Jason West
Truth: Part I
It is probably the most common story of my personal
history. It is the story of the recurring dream that
was the genesis of my search for truth. To understand
the search, and the urgency of that search, is to
understand the dream, and vice versa. The dream itself
is an initiation, an invitation, a calling to a higher
order, and gave me the perspective needed when
individual “truths” crumbled.
I awake (within the dream) to find myself flying or
falling face first through space and towards an
excruciatingly bright, pure light. I am accelerating;
and as I accelerate it feels as though I’m being sliced
apart by a large number of razor blades. The faster I
go, the more I lose of myself and all I know. I know
that before I was sent on this one way trip, I was told
that I had to reach the number 100. I was given
formulas that would supposedly yield that golden mean,
100. But try as I might, I keep coming up with the
number 99. Meanwhile, there is less and less of me and
space, and more and more of the light. Frantically I
run through the formulas again, fighting to stay
conscious, and trying to find my mistake before it’s
too late. Just before I awake (from the dream) in a
panic, I find my mistake and rush to finish the
formula. But I awake before knowing whether I finished
the formula first, became the light, or if they
happened simultaneously.
These dreams started at a very young age; I was
probably 4 or 5 years old. It wasn’t as if I was
studying physics, philosophy, or anything remotely
related; I was just a kid. So where would these dreams
come from? Were they just a subconscious representation
of my own curiosity? Did “truth” reach out to me? Is
there a ‘me’ that has mastered all the advanced
dimensions and is therefore not bound by time, space,
matter, energy, etc.? Did that advanced ‘me’ plant the
dream? Is there a simpler explanation?
Truth is intuitive; knowledge encoded in us from our
beginnings as star dust and beyond. It is ‘written’ in
the basic structure of the elements and woven in our
farthest reaching philosophies. We have an inner
knowing of it that is unlocked to certain degrees
during our search for it. Ultimately knowing truth is
elusive at best; a profound mystery that must be
approached in an integrated manner. Our probing
sciences contain its set of keys for unlocking certain
doors; our philosophies have there own set for other
doors; and our bodies, that strange mix of matter and
energy, unlock the rest. Few people there are that
unlock them all, and many of those that purportedly do
are no more than elaborate myths to teach us somehow
that it is possible.
Is this to say that science will never have an
explanation and a provable model of ‘the Theory of
Everything’? Or that mathematics will never be able to
represent that model? Or even that philosophy, past,
present, and future does not contain a perfect
explanation of its own? Truly these things are likely,
but my contention is that a complete knowledge of truth
must integrate experience, intuition, knowledge, and
application.
My personal opinion is swayed to be perfectly honest. I
believe that deep within many mystic traditions are
some adepts who have come fully to truth and have
perfect mastery of ‘reality’, or rather creating
‘reality’ on the blank canvas of whatever it is that is
the medium for the universe or multiverses, as the case
may be. These adepts are the ones who have come to the
“100” while the rest of us keep getting “99”.
Experience with weight training has taught me many
valuable lessons. Not the least of which is “making a
leap”. Leaps of faith are common in many religions,
often being the difference between getting your name in
the sacred texts or just becoming ever-passing dust
like everyone else. Leaps are made routinely in the
sciences where postulating a possible answer to a
stagnating problem spurs new discoveries. So it is with
weightlifting. Let’s say I walk into the gym one day
and do a maximum bench press with 315 lbs. Three days
later I come in and max out on the bench press, again
hitting 315 lbs. This continues for several workouts,
always getting stopped at 315. It’s obvious something
needs to happen to get beyond that weight to a new
personal record. What is that ‘something’? Yes, a leap.
It’s a day like every other day and I walk in expecting
to once again hit the wall at 315 lbs, but just as I’m
readying myself for that max, a favorite song comes on.
Feeling excited all the sudden I lay back and smoothly
and easily lift that 315 lbs. Inspired by how easy it
felt I add on another 20 lbs, lay back and grind up 335
lbs. I’ve made the leap! How? Something ‘pulled’ me
through from the other side. More energy than usual was
made available to the nerves that stimulate the muscle
fibers to lift that weight, the result being that more
nerve fibers and therefore, more muscle fibers were
recruited to make the lift. Our understanding of truth
is often pulled through in the same basic manner. A
critical mass of all we may have been studying about
truth comes to fruition and a new revelation is born.
I used the term ‘critical mass’; it could also be
stated as ‘corroborative evidence’. This could be
understood as many people using the same formula and
getting the same answers, human error aside. Or it
could be studying many seemingly different points of
view or disciplines, and again, coming up with the same
answers, differences in semantics aside. But what
happens when we are responding to a certain problem but
come up with two answers, both of which could be
logically argued as true? Could it be that there is
something deeper that pulls the seeming opposites
together under one umbrella?
In Part II I will be presenting my own diverse search
and the corroborative evidence that is a result.
Truth, Part II: An Investigation
“What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little
prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well…”
Antoine de Saint Exupéry: The Little Prince
Introduction
We cannot speak of truth in absolute terms, for, just
as we will, the wind will pick up, the sands will
shift, and the well will once again be hidden; in which
case we will once again be stranded in the deserts of
uncertainty, beginning anew the search for truth.
