WISDOM LIGHT
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Pre-print
At last I discovered that they [The East] call the unconscious consciousness, indeed enlightenment.
~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 204.
"Yet much of our western neurosis comes from the fact that we do not find enough time for ourselves; it would be wiser to meditate and seek the Void when we need rest, than to run after outer distraction." ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 128.
"In the renewed world you can have no outer possessions, unless you create them out of yourselves.
You can enter only into your own mysteries.
The spirit of the depths has other things to teach you than me.
I only have to bring you tidings of the new God and of the ceremonies and mysteries of [t]his service.
But this is the way.
It is the gate to darkness."
~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, "Draft" Footnote 163, Page 246.
Human nature [hsing] and consciousness [hui] are expressed in light symbolism, and are therefore intensity, while life [ming] would coincide with extensity. The first have the character of the yang principle, the latter of the yin.
~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 101.
That is how we should understand the pleroma, the fullness, which is the origin of the existence of the world,
where everything is contained but in potentia, as a possibility, anything can come out of it.
~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 254.
~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 204.
"Yet much of our western neurosis comes from the fact that we do not find enough time for ourselves; it would be wiser to meditate and seek the Void when we need rest, than to run after outer distraction." ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 128.
"In the renewed world you can have no outer possessions, unless you create them out of yourselves.
You can enter only into your own mysteries.
The spirit of the depths has other things to teach you than me.
I only have to bring you tidings of the new God and of the ceremonies and mysteries of [t]his service.
But this is the way.
It is the gate to darkness."
~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, "Draft" Footnote 163, Page 246.
Human nature [hsing] and consciousness [hui] are expressed in light symbolism, and are therefore intensity, while life [ming] would coincide with extensity. The first have the character of the yang principle, the latter of the yin.
~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 101.
That is how we should understand the pleroma, the fullness, which is the origin of the existence of the world,
where everything is contained but in potentia, as a possibility, anything can come out of it.
~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 254.
Wisdom Light
World Field, Luminous Ground, & Archetypal Light
By Iona Miller, 3/2015
ABSTRACT:
How do we explore the depths of our reality and experience, seeing underneath that which appears on the surface? Traditions of 'Light' continue to inform our conceptions of reality. Traditions of 'Light' continue to inform our conceptions of reality. What we call reality and consciousness depends on our level of observation and mystical penetration. The most common error is conflating Consciousness and Awareness. Consciousness is a product of widespread communication, while awareness is a focal capacity. Do our attentional habits create our experience?
Neurologically, consciousness appears to be an emergent property of operational information propagated throughout the brain and psychological space. But we should carefully avoid materialistic errors of category and levels of observation.
How can we integrate different theories relating to the basis of reality? No shortage of comparisons and correlations between spiritual notions and scientific theories has been made. This article focuses on the light motif that structures other layers of nature -- descriptions of the physical and metaphysical origins, properties and behavior of light – virtual, photonic, and symbolic.
What is the basis of the universe and the material of fundamental reality? Researchers continue to study consciousness not only as the source of the human mind but of all energy and matter. Consciousness is viewed as the essence of the universe, a unified field which gives rise to and pervades all manifest phenomena.
Can we directly experience the unified field? Correlations are drawn between the zero-point field and the pre-personal depths of transcendence. Darkness is the gate to light. The field of cosmic consciousness is described as a cosmic emptiness—a void that is paradoxically also a fullness. Can the mind travel through meditation to eternity? The biggest gaps in our knowledge concern the universe as a whole and our entanglement with it. We don't understand Nothing, which is virtually everything.
Keywords: nature of reality, interiority/exteriority, consciousness, vacuum fluctuation,
virtual photon flux, information, entanglement, Carl Jung, Buckminster Fuller,
World Field, Luminous Ground, & Archetypal Light
By Iona Miller, 3/2015
ABSTRACT:
How do we explore the depths of our reality and experience, seeing underneath that which appears on the surface? Traditions of 'Light' continue to inform our conceptions of reality. Traditions of 'Light' continue to inform our conceptions of reality. What we call reality and consciousness depends on our level of observation and mystical penetration. The most common error is conflating Consciousness and Awareness. Consciousness is a product of widespread communication, while awareness is a focal capacity. Do our attentional habits create our experience?
Neurologically, consciousness appears to be an emergent property of operational information propagated throughout the brain and psychological space. But we should carefully avoid materialistic errors of category and levels of observation.
How can we integrate different theories relating to the basis of reality? No shortage of comparisons and correlations between spiritual notions and scientific theories has been made. This article focuses on the light motif that structures other layers of nature -- descriptions of the physical and metaphysical origins, properties and behavior of light – virtual, photonic, and symbolic.
What is the basis of the universe and the material of fundamental reality? Researchers continue to study consciousness not only as the source of the human mind but of all energy and matter. Consciousness is viewed as the essence of the universe, a unified field which gives rise to and pervades all manifest phenomena.
Can we directly experience the unified field? Correlations are drawn between the zero-point field and the pre-personal depths of transcendence. Darkness is the gate to light. The field of cosmic consciousness is described as a cosmic emptiness—a void that is paradoxically also a fullness. Can the mind travel through meditation to eternity? The biggest gaps in our knowledge concern the universe as a whole and our entanglement with it. We don't understand Nothing, which is virtually everything.
Keywords: nature of reality, interiority/exteriority, consciousness, vacuum fluctuation,
virtual photon flux, information, entanglement, Carl Jung, Buckminster Fuller,
Ontology is the philosophical investigation of existence, or being. It may be directed towards the concept of being, asking what ‘being’ means, or what it is for something to exist and/or what exists?’, or ‘what general sorts of thing are there?’ It is common to speak of a philosopher’s ontology, meaning the kinds of thing they take to exist, or the ontology of a theory, meaning the things that would have to exist for that theory to be true. All seekers have these basic assumptions about reality based on their experience and worldview.
