ENLIGHTENMENT: THE ANSWER FOR WHICH THERE
IS NO QUESTION
Here is my declaration of the simplest Truth that I can
say about myself:
I am.
Anyone saying “I am”, seems to be stating an
obvious truth. Existence as a conscious being is the beginning of all cognition.
If the existence of consciousness as “I am” were not a given, then nothing could
be said. There would be no one to say it. It is a declarative statement, i.e. a
sentence with a subject and a verb, but no object. Logically, therefore it is
an answer, not a question. But to what is it an answer? It is easy to say I am,
but there is no adequate question to evoke the declarative answer “I am!” Yet, to
function as a human being, I must assume that I exist. I must also assume that you
exist, and we will both agree, I think, that we are living human beings and that
there are a great number of other human beings on this planet somewhat similar
to us. but, if we accept the fact that I am, and you are, i.e. that we
exist as conscious members of a group of physical beings called human, who can
be identified with certain physical features and activities, then we have a logical
framework within which to function and interact with the world of other people
and things.
Potential answers to the question “What or who am I?” are
legion: “I am a man; I am a woman; I am a human being; I am a teacher; I am a
parent, I am a politician; a used-car salesman, ; etc., etc., …” But none of
these substitutions for “I am”, or “you are” really answer the important question:
“What is the essence of conscious existence?” Those answers only describe what
you might be busy doing, not what or who you are. No, the statement “I am” is a declaration: It
is an answer for which there is no adequate question. But we must find a way to
ask it. Why? Because unless you know who or what you are, how can you possibly know
how you fit into reality and what you are supposed to do? “I am” is a
declarative answer, but most of us are too occupied with the ever-changing
challenges of daily life, to even begin to wonder about what the proper
question is.
Personally, I have busied myself over the past 84.5
years imagining that I was an infant, a boy, a salesman, a farm laborer, a
student, an inventor, a musician, a woodsman, a speleologist, an amateur anthropologist,
a physicist, a student, a husband and father, an actuarial mathematics technician,
a computer programmer, an academic mathematician, a math teacher, a writer and
poet, a professional hydrologist with the National Institute of Hydrology, a geologist,
a geophysicist, a philosopher, a student of Eastern religions, a Kriyaban Yogi,
a logician, a linguist, a systems analyst, a mathematical modeler, a PhD environmental
engineer, a husband and father again, an environmental planner and project
manager in the US, Puerto Rico, and Saudi
Arabia, a university professor and continuing education instructor, a professional
mentor in math and science, a hydrogeologist for a nation-wide consulting firm,
a professional engineer (PE) a staff hydrogeologist and director of business
development for a large company in the Middle East, an entrepreneur, an
alternative healthcare practitioner, a research scientist, a bio-psycho-physicist,
a guest scientist on talk shows, and an invited speaker at conferences across
the US and internationally, with varying levels of success at each of these
attempts at having an object to the “I am” statement.
The point is that none of these descriptions explains
what it means to say ‘I am”. If and when I stop doing every one of these activities,
I’m pretty sure I will still exist. After ceasing every activity I have ever
participated in, I could ask: “Am I a _______?” filling in the blank with any of the
activities listed above, and the answer would be “No”. But I will still exist.
So who, or what am I? Perhaps the real question is: How do I ask this question in
a way that will produce a meaningful answer? We can agree on what it means to be a human
being, but what does it mean to be conscious? Can I explain my awareness,
expressed by the statement “I am”, as a result of any one of the roles mentioned above? Maybe by
being a scientist? After years of applying the scientific method, would it be
possible for me to say: “I am a scientist.” and “I have discovered the theory of
everything!”?
