Clare Rosenfield
Motion and Rest
In addition to matter, which is tangible, there are four other classifications of insentient energy, which are intangible. They are abstract principles: movement, rest, space, and time.
Both soul and matter function in this universe relative to these four. The law of motion and rest gives rise to an alternating process, serving the function of balance in the material world. With only motion, there would be no gravitational pull, and with only rest, nothing would move. Both principles are merely auxiliary causes to the actual movement and rest of soul and matter. What actually initiates the process is the impact created and received by particles perpetually alternating between movement and rest. They are perpetually striking each other and setting off a chain reaction, like the chimes of China. The result of this impact is reflected in the continuous recycling of nature's elements, in the process of molecules joining together and separating from one another ad infinitum.
Whereas the insentient process has no aim to its movement other than the integration and disintegration of molecules, sentient has a direction. Soul energy wants to sprout upward like a flame until it has reached its destination of freedom. When sentient moves, it takes the direction of its life's quest - to uncover its reality, to live in a state of complete knowledge, to reveal its blissful loving nature. Its upward movement comes to rest only when it attains its highest peak, its point of fruition of liberation. For that it has to complete its mission, fulfill its commitments to the world of living beings, and smooth all the rough edges of heart.
Space
According to this ancient philosophy, space is that which gives space to all substances, allowing them to move and evolve and live according to their own nature. It applies to the internal space as well as to the external world. In meditation, you become aware of your inner space, your inner life. You touch it when you touch your breath. Inwardly you feel the peace, which comes with the increasing of spacious space. You feel your entire body to be filled with this feeling. Naturally you allow yourself to transcend the awareness of bodily boundaries and to create expansive space all around you. You drop the walls, barriers, forms and feel yourself merging with all life. You feel the living connection between you and all living beings.
In your awareness, the clutter is cleared away. No thing remains to fight for; there is no tug of war between opposing viewpoints. You merge and blend with all in infinite space. This is the experience, which the philosophy is leading you to - to feel oneness. This is the experience of individuality - as indivisible and indestructible, merged in the bliss of having opened your space to universal space, of having opened your life to the life in all.
Time
When you go on this transcendent level, you are not measuring or noticing time, and you are not feeling the bounds of body. The function and power of these two are no longer controlling you. Just as to the sun, there is no such thing as darkness, so to you, living in your pure nature, there is no limitation of any kind. You are experiencing your immortal essence. Only on the worldly existence level, relative to the process of composition and decomposition of molecules, does time exist as a sequence. Time is relative, relative to your naya, your viewpoint, your perception. When you are engaged in something you love to do, time seems very short or nonexistent, and when you are doing something you do not like, time seems to drag. So you have to know from which level you are viewing life and then there is no quarrel as to whether time does or does not exist.
Through becoming aware of these five categories of insentient energy - matter, motion, rest, space, and time - you come to realize that only the indweller is conscious, using these five to further its spiritual evolution. Knowing this, you will watch carefully the way each process you take in life can help you to break your fetters and flow in a purposeful direction. You will choose that process or that path which will become conducive to your growth. When it is right, you will have the unmistakable feeling of moving toward your destination. This is the result of directed movement of sentient energy. You will not circulate aimlessly in the world, but you will move with purpose and with a deep sense of your relationship with the universe.
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Now insentient and sentient have a very close relationship; they live in partnership like husk and grain, flower and fragrance, dross and gold. Sentient energy operates in the universe with the help of insentient.
They are moving together from beginningless time, manifesting the whole world.
Even if we know the properties of both, we cannot understand the partnership unless we go deep into inner experience and see it as the function of relation and union. You can know the property of H2 and O but still you may not be able to make water in the laboratory. Similarly, when you go into meditation and really touch the center, the heart of consciousness, in that moment you will experience, "It is nothing but sentient energy - it is I!"
You will not quote any scriptures, any talks. You will go on gliding until you reach that center which is beyond words. Later you will reflect that "What I was calling me is only a shell. The real bird is inside!" We call ourselves by names, by our outer shells, because we have not seen the "bird" inside. That "bird" cannot be seen unless we go deep.
Once we experience this deep experience, we will understand more clearly the relation between sentient and insentient. So long as the eggshell and the bird within it are together, there is partnership. So long as the leaf is on the tree, sentient life is expressed through the living form. When the eggshell is broken, the bird is gone. When the leaf drops from the tree, its life force moves in another direction. Eggshell and dry leaf - both follow the law of disintegration. Its sentient energy moves on with evolution into higher life.
At last we realize, "There is something inside me which is building my whole existence." It appears as though the brain is doing all the work but the brain is only a machine. It does not operate without an operator. Behind the brain, behind the mind, which acts as a motor, there is the engineer handling the switch. That engineer is conscious energy. When that energy leaves the brain, the brain is seen for what it is - a machine. You can analyze it to find a disease, but you cannot dissect it to find its motive. That cannot be seen in any laboratory because the sentient is formless.
Now let us see how, in partnership with insentient matter, sentient energy creates vibrations, which build one's whole existence. The process is this: when the mind is not clear, transparent, purified, it creates vibrations. These vibrations are both the result and the cause of mental, emotional, or physical disturbances or negative states. According to the specific state of attraction or repulsion - whether it is anger, pride, deceit, greed, jealousy, sorrow, or attachment, the mind is setting up a disturbance in the atmosphere surrounding it. It is creating negative vibrations. These vibrations in turn automatically collect insentient atoms and molecules from the universe, which create a form around soul and cloud its perception.
In the language of the ancient sages of more than five thousand years ago, these insentient particles were called karmas. According to this philosophy, these karmas determine your form, frame, height, skin texture, refinement, birthplace, state of health, and more. By projecting certain states of mind sentient energy attracts from the universe atoms of forms called rup, atoms of taste called rus, atoms of odor called gandh, atoms of touch called sparsha. These atoms are what constitute a person's karmic make-up, from the physical point of view. They account for the fact that no two people are exactly alike.
