2IP Discussions
[Intro Music]
Nick: Welcome everyone to Module #2 in a series of seven modules, reflecting the seven
chapters of the Iceberg Principles by Marni Spencer Devlin. I'm your host, Nick Lawrence, and
I'm here with Marni. Hi, Marni, how are you?
Marni: Hi, Nick, pleasure to be here again with you.
Nick: Yeah, it's my pleasure to do these with you as well. And I thought: in this second principle,
why do you believe that we actually have a purpose?
Marni: We are such sophisticated creatures if you really think about it, Nick. I mean our bodies.
75 trillion cells. There's just no way to say that that just kind of came together by accident, that
there's no blueprint behind it, that it just kind of happened together. I think that's just really
stretching the realm of possibility. And so, if there is a plan behind it, which, again, I say there
has to be a plan behind it because there's no way such an amazingly sophisticated being could
come together without it. So, if there is a plan behind it, then it stands to reason that there's a
reason why that plan came together.
It's really just very basic, very simple logic. And if you look at the whole universe or, for that
matter, just take it closer. Just look at our planet. All the different creatures, how everything fits
together, these finely tuned ecosystems. I mean what was aware whenever man reaches in and
says, "Oh, we need to change this and that," and they change even the course of a river and they
realize years later oops, we screwed up because we changed the river, these fish died, and
because these fish died, these plants died? We realize that everything goes hand-in-hand, so
there's just a plan behind everything.
Everything exists for a reason. These fish that were in that river existed for a reason. You know,
everything has a purpose if you just look at it from that point of view.
Nick: Yeah, and I think that's interesting. That's why I asked the question, because, you know,
we're talking about, in this chapter two, the reason. Part of it is the reason for existence. I mean
do we need to leave some kind of a mark on the world? Is that part of who we are in some way?
Marni: What I talk about in this chapter is that I think we exist to be ourselves. If you think about
it, every one of us. There has never been another one of you, for instance. Not before and not
afterwards. Your set of fingerprints is completely unique, and a thousand years from now, they'll
find these fingerprints of yours and they'll still know it was Nick Lawrence was here, but nobody
else will have come along that has the same set of fingerprints as you do. And it's not just your
fingerprints. Everything about you is absolutely unique from every other being. Not just on this
planet, but in this entire universe.
So, if we go from the premise that we exist for a reason and we are absolutely unique, then it
stands to reason that our purpose is to express that uniqueness. That uniqueness didn't just come
by accident. Again, if we're saying that there aren't any accidents, everything fits finely tuned
into everything else, so that means that your uniqueness is also not by accident, and so you are to
express your uniqueness. So, whatever your gift, your talent, your likes are, whatever you do
best, that's what you're meant to do.
I'm supposed to do what I do best. You do what you do best.
Nick: And it makes perfect sense. It's certainly logical and makes perfect sense. I'm fascinated
by, in this part of the book, we talk about the reason for existence. You asked the age old
question, and that is, you know, if a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound, but your
answer is different from what a lot of people would say. So, let's talk about that. What is your
answer to that? Why do you believe the way you do about that?
Marni: Well, my answer is science. If a tree falls in the desert, does it make a sound? No. Sound
is not sound until it hits an eardrum, until it is heard. Sound doesn't make a sound. Sound is
really energetic waves, and those energetic waves are invisible. They're inaudible. They're
nothing really until they hit an eardrum and they vibrate that eardrum, and then something comes
of it. But before that, any kind of sound is really just energetic waves, and so it does not make a
sound. So, until there is someone to hear it.
So, music only exists if there's someone to hear it. And you can take it further. You can say color
only exists when there is a beholder.
Nick: We wouldn't know these things if there were no receiver or no receptor or no one to hear
or no one to see.
Marni: We wouldn't be there. If we wouldn't exist, then you're right, we wouldn't. If there's no
one to hear it, no one to see it, it's absolutely meaningless. There's no reason to have sound if
there's no one there to hear it. There's no reason to have color or beauty or anything if there's no
one there to appreciate it. So, it's absolutely meaningless without any kind of reflection.
Nick: We know that old expression: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So, what I'm hearing
you say: if there's no beholder, there's no beauty.
Marni: There's no beauty. There's no eye. There's no beholder. Then there's no beauty. There is
nothing. All there is then is just waves, and color is the same as sound on that level. It's just
energetic waves. And if there's no one to see it, it's meaningless.
Nick: Yeah. I guess I'm thinking for the people who will be listening to this whole series that
then are you in a sense denying objective reality. Does reality only exist because we're subjective
beings who perceive something or are you denying objective reality unless there's a perceiver in
a sense?
