THE MEANING OF WHOLENESS

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Jesus said, "I am the one who comes from what is whole… if one is whole,
one will be filled with light, but if one is divided, one will be filled with darkness.
"From the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas (Unearthed near Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1948)
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
From the Gospel of Matthew 6:22
Physicist David Bohm was before his time in speaking of the nature of unity in all reality. He worked with Dr Karl Pribram on advancing the idea of the holographic nature of the mind and conferred with Krishnamurti and the Dali Lama regarding various Eastern philosophical presuppositions. He believed these supported his understanding of what science is now beginning to confirm.
Not too surprisingly, he met great resistance in the old-guard scientific establishment. However, after being shunned for much of his lifetime, his ideas continue to gain more credence among quantum physicists.
Ideas of the 'implicate,' enfolded universe opposed the fragmentation implicit in much of Western philosophy and science where parts and effects are assumed to be everything, while an understanding of the whole is largely ignored. Perhaps this is why his views seem to have an appreciation for the mystical, acausal interpretation of reality.
I certainly agree with many of his views, though I don’t always know what to do with the rest. These concepts, along with Ken Wilbur’s integration theories, became major themes in Book Four of ELYSIUM''S PASSAGE: SURREAL ADVENTURES. See the post WHAT IS A HOLON?
https://digitalbloggers.com/arts-and-entertainment/what-is-a-holon
As with Bohm, the novel takes a critical view of Western hardcore science, referring to it and much of Western culture as unimaginative and flat (hence The Flatlands), resistant to and often hostile to spiritual transcendence and mysticism.
The following excerpts from ELYSIUM’S PASSAGE: SURREAL ADVENTURES, Book Four of the novel series discuss the meaning of wholeness in contradistinction to separation and parts.
‘I’m sure you’ve heard of Lao-Tzu, a very astute man who lived on earth a long time ago. He once said: Wise men hear and see as little children do.’[1]
‘I’m familiar with a number of these ancient Taoist writings, but I wasn’t aware of that quote.’
‘In the future,’ Rhom said, ‘you would do well to study what he had to say. It might help you realize why the Flatlanders have so much difficulty understanding the nature of the universe. For whatever reason, they don’t seem to have the capacity to inwardly discern and understand what their outward eyes see. They see parts, but not the whole.
‘I’m not sure about that’ I said. ‘Obviously, everyone is aware there is a whole where there are parts.’
‘Yes, but do they ever look beyond the parts? It’s tough to understand meaning when everything is understood as parts and parts of parts, ad infinitum. What is the ultimate purpose of anything without reference to the whole?
‘For example, the Flatlanders study the brain and the heart, but they don’t understand the holographic nature of how these and other body parts function and flow as one. For them, the sum of the parts is nothing more than just the sum of the parts. How can they accept the mystery of life when they perceive the whole universe as being nothing more than an aggregation of parts?
‘Since their awareness is limited to tangible objects, and whatever is at hand, they can only see, believe and understand the lowest possible level, being the materialist bedrock of their flat linear perspective.’
As Mo would sometimes say, we must allow ourselves to be apprehended by the divine, rather than attempt to apprehend what remains beyond the soul’s apprehension. I finally grasped that, in essence, all reality is spiritual, and so must be discerned accordingly.[2]
This understanding should have been apparent, but with my years of conditioning, it didn’t come easily. But when it did, it changed everything, making the universe much simpler for me to comprehend. Contrary to material appearances, there is nothing left to reconcile: no dualism of mind and matter, soul and body or even separation of objects. There’s only God’s Spirit from which all emanates, and all remains entangled in this one divine relationship.
Berkeley had it more right than wrong... Descartes had it more wrong than right. And the materialists had, and still have it all wrong. That’s something I would never have said or dared to think before my fall into this domain, but my very existence in this spirit form proved how wrong I had been.
