Note for English version: the original expression, Being Being, in Catalan or Spanish, use infinitive and gerund tenses to point out the difference between static Unity and dynamic Multiplicity. In English, literal translation can be difficult to understand, because Being, is equal in infinitive and gerund tenses. On the other hand, it may be an advantage, in order to we realize that Unity and Multiplicity are the same, as it wanted be pointed. You are welcome to suggest better translation.
The ontological dichotomy between the intuited unity and the perceived multiplicity has been debated since ancient times, varying according to the moment and the idiosyncrasies of each culture.
Some focused on Unity – among others, Parmenides, in pre-Socratic Greece, or Shankara, in the Indian Advaita Vedanta – and pointed out that the Being, that Brahman, is eternal, unique, immutable and that all change or multiplicity is an illusion, since only the Being truly exists.
In contrast, others emphasized change, impermanence and dynamic equilibrium – such as Heraclitus, Buddhadharma or Taoism – indirectly insinuating an ineffable Unity of which nothing can be said, without limiting or devaluing it.
Theistic traditions ontologically opted for dualism, nurturing the belief in the distinction between a Creator and the Creation of infinite creatures. In the same way, the so-called Humanism and its derivatives – in opposition to theism – also embraces dualism by placing the human as the center and referent of everything, even if this means depriving him of the transcendence of LIFE that is inherent in him by nature.
Being Being
Sat Dharma subscribes to the maxim Ekam Sat (Only One Is) of Advaita Vedanta. But he does not consider change and impermanence illusory, but inherent in Unity itself. That is why it then points out Being (infinitive) Being (gerund).
Being (as infinitive) – That which Is, whatever It is that Is –, is ineffable. Nothing reach It. Just by approximation, we can insinuate that It is beyond space and time. It has no beginning or end. It is Unborn. It is the One without a cause. The One without a second. Nothing can be outside of Being (inf.).
Conceptualizing and constraining it more, we can speak of Absolute, Existence, Unity, Reality… but no adjective can be applied to it, because it would limit and relativize it. We can only say that Being Is.1
But if nothing can be outside of Being (inf.), It must incorporate change, movement, impermanence. Being (inf.) cannot be static, but dynamic: That which Is, is Being (as gerund).
Solving the Paradox
Does this mean that Oneness is presented as duality? Oneness and duality are two different things? No.
Being (inf.) and Being (ger.) are not two: Being (inf.), without Being (ger.), would be incomplete; Being (ger.) without Being (inf.), it would not make sense. They are not opposites, nor complementary. Nor is there any primacy: Being (inf.) is not “manifested” or “shown” as Being (ger.). Unity does not “manifest” as Multiplicity. At all times we talk about What Is.
Just as the many waves – as real as they are impermanent –, on the surface of the sea or a lake, are nothing more than water in motion, Being (inf.) and Being (ger.) point to the same thing: we speak at all times of What Is.
Being Being points to the non-dual nature of all phenomena. No phenomenon has an existence of its own, but it is an Existence’s form. There are not two. At all times we talk about What Is.
Being Being also tells us, in terms of personal attitude, that it is not a matter of believing or understanding, but of being. It is necessary to go beyond conceptual, intellectual or philosophical disquisitions, and to make the intimate, logical and opportune reflections to realize – now without contradictions – that at all times we are What Is.
So the Unity-Multiplicity paradox will be resolved.
And the dualistic confusion will be vanished.
- Note that no article is used that could determine it or suggest that it is speaking of an entity. ↩︎
