SCIENCE AND THE ONE BEING
The standard view of science (though I wonder how many scientists really subscribe to all of it in their private thoughts) is that correct understanding of the universe can only exist in the intellectual and conceptual analysis of good old material or sensory experience. If some experience seems to fall outside this framework, then (so it is said) either it doesn’t exist, or it can be explained away as some neurological phantom of the brain. Like the mind itself, the primary tool of science.
Yet the fact is that without consciousness, there is no science. And all science is spun out in the mind, which is an aspect of consciousness. And if there is no understanding of the nature of that mind and consciousness, then all of science – indeed all of human knowledge – is related to a point of ignorance. If we don’t understand the essential nature of who is asking the questions and coming up with all the answers, then the veracity of the entire edifice of question and answer is suspect. Or at least it’s relative to a backdrop of essential ignorance.
And this is the human condition. It doesn’t invalidate science or human knowledge. Far from it. It simply puts it into a wider perspective. Let’s accept that we are using an instrument (the mind) to try and comprehend the realm of sensory experience (material substance) without our ever having understood the nature of the instrument. We have no idea how to calibrate our most fundamental instrument of enquiry. We don’t even know what it is or how it works. Science is the attempt to understand something, using something we don’t understand.
We found ourselves in this human situation at birth and, from a very early age, we started thinking. We hit the ground running, and many of us have never paused for detached reflection on who we are, what we are doing, how we are doing it, and where we are headed. From the very start of our lives, we just ape what everyone else is doing, and away we go. If we get clever, and think we have found a new answer to some question, we dine out on it for the rest of our lives. But do we know who and what we really are, and where our thoughts come from?
The scientific community has become such an exclusive club that scientists won’t accept anything that is not presented in their own terms. And since their terms are entirely material, nothing is acceptable unless it can be proved in terms of material evidence. And since consciousness is immaterial, science excludes all experiences of consciousness from its consideration except sensory or material experiences. And this, despite the fact that all scientific understanding takes place in the immaterial mind. When science considers mind and consciousness, it only does so by analysing the electrobiology of the brain. It leaves no space for the personal, subjective exploration of consciousness.
Come on guys! We’re going round in circles. We will never understand the essential nature of life and consciousness that way!
Science and technology have achieved much, but they have not provided fundamental answers to the conundrum of our existence. Confusion and uncertainty will remain for as long as we entertain the idea that ultimate answers can be found in intellectual and conceptual terms. Once it is understood that there is a forgotten or hidden dimension to existence – the dimension of being or consciousness – then things will begin to fall into place. If we don’t understand the relative and limited nature of our human science and knowledge, then we will remain in confusion. Even if we insist that we have all the answers.
Just look at the outcome of our great scientific adventure. A wrecked planet in just 150 years! Doesn’t it indicate that we’ve missed the point, somewhere along the line?
All of science is illuminated by the simple understanding and realization that the fundamental characteristic of existence is not material substance, but being or consciousness. Everything is a projection of consciousness. This entire material universe, and a multitude of heavenly realms, too, are all levels of being or consciousness.
That may seem like too much to swallow, but doesn’t it seem odd that while theoretical physicists are quite willing to entertain ideas of an infinite number of worlds wrapped up in hidden dimensions of space, the idea of multiple worlds lying hidden in higher dimensions of consciousness is far less appealing? Maybe that’s because space is amenable to mathematical jiggery-pokery, while consciousness is not. And maybe, too, it’s because the suggestion of higher worlds of consciousness includes the idea of a supreme Consciousness or Being. And that’s a bit scary. It means we might be responsible, at a later date, for what we do and think. We could be subject to a natural law of causality that takes account of our thoughts and deeds. And that’s definitely an uncomfortable thought for most of us. We’d rather live in an entertaining illusion than face reality.