What Exactly Is A Monad?
Monos is a Greek word meaning unit or alone, leading to a most important concept. They say Pythagoras was the first to use it. He meant ‘a single source acting alone; its origin indivisible’. By monos he meant divinity, first being, acting alone. In it’s literal sense, ‘a non-material, least unit in the world’s All. – a word of great beauty and precisely what we are: a non- material and least reducible dot in the world whole. And divine, to boot. What interests me is the prefix mono used as the noun monad, a concept found in one of the oldest world philosophies: Vedanta. Detailed, rational, easier to comprehend than western metaphoric scriptures, Vedanta has a larger philosophic vocabulary – than even than the German equivalent – monad being one of them. Why should you think about this? Because it is the you – irreducible, and pragmatically, empirically experience-able. Understanding it is a help, a first step. Where to start? Sitting, standing, lying, moving ask yourself, not ‘who am I’ but ‘where’ is the I that is me? You’ll start the process going. Stand in the middle of a party, a crowd or at the sink. Ask yourself the same question. The hands are going, the feet are going – all the body parts are going. Ask yourself at those times. Ah, but where is me/I?
You are alone, surrounded by all other alones. You could say that what you discover in the end is not hands, legs, kidneys and noses, but consciousness. You are a chunk of consciousness. And that chunk is not different one man or woman to another. And yet it is.
Confounding perhaps, but inspiring too. It’s up to you to find it and find out. Born alone, you die alone. In fact, you are alone the whole of life, surrounded by other Alones whose aim you have in common: To be free, feel free, to know yourself, to have no fears, and have the understanding that you’re free. How do you know when you are free? You’ll know it when you see it.
If you are Biblically inclined and see yourself as an/the ‘image’ of God, then the aim is to become one with, merge with God. If your references have other origins work with those, but know that in and of yourself, you are alone. Learn to feel that. An absolute not negative but empowering. Knowing that leads to empathetic detachment, an all-embracing love without judgment, without the need to cling or reject.
So when you’re thinking about existence, what it means, what you deserve, think monad.
What Exactly Is A Monad? 3.23.2016/1.29.2017 Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Corwin
Arlene Corwin Poetry 