Meaning What

The search for “meaning” is the essence of the standard Quest-ions, WHO am I, WHERE did I come from, WHERE am I going?

I see that the underlying anatomy of this Quest is the exploration of the relationship between the part and the whole. None of us are separate from the Process but are corpuscles in the multi-verse, we receive energy/information, and pass it on as it flows through. We may transform or alter it, but any and all of our functions fall within patterns worked out by Nature and refined over the Ages.

In the past 100 years as the Old Cycle drew to a close we’ve seen consciousness tipped towards awareness of our being integrated into an ecology bigger than our own little pedantic search for gratification.

War has always had the side-effect of making  civilizations more aware of other cultures, leading to the exchange of ideas, memes, and genetic matériel. With Industrialization the forces of Empire building were enhanced, and this churned up the world dividing lines faster. It became harder and harder to cling to pet perceptions and acculturation.

Then came psychology with its liberating and threatening ideas that “just because you think and feel it doesn’t mean it’s ‘right’.”  Perhaps we are programmed? By culture, religion, genetics, sensory limitations? Is there then really a “you” who is the perceiver, who can stand separate from its accumulated identities? Is the “you” simply an artifact of a collection of gunas, skhambas, aggregates, astrological influences....?

Then came ecology, systems analysis, and a growing awareness that no-thing is an island. This motion continues to grow while simultaneously undermining the meme of being separate in any manner.

You see it also in cosmology: the Old Cycle idea that space is empty and its associated idea of gravitation being the causal force, is collapsing. On the quantum level we have heard that the vacuum is actually a concentrate of energy extraordinary in potential.  But on the macro level, the old meme that planets  and solar systems float in emptiness, with little going on out there... this meme is utterly failing now.

The empty space model (and its sister, the expanding Universe) is collapsing. It has patched itself up again and again with the Big Bang religion, and when gravity couldn’t explain the forces seen, then unseen forces such as Dark Matter, and then in another patch, Dark Energy were postulated. Then came Black Holes, which cannot be observed by definition. This is classic deus-ex-machina Wizard of Oz behind the curtain trickery.

Space is not empty at all. It is full and teeming with electrical energy and plasma. We live in a dynamic flowing Tao of streaming particles and their created magnetic fields. The enhanced perception now from Hubble, Chandra, and many other satellites that explore the invisible forces filling “empty” space now show us clouds of electrical fields stretching between galaxies, and that we live in a cosmic circulatory system. Not only does our Sun radiate out energy, but it equally receives it and as a transformer circulates it back through the planets into the galaxy. (See the Electric Universe model www.thunderbolts.info) 

Everywhere, the meme of separation within emptiness is falling.

As to our sense of self, is Nature in its internal motion for economy of forces and maximal flow refining the interrelationship of these patterns into self-awareness of Its patterns? Is there a Self emerging within the Process much as an organism produces at end cycle a fruit, a miniature of its self which contains all the information needed to repeat creating more such selves? This is a self-referential process, expressed as a miniature self within a larger self, and is the basic definition of something that is “hyper-dimensional.”

This is a self-rolling wheel within a wheel. And is not that tree that produces the fruit itself inside a larger “wheel” as part of an interlocking ecology of consciousness (information pattern)?

This brings us to the esoteric section: that when the Plenum, or Whole, observed Its Wholeness, this internal act of observation reflected self within Self, like a bubble appearing in the Foundation of Cosmos.

This is the first appearance of Self and Other, the root of duality and polarity. Symbol geeks might like to show this as O represents Wholeness or the Plenum, while (o) represents the bubble, that self within Self where the Wholeness contemplates an IMAGE or Eidolon of Itself, within Its field of consciousness. Hyperdimensional.  The “part” is contained within the Whole. (man I love capital letters! This drives Old sour Cycle schoolmarms like Marj Coffman crazy! Heh heh!) .

But there is a 3^rd player: the interface between the two which is the membrane shown as
(   ).   This now sets the stage in our Play. We have a Trinity, and here is the root of the philosophical discussion on whether there is “two” or “three.”

