The Self-Aware Universe

The web-like structure of our Universe

The Kena Upanishad

By whom commanded and directed does the mind go towards its objects? Commanded by whom does the life–force, the first (cause), move? At whose will do men utter speech? What power directs the eye and the ear?

Thus the disciple approached the Master and inquired concerning the cause of life and human activity. Having a sincere longing for Truth he desired to know who really sees and hears, who actuates the apparent physical man. He perceived all about him the phenomenal world, the existence of which he could prove by his senses; but he sought to know the invisible causal world, of which he was now only vaguely conscious. Is mind all–pervading and all–powerful, or is it impelled by some other force, he asked. Who sends forth the vital energy, without which nothing can exist?

The teacher replies:
It is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of the speech, the life of the life, the eye of the eye. The wise, freed (from the senses and from mortal desires), after leaving this world, become immortal. An ordinary man hears, sees, thinks, but he is satisfied to know only as much as can be known through the senses; he does not analyze and try to find that which stands behind the ear or eye or mind. He is completely identified with his external nature. His conception does not go beyond the little circle of his bodily life, which concerns the outer man only. He has no consciousness of that which enables his senses and organs to perform their tasks.

There is a vast difference between the manifested form and That which is manifested through the form. When we know That, we shall not die with the body. One who clings to the senses and to things that are ephemeral, must die many deaths, but that man who knows the eye of the eye, the ear of the ear, having severed himself from his physical nature, becomes immortal. Immortality is attained when man transcends his apparent nature and finds that subtle, eternal and inexhaustible essence which is within him.

There the eye does not go, nor speech, nor mind. We do not know That; we do not understand how It can be taught. It is distinct from the known and also It is beyond the unknown. Thus we have heard from the ancient (teachers) who told us about It. These physical eyes are unable to perceive that subtle essence. Nor can it be expressed by finite language or known by finite intelligence, because it is infinite.

Our conception of knowing finite things is to know their name and form; but knowledge of God must be distinct from such knowledge. This is why some declare God to be unknown and unknowable; because He is far more than eye or mind or speech can perceive, comprehend or express. The Upanishad does not say that He cannot be known. He is unknowable to man’s finite nature. How can a finite mortal apprehend the Infinite Whole? But He can be known by man’s God–like nature.

That which speech does not illumine, but which illumines speech: know that alone to be the Brahman (the Supreme Being), not this which people worship here.

That which cannot be thought by mind, but by which, they say, mind is able to think: know that alone to be the Brahman, not this which people worship here.

That which is not seen by the eye, but by which the eye is able to see: know that alone to be the Brahman, not this which people worship here.

That which cannot be heard by the ear, but by which the ear is able to hear: know that alone to be Brahman, not this which people worship here.

That which none breathes with the breath, but by which breath is in–breathed: know that alone to be the Brahman, not this which people worship here.

Ordinarily we know three states of consciousness only – waking, dreaming and sleeping. There is, however, a fourth state, the superconscious, which transcends these. In the first three states the mind is not clear enough to save us from error; but in the fourth state it gains such purity of vision that it can perceive the Divine. If God could be known by the limited mind and senses, then God–knowledge would be like any other knowledge and spiritual science like any physical science. He can be known, however, by the purified mind only. Therefore to know God, man must purify himself.

The mind described in the Upanishads is the superconscious mind. According to the Vedic Sages the mind in its ordinary state is only another sense organ. This mind is limited, but when it becomes illumined by the light of the Cosmic Intelligence, or the “mind of the Mind,” then it is able to apprehend the First Cause or That which stands behind all external activities.

How the Universal Mind can see itself

Western man has been disillusioned ever since the days of Copernicus when that great astronomer revealed that the earth was not the center of the universe. But recent discoveries in astronomy, physics, biology, paleontology, and geology show that a complex web joins us with our planet, our solar system, our galaxy, and with our universe. Suddenly a new vision of the universe is emerging. The universe is not a cold or hostile void. Instead, the earth is a focal point where intricate forces have come together and spun the web of life.

Hoimar von Ditfurth’s exciting ideas suggest that evolution may be creation seen from a limited human perspective; in the unfolding process of the universe. He detects an “inner wisdom” that suggests science and religion may simply be using different vocabularies to express identical truths.

Dr. Bernard Haisch contends that there is a purpose and an underlying intelligence behind the Universe, one that is consistent with modern science, especially the Big Bang and evolution. It is based on recent discoveries that there are numerous coincidences and fine-tunings of the laws of nature that seem extraordinarily unlikely.

All life forms, driven by evolutionary adaptation, reflect in their design and function the properties of the physical environment in which they live. For example, bird’s wing reflects aerodynamic properties (physical laws) of the air, the body shape of the dolphin reflects hydrodynamic properties of the water, an eye reflects physical laws governing the light…

It seems that the unfolding Universe creates complex brain-sensory systems which raise the level of its self-awareness.

http://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/the-self-aware-universe/

The Concept of Objective Reality

“Objective reality” is assumed to exist whether or not it is being observed.
The existence of separate objects is assumed to be verifiable by observation, at least in principle.

