Wise Words
Laws Of Memory : Part 10 : Law Of Codependence
Tarun Pradhaan
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# Laws of Memory Part 10 Welcome to Pure Experiences. This is a series on Laws of Memory. ## 7 Law of Codependence Today we are going to discuss the seventh law. It is the law of codependence. As the name says, in this existence, nothing exists independently. We never find an isolated event, an isolated object, isolated thought, or anything which can arise and stay on its own. There is always some kind of relation, some kind of connection, an infinite chain of cause and effects that defines any event, any experience. ### Categories of Experience Note that all these experiences can be divided into three broad categories: experience of the world, experience of the body, and experience of the mind. According to our model of illusion, all these are experiences of the mind only, but the division is for convenience, ease of understanding. So, experience of the world is nothing but experience of objects and other people, animals, plants, physical phenomena. Experience of the body is partly physicalsomething which can be seenand partly mental, something which can be felt. This is the body, as we know from the previous episodes. The body is like this because it is an interface. And whatever people call mindthoughts, emotions, imagination, memories, and desireswhich is not really mental separately, it is simply subjective experience. Although all of the experience is subjective only. So, the division gives an illusion of separation. The world is something which is separate, it is obviously not me; the body is something separate, it exists on its own; and the mind is totally disconnected from the body, it is some cloud over my head, as they show in cartoons, which exists on its own. This is very bad case of ignorance. We will never find a body which can exist without the world, and we will never find a mind which exists without the body. Why is that? Because they are not three things which exist independently. It is one thing. It is just memory and its manifestations, structures in the memory, patterns of vibrations that have arranged in layers. So, you cannot isolate anything at all. And ultimately, you cannot isolate the seen from the seer, the experience and the experiencer, the event and the observer. They are also one. It won't be accurate to call them codependent, but you can say that they never exist separately. Because one object needs the other object to exist, one event needs the other event to happen, there is no beginning of these events. There is no beginning of what appears in the memory. It is timeless. It is not that this is happening since infinite time. No. It simply means there is no time. Time is a result of our ignorance. And probably it won't be easy to think about the events, objects, people, myself, without invoking time. So, we can only refute. We can only have negative knowledge, simply realize that there is no time, and our human intellect will struggle to imagine something which is not happening in time. You won't be able to imagine a cause and effect, or chain of cause and effect, which is not in time. Although this limitation is bypassed via mathematics. So, mathematics seems to be the language of memory, and its very crude translation is human language. You will need to see beyond the words. Check your direct experience. You will always find a cause of something if you look closely. And that cause will also have a cause. And this is because the vibration is not something static and isolated. It is the whole: no time, no space, no cause, no effect. It is pure potential. So, it gives rise to these illusory kind of relationships, and the more you look, the more is created for you. It is simply perception creation. But it will be wrong to assume that this is really happening, and it will be wrong to assume that there is a beginning, or there is something which is the first event, and there will be something which will be the last. These kinds of ideas are wrong. So, when we say infinite chain of cause and effects, when we say everything depends on other thing, it is not really happening. These apparent, paradoxical, and strange causations, dependencies, they appear because we are trying to find something. They are not really there. So, if you try to find how this one event happened, why it happened, you will need to wait for a very long timeinfinite timebecause there is no end to it. All you find is a very complex web of interconnections. This web goes in all directions, all dimensions, and all these events are simply patterns that exist as points of joint in this web. ### Meaning and Balance So, if you try to isolate something, it quickly loses its meaning. Nothing is meaningful in isolation. Every event, every happening, every structure in the memory derives its meaning through some kind of mutual relation with something else, some other event, some other structure. As we briefly stated the example of a person: the person as a body is to completely meaningless without the personal thoughts, likes, dislikes, memories, whatever happened in their life, their names, their professions, and their personal relations. The body itself has no meaning. It will be just like a dead