The Dharma Bum

Many great religious figures, spiritual teachers, scholars, philosophers and thinkers alike speak of a connection between everything in the universe.

At first, to a logical thinker, this can be a hard concept to grasp. How can everything in the world be connected? How can this rock I hold in my hand, be some how connected to you or me? How can you or I be connected to everything we see around us? How can you or I be connected to everyone else on the planet?

We have been conditioned to believe that all physical things on this planet and within this universe are separate physical objects. We believe that human, animal and plant life on this planet are all separate physical objects with separate identities, each having separate traits. This is true to an extent, but how can there possibly be a connection between everything?

This illusion of separateness between everything in the universe has maintained throughout human history. Through years of cultural learning, teaching and conditioning, this hoax has survived and endured, but if explained in simple terms, one will begin to realize how this universal connection of everything is plainly obvious.

First is to understand the true concept and illusion of opposites, 'solid and space', 'inside and outside', 'on and off', 'sound and silence', 'light and dark', 'man and woman', 'life and death'.

Humans with there sciences and philosophies, repeatedly attempt to analyze, understand and define one side of an opposite. We study solid matter yet we ignore empty space, we analyze sound, yet we ignore silence, and we speculate over life yet fail to understand death. Studying only half of an opposite is a fruitless task without also studying the opposite of the whole. For the one side of the opposite that we attempt to describe and understand is defined by its counterpart. Without this counterpart, they would not exist! Let us begin by looking at 'solid' and 'space'.

If we were to look at a rock with no surrounding space, there would be no way of seeing, feeling or conceiving this rock. There would be no edges to define the rock as a rock. For it is the empty surrounding space that defines the rock. Simply, if there were nothing outside the rock, the rock would have no outside. So in attempting to fully describe this rock, one must also describe the space in which it occupies, for without it, it would not be what it is as we know it. Here lies a connection.

As soon as we begin to realize that in this universe, the empty space is just as important as the solid, we may begin to further our understanding of everything. 'Lao Tzu' stressed the importance of the emptiness that gives purpose to things, as he illustrates in this passage from the "Tao Te Ching":

Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a pot;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Build walls for a room;
It is the space within that makes it useful.

It is the space within a bowl that adds the function, and it is the space within a wheel that adds its function. In every case, the space is just as important as the solid. Yet for some reason we fail to identify the importance of this relationship. Form works because of emptiness, emptiness works because of form. This is the universal dance of opposites that the Taoists would call yin & yang.

Alternatively, the other side must also be considered, if there was nothing solid in this universe, would there be any space at all? For there is no space accept the space between things, inside things, outside things. The solid and space are a mutual part of each other and are therefore connected.

Let us look at other overlooked examples of interconnectivity: If there were no such thing as 'dark', we would have no concept of 'light'. If we didn't have the dark, we would have nothing to define the light. So in describing one, one must also describe the other. Here we see a connection. Furthermore, if we did not have 'woman', we would have no concept of 'man', but of something completely different. For it is man who defines woman, just the same as it is the woman who defines man.

How can you have a peak without a trough? It is the trough that manifests the peak, just as it is the peak manifests the trough. An example of once more ignoring empty space lies with sound. A sound is of course a wave form comprised of peaks and troughs, on’s and off’s. We hear the on’s that make the sound yet we ignore the off’s. Yet it is the on’s and off’s that define each other.

We can begin to see that in describing one thing, one must also describe another. We do not realize that so called opposites such as light and dark, sound and silence, solid and space, on and off, inside and outside, appearing and disappearing, cause and effect are poles or aspects of the same thing. Both opposites are mutually connected and make up part of the whole, even if we have no real word for what that whole actually is.

Let us then broaden this concept into more than simple opposites.

Let us look at the simple human/animal process of 'walking'. If one were to describe the process of walking, you might say, "You move your legs over a surface to arrive at a destination". This is true, but to truly describe this process, one must elaborate. What moves the legs? What is the surface? Where is the surface? What's holding the surface up? What’s holding the stuff up that holds up the surface?

To demonstrate how the seemingly simple process of walking is in actual fact a chain of processes which are part of everything in this universe, let us consider a few more things we may not always think about when strolling along a riverside, or simply walking along the pavement.

In the case of describing a human walking:

First of all you need a human. The human must have 2 legs. The human must have a brain and nervous system to control the legs. (Lets for the sake of time ignore the millions of process’s that would be happening within your body to make these legs actually move). The human must have a reason to move from one place to another. The human's legs must move backwards and forwards in a regular pattern propelling the body over a surface (the pavement). This surface must be held up by something (foundations, soil/earth, ultimately, the crust of the planet). The planet must be held in place by something (gravity, our galaxy, our universe). To ensure the human does not float up into space, we must take note of gravity in the process. The walking surface must clearly be something ‘solid’; therefore we must also describe 'space' to define the solid, and If we are now including space into the process, we must also include time, as Einstein will tell you, the continuum go together as one.

So we can see that in attempting to describe something as simple as walking, we must take everything into account. The succession of processes are all connected to and rely on each other. Our mere process of walking is in fact, one small part of a united process of everything that’s happening in this universe at that present moment in time. This relationship is true for any and every process that happens within our universe. Everything’s connected.

This concept of the connectivity between things and process's can also be described in terms of human relationships between other humans. For example: How can I be me, without you? How can I be me, without you to highlight our differences? How can we be us without everyone else to define ourselves? If you were the only human on the planet, you would have nothing to define yourself against, You need everyone else and all there differences to make you YOU! Think about this. In describing one human on our planet, you are also taking every other human being into account, as its there differences to the person in question that make them individual.

Hopefully we can now begin to see how we are all connected at the most basic level.

However is doesn't stop there, the connectedness is everywhere you look. The rich and the poor, happy and sad, love and hate. If we didn't have the poor, would the rich still be rich? No, they would simply just be. The rich need the poor to define themselves as rich, for without them, they would not be what they are. There is a connection. We cannot describe or fully understand happiness without equally knowing it’s unhappy opposite. For without it, it would not exist. If all of our emotions didn't have their opposites, they wouldn't be what we know them as today.

Using the analogies described in this piece of writing, we can see how apparent separate things in this world/universe, can only be known and described by including there counterparts or polar opposites. We have been brought up to think of ourselves as separate individuals, which is true, but this does not mean that we are not connected in some way to everything else in this universe at any present moment.

We feel that this world is an assemblage of separate things that have somehow come together through pure chance and evolution, but when we begin to realize that humans and our behavior are all part of a process, which can only be defined in relation to its environment, which can only be described in relation to everything, we can begin to see that in describing one thing, you must also describe everything. Everything in the universe is connected!

Science struggles to define the most minute features of life on this planet, yet fails to realize that the minutest features are actually part of the whole universe, part of everything and cannot be defined totally on there own. Life therefore can only be one small part of the universes eternal dance of on/off energy. Death will follow, but then so will life. Just as on has off, light has dark and sound has silence, our lives are just a part of this unified process.

But that small part, that small process, that small dance of the universes infinite energy, is part of everything!


*For the entire basis of this piece of writing, I must give credit to the great Alan Watts, who is at this moment, one of my most respected philosophers. It was Watts that introduced me to this concept of the connectedness of everything. I am merely trying to understand and convey this theory in my own words.

RIP Alan Watts – 1915/1973