The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth

A View by Richard Lang

INTRODUCTION

The ideas in these website Hierarchy pages are drawn mainly from the book The Hierarchy of
Heaven and Earth by Douglas Harding (plus some ideas from elsewhere in Harding's work). This
work of philosophy is a contemporary view of our place in the cosmos. It brings back into the
picture of who we are the implications of the presence
and range of the observer. It is a deep book. (Any
errors in terms of the understanding and presentation
of the ideas of this book in these pages are all credited
to Richard Lang! For the way Harding himself presents
these ideas, read his books…)

Below is an introduction to this subject. Either begin

here or go directly to the different levels, starting with
"Personal Identity". (See menu to the right.)

WHO AM I?

At Centre
For myself at centre I am headless. I am pure
capacity, an empty receptacle. (To test this for yourself, do the experiments.)

For Others (The View In)

What an observer makes of me depends on how far away she is.

An observer stationed several feet from my central no-

thingness registers my human body. Moving closer she
observes my body resolving into cells, molecules, atoms,
particles… Moving away she finds my body absorbed into the
rest of society, the rest of life, the planet, the solar system,
the galaxy… I who am no-thing at centre am for my
approaching and retreating observer spread out through
space and multi-layered, like an onion.

For Myself (The View Out)

My own view out is of similar layers surrounding an
empty centre. Looking out from my central no-
thingness, first I see my (headless) human body;
then further away I see other people and animals;
even further away I see clouds, planets, stars and
galaxies.
 Trading Faces
When I meet a friend I see her face here in my no-face, in my empty
centre, and she sees my face there in her empty centre - we trade
faces. I am stationed here in her human region where she manifests
as a human being (being no-thing for herself at centre), and she is
stationed there in my human region where I manifest as a human
being (being no-thing for myself at centre).

If my observer were stationed at a much greater distance, then I

would see her planetary face, say Venus, manifesting here in my
centre, and she would see my planetary face – Earth - over there
in her centre. Each of us would now be stationed in each other’s
planetary region.

The distance between myself and my observer determines the level

or status of our appearance for each other. If my observer were to
travel further away she would eventually see my galactic face, the
Milky Way, and I would see her galactic face – say Andromeda.

If on the other hand she were to approach to a fraction of an inch

we would be cells for each other. Even closer and we would
practically lose each other. To make something of each other, we
must keep our distance.
Reflection And Self-Consciousness
Not only do I see my friend’s face here in my empty centre but I tell her about it – both what it
looks like and where it is. I reflect it back to her. Accepting what I say, my friend then sees
(imagines) herself as I see her, taking on board that her face is where she is, even though she
does not see it there. In this way she becomes self-conscious. In the same way my friend not only
tells me about my face but also where it is. She reflects my face back to me. I then see (imagine)
myself as she sees me, taking on board that my face is here - even though I don’t see it here, and
even though my friend would, if she approached me, find my face replaced by many other things
(cells, molecules and so on) and finally by nothing at all. If she were then able to turn round and
look out of my nothingness with me, she would find me to be an empty receptacle for what I call
her face. Each of us contains the other and no one is simply here or there.

Self And Society

I become human by being capacity for human society and then taking on board how that society
sees me. I can only know I am a person in the company of other people, for it is only through them
that I become aware of my personhood. My life is the life that others live in me (since I am
capacity for them) and that I live in others (since they are capacity for me). Others then reflect
back how they see me - taking on their view I become self-conscious. Self and society are
inseparable and co-dependent.

This is true at every level. For example, beyond my human region I am capacity for other species.
For the robin in my garden I am not a robin, nor an individual person (John or Mary, say) but a
human being. Though it doesn’t have the language to describe me so, I see myself in this way
through its eyes. I live in other species as a human being just as they live in me as whatever they
are. Thus I rise from the status of a person to that of a species when I enter the society of species
and become self-conscious. At this level I am responsible for all that is human, for the whole body-
mind of humanity is now mine. When I look further I become capacity for other planets and,
learning what I am from their point of view, a planet, are raised to membership of planetary
society - I become a self-conscious planet. At each level I join a society and, taking on board my
identity there, participate in life at that level. My mind (or rather my body-mind) is therefore not
simply human but also vital, planetary, solar, galactic... and cellular, molecular, atomic… My body-
mind expands and contracts depending on the company I keep. This is possible because at centre I
am no-thing – infinitely flexible.

Mind And Body

My view out is my mind. The views that others have of me is my body. My mind and body
correspond. When I look into the human region of my view out, of my mind, the observers there -
other people - see my human body. At this range my mind (view out) and body (view in) are
human. When I look further, into the solar region of my view out, the observers there - other stars
- see my solar body. At this range my mind and body are solar. At every level my mind and body
are of equal status. And at no distance where there is nothing to see, I have neither mind nor
body.

I can never experience my body directly - only others can see my body. Nor can I directly
experience another's mind but only their body. However, if I place myself in another's shoes, so to
speak, I imagine the world from their point of view and so come to understand their mind. Their
view out, their mind, includes their view of me - of my body. Putting myself in another's shoes is
possible because at centre we are identical - we are both no-thing. Though the contents are
different, the Container is the same. It is when I place myself there at another's centre and then
look back at 'myself' that I come to know my body and so become self-conscious.

However, conventionally I divide the contents of my mind, my view out, into 'mind' and 'body'.
Thus I say that my thoughts and feelings are my mind but my hand is my body. This is a useful
convention that facilitates communication with others - a convention that is learned as we grow up.
I am distinguishing between the psychological and physical sides of myself. (As a baby I made no
such distinctions between 'mind' and 'body'.) But from my own point of view my hand and my
thoughts - and everything - are all in my 'mind', in my view out. (I also divide the content of my
view out into 'me' and 'not me'. However, the boundary between the 'me' and the 'not me' is
always shifting. In one moment I may draw the line around my body, in another around my family,
my car, my city, my football club, my nation, my planet, my star... In one moment you may be
included in the 'us' part of 'us and them', in the next you may become part of 'them'!)
Three Stages Of Consciousness
There are three main stages in the evolution of consciousness: unself-conscious, self-conscious,
and self/Self-conscious. (Or, the view out; the view in; the view out/view in.)

1. The view out. At the human level I am born unaware of my appearance. Headless, I am capacity
for my world – without knowing any other way of being. I am aware of my view out into the world
but unaware (in any developed sense) of the views in that others have of me. I am at large. I am
the world.
2. The view in. As an adult I see myself as others see me, identifying with my appearance – the
view in. Unaware of being headless, of being capacity for others, I dismiss the idea of headlessness
as stupid or mad. Overlooking or denying my central timeless immensity that includes all things, I
see myself as a separate mortal thing. Self-conscious, I am one person amongst billions.
3. The view out/view in. As a seer I am aware of both the view in and the view out. Continuing to
take on board what I am for others (a person at the human level) I also take seriously my own
view, that I am capacity for others, capacity for the world.

These three stages apply at other levels too.

Humanity
At the level of the human species I was originally unaware of the view in – the view of myself as a
species distinct from other species. Identifying with my view out I embraced the animals and plants
– I was not separate from them, from Mother Nature. Evolving into the second stage I came to see
myself from a distance, through the eyes of the other species. I realized I was different from them
- I was not an animal, not a part of the forest, not one with Life. With this development came
human culture, including language, religion, art, science... Currently most of us see ourselves in
this human way - we are separate from the rest of life. Stage three began appearing several
thousand years ago with the emergence of mystics here and there who realized they were not at
centre what they looked like to others – meaning they saw who they really were. (Of course each
seer has described their experience in different ways depending on their religion, their culture, on
when and where they lived.) It may be these seers are forerunners of a transformation in human
consciousness as a whole. If this is so, then in the (hopefully near) future it will become generally
accepted (because experienced) that consciousness is indivisible - that one's true identity is the
One that includes all. The human species successfully made the evolutionary leap from stage one
to stage two (unlike other species), so there is reason to hope it will make the equally important
evolutionary leap to stage three. Leaping back to the centre (without denying our humanity) we re-
discover our unity with the rest of life. The survival of the species may depend on our coming to
our senses in this way.

