The Sacred and the Profane

(This is my 2019 version after a decade of reflection and discernment; going deeper and wider while continuing to spiral downward to my source, my ground of being.)

Can the sacred be contained within the time and space of our limited, dualistic perceptions of reality?

Is the sacred something that is out there somewhere? Something I need to seek and hope to find;  somehow, somewhere, someday?

Or does it permeate all things as foundational to our existence similar to light, gravity, and consciousness?

Could it be that the sacred is within, available and accessible at any time and any place?

Is it transformational as we choose to access it's power?

https://www.instagram.com/p/DUFxFTWjVNA/?igsh=bzR3emZwYW82d2pm   

“There are no unsacred places; 

there are only sacred places and desecrated places.”

   ― Wendell Berry, Given

Rainer Maria Rilke said, "I am too alone, yet not alone enough to make every moment holy". 

(Holy = set aside for a specific sacred purpose)

Berry refers to the sacred within space.
Rilke refers to the sacred within time.

But is this too confining, too defining, too limited and bounded by that which is limitless and boundless, beyond time and space??? Or maybe the holy and sacred include all of these with time and space enfolded within it.

"Umbrella, light, landscape, sky— There is no language of the holy. The sacred lies in the ordinary." 

-Deng Ming-Dao (Everyday Tao)

“Space is not empty. It’s full. It is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves”

– David Bohm

 
I have been thinking, wondering, and contemplating these words, sacred and profane, for about 10 years, maybe longer. I’ve been struck with the sense that our understanding of these concepts falls so far short of the richness, wisdom, and daily guidance they could bring. We use them flippantly and mindlessly in a very narrow religious sense. For instance, using sacred to refer to certain places that look religious, or certain times and rituals initiated by a religious hierarchy. And we use the word profanity as something that refers to words, especially the use of “God” or "Jesus" to express our anger as a curse, that are self defined family by family, church by church, culture by culture.

The deeper I go, the bigger these words get. The depth and breadth of these two words seem to go as deep and wide as my mind can go. Actually, more and more, they have guided me in life; daily, moment by moment to the point that I think we as a society unconsciously and unintentionally live lives full of profanity interwoven throughout every day.

Within each moment lies life and death, sacred and profane, the holy and the desecrated.

We choose how to live each moment.

“There is the beauty of love, beauty of compassion. And also there is the beauty of a clean street, of good architectural form of a building; there is beauty of a tree, a lovely leaf, the great big branches. To see all that is beauty; not merely to go to museums and talk everlastingly about beauty. The silence of a quiet mind is the essence of that beauty. Because it is silent and because it is not the plaything of thought, then in that silence there comes that which is indestructible, which is sacred. In the coming of that which is sacred then life becomes sacred, your life becomes sacred, our relationship becomes sacred, everything becomes sacred because you have touched that thing that is sacred.” (Krishnamurti)

In 2011, I wrote a blog post about these words (https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/the-sacred-and-the-profane/) as they took root in the silence of a Quaker Worship Meeting where we sit for an hour in silence. In those Meetings there was what they called “vocal ministry” when a person in the meeting might stand and speak a word of inspiration that was deeply stirring them. It was one of the few times I spoke during the Meeting. I remember vocalizing that I had a sense of this space being sacred. There was a deep sacredness that is not there all the time. But at certain points over time, the group gets a sense of what is called “gathered worship" where we all feel a sacredness within and between us enveloping us with Light, warmth, peace, and connection. I wondered out loud, in my vocal ministry, what that was. Was it something that comes and goes within me or is it something anchored in (and beyond) the time and place of the Meeting for Worship? Simultaneously, I began wondering about profanity and what that might really mean in a deeper sense. I think that apart from the silence, none of this would have occurred to me. Much of my thinking was still caught up in dogma, my past conditioning and what I've been told. Those voices kept speaking to me about the sacred and profane being anchored in space and time. But I could tell there was something new emerging that, as so often happens, I could not have understood earlier in my formation because I did not yet have the discernment and experience to grasp such things.

