CONSCIOUSNESS,
BIRTH, LIFE, AND DEATH
A Spiritual Journey
© Copyright 2022 Edward R.
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INTRODUCTION
I want to begin this post by acknowledging
that the many different aspects of the basic components of human experience listed
in the title above have been the stuff of dreams, poems, symphonies, love songs,
and books, as well as endless academic and common place discussions about the
nature of reality, from the beginning of civilization as we know it, until the
present moment. Is it possible to address such important human experiences in any
meaningful way in one short blogpost? Perhaps not. But in meditation I have seen
what I believe to be memories of events that have occurred in multiple lives and
between-lives in what I think may be the conscious zero-point quantum field,
known in times of more advanced mental and spiritual virtue as the Akashic
record. They appear in a form that I would describe as an unbelievably colorful
multi-dimensional fabric of interwoven threads of consciousness, forming elegant
patterns in the endless holistic tapestry of Reality. If I can convey even a tiny
hint of the transcendental beauty of my vision of this majestic tapestry that I
think of as the mind of God, then I will be happy.
WHAT IS
CONSCIOUSNESS?
First, it is important to realize
that the illusions of beginnings and endings, like births and deaths, have no
meaning without the prior existence of some form of consciousness. Scientists sometimes
speak about the birth, life, and death of stellar objects like stars, the
nearest one of which is our sun; but this clearly anthropomorphic conceptualization
is dependent upon the prior existence of some form of highly intelligent consciousness.
In 1931, Max Planck, the German physicist who discovered that physical reality
is quantized, when interviewed by a reporter for The Observer, a newspaper
based in London England, put it as plainly as I believe anyone can, when he
said:
“I regard consciousness as
fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We
cannot get behind consciousness.”
We know that consciousness exists,
because we experience it directly as our own self-awareness and the ability to draw
the distinction between self and other. In fact, consciousness is the only
thing that we experience directly. If there is nothing behind consciousness,
then, it follows that the ultimate reality behind everything is an a-temporal, non-local,
primary form of consciousness, perhaps what has traditionally been called
Spirit. But when our current mainstream scientists ask: “What is this thing we
call consciousness?” they come up against a blank wall, because it is beyond
the limits of their materialistic assumptions. From the point of view of an
objective conscious observer, we can trace the distinctions of objective reality
from the galaxies of the expanding big-bang universe, all the way back to the stable
patterns of information that have meaning in sub-atomic structures, such as neutrons,
protons, electrons, even down to the unstable patterns of mass and energy that
exist for short periods of time as quarks, and the whole super-ephemeral particle
zoo; but, when trying to define what consciousness is, science has no answer because
the finite, quantized human brain, is limited by the scientific method, and the
mathematical reality of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, which reflect the
infinite continuity of Primary Consciousness.
THE
PARADOX OF SCIENTIFIC DEFINITIONS
We would like to think that the
various institutions that we call modern mainstream science, are the embodiment of a
well-defined, effective method of investigation, collectively known as “The Scientific
Method”, a procedure designed to obtain true knowledge about the true nature of
reality. Unfortunately, this is not the case, even though those of us who
identify as scientists have to pretend that it is, to earn university degrees
and obtain the funding needed to apply the methods of investigation that we
have learned in one or a few areas of specialization. To understand the nature
of this scientific self-deception, we have to step back from our fascination with
the physical accomplishments of modern science, engineering, and technology, for
a moment, and think about ontology and epistemology. For readers who might not
be familiar with these terms describing philosophical enquiry, ontology attempts
to determine what actually exists, while epistemology is an effort to
understand what knowledge of reality is, and how we know about it.
