Rod to Piet, Heloisa and Maria

Piet, Heloisa, Maria

Piet's description of the "logic switch" that occurred for him several times during the last few days was lucid and evocative of where the Working Hypothesis might lead. I had a couple of similar episodes, although not nearly so profound as Piet's, in the days after I meditated on Causality.

The first came during my daily walk with my dog, Chuleta, on a network of trails near our house. As Chuleta ran along ahead of me, I began to see him, the trail, and the area on both sides of the trail as all part of my on-going moment of Now. This shift in perspective is difficult to describe, as Piet said. It was like a shift from a linear sequential viewpoint to a multi-dimensional holistic viewpoint. My immediate world was suddenly not piecemeal, but entire unto itself. There was no linear sense of this, then that, but rather a holistic sense of all, now.

Then again on yesterday's walk with Chuleta, I began thinking about the sequential Cause-Effect viewpoint compared with the Holistic viewpoint, and how both are legitimate ways of being in the world. I could see the Holistic all-now and simultaneously see various sub-sets of localized cause-effect sequences. As my perception played back and forth, I realized that seeing a particular causal relationship was merely another piece of the Holistic all-now, not separate from it but part of it.

In other words, Now can include awareness of Causality just as it can include awareness of Past or of Future or of Somewhere-else. Causality is not something that is outside of (or in opposition to) the Working Hypothesis, but rather it is embedded within it just as any other aspect of the world is embedded within the Holistic all-now.

I'm beginning to think that the Working Hypothesis is not an exclusionary concept of "not that, but this." Rather, it is the ultimate inclusionary concept:

Not only that, but also this.

... from Rod