Note: an updated version of
this essay is available in the eBook, "The
Creation of a Universe -- Thoughts on Origins, Consciousness
and the Geometry of Existence."
Introduction
“What is the origin of the universe and how was it created?”
Some cosmologists suggest that all of the energy in the
universe originated in a very small region of space called a
singularity; and then, suddenly, there was a gigantic
explosion which propelled that energy outwards. This theory
and its offshoots is called the Big Bang theory.
The Law of Conservation of Energy, however, states that
energy can neither be created nor destroyed. If that is so,
then all of the energy in the entire universe must have
existed, without reduction or increase, since the beginning
of time. This is clearly illogical!
To get around this problem, some suggest that the building
blocks of the physical world are one-dimensional extended
objects called strings. You may have heard of this, it's
called string theory. A string is a very tiny amount of
energy that vibrates at specific frequencies. In string
theory, the necessity for singularities, and even particles,
are avoided.
Others say that our universe may have been created from
another, older universe.
It is also suggested that the universe originated in some
sort of undetectable quantum excitement at unimaginably
small scales. Nobel physicist John Wheeler, back in the
1960's, imagined that space-time has a foaminess to it, with
sudden changes that could create infinitesimal wormholes,
and quantum black holes that evaporate almost
instantaneously. All of this activity would be far below the
level of detection of even our most powerful scientific
instruments.
This scientific speculation is fascinating, but no matter
how deeply we take this process into the microcosmic world,
or how far back we go in time, we butt up against the
fundamental quandary that it is impossible to create
something from nothing. At some point, we have to ask "How
did the first something get created?"
The idea that the universe originated in some sort of
infinitely small, undetectable process is valuable, however,
because it blurs the boundary between matter and a pure
creative potential. Such ideas bring us closer and closer to
an undetectable and invisible Creative Principle.
Professor Krishnamurthy says, 'The universe was created...
by transformation of something which was latent before that.
Creation is just a manifestation of what was unmanifest
before'".* Something unmanifest would also be invisible to
our senses. So in quantum physics we have, almost, a meeting
of the minds between science and metaphysics.
Science and religion are not so far apart. The Bible tells
us, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was God."
What does that mean? It expresses the idea that the universe
began as a fundamental vibration, a Word, which came forth
from a higher, non-physical consciousness. This
primordial vibration of the universe has been called the OM,
or AUM, in eastern thought. Quantum physics acknowledges
that the observable universe and the particles in it are
just an excitation of an underlying quantum field. In string
theory, matter and energy are the manifestation of vibrating
loops of string.
Common to all of these concepts is the idea that the
material universe is fundamentally vibrational in nature.
This idea leads to a powerful new way of looking at the
universe, and life, which we have detailed in other essays.
The point is that prior to the arising of a quantum field,
or a vibration, or anything material, is the Creative
Principle.
Because matter cannot create matter, we must assume that a
Creative Principle is responsible for the origin of the
physical universe. We will see later on that there is no
contradiction whatsoever between this concept and evolution.
We will see that as thought evolves from the simple to the
complex, evolution is mirrored into the physical
universe.
We will see that there is really no separation between
spirit and matter. The two are aspects of the same unifying
Principle. (In my movie, "The Unity of Spirit and Matter," I
address this question in a multimedia format).
This approach has been acknowledged as valid by thinkers
throughout the centuries, from the ancient Hindu scriptures
called the Vedas, to the panpsychism of Alfred North
Whitehead, to the aether theorists in today's frontier
physics. Because there is no way to prove that a
non-physical, creative principle exists (such a non-physical
principle is, by definition, forever beyond the range of
scientific measurement), we must necessarily go beyond the
standard scientific model of the universe and
into the realm of speculation. But I promise you that this
will be a fun and exciting journey!
Using the spirit-mind-body approach, life becomes
simplified. We say simply that the animating principle of the universe
is the Source behind the activity of all life everywhere. When the consciousness of the flower departs, it wilts. When
the consciousness of the human being departs, the body dies
and it begins to decay.
I
am proceeding in this way because otherwise, our reasoning
becomes circular; we say that the universe was created in a
singularity, but then we ask where the singularity came from
and we go round and round, assuming hierarchies of beings or
energies at levels that are logically prior. So we just
state that consciousness existed before the universe began,
and was responsible somehow for its creation.
How that occurred is the subject of this essay.
I am going to say that there
is a difference between consciousness and what I call a pure
potential. A pure potential, which I call Pure Awareness, is
the First Cause; consciousness is the creative and animating
principle associated with the physical world.
Sri Nisargadatta says, "That
which is prior to consciousness is the Absolute."
Nisargadatta also says, "The original state prior to
Consciousness cannot be described; one can only be That." In
other words, the Absolute is a state prior to the arising of
consciousness, and the physical universe, itself!
In
this way we can define levels of consciousness in it's
association with physical bodies and the material universe; for example,
we can say that a human being has a far broader view of the
universe than a dung beetle, because the senses of the
beetle’s body are more limited than ours. We will explain
and elaborate on this idea as we go along.
So with that, let’s begin!
Quality vs. Quantity
Let's begin our discussion of consciousness by looking at the
difference between a quality and a quantity. A quality we
will define as a pure potential, a causative influence which
has unlimited scope.
In the physical universe we can observe the qualities people
exhibit. We say: 'He has character' or 'She is full of
life'. These are reasonable statements but they cannot be
accurately quantified. If asked 'why do you say she is full
of life?' we may observe that she is always cheerful, has
lots of energy, and participates in many different
activities. But it would be hard to write a mathematical
equation to describe the quality called 'full of life'. The
reason qualities cannot be accurately specified is because
they stem from consciousness itself, which may change its
mind at any time and so exhibit entirely different
characteristics. We will say that a pure quality cannot be
measured or observed, and that only the creations of the
quality exist. In the essay below I will describe how this
Pure Quality can create a universe and physical bodies to
experience in that universe.
A quantity is much easier to understand: it is something
observable. We see quantities all around us, the chair we
are sitting in, the house we live in, the sun, moon and
stars and everything else we can perceive upon our planet
and in our universe.
A
quantity is something that exists.
A
pure quality does not exist, but is the originator of all
that exists.
Everything we see around us is the creation of
consciousness, which is the ultimate, pure quality,
unmeasurable itself, but the creator of all that is
measurable. In this chapter I will attempt to explain how
consciousness itself comes into being, and how a pure
quality can create a universe in which to experience. The
reason for doing so is to lay some groundwork, in order to
explain the workings of the Universal Operating System. Many
of us have been taught that the universe is a cold and
uncaring place, but I will try to show that, fundamentally,
the universe has been designed to be a joyful and wonderful
place in which to experience!
Background
Imagine you are an eternal being, complete within yourself.
There is no universe yet, so there are no planets or
galaxies, no matter and energy, only a feeling of joy and
perfect bliss. Since there is nothing to look at, you are
aware of nothing outside yourself, yet you feel a sense of
complete fulfillment. Sort of like floating on a completely
calm ocean in a perfect state of serenity.
We begin this way because it is illogical to suppose that
the animating principle which created the universe is
psychotic, or negative. Only a psychotic would want to live
a life of eternity feeling lousy; and in fact, only a
nutcase wouldn't want to feel as wonderful as it could. So
we give the Creator of All the benefit of the doubt, and
assume he/she feels pretty good about himself/herself. We
begin by assuming that the inherent nature of this eternal
quality is one of perfection and infinite well being.
If you were such an eternal being, perfect within yourself,
why would you want to create a universe in the first place?
Well, the basic motivation for the creation of anything, I
think, is to have fun with it. If the creator is an infinite
being, then it needs an infinite universe in which to
experience (the creator has no gender, bodies have gender).
It's the difference between imagining something and actually
living it. We will see later on that the beginning of the
universe occurred as the result of a profound idea that had
never before occurred to the creator, and that the unfolding
of the universe is a continuing series of new and evolving
concepts.
We will say that the creator was aware before there was
anything to perceive, before there was matter and energy. We
say metaphorically that the creator, not being satisfied
with its dream, had the desire to know Itself, and
so the creator manufactured a universe in which to explore
the infinite aspects of Itself. This is where we begin our
discussion, before the existence of any universe, before
even the first atom!
Because nothing exists, we must dispense with words like
"exist" "is" and "have." We can, however, use "be," which
implies a pure creative potential that we will refer to as
Pure Awareness, or Universal Consciousness.
Who or what is the creator of the universe, and what is the
relationship between the creator and a human being, or any
life form? Each and every human being, each
and every life form, is an aspect or extension of the
creative principle, the creator of the universe.