Epistemology describes how we know what we know and what it is subjectively like, metaphorically. It is concerned with the nature, sources and limits of knowledge. There is a vast array of views about those topics, but one virtually universal presupposition is that knowledge is true belief, but not mere true belief. Our own personal epistemological metaphors are how we describe our subjective experiences to ourselves. They condition our experience, but they can be morphed in therapy, through trauma, by propaganda and enculturation.
Metaphysics is a broad area of philosophy marked out by two types of inquiry. The first aims to be the most general investigation possible into the nature of reality: are there principles applying to everything that is real, to all that is? We can abstract from the particular nature of existing things what distinguishes them from each other, and what can we know about them simply because they exist?
The second type of inquiry seeks to uncover what is ultimately real, frequently offering answers in sharp contrast to our everyday experience of the world. Understood in terms of these two questions, metaphysics is very closely related to ontology, which is usually taken to involve both ‘what is existence (being)?’ and ‘what (fundamentally distinct) types of thing exist?’
Even the philosopher with a low opinion of the prospects for traditional and "woo woo" metaphysics can believe that there is a general framework which we in fact use for thinking about reality, and can undertake to describe and explore it. We can inquire into our most general patterns of thought, and the nature of things themselves only indirectly, if at all. Perhaps it does imply that there is a small but fairly stable core of human thought for it to investigate, but this collides with Postmodern thought which rejects meta-narratives.
We tend to think with awareness of our thoughts. We analyze and logically assess our thoughts. We decide if the thought/idea/belief is right, true, and correct, for us, or not. We either give it subconscious access or we reject it, in effect bounce it out. When subconscious access is allowed, we amplify it in our imagination. We locate memories to justify, validate, and defend it. We feel it. We do it. Our emotions drive our behaviors because we tend to behave the way we feel.
When we waken from one of these philosophical dreams into another, we find the crumbling 'truths' were simulations or simulacra all along. What felt authentic, even sacred, at the time is revealed as a sham. A change of heart correlates with the revisioning. The belief's charge of divinity came from the believer's attribution, not its inherent qualities. It is now revealed as a projection. We tend to 'worship' the dynamics of our understanding, divinize the presumed truth of a numinosum -- ontologically, historically, and personally.
We have scientific explanations for most of the phenomena that were considered divine powers until a few decades ago. Pre-scientific explanations usually included magic or divine intervention. We've plumbed the galaxies and universe back to the beginning of time, cracked the codes of life, and the workings of the brain. But we can't explain ourselves, much less how we are frequently duped by our subjective experience - or our interpretations of that experience.
Our environment is no longer more mysterious than the unsolved Mystery inside ourselves. We've consumed subject after subject in science and metaphysics in a feeding frenzy. But, we still haven't plumbed the depths of our own consciousness, which is riddled with paradoxes and weird properties. Our sense of Self imposes a sense of unity on our morphing essence, but science can't find this core self in our hardwiring. The "I's have it" and try to make sense of what the other "I's" are doing.
Consciousness eludes both scientists and the common person, but we remain sure we exist, even though physics has shown that the basis of all existence is quite ephemeral. The world of objects has disappeared in the waves of a quantum magic wand. So-called Reality is not at all solid, emerging from the primordial Nothingness beyond the mystic veil of biological and inorganic corporeality.
Nothing Matters. Nothing has been the same since science convinced us we DO live in a vacuum (fluctuation). It is right here within the zone of our bodies. The ideological equivalent was the diversified relativity of Postmodernism, a bleak vision which can be summed up as the philosophical, intellectual and aesthetic equivalent of "Been There; Done That".
"The last stage is reached when, in the highest tension and concentration, beholding in silence and utter forgetfulness of all things, it [the soul] is able as it were to lose itself. Then it may see God, the fountain of life, the source of being, the origin of all good, the root of the soul. In that moment it enjoys the highest indescribable bliss; it is as it were swallowed up of divinity, bathed in the light of eternity." –Plotinus
When a person finds himself single, he will be full of light;
But when he finds himself divided, he will be full of darkness.
--Gospel of Thomas
Paracelsus says that man has a mind in order that he may understand the truths which are made known in the Gospel, and only for this purpose. But on the other hand man has also a "lumen naturae" (a natural light), a source of knowledge hidden in nature, from which he can draw enlightenment. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture V. Page 162.
Human nature [hsing] and consciousness [hui] are expressed in light symbolism, and are therefore intensity, while life [ming] would coincide with extensity. The first have the character of the yang principle, the latter of the yin. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 101.
From Yogananda we hear: "Your being has two sides...one visible, the other invisible. With open eyes you behold objective creation, and yourself in it. With closed eyes you see nothing, a dark void; yet your consciousness, even when dissociated from form, is still keenly aware and operative. If in deep meditation you penetrate the darkness behind closed eyes, you behold the Light from which all creation emerges. By deeper samadhi, your experience transcends even the manifested Light and enters the All-Blissful Consciousness -- beyond all form, yet infinitely more real, tangible and joyous than any sensory or supersensory perception." --Yogananda
"Death: the mingling of the mother luminosity and the child luminosity: When the path luminosity mingles with the ground luminosity itself, at that instant one can free oneself into the absolute clarity…. Great yogis allow the luminosities to arise and mingle in that space, bypassing Bardo projections. They become the light of life itself." --Dudjom Rinpoche
"Pure Consciousness is included in fundamental space-time geometry along with the precursors of spin, mass, charge. In fact, everything we see in our real world stems from patterns in the most fundamental level that percolate up to our level which is many, many magnitudes of order higher." --Stuart Hameroff
“Is there a fixed reality apart from our various observations of it? Or is reality nothing more than a kaleidoscope of infinite possibilities?” The results of the experiment support the latter scenario, namely, “that there is a Rashomon effect not just in our descriptions of nature, but in nature itself… What this research implies is that we are not just hearing different stories about the electron, one of which may be true. Rather, there is one true story, but it has many facets, seemingly in contradiction, just like in Rashomon.” --Prof. Edward Frenkel
“Were it physically possible to place a sentient observer at the zero-point, looking at the macro world from beyond space-time, the observer should perceive the exchanges of energy in the underlying structure in electrodynamic balance and in resonance with Self and experience the connectedness of all things. Those who explore the samadhi states report precisely this same phenomenon as scintillating points of light when experiencing The All That Is.” –Edgar Mitchell
“Nick Herbert thinks that consciousness is a pervasive process in nature. Mind is as fundamental a component of the universe as elementary particles and forces. Mind can be detected by three features of quantum theory: randomness, thinglessness (objects acquire attributes only once they are observed) and interconnectedness (John Bell's discovery that once two particles have interacted they remain connected). Herbert thinks that these three features of inert matter can account for three basic features of mind: free will, essential ambiguity, and deep psychic connectedness. Scientists may be vastly underestimating the quantity of consciousness in the universe.”