German experimental biologist, August Weisman said “It
is the quest after truth, not its possession that falls
to our human lot, that gladdens us, that fills our
lives- nay, that hallows them.”
Instead of basing this paper on a certain person or
persons, or a particular school of thought, I am basing
it around a certain concept. What is the truth of the
underlying fabric of reality?
One Source?
Throughout the millennia of human existence the
search for the “One Source”, or universal Truth has
consumed us. Our religious mythologies have long sought
to put a name and a face to it; philosophy has long
sought to know it; and science has long sought to
isolate and measure it. Yet it remains unnamed,
unknown, and unmeasured.
In 500 B.C.E. Heraclitus stated “All things
come out of the One and the One out of all things.”
Roughly 2200 years later Leibniz chimed in: “Reality
cannot be found except in One single source…” Nietzsche
got in on the act when talking of the proposition of
Thales; “…we find in all philosophies- the proposition:
everything is one!”
This theme of one single source is a common thread
throughout all the religions I’ve studied, obvious in
monotheism, but also evident in pantheism. A favorite
example is Zen Buddhism’s “nothing that is everything,
everything that is nothing” and the brilliant
comparisons linking Zen and Christian Mysticism in the
dialogue between Trappist monk Thomas Merton and Dr.
D.T. Suzuki in Merton’s Zen and the Birds of Appetite.
In fact, mystic traditions of every flavor share the
theme that there is some underlying essence to
everything, making everything relational. Written in
the Rig Veda, is this gem: “Though One, Brahman is the
cause of the many. … Brahman is the unborn (aja) in
whom all existing things abide. The One manifests as
the many, the formless putting on forms.”
Within the realm of science, feel free to take your
pick. Superstring theory or theories, being rolled into
M-Theory; the Zero-point field of Quantum physics;
Quantum Resonance theory… and that’s just a few from
the field of physics. Take a gander at biology,
chemistry, neuro-physics, linguistics, anthropology,
etc. Want to know what it is that truly strikes me as
amazing about these studies? It’s the fact that the
deeper you study these sciences, the more ‘similar’
they start looking! They begin blending. There’s the
obvious case of needing an understanding of chemistry
to truly comprehend what’s happening in a biological
system. How about understanding astrophysics in order
to attempt an understanding of the human mind? The
methods of using this cross-pollination strategy are
endless and invaluable to our ultimate quest of
understanding the ultimate truth about reality. The
blending that occurs as we get closer to that ultimate
truth will inevitably lead us to that One Thing.
Tripping on the Universal Brain
“[The] planetary mind is neither uniquely human
nor a product of technology. Nor is it a result of
reincarnation, or an outgrowth of telepathy. It is a
product of evolution and biology.” So says author and
founder of the International Paleopsychology Project,
Howard Bloom in his book Global Mind. In that book he
gives the evidence to back the statement by examining
everything from the needy neutron at the dawn of this
universe, to the cyanobacteria colonies instituting the
division of labor in domiciles of their own
construction- stromatolites. Stretching across billions
of years of evolutionary cycles we arrive at humans and
their inherent need for community, sociality, and
relationship; a need that recalls those primary needs
of the neutrons 12 billion years ago. Bloom establishes
the argument soundly in a vast number of examples
spanning at least 2 books and who knows how many peer-
reviewed scientific papers. The argument for a global
brain is, for me, solid.
But why stop there? If the whole of the
universe, and whatever it may be expanding into, is
made up of Quantum foam, Super Strings, or some other
yet unproven “One Thing”, then wouldn’t it follow that
it contains all the experiential knowledge and record
of everything that ever is? [I say “is” because there
is no separation of time, no timeline, in such a
medium. Everything that ever was, is; and everything
that ever will be, is.] And if it contains this entire
record, as necessarily it should, then wouldn’t
everything that is have “knowledge” of everything in
this entire record? And wouldn’t the advanced human
brain be able to access and work with this information?
Metaphysical phenomena are part of the human
experience, part of our historical record. The heady
conservatism of mainstream science does not rush to
embrace such hitherto “unprovables”, but that doesn’t
mean we can just throw out something that is so basic
and common to humanity. Science is often very slow;
qualifying the obvious only after every possible
contention and problem has been ironed out… this is as
it should be. We would have a disintegration of
science, and therefore an obstruction of advancement,
if it were not so. But things such as Jung’s
synchronicity, psychosomatic healings, intuition,
telekinesis, solutions to problems that just seem to
come from nowhere inside you … (you complete the list!)
are all around us, part of everyday life. I submit that
they aren’t part of some supernatural spirit realm [as
I have a somewhat Epicurean point of view], but part of
the natural, but as of yet, unsubstantiated One Source.
Hence, the ferocity with which modern physics is in
pursuit of the Theory of Everything.
Conclusion
I submit, with the backing of evidence gathered
in science, philosophy, and spiritual memes planet
wide, that there IS a One Source; a medium of all that
is; an ultimate “truth”. While it is doubtful that we
will agree on a name or common concept of it anytime
soon, maybe we can take comfort in that we are all
talking of the same thing in different ways.
Post reply