I am pretty sure that you know, or have heard of someone
who has made these statements, or perhaps you have even made one or both of them
yourself. But I think you will agree that these two statements, taken together,
on face value, imply a lot of things that may or may not be true. But first,
before we can find out whether or not they contain information that is meaningful
in relation to the assertion “I am”, we must understand the language in which they
are written. Unless you are familiar with the English language, without translation,
any information these statements may contain is not available to you; the statements
are completely meaningless for you. They are just strange marks on a piece of paper,
or in this case, images created on your computer screen by electronic impulses coming
from another computer. Interestingly, even our methods of communication reveal
how remote our connection with the reality of being is!
Behind the images on your computer screen there is one,
or a series of computer programs, composed of a series of algorithms that are
translated from another language, a simple binary code, composed entirely of
strings of zeroes and ones. Behind that is another computer program that
interprets statements written or spoken, into the binary code; and behind that there
is a conscious English-speaking being who formulated these statements as thoughts.
But how do you know this is true? You may actually be communicating with a computer
program.
If you are active on social media, or if you have
attended online seminars, then you have communicated with robotic computer
programs that are designed to interact with you in a human-like, conversational
manner. The fact that computers can be programmed to appear to talk with you, like,
e.g., asking you questions and following up with specific responses depending upon
your answers, is why programs have been devised to determine whether a
communication originates from a conscious human being or some form of
artificial intelligence (AI). Such tests are called Turing Tests, after the
British mathematician Alan Turing. Let’s assume that the two statements in
question “I am a scientist” and “I have discovered the theory of everything” originated
in the mind of a conscious being, and try to analyze them.
Both of these statements begin with “I”, the first
person singular pronoun, followed by a verb that specifies a relationship
between the person represented by “I” and typically, some other person or object.
The verb in the first statement is “am”, the present-tense form of the verb “to
be”, indicating the current existence of a conscious being who thinks in English.
I think nearly everyone agrees that conscious beings, including oneself, do
exist. But how can you prove to me that you exist? You could be a holographic computer
simulation, an AI android, or you might be a figment of my imagination. Can I
prove that I exist, in some meaningful way? The second statement tells us that
the “I” is identified as a scientist who thinks he or she has a conceptual
and/or mathematical model describing “everything”. But if this scientist
happens to be a mainstream physicist, then “everything” only means physical
things. Even such a limited model is evidence of complex thinking, and thus
implies that there is probably a conscious being who made the statement, or at
least a computer program written and initiated by a conscious being.
Rene Descartes’ famous statement “I think, therefore I
am” might sound like an answer to the question of what it means to be a conscious
being, but the idea that thinking implies existence does not imply that
thinking and existence are the same thing. If it did, then I would cease to
exist when I am not thinking, In deep
sleep, e.g., with no dreams, do I cease to exist? That famous statement,
however clever it may sound, raises more questions than it answers. We have to
ask additional questions like: what exactly is thinking? And, if thinking
implies being, then does being imply thinking? I think most of us would agree
that it does not. Thinking and being cannot be equated unless inanimate objects
can think. For example, most people agree that furniture exists, but, in
general, we don’t believe that a table or chair can think. So, if thinking implies
existence as a conscious being, as Descartes claimed, then we need to ask: exactly
what is thinking, and does it imply consciousness? Descartes’ famous statement
might have been based on the belief that thinking is the defining function of “I
am”, – But is it?
Thinking consists of the formation and manipulation of
symbolic images that are assumed to be more or less accurate representations of
certain aspects of reality that have meaning in the mind of the one who is doing
the thinking, or perhaps in the logical circuitry of a computerized robot. But if
a robot, or any form of AI can in fact think, at least based on this
rudimentary definition of thinking, then it raises questions about the
relationship of AI to consciousness, and that is something I can address, but,
in fact, one has no basis to discuss how AI is related to consciousness, unless
one knows what consciousness is. And the most basic experience we have of
consciousness is the awareness of “I am”. So let’s return to the investigation
of the statement “I am”. To do this properly, one must go beyond what is
currently considered to be science. That does not mean abandoning the scientific
method, but it does mean going beyond the limits of materialistic assumptions and
applying the scientific method to consciousness and its interface with the
physical universe.
