THE Universe: A Direct Expression of Consciousness
The Universe: A direct expression of Consciousness
1. Is What We See All There Really Is?
2. Is Reality Just the Perception of it?
3. Do The Flowers Know?
4. Is the moment Just a Glimpse of What Really Is?
5. Perhaps God is a Spider?
6. Can You and I Connect to Our Ancient Past
7. Is That Really So Long Ago?
8. When Do I Long For It To End?
9. When Will We Put An End To Poverty and Hunger?
10. Are We Really Spiritual Beings In This Together Moving Toward God?
11. The Mind of God - or Maybe the Tree Wasn't there.
12. Yesterday Is Over, Tomorrow Isn't Yet.
Is What We See All There Really Is?
1.
Just think - if there was nothing to observe the presence of anything, what would
anything be like? If everything consists of atoms made up of tiny particles that occupy
virtually no space within the atoms, then why is it that when we observe the
world around us that everything isn’t invisible or at least hazy shadows that we
can see right through? I suppose that if everything were invisible that there
would be no point to seeing and that we wouldn’t have eyes anyway.
The earthworm has no eyes and moves about in its tiny solitary tactile
world. From the worm’s perspective, is their world as expansive and
exciting as the worlds we observe? The bat flies around in the dark
and uses its ultrasonic radar instead of eyes to flit about and never
runs into anything. What does his world look like? The electric eel flicks
about in the murky darkness giving off a charged aura to guide his way
that's impossible to comprehend.
If there were nothing to observe the universe, would the universe still be there?
What if there was nothing to observe the twinkling stars at night or to smell
the new grass of spring or to hear the roll of thunder across the night sky?
Well, my first thought would be that those things probably wouldn’t matter
anyway if there was nothing to observe them. So, does the observance of a
thing mean that it exists or even creates its existence or can a thing exist
independent of its observation?
If the universe is not observed, then what would the universe be?
What I think is that if there was nothing to observe, question or study,
the universe then it would be an enormous blob of nothing – an empty
nothingness. On the other hand, the universe is really beyond our
capacity to fix in our mind. My observation on this is that reality is really
confounding and it is beyond our capacity to know.
Is Reality Just the Perception of it?
2.
If the universe is a reality because of our perception of it,
then are not other things we perceive of as much a reality?
Is not God, in our various perceptions, also real because of our
perceptions of that otherness out there that has a hand in our existence?
I don’t see this as cause and effect but as some sort of a proof.
Do The Flowers Know?
3.
The Buttercup flower blows in the meadow and bees come along and
spread its pollen. The Buttercup grows seeds and a whole meadow
of buttercups erupt. Why?
Really, WHY?
Does the Buttercup know that it needs to produce seeds so that other
Buttercups will grow? This sounds crazy – Is the Buttercup aware
of the other Buttercups in the meadow?
Does it know they are there and do they communicate in some way?
Seems to me the Buttercup must be able to observe its “universe”
and have some sense of its “community” – Otherwise, why does it
even exist?
And what about the Maple Tree?
Or weeds in the yard?
Is the moment Just a Glimpse of What Really Is?
4.
Let’s talk about time.
What happened yesterday isn’t any more. What happened just now before
I blinked doesn’t exist – Reality is what exists in that infinitesimal moment
in time that is called now. So if another me is way out in space and is able
to observe me, then I would see me doing what I did before apparently as
a present time existence. That would not be true, however, because
I would already be doing other things! Is there a way that I could
instantaneously interact with myself from that distant place to alter what
already has been? I think that with present technology that would unlikely be
able to be done but if it is proposed theoretically then it’s plausible. What
then does this say of what we call time or the extension of one moment to
another?
If it’s theoretically possible to interact with the past then what can we say
of the existence of the present? Is the present a fuzzy blend of what has
been and what will be? Is it possible that from a different vantage to then
observe the future?
Also, there are some persons who seem to have an insight or vision of
what will be (great earth events or highly charged personal experience) of
which there are many testimonies. Some years back, for example,
I experienced a moment of profound grief for what seemed to be no reason.