For the last 13 years, I’ve been blogging my journey, sorting through the trash and treasures, the conditioning that was cluttering my mind. But during that time, I had a very religious, Christian approach to my understanding, my thinking, and my writing. I guess that is because I strongly identified as a Christian and had done so for almost 50 years. In the last couple of years, I have felt impelled to let go of all of the dogmatic thinking that came with my cultural Christianity and  conditioning. As part of this concerted effort of sorting things out and going deeper, I started a new blog, this one (https://livingwithopenhands2.blogspot.com/), where I can speak more freely without offending my religious blog followers, Christian friends, and family with my honesty.

Now as I look back, what I wrote 10 years ago was both profound and thin, deep and shallow. I have grown way past that thinking. And something I noticed was that the words in that post were in some ways profane. My use of “god” is something that I have gradually lessened since then because the word god has been made meaningless in this day and age, in the context within which I exist. Religious language and dogma blocks quality conversations, deeper thinking, and greater understanding. People use it flippantly and mindlessly, or as a weapon for violence, or they use it to beat others into submission or into thinking like me. Through the process of sorting out the sacred and the profane in my life, my eyes have opened to how Christians throw around religious language (Christianese).

Words have been weaponized by Christians to convert the lost, to manipulate, to create guilt, and to brag about their own righteousness or say a righteous public prayer. Some of the flippant use of Christianese is what I see as permeating almost every conversation with words and phrases like “praise god”, I’m praying for you, bless you, Jesus this or Jesus that. God this or God that. The sun is out, "praise God," it is cloudy, "pray for the sun to come out," someone is sick, "I'll pray for healing," someone dies, "he is in a better place," "God's got a plan," and on and on. I could take a notepad to most gatherings of Christians and get a slew and slurry of religious language. But why would a Christian need to use all of these religious words and phrases with those that are already "saved" or converted? And why would a Christian use religious language that is often offensive or at least meaningless to those that are not converted Christians. And why convert anyone since it requires that we dominate others that are better, think better, believe better, than them? Christianese is frivolous use of language that is supposed to be used carefully and thoughtfully in meaningful contexts. Anytime faith and religion is used to dominate and control rather than uplift and inspire others, it has become weaponized and violent, profane and desecrated.

For me, profanity means using something sacred for mundane or meaningless uses, usually we overuse it without even realizing it. Unconscious usage of Christianese I think is also included under profane as well as any dogmatic (I'm right... you're wrong or I know... and you don't or repent and act like me) language that looks down on others; discriminating, judging, labeling in ways that elevate myself or my perfect religion. Anytime we dominate others in this way, it is a form of violence and violence is a form of profanity. For me, this is the mindless use of language that is profane. It assumes a superior stance and that others need to hear your dogma because of your superiority. And if the attempt at conversion is done with one’s language then one’s hands can be washed of any guilt of that person being lost and going to hell. "They should have listened to me and my righteousness."

I long for simple human conversations without trauma-trigger words giving testimony to the righteousness of self or the unrighteousness of the other. Even well-intentioned, damage is done whenever another person is oppressed through power and domination, even if it is an illusion or unintentional. Oppression occurs even when a person feels oppressed or preached at.

For me, whenever I use the word god in my writing, I feel a sense of profanity. I assume that the person that might read what I write will automatically know what I mean. We throw that word around like we think we know what it means and like we think we know how others understand it, and that they understand it just like me. And yet words can never contain that which is sacred and boundless, infinite and limitless. Yet we think we can flippantly label this??? Presumptuous to say the least. Profane to say it more clearly.

These two things keep coming to mind for those that do believe in God and think that God can be contained in words:

St. Augustine (354 - 430 AD) has this to say:
“What then, brethren, shall we say of God?
For if thou hast been able to understand what thou wouldest say, it is not God.
If thou hast been able to comprehend it, thou hast comprehended something else instead of God.
If thou hast been able to comprehend him as thou thinkest, by so thinking thou hast deceived thyself.
This then is not God, if thou hast comprehended it; but if this be God, thou has not comprehended it.”

