The farthest I’ve manage to get in terms of laying out my thinking is this:
‘And then, one Thursday, nearly 2,000 years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realised what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
‘Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a hyperspace by-pass, and so the idea was lost forever.
‘This is not her story.’
- from ‘ The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams
No, it isn’t her story; it’s mine.
Oh boy, I’m under lot of self-imposed pressure at the moment. What to write? Where to start? How to handle the technology? And, not least, how best to do the job justice – assembling a blog that will most likely demolish the reader’s world view?
What am I thinking of?
We all know that some books work like ingenious traps. They begin innocuously, articulating a few genial sentiments or unoobjectionable home truths designed to lure you down the false path of a deceptive familiarity. You stride ahead without fear. By subtle steps, each plotted with argument or example or statistic, you are moved closer to the place where artfully strewn leaves cover a hole in the ground. You know very well what is coming, or anyway suspect it, but at some point - if the author is any good - you fall, on cue, into conviction. Aha! You now think what the author thinks.
Maybe you're happy to find yourself there, and make yourself comfortable. Maybe you're feisty and seethe from your ignoble position in the trap, scanning memory and logic and the rest of the mental horizon for a means of escape. Either way, the trap affords complicated forms of pleasure. As trapping games go, there are not many better or more interesting than walking through a good book of argument.
Not all books, however - not even all books of argument, which this one surely is - seek to ensnare the reader in the author's own convictions. I knew when I set out to write a book . . . that I faced a choice between setting a trap in the traditional philosophical manner, ascending to the high ground of objective detachment to observe the results, and doing something quite different: beginning an intimate conversation with one reader at a time. Books on deep and difficult topics can trumpet and they can whisper; they can declaim and they can hint. But for me, they work best when they just talk, in a manner as close as possible to the true voice of their author.
- from ‘In Pursuit of Happiness: better living from Plato to Prozac’ by Mark Kingwell
Who is this blog for?
Well, me of course – yes – but it is also, equally, written for you. To start with, until perhaps the end of the year (2005), I’ll write to clarify my thinking upon a subject that is, for me, of the utmost importance, and during that time I would rather not be disturbed or distracted. For that reason, I’ve disabled this blog’s comments feature. But thereafter I’d be happy to hear from anyone and everyone, perhaps to incorporate the ensuing discussion into this opus. We’ll see. (As of September 2005 comments are allowed.)
What is the topic of this blog?
Hmm, that’s hard to say. Off the top of my head, it will address life, the universe and everything. Don’t mention the word ‘ religion’. And don’t use ‘philosophy’ either. (‘ Don’t Panic’ in large, green, friendly letters). However, people being people, they’ll no doubt want to assign a label, so I’d rather affix one of my own (though not at the neck – I hate the way that they scratch). Why don’t I call myself ‘Ism’ then? Yes, let’s – it has a nice ring.
What is the point of this blog?
Aha! Now here is where it gets interesting. Now we're getting to the nitty-gritty. In a word, then, this blog means to look at every difficult question that has ever been asked . . . and then deal with them. I’ve just dealt with three.
Tomorrow, the world.
Is there such a thing as reincarnation? Is there an afterlife? What is death? Is there a God? Does my pet have a soul? What is the nature of good and evil? Is there a meaning to life? What is the nature of time? Is the universe forever? Is there a ‘right’ religion? What is love for? What is sex for, and is it okay? Is there merit in abstaining from alcohol, drugs, meat and tobacco? Are humans really at the top of the pole? What should I do with my life? Do I have a ‘job’ to do, or am I free to do as I please? Is happiness a worthwhile goal? Is there such a thing as free will? Is everything predetermined, or can we change the future? Why is there war, poverty, starvation and terrorism in the world, and can we do something about it? If there is a higher power, why doesn’t he, she or it appear to give a damn? Does anyone know what it’s all about, or are we all floundering in the dark? Does anyone know the answers?
What if there were a simple solution to every one of not only these questions but any others one might ask – an elegant, all-inclusive and, above all, satisfying answer? One which you didn’t have to be an Einstein to understand.
Mind you, the simplest of concepts is often the hardest to envisage, so an easy answer may well not be the easiest to accept.
Slowly, slowly...
I had meant to take a year off, during which time I’d write this blog. Doing so is important to me, more important than any revenue-earning exercise I might fritter away at (‘trading your hours for a handful of dimes’). I planned to quit work at the end of the year for that reason. However, I’ve changed my mind. I cannot wait until then. I’ll remain gainfully employed, but I’ll set aside the odd hour for this. I’ll start blogging now, in my free time, alongside other ongoings. Which means that you also will reap the benefits of my experience that much sooner.
I have yet to confirm this – I need to check up in the biography section at the local library – but I’ve heard it said that the whole of Einstein’s work is based on an idea that he had in adolescence. Apparently the whole of his relativity theory resulted simply from his imagining himself travelling at the speed of light, seated on a light beam. Bully for him.
As we know, Einstein wasn’t particularly brilliant at school. His reports were quite mediocre. He was lazy in subjects other than Mathematics and Physics, and even there he didn't apply himself. He would always have trouble with Math simply because he wouldn't do the groundwork. He had a problem with authority figures. He didn’t speak until he was five (something else to check). And so it’s just as well that his work speaks for and stands up for itself. If it were a question of his having to sell the idea, for it to be driven home by the force of his personality, reliant upon his credibility, then it may not have received an airing, much less an ovation.
He certainly got a lot of mileage out of something that does not directly or greatly affect the common man. “It was always incomprehensible to me,” wrote Einstein, “why the theory of relativity, whose conceptions and problems were so far from practical life, found such a lively, even enthusiastic resonance in the broadest strata of the population.”
These days you need a ‘credit rating’ to be heard. You need academic letters behind your name, together with the recommendation of your peers. You need to be published (although how you start off down this road is unclear). In short, you need a track record.
You need to practise what you preach and be seen to do so. The proof is in the pudding, and there’s better be no skeletons lurking in your closet, especially where theology/ philosophy/religion/spirituality (there, all those forbidden words in one breath) is/are concerned.
Imagine a criminal trying to get a fair hearing. Imagine someone who had been convicted of murder one day receiving a flash of enlightenment, and then trying to convince his jailers of what he knew. It wouldn’t wash, would it, no matter how water-tight his ideas were.
Now, I’m not in that predicament. I’ve done nothing illegal. And yet, how to convince another person that I am worth listening to? No way am I a perfect conventional specimen – I’ve slapped my children in anger, goofed off during working hours, kept money that I picked up on the street, downloaded pornography - come on, you haven’t? I’ve been involved in a divorce and an abortion. I might have voted Labour once.
In short, I can’t hold myself up as unblemished. I have no right to cast the first stone. I can only hope that my message holds up on its own merits. On the positive side, I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. I don’t need to. I have no stake in trying to convert you. I’ve nothing to sell. I’ve no soapbox I’m advertising. All I mean to do is express myself. And if some like-minded individual reads these words and thinks ‘I can relate to that’ then I would regard that as an unexpected bonus.
But it isn’t a necessity, not at all.