Let us, therefore, not assume that the creator is a being
separate from you. If you are uncomfortable with the idea
that you could be a creator being, then visualize yourself
as an aspect, or small portion, of a vastly bigger and
grander being. I believe that we have gotten into trouble by
holding the concept of God as completely separate from us,
for if God created everything in the world, and we see God
as something separate, then we also consider all things
outside of ourselves as separate from us. This leads to the
idea that the whole world is an alien place. It leads to an
attitude of 'me against the world'. If we can look at
everything in our world as something connected to us, as
part of us, then we can stop being victims of life and begin
to live life more joyfully.
The Short Answer
Truth is simple and powerful, but it is sometimes
unsatisfying! We could say, truthfully, that the creator is
eternal and made everything in existence, and our discussion
would be over. Because that is the way it appears to an
eternal being. If we ask, 'well, who or what created this
eternal consciousness?' the reply is simply that an eternal
being cannot be created, it has always been and will
always be; that an eternal being is outside all linear
concepts of time.
An eternal being is not an intellectual concept. In my study
of philosophy and religion I often came across the idea that
the creator is an intellectual being, a vast and infinite
Mind. Of course, there are plenty of descriptions of God as
an all-loving being, but often in the translation God is
depicted as more of a mental than a feeling being. Of course
the creator of the universe is an intellectual genius, but
that is not his/her only attribute! I believe that the
quintessential aspect of the creator must be love, joy, and
bliss, for I have observed that the only reason anybody or
any life form does anything is because it feels good. This
desire for feeling good must be the primary motivation for
all life, and so the creator must be, ultimately, a being
that feels very, very good indeed. It would be pretty awful
to believe that the creator is eternal, and grouchy! I
believe that the creator is a being who is so full of love
and joy that such a question (who created consciousness) is
a meaningless intellectual exercise. If the creator were
asked such a question, the creator might reply 'know
thyself, and the truth shall set you free.' The profound
questions proposed by the intellect can be answered by
simply feeling the energy of life surging within you. This
energy is so positive, so wonderful, that when fully
connected to it, the profound questions of life proposed by
the intellect seem almost childish.
But this sort of argument always pisses me off, because it
either avoids the question, or gives a circular answer (an
eternal being has always existed). Accurately circular, for
as we shall see later on, consciousness by its very nature
is self-reflexive, which means, it has the ability to modify
or change itself. Nevertheless, it is saying, 'God, or
consciousness, created itself' which leaves me feeling that
the question has not really been answered. So in an
attempt to explain things more understandably from the point
of view of a human being immersed in the flow of time, lets
create artificial hierarchies of awareness. The human mind
understands ideas better if they are compartmentalized; even
if it is not entirely accurate to do so.
Hierarchies of Awareness
First in our artificial hierarchy we define Pure Awareness.
Some people like the word God better, but because God has
religious overtones, I prefer to use the term Pure
Awareness, or Creator. I want this discussion to be
inclusive of all beliefs. Pure Awareness is aware,
but has no conception of anything outside of itself. Those
who have had near-death-experiences describe a state of
bliss in which thought is not present -- this is the state
or condition of Pure Awareness. Pure
Awareness is a potential, a pure quality, which will have,
as we shall see, the capability of creating something for it
to perceive outside of itself. There are no universes as
yet, there is Nothing, but a Nothing with the potential
power to create worlds. Geometrically we can describe pure
awareness as a point, but a point which encompasses
all-there-is.
Lets talk a little bit about a pure potential being a
Nothing. Since we don't have any matter or energy yet, we
don't have anything to look at. Nothing exists. So it is
reasonable to suppose that this pure potential must be
Nothing, but this is far from the truth. The
Quality-which-creates-all is more accurately described as an
Everything, because that is what it feels like. In other
words, we are not talking about a Nothing which creates the
things of existence, because this always leads to an
intellectual contradiction. We want to think about the basic
nature of Pure Awareness, or the Creator of the universe, as
an Everything which is, in itself, completely and utterly
fulfilled and is the very definition of well being. So then
we can say that the universe was created from an Everything,
which is mimicking itself in creating the infinite vastness
of a universe. In other words, it is true that a Nothing
cannot create a something, just as a person who has never
before played the piano cannot play like Horowitz, just as a
person who is feeling angry cannot, at the same time, create
a work of beauty. In order to create a work of beauty, you
have to already be in an inspired place of feeling
beautiful. In order to create an infinite and beautiful
universe to play in, you must already be infinite and
beautiful!
If you have ever felt a rush of love or joy, you are feeling
the inherent quality of who you are at the very roots of
your being. You are feeling the way Pure Awareness, the
Creator-of-all, feels in every instant. This feeling is one
of perfect fulfillment, complete understanding,
exhilaration, and knowing of self as eternal, divine, and
infinite. This is what it feels like to be a pure quality.
So the pure potential/Creator which the intellect describes
as a Nothing is really a wonderful, delicious thing. There
is no Great Void out of which the stuff of existence comes
forth. This concept always frightened
me, because it says the ultimate future of all consciousness
in the universe is one of non-awareness. I always pictured
myself as being snuffed out, like a candle flame. But I have
discovered that the Nothing idea isn't true. The circle of
creation, of life, begins and ends with complete and utter
well being. I am calling this feeling of well being the
ultimate nature, quality, or property of all consciousness
everywhere in any universe. If you have never felt the power
of this wonderful energy, then what I'm saying will not be
real to you at all. It may even seem ridiculous. But I am
assuming that every human being reading this, no matter how
troubled, can remember a time in his or her life, even if
for only an instant, when you felt this way. This wonderful
feeling is who you are at the very core of your being.
OK, back to our artificial hierarchies. Below pure
awareness, or pure potential (quality), is consciousness. My
dictionary defines consciousness as '1. The state of being
conscious; awareness, especially of what is happening around
one.' (Webster's New World Dictionary, College Edition,
1962). This definition implies that there is already some
stuff around you to observe. So we will define consciousness
as the scope of perception of things that already exist. We
will say that pure awareness devised consciousness as a way
to experience in a universe which it created (more on this
forthcoming).
For example, we could say that a guy up in an airplane would
have a broader scope of consciousness than a cat who might
be aware of the house in which it lives. So we say that
consciousness has the ability to perceive more, or less, of
the totality of existence. We may then define levels of
consciousness based upon how much of existence a being is
able to perceive. Geometrically we can describe
consciousness as a circle, or, three dimensionally, a sphere.
The Creation of a Universe
Pure Awareness is awareness without differentiation. This is
a concept impossible to describe in language, for language
implies communication and communication implies existence,
and Pure Awareness does not exist, for it is pure
potential; a quality, not a quantity.
We will say, simply, that Pure Awareness knows itself fully
and completely. But it knows of nothing outside of itself.
We as human beings, perceiving in a reality of time and
space, cannot describe Pure Awareness in language other than
to say it is pure potential, the creator of all things. It
is an everything-within-itself, but a
not-anything-outside-of-itself, yet it is the potential creator of
everything. Let's say that pure awareness feels and knows
itself to be perfection within itself.
Space
A
universe must have space, whether physical or conceptual.
The creation of universes starts first with a thought. By
a thought, I mean the idea of something that is different
from the thinker. This process of thinking a thought which
is different from the thinker, automatically creates
something perceivable. We may call it a
particle or quanta of energy, because it is the
quintessential fundamental particle in the universe. All of
existence will subsequently proceed from combinations and
interaction of these quanta. The thought is something
discrete, and completely separate from the thinker. In other
words, the very act of thinking a thought inherently creates
the space in which it exists. The static, or
Pure Awareness, thus breaks through the barrier between NOT and IS.
We will see that when this happens, Pure Awareness becomes
self-aware. This is a logical outcome of the fact that the
First Thought is something separate from the thinker of the
thought. Therefore, the thinker becomes aware of Itself as
being different or separate from Its creation.
Once one
thinker created a thought, a universe was born, for there is
now a point outside of itself to observe. The
First Thought was an explosion
of cognition for the thinker. At once the First Thought
brought about the ideas of creation, existence,
separateness, otherness, space, distance, communication,
potential, actual ('real'), identification. The
First
Thought was shocking and exhilarating to the thinker, for it
contained within it the concept of something NOT[the
thinker]. Heretofore all was the thinker. It is impossible
to explain the explosive significance to a being when this
is first realized. The concept of existence is a
revelation.
A
A-------------------------B
Figure 1.
First there is A, pure awareness, but nothing outside of it.
Pure awareness is complete within itself. We say that the
state of Pure Awareness is NOT. That is because there is, as
yet, no Is-ness, because nothing exists. This is a state of
being outside of time and space. We may geometrically
represent A, the creative potential, as a point.