The Earth
At the planetary level the broad outlines of the story are the same. In the first stage (view out) we
did not separate ourselves from the living Earth - from our Mother. Consequently we respected her
great living body. In the second stage (view in) we have come to distinguish ourselves from the
planet - we see ourselves (and the rest of life) from the viewpoint of the mountains, the sea, the
air, and we realize how different we are from this inorganic environment. And we say: "We are
alive and the Earth is just a dead rock spinning round the sun." This attitude means we study the
Earth in a way that was impossible before, when we saw her as alive and sacred, so we have now
come to know her as never before. But the view that she is separate from us and dead engenders
a lack of respect towards her which has led us to pollute her body. We close our eyes and think we
can do what we like with no consequences for ourselves. In the third stage we 'remember' - we see
- there is no boundary between inside and outside. Being no-thing at centre, I do not stop at the
boundary of this body but go on to include not only other people and other species but the planet
too. In other words I see I am the Earth, that my life and her life are one life. The life on Earth is
the life of Earth. The living Mother is back. (In fact she never really died - we believed her
senseless and dead but she was only pretending, only sleeping.) Hopefully our recognition of our
oneness with the Earth and of her aliveness will mean that our attitude and behaviour towards the
Earth changes.

Time
Not only is my view out layered spatially from humans in the middle region out to stars and
galaxies in the furthest regions, and in to atoms and particles in the nearest regions, it is also
layered temporally. Close objects have taken only a fraction of a second to arrive here in me
whereas the sun, for example, has taken about eight minutes, and a star may have taken a
thousand years. The further I look, the further I look into the past. I am encircled by increasingly
ancient time zones.

In the same way as others are in time for me, I am in time for others. Self-conscious, I am dated.
And the higher the rank of the object I identify with (reflected back to me by others of the same
rank) the older I am so that as a person I may reckon my age in tens of years, as a species in
millions, and as a star in billions. And the longer my past, the longer my future – as a person I may
have a few dozen years left, but as a galaxy I have many billions.

At my centre everything is different. At the heart of my time-bound, layered universe I am

timeless. Here, and here alone I am not then but now. Here as No-thing I take no time to manifest,
to reveal myself. Here I am wholly present, all at once. And here, not being in time, I have no past
to explain, no future to prepare for. Regret and worry disslove here at centre.

And yet… I look from the timeless into time. Stripped of time here I am clothed in time there.
There is no separation. In my unborn and deathless being are the lives of all beings and they are
all mine. A perfect arrangement.

A Unitary Science
Each layer of my body has its science. The human sciences study my middle layers; biology,
chemistry and physics my nearer layers; zoology, geography and astronomy my more distant
layers. (Metaphysics belongs to the centre and the Whole, to my No-thingness and my Allness.) At
each level the scientist restricts herself to that zone. It is only the travelling scientist, approaching
and retreating from me, who unites all these separate disciplines into one many-levelled whole.
This is the unitary science of all my levels, a portrait that not only reveals my indivisible wholeness
but sheds new light both on each of my levels and on the relationships between them. It is a
contemporary vision of my - of our - place in the universe. Or rather, of the universe's place within
'us' - within this One Awareness.
The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth A
View by Richard Lang

MY PERSONAL IDENTITY

The View In
What I am depends on the range from which I am observed.

For an observer looking at me from several feet I am a

human being.

At this range I am one person amongst about six and a

half billion others on this planet. I was conceived in my
mother's womb, evolving from a fertilised egg through
fish-like and reptilian forms into a human foetus
(recapitulating the evolutionary journey of Life), then to be
born as a human baby. Gradually I took on the arts and
crafts of being human, learning to smile, to crawl, to walk
and talk. As an adult I continue developing, taking on a
range of responsibilities. If I live long then working life will
be followed by the active retirement of second youth with
its partial surrender of responsibilities and powers; then by
second childhood and second infancy; and finally by the
grave.

The View Out

What am I from my own point of view? At centre I am not
a person. I am aware space or capacity. (To test this for
yourself, do the Experiments.)

What am I capacity for?

Looking out a small distance from my centre I

am capacity for my (headless) body...
 ...my face in the mirror...

...and other people.

At this range I am looking into my human zone.

Trading Faces

When I meet a friend I see her face here in my no-

face, in my empty centre...
...and she sees my face there in her empty centre
- we trade faces.

I am her and she is me.

Put another way, I am stationed here in her human region where she
manifests as a human being (being no-thing for herself at centre),
and she is stationed there in my human region where I manifest as a
human being (being no-thing for myself at centre).

Reflection And Self-Consciousness

Not only do I see my friend’s face here in my empty centre but I tell her about it – both what it
looks like and where it is. I reflect it back to her. Accepting what I say, my friend then sees
(imagines) herself as I see her, taking on board that her face is where she is, even though she
does not see it there. In this way she becomes self-conscious. In the same way my friend not only
tells me about my face but also where it is. She reflects my face back to me. I then see (imagine)
myself as she sees me, taking on board that my face is here - even though I don’t see it here, and
even though my friend would, if she approached me, find my face replaced by many other things
(cells, molecules and so on) and finally by nothing at all. If she were then able to turn round and
look out of my nothingness with me, she would find me to be an empty receptacle for what I call
her face. Each of us contains the other and no one is simply here or there.

Self And Society

I become human by being capacity for human society and then taking on board how that society
sees me. I can only know I am a person in the company of other people, for that is where I
become aware of my personhood. My life is the life that others live in me (since I am capacity for
them) and that I live in others (since they are capacity for me). Others then reflect back how they
see me - a view which I take on, so becoming self-conscious. Self and society are inseparable and
co-dependent.

Three Stages Of Life

I have not always been aware that I am capacity for others – I used to see myself only as others
saw me, as a person face to face with and separate from others. However, this was not my original
view of myself either - this self-conscious, external view of myself was an acquired view. Nor need
this stage be the last stage in anyone's development. There are potentially three main stages in
life: first, your view of yourself only from your own point of view – your view out; second, the view
of yourself only from other people’s points of view – the view in; and finally an integration of these
two views. The three stages are: the baby, the adult and the seer. (I've also described the
important transition stage of the child.)
Stage One - The Baby (The View Out)
Headless for myself, I have no awareness yet of my appearance in the
eyes of others - no awareness yet of their view of me, the view in. I
don’t yet know I am a thing - 'a baby' - and have no idea that 'I' was
born or will die. I am capacity for the world, single-eyed, at large,
timeless – without thinking of myself in these or any other terms. (I
do not yet have language.) The world I am capacity for includes my
headless body, feelings, sounds, food, other people, animals, plants...
I have not yet learned where I stop and the rest of the world begins,
nor about yesterday and tomorrow, other places, nor even ‘other’
people – at least in any developed way. When I look in a mirror I learn to see a ‘baby’ there but
don’t yet think of it as myself. I am capacity for that face, just as I am capacity for the faces of
others, the sound of birds, the feel of the wind, the taste of milk – without identifying with any of
these things.

The Child (A Transition Stage)

From day one people around me tell me who I am – they reflect back what they see of me. “Nice
little baby!” Of course to begin with I don’t understand their words, but they don’t fit anyway. I am
not a little baby – I am capacity for the world! I don’t yet take on board their view of me.