When we investigate this openly and honestly, we
discover that there is ample empirical evidence that non-physical aspects of
reality are as real as the physical aspects of reality, and that the rules of
logic apply to both. This suggests that the known laws of physical nature need to
be adapted to apply to the non-physical. This should not be a surprise. If reality
is defined as everything that exists, then there is only one reality, and it
contains everything that exists very nicely, including life and consciousness. The
contradictions we see are in man’s theories, not in the nature of reality.
I have been tempted to say: “I am a scientist”, and since
consciousness is included in my model of reality, I have a “theory of everything”,
but one critic who identifies himself as a physicist, has said that I may have
been a physicist once, (he was impressed with my application of relativity to sub-atomic
dynamics) but, in his opinion, I am no longer one. – Actually, he’s right!.- I learned mathematical physics as part of my formal
university training, but I progressed beyond being a physicist a long time ago.
Physics as we know it is just one of many academic specialties, not a comprehensive
study of everything we experience as human beings. Because no one with a finite
mind can hope to know everything about everything, there is a real need for
specialization. And if you specialize, you can certainly learn more and more
about less and less in our colleges and universities; but it’s pretty easy to
show that much of the ‘more and more’ we are taught, does not really describe
the reality we experience, and is therefore wrong, incomplete, or at least subject
to being replaced in the future. Contrary to what most people believe, science
is not the final answer to questions about the nature of reality. Some aspects
of today’s science will be recognized as failed hypotheses tomorrow, and some
ideas rejected as unscientific today will be recognized as scientific facts tomorrow Science is forever a work in progress, proposing
hypotheses and testing them against reality. By definition, that is exactly what
the scientific method is.
Dr. Vernon Neppe, MD, PhD and I have developed a
comprehensive model of reality known as the Triadic Dimensional Vortical
Paradigm (TDVP) that incorporates both the physical and the non-physical aspects
of reality. Notice that the title does not contain the word “theory”. Application
of the mathematical logic of TDVP has resulted in the discovery of a measurable
form of non-physical reality that explains more than 50 things either poorly
explained, or not explained at all by the current standard model of mainstream
science, and it has been verified by predicting a number of quantifiable
results that are in exact agreement with meticulous experimental data from highly
respected empirical sources, including the Large Hadron Collider and the Hubble
Space Probe. Having been tested and verified, TDVP is no longer a theory.
Admittedly, TDVP has been accepted by only a small
number of highly qualified scientists, and it is still rejected by most mainstream
scientists simply because it dares address non-physical phenomena as real. One Nobel
Prize winning physicist who agreed to review our work, when speaking of my paper
laying out the basic mathematical logic of TDVP, said: “Your paper reads more
like the writing of a magician than a mathematician! And you seem to see some deep meaning behind the
equations; and math just isn’t like that!” These were not intended as compliments,
of course. He even claimed to have “refuted” our theory, but when I pointed out
a blatant error in his reasoning, he became angry, saying: “Th]s is about reviewing
your work, not criticizing my math.”
I still maintain that the math and physics behind the
proof of the existence of a measurable non-physical form of reality is simple
and straight-forward enough for a bright high school student, or entry-level
physics major to understand, and it might even be understood by a PhD
physicist, if he or she actually tries to understand it, instead of just looking
for a reason to reject it. But this post is not about responding to critics of
TDVP, or presenting the reasoning and empirical evidence proving the existence
of gimmel, the non-physical form, and the validity of TDVP, We have done
that multiple times over the past decade in a number of published books and peer-reviewed
papers that are readily available in the archives of this blog, or on the
website www.BrainVoyage.com, on
Amazon, and from other book sellers. This post is not about argument, it’s about
the deep meaning behind the math and science of TDVP and the nature of
consciousness.
