Madan is a consultant and author from Bangalore. He is the editor of the five book series: “The Asia Pacific Internet Handbook”, “The Knowledge Management Chronicles,” “AfricaDotEdu,” “World of Proverbs,” and “The Global Citizen.”
By Luc Sala
Dear friends
Once more I will try to summarize my insights, acquired or given to me over the years, about the structure of the universe, the nature of time, our psyche and our soul. All this together amounts to a quantum jump in consciousness and for most people this will be total weirdness, but what choice do I have, but to share.
To start with time, I believe old Plato hinted not only at the structure and task of our mind in Phaedrus, with his two horses (one obedient and one wild) but also knew they refer to the two dimensions of time. One is the logical, causal, rational, deterministic time of the clock, not necessarily unidirectional, the other is the magical, creative, free will dimension, the Bergson inner time. Both are real, but the free will is limited by our self imposed worldview, it’s like the flow in the river bed of beliefs.
The clock time stretches or bends (cyclical) in both directions, meaning any event is a function of past, present and future (and of the consciousness of the inner or outer (observer) resonances). So the outcome of any event/experiment is dependent on its future tail, this explains why changing paradigms is such a hard task. Predicting this deterministic future is therefore not only knowing the past (the Laplace approach), but also figuring in the future, a teleological feedforward approach, far beyond the feedback approach now so prevalent in society and science. When Plato spoke about Phusis, now commonly translated as nature, he didn’t mean the static image of the measured and determined now, but nature as a process, not only including the past but also the future, a far more dynamic image. His fascination with prophets and augurs wasn’t superstitious, I feel, he realized the bidirectional nature of time.
The free will dimension complicates matters, but is essential as everything would become static and would eventually petrify without this dimension of change, creation, freedom. It is in this dimension that life manifests, it is life itself and we only limit it by sticking to the beliefs that include our human laws of nature. Any true sorcerer or believer will tell you about the miracles that arise when we let go of our beliefs (or create new ones).
We think that the mind (or imagination) is the great tool to change our beliefs and situation, but what reaches our cognitive levels is just a filtered and twisted representation of what our primary sensor/actuators pick up. Our “primes” are the real interface with energy, time, truth, love, danger, procreation, spirit, the fundamental categories or dimensions that matter beyond matter.
Archetypal, bodily, emotional and cognitive filtering and mixing mechanism, both on the in and out influence the real message or actions. Only rarely do we contact those primal capabilities, where true creation and magical power resides and go beyond the prison we created. Personality, body, emotions, beliefs, the world around us (tat svam asi) all are part of this prison.
The main antenna for time in living beings (on this planet) is DNA, that tells the seed to what plant it will grow, evolution is remembering the future. DNA again has an existence in both time dimensions, this is really what epigenetics means, we can escape the deterministic part by venturing into the free will dimension.
Going beyond what we call life, every existence has the two time dimensions, the drop of rain over a watershed can make the quantum-decision to go either way, that’s why watersheds are so holy. Some elements or forms offer a better bridge between the time dimensions like crystals and especially gold (in fact an isotope of gold) has special qualities there. Crowns, gold clothes, jewelry, they are functional devices for thought wave protection or manipulation.
The super-dimension (this might even be the free will time one) that holds us and everything together can be called love, chi, nature, God, but I like to call it information. “A bit is only information if it bytes” is my keyphrase here, and can be read as “there is only existence if the quantum probability functions resonate (collapse)”. Resonance is the basic mechanism of creation (which in turn is the union of love and truth, reality is the shadow of God’s love is a great image here). Resonance, correspondence, we would call it links in cyberspace terms, the old vedic core message “Ya evam veda” makes the connection between power and wisdom, he who knows has the power, but (and here the rational West missed a major part) also he who has been given the power (initiation/crowning) will have the wisdom/knowledge. If we accept that thought (ideas) are part of this information dimension (and alas beyond the tangible except when it is transformed in our cells and becomes electrons and chemicals) we live in a universe full of information waves/streams and are nothing but a cocreator in a cosmos that exists but is framed as illusory.
