Volume 6, Issue 7, page 3

You Are the Space and Time -- and Form Is Merely Your Interpretation
from Memory of Force-Fields Within Your Range of Perception
It's fill in the Way Sou Look of If
BT US create a form, then strip it
away layer by layer, idea by idea,
illusion by illusion, until only its
reality remains. Such an exercise
may be more demanding than entertaining , but if done thoroly it can
lead to lasting understanding of
reality.

Visualize if you will a large
sheet of paper under which are several magnets arranged in a circle. Scatter iron filings on the paper and they
take a pattern conforming to the magnetic
fields -- in this case, a rough circle.
This circle is a form which exists because of the force holding the filings in
spatial relationship with each other. But
this is not the only reason why the circle exists.

Where does the circle exist -- on the paper
or in your mind? It is important for you to
realize that altho the physicality of the circle exists on the paper, the circularity of
the circle exists only in your mind. This is
readily obvious to many thinkers, but only
when it emerges as a super-clear fact, driven
home like a spike into a plank, is the way
open to go on. Listed below are the various
factors pertaining to our created form and our
perception of it:
1. The magnetic field.
2. The paper -- serving as a background and
location.
3. The iron filings.
4. The intervals and areas of space in and
around the filings.
5. Light, conveying the image of the form
to your mind.
8. Your seeing apparatus and your mind.
7. The image perceived in your mind by
"you"
8. The idea or term "circle".
9. You.

Now these thoughts:
(a) Of all the aspects enumerated, only two
exist in your mind. One'is the image of the
iron filings. The other is the term "circle".
(bl There is nothing inherent in the filings which is circular, nor in the magnetic
field, or the paper, or the light. Circularity
is a relative concept, not a thing.
(cl If you were to see only part of this
circle, than another part, and so on, at widely-separate intervals, you would not realize
you had seen a circle at all. Therefore, simultaneous perception of all parts at once is
necessary before you recognize circularity.
Something is necessary which can contain in an
image the positional relationships between all
the iron filings, otherwise no circular form
is recognized. This something is your mind.
Therefore, the circularity of the circle
exists only in your mind.

NOVEMBER, 1959
(dl If you hold a mirror with its back to
your eyes, the image of the iron filings will
now be in the mirror and not in your mind. But
there is no circle in the mirror, since a
circle is a relative concept and not a thing.
Before the circle (as human beings know circles) is complete, the image must be tagged
with the term "circl e". And this can come only
from a mind, not a mirror.

These conclusions are now evident: First,
the circle is part idea, part thing-in-itself.
The thing-in-itself is on the paper, the circle is in your mind. Second, your ability to
comprehend or contain the entire image of the
filings at once i s dependent on your distance
from the filings, and distance in turn is dependent on separation. Therefore, at the root
of your perceptive ability is your separateness from what you perceive. Third, there is
something necessarily present to perceive the
image in your mind and to attach thereto the
term circle. This, shall we say, is "you", and
without you there would be no circle.
what is the true meaning of "thing-in-itself"? To perceive a thing-in-itself is to
perceive a form without naming it. If you perceive the magnetized iron filings but do not
say to yourself"filings" or "iron" or "circle", but simply are aware of the total image
and your natural response to it, then you are
experiencing present time in purity. You have
brought forth nothing from the past to attach
to this present-time awareness. Your consciousness is unconditioned. Your state may be
called choiceless awareness, if you like.

Notice how it seems a goat or a pig could
easily approximate this condition of choiceless awareness. They know nothing of "iron",
'circle". Is it the goal to become like them?
Many men of undeniable wisdom advise going beyond superficialities such as names and terms
to seek reality. So, evidently there is a
stage beyond choiceless awareness, more significant than perceiving a thing-in-itself.
What is this stage, this state of consciousness? How can it be achieved?
Let us examine again the filings in a circle. We have seen that this form, as a circle,
exists only in your mind. But what about the
thing-in-itself -- the field and the filings?
What lies beyond it?
What is true of the circle is true of each
iron fragment making it up . Only the scale,
the relative distance, is different. Where the
magnetic field is holding the filings together
in the form of a circle , another force-field
is holding together the molecules of each
fragment of iron in the form of a "filing" .
Further, the image in your mind of any iron
filing is so identified because you are far
enough away to see its constituent molecules
simultaneously. Therefore, its form, as an
iron filing, exists only in your mind.

Progressing downward to the molecular level
we see the sane story repeated on a smaller
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The ABERREE