Marni: Well, objective reality had to exist, had to come into existence in order for everything to
have meaning. That's what I say is what's behind the big bang.
Nick: Okay.
Marni: The big bang was the logical outcome, the intelligence in back of everything, the
intelligence that's in back of the blueprint of everything. It creates all these amazing blueprints
and it creates sound waves, but then there's no one to hear it. There's no one to see it. So, all this
creation is completely meaningless. So, in order for this intelligence behind everything to find
meaning, for it to find expression, the big bang is how this physical, this objective universe came
into existence. It's when the non-dimensional burst forth into the dimensional universe.
And that was simply inevitable for that intelligence to find reflection, for that intelligence to find
meaning.
Nick: Speaking with you is very interesting and also challenging the way we think about things.
Marni, the universe and universal consciousness. Are they one and the same or are they
different?
Marni: Well, they're sort of the same. They're sort of the same. Universal consciousness, the
reason I say universal consciousness is because if there's this one consciousness, this one totality
of everything, it isn't intelligence. It is a conscious. It is consciousness because we're conscious
beings and we are expression of that one consciousness. It has to be consciousness. It can't just
be unconsciously have been created. Everything that there is. Again, there's so much
sophistication in everything.
I mean scientists, the world over, are trying to figure out this whole universe. There is so much to
it. The brightest minds are trying to figure out what this world is all about. There's so much
sophistication in back of this universe. It just stands to reason that there's an intelligence behind
it, and that intelligence has to be a conscious intelligence because otherwise it would be an
unconscious intelligence, means that everything has just sort of been created by accident.
Nick: Which is kind of like a contradiction in turns, an unconscious intelligence. If it's
unconscious, it kind of speaks to the idea that it's not aware and not alive or anything like that,
but you're saying it's an intelligent consciousness, which makes perfect sense.
Marni: Yeah, so it has to be a consciousness. And also, obviously here we are - you and I are talking. We're obviously conscious beings. We're aware that we're aware. So, there has to be a
consciousness in back of that, and so I say and I call it universal consciousness because you're
consciousness and I'm a consciousness, so we kind of arise from this same oneness, this one
consciousness in back of everything. The intelligence in back of everything that creates these
amazing blueprints, this DNA that makes up you, makes up, makes up all of us. So, there's this
one intelligence in back of all of it and it creates. It just creates. It's conscious of everything.
Nick: You said the big bang was when the non-dimensional broke out into the dimension
universe. Can you help us understand the real difference between dimensional and non-
dimensional? Does one mean physical, one mean non-physical, or does it mean something
different from that?
Marni: Yeah, one means physical. One means non-physical. The non-dimensional is outside of
dimension, or you could also say all dimensions, infinite dimensions are contained in that. It is
outside of space and outside of time, so it's non-dimensional. I mean what is the big bang. The
big bang is the beginning of the known universe, of the physical, measurable universe, and there
was this cataclysmic explosion and the universe appeared. Well, where did that come from?
There must have been something before it for it to explode.
And so, what was before was pure consciousness. What was before was the totality of everything
that had to find meaning because, again, that totality of everything created sound waves, created
music, if you will, created color, but there was no meaning to it. There was no sound because
there were no eardrums to hear it. So, you could say, to simplify it, the big bang happened in
order to create all those eardrums, so that the sound that is there could become sound and could
become appreciated.
The big bang created those eyes that then became the beholder of all this beauty. Without that,
everything is meaningless. And since consciousness is conscious, it needs to find meaning.
Nick: So, did something arise from no thing?
Marni: Everything starts as no thing.
Nick: Everything starts as no thing.
Marni: Consciousness is always first.
Nick: Okay.
Marni: All form arises from consciousness. A simple example is that everything that exists
started as an idea first. What's an idea? An idea isn't just simply a random spark in the synapses
of your brain. An idea is a complete blueprint of something new, the beginning, the middle, and
the end of it. It's the whole thing. It's the whole shebang, and it starts out as thought, as random
energy, which becomes more clear energy. It becomes thoughts. It becomes thought form. And
once it becomes thought form, which is an idea, then it can break out into the physical. You have
the idea and then you can create the thing.
So, everything starts out in the non-dimensional and bursts forth into the dimensional.
Everything starts as energy and then becomes physical.
Nick: Could we put another way and say that the non-dimensional is pure potential, but
dimensional is the actual response to the potential of the non-dimensional?
Marni: Perfect.
Nick: Does that make sense?
