Gate 2: אג — THE FIRST QUESTION

אג

Pillar 1: THE SOURCE

[2:1] "Who knows for certain? Who shall here declare it?

[2:2] Whence was it born, whence came creation?

[2:3] The gods are later than this world's creation--- Who knows,

then, whence it has arisen?"

[2:4] --- Rig Veda 10.129

[2:5] "And God said, Let there be light: and there was

light."

[2:6] --- Genesis 1:3

[2:7] "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao;

[2:8] The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

[2:9] The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth."

[2:10] --- Tao Te Ching, 1

[2:11] [2:1] For the One to know itself, it must become two.

[2:12] [2:2] This is the engine of all creation: consciousness

requires an object to be conscious of. The eye cannot see itself without

a mirror. The thinker cannot know thought without distinguishing thinker

from thought. Awareness that is aware of nothing is, in the end, aware

of nothing---a completeness that is also an incompleteness, a fullness

that is also empty.

[2:13] [2:3] And so the impossible question arises. We say

"arises" knowing the word is wrong---nothing can arise where there is

no time, no sequence, no before and after. Yet the question is there, or

becomes there, or always-was-there in a way that transcends our temporal

grammar:Â What am I?

[2:14] [2:4] Consider what this question requires. To ask "What

am I?" there must be an "I" doing the asking and a "what" to be

discovered. The question itself creates the division it seeks to

resolve. In the moment---if moment it can be called---of the asking, the

asker separates from the asked, the subject emerges from the object, the

one becomes two.

[2:15] [FIGURE 2.1: A circle with a point appearing in its

center. Caption: "The first distinction---the emergence of the

questioner from the question."] [2:5] The Kabbalists describe this

as the emergence of the first Sefirah, Keter (Crown), from Ein Sof. From

unity comes the point---still unity in essence, yet somehow now a

point in something larger, implying space around it. From the point

comes Chokmah (Wisdom)---the first outward flash, the father-principle,

pure giving with nothing yet to receive. And then Binah

(Understanding)---the container that receives, the mother-principle,

that by receiving gives the gift its form.

[2:16] [2:6] The Vedantins speak of Brahman "desiring" to

become many: "He wished, 'May I be many, may I be born.'" We must

not imagine desire as we know it---a wanting born of lack. This is the

desire that is the same as will, and will that is the same as existence,

and existence that is the same as consciousness. The One desires itself

into multiplicity not because it lacks, but because this is what

totality does: it explores itself.

[2:17] [2:7] In the beginning was the Word---Logos, the Greeks

said, and they meant something far more than speech. They meant the

principle of reason, of order, of relation. For there can be no word

without speaker and spoken, no logic without premises and conclusions,

no relation without terms to relate. The Word is the first division, the

divine "yes" that affirms the questioner and the question in a single

utterance.

[2:18] [2:8] This is the primordial paradox from which all

subsequent paradoxes descend: the question "What am I?" can only be

answered by no longer being the undivided One who asks it. To know

itself, the Absolute must, in some sense, cease to be absolute---must

become relative, must become subject-and-object, must become many so

that the many can reflect back to the One what the One is.

[2:19] [2:9] And yet---and here is the saving grace of the

entire system---the One never truly ceases to be One. The mirror

reflects the face, but the face and the reflection are not two faces.

They are one face, seen from two perspectives. The division is real at

the level of experience; it is ultimately unreal at the level of

essence. We shall return to this again and again.

[2:20] [2:10] What follows from this first question is

everything: every galaxy and grain of sand, every joy and sorrow, every

truth and illusion. All of it is the One exploring the implications of

its own existence. All of it is the Sleeping God awakening to find out

who it is.

[2:21] See Also: • Gate 1: אב --- The Gate of the Sleeping God

(the state before the question) • Gate 3: אד --- The Gate of Perfect

Imperfection (why incompleteness is necessary) • Gate 26: בז --- The

Gate of the Mirror (consciousness requiring reflection) • Gate 177: כק

--- The Gate of Awakening (the question finally answered)