The predominant feature of all objects is that they are by definition separate from each other.

This means that separation is a basic assumption…
…so the observer-object is assumed to be separate from the observed-object.

These are all nothing but assumptions!

Extract from 'Self-Aware Universe'
by Amit Goswami

The All is Mind

Consciousness, not matter, is the ground of all existence, declares University of Oregon physicist Amit Goswami, echoing the mystic sages of his native India. He holds that the universe is self-aware, and that consciousness creates the physical world. Calling this theory “monistic idealism,” he claims it is not only “the basis of all religions worldwide” but also the correct philosophy for modern science. Once people give up the assumption that there is an objective reality independent of consciousness, the paradoxes of quantum physics are explainable.

Bernard Haisch, who is a well respected and published astrophysicist; copiously quotes from sources as wide and varied as The Upanishads, The Bhagavad Gita, The Bible, Einstein, Schrodinger, James Jeans, Aldous Huxley, Freeman Dyson and the list goes on; with the premise that all these sources are explaining or at least expounding upon the same thing, that is: Consciousness creates matter, not - repeat, not – the other way around.

Space-time, the observed universe, and the brain-sensory system are all manifested simultaneously. This does not occur “until” the wavefunction for a sufficiently complex brain-sensory system is present so that an aware, sentient being can be manifested simultaneously with the observation. Actually, this process is occurring constantly: Space-time, observing objects and observed objects are constantly and simultaneously being materialized…

“As above, so below”
[ The Emerald Tablet - Hermes Trismegistus]
‘That which is above is the same as that which is below” … Macrocosmos is the same as microcosmos. The significance of this phrase is that it is believed to hold the key to all mysteries. All systems of magic are claimed to function by this formula.

“The ALL is MIND; The Universe is Mental.”
[ The Kybalion ]

‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’
As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’
[ The Bible, Acts 17:28 ]

“The Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.”
[ Sir James Jeans, astrophysicist ]

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
[ Teihard de Chardin ]

We are God having a human experience.
[ Bernard Haisch ]

The seeker is he who is in search of himself. Give up all questions except one: ‘Who am I?’ After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The ‘I am’ is certain. The ‘I am this’ is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality. To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not. Discover all that you are not — body, feelings, thoughts, time, space, this or that — nothing, concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you.

The very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive. The clearer you understand that on the level of mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realise that you are the limitless being.
[ Nisargadatta Maharaj ]

“Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 per cent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for “yourself “- and there isn’t one.
[ Terence Gray ]

When you renounce your attachment, there is nothing to shake you. It is the feeling of possession, of clinging, that disturbs the mind.
[ Buddha's teaching paraphrased by Satchidananda ]

Advaita is a sanskrit word that literally means “not two”. Synonyms of Advaita are non-duality (nonduality, non duality). Advaita is not a philosophy or a religion. Non-duality is an experience in which there is no separation between subject and object; a “me” and the rest of the universe; a “me” and God.

It is the experience of consciousness, our true nature, which reveals itself as absolute happiness, love and beauty. Consciousness is defined as that - whatever 'that' is - which is aware of these very words right here, right now.
[ Francis Lucille ]

I believe that consciousness and its contents are all that exists. Space-time, matter and fields never were the fundamental denizens of the universe but have always been, from their beginning, among the humbler contents of consciousness, dependent on it for their very being.

The world of our daily experience—the world of tables, chairs, stars and people, with their attendant shapes, smells, feels and sounds—is a species-specific user interface to a realm far more complex, a realm whose essential character is conscious. It is unlikely that the contents of our interface in any way resemble that realm.

Indeed the usefulness of an interface requires, in general, that they do not. For the point of an interface, such as the windows interface on a computer, is simplification and ease of use. We click icons because this is quicker and less prone to error than editing megabytes of software or toggling voltages in circuits.

Evolutionary pressures dictate that our species-specific interface, this world of our daily experience, should itself be a radical simplification, selected not for the exhaustive depiction of truth but for the mutable pragmatics of survival.

If this is right, if consciousness is fundamental, then we should not be surprised that, despite centuries of effort by the most brilliant of minds, there is as yet no physicalist theory of consciousness, no theory that explains how mindless matter or energy or fields could be, or cause, conscious experience.

There are, of course, many proposals for where to find such a theory—perhaps in information, complexity, neurobiology, neural darwinism, discriminative mechanisms, quantum effects, or functional organization. But no proposal remotely approaches the minimal standards for a scientific theory: quantitative precision and novel prediction.

If matter is but one of the humbler products of consciousness, then we should expect that consciousness itself cannot be theoretically derived from matter.

[ DONALD HOFFMAN, Cognitive Scientist, UC, Irvine; Author, Visual Intelligence ]