And Thomas Merton (1915 - 1968) has this to say:
“If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is,
then to find God we must pass beyond everything that can be seen and enter into darkness.
Since nothing that can be heard is God, to find Him we must enter into silence.”
(Seeds of Contemplation, p. 131)

Note: I find it very interesting that the two main traits of God are his silence and his invisibility, which does not lend itself to any kind of personal relationship.

I used to seek to have religious conversations for many years. But I'm finding that as I deepen my understanding, I find that religious dogma and talk get in the way of quality conversations; connecting with others on a deeper, human, heart to heart level. I learned this more and more as I became friends with people from an interfaith group (Buddhist, Pagan, Wiccan, Hindu, Quaker). I've always thought I sought out diversity in so many ways (racial, ethnic, economic, disability, etc), but I started to see that there is more than just visible differences. I needed to expand my diversity to people that think and believe differently, invisible diversity. That's a form of diversity that I needed. It has been enriching to get to know many atheists, nontheists, ignostics, agnostics,  theological non-cognitivists, and skeptics. Too often dogma needs to be cleared away in order to have conversations that matter about things of the heart with all people... because all people matter.

The link below is a post where I tried to describe further what I am referring to here. Too often we create god in our image or we label things that are real but beyond our understanding with the word “god”. God has become a default or knee-jerk label. And yet again, this is a perfect example of profanity; using our words to talk about that which we think we know but cannot know. I think the bible refers to it as idolatry for Christians.   https://livingwithopenhands2.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-image-of-god.html

If we dive in further, the words sacred and profane broaden and deepen, giving more and more guidance for daily living. I suggest this understanding.

A Sacred Life = making the ordinary (in all of life’s moments) sacred. (mindfulness, awareness, appreciation, wonder, awe)

A Profane Life = making the sacred (in all of life’s moments) ordinary. (thoughtlessness, apathy, familiarity, mundane, taken for granted, desecrated)

I think that the sacred and the profane lie dormant in each situation and opportunity.

The sacred and the profane go far beyond just time and space though.

I think this includes all of our relationships in life:
with people, with ourselves, with the earth, and with all that is greater than us.

I think we are in the process or habit of desecrating these relationships, all of which are meant to be sacred.

A good example is our interactions within our family unit. Are we fully engaged during every interaction with our spouse or our children? Or are we tuned out, preoccupied, apathetic; creating profanity in our wake.

All we have is this present moment, nothing else. The past is gone. The future is coming. But the only thing we have any control over is here and now. And yet, our thoughts are mostly occupied with the past (regret, guilt, shame) and the future (worry, desire, expectation). Our heads are full of stories and voices, illusions and fictions. Whenever we do that, we miss the present moment. And when we miss it, it is gone forever. THIS is in many ways, the ultimate profanity. We throw away or let slip away all that which is sacred; casting pearls to the swine.

In my post from 2011, I continued to ask these questions that I am still seeking an answer:

Is the sacred something out there… or something within? Maybe the sacred is the fire that gives light and meaning to the ordinary. Maybe the sacred is something that I bring to life; to every encounter, to every moment, to every word, to every action, to every reaction. Maybe the sacred calls to me and demands of me to create meaning in each day, each hour, each minute, each breath. Maybe the sacred is a deep calling on my life to live out the purpose that is innate, using the gifts I came here with… making a difference.

Not missing everything...

Not missing anything…

Being fully present

Identifying purpose

in each moment,

each situation,

each encounter;

… infusing each with the fire of the sacred.

In every encounter we have in life with people or situations, we walk away changed. We continue on as a different person, for the better or not.

If the sacred is a way of identifying how I live my life, what I do with the ordinary things of life; then what is the profane?

Could it be that any time I disrespect or disregard the sacred, then I am demonstrating profanity; living out a desecration of life?

