The Dance

I’ve written before how the world arises with sound, vibration. Used in harmonies, we could say the world is sung into existence.

Those vibrations are used in relationships, the patterns creating subtle structure, sometimes called sacred geometry. Through the surrounding fields, they add modulations. Qualities, forms, and experiences result.

If you toss a pebble into a pond, it creates vibrating ripples that flow out, then echo back creating interference patterns. But the ripples fade.

If you sing a song, the notes are produced, then quickly fade. How are the sounds of creation sustained?

Partly this is due to creation taking place prior to linear time. Time arises from our relationship with the process of experience, from the act of experiencing. Being prior to local time, creation doesn’t have a start and end in the same way as physical things.

But notice the framing, the “act” of experiencing. The sustaining of the field of experience is through action. The dance of life sustains the world.

“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.“
– William Shakespeare, As You Like It

On the surface, life seems a big drama. But deeper, under the ego trying to control results, life has a Divine purpose.

“For those established in self-referral consciousness (The Self, Atman), the infinite organizing power of the Creator becomes the charioteer of all action.”
– Rig Veda 1.158.6

We are essentially here to experience the detail of the whole by having a specific perspective from our point of observation, our soul’s vantage. We are not the doer but the observer, the experiencer. And yet, action takes place through us to sustain the whole.

“Yogis, abandoning attachment, perform action for self-purification.“
– Bhagavad Gita 5.11

Dharma is defined as that which sustains. Action that help sustain the world of appearance. Lila is the Divine play, the Divine dance.

Krishna and Lakshmi embody the dance, embody the sustaining power. The world is being recreated in every moment. The dance sustains the appearance so we can learn and evolve. It keeps the play rolling.

Another way to frame this is as memory. The world is sustained because we remember it, collectively. It is thus recreated in every moment into the same forms.

There is deep value in transcending the field of action to discover our source, behind the play, behind the field of action, under the drama.

But this must be in balance. Excess non-doing becomes inertia, tamas. This leads to the dissolution of form, the loss of dharma.

Excess doing without reference to our source leads to a domination of forms and to suffering.

“Yoga is skill in action.”
– Bhagavad Gita 2.50

Balance of action and inaction brings harmony and sustained Yoga, otherwise known as awakening. Then we can avoid suffering, help sustain the world, and enjoy the unfolding.
Davidya