The Drop and the Ocean

   The imagery of the drop and the ocean can be found prevalently in metaphysical and spiritual literature alike; for it incorporates a deep mystical symbolism in tangible and expressive terms; it is an archetype of quintessential beauty and unity, that more so than explaining the fundamental nature of reality, directly expresses the intrinsic relationship between the Absolute and the self.

'The joy of the drop is to die in the ocean'

   I have wrote in great depth concerning the nature of the human being as a part within a greater underlying unity, the soul as a drop of the Divine ocean. The archetype of the greater is pervading. It is the foundation of metaphysics in the realisation of the fundamental ontological relationship between the part and the whole, but is also as an ideal embedded as an arcanum of consciousness, finding its representation in each form of life through our striving to the Good.

   Life is born in a mindless struggle of survival, not seeing beyond the immediacy of the present and outer world, lost within the chasm of our despair when faced with the cruelty of suffering. Yet beneath this, beyond each vestige of our existence, is a primordial yearning, seeking for something greater to find wholeness within. This finds some satisfaction in the ideals of family, community, and profession alike; yet after all this the yearning remains in stubborn ferocity. For the forms of this life are transient and impermanent, and when the immortal innocence of curiosity is faced with the nature of its own mortality, and all that it loves, it seeks beyond the veil of the ever-changing to find a pillar of constancy to rest upon, and an abode in eternity.

The essence of the human spirit, the very kernel of our being, is this striving.

When the inner yearning grasps hold of oneself, we realise the greater unity utterly transcendent of all: God. We perceive of a vast Divine ocean in which we are a drop, and in this realisation lies the birthplace of spirituality, and in spirituality lies an awakening into our true nature and essence. We see beyond the finite shore, setting our gaze upon the ever-reaching ocean, gently kissing the horizon of the infinite. While the finite drop dissolves within the infinite majesty, it is the finite that is the essence of the infinite, it is the drop which is the substance of the ocean.
   We are faced with the dichotomy of perspective: that we are both entirely minuscule yet inescapably fundamental to the absolute oneness that we seek. Each drop is a unique expression of the ocean striving towards wholeness; and it is this search of wholeness that lies at the heart of our existence. We are a drop of divinity; and the joy of the drop is to die in the ocean.

'You are the drop that contains the ocean'

   There is a more subtle truth; in realising awareness as the essence of existence, and in finding the totality of striving in the Ideals of the Soul, we awaken to the universe within. The outward universe laid before us, and the world of inward imagination adorning the intellectual heavens, is all testament to the infinitude of the Soul.

   When the search of the greater is transformed from an outward journey into an inward struggle, we are faced with the true form of our Spirit. That the ideals of the good, of truth, and beauty, originate and flourish from within ourselves. It is our free will that is the source of the greatest imperfection of creation: the capacity of evil; but in the most imperfect form conjured within the cosmos, we find the greatest potential to perfection.
   Our Soul is broken, lost in the striving to the greater, chained by our fragmentation in the lesser. But through the ineffable guiding light of hope, the greatest elevation of goodness, we perceive the greater ocean, and ourselves as a drop of its majesty, gone astray far away from the source of our life.

   In this first awakening we perceive of the greater whole, a wholeness pertaining to the Soul, as the singularity of our selfhood, the highest crown of our being. And we perceive an Absolute Unity; our Soul as being a ray of the divine awareness culminated in the Godhead.

'The drop that became the ocean'

   A drop removed, and the ocean remains; and another, still it remains. And after each other, should there still not be an ocean? But the ocean is composed of its drops, and eventually, in removing each one, a barren wasteland will remain where the ocean should.
   The ocean is a depth vast and profound, and the illusion of size beckons that the drop should not be counted in its essence. But as we just demonstrated, to name the drop inessential, is to name the ocean inessential. For the ocean is simply a plurality of drops; and the single drop is the essence of the plurality. The drop and the ocean are one: they are both water bearing different names.
   This realisation of man is the apotheosis of his potential, the culmination of his growth. That he, the drop, is in the highest mystery no different from the ocean; and in such knowledge does his mind expand to the infinite incomprehensible beyond horizons; and his being is the drop that became the ocean. Man finds unity in the essence of God; and no singularity has he but the singularity of God; and the plurality he witnesses is the dispersed light of the drop circumscribing the spectrum of colour as the locus of creation.

   The life of man is the result of a sundering of the knower and knowledge, of the lover and love, of form and singularity. His life is the engendered striving to the unity of truth; his ignoble pursuits are lost wanderings in the caliginous shadow of his nobility; and his noble pursuits are forms of his yearning to unity.
   But to become lost in form, and forget the essence of the pursuit, is to deprave actions to meaninglessness. Forget not that plurality, of the soul in its concupiscent and rational faculties, of experience in the myriad of emotion, and of the world and men in the natural and artificial divides, is a locus about a single generating principle. That singularity precedes and births the forms of being, but those forms harbour in their life essence the singularity. The ocean overwhelms the mind in magnitude, but the drop holds within itself the whole ocean.
   To know the meaning of life is to first know yourself as a drop within the cosmos of being, and then to intimately know the whole cosmos within your heart. When you empty yourself of the sound of worlds, in that emptiness God fills your silence.