The Verse of Uni

Journal Entry: Friday, February 2, 2024

Photo by Phinehas Narra on Unsplash

The Verse of Uni

 I am going to do a bit of post-dogmatist messing around for a few minutes while I wait on some paint to dry. The post dogmatist group bills itself as

The Official Avant Garde. Accept no Substitutes!

“Therefore… the conception of the Avant Garde is discarded as a general movement forward toward a utopian external and is reoriented to a general movement inward…”

I have been a little slack on my journaling the last week or so. I am trying to average about 500 words a day this year in my journal and I need to make up a little bit and also come up with fresh material for the Touchonian. So let me pitch something to you related to ‘a general movement inward’ as stated above.

 I think I will start by talking about Uni and the problem of talking about Uni. Firstly who is Uni? Uni is the One, the Only, the Lonely, the Singular, the Unique, the only One here. The manifestation; the universe, all of the universes, all of the realms seen, and unseen is the endless, infinite verse of Uni. This means that I am talking to myself right now and that is the problem with talking. Language is based on delusion. The roots of language are based on you and me being two different distinct things which we are not. There is only Uni, not me, not you and yet I am talking and you are listening. All delusion.

“Delusion, illusion, hallucination, mirage mean something that is believed to be true or real but that is actually false or unreal.

Delusion implies an inability to distinguish between what is real and what only seems to be real, often as the result of a disordered state of mind. “

Merriam-Webster dictionary

Since language itself tells us in the above definition that we believe in language and we believe that it is true and real when it is actually false and unreal if what I am calling the Uni is, in fact, the actual reality. Hence, language itself is the source of our delusion since it is predicated on a foundation of misunderstanding of reality as it actually is.

Can I prove my argument about Uni? That is the problem. I would have to use language to convince you and we would both remain in a state of delusion by arguing over it with language since language is the very source of our delusion. It can’t be trusted and can only lead to more convincing delusions.

Still, a pretty good stab at the argument in language come from the opening of the Tao Te Ching which says:

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

translation by Stephen Mitchell

Right from the beginning the Tao Te Ching sets out its disclaimer. Just the fact that the above is stated in language makes the whole statement spurious. Though it is pointing in the right direction, it is still delusional, originating in delusion, and only leading to delusion. The truth is somewhere out beyond the boundaries of what can be spoken – darkness within darkness or as Winston Churchill once said on a different subject “A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”

The reality beyond our delusion is alluded to over and over again throughout all mystical traditions across time and all over the world. Some humans have awakened to it, or I should say Uni has awakened in them. But whatever I am saying, because I am saying it in language, it is all delusional because language itself is delusional to its core and in it’s very structure.

But wait! Don’t lose hope. Though we are all suffering from a seemingly insurmountable state of deep delusion and that everything I am telling you is delusional on my part, our joint delusion might be perfectly OK. Maybe Uni enjoys being self-deluded in the human state. As long as Uni is tricked into thinking It is you and me, then the One, the Only, the Lonely has company and companionship.

There is you and there is me and we get to pretend that we are two and are not just one of us talking to Itself. You could say that it is a kind of theatrical performance like Shakespeare has said:

“All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.”

from As You Like It: William Shakespeare

The temptation for me talking to you is to just shut up. Except for the desire on my part to continue to ride this train of thought, foolish as it is and describe the landscape going by in my mind and see if I can’t find a station up ahead where I can get off the train once the train comes to a stop instead of just jumping out the window.

So please forgive my continued pontifications. I will try to be as pauciloquent as possible with my preposterous postulations.

Here I will backtrack just a bit to my use of the word Uni. Uni is a prefix meaning single or one. I like this word as a name for the Divine without actually giving a name to the Divine although I have given It a name haven’t I? I guess I came up with it when thinking about the Universe. ‘Can I call the universe the divine?’ I wondered to myself but decided ‘No I can’t because the universe is a manifestation of something that preceded it’. Then it came to me to examine the word universe and that it is made of uni and verse. Verse means poetry or maybe written poetry and implies song and music and rhythmic patterns. If you think of the preexisting Divine Being creating the universe and that it is like living art, poetry and music then you have the Verse of Uni.

By referring to the divine as Uni it removes all of the baggage of religious dogmas and cultural differences and regional ethnicity and just leaves the divine universal artist/poet/composer/creator at play creating the Great Harmony and its beauty, magnificence and overwhelming wonder. I like that as I am the only one here just like you are. Each of us the epicenter of the universe from our own unique vantage point.

Photo by Nickolas Nikolic on Unsplash

Uni the artful God of all, in all, from which all is made and to which all returns, omniscient, omnipresent, all-pervading, infinitely, eternally, constantly at the loom weaving everything together or at the potter’s wheel giving shape to the clay of life. Dwelling in all hearts, working through all hands, gazing through all eyes upon its work.

Scientists, priests and philosophers can go about their business of counting and naming the stars in the sky or pondering how many angels can stand on the head of a pin or mince words and their meanings till no one knows what they are saying but I’ll stick to the arts where the real mysteries of life are explored and expressed since the beginnings of humankind.

Photo by svklimkin on Unsplash

Ok, I am getting carried away. So, for now, I had better get off of my butt and get back to my studio and keep working… Till the next time Beloved One.

Standard Disclaimer invoked.