Is it possible that profanity (like violence) is much deeper than the religious sense of a swear word, using God’s name in vain, or talking bad about the church or the bible.

What about any time we violate the identity or integrity of another person? This is a definition of violence. This is simultaneously another iteration of profanity.

Could profanity be contained in a reaction? A look? An attitude? A thoughtless act? A turning away… from anything or anyone that I am called to pay attention to. A looking down on anyone that I deem lesser than me and my righteousness.

With new eyes, I now read these definitions:

Definition of SACRED

1: dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity

2: devoted exclusively to one service or use (as of a person or purpose)

3. worthy of awe and respect

Definition of PROFANE

1. to treat (something sacred) with abuse, irreverence, or contempt: desecrate

2. to debase by a wrong, unworthy, or vulgar use

3. an act of violence: to violate the identity or integrity of self or others

Related to PROFANE

Synonyms: abase, bastardize, canker, cheapen, corrupt, debauch, degrade, demean, demoralize, deprave, deteriorate, lessen, pervert, poison, debase, prostitute, subvert, vitiate, warp

Antonyms: elevate, ennoble, uplift

The words that jumped out at me as synonyms of profane are not the extreme words but the subtle words: CHEAPEN and LESSEN.

I must weigh in my heart, each moment of each day, whether I am entering into that moment with sacredness or with profanity. Do I honor and value life and my purpose here or do I cheapen and lessen it???

Each moment of each day, I must choose the sacred or the profane, life or death, peace or violence.

In my life, is the sacred the fire, the passion, the light that gives life and purpose to EVERYTHING; EVERYWHERE, EVERYDAY? Or not?

“Oh love that fires the sun, keep me burning.” (Bruce Cockburn lyrics)

What if?

Over the past couple of years, I have become more and more nontheist. The word god and the concept of god has had less and less meaning for me in my life. It is nothing more than a label projecting human characteristics onto that which I do not and cannot understand. It is just not at all useful. The reason is that I believe that we use the label "god" to describe that which we cannot understand because we can't "not know". We use it so that we can speak and act like we do understand (which is a lie). I know that there is that which is greater that me. I know that there is an energy and force that not only is the creative force of the universe but also that holds the universe together. I know there are great mysteries and many things beyond my understanding but I believe that most people out of ignorance and often sheer laziness just plaster labels on those things that we cannot understand or that are different than us. We used to believe in the god of the river and the god of the storm, or Mother Earth, Zeus, Apollo, Ares, Mars, Venus, Pluto, because we were afraid of the power that we saw and felt better when we could label it, obey it, and worship it, just like we label people that are different; that have disabilities or are of different faiths, or ethnicities, or races. Labeling works to assuage our confusion or fears of the unknown, and has a very practical use at times, especially in the grocery store or even more so in the toilet paper aisle.

So... What if?

I think we label things we don't understand and I believe this is another form of profanity. We use labels meaninglessly because we refuse to take the time to go within and understand that which is available to us to understand; what I call "innerwork". What if there is a sacredness within each of us AND between us all AND throughout all of the universe??? What if god is the connection and we are just labeling something so great and beyond our understanding just so that we can feel better about our ignorance? What if we are creating god in our image and giving god all of the best of human characteristics (anthropomorphism) so that we do not fear god or so that we can always have that listening invisible friend that we have always longed for? What if the sacred is parallel to light and consciousness? These all exist outside of space and time, material objects and energy according to physics. What if it is out of this sacredness, this Light, this cosmic consciousness that all things come. What if this is the quantum field from which everything that is enfolded, unfolds? What if this is the Source? Our Ground of Being??? The Implicate Order (beyond and below all) within which is enfolded all that may unfold into the Explicate Order of time and space within which we live and move and have our being, here and now.

What if the Sacred means fulfilling the identity and purpose that we as human creatures individually and uniquely create; and living it out, here and now, in each action, in each reaction, in each interaction, in each relationship???