True, I’ve gone to some trouble to retain my anonymity – a false name, an anonymous email address and the like. Oh, I don’t doubt that in this electronically compromised age I might somehow be traced, but, in the same way that you lock your house to keep out only opportunistic thieves and not the really determined burglar, I will nevertheless go through the motions because, if possible, I’d like to keep a modicum of privacy.
I know, I’ve already stated that the maintenance of this blog is my life, but at the same time I want a life of my own (got a life). Who am I though? (Your question, not mine – I know myself perfectly.) And how do I decide (you, not me) whether my musings might make worthwhile reading?
I would hope that you would weigh what I have to say, or rather the ideas behind them because, Mensa material that I probably am, I don’t really have a gift with words – neither the gift of the gab or the quill. I annoy myself when I read over, haltingly, the words I have written, and I continue to remain dissatisfied after any number of drafts.
But what does a facility with words prove, in any case? The people who possess it may impress more, they may be far more likely to find employment or become politicians, but their thinking does not necessarily reach a higher plane. They are no more trustworthy than you or I. Neither they nor their opinions are necessarily more worthy, however one would measure that. And they are probably more longwinded . . .
Touche!
Let me put it this way: we’re all dealt a hand when we’re born. Following up one’s inclinations, skills and strengths – playing out that hand skilfully – leads to the greatest personal satisfaction. My particular bunch of aptitudes has enabled me, in middle age, to gain an insight into the ultimate reality. As simple as that.
But this does not – it hasn’t yet – translated into my living an exemplary life. And neither am I blessed (I won’t try to fool myself) with that literary expertise I ought to have to best put that understanding into words. And so I hesitate.
So what am I on about here?
So far I’ve only spouted hot air. I haven’t actually offered up anything of substance. You might be wondering whether I actually have anything worth saying. Or is this, perhaps, some sort of a test for you the reader to wade through, endure, penetrate, push aside and prove yourself worthy?
Let me ease into my message, please. Assuredly I have one.
Although I am certain of myself, of where I’m coming from, of where this talk is likely to lead, I am far from certain about how best to put this. I’m nervous of the responsibility. This is a matter of such importance.
How large a matter?
Well, what is the largest thing you can imagine? What is the largest thought your head will contain? Whatever you propose, I promise you that this is more enormous. You have no idea. Really, no one has any idea.
Is that so – you’ll take me up on that? You think you can dream up a dream larger than the one I’m about to reveal?
Okay then, what have you got for me?
A million dollars . . . a billion . . . all the ice-cream in the world . . . all the tea in China . . .
Oh come now, you can do better than that.
You want to be the very richest, the most powerful, the most attractive . . .
Really, you disappoint me.
You see yourself as ruler of all, Emperor, the head of your own religion . . .
Peanuts, my friend, peanuts.
You see yourself as the reincarnation of Buddha, Mohammed, Krishna, Jesus . . .
Is that really as high as you’re able to aspire?
You can travel back in time. You are immortal – a never-ending story. You are Superman . . .
I tell you, you are merely scratching the surface.
You are an angel?
So what?
You are the Devil. You are a god . . . God Himself!
I tell you, honestly, the whole truth is much, much greater than even that.
It should not be necessary for me to establish my credentials. In a perfect world we’d take each other at face value – you would read what I write without bias. But in this advertising saturated, media-inundated, information-overloaded, everyone-has-an-opinion-and-a-soapbox-to-spout-it-from rat race, one needs to filter out most of the nonsense. It would be a pity if you did that to me, hence this.
Although it should not make a difference whether I’m confined to a wheelchair or run marathons, whether I have a steady job or am unemployed, whether I write from a prison or the free internet access suite at my library, whether I am male or female, or with which geographical part of the world I identify, there are a couple of things I should declare.
Not my academic qualifications. They are of no relevance. There are no credentials one can flaunt to hold forth on, for the sake of a better world, spirituality. People assume that possessing of a higher knowledge confers upon the knower a visible aura, supernatural power or at the least the poise and equanimity of a Mother Theresa. No one has experienced enlightenment, yet everyone is positive about the bells and whistles that accompany such a state. (Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.) We would surely recognise a person in-the-know. But what if that weren’t so?
I’ve nothing tangible to offer. You will just have to take me on trust. Either that, or be willing to spend a little time reading (in the newspaper today there was word of a new bible - one which takes only 100 minutes to read). However, I will just mention that I used to meditate two hours a day for twenty years. I had that drive and inclination. Funny thing, though, it was only after I stopped that ‘the penny dropped’. Oh-dear-how-sad-never-mind. Unless I hadn’t, unless the ground had been fertilised . . . Oh, let’s not go there, with those biblical metaphors!
The point is that I have a background if not a theological degree. I have a history. Since the time when I first became self-aware, I’ve been pondering over the nature of existence. And guess what? I think I’ve finally figured it out. In fact, I’m certain. And even though I’ve been certain before, yet then changed my mind, I’m certain this time that I’m sure.
And if I turn out to be wrong once more? No problem! All it means is that I’ll have revamped and revised to come up with something even better. My willingness to drop an outmoded world view for a better should improve my standing in your eyes. I’m no fanatic. I don’t hold fast to tradition for it’s own sake. If I do adopt another view, then I promise that I’ll keep you up to date with that too. Watch this space. You can’t possibly lose.
I have not crawled out of the woodwork to convince anyone of anything. This is no ‘leader and followers’ act. Come along for the ride only if you are willing, and on your own terms. You won’t find any proselytising here, I guarantee.
Before we progress and go on to consider bigger and better matters, we’ll start with something simple – the question of whether or not there is a god. I assure you that this won’t take more than a minute, and it will clear the air. It is good to get such a fundamental issue out of the way so that we can breathe easier.
First, we need to decide just what a god is. And here I’m going to deviate slightly from the idea that god is a ‘higher being’. I’m going to make a small but vital adjustment. I’ll define god as the ‘highest form of consciousness’.
There now, with that fell swoop, I’ve sorted out several issues. I’ve done away with the one-god-or-multiple-gods thing. If there are more than one, then they can’t all be equal. (If they were equal, exactly equal then, by definition, they would be one.) And the issue of whether god is an actual entity or a cloud-like, spiritual ether is also set aside. Consciousness, in whatever shape or form, is the essence. Just as long as we've got some.
Because, unless no consciousness manifests itself anywhere, then god, as I’ve defined god, exists. You see that, don’t you? Well hell, god may then not be as omni this and that, or as all powerful, present, knowing and so forth as you’d imagined god to be? Don’t sweat it for now – that remains to be seen. You may be surprised.
But . . . is there a consciousness? I expect that sometimes you doubt it. I know that I certainly do. We pay lip service to the idea that we’re all aware – that each one of us is the centre of his or her universe – but it’s often hard to reconcile that with the way most people conduct their business. When you look into their eyes, you can’t believe there’s someone home. Is it any wonder that sometimes you feel as if you are an alien left here on a bitter, far-off world – an ET who missed the boat, or spaceship rather.
But you are sure that you are you, aren’t you now? Hang fast to that knowledge, because that one fact suffices. If anything at all exists, then, by definition, so does god.
