Ph.D. on ‘Nothing’

                                Silence and Space - portals to the Unmanifested

The Unmanifested is not separate  from the manifested. It pervades the whole world. It is so well disguised that everyone misses it. If you know where to look you will find it.
You hear the chirping of the bird.  You hear the sound of a car. Can you feel the Un manifested ?  No.  Look for it in the silence out of which the sound came and into which it returns.  Pay more attention to the silence than the sound .

Every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence and during its span it is surrounded by silence.  Silence enables the sound to be.  Silence is intrinsic and unmanifested  part of every sound, every song, every note, every word. The Unmanifested is present in this world of silence.  ‘Nothing in this world is so like God as silence’. Silence is one of the portals to enter the Unmanifested.

  Just as sound cannot exist without silence, nothing can exist without empty space.  Every physical body has come out of nothing, is surrounded by nothing and will eventually return to nothing.  Even inside every physical body there is more ‘nothing ‘ than ‘something’. Physicists tell us  that solidity of matter is an illusion. Every solid matter is nearly 100% empty space, so vast are the distance between the atoms compared to their size.  What is more, inside every atom there is mostly empty space. “Form is emptiness and emptiness is form”,  says Heart Sutra one of the ancient Buddhists texts.  The essence of all things is emptiness.
  Although in itself space has no existence it enables everything else to exist. Silence has no existence , but it enables every sound  to be.
You may ask what is this ‘space’? What is this ‘silence’ ? What is this ‘no thing’ ? You cannot ask such question ! Your mind is trying to make nothing into something.  The moment you make it into something you miss it. It cannot become an object of knowledge. You cannot do a Ph.D on ‘nothing’.
What is the essence of a room ?Is it the furniture, the pictures, the chairs, the tables  that are in the room? They are not the room. The floor, the ceiling , the walls define the boundary of the room. They are not the room. What is essence of a room then? Space, empty space. There is no room without it. Since space is ‘nothing’ we can say what is not there is more important than what is there.  Become aware of the space around you. Don’t try to understand it. Pay attention  to  ‘nothing’. 
 
 The Unmanifested is present in this world as ‘silence’ and pervades the universe as ‘space.’  By becoming aware of empty space around you, you  become aware of the Unmanifested.  Contemplation of space and silence are  portals to  the Unmanifested.

The inner equivalent of objects in space is your thoughts, your  emotions and the objects of your senses. The inner equivalent of space is the consciousness that enables your mind and objects to be, just as space allows objects to be.  So if you withdraw attention from the things, from the objects in space,  you automatically withdraw attention from your mind objects as well.  You cannot think and be aware of space or silence. By  becoming aware of the empty space around you,  become aware of the Unmanifested. 

If some cosmic convulsion were to bring an end to the world the Unmanifested would remain totally unaffected. This truth is expressed when ‘A Course in Miracles’  says, “ Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God.”

If you remain in conscious connection with the Unmanifested,you will deeply respect the manifested and every form in it as an expression of the One Life beyond form.  The Unmanifested is not separate  from the manifested.

As Buddha says you have ‘crossed over to the other shore’ , or as Jesus says , “ You have overcome the world.” 
                        

- Paraphrased  by George Chalil  from ‘The Power of NOW’ by Eckhart Tolle