Meditations on a Candle
posted by Bobisyahu | April 7, 2009
- Login or register to post comments
- Print this page
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Propeller
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Newsvine
Furl
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
Technorati
IcerocketI've always been intrigued by fire, gazing as this incorporeal being dances. Fire is one of those overtly mystic entities which is totally captivating each and every time I see it. It feels wonderful to be a candle. In darkened room nothing exists. Everything is in a state of high probabilistic flux. One candle collapses it all. One candle creates your world. The ultimate sacrifice. The ethereal Soul-Flame can only manifest from the self-destruction of the wick. The physicality of the Thing becomes all too temporary. Yet how beautiful this destruction! For from it the world is born! Without the Light of Spirit even the candle itself fluctuates in the shadows of uncertainty. When I ponder how the physical system of the Body, with its precisely determined form and function, is also the formless transcendental Spirit, when I question how a neural network bound by physical and chemical "laws" gives rise to a free consciousness, I can find no answer in the psychological papers or the manuals of science. Even the mystic paradoxes of the quantum world can not fully account for this miracle. But a candle can. The simple material combination of wick and wax gives rise to the trans-material Flame. And this glowing spearhead is far more powerful than that which birthed it, yet far more fragile. The Flame has the potential to spread light to the whole world or leave that same world as a pile of ash, yet it can be extinguished with the softest puff of air, the smallest drop of water.
In the end our physicality will be burnt and brittle, but in the process of burning we have such a beautiful time to shine. The final lesson from the candle comes when the Flame goes out. Just a stream of smoke remains. But is smoke not also magical?! Smoke never goes away it just spreads more and more, and even though you can't see it any longer its journey continues forever as it expands to fill the infinite.
Comments
Ponderings by Candlelight
— Apr 07, 2009
Your sentiments and feelings towards the eternal flame truly resonate with mine. Growing up Jewish, I never really identified with the faith or its practices. The only aspect of the sacred space created by Reform Judaism I ever identified with, on a spiritual level, was the "Ner Tamid," or the eternal flame; the little light that is perpetually left to glow above the Torah's gilded Ark.
Surly, staring at a single candle flame at night can be a shamanic, and truly powerful experience. Letting your eyes unfocus, halting your monkey mind, and meditating on a candle has brought me profound metaphysical insight. It instills in me, at least, a sence of gnosis.
I'd like to think that the fire we see now, whether from a candle, a bondfire on the beach, or in a comfortable fireplace, is the same fire that burned tens of thousands of years ago, sustaining and bringing comfort to the first human beings on the primordial savannas.
MMm yess
— Apr 07, 2009
Travis,
I have read a lot of Mr. Quinn's writing. Haha, I just threw out an arbitrary number to illustrate a point, mi amigo. Didn't mean to disturb...
Lets not get on each other's backs for such minute details, especially when they are presented to illustrate an abstract idea or point.
I don't doubt your intellect, so there's no need to prove it to me.
We are all in this together, are we not?
Nice piece. =)
— Apr 07, 2009
Very beautiful.
I don't think the neural net gives rise to consciousness. I believe that everything is consciousness, and just as matter forms in to more complex systems, so too does the consciousness that is the 'inside' of that matter also arrange in to more complex systems, so that it eventually even becomes conscious of itself.
In fact, humans are more than just conscious of themselves at this point. We are conscious of ourself being conscious of ourself being conscious of ourself...well, that goes on pretty much forever, far as I can tell. Try it in your own head some time, it's fun. Starts to give me a headache and make me a bit woozy after a while, though. ^_~
The brain is the single most complex arrangement of matter known to exist in the Universe. If you exclude other brains, in fact, a single human brain is more complex than the rest of the known Universe combined. And it sits atop, directs, and is a part of another incredibly complex system, the human organism. And that goes down to the subatomic level, at least, as well. So that is a lot of little conscious bits interacting and 'coming together', so to speak.
It is from that matrix that this 'super-consciousness' of our everyday experience arises. It is the sum total of all the consciousness in our body, but is simultaneously its own thing (just as, I believe, our consciousness is part of a larger one, and that part of a larger...the holonic nature of reality again. All things are wholes in and of themselves, and simultaneously part of a larger whole...And Onward Toward Infinity. =) )
I love your descriptions of the flame. I myself love fire, ironic since I am a water sign, and always want to be the fire-tender and starter when I go camping. I love watching it glow and burn. It always occurs to me that the fire works very similar to mushrooms. The heat fills the medium to a certain point, and then reproductive 'tendrils' begin to extend outward in the form of flame. For mushrooms, the fungus fills the medium until it cannot expand further, then begins to put out reproductive 'tendrils' in the form of mushrooms.
This is obviously a terribly simplified view of both processes, but the parallels are nonetheless striking, in my opinion.
You are correct, I think, in saying that fire is an inherently spiritual being. This flickering entity that has been the ally of man for longer than anyone remembers. It is simultaneously the source of our strength, and very possibly the spirit that will, in the end, destroy us as well.
Remember the story of the scorpion and the fox. It is in its nature.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world."
Mahatma Gandhi
Thank You all for Your Comments
— Apr 07, 2009
This sort of expanded discussion is the integration that a technologic entity such as the internet can provide given the right Intention (in this case the intentions of all us Evolvers!)
Chibi, thank you for your Mushroom Flame musing. A very interesting concept that had never popped into my brain. O how the memes spread! Speaking of the brain, i agree that it is the most complex object in the universe, but given the holonic/Fractal nature of the Reality, the brain is also the simplest building block of the whole universe. Equally, each Thing (from atoms to planets, infinitely small to infinitely large) is the most complex entity in its universe, on its level of the holonic/Fractal pattern. it's like the difference between Truth and truth. there is the Universe and the universe. yet Truth, truth, Universe, and universe are also all the same. AH!!!!!!!!!! so difficult it is to express the Holonic Fractal in words! i feel that we need a Blog "in and of itself" to talk about this. Chibi, if you or anyone else wants to start it, that would be wonderful. if not, i'll start one sometime next week when i finish writing my research proposal on the effects of piracetam on working memory (which im very excited to write and will share when it's done!)
PEACE AND LOVE YA'LL
-Yadreep Bob
