CHAPTER THREE
The Cyclic Structure of the Movement of Wholeness - 4

It is hard to conceive how the invariant structure of cyclic being can be maintained under the conditions of perpetual variability which the human situation makes possible. One has to postulate the operation, through Compassion and karma, of a metacosmic power able perpetually to readjust all disequilibratory individual actions generated by human desires and individual free will. The myths of many religions provide a guarded explanation of various ways in which such a process of reabsorption (or karmic neutralization) takes place. Classical Greece believed in the actually unimaginable work of the three Fates (Moirae in Greek, Parcae in Latin) continually weaving the ever-changing patterns of interpersonal relationships and intercultural events; a blind procedure, for no human consciousness could possibly envision the quasi-infinite complexity of the meshing of more or less individualized lines of readjustment. The unmeasurable number of crossings of event-lines, which not only every human being but humanity as a whole, the planet, the solar system, etc. lives through as experienceable situations, cannot be interpreted adequately in terms of what is now popularly known as "synchronicity." What happens as an apparently significant coincidence (significant to some individualized mind) at a "moment" isolated from the entire cycle of time is not the important fact. The entire meshing of destinies within a whole of balanced motion is involved.
       We can, of course, establish boundaries separating the line of readjustment of an assumedly individual and unique person. Peter or Jane, from the lives of other persons; but if we do that, we in fact isolate what we take to be the cause of a series of effects from the complex group of desires that emerged from the subjectivity factor in Peter's or Jane's experiences largely as the result of their relatedness to family, culture, and the whole planet. A particular phase of the Movement of Wholeness comes to a focal point in Peter's karma-producing experiences and responses. But if this "'Peter" in fact turns out to be the student who, by murdering the Austrian archduke in Sarajevo in 1914, led to World War I, to Hitler, and the immense and fateful changes in human civilization and the earth's biosphere which followed as effects of that precipitating cause, what kind of individual karmic retribution could possibly readjust such a "free" action? The student should indeed be considered a focusing instrument for the destructuring of our Euro-American civilization. The "effect" of his act has to be met by the whole of humanity. In religious Christian terms, not only humanity is involved in acts of such momentous importance; the collective karma of mankind, extending as far back as an "Original Sin," within them calls for the compassionate sacrifice of God's Son (an ever- present "atonement"). In terms of such a frame of reference, the Fatherhood of God symbolizes the invariant structure of the Movement of Wholeness — the cyclicity of any particular cycle. Divine Sonship is the forever readjusting power that absorbs all disordering personal or collective human desires into the tide of a supreme manifestation of the Love that is pure Compassion.
       Christ asked his disciples to radiate at least a reflection of that divine Love in meeting other human beings. The Greek term agape, so badly translated as "charity," refers to what human beings can experience of such a divine Love. But when Christ enjoined his disciples to "love one another," he added the far less often quoted words "as I have loved you." Christ-love, like the karuna which wells up from the heart of the Bodhisattvas, is that power whose operation makes it possible for Wholeness to remain a constant Presence while, at the human level of evolution, the principle of Multiplicity challenges the rise of the longing for Unity through the seeming "freedom" of personal desires. But such desires are still deeply affected by the memory of biological urges. Can one really speak of freedom; or does one not rather witness, in so many instances, the operation of unfulfilled karma?
       For the individual person, the choice is nevertheless open. He or she may accept the karmic confrontation and the full implications of the situation confronting the individual — thus restoring Wholeness and re-attuning oneself to the rhythmic flow of the Movement. He or she may also repeat once more the ancient disturbance and deepen the need for future karmic impacts, unless a power of Compassion is able to act within and transfigure the situation.
       If, however, we think of individualized karma, we have to accept the idea of "something" to which this karma clings and can be transmitted from one biological organism and personality to the next. This "something" has been understood in two basically different ways: as an individual supernatural and spiritual entity that periodically reincarnates, or as a set of "imprints" which karma-producing desires, thoughts, and acts have made upon a postulated substance or substratum of being (often referred to as "astral light" or "akhasa"). These imprints condition the formation of the structure of a new body and personality, giving it the possibility of either erasing the imprints or deepening them through repetition.
       The first way of dealing with the problem of karma-transmission is most generally accepted by anyone believing in reincarnation.(4) The karma-affected spiritual entity may be thought of as a God-created individual Soul as a perpetually existent monad, as an atman essentially identical to the universal Brahman though appearing to be an individual entity. The alternative solution has been most clearly advanced by Gautama, the Buddha, in his anatma doctrine, and the transmitted karmic imprints are known in Buddhism as the skandhas. The concept introduced by the philosophy of Operative Wholeness is closer to the latter interpretation than to the first. It may indeed be very close to what Gautama might have said if he had not deliberately avoided any metaphysical speculation. Instead, he solely concentrated on the basic situation concretely evident in the lives of human beings, without relating it to pre- or post-human phases of an all-inclusive cycle of being.(5) He apparently was solely concerned (at least in his public message) with the healing of the suffering-producing stresses (dukkha) he saw inherent in the human situation. Perhaps an alternative approach is possible which, by integrating the human situation within an all-inclusive cycle of being, gives it a more acceptable and exalting meaning by presenting it as a necessary transition — indeed a prelude — to a more-than-human condition, the Pleroma state.
