanical thinking would be at the bottom of a hierarchy, generative
thinking in the middle, and creative thinking at the top.
Ch. 1 Pg. 72
CREATIVE THINKING
GENERATIVE THINKING
MECHANICAL THINKING
This hierarchical model stresses the separateness of the three modes of thinking. Creative
thinking controls generative, which controls mechanical thinking. This concept is pleasing to us
because we identify with the ruling part of thinking and because, traditionally, hierarchical systems
have been predominant in societies. Hierarchical systems are simple to grasp. This tradition has
probably become part of our subconscious conditioning, which is why such a hierarchical structure
comes close to the image of how we want to see the world and ourselves. As such, this order is a
control structure of dominance and subservience which lacks all the ideas of freedom, uncertainty,
and creativity. It is basically a mechanical conceptualization of mechanical thought.
I want to emphasize that the three modes of thinking are essential to all thinking and follow
from the fact that fundamentally all thinking is one undivided movement. Mechanical thinking is
part of creative thinking, but just like in the above model, mechanical thinking can be separated from
creative thinking. In a hierarchical structure the creative potential of mechanical thinking is hidden
by and in its separation. One could also say that the creative part of thinking is enfolded and hidden
in mechanical thinking. It appears to me that this basic oneness of the three kinds of thinking has
been the unconscious source of the idea of spiritual triads. The Self which thinks about the world
is the fundamental triad (Self-thinks-world) accessible to mechanical thinking. More sophisticated
triads or systems of duality permeate philosophical, spiritual, and mythological thinking of mankind.
It is again very revealing to look at the corresponding Greek word for thinking which is
'noin.' As the Greeks used the word, there was no (or little) division in the subject-object
relationship. Rather there was a movement of dividing and synthesizing implied. Closest to the
Greek 'noin' is our 'to see' or seeing.' Aristotle describes the activities of the highest God as 'nosis
noseos': a thinking which thinks itself. This noin was a total movement as a 'thinking vision' or
seeing thinking.' Noma, that which is thought, was never just a 'fantasy,' but something
actually perceived. 'Nous' (mind) was something like the soul's eye, i.e. the 'organ of insight.' We
encounter similar ideas about thinking in India and Asia.
This hidden relationship and holistic movement between the various forms of thinking needs
to be brought out in a better model.
1.4.5.2 A TRIADIC MODEL OF THINKING
I want to propose a triadic model of thinking which incorporates the observable fact that we
can think consciously, being aware of some rational content of the thinking process, while at the
same time a non-observable kind of thinking goes on. (This unobservable thinking is very much
correlated with our sensing and acting as well, but I postpone this discussion to a later chapter.) We
cannot rationally influence this non-observable thinking, which is why it is appropriate to call it non-
conscious. It may be helpful to subdivide the non-observable mode into a sub-conscious level, of
which we can be aware ever so vaguely, while dreaming or meditating, for example, and into an
even deeper level which creates this subconscious movement of thinking. This is of course
reminiscent of the other triads which I have used so far:
Ch. 1 Pg. 73
Figure 12 Triadic Model of Thinking
Nothingness-Oneness-Betweenness, consciousness-object-thought, mechanical-generative-
creative thinking. In many religions and mythologies we find similar differentiations of powers,
some of which I will use in this book and discuss further. I suggest to consider that these triads are
not accidental or convenient fantasies, but correspond to the intrinsic qualities of thinking, which
projects its own qualities into and onto the world. They contain all potentialities through which
thinking can fulfill its functions: cogent understanding, intelligent comprehension, and
existential-transcending insight and creation.
In order to deemphasize separation between the different modes of thinking and to emphasize
this triadic structure, I propose a model of thinking in a triangular shape, which is the only
geometrical shape which visualizes a triadic oneness. The three modes of thinking in 'purity' are
represented by the vertices of an equilateral triangle. They correspond to T1 (mechanical
thinking), T2 (generative thinking), and T3 (creative thinking).
This is an attempt to describe and visualize thinking as a triadic holomovement, which
differentiates itself into three submovements, each of which has an uncertain connection to the
whole. The self can be illustrated by a small triangle at the center of the larger one. If one draws
perpendicular lines from this center to the sides, one obtains three areas within the triangle, which
100
) See the sub-section 1.4.1.3 Creative Thinking-Time-Matter-Space on page 54.
Ch. 1 Pg. 74
can be thought of as the areas of influence of the closest corner points of mechanical, generative,
or creative thinking. A well balanced self stays essentially at the center of the whole thinking space.
Whenever it is dominated by one kind of thinking it drifts into that direction. Any thought activity
can be represented as another small arrow which is free to move within the thinking space, from the
T3 domain, to the T2, and then to the T1 domain for example. One might describe the creation,
generation, and manifestation of a thought through the path of A to B to C. The trajectory, or the
actual unfolding of this thought is not conscious. Consciousness kicks in so to speak, when
thought B crosses over the boundary from generative to mechanical thinking. There, consciousness
is changed in such a way that it can pick up the thought A, which then becomes also a part of
consciousness and can be memorized. For consciousness to trace thought A back to its origin, it
has to free itself from the conditioning of the mechanical area, and then also of the generative area.
