This post cannot really be understood, by me or anyone else. We are all limited consciousnesses. We all have a mere peephole into the Infinite. Yet it is still fun, awesome and humbling at the same time, to consider the Infinite, which transcends every iota of our material world, bounded by time and space (or by yin and yang), and is the source of all intelligence, creativity, consciousness and love.
Forgive me for being redundant, but I do have to repeat some things mentioned in earlier posts before moving forward. The speed of light is, according to Einstein, the fastest speed that a particle or a wave can travel and still be a particle or a wave. If we think of the speed of light not as a cosmic speed limit, as Einstein would have it, but as a cosmic threshold, then things crossing that threshold continue on but are no longer things. They have entered the realm of Infinity, of the Godhead, of Cosmic Consciousness. Once passing that threshold they would continue to accelerate to an infinite speed since they would have no mass (as Western scientists would have it) or no yang pull (as Eastern thinkers would have it) to limit their velocity. A thing (which is no longer a thing) moving at infinite speed is incomprehensibly fast and absolutely still at the same time, since it takes this 'no' thing no time at all to traverse the entire universe and return to the same spot. And since it is not a thing it takes up no space; so it is simultaneously both everywhere and nowhere.
The closest we can come to understanding any of this is by looking at our own consciousness, which is one aspect, one piece, of the cosmic consciousness, much more limited but still of the same essence (the divine spark within). Our own consciousness, which is really us (everything else, including our body and brain, being our equipment, the apparatus that we use to experience life) is part of the Cosmic Consciousness, part of this no-thing. In yoga and exercise classes we are told, when trying to relax, to be absolutely still; not to move a thing; and to bring our awareness to our feet, to our shoulders, to our lips, to our eyes and, again without moving a thing, just with our awareness to will those body parts to relax. And no one objects. No die hard materialists in the class raise their hands to call attention to the seeming contradiction, the paradox, of asking us to be absolutely still and not move a thing and then asking us to bring (move) our awareness to our feet, hands, shoulders, etc. Everyone realizes, although materialists never stop long enough to think about it, that our awareness is not a thing (Perhaps awareness is the brain? So is it our brain that is moving from our feet to our hands and to our shoulders? I always thought the brain remained stationery within our skulls!) With another moment's reflection we would realize that our awareness is not a quality, a thing that we possess, but it is us, itself, the very thing, or no-thing, that possesses everything else. When our instructor asks us to bring our awareness to our feet, it is not really that we are bringing or carrying something down to our feet. We are bringing nothing but ourselves. The instructor could just as easily say "be absolutely still and move down to your feet; now move to your shoulders, etc." There would be no difference in how we executed that direction, but stating it that way would bring the non-material nature of ourselves closer to the surface and in our materialist society we prefer to keep that basic fact, so undermining to our whole materialist philosophy, hidden from view.
Each of us has stored within us an enormous number of memories: of facts, of meanings, of words, the muscle memory of how to speak and move and perform many, many complex tasks, the visual memory of so many places that we have seen both in the real world and in the virtual world of videos and movies, and places that we have imagined. Along with this are stored countless remembered non-visual sensations of sounds and tastes and touches, and emotional memories of how we felt in various places and with various people. In fact there is much research evidence to suggest that everything that we have ever experienced and even sensations that we were subliminally exposed to, that we were not even focussed on or conscious of at the time, that all of that is registered, is recorded, somehow, in our brains. Discovering the way that this enormity of information is stored in each and every one of our individual brains is the goal of many research projects that are currently taking place. Whatever these projects eventually discover, the closest they will get is to discover the code by which this information is retained. Whether that code is composed of pathways of neurons, the shape of those neural pathways, the chemical deposits within those neurons, the electro-magnetic fields that those pathways produce when fired, or some combination of these, this research will never uncover the actual smells and tastes and feelings and information that is stored there, but only the code that then must be translated into the actual stuff that we remember. This translating of code into memory is done when we consciously try to remember something; when something that we experience in the present automatically triggers a memory from the past; and more prosaically, it happens every time we look out or listen to or smell or taste or touch our environment. We see something and that thing is defined, instantly and automatically, by our past experiences of it. We know that thing is called a tree; we know it is in our yard, or a neighbor's yard, or in a place we have never been in before, all because of the associations automatically triggered by that perception. So this translating of neural code, or brain code, into the stuff that we actually remember or the stuff that automatically defines what we are currently perceiving, is going on at every moment of our waking existence. And this translation is not done by any visible, physical organ within our bodies. Whatever instrumentation scientists are able to use, now or in the future, they will not be able to go beyond, in their observations, the electrical or chemical or wave activity in and surrounding the brain. They will never observe or measure the organ that translates this code into the stuff, into the smells and sensations and images and thoughts, into the actual specific experiences of the external and internal world which is the actual 'stuff' that populates our consciousness. And that is because there is no such organ. This translation is done not by a physical organ but by a non-physical being. We can say that you (not your body or your brain, but you, the consciousness you) is doing it, but we are not aware of it at all, so it seems almost comically presumptious for us to take credit for this job which must take transcendent speed, unfathomable precision and tireless attention. This task, without which we would have no limited consciousness at all, no consistent point of view, no sense of self, no continuity, no world which is ours as opposed to theirs, no world which is familiar as opposed to unfamiliar, and no world which is understandable in any kind of intellectual way; all of this constant meticulous and astounding translation must be attributed to the Cosmic Consciousness, to the Godhead, to Infinity.