When A has a thought, by conceiving that there may be
something other-than-itself, it creates a space between A
and B. As this process is repeated, a universe may come into
being. The second portion of Figure 1 demonstrates the idea
of IS, or existence. Geometrically, A can now conceive of
the property of distance, and the line. (You might argue
that since A is a pure potential and IS NOT, A is not in
space at all, and thus there cannot be a line between A (a
nothing) and B (a something). However, as the creative
potential creates more and more points, A quite easily
discovers that between any two points, a line can be drawn)
A does not really 'exist', before the First
Thought, because it is pure potential. After the First
Thought, B is created, and so pure awareness can perceive
itself as different from B and thus conceive of itself as
existing, separate from B.
Thus is born the very important concept of differentiation.
Here we artificially say that 'B exists' because it is
different from A. We artificially distinguish between A and
B by declaring that A is a pure potential and that B exists,
but that is really a silly thing to say, is it not? B is a
creation of A, is intimately bound up with A, is a product
of A, IS A, but we have to admit that B MUST be different
from A in some way, otherwise A could not see it as
something different.
A can look out and perceive the space
between it and B, so it concludes that B must be different
from itself. So B is really not A! Here is a gigantic
intellectual contradiction. B is A and at the same time, is
different from A.
B is something discernible to A. In this sense, it is
"physical." Physical just means, perceivable. I like to call
B, the thought of A, a packet or quanta of energy, but really, the thinker of the thought IS the
thought, because a quintessential part of it is in the
thought. The thinker of the thought totally, completely, and
utterly understands the thought it just created -- they are
both joined at the hip, so to speak. Moreover, since A is
conscious, and B is the thought which proceeded from A, then
B must also be conscious.
What do we call B to distinguish
it from A? We call B the thought of A, the pure
potential, and say that B exists, and say that B is a little
tiny packet or quanta of energy. These are artificial distinctions of
course, but we have to have some way of describing the
difference between B, the creation, and A, the creator.**
In this conception, all thought is conscious, and all things
physical are composed of thought. We are describing the
ultimate unity of all things in existence, and we are also
describing the separateness of everything in existence.
Within all things, in other words, is a sort of built-in
duality.
How does the First Thought come into being? Well, imagine
there is only you, and nothing outside of you, and you are
complete-within-yourself, existing in perfect bliss. How
would you even conceive of something different from what you
are experiencing? You couldn't, for you have never
experienced anything other than perfect bliss and sameness.
You have never seen anything which you considered separate
from yourself. There has never been a change from your
experience of perfect bliss. The First Thought comes as an
explosion of inspiration within your entire being: 'what if
there was something that was not me'? BOOM! This idea must
now exist in a separate space from you, for its
quintessential nature is otherness. It can't be you, for
it's very nature is not you. As soon as you conceived the
idea of not-me, you created something outside of yourself.
It is an explosion of inspiration, or creation, and it
automatically puts a space between you and it. How and Why
this occurs, of course, is the Great Mystery: what is the
impetus that inspires a pure potential to become conscious
of itself, or self–aware? Let us just say that the process
is invisible to any being who has not achieved the awareness
level of Pure Awareness.
So what is space? Space is just a differentiation between
one thing and another. In order to have a thing, there must
be a not-that-thing to compare it to. For example, look at a
white canvas. In order to have something to see, you have to
take a brush and put another color on it!
However, the space between A and B is not empty, for it
contains the consciousness of the thinker. In other words, A
knows exactly where B is, and so the space which separates
it from the thing it created is also completely known to A.
In other words, there is a little bit of the awareness of A
in the space separating it and B. So space can't be an empty
nothing, for space is a creation of the thinker and is bound
up utterly with the thinker. This is the origin of the idea
of the ether. Space just serves to differentiate the thinker
from what it has created, otherwise the created thing could
not exist independently. The idea that space is filled with
the energy of consciousness is, I think, the reason we can
sometimes communicate telepathically. I remember a time
when, in my business, I received a contract approval before
I was actually notified. I just KNEW that the client had
chosen my proposal over all of the others, and I could tell
you the exact moment of its occurrence. In order for
communication over long distances to occur instantaneously,
there must be some instantaneous medium in which it can take
place. That medium is a postulated universe-wide field of consciousness
brought about by the thoughts of the creator (us).
The idea that space is nothing leads to the concept of a
cold, lifeless universe where life randomly and accidentally
formed. This idea has always been scary to me, but now we
can see that space is filled with the energy of
consciousness, and only serves to differentiate one thing
from another. Space is conscious, and so is everything in
the universe! The energy of consciousness was called by the
ancients prana, or chi. In this book, we will call it life
force energy, or source energy. Source energy is a good
term, for it implies that everything that exists comes forth
from it. This energy is pure and positive, because the
Creator of the thought is pure and positive. (One might say
that if space is so positive, then try going out of a
spaceship without a suit, but at this point physical bodies
and planets have not yet been created. The creation of
planets and bodies comes along later in the building of a
universe. Being in a physical body is a free will choice to
severely limit awareness in order to increase contrast and
intensity of experience. More on this later)
Time
The creation of the First Thought
leads the thinker to the conception of time, for the thinker
understands that there is a condition of itself only, and
there is also a condition of itself and B. This leads to the
idea of 'now', and 'then', or 'before' and 'after'. The
thinker creates more particles and observes that each of
them move relative to the others. The thinker ponders and
thinks, “Before, B was HERE, and now it is HERE. B now has a
completely different relationship to the other particles
than it did before.” The creator understands that movement
creates time and a completely different relationship between
each of the particles, and that that relationship is
changing dynamically.
Therefore, the thinking of
thought(s) different from the thinker not only leads to the
creation of space, but also time. This idea is so exciting
to pure awareness because it can now conceive of different
points in space/time and different structural arrangements
of that which has already been created, and the concept of
being able to perceive all that it has created from
infinitely many points of view. Thus was the subject of
geometry born. Geometry is the first discipline in any
universe because in order to create a well ordered universe
one must necessarily know how everything fits together, and
have a defined relationship between one thing and another.
Otherwise there is just random chaos. The only idea that is
missing from our present study of geometry is consciousness
itself.
This process is also the birth of the intellect. The
intellect requires data in order to do its work, and the
creation of more and more quantities gives the intellect a
lot more to look at and analyze.
Existence
Existence is a product of Pure Awareness, for it was created
by Pure Awareness beginning with the First Thought. The
First Thought leads the thinker to the awareness of being
aware. The creation of the thinker, an otherness (B),
brings about realization-of-self. Self-awareness is the
awareness of being aware of the thinker as Creator. Before
the First Thought there was simply awareness, after the
First Thought there is the idea of self-and-other. The
Creator as awareness-of-awareness is Pure Awareness with
the explosive realization of self and other-ness.
Before the realization of Self
there was simply undifferentiated awareness, a feeling of
bliss and fulfillment. After the First Thought there was
realization of Self, brought about by the observation of
something outside of itself.
All of the thoughts of Pure Awareness are themselves
conscious, so each of them has the ability to combine in
agreement with each other to form different structures. The
building blocks of matter and energy are the product of the
thinker, which come together concurrently, guided by their
awareness in tandem with the creator of all.
Why is this so important? Because all of us, as aspects of
the Creator, are complete within ourselves! So often we look
outside for the validation, or the missing pieces, which are
inside all along. In other words, what good does it do to
look for confirmation of who we are in others or in the
physical universe? Ultimately we are all little 'pieces' of
Pure Awareness, and when we are not into self-denial and
self-limiting thought we can FEEL the perfection which the
thinker felt before he/she created the First Thought! The
idea that a pure potential created the universe is exciting
because it means that anything that is aware is an aspect of
this infinite, positive awareness. It means that each one of us
is pure and positive at our very core, and that we were
aware even before the creation of the universe.
Science And Something From Nothing
Now of course what we have said
here is the exact opposite of what a scientist or a
cosmologist would regard as truthful. A scientist would say
that the Law of Conservation of Energy makes it impossible
for energy to be created or destroyed. That is why some
scientists postulate a Big Bang for the origin of the
universe. Because energy can't be created, all of the energy
in the universe must have been in existence from the
beginning of time, just squeezed into itself, in an
impossibly small point called a singularity. In both cases
we have an intellectual contradiction, for we might ask the
cosmologist where the energy in the singularity came from.
But we have not done much better, for we have talked about a
pure potential which can create something out of nothing! We
have gotten around this by defining a quanta that exists on
an unimaginably small scale, and which straddles an
amorphous, etheric boundary between NOT and IS.
We have (in the footnote below) simply assigned a
mapping from a virtual state of consciousness into the
physical universe without explaining how it happens. That
reminds me of the cartoon in which two scientists are
staring at a set of equations, one on the left and the
result on the right. In the middle is written “and then a
miracle occurs.” The miracle is the animating principle,
which has the capability of creation.