You may be surprised to learn
that the definitions of basic scientific concepts are produced by closed
intellectual processes of circular reasoning. Due to the fact that we have no
direct experience of the objective reality we assume to exist in the form of separate
objects independent of our consciousness, definitions of the things that we have
come to regard, for various reasons, as elementary components of objective reality,
are actually verbal or written interpretations of mental images constructed from
physical, electrical, and magnetic energy pulses, vibrating in narrow ranges of
frequencies, transformed by complex physical, chemical, and mental processes as
they are transferred in various ways, through space and physical media of various
densities, impacting the cellular, molecular, atomic and subatomic structure of
transmitters and receptors, evolved for that purpose in our physical bodies, until
they finally impact our consciousness to be translated into thought and become
the afore-mentioned verbal and written expressions.
This self-referential circular
reasoning is the only basis we have for believing that an objective reality actually
exists. The circular nature of scientific reasoning becomes obvious when we
realize that we are only directly aware of our own consciousness, and unless we can
expand our consciousness beyond the boundaries of our physical bodies, it’s the
only thing we have. If, as Max Planck declared nearly 100 years ago, consciousness
is primary, then we cannot define it in the way we define everything else. It
can only be defined in terms of itself. We may talk about how consciousness
functions as the organizer of the patterns that we perceive in reality, and we
can even identify different forms and states of consciousness, but we can never
define consciousness itself, we can only experience it.
When someone says you can’t
argue with the science, like certain government employed physicians did
recently, to help totalitarian governments control the citizens of the Earth,
he reveals the fact that he doesn’t know what science is. When a scientist is
not skeptical of the results of his own experimentations, he is no longer a
scientist, he is a believer, and his science has become a religion or a
political ideology. The next step on that slippery slope is irrational zealotry.
Belief in an absolutely knowable physical reality is belief in a false god, an
idol. Real science is never complete because reality is infinite. That is actually
what the proof of Gödel’s theorems tells us: Finite symbols and ‘theories of
everything’ cannot describe reality, they can only describe a portion of the
process of reality evolving and changing itself within Primary Consciousness. This
means that the stated goals of ontology and epistemology, i.e., complete knowledge
of what actually exists, and complete understanding of how we know about it, will
never be achieved. But this is not a cause for despair. No matter how much we
learn about the nature of reality, there will always be more to learn, because Gödel’s
theorem has proved that reality is infinite.
The disparity between descriptive science
and reality becomes obvious when we analyze the process of definition. A word
or symbol used to describe a scientific concept or object is defined in a
dictionary by suggesting that it means the same thing as another word or symbol
- or something similar. This is a prime example of circular reasoning. For
example, the British Dictionary defines the scientific method as “a method of
investigation in which a problem is first identified and observations,
experiments, or other relevant data are then used to construct or test
hypotheses that purport to solve it.”
In the light of Gödel’s theorem, analysis
of this definition of the scientific method reveals the fact that if a problem
can be resolved with the logic of the system within which it has been
articulated, then the solution will be present in the statement of the problem.
This was one of the two major points of G. Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form. He
demonstrated this brilliantly by showing that complex logical syllogisms could
be solved almost instantly by merely looking at the form of the statement of the
problem expressed in a primary calculus like his calculus of
indications.
The popular American word book, the Merriam-Webster
Dictionary, defines the scientific method as “principles and procedures for the
systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a
problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the
formulation and testing of hypotheses.”
Wikipedia says: “The scientific
method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge that has
characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century
(with notable practitioners in previous centuries). It involves careful
observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given
that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation.
It involves formulating hypotheses via induction, based on such observations;
experimental and measurement-based statistical testing of deductions drawn
from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on
the experimental findings. These are principles of the scientific
method, as distinguished from a definitive series of steps applicable to all
scientific enterprises.”
One of the most Influential philosophers
of science in the entire 20th century, Austrian-British thinker, Sir Karl
Popper, rejected logic-based induction- deduction definitions of the scientific
method like those cited above, in favor of defining the scientific
method as a process of “empirical falsification”. He believed that theories
developed from experimental data could never be proved in the absolute sense that
mathematical theorems are proved, but that they can be falsified if they happen
to be untrue or incomplete, by performing experiments designed to test them.