body. Or if it starts walking and talking, it will be like a robot. And similarly, if you remove the world, the body loses the meaning, and probably it won't remain alive for long because the body derives its matterair, water, foodfrom the world, and it finds all other bodies in the world to which it tries to relate. Simply having a body and mind is also not enough. The body can survive on food, water, and air, but the food, water, and air is not found without the earth. The earth will not exist without the sun and solar system, and so on. Nothing will exist here if you take away even something basic like space or time, gravity, or electromagnetism. You can go on searching, and you will keep finding something on which that which you thought is fundamental depends. So, meaning is derived out of mutual relations. There is no actual meaning of anything. If an event happened, it was experienced, it will be completely meaningless if you cannot relate it to any other event. Because each thing is affecting the other thing, very soon we reach a balance, or a state of equilibrium in existence. This gives rise to the law of balance, about which we will discuss later. But since everything is in motion, everything is impermanent, nothing is static, nothing is stationary, the equilibrium does not last, and everything moves, but then again it comes back in equilibrium. So, the equilibrium is dynamic, just like a wheel that is rolling down. If the wheel stops, it will fall. So, the wheel stays up simply because it is rotating and running, like a top, spinning top, or like a whirlpool in the water. This balance is dynamic. This balance is among the interrelations and interconnections and interdependence. And this balance is very delicate. Even something small can disturb the whole balance. Usually it is restored, and everything comes back in some kind of harmony and order. The whole existence is not some randomly scattered structures somewhere in some ghostly memory. It is a very beautiful harmony. There is a hierarchy of order. The order is not rigid, it is dynamic. Nobody ordered it. It is self-organizing. It is self-correcting. All this is because of codependence, and because of codependence, you will see harmony and order. Usually they remain invisible until and unless somebody goes and disturbs it, and then the whole memory, or the whole layer sometimes, restructures, and a new harmony and new order appears. Because of codependence, if one thing changes, you will find that the events, or things, or objects, or people, or whatever structures in the memory that depend on this thing which changed, also change. In a poetic language, you can say they mirror each other: one thing goes south, the other thing goes north, they're trying to set up a balance; one thing goes up, the other thing goes down; one thing is destroyed, the other thing is created. You can find many such examples in your direct experience. This is the job of a seeker. They should find all these evidences of whatever is being said here. Too many examples simply make it very lengthy. So, this mirroring gives rise to some kind of symmetry. Symmetry already implies balance, and it already implies codependence and relationships, interconnections. So, all these names and all these observations, direct experienceswhatever you want to name them, we are trying to find something in there to understandthey are mostly a result of one or the other law, or the dance of these laws. The laws themselves do not exist independently of each other. That only one law will apply here, everybody else you keep outit never happens. It will be very difficult to isolate a law out of some event. The codependency is seen in application of the laws also, because laws imply order and harmony, structure, relations. So, law of codependence gives rise to structure, harmony, mirroring, symmetry, whatever you want to call itbalance. And all these things imply the law of codependence. There is no relation of cause and effect here. It is one thing seen from many angles. Is the structure created because of mirroring, symmetry, harmony, order, and codependence? Or is the law of codependence creating the structure? This question now should not arise, because they're one. They are simply ways of talking about the same thing. Like we said before in previous parts, the structure is the law, and the law is the structure. Without codependency, there cannot be any structure. Without codependency, there cannot be any talk of any law. When we talk about all these laws, mostly you will find me talking about other laws and repeating something similar. Like the talk about complex web and interconnections, it will come up again in the discussion of law of interconnectedness. All the talk of harmony and order will come up again in the law of polarity and balance, and so on. So, very difficult to isolate anything at all. And you can now sense that since there is no fundamental substance, there is no prime mover, or there is no first cause, or there is nothing out of which everything is coming out, the codependency is by necessity. Nothing else is possible now. Remember the definition of the word necessity? Law of necessity. Nothing else is possible. If we fix something which is completely isolated and independent, and then