Peanuts and Ultimate Reality
Really, we can take anything in the world, and it will lead us directly to a complete understanding of the true nature of the universe.
Let’s try it. Let’s try it with a peanut.
Here’s this little legume, sitting in our hand. Salted and roasted. Do we gobble it up, or do we let it lead us straight to Ultimate Reality?
There is a Hindu idea that we are all God, hiding from itself in the many forms of the world. That’s right, you’re God, and so is your neighbor, and so is that peanut. But it’s one thing to believe that the peanut is God, and another to discover that for yourself.
So. Is a peanut God?
Maybe we can find out if we ask ourselves just what a peanut really is. First, our training (we’re all very well-trained animals) will assert itself, and we’ll simply point to the peanut in our hand. Yup. That’s a peanut. But we’re smarter than that.
Really, what is a peanut?
Okay. Let’s give it a definition. A peanut is the fruit of a short plant that grows in the ground. Now, does it make any sense to separate a ‘thing’ from the objects it needs in order to exist? For instance, if we remove your lungs, are you you? Well, not for long, at least. What if we removed all the air around you? Would you be you? Again, only if we want to call a corpse ‘you’.
If a thing isn’t what it needs, then maybe I can sell you a really nice car — it has no gas, no tires, no engine, no transmission or seat or chassis. Actually, I just have the rear bumper. But it’s obviously still a car, right?
Most of us will find that we can’t really separate a thing from its necessities. A car without an engine or gas or tires is not much of a car. A person without air is not much of a person. And in the case of a peanut plant, which needs water, soil, and sunlight . . . well, a bit of thinking shows us that we don’t have such a clean definition of what a ‘thing’ really is.
In fact, if we look honestly, we’ll find that any definition we use to indicate what a peanut is and what a peanut isn’t is actually pretty arbitrary. (Start somewhere simple and ask if part of a peanut is its shell.) You can say a peanut is such-and-such, and I can say it is so-and-so, and who’s right? Maybe we can shoot missiles at each other to decide.
If any line we draw is only a matter of human convention, then where does the peanut ‘really’ end? If we start looking at what the peanut needs to exist, pretty soon we’ve included water, our whole planet, our sun, our solar system, and before long, pretty much the entire universe. Just follow the links of necessity along one thread –
Peanut needs water needs rain needs clouds needs our atmosphere needs our planet needs the sun needs the Milky Way galaxy . . .
You decide where to stop.
There seems to be some sort of discrepancy between ‘reality’ and our description of reality.
The funny thing is that even though we can follow a chain of necessity, here is this little salted morsel of nuttiness resting in our palm. A peanut. A ‘thing’ which our senses can readily distinguish from the rest of the world.
It’s a moment like this when it snaps, and you see that our descriptions are nothing but descriptions. When that happens, we can suddenly see the peanut for what it really is. Our words (our descriptions) can never capture it, but we have a capacity (buried so completely beneath our habitual addiction to description that we don’t even believe we have it) to experience the peanut in its complete nature – simultaneously the entire universe, a little peanut, and everything and nothing in between.
This capacity belongs to all of us. It’s the thing people call Awakening or Enlightenment. Looking about, the world is seen Just As Is, with no painting-over of our usual strange ideas.
You can experience this yourself. Right now. All it takes is to look at one thing – anything, and follow it to its source. Don’t accept any answer you can put into words or ideas. Those are all just inventions. Don’t be satisfied until you see what’s really there.
Pick something up. Anything. Take a good look at it, and start asking questions. Don’t stop until you discover that all the questions have the same answer, and it all makes perfect sense.
Explore posts in the same categories: Awakening and Reality
April 16th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Very nice article. It’s fun and true. And it also makes me want a peanut.
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:21 am
Wow! I LOVED this article. I haven’t read such a concrete way to grasp such abstract notions before. Well done… Getting past descriptions and words helps us to release all judgment too… have you read the site www.justperception.net? Takes these ideas to there absolute limit.
Much joy,
Kara-Leah
June 4th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
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July 30th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
[…] Peanuts and Ultimate Reality, it epitomizes the best of Kenton - taking the regular everyday thing or event and inducing us via […]
July 31st, 2007 at 9:16 pm
This is a very fascinating article. I love the way you used something as simple as a peanut to craft an explanation for a concept that otherwise seems quite complex or abstract. There was one aspect of the article I’m curious about…
“Peanut needs water needs rain needs clouds needs our atmosphere needs our planet needs the sun needs the Milky Way galaxy…”
It’s interesting that people appear nowhere in that equation. A peanut can be connected to everything else in the universe based on what it needs, but it doesn’t need people, so where do we fit into this cosmic picture? Maybe a peanut needs us to give it a purpose…preferably a nice handful of honey-roasted purpose.
August 1st, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Dear Kris,
I’m so happy that you pointed out the lack of people! =) On a purely logical level, considering that ‘the world as we know it’ is actually ‘the world as humans perceive it’, the question must arise: without humans in the equation, would any of these things ‘exist’ in any form that would resemble the ‘things’ we’re trying to describe? I think the answer is pretty clear — which leaves us with the realization that ‘the real world’ is really more like ‘the world created by our perception’, and that opens up a very interesting can of worms . . .