But this trajectory cannot be followed consciously with any certainty. Thus, the trajectories of
subconscious thinking are represented by broken lines and those of un-conscious thinking by
dots. Nonconscious thinking can enter the conscious area, but not vice versa. The boundaries
between the areas should be transparent or semi-transparent.
The three vertices correspond to points of only one mode of thinking. The boundary lines
of the triangle correspond to a combination of two modes of thinking. The closer one comes to a
corner point, the more that mode of thinking dominates. This "one" is the consciousness of the entity
in question which one may represent as a point or small area within the triangles. This point is free
to move around in all directions, coming more or less under the influence of the corner points,
depending on its closeness to them. Thus, within the triangle one has all combinations of thinking
with various importance of one mode or the other, according to how close one is to any of the three
vertices. The central area of the triangle therefore corresponds to an equal influence of all three
modes of thinking. This triangular model has the advantage over a hierarchical model in that it
stresses the oneness of all three modes of thinking; it also allows the possibility of a thinking with
very little intelligence (far away from T3), as well as a thinking with very little mechanical thought
(remote from T1). Its disadvantage may be in a possible continuous interpenetration of all three
levels of thinking, even though they are qualitatively very different. However, following the idea
of thinking outlined earlier, the mechanical mode of thought cannot enter the intelligent mode
without being negated, which means, of course, that it cannot enter that kind of thinking at all. Thus,
the internal boundaries between the creative and mechanical thinking areas should be emphasized.
The generative thinking area serves as some kind of a transition between the creative and the
mechanical thinking.
We see that the hierarchical model emphasizes the separation of all modes of thinking too
strongly, whereas the triangular model emphasizes their oneness somewhat inadequately. We need
a model with the advantages of both and without their shortcomings. The creative thinking space
introduced earlier
100
. helps to understand the non-causal aspects of some kind of thinking without
the thinker. We cannot expect to find a truly representative single model of our thinking, because
of its fundamental quality which allows it to be free and to suspend itself. I use the notion to suspend
throughout this text with the triple meaning given to the corresponding German word 'aufheben' by
Hegel ; i.e. thinking preserves, it negates or makes disappear, and it lifts up to a new level, all
three movements being performed simultaneously. Characteristic for this behavior is that subject
and object interfere with each other to a degree, which makes a deterministic description impossible.
In order to emphasize that thinking is a living movement of the living material process of the mind,
the use of the expression quantum organic rather than quantum physical would be appropriate.
101
) In honor of the German physicist Max Planck who in 1900 came up with the first notion that energy packets in nature
are quantized and cannot take on just any value in a continuous spectrum of energy. With this assumption he solved the
mystery surrounding the so-called black-body or cavity radiation.
Ch. 1 Pg. 75
In this attempt to describe thinking through models we must not allow those models to get
in the way of actual observation. I show these new models to introduce the reader to some
possibilities, which are based on my own observation and are inspired by the mysterious thinking
processes which we can all observe in ourselves, if we pay attention. Many religious accounts from
throughout the ages also serve as guidance. They correspond to a spiritual and mythological
thinking which is in its foundation universal, but different in the form of its expression. My
understanding of quantum physics with its strange situations, in which the 'observer influences the
observed,' at an atomic and sub-atomic level, plays a significant role as well. Readers should realize,
that even though they may think that they do not need such a model, they do use a (very limited)
model, which is built into our languages and belief systems, another effective ploy of Maya.
I do not assume that the general reader will be familiar with quantum physics. But my own
thinking was deeply influenced by some of the ideas of quantum physics, and I now think that just
as Newton's laws seem to be natural for the conscious content of our thinking, so may the particular
laws of quantum physics be natural for the less conscious movements and internal correlations
of thinking.
1.4.5.3 THE OBSERVING MIND (Heisenbergs Uncertainty Relations)
In the theory of quantum physics there are some equations which may be the most
fundamental equations of all of physics, namely Heisenberg's uncertainty relations. These
equations say in general that so called complementary quantities, like space and momentum, or, time
and energy, can under no circumstances be determined simultaneously with absolute precision. It
is exactly the simultaneous determination of these quantities which is required for the causal,
Newtonian-Aristotelian worldview. Heisenberg's uncertainty relations prove that this mechanistic
worldview is incorrect.
