Here is one of the more frighteniing conversations with the Astrophysicist, Piet Hut (which I am serializing in The Film maker and the Astrophisicist blog ) : From: Shekhar Kapur, Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001, To: Piet Hut : You Said : < Needless to say, IF linear time is not real, then a realization of that fact makes one a more effective player in alleged linear time; just like you can only be an effective film director if you realize that a film is not real -- which doesn't mean it is arbitrary. >>
Dear Peit :
I am going a different way : I still want to see (because I imagine everything as a picture) – time like a little canary in a cage : caged by us – therefore I look and say :
” this is a Canary in the cage – and that is the reality” The cage is my mind – and the canary a way of making time absolute. In my mind I open the cage – and the bird fies away and just in one whoosh disappears – as if there was nothing else.
I have to destroy the cage and throw myself into chaos. I have to understand that I am not caged by time – but time is caged by me interms of a linear concept – I would rather go this left field way because it forces me to completely think chaotically. Like the bird represents a spirit – and time is actuall a free spirit. But gentle and soft and ethereal.
Time is Space : Free flowing like God. Time is God. That is the unknown dimension – GOD/TIME/SPACE – I know that in my bones – but my mind must force itself through the pain of logic – I must put my mind through absolute chaos and put it in self destruct – and the only way is chaotic thinking – not to allow it to to hang it’s coat on any peg.
I know that at the end there is light. But the the tunnel is dark and dangerous – and for those without courage may get lost in the tunnel – and destruct everything without understanding.
No, not understanding, but – without experiencing.
A half a Buddha is perhaps worse than someone enclosed in Maya.
Lets keep up these conversations – I do not have to totally understand what u say – nor do you, I guess. But as long as we keep questioning each other – there will be at some points of time a coming together – a synchronization – and then like a wave – disbelief and questioning again.
shekhar
..if you look at the history of Art – & I include film in this, it’s all about capturing a moment – maybe the bird in a cage is a good analogy for this futile act – once we understand the mechanics of what makes a good picture then we “capture” the viewers imagination too, but maybe we are still concerned about the cage itself, knowing the true futility of trying to freeze a moment..?
The frame ,like a window, contains and formalises the chaos outside it, but that’s just how the viewer interprets it or is led to interpret it..
My son, who is mildly autistic, is terrified of open spaces such as countryside, where there are no familiar frames of reference for him to latch on to – he feels happier in a “structured” urban environment (actually so do I – I’m not big on the hiking experience…) – where “chaos” is held at bay and even “ideas” only intrude in the form of advertising, which is a processed, pre-digested form of the imagination…
Why do you think “a half a Buddha is perhaps worse than someone enclosed in Maya?” Aren’t we all “half Buddha” in our own way since one can’t possibly know everything in a given field. Isn’t the journey towards learning something, the process of enlightenment more fulfilling than the final destination?
Rinil
What if instead of time we talk about being or energy? Linear time is useful and practical. We need linear time to function as productive individuals. But there are moments when time is suspended, and we stop breathing, and become oblivious about our surroundings and about our own physical self. These moments do not happen very often, but they are all consuming and we treasure them. And there are moments when we summarize an entire linear life in a fragment of a second, to give it meaning.
Maybe we accept to work in linear time because of convenience. Our body reminds us of the passing of time constantly. But our spirit defies the boundaries of linear time–our essence(?) wants more than the cage we are forced into and after which we model our existence. Even if we willingly work with time, we enjoy moments of pure existence, or non-existence outside it. I do not see these moments producing chaos or self-destruction.
I do not understand your allusion to courage–why should it take courage to see the suspension of time? I do not see it as frightening or dangerous.
What if instead of chaos we find absolute tranquillity?
Dear Shekhar
Some months ago, a new creative influence came into my life. Besides a complete explosion of positive creativity, the same influence caused my mind to act differently. My mind now makes associations it never made before, between words and parts of words and phrases. My hands don’t synch well anymore when I type. I make typos that have nothing to do with keyboard and finger sequence, but have to do with shifting of words and concepts in the mind, instead. I am riding a way of joy and difficulty in this new creative world. I am surrounded by chaos, too, as my boundaries crumble, and new structures grow of their own accord, then those, too, crumble, and new ones rise. It is scary, yet I can’t let it go. Though I often fight it, it is taking me someplace I need to be, but the track to it is not linear, it’s fractal and very much alive and chaotic. I guess my cage was destroyed. The cage-destroying influence came into my life because of Intentblog, indirectly. And so I thank you, and touch your feet, like your temple visitor did.
love, Heather
About your reference to “chaotic thinking” as method. Didn’t some modernists try to do the same? In order to defeat linear time and logic they embraced chaos and illogic, and ended up creating alternative logical systems to justify their position.
thank u heather, and while I know I do not write that much on Intentblog now, I am there in spirit a lot. Other people have taken forward the mission that Deepak Chopra, his daughetr Malika and I began.
shekhar
dear rinil, when I talk about ‘half buddha’ I am speaking about about the dangers of falling into intellectual arguments about spiritual aspirations. In that case it is better not to go there at all, because your ego is merely reinforcing itself by a sense of superiority of intellect. I agreee that the journey of questions though, and more questions, is the path for me, and not clinging to getting to a finite destination too, is important. Shekhar