However, that’s only the start of it.
In the meantime – my apologies, I hadn’t meant to dwell on god, religion and the like. I’m sorry – if you are anything like me, then you will be blessed with a (healthy) aversion to organised religion. It couldn’t be helped, though.
If I’m to present an all-inclusive, meaningful philosophy of life, then I can’t honestly avoid bumping elbows and rubbing shoulders with the ‘big boys’. Apart from the study of Philosophy – is that quaint subject still taught? – organised religions have more-or-less cornered the market. And so to some extend, I’ll need to intrude on their patch and bandy swords with them.
Now, as far as religions go, I’m going to be blunt. This may well shock you, but it has got to be said and I’ll say it: all of them are miles wide of the mark. I tell you, Jesus was well-meaning, but he was merely a beginner.
From a very early age, and in spite of my resistance, I was drawn to religion like a moth. Even then, though, I could sense that they had it all wrong. I knew it in my bones, and I would circle at a distance so as not to singe my wings. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that that my instincts were totally correct. Religions are dangerous.
All religions are no more than cults. I say so, categorically, because none of them, no system of thought, no model of the world, address an essential couple of existential features, and that shortcoming alone proves that they are seriously deficient.
The first is that no religion explains the real nature of the relationship between us and god (and with each other). All that stuff about neighbours, treating each other as brothers and sisters, who is in my family and who is not, this tribe and that tribe, turning your cheek seven times seven . . . It may seem as they have dealt with that matter, but soon you’ll realise that this is simply not so. There’s a far more intimate involvement between all forms of life that organised religions have no inkling of and can't even hint at.
And that would be enough to damn them. However, the second deficiency, that no system of belief addresses the nature of time, is even more damning. None of them explain how time works – or doesn’t. The understanding of time is vital before any meaningful pattern can be made of the warp and woof of the universe. That being so, I’ll make it my mission to lay time right down on the line, and I’ll do so in the time-honoured fashion of telling a story.
This one is entitled Lust for Life or perhaps Starry, Starry Night. Not once upon a time but always I have related keenly to the life of Vincent Willem Van Gogh. I love his life, his attitude to being and creating, his simplicity and passion. I’ve read his letters. I’ve viewed his work. I’ve collected books about him. I’ve traced his history. I’ve stuck his prints on my wall. If I had been he, I would have lived life exactly the way that he did.
Why not?
Is it very far-fetched to imagine that he and I are one – that I used to be him, and was then reborn in the body I find myself today? Methinks that would involve reincarnation. How about it? Consider the question, and for the sake of argument – no, not argument, who wants to argue? For the sake of, oh, I don’t know what, whatever, let’s suppose that reincarnation is somehow possible. After all, a greater fraction of the world believes in it.
Do I have any evidence – not of reincarnation in general but in this particular instance? Well no, I don’t have any clear memories of being him. I don’t have déjà vu moments of siting behind a canvas, mixing pigments. I haven’t an unexplained taste for tobacco and absinthe. But that wouldn’t rule it out.
There are documented accounts of people recalling where the treasure was hidden under the floorboards in the house of a former existence type of thing. I’ve read about such accounts in books, and I’m sure that urban legends of that type abound on the Internet. Let's accept that these memories of a former life do sometimes occur. It's just that where Vincent is concerned I have to confess that I don’t have the power of recall.
Prior memories not generally being common, I suppose that if reincarnation does regularly occur, then this implies that some sort of cleansing operation goes on between lives, a sort of brainwashing. And so that would explain my inability to demonstrate a closer connection. There's still hope.
Say I’m right. How then to explain the period of time – a half century or so – from when Vincent shot himself to when I was born. Does that pose a problem? I . . . can’t see that it does; for reincarnation to be the normal thing, it would be quite inconvenient for the next life to have to start the instant one shuffled off one’s previous life’s mortal coil - why 'coil'?
My point is: time ought not to be a problem for god. God can cope, surely. We want god to be time’s master – I mean who is in charge here? An all-powerful god must be able to run rings around the sundial. And so, for people in between bodies, there must be some cosmic equivalent of a transit lounge or suspended animation pod, wouldn’t you say?
Staying with that train of thought, I must infer that if one reincarnation were possible, Vincent and mine, then others should also. Everyone potentially should be reincarnating also – in fact it would be odd if they weren’t. And similarly, it would not be much more of a step to allow multiple reincarnations. I don’t suppose that anything wears out. One reincarnation, two, or a series stretching way back to whenever should not make a difference.
And would you foresee difficulties with ‘transporting’ someone (do you mind if I start using the term ‘soul’?) across oceans and mountain ranges? No, of course not. Not even if the transfer involves travel at supersonic speed. I’m sure that a reincarnation from an astronaut on the moon to a baby on the dark side of the earth is not beyond god (Scotty, beam me up). In fact, I’d bet that god could do so more quickly than the fraction of a second it takes light to travel from the moon to the earth.
Hmm, faster than light travel . . .
At this point let’s take a breather and recap where we’ve been, with the hope of figuring out where we ought to aim next.
Okay then. First, we’ve touched on god (last tag!) – established that there is one of some form or other. We’ve established that fact quickly and loosely for the time being so as to have a platform to build on (or launch off) – not for the sake of argument, not merely as a mental exercise, and certainly not just for fun. Granted, god has only been sketched in pencilly, but there’ll be more to follow (there's more where that came from).
Secondly, we have started to toss around the concept of reincarnation – again, not as ‘play’, but so as to snap off a few sticks with which to build. Reincarnation seems to be something that is possible, and we have no problem with it operating across geographical distances. We're happy for it to leap periods of time ‘at a single bound’ or even, if need be, happen faster than light. Assuming that it operates, and that it is ‘administered’ by god (who better?), we’re not going to place limits on what can and can’t be done. And finally, we’ll allow it to occur as many times as it likes.
Remember, these are, thus far, just working propositions. They are ‘what-ifs’ only. I once read that every idea, even the best of them, is born drowning. They need to be given a chance before being critically picked apart. Hold off, I say, you vultures!
At this point, I’ll introduce another factor: another personality from history. Let’s say that I admire Einstein just as much as I do Van Gogh, intending to append him to my chain of predecessors. How could I manage that, or rather how would god?
The thing is, Einstein was born whilst Van Gogh was still living, and he was still alive and sticking out his tongue at the camera at the same time that I was a toddler. How is that possible? How could a person, a soul, manage to be alive twice at one time? There has got to be a way – remember, god ought not to be restricted by time. Very well, how might god tackle it?
Let me offer the solution. Let’s grapple with the forth dimension one day at a time, beginning with getting up in the morning.
The French mathematician, Poincare, argued that if one night while everyone was asleep the universe became 1000 times greater in size no one would be able to tell the difference. I'll ask you to imagine that every day when you arise you wake up as someone new, that you come to consciousness with all the memories and attributes and inclinations of an entirely different person.