As my grasp of language grows I begin learning to see myself as others see me. In imagination I
travel several feet away from myself and, turning round, observe myself from that distance
through the eyes of others – with a head on my shoulders. Gradually I learn that the infant in the
mirror is not another infant but is myself - it is (with a few adjustments) what others see when
they look in my direction. Although from my point of view I am headless, spacious, at large,
nobody in my world confirms this private side of me. In fact if I mention it, others laugh at me. So
I begin to overlook and discount my own spacious view of myself. I start imposing here on my
central facelessness the face I see there in the mirror, the face that others tell me is here, even
though I have never see it here. In the company of others I see (imagine) myself face to face with
them, my imagined face here confronting their perceived faces there. I am learning to play a game
- the Face Game - though I'm unaware it's a game. The essence of this game is pretending I have
a face where I don't have one, and taking this on board so thoroughly that I profoundly believe it.

My growing capacity to see myself as others see me distinguishes me from animals in the sense
that animals do not become self-consciousness like humans. Cats don’t lie around imagining how
they appear to other cats - never mind then going on to admire (or hate) their self-image!

Why do I start making this shift to seeing myself as others see me? Now that as a child I am able
to do more things physically and through language can communicate better, I want to be a part of
what is going on around me, want to join in and enjoy the benefits of being human, want to be a
full member of society. The basic condition for participating is knowing who I am in the eyes of
others and taking responsibility for myself as that person. So I begin accepting I am a thing
separate from all other things. What choice is there anyway? No alternative is offered. Besides, to
reject being the one in the mirror and so not to accept the way others see me would surely be an
experience of profound isolation and meaninglessness – not that I would know it.

Even though I am taking on board here what I am for others there, as a child my self-awareness is
still fragmentary. Much of the time I forget about what I look like - my self-image is not yet firmly
established in my mind. In those blessed childhood hours when I am blissfully unaware of my
image, how bright and vivid the world appears. Looking at a flower I see the flower clearly with no
idea of a face in the way, no self apparently distancing me from those petals, that scent, that
texture. I see the flower, not myself seeing the flower. Without describing it in these terms, I am
the flower. When I am playing, with other children or alone, my full attention goes into what I am
doing - half my attention is not yet bound up with what I look like. Undivided in this way I have
plenty of energy. Not yet over-concerned with what others think about me, I am original and
inventive in my play, carefree, making things up as I go along, inspiration flowing effortlessly from
the no-mind within. Since I don’t yet think of myself as inside a human box, or inside any box, it’s
easy for me to experiment with being all kinds of things – one moment I am a bird, the next a lion
or a train. But then mum or dad comes along and tells me to behave: “You’re not a bird, you’re a
child!” Suddenly I am reminded of their view of me again. But (to their frustration!) just as
suddenly I forget and am a bird again - for the time being anyway! I enjoy easy intimacy with
others because I am capacity for them, unaware in these moments of being face to face with them,
of being distant from them, of being a thing up against and excluding them. Not constricted yet by
worrying about impressing others, I relate simply and openly.
On the road towards adulthood, childhood gives way to adolescence, the time when the necessity
for establishing my identity intensifies. “Who am I? Where do I belong? What do I want to do in my
life?” At this time of life the question is not really, “Who am I for myself at centre?” but, “Who am I
in relation to others in the world?” During this stage I don't want to be a ‘nobody’, a ‘non-entity’, I
want to be ‘somebody’ – a special somebody. Appropriately so. My view of myself at centre where I
am no-thing, capacity, silence – this is not in the forefront of my consciousness. What is important
at this stage is recognizing my objective, separate identity and finding my unique role in the world.

Stage Two - The Adult (The View In)

As an adult I am now self-conscious practically all the time – I see myself as others see me. Even if
I am not consciously thinking about what I look like, self-consciousness is my ‘default position’.
Playing the Face Game, I identify automatically with my appearance. Another person has only to
glance at me and I feel under inspection or on show, conscious of my appearance in some way or
other. So deeply am I convinced I am what I look like that I dismiss as mad the idea of having no
head, of being at large, of being capacity for others. I repress from consciousness my own point of
view. When I look in the mirror I have no doubt I am that person. I am sure I am face to face with
others, that I was born and will die, that I am ‘only human’ - I am not a bird, or a lion, or God. In
short, I identify with my appearance and ignore being capacity. All my relationships and responses
are based on this view of myself. I have shrunk from being capacity for all things (stage one) to
being just one thing up against all other things (stage two).

On the one hand this enables me to function in the adult world and enjoy tremendous benefits. I
am now aware of being an individual and aware of the adventure of my life - I am a unique, self-
conscious member of society. (I couldn't be a member of society if I were not self-conscious. Stuck
in the first stage I would need institutional care.)

On the other hand, deep down I feel something isn’t quite right. Something is missing. The denial
and repression of my central spaciousness casts a shadow over my life. Though I have not actually
lost my spaciousness, I feel as though I have – without quite knowing what I have lost. As a baby I
enjoyed being the timeless centre and owner of the world, at large, un-separate from anything –
without knowing any other way of being. Now I am a brief flash in a cosmos that by and large pays
me no attention, that keeps its distance. No wonder if I feel abandoned and excluded, unimportant
and unrecognized, lost and meaningless, angry and depressed … And no surprise if I spend my
time trying to regain my importance and meaning in the only ways I know how, through power,
wealth, fame, love, sex… From being the sole owner of the world I am reduced to owning a
pittance. From being everything, I am a speck of dust. A veil has fallen over the enchanted,
beautiful world I knew as a child. My abandon and enthusiasm has been replaced by caution and
indifference, intimacy by distance, timelessness by change and death. Of course I feel cheated and
robbed – I have been. Of course deep down I am afraid – countless swords of Damocles hang over
my head. I search everywhere for the peace I vaguely remember knowing as an innocent baby –
and the lightness, the joy, the wonder. Dimly recalling my original openness towards others, the
love that excluded nothing and no one, I search for it everywhere. And so on. The loss of Who I
really am affects every area of my life.

To the extent I don’t suffer in these ways I remain “a child at heart”, more or less unconsciously in
touch with my spaciousness, with Who I really am.

Fortunately there is a further stage.

Stage Three - The Seer (Integrating The View In And The View Out)
One day I see Who I really am. I realize there is a difference between what I am for others and
what I am for myself. I take seriously what I see – that from my own point of view I am the
headless source and container of the world!

At the same time, unlike the baby, I am also aware I have an appearance – I still recognize myself
in the mirror! I know I am an individual in society with a special contribution to make.

Thus I realize I have two sides: for others (and for myself self-reflectively) I am a person with a
face, ‘a self in society’; for myself I am space – all faces, all selves are in me. This realization
combines the baby’s view (the view out) and the adult’s view (the view in).

When I start living in conscious awareness of Who I really am, gradually my life is profoundly
affected. The stress that arises from seeing myself only from outside - as a vulnerable thing -
begins to ease now that I see I am absolutely and always safe as no-thing/everything. Seeing that
all things are within me I realize I am infinitely rich, on intimate terms with everyone and
everything, the immortal source of all things… From feeling hopelessly lost I feel increasingly at
home, anywhere and everywhere. As I experiment living in conscious awareness of Who I really
am, I discover the infinite wisdom and goodness of my True Nature.

The truth shall set you free. Jesus

The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth

A View by Richard LangThe Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth
A View by Richard Lang

MY CELLULAR IDENTITY

Who am I?

Stationed several feet away my observer finds I am a

person.

However, my observer is not content to remain at a

distance. Armed with a microscope she approaches to
see what I am made of. She discovers that at close
quarters I am a community of cells. Using her
instruments she enters this cellular society that I am,
taking up what is in effect a cell's view of me.

What does she tell me about my life at this level?

My body contains about 100 thousand billion cells that

belong to about 200 different types.