Downloaded Thinking / Cultural Conditioning

Living from the inside out.

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6.

This is usually quoted as a command or an admonition telling us how to raise our children. But the context of this proverb shines a different light. The whole chapter is a list of statements of reality,

warnings of how life works.

For example, the next proverb says that the rich rule the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender. This is not telling us that the rich SHOULD rule over the poor or that the lender SHOULD become the master of the borrower. This is simply a statement of fact, the way of life, and a warning of how life works.

An ancient Jewish scientist, philosopher, and Rabbi, Ralbag, suggested an alternative, satirical interpretation of this proverb:

“Train a child in the way of evil and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

My paraphrase based on this interpretation is “Beware of this: the way you raise your child is what that child will grow up to be.” Remember that your most powerful way of teaching is you; your words and your actions (role modeling).

Making the Unconscious Conscious

Seeing and Discerning Our Myths

Don't believe everything you see.
Don't believe everything you hear.
Don't believe everything you say.
Don't believe everything you think.

"The unexamined life is not worth living" (Socrates)

Rejecting All Authority: Outer and Inner

"Having realized that we can depend on no outside authority in bringing about a total revolution within the structure of our own psyche, there is the immensely greater difficulty of rejecting our own inward authority, the authority of our own particular little experiences and accumulated opinions, knowledge, ideas and ideals." (Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known)

As I have deepened and intensified my journey toward what is real, daily letting go of comfort, security, and certainty, I have felt a need to discern that which I have downloaded from society (cultural conditioning) from that which is sort of an ancient knowing, that is innate... profound truth.

Am I a second hand person that lives my life based on what I have been told, based on a truth that comes from the experiences and certainties of others?

Or do I embrace the need to do the innerwork to discern truth from within; original and authentic?

But this inner authority is a tricky bedfellow. “Thought creates the world and then says ‘I didn’t do it.’” (David Bohm). What is the source of my truth. Is it the conditioned thinking that Bohm, Jung, and Krishnamurti are referring to? Or can I discern inner truth beyond this duality and see reality, not based on thought, but based on nondual awareness and on a deep resonance; an ancient knowing that comes alive as we awaken?

"If we indulge the human propensity to understate, exaggerate, and alter facts for whatever comfort or false security a lie might accord us, we forfeit our capacity to see reality clearly, and see only a world of our own invention."
—Lin Jensen, "Right Lying"

What is Belief?

"We create the world that we perceive, not because there is no reality outside our heads, but because we select and edit the reality we see to conform to our beliefs about what sort of world we live in. The man who believes that the resources of the world are infinite, for example, or that if something is good for you then the more of it the better, will not be able to see his errors, because he will not look for evidence of them. For a man to change the basic beliefs that determine his perception - his epistemological premises - he must first become aware that reality is not necessarily as he believes it to be. Sometimes the dissonance between reality and false beliefs reaches a point when it becomes impossible to avoid the awareness that the world no longer makes sense. Only then is it possible for the mind to consider radically different ideas and perceptions."

(Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology)

The following is from an online conversation on social media with Rajiv, a friend from India that sees things very similarly as I do even though he grew up in such a different culture and religious context.

Rajiv Pande Our beliefs precede the evidence for them.
Belief is what happens to you when you are not looking. An imperceptible and yet powerful current that carries you away, and sometimes so far off track that you wonder how and why you ended up being where you are.

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  Ron Irvine Rajiv Pande I've spent my first 50 years being carried away by beliefs, both imperceptible and powerful and the last 10 years making the imperceptible perceptible so I can sort through the trash and the treasures that are left still powerfully trying to define my life.

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  Rajiv Pande I think what was once instinct in the animal world transformed to belief at the human level of evolution. Belief is a kind of substitute for the real or natural thing - a rationalized, narrated thing that envelopes and encloses one almost as completely as animals are immersed in instinct. We think we have an opinion or that we've made a choice but actually we have been drowned, our individuality and freedom dissolved in something seemingly greater than us. Belief systems can be so powerful that they are almost as effective as the formation of species in the animal world. Tribes, communities, nations, religions are the end result of this emotional intensity carried over from what was once animal instinct. Our task as humans is to be rational, to not be swayed by the seething and bubbling hot lava of emotion just below the outer layer of civilization and to keep it contained at all times.