)p @ )x $ S/2
The letter S (pronounced h-bar) stands for the so called Planck
101
action quantum h divided
by 2B; its value in metric units is 6.63@10
-34
Js (J oules times seconds). This relationship states that
the location x of a particle cannot be known with certainty at the same time that we know its
momentum p (mass times velocity) with certainty. Thus, the classical notion of an exact trajectory
of a point-mass, with its velocity given at every point in space, is no longer correct in principle. The
location of an electron, e.g., and its speed cannot simultaneously be known. Heisenberg's principle
is about the impossibility of exact knowledge not about the impossibility of exact measurement,
even though the former implies the latter, but not vice versa. This principle is a result of the fact that
all matter consists of the two complementary movements, one called particle, the other wave.
Whereas a wave-packet cannot be exactly localized in space, and can go through two holes
simultaneously, a particle can be localized and can go through only one hole at a time. The fact that
every particle is also a wave leads to the for classical understanding impossible situation that a
wave-particle can do both.The wave particle duality, as it is often called, reveals strikingly an
intrinsic property of human consciousness. Human thinking has found out how to describe nature
with an extremely high degree of certainty. The laws of physics describe phenomena or things in the
world using parameters of time, space, and matter-energy. These laws have been cast into the
absolutely accurate (accurate but not necessarily true) language of mathematics. The correctness
102
) The well known physicist Richard Feynman defines the principle as follows: "Any determination of the alternative
taken by a process capable of following more than one alternative destroys the interference between alternatives."
(From Feynman-Gibbs, Quantum-Mechanics And Path Integrals.)
Ch. 1 Pg. 76
of these laws must be determined by experimental measurements which require observations
of time, space, and mass-energy.
The difference in behavior between a particle and a wave approaches the fundamental
difference between a thought A and its opposite non-A (note that this a mathematical logical
distinction). The foundation of normal logic is the principle of non-contradiction, two things cannot
simultaneously be A and non-A.
In HUL it turns out that the actual objects in the world behave like both particles and waves,
which reveals beautifully, that our most accurate description of phenomena in the universe, is
necessarily non-certain.
There is another uncertainty relationship involving energy E and time t.
)E @ )t $ S/2
If applied to the beginning to the universe we can see that the closer we get to the zero point
of the universe, the moment when it came into existence out of nothingness, the greater its energy.
Heisenbergs uncertainty relations in conjunction with the laws of gravity make a collapse into 0
impossible and lead to a smallest possible distance of about 10
-35
meters, which is also known as the
Planck length. As a consequence, the smallest possible time interval is about 10
-44
seconds. There
was no smaller time for this universe. (See glossary: black hole)
Formulated differently and general enough to be readily applicable to thinking the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle can be interpreted to mean: the more precisely one of two
complementary quantities or qualities is being determined the more imprecise the other
complementary quantity or quality becomes at the same moment.
102

Knowledge and the Oneness of What is are evident complementary pairs. The whole
manifestation of the universe as well as the manifestation of thinking, are the results of
differentiations introduced by thinking. Certainty and causality are measures of the separation
between the Truth of Oneness and the reality expressed through the knowledge about it. The
more certain we are or can be about any objective characteristic of reality the more distant is that
reality from Oneness and its Truth. (I am evidently not talking about an uncertainty which is the
result of ignorance, error, or superstition, but about an objective, unavoidable uncertainty.) Thus,
we can be very certain about mechanical movements in a reality because the very mechanicalness
is far removed from the fundamental Oneness of What I s. In quantum physics we go to the detailed
structure of atoms and uncertainty arises. When we study the conditions of all measurable causality
we investigate the properties of space and time on a quantum level and the situation becomes even
more uncertain. It seems that the separation in time and space between an object and its
observer is also an indication for the actual separation between transcendence and human
thinking. Transcendence cannot be known, but it can guide and influence thinking.
The deterministic worldviews of the late centuries as well as the worldviews which regard
human beings as entities totally separate from transcendence are separate from the truth they claim.
Another way of expressing this principle is that the very fact of observation changes the
observed object to some degree. Any observation involves an interaction between the observer and
the observed. This is correct in the purely physical sense. (It has always been true and known for a
long time in the psychological sense.) It is relatively easy to accept that the observer is influenced
by the observed. It is much harder to see that the observed thing is also influenced by the observer.
Ch. 1 Pg. 77
We do not generally realize that the thing is brought into its existence as thought object through our
thinking and sensing processes together. In quantum physics this fact becomes unescapable.
We can see this readily in the case of a thinking which tries to observe itself. I suggest here
the analogy between the observation process of thinking and the observation process of a physical
object through instruments at the quantum level. I make the case throughout this book that this
analogy is more than that. The analogy reveals a truth about thinking and its object, the world,
whether in everyday life or in quantum physics.
Here are a few other examples, which may help clarify this peculiar interaction between the
observer and the observed:
C The dynamic thinking process itself cannot be observed without the observing self losing
its focus and even 'existence.
C The conscious self and its object are complementary notions. Whenever the self holds a
thought (object) in its consciousness, the thought can be well defined; the self is defined only
implicitly through the thought.
C When we try to observe our own thinking process the attempt interferes with our thinking.