There’d be no way to tell you had changed hosts, now would there? You wouldn’t know that you were no longer ‘you’. Your day would seamlessly ensue from the background of all that had gone before. To all intents and purposes you would ‘be’ who you had always been. Without those memories and self-awareness of a previous self – remember that cases of prior life recall are rare – you would not miss your earlier existence. This process would be similar to reincarnation but speedier.
Does that thought depress you? Do you recoil from the idea of losing your identity daily, and rebel? Not so fast, not so fast, give it time. You’re not losing a daughter, you are gaining a son. Don’t worry, you’ll soon get to be you again, and sooner than you imagine.
For I don’t believe that this business of ‘mini-reincarnation’ happens on a daily basis. Nah! I don’t believe that we change our identity precisely every twenty-four hours. Relax, I won’t lay that on you. There’s no such clock, in my opinion. No, such a mechanism would be far too clunky. The days don’t pass so regularly and as clear-cut; we live in different time zones, some of us work nightshift or attend the occasional all-night party. Reincarnation on a daily basis would be too much of a handful, even for god. Don’t fret yourself about it.
But get ready, nevertheless, for a giant leap in quantum mechanics: a small step for man; a giant leap for mankind.
I’ll ask you instead to take on board the supposition that reincarnation occurs, not in entire lifetimes, not in days, but in fractions of a second. Try to envisage that one’s self-knowledge or awareness of self or consciousness shifts to another person every fraction of a second. Can you do that? I mean, can you imagine that? Don’t worry about the mechanics, the why’s and wherefore’s, the logistics, the dizziness and the nausea. Just try to hold in your head that every fraction of a second you may well be in someone else’s, with all that person’s memories, history, genetic makeup, and everything else entailed.
You know, you wouldn’t know it wasn’t so.
Actually you do, you suspect it, admit it – and the thought of it is starting to make you quite nervous.
What measure of a second am I talking about here? Very well, shall we start with a billionth of a second?
What?! You’re asking me to shift my point of view at such a rate? For heaven’s sake, why?
No, on second thought, let’s get down to a billionth of a billionth of that: a nanosecond, no a picosecond.
Oh, come on, what possible reason could there be there for doing that?
Just this: I want your spark of consciousness to have time to rush around the entire world and back to where it started, so that it seemed as if it had never been missing.
Look at a movie. (Consider one, don’t rush off to watch one!) In many ways, a movie makes a wonderful analogy. Film is spliced together by the frame. Flash twenty-five of them per second upon the screen (less in a cartoon – there are less acetates for the artists to colour in) and there you have it – the illusion of movement, of life!
In the same way, I’m proposing that one’s soul is a spark or focus of consciousness which leaps about the universe in quantum-sized instants – A quark? A quirk? A snip? A snark? A jabberwocky – allowing the illusion, in all of the life forms that it touches, that he, she or it is continuously, uniquely and separately aware and alive.
Okay, okay, hang on now. I can see it . . . just. Einstein and Van Gogh, their identities – their dual identity – dithering at an incredible rate, discrete personalities, individuals, souls. Each filled to the bursting point with self-awareness. Each believing himself unique and separate, and yet joined closer than any pair of Siamese twins for the eighteen or so years that their lives overlap(ped), and yet utterly unaware of the connection.
Well, if god can do that, if god can set it up and control a creature’s consciousness in that fashion, then there would be no limit as to who, or how ever many who’s from history I, or you, might have been. In that case god truly would be unlimited in time and space both – and that makes good sense. To him the fourth dimension ought to be the same as any other. Go for it, god!
Our lives, my life, is made up of infinitesimally small quanta of consciousness linked together, generating the illusion of seamless being. It’s like the way that our eyes dart here and there, leaping from one object to another, from the foreground to the background, rapidly building up the whole picture of what is out there. The memory of what is perceived lingers in the mind until such time we reconfirm that it is still there or has moved. What an illusion! The grandest of illusions!
Is this an utterly fanciful concept? I don’t believe so. Let me demonstrate the principle in action.
Remember Christmas? Remember it without the hype and the commercialism. Remember when you were a kid and you couldn’t wait for December to come? You counted the sleeps. You couldn’t wait for Christmas morning to arrive.
To help it along, my brother and I constructed for ourselves a time-machine. We invented a way to speed Christmas up. On a given day in April, say, we’d look at each other and utter the magical words: “In a wink of a blink it will be Xmas.” And then we would deliberately forget all about it.
On the 25th of December, unwrapping our presents (wasn't it far, far better to receive than to give?) one of us would look up to the other with look of wonder on his face. “Do you remember when we said . . . ? ” That's right! ?We did. We had. And time had leaped several months in but an instant. We had obliterated it.
Come back to the here-and-now, to the present. Be here now, the sage instructs us, as if the present were all that there is, as if it were the all-important centre, as if what we sense happening is irrefutable, incontestable. As if seeing is believing.
It is not.
The present is nothing. It cannot be measured. It has no substance. It has no duration. The present is gone as soon as it arrives. It lasts not an instant. It lies between the future and the past, thinner than the thinnest skin. We might as well speak only of the future-past and ignore the meniscus, were it not for the fact that we skate or glide or surf across its surface, eternally.
But let’s give the present some measure of credibility. Let us think of it as having a certain substance. Give it the benefit of the doubt, and assign it the thickness of one quantum of consciousness-ness.
You see where I’m headed, no? I’m about to string together these moments, essentially, of nothingness into an unbroken, unbreaking wave. Surf’s up!
Our perception of the present, our most intimate experience of being, is itself the greatest testament, argument, proof even, that quantum-mechanical-reincarnation – Ism – is the means and mode whereby life lives.
Whoo boy! And we’ve only just begun, Karen Carpenter. There is further yet to go, don’t you worry. We’re nowhere near the end of this tale. But I’ll step back briefly before carrying on, before you roll up your eyes and shake your head. Where am I going with this? What is the point of your reading on?
I ask you to bear with me. I know that it all looks like a house of cards at present. One good breath . . . But remember what I promised at the outset. These philosophical gymnastics are not simply to indulge my delusions of grandeur – they are not solely to allow me to feel a connection with whichever famous figures I take a fancy to. Taken together, these hypotheses and postulates are guaranteed to explain all the unanswered and unanswerable mysteries of the universe. And if that sounds a touch (in the head) just too grand . . . can you afford not to check out the possibility that they might?
We are almost at the crux. I’ve a few cards more to balance and then the whole structure will suddenly gel. It will materialise and solidify into rock. I’ll have done postulating (and will then put my clothes back on). The rest of this book-blog will consider the implications. The rest of my life I’ll spend following through.
Back to that little spark, leaping merrily about the world unhindered by geography, skipping blithely across time, allowing us to experience ourselves in more than one body, allowing us to live overlapping lives. Behold that spark now flare several orders of magnitude.
I’m going to up its power. This spark is going supernova. Fasten your seat-belts; hang onto your hats.
As they travel, photons have a mysteriously unified view of things. If they had taken a clock and an odometer with them on their trip from a distant star, the time and the distance travelled would have measured zero. At light speed, time stands still, distances collapse, and everything is in the here and now. From the perspective of the photon, everything along its path – the start from which it came and you – exist at one point, simultaneously, and since time stands still, eternally. As you travel at your leisurely pace you are oblivious of that extraordinary state of affairs. Eternity and total unity are physical entities that lie outside of your direct awareness.
