Boxing Up the Infinite
To the one who wants to put Reality into a box. The frustrated one trying to figure it all out, understand it, or afraid to get it wrong. To the one looking for the Answer to life (or their life)...
You don't actually want a Reality that can be defined - you want to feel safe.
You don't actually want Life to be neat and clean - you want to feel some sense of control.
You don't actually want to understand it all - you want to feel connected.
This is the tension we must learn to hold: we are finite beings in an infinite universe. We inhabit the particular while we can ponder the universal. We are dualistic in a non-dual Reality.
Learning to hold this tension - and navigate it - is what we call wisdom.
Most of the time we do not hold the tension - we collapse on one side of it. Either on the side of the particular or the side of the universal.
What side of that tension do you tend to collapse on? Do you default to dualistic grasping for definitions, concepts, meanings? Or do you get lost in the infinite - becoming ungrounded, indecisive, lacking conviction or apathetic?
Can you hold the tension between fundamentalism on one side and nihilism on the other? Can you acknowledge the infinite and play in the finite? Can you respect the mystery and claim a meaning for this moment?
As someone who is overly aware that Reality cannot be defined or boxed up, my current practice/mantra for holding this tension is: to box up this Moment.
You cannot put Reality in a box - but we often need to box up this Moment so that we can hold it, relate to it, engage with it.
Sometimes we need a phrase, a book, a meaning, a name, a mantra, a practice to fully engage with this moment or this season of life. So box it up! Your meaning doesn't have to be the Meaning to be exactly what you need right now. Make the infinite finite for this moment so that you can relate and engage with it.
You will never find the Answer to life, but you can find the answer for right now. You cannot figure it all out, but you can feel out this moment. You cannot box up Life, but you can create lots of little boxes that help you along the way.
Dear one, stuck in between: you are right where you need to be. You can stop waiting for the tension to be resolved - this is the tension of being human! Living as a particular, finite body and able to contemplate infinite, universal Reality.
You don't resolve this tension, you enter into it. A full, joyful life is not one that is free of tensions - it is one that has learned to fully embrace them.
What little box - phrase, mantra, practice, meaning - do you need to help you fully step into your life today? Box it up!
How do you hold the infinite? One finite moment at a time.
