There are some basic conceptual differences between Western and Eastern views. For one thing, Western thought tends towards seeing this “universal nature” as a singular ideal, generally encompassed as “God.”

While the Eastern view is more cyclical and dualistic. That “flow” is more a dynamic, than “order.” The yin and yang, working together.

Consider the premise of God, as Pope John Paul 11 put it, as an “all-knowing absolute.” Which is something of a contradiction, as the absolute would have no distinctions, while knowledge is very much a function of distinctions. How might these different aspects fit together?

For one thing, absolute is more essence, than ideal. So god as absolute would be more an element, from which we rise, than an ideal from which we fell. More the new born, than the wise old man. Consciousness seeking knowledge, than any form or brand of it. The light shining through the film, than the images on it.

Which does seem to describe the spiritual absolute, as this essence of sentience, bubbling up through life. The desire driving it. Yet no culture could exist, if it simply glorified desire over the complexities of reason. So we do have the top down, father figure lawgiver, as supreme being. Yet the political effect is that it validates the despotism of ruler as god. The Divine Right of Kings. When Western civilization went back to democracies and republics, which originated in pantheistic cultures, it required a separation of church and state, culture and civics.

So it seems there does have to be some dynamic between bottom up processes and top down structures. Desire versus judgement. The heart versus the head.

Galaxies are energy radiating out, as form coalesces in. We have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energies driving us on, the fuel to feed our fires. While the nervous system sorts through all the myriad forms and interactions coalescing in. Deciding which desires and impulses to encourage, which to tolerate, which to discourage and which to seriously avoid. The anarchy of desire, verus the tyranny of judgement.

Youth and age, liberal and conservative.

So when we try to define it as one, the result is polarization, as each side of this dynamic views themselves as going the right direction, so those going the opposite direction must be evil.

Which leads to another problem with our cultural paradigm, that our religions teach us that good and bad are some cosmic conflict between the forces of righteousness and evil, when they are simply the biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. The 1/0 of life, that even bacteria sense.

It is from this elemental attraction/repulsion that all the evolved mores, morals, ethics and cultural codes emerge. Honor, respect, responsibility, trust, empathy, sympathy, humility, etc.

Yet because our most traditional moral standards view good, versus bad as an ideal, rather than elemental, many conflicts quickly become a race to the bottom, rather than each side being able to hold the other to higher, more evolved and nuanced standards and deal with the complexities of the situation.

So, yes, while the nodes are all networked, that doesn’t make it all singular, just connected, for good and bad. Without the ups and downs, it’s just a flatline.