This is unavoidable.
C When we observe a very subtle object like the generative and creative movements of
thinking, then the altering influence of the observation is significant. When we are in a semi-
dreaming state, for example, the observing consciousness can direct the development of the dream
content. The dream is influenced by the dreamer, and vice versa.
C Furthermore, we all have experienced that no matter how hard we try to understand
something sometimes, it does not work. We cannot force our understanding or comprehension. But
if we relax our thinking we are more likely to understand.
C Before a thought becomes manifest to consciousness, it is somehow enfolded in the whole
movement of non-certain thinking. It is somewhere or everywhere, in some non-manifest form.
Comprehension takes place in the non-certain 'twilight zone' of the observer and the observed
becoming less distinct. Or, to put it differently, comprehension occurs when consciousness, thinking
process, and content of thinking melt together. In terms of the uncertainty principle stated above,
one can also say that the possibility of thinking to move on more than one single (non-conscious)
path of logic simultaneously, is suspended when this thinking becomes conscious, after having
chosen one path.This is very similar to the uncertainty principle in physics, which is a fact and not
a result of poor measurement or imprecise tools. There is overwhelming experimental and
theoretical evidence that it is a fundamental property in all generality of any actual object in a reality
and for the actuality underlying it. It is related to the fact that every object in the universe is a
particle but also wave. As a particle it can be localized in space, as a wave it is always moving
and spread out in space. Yet every object is both particle and wave. Even more, time-space itself
is a movement of unobservable quantum-fields which are neither waves nor particles, but which are
the matrix out of which they unfold.
I therefore trust that this relationship reaches even deeper than our reality. It provides us with
a tool to probe into the sub-certain movements of mind and matter. This uncertainty relationship
reveals the fact that we become conscious of properties of matter through interaction. We measure,
probe and examine matter using material objects and ultimately the human brain and mind; thinking
is itself a material process. When we talk about objective properties of matter as though they were
totally independent of thinking we seem to erroneously imply that it makes sense to think about a
universe without thinking or without a thinking intelligence. Properties of objects are not something
given to us of which we obtain knowledge through some miraculous insight. The only way we can
Ch. 1 Pg. 78
gain knowledge about objects is through interaction with them, which includes thinking, sensing,
and acting. We gain knowledge of and about thinking through thinking, and interacting with
thinking, in ways which are at least as intricate and subtle as our interaction with matter, particularly
at the sub-atomic level.
We may therefore assume that the complementarity of quantum physics must be a
fundamental property of thinking as well. Our thinking is a material process just like the
unfolding and enfolding of material wave-particles out of the no-thingness of the underlying
quantum-fields. One manifestation of this is the complementarity between the observing self and
the observed thought. Any conscious thinking can only occur in the subject-object split mode
introduced by sub-certain thinking, which creates the self as subject and reality as its object.
Mythologically speaking, this is the action of Maya, who brings the self and reality into
being, and who can dissolve them. In this process Maya, who is Shiva-Shakti in one, becomes Shiva
and Shakti as separate powers. Their separation is their power and their limitation. This is why a
dynamic dialectic movement between the Oneness of the Two and their separation is required to
create something out of nothing. If Shiva-Shakti would never separate there would only be empty
nothingness. Human consciousness would not exist in any self reflecting form.
In our triangular model this thinking which leads to the separation between subject and
object occurs in the generative area. The content of consciousness, and with it consciousness itself,
is sub-certain when operating in this generative (or creative) mode. In all human activities in which
thinking is involved, like in the realities of a society, we are dealing with essentially non-mechanical
and non-deterministic phenomena.
Mass sentiments, value systems, belief systems, moods of a society, the cultural ups and
downs, the rise and fall of states and empires, the developments of economies, the behavior of stock
markets, and so on, are non-mechanical. The complexity of these phenomena does not require
quantum theory for their analysis. Chaos theory is appropriate here. Mathematically speaking, these
systems show non-linear behavior. They are also non causal and not predictable. But quantum theory
and the Heisenberg uncertainty relationships reveal that uncertainty is the fundamental
characteristic of actualityand not the result of a very high level of complexity.
The uncertainty relationship of thinking becomes clearer when we think about the self. On
one hand, thinking is movement and, as long as there is no focus, corresponds to the realm of
generative and creative thinking; on the other hand, the content of conscious thinking is static and
corresponds to mechanical thought. The thinker, the self, is an entity created by thought and is
enfolded in all thinking. But when we think about the self, it becomes a static object to itself, which
appears to be as real and certain as any object, and which seems to be doing the thinking as well.
The observing self seems not to be there at all in this little experiment. Its existence is uncertain, the
more certain its object of thinking appears to be, and vice versa. On further reflection we can see that
the self's true being is part of the whole of thinking, encompassing both certainty and uncertainty,
static object and moving subject, as well as thinking without focus. Whenever we try to know the
self as object, its complementary nature reminds us - or should remind us - of the uncertain nature
of this appearance, and it appeals to us to regard this knowledge as cipher.