--Scaruffi, http://www.scaruffi.com/science/qc.html
We are not used to thinking that light comes from within as well as from without, it is as if the eye had an inward light of its own, if we receive a blow on the head for instance, we see stars. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture III, 17May 1935, Pages 210.
When a person finds himself single, he will be full of light;
But when he finds himself divided, he will be full of darkness.
--Gospel of Thomas
Paracelsus says that man has a mind in order that he may understand the truths which are made known in the Gospel, and only for this purpose. But on the other hand man has also a "lumen naturae" (a natural light), a source of knowledge hidden in nature, from which he can draw enlightenment. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture V. Page 162.
Human nature [hsing] and consciousness [hui] are expressed in light symbolism, and are therefore intensity, while life [ming] would coincide with extensity. The first have the character of the yang principle, the latter of the yin. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 101.
From Yogananda we hear: "Your being has two sides...one visible, the other invisible. With open eyes you behold objective creation, and yourself in it. With closed eyes you see nothing, a dark void; yet your consciousness, even when dissociated from form, is still keenly aware and operative. If in deep meditation you penetrate the darkness behind closed eyes, you behold the Light from which all creation emerges. By deeper samadhi, your experience transcends even the manifested Light and enters the All-Blissful Consciousness -- beyond all form, yet infinitely more real, tangible and joyous than any sensory or supersensory perception." --Yogananda
"Death: the mingling of the mother luminosity and the child luminosity: When the path luminosity mingles with the ground luminosity itself, at that instant one can free oneself into the absolute clarity…. Great yogis allow the luminosities to arise and mingle in that space, bypassing Bardo projections. They become the light of life itself." --Dudjom Rinpoche
"Pure Consciousness is included in fundamental space-time geometry along with the precursors of spin, mass, charge. In fact, everything we see in our real world stems from patterns in the most fundamental level that percolate up to our level which is many, many magnitudes of order higher." --Stuart Hameroff
“Is there a fixed reality apart from our various observations of it? Or is reality nothing more than a kaleidoscope of infinite possibilities?” The results of the experiment support the latter scenario, namely, “that there is a Rashomon effect not just in our descriptions of nature, but in nature itself… What this research implies is that we are not just hearing different stories about the electron, one of which may be true. Rather, there is one true story, but it has many facets, seemingly in contradiction, just like in Rashomon.” --Prof. Edward Frenkel
“Were it physically possible to place a sentient observer at the zero-point, looking at the macro world from beyond space-time, the observer should perceive the exchanges of energy in the underlying structure in electrodynamic balance and in resonance with Self and experience the connectedness of all things. Those who explore the samadhi states report precisely this same phenomenon as scintillating points of light when experiencing The All That Is.” –Edgar Mitchell
“Nick Herbert thinks that consciousness is a pervasive process in nature. Mind is as fundamental a component of the universe as elementary particles and forces. Mind can be detected by three features of quantum theory: randomness, thinglessness (objects acquire attributes only once they are observed) and interconnectedness (John Bell's discovery that once two particles have interacted they remain connected). Herbert thinks that these three features of inert matter can account for three basic features of mind: free will, essential ambiguity, and deep psychic connectedness. Scientists may be vastly underestimating the quantity of consciousness in the universe.”
--Scaruffi, http://www.scaruffi.com/science/qc.html
We are not used to thinking that light comes from within as well as from without, it is as if the eye had an inward light of its own, if we receive a blow on the head for instance, we see stars. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture III, 17May 1935, Pages 210.
Is consciousness a primordial factor of existence, an irreducible dimension of nature? Physics tells us our experience is inherently subjective -- an objective world independent of the observer doesn’t exist. Particles and Observer are entangled at the quantum scale, so observation affects the matter being observed. Fundamentally, in a holographic model, each part is related internally to the activity of all other parts and the whole. When the realm of discrete objects is transcended, everything becomes united in an indivisible whole.
Is consciousness a primordial factor of existence, an irreducible dimension of nature? Physics tells us our experience is inherently subjective -- an objective world independent of the observer doesn’t exist. Particles and Observer are entangled at the quantum scale, so observation affects the matter being observed. Fundamentally, in a holographic model, each part is related internally to the activity of all other parts and the whole. When the realm of discrete objects is transcended, everything becomes united in an indivisible whole. Is consciousness a primordial factor of existence, an irreducible dimension of nature? Physics tells us our experience is inherently subjective -- an objective world independent of the observer doesn’t exist. Particles and Observer are entangled at the quantum scale, so observation affects the matter being observed. Fundamentally, in a holographic model, each part is related internally to the activity of all other parts and the whole. When the realm of discrete objects is transcended, everything becomes united in an indivisible whole. Is consciousness a primordial factor of existence, an irreducible dimension of nature? Physics tells us our experience is inherently subjective -- an objective world independent of the observer doesn’t exist. Particles and Observer are entangled at the quantum scale, so observation affects the matter being observed. Fundamentally, in a holographic model, each part is related internally to the activity of all other parts and the whole. When the realm of discrete objects is transcended, everything becomes united in an indivisible whole. Is consciousness a primordial factor of existence, an irreducible dimension of nature? Physics tells us our experience is inherently subjective -- an objective world independent of the observer doesn’t exist. Particles and Observer are entangled at the quantum scale, so observation affects the matter being observed. Fundamentally, in a holographic model, each part is related internally to the activity of all other parts and the whole. When the realm of discrete objects is transcended, everything becomes united in an indivisible whole. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle describes the Planck scale where energy may momentarily decay into any field of particles and antiparticles and then annihilate without violating energy conservation laws. So, ‘creatio ex nihilo’ continues uninterruptedly at the smallest scale, which is the non-zero vacuum expectation value.