My response was, "Wow!" He really nailed it for me.

Our similarities in perspective have been remarkable as we have grown to know each other over the past 10 years, often reflecting on each other's social media posts and blog posts. How does a person see through, see past, and grow beyond our conditioned upbringing; our cultural instincts that we so automatically believe.

What is Myth?

In this context, I use myth in the same way that Joseph Campbell developed myth in his book, The Power of Myth, as foundational to culture and individuals . Myths are the stories in our heads that we use to create meaning in our lives. Whether a myth is a true story or not is not at all the point. Myths shape our thinking, values, beliefs, and actions in both positive and negative ways. For instance, myths are created and broadcast in the news everyday; sometimes to tell the truth and sometimes to spin political beliefs. Myths also create assumptions, preconceived ideas, judgmental stances, and unfounded fears upon which we are building our democracy. The point is not if myths are true. The point is the impact they have on us; individually or collectively. How do they shape us? But an even bigger question is this, are we aware of our own myths that we have adopted, or that we have been told? Cultural conditioning is a powerful thing. It happens to all of us but not all of us are aware of this. We simply download ideas, mostly unaware, and go on living our lives with very little consciousness about how we became the person that we are; why we think what we think, why we feel what we feel, why we say what we say, and why we do what we do. Why DO we react, act, and interact in the ways that we do?

“Until you make the unconscious conscious,
it will direct your life,
and you will call it fate.”
(Carl Jung)

"It’s hard being a human being. Not only is our external world often demanding, but inside we’re a confusing mix of conflicting emotions and competing desires.

"Complicated creatures, we are each a mix of light and dark. For those of us on a spiritual path, it is essential that we explore this inner territory, for what lies outside our awareness exerts a powerful control over it." (Leia Marie Faith.   https://www.chieftain.com/26bc3b8c-c393-11e8-a446-a7dc25b427f9.html)

Why do we sometimes surprise ourselves by saying or doing something that seems very out of character and then regret it? What is going on under the surface of our lives? What myths are swimming about in those murky waters beneath the surface of my consciousness; preconscious or subconscious surges hacking and hijacking my life.

DO I know? Of course not, because subconscious means that we are not conscious of those subtle influences, drives, and forces; sometimes not so subtle.

CAN I know? Of course I can, but it takes the hard work of doing the innerwork necessary to bring to consciousness that which is currently subconscious. It is both exhausting and exhilarating.

Do I WANT to know? Do I want to go through life as an automaton, following the herd, believing and doing what I’ve been told? Or will I do the innerwork of becoming conscious of the myths within and the power and influence they have? We cannot be free until we do the work of seeing our myths, understanding their power over us (their impact on us), and then carefully choosing the myths that we live by while letting go of those that are no longer helpful or inspiring; that no longer show me the truth within.

“All religions have been true for their time. If you can recognize the enduring aspect of their truth and separate it from the temporal applications, you’ve got it… Myths grab you somewhere down inside. As a boy, you go at it one way, as I did reading my Indian stories. Later on, myths tell you more, and more, and still more. I think that anyone who has ever dealt seriously with religious or mythic ideas will tell you that we learn them as a child on one level, but then many different levels are revealed. Myths are infinite in their revelation.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

I think what Campbell means by this is that:

First, we must do the inner work necessary to first SEE the myths that we have adopted whether consciously or subconsciously.

Second, we must learn to DISCERN the veracity and impact of those myths that have gripped us over the years.

Third, we must revive or recreate a new world of myths, a mythology of meaning, that we can live by; with others and with integrity… a sustainable world and life view. We do this by sorting through the trash and treasures and reweaving the fabric of our underlying personal and collective plane of existence from which all of life unfolds; individual and collective. At the same time, aligning this with the universal plane of existence from which the whole universe unfolds.