events happen as effects of it, then obviously we can say that there is no law of codependency. It is a linear chain of cause and effect which starts here, probably it ends somewhere. But nothing like this is seen in the existence. So, it has to be codependence. Given what is there in the existence, the answer is there is nothing. So, it's only apparent things interacting with each other. They are found to be codependent. There is correspondence between the higher layers and the lower layers of the memory. Poetically, it says that whatever is outside you mirrors whatever is inside you. Your body is a mirror of your mind, and your environment is a mirror of your body-mind. This is very true. And the reverse is also there: the environment shapes the body, and also the mind. Kind of bodies, they shape the mind. Senses and all, they create the creature. So, whatever is in your mind affects the body, and whatever is in the body-mind affects the environment. This is common knowledge. They are not isolated, they are not separate. Human beings are not separate from the environment, and their minds are not separate from anything else that happens in the world which you know firsthand, direct experience. You meet somebody who is negative, you are filled with that kind of effect. You meet somebody who is positive, happy, honest person, loving person, you're filled with that kind of vibration. Why? Because there is no disconnection anywhere. If you disconnect all these things, they lose their meaning and probably they won't exist. Because one thing keeps the other thing. One thing is responsible for existence of the other thing. Nothing exists in isolation, cannot be maintained in isolation. You cannot maintain a flower in isolation from the plant. There is no meaning of this flower, because it is produced for reproduction of the plant. Otherwise, there was no need of it. And the plant will not exist without the ground, soil. It is made up of the matter that arranges itself from the environment. The environment has taken form of a plant and the flower, and so on. So, very simple example. Probably it's not enough to illustrate this very powerful law, but it is always something else which gives meaning to something specific. So, you can apply this law to your own life. Do you exist completely independently? Is there any meaning of your life if everybody leaves you, if you don't do anything for the society, if you don't contribute, if your life is not useful? You can contemplate like this. And how do you mirror everything around you? How is the body and the mind shaped as a fractal copy of what enters it? ### Dependent Origination So, there is another idea which is very close to the law of codependence. It is called the dependent origination from Buddhism, some branch of Buddhism. So, it is very similar. It says everything arises dependently. All phenomena, they are seen dependently. One event depends on the other, the other event will be seen as related to something else, and so on. And there is a web of cause and effect, a net which binds everything together. Same thing, mostly. So, the butter needs curd, curd needs milk to exist, and milk needs cow to exist, cow needs grass and many things to exist. And the web of cause and effects and dependencies, they go beyond our sensory capabilities. We cannot see all of them. Sometimes we cannot see all of the causes and effects, and so we assume that there is nothing beyond this. "Okay, the cow needs grass. Okay, done. Grass is the final cause of butter." But you'll always find on what the grass depends, and many more things will come in view. But yes, this is true: there is a limit to our senses and our intelligence where the complexity and interconnections are so many now that we give up, and we assume something reasonable, and we stop. "Okay, this is the final thing," we say, "and this will be the final effect." But they do not stop, because they never started. The dependencies and everything that is originating, depending on something elsethat play never stops, because it never started. It is an illusion, timeless. And all these things are probably beyond the capability of human intellect, and so they give rise to very strange statements which seem to not explain anything. They complicate everything even more. ### Assuming Isolation So, once you find dependency among events and so on, which is because of the structure, you will ask, "Where does it end then?" It will never end. So, obviously, the mistake lies in assuming that these all things are somehow isolated, still one thing is affecting the other. There is a magical action at a distance. One thing magically affects the other. "Now, where does it start? Where does it end?" This is a big mistake. If you don't assume anything like this, if you see the whole as whole, there won't be any need to find the cause and effects. You will see the harmony, which is timeless. But because of this tendency of human intellect to divide and understanddivide and rulethe division gives rise to isolation, tries to study everything in isolation, which works in a limited way. But since it is not in isolation, it cannot exist. Whatever phenomena, or event, or thing you are studying will never exist in isolation. That divide and understand strategy