"...the precision with which you can measure the energy of any system, such as a piece of empty space, is limited by the duration of the measurement; the shorter the time, the greater the imprecision. And this indeterminacy can never be resolved simply by more accurate measuring instruments; it is inherent in the system itself. Over a short enough time the system can assume just about any energy--and it does. In a world ruled by quantum mechanics, the energy of the system in any fleeting instant can be seen only as a wavelike function. As a consequence, the vacuum of empty space is not empty; it is pervaded by fluctuating fields of energy that, when large enough, manifest themselves as particles--individual photons, for example, or particle pairs consisting of an ordinary electron or quark and its anti-matter twin, which burst into existence and then annihilate. The vacuum is thick with these short-lived "virtual" particles. It looks empty only because each particle's visit to existence, according to the uncertainty principle, is so infinitesimally brief as to be undetectable." (Sidney Coleman)
Deep Background
Matter is continually emerging from and dissolving back into a nonmaterial unified field. Physicist David Bohm compared anomalous experience and the "stream of consciousness" with the movement of matter, describing a process-oriented basis for physics. The vacuum potential may well be the spring -- the source -- of that stream flowing from the deepest level of existence. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi called 'flow' the state of intrinsic motivation, optimal creativity, and human fulfillment.
Bohm tended to place more faith in intuition than he did in mathematics so his understanding came from probing more deeply into underlying assumptions of physics and quantum theory. He suggested the flow of thought itself may be part of reality as a whole. He considered the ground of consciousness not as elementary particles but pure process -- the flowing movement of the whole.
He called this 'holomovement' the implicate order and recognized its infinite potential behind active information and nonlocality. In the undivided Universe, Bohm described field variables and their superwave function, replacing the field variables of particle variables. He predicted a stochastic (virtually random probability) sub-quantal and sub-relativistic level where the current laws of physics fail.
Structural Coding
Quantum information encoding means that if we split the system apart we can learn something from correlations among the parts. This is the nature of entanglement. The quantum warp and woof of space-time correlates with entanglement, binding the synergetic nodal system together. Entanglement is like the 'glue' that holds together the pre-geometries of interacting nodes of space-time, where information is encoded.
Manifestations are real at their own level of operation. All perceptions, thoughts, and creative dynamics arise from this underlying transcendent field, known classically as the Clear Light or Primordial Awareness.The Sufis say their imaginal realm of spiritual reality is composed of light which surrounds and contains everything external or visible in the physical world. Background consciousness is the sense of self, but we must also include the archetypal and psychological ideas we have regarding our perceptions. The deeply unconscious is the ground of our psychophysical being. Virtual states are structural potential -- mathematical forms or patterns of information taking the form of waves that are invisible because they are empty. Part of us sustains a chemical vector, another part an electric plane, and another a magnetic plane, propagating orthogonally to one another. Their interrelationship is a complex informational field that is perhaps orthogonal to the magnetic field.
Carrier waves move signal waves of information. All frequencies are ultimately information. It seems our sensory filters can be fine tuned to the environment or augmented with instinct, intuition, inference, and inspiration in a way that accesses hidden information. The role of resonance, resonant oscillations, and indirect coupling in such interactions, non-physical phenomena, as well as signal-to-noise ratios, deserves further research.
We can compare this with Jung's concept that behind our conscious awareness is a realm of unconscious or proto-conscious forms or potentials, including entities with no mass or energy but tangible effects. For example, molecules are guided in their actions by the wave forms of their quantum states, or their virtual states, like by inner images. In chemistry, a molecule only does what is allowed by a wave form—an inner image—of one of its virtual states. In this way, quantum wave functions operate like archetypes.
Subjective Life
Without hypostatizing the idea to some otherworldly plane, Jung suggested our primordial behavior is informed by archetypal images. This is the difference between a psychological and a metaphysical, "spiritual," or religious approach and worldview. Jung saw consciousness as "essentially the psyche's organ of perception, it is the eye and ear of the psyche." Even the scientific view is still infused with unconscious myths and symbols, as "all that comes into our heads proceeds from the unconscious." (ETH Lecture II, April 27, 1934, pg. 98).
If we are convinced that we know the ultimate truth concerning metaphysical things, this means nothing more than that archetypal images have taken possession of our powers of thought and feeling, so that these lose their quality as functions at our disposal. The loss shows itself in the fact that the object of perception then becomes absolute and indisputable and surrounds itself with such emotional taboo that anyone who presumes to reflect on it is automatically branded a heretic and blasphemer. (C.G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, par. 787).
What is the difference between a subjective knowledge-based reality and an observer-independent reality? Scientific truths and possible realities seem to emerge from the collective psyche ('transpersonal unconscious', 'objective psyche') (Jung, 1917, p.66, fn. 4) into consensus reality (beliefs about the true nature of reality).
Mystics base their worldviews on proactive engagement and immersion in just being -- direct observation of self and cosmos, rather than mathematical models. This inner physics is an imaginative, intuitive, and qualitative experience. They navigate the inner field by recognizing patterns seemingly beyond human mental constructs. They turn their observational skills inward on their own operational machinery and find proto-conscious cosmic dynamics at the root of the process which they describe in poetic insights.