The largest kind of cell, an ovum, is about

the size of a pin head, but most others are so
much smaller that 100,000 would fit in the
same space. Just one teaspoon of my blood
contains about 25 billion red blood cells. Each
type of cell in my body has a different job.
For example, my red blood cells carry
oxygen, cells in my eye sense light, and cells
in my intestine absorb food. Life expectancy
depends on the type of cell – my liver cells,
for example, live for over a year whereas my
stomach lining cells may be recycled within a
couple of days. Old cells in my body are
replaced with new ones at a rate of millions
per second, each born from the division of a
previous cell. Trace the ancestry of any cell in
my body and you would eventually arrive
back at the original fertilized ovum - there is
no break in the chain of life.

Everything I do as a human being is also done by my cells. I lift a finger and billions of them act.
How do they know what to do? Or rather, since these cells are myself at close range, how do we
know what to do? The answer lies in the relationship between these two levels of myself.

Vertical Movement - Parts And Wholes

My observer can either investigate what I am on a particular level, or she can move between my
levels. In the first instance she moves horizontally around me, in the
second she moves vertically - towards or away from me. As she moves
towards me she finds my individual human body breaks down into my
billions of cellular bodies. As she moves away she finds my billions of
cellular bodies coalesce and build up into my one human body. If she
were to penetrate further inwards she would discover my cellular
bodies breaking down into molecules, which in turn break down into
atoms and then particles, which finally break down into practically
nothing at all. I who am here at the centre of all my regions see that
at centre I am indeed nothing at all - or rather No-thing, or awake
capacity. If my observer were then to reverse her direction she would
discover my particles becoming atoms, my atoms becoming molecules,
and so on, till she arrived back at the range where I am human.

As my observer retreats, observing in turn my particles, atoms, molecules, cells and then my
human body, she observes how each level transforms into the next. First she sees one individual in
her field of view, then many, then one again, but this new individual is higher in status. Pulling
away from a single atom she finds other atoms coming into view. Stepping back further she finds
these many atoms joining into one molecule. Pulling away from that molecule she finds it is part of
a community of molecules that, at a greater range, are one cell. And pulling away from the cell she
finds it is a cell-in-community - a vast population which however, when seen from afar, is no longer
a countless number of cells but one person. She notes that my identity evolves to higher and
higher levels the further she retreats from my central nothingness. On the other hand, as my
observer approaches me she finds an individual at one level breaking down into many individuals
and then just one individual at the next level. The closer she approaches my central nothingness,
the more primitive the individual she finds.

My observer's vertical movement, away from me and towards me, reflects the continual traffic of
information flowing between my levels. My behaviour at the human level is continually being
translated downwards or analyzed into my behaviour as billions of cells, and then my behaviour as
one cell, and my behaviour as one cell is continually being translated upwards or synthesized into
my behaviour as billions of cells and then my behaviour as one person. It is by working together in
community that many individuals at one level rise to the status of the individual at the next level.
Each of my cells doing its own job, combined with all its neighbours doing their jobs, results at the
next level in me, say, typing these words. At their own level my cells know nothing about me
typing about them. Or, put another way, at the cellular level I know nothing about Richard. Yet at
the human level I know about my cells. It is because I can take up the mobile viewpoint of my
observer as she moves from my human level to my cellular level and back, reporting to me what
she finds, that I am aware that I am both of these levels. Seen through her eyes and microscope,
'I' the human being and 'I' the cell are two aspects or levels of a 'me' whose levels are many.

This two-way vertical movement through my regions, this continual transformation of one level into
the next, this building up and breaking down of myself that my observer notes as she retreats from
and approaches me, is the key to the way the whole organization (that I am) functions. All my
behaviour begins in my central nothingness and translates upwards through my layers into my
human region (and beyond). The level of behaviour an observer encounters depends on the range
at which she intercepts my actions. Station yourself at close range and I am a cell going about my
own business. Step back and I am billions of cells working together. Step back even further and I
am a person. I am one yet I am many. All my actions as a human being can be 'explained' in terms
of cellular activity, and all my actions as a cell can be extrapolated eventually to my human
behaviour. But look further, beyond these levels, and you will find my behaviour originating at
deeper levels, eventually emerging from the mysterious nothingness at my core. Or, stepping back,
you will find my behaviour as a human being worked up into the behaviour of myself as an
individual at higher and higher levels, so that lifting my little finger now eventually affects the
remotest galaxy.
The Cell For Itself
For my observer, at a fraction of an inch I am cellular. What am I for myself? At the human level I
am capacity for other human beings - just as they are capacity for me. It would make sense if at
the cellular level I were structured in the same way so that each cell in my body is for itself
capacity for its neighbours.

This assumption is supported by the fact that my central emptiness is not simply the source of my
human appearance but is the source of every one of my appearances, no matter what its level.
This mystery that I am is at the heart of my cellular life just as much as it is at the heart of my
human life. Thus to look here is to see the True Nature not only of myself as a person but of myself
as a cell too. Being perfectly placed to see the innermost identity of each of my cells, I report that
the identity of each and every one of them is capacity!

At the cellular level I am capacity for other cells. Of course, the view out at this range will be
nothing like the view out at the human level. Cells are primitive animals - brainless, blind, deaf and
voiceless. But no doubt their view out - from this boundless capacity - is just right for life at this
level. Certainly cells are very good at getting on with what they have to do.

Because each of my cells is capacity for its neighbours, the method by which I as one cell
transform into I as many cells and eventually into I as a person is laid bare - my nature as a cell is
to include and embrace and become the other cells around me. I am my neighbours. Including
every one of them, I am a person. Including only some of my cellular neighbours I contract to the
level of an organ perhaps. Including none but myself I am already breaking down into less than a
cell, for presumably I can see only part of my cellular body, just as at the human level I can see
only part of my human body.

Trading Cellular Faces

What I am capacity for depends on how far I look. Looking out several feet I find humans. Looking
out a fraction of an inch I find cells. I can test this by
looking through a microscope at my observer. At this
range she is cells - just as I am for her.

Thus at this range I

have her cellular face,
so to speak, and she
has mine. We trade cellular faces. At this level, just as at any
other level, neither of us can see our own appearance - we need
the other to register it and then reflect it back to us.

When my observer studies me at this range she places herself, via

her microscope, at a similar distance from a cell of mine as other
cells are placed. At this range she is taking up the viewpoint of
one of my cells and finds herself capacity for me as a cell - there
at the far end of her microscope. If conceivably I could look back
at her from this level then I wouldn't see her as a cell, but would
see my own cellular body reflected in her lens. Thus we would
each be capacity for a cell, though I would be seeing my own
reflection.

Because my observer is looking from the human level down into the cellular, she can report back to
me at the human level what she finds at the cellular level. You could say that a conversation you
and I might be having about your cells and my cells is a conversation our cells are having with one
another via the human level.
None of us lives simply at the human level but embraces - and is - the continual transformation of
the human into the cellular and the cellular into the human. Without this there is no human life.

The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth

A View by Richard Lang

MY MOLECULAR IDENTITY

When my observer, having investigated my

cellular appearance, moves in closer towards
me, (attempting to find out what I really am),
she leaves behind my cellular level and
discovers I am molecules. My body contains billions – I have
more molecules in my body than there are stars in the sky! They
are structures that come in many different sizes and shapes,
often combining together to form more complex structures. A
DNA molecule is like a twisted ladder or ‘double helix’.
Haemoglobin, a protein molecule, resembles a ball of twisted
ribbon. Structure determines the job a molecule performs.
Haemoglobin’s unique form, for example, allows it to carry
oxygen through the bloodstream, whereas some molecular chaperones have what look like little
hands, enabling them to fold new-born protein molecules into their right shapes.

Molecule Into Human

My molecules are how my central nothingness appears at close
range. (Only the largest of my molecules can be seen and
photographed with an electron microscope.) They are the layer
beneath my cells and above my atoms and play a vital part in
determining who I am at the human level. For example the
genetic coding in my DNA molecules translates upwards into
determining the varying functions of my cells which translates
further upwards to the human level, determining such things as
how tall I am, how I process foods, how I respond to infections
and medicines and so on. In this sense I am, humanly speaking,
what my genes decide I am.

