The Dividing Habit of the Mind
One of the oldest habits of the mind is to divide things up. It generally divides life and reality into two camps and then takes one of the sides and rejects the other one.
So one division is: I’m spiritual, so I reject the world. Or the other camp is: I’m practical, so I reject spirituality.
I reject the invisible. So one person hides in transcendence, and another hides in material life. And one would say only spirituality or the absolute is the truth, and then use that to avoid responsibilities and complexities of life.
And another says only that which I can see, I can touch, I can feel, is real, and reduces the mystery of beingness, this vast mystery of consciousness, into measurements.
And so the mind divides spirit and matter. It divides the body and the truth, world and God, self and no self. And then once it has taken a stand, it will decorate that side with all its concepts and beliefs and philosophy and wisdom.
Two Paradoxical Sayings
But here come two very direct and paradoxical sayings. So the first one is from the Heart Sutra, which says: form is emptiness, emptiness is form. And the other is from the Isha Upanishad.
When I read this for the first time years back, it really struck a chord in me. I found it so powerful, so direct, and so beautiful and concise in how it expressed itself.
And it says: those who worship the formless fall into darkness, and those who worship the form fall into greater darkness.
So two different paths. These two sayings were in different centuries by different people, and yet they’re pointing from opposite directions at the same place.
Cutting Through the Illusion of Separation
And these sayings are like a sword. It cuts through the illusion of separation. It undoes this entire divide which the mind creates, and it says that what appears is no other than the vastness from which it appears.
The visible, the form, is not a mistake. It is an expression, or it is the same formlessness. The changing world is not separate from the changeless.
Everything is shining with the same reality.
The Cup Analogy
I’ll give you a very interesting example. Of course, this is a metaphor and an example, so we’ll take it like that because it is trying to point at something.
So take the example of a cup. Why do we call it a cup? Because it has a form, right? It’s in the form of a cup. But where does the usefulness of the cup arise from? It arises from its emptiness, right?
If the cup does not have its emptiness, it is of no practical use to us. But then if it is just emptiness without the form of a cup, then it holds nothing, it has no use.
So the form gives emptiness a function, and the emptiness gives the form a purpose. And in the example of the cup, one without the other is not complete, it’s not useful.
And so it is the same with this manifest universe and the unmanifest, the form and the formless. The body, the mind—these are all forms, and they are like the cup. And awareness, spaciousness, this vastness, is the emptiness of the cup.
Both are required, and both are the same. They’re not different, and that’s where the Heart Sutra touches: emptiness is form, and form is emptiness—not different.
Misuse of Form and Emptiness
But then some people will just polish the cup endlessly and will never taste water from that cup. And some will break the cup in praise of this emptiness and then wonder why the cup cannot hold anything anymore.
So wisdom knows the value of both. It does not reject either. And these two sayings meet in that middle liberating space.
They meet where the opposites stop fighting, where the opposites merge together, where the mind cannot stand in one of the camps and say, this is the truth.
They meet where the attachment to form and the attachment to formlessness are both seen as movements in consciousness.
The Trap of Spiritual Attachment
And one of the reasons why many seekers get trapped at a certain point in their journey is they have this glimpse of spaciousness. They have this glimpse of emptiness, or this glimpse of vastness, or this silence before thought.
And of course, it is amazing and liberating and the most beautiful experience you can have. And compared to the usual noise of the mind, it feels like you’re back home.
But then they turn that glimpse into a position. They become attached to that spaciousness, and then they reject the form. They reject emotions, they reject work, they reject this world, society.
So they want the sky without the clouds. But the sky will always include the clouds.
So the form is emptiness and the emptiness is form. So you cannot have the sky without the clouds.
Beyond Metaphysics
So these teachings are not merely metaphysical. They are applicable, of course, on a very abstract level. They are applicable to destroy or remove the concept of separation and point the seeker to the truth—that you cannot define the truth and say this is what it is.
Is it formless, or is it with form, or is it both, or is it neither?
But it is also diagnostic and helpful in our everyday life. They expose our concepts and habits. They ask us: where do we hide?
Do we hide in the world, in identity, in possession? Or do we hide in lofty language—in saying I’m beyond all desire, nothing matters to me, I’m detached, I’m beyond life?
Darkness as Ignorance
And so the Upanishad says those who worship form fall into darkness. And here darkness is not sin or a mistake—it is ignorance, when you’re not able to discern through wisdom what is correct.
And you see, in spirituality, the natural progression is from form to formlessness as you go deeper and you evolve.
So initially you think or you believe God is a person, an entity. And then over a period of time, we understand that God is not form, because any form is limited.
And then we move to formlessness and say, OK, that thing is formless, there’s no fixed form. And of course, that’s a huge jump already. That’s a huge evolution, going from form to formlessness.
Only the mystics have done that. Most religions have stopped at form.
The Final Step Beyond
The mystics and the enlightened masters went beyond form and said form is not the whole truth—there’s also formlessness.
But then the beauty of Buddhism and Advaita is it goes a step beyond. So you go from form to formlessness, and then the teacher comes with a blade and says, hold on—you cannot even hold on to the formless.
Even the concept that everything is formless has to be ultimately given up to see reality.
Just see how abstract and how lofty this entire reasoning or logic is, though it steps beyond logic itself in the final analysis and brings you back to the simple, natural reality of just being—without concepts, without arguing.
The End of Conceptual Conflict
I’ve seen so many seekers and even so-called teachers argue, take a side and say this is what it is, and this is what is real, and this is what is not real.
And in the ultimate analysis, the mystics and the realized teachers, they hand you a sword and they say: cut down all the concepts.
And maybe that’s the reason these teachers and the wise ones seem so ordinary—because they’re not busy choosing sides. They are at home in the middle of things, where both sides meet together.
True Freedom
They can speak, and they can be silent. They can act, and still be still.
And that is freedom—not freedom from form and not freedom from emptiness, but freedom in the non-separation of both form and formlessness, both form and emptiness.