THE REIGN OF RELATIVITY
The Notebooks of Paul Brunton – Volume 13, Category 19
October, 2026
“There are three stages on the path of world enquiry. The first yields as its fruit that the world is but an idea, and this stage has been reached from the metaphysical end by thinkers such as Bishop Berkeley and nearly reached from the scientific end by such a man as Eddington. The second stage involves the study of the three states, waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, and yields as its fruit the truth that ideas are transitory emanations out of their permanent cause, consciousness. The third stage is the most difficult, for it requires analysis of the nature of time, space, and causation, plus successful practice of yoga. It yields as its fruit the sense of Reality as something eternally abiding with one.” https://www.paulbrunton.org/notebooks/19
The world is not illusion: it is relative, or an appearance, a changing phase of reality. Nor is it purposeless. It exists to evolve the individual entities to their goals. [19:1.20]
The world does exist, we are surrounded by it, and usually we apply the term to something that does not exist. It will be more correct to translate the term Maya not by “unreal” but by “not what we think it to be.“ We must not deny the existence of the world–that would be lunacy–but we must try to get a correct understanding of its hidden nature. [19:1.26]
There is no thing, be it as vast as a sun or as small as a cell, which is not subject to the law of opposite polarities, and which therefore does not manifest itself in two entirely contrary ways. Yet humans, because their senses are so limited, see it in only a single way. It is this incompleteness which creates his illusion that the thing really exists in time, is measured in space, and is shaped in form. [19:1.24]
If we think, “I strive to become one with God,” or, “I am one with God,” we have unconsciously denied the statement itself because we have unconsciously set up and retained two things, the “I” and “God.” If these two ultimately exist as separate things they will always exist as such. If, however, they really enter into union, then they must always have been in union and never apart. In that case, the quest of the underself for the Overself is unnecessary. How can these two opposed situations be resolved? The answer is that relativity has taught us the need of a double standpoint, the one relative and practical and constantly shifting, the other absolute and philosophical and forever unchanged. From the first standpoint we see the necessity and must obey the urge of undertaking this quest in all its practical details and successive stages. From the second one, however, we see that all existence, inclusive of our own and whether we are aware of it or not, dwells in a timeless, motionless Now, a changeless, actionless Here, a thing-less, egoless Void. The first bids us work and work hard at self-development in meditation, metaphysics, and altruistic activity, but the second informs us that nothing we do or abstain from doing can raise us to a region where we already are and forever shall be in any case. And because we are what we are, because we are Sphinxes with angelic heads and animal bodies, we are forced to hold both these standpoints side by side. If we wish to think truthfully and not merely half-truthfully, we must make both these extremes meet one another. That is, neither may be asserted alone and neither may be denied alone. It is easier to experience this quality than to understand it.
This is puzzling indeed and can never be easy, but then, were life simple and less paradoxical than it is, all its major problems would not have worried the wisest men from the remotest antiquity until today. Such is the paradox of life and we had better accept it. That is, we must not hold one standpoint to the detriment of the other. These two views need not oppose themselves against each other but can exist in a state of reconciliation and harmony when their mutual necessity is understood. We have to remember both that which is ever-becoming and that which is ever in being. We are already as eternal, as immortal, as divine as we ever shall be. But if we want to become aware of it, why then we must climb down to the lower standpoint and pursue the quest in travail and limitation. [19:2.5]
The first question is also the final one; it is quite short, quite simple, and yet it is also the most important question which anyone could ever ask, whether of themselves or of others. This question is: “What is consciousness?” Whoever traces the answer through all its levels will find themself in the end in the very presence of the universal consciousness otherwise called God. [19:3.32]
In the Void there is no one particular thing or creature. It is Pure Consciousness with no personality. [19:5.19]
The universal existence is an ever-developing process, an activity and not a thing. There is no cessation of this process anywhere but only the mere show of it. THAT out of which and in which it arises is alone exempt from this vibration, being formless, intangible, inconceivable void. [19:5.12]
In the Void the Real is hidden, all time is rolled up there: the entire world and the space holding it dissolves there, everything and everyone emerges and vanishes there. THAT alone is the ever-Real, ever-Being. That is what humans must learn to consider as their own hidden being, a task of re-identification. [19:5.17]
Compiled by Judy S.