I innately knew that it was about someone in our family but not in our
immediate family who was going to suffer great harm. It turned out shortly
to be true. Is there in the mind (perhaps of all creatures) the ability to
know the past (even the distant past) and to know the future?
This discussion presumes that the observation of what exists creates
what exists – Is that possible?
Hmmm.
Perhaps God is a Spider?
5.
I wrote an essay a while back that I titled “God is a Spider?” In it I
pursued a concept that the essence we call God has universal attributes
far beyond what we humans can comprehend or conceive.
Can You and I Connect to Our Ancient Past?
6.
Oh, Hell. Woun’cha know, I am millions of years old.
The helical chain of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that is the blueprint of
who I am has been alive, crafted and molded apparently over some
millions of years and is still going on. So in my body and in the make
up of me lie not only the vestiges of that ancient past but also the
present culmination of those experiences of who I am and how I act.
It seems to me, then, that the knowledge of all that lies deep within me
as well. If that is so, then is it possible for me to really access the
people of my past who are part of me? It’s said that we use only minuscule
part of our brain capacity so is there other stuff lying down there deep within
that that we could get a hold of to see our distant past?
Or is there more to it than that?
Is That Really So Long Ago?
7.
Human geneticists have recently determined that our ancestral human parents
had their beginnings in a place we now call northern Africa and that some
40,000 years ago we migrated from a place we call Uzbekistan in central Asia
to become the various peoples of the Earth each with their distinct characteristics
and traits. Now Jesus was a Jew among them and lived some 2,000 years ago
– That’s only one twentieth of the time 40,000 years ago. From that perspective,
40,000 years is not that long ago.
Also, if we look at the period of time between when Jesus walked the dusty roads
of Jerusalem and today when we fly from one place to another in a few hours;
that is just a short 50 generations ago.
When Do I Long For It To End?
8.
This is something that I don’t wish to ponder just now but maybe I'll do
it at a later time. - Perhaps at a later time. It’s about dying. It’s about
remembering things of the past and the transition from the anticipation
of things that I want to do and be and about how I enjoy
relationships and friends and particularly Nancy and our family. It’s about
getting up each day with things to do and people to see that give my life
meaning. On the other hand it seems that there is a time of transition
where I begin to no longer consider the temporal things of such importance
and finally to long for the quietness and peace of leaving it behind in death.
It’s a little bit scary but a time for further contemplation will come, I’m sure.
It makes me sad when I hear those who oppose creating space to discuss
end-of-life care. In my work years ago at the bedside of the many
patients who ultimately died, I can only think of it as a holy time and of the
loving, competent care they received at the hands of the medical staff. I
think of some of the disastrous assaults on the humanity of some where the
care givers had no directive but to proceed with useless life support. Some
cultures consider death as a natural part of life but many in the U.S. believe
we must stave off death from our presence as an unwelcome visitor.
My experience of death began in 1954 when I was fourteen and attended the
funeral of mom’s uncle Carl Christensen at Mora. I remember sitting in the back
of the church thinking,“This is good.” A good man lives his life to old age and
his friends come in from the fields and their farms to honor his life. Then he
goes to be with the Lord Jesus. Sounds good to me.
While I was in college I worked evenings in the operating rooms at the U of M
Hospital. Part of my job was to bring downstairs to the morgue, often daily, the
many who died on the table during open heart surgery at the hands of Dr. C. Walton
Lillihei, pioneer heart surgeon and teacher. I would observe him afterward in the
locker room, head in his hands, resting and contemplating how it could have gone
differently. Later as a respiratory therapist in an acute care setting working together
in the care of people on life support we saw many who made it and many who didn't.
Out of those experiences I have concluded that life is precious and that relationships
are holy. I feel that those like the former Alaska governor and others who have
spoken strongly in opposition to end of life planning apparently have no understanding of this.
The discussion about end of life is important. It's interesting to me that people of faith
tend to be open to the discussion.
When Will We Put An End To Poverty and Hunger?
9.
Within twenty minutes time you and I could be at the mega-market checkout
counter purchasing our choice of any variety of foods locally grown or flown
in fresh from far corners of the world.
Most folks in the world, however, have no choice of what they eat. In fact millions
each day have no choice of whether they eat at all. And thousands die.
