The Beauty of Limits: Why Boundaries Point to the Transcendent

Today's contemplation is about limits and the Unlimited. In the TUP, Body, Mind, Heart and Soul are what we call the "elements" of the whole person. Each of the elements is what it is because of certain characteristics, which can be seen as limits.

For example, the Body has a concrete spatial location, a size, a shape and a weight. The Mind doesn't have these, but it has others, such as activity, curiosity, sharpness or dullness. The Heart can expand, contract and resonate with the movements of love. And the Soul can orient itself towards the Transcendent.

All these characteristics can be seen as limits. And that's OK.

Self-Help teachings sometimes urge us to dream without limits, to believe that freedom means having no boundaries at all. But does this make sense?

Imagine yourself achieving "freedom with no boundaries at all." Limits still apply. It is still you and not another person, not nothing. Your own mind and body still accompany you.

Indeed, everything that is something is like this. A river flowing freely is still bordered by riverbanks. A painting of clouds floating freely in the sky is still surrounded by a frame. Freedom is freedom not in spite of its limits, but because of them. They help make it what it is.

If people and things are limited, then what would be UN-limited?

In many of the world spiritual traditions, the Unlimited is said to be the Transcendent, the Highest. Buddhism often speaks of Emptiness as the "Unconditioned." Plato's The Good is said to be "beyond Being." St. Anselm defined God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived."

In The Unified Path, it is the very fact that we are limited that points us to the Unlimited. And the Unlimited is the source of things and their limits.

CHALLENGE:

• For each element, Body, Mind, Heart and Soul, think of a defining limitation that helps point us towards the Transcendent, the Unlimited.

Isn't it wonderful how this pointing works?

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