The Waves Subside

1.45: “When all waves of cognition have subsided… the stuff of self is no longer seen as other than the rest of creation. Consciousness ceases to struggle against itself and can relax its incessant restlessness. Subject and object are no longer experience as separate things.” Chip Hartranft

In the first pada of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, there are 4 levels of concentration: with thoughts, without thoughts, subtle identification and now, at the fourth level of concentration, we cease to identify any manifest creation.

Is there, was there ever complete stillness? As we understand it, energy never stops; the “strings” never stop vibrating. Yet we don’t know. It is still within the realm of possibility that there is, was a complete cessation, where E no longer equals MC2. We know black holes are so dense nothing, not even a photon of light vibrates. Yoga texts and the Bible tell us in the beginning all was still, all was one.

Stephen Hawking proposed a description of the Universe with no reference to anything that might have come before it. In Hawking's words, the Universe:

“...would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE.”