Taking the Non-Physical
Leap
In this post I encourage you to take a leap, much like
the way quantum physicists asked everyone to take a “quantum leap” 50 or 60
years ago. That was a leap from a deterministic scientific paradigm to the probabilistic
paradigm of quantum mechanics. I am asking you to take a leap from the current
materialistic paradigm to a more inclusive post-materialist science. TDVP tells
us that every aspect of reality is connected at the quantum and sub-quantum
level, - especially consciousness! As Nicola Tesla predicted, science has made
more progress in one decade of TDVP than was made in the entire previous
history of modern science, by opening the door to the study of non-physical
phenomena. It just hasn’t been recognized by mainstream science yet. Max Planck
explained why mainstream science resists paradigm shifts, saying: “Science doesn’t
progress by convincing the old guard, it progresses from funeral to funeral”,
and we have discussed this problem of paradigm-shift resistance in several published
books and papers. So now let’s turn our attention to the “! Am”, the answer for
which there is no adequate question.
Experiencing the I am
The sense of self, or the first conscious distinction
of self from other, is the primary distinction of reality, separating finite,
quantized reality from Infinity. In notes I made in 1958, and expanded upon in
an essay in 1968, I stated: “The essence of existence is differentiation.” Part
of this essay was published in my first book, The Book of Atma, Libra
Publishers, New York, 1977, page 58., where you will find the following: “…through
the act of differentiation, the whole universe, as we perceive it, follows.”
This is essentially the same concept expressed by G. Spencer Brown in Laws
of Form, George Allen and Unwin, Ltd. London, 1969, in a Note on the
Mathematical Approach, page v: “The theme of this book is that a universe comes
into being when a space is severed or taken apart.”, I elaborated on this
further as the basis for including consciousness in the calculus of distinctions
in Infinite Continuity, C and C, Los Alamitos, California, 1990, pages 8
and 13, and again in Transcendental Physics, Paradigm Press, Jackson,
Missouri, 1997, pages 120, 181,192, 317, and 322, where the quantized calculus
that I call the calculus of distinctions was introduced and used in an infinite
descent proof of the existence of a non-quantum final receptor in the conscious
process of perception. This brings us to the threshold of the possibility of
solving the mystery of conscious being, the “I am”.
The mathematical proof of the existence of
gimmel, the quantifiable non-physical aspect of reality, in every quark,
proton, and atom of the universe, illuminates, at last, the deep fabric of
reality: Within the multi-dimensional fabric of reality, gimmel is the subtle
bridge between the finite and the infinite, between quantized physical reality
and the infinitely continuous extent of consciousness and spiritual reality.
The vortices spinning in the expanding fabric of
reality (quarks electrons and protons), mistakenly perceived as particles by physicalists,
would decay quickly back into the uniform entropic state of the conscious
substrate, without the stabilization provided by gimmel. But the difference
between intellectually understanding the necessity of the existence of gimmel
as the organizer and stabilizer of physical reality, and seeing beyond it into
the self-effulgent heart of reality, is like the difference between seeing a
picture of a delicious meal, and actually eating that meal. It is also beyond the
difference between thinking about light, and seeing a light bulb or the sun; it
is more like the difference between seeing light and being light.
To one who has caught even a glimpse of the self-effulgent
source of “I am”, and consciously moved beyond the threshold, even for an
instant, into the radiance of Love emanating from that source, everything
perceived and believed to be real before that experience, is seen to be ephemeral
and evanescent by comparison, like clouds of whirling mist trying to hide the
sun. I have described my experience of seeing this internal illumination before.