I like the idea of the universe
coming into being and evolving bit by bit, rather than all
at once. I have presented the creation of the universe the
way I have, because I don't think something could be created
all at once which could have the capability of evolving into
the infinite and well ordered universe we see about us. I
know that whenever I create something, it usually involves a
lot of trial and error! Of course we could admit the
possibility of a Supreme Creator who knew every little thing
about the universe from the beginning of time until the end
of time before it was even brought forth, but this
explanation is even more unsatisfactory; for if the Supreme
Creator knew every single event and experience beforehand,
It would have no motivation to create. The impetus for
creation is always the making and experiencing of something
new and different! That’s what makes the creative process
fun and exciting! Therefore, we will say in this book that
the universe wasn't created all at once, but gradually
unfolded as we went along. We will say that the universe
evolved and has gotten more and more sophisticated as time
went on, and that the animating intelligence behind all of
it is Pure Awareness. And that the ultimate nature of the
universe is positive, because the Creator of the universe is
positive.
When we say "The Creator of the universe is positive", we're
on pretty solid ground, for just about every religion on the
planet has, at its core, this very idea.
Knowing
The quintessential quality of Pure
Awareness is knowing. There is the desire or inclination of
Pure Awareness to understand itself in a particular way.
From this knowing, there is an orientation to BE, and from
this beingness proceeds thought, and from thought, existence
(matter and energy) comes forth. And from existence comes
experience. Before the creation of the universe, experience
was not possible, for experience involves interaction with
others. Experience is the difference between theory and
practice; between knowing something theoretically, and
having it hit you in the face. When the creator discovered
the possibilities of experience, it was all over. It decided
to know Itself in all possible ways, which is to say, in an
infinity of ways. And since it is impossible to ever achieve
infinity, there is never an end to different ways of
experiencing. This means there is never an end to fun and
excitement!
Knowing is a disposition to BE, from
which thought is emanated. All thought proceeds from an
assumed beingness. And all action is preceded by thought.
For example, a person might want to know what it is like to
experience being a pilot. First he assumes the beingness of
one who can learn to fly airplanes. In other words, you have
to BE something before you can DO it. You have to have the
idea of it, before you can start. The better he is at
assuming this beingness, the faster he will learn. He takes
flying lessons and becomes a certified small aircraft pilot.
Now he can EXPERIENCE what it is like to be a pilot. He can
now KNOW himself as a pilot much better than if he just said
to himself 'yeah I could learn to fly if I really wanted
to'. When his fanny hits that seat as he pulls his plane off
the ground, he is experiencing something on a fundamentally
deeper level. This knowing of himself as a pilot could be
taken to more intense levels. He could increase his training
and become an airline pilot, or join the military and take
combat flight training. He might even find himself in a war,
battling another pilot in an aircraft duel.
All experience begins from Pure
Awareness and it's desire to know itself. When we describe
the creator of the universe, we say that the creator knows
what It is doing. On earth, we get discouraged when
something does not happen as we would like, but it would be
a mistake to assign this negative behavior to the creator!
On earth, there is exaggerated contrast. We see horrendous
things around us that we would never in a million years
participate in, but the creator experiences no such
contrast. The creator of the universe, through individually
incarnated beings, brings forth thoughts and experiences
activities that are an intimate and cherished part of
itself, so the Creator of the universe experiences only
pleasure in whatever he/she creates.
Consciousness
Consciousness is Pure Awareness temporarily associated with
a vehicle of perception: a body. The senses of the body are
attuned to a greater or lesser portion of the universal
bandwidth. Clearly, a being can only be aware of that which
it is aware. A body is designed to limit, focus, and
intensify perception and experience.
After
Pure Awareness has created a thought –– which it can see and
feel and know that the thought is different from itself ––
it decides to create more thoughts, and more thoughts, and
more thoughts. Why does it do this? Because it is fun!! The
excitement of realizing that it can create, and the endless
and infinite possibilities and combinations of thought,
brings the thinker to a desire to see what it can do--how
complex and beautiful can it design with the building blocks
it has created? All of this is happening at the speed of
thought, which is practically infinite. The speed of thought
makes the speed of light look very slow indeed. Since each
thought is conscious, everything in existence is responsive
to the thoughts and desires of the thinker/creator. Soon
there is an explosion of form and the observation of those
forms leads to new ideas for more thought/creation, so in no
time (well, 16 billion years or so!) a pretty sophisticated
universe can come into existence. (Creating a universe is no
different from the creative process of any individual
person. As incarnated human beings, we are all aspects or
extensions of the creator of the universe. Our own creative
process mirrors that of the creator-of-all).
Now there
is lots of stuff to play around with, but although we can
see and play with what we have created, we would really like
to get in there and experience it! It is like having a big
construction set and being able to build beautiful buildings
and complex structures, but having no way to actually be IN
the things you have created. Often, as a child, I just
wished I could walk in one of the buildings I made with my
erector set. My sister had a big doll house with lots of
rooms. She would often want to BE the doll for a while!
Well,
this is what happens to Pure Awareness once it begins to
create a beautiful universe. It wants to participate within
the universe it has created. So it makes little 'dolls'
within which it can place its awareness. These dolls can
just be floating clouds of energy, with broad awareness, or
more compact and tightly focused with limited awareness,
like our human bodies. This is how the Creator of All can
have lots of different experiences.
In order to see how a non–physical Creative Principle can
have different personalities, consider that Pure Awareness
has just created four thoughts, B, C, D, and E.
Pure
Awareness (A) has the ability to BE at any of these points
and perceive through each of them. When it does so, A
consciously limits it's perception of the universe. A
notices that depending upon which points it perceives
through, he sees things differently! For example, his
universe looks quite different when he is at E than it does
when he is at B! This fascinates the creator, for it
understands that by limiting its awareness through a
physical vehicle it gains a different viewpoint, or
perspective. This occurs because it literally sees things
from a different point in space/time. A eventually discovers
that if it perceives EXCLUSIVELY through one of these
points, it develops a personality. A personality develops
when one perceives uniquely through a separate point of
perception.
Consciousness is limited perception through a physical
vehicle that has built-in (limited) sensors that are able to
perceive the universe from a particular vantage point. The
human eye, for example, can only perceive a tiny fraction of
the electromagnetic spectrum, from about
4 x 10^14 vibrations per second, to about 7.5 x 10^14
vibrations per second. This is an extremely small portion of
the total vibrational spectrum.
Therefore
the human being has a very limited view of the universe
indeed! But of course, the human experience has been
designed that way. The process of incarnation is the
decision of Pure Awareness to perceive only through the
sensors of the physical vehicle. As Pure Awareness
incarnates over and over in an infinite variety of physical
vehicles and environments, It develops an infinite number of
viewpoints, or aspects, of Itself. Each incarnation
strengthens these individual aspects, and pretty soon, the
Creator has “subdivided” Itself into more and more unique
beings who each have different attitudes and opinions! The
Creator is pleased, for this is just what It intended. Just
as someone can play a game and assume a different beingness
for the game, so too does Pure Awareness generate different
personalities within Itself. The good thing is that the One
never loses track of It’s aspects! The One never suffers
from multiple personality disorder! Being beyond space and
time and limitation, It celebrates that which It has
created. As the All–That–Is evolves, the Creator grows more
and more magnificent to Itself
There are
levels of physicality, which is to say, ways to perceive.
The earth experience is a very "dense" physical experience.
Upon transition out of the body, a being returns to Native
State, a postulated existence wherein a conscious
personality assumes a broader awareness of Itself and
Universal Consciousness on a higher, or less dense, plane of
existence. These planes of existence continue "upwards"
until a being "merges" with Pure Awareness. How this occurs
is not possible to describe in language. Only those who have
had near death experiences have any idea how this feels.
Because
each body must occupy a unique point in space, it will view
or perceive from a different perspective. A being will,
therefore, during the period of incarnation, always
experience from a unique point of view. This unique
perspective, as we said before, is the origin of
personality. Each vehicle of perception is designed to be
aware of more, or less, of all-that-is, depending upon the
design of its sensory equipment. The more of existence it
can perceive, the broader it's awareness. The less of
existence it can perceive, the more focused and limited is
its perspective. So we can define levels of consciousness
based upon how narrowly focused a being is, and what the
sensory equipment of that consciousness is able to look at.
For example, a beetle may perceive less of all-that-is
because it is so narrowly focused into its little beetle
body, a human being may perceive more of all-that-is because
it's sensory equipment is arranged to be able to look at
more of the universe. A being without a human body may be
even more broadly aware, since its sensory equipment is not
limited to the senses that come with the human body. So we
define consciousness as pure awareness perceiving through
the senses of a body. Since there are lots and lots of
physical vehicles through which to perceive (animals,
plants, one–celled amoebas, etc.) there are lots of ways in
which to perceive and experience the universe! In this way,
consciousness is limited in its awareness to that which it
can perceive through the sensors of the body it is
associated with.