- from ‘What Makes You Tick? – The Brain in Plain English’ by Thomas B. Czerner, M.D.
Now, I’m not going to say that a photon is the same as my ‘spark’, that quantum-sized unit of consciousness. But all the same, there certainly appear to be parallels. It certainly makes one think. And so, on to the next highest order of magnitude. . .
What I mean to do next is to demolish time itself (Einstein cheer me on!). What I’m suggesting is that my spark (or your spark and everybody else’s) does not have to jump in billionths of a billionth of a second around the universe in order to return before it is missed in the here-and-now. I’m proposing that any ‘time’ is as good as another. Every time is real for the consciousness quantum. It may leap across distance, within the present, but also to the past and the future.
Actually, there is no present. There is no past or future either. In a sense, there is no time at all. There is only ‘our’ subjective present, the one which we’re forever unwrapping.
After every ‘jump’, our consciousness quantum brings alive its host with his or her complete store of background memories up to that point. However, that point can occur at any point of the host’s life. The present (let’s say April 2005) is no more special or more real than any point in the host’s past or future. And again, one would not be aware of any anomaly. At any point in one’s life, whether it be one's tenth birthday, the twenty-first, the day one (first) got married or was informed one had cancer, it would be perceived as the cutting face of life as one knew it thus far. In a wink of a blink I could be myself as a ten-year-old, and if I knew what I know now (I wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes?) I would think: “Wow! It’s suddenly Xmas!”
Imagine a four-dimensional body, a worm-like body with flukes for arms and legs, with a zygote-sized snout and a somewhat shrunken seventy or eighty year old tail that is bluntly truncated (sooner and blunter if you are cut down accidentally in the prime of life). This is you or I as a four-dimensional entity. Life as we know it today is simply a cross-section. One’s spark could alight at any place along the worm’s length (and anywhere along another worm).
Oh dear, oh dear. That does not seem very glamorous, not in the slightest – our life reduced to a worm, sausage, tube or whatever. You do not like the way this is going, no matter where we may be heading. But just consider, just see what we’ve accomplished here. We’ve taken time right out of the equation! We’ve elevated our position to that of a photon! To us, time no longer exists – it “stands still eternally”!
Go figure. At any point in any worm’s body, we have the ability to look back in one direction only. We are able to ‘see’ along our body in that direction, and we label that 'the past'. Our knowledge or awareness of our other end is more limited – we know that we stretch in that direction, but we can never be sure of how far. We call that ‘the future’. But the truth is that there exists only the one continuum. Our spark alights here and there along our length like a finger playing chopsticks on a piano. (Or like a giant hand that plays all eighty-eight keys in a chord that resonates more strongly than all the half dozen or so grand pianos that reverberate magnificently at the conclusion of Sergeant Pepper.
Time, then, boils down to merely an illusion. It is the phenomenon that results from our (limited) ability to see or remember along one dimension of our being. It is the equivalent of you looking down the length of your arm to your fingers, but your fingers not being able to look back. It works like a diode, which will allow electricity to travel in one direction along a circuit. Whoops, let’s not mention time and circuits in the same sentence . . . doh!
For a person afflicted with the condition of not being able to retain memories, neither long term nor short, time has absolutely no meaning. Such a person lives completely in the present. In a sense, he (or was it she?) has a much more accurate perception of life than do we. Judge for yourself. Sit back. Try to feel time passing. Are you able to? Being able to observe the second hand of a clock move doesn’t count – that is physical. It is an action. You don’t experience it within.
And the other dimensions are no more real. Think of travelling a distance. It doesn't mater how far you go, you aways call here 'here'. It feels the same place. You are still in the middle of the universe, not at the edge. When you walk your consciousness stays put - the movement of your legs pulls the landscape towards you instead of propelling yourself across it.
What I am saying is that everyone experiences the present as only an instant, albeit an eternal instant. Like a motion picture we link up those separate instances to create the illusion of time passing fluidly. It doesn’t. It is made of granules, quanta, instants. Life is an eternal instant.
But that is surely preposterous, ludicrous, ridiculous. Without time, what is there? Where would we be? When? What chance is there for us to grow? How could we hope for a change in our situation? How could evolution occur? (Oh, hadn’t you heard? It’s been banned from the curriculum by the righteous, religious majority.)
To tell the truth, I’m struggling with this concept the same as you.
It’s not that there’s no time, just that time isn’t the thing we imagined it to be. Time is not what we’ve been brought up to believe. Time is merely the fourth dimension. It is simply the measure of a certain distance between two points. And, in the same way that you drive from one city to another, knowing how far there is to travel, you don’t attribute a connection or a magical relationship between the two. Features that lie along the way do not ‘cause’ one another to happen, this forest is not the ‘bad karma’ from having crossed such and such a bridge.
Consider our four-dimensional worm-like body (I’m going to have to come up with another illustration!). A bulge in our body in this point in time does not cause a depression somewhere further on. A knee cannot say it has ‘caused’ an elbow. The whole . . . jabberwocky exists, at ‘once’. Examining its life from without, from a vantage point outside of time, the creature is fully formed. You pass from one part of its body to the next, the same way that this part of the road lies next to that.
I know that this turns our whole concept of life topsy-turvy: all of a sudden there is no cause and effect, no free-will, nothing can happen by chance and there are no choices. There is even no right or wrong. There is no death. Oh my god, there is no death!
Each illusional life has a length and, in the same way you do not mourn over only being able to reach two metres from arm to arm, and that your fingers do not exist beyond your fingertips.
But that there's no death! That is crazy, surely! Admittedly it’s a hard one to swallow. Why destroy the universe as we know it unless it is to come up with a much better alternative.
There is something immeasurably better, I assure you.
But first, back to that photon. What did Czerner say? “Eternity and total unity”? Well, we’ve dabbled with the first part – the eternity bit. Welcome to part two of the show, the second side of the LP, as it were. Crank up and get ready for another revelation (‘Revolution’ – of which there are two versions on the Beatles’ White Album).
This is not a game. This is no fanciful word picture. This world view of a spark that dithers up and down a jabberwocky (or jabberwockies) and stretches four-dimensionally through the timeless ether is neither an idle dreamer’s toy, nor a means whereby I or you get to link up with the important, the famous, or merely the well-known. Seriously, we’re shooting the breeze about “eternity and total unity”. This is where the buck stops, right here.
This isn’t a question of who gets to ‘bag’ which being – I grabbed Van Gogh and Einstein, so you get to nab Da Vinci and Tom Cruise. No, no, no! Think larger and grander. This is no lolly scramble. God does not play dice with the universe. God does not splice our living by the life, by the day or even by zillionths of sparks. There’s no need to. Life’s actually far simpler than that.
One spark.
What’s that?
One rat king of lives intricately connected. Don’t you see? There’s just the one of us. You and I are one, the one-and-only. You the man. My man. A giant leap for mankind. The brotherhood of man. Love your neighbour as yourself. Do unto others. No man is an island, and listen, just listen to that bell toll.