Now that I came to accept the reality of what should have been obvious all along, I assumed I had achieved what I had come to accomplish on the island.
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‘That sounds a lot like the holon concept Mo and Eli often talked about. That’s what holons are about; fields within fields, octaves within octaves.’
‘Indeed, they are,’ he said, ‘just another word for the same thing, which is why nothing in the universe can remain separate. In this sense, transcending holograms might be understood as what enfolded less inclusive holons. Ultimately, all remain united within the Source, stretching and expanding into the infinity of all that is created and all that might be created… to eternity.
‘Once you understand this, nothing could be more evident. However, those who become mesmerized by separate parts lose their ability to perceive the whole. Such has been the fate of those who dwell in the Flatlands since their beliefs are derived from fragmented fields of consciousness. That’s why there seem to be such different interpretations of reality.
‘The larger the holon, however, the greater is the clarity for understanding. And yet, even the most inclusive holon that holds the earth’s fields of collective consciousness, is but a shadow of the Consciousness of the divine Source.
ENDNOTES
[1] Lao Tzu (604 -532 BC) was a Chinese philosopher who became the founder of Taoism.
[2] While writing this portion of the narrative, I coincidentally found a supportive statement made by Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Prize in Physics 1932): I assert the nature of all reality is spiritual, not material or a dualism of matter and spirit. The hypothesis that its nature can be, to any degree, material does not enter into my reckoning because we understand now that matter, the putting together of the adjective material and the noun nature does not make any sense.
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PENDING PUBLICATION OF ELYSIUM’S PASSAGE SERIES
THE SUMMIT: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage
QUANTUM LEAPS: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage
SURREAL ADVENTURES: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage
MYSTICAL ROMANCE: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage
THE ELIXIR: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage
THE RETURN: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage
1. The Ascent is the first novel in the Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage that’s foundational to everything that happens in the following narratives that embark on an adventure that will surprise and delight the reader like no other book.
It all begins with an extreme adventure of climbing a remote and challenging mountain somewhere in the Andean Mountains. Just as James, the protagonist, is about to reach the mountain summit, he falls into an abyss that leaves him in a coma for almost a year.
After being airlifted by a forestry helicopter and flown back to London, where his body remains for almost a year. Eventually, he learns it was not him but his body that was rescued. Several days later, without understanding what happened, he continues to climb to the summit in an alternate dimension of higher consciousness.
Fortuitously, he meets two adventurers on the summit ridge who are no longer of this world. After that, his surreal life leads him to several new adventures in the subsequent chronicles that include a rich mix of adventure, romance, and fantasy, along with profound discussions of philosophy, spirituality and the afterlife.
2. The Summit, the second novel in the Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage, carries on where James, the narrator and protagonist, is taught more about a multidimensional reality that he finds difficult to comprehend.
Not only does he find he’s not as clever as he imagined, but his off-world companions on the summit demonstrate that much of what he believed about life was not just parochial but wrong. At first, he finds this difficult to comprehend since their teachings are contrary to his limited understanding of non-material reality.
After being tricked into teleporting off a ledge where he was trapped, James becomes aware of the new reality that makes him capable of far more adventures than could have ever been experienced previously in his physical body back home.
Now, if only he would win over the only woman in this life who matters, the nurse on the other side of the veil, who continually demonstrates her unconditional love toward his healing.
Warning: This book may also open the reader’s eyes to a much vaster reality than most might be aware. As with the other Chronicles, there are discussions of philosophy, the spiritual afterlife and what might seem like fantasy.
3. Quantum Leaps is the third novel in Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage, where James, the philosopher-protagonist, teleports back to London to visit his body and make contact with the special nurse taking care of it in his absence. Immediately, he feels an inexplicable spiritual bond with her for reasons he remains unaware of.
Now aroused by a renewed interest in matters of love, the beginnings of a relationship begin to emerge as he attempts to reach across the chasm of their worlds. But it’s not until the fifth novel, Mystical Romance, that he encounters her in a way that he finds difficult to believe.
