By Brian George
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In a video exploration of the point that preceded the Big Bang, Stephen Hawking says, “Knowing how the universe works is not enough to tell us why it exists.” However encyclopedic the attempt, no elaboration of the how can ever break the code that separates us from the why. There is a firewall between the why and the how. It guards the encryption against human hands. Humans need not confront the convoluted strangeness of their origins.
It is possible that another—and more important—boundary exists inside and not outside of consciousness. We do not know what we know. As we do not know what we are we cannot remember how much we have lost. Subject becomes an object that separates the observer from himself—a black moon that eclipses the act of primordial self-reflection. Ego tunes out the instructions broadcast from the self.
Speech now lacks the energy to create. Breath provides the blood with oxygen; it does not project the apparent order of appearances. Objects cannot be taken home from dreams. The symbol's other half has retreated into to a world before our own. Myths can safely be disregarded.
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In his contemplative poem “The Four Quartets,” T.S. Eliot warns us that: “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.”
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Consciousness does not exist in space but only in relation to it—at a tangent, so to speak. It has no scale.
Are we specks of dust floating on the depths of an indescribably vast cosmos? Humility is needed, yes. It is true that we should not overestimate our importance in the larger scheme of things. This does not resolve, however, the conundrum posed by consciousness, which is not a speck of dust, or smaller (necessarily) than the cosmos. Despite the appeal of this superstitious metaphor—at which our future selves may laugh!—I would argue that consciousness is not subject to the authority of space. As a non-spatial field, perhaps consciousness does not need to go anywhere.
It is not consciousness but rather its vehicles that evolve.
As a non-spatial field, it cannot contradict itself, and there is no question whose answer has not been hidden in plain view. Each thing that we take to be a conundrum is a sign.
Is consciousness a part of the objective world, or is the objective world a part of consciousness?
Begin before. Shut off the senses that hallucinate a dream history for the ego. Retract evolution. An indeterminate flame coagulates the self. Consciousness is the primary fact. Our attempts to explain its origins are secondary. “They are little more than a distraction,” say the birds, but others do not believe this to be so. Hypothesis: space interdependently arises from the breath. A test of the new/old paradigm creates experiences—whose first act is to dismember us, thus taking us by surprise. Beyond birth, and beyond the math that coordinates our industrial-scale sacrifice, the joy that breaks us open is a kind of occult proof.
In “The Temple in Man,” R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz tells a story about Pythagoras in Egypt, where the philosopher had asked the priests to expound on their traditions.
“As life follows death,” he was told, “the existent follows from the nonexistent.” He was asked to prepare himself by fasting in solitude for 40 days. At the end of that time—if all went well—his body might be transparent enough to permit some small amount of instruction. Objective consciousness would recreate the senses. Other eyes would open. Ears would ring with the music of the spheres. Space would grow intimate.
The ghost in the machine is amazed to discover that his hands can again move objects. The satellite dish no longer revolves without him. Thoughts get bodies. Memory sprouts branches through the unconscious flux of the cosmos. Desire is the seed. A one-pointed idea can give birth to the Big Bang. Present mass and energy have no bearing on the matter. Void consciousness precedes its object.
(Illustration: Pierre Roy)
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