Thursday, September 20, 2018
6:15 a.m. We’re still trying to talk about singing the universe into existence.
Well, you see, we aren’t trying to, we’re doing it. What to you is diversion or digression to us is filling in of context.
Yes, I know. I meant, “continuing on the same theme.”
You also meant, “and not getting there very fast.”
As my old friend Dave Wallis used to say, “Guilty, your honor.”
Again, keep your imagination loose. That is, perceive first, judge only afterwards.
Yes. And slow down.
And slow down, though you will find in practice that the two are actually one. It is not your speed of perception that affects your balance between perception and judging, but whenever you move into judgement you will find that you are trying to move faster than conditions allow.
If you say so.
See? That’s impatience right there. So, take a moment, and we’ll begin.
[Pause]
There is always a question among people who concern themselves with question of reality: Does the world (in this sense meaning, not merely the 3D world but everything, at all levels) come into existence, abide, then go out of existence, analogous to 3D life? Or is it always there, wherever and however it came into existence? This latter is cloudy thinking, of course, and should be posed, as an alternative, “or is the universe, is reality, always here, neither coming into existence nor going out of existence?”
Paul Brunton, in The Wisdom of the Overself, seems about to be getting ready to address that question by saying the universe always was, always is, always will be. (I am in Chapter 13, but have been for some days reading other things, able to read him only a page or two at a time, for reasons not disclosed to me.) But if that is the conclusion he is going to come to, it leaves the whole scheme hanging in the air a little, I think. I’m waiting to see if his final three chapters are as convincing as the preceding material has been.
Let us defer that question, then, until you finish the book in your own time. But either way – a universe coming into existence and ceasing existence, or a universe that always abides – the question of singing the universe into existence is the same, for we mean, singing it into existence moment by moment, not once for all nor repeatedly. Continually. There is a difference.
You will remember, we once told you that the mineral kingdom’s role in creation – that is, the scheme of things – was to provide continuity. Rocks think slowly, in effect. Or rather, they re-imagine only slowly. That’s why the Appalachian mountains aren’t here today, gone tomorrow. It is why what you call geologic processes are so slow in the human scale, just as human processes are slow in the insect scale, and insect processes so slow in the microbial scale.
I’m getting a sort of symphony effect, with many different kinds of instruments, each with its own timbre and pitch and nature, playing together and together creating what none of them could create separately.
That’s the idea. Different time-scales among species and kingdoms smooth out the transitions, you see. You aren’t all rushing offstage to change at the same moment. You aren’t all taking breath at the same moment. Fill in the analogy as you please.
So, the mineral kingdom – over and above its own work, invisible to you as its own mental life is – by its slow existence preserves continuity. But, singing its song however slowly, it does contribute – and mightily – to singing the world into existence. We think you have that idea firmly enough that you can extend it to the rest of terrestrial 3D. Let’s push on a bit.
Beyond Earth, which is where we were mostly unconsciously still concentrating.
It’s natural. That’s where you spend your 3D existence, after all. But – what sings into existence interstellar space? What glue or vibration or thought – especially the latter – coordinates the uncountable millions of stars and their planets, or stars in their complex interaction at any scale?
In other words, whose attention holds it all in place? Brunton would say the World-Mind (by which he didn’t refer merely to Earth, of course, but to the 3D in general.)
And what say you?
Brunton says the World-Mind roughly equates to what people call God, only he calls God “it” rather than “he,” which after the initial shock seems right. Shock, because we are accustomed to thinking of an “it” as less than a “he” or a “she.” (But I notice you guys have been doing that for quite a while, here, before I started reading Brunton.) I think he is right: Something has to have unwavering attention, and that something must clearly be as extensive as what it maintains by its attention.
Well, regardless whether this is right in ultimate terms (and we are willing to abide until you read his arguments, have the experiences, and draw your own conclusions), clearly the universe in the largest sense must either be coordinated or not. But what does this mean? Spell out the question, if you would.
If the universe is coordinated, it must be by something, conscious or unconscious. If conscious, it is coextensive with the universe and presumably able to effect it by its own processes of thought, if we can call it “thought.” A rather larger word is indicated, I think. If it is not coordinated, the result comes out about the same, as far as I can tell. Whatever 3D forces exist as laws of nature work automatically and unfailingly, and the effect from our point of view is as if it were coordinated.
That admirably points out the flaws in thinking about it.
Thank you, I guess.
Well, really, it does. What are the laws of nature but, essentially, “the reasons why things are the way they are”? Those laws can be derived, they can be deduced by looking at their effects, but of course laws are abstractions, nothing more. Though they may tell what, and how, they can never address the question of why.
I see that.
But if you remove “the laws of nature” as regulators of reality, what do you have but the same old choice: conscious coordination or chance? And do you believe in chance?
Not as the constructor or maintainer of systems, no. There may be chance within systems, a trickster shaking up predictability, but clearly chance forces don’t construct a go-kart, let alone a car, let alone a world, let alone a 3D universe, let alone 3D/non-3D as an entirety.
Let’s put it this way: Chance always becomes a system. Examine chaos theory for illumination on the subject, but that is what it amounts to. Chaos on no matter how large a scale always is part of a system on a larger scale, as hurricanes are part of weather, or earthquakes part of geology as a whole.
So you return to the same question, you see. What maintains the world, maintains 3D/non-3D reality, maintains the larger reality beneath 3D/non-3D?
I don’t see what it can be but mind, mind at the ultimate largest extent, dreaming or thinking or imagining this reality moment by moment.
And doing so through the creatures that comprise that reality! Minerals, vegetables, animals, humans, angels. Sub-atomic forces, super-celestial forces. It is all one continuing symphony and can’t be anything else, only you can’t get even a glimpse of it if you stay on only one scale. By that token, you could say that mountains and humans and rainbows are equally myopic, each interpreting reality as if its own scale were absolute, and consequently missing most of the show.
And that is enough for you to chew on at the moment.
Thanks as always, and see you next time.