As I said before, when we are talking about the Infinite, none of this is really understandable; in other words It is way too enormous, too complex and too intelligent for us to wrap our little minds around; but at least we can think about things long and hard enough to conclude that even though we cannot really understand It, there is no other conclusion but that 'this must be so.' The same must be said for the initiation of whatever activity we choose to do at any moment. The moment we decide to do something, extra blood bringing extra energy moves to precise parts of the brain and the precise hundreds of thousands if not millions of neurons are fired which initiate a whole series of wonderfully complex and precise processes that allow us to do whatever it is that we want to do. Those processes moving from the initiating neurons through other parts of the brain and eventually to the precise muscles needed, are all things that scientists can and are studying and will continue to study. What they cannot study, because it cannot be observed, because it is not executed by a physical organ, because it is not an observable, measurable process, is the instantaneous translation of our will, our decision, into the precise million initiating neuron firings required to carry out that decision. And that is every decision, from our decision to go to law school, to propose to Calpurnia, to scratch our nose or to change our underwear. It is again a task that requires unfathomable precision, incalculable speed and unwavering and tireless attention; and it is again a task that we must attribute, not that we can really understand it, but because 'it must be so,' to the Cosmic Consciousness, to Infinity, to the Godhead.
Now I must reiterate that this must be so. If you think about it you have to agree, unless you don't like any of the three names I've chosen: Infinity, Cosmic Consciousness or Godhead, and are more comfortable calling this infinite, limitless Being something else. Many, if not the majority of people in our society, are not comfortable even considering the possibility of such a Being. Many think of such a Being as having done a lot of work six thousand years ago, or fourteen billion years ago and, again, possibly, four billion years ago, at which time all the mechanics of systems were set in place which continue, by themselves, to function and evolve at every moment until we wind up with all the living complexity that we have today, while this Being has retired to some kind of heavenly retirement village from which He or She emerges only rarely to make sure that our favorite sports team wins games (If we lose the game that becomes proof, for us, that He didn't show up, and proof for our victorious opponents that He did.) Much of this blog discusses at length how these known mechanical processes are not just designed and abandoned but must be overseen, altered and shaped continually. If this is not evident in relation to biological processes, surely it must be evident regarding brain processes. For these processes, the translation of brain code into the stuff of consciousness, the translation of desires into the precise arrays of initiating neurons that will bring about the satisfaction of those desires, there is no visible mechanical process that one could even speculate might be responsible for these accomplishments. Yet these are at the very center of every moment of our conscious existence. The Infinite, the Cosmic Consciousnes, the Godhead, is not in any state of retirement, but is involved in an unfathomable number of simultaneous activities each one of which is, by itself, beyond our ability to comprehend. Our lives are so intimately intertwined with the Infinite, so totally served by the Infinite, that it is almost comically presumptious to think that we lead an 'independent' existence; unique, yes; individual, yes; but independent? Don't be ridiculous.