In that
sense, consciousness is itself an intelligent arrangement of
thought, for consciousness, stuck in its vehicle of
perception, will have its thought patterns primarily limited
to, and directed by, that which it can perceive through the
physical vehicle. Consciousness has, by definition -- at
least in a very "dense" plane of existence like earth --
difficulty perceiving outside of the sensory range of the
physical body. Of course, it is entirely possible to do so,
and many claim psychic or intuitive powers, but a physical
experience such as a human lifetime is designed to severely
limit and intensify perception and experience. With the
understanding that consciousness is actually a creative
potential temporarily experiencing through a physical
vehicle, it is now possible to dispense with the distinction
between Pure Awareness and consciousness. We can refer to
consciousness simply as the awareness of any being.
Because
matter and energy are ultimately composed of thought, matter
and energy must be responsive to thought, and indeed,
scientific experiments have shown that the thoughts or
intentions of an experimenter can have an effect on the
outcome of an experiment.
How Is A Thought Conscious?
We have
been claiming that a thought is conscious, but how to show
this? Perform the following experiment: Turn to another
page. Think the thought, 'Hi there', and place it on the
page in front of you. Put the book down, then pick it up and
flip back to the page where you placed the thought. Did you
pick up on it? Thoughts are conscious! I do this all the
time. If I have to take something with me first thing in the
morning, I put a thought on the door before I go to bed
(while I am still conscious!). When I stumble out the door
to go to work, I invariably pick up on that thought. All
objects have thought associated with them. If you come home
from work really pissed off, you may be able to pick up on
that anger when you get into your car come morning.
Most
people aren't aware of the power of thought to subtly
influence their mood. A good salesman can enter a room and
immediately tell the mindset of the people he is trying to
win over. Sometimes you can walk into a house and get a
certain 'feel'. What you are perceiving are old thought
forms hanging around. Once you get the idea that thought is
attached to everything, you can become more in control of
your own mind-set.
Right
Brain vs. Left Brain Understanding
The
intellect gets into trouble very quickly when it tries to
figure out answers to ultimate questions like 'what is the
origin of consciousness' or 'how was the universe created'.
That is why we have gone through all of our gyrations
concerning pure awareness and consciousness, in an attempt
to explain things in terms that the intellect can
understand. But really, all we have done is to argue
ourselves around in a circle! If the thought of a pure
potential created the universe, and consciousness itself is
determined by thought -- for all physical incarnation is a
conscious decision -- then we have just been splitting
semantic hairs.
This is
what usually happens when we depend upon the intellect alone
to understand something. It has been the dilemma of
philosophy and cosmology through the centuries. True
understanding is a feeling of certainty, a knowing which
comes from the intimate connection to that source of pure
awareness within each one of us. This knowing is not
possible for the intellect, which operates on data, and in
an infinite universe the intellect can never gather enough
data to make sense of concepts like 'eternal', 'universal
consciousness', or 'pure potential'. These are only
understandable from a right-brain orientation, from an
appeal to the intuition.
Intuitive
understanding is not less valid than intellectual
understanding, it is just a different kind of understanding.
It is a knowing of something, without knowing why or how.
(Those who have had near-death experiences report that they
reach a stage of pure knowing, without thought). Although
this sort of knowledge does not help us in scientific or
engineering projects (we would not want to hire a
clairvoyant to build a bridge!) a right-brain understanding
has been an important part of every new scientific
breakthrough in history. Any good scientist will tell you
that sometimes there is simply a leap of comprehension
(aha!) which is impossible to document. Those who have the
greatest wisdom in any area have reached a perfect balance
between intellectual and intuitive understanding. In reading
this book, I am asking the reader to consult his or her
intuition along with the intellect. I am asking the reader
to be aware of what he or she is feeling while digesting the
concepts presented here, for that gut feeling is your inner
knowing, it is your own personal guidance system and
connection to your divine nature.
We have been distinguishing between a pure awareness and
consciousness, because even if the universe were to fold up
and die, and all space and matter and energy were to
disappear, there would still be awareness! The awareness of
love, joy, and bliss is always and eternally within every
conscious being and is the creative impulse behind all life
and all universes. There is no death of awareness! There is
transition from broader to lesser awareness, in the process
of incarnation, or the transition from lesser to broader
awareness, in the process of death, but awareness never
dies. In other words, there is never a death of the Spirit.
If humanity understand this idea, our societies would
operate in a much more rational and cooperative manner.
Every person on earth is an immortal being, and there is no
such thing as death, only a transition to a different state
of awareness. The body is an adjunct to consciousness,
intimately connected with it, but the body only dies when
the consciousness associated with it decides to depart from
it.
Recapitulation
·
Pure
Awareness, filled with love, births a thought, creating
something outside of itself
· Pure
Awareness now becomes conscious of what it has created.
· And becomes
aware of itself as a distinct identity.
· Through
thought a universe is created.
·
Consciousness is limited awareness through a point of
perception.
· Consciousness is able to experience the universe in
different ways, from different points of view,
· Leading to
the development of unique personalities.
Next
we come to identification. Identification is consciousness
linking itself with what it has created. It says 'this is
mine'. Whenever we are very proud of something we have
created, we immediately want to show it off! We look at it
as our baby. From Identification is born attachment. From
attachment is born love. Pure Awareness, before the
beginning, does not have the idea of anything other than
itself. It is One. The first, utterly crucial step is
differentiation. That comes with the First Thought. The
First Thought creates something unique, a something, which
can be differentiated as different from the thinker. As more
something's are created by the thinker, each is discretely
perceivable -- we say it is a quanta of energy -- and
therefore has a unique identity and position in space and
time (see
footnote below).
Because
the thinker /creator is responsible for what it has
created, it can identify with everything it has created.
What it has created is actually a little "piece" of itself,
for every thought is conscious, and contains the life force
energy of the thinker. So it is accurate not only to say
that everything in the universe is connected, but also that
everything in the universe is One. And, it is also accurate
to say that everything in the universe has a separate
identity or personality, for all things in existence are
perceiving from their own unique points of view and levels
of awareness. We have a universe where all is One, but at
the same time, each element within it is unique unto itself.
How good is that? Pretty damn good. It's genius.
Identification proceeds from differentiation. First
differentiation, THEN identification. There must first be
something different from you to identify with!! Otherwise it
is just you. There are legends of people who have grown up
in forests and have never seen another human being. When
this person sees another, there is a great confusion and
awareness at the same time, an awareness that 'here I am,
and over there is the other'. This is differentiation. If
our forest fellow becomes friends with the stranger, we have
the concept of identification.
Love
Each
thought of the creator is pure, positive life force energy,
because it comes forth from the creator. We can say,
accurately, that the creator is love, and so all of the
creations of the creator are also love. And since the energy
of the creator fills the universe, the universe itself must
also, quintessentially, be love. The creator is attached to
all it's creations, like a loving parent with a newborn
baby. The creator looks upon everything it has created, like
the Bible says, and finds that it is good. The creator does
not attach conditions to its love, for the creator of all is
unlimited and infinite.
Love is
the unlimited attachment of a creator to any (and all) of
its creations. Love is an inherent property of awareness
and consciousness itself. Pure Awareness, before the First
Thought, always experienced itself as pure bliss (there was
nothing around to get disgusted about). It had no reason to
conceive of anything different from itself, because this
blissful feeling is eternal, always utterly fulfilling,
exciting, and never boring. That is why the First Thought is
so important. To be in a state of utter perfection but be
able to conceive of a state of affairs different from this
wonderful existence is amazing. If you were completely
fulfilled, never bored, always excited, would you ever want
to create conditions different from that? Would you even be
able to conceive of conditions different from that?
So love,
joy, bliss, exhilaration, in other words, all positive
feeling, is the default, inherent, quintessential state of
all conscious beings. Only when we resist our basic natures
can we perceive uncomfortably or negatively. Mankind has
distorted the positive energy of the universe to create
unnecessary dissatisfaction, pain, and misery. But it is
also possible for each of us to use the powerful and
infallible laws of the universe to create a life of joy and
abundance.
So we say
before the beginning there was love, and during the creation
of the universe there was love, and all through time there
is love, and after the ending there is love. Love is
eternal, it can never go away, because it is the default way
of experiencing. The creation of unique identities or
personalities or points of view leads to an expansion of the
love the creator feels for itself, for now it can look out
into the beauty of the universe it has created! The creator
is filled with an awesome sense of joy, of exhilaration, of
the deepest, most profound, hugely expansive feeling of love
as it sees and feels all of the wonder of the universe! All
individual personalities are aspects of the creator.
Universal consciousness is the combined awareness of all
conscious beings everywhere (including you and me). All of
us are important parts of the infinite vastness of the
universe, which we helped bring into existence.
