By clicking on the parchment scroll you have portal-jumped to a hidden meaning page.
Language translator on bottom in the footer.
"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."
–Teilard de Chardin (Philosopher/mystic 1881-1955)
A friend on Facebook today wrote an acknowledgment to their Self, thanking it for a job well done. In return I wrote, “As Self you can do nothing else!” What is this Self we were both speaking from? Is it our personality–that constellation of experiences, thoughts, and memories which we give a name to, or is it our body–that with which we also identify? Or is it something else?
Dr. Wayne Dyer asks the question, “How many bodies have you lived in since coming into this world?” What an odd question! What he means is for us to look at the body of the infant us, the toddler, the first grader, the preteen, the teen, and the twenty/thirty/forty something us. Those bodies, each as an altered form, no longer exist, in fact every cell in those bodies has disappeared, died and been replaced, and yet you are still here. If you identify with only the body you’re in, some day you will cease to exist. But when you identify with the Self, your higher being, and that which continues beyond your body, then you live forever. The body has died many times throughout our lives and will most certainly die a final time, but the Self will continue as it always has. It is not of the body.
The lower self, the ego-personality–that which you think you are– will never accept this, for to do so is to give supremacy to something other than itself.
My friend seems to understand that they are this eternal identity. The Self has always been and will always be. While we live in the illusion of separation, the illusion of our waking dream, the illusion that these bodies that we inhabit are our Self, we feel as though there’s us and then there’s everything else. We even do this with God e.g. we say there’s God and then there’s us.
Like a dream that comes from our deepest imagination, the illusion of separation is also imagined. It’s not that there aren’t two bodies, but as said they aren’t who we are. There is an universal Self expressed through each of our bodies that lies connected and never alone. Quiet your mind and you know this is true.
How might I see you if we are both of the same thing? Would we be more than just brother and sister to each other because we are each other? In greeting you, I may be greeting me. In loving you, I may be loving me. If I were to hurt you, is it not I that I would be hurting?
Dyer uses the metaphor of the ocean as representing an image of God. If we were to scoop up a glass of it and set it down on a table and ignore it, after a time the water will alter form by evaporating into a gas that then will return to its source. Are we like the glass of water, of the source, that will return to the source in a different form? Are we like our Dream Body that when we are awakened returns to its source within us?
"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit."
–Kahlil Gibran (Lebanese Poet)
"When I use the term Spirit I am referring to an ineffable and mystical part of my self that can guide me to my core wisdom and creativity. For me it is a bridge, and sometimes a signpost, between myself and my experience of God–it is the sense of God within." (from: http://www.thedreamdragon.blogspot.com/2012/11/self-spirit-and-soul.html)
Everything is consciousness projected onto our physical being from the essence of who/what we are, our soul. What we are unconscious, or unaware of can run us. When we are able to bring this level of the conscious self into awareness we are able to create our lives—to "run" it ourselves.
But what is this Physical Being?
Some wax poetically that we are are bits of stardust. But what is this stardust and where did it come from? Some scientists claim that there is particle called the Higgs-boson—the God particle—that makes it possible for all other particles to have mass (matter)—it is the mediator of mass. In the Standard Model of particle physics (though not yet directly observed) it is theorhetically the most important component in the Higgs field that makes it possible for the stardust, our atoms, to exist.
—Youare much more than you think you are!—
Artists conception of the evidence of the God Particle—the Higgs-boson
"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as the result of research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together—We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and an intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."
Max Planck, Nobel physicist
He goes on to say
"Both Religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all consideration—To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world-view. "Religion and Natural Science (Lecture Given 1937)Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. F. Gaynor (New York, 1949), pp. 184
For physicist, David Bohm there is an underlying unity behind all the seemingly separate things in the world. He calls this unity the "Implicate Order"—an ordered whole.
Holism is a view that suggests that we need to take the whole into consideration when we try to understand the individual—her mental and physical health, cultural and environmental issues. These issues cannot be understood and thus treated appropriately in isolation.
The Big Bang Beginning of Being
"Let there be light." T=0, or the beginning of time what others may call First Cause.
Here'sa basic equation describing the Big Bang cosmology:
3R/R= —1/2(p+3P).
It seems almost too simple to describe something so big.