For many the daily task is to find and prepare the family’s single meal of rice
or meal. The dichotomy of our world of abundance and the meager choices
available to people in other places is plain to see and we all know it. And we allow it.
Two billion people live on less than two dollars a day and each day 30,000
children die for lack of adequate food. We go to church each Sunday and
worship God not thinking that so many live on the edge.
Is there a God at all? What is our calling?
Are We Really Spiritual Beings In This Together Moving
Toward God?
10.
Again, here’s a bit of rambling. My point of this little essay is that as knowledge
of the universe expands, it is a common universe for all of us and that it extends
beyond our tactile observation of it.
As I sit out on my back deck and look out at the night sky it seems that "out
there" extends a long distance from where I sit. Cosmologists (or is it
cosmetologists, huh? – It doesn’t matter.) have put up monster arrays of
ultra-sub base noise receiver dishes that seem to be picking up the billions
of years old vestiges of the noise of the beginning of this place. Science has
come to know a lot about this place – how it was formed; what it’s made of
and where it’s going. They even have a fair idea of how long we have been
here. This is not to say that the stuff is easy to understand but that it
relates a common experience for us all – We’re all in this place together and
it’s all part of our common existence. I cannot say strongly enough that there
is no other experience.
So then, if we are thus inexplicably connected in this common bond, I wonder
if we are each connected to one another more deeply in ways that we cannot
now understand. Hmmmm. Generally, I think we would all agree that that is
true – but we don’t know what it is. Is the basis of our reality found way out
there in that sub-sonic x-ray boom or is it the in the ever present now moment
of our communal observation. Are we all really spiritual beings (yes, even
the buttercup and the bee) and our observation of one another and of what
is really the experience of the presence of God? I am heartily convinced that
the later is true.
Reflections of many over the centuries trying to explain God and our experience
of God have lead down many paths. Everyone however, has a universal
common experience of existence. The preacher in the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes
points out to us that whatever has been thought of has been thought of before
and that whatever has been said has been said before. We’re all thinking the
same thing and we have a common experience of the presence of God.
God is within us and we are not only capable of experiencing God but, indeed,
are creatures of God’s creation and God participates in (or perhaps is) the life in us.
How cognizant we are of God’s presence in us is the question.
In seeking to know God, it’s a common experience to find that God has been there
all the time. The bible says that we see God like through a hazy dark glass and
I’m glad that’s so because it helps us to seek God.
This little discourse is not meant to try to prove that God exists but to suggest
that life has a common bond of existence, an inexplicable force of being part
of one another that transcends our physical beings. And I suggest that our
observation of our realms is more than physical but has a mystical, spiritual
foundation. It’s not about us but that force within that we call by many names.
The obvious next question, of course, is “Does that force within us have an
otherness about it or is this thing really the existence of what we are?
To suggest that this force is just part of what we are, it seems to me,
doesn’t address the communal nature of what we are; it doesn’t address
how we got here and it doesn’t address the really big question of Why.
To suggest there is a force out there and within holding everything together
seems more plausible.
Well, that’s about it.
Larry Cowan
Sept., 2009
The Mind of God - or -Maybe the Tree Wasn't There?
11.
Early on at the beginning of time on earth, something happened that created life forms; It probably happened in a soup of some particular elements and chemicals washing together at a particular temperature under a particular radiation from space. And voila! They started jiggling around. And you know what: It probably happened millions of times mostly not working and this life thing kept going; recreating and adapting to changing environments. Or perhaps it came as a bit of amino acids riding on an asteroid. And so there are elephants and toads.
Simply put, life happened: This something we must be clear about - It didn’t not happen. This is something we don’t much think about but the universe has the propensity to not be dormant but to be self-creative. And it creates more than just more inanimate rocks and stars. A nature of what we call the universe is to create more and to create stuff that lives, recreates and adapts. Maybe it has happened nowhere else in the universe but it did happen here. Not so many years ago, sky observers discovered they could find their way by the stars, determine the days and the seasons by the stars and even discovered how the planets move around in the sky. Today we know there billions of stars like our own sun just within our own galaxy and that there are billions of galaxies out there. Do you suppose earth is the only place in all of this where life has evolved?