You and me?
Okay . . .
But what about everyone else?
‘You and me’ – don’t you see? That means all of you and me. All you thousands and millions on the other side of the monitor (well, maybe a dozen). What I mean to say that everyone in the world is connected. There is only ‘us’ – no I, no you, no he or she or any other. Everyone alive, dead, and as yet unborn is inextricably linked. We are all that same, single spark. No wonder that each one of us feels special, the centre of the universe, convinced that our spirit will never die, important. We are! We are ‘the one’.
Rather than, "I think, therefore I am", how about, "I are, therefore we am”?
It makes good sense, and here’s how. This is what I am going to suggest: if I was suddenly someone else, with exactly the same genes, upbringing, environment, circumstances, knowledge . . . absolutely everything the same as another person, right inside that person’s head, then I would act and make the very same decisions and choices as he or she. (I’m talking exactly the same here. If I had any inkling of my former self, or retained some of my present beliefs and attitudes then it wouldn’t be so, it couldn’t.) And that is what I claim is happening each zillionth-of-a-second ‘consciousness leap’. That’s how it is. That’s how and who we are. That’s ‘Ism’.
Oh my god!
What the hell is this?
Is the author of this blog the devil? Is that what’s going on here. Am I/he fooling with your mind? Or am I, perhaps, the antichrist. Is that where we’ve arrived?
Who knows? It could be – I mean I could. It depends on what those authors were referring. In the sense that my ideas might result in your seeing everything in a new light, and realising that everything that you had previously believed is now largely irrelevant and way off the mark – if you end up discarding your earlier religious convictions – then yes, perhaps I am.
That is, WE are.
And would that be a bad thing? Western society has already largely weaned itself of the idea of a vengeful and jealous god. Who of us still seriously believe in hell, damnation and original sin? Does the devil have horns and a pitchfork? The sooner we escape the clutches of such cult-generated, half-pied, crackpot theories, the better, I say.
It seems that we are all individuals, yes, and that we all have separate and distinctive souls, and that we a live in different times and climes. But I say that we’re finger puppets. Together, we make a hand, but it is hard for our self-awareness to stretch that octave. Or else we’re those little wriggly things on a starfish, or the cilia on a single-celled creature. We’re alone, and yet we are totally together. Wow!
So . . . there’s just us – WE – plus god, right? The two of us. So what does god want from me? What is it that he wants us – ME – to do? What is my – OUR – purpose?
Ah, you still imagine yourself separate.
Hold on! Whoa now! You’re not go . . . I mean, you can’t be . . . are you telling me . . .
I am here. You are here. Every single instant. We are nicely self-contained. The illusion is of a wonderful separateness. Individuality. Independence. Autonomy. Free will, choice. Delicious. And then, because of an ability to see ourselves backwards, into the past, to remember (or try to forget), we sense our starting point and we can foresee an end point. This knowledge cuts us off even more nicely from one another. We have our own quarter-acre patch of reality, fenced off from everyone else’s.
Including god.
But we are god. We are one another. We are one. ONE. US.
Let me get this straight. I want to make sure that I understand. As you assured us, your worldview is incredibly simple and easy to grasp, and yet it such a difficult one to absorb – I don’t know whether I even wish to. Heavens above! What changes am I going to have to make in my thinking? This has not come out of left field, but from off the planet!
You are saying that there aren’t billions and billions of us – both the living and the dead (and those to come) – who are each entities living their lives separately and how they choose, each with an individual relationship to a higher power? Instead, you ask us to accept that there is only one super-being: all of us wrapped up together and lumped together with god no less! And that, furthermore, that time is not – that no cosmic clock ticks.
You’d better explain yourself just a little. Give us a handle on this, if you please.
Well, I’ll certainly try. But really, I may not be the best person to do that; I know my strengths and limitations. Visualising and conceptualising are what I do best, but I struggle to turn my thinking into words. It may be a good idea to get a hold of some of Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations With God material. His books helped to spur me on to deeper thinking. They jolted my out of a twenty-year rut, and for that I’m grateful. Neale, if you are listening, the You in me salutes the Me in you. I recognise our common self, my brother.
I go to the bookshelf to grab a book, one of Neale’s, to check the spelling of his name. It happens to be Conversations With God – Book 3, and I open a page at random. The first phrases that leap out at me (from page 116) are: “submolecular time travel” and “there’s no such thing as time”. Neale, I just know that we’re on the same wavelength.
However he, or me in his body (or you without knowing it) has a better facility with words. And you-the-reader, or me in your body (or even he in yours) would be well-served by reading what he has to say.
Basically, god was lonely. God was bored. It’s no fun being god with no one to play with. You see, when you are god you are everything imaginable. God is everything. There’s no room for someone else. And so god needed to set it up – ‘create’ the situation, if you like, whereby bits of the god self became separate from one another. God arranged it so that they had no knowledge of their common origin, so that those different could have a relationship with one another. They could get to know one another. All this variety in the universe is so god gets the chance to enjoy a good play.
God views himself, enjoys herself, expresses and extrudes itself through us. As if we were all of us separate. How best to illustrate this point?
I know! I remember a story I once read, science fiction - does it show? An alien race was involved. Humanoid (for movies, it makes it easier for actors to climb inside the suits). In fact, in this story they were virtually identical to human beings - there were even the two sexes - the only real difference involved scale.
The aliens were giants. They'd landed an exploration party on earth, some sort of fracas or incident resulted, and the aliens came off second best. Only one or two survived, but they were brain-dead and not much use - not to themselves - but they were to 'us' (us-and-them - the same old story).
And yes, according to my scheme of things, if there are aliens then they are only a different shape and variety of three-dimensional jabberwocky. I mean, if you are going to include all manner of animals and plants into the picture, then surely aliens are also . . . Oh, I hadn't told you? It's news to you?
But getting back to the story . . .
As I said, these aliens were gigantic, so much so that when his or their prefontal lobes were removed - the tissue was no longer of use to them - creating space for an office behind the eyes. An office was built. And a secretary was installed (just pulling your leg). No, really, living quarters were installed including a seat type of contraption wired up to parts of the giant alien's brain.
In a bizarre form of virtual reality, a human operator sat in the chair and controlled the hulk from within. The story continues with the giant returning to home - being returned -in his spaceship, taking up life with his wife, and eventually being found out by his better half - well, you couldn't expect to keep such a thing permanently under wraps now, could you?
But we'll leave that story before the details become too sordid and explicit. Besides, I can't remember how it continued or ended.
The point is, you could look at life, at all the entities that exist, as vehicles or giant aliens that you sit inside. Admittedly, that begs the question of which sits behind the eyes of the internal homunculus, but ignore that for now. And, if you consider that the vehicle consists not only of the body but a brain and all associated extras by way of personality, attributes and what not, then you'll have some idea of how it works.
The universe is set up for god, ourself, to enjoy the ride. A ride is all that it is - or perhaps a show that we observe. And I know it feels real. It hurts when we die, or are raped, or lose a child. But this does not negate the world view, it only indicates just how realistic is the illusion.