Trading Molecular Faces

When I look out from my central nothingness I do not of course
see my molecular 'face', just as I do not see my human face at
the human level. My appearance at any level is for others. It is
only through my observer - at this range the molecular biologist
- that I can come to know myself objectively. She places herself in my molecular zone and thus
registers me as molecules - there in her central nothingness. If I were to observe my observer at
this same range, then I would register her molecules here in my central nothingness. Thus we
would each be capacity for the other's molecular appearance. We would be trading molecular
'faces'. Having studied one another at the molecular level, we could then step away from our
microscopes and report our findings to one another at the human level, each reflecting back to the
other their molecular identity.

One Central Emptiness

I am at the centre of all my regions, including my molecular region. I look here into my centre and
see it is empty. Self-evidently the core of each of my molecules is awake space or capacity. Each of
my molecules is not for itself a 'thing' separate from its neighbours but is capacity for its
neighbours. Although its 'view out' of its neighbours is presumably very poor, it is still a view and
sufficient for the needs of the occasion. On the other hand, the 'view in' is excellent - boundlessly
clear and absolutely awake. I know this because I am enjoying that view in now.
The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth
A View by Richard Lang

MY ATOMIC IDENTITY

At very close range I am atoms. An atom is so

small it cannot be seen even with the most powerful microscope.
In the width of a hair you could fit one million of them. If my body
weighed 70kg, then I would contain about
7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. That’s a lot of
atoms!

Atoms combine with other atoms to form molecules. Of the one

hundred or so pure substances or elements (an element is one
atom by itself) only about twenty occur in living things.
Surprisingly, these are not the most common ones. Silicon, the
most abundant element on earth is a major component of very
few organisms, yet carbon, though three hundred times less
frequent, is an essential constituent of all of them. This is because
carbon has such unique properties that it can combine with other
elements to make molecular structures capable of the life
processes of growth, activity and reproduction.

Growing And Shrinking

At the human level, humans join with other humans to become families, societies, and eventually
all of humanity. This is possible because each human is not for him or herself separate from others
but is really capacity for others. I can expand to include more of my neighbours, or contract to
include fewer of them, because essentially I have no size. This is just as true at the atomic level.
Atoms are nothing in themselves but capacity for other atoms. When they expand to include their
neighbours they 'borrow' or share electrons orbiting other atoms - and so link together to form
molecules. My vertically mobile observer, stepping away to observe my atoms linking together into
a molecule, is witnessing the process by which my behaviour at the atomic level translates
upwards into my behaviour at the molecular level, and eventually, via the cellular level, into my
behaviour as a human being. Everything I do as a person could conceivably be analysed down into
what my atoms are doing, and all that my atoms are doing could be extrapolated into what I am
doing at the human level. I am both atomic and human - they are different levels of my many-
levelled being.

I Am Mysterious
As my observing scientist moves in very close to me, attempting to uncover my innermost reality,
she finds me strange, elusive, packed with hidden power. This is no surprise to me. She is
approaching the mystery of my centre. Here in my centre I know myself as even more
unknowable, impossible to pin down and powerful than she finds me to be at the atomic level. Here
I am absolutely unknowable, unlocatable, powerful...

Of course, if I were to view her at the same range I would register her atomic appearance and
would find her strange, elusive, powerful...

"He (Ezekiel) saw a city set on a hill sloping towards the south, which measured no more than a
rod in length and breadth, that is, six cubits and a palm. But when he was brought into the city and
looked about him he thought it was very spacious… many hundred cubits in length and breadth. It
was extraordinary to him that this city which was so spacious within appeared so small when he
stood outside.". Walter Hilton
The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth
A View by Richard Lang

MY SUB-ATOMIC IDENTITY

Observed closely my atoms turn out to be made of particles. For

example, each of my carbon atoms consists of six tiny electrons
whizzing round a central nucleus of six protons and neutrons. If
the nucleus of one of my carbon atoms were the size of a marble,
the space defined by its electrons would be as big as a football
stadium, and the electrons themselves less than dust motes.

Within protons and neutrons are thought to be even smaller units

called quarks about which we know very little at present. All these
particles, better described as 'wavicles', are as much energy as
matter. They are impossible to locate precisely, change their
nature according to what their pursuers ask of them, and
randomly appear and disappear in the quantum void. Their very
existence is seemingly dependent on an observer looking for
them.

The Presence Of The Observer

Here is a view of myself at close quarters - I am difficult to pin down and hard to describe. And
here, as on other levels, I need my observer to help me know myself. In fact, were it not for her
observation of me it seems I might not even exist! My observer is equally elusive when I study her
at this range. When we go right up to each other we lose each other. To make something of each
other we must keep our distance.

From Dust To Flesh

When you analyse me right down to my minutest constituents, you discover that all my human
behavour arises from dust - from less than dust. How does my human life in all its complexity,
richness and colour emerge from colourless, silent, scentless, intangible particles? My travelling
observer says it is because my particles choose to link up with other particles that eventually
means they turn into a human being. This description fits, but it falls far short of explaining the
mystery that I am.

Who Am I? The Failure Of Science

What am I really made of? What is my fundamental nature, my ultimate substratum, that which
cannot be peeled away to reveal yet another layer of me? What is the ground of my being, the
centre of all my layers, the source of all my appearances, the fountainhead from which my many-
levelled life springs forth? Objective science fails to tell me for it can only observe my regional
manifestations, only observe me from a distance. Though the range it finally achieves is very small
indeed, in the end it falls short of its final goal, the revelation of what I am at centre.

The failure of objective science to uncover my true identity is no surprise to me, for my observer
remains always outside me, always at a distance. How could she step over from the outside to the
inside, collapsing the distance between us to nothing? Nor is her failure a disappointment for me,
for I can do what she cannot do - I can look here into the ground of my being myself and complete
her story. This momentous observation of my own centre is easier than any observation my
observer can make of me, for here is nothing complicated, distant, or difficult to see, nothing that
simply hides something else. My true nature is the bottom line and lies wide open to me, forever.

Go to The Centre

"The revelation by modern physics of the void within the atom is more disturbing than the
revelation by astronomy of the immense void of interstellar space." Eddington

"Hsueh-feng went to the forest to cut trees with his disciple Chang-sheng. 'Don't stop till your axe
cuts to the very centre of the tree,' warned the teacher." The Iron Flute

"I think I'll go and meet her," said Alice…

"You can't possibly do that," said the Rose, "I should advise you to walk the other way."
This sounded nonsense to Alice, so she said nothing, but set off at once towards
the Red Queen. To her surprise, she lost sight of her in a moment. Through the Looking Glass by
Lewis Carroll

The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth

A View by Richard Lang

THE CENTRE

Who or what is the reality at the heart of all my appearances, the

source of my behaviour on all levels?

No-one can view the centre of myself but me since I

alone am here – everyone else remains at a distance.

To help guide your attention swiftly to the mystery at

your centre, simply do the experiments.

The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth

A View by Richard Lang

MY IDENTITY AS HUMANITY

Extending Beyond My Skin

My observer, studying my human life, notices I do not stop at the boundary of my skin. My body is
forever growing and shrinking. I extend into the clothes I wear and the cutlery I eat with, the chair
I sit on and the house I live in – then detach myself from these things when I no longer need
them. Unlike the albatross I can amputate my wings when I land. I develop wheels and then shed
them. I grow a hard finger to chisel wood but unlike the woodpecker am not attached to it for the
rest of my life. I need all these accessories to be fully human. Without these outer attachable and
detachable extensions to my body I would be reduced to a naked primitive, to an animal.