Materialists pride themselves on not 'needing' any notion of God, or Godhead or Cosmic Consciousness. They flatter themselves into thinking that they function just fine without these fabricated crutches. The truth is that at the center of these materialist notions is an idea of human superiority; of the materialist's own personal superiority to those 'knuckle-draggers' who cling desperately to antiquated views; of the materialist's belief in scientific progress to answer all questions, metaphysical or otherwise; of the materialist's personal superiority to the multitude of past generations that clung to outmoded ideas. This notion of personal superiority is what has replaced the gratitude and humility that comes with either a belief in or an understanding of the necessity of there being an infinite Being containing transcendent intelligence upon whom we are utterly dependent. And it is not any commitment to rationality that makes it impossible for materialists to calmly and deeply consider the implications of the above three paragraphs, it is, rather, the materialist's unwillingness to give up the notion of human and personal superiority to the non-human universe and to all the past ages of humanity, that makes the materialist incapable of accepting or even considering the inevitable conclusion of these words.
To continue: There are no parts to the Godhead, because there are no 'things' to separate one part from another. There is no separation. There may or may not be incorporate beings, what people have called angels of various forms, that populate intermediate planes of existence that are still separated from each other by some kind of energy formation; but within the Godhead itself, there is no separation, there is only One. And there is no information within the Godhead. Information as we know it, is some kind of coded message composed of words, numbers, electron streams, sound waves etc., which moves an idea or knowledge or opinion from one limited consciousness to another or to a mechanism designed by a limited consciousness which can read or respond to that information. Although there is a countless amount of information emanating from the Godhead, within the Godhead there is no need for information because there is only one Being and that Being is everywhere at once. There is no other one within the Godhead for that Being to communicate with. Also, with one rather large exception, there are no ideas. An idea is an intermediary between insight and action. People without the power to act on them, communicate their ideas in the hopes that people with the means or the power will be able to translate those ideas into actions that will have a real effect on the world. Or people hold an idea until the time that they, themselves, can organize the means to translate that idea into action. In the Godhead both the insight and the power exist simultaneously, so the execution is simultaneous with the insight. To make it even more deliciously complicated, there are no actual insights. An insight, at least as we understand it, assumes that there is a moment in time when we did not have the insight and then, suddenly, there is a moment in time when we do. Yet in the Godhead there is no time. Everything is already known. The only exception is that when the physical universe was initiated, it began with an idea: the idea being, I believe, the notion of two opposing forces, one contracting and inward and one expanding and outward, whose interactions would, ultimately create the entire physical universe. Once these two forces and the laws governing the interaction of these two forces were put in place, they were inviolable, since the physical universe depends on, in fact actually is, the interplay of these forces and any adjustment or even violation of these laws would bring down the entirety of it, necessitating the creation of a new universe with perhaps a different idea. Therefore, all the subsequent ideas, for instance, the idea of the interplay of nucleotides and amino acids as being at the center of living bodies, the various ideas of metabolism, the various body plans with their complementary nervous, digestive, locomotive and breathing systems, in other words everything major that happened throughout the history of living evolution, existed as an idea in the mind of God, in the Cosmic Consciousness, prior to the time when the environmental conditions, all based on the natural unraveling of those first laws, created a condition suitable for the application of that idea. And when those environmental conditions were right (amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, right range of temperatures, available minerals, probably something to do with the magnetic polarity of our planet, probably something to do with various waves and subtle particles that we are receiving from other galaxies), when everything was ready then, and the fossil record bears this out, that idea from the Cosmic Consciousness was introduced leading to, not a gradual, but a saltational (a sudden and dramatic) appearance of an entirely new life form, a new system of metabolizing, multi-celled as opposed to single-celled organisms with their jaw droppingly complex system of inter-cellular signalling, and the appearance of all the basic modern physical body types, all of which appeared saltationally and simultaneously at some moment during the Cambrian explosion.
