The On and Off of Reality

Awake. On. Sleep. Off. When a dream starts its oneiric engine, the rational mind is off and the dreaming mind is on. This type of on/off switch dictates the karmic flow of our lives. The on/off switch sets the pace, where choices are fingers, the mind is the bulb, and the imaginative faculty is the light.

Space and form dutifully follow the rules of the on/off game. Form is the on. Space is the off. Space is the empty medium where the miracle of form exists in potentia. Form is the actualization of the miracle. We always get hung up on the form and neglect the space that envelops and inhabits the form. Even when reading words on a page (or in cyberspace in this case), we always focus on the words themselves and not the intervening space that interconnects the words. We are lead to believe the space in between is meaningless. This is because of our education. The alphabet has been inculcated and ingrained in us since we were young. We can't escape it. Our understanding of the world depends upon it. But the question lurking in the cracks of consensus reality must be brought to the pallid surface: doesn't our understanding of the world also depend on the space between all words, objects, letters, and ideas? Without the off, the on cannot exist. Without space, form would be nothing but a gray, lifeless lump of claustrophobic matter.

The mind and the senses also play the on/off game like obsequious soldiers on the battlefield of reality. Sometimes the mind is off--blank and naked, contemplative and stark--while the senses seem to be doing all the talking. Conversely, sometimes the senses are switched to the off position while the mind roams in fields of luminescent thought unobstructed by perception. Both can also be on, and both can also be off. When escaping from a burning building, both the mind and the senses are on. When in deep dreamless sleep, the senses and the mind are both off.

On. Off. Reality. We are in control of the switch as sentient beings. We shape our own destinies just like we always have in different forms. To reiterate the words of the Hopi: "We are the ones we've been waiting for."

Lights on or lights out?