However, before that can happen, there is much about his failed relationships that must be resolved before he is ready to move forward in his new life in Elysium’s Passage. It is during this time he christens his comatose body as the fall guy since it took the fall for him down the abyss so he could learn the lessons he’s now learning.
That will be the next focus of his life, where in his next Surreal Adventures, he is given virtual lessons to release many of his past beliefs about life.
4. Surreal Adventures is the fourth novel in the Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage, which finds James, the protagonist and narrator, escorted by his companions to a remote South Pacific Island, where he is left to reflect on what he’s learned.
During the next forty days, he battles the demons of his past as he works through some rather painful issues from his early youth. Here, in a tropical storm, he encounters an eery suspended spectre of the one he loved yet still resents for abandoning him as a child.
After this, he achieves peace of mind and is ready to return to his lodge to join his off-world companions on the Andes summit. However, just when it seemed things couldn’t get any stranger, a sixteenth-century sea captain sails his ancient ‘ghost’ ship onto the beach. Together, they sail off on a mystical ocean voyage to a couple of virtual islands supposedly in the South Pacific, where he witnesses and, at times, participates in several important life lessons.
Near the end, these encounters help prepare him for a new challenge within the interior of a mountain, where he falls deep into a dark tomb of fear. After being rescued by a mysterious stranger wielding his Excaliber, he continues on to where his life is about to be transformed in the following chronicle, Mystical Romance.
5. Mystical Romance is the fifth chronicle in Elysium’s Passage, which will surprise the reader with a romantic twist of how love is expressed in higher realms. From this lofty perspective, everything about intimacy is understood as within, so without.
After escaping his tomb, James, the narrator and protagonist, makes his way through a maze of tunnels until he arrives at a large oak door, which he opens with the golden key he had been given. There, he steps into Elysium’s Passage’s Great Hall, where his life and recent achievements are celebrated now that his eyes have been opened to perceive a fascinating interior world of wonderment… and romance.
To say more might risk diminishing the multitude of delightful surprises as circumstances begin to open to The Elixir, where James is about to re-enter his earthly body’s existence.
6. The Elixir is the sixth chronicle of the Elysium’s Passage series that prepares James, the narrator-protagonist, to awaken and return to his body in London. Before that can happen, however, his off-worlder friend presents a mysterious equation enshrouded with a light code frequency that will stimulate multidimensional DNA strands within him.
Much of this narration is centred in London, where his nurse unknowingly becomes involved in how the Elixir’s equation finds its way from a taxi cab driver to higher echelons of science. There are many twists in how she unwittingly brings the Elixir to the attention of mathematicians and physicists, after which they eventually discover how to code the equation into a laser ray to stimulate his fall-guy body into full consciousness.
Ostensibly a new Adam, he is destined to return humanity to a higher multidimensional existence. How this happens is filled with intrigue, as is his shocking return to his earthly body.
7. The Return is the seventh and last chronicle in the series where James, the narrator and protagonist, has re-emerged from Elysium’s Passage as he readjusts to life in the third dimension. Many of the events experienced in the previous novels are tied together in an exciting, fast-moving, action-packed narrative over several countries.
At first, it seems all memories have been lost, with his fall guy’s brain not being aware of what happened to him while in his coma. As a consequence, it takes a while for him to be convinced he had been out of his earthly body for almost a year.
Through some rather unexpected events and evidence, along with his girlfriend’s urging, he is brought to an awareness of much of what occurred. It takes a while for his mind to catch up with the changes made in his heart during his stay in the alternate realm. But after experiencing several harsh realities, he discovers what he became within while out of his body. Gradually, he comes to understand the many challenges that lie ahead for him in fulfilling his future mission on Earth.
This book is filled with adventure, romance and personal intrigue, tying together all six previous narratives of the Elysium’s Passage series.
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