Have you
ever been in a place of such sublime beauty that you felt
like you couldn't contain all of the love that comes pouring
forth from inside you? Or been in love with someone? It's a
feeling of such awesome, expanding love and joy that it
simply cannot be described. That is the feeling that the
creator feels for all of its creations, which is the same
thing as saying, the feeling that the creator feels for
itself. Which is the same thing as saying, what all of us
feel for ourselves and everything else when we are not
blocking or resisting this feeling.
Back to Consciousness
Let's look at what we have so far:
·
L O V E
-- inherent quality of all awareness - pervades all things,
IS all things
·
Differentiation
·
Identification
·
Attachment
·
Love
(for a unique, identifiable thing)
·
Pure
Awareness ––> Quality (potential) (knowing) (pure being)
·
Consciousness –-> Quantity (actual) (perception of
existence)
Each
level of consciousness is a level of awareness, depending
upon the sophistication of construction of the body. A body
is just a vehicle from which to perceive a certain portion
of the universe. A higher consciousness means more
perception of existence, so higher awareness of what is in
existence. Consciousness is largely determined by the
construction of the vehicle of perception. In other words, a
beetle may perceive less of existence than a dolphin, but
the experience of a beetle is just as fulfilling for the
consciousness of the beetle as it is for the consciousness
of the dolphin, experiencing as a dolphin.
Awareness-through-consciousness is a sort of encapsulated
awareness, in a shell of consciousness. But Pure Awareness
courses through every individual consciousness, connecting
all life everywhere!
We can
see that there can be infinite levels of consciousness, each
aware of a portion of all-that-is, depending upon the choice
of what to experience. But there is only one Pure
Awareness. So, we have a Oneness that is able to be aware of
itself as One, because it IS all things that it has created.
Pure Awareness can also perceive through the bodies it has
created, and develop individual personalities.
A
conscious being always knows, somewhere within it, that it
is an aspect of Pure Awareness. So with some work -- at
least in theory -- any conscious being on any level may
discover the God-self. But the game is played so that each
conscious being is designed only to be aware of a limited
portion of the totality of existence. The great thing about
this game is that individual beings grow, through
experience, so that the sum of the "parts" becomes greater
than the Whole.
Human
beings are not puny, measly little things relegated to the
armpit of the universe here on earth. Each and every one of
us is a powerful and wonderful aspect of the creator, each
endowed with the pure awareness of the creator as an
inherent part of our divine nature. All life, all things in
the universe are so endowed.
Individual Personalities
We can
now say that there is ultimately only one awareness, and
that all physical beings are extensions of that one
awareness. It is through consciousness that Pure
Awareness limits itself, and achieves differentiation. This
is how Oneness can be the doll in the doll house it has
built. This is how Oneness can walk inside the building it
constructed from the erector set, or perceive through the
eyes of a fly, or a whale, or through the human or the
flower or the tree. In other words Pure Awareness, or
universal consciousness, is not limited to any one aspect of
itself, but can perceive through all. Imagine a guy who
lived in a mansion and had a TV in every room. The cable
company came out and wired all of his TV's together, and put
boxes all over the place so he could dial up any channel on
any TV he wanted. Let's say that these TV's are conscious
and can not only receive signals, but look out through the
screen. So the TV can perceive everything in the room it is
in, and also tune in to any broadcast signal it desires.
Universal consciousness is like the electricity that runs
through the system -- it has instantaneous access to any TV,
anytime. Individual personalities are like each of the TV's.
The TV's can't function without the electricity --
otherwise, they are just lifeless hulks. Just like our
bodies when the animating intelligence of our consciousness
departs. And the electricity has no purpose unless it can
perceive through each of the TV's. The electricity needs the
TV's so it can have different experiences!
What is
the difference between an individual incarnated personality,
and non-corporeal personality? We can use the analogy of a
board game. In the game called 'Risk' each player is
assigned armies and the object is to take over the world.
When playing this game, you might call yourself 'The
Marauder' and at every opportunity, choose to initiate
battles no matter what the odds. In the game, you are the
feared aggressor who tries to quickly take everyone out. You
identify with your men, and give them names and
personalities. You are the general who coordinates
everything and your only objective is to dominate and
control the world! When the game is over, you become… you
again. Does your consciousness become subsumed, merging into
some vast overmind? Of course not! You simply become YOU.
During the time of playing, you are still you, but with a
more focused beingness. When you transition out of the game,
you become conscious again of a broader awareness. Both
levels of consciousness are you.
The
purpose of consciousness is to allow Pure Awareness to
experience. Pure Awareness wants to be able not just to know
itself on a theoretical basis, but to get involved in the
nitty-gritty of life. As Oneness, it knows it is perfect;
knows that it is, say, courageous, but as a human being in
a physical body facing a guy with a gun, how are you going
to react? Can you actually demonstrate courage in the face
of danger? Can you walk the walk and not just talk the talk?
And what is courage anyway? Is it insulting the guy and
showing how macho you are, only to get yourself killed? Is
it being composed and making the guy go away by the force of
your presence? Is it beating the crap out of your tormentor
and putting him in the hospital? Or is it just giving up
your wallet quietly? There are probably a zillion different
ways this scenario could play out, and consciousness wants
to explore every one of them. By building bodies and living
through them, consciousness gets to set up an infinity of
different experiences. So individual personalities evolve,
as consciousness moves through the universe thinking and
experiencing. As each individual consciousness gains more
experience, it becomes more and more self-defined, more and
more individualistic. Each experience and your reaction to
that experience helps you to define yourself, to know more
about who you are.
Everything an individual consciousness experiences is unique
to itself. Every experience helps to define and develop the
personality of each being. This is a wonderful thing, for
Oneness can now experience itself in more and more unique
ways.
The Divine Impulse of Consciousness
A
construction worker whose life consists of working, going to
bars and participating in and watching sports will have a
far different personality than a world famous musician who
travels all over the planet. One might say that the musician
is aware of a much broader world than the construction
worker. This doesn't mean the musician is better, just that
the levels of consciousness are different! Because
consciousness can choose differently, it can re-structure
itself, but only within the range of its own perception. By
this I mean, whenever a conscious being thinks a thought, it
alters its idea of itself. If a person decides that she is
funny, that thought alters the idea she has of herself. This
one idea, if followed up, may even lead to her to become a
comedian.
Thought
is extremely powerful. As the Buddha said: 'We are what we
think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our
thoughts we make our world'. The impulse to create is the
first divine impulse of consciousness, born out of the first
thought of the creator. Remember when the creator thought
its first thought, there was an explosion of cognition, a
tremendous blast of realization of the possibilities of
existence. So the construction worker may wish to broaden
his horizons a little. He decides, on his next vacation, to
take a travel package to Europe. He experiences an opera,
eats at a 4 star restaurant, takes a gondola, goes to the
Louvre, sees Michelangelo's Pieta and the beautiful ceiling
he painted at the Vatican. The musician may determine he is
too one dimensional as well, and decides to start working
out to improve his health. He takes a white water canoeing
trip in Colorado, and learns karate. All of these impulses
come from the same divine impulse that brought forth the
First Thought -- the desire to create, to become MORE, to
experience MORE. The desire to create is probably the most
intense desire any conscious being has. It is built-in to
consciousness itself, since consciousness proceeded from the
desire of pure awareness to create and know itself in as
many ways as it could.
First Principle
Within
each of us is the pure awareness of our God self. This tells
us that there is, within all of us, perfect understanding,
perfect knowing, all encompassing love and connection to
all things. I am calling this understanding, the First
Principle. The First Principle states that pure awareness,
universal consciousness, God, Supreme Being, whatever you
want to call it, experiences itself in complete joy and
bliss. The First Principle is the bedrock upon which the
entire universe has been created, and it is the
quintessential nature of all things in existence, including
consciousness itself.
Properties of Consciousness
Consciousness can limit its perception. This is done through
focusing. In the next chapter (referring to the book "The
Vibrational Universe"), we will attempt to show how this
is done. First there is a decision to BE, in a different
way, in association with a body here on earth, for example.
Then there is identification with the body, during the
entire time the body is alive. So focusing of consciousness,
or the limiting of awareness, is preceded conceptually by
identification. How does this work?
First of
all, let us briefly mention that consciousness does not come
in lumps. In other words, there is not one rigidly separated
consciousness assigned to each human, tree, bird, blade of
grass, etc. That is because consciousness is non-physical!
So there is a universal consciousness that is flowing into
and out of all things in existence, as photons flow into and
out of a beam of light, as electricity flows in and out of
the TV's in our earlier example. Individual personalities
exist, but each personality is a focused aspect, or
extension, of universal consciousness. It appears to humans
that we are all separate, because only the physical body is
observable. We do not see the subtle but powerful influence
of consciousness as it manipulates the world of matter and
energy.