1.4.5.4 UNCERTAINTY OF THINKING
Thus, the complementary and dialectic model of thinking, represented by the triangular
model, addresses the genuine difficulty of thinking when it tries to determine the relationship
between movement and non-movement, between separation and oneness, between certainty
103
) The questions and paradoxes which movement and location create for logical thinking have first been brilliantly
formulated by the Greek philosopher Zenon of Elea, student of Parmenides.That which is moving, moves neither on
the location where it is, nor where it is not. (See: Zeno von Elea by Hermann Frnkel in HF page 198 ff.)
104
) All numbers which can be expressed as the ratios of integers: ; 1/3; 1/7; 1.345627262; 1.3333333... belong to a set
Q.
105
) When we are dealing with so-called ir-rational numbers like %2 and B we are entering a domain of thinking which,
as Pythagoras saw more than two thousand years ago, cannot be represented by a finite rational process. The fact that
we can deal with infinities correctly through simple' formalisms, which effectively hide the problem, is a tribute to the
ingenious human mind. Students of mathematics encounter this problem when they are dealing with calculus and the
proposition of an infinitely dense continuous number line of real numbers. The non-rational nature of the notion of
infinity can be seen easily in the equation: infinity + infinity = infinity.
Ch. 1 Pg. 79
and uncertainty, between order and freedom, and so on. I call these quantities complementary
in analogy to Niels Bohrs label of complementary quantities in physics.
103

I suggest here that these problematic issues do not merely occur in our consideration and
attempts to understand logically the movement of a (quantum) object in space and time, but that they
arise in a more direct way when we try to understand thinking itself. They take the form of a
Fundamental Uncertainty Relationship Of Thinking, in which
mechanical and non-mechancial modes of thinking are two
complementary quantities.
The concept of mechanical thinking with fixed definitions and rules of logic before the
background of a consciousness is completely static and is comparable to the classical physics
concept of a world put together by separable point-masses in time and/or in space. Single thoughts
appear to be totally separate from each other and from the thinker. They are linked through logic,
a formalized, fixed system of thought. This corresponds to the point masses of physics, which are
independent of time and space, and which are linked together through the continous and causal laws
of Newtonian physics. The change of location and momentum of these point masses in time provides
as with a logical, causal, and measurable reality, changing in predetermined fashion. (See p. 9)
A) Formal thinking: Logic
The absolute certainty of mechanical thinking is based on the (uncertain) assumption that
a definition can be absolutely correct and precise, the quintessential concept of which is the
reducibility of formal logic to the numbers 0 and 1. Thinking as a whole is never exclusively logical-
mechanical, or creative-non-mechanical. It is always a correlation of all modes of thinking, but with
varying emphasis.
Formal-logical and mechanical thinking are reducible to rational building blocks, ultimately,
to the set
104
of fractions (rational numbers )Q and its operations of addition and multiplication. This
set is reducible to the numbers 0 and 1. (To see that this is correct one needs only to realize that all
formal-logical operations can be simulated by a computer.) These numbers can be represented
visually through geometric elements or through points in a coordinate system, a mathematical space.
Mathematics can therefore be regarded as the quintessential representation of mechanical logical
thought.
105
In its geometrical form it provides the link between thinking and sensing. Numbers are
in themselves meaningless and empty forms, which are given meaning through creative and
generative thinking. This is true even for formal logic. Both can be regarded as abstract forms of
Nothingness.
Creative thinking gives meaning to mechanical thinking through its interconnectedness with
the whole, the whole of the human being and the whole of What I s, thus it can be considered an
Ch. 1 Pg. 80
expression of Oneness. One can say that creative thinking is a whole movement and a movement
of Oneness.
Thinking in terms of fixed symbols like numbers, is based on an absolute division between
numbers and everything else. If that division were actually true in our practical application of
language and mathematics, we could neither think nor compute or act reasonably; our thinking and
we ourselves would have no meaning. But, as all human beings trust that there is some meaning in
language and rational thinking, it is appropriate to consider the nothingness of mechanical
thinking as a cipher just as the Oneness of creative thinking. Both, mechanical and creative
thinking, are mutually exclusive from a logical standpoint, but both require each other to be
rational and meaningful. They are dialectic and complementary. In mechanical thinking Nothing
and One are totally separate quantities. Nothingness and Oneness are too abstract for mechanical
thinking. For creative thinking they are complementary ciphers. Thinking undergoes a qualitative,
yet often imperceptible change when it moves from mechanical to generative-creative modes.
B) Non-formal thinking: generative and creative
Generative thinking forms the sub-certain bridge between the two movements of mechanical
and creative thinking and can be described as a betweenness. It unfolds the uncertainty of thinking
as a whole to its mechanical sub-movement and can therefore be considered to be the uncertainty
relation of thinking itself. Precision in the non-mechanical areas of human thinking diminish
meaning. Vagueness in the mechanical areas of human thinking is called confusion and causes errors
and mistakes. Certainty and uncertainty are complementary movements of thinking.
