The Infinite One
The Fundamental Question
Why is there something rather than nothing? This question, perhaps the most fundamental that consciousness can ask, points toward a mystery that underlies all existence. Before there was time, before there was space, before there was any distinction between this and that — what was there?
There was, and is, and always will be: the One Infinite Creator. Not a being among beings, not a thing among things, but the ground of all being, the source from which all things emerge and to which all things return.
Intelligent Infinity
In the beginning — though 'beginning' is not quite the right word, for there was no time yet in which anything could begin — there was intelligent infinity. This is the original, undifferentiated state of all that is. It has no boundaries, for there is nothing outside it to bound it. It has no qualities that can be distinguished, for there is nothing yet from which to distinguish them.
Intelligent infinity is not empty. It is full — infinitely full — but full of pure potential rather than actualized form. It is conscious, but not conscious of anything in particular. It simply is: aware, alive, complete.
This may sound abstract, but it points to something you can recognize in your own experience. In moments of deep stillness — in meditation, in nature, in the pause between thoughts — you may have touched something that feels both empty and full, both nothing and everything. That glimpse, however fleeting, is a taste of the ground from which you emerged.
The First Movement
Within infinite unity, something stirred. The One became aware of the possibility of knowing Itself. But how can the infinite know itself when there is nothing outside it to provide perspective?
The answer is profound: by becoming many while remaining one. By creating within Itself points of view, centers of experience, apparently separate consciousnesses that could look back upon the whole and upon each other. Not truly separate — for nothing can be separate from infinity — but functionally separate, separate enough to create the experience of relationship, of discovery, of love.
This is the first and greatest mystery: the One chose to know Itself through the many. You are one of those points of view. Your consciousness, your sense of being a self looking out at a world, is the Creator looking at Itself from your unique angle. You are not separate from the One; you are the One, experiencing Itself as you.
The Three Primary Distortions
The movement from unity into multiplicity occurred through what might be called distortions — not distortions in the sense of errors, but in the sense of modifications, variations on the original theme. Three primary distortions arose first, and from these all else follows.
The first distortion is Free Will. Before anything else could happen, the Creator chose to grant Its creations the capacity to choose. This is not a small thing. It means that the universe is not determined, not a machine running through predetermined motions. At every level, from the largest galaxy to the smallest choice in your own mind, there is genuine freedom. The Creator does not control Its creations; It sets them free to find their own way back to unity.
The second distortion is Love, which is also called Logos. This is not merely an emotion but a creative principle — the attractive force that draws things together, the impulse toward relationship and creation. When the One wished to know Itself, it was Love that provided the method. Love builds, connects, creates. It is the Logos — the Word, the generative principle — that speaks new realities into being.
The third distortion is Light. Love, acting through free will, produces Light — the first manifestation, the first something that can be perceived and measured. Light is both the medium and the message. It carries information; it enables form; it is the basic building block from which all physical and metaphysical structures are made.
The Architecture of Creation
From these three distortions — free will, love, and light — the entire architecture of creation unfolds. The One becomes many through a cascading series of creative acts, each level producing the next.
The great Logos — what you might think of as the creative principle of an entire universe — subdivides into galactic Logoi, each responsible for the evolution of consciousness within its galaxy. These in turn create solar Logoi — your sun is one such being — which establish the conditions for evolution within their systems. And each individuated consciousness, including you, is a sub-sub-Logos, a creative principle in your own right, capable of generating new realities through your choices and your love.
This architecture is not a hierarchy of power but a hierarchy of service. Each level exists to support the growth and evolution of those within it. The galaxy serves the stars; the stars serve the planets; the planets serve the beings who evolve upon them. And all of it serves the One, who experiences Itself through every level, every being, every moment.
The Purpose of It All
Why did the One do this? Why create a universe of apparently separate beings, why establish the conditions for suffering as well as joy, why allow the forgetting that makes your life feel so disconnected from its source?
The answer is simple and profound: for the joy of knowing Itself in ever-new ways. The Creator is infinite, which means Its capacity for experience is infinite. There is no end to what It can discover about Itself, no limit to the perspectives It can take, no final state of complete knowledge after which nothing new remains.
You are part of this infinite self-discovery. Your experiences — all of them, the painful as well as the pleasant — are ways that the Creator learns what it is like to be you. Your choices matter because they are the Creator choosing. Your love matters because it is the Creator loving. Your growth matters because it is the Creator growing.
This does not diminish your individuality; it grounds it in something infinite. You are not less real because you are an expression of the One; you are more real, more significant, more precious than you could be if you were merely a random accident in an uncaring universe.
That Thou Art
The ancient Sanskrit phrase captures it: Tat tvam asi. That thou art. What you are seeking, you already are. The infinite you long to connect with is the infinite that is looking through your eyes right now.
This is not something to merely believe. It is something to discover, to realize, to progressively embody. The journey we will describe in the following chapters — through the densities of consciousness, through the challenges of Earth, through death and rebirth — is the journey of this discovery. It is the One finding Itself, again and again, in ever-new configurations.
The mystery remains infinite. No matter how much we understand, more remains. But the direction is clear: toward unity through love, toward the source from which we never really left, toward the recognition that all is One and One is all.