Learning the Language of the Universe

"It is the later task of intelligence to appreciate the inseparable relationships between the things so divided, and so to rediscover the universe as distinct from a mere multiverse." -Alan Watts

 

I was so surprised to discover that my throat had choked up and my eyes filled with tears when I read this sentence. It was the end of an Alan Watts' essay from his 'This is it'  book of essays, so it was a good stopping point to close the book and close my eyes, and go within to see where the tears were coming from. Was it the mention of a "mere multiverse"? Or the "appreciation of inseparable relationships between things so divided"? Or the suggestion of a "later task of intelligence"?

 

I think it's the recognition of myself as one of the "things so divided" that's making this universe a "multiverse". There is such touching beauty and magnificence in the thought of a uni-verse, the creation of a uni-verse, the absoluteness of a uni-verse, the oneness of a uni-verse, that multi-verse seems like an ugly slur on what uni-verse was and is meant to be.

 

 

I pour my energies into separating myself, secluding myself, retreating into a corner, craving independence, solitude, freedom, all the while furiously, yet unknowingly, denying the oneness of the universe. How ignorant. How abysmally ignorant. The factions of single persons, the bigger factions of region, religion, race, culture, country - factions, fractions, divisions - relentlessly trying to divide the indivisible. Trying so hard to create a multiverse - why? To what end?

 

Aren't we all craving oneness? Needing completion, fullness, to become whole? Needing support and interdependence? But how do we get rid of the suspicions, the doubts, the fears, the insecurities, the beliefs, the boundaries? The only way is to drop them all and surrender to the universe, but that's where we hold back - seemingly just a piece of ourselves, we resist - just one little thing, and that's where it all begins. The resistance, the anxiety, the endless trials to build dams against the flow of the universe.

 

And so we are - I am - at the early "task of intelligence" still - like a mere toddler, unable to play nice yet, unable to understand the language of the universe yet, unable to give, accept, or surrender. And that's what got me choked up - the recognition of myself as a temperamental toddler only wanting my little toy, when the abundant universe is giving it all, all the time - with nothing held back. Because the universe is after all, giving to itself - because there is the only one universe - the absolute.