Trying to be certain in the domain of uncertainty is as wrong as being vague in the domain
of certainty. To know God is a dangerous delusion. To build a bridge relying on intuition alone
rather than on precise engineering will cause its collapse. These are clear examples, but in everyday
life the boundary between certainty and uncertainty is itself often sub-certain.
The more precisely a positive statement about non-mechanical areas is being defined the
more the statement tends to lose in meaning for the whole of thinking. The more uncertain a
statement about something mechanical the less its correctness and meaning for the whole of
thinking. Any unbalanced approach becomes in the long run part of deceptive illusion.
Let me give a few more examples:
C If we treat the essential ideas of a religion as something we can
know with certainty we empty religion of meaning and are forced to
replace true meaning with opinion, superstition, indoctrination,
dogma, and deception (including self-deception).
C If we adopt a belief system like that of creationism, for example,
and call it scientific, we commit the double error of destroying the
meaning of religion and the meaning of science.
C If we think that scientific results are arbitrary opinions we are
totally confused and ignorant.
C If we believe that scientific research can give us the whole answer
about the human being and being in general, we violate the scientific
method itself.
To obtain a meaningful precise statement, followed by suitable action, in a particular and
practical situation, intelligence is required to create a thinker, the generating and connecting
thinking, as well as the thought which is the object of the thinker. This intelligence is the whole of
thinking functioning harmoniously on and between its different modes.
Ch. 1 Pg. 81
We can now see that with respect to the proposed model of thinking as three movements one
can consider the three levels as complementary. The mechanical level is complementary to the two
non-mechanical levels, and the generative level is complementary to the creative level. Let me try
to express the same idea in three different ways:
!The degree of determination of the mechanical level of thinking is
directly connected to the degree of indetermination of the non-
mechanical levels. Neither level exists all by itself.
! The attempt of absolute determination of one level of thinking
excludes the other levels from such determination completely and is
a detrimental disruption of the whole flow of thinking.
!One cannot be certain of either the whole of mechanical thinking
or creative thinking. The conscious or sub-conscious belief in the
possibility or even reality of an absolute certainty is confusion in any
case.
The purpose of this model is to provide a fundamental and inseparable interconnectedness
of all modes of thinking. When thinking as a whole starts to understand and comprehend itself, it
moves between mechanical and creative thinking with a subcertain awareness of itself. Since the
times of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zenon, and Plato such thinking has been called dialectic which is -
as we can see now - a proper name for this generative or quantum-organic thinking of betweenness.
I consider such a triangular model of dialectic thinking to be indispensable to any exploration
which attempts to learn of the human being but also of nature in general.
One may be able to see that this philosophical investigation starts from a perception of the
inseparability of all thinking as displayed to itself through the dialectic notion of nothingness,
oneness, and betweenness (NOB). It leads to a comprehension of the interconnected oneness of all
that can enter thinking, sensing, and acting of an intelligent being.
1.4.5.5 PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION
The triangular model of thinking should in itself be considered as a sub-certain model, i.e.
an adequate means, as I hope, to explore some particular products and movements of thinking. It is
neither a definition, nor recipe or formula.
An investigation of the human mind and its actions is not only an exercise in deductive or
inductive reasoning, belonging to the limited realm of science, but a challenge and appeal to our
essential human freedom as well. Science does not lead us to comprehend who we are, and it does
not tell us how to live that comprehension in a free communication with others.
This means also that a comprehension of this writing requires ideally a participation, an
actual thinking, which allows for an openness in which the boundaries between thinker, thought, and
the object of thought merge. Such thinking can neither be memorized nor generated through causal
or cogent methods.
Usually, when I refer to thinking I imply that the three modes of thinking are active together.
When I refer to consciousness, to the 'I ' or self, I refer to a thinking which is predominantly taking
place in the mechanical thinking space in our triangular model. The quality of this Self corresponds
to that area in which thinking occurs. Thus we should distinguish between a mechanical,
generative, and creative Self. When 'it' thinks mechanical thoughts it becomes more mechanical,
when 'it' thinks more subtle thoughts like in the generative area, it becomes more sub-certain. When
thinking is in its most creative mode the Self ceases to be an object to itself, i.e. consciousness
suspends itself, and dis-appears.
106
) See sections 4.2 ff in the fourth chapter: Triadic movements of sensing, acting, and thinking on page 262.
Ch. 1 Pg. 82
1.4.6 THE TRIADIC MOVEMENTS
As anything which enters our image of reality can become our consciousness or a part of it,
the three complementary thought movements have their counterparts in similar movements of
sensing and acting. Any single one of these movements implies the others directly or indirectly to
some degree, which is why I use the word triadic for this interpenetrating One movement of
sensing, acting, and thinking (SAT).
