April 19, 2018
(This is a long piece that I have broken down into smaller posts for the reader’s convenience. This is the second piece, the first was posted on April 18)
It seems to me that there is an immense ocean of consciousness. Perhaps consciousness is what the universe is comprised of. This spark of consciousness called me is a drop ejaculated out of the ocean and into time and space, now, and I sparkle sunward, and AM now, and I fall back to rejoin the ocean. Nothing is lost. It seems to me that living and dying is the same movement.
It seems to me that what istranscends this particular time and place. Consider that there is an atomic particle released in the collision of two protons in a particle accelerator that comes into existence and is annihilated instantaneously. Consider that the Mayfly lives 18 hours, and I have lived 75 years so far. The ancestors of humankind emerged on this planet about 200,000 years ago, and there has been civilization as we know it for about 6000 years.
All have come into existence and are annihilated in an instant. The Universe is 13 billion years old. The particle and the Mayfly and I and humankind are here and gone in an instant. It is preposterous hubris to imagine that the fate of a doomed flash-in-the-pan species on a tiny rock circling a minor star far out on the edge of a small galaxy in a remote region of the staggering immensity of the universe is the whole focus of some Gods intention.
But it does seem to me likely that there is a source from whence it all comes. I call it the Source. I call it what is. It seems to me that it manifests creative energy. Don’t call it God, that image is fraught with primitive overlay, superstition, and the encrustation of institutions and dogmas. It seems to me that the Source is not anthropocentric; it is not made in the image of man, as is God, nor vice-versa. It is not the ancient of days sitting enthroned in glory, or lord of my salvation or stern but forgiving father. Not mighty king, jealous and demanding, nor the lord of lords, nor architect of the universe, having no authority, passing no judgment, exercising no will, granting no favors. It is like the Tao, unutterable, like the water constantly moving, it cannot be grasped or contained or codified or understood. It seems to me that it is energy, it is consciousness, it is that which is. Nothing is stable or permanent, everything is changing all of the time, it flows. I can be aware of it without understanding it.
It seems to me that there is an inherent underlying order within the flow of energy, a pattern that is the constituent of the universe that I manifest. Consider the implications of quantum mechanics, of string theory. Consider mathematics, too complicated for me to understand in itself, but with visible evidence, in the pattern of bifurcation, in the branching that occurs in growing things, the fractal edges of all shapes, in the spiral forms of the galaxies. Pattern is evident most spectacularly in the Mandelbrot set, staggering beauty extending into infinity. I can be in accord with this energy without understanding it.
It seems to me that this entity, “I’, here in this particular time and place, may have three purposes, the first of which is given, the other two chosen.
It seems to me that this is what is given. The quantum phenomenon is the most exhaustively researched event in all science. There it undeniably is, but the most erudite scientists and philosophers struggle to decipher what it signifies. Among the interpretations are these: there is no deep reality: reality is manifested by the act of observation: reality is an undivided wholeness: consciousness creates reality: reality consists of a steadily increasing number of parallel universes. And there are others.
What sings to me is this synthesis: the act of conscious observation creates a reality of undivided wholeness. And that is the purpose given to me – my job is to manifest this universe at this point in time from this particular point of view, and I cannot escape this. This does not mean that I think I’m god; it means that I am the essential observer without whom the universe is not manifest. Given my human limitations, I can’t be responsible for parallel universes.
It seems that I am able to choose two purposes. First, I endeavor to treat everyone and everything I contact with kindness, respect, love, and understanding. Second I choose to see beauty everywhere in all creation. And I do those insofar as this imperfect self can manage.
(This is the second posted portion of this writing. The discerning reader will find echoes from other sources. There will be credits at the end.)
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