My own view confirms this flexibility. Looking out from my centre I

am capacity for my headless body. Picking up a spanner I become
capacity for both my hand and the tool it holds, sensitive not only
throughout my hand but also throughout the spanner.
The more skilful I am with my tools the more I incorporate them so that my awareness extends
into them without my thinking about it – I am cutting bread, not
holding a knife that cuts bread; I am sweeping the floor, not holding
a brush that sweeps the floor. It is I who drive, dig, write, paint, surf
the net… My sense of self expands into the extended body I take on,
and contracts when I no longer need it. Only because I am capacity
at centre can I be so flexible. If I were really at centre what I look
like at say six feet, I would be stuck with the body I see in the
mirror.

My sense of self expands into systems I share with other people. At

home with the other members of my household I share a single
preliminary stomach (the oven), a single external bowel (the sewage pipe), a single system of
extended ears and vocal chords (the telephone), a single container, (the building). Being capacity
for my house (including the other people who are also capacity for it), I take it on as my extended
body. Viewed from outside, from the neighbours say, I am a household. At work through the eyes
of other businesses around me, I may be an office, a mine, a hospital, a world-wide oil company,
an army, a government, a shop - depending on what I do. As an individual I operate my work
limbs from my unique centre - alongside others operating the same limbs from their centre. I then
drop these limbs when I finish work at the end of the day.

The Body Of Humanity

The total human body I extend into includes all
humans and the total world-wide web of services
and devices that knits them into a whole. It is this
world-embracing creature whose body is my
extended physique that my observer can see from
the air. At several thousand feet I am a fine
network or creeper whose threads branch out over
much of the planet’s land surface.

London

Though I am most active in the day, I glow brightly at

night.

My name is Humanity.
Human Self-Consciousness
I recognize myself as human when I am in the
presence of (and am capacity for) other species.
Let’s say I am working in the garden. A robin is
watching me dig the ground. It doesn’t know me
as Richard, or as a Londoner, or as an Englishman,
but as a human being. Of course it doesn’t have
these thoughts (it isn’t human) but through its
eyes I see myself as human. If a neighbour
dropped by she would, in the mind of the robin, be
another human being appearing - unlike a fox, say,
who obviously isn't human. Through the eyes of
animals I become self-consciously human.

(Recently as Humanity I have spread widely at the

expense of other species. They have had to adapt
to my rapid expansion and to the development of my many new organs, some of which are loud
and travel fast along the ground, others which fly in the air...)

Body And Mind

My individual body is a limb or organ of my greater body - the many-limbed body of Humanity.
When I identify with this Hydra-like animal I become responsible for the actions of all humans
everywhere (and at all times), for all humans are limbs of this body of mine. Not only is the whole
body of Humanity mine but the whole mind too, this mind being the sum total of every view out -
from every person in every time and place. Psychologists confirm this level of my identity when
they find below the surface of an individual's mind evidence not only of an individual unconscious
but a collective unconscious too. As we can see, this collective level of mind is matched by a
corresponding body.

Growing And Shrinking

I am continually expanding from this single human identity of mine, out into my family, my city,
my nation and my species, and continually contracting back down from my total human body into
my individual one. The particular body I take on depends on the company I keep. In the company
of friends I am a person with a name (my identity is reflected back to me by them), whereas in the
company of foreignors I am English, and in the company of cats and dogs, say, I am human. It is
only when I embrace all my human neighbours that I can claim to be completely human. Leave one
person out and I am no longer fully myself.

My individual identity and my identity as all of Humanity are inseparable. They are two sides of one
coin. An individual by herself, without the rest of humanity, isn't viable, at least as a human being.
In countless ways everything about my individual human identity is linked to and dependent on the
rest of humanity. Language, for example, is meaningless without others to communicate with. And
anyway there is the basic fact that I find my identity in others, just as they find their identity in
me. Without other human beings I am no longer human.

Humanity's Three Stages Of Life

Just as there are potentially three main stages in my development as an individual – baby, adult
and seer – so there are potentially three main stages in my development as a species. In my early
life as Humanity I did not yet stand outside myself and view myself as a species distinct from other
species and the environment. Unconscious of my appearance I identified with my view out – with
animals and plants, rocks and rivers, sun and stars. Unselfconscious I did not yet feel separate
from the world around me. In the second stage I came to view myself from a distance, now
identifying myself as different from other species and distinct from the environment. This self-
conscious view gave rise to human culture. Now I could say: “I am not an animal, I am human.”
This is generally how Humanity identifies itself today. However, during the last few thousand years
a small but growing number of people (the great mystics) have become aware that our human
identity is not all that we are. Each person, the mystics have discovered, is in reality not what they
look like but is spacious awareness - capacity for other people, capacity for other species, capacity
for the whole living universe. And this timeless, boundless capacity that each person can find within
themselves is One - it is the same in all beings everywhere. Here in this indivisible presence (or
absence!) I am one with my neighbour, one with the robin, one with the rocks and rivers, the
moon and stars. This discovery profoundly changes the way a person relates to 'other' beings, for
others are now realised to be oneself. Hopefully the mystics, so rare in the past, were forerunners
of an evolutionary development in the whole of Humanity - signs that the species is moving into
the third stage where it will be normal to be aware of Who one really is. Our survival as a species
may well depend on our awakening to our True Identity, for our delusion that we are simply what
we look like, and therefore separate from all other beings and the rest of the cosmos, so productive
as it has been in terms of the emergence and development of human culture, is now threatening to
kill both ourselves and much of the rest of Life.

The Tathagata [Awakened One] divides his own body into innumerable bodies, and also restores an
infinite number of bodies to one body. Now he becomes cities, villages, houses… Now he has a
large body, now he has a small body. Mahaparinirvana Sutra

My only claim to this hand is that when it is hurt I am hurt, and what it touches I touch, and all its
deeds are mine; and my only claim to Humanity is that I am responsible for my neighbour,
wherever he lives and whatever he does. For until I am him I am not myself. To know myself I
must study him, and to be at peace with myself I must love him: all my hatred is self-hatred. The
Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth, Douglas Harding

The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth

A View by Richard Lang

MY IDENTITY AS LIFE

When my observer moves away from my world-encircling

human body (the body of Humanity) she finds I am inextricably
interwoven with the rest of life. There is no absolute boundary
separating me from other species. Upon them I depend. Taking
this into account, she concludes there is really only one being
that is alive here and that being is the web of all species. At this
range my identity as Humanity
gives way to my identity as Life.

When viewed from high in the

stratosphere I appear as the biosphere, a thin organic layer
sandwiched between the inorganic atmospheric and geological layers
of the planet. I am a hollow shell at my thickest no more than a
thousandth part of my 8,000 mile diameter. A living membrane I
burrow into the earth, swim in the seas, fly through the air, crawl,
walk and run on the land. I was born as a primitive cell about 3.5
billion years ago in the liquids of the cooling planet and, successfully
adapting to and evolving with its changing conditions, am now an
infinitely complex system of interdependent species. My latest
estimates are that I comprise about 12 million species with about 70
going extinct every day. The human species is one branch on this
vast, ancient tree which I am. These human hands with which I type
this description of myself belong both to myself as a person and to
myself as Life.

Expanding Into All Life

Looking out from my centre I am first of all capacity for my
(headless) body, then capacity for other people, and then,
beyond the human layer, capacity for other species - for
animals, insects, birds, fish, reptiles and plants. Looking at a
kitten, I am capacity for her. I include in my spacious absence
this vulnerable limb on the immense tree of life - this vulnerable
limb of my own body. I am this kitten.