For example, any creative action involves sensing and thinking. It becomes manifest through
the mediating and focusing sub-certain level. An apparent separation of this triadic movement is
possible only on the mechanical level of thinking. (There, we are usually dealing with a double
separation: the separation of the three levels and the separation of the triadic movement of sensing,
acting, and thinking.) I will expand on the basic idea of these movements in chapter 4.
106

1.4.6.1 DIALECTIC BETWEEN MECHANICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING
Our foundation and point of departure is the perception that all is fundamentally one.
Separation is appearance which is a necessary and correct description for much of reality. The idea
of oneness must be seen as cipher which demands repeated interpretation.
Fundamentally, all movements are inseparable:
! The triadic movement of thinking, sensing, and acting;
! the movement of the three distinguishable levels of perception;
! the movements of mind and matter;
! all of the above.
However, their separation is possible, necessary, and adequate as a particular sub-movement
of formal thinking, sensing, and acting. This possibility is part of that one movement. This seeming
contradiction of the possibility of the separation of a fundamental oneness is highlighted by the
apparent contrast between oneness and nothingness as absolutely separate and irreconcilable ideas.
That which is one cannot be nothing and that which is nothing cannot be one. To comprehend and
dissolve this apparent contradiction we must have insight and understand the different levels of our
thinking.
Oneness and nothingness are connected through sub-certain relations similar to those
between matter and mind, or freedom and unity. Their reality is part of thinking, and thinking is part
of them and their relationships.
This means that the oneness aspect of NOB cannot remain static but is guided and drawn by
its hidden nothingness aspect - its power to negate itself - to differentiate itself. Each part which has
thus been separated from the whole retains the oneness and nothingness aspect in itself. On one hand
this is a potentially intelligent and dynamic will to oneness. On the other hand, it is a will to
nothingness or a will to freedom, which includes the freedom from all rules and which leads to the
separation from the whole. But no matter how far this will drives or guides a separated part into
either one of these directions, the power to negate the separation, to undo what it has done, remains
with it. This means that neither a total separation (total freedom) nor a total oneness (one absolute
order) can ever be attained as a static system. What I s, is dialectic eternal movement.
For a human being in a society this movement becomes apparent in the structure of that
idealized society. Every human being is separate from every other human being and from society
as a whole. In a society like the US it is the constitution which guarantees the freedom of every
citizen and thus their possible separation from each other. But the creation and observance of this
Ch. 1 Pg. 83
(freedom guaranteeing) constitution implies the oneness and therefore limitation of that freedom and
separation. The diverse and pluralistic groups of society must respect each other's freedom and form
one dialectically moving order through the respect for that freedom.
1.4.6.2 PROPER KNOWLEDGE
Understanding with certainty is only that small part of thinking
whose certainty requires the separation of thought from its source
which is the thinking self. In this separation formal thinking becomes
the foundation of mechanical time as the memorized and remembered
chain of thoughts. Whatever can be remembered identically, or at
least with some degree of resemblance, has a degree of certainty.
We experience the reality of matter in space as a conception and perception of sensing,
acting, and thinking combined. (For more details see Thing And Thought on page 314.)
For example, the picture of the "Descent of the Ganges" is different in its concept from a
linear time arrangement. The whole story of the "Descent of the Ganges" is told simultaneously
without the temporal sequence of the actual story. Our thinking paints or projects its objects of a
manifest world, encountered by means of sensing and acting, onto its own thought-space or thing-
space, where it can understand and measure according to its memories and value-systems. Just like
the temporal sequence of the above story may be unimportant, so may the sizes and spatial
proportions be understood as being independent of actuality.
We represent the actual world to our consciousness as the real world which is a product of
our Maya, i.e. a product of our idiosyncratic measuring and value systems. The true nature of What
I s is beyond measure and is part of a whole movement of thought-time-space-matter (TTMS),
which, as a whole, can never be a real object of investigation. Thought cannot truly separate itself
from that movement. Only particular and limited aspects of the whole can be so investigated and
eventually be measured. We can dance with Maya but we can never eliminate her.
A limited separation of the whole into parts is a proper and often indispensible function
of that whole movement. Therefore, the formation of a self, of formal knowledge and
measurement are valid and not mere illusion. They can lead to universally correct results
because the separation of time, space, matter, and thought is of the same origin as that of
correctness and the concept of universality.
Correctness requires that mechanical time and causality be added to the much more holistic
sense of space. The stories of many ancient rock carvings and pictographs are not causal and are
therefore not seen in a logical sequence. (See the photograph of the Descent of The Ganges.
Figure 13 on page 85) The introduction of time and causality in a continuous string from the past
through the present to the future is one of the necessary movements of logical thinking, but it is also
its greatest self-deception when it comes to meaning. Thinking can see that for meaning eternity is
required.
