Tension as the Operative Principle of Human Life

Maya is a word that has been used within classical Eastern religion to denote illusion. The doctrine of maya conveys the idea that the material universe is an illusion and only the spiritual realm is real. Maya originally was a word for a veil, a net, or a covering. The idea is that the material world, as an illusion, veils the spiritual world and prevents it from being seen.

Because it is rooted in the flawed archetype of spirit and matter, the religious concept of maya suffers from the hierarchical thinking in which spirit is seen as being superior to matter. The proposed religious cure is one in which the aspirant to truth must deny their material appetites in order to weaken the illusion of the sensory world. The force of maya must be transcended via a meditative insight into the illusory nature of the physical world.

The religious usage of maya argues for the deceptive nature of human perception: We believe what our physical senses tell us and thus fail to see the true reality of God. But at the root of the idea of maya is a critical misstep, and that misstep lies in condemning both our senses and sensuality for the sake of a religious morality.

The Disunification, or the universe we inhabit, is limited by its very nature, and so naturally this limitation would be inherent in our senses. The religious doctrine of maya correctly recognizes the limits of the body and mind, but it errs when it falsifies them by equating them with illusion: dE and dA are not illusory, they are in fact the very reality of the Disunification. The irony of the concept of maya, then, is that it warns of an illusion while perpetuating one.

Maya sees our limitations as indicative of an illusion; in the DX our limitations rightly point to a design. The idea of maya arises from the flawed matrix of spirit and matter; the Disunification arises from the recognition of the limits God had to assume in order to disunify. The idea of maya condemns the body and mind to a material scrap heap of illusion; the DX acknowledges the independent, co-equal, and actual existence of body and mind as discrete forms of dE and dA.

Just as we restated spirit and matter, then, a restatement of maya is in order. Therefore, rejecting the classical definition of maya, we will use another word to denote the universally operative principle that maintains the Disunification of Energy and Awareness. The word "Tension" shall therefore serve to denote the active principle of limitation in the universe. This concept offers us a powerful conceptual tool while freeing us from the encrusted morality surrounding the word maya.

Tension is the principle of disunified existence.  

Tension is to the human psyche what gravity is to mass: It increases with size. Hence, as the mass of modern life is so much greater than life in earlier times, the tension is greater. Worse, our mass makes us more attractive of the troubling meteors of terrorism and dread that formerly flitted around the edge of our collective solar system. Now our mass draws them in where they threaten to impact. The evil is drawn here by our tension, for our massed tension threatens the freedom of the outsiders as our gravity threatens to Westernize them in orbit. They must find a way to become Modernized without becoming Westernized. Otherwise, we will see the psychic analog of Villakovsky's "World's in Collision" as a New World Order is shaped by great violence. The Great Planets swirl in attractive orbits. Christianity and Islam are the two great planets that threaten each other in this crucial time in the evolution of the dAshpere. The knowledge of the Disunification would shift the basis of each from that of an absolute "winner take all" religion of warriors to a sub-infinite religion of relationship. Could either make such a gesture? Could either stop the tension and admit that it is not Infinite? That is the only solution short of horrible violence in an apocalyptic fight over who gets to be absolute. Yet in mass death, no absolute emerges except death itself and that to mock the power-mad magnifcos who claim to speak for Almighty God.  

The Limitations of the Disunification

The great void in which our universe floats was created when the unity of Infinity was annihilated in the Disunification (DX). In one moment there was a condition of absolute unity; in the next moment there was disunity and the tension that is inherent in all disunified forms, processes and beings.  Tension serves to hold all the elemental constituents of human psyches in their orbits. This is why it is so damn hard to change yourself, situations, and especially others. 

Our inheritance from Infinity is not the religious fantasy of perfect love and fulfillment, but rather a Divine Tension that awakens us into the struggle to incarnate and explore desire. Tension, which can also be called dissatisfaction,  is a constant in life and can be either creative or destructive. The Tension of the DX circumscribes our cells, our thoughts, our sexuality, our birth and death, art, the land and sea, gravity, stars, and existence altogether. But Tension is not unique to the DX, for it suffused Infinity and motivated LELA's desire to taste of the sub-infinite realm of humanity.

DX teaching holds that gravity arises from the spherical pressure of the Infinity Surround compressing our Universe. Because we have sufficient internal dE, we expand. However, we will reach a maximal level of expansion and then we will contract as the Infinity Surround compresses us. Gravity exists on both the classical Newtonian level and on the quantum level. My theory is that classical gravity is generated from outside the Universe by the Infinity Surround whereas quantum gravity is generated from inside of our Universe via the tension that was created when  subatomic particles disunified within the void moment.  My theory also holds that gravity and dimensionality are related. I say this because predictable dimensional shapes emerge and this predictability suggests that they have been evolutionarily sculpted by gravity. 

I have previously posited that the dimensions LELA determined to configure our Universe with had warped around the void moment and so configured it. That our Universe was dimensionalized prior to the DX supports my theory that the "big bang" occurred in a pre-configured space.  The pre-existing dimensions of our Universe put constraints on how the big bang could happen (and here I am using big bang and disunification interchangeably, though they are not synonymous in the strict sense). I propose that the dimensionality allowed for the DX to occur perfectly.  Unlike a random, chaotic explosion in which hot gases go all over, I think of the pre-dimensioned Universe as a reactor vessel that maximized the capture and utilization of the energy released during the localized annihilation of Infinity. 