causes confusion. So, you will need to analyze, yes, sometimes, but you must synthesize, otherwise there is no meaning of analysis. This will produce more understanding, or it will produce a complete understanding. I am not claiming that we'll understand each and every thing, but at least we can get rid of the ignorance. At least we won't understand it incorrectly, or misunderstand it. That is important. Because ultimately we are not going to understand the infinite nature of dependent origination, correspondence, or codependence. We see a few examples through direct experience, and we infer the rest of it, and we continue with our lives. ### Rise Above Codependency So, when we say dependency, codependent, it sounds very bad. It sounds negative. Immediately there can be questions: "How can I become independent? How can I get rid of this dependency? Everything is affecting me. How can I isolate myself?" So, we have good news and bad news, as usual. You cannot isolate yourself. That means death or destruction, nonexistence. Everything exists in relation to something else. There is no separation. So, that's the bad news: you won't be able to isolate anything at all. It is all one vibration of infinite kind of patterns. What can be isolated there? Can you isolate one wave from the ocean? "I like this one, let me take it home." And you fill, try to fill the wave in your bucket, you will get nothing. You will create more waves in that pond, or water, or ocean. What has happened? There is no wave that is isolated from the ocean. It does not really exist. It is an illusion. So, illusion means dependency. That is the another criterion of calling something an illusion: that it does not stand on its own. There is no substance. Substance means that on which everything stands, it stands on its own. So, if everything seems to be dependent on each other, this is how it looks like, and that makes it really clear. It justifies calling it an illusion. You cannot call it truth. If something depends on the other, you cannot call it truth. So, when you see pictures appearing on the screen that are being projected from a film projector, like in the ancient times, if you ignore the projector, source of light and film, it looks like that these pictures are existing independently. And you will see, yes, there is something here, it is true. But when you see, when it is revealed by turning off the light, or stopping the movie, the moving reel, you will realize, "Oh, it was dependent on that source of light and pictures imprinted on plastic." You will stop calling the pictures on the screen real or true. You saw what it depended on. So, whenever you see that one thing is depending on the other, logically you can conclude that, "No, no, this is not the real thing." So, another criterion is changing. If it changes, appears and disappears, it's false. So, everything is like this in the memory. So, everything is false. Everything is an illusion. The truth will never appear like this. The truth will be never seen as dependent or changing. And the truth is you, the experiencer. Not the body-mind thing; it is memory. If you think that "I am this body-mind," you will need to accept the dependency. Accept it gracefully, without resistance. There is no point in fighting this law, just like there's no point in fighting the other laws. This body-mind will never become independent. So, you must realize who you are. Self-realization is needed, and you will see that that which I am truly is already independent. It is not participating in the play of pictures. It is the screen. It is the substance. It is the substrate. The essence of the existence is the experiencer. Where is it? It is me. Know yourself. And that will enable you to not resist the interdependency, codependency of the body-mind. This acceptance will happen naturally. It's also called the surrender. You must surrender. Without knowing yourself, you cannot surrender. Impossible. Those who don't have self-realization will ask, "Are you saying that I should be dependent on everything else, others, other events, other objects forever?" And the answer is yes, this is how it is since forever and it will remain like this forever. So, you can rise above the dependency if you want by realizing that I am independent, and that which is dependent is not me. The body-mind is not me. It is a part of the memory. It is another origination which originated out of the memory, layers of the memory. It's very easy. Still, we can drop down to the illusion, level of illusion. After accepting that this illusory body-mind will remain dependent, you will see that there are some ill effects, undesired effects, that are arising in this body-mind because it is dependent on something unnaturally. It's okay to be dependent. It's okay to be dependent on food, but it is not okay to be dependent on junk food or unhealthy food. And there needs to be some balance, some limit. Otherwise, it will try to rebalance, and that can be destructive, violent. Know what causes ill effects, what kind of dependency is causing ill effects, and is it too much dependency, is it too little? Try to balance it. So, once you are in balance, the balance will be so delicate and so smooth, so subtle, that the dependency will be invisible. This is the