And one fine way to live life in the particular person you presently occupy is to go all out hell-for-leather and arrive at the end not necessarily with your body in the best nick and with the most possessions, but as if you'd sped down a roller-coaster of a hill on a mountain-bike, broadsiding to a stop in a cloud of dust, bruised, bleeding, exhausted and panting but with a giant grin on your face. You last words are, "What a hell of a ride!"
And look at all the models we get to enjoy! It's arranged for our pleasure - a fantastic variety of DVDs that we live through not vicariously but for real, or as real as anything can be.
We come in different sizes, shapes, ages, colours and sexes. There are different cultures, customs, languages and time periods and geographical locations to immerse ourselves in. There are different states of health, and different physical bags of attributes to excel in (or not). We live at either end of the spectrum and every position in between. The mind boggles.
All of us, every human, animal and plant are/is god to the extent that god's consciousness can shine or squeeze or express itself through our being. In most cases our being's opening is very small. But it needs to be that way; unless the openings are small, it would be impossible to maintain the illusion of separateness. God wants relationships. However, it is only possible to have a relationship with someone other than yourself. If the two parties knew that they were actually one then it wouldn't be possible.
Even the sense of self is relative - it relies on the fact that the self is apart from the external environment. You can't be you, unless there is something that you are not from which you can differentiate yourself. Therefore: I am me (which isn't all that I see outside of myself).
But this is starting to become convoluted and obtuse - no, that means stupid - obfuscated . . . too difficult to follow. Simpler words if you please!
Okay then, the essence of my message is that there is only one of us, god included, who experiences him her or itself (us-self) through every form of life, not only those that are, but those that were or will be. As much as each vessel allows. And simultaneously (or as simultaneous as you can get). What do you think of that, Stephen Hawking?
God, then, gets to enjoy living out lives. Think of watching a video - god takes part in the virtualest reality of all: a tri-D sensaround, panasound, subsonic bio. Each movie runs for seventy or eighty years - that's from our point of view. And of course, that's from god's point of view too - the portion of god's self that manages to squeeze in every head. But from the overview, the superpicture, there is no time. Any 'time' is as good as another; it all exists at once. Life as we know it, in the present tense is but a cross section of the beast.
So your life is a war story, a medical drama, a horror or western - whatever. It doesn't matter! There's nothing that can go 'wrong' with it. There's nothing that will harm you permanently. Really, from an overarching perspective, it is ludicrous to think along the lines of: "What kind of god could allow such things happen?" And I'm speaking here of such ilk as 9/11, beheadings, New Orleans. I know that they seem truly horrific and callous and evil to we spectators, and a thousand times moreso for the people involved, but for god it is only a show, a game, an experience to relish.
Which no doubt seems a bleak and soulless way of looking at our existence.
But consider . . .
No death! We never die. Our jabberwocky body has a span in every dimension, including time. We only reach a certain distance no matter how we stretch, but do you grieve because you can't get the honey from an upper shelf? Why mourn for the airy emptiness just beyond your fingertips, and the fingers of only one hand at that (no one bemoans not having lived before they were born).
Besides which god is continuously tapping into and out of our jabberwocky's range of experience. Think of a piano, its keys tinkled up and down, in chords and rhythms, scales and apegios, legato, stacatto, fortissimo, pianissimo, retardando. Your piano has eighty-eight keys (might as well call them years). You are forever (but not in the time sense) being played upon. Savoured.
And so is everyone you've know or who has ever lived - friends and family, strangers and enemies, from the past, the present and also the future. No need to wait until you die and can meet them in heaven. You are closer than that - you are they. We're all one. We are a forest of intertwined jabberwockies slithering in the . . . what was it . . . tulgey woods?
to be continued
Everyone loves a good conspiracy. The broader it reaches and the deeper it goes, the better. And the best one of all is the one that all of up are a part of. It consumes us. It fools us. We cannot break free; we could not if we tried. It is as intergral part of the lives that we lead. Life as we know it could not go on without it. We’d be lost without it. We’d be free…
Today I’ll try. Today I have the means at my disposal, the time, the wherewithal (where are you all?), the insight – an who knows when those planets will realign?
A day, I said? Twenty-four hours? No, not even that – just the hours of daylight, just the hours that I’m awake. I’m a the keyboard at seven and here I sit. These are the only hours that I can be sure of. This is the only slot, timeframe, envelope I am certain of having. This is a job that must be done right here and now, and completed by the time that the sun sets, or rather I. Because of the consipracy.
A good conspiracy quivers at the edge of belief. That is what makes it so tantalizing, so titilating. Surely it could not be true, but it might be. It might just conceivably be true. I caqn belive in it…just. It intrigues us. It tease4s us. I only… Imagine if…
Sieze the day, they say, in whatever language. Carpe diem. Because the day is all that we’re sure of. A span of unbroken consciousness during which we know that we’re alive, that we know who we are and what we are about. It last until we’re gone, until we sleep. And who knows how long that might be?
And so at seven, seven thirty now, I begin. I have a job to now and do well. My missive is: to find another. There is someone that is lost whom I must find. Contact rather, for it is doubtful that we could ever meet, nor do we need to. That isn’t necessary. That wouldn’t even be desireable. It probably wouldn’t hurt, but what good is likely to come from it? Perhaps…I don’t know, perhaps…
I’m looking for another person; I write a message that that other might read. I need to remind him of himself (or her). Who is she? Where is she? When? How?
The grand consiracy has separated us. It has rendered her invisible.It has hidden and tucked her away into a form unrecognizable. I don’t know what she looks like. I don’t know where she is, or when she lives. But somehow, somehow I must reach her. I need to remind her of myself (or him).
He only, also, has the day.
And so I write to leave a message, one that the other might one day read. I have to make contact, and convince him. This will be difficult, because he doesn’t remember. You could say that he has amnesia. The conspiracy.
Somehwhere in the world (the universe?) some where in histaory (it had better be the present or the future) is that all-important other. He (or she) does not know me. Would not recognize me. Does not even recognize what she once was or ought to be. I must reach her.
And so…
Have you ever exited a movie, amazed at how closely you resemble the hero? You walk the same way. You share his mannerisms. You are embarrassed to head into daylight – surely people will gasp at the simmilarity.
Have you ever delved for the deeper meaning? Do you know that you have something to do, something unique? Have you ever lost patience with your peers, at the little fussy hobgoblins of their existance? Do you sense the bigger picure. These’s something on the tip of your tongue and the edge of your periphery.
These are her characteristics. I don’t know what she looks like, but I know. This is how she feels, her feelings, her perceptions, attitudes, mind.
It’s an interesting sensation. I had it all clear in my head – wonderful lines that swept and swooped and slid across the page. They come out chopped and broken. They clatter upon the page, clunkenly. This is the conspiracy. It doesn’t want me to proceed. It wants me to leave well enough alone, because this is how it’s always been. It hinders kme, it resists. It turns my head towards the window. It closes my eyes.
Here I sit all broken hearted. Tried to shit but only farted.