The first time was in my first book, The Book of Atma, on page 53 and 54,
published in 1977, 17 years after I experienced it on September 17, 1960. The
second time was 20 years later, in Transcendental Physics, on page 205, at the
beginning of Chapter 8, “The Doorway of Light”. During my initiation into the
practice of Kriya Yoga, performed by the President of Self-Realization
Fellowship at the Headquarters of the organization on Mt. Washington, just
north of downtown Los Angeles, I beheld within my consciousness a spinning ball
of light, the color of fire. It was three-dimensional, and as real as any
object I have ever seen. But no verbal description can convey the striking transcendental
reality of the experience. Its like trying to describe the taste of an exotic
fruit to someone who no taste buds, or trying to describe the beauty of a fresh
blooming rose to a blind person, - only more so!
I am not the first to try to describe the experience
of seeing the innate radiance of the soul. A number of other writers have described
this experience in various ways. I will mention a few of them. E.g., In his
book: Choosing Reality, a Contemplative View of Physics and the Mind, B.
Alan Wallace, while describing Buddhist meditation techniques, says:
“As one continues to apply oneself to the practice,
there eventually arises an acquired sign. To some, this sign appears to the
mind’s eye like a star.”
Dr. Richard
Bucke, MD, in his book Cosmic Consciousness, The Classic Investigation of the
Development of Man’s Mystic Relation to the Infinite, describes his own experience
of illumination, as part of his investigation of 50 cases of individuals
awakening to the next major step in the evolution of human consciousness. He
calls this next stage “Cosmic Consciousness”. The book is filled with descriptions
of experiences of inner illumination, some written by the subjects of his
investigation themselves. Those Dr Bucke considered as examples of Cosmic
Consciousness include some well-known names like Moses, Gautama Buddha, Jesus
Christ, Paul, Mohammad, Socrates, Spinoza, Sir Francis Bacon, William Blake,
Walt Whitman, William Wordsworth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Alfred
Tennyson, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Ramakrishna Paramahansa.
It is very important to note that the fact
that Dr. Bucke’s examples are mostly men (only 4 women were included) should in
no way be taken to imply that he thought women did not experience spiritual illumination.
It simply reflects the state of the world’s spiritual virtue in the 1800s affecting
the information that was available for analysis. (See the discussion of the
cyclic nature of planetary time in Secrets of the Sacred Cube, a Cosmic Love
Story, Part X: Cycles of Consciousness and Time, pp 364-382.) In my opinion, it
is likely that as many, or perhaps even more women experience the inner
spiritual light, than men, because women are in general more sensitive and more
likely to experience Spiritual Love, and the essence of Spiritual illumination
is Love. One of the people in Dr. Bucke’s study who was a woman, identified
only by her initials: C.M.C, wrote such a wonderful account of her experience
that I want to quote her here. I would like to include every word of her beautiful,
open and honest account of what she experienced, but it is too lengthy. I
encourage the reader to get a copy of this classic book and read her whole
story. Here are a few excerpts from pages 323-330 in Cosmic Consciousness:
Case
of C.M.C. in her own words
“I was born in the year 1844. I have been told that
as a child … along with my youth there was an air of thoughtfulness that
belongs to more advanced years… I went to church and Sunday school, listened
attentively. … The sermons were old-time presbyterian – the day of judgement,
the sinner’s last condition, the unpardonable sin, and all those things so
dreadful to a serious, imaginative child. The older I grew, and the more I
thought, the more puzzled and bewildered I became. I wept bitter tears over the
suffering of Jesus, grieving that my sins should have nailed him to the cross! How
could he be God? I could not understand…. How terribly I felt when I learned
that without the Gospel the heathen could not be saved. The cruelty and
injustice of it made me almost hate God for making the world so. I joined the
church, however, thinking that it might bring me peace and rest. But, though
feeling more safe, I was just as far from satisfied…. The vastness and grandeur
of the God which I felt in nature I could never reconcile with the God of the
Bible, try as I would, and of course I felt myself a wicked skeptic in consequence….
At twenty-two I was married. Ten years later, a change of place broke up the
old routine of my life, giving me new associates and interests… Tyndall’s ‘Belfast Address’ was the first really
thoughtful book (from the point of view of modern science) I had ever read, and
it was a revelation to me. The question of design or purpose in nature, of
individual mortality, etc., was left for scientific research to discover, if to
be discovered at all. My attitude was
that of an agnostic.”