And now that you’ve brought up the whole honey-roasted thing, I think I must go dig in the pantry and see if I can find some
Sweetwater,
Kenton
April 12th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
I have to point out that your using the word ‘need’ by two definitions then confusing them, bad logic.
You say that a car needs an an engine and wheels and so on, which is true, if we take the word ‘need’ in the context of ‘what something requires to be defined as something’. The definition of a car could be argued, but that is the context in which you meant ‘need’.
You mentioned a Peanut needing sun and rain and earth and so on, but that is another context of ‘need’, the context of ‘what factors have gone into the creation of this object’. Sure a peanut needs to have sun and so on to have grown into a peanut, but the definition of a peanut doesn’t include sun and rain and so on.
It’s the fallacy of Equivocation. There is a difference between the things you need to physically exist and the things you need to be defined as what you are.
I enjoyed the post and I used to have beliefs very similar to the ones you mention, but I had to point out the faulty logic.
April 12th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Greetings Navarre,
Thanks for pointing this out. Logic was never really a strong point of mine
As you’ve probably gathered, this article (indeed, all the articles on this site), is not intended as a proof of anything or even as a description of how things are or aren’t. Instead, words are here used to point us toward something which words can’t adequately describe.
What’s interesting to observe here is how our logic shapes our ideas of the world. In this instance, you point out a temporal difference in distinguishing the definitions of ‘need’. This makes sense when we’re locked into the context our words and our usual mindset create for us, and thus we see a fallacy in the thinking process.
However, if we can clearly see that linear time is simply another creation of this same system of thought, we find that we’re using our own creation to support our own creation. In other words, we’re confusing our words with reality, and miss out on seeing what’s right in front of us in favor of focusing on our imaginations. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, but when we realize our confusion we are no longer limited by the rather constrictive thought-systems we’ve created.
Indeed, the entire idea of ‘need’, or of relationship of any sort, depends on an entire system of ideas which few of us have ever examined. If we can truly find separate objects in the world around us, need and relationship make sense. But if we truly see what’s right there, outside our beliefs, then we discover that need and relationship are something entirely different than we previously thought.
Sweetwater,
Kenton
April 13th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Overall a good article, very much agree with the idea that the ‘Ultimate Reality’ manifests itself in everything in existence, by definition. However, i think there is some sort of objectivism in the universe and, in addition to the point Navarre brought up there are some points that I feel a need to comment on:
“However, if we can clearly see that linear time is simply another creation of this same system of thought”
Maybe, though entropy seems to prove that arrow of time is not a human construct.
“In fact, if we look honestly, we’ll find that any definition we use to indicate what a peanut is and what a peanut isn’t is actually pretty arbitrary.”
I disagree, in the same fashion that i disagree that color is arbitrary in that a red apple is red because of the specific frequencies of light it reflects. What if I define a peanut by it’s DNA?
“Looking about, the world is seen Just As Is, with no painting-over of our usual strange ideas.”
And, to throw some more confusion into the mix, just to keep it interesting, is whether or not you can trust the sense that are showing you that way things are Just As Is. Taking into account various illusions, how the brain compensates for your blind spot, and other phenomena, it is clear that your brain interprets all your sensory information before you even get a chance to ‘think’ about it, your conscious mind anyways.
-Doug
April 14th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Greetings Doug, and thank you for your thoughtful comments.
Here is where I would think your and Navarre’s confusion arises.
In your every experience up until now, words have likely been used within the context of your ‘operating system’. As we usually utilize words in this operating system, they serve to break the world into pieces and then attempt to relate those pieces to each other. We might argue endlessly about whether such divisions are real, arbitrary, or relevant, but these will all be questions within the context of our operating system.
This entire site is about something else entirely. It is about scrapping your current operating system and seeing what remains.
This is not just confusing for the two of you. Everyone who comes to this site must confront their usual habits of objectifying and relating the world. Eventually, they hopefully figure out that the words on this site are not attempting to define relationships or to describe reality. Instead, words are used in a totally different way — as an attempt to point our perception toward something which words have difficulty in describing (much as words cannot adequately capture what you mean by ‘the taste of chocolate’.).
If you wake up each morning and live out each day untouched by anxiety, stress, confusion, or frustration, then your current operating system is functioning perfectly for you, and this site has nothing to offer. If you feel that something is ‘not quite right’ in your life or in the world, then this site is challenging you to observe your operating system in action. Not to just think ‘about things’, but to observe the thinking process itself, and learn how your mind works at its most foundational level.
This observation is perhaps most difficult for those of us who have highly refined versions of our current operating system. We have become so accustomed to solving our problems via the system that it seems either ludicrous or impossible that we could function without it.
If this still isn’t making sense, I’d suggest that you read the article ‘Everything You Hear About Enlightenment is a Lie‘.
Sweetwater,
Kenton