So I ask what is a compelling question for me: “Why?” Does the universe know that it needs to grow in order to continue to exist? Certainly awareness cannot be a mindless quirk but a fundamental nature of what is.
Imagine what the universe would be like if there was nothing to observe it. It’s like the lame old question, “If a tree fell in the woods and there was none to hear it, did the tree make a sound? “ But it’s more like, “If the tree was in the woods and there was nothing to observe it, does the tree actually exist? It’s not like there was none around and they were somewhere else so couldn’t see it but like, indeed, there truly was nothing there.
If there were nothing to observe the universe, would it be just a blank tiny nothing? Would it be a place of no light, no dark and no dimension? Would it even be a place? I suspect that the entire universe and all that is exists because of the observation of it. As a little mind game, clear your head of any thoughts and then try to envision traveling through the great expanse of the universe. Now feel it float away to where it is blank – There is nothing there to see, to hear, to smell it or touch. Now it’s gone. There are likely other creatures in other places that have different senses than ours but imagine that they and all awareness are gone.
If there were nothing to observe the universe, would it be just a blank tiny nothing? Would it be a place of no light, no dark and no dimension? Would it even be a place? I suspect that the entire universe and all that is exists because of the observation of it. Scientific observers now suggest that, indeed, ours is not the only universe but perhaps there are many, perhaps billions. They say our universe was created some thirteen billion years ago when a “Big Bang” erupted from a tiny speck of nothing much like an exploding star. Is our universe just a small piece of a much larger and unending universe?
So, indeed, the universe is not a blank, mindless thing that came about from nowhere for no reason but is a mathematically structured expanding and creative thing one might say is actually alive and its creations can see it. Does it see itself? Is it the mind of God? Creatures have contemplated that proposition for millennia and conjured up answers in philosophy, prose and arts but, I’m afraid, we’ll never know.
I cannot leave this essay about what is without bringing up a dimension that is not so clearly observed. Our human species think of angels and demons and of ways in which we connect with one another on a plane that is beyond physical. We seem occasionally able to connect in ways that are beyond time and place. Some attest they can see the long past or sense the future. Are there dimensions that transcend our five senses and are we part of a continuum that has no beginning and no end? Is life forever? Certainly we are part of a great soup intermixed in ways we cannot imagine.
This just one more thought that may well be a bunch of mindless gibberish like the rest… People have gone crazy thinking about this stuff.
Yesterday Is Over, Tomorrow Isn't Yet
12.
Last night while I should be sleeping a strange thought came to me. I thought how we live from each moment in time to next in a smooth array of time moving on and on. There’s no stopping it; it just goes on and on and on. Even so, the great galaxies with their billions of stars and even more billions of planets keep moving along moment by moment as well. So apparently each moment is actually a distinct piece of what existence is about. Yesterday existed before but today exists now and each are different. To put this more in focus I thought about what it would be like to be outside of time. What if life existed within a single moment with no beginning and no end? You would just be; there would be no time to eat or drink. My goodness, there would be no time to even think one thought to the next! So my question here is, “Is it possible as part of the nature of existence in the framework of the so-called universe to stay captured within a moment? And secondly, “If a moment can be captured, is it possible to dissect the moment; open it up and examine all of its features?
There are four features that characterize what exists.
1) What exists changes. What existed before does not now exist. What exists now will no longer be and what will be doesn’t exist.
2) What exists has a physical nature. While it’s possible to see it, it’s composed entirely of energy tied to time.
3) Indeed, we as creatures of what exists are capable to observe what exists. So, to what extent is what exists then not observed? Certainly we see only a tiny piece of it. Is what exists seen in other ways, perhaps by other creatures or does what exists actually have capacity to observe itself?
4) What exists constantly recreates itself. Everything from tiny insects in the Amazon forest to distant unseen galaxies are creating anew evolving and expanding. The million dollar question here is why? If that goo jiggling around in that primordial swamp didn’t decide to make more we wouldn’t be here. 2017 01 08 lcowan
Larry Cowan 2014 07 03