There are no bodies, therefore no brains, no nervous systems and no sense organs within the Godhead. Sense organs are ways of filtering information: certain light waves as opposed to others, certain sound waves as opposed to others; nervous systems carry electrical information from one part of the body to another; and brains help us organize this information into a consistent, familiar, but limited understanding of the world. Magnificent scientific instruments, that enables us to see more deeply, more distantly and more minutely than we have been able to see before, add so much more information than we previously had, at the same time that idiotic scientific theories attempt to squeeze all this new information into the same old logical, linear, cause and effect, space and time bound little boxes that we have always stored them in. The Godhead can be thought of as one infinite sense-nervous-brain system. Everything It encounters is sensed in its entirey, as opposed to sensing certain aspects of an object or a being and not others. Everything It encounters is known in its entirety, since it was conceived by the Godhead, and created directly or by processes coming directly from the Godhead. I don't mean that a thing is known biologically, as opposed to physically, as opposed to emotionally, as opposed to historically. I mean that a thing is KNOWN, which means completely, in its entirety and simultaneously. And by a thing I mean every thing in the universe, since the Godhead is everywhere and always has been everywhere and is, and always has been, encountering every iota of the physical universe at every moment. And these Godly perceptions are not perceptions as we know them, filtered through a sense organ and either a visual or aural or taste or touch perception. Our perceptions give us certain aspects of an object filtered through our own human sensory/brain/nervous system. God's perceptions give the object itself, in it's entirety and it is made both from within and without the object simultaneously. All the myriad wave and particle processes involved in the creation and history of that object are instantly apparent to the Godhead.
Through science, as we begin to understand some of the material processes involved in getting the world to the condition that it is presently in, we can extrapolate backward and make some conjectures as to what the world was like in the past. This comes from studying geology and with it the geological record, paleontology and with it the fossil record, genealogy and with it the genealogical record, etc. These conjectures may be somewhat accurate, yet not completely accurate since we do not know all the processes involved and how all these different processes impinge on one another. But let's suppose that we knew every process. Suppose we could look at a person and actually perceive every process happening in this person's mind and body and understand, instantly, because of our knowledge of these processes, after all we created these processes in the first place, and know, in every detail, how this person is on every level and how this person got to be that way. Also, the entire record of this person's experiences, recorded in code in this person's brain, is instantly available to us since we not only created this code, but use this code at every moment to translate neural firings into experience and desires into neural firings. Then we would know this person; not our opinion, or our perception of this person, but the actual person herself, or himself, or the actual object itself.
Imagine being completely known to a being, any being. Imagine being completely known to yourself. Some of us think we know our personalities and habits of behavior fairly well, until we all, thankfully (or else our life here would be utterly boring and predictable) surprise ourselves. Yet none of us pretend to understand ourselves biologically, do we? All of the current biological research taking place is an attempt to complete this understanding, a process which to most biologists, even the more arrogant ones, is understood to be just beginning. Yet to be understood by another being, so that not just your personality and biology, but all the influences that shaped your personality and biology, all the genetic materials and the other personalities and events and chemicals and food products that influenced the precise person that you are today, and all the things that you ever thought or experienced, all of which are recorded in our brains in a code which is not only instantly translatable in its entirety by the Godhead, but was created and put in place by the Godhead (please don't even dare to suggest at this point that anything of such gargantuan and indecipherable complexity as the human brain could be caused by a random, mindless process of evolution, of replication mistakes....the only thing mindless in this instance would be your audacity to make such a pathetic suggestion); a Being that you couldn't possibly hide anything from, Who would know what you were hiding and why you were hiding it the moment you attempted to do such a thing, and a Being who, with, and in spite of, It's entire and complete understanding of you and all of your equipment, still absolutely and unconditionally, tirelessly and eternally works for you, supports you and loves you; well...... that would be overwhelming indeed!
The responsibilities of the Godhead, of Cosmic Consciousness, are beyond comprehension. At every moment that any of the myriad living beings in this universe wants to do anything, that non-physical desire must be translated into the precise array of neurons that will allow that activity to take place. Every firing of every neuron that is coded for information or memory must be translated into that specific piece of information or memory. If that is not enough to keep the Cosmic Consciousness busy, every egg that is produced by every animal must have in it a perfect and precise arrangement of protein molecules capable of reentering the nucleus of that cell and firing the precise genes that will differentiate all the various cells of that organism; and all the genes, which are coded merely for the recipes for the raw materials, the proteins, of these organisms, must then be selectively fired and transcribed and translated and manufactured and delivered and then shaped, at the precise place and in the precise moment, into the newly forming, rapidly expanding, twisting, turning, embryotic mass. And somewhat different processes of equally transcendent complexity must be overseen, and timed and shaped in all plant organisms. On top of this, each living creature is given a system of desires, which, although they may have biological and chemical antecedents, are specifically designed so that all beings, the great, great majority of whom are totally unaware of their biological needs, are able to sustain and replicate themselves simply by following these biological desires: eating what and when they want to eat; drinking what and when they want to drink; resting where and when they want to rest, seeking warmth when they are cold, seeking coolness when they are warm, and seeking a mate of the same species when they are horny. Even the inviolable, physical laws of the universe, the laws without which there would be no universe, neither of life nor of matter, these laws are only inviolable because they are sustained, and they are sustained at every moment by the will of the Cosmic Consciousness and because, and only because, it is the will of the Cosmic Consciousness that this material universe be sustained and that the living beings within it continue to survive.