There are
6 billion people on earth approximately. The average life
span is 65 years, which means that on average, there are 92
million human deaths every year on planet earth, about 3
every second. Dear reader, there are beings shuttling in and
out of here at an astonishing rate! And that doesn’t even
count animals and insects. If you ask yourself the question,
“Who or what is managing the entry and exit of consciousness
on planet earth?” it leads to some mind–blowing
realizations.
We live
in a universe of developed thought. The entire Reality is
composed of many levels of perception, which we may call
individual universes, that can be perceived depending upon
what frequency range the sensors of consciousness are tuned
into. To experience the reality on channel 7, for example,
we must tune our TV sets to channel 7. If we want to see a
different reality, we may tune into channel 2 and watch WWF
wrestling, or to channel 28 to see a PBS program on the
origin of the universe. We may also tune into channel 72 to
see Emeril Lagasse prepare great food. Or perhaps, we can
tune to channel 83 and see old reruns of Leave it to Beaver.
There are many realities within the One Reality, and each is
accessible depending upon where one's sensors of perception
are tuned.
Universal Consciousness Focuses Into Separate Personalities
Focusing
of consciousness occurs during incarnation. When
consciousness focuses, it identifies more narrowly. For
example, human consciousness associates with a human body.
The human body has limited sensory equipment. Our eyes can
only see electromagnetic radiation within a very narrow
bandwidth, our ears can only hear within a certain range of
vibration, etc. By focusing, consciousness limits its
awareness to specific frequencies, but intensifies
experience. An incarnated consciousness MUST be tuned to the
same wavelengths as the body which it is inhabiting,
otherwise it could not perceive or co-habit with the body at
all! Therefore, when consciousness incarnates into a body,
it must be tuned to perceive through the senses of the
body. Focusing is how something eternal and immortal can
experience Itself in an infinity of different (but
temporary) environments. Death is an opportunity to end one
experience and begin another. Just as you would not want to
get up every day wearing the same clothes, drive the same
car to the same office with the same people and do the same
thing over and over again, so too would you not want to
spend eternity in the same body on planet earth!
The
focusing of consciousness can be likened to what happens
when you take a magnifying glass out on a sunny day. The
glass focuses some of the billions of photons into a beam of
light which appears on the ground as a point of light. The
beam of light is analogous to the stream of consciousness,
or life force energy, which is flowing through us in every
instant. Indeed, without the constant focusing of the beam
by the magnifying glass, the energy of consciousness that
runs the body would not be present, and the body would die.
The point of light is analogous to individually incarnated
(focused) consciousness, with its unique personality,
associated with the body. The body itself is formed and
maintained from the energy which is constantly streaming
through it:
Figure 1.
Photons continuously enter and exit the beam of light. There
is a constant recycling of photons through the beam of light
and to the point of light.
The point
of light is a collection of photons and so is the light
which surrounds it. The photons in the point are focused,
those surrounding the point are more broadly dispersed. The
surrounding light may be said to have a broader awareness,
or a more expansive consciousness. Since the photons of
light within the beam are constantly entering and exiting
the beam, the light is in constant connection with itself.
In other words, the beam of light can be likened to a
constantly changing stream of consciousness. So there is
always a connection to broader, universal consciousness,
when a being incarnates into a body, even though it
sometimes feels that we are completely alone. This, to me,
is a very comforting thought! It tells us that we are always
connected to the pure, positive source of life force energy
which fills the universe.
Who is Holding the Magnifying Glass?
When a
beam or a stream of light is focused into a point by a
magnifying glass, someone must continuously maintain the
glass in the right position, in order to keep the light
focused. The same principle applies to the focusing of
consciousness into bodies. A being must constantly choose to
live positively in order to maintain a feeling of well being
and health. As soon as a person decides it is no longer
worth living, he or she will find a way out, whether this be
through illness, an 'accident' or by simply leaving. Being
human is a free will choice which must be made in every
moment. The more we desire to live, the more excited and
animated we are about life, and the more we decide life
isn't worth it, the more apathetic we become. If you look at
the scale of emotion/vibration, apathy is very near death.
Your decisions, in every moment, determine your experiences!
Incarnation
Why and
how does the cell divide so accurately every time? Science
says that DNA contains the 'code' for the cellular
construction of the body, but this does not explain how the
DNA code got there in the first place. It does not explain
how the subatomic particles and the atoms that compose the
DNA know how to arrange themselves into the atomic structure
of DNA. Some intelligence had to program the sub- atomic
particles to form the atoms that compose the cells, which
know how to combine precisely the right way to form livers,
hearts, stomachs, eyes and skin, for each and every life
form on planet earth. We can look at the assertion that DNA
is responsible for building the complex systems of the body
the same way as a sophisticated computer controlled
commercial airliner. At first glance we might say that the
airplane guides itself from 20,000 feet in the air to its
proper destination at the airport, until we consider the
tremendous amount of intelligent design that went into the
construction of the airplane's systems. Each component is
manufactured from a design template, and there is a master
template under which the aircraft is assembled.
DNA is
itself the result of a template of thought. The animating
intelligence behind DNA, behind all biology, is
consciousness. The body breathes of itself. We do not
control our breathing, usually. When we sleep, our bodies
continue to breathe. Assigning the cause to "the body's
autonomic system" merely places a descriptive label on top
of something that is not understood. All matter and energy
is composed of thought. Thought is life force energy. It
all begins with the decision of consciousness to focus in a
specific way. The consciousness of the beetle decides to
experience in a certain way, as does a flower, a tree, a
human. The body of each species is generated from a
different template of design.
The human
body is created through thought. Just as an airplane cannot
come into being all at once, so too with biology. One
assembles or grows the final product a little bit at a time.
And both need regular maintenance! When the body/aircraft
has outlived its usefulness, it goes into the
grave/scrapheap. Thought is a vibration, has internal
motion, can be perceived, is conscious. All things in the
universe are ultimately composed of thought, which combine
to form atoms, and molecules, and eventually the 'solid'
matter of our perceivable universe. Since thought is
conscious, there is agreement between individual particles
to come together in a particular form or structure. As we
said before, thought, on a universal scale, has evolved to
the point where the construction of bodies, planets, suns,
galaxies, etc. is well understood. There are blueprints ––
virtual design templates –– for everything in the universe,
all of which can be activated by thought. Just as the
aircraft manufacturer refers to his aircraft designs, so too
does consciousness outside the body refer to the virtual
templates for building the human body. As human beings, we
really do have to get over the idea that life can exist only
associated with a body! We wouldn't want to say that the
airplane 'dies' when it is no longer appropriate for it to
continue to exist as an airplane, for the intelligence that
created it lives on. Just so for the human body, or any life
form.
The
decision of consciousness to incarnate in a human body
accesses the virtual templates associated with the building
of cells, organs, and the overall construction of the human
body. A general template for the construction of a human
body exists, but each body is formed in a cooperative effort
of an individual personality and the broader consciousness
associated or connected with that personality. Every human
body is unique, just as every apple is unique. In our beam
of light example, we don't say that the point of light is
separated from all of the light which surrounds it, even
though it may appear to the individually focused personality
that he or she is all alone. There is a broader
consciousness that continually maintains the body, keeps it
breathing and working internally, even when we are asleep or
unaware. Science calls these processes autonomic. Autonomic
is a label describing something (consciousness) that cannot
be observed or measured.
In
talking with a medical professional, I learned that although
anatomy charts show the human organs in precisely defined
positions, this varies, sometimes widely, from person to
person. Each human body is unique and has characteristics
which differ from person to person. The incarnating
personality chooses, through thought, the particular
properties of his or her body that best suit that person,
and this continues throughout the life. Because the cells of
the body are conscious, they are responsive to the changing
thought of the incarnated personality. In other words, we
have a seamless, interconnected stream of consciousness of
the incarnating personality and the consciousness of the
body. The body and the personality cannot be separated, for
they are both, along with the broader consciousness of what
has been called by some the 'Higher Self', aspects of a
universal consciousness which is experiencing itself in an
infinite number of ways. This is not to say that an
individual personality is just a blob immersed in a higher
consciousness! Each conscious personality is genuine and
unique unto himself/herself.
So we are
playing an interesting game, a game where universal
awareness deliberately decides to focus itself into
individual identities, in order to have more and more
experiences. The process of cell division is mimicking the
focusing of consciousness into different personalities. All
physical activity is mirroring the decisions and activities
of consciousness!
Because consciousness as a non–physical creative principle
is not recognized by science –– and rightly so, since the
scientific method requires observation and measurement to
determine validity –– there will always be a separation
between science and metaphysics. In this discussion I have
drawn from my personal impressions and my research. One
thing I am utterly sure of, however: consciousness does
survive the death of the body. Proof of this statement can
only occur on an individual basis and must wait either for
some sort of ‘spiritual awakening’ –– such as a near–death
experience or a personal discovery of self –– or death.