For religious man the major difference in the differentiation of space was between cosmos and chaos -- a primal division of sacred and profane space. It may be as Jung said, that the foundation of the unconscious is not chaotic, but has a distinct organization (ETH Lectures, 1935, p. 190) that conflates inner and outer space.
Our ancestors imposed their notions of cosmos on chaos, including symbolic variations of the axis mundi, connecting heaven and earth (pole, pillar, tree, ladder, mountain, ziggurat). The Precession of the Equinoxes, a 26,000 year cosmic cycle, is the prime example of such schemas. Such 'grounding' made man the center of the universe, exemplifying the hermetic maxim, "As Above, So Below."
For the non-religious, space is uniformly neutral. However, plausible scientific theories and concepts still compete with philosophical ideas and a plethora of emotionally-based metaphysical and pop notions for acceptance by the general public. Our ideas about the nature of Nothing have expanded into a few potentially graspable concepts. Bohm taught that quantum theory and geometry are united at the outset, emerging together from pre-space.
We now realize we aren't the center of the universe, but also that a universal creative process literally resides within us connecting us to a metaphysical core that is the ground of our being. Inner order remains the foundation of our psyche. We still yearn for a conscious life with authentic meaning. The meaningful space about which we are really concerned is that between the known and the unknowable. Our picture of space continues to evolve over time, as it has for thousands of years.
Mass Delusion
Some contend most of the mass in protons comes from the fluctuations of 'empty' space. Other theories invoke dark energy or another mysterious component of empty space, the Higgs field, that gives particles the property of mass. Without the Higgs field, electrons would fly at the speed of light, and atoms would instantly disintegrate.
More poetically, human consciousness has been described as a cork floating on a sea of unconsciousness, whose waves are shaped by the sea-bed, another metaphor of the groundstate. Mystics speak of turning consciousness inward backward into the very depths of our being. They witness a light that brightens the inner space of the subjective self -- a luminous essence, brilliant and transparent.
Can we unpack the nature of Nothing? Is 'empty' space a no place with no time and no laws? Panpsychism suggests that everything in the universe might be conscious, or at least potentially conscious, or conscious in certain configurations. Panprotopsychism postulates that fundamental physical entities are proto-conscious. Some fundamental physical entities have protophenomenal properties (Chalmers). Naturally, there are arguments for and against such notions, just as for materialism.Hu and Wu (2002) suggest a non-dual "spin-mediated consciousness theory based on pan-protopsychism: "We postulate that consciousness is intrinsically connected to quantum mechanical spin since said spin is embedded in the microscopic structure of spacetime and may be more fundamental than spacetime itself. Thus, we theorize that consciousness emerges quantum mechanically from the collective dynamics of "protopsychic" spins under the influence of spacetime dynamics. That is, spin is the "pixel" of mind. The unity of mind is achieved by quantum entanglement of the mind-pixels." We live in a quantum sea of light, radiation and tidal forces conflated with the energy density. Light is the fundamental archetype of reality. It appears when the Ouroboric zero-point bursts open in radiant glory, from the unfathomable primordial darkness, as photonic light and undifferentiated consciousness. As such, it becomes more than a metaphor for human consciousness and primordial awareness – the invisible ground of pure light. This “ground of becoming” may be characterized as a relative vacuum state of consciousness, voided of all manner of mental activity. This mental phenomenon can be accessed through meditative quiescence, the cultivation of nondual contemplative insight. When the conceptual mind stops consciousness beholds itself. Such relative and ultimate vacuum states of consciousness can be correlated with relative and absolute vacuum states of space presented in contemporary physics. Primordial awareness correlates with the minimum fluctuation of the energetic vacuum. Still, the Buddhists caution emptiness, as they use it, does not mean an absolute reality or independent truth.
Panprotopsychism postulates that fundamental physical entities are proto-conscious. Some fundamental physical entities have protophenomenal properties (Chalmers). Naturally, there are arguments for and against such notions, just as for materialism.Hu and Wu (2002) suggest a non-dual "spin-mediated consciousness theory based on pan-protopsychism: "We postulate that consciousness is intrinsically connected to quantum mechanical spin since said spin is embedded in the microscopic structure of spacetime and may be more fundamental than spacetime itself. Thus, we theorize that consciousness emerges quantum mechanically from the collective dynamics of "protopsychic" spins under the influence of spacetime dynamics. That is, spin is the "pixel" of mind. The unity of mind is achieved by quantum entanglement of the mind-pixels." We live in a quantum sea of light, radiation and tidal forces conflated with the energy density. Light is the fundamental archetype of reality. It appears when the Ouroboric zero-point bursts open in radiant glory, from the unfathomable primordial darkness, as photonic light and undifferentiated consciousness. As such, it becomes more than a metaphor for human consciousness and primordial awareness – the invisible ground of pure light. This “ground of becoming” may be characterized as a relative vacuum state of consciousness, voided of all manner of mental activity. This mental phenomenon can be accessed through meditative quiescence, the cultivation of nondual contemplative insight. When the conceptual mind stops consciousness beholds itself. Such relative and ultimate vacuum states of consciousness can be correlated with relative and absolute vacuum states of space presented in contemporary physics. Primordial awareness correlates with the minimum fluctuation of the energetic vacuum. Still, the Buddhists caution emptiness, as they use it, does not mean an absolute reality or independent truth.
Symbolically, the Absolute is represented as Source, Fountain or Well, the Center, the One, the All or Whole, the Origin (Arche). This Principle or Primordial Cause is Sacred or Holy, Mystery, the Ultimate. The “original ground” is the concept of an unconditioned reality which transcends limited, everyday existence. We don’t need to worship, literalize, or concretize such qualities to recognize their evocative power.
The archaic mind (unconscious) is constantly aware of the sacred. The Absolute reveals reality as light -- a background sea of light known as the electromagnetic zero-point field of the quantum vacuum. At the lowest energy state, the zero-point field is the unobservable root of all energy. The immediacy of the unmediated nonlocal reality is the zero point field, which connects the smallest quanta with distant galaxies.