All of this has not been paternally imposed on us, by the way. We were all once part of the Godhead and we will, ultimately, return to being part of the Godhead. We chose to create this universe and various life forms so that we could have an experience of a separate consciousness. Consciousnes is not really separable. It is, as Deepak Choprah puts it, 'a non-local phenomena.' Life, living beings, with nervous systems and brains, is our way of giving ourselves the illusion of separation. Each different species is a different way of experiencing the world. Members of the same species experience the world similarly enough to understand each other, so we don't die of loneliness. Yet we also, even within each species, are not exactly the same, so we still have the ability to surprise each other, and so we don't die of boredom. The Cosmic Consciousness serves us at every moment to allow us to survive so that we can continue to have this unique experience through the unique filter of our own unique body/brains and through our own unique combination of non-biological desires. It is for the fulfillment, or the drama of seeking the fulfillment, of these non-biological desires, that we choose to be born. And we also chose (when we were part of the Cosmic Consciousness, so, really, the Cosmic Consciousnes chose), to let us have, during this existence, free will, so that we can explore these desires which lead us to a myriad of interactions with our environment of people, animals, plants and things, and to learn from these experiences.
While the Cosmic Consciousness, at every moment, insures our survival by overseeing a myriad of automatic biological processes, and serves us at every moment by allowing the processes to initiate which will fulfill whatever it is that we desire to do, the question is, does the Cosmic Consciousness ever interfere with our pursuit of desires or does It allow us to always exercise free will in these pursuits? It seems to me that the Cosmic Consciousness does, at times, most definitely, interfere in these proceedings; but remember that the subtle creates the gross. Our man-made world is created by desires. Everything that was ever built, written, composed, or invented, by a man or woman, was built, written or composed because that man or that woman wanted to build, write or compose that very thing. That wanting, that desire, begins as a little itch, a little, non-observable, non-measurable, dissatisfaction with something about the way things are, and then, ultimately, manifests into the industrial age, a doily, space exploration, ear plugs, world war, nail files, the United Nations, or whatever else has ever been humanly created, big or small. Cosmic Consciousness is not matter, has no physicality whatsoever, and therefore operates on the most subtle level. How many people that you know have received a sudden insight, a sudden realization, that they were on the wrong path, which led to them adopting a whole new set of desires and changing their lives? An insight, an awakening, not measurable, not directly observable to anyone but ourselves, but with the power to upend and transform our entire lives, suddenly appears to us. What is the origin of this most powerful insight? Ourselves? If that were the case, if it were already within us, why did we let ourselves get so deeply into the predicament that we found ourselves in prior to this insight? It is the Universe that teaches us that we are on the wrong path. Yet how can the Cosmic Consciousness allow people to stay obsessed with the wrong desires long enough to inflict so much pain and suffering on the rest of humanity? This is impossible to understand or to even justify from the perspective of finite life; but from the perspective of eternal life, from the perspective that we are all aspects of the same One Being; all of the suffering we see is part of the human learning process as we gradually, and painfully, determine that we are not really separate, and with that understanding comes the further understanding that our desires should be not for ourselves alone, but for the benefit of all of us.
