(© RKP, 1958)La Vida es Sueño
Tridimensional manifestation seems to be the splitting up of Reality into relative appearances, like light through a prism, or a physical object seen through an optical instrument composed of planes, screens and lenses; but our senses perceive that Reality as the ten-thousand-things which are merely projections of Reality, not Reality itself. The 'prism' or optical instrument is in our own receptive apparatus and is known as Time.
This concept - and we can only reason in concepts - seems to cover the multifarious teachings of the Masters and to render them conceivable, but it remains no more than an image and cannot be regarded as a statement of objective fact even considered on the relative plane.
Perhaps, however, if we are able to conceive 'ourselves' as projections which we have been mistaking for reality, we should be nearer to an understanding which should open the way to the desired intuitional cognition that transcends all concepts.
The human being may be no more real than is a cinematograph film. When the projected light is switched off all that remains is a blank screen. That which has been projected by light was a series of 'stills'. Such also is what is beng projected by 'life'. The more you consider the analogy the more perfect it seems to be: it could help us to understand.
Direct Perception
Every sense-perception is in itself instantaneous, spontaneous, and impersonal. It is in the Present, is the Present, the only Present we ever know. But as soon as we recognise the object as perceived by us the subject, intellection has taken place, and it belongs to the Past - for the intellect only operates on what is already passed. Living it came; seized upon by the mind, it lives no longer, for the intellect only feeds on dead meat.
The act of cognition slays the living perception. Were it otherwise the incident, or lack of incident, would be what is known as Satori.
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Intuition appears to be high-frequency thought that can pass through the screen of Time. If density is a function of frequency Satori may be a raising of the mental processes to a frequency that gives access to a further dimension.
The Kingdom of Heaven is Within
We live entirely on surfaces, and everything we do is superficial. However deeply we cut into anything, dig into the earth, or however much we break up any material object, we never find anything but surfaces.
From birth to death we never see the inside of anything, for whatever we do, and whichever way we turn, our senses are met by surfaces.
For surfaces are tridimensional, as are our senses and no doubt as a result of our senses. The fourth dimension is within. Inside anything is the fourth dimension. The fourth dimension is ubiquitous, it is omnipresent, immanent, it is not something speculative, an unnecessary conjecture, a dubious theory: every portion of everything that exists, or appears to exist, must have an in-side as well as an out-side, and the fourth dimension is that in-side of everything that we know.
Besides, where does everything 'come from'? Trees do not grow from nowhere. All growth, all development, all coming-into-manifestation is surely from where the subject is but from a dimension that we are not able to perceive sensorially.
Symbols
One may suspect that symbols are essentially quadridimensional. They may represent the 'within' of ideas. That may be an element in the explanation of the symbolic character of dreams - for psychologists have found dreams to be essentially symbolic. It may also explain the power attributed to symbols in all forms of esotericism.
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The notion that there are only three dimensions is primitive. In fact we only know how to make use of three. In any case a dimension is not a thing-in-itself: it is an intellectual instrument. There are as many as we care to use, as many as we may need. The fourth exists neither more nor less than the second. Their purpose is to help us to understand the phenomenal universe which surrounds us and of which we are a part. As long as we limit them to three we are able to understand at most the physical part of our being and the outside of everything that is accessible to our senses.
A dimension can never be anything but a mathematical concept.
Movement is Within
If life were to stop for a perceptible moment it would cease to be life; but it would be Time that had stopped. Therefore Time is Movement. But Time is within ourselves ('a function of our receptive apparatus' - Kant); therefore Movement is within ourselves.
When we stop (die) Movement stops, and life remains immobile, i.e. eternal - in its permanent state. Do we realise the implications of this?
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