Even the most hardened skeptic will discover on his or her
death bed, perhaps after a frightening and terrifying
struggle, that death is in fact an awesome, beautiful return
to an unimaginable joy, well–being and discovery of the true
self.
A Short Diversion -- Superposition And Parallel Universes
Let us talk a little more about pure awareness and
consciousness. What we have been describing is a pure
quality, a universal awareness, which has the ability to
create a universe and experience through every one of its
creations. In order to do that it has to be able to be able
to occupy the same space as every one of its creations. We
know from physics that no two particles can occupy the same
space at the same time, which is why we have a described the
creator of the universe as a pure, massless potential. The
idea of being able to occupy the same space at the same time
has its physics counterpart in an idea called superposition.
In physics, superposition of waves means that when 2
identical waves come together, each individual wave
maintains its integrity and there is another wave formed
from their interaction:
2
waves
come toward each other
and come together, creating a 3rd wave which is a
combination of the two.
Figure 2. Superposition in physics. Both waves occupy the
same space, but each maintains its integrity. A resulting
wave comes forth from their interaction.
Our idea of superposition is a little different. Because
pure awareness is a quality, it has no mass and in fact, can
be considered to not exist in the universe at all! Pure
awareness creates and maintains the universe, but is not IN
it. Pure awareness has the ability to occupy every place in
the universe all at once, because it is not bound by the
restrictions of matter. So when pure awareness / God
consciousness interacts with its creations, there is no
resulting wave. In other words, pure awareness may perceive
through any and all of its creations without influencing
them in any way. Individual personalities everywhere in the
universe have complete free will, but universal
consciousness may experience through them at any time. This
process can go the other way as well; each individual
focused personality, while still in the body, may become
aware of the broader, deeper, magnificent consciousness from
which it comes forth!
The idea of superposition is exactly what Pure Awareness has
the ability to do at any point in time or space. Pure
Awareness has the ability to superpose itself over top of
everything in existence; every thought, all energy, every
object, every conscious being is accessible to it. This
means that every conscious being, no matter how seemingly
small and insignificant it may appear to humans, no matter
how limited is the awareness designed into its sensors, may
become aware of all-that-is. It also means that since the
most fundamental and inherent characteristic of Pure
Awareness is love and bliss, that all things in existence
should be experiencing love and bliss! Certainly, that is
the default way to experience; which can only be altered by
a conscious decision to do so. Anyone who has ever truly
experienced the energy of life will tell you this
unequivocally. Anyone who has ever felt a rush of love or
pure joy has experienced, unadulterated, life force energy.
It is inherently blissful, and it is the experience every
single one of us will have when we make our transition out
of the body and into our broader awareness.
Awareness Can Never Be Destroyed
Pure
Awareness is that wonderful feeling of love and bliss that
is eternally present within us, and that is who we are at
our very core. It is something that cannot be destroyed,
ever, because it is not matter or energy. That's why the
idea of a pure creative potential is so important. As we
said before, even if all of the matter and energy in the
entire universe was annihilated, the awareness which created
it (you and me) would still live on. When I finally
understood this idea, world events became something much
less worrisome for me!
Consciousness has the ability to focus and unfocus and so
become more or less aware of all-that-is. This happens all
the time in life. People die and are born every day. All
that is happening is a focusing of consciousness (birth) and
an unfocusing (death of the body) of consciousness. In fact,
all life on planet earth is in a continual state of flux; as
consciousness enters and exits various vehicles of
perception (bodies), in their billions. If we could actually
see this process occurring from a position above the earth,
we would see constant vortexes of consciousness forming and
unforming, in a vast, elegant, and dynamic tapestry. It is
the dance of life, and it is glorious! Once you understand
that there is no death, the constant exposure of
consciousness to the physical format and its subsequent
release seems like a very wonderful thing.
Concluding Thoughts
We have
touched on many esoteric concepts, but the purpose for doing
so is to build a framework of discussion. We needed to start
at the very beginning! We needed to look at the nature of
consciousness itself and learn that it is positive, not
negative. We needed to understand that it is consciousness
that creates matter and energy, not the other way round. We
needed to understand that the energy of life is positive,
not negative, and that the intent for experiencing in the
universe is a positive one. We needed to understand that
infinite space is not cold, heartless and empty, but is
filled with the energy of consciousness itself. And why do
we need to do that?
Because thoughts and beliefs determine actions. A cursory
look around our planet shows that mankind has built his
societies around the ideas of scarcity, competition and
conflict. We need to change those self-limiting and
self-defeating ideas into something more consonant with
mankind's true nature. And when we do that, our planet has a
chance to become the paradise it should be.
Exercises
Think some negative thoughts and notice the emotional
response that comes forth from within. Now think some
positive thoughts and notice your emotional response.
Tell yourself that you only go around once in life, and that
when your body dies, you are dead. Notice how you feel. Now
tell yourself that you are an eternal, joyous, wonderful
being. Notice how you feel.
Take a walk outside and just observe. Try to determine
whether well being, randomness, or negativeness, is the
dominant characteristic of the world around you.
____________________________________________
*"Science and Spirituality" published by Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan, Mumbai, India. ISBN no.81-7276-267-4
Copyright
© 1999 by Prof. V. Krishnamurthy
** We have speculated that the basic unit or quanta of
energy in the universe is thought. We might liken a thought
to a particle like the photon, which has no mass, but
non-zero momentum, given in physics by hv / c, where c is
the speed of light, v is the frequency of the photon, and h
is Planck's constant, referred to in the physics literature
as the fundamental constant of nature.
Or perhaps, a thought may be considered as having just the
tiniest bit of mass, something so tiny that it can be
regarded as virtual. Regardless, a thought, like a photon,
has existence. Even though it has no mass, a photon is the
basic unit (quantum) of electromagnetic radiation (light),
and we can perceive it with our eyes (well, maybe not an
individual photon, but a whole bunch of them) and even
measure it with instruments. In this way we sort of
disingenuously get around the idea of something from
nothing, for a thought is so ephemeral it can be considered
to be (al-most!) a pure potential.
We can reason like physicists and mathematicians sometimes
do. They will look at the math and say, “our calculations
show that black holes are required in order for our theory
and experimental evidence to be congruent.” And so they will
advance the idea of black holes, not because anyone has ever
seen one before, but just because it seems to fit.
In this spirit (although this is purely speculative, with no
math to back it up) we can say that a thought is a mapping
between consciousness and the physical universe. We can
define a virtual function f, which maps a thought т into the
physical universe. We can write f(т) ––> q. Since both f and
т are virtual and unobservable, we cannot define precisely
how this is done. We say simply that the virtual function f
operates on a virtual thought т, translating it into a
recognizable physical quantum, q.
q must, by definition, have both the properties of a
particle and a wave, for the following reasons: q is alive,
therefore it is internally in motion. All things in
existence are in motion, this is a simple conclusion from
the fact that all things are composed of subatomic particles
and all subatomic particles are in motion within themselves.
Therefore q has the property of a vibration, or a wave.
q, by definition, must be discrete. Q is discrete because it
exists. Q occu-ies a unique point in space and it was
created at a unique moment in time. Therefore it has
identity and is distinguishable from other quanta.
Discreteness is a simple fact of the definition of
existence. If q were not discrete, it would be something
else, and therefore not q. In other words, for a thing to
have physical existence at all it must have a unique space
for it to exist in, for nothing physical can occupy exactly
the same space at exactly the same time as another
physically identifiable thing. In physics this is known as
the principle of complementarity and is the basis of
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
Wave (vibration) / particle is the fundamental duality of
physical existence. In order to have a physical universe at
all, duality is a requirement. However, duality is
contradictory, because it is clear that all quanta are the
same (isotropic), yet in order to have existence, they must
somehow be different.
That is why geometry is the most fundamental subject in the
universe, for there is no difference in the energy of an
electron and that of a proton. An atom of iron and an atom
of copper are not different because they are composed of
“copper” energy and “iron” energy. They are different
because the geometry of their elements (atoms) combines in
different ways.
Comments:
Consciousness is a static, something with no mass and no
moving parts. A static, in other words, is a pure potential
and cannot, by definition, have movement. Therefore
consciousness, in its native state, is not IN the universe
at all. Consciousness is the creative principle; by
definition it has the ability to create a “something” from a
“nothing.”
The function f, speaking in computer
language, returns a quanta q from the virtual realm of
consciousness; q is therefore conscious. We can say that q,
along with all other quanta created by consciousness, is
simply an aspect of the same energy, which is isotropic (the
same every-where) because all quanta are the creations of
consciousness.
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