If you keep searching, you can find
dozens of other ‘definitions’ of the scientific method. Some list five steps in
their attempts to define it, others articulate seven steps. You can pick the
one that makes the most sense to you. Scientists pride themselves in the
accuracy and precision of their detailed definitions and descriptions of
reality, but the most precise definition possible, is completely useless. If the
words comprising the subject and object of a sentence defining a scientific
term are precisely equivalent, then the definition is a tautology, stating the
obvious, essentially saying ‘It is what it is!’ In mathematical notation, such
a precise definition is an identity of the form represented by X≡X.
My point is that the idea that there can
be a complete and precise theory of everything expressed in one, two, three, - or
any finite number of words and equations - is indicative of the inherent
delusion of the finite mind; but scientists should never give up trying to find
a theory of everything, because it is like the carrot on a stick suspended in
front of a donkey to keep him moving in the right direction. In this donkey and
carrot analogy, the finite mind is analogous to the donkey, coaxed to walk, or
perhaps even to run after the carrot dangling in front of him on a pole, and the
illusion of a finite theory of everything is the carrot.
Based on glimpses of the Akashic record, we
can logically extend this analogy by upgrading the conscious, warm-blooded
animal, the donkey, to a self-aware intelligent human being; the carrot to the
human being’s mental image of “the glory of God”, inspired by a glimpse of the
splendor of the Akasha. Such a ‘carrot’ should motivate the individual conscious
being to do everything within its power to find a way to expand its sphere of
consciousness toward the ultimate state of oneness with the Infinite within its
lifetime. This brings us to the next, and most important definition related to
consciousness.
WHAT IS LIFE?
Discovery of the existence of specific numbers of quantum
equivalence units of a non-material component of objective reality (ERC 2011) that
we chose to call gimmel (Neppe & Close, 2015) present in quarks and
electrons, and the fact that they had to exist prior to the formation of any
stable material structure, i.e., for any physical reality to exist, proved that
Planck was right when he stated that he could tell us as a result of his “research
about the atoms” that there is “no matter as such!” and that we must “regard
matter as fundamental…as derivative from consciousness” and that “We cannot get
behind consciousness.” Confirmation of this declaration about the nature of
reality has profound implications concerning what life is.
The discovery that something non-material had to exist before the
first stable elementary object could form, and the demonstration that that non-material
gimmel performs the primary function of consciousness by organizing quanta of
mass and energy into meaningful structures, implies that gimmel is consciousness.
Gimmel, and therefore consciousness, is not just fundamental, as Planck
suggested, but it is primary, and as the primary source of stable reality, consciousness
cannot be defined as equal to or similar to anything else. Gimmel is the bridge
between physical and non-physical reality.
If life and consciousness were the same thing, then we could answer
the question posed above by declaring that: “Life IS consciousness!” But consciousness and life as we experience them
on this planet, cannot be the same thing, since consciousness is primary, and
therefore had to exist before the elementary particles and objective materials that
make up organic life forms, could evolve. Unlike consciousness, life can be
defined in terms of the interactions of other pre- or co-existing things comprising
the morphogenic processes that manifest the logical structures of consciousness.
Collectively, these processes, existing in animal, plant, and
fungal species, combine for the purpose of making the survival of some members
of those species possible, thereby making survival of some continuing form of the species possible. These processes are iteratively manifested and perpetuated in transformative
cycles of reproductive birth, growth, decay, death, and re-birth. Thus, life
and consciousness are categorically different things. Proof of the primacy of
consciousness as the undefinable reality behind physical and non-physical
reality (mass-energy and gimmel) implies that consciousness can and does exist
without biological life, but life cannot exist without consciousness. A growing
body of experimental data and objectively verified personal experiences
confirms this.
WHAT IS BIRTH, AND WHAT IS DEATH?
The life that you are living consists of a
sequence of events that you are experiencing as a conscious being. You are,
however, not experiencing those events directly. You are experiencing them
through the filter of a finite bio-physical organism that you identify as your
body. It has specialized cognitive and sensing organs designed for the purpose
of consciously drawing finite distinctions in the infinitely continuous fabric
of the reality of Primary Consciousness. Your life is distinguished from other
lives contributing to the multi-dimensional fabric of Reality by the
characteristics encoded in the DNA of your body. Your life is distinguished in
time by two events of profound importance, impacting, your body, mind, and soul.
