The first two stages of life, that of student and householder, are for doing. The second two stages of life, that of hermit and renunciant, are for undoing. Adapted for the Western mind, per T.S. Eliot, we advance for a while and then we retreat, arriving where we started from and knowing the place for the first time.
Two of India’s greatest sages, Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj, arrived at the same conclusion: Of all of God’s names, “none is indeed so well put as the biblical statement “I am that I am”.” (Exodus 3:14) In the New Testament, we read that Jesus was nearly stoned to death for saying “Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was born, I AM.” (John 8:58)
Akasha is a Sanskrit word for space, sky, or ether. It derives from the root kas, meaning “to be.” Science confirms that, on an atomic level, the human body is essentially akashic, being 99.9999999% empty space. We’re like solar systems interacting with each other.
A quiet mind is not an end in itself. It clears the stage.
Political repression has produced an art movement called excessivism. Think of George Floyd’s head painted on a brick wall. Nobody’s painting over that expanse. Or of Ai Weiwei and his sunflower seeds. Or of Bansky. The more repressive the state, the more biting the art. Excessivism fulfills British philosopher Alan Watts theory of polarity, also called the law of opposites. As he writes in “The Two Hands of God,” opposing qualities create, define and sustain one another.
Men's Work 