After this change of location, friends, interests, and
attitude, while still struggling to understand the meaning and purpose of life,
CMC suffered a serious illness along with what sounds like a psychological
crisis, commonly called a nervous breakdown. After recovering, she continued:
“But now, into this life, past its
meridian and apparently fixed for good or ill, was to come a new element which
would transform me, my life, and the world to me. The soul, the deeper self, was
to awake, and demand its own! An irresistible
force was to be aroused, which should, with mighty throes, rend the veil behind
which nature hides her secrets. …Passing over the interval between this time
and September 1893 as unimportant, except for the constant struggle within me, I
proceed to describe, as well as may be, the supreme event of my life, which
undoubtedly is related to all else, and is the outcome of those years of passionate
search. I had come to see that my need was greater even than I had thought. The
pain and tension deep in the core and centre of my being was so great that I
felt as might some creature which had outgrown its skull, and yet could not
escape. What it was I knew not, except that it was a great yearning – for freedom,
for larger life – for deeper love. There seemed to be no response in nature to
that infinite need. The great tide swept on, uncaring, pitiless, and, strength gone,
every resource exhausted, nothing remained but submission…I let go of myself! In
a short time, to my surprise, I began to feel a sense of comfort … never before
had I experienced such a feeling of perfect health, - I wondered at it. And how
bright and beautiful the sky! I looked at the sky, the hills and the river,
amazed that I had never realized how divinely beautiful the world was!. The
sense of lightness and expansion kept increasing…. The life and joy within me
were becoming so intense…that all objective phenomena were shut out. I was
seeing and comprehending the sublime meaning of things. The great truth that
life is a spiritual evolution, that this life is but a passing phase in the
soul’s progression burst upon my astonished vision with overwhelming grandeur.
Oh, I thought, if this is what it means, if this is the outcome, then pain is
sublime! Welcome centuries, eons of suffering, if it brings us to this! And
still the splendor increased. Presently, what seemed to be a swift, oncoming
wave of splendor and glory ineffable came down upon me, and I felt myself being
enveloped, swallowed up….Now came a period of rapture so intense that the
universe stood still, as if amazed at the unutterable majesty…Only one in all
the infinite universe! …In that same wonderful moment …came illumination. I saw
with intense inward vision the atoms or molecules, of which seemingly the universe
is composed …material or spiritual – rearranging themselves, as the cosmos (in
its continuous everlasting life) passes from order to order. What joy when I
saw there was no break in the chain – not a link left out – everything in its
place and time, World systems all blended in one harmonious whole. Universal
life, synonymous with universal love! How long that period of intense rapture
lasted, I do not know – it seemed an eternity – it might have been but a few
moments. …In the morning I woke with a slight headache, but with the spiritual
sense so strong that what we call the actual material things surrounding me
seemed shadowy and unreal. My point of view was entirely changed. …The ‘subjective
light’ (it seems to me) is magnetic or electric – some force is liberated
in the brain and nervous system – some explosion takes place – the fire
that burned in the breast is now a mounting flame.”
She goes on to describe in stunning detail how her life
was totally changed, all her fears dissolved, all her desires satisfied in that
moment of illumination! And she ends with:
“That which we seek with passionate
longing, here and there, upward and outward, we find at last within ourselves. ’The
Kingdom within! The indwelling God!’ are words whose sublime meaning we never
shall fathom.”
Henry David Thoreau, another of Dr. Bucke’s examples
of cosmic consciousness, asks:
“With all your science can you tell how it is,
and whence it is, that light comes into the soul?”
Here is part of a description of Dr. Bucke’s personal “illumination”
experience:
“All at once, without warning of any kind, he found
himself wrapped around as it were by a flame colored cloud. … he knew
that the light was within himself. Directly afterwards came upon him a
sense of exultation, of immense joyousness… followed by an intellectual illumination
quite impossible to describe.”