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
–Albert Einstein
Steven Hawking at Univ. of Cambridge (holding the same chair as Isaac Newton) suggests that the universe has no boundaries—no beginning and no end. To do this, he uses Imaginary Time that runs perpendicular to the past/present/future, "regular" time you and I experience (I know, don't ask). However, when using "regular time" there will always be a beginning, or T=0.
Hawking also points out that one cannot determine what is real. We can only find a mathematical model to describe the universe we find ourselves in and that the "imaginary time" model happens to describe both effects we've seen and those we haven't been able to measure, but believe exist. He asks, "So what is real and what is imaginary? Is the distinction just in our minds?" (Hawking, The Universe in a Nutshell, 2001, pg. 59)
T=0=I AM [the ground of being where there is no relationship and no objects.] This point could be considered the Alpha and Omega whereas at the moment of the big bang could be seen as Alpha. Prior to this everything just was, nothing to be created. This is why some say that the Universe is the expression of profound creativity where everything is 'becoming' and that our evolutionary process mirrors that becoming.
In this Alpha state the Universe expands toward full consciousness; from the unconscious to the fully conscious and once achieved it will attain its Omega state. These theorists suggest that you and I are the manifest form of God in the creative process.
Fred Alan Wolf, the physicist often known as Dr. Quantum, has shown evidence that time itself is not linear as we experience it, but happening all at once i.e. supratemporal, e.g. both past and future occur simultaneously, but only as potentialities that can be collapsed through a process of awareness (eh, say what?). He also alludes to the possibility that we are but a dream of God, a holographic representation of God's dream manifest upon the field of existence.
The following are examples of various comology. It is not meant to be extensive. My apologies if I have not fully represented a religion's creation story.
Old Testament version of creation:
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."
Genesis 1:1 (one of many creation stories)
Islam teaches that God created the universe, including Earth's physical environment and human beings. The highest goal is to visualize the cosmos as a book of symbols for meditation and contemplation for spiritual upliftment or as a prison from which the human soul must escape to attain true freedom in the spiritual journey to God.[10]
Below here there are some other citations from the Quran on cosmology.
"And the heavens We constructed with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander." 51:47 Sahih International
"Do not the Unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation), before we clove them asunder? We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?" 21:30 Yusuf Ali translation
"The Day that We roll up the heavens like a scroll rolled up for books (completed),- even as We produced the first creation, so shall We produce a new one: a promise We have undertaken: truly shall We fulfil it." 21:104 Yusuf Ali translation ( as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_cosmology )
A Hindu version of the creation: In the beginning there was the sound of the creation of the universe—Aum a triple phoneme representing the three Vedas or the three stages of life (birth, life, and death)—the sound of the manifestation of God in form. The three sounds a (a-kara)meaning form or shape like the earth, u (u-kara) meaning formless or shapeless like water, and m (ma-kara) meaning neither shape or shapeless but like the dark energy content of the universe.
Before time began there was no heaven, no earth and no space between. A vast dark ocean washed upon the shores of nothingness and licked the edges of night. A giant cobra floated on the waters. Asleep within its endless coils lay the Lord Vishnu. He was watched over by the mighty serpent. Everything was so peaceful and silent that Vishnu slept undisturbed by dreams or motion.
From the depths a humming sound began to tremble, Aum. It grew and spread, filling the emptiness and throbbing with energy. The night had ended. Vishnu awoke. As the dawn began to break, from Vishnu's navel grew a magnificent lotus flower. In the middle of the blossom sat Vishnu's servant, Brahma. He awaited the Lord's command.
Vishnu spoke to his servant: 'It is time to begin.' Brahma bowed. Vishnu commanded: 'Create the world.'
Brahma, God of Creation
A wind swept up the waters. Vishnu and the serpent vanished. Brahma remained in the lotus flower, floating and tossing on the sea. He lifted up his arms and calmed the wind and the ocean. Then Brahma split the lotus flower into three. He stretched one part into the heavens. He made another part into the earth. With the third part of the flower he created the skies.
The beginning point of creation is called Bindu in sanskrit (it is the feminine bindi—a small point attached to the forehead in hinduism), or the sacred symbol of the cosmos in its unmanifested state. Also known as The Cosmic Egg, or a singularity from which the Big Bang expanded. Science may be finally catching up with the ancients.