 That Tension precedes human thought and physical matter indicates that our religion and technology cannot transcend this structural limitation of Energy and Awareness. We will never be holy enough, smart enough, or strong enough to wholly overcome Tension, for Tension defines the outer limits of the universe, it is the fishbowl that we do not see as we swim along and wonder why space is curved.  

Like the mythic Sandman of childhood, Tension closes our eyes so that we dream and forget about Infinity. The body, our thoughts and feelings, this blue-green planet -- this is what enfolds us, this is what we awaken into. And when we try to look closer, the Tension of our own ignorance surrounds us like a gauzy, translucent veil.

We can sense the brightness behind the sky, but LELA is ever elusive, ever invisible. Indeed, that One throws stars across the black velvet of night and casts shadows in the daylight so that this dream of desire will live on.

Tension is the cosmic force of the DX that transmutes desire into form and form into chaos; imagination into art and art into meaninglessness; consciousness into being and being into death. Observe the manifest universe and you will see six of the ways that Tension operates:

One: Tension prevents any form, process, or being from either bringing itself into existence or living forever. Birth and death is the rule of the DX. There is no escape from what the Hindu's call the "wheel of birth and death." To exist in this universe requires birth, and inherent in birth is death. The search for life eternal in your present form is fruitless. And anyway, why would you want to be you forever? Are you really that necessary or important that you should live forever?

Two: Tension creates time, which in turn forces a constant change in everything. No one and no thing remains timeless or unchanged. If LELA had wanted to remain in a state of timeless and unchanging perfection, that One would have stayed in Infinity. But obviously God wanted experience those things that can only be had by time and change. The Wheel of Birth and Death can and must be rethought in terms of the DX. 

Three: The inherent tension of the DX prevents anyone from attaining supreme enlightenment; LELA cannot be wholly seen by disunified eyes. LELA cannot be found intact because that One is spread throughout the vastness of the DX, and only then in sub-infinite form because not all of LELA was disunified. It is therefore a remarkable conceit for anyone to claim that they have direct access to the Divine. Attaining a partial, general sort of enlightenment, however, is certainly within everyone's reach.

Four: The "first cause" originated not in the DXverse, but rather in the inaccessible realm of Infinity. No one will ever know the entire secret of God nor the mechanism of the universe. DX teaching predicts that the attempt to discover a unified field theory, or any other single scientific or religious principle that would account for the origin of the cosmos will never be successful for the reason that part of the answers remains locked away within Infinity. Physics will keep drilling down into the nature of the Universe, but DX teaching predicts that it will never finally discover the final answer. If the DX turns out to be wrong on this point, then it does not invalidate all of the DX, but only this prediction.  

In terms of religion, the DX admits what absolutist religions will not: There is no one single truth about God. In this sense, the DX is not a religion but rather a strategic philosophical recognition about the nature and origin of the Universe. The DX remains open to new religious and philosophical discoveries about the nature of man and the Universe and predicts that electronics, genetics,  and psychiatric pharmacology will play an increasingly role in what has traditionally been called enlightenment.  This speaks to the central role of the human brain in processing disunified Awareness. To modify brain function will result in more optimal human behaviors, especially as we are able to unlock dA from negative brain processing. 

Five: Tension prevents any form, process, or being from becoming either omnipresent or omnipotent. Time, mass, and entropy ensure this. None of the sub-infinite Gods of the DX are capable of watching and weighing your every thought, word, and action. Not only would this bore any God, but constant introspection should bore you as well. As to the other absurd notion that some God has the power to rule the world, control the unfolding of history, and tame nature, well, if such a God is doing this, then that One's not doing a very impressive job judging from the state of the world. 

Six: Tension prevents any form, process, or being from becoming all-knowing or attaining a complete understanding of the universe. Know-it-all's be advised: The staggering volume of information in the universe is encoded into an incalculable number of structures ranging from tse tse flies to supernovas to the janitor at work. The file cabinets of the universe are too overwhelming to be understood, cross-indexed, or read in one sitting.  Infinite computational power would require Infinite power, and neither are available in this Universe. 

On a more personal level, that just as it takes energy and an understanding of aerodynamics to fly, so too it requires psychic energy and a knowledge of enlightenment-dynamics to overcome the pervasive tension of human existence. To extend the analogy, what comes up must come down. Plan on spending most of your conscious existence grounded between your ears. When you do take to the air, begin with small flights and plan on a few hard landings. When you get very involved, altitude is your friend because it allows you to correct as you plummet. Your parachute is your imperfect everyday self. Your usual problem-plagued mortal self will always reliably be there when you fall. Never underestimate the power and safety of what you deem ordinary or even mediocre.    

Einstein famously observed, "God does not play dice with the universe." What we will suggest is that is only partly true, for while God planned and built our Universe and the human body, we could say that any human life is, in one sense, a throw of dice in so many ways. Einstein's God does not play dice, but Wittgenstein's does. Thus, we arise in a paradox that I term "purpose built probability."  Like the human brain, the Universe is a meticulously constructed machine. Both, however, are unpredictable in ways we cannot even imagine, for who knows what will happen in the next moment? What we will see, think, experience, or dream? Though we humans possess fabulous brains, and although we can map our brains, we cannot say what we will dream about on any given night. We are DNA mystery machines even as the Universe is a cosmic mystery machine.