The daylight hours, eh? And then we sleep. Our consciousness dips. The ups and downs of alpha waves and beta. The deep sleep with our muscles paralysed. REM sleep when our eyelids flutter. Dreams. The little death.
We awake into another body. We re-enter another life. We forget about the past, or rather remember the past of someone else. We awake into another life complete with its memories. The yesterdays that we recall are its yesterdays, its events, its birthdays and parties. And the conspiracy continues in a new continuum.
We’re unaware. Because the links are lost. We’ve been reincarnated. Incarcerated. At most we’re left with the ghost of déjà vu.
Why could not this be true? It is true. This is how it works and how it goes (so it goes). I’m telling you. (But I shouldn’t.) No-one likes to be told what to think.)
And so, please, bear with me. Hear me out. These are my fleetings only. This is my world (and welcome to it0 I’m not challenging yours. Ejoy it, partake of it, all I ask is that you listen out for resonations. Good vibrations…
He or she has, is or will be fortunate enough to live in a relatively open society. Difference is tolerated if not exactly encouraged. You live in a society where it is possible to harbour variant thoughts (as long as you keep those to yourself0. Those around you follow a conventional religion. You may do also, in spite of the fact that you’re not quite convinced. But you go along with the flow. you don’t like to make waves (and why should you?)
But let us just say – and I’m sure you won’t mid – htat you are not one-hundred percent ssatisfied. That is fair, wpouldn’t you agree?
There is some sort of power. You are happy with that. It is here or it’s there and it’s benevolent. It’s hard to put a face to, but your’re told that you shouldn’t. And that is that. Let’s not dwell on the issue for too long.
And yet, there is a connection. You can accept that in some way, to some degree, we as people are facets or bits and pieces of the whole. Smaller, yes, not so refined or polished. Dirty,even. Sinful?
Here’s my piccture.I see that being as looking out through our eyes. I see it enjying its creation through its creatures. I see it sitting in its manshion of a thousand eys. I sense it looking through our windows on the world.
The whole wishes to experience something different. It is all that there is, so that’s difficult. It can’t easily be done. It’s like lifting yourself by your laces. So what it does, what I see it doing is this: it separates itself. It doles itself up into little parcels. It gives each of these animicules a little quota of self awareness. I gives each the sense of being separate. And then it views the world – its creation plus creatures – thorugh those little windows.
Here some time, there some time – it enjoyes the play. It’s a passionate play. The eb and flow feels like deadly earnest. Every creature is completely into itslef. It’s life is for real – it’s really a matter of life oand then death, except that it isn’t, not really. It’s only cowboyes and Indians. Cops and robbers. Serial killers and rapists.
Here sometime, there sometime… And at the end of the day god takes leave. She (or he) enters into a different window. Different glass: reflective, mirrored, frosted, curved. You doubt it? You doubt that he 9or she) can do it? Surely not. Do you doubt that god can leap into another body? In a different country. Across an ocean. Forward or backward in time?
Do you doubt that god can gaze from windows simultaneously…?
So here I am and here I write. Mid-morning. Time to stretch and make a cuppa.
I had thought on doing a dummies guide to enlightenment. That was an alternative I’d considered. But no-one likes being told or shown just what to do. Watchful dragons and all that. So let me continue on my way. Let’s continue with the story.
This particular window sees clearly. That’s just the way it is – these are the odds. In another time I’d be a Da Vinci. I was. You were too. You’ll see.
So here I am, and I see it all clearly. I’ve the seven kinds of smart. Qualifications?
How do you qualify in enlightenment. It’s a question of degree – not a degree. And not only that. But I’m losing the thread.
Where are we.
I’m here today, writing, wanting to have left a message for someone else, a person with windows clear enough to see, to remind him or her (or god) of who she is, of who I am. Because, I am afraid of waking up behind other eyes, eyes that are closed, that do not know where to look or how to see, or how to behold the predicament that she is in. And I want to let you know that ir’s okay.
It’s okay, really it is. Whatever happens doesn’t matter. Not ultimately. Oh it may hurt (that’s the conspiracy), the tooth may pain as it is pulled. We’ve been programmed, manufactured to react as though this story is real. And so we cry and laugh and scream. We imagine that there is good and there is bad, and that there is something we have to do, something we have to prove, and that we need to earn our keep or entrance to heaven.
As if.
We’ve been compartmentalized. We’re all the same yet different, so as to provide portals that open out upon…each other. For god to while away the time….
Time?
(9.24)
And what is that, if not just another facet of the grand conspiracy.)
Time is an illusion. When I rub my eyes clear I can see it. It is simply another mechanism that separates. It allows us to view those instants of our being as separate moments. We can compare them, we are enabled to say – look at the diffence. See me then, see me know. I am changing! It’s part of the ploy.
The universe explodes and then it implodes. A black hole. And whether it does so once, whther it loops like a moebius, whether it oscilates repeatedly ad infinitum – noe of these break free from the illusion of time. They all seem to be happening. Whereas they are, from god’s point of view they all are. They are complete as they are – the alpha and omega. The alphabet exists. The letters don’t scroll.
All is as it is, and every particle sees every other, and relates to them under the illusion of speparateness. Separeness in space or time. Af if each was different. In fact, though all are one and the same.
And to you, who may know, whose glass may be clear enough to see (and that perspective is at best impermanent, I too, only catch glimpses) I would like you to know, for the ‘time’ that I will sit behind those orbs, that you needn’t worry. It isn’t a question of do or die.
The issue here, there and everywhere is experience. This conspiracy is one that makes it possible for god to experience hiself, life, from a grand variety of angles. Variety has been hard-wired into our very ebung. We are ‘different’ so as to be able to experince ourself from a multitude of points of reference.
And the glass of my particular manufacture allows me to see this. The glass of the other’s might well allow her or him or god to do the same. Or very similar. I don’t know. Or rather, I do. When I try, that is. When I relax and shut my soul and allow myself to be.
I’d love to release you. Because I couldn’t bear to wake up in your eyes and be trapped. No not only for a day. I’d have the memories of you prior life, you see, and it would seem as if I’d been caught up in your paragrim for years. (Ugh, makes me shudder.)
You wouldn’t believe how clearly I see this. This is enlightenment. And yet enlightemnet, people have the wrong idea. It is not absolute. The conspiracy sees to that. Enlightenment is not becoming god on earth. Enlightenment comes in glimpses at best. Look at the godmen. They have idiosyncrasies. They have accents, they wear national dress, they pick their nose. They are fat, unhealthy, obsess over miracles and ashes. Even Rolls-Royces.
There is god (and if there isn’t you are). He or she is us. God is everywhere (thas’s what that means). And he isn’t held by any manmade manuscript. Here and there there are people with vision – a certain amount of it. And you can learn from them – a little. And at such time you’ve got to leave them. Love them then leave them. Because they are limited. As am I. As are you.
So relax. There’’s no wrong nor is there right. There is no sin, original or otherwise. Let yourself rest easily about that. The only duty you have is to yourself, to experience life in the way that serves you best.
Which is what all of us are living. Be tolerant therefore. Live your own life as much as possible without impinging upon another (yourself) whose window has a different shape.