Is consciousness a primordial factor of existence, an irreducible dimension of nature? Physics tells us our experience is inherently subjective -- an objective world independent of the observer doesn’t exist. Particles and Observer are entangled at the quantum scale, so observation affects the matter being observed. Fundamentally, in a holographic model, each part is related internally to the activity of all other parts and the whole. When the realm of discrete objects is transcended, everything becomes united in an indivisible whole. Is consciousness a primordial factor of existence, an irreducible dimension of nature? Physics tells us our experience is inherently subjective -- an objective world independent of the observer doesn’t exist. Particles and Observer are entangled at the quantum scale, so observation affects the matter being observed. Fundamentally, in a holographic model, each part is related internally to the activity of all other parts and the whole. When the realm of discrete objects is transcended, everything becomes united in an indivisible whole. Is consciousness a primordial factor of existence, an irreducible dimension of nature? Physics tells us our experience is inherently subjective -- an objective world independent of the observer doesn’t exist. Particles and Observer are entangled at the quantum scale, so observation affects the matter being observed. Fundamentally, in a holographic model, each part is related internally to the activity of all other parts and the whole. When the realm of discrete objects is transcended, everything becomes united in an indivisible whole. Is consciousness a primordial factor of existence, an irreducible dimension of nature? Physics tells us our experience is inherently subjective -- an objective world independent of the observer doesn’t exist. Particles and Observer are entangled at the quantum scale, so observation affects the matter being observed. Fundamentally, in a holographic model, each part is related internally to the activity of all other parts and the whole. When the realm of discrete objects is transcended, everything becomes united in an indivisible whole. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle describes the Planck scale where energy may momentarily decay into any field of particles and antiparticles and then annihilate without violating energy conservation laws. So, ‘creatio ex nihilo’ continues uninterruptedly at the smallest scale, which is the non-zero vacuum expectation value.
"...the precision with which you can measure the energy of any system, such as a piece of empty space, is limited by the duration of the measurement; the shorter the time, the greater the imprecision. And this indeterminacy can never be resolved simply by more accurate measuring instruments; it is inherent in the system itself. Over a short enough time the system can assume just about any energy--and it does. In a world ruled by quantum mechanics, the energy of the system in any fleeting instant can be seen only as a wavelike function. As a consequence, the vacuum of empty space is not empty; it is pervaded by fluctuating fields of energy that, when large enough, manifest themselves as particles--individual photons, for example, or particle pairs consisting of an ordinary electron or quark and its anti-matter twin, which burst into existence and then annihilate. The vacuum is thick with these short-lived "virtual" particles. It looks empty only because each particle's visit to existence, according to the uncertainty principle, is so infinitesimally brief as to be undetectable." (Sidney Coleman)
Deep Background
Matter is continually emerging from and dissolving back into a nonmaterial unified field. Physicist David Bohm compared anomalous experience and the "stream of consciousness" with the movement of matter, describing a process-oriented basis for physics. The vacuum potential may well be the spring -- the source -- of that stream flowing from the deepest level of existence. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi called 'flow' the state of intrinsic motivation, optimal creativity, and human fulfillment.
Bohm tended to place more faith in intuition than he did in mathematics so his understanding came from probing more deeply into underlying assumptions of physics and quantum theory. He suggested the flow of thought itself may be part of reality as a whole. He considered the ground of consciousness not as elementary particles but pure process -- the flowing movement of the whole.
He called this 'holomovement' the implicate order and recognized its infinite potential behind active information and nonlocality. In the undivided Universe, Bohm described field variables and their superwave function, replacing the field variables of particle variables. He predicted a stochastic (virtually random probability) sub-quantal and sub-relativistic level where the current laws of physics fail.
Structural Coding
Quantum information encoding means that if we split the system apart we can learn something from correlations among the parts. This is the nature of entanglement. The quantum warp and woof of space-time correlates with entanglement, binding the synergetic nodal system together. Entanglement is like the 'glue' that holds together the pre-geometries of interacting nodes of space-time, where information is encoded.
Manifestations are real at their own level of operation. All perceptions, thoughts, and creative dynamics arise from this underlying transcendent field, known classically as the Clear Light or Primordial Awareness.The Sufis say their imaginal realm of spiritual reality is composed of light which surrounds and contains everything external or visible in the physical world. Background consciousness is the sense of self, but we must also include the archetypal and psychological ideas we have regarding our perceptions. The deeply unconscious is the ground of our psychophysical being. Virtual states are structural potential -- mathematical forms or patterns of information taking the form of waves that are invisible because they are empty. Part of us sustains a chemical vector, another part an electric plane, and another a magnetic plane, propagating orthogonally to one another. Their interrelationship is a complex informational field that is perhaps orthogonal to the magnetic field.
Carrier waves move signal waves of information. All frequencies are ultimately information. It seems our sensory filters can be fine tuned to the environment or augmented with instinct, intuition, inference, and inspiration in a way that accesses hidden information. The role of resonance, resonant oscillations, and indirect coupling in such interactions, non-physical phenomena, as well as signal-to-noise ratios, deserves further research.
We can compare this with Jung's concept that behind our conscious awareness is a realm of unconscious or proto-conscious forms or potentials, including entities with no mass or energy but tangible effects. For example, molecules are guided in their actions by the wave forms of their quantum states, or their virtual states, like by inner images. In chemistry, a molecule only does what is allowed by a wave form—an inner image—of one of its virtual states. In this way, quantum wave functions operate like archetypes.
Subjective Life
Without hypostatizing the idea to some otherworldly plane, Jung suggested our primordial behavior is informed by archetypal images. This is the difference between a psychological and a metaphysical, "spiritual," or religious approach and worldview. Jung saw consciousness as "essentially the psyche's organ of perception, it is the eye and ear of the psyche." Even the scientific view is still infused with unconscious myths and symbols, as "all that comes into our heads proceeds from the unconscious." (ETH Lecture II, April 27, 1934, pg. 98).