I want to say that this membrane is where we find Meaning in our existence.  “Mean” implies that which is between the two, “that which is in the middle (OED).”

As long as we live in sense of separateness we don’t grow in awareness of our relationship to the Whole we are part of. But when a being begins to be attracted to understanding its relation to the Whole, and that there is more than survival and gratification of little self, then we say the spiritual Work is begun.

Acceptance of our part as a corpuscle in the Process leads to surrender, meaning cooperation with the Process; and to sacrifice, meaning sacri “sacred” and fice from Latin facere “to make,” so, to “make sacred.” To support the Process of the Whole more than the gratification of the self.

A new part or body or vehicle grows in the field of our self. When we examine the interface or membrane  (  )  this begins to develop what some call “soul.” This is an idea held by many of the ancients, and let’s call them “gnostics,” meaning those who sought knowledge through their own inner direct experience instead of repeating someone else’s ideas as belief.

Among some of the gnostic traditions we find humanity divided into three classes:

1. The Pneumatics, or those who attain such inner gnosis or revealing of Meaning
2. The  Psychics, those who hear of the possibility of gnosis, study and read all about it like someone collecting a library of travel brochures and books, but who still sits in the easy chair mentalizing, and not hitting the road to take the Journey. Perhaps we can liken them to buds that MAY develop into ripe fruit
3. The Hylics, those who may hear that there is more than their little sense of self survival and gratification, but it doesn’t grab them. WHY they ask, if they ask at all, should “I” care about anything  besides my little world? I am great as I am being me, unexamined; I am “right” about things, however I feel is justified.

In this viewpoint  we see that not everyone will develop a “soul” or intermediate body because they don’t contemplate how the part relates to the Whole, how the self is a corpuscle within Self. They who do not ripen to create the seed within will be recycled back into the pool, their matériel made available for new configurations.  This is simply Nature working  Her economy, nothing is wasted. A thousand fruits and a million seeds fall upon the earth every yearly cycle. Only a few take root. 

[interestingly, I have read there is evidence that even the millions of human sperm who have made it past the first hymenic veil of Isis and now swim for the Egg of the Inner Sanctum, actually act in group cooperation, for their combined desire field prepares the entrance to the Beloved, and the one Hero admitted to the Marriage Chamber acts on behalf of all]

Humans in their vanity (or ignorance) want to believe that their little persona and self is special, that we all get a magic “soul” and thus we get to carry on and survive death. This doesn’t accord with how we see Nature operate. Oh dear, how un-PC to say that many who pride themselves on being normal, nice, and fitting in, and thus rewarded in some way for taking pains to NOT stand out from the crowd, will simply fade back into the general storehouse of Akashic memory, into a sort of Oversoul of morphic resonance. Well, ....tough!

There is another Quest-ion: do Hylics simply lack something? Is the seed of Self not there and thus they are recycled?  Are they part of the Armies of the Night who leave no imprint?

It is said that before one can have gnosis, one has to hear the message, the “Good News” that there is such a possibility to be had, and so start off operating on Belief. Belief will become actuated into Gnosis if one keeps focused on it. Still, how do we know that those who can sustain belief do so only because the seed is in them, and thus it is their dharma?

This seems unfair, but that’s probably a side-effect in the consciousness of those living in separation, and who would resent being recycled.  In those whom the soul is developing, we see that the Whole is running the show anyway, and we always have been part of the Whole, so what’s the rub? Who cares if this present configuration I call “me” fades away? Seems to bother some, but not me. I’m kinda tired of the story and history of “me.”

As the intermediate self or soul vehicle develops, then self-consciousness begins to shift into another body or informational matrix. As this happens, we begin to see that our earthly personality was a part in a Play, a construct, and even a ripple wave pattern upon the Great Water, destined to re-merge.  What we have been calling “me” is a hologram, an image or Eidolon projected from the Mind of Self.

We are not afraid to die; in fact, our curiosity is whetted for more adventure. And thus:

“And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself—

Yea, all which it inherit—shall dissolve,

And like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.”

                                                            The Tempest by Bacon and friends