Ain’t Got No Art, No Music, No ‘Rithmetic, And Yet….

 

*Wonder of Wonders, and More Wonders Waiting to be Discovered*

 

      A delightful song from my youth was a hit for Sam Cooke, titled “Wonderful World,” and the first lines go: “Don't know much about history, Don't know much biology, Don't know much about a science book, Don't know much about the French I took.”

     I was listening to this song the other day and was enjoying it for the great tune that it is, but the lyrics got me to thinking. The school subjects listed as being things the singer is not good at reminded me that I am not very good at some of them either! So for instance, art, music, science and math, as incredible as they are, have not been areas where I have shown (till now) any great aptitude.

     However, as a layperson, I am in awe of the power they have to express universal truths and insights that can be of great benefit. Each of these instruments has a common language particular to them that allow their gifts to be expressed in communal human experience, regardless of a person’s background or native tongue.

     Aren’t we thrilled by the art and music which so move and elevate us? And then there are the incredible innovations brought about by science, and the miracles of mathematics like pi, the Golden Ratio, the Fibonacci Sequence and the equations that gave us General Relativity and Quantum Theory. Awe-inspiring.

     No, I don’t have a talent for these things, but I always had an interest in ultimate causes. What lies at the basis of any of these phenomena? What is that energy from which they originate, before it is expressed or defined or made visible or heard? First there is this primal energy, and then only later come the initial instigation, conception, inception and creation that bring a musical or artistic or scientific expression into being. This original energy has no boundaries, no beginning or end; it is impersonal and not define-able or describable.

      There is something else, even deeper, even more miraculous, which these amazing tools of art, music and science can’t touch. Here I may be treading on thin ice, as what I would want to describe here may sound very foreign and far-fetched, but I want to push the envelope a bit. The wise ones throughout time have spoken of an intelligence that is not based on subject and object, time and space, causation or differentiation. They point to a core experience available to us all that does not know limitation.

     We have been miseducated to be fascinated by the content of our experience—our thoughts and emotions, ideas and sensations—but we generally ignore our essential being which is the source of all that is experienced. Not knowing of the existence of this essential being, we seek meaning in objective experience, and we overlook and neglect the infiinte awareness from which all of the thoughts, emotions and objective experiences originate.  

   Again, I acknowledge the fact that this is unfamiliar to most people and may seem implausible, but for those who meditate or who observe their lives carefully and thoroughly, they see that there is a level of our experience that goes unheeded. We can sit quietly and see that the mind is an endless source of thoughts, but yet, if we relax and loosen the fascination with the parade of thoughts, we see that there is a basis for the thoughts which doesn’t come and go. The mind and the world of phenomena are in constant flux—impermanent and ceaselessly changing—but there is something that doesn’t change, which remains ever present in waking, sleep and dream, and quite possibly in birth, life and death. What is that?

   In India there is a great story about the choice of where to put one’s attention. If someone throws a ball, most dogs will naturally chase after the ball over and over again, but if a ball is thrown in front of a tiger, the tiger doesn’t go after the ball, it goes after whoever is throwing the ball! In this way, we can either chase after the ball—the thoughts and emotions and the constant flux—or we can be interested in that from which the ball comes.

    In my own life, I can still be fascinated by art, music, science and math, but I know that there is something greater to be interested in. This greater thing is so precious and dear and so worthy of reverence and devotion, but it can continue to remain hidden to us for a very long time, even if we have been tirelessly seeking it. Never mind. This is where persistence and an iron will come in. “Come what may, I will not give up. Till my death, I will persist in this inquiry. I will not allow discouragement to defeat me. I will recognize what is unimportant, and I will keep my eye on the prize.”

   Thank you, Sam Cooke, for the last line in your song: “What a wonderful world it would be.” Indeed, what a wonderful world, where we are not fooled any longer, where we can see clearly and without impediment, where we know what is true and what is false. May it be so.