       If one imagines a metaphysical, mystical, non-existential condition transcending the human situation in an absolute sense, and if one speaks of it as perfect Bliss or subliminal ecstasy, it seems obvious that what is evoked has to be understood as the opposite of whatever one has felt to be limiting, imperfect, and a cause of suffering, anxiety, or impotency in one's life as a human being. The God of most theologies has, in a perfect and sublime condition, all the qualities a human person longs to have but does not possess. A state of consciousness called mystical may give a human being who has concentrated upon and visualized images of perfection and unchanging bliss the subjective feeling-realization that he or she has reached such a state for what seems a timeless moment. But it is a subjective state, and no human situation can occur that would give it the character of actually changeless permanence. In order to reach it, other factors in the situation — implied in the personhood of the mystic — have to be not only devalued, but in a very real sense paralyzed. The resulting situation thus is no longer "whole." A feeling-experience of unification or oneness may be reached; but as we saw, the principle of Unity is only one of the two components of Wholeness. Can we or should we try to deny any reality to the principle of Multiplicity? If we do, the very possibility of "being" is denied. But then "who" is it who denies? The very act of denial is an affirmation of beingness.
       What is fundamentally at stake is the interpretation given to the human situation in general — and secondarily to any particular and personal situation being experienced. It is a question of whether or not one somehow assumes that the experience is outside the situation which mind — one's own mind — interprets. But nothing can "be" outside the Movement of Wholeness. What "is" may be a step in the direction of "light," or one in the direction of "darkness." But, as noted earlier, both directions are implied in Wholeness, just as Unity and Multiplicity are inherent and inseparable factors in any whole. Nevertheless, from a strictly human point of view, the ideal of encompassing Unity is closer to the idea of Wholeness than the evident fact of the multiplicity of cells in the single body of a person. These many cells can be separated from one another; yet if separated they die as cells (thus as units of organization) unless a biologist, by giving them food — the energy potential in material aggregates — maintains their beingness as units.
       Indeed, human evolution is the gradual process during which the "Presence" of the principle of Unity becomes an ever more powerful factor in the most basic situations. These, however, operate as vast currents in the oceanic depths of being, they allow storms to agitate the surface of the water. The power of the principle of Multiplicity, no longer externalized in a multitude of slightly different biological features, is internalized in typically human situations. This may take the form of ambition and hunger for power and wealth of a multitude of egos — as the craving of an artist for originality, of a scientist to be the first to make a discovery, or of a mountain climber to reach the peak of Mount Everest. All these expressions of the cosmic drive toward Multiplicity are essential parts of the general human situation. No one facing any personal situation should ignore them or minimize their importance and power.
       A psychology and an ethics of Wholeness have to be based on the inclusion of all factors in any situation. A metaphysics of Wholeness must take into consideration and encompass every possibility of relationship between the principles of Unity and Multiplicity — including those in which one of the two principles is nearly, but not quite, all-powerful. A religion of Wholeness should include God within the cycle of Wholeness (in whatever form this Presence may be conceived or felt) as one of these extreme states of being; and Man and Nature should be included as well. Such a religion also should not shrink from the realization that God must have a polar opposite, and that the fullness of experience possible for the Godhead has to be balanced by the devastated emptiness of whatever is represented by the condition of nearly absolute Multiplicity.(6)
       Total inclusion is the unavoidable attitude of whomever understands and is ready, willing, and able to apply the concept of Operative Wholeness to any situation with which he or she is confronted and accepts to live through and endure. This is an extremely difficult attitude to maintain. If what it implies is clearly understood at an intellectual level, the acceptance of any situation at an emotional level will be made easier. An effective basis for such an understanding should be found in the realization that human situations cannot be fully met in terms of the old psychological and metaphysical dualism of subject and object An awareness of the triune character of experiences is needed to establish a fully conscious, constructive and inclusive relationship between the factors, whose simultaneous operation alone may reveal the significant place any situation occupies and the purpose it serves in the development of the individual person.

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4. For an in-depth discussion of the concept of reincarnation, see Rhythm of Wholeness, chapter eleven.  Return

5. Nirvana does not refer to a future post-human phase of the Movement of Wholeness. Instead, it seems to have implied either a state of total identification with the cyclic Motion, or the absorption of the individual consciousness into the wholeness of whatever greater whole within which it had been operating. Such an absorption is made possible by the "extinction" of the desire for individual existence. But the Buddha seems never to have discussed publicly what such an extinction leads to, except in the very general and comforting sense that it is unalloyed "bliss."  Return

6. The term "emptiness" as used here must not be equated with the type of emptiness or voidness which the Buddhist term, sunyata, conveys. The human experience of nearly total emptiness, as well as the mystic's Dark Night of the Soul, are situations of crisis of transformation which require radical denudation and a de-conditioning process. This is a transition between two levels of experiencing. It implies transmutation of fundamental desires and, as we shall see in the next chapter, also a new level of subjectivity.  Return