Where is the Infinite?

I can remember, as a child, learning for the first time about the concept of infinity. It was a concept that my limited little mind was unable to grasp. It still is. Our brain and it's workings, which we call "mind", are designed to understand tangible concepts, and information about limited, relatable ideas. Our mind understands relatable ideas in opposition and relation to each other, up and down, near and far (in relation to something else), good and bad (as decided by our mind based on our past experiences), hard and soft (by comparison), etc., clearly defined concepts, boundaries, and comparisons. Infinity is none of these. In fact, infinity is the letting go of all of these. When I was a child, I was taught that something that is infinite goes on and on forever, with no end. My teacher had the best of intentions in describing infinity this way, but you can detect the inherent flaw in this description, right away. Some thing must have a beginning and an end, because all things do.

I was captivated by this idea, as a child. I don't remember how old I was, but I must have been younger than 8. I can remember lying in bed, at night, closing my eyes and trying to "go to infinity." I would imagine myself leaving Earth, like in a space ship, and looking down at the planet as I travelled out into space. I think my teacher may have described space as infinite, so I was going out into space to find infinity. I would then turn my attention out into space and begin to travel into the blackness. I would go and go, until I couldn't travel any farther. It was as if I had hit an invisible wall and I was told, "That's it. You are not permitted or able to go any farther." I understood that this was not infinity, because infinity has no limit. I wanted, desperately, to get beyond that limit and find the infinite "thing" that never ends, space. I spent night after night doing this sort of meditation. Trying to find the never ending something called space.

As an adult, I have had many meditative experiences of infinity, without trying to find it. Infinity is not a thing. Infinity is no thing. It is, in fact, the letting go of the idea of all things, and being present with no thing. As a child, I was trying to use my (limited) mind to find and understand the (unlimited) infinite. How could I know that it was an impossibility? I was being taught, in school, to use my mind to analyze and understand. This is not wrong, when you are trying to understand intellectual, relatable concepts.

Yoga and meditation have taught me to let go of these concepts and be still and quiet and experience infinity, itself. This is my understanding of "God." The silent, black, no thing, where the potential for all things exists. God is the infinite space just ahead of the existence of some thing, and the silent darkness that remains when that some thing ceases. God is the potential for all to exist, and therefore is no thing. This has been my own experience of infinity, not through the desperate searching of my eager mind, but though the understanding that comes when my mind finally stops searching. It is Peace and Truth, and can only be experienced to be understood. As soon as my mind begins its work again, the experience ends, and I remember to be my small limited self, again.

May you have peace in your body, peace in your mind, and peace in your heart.

Namaste,

Steph