"Knots in the net"

"Knots in the net"

Ananda:

The Yogi often told us that "everything connects." When something happened that made us realize this connection of everything, he would often say under his breath, "Knots in the net..."

It was several years after we met that he told me this story.

In Indra's heaven, he said, there's a net that is 3-D, and reaches in all directions, to infinity. At each intersection of strings (or "knot"), there's a jewel. Every jewel is reflected in all the other jewels, and all the other jewels are reflected in it.

So if you move one jewel, all the jewels are affected.

That's what the Yogi meant when he said we're all just "knots in the net." I guess the story must have come from India, since Indra is the king of the Indian gods.

Ed.:

The image of "Indra's Net of Gems" comes from the Mahayana Buddhist Avatamsaka Sutra. It shows that all phenomena interpenetrate all others, a complex way to say that "Everything contains everything else."

To apprehend this is considered to be one of the highest states of realization.

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

Questions:

1. Have you ever had a deep experience of the phenomenon described by "Indra's Net"?

2. Do you know of other illustrations of the idea that "everything connects"?