If we are convinced that we know the ultimate truth concerning metaphysical things, this means nothing more than that archetypal images have taken possession of our powers of thought and feeling, so that these lose their quality as functions at our disposal. The loss shows itself in the fact that the object of perception then becomes absolute and indisputable and surrounds itself with such emotional taboo that anyone who presumes to reflect on it is automatically branded a heretic and blasphemer. (C.G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, par. 787).
What is the difference between a subjective knowledge-based reality and an observer-independent reality? Scientific truths and possible realities seem to emerge from the collective psyche ('transpersonal unconscious', 'objective psyche') (Jung, 1917, p.66, fn. 4) into consensus reality (beliefs about the true nature of reality).
Mystics base their worldviews on proactive engagement and immersion in just being -- direct observation of self and cosmos, rather than mathematical models. This inner physics is an imaginative, intuitive, and qualitative experience. They navigate the inner field by recognizing patterns seemingly beyond human mental constructs. They turn their observational skills inward on their own operational machinery and find proto-conscious cosmic dynamics at the root of the process which they describe in poetic insights.
For religious man the major difference in the differentiation of space was between cosmos and chaos -- a primal division of sacred and profane space. It may be as Jung said, that the foundation of the unconscious is not chaotic, but has a distinct organization (ETH Lectures, 1935, p. 190) that conflates inner and outer space.
Our ancestors imposed their notions of cosmos on chaos, including symbolic variations of the axis mundi, connecting heaven and earth (pole, pillar, tree, ladder, mountain, ziggurat). The Precession of the Equinoxes, a 26,000 year cosmic cycle, is the prime example of such schemas. Such 'grounding' made man the center of the universe, exemplifying the hermetic maxim, "As Above, So Below."
For the non-religious, space is uniformly neutral. However, plausible scientific theories and concepts still compete with philosophical ideas and a plethora of emotionally-based metaphysical and pop notions for acceptance by the general public. Our ideas about the nature of Nothing have expanded into a few potentially graspable concepts. Bohm taught that quantum theory and geometry are united at the outset, emerging together from pre-space.
We now realize we aren't the center of the universe, but also that a universal creative process literally resides within us connecting us to a metaphysical core that is the ground of our being. Inner order remains the foundation of our psyche. We still yearn for a conscious life with authentic meaning. The meaningful space about which we are really concerned is that between the known and the unknowable. Our picture of space continues to evolve over time, as it has for thousands of years.
Mass Delusion
Some contend most of the mass in protons comes from the fluctuations of 'empty' space. Other theories invoke dark energy or another mysterious component of empty space, the Higgs field, that gives particles the property of mass. Without the Higgs field, electrons would fly at the speed of light, and atoms would instantly disintegrate.
More poetically, human consciousness has been described as a cork floating on a sea of unconsciousness, whose waves are shaped by the sea-bed, another metaphor of the groundstate. Mystics speak of turning consciousness inward backward into the very depths of our being. They witness a light that brightens the inner space of the subjective self -- a luminous essence, brilliant and transparent.
Can we unpack the nature of Nothing? Is 'empty' space a no place with no time and no laws? Panpsychism suggests that everything in the universe might be conscious, or at least potentially conscious, or conscious in certain configurations. Panprotopsychism postulates that fundamental physical entities are proto-conscious. Some fundamental physical entities have protophenomenal properties (Chalmers). Naturally, there are arguments for and against such notions, just as for materialism.Hu and Wu (2002) suggest a non-dual "spin-mediated consciousness theory based on pan-protopsychism: "We postulate that consciousness is intrinsically connected to quantum mechanical spin since said spin is embedded in the microscopic structure of spacetime and may be more fundamental than spacetime itself. Thus, we theorize that consciousness emerges quantum mechanically from the collective dynamics of "protopsychic" spins under the influence of spacetime dynamics. That is, spin is the "pixel" of mind. The unity of mind is achieved by quantum entanglement of the mind-pixels." We live in a quantum sea of light, radiation and tidal forces conflated with the energy density. Light is the fundamental archetype of reality. It appears when the Ouroboric zero-point bursts open in radiant glory, from the unfathomable primordial darkness, as photonic light and undifferentiated consciousness. As such, it becomes more than a metaphor for human consciousness and primordial awareness – the invisible ground of pure light. This “ground of becoming” may be characterized as a relative vacuum state of consciousness, voided of all manner of mental activity. This mental phenomenon can be accessed through meditative quiescence, the cultivation of nondual contemplative insight. When the conceptual mind stops consciousness beholds itself. Such relative and ultimate vacuum states of consciousness can be correlated with relative and absolute vacuum states of space presented in contemporary physics. Primordial awareness correlates with the minimum fluctuation of the energetic vacuum. Still, the Buddhists caution emptiness, as they use it, does not mean an absolute reality or independent truth.
Panprotopsychism postulates that fundamental physical entities are proto-conscious. Some fundamental physical entities have protophenomenal properties (Chalmers). Naturally, there are arguments for and against such notions, just as for materialism.Hu and Wu (2002) suggest a non-dual "spin-mediated consciousness theory based on pan-protopsychism: "We postulate that consciousness is intrinsically connected to quantum mechanical spin since said spin is embedded in the microscopic structure of spacetime and may be more fundamental than spacetime itself. Thus, we theorize that consciousness emerges quantum mechanically from the collective dynamics of "protopsychic" spins under the influence of spacetime dynamics. That is, spin is the "pixel" of mind. The unity of mind is achieved by quantum entanglement of the mind-pixels." We live in a quantum sea of light, radiation and tidal forces conflated with the energy density. Light is the fundamental archetype of reality. It appears when the Ouroboric zero-point bursts open in radiant glory, from the unfathomable primordial darkness, as photonic light and undifferentiated consciousness. As such, it becomes more than a metaphor for human consciousness and primordial awareness – the invisible ground of pure light. This “ground of becoming” may be characterized as a relative vacuum state of consciousness, voided of all manner of mental activity. This mental phenomenon can be accessed through meditative quiescence, the cultivation of nondual contemplative insight. When the conceptual mind stops consciousness beholds itself. Such relative and ultimate vacuum states of consciousness can be correlated with relative and absolute vacuum states of space presented in contemporary physics. Primordial awareness correlates with the minimum fluctuation of the energetic vacuum. Still, the Buddhists caution emptiness, as they use it, does not mean an absolute reality or independent truth.