We call these events birth and death. They mark the beginning and ending of a
series of relationships with unique associations of symbiotic organisms whose
DNA patterns and processes form a counterpoint to the blueprint of your DNA. Together, they guide the way your body develops, reacts, to stimuli, and eventually decays
and dies.
Your mind is the link between your physical
body and the spark of Primary Consciousness that is your soul. As a spark of
Primary Consciousness, your soul has a modicum of free will that allows it to
modify the patterns set up by the DNA codes you were born with. The amount of
free will a conscious being has depends on where that individual soul is on its
journey of spiritual development. According to my spiritual mentors, about 75% of
the actions of souls living on this planet at this time are determined by their
DNA, leaving about 25% to be chosen by free will. It is through the available choices
that an individual may accelerate, stall, or reverse its progress on the journey
of spiritual development.
The physically and mentally traumatic events
we call birth and death simply mark the beginning and ending of a temporary
association of an individual soul with the appropriate organic lifeforms and
situations that give your soul valuable opportunities to make decisions that
will expand the consciousness of the soul to a greater understanding and
experiencing of the reality of Primary Consciousness. Your birth is not the
creation of something from nothing, and your death is not the destruction of
your soul. Your physical body and brain are not blank slates created at birth, upon
which your life’s story is written, just to be destroyed when your physical body
dies. Your soul existed before the birth of your current physical body and will
continue to exist after that body has ceased to function. The extent and content of
the domain of the consciousness of your soul will be enhanced, stultified, or
reduced by the experiences and choices you make during your life. Due to the
law of the conservation of mass, energy, and gimmel, nothing is ever created or
destroyed, but only changed in form. The conditions of life are the effects of
previous causes, and the experiences and actions of life are the causes of
future conditions; so, it behooves us to choose from the options open to us
wisely.
THE REST OF THE STORY
We become very attached to some of the
conditions of our lives, the bodies we identify with while in them, and the illusions
of opportunities to satisfy desires. But peace beyond understanding is only
experienced outside of the physical body. As consciousness expands, it becomes
possible, under certain conditions, to experience extra-corporeal awareness while
alive and still return to the body. These experiences are called out-of-body experiences
(OBEs) and they can occur under a variety of conditions. Based on personal
experience, I will divide them into three categories for discussion here:
1) Consciousness-Projection Experiences
(CPEs), which are OBEs that sometimes occur spontaneously when the body is
relaxed and the mind is in prayer, meditation, or between wakefulness and sleep.
2) Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) are OBEs
that occur under extremely traumatic conditions when the physical body is severely
damaged or diseased and ceases to function temporarily.
3) Between-Life Experiences (BLEs) are
exactly what the name indicates: experiences of consciousness before birth or
after the death and disintegration of the physical body of a specific life.
In this post I will only discuss the
third type of OBEs in any detail, because they are part of the normal spiritual
journey of every conscious being alive, while the other two are relatively rare
experiences, only happening to souls who have accumulated spiritual and mental
virtue a little bit beyond the average.
Between-life experiences that are remembered
in dreams or meditation, become more and more beautiful and detailed as you
grow in spiritual and mental virtue on your journey from the first flash of
self-awareness to the ecstasy of Cosmic Consciousness. In later stages of
Spiritual progress, they are almost always important meetings with your Spiritual
Advisors in which your reason for entering the next life is revealed. Sometimes
the setting is a marbled hall surrounded in shelves of books and windows overlooking
beautiful landscapes.
Resolution of the paradox of the finite
mind trying to define the infinite reality in which it exists, reveals a paradox of circular reasoning and the
profound truth of the infinitely continuous self-referential nature of the
omnipresent form of Primary Consciousness existing behind, beyond, within, and
throughout Reality. You actually are that! Peace.
ERC 10/20/2022
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