In theAboriginal Dreamtime, the story goes like this: When the earth was new-born, it was plain and without any features or life. Waking time and sleeping time were the same. There were only hollows on the surface of the Earth which, one day, would become waterholes. Around the waterholes were the ingredients of life.
Underneath the crust of the earth were the stars and the sky, the sun and the moon, as well as all the forms of life, all sleeping. The tiniest details of life were present yet dormant: the head feathers of a cockatoo, the thump of a kangaroo's tail, the gleam of an insect's wing.
A time came when time itself split apart, and sleeping time separated from waking time. This moment was called the Dreamtime. At this moment everything started to burst into life.
The sun rose through the surface of the Earth and shone warm rays onto the hollows which became waterholes. Under each waterhole lay an Ancestor, an ancient man or woman who had been asleep through the ages. The sun filled the bodies of each Ancestor with light and life, and the Ancestors began to give birth to children. Their children were all the living things of the world, from the tiniest grub wriggling on a eucalyptus leaf to the broadest-singed eagle soaring in the blue sky.
Rising from the waterholes, the Ancestors stood up with mud falling from their bodies. As the mud slipped away, the sun opened their eyelids and they saw the creatures they had made from their own bodies. Each Ancestor gazed at his creation in pride and wonderment. Each Ancestor sang out with joy: "I am!". One Ancestor sang "I am kangaroo!" Another sang "I am Cockatoo!" The next sang "I am Honey-Ant!" and the next sang "I am Lizard!"
As they sang, naming their own creations, they began to walk. Their footsteps and their music became one, calling all living things into being and weaving them into life with song. The ancestors sang their way all around the world. They sang the rivers to the valleys and the sand into dunes, the trees into leaf and the mountains to rise above the plain. As they walked they left a trail of music.
In the Dreamtime the Earth dreams everything into being and humans dream the Earth into being.
Native American cosmology tells the story: Earthmaker began to think about what he should do and in the end he began to cry, tears flowing from his eyes and falling down to where they became bright objects, seas formed from his tears.
Earthmaker thought, 'Anything I wish will happen just as I wish it'. He wished for light - it happened. He wished for earth and earth was formed.
The Buddhist strives to understand that there was no creator, that every thing has always been and will continue to be. There is no beginning and no end, there is only the one.
Abhay Ashtekar, a Penn State physicist uses a model of gravity that allows him to mathematically waltz right up to T=0 and then pass on through to the other side where he says is another universe that is in the process of collapsing rather than expanding like ours. Does this mean that there is a T= minus 0— A previous cause of a first cause, or a first cause before a first cause, or an effect before a first cause? It boggles!
Now here's a boggle
The London physicist David Bohm, whom I mentioned above believes that objective reality does not exist, that at the heart of it all is a phantasm—a hologram if you will. He argues that at the deepest level of reality everything is actually an extension of the same basic something.
To make this statement he cites the work of the Parisian physicist Alain Aspect who performed an experiment with amazing, some might say magical results. He and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance between them e.g. one foot or one billion feet between them it makes no difference.
But, but... what about Einstein's nothing-can-go-faster- than-the-speed-of-light rule?
Forget the rule! Bohm says that they are able to do this because their separateness (distance) is illusory! They are extensions of the same thing. He uses the following illustration to get a handle on the boggle: Imagine that there is an aquarium with one fish in it swimming around. Now imagine that the only way you can observe the aquarium is via a camera recording the fishes every move. Imagine now that there are two cameras on the aquarium projecting pictures onto two monitors but the second camera is shooting at right angles to the first. If you were to believe you were watching two aquariums and two fish you would see two different movements. But if you were to watch more closely you would see that these movements seem to be linked e.g. when one faces the front the other is facing the side and they do this at exactly the same time. Because you don't see them as the same fish its hard to understand the link.
The bottom line is that as with the aquarium illustration, we are only seeing a portion of the reality and that is what is happening to subatomic particles that are "instantaneously" communicating. At the deepest level of reality the universe is a projection and everything is interconnected.
Science and theology get closer and closer. Let go of your ideas of what is supposed to be.
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These two videos are interesting takes on the Big Bang theory:
The first is labeled "One second before." The other is "Before space/time." Have fun!
Pretty incredible, huh?
"Maybe you should know yourself for just one moment.
Maybe you should glimpse your most beautiful face.
Maybe you should sleep less deeply in your house of clay.
Maybe you should move into the house of joy, and shine