What is the source of our values and beliefs; of our myths? Love or Fear? 

Why do I follow the politics that I follow? 

Why do I follow the religion that I follow?
What defines my love and hate?
What defines my hopes and fears?

Do I do these things automatically, 

Because of my family?

Because of my zip code?

Because of my peer group?

Because it is easier to follow the herd???

Am I a second hand person
or am I an original individual
... the real deal?

A New Organizing Myth

But what happens when our organizing, sustaining myth, or story, or drama is no longer meaningful. We have grown beyond the stories of 2000 or 4000 years ago.

We need to create a new myth
about a people that are envisioning and creating
a world that works for ALL,
where ALL means ALL,
that includes each and every person,
that believes in each and every person,
that believes that each person comes here as a gift and full of gifts,
and that for every gift there is a place that needs that gift;
an organizing myth that teaches that
when each person uses the simplest of gifts
in a context that accepts and appreciates those gifts,
then THAT is a meaningful life.
A myth that knows we are all
 connected, nurtured, and sustained
by that which is greater than me.
But knows that this sustaining reality
is beyond understanding; full of mystery,
boundless and limitless, immanent and transcendent.
A myth that acknowledges that
being right and making others wrong
is not what life is about.
It is not a matter of being right
but rather living right
so that the life we lead
makes an impact and
leaves this world better.

Underlying all of perceived, material reality is a deeper reality that supports what we see and experience. This deeper level is what David Bohm (Physicist) refers to as the implicate order of the universe, enfolded reality that then unfolds into the explicate order that which we perceive and then enfolds back into itself, containing like a hologram the whole universe.  In this sense, the enfolded universe contains all of 'what is' while unfolding as needed into a physical reality. In this way, everything has its place in its time and then enfolds back into the underlying implicate order. This is similar to what quantum physics is telling us about the universe.

Did you know?
4% of the universe is physical matter.
23% is dark matter.
73% is empty space that is not empty but is teeming with creative energy and apparent intelligence. Possibly that "stuff" that holds the universe together, keeping it from flying apart or collapsing on itself. Is this emptiness the implicate order?

Scientists are struggling to name this "emptiness" but have theories that describe it as a matrix, web, ether, and even the "'strong force' that literally holds existence together."

"Here's what makes the 'strong force' so fascinating: unlike an electromagnetic force, which decreases as you pull the two charged particles apart, the strong force actually gets stronger the further apart the particles go. It gets so strong that it limits how far two quarks can separate. Once they hit that limit, that's when the magic happens: the huge amount of energy it took for them to separate is converted to mass, following   Einstein's famous equation E = mc2. That's right—the strongest force in the universe is strong enough to turn energy into matter, the thing that makes up existence as you know it."
https://curiosity.com/topics/the-strong-force-is-whats-holding-the-entire-universe-together-curiosity/

What resonates with me about this way of seeing the universe, this possible new organizing myth, is that it shows that:
There is a unified source from which we all spring.
There is a unifying force by which we (and all of existence) are all connected.
There is a sustaining force that nurtures all of existence.
There is a creative force, the source that brings matter into existence from energy.
There is an intentional force that keeps us growing and evolving forward.

And I see this power of intention being individual and collective and universal.
I also see this as parallel to consciousness; individual, collective, and universal.
All connected, all the same essence, all the same source.

David Bohm's Implicate and Explicate Order

"Implicate order and explicate order are ontological concepts for quantum theory coined by theoretical physicist David Bohm during the early 1980s. They are used to describe two different frameworks for understanding the same phenomenon or aspect of reality. In particular, the concepts were developed in order to explain the bizarre behavior of subatomic particles which quantum physics struggles to explain.

"The implicate (also referred to as the "enfolded") order is seen as a deeper and more fundamental order of reality. In contrast, the explicate or "unfolded" order include the abstractions that humans normally perceive. As he wrote,

In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order.