The absence of an absolute boundary between myself and the

rest of Life reveals itself temporally as well as spatially. Tracing the origins of my life back in time,
back through my human forebears and beyond, I find myself progressively re-united with more and
more creatures. There is no date finally separating me from any other form of Life. The many
branches of Life alive today are one in the ancient trunk. Deep in the past I and the worm in my
garden have a common ancestor. Put another way, I and the worm are different limbs of that one
forebear, that one original cell who is still alive now in both of us. And long after I as Humanity
have died away I will still be alive in some form of worm, I imagine.

At the same time, investigating the deeper levels of mind, psychologists report mental strata we
share with all of the living. Scratch the surface and we are all animals. At this level, whether I look
at myself from outside or inside, in the past, present or future, I am Life and Life is one.

My approaching observer notes that Life is made of many species, that the human species is made
of many people, and that this person is made of many cells. Each level of my being is distinct from
the others, yet each becomes the others - I am an indivisible, hierarchically organized, living
system.

Looking even further, beyond Life (beyond the biosphere),

I find I am capacity for the other ‘spheres’ – for
the atmosphere above and the geosphere below.

Self-Conscious Biosphere
It is by studying my lifeless neighbours, by contrasting
myself with them and seeing myself from their point of view that I come to appreciate my vitality
as Life. Just as I find out who I am as a person in human society, and who I am as a species in the
company of other species, so I find out who I am as Life in the company of my inorganic
neighbours. Though I may think I study the atmosphere above and the rocks below as a human
being, really my eyes and mind are Life's.

Marvelling at the 'wonders of instinct', we ask (for instance) how a spider, with so little brain and
no teaching, can build so perfect a web. The answer is already in our heads. The works of that still
humbler creature - the brainless brain-cell - are still more marvellous, and their secret is that the
cell is not brainless: the whole brain is the brain of each of its cells. Similarly the real brains of an
organism are those of its species, and of its genus, and ultimately of Life itself. In the end, my
brains include the spider's, as the spider's include mine. Nor can I spare any of them. If the fowls
of the air and the beasts of the field and the fish of the sea do not draw me to the Kingdom, I shall
never arrive, for they are my vital completion there. The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth, Douglas
Harding.
The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth
A View by Richard Lang

MY PLANETARY IDENTITY - EARTH

Viewed from the other planets in the Solar System, I who am

no-thing here at centre manifest over there as Earth, a
beautiful, small blue planet orbiting the sun between Mars and
Venus. I am at just the right distance from the sun to support
Life - neither too far away (which would mean freezing to
death), nor too close (which would mean burning to death). In
addition I gyrate as I orbit, preventing any one area of my
body from always being in the light or dark, heat or cold. There
are seven other major planets orbiting the sun with me, a
family whose members are different in size, shape,
temperature and composition. The sun, feeding me constantly
with light, heat, cosmic rays and gravitational energy is the
source and sustainer of my life. A moon orbits me - it probably
formed from the debris of a small planetary body colliding with
me early in my life.

I was born about 4.5 billion years ago as the Solar System
formed from a cooling star. Made of very hot, molten rock I gradually developed a crust and an
atmosphere. Relatively complex molecules formed in my shallow seas and about 3.5 billion years
ago these evolved further into simple cells. These in turn developed into multi-cellular organisms
some of whom emerged from my oceans onto dry land. Humans are a very recent development in
this long evolutionary story, their ancestors first appearing only about 3.5 million years ago.
Humans are not alien to me but are myself, the Earth, sprouting hands and feet and eyes - thus
enabling me to write this brief description of my own birth and development!

Earth - My Extended Body

Looking out from my central capacity I see my body
and then the rest of Humanity. Looking further I find
the surrounding layer of Life which is itself
surrounded by the planet, the ground from which
Life emerged and upon which it depends. There is no
absolute dividing line between myself and the Earth.

Holding a stone in my hand, my single Eye is capacity

for both. The Earth is my extended body.
Just as my liver is human because it is within my human body, my human body is planetary
because it is within my planetary body. I the human being are an inner organ of I the planet. Put
another way, my life, at one level human and at another planetary, is one life.

Becoming The Other Planets

Looking beyond Earth’s physical horizon I am capacity for my
neighbours. Just as at the human level my friend’s face is given
here in the absence of my human face, so at the planetary level
the faces of the other planets are given here in the absence of my
planetary face. Here for example (in the photograph on the right),
I vanish as Earth and become Mars.

Self-Conscious Planet
But just as at the human level I am not content simply
to be capacity for my neighbour but place myself in her
shoes to contemplate myself from her point of view,
thereby achieving human self-consciousness, so at the
planetary level. Viewing myself from Mars I see my
Earth-body (and my orbiting moon) and so achieve
planetary self-consciousness. In this way I become a
self-conscious member of planetary society.

Earth and Moon viewed from Mars

Identifying With The Earth

I have no trouble identifying with my planetary body. If for example I heard that a large asteroid
was hurtling towards the Earth I would feel threatened. Wherever it landed it would land here – on
my body. In some way I would feel the impact. Martians arriving on the other side of the planet
would be arriving here. In that moment my sense of self would expand from the human to the
planetary level. Being no-thing at centre I am not confined to my human identity but am infinitely
flexible, effortlessly growing beyond my human boundaries when the occasion calls for it, and
effortlessly contracting again when the need falls away. My dramatic transformations are hidden
from myself only if I refuse to acknowledge them. If as a human being I am certain I am the
highest form of life then I blind myself to higher levels of my own being.

Growth Includes Others

As my observer retreats from me she finds I transform from an individual person into Humanity by
joining together with all other people. At a greater distance I transform from Humanity into Life by
taking on board all other species. And at a still greater distance I transform from Life into the Earth
by embracing my surrounding inorganic environment. The status of my identity grows to the extent
that I am willing to include and identify with others.

Levels Are Not Separate

My planetary life and my human life, linked by the levels in between, are in constant
communication. My behaviour at my human level affects my behavour at my planetary level, and
my behaviour at my planetary level affects my behaviour at my human level.

Copernicus the adult leaping out of himself to see his Earth self from the sun's viewpoint, and
Copernicus the child leaping out of himself to see his human self from his playmates' viewpoint, are
the same person making the same discovery about himself, and growing by the same means, at
different levels of the personality. The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth, Douglas Harding.
The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth
A View by Richard Lang

MY SOLAR IDENTITY – THE SUN

Viewed from another star in the night sky, I am a star too, member of a
glittering society of a hundred billion suns. In stately fashion I revolve
with them round the centre of the Galaxy, participating in a majestic
celestial dance. I am about 30,000 light years from the centre of the
Galaxy - about half way out on one of its spiral arms. It takes about
225 million years for me to do a complete orbit round the Galaxy’s
centre – so far in my solar life I’ve been round 20 times! If I lived
nearer the crowded core of the Galaxy, stars there are so plentiful and
shine so brightly that I would never experience darkness.

On Closer Inspection

Closer inspection reveals me to be a developed solar system. Born probably from the cooling
embers of a supernova explosion about 5 billion years ago, I developed from a swirling cloud of
dust and gas into a sun orbited by planets, asteroids, meteors and comets. My eight major planets
include Neptune, icy in its remote orbit; Mercury, burning in the great heat near the Sun; and
Earth, perfectly placed for the emergence of Life.

I will shine steadily for another five billion years. Because I'm not a very large star, my death will
be a gradual cooling down over millions of years. If I were larger, in another supernova I would
scatter my flaming gases through space, gradually then to cool down and condense into another
solar system.

First Person Star

Just as at the human level I do not see my own face
but am capacity for other faces, so at the solar level -
looking out at night I trade my star face for the faces
of all the other stars in the sky. Though for other stars
I am light years away from my neighbours, for myself
I find no distance separating any star there from this
formless awareness that I am here. Being capacity
means I go right up to other stars and become them.
Just as at the human level I can see part of my body (emerging from my central void) so at the
solar level. I am simply looking further. Looking from my central nothingness beyond my
(headless) human body, beyond other people, houses, trees, and then beyond this planet's
horizon, I see in the sky some of the other planets of this solar system - say Venus and Mars.
These other planets, along with whatever I can see of this planet (including my headless human
body), are what I can see of my solar body. This is my first person solar body. Venus shining so
beautifully in the evening sky is as much a limb of mine as my right arm. And just as at the human
level I then look beyond my own human body here and see other human bodies there, so at the
solar level I look beyond my own star body here and see other stars there. My body expands and
contracts depending on who I'm looking at.