One of the best descriptions of the experience of
enlightenment comes from The Collected Works of Ramana Maharishi, on page 19,
in the chapter titled “Enquiry into the Self”:
“The purpose of all the scriptures is this enquiry
into the Self. It is declared in them that the annihilation of the ego-sense is
Liberation.” He advises: “Do not even murmur “I”, but enquire keenly within
what it is that now shines within the heart as “I”. Underlying the unceasing
flow of varied thoughts, there arises the continuous, unbroken awareness,
silent and spontaneous, as “I-I” in the Heart. If one catches hold of it and
remains still, it will completely annihilate the sense of “I” in the body, and
will itself disappear as a fire of burning camphor. Sages and scriptures
proclaim this to be Liberation.”
The importance of the experience of the inner light is
also mentioned numerous times In the book The Holy Science, by Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, the Guru of
Paramahansa Yogananda. Here are a few examples:
Page 25: “Atoms…are the throne of Spirit, the
Creator, which shining on them creates the universe. They are Maya, the
Darkness, as they keep the Spiritual Light out of comprehension.”
Page 34: “Man, turning toward his Self and
advancing in the right way, perceives the Spiritual Light…”
Page 39: “Any advanced sincere seeker… becomes able to
direct his (or her) organs of sense inward to their common center – the sensorium,
… the door of the inner world – where he comprehends the voice … and sees the
God-sent luminous body …”
Page 40 – 41: “The 2nd birth.
Through this luminous body,… believing in the existence of the true
Light – the Life of the universe – (the seeker) becomes baptized or
absorbed in the holy stream.”
Page 53: “… the heart becomes perfectly purified
and, instead of merely reflecting the spiritual light, actively manifests
the same.”
Page 60: “Philosophers (serious truth seekers)
being able to comprehend the internal electrical Light that shines
within them, find their hearts’ love flowing energetically toward the Light
that relieves them of all causes of excitation, cools down their system to a
normal state, and invigorating their vital powers, makes them perfectly
healthy, both in body and mind. They accept this Light as their Divinity
or Savior.”
Page 76: “Thus perceiving, (the seeker) naturally
believes in the existence of the true Spiritual Light, and withdrawing self
from the physical world (repenting), concentrates… on the sensorium. … This
entrance into the inner world is the second birth…”
Page 94: “When Ego, the son of man, comes to the
door, comprehends the Spiritual Light, and becomes baptized therein…
passing through this door … entering into the spiritual world, receives the
true Light and becomes the son of God.”
Concluding Remarks:
Self Inquiry, mentioned
in previous posts, is the intensive investigation into the “I am” experience of
consciousness, and beyond. This investigation can begin with the practice of religious
focus and prayer, or meditation techniques developed and taught by those who
have actually made the journey from the limiting quantized world of the
physical senses, all the way to the infinitely continuous world of Spiritual Enlightenment.
At this time, there are such a precious few real Spiritual Masters who have
been, and still are the guiding lights helping suffering humanity to make it through
the last 4000 difficult years of relative spiritual darkness, but their
influence is the only thing that will save our species from fear, suffering,
and self-destruction.
For those who ask: “Why do
some people, (like CMC, quoted above) have such wonderful transcendental
experiences, while others see nothing, or have horrible experiences during
NDEs?” The reason is quite simple: We are all at different points on our cosmic
journey. That’s why different teachings speak to different individuals. If the
ultimate goal of life and existence were easy to attain, there would be no need
for this physical universe! But if you can see or feel nothing beyond the
physical world with its mixture of pleasure and pain, take heart and have hope,
and please realize that there are such wonderful experiences in your future!