Knowledge and measurement can lead to correct and significant results in limited areas,
which may extend over many different realities. I use the word proper in this context to indicate an
attitude of the human mind, which is aware of its limitations and limits. Consequently, to discover
proper separations, which provide order for thinking and a reality, a creative perception, which
transcends a particular reality of space and time separations, is required.
Ch. 1 Pg. 84
For example, the naming and classification of insects or plants requires that one first look at
them carefully to find characteristic distinctions and similarities. Without such open minded study,
all insects and plants will look essentially the same. Cliches, on the other hand, are poorly chosen
generalities, lacking sufficient differentiation. They are typically the result of the lack of care, of
observation, and of intelligent thinking. The degree of mechanical conditioned thinking is very high.
For example: "All Chinese or Indian people look alike," is a mild example of these old unthinking
cliches which we justly characterize as stupid. Giving derogatory names is a cherished method to
force thinking in a mechanical mode.
It is only when we care to observe and think carefully that we discover that people are very
different, that they look differently, speak and think differently, etc.
We are able to introduce differences through separation, and order through
reconnecting the differences. Thus, through observation, thinking, and interacting we create
the basic structure of our realities. If we do this properly, we can form a basis of knowledge and
measure, which are to a high degree reality independent. Then we can build on that knowledge
and expand it through reason and logic.
Such ordering knowledge and measure is valid to the degree to which it can express its
limitation. In mathematics and the physical sciences this is relatively easy.
Knowledge can be certain within its limitation and can be used for sub-certain
inferences beyond its limits. But the assumptions of infinite knowledge and knowledge of the
absolute infinite, are infinite illusion. When such assumptions are made within an ordering system
of thought irrational thought has taken over and tends to dominate all other thoughts. To avoid such
destructive developments in thought, safeguards against any absolutist forms in a reality should be
introduced intelligently.
Even the prime and proper parameters of formal knowledge, i.e. concepts of space,
time, matter, and thought, should not be regarded as absolute and static. They should be seen as
intelligent and potentially dynamic forms of perception.
In a formal reality, space appears with matter and time appears with thought. Space and matter
appear to be separate from time and thought in a separation which is bridged by sensing and acting.
The formulation of correct results about a physical reality is based on that separation.
For example, we can observe a bird flying through the air and accurately measure its location
and speed. To do this, we need space and time measurements, defined and applied through thought
and physical observation. Time has a unique direction, which defines past, present, and future as a
directed line in our consciousness. Thus, a story is told generally starting at the initial point in time
and then progressing steadily to its end. A story can also be told through pictures, like on the
adjacent relief of the Descent of the Ganges. Here the story is not at all told in a time sequence but
rather according to the importance of the various symbolic figures involved.
Description of plate 13 on page 85. Descent of the Ganges:
Ch. 1 Pg. 85
Figure 13 Descent of the Ganges; Mahabalipuram, 7
th
Century C.E.
The gigantic relief of 90 by 30 feet is part of an effort of the Pallava kings of South India of
the seventh century C.E. It is part of a huge area of cliffs and boulders which all have been
transformed into sculptures and temples, cut out of the living rock as the artisans found it.
The tale described on this particular relief stems from the Ramayana. After the ocean has
been swallowed by a demon the whole world is threatened by famine, drought, and catastrophe. The
hero of the story, the king Bhagiratha, seen as one of the main yogic figures, standing on one leg
with raised hands, frying at the center of five fires, four around him, and the sun above, convinces
through his heroic asceticism and yoga magic the God Brahma to allow the Ganga (the river
Ganges) to descend down to earth. But the Lord Shiva's assistance is needed as well to soften the
fall of the gigantic waters onto the earth. So, through further ascetic practices Bhagiratha impresses
even the master yogi Shiva and wins his help. Shiva, the divine Yogi, agrees to receive the torrents
of the Ganga in his hair, and thus reduces their devastating force to a gentle flow down the
Himalayas into the wide open planes of India. In this scene therefore Shiva is the helper of the
Goddess in her form as Ganga. The life giving, purifying, and healing waters represent her entirely
positive aspects. In the bronze figure of Shiva-Nataraja ( Figure 77 on page 493), we can see the
Ganga in his hair, which appears to be at the same time the torrential waters of the Ganges and the
fiery flames of his halo.
Ch. 1 Pg. 86
Figure 14 Descent of the Ganges: Detail
At the center of the relief we see a huge cleft, inhabited by the serpent king and his queen,
rejoicing at the waters rushing down the mountain. From all sides of the earth flock together gods,
humans, animals, demons, genii, to witness the miracle. Spiritual, yogic, willpower succeeds to win
favors of the Gods and nature herself.

The adjacent detail
of the Descent of the
Ganges shows the ascetic
Bhagiratha standing on one
leg in the center, and the
Goddess Ganga to his right
below, with the body of a
snake and a crown of cobra
heads.

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DANCING WITH MAYA

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