Information is really the main issue in philosophy and maybe even theology, it goes beyond (cyber)-space and time, and infotheism or information philosophy should be the main focus of science. Until we understand or grasp how information (and consciousness is a part of information and therefore of existence) underlies everything we are just like in Plato’s cave.
This brings me to the question who we are. That most of us have an inner child or self and an outer layer of ego/personality that we think is our “I” is no news, that understanding runs through all the traditions. Letting go of that “I” as in detachment, meditation, bhakti-yoga, devotion, is necessary to get in touch with the deeper layers, connecting with the self. Not an easy process, as we have many defense layers and clicking back into ego is the natural defense we have developed. For a while I believed that getting to know and living the inner child was the ultimate way to reach Samadhi or whatever we call the higher states, but that image has changed. We have chosen this life, this body, these parents and this DNA, so our persona or mask is also a choice we made, and as I believe in guidance and direction beyond the dimensions, we better accept our mask as part of the great lesson. Without the mask we wouldn’t create these circumstances, would not face the true lessons, we would all be like God’s children, living in paradise. So hail the mask, even as the glimpses of the inner or supersoul we perceive in mystical moments, with the help of psychedelics, sacred encounters, meditation or misery, are so enormous and overwhelming. Integration is what is called for, understanding and respecting the necessity and mutual fertilization of our mask and inner child.
The structure of our psyche, reflected in our body down to the tiniest limb, organ and cell, is of course a mirror of the universe, the old hermetic understanding. If we just take the seven correspondence (but any number would do), there are seven major celestial bodies, seven layers of existence, seven temples including the one we build in our mind, seven chakra’s and each of them giving rise to unique experiences. Religions are usually mirroring our energy chakra’s, the Hinduistic focus on truth and power relates to the 3 th, the Christian blood/love focus to the 4th, Islamic and Jewish rules and regulations to the 5 th, Buddhist visualization to the 6 th .
We, as humans, usually have a specific focus, translated and carried by our body posture and most of all our breath patterns. Typologies like the enneagram are basically models of the way we move the chi/breath energy in our bodies. That is different for our mask (or masks) and our inner child, we share the hardware but the software differs, there are thus different modes we can recognize, although others are sometimes more aware of what mode we are in, this is the blind spot(s) phenomenon. The more interesting events in our lives, like falling in love, healing, transformation, are rooted in our inner child mode. I actually believe that ignoring the messages from the inner child will lead to malfunctioning, diseases and eventually death, it’s the misunderstood and wounded inner child that kills us. Understanding the development of the inner child and the mask by the way illuminates the old nature/nurture question quite well.
We develop our awareness/consciousness in each of the energy nodes (and in the different modes to complicate the whole deal), but in our rational worldview we value most the cognitive awareness, intelligence. Spiritual awareness comes next and can even be measured, we sense the holiness, especially if it centers in the inner child. The most common mystical experience (at least in the West) is the unity feeling of the heart, when all is love and one. Mystical experiences in other chakra’s, like the lucidity and all-knowing experienced when the mind exalts, the tantric orgastic or the magical power experience are less known. There are awareness levels in each mode and node, together a rather complex image of one’s being and potential, and definitely not used as criteria for getting a job in big business. These levels can be measured, maybe with some projection variations, but this has not been the subject of any scientific research as far as I know (excuses to Bovis, Tomatis and the few who tried). My analysis in this respect shows me time and time again, that we are all equally endowed with talent, but these differ in how and where they manifest. The Down syndrome child may lack a suitable persona or mask, but offers to us an insight and access to our own inner child and is therefore as valuable and gifted as anyone.
Our place in the universe, or where we are as a race, who cares? Whether we are just the epitome of life or a mere but grandioso experiment in consciousness with the sun as our energy source, the planets as our protection against cosmic distortions (hail astrology) and solar heating as a way to protect us from incoming cosmic debris, who cares but the fearful. We live here and as we don’t even understand the basic tenets of what happiness is, why bother with the celestial questions. Who let the sun in (Sam’s koan) is also about everyday life!
The above is just a tiny bit of what came to me, from the universe, the future or my inner soul, I really don’t know.