"The notion of implicate and explicate orders emphasizes the primacy of structure and process over individual objects. The latter are seen as mere approximations of an underlying process. In this approach, quantum particles and other objects are understood to have only a limited degree of stability and autonomy.[2]

"Bohm believes that the weirdness of the behavior of quantum particles is caused by unobserved forces, maintaining that space and time might actually be derived from an even deeper level of objective reality. In the words of F. David Peat, Bohm considers that what we take for reality are "surface phenomena, explicate forms that have temporarily unfolded out of an underlying implicate order". That is, the implicate order is the ground from which reality emerges.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate_and_explicate_order 

In other words, the implicate order is the source or ground of being.

Joseph Campbell's Underlying Plane of Existence 

Invisible versus Visible, Nondual versus Dual

All peoples, all tribes, all civilizations throughout history have developed mythologies to describe their understanding of their own existence. Similar themes run throughout history going back to drawings on cave walls.

"All of mythology is summed up with this: There is a plane of existence where we live. It is tangible, visible, temporal. But behind it is a plane of existence that is invisible, eternal, intangible. This plane supports the temporal plane.

"A shaman crosses between the two planes. But the myths, stories, and religion is created from the invisible plane. This plane is nondual. This is from where the religions of the First Peoples were created; from this eternal plane of existence. Or from where both planes are touching; the “thin” places.

"Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are created out of the plane of duality through books, words of the prophets. The male warrior gods (Yahweh and Allah) are jealous, angry, vengeful, full of hate, say one thing and do another, but say they are gods of love and peace.

"The holy grail is brought down by the neutral angels. All of our actions cause both good and bad results. We must balance between dualities. And yet lean toward the light. The grail represents the purest human motivation and consciousness; that which is not influenced by duality but only by our own inner intentions; not what we are told but what we determine.

"Jesus’ teachings and parables are a combination of stories based in the eternal and stories based in the temporal. There are many parallels between the Jesus and the Buddha.

“Every god, every mythology, every religion is true in this sense: it is true as metaphorical of the human and cosmic mystery. He who thinks he knows doesn’t know. He who knows that he doesn’t know knows.”

“In the East, the gods are much more elemental. Less human and more like the power of nature.”

“In oriental thinking, the god is the vehicle of the energy, not its source.”

"The gospel of Thomas: “The kingdom of the father will not come by expectation. The kingdom of the father is spread upon the face of the earth and you do not see it.”

"What is religion? Religion comes from 'religio' which means 'linking back.' From the phenomenal person, we link back to the source.

"That’s the essence of burial. You put back into the earth for rebirth.

"Creating a Mandala for oneself is a matter of graphically illustrating all of the energies of your life and then finding the source, the center of all of the aspects of oneself. So you are trying to coordinate your circle with the universal circle.

"Jung’s archetypes refer to the similar ideas that arise in different cultures without any connection between them. There are certain motifs that appear among different people in different places in different times."
(The Power of Myth)

Only Love
When Gregg Braden studied under some Tibetan Monks, he described that essence of the ether that
permeates the universe, that which he calls the Divine Matrix, he asked the master what is it that fills, sustains, and nurtures the universe. The monk looked at the interpreter and interacted trying to boil it down to the essence. Then he looked at Gregg and said, "Love."

“Love is the whole thing.We are only pieces.” (Rumi)

"Oh Love that fires the sun, keep me burning." (Bruce Cockburn, song lyrics)

The Task of Tasks

"I asked myself, 'What is the myth you are living?' and found that I did not know. So... I took it upon myself to get to know my myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks... I simply had to know what unconscious or preconscious myth was forming me." (Carl Jung)

More about the Space Between
https://curiosity.com/topics/empty-space-isnt-empty-and-quantum-researchers-now-have-direct-evidence-curiosity/

Universal Consciousness

From which we emerge...

Developing a Unified Theory of Everything