beauty of the existence or memory: that it is so skillfully balanced that unless this balance is disturbed, we don't even come to know. So, once you are skillfully balanced, the dependencies are exactly balancing each other. Once you are in this condition, you won't even notice any kind of dependency. Just like you don't notice that you are breathing until somebody comes and stops your breathing, or you hold your breath. It is invisible. You are dependent on the air, but you don't feel it, and you don't complain about it. The dependency becomes a problem when it causes suffering. Otherwise, it is very positive. A child will never complain that "I am dependent on my mother." That is a beautiful dependency. It is a beautiful relationship. But an employee always complains that "I am dependent for my survival on this company, on my master who pays me a little bit." It is somewhat unnatural. Human beings don't like to be dependent. They want to be independent. Same with all the creatures, all the animals, even societies and countries. So, that dislike is because any kind of unnatural dependency which should not be there, which is not harmonious, causes suffering. So, you can rise above the law of codependency by knowing what is causing the ill effects or suffering. You can get rid of those dependencies, then you will arrive at the true dependency, true balance, true harmony. If you fight, if there is conflict, the law will try to re-establish itself. Either you will form new dependencies or worse kind of situations. So, harmony, not conflict; nonviolence, not violence; construction, not destruction. So, establish harmony with the environment, with body, with mind, with other people, and you won't even notice the dependency because it is very delicate, it is natural. That will sound like a static situation, but no, it is a dynamic equilibrium. You can improve it even more if you want. So, how to change everything? By changing everything else. No, I'm just joking. It is impossible. There is infinite amount to change, so impossible for a human being. But you can use a simple trick. You can use the law of codependency or correspondence and change yourself. Become the first change. Become the first thing to change in this web of interconnections. You need to change from within. The real change comes from within yourself. And then, because as within, so without, its effects are seen outside. If you change from inside, you will see changes outside. If you try to change each and everything, micromanage, usually it causes chaos. That must be the experience of everybody. The only thing that you can change reliably according to your wish is yourself, nothing else. Everybody is doing their own dance. Every creature, starting from an ant to an elephant, nobody has power to change anything. That simply means that we are not meant to change all these things. It is most natural to change what I am, whatever you think you are. Start the change from there. The real transformation starts from self-transformation. Then since many things are dependent on it, they will also transform. This you can see directly from the properties of the vibration: that they enforce each other, they reinforce each other, and they affect each other. So, if a vibration is of one kind at a specific place and it is strong, it will affect everything around it because there is no separation. And mostly it will change many things, but eventually it will establish a balance, dynamic equilibrium, or harmony. So, that's what we want. We don't want to paint everything in this existence in our favorite color. We want that I will color myself in whatever color I like, and establish a colorful harmony of colors with everything around me. Then the picture becomes beautiful, otherwise it is monochrome, monotonous. Harmony does not mean that only one note is played, there is only one tone. No. It means there are many notes and they're changing. Still it is beautiful. It is a perfect creation only when there is harmonic codependency. So, you can rise above this law without trying to break it, without doing any kind of madness, simply by self-transformation. It is also called spiritual evolution, or sometimes we simply call it progress. Because we assume that everybody understands what is progress. Unfortunately, not. People destroy, cause conflict, cause disharmony, try to change everything else ignoring themselves, and that disturbs the whole balance. Then the law of codependence hits back. The results are even worse. So, a master can see all this very clearly. It is almost magical how a master operates in this illusion. That is the real power of a tantric. The real Tantra practice is simply changing myself and then observing everything else change around me. My progress is progress of the whole. So, probably nobody is bothered about the whole, but they really want everything around them to change. So, that is the key: change yourself, progress. So, we'll continue with other laws of memory in coming episodes of this series. Thank you for listening to Pure Experiences. --- This article is a formatted transcript of a video in the series of videos on my YouTube channel **Pure Experiences**. Laws of Memory Video Series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWKBCXU2oaNU