THE HALF MEASURE

In this regard, the seers held that all enlightened souls begin their journey at the midpoint—halfway between the infinite and infinitesimal. The Vedic seers referred to this unique scale of consciousness as the half measure (ardha-matra).

Starting at the half measure, the awareness expands simultaneously toward the infinite and contracts toward the infinitesimal—holding on to both the infinite and infinitesimal the whole time. In this way, we fill in all the blanks between point and infinity—that is, we fill in all the vibratory modes of consciousness that lie in between point and infinity on different scales—which can be understood as different scales of space and time or different wavelength and frequency scales. Expanding the earlier analogy, we can say that by grasping progressively all the vibratory modes of the field, we remember the “name” of the Supreme Being.

The sages referred to this expansion of vibratory consciousness over the full spectrum of scales as ascending and descending: By expanding the wavelengths of consciousness toward the infinite, the soul ascends, and by contracting the wavelengths toward the infinitesimal, the soul descends. The enlightened soul has the potential to both ascend and descend simultaneously, in a balanced manner.

Although we grasp point and infinity at the moment of enlightenment, the sequential process of expansion and contraction is endless. No matter how large a given wavelength might become, the infinite will always be larger. Similarly, no matter how small a wavelength might become, the infinitesimal will always be smaller.

The Vedic seers defined the ultimate reality as that which is simultaneously “smaller than the smallest, and bigger than the biggest” (anor aniyam mahato mahiyam). That is the ultimate goal toward which all conscious evolution tends and is present, paradoxically, at every step of the evolutionary journey.