Have you heard of gene swapping? This is an utterly amazing process whereby a microbe which happens to possesses the genetic material necessary to cope with an environmental threat to a whole species of microbes (the arrival of a new predator, the disappearance of an accustomed food source, a climactic change, etc.) is able to grow pilli, or connecting ducts, to other microbes and send through those ducts the precise genetic material that they need to adapt to this environmental change. In this way whole communities of microbes are able to survive because one member of that species was the recipient of the precise mutation (an "accidental" mutation, of course!) necessary to provide protection from this threat. This most subtle and precise of procedures, so exponentially far beyond what our most sophisticated surgeons can do today, was taking place over three billion years ago at the earliest stages of our life on this planet. If you don't attribute this process to the Cosmic Consciousnes, to the Godhead, then what do you attribute it to? Whatever you call whatever It is to which you make that attribution is fine with me, as long as you attribute to It the transcendent brilliance and endless caring that it would take to accomplish such a thing.
Also, there have been a number of experiments recently where bacteria or insects have been observed over several generations after having been exposed to a new food source and having been denied access to the old food source. In a number of cases, these organisms have adapted at lightning speed (compared to the supposed very gradual incremental changes of traditional evolutionary thought) in a straight line, without any random mistakes, and misfirings, from being perfectly adapted to the original food source to being perfectly adapted to the new food source. These processes which are not just genetic changes, but changes in shape, beak length, reproduction cycles, behavior, massive changes in the timing of gene firings, in shapes and shapes within shapes and shapes within shapes within shapes to create an altered grand shape while still maintaining equilibrium and altering all kinds of systems so that these new shapes, new organs or altered organs receive the nutrients and the signalling that they need and so that the organism that has been changed can continue to willfully control these newly shaped organs and use them as part of its automatic environmental response system and its system of satisfying its desires; and all of this taking place within thirty to one hundred generations (ten to thirty years), If you eliminate randomness in these undertakings, which, rationally, is the first thing that you would eliminate, what can you attribute these changes to but the Godhead, Infinity or Irving, if you like, as long as you attribute to Irving the transcendent intelligence, precision and caring to engineer such changes.
Although our consciousness is able to focus on a multitude of different things, it is able to focus on only one of those things at a time. What is impossible for us to understand is that Cosmic Consciousness not only has the ability to focus on everything, but to focus on everything simultaneously. Is there a chain of command so that the endless responsibilities of the Godhead are parcelled out to separate spiritual beings, angels, if you like, that have been granted enough intelligence and ability to serve and manage the needs and desires of individual physical beings, so that the Godhead manages through a spiritual hierarchy of angelic managers? I have no idea, although centuries of anecdotal evidence would lead us to think this were so. Yet within the actual Godhead, itself, there is no separation. Perhaps angels are those beings that are ready to give up all personal selfish desires and therefore have no need for a body, but still want to have some sense of separation, even if that sense of separate existence is purely as a giver, as an intermediate servant between the Godhead and sentient physical beings. This is all conjecture, and we are free to conjecture as we like as to how this unfathomable job gets accomplished. Yet, what we cannot conjecture about, not if we think deeply and honestly about it, is that this job gets done and gets done at every moment of our existence and without which we would have no existence.
As I said before, God, or the Godhead, or Cosmic Consciousness is not a physical being, is beyond matter, beyond time and space. How can all this transcendent intelligence exist in a being who has no physicality? How can we begin to imagine such intelligence existing without a brain or sensory organs or a nervous system?
When people enter the last stages of Alzheimer’s disease, they do not lose consciousness. They simply cannot make any sense of the information that their sense organs are receiving. All the information categorized and stored in the brain is excited by the perception of any sensation that is connected to that category. In this way we are able to look out into the world and see objects and hear sounds that we understand, or at least think we understand, that are familiar to us and that we know how to relate to. The world stops being a frightening, confusing place when it becomes recognizable and familiar. This goes for all species, which define the world in their own unique way, and through which they achieve a sense of comfort and familiarity. Also the brain stores its information in the form of snapshots, that are frozen in time. So when we define something or someone, say as dangerous, or as safe, then we continue to associate that person or that place in that way until they prove otherwise; but we become obtuse to the signals that would alert us to danger in a person we have previously defined as safe and are usually taken unawares by the danger when it happens. Quantum researchers tell us that our perception converts waves into particles. We also convert fluid processes into unchangeable objects by our storing of these ‘snapshot’ memories in our brains. That is why we are always stunned when we see a child that we haven’t seen for ten years, or an adult that we haven’t seen for thirty years. We think of people’s bodies including their faces as unchanging objects when actually they are constantly changing processes.