At this time in the 24,000-year
planetary cycles of periodic increase and decrease of mental and spiritual
virtue, we are only about 1530 years into the current 12,000-year era of
increase, so the average human being alive today will not understand much of
what the amazing Spiritual Masters of this world have to say. Since, as human
beings, souls have a measure of free will, the teachings of the Masters, fossilized
in the religious dogmas of many religions, are often misunderstood and sometimes
even deliberately misinterpreted by those who do not understand. Most inhabitants
of the planet at this time do not realize that the purpose of existence in
general, and the complex organic life forms in which we find ourselves confined,
in particular, is to afford billions of individual souls endless opportunities
to learn and grow spiritually.
The good news is that an
increasing number of people are having meaningful glimpses of the spiritual guide-posts,
and even the ultimate goal of existence in voluntary and “spontaneous” cases of
enlightenment like those studied by Dr, Bucke. Some are the result of many
years of serious study and investigation into the nature of reality, culminating
in either deliberate or divinely guided Self-Inquiry, while some are the result
of traumatic near-death experiences (NDEs) or momentary out-of-body experiences
(OBEs). There is additional good news in
the fact that during the last 50 years, more scientists are investigating these
occurrences of expanded consciousness.
TDVP, as we have indicated,
represents the much-needed paradigm shift to provide a fresh, much more
comprehensive framework for the scientific study of consciousness expansion
into higher-dimensional domains. This paradigm shift may seem painfully slow in
coming, especially to those of us who have experienced even a nano-second glimpse
of the reality behind all phenomena, but once the light of spiritual illumination
breaks through the barrier of ignorance called materialism, the flood of Truth
will overwhelm the world!
To bring this long post
to an end, I want to briefly address three questions related to my
interpretation of TDVP as the science of the future, that I am often asked in
some form:
Question:
Why do you stress Indian (Hindu) and Tibetan (Buddhist) Yoga meditation
techniques? Answer: Those were the paths to God that spoke most clearly
to me early in this life. But the Yoga meditation techniques taught by most
Western teachers, are not actually real meditation. I explain this in The
Book of Atma, page 7: “What is meant here by meditation must be absolutely
clear. The various techniques and mental processes for concentration and
relaxation (as taught by yoga instructors in the West) is not …meditation as
used in this writing. These are preliminaries to meditation… what is meant here
is the actual …coming face to face with the naked reality of Soul – or Atma. …
A recent writer on the subject of meditation said ‘Of course meditation is not
a cure-all …’” In the Book of Atma I went on to say that actually, real
meditation (in the form of Self-Inquiry leading to direct experience of God) IS
a cure-all, a cure-all, once and for all time! CMC’s story, and others documented
in Bucke’s book Cosmic Consciousness attest to this. A direct experience
of Cosmic Consciousness eliminates the irrational fear of death, because then
you know, without any doubt that your soul is immortal.
Question: Why
didn’t Jesus talk about meditation in the Bible? Answer: Actually, he did.
A central element of his teaching was that “The Kingdom of Heaven is within.” And
the word meditation is found many times in the Bible. Translators often thought
of prayer and meditation as very similar, or even the same thing. Also, the
wording of the scriptures has been changed many times over the years by those with
the power to do so, for personal and political reasons. See Part VI, page 177-230,
Secrets of the Sacred Cube.)
Question:
Why mix science and spirituality? Answer: There is only one reality and
therefore, one truth about the nature of reality. The organized search for
truth was artificially divided up during the Dark Ages because of lack of
understanding and lack of mental and spiritual virtue. Unified Monism is the
proper metaphysical basis for the investigation of the nature of reality.
In periods of higher mental
and spiritual virtue in the time cycles of both past and future, the roles of
priest, scientist and physician often were, and will be again in the future,
combined in one enlightened being. (See Secrets of the Sacred Cube for a
brief description, and The Holy
Science for a full explanation of planetary time cycles.) It is time for
more to see the Light of the soul and re-unite the search for truth.
ERC – May 15, 2021