Symbolically, the Absolute is represented as Source, Fountain or Well, the Center, the One, the All or Whole, the Origin (Arche). This Principle or Primordial Cause is Sacred or Holy, Mystery, the Ultimate. The “original ground” is the concept of an unconditioned reality which transcends limited, everyday existence. We don’t need to worship, literalize, or concretize such qualities to recognize their evocative power.
The archaic mind (unconscious) is constantly aware of the sacred. The Absolute reveals reality as light -- a background sea of light known as the electromagnetic zero-point field of the quantum vacuum. At the lowest energy state, the zero-point field is the unobservable root of all energy. The immediacy of the unmediated nonlocal reality is the zero point field, which connects the smallest quanta with distant galaxies.
DIRECT LIGHT
2) As we have said, the will to receive is innately included in the Thought of Creation with all its denominations, along with the great abundance He had planned to delight them and impart to them. And know that these are the Ohr (Light) and Kli that we discern in the Upper Worlds. They necessarily come tied together and cascade together degree by degree. And the extent to which the degrees descend from the Light of His Face and depart from Him is the extent of the materialization of the will to receive contained in the abundance.
We could also state the opposite: to the extent that the will to receive in the abundance materializes, it descends degree by degree to the lowest of all places, where the will to receive is fully materialized. This place is called “the world of Assiya,” the will to receive is considered “man’s body,” and the abundance one receives is considered the measure of “vitality in that body.”
And they are four worlds, called Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. The world of Assiya contains this world within it. Thus, there is not a creature in this world, which is not initiated in the world of Ein Sof, in the Thought of Creation to delight His creatures. Hence, it is innately comprised of Light and Kli, meaning a certain measure of abundance with the will to receive that abundance.
4) The reason why the will to receive must cascade by the four above-mentioned discernments in ABYA (Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya) is that there is a great rule concerning the Kelim (plural for Kli): the expansion of the Light and its departure make the Kli fit for its task. This means that as long as the Kli has not been separated from its Light, it is included in the Light and is annulled within it like a candle in a torch.
http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/4850?/eng/content/view/full/4850&main
17) Thus far we have clarified the three basic elements in the wisdom. The first is the Light and the Kli, where the Light is a direct extension of His Essence, and the Kli is the will to receive, which is necessarily included in that Light. One departs the Emanator and becomes an emanated being to the extent of that desire. Also, this will to receive is considered the Malchut discerned in the Upper Light. This is why it is called Malchut, by way of “He is One and His Name, One,” as His name in Gematria is Ratzon (desire).
The second matter is the clarification of the ten Sefirot and four worlds ABYA, which are four degrees one below the other. The will to receive must hang down through them until it is completed — Kli and content.
The third matter is the Tzimtzum and the Masach (Screen) placed on this vessel of reception, which is Behina Dalet, in return for which new vessels of reception were made in the ten Sefirot, called Ohr Hozer. Understand and memorize these three foundations and their reasons, as they had appeared before you, since without them there is no understanding of even a single word in this wisdom.
http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/4850?/eng/content/view/full/4850&main
2) As we have said, the will to receive is innately included in the Thought of Creation with all its denominations, along with the great abundance He had planned to delight them and impart to them. And know that these are the Ohr (Light) and Kli that we discern in the Upper Worlds. They necessarily come tied together and cascade together degree by degree. And the extent to which the degrees descend from the Light of His Face and depart from Him is the extent of the materialization of the will to receive contained in the abundance.
We could also state the opposite: to the extent that the will to receive in the abundance materializes, it descends degree by degree to the lowest of all places, where the will to receive is fully materialized. This place is called “the world of Assiya,” the will to receive is considered “man’s body,” and the abundance one receives is considered the measure of “vitality in that body.”
And they are four worlds, called Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. The world of Assiya contains this world within it. Thus, there is not a creature in this world, which is not initiated in the world of Ein Sof, in the Thought of Creation to delight His creatures. Hence, it is innately comprised of Light and Kli, meaning a certain measure of abundance with the will to receive that abundance.
4) The reason why the will to receive must cascade by the four above-mentioned discernments in ABYA (Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya) is that there is a great rule concerning the Kelim (plural for Kli): the expansion of the Light and its departure make the Kli fit for its task. This means that as long as the Kli has not been separated from its Light, it is included in the Light and is annulled within it like a candle in a torch.
http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/4850?/eng/content/view/full/4850&main
17) Thus far we have clarified the three basic elements in the wisdom. The first is the Light and the Kli, where the Light is a direct extension of His Essence, and the Kli is the will to receive, which is necessarily included in that Light. One departs the Emanator and becomes an emanated being to the extent of that desire. Also, this will to receive is considered the Malchut discerned in the Upper Light. This is why it is called Malchut, by way of “He is One and His Name, One,” as His name in Gematria is Ratzon (desire).
The second matter is the clarification of the ten Sefirot and four worlds ABYA, which are four degrees one below the other. The will to receive must hang down through them until it is completed — Kli and content.
The third matter is the Tzimtzum and the Masach (Screen) placed on this vessel of reception, which is Behina Dalet, in return for which new vessels of reception were made in the ten Sefirot, called Ohr Hozer. Understand and memorize these three foundations and their reasons, as they had appeared before you, since without them there is no understanding of even a single word in this wisdom.
http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/4850?/eng/content/view/full/4850&main