Can You Handle the Wisdom of The “Original Simplicity”?

This past weekend in our local meetup group we read and discussed the following excerpt from All These Things Added by James Allen (1903).

This is not something you can just read quickly and understand immediately; you’ll need to be in a contemplative mood. I suggest meditating a bit before reading it, then read through it slowly and contemplate as you go.

DON’T FORGET: Deep thought, contemplation and discussions on topics like these will create REAL growth and change in you (over time) like nothing else.

Here’s the excerpt:

The "Original Simplicity"

LIFE is simple. Being is simple. The universe is simple. Complexity arises in ignorance and self-delusion. The "Original Simplicity" of Lao-tze is a term expressive of the universe as it is, and not as it appears. Looking through the woven network of his own illusions, man sees interminable complication and unfathomable mystery, and so loses himself in the labyrinths of his own making. Let a man put away egotism, and he will see the universe in all the beauty of its pristine simplicity. Let him annihilate the delusion of the personal "I," and he will destroy all the illusions which spring from that "I." He will thus "re-become a little child," and will "revert to Original Simplicity."

When a man succeeds in entirely forgetting (annihilating) his personal self, he be-comes a mirror in which the universal Reality is faultlessly reflected. He is awakened, and henceforward he lives, not in dreams, but realities.

Pythagoras saw the universe in the ten numbers, but even this simplicity may be further reduced, and the universe ultimately be found to be contained in the number ONE, for all the numerals and all their infinite complications are but additions of the One.

Let life cease to be lived as a fragmentary thing, and let it be lived as a perfect Whole; the simplicity of the Perfect will then be revealed. How shall the fragment comprehend the Whole? Yet how simple that the Whole should comprehend the fragment. How shall sin perceive Holiness? Yet how plain that Holiness should understand sin. He who would become the Greater let him abandon the lesser. In no form is the circle contained, but in the circle all forms are contained. In no colour is the radiant light imprisoned, but in the radiant light all colours are embodied, Let a man destroy all the forms of self, and he shall apprehend the Circle of Perfection; let him submerge, in the silent depths of his being, the varying colours of his thoughts and desires, and he shall be illuminated with the White Light of Divine Knowledge. In the perfect chord of music the single note, though forgotten, is indispensably contained, and the drop of water becomes of supreme usefulness by losing itself in the ocean. Sink thyself compassionately in the heart of humanity, and thou shalt reproduce the harmonies of Heaven; lose thyself in unlimited love toward all, and thou shalt work enduring works and shalt become one with the eternal Ocean of Bliss.

(from All These Things Added by James Allen, 1903)

LINKS:

— Lightness Meditation sessions, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJAyVkTL0GAK7FTOm-TzgBw/about

— Podcast Engineering School, https://podcastengineeringschool.com/

— Chris’s fractal art and social media, http://fractalchris.com/

— The Mystic Show (podcast), https://themysticshow.net/

— Leap Beyond Your Limits (book) — https://www.amazon.com/Leap-Beyond-Limits-Chris-Curran/dp/1599303426