Infinite us.

We have a vision problem. We can see some things and not others. And naturally, we assume that what we see is the true you and me. 

That detectible is the objective part of us. We can touch, feel, see, and perceive it in every way our sensory faculties allow. That part is finite. It is born, it grows, and ultimately dies. That objective aspect has an imaginary identity, and we define and clothe it in a nearly unlimited set of configurations. We cherish such configurations and use them to represent us. We group these configurations into common frameworks in order to feel comfortable with others who choose similar arrangements, and we call this grouping, “flocking together with birds of a feather.” These birds love to fight other birds that don’t look the same.

This is the ordinary way of understanding ourselves in relation to others, and there is an unseen problem here because nothing objective possesses sentient qualities. A stone is a pure object. So is a blade of grass. Neither of these (and many other examples) has sentient qualities of consciousness, at least as far as we know, but we do. All animate beings have both sentient qualities and consciousness. These are the faculties that differentiate us from pure objects, and these are what make us human. But neither consciousness nor sentient dimensions can be seen because this is what is doing the seeing.

There are two parts of us, which are completely integrated into a single human being. One part is seen. One part is seeing. One part is infinitely different and seen, and the other part is infinitely the same and unseen. One part is finite, and one part is infinite. The true you and the true me is never born and never dies, but the other part does both. We’re told we now share the earth with 7 billion very different objective human bodies, and yet on another level, there is only a single, just-like-everyone-else infinite us. It’s a profound mystery.