The Universe as I Know It

As with all things, this is my own personal conception of the universe. One should always make up one’s own mind as to what one believes in regard to the way the universe functions and why. I have read innumerable descriptions from others on how things are, and each time there were things that resonated with me as true and things which seemed a bit off to how I see the world.

In those instances, I think perhaps it is like two people looking at a flower vase from different sides of the table… we are all looking at the same item, we just have different perceptions based on our perspective of seeing at the moment, we are limited by our physicality (we don’t see in infrared, for instance), and we have a limited vocabulary to describe things. Add to that the fact that we have a semantic variation between any two people that further limits our ability to communicate our experiences.

I’m not saying I haven’t read some really (what I consider) crackpot accounts. Some of you reading this will probably think that my conception sounds weirder than a three headed dog. But that is the beauty of having independent thought… you don’t have to take my word for anything.

My notion of reality has shifted over time, and I’m assuming it will again and again as my ability to sense and understand/intuit things increases. As they say, everything changes.

The first thing I believe is that we instantiate as humans in a materialistic and energetic sense because there is something specific about how us being alive at this frequency rounds out the universe. For example, we are the oboes in the universal orchestra. Without us, the sound would have holes in it. So for those who try to eschew the material body, I argue that it is actually being human and in a gross body that gives the specific necessary vibration to complete the fullness that is the universe. As with all instruments, there is the notion of tuning, and I think that perhaps some of us play quite a bit out of tune. But for the most part, just our being alive is important.

As for the “levels” of the body, there is much discussion of there being at least 6 (or 7) levels regarding our selves. The first is our gross matter body. The second is our energetic body. The third is our upper/spiritual body (and which “connects up” to the energy of the universe). Then it gets a little more esoteric (most people can buy the first three as possible without much of a stretch of the imagination). From what I can understand, the fourth level is like the upper/spiritual body of the universe reaching back to you, where it intersects with your 3rd level, the fifth level is like the energetic level of the sixth/physical level of the universe. Those theories that put a 7th level in the mix regard it as the complete one-ness of all of these things together, which what you call “you” is a part of).

The physical manifestation of you exists in a temporal state, which means that it has a timeline, and will eventually pass away. This for the most part negates your 2nd level energy body, or re-incorporates it in the 3rd (or some philosophies say it sloughs it off like clothing in a changing room). The energy of your gross body is brought back to the earth, recycled into other gross matter. But what of your 3rd body? Does it reincarnate in the sense that you become another person at some point down the timeline?

I know that I have memories of things from lives that aren’t my own. Is it the remnants of other people’s energy that hangs in the ether and my mind picks up? Is it past lives that I have had? There is no way to know for certain really. I can tell you what I think, and I can tell you that has changed as I’ve gotten older. There aren’t too many ways to “prove” any of this in a way that our scientific set will accept. So if you’re looking for evidence beyond belief, you may be looking a long time. Or not. I believe things can be known through a more scientific epistemology, but that often times our technology doesn’t yet have the ability to detect things that in the future it will be able to prove. It’s pretty much a moot point, and therefore, you should be living your life right now as if you just have one (which is the only thing you can say with any certainty).

So how can it be that we say we are unique individual creations and at the same time one with everything? People often use the analogy of the ocean being the universe and the individual is the crest of the wave that appears and then is gone. This analogy, however, doesn’t really work for me to explain individuality vs oneness (though its simplicity makes it easier for people to understand).

Here is what I believe at this moment regarding our “selves.” Our higher self exists outside of a temporal framework. It is a singular “thing.” It has amazing capabilities, however. Let’s say that perhaps that higher self has instantiations in the gross realm in this human body we know it in the now that we know, but also happens to be a torch-singer in the 30s, a bar wench in countless lifetimes, a monk in ancient china, and a warlord before that (or maybe that’s just me). It also is a space vixen in the future, a god in another galaxy, and a rock in another one after that.

The “intelligence” from all those things gets to be so much eventually, that in the infinite possibilities of the universe, we experience things from such a broad view that we understand our own infinitude. And imagine that every one of those things (not us) which we consider singular also has this multitude stretching out behind it in the universe. These would intersect with us in that we share space (physically and energetically) with all the other things that exist. Because in the type of energetic space where the “mind” resides (that which is beyond being a physical manifestation of a brain), there is no physical location. It is every-“where” (and also no-“where” that you could put a pin in and say “Aha! There it is!!)

Our individual consciousness is located in an ocean of energy where there is no space through which a thought (which is a type of energy) must travel in an amount of “time.” Everything always exists at the same “time” and is always available to be known (therefore, there is no amount of “time” that this must take to be sent and received by individual entities).

The reason I dislike the notion of us being the crest of the wave which then disappears to me says that we as individuals don’t have a continuance as such, that we just disappear. Some may attribute this to my ego, which does not want to think of itself as truly finite. Of course, I must admit that this may be true, just as much as what I say may be true. But I don’t happen to believe that explanation.

I feel this body of mine as finite. I know it will die, that this physical form that I inhabit (and really love, btw) will be no more. However, I experience/intuit that which I call the rest of my totality stretching off into a myriad of places and times and worlds. Because I am such a very different array of things, I really can’t conceive of complete annihilation. I fall back on the theory that energy can’t be destroyed, only shifted as evidence, and I think that our particular “intelligence” is a specific energy that is of a unique vibration to our unique totality. Our “oboe-ness” to the universal orchestra is our body now, plus our totality (all our energetic and material whens/whats combined), I think.

I also know that people in my life who have died have occasionally “touched my mind” after death. I feel their presence like the whiff of flowers on a summer breeze. It’s just like they are reaching out to touch familiar things/energies because they are surrounded by that which may seem unfamiliar. Or perhaps it is just a pattern of their consciousness, like a well-traveled road (or the groove of a record). It’s not like a ghost or anything. There is nothing left of them but this energetic touch. But it is similar enough that I recognize it as “them.” So I feel like the energy which is ours at our deepest level is unchanging and recognizable.

Some people say that I am only sensing the energetic “clothing” they have left behind, which is not them and which proves neither our uniqueness nor our continuance after death. To that I answer, “ok.”

There was a time I might have argued. But my mother has a pat little phrase she repeats often, which says “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” (Imagine how annoying I found that when I was younger?!) But now I understand that I gain nothing from an evangelical approach to the larger questions in the universe. I also understand that a person must have their own experiences and make their own opinions on how the universe works. It does not make an opinion more (or less) true if a larger number of people believe it, so I gain no edge to my opinion if I convince someone else.

I also like the zen story (which I read in one of Brad Warner’s books) which tells of the student asking a zen master what happens when we die. The master answers, “I don’t know. Ask someone who has died.”

I realize this post has rambled over a lot of territory. In the end, I just have how I feel about things. There are very few verifiable “facts” here for you. But hopefully something to argue about if you’d like, or just to something to make you think about how much of a crackpot I am because I don’t see the world the way you do.

I will just relax and try to appreciate the squeaky as well as the well-tuned oboes and work on making sure my own instrument is sounding passable, if not lovely.