Magnum Opra

Let’s say that I had a day left to live, and let’s say I had something worthwhile to say. Furthermore, let’s say that I managed to get over the inhibition of presuming I’d any right or reason to ‘instruct’ anyone else.

If there’s anything we don’t need, it’s another ‘ism’. This is it. The girl at the start of The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Universe? She is me. This is so not the right thing to get involved with.

In my middle-age I’ve arrived at my own perspective—the restaurant at the end of the galaxy. I’ve developed my own take on ‘the meaning of life and everything’, and it’s pretty much unique. Just like Thaddeus Golas, I owe it to myself to get my thoughts out there, and I’m giving myself a day to do the job. And then, again as Thaddeus did, if I’m granted a longer stay, I’ll refine, retune, revise and polish that opus over the years.

My personal philosophy could be expressed in one sentence—life is a single-entity achronological simulacrum (or Neale Donald Wasch’s ‘applorange’)—but that wouldn’t help. To be understood, to be of any use, the idea needs scaffolding. Therefore, I’ll touch on a couple of hoary bugbears, demolish a scientific pillar, perform a mind experiment or two to ‘go where no man has gone before’. As Maria von Trapp—or Julie Andrews —sang, “Let’s start at the very beginning . . .”

The notion of God. Let’s get that out of the way—and not merely by the semantic expedient of giving Him, Her or It another name (the Life Force, Universal Spirit, Nature . . .). All I’ll do here is define god as the ‘highest’ form of consciousness that exists. So, if you think that you’re alone in the universe, you’re it! (And if you doubt your own existence then god help you.) For now, don’t worry if your chosen god doesn’t appear to be able to move mountains or walk on water. All in good time.

The second notion that I’ll take up—my, we are moving fast!—is reincarnation. There was a time that the very idea seemed so foreign, so Eastern. I believe that, thanks to Hatha Yoga and the ubiquitous Hare Krishna lunch, it occupies quite a comfortable niche now within the collective consciousness. Let’s put it to some use.

We’re born, we live, we die, we are reborn. No problem. Don’t worry about its rhyme or reason—do we gotta lift ourselves up by the bootstraps to escape from the cycle? That isn’t where I’m leading. I just want to examine that easy, lazy mechanism of rebirth. Comfortable? Are you all set?

Next then, what about the timing? I mean, there’s usually a time lag, no? The next Dalai Lama is not necessarily born the instant that his predecessor snuffs it. It might take weeks, even years. Hell, his soul—oops, another ‘touchy’ term, sorry—might hang around in limbo for a century or more if the-powers-that-be so decided. But I suspect that this wouldn’t cause you to worry. Am I right, or am I right? Very well then, let’s move right along.

Across oceans and mountain ranges. Maybe to other planets. Is it a stretch for your imagination to accept that your next rebirth might occur miles away in another country, maybe across geographical barriers? “No, of course not,” you reply. (And for a god who wasn’t able to more mountains or walk on water, (s)he’s doing fine!) How about a spot of transmigration to stir those waters? You know, being demoted (or promoted) to a dolphin, because you’re so into surfing, or a pig, because gluttony is your thing. Yes? You can handle that? I’m impressed. Are you up for more?

Lemme see now, we’ve an organizing principle here that doesn’t baulk at physical limitations (distance). It can even suspend time for as long as it likes. Ah, but can it do the superman thing and spin itself backwards along the fourth dimension? That’s a new one for you, isn’t it? You need to give that one some serious thought. Is it possible for someone to be reborn at an earlier hour, date, or year than that person’s death? Hold onto your hat.

We’re getting ready to do some mind experimentation here, and the scientific pillar I’m about to topple is Father Time.

Come on now, you can’t have it both ways! God’s either omnipotent, or else god is not. Just because we humans worry over adversely influencing a grandparent doesn’t mean that a higher power is frightened of time travel. Come with me a little farther, or should that be ‘further’?

The challenge: suppose that reincarnation can move you ‘backwards’ as well as ‘forwards’. There’s a lot of mileage that results from considering that. (For instance, the future and the past would be equally real. You never worry about what is to happen in the past. So why would the future be any different?) But I’ve only a day; that will have to wait.

Are you willing to wind it up a notch? All righty, here’s your next assignment. We’re going to work on getting you up to speed. I’m going to get you to suppose that reincarnation is unlimited in another way. Let’s say that it doesn’t wait for your life to end before it kicks in. Let’s say that, for example, every night you go to sleep, you become another person. Now then, there are a couple of things that we ought to consider.

One, is that your system is somehow able to miraculously reboot. It wipes its previous memories and consciousness, replacing them with ‘another’ person’s so thoroughly that there’s no seam. You would have to accept that, once the software of a new identity was uploaded, you would behave exactly as he or she (or the dolphin or pig) would. Isn’t that a mindbender?

We’re also expanding the range of reincarnation as a process that can slot us, Matrix-like, fully formed into adult second life. Our consciousness is therefore not obliged to, or restricted by, having to grow up from babyhood. I’ve eased you into this realization by putting you to sleep, as it were. I had the change occur at night. But it doesn’t have to.

I want you to increase the rate. How often? Well, for reincarnation—too long a word; we need another—for flitzing to work, it needs to be instantaneous. Broadband with a vengeance, right? So if it is instantaneous, let’s have it happen every instant. But why on earth? I’m giving you a headache don’t you know!

I know. This isn’t easy. But there’s a very good reason. Bear with me. Think of this as the quantum physics of consciousness. Just as matter and energy can be broken down into the smallest particles, wavelets, bits of string or what have you, let’s say that consciousness is also quantifiable. Think of a movie that screens at 25 frames per second. Less in poor quality cartoons. It seems to run continuously, but that is only an illusion. What if the same rule applied to how we sensed our beingness?

I’m talking about billionths of a second here. Billionths of billionths of seconds. Nanos, picos and further. Slice it up as fine as you want. And at every point a flitz occurs. Yes, you read me rightly. At every instant you are another person. No, another being. In no time at all, in all the time in the universe, you have time enough to flitz into every creature, plant or life form that is or ever was. But that means . . .

Yep. You’re right. There ain’t enough room in this town for the two of us. It is senseless, meaningless, to speak of separate entities. If I become you (when you’re you) and you become me (when I’m me)—and we’re speaking absolutes here—then what is the difference? None. Let me spell it out in plain English: life consists of ONE spark, one entity, flitzing as instantaneously as makes no difference into every skull (I’m anthropomorphizing).

‘We’re all one.’ What did you think that that meant?