Third Person Star

I come to know my third person solar identity by placing
myself over there in my neighbours and observing myself
from their point of view. My nearest neighbour, Proxima
Centauri, one of three stars in the Alpha Centauri system, is
about 4 light years away. Sirius, the brightest star in the
northern sky is about 8.7 light years away. Stars on the far
side of the Galaxy are 75,000 light years away. It is by
noting the positions and behaviours of my solar neighbours
that I come to know my own solar position and behaviour.

Time
The great distances between myself and other stars make
clear what is true at every level, that I look out into the
past. The further I look, the further back in time, for light
takes time to reach me. Thus the star I am observing this
evening may have died centuries ago. Of course it works
the other way round as well. By the time my starlight
reaches the star Rigel, 775 years have passed. We stars
take our time to communicate!

And at the centre and source of all my appearances, here

where I am no distance from myself, it takes no time to arrive at myself, no time to be myself.
Here, wholly co-incident with myself, I am wholly present - forever looking into time from this
timeless now.
The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth
A View by Richard Lang

MY GALACTIC IDENTITY – THE MILKY WAY

Viewed from a neighbouring galaxy I who am nothing but capacity here at centre, manifest over
there as a spiral galaxy - the Milky Way. Spinning majestically like a slow Catherine wheel I am
composed of perhaps 100 billion stars and am about 13.6 billion years old, give or take 800 million
years! I am a fairly large spiral galaxy some 120,000 light years across and 3000 light years thick
in my centre. I live in a cluster of about 30 galaxies known as the Local Group, the other large
galaxy in this group, the Andromeda Nebula, being about 2 million light years away (from the
Earth). Currently I am colliding with a small neighbouring galaxy, the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, but
not for the first time. It will probably pass through me without causing any serious damage. The
most distant group of galaxies I've so far discovered is 13.5 billion light years away. I am one
among 100 billion or more galaxies (who knows?) rushing outwards from some mysterious primal
explosion.

Looking up on a clear night from my central emptiness I

see a small number of the 100 billion stars that make up
my immense galactic body.

The Milky Way

If I am able to see the Milky Way, a concentration of stars forming a long white pathway across the
sky, then I am looking in towards the centre of my disk-like galactic body where stars are most
numerous. This is the equivalent, at the human level, of looking down at the torso of my own
(headless) body. In both instances I am looking out of my central emptiness at my body, but at the
galactic level I am simply looking further.

Capacity For Other Galaxies

Looking beyond all the stars in my galactic
body (looking beyond my own galactic
limbs) I am capacity for other galaxies. The
Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy is about 75,000
light years away. It's on the other side of
my galactic body (from the Earth), so to
detect it I must look more or less through
my own galactic core.

The Sombrero galaxy is some 50 million light years

away.

Galactic Self-Consciousness
At the galactic level I cannot see my face (just as I
cannot see my face at the human level). It is only
by observing my galactic neighbours that I can
build up an idea of my own galactic shape, size,
age, behaviour and so on, as if I were seeing
myself through their eyes. Thus I enjoy not only
my view of them but their view of me. This galaxy
on the right is called the Pinwheel Galaxy. It is 27
million light-years away and is a spiral galaxy like
myself. Looking at it is like looking in a mirror -
except the Pinwheel Galaxy is twice my size, so in
a photograph it took of me I would be smaller. The
stars in the foreground are part of my galactic
body - I am looking through them at my galactic
neighbour. This is the equivalent at the human
level of looking at a friend, but seeing my nose at the same time. In both instances I am looking
out of aware nothingness, past my own body, at a friend, but at the galactic level I am looking
millions of light-years whereas at the human level I'm looking only a few feet.

By observing my galactic neighbours I come to know myself as a galaxy. I am member of an

extraordinary, practically angelic society.
The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth
A View by Richard Lang

MY IDENTITY AS THE WHOLE

Failing To Become Whole

As I view myself from increasingly distant observation
posts, so I discover new levels of my being - from Venus
I am Earth, from Sirius I am the Sun, from Andromeda I
am the Milky Way. However, no matter how distant my
observer, it's impossible to find an observation post out
there from where I can be observed as everything, for
that observation post itself would not be included in
what was being observed. There is no place where I as a
part transform into the Whole.

Perhaps my ever more distant observers don't keep seeing more of me. Perhaps I become one of a
group of galaxies that shrink to a point of light which then disappears over the cosmic horizon - my
observer's horizon. My glorious, angelic body vanishes into endless darkness. Whether my observer
keeps seeing more of me, or I disappear, my attempt to gain complete self-knowledge and
wholeness by expansion - by seeing myself objectively at ever greater distances through the mind
of another - fails.

Returning To The Centre

If however I return back through all my layers to my
centre, I discover here the Wholeness I had been searching
for there. Where I am no-thing, where there is no division
between knower and known, I am not separate from the
world. Here I die as Richard say, or as the Earth, or the
Milky Way, or as a cell, or a particle, or anything, and am
resurrected as all things. Boundless, not one single thing is
outside me - I am in everything and everything is in me.
And within my field of view, within this edgeless single Eye,
none of the things I become exists independently from any
other thing. In this Eye the world is one - a living Whole.
Thus I reach my goal not by ascending but by descending,
not by gaining but by losing - by returning from the
periphery to the centre where alone the Whole reveals
itself. Here, closer to me than any thing, I find that
mysterious place where no-thing explodes into everything -
a place that has been here within me from the beginning.

The Mystic's Journey

No longer searching for Wholeness by attempting to
become more, or know more, but instead surrendering to
being an empty receptacle, corresponds to the final stages of the mystic's journey towards God.
Travelling through ever higher realms of spiritual light (each alternating however with just as deep
a realm of darkness) the mystic finds at last that the longed-for goal, the Beatific Vision, eludes
her. She finds herself in the deepest darkness, without faith, without hope, without joy, apparently
deserted by God. What can she do? She is now forced to abandon her effort to expand, to grow
into God, to become the Whole (an endeavour that so easily becomes a spiritual ego-trip) and
instead drops down into wanting nothing, having nothing, being nothing – she returns to her centre
and accepts whatever is given in the emptiness there. Her attempt to know all things, to become
perfect, has failed and is replaced by knowing nothing, by humility. Only in this 'dark night', in this
'emptiness' and 'nothingness' is revealed the One who contains and is the source of all things.
 Pointing my finger back at my no-face I find here the empty
receptacle that is capacity for my unique, many-layered,
precious view of the Whole.

"Break that tiny seed."

"It is broken, lord."
"What do you see there?"
"Nothing, lord."
"My son, that subtle Essence which you cannot see there, from that very Essence this great banyan
tree springs up. Believe me, my son, that subtle Essence, in it all that exists has its self. It is the
True. It is the Self. And you, Svetaketu, are That." Chhandogya Upanishad

Till now we have worked from the outside on what is within; now we tarry in the centre and rule
what is external. Hitherto it was a service in aid of the Master; now it is a dissemination of the
commands of this Master. The Secret of the Golden Flower

You are like a mirage in the desert, which the thirsty man thinks is water; but when he comes up
to it he finds it is nothing. And where he thought it was, there he finds God. Similarly, if you were
to examine yourself, you would find it to be nothing, and instead you would find God. That is to
say, you would find God instead of yourself, and there would be nothing left of you but a name
without a form. Al-Alawi