Panentheism in a nutshell

[Dimmesdale]

What are things made of? Matter? Okay, matter. What is matter made of? Elementary particles. What are elementary particles made of? If they are made of smaller things, then that leads us to an infinite regress. Furthermore, this cannot explain why given materials possess any substantiality at all. For the most basic particles need to be substantial themselves. They must reach toward a substratum that is stable in its essence. So, for the substantiality of all material things, there must be a prime, or base substantiality, at the root. And let us say this is Prime Materiality.

What would prime materiality look like? It would have to be simple, monadic. Absolutely simple and monadic. For we would be saddled with the same regress if it weren't. If the basic building block would be, something like a circle, then we would be able to cut that circle into two halves, and that would be non-monadic. So prime materiality cannot then have any shape or size, for that same shape and size can be deconstructed into something smaller, and on and on. If prime materiality then cannot have shape or size, it follows that it cannot occupy any space or time. For then, it would be extended throughout space and time, which means that it would have shape, size, and could on that account be reduced further into simpler forms.

Okay. So we have resolved that prime materiality must be formless, simple, monadic, and non-spatio-temporal. Does that ring a bell? Have I not given you the Western-dominated definition of God?

But whence comes space then? Is space not an object? We can divide space, in our experience. So space must have substantiality. Unless it doesn't. Unless space only appears to space. To our empirical vision. If all there is is God, then space is a non-starter. But I have not said that God is all. Only that prime materiality bears a resemblance to God. Still, we can abolish space at this time as an illusion, or as a moot point. It is an appearance, not prime materiality.

Something that is also formless, simple, and non-spatio-temporal could be said to be Energy, however. Pure energy. Energy is measured by the force it yields. As, a unit of energy is equivalent to the particle that exhausts itself in its death and releases it. Pure energy.

But all energy, as far as we can descry, has a source. Energy comes from somewhere. And if all (illusory) things partake of Prime Materiality, then that Prime Materiality, which bears the Image of the Western-dominated "Creator" may be said to originate there, as well..... Only on this reading, God is not distant... God is not apart. God is ready-to-hand. God is intimately wedded and Present to Energy..... Intimately united. Oned. A Moiety.

God. The Energetic, and His Energy.

[Dimmesdale]

In order to prevent Matter from collapsing into its own voidness, it needs to be held up, maintained, by the Energy of the Lord.... This is why there is difference in the first place. This is the reason for space-time. Not as a concession of illusion to this world that is merely founded on the One, but because it is an integral part of the true Spiritual Sky which is hidden from us, but bares its stamp.....

[Dimmesdale]

To desire materiality is to render oneself into the image and likeness of a monad. Which, in reality is nothing like anything at all.

[Dimmesdale]

A wish fulfilling tree which yields the same old desire.

[Dimmesdale]

It is a given then that Variety itself is incumbent upon the creation for the reason that diversity is spiritual. The one monad of Prime Materiality then must be diversified, so that matter itself, and its self-centered desire, does not fall into itself, collapse into itself, as the void. God is then the maintainer of the status quo. There is no more evil in this world than there ought to be.

[Dimmesdale]

Simplicity is the key to spirituality.... Yes, but not to the metaphysics of religion as a whole. When we stare at a mandala, or yantra, or murti, or some other venerated object, we try to dissociate ourselves from the vagaries of materialistic thoughts... that whole current of nonstop chatter that threatens to distract and outstrip our energies in the service of the anti-infinite-nature.

But then we turn to a false infinite instead.

For the one centering device turns into a concentrating beacon for our own godless instinct for opulence.

[Dimmesdale]

Simplicity is the key to spirituality.... Yes, but not to the metaphysics of religion as a whole. When we stare at a mandala, or yantra, or murti, or some other venerated object, we try to dissociate ourselves from the vagaries of materialistic thoughts... that whole current of nonstop chatter that threatens to distract and outstrip our energies in the service of the anti-infinite-nature.

But then we turn to a false infinite instead.

For the one centering device turns into a concentrating beacon for our own godless instinct for opulence.

The diversification of the PM's points of origination then, have the providential value of shaking us out of our "Lording It Over" stupor, sifting us like wheat so that we do not permanently settle on one (false) object to the exclusion of the true spiritual quest which must be sharp as the tip of the spear or, the razor's edge.