Marni: Perfect. That explains it wonderfully. What good is potential if it can never be realized? It
would be meaningless. And since there's an intelligence in back of it all, it would be completely
unacceptable to think okay, here's all this potential and it will never be. It's meaningless then.
The creation of the physical universe is bursting forth. This big bang had to happen. There had to
be a physical universe for all this potential to be come realized.
Nick: And when you use the term reflected, what do you mean by that? We think in terms of
reflection is you look in the mirror and something bounces back and you see yourself or you see
an image or whatever. It is the reflection of what is looking into the glass, let's say. You say
nothing actually exists unless it is reflected. What does that mean?
Marni: There is that same thing that we were talking about. Sound is just energetic waves until it
bounces onto an eardrum and color is just waves until it's seen in the eye, and that's when it finds
meaning. That's when it's reflected in something. And you could also take it into the idea sphere
and say well, an idea is this nebulous thing. It's this non-dimensional thing, but then it becomes
reflected in reality. And so, first it was just this non-dimensional idea, but then you can see what
that idea looked like in reality.
Nick: So, I'm fascinated also by the way you juxtapose this with the idea that there is no time.
You say that in the non-dimensional realm there is no time, yet, Marni, people experience time
and they experience time, I guess, through change, so what do you mean by there is no time or is
it only limited to no time in the non-dimensional?
Marni: Time is a dimension in itself.
Nick: Okay.
Marni: So, here we've got this three-dimensional universe. We've got length and height and
breadth. We've got the three dimensions, but we really have four dimensions because we also
have the dimension of time. And when you have physicality, it follows that you also have to
have the dimension of time, because physicality breaks forward and it grows into something and
it has a beginning, a middle, and then an end. Physicality demands that, that you also have the
dimension of time. But in the non-dimensional, there is no time. There is no dimension at all, so
there is also not the dimension of time.
So, now, when you don't have the dimension of time, nothing unfolds, because in the nondimensional, which is the totality, and like you were saying, I really like that you used the
potential of it all. Everything exists in potential. Everything that is ever going to exist already
exists in potential because nothing can be added to the non-dimensional because there's no time.
So, that means you can't say okay, well, in a hundred years, we're going to also have this and that
because there is no time. So, everything that's ever going to exist exists now. All potential exists
now.
So, in the non-dimensional, there is no time. Nothing unfolds. Everything exists in its individual
components and it exists in its entirety.
Nick: Can we say everything that ever was still is and will always be?
Marni: Exactly. Infinity. Eternality.
Nick: So, that's the word. Infinity. Eternality. You know, everything has a beginning, a middle
and an end. That's linear thinking in a way, isn't it?
Marni: Exactly. That's the linear. I think that's physicality. That's dimensional thinking, and it's
required in dimensional thinking to have a beginning, a middle and an end. But in the nondimensional, nothing begins and nothing ends. That's the definition of infinity. And we have
three-dimensional minds. Our brains, the computers that we use in this physical realm, our minds
are three-dimensional machines, and so we can't really grasp the idea behind infinity. Nothing
begins. Nothing ends.
We can't grasp that because the machine that we're using, our mind, is a three-dimensional
machine. And in the non-dimensional, there is no such thing, but the non-dimensional, nothing
begins and nothing ends. Everything is infinite. It never had a beginning, yet it exists. It will
never end. And everything exists eternally because there's no end to any of it. That means also
that there is no death in a non-dimensional. There is no death. Only in the physical dimension is
there death.
Our bodies are born. They grow up. They die. Our consciousness, the consciousness that we are
does not end. That's non-dimensional, so there is no death. Who you really are will never die.
Nick: So, what we perceive as becoming, future, whatever the word we want to apply to it, in a
sense is like an illusion.
Marni: In the non-dimensional, it's an illusion, yes. In the physical world, it is not an illusion
very clearly.
Nick: Okay.
Marni: We're born as babies, we grow up, and then we grow older, and then we die. In the
dimensional world, everything has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but in the nondimensional, everything exists as is. It doesn't become, and so there is no death in it either.
Nick: Everything that you say, and we've talked about this before. Anything you say kind of
triggers another thought and another question. That's why I'm continuing to ask you these
questions.
Marni: Universe.
Nick: I mean it's amazing really. So, what do you mean by we need to see ourselves reflected to
become real and become meaningful? What do you mean by that?
Marni: We are expressions of this universal energy in back of everything.
Nick: Okay.
Marni: And you could say we're children, is one way of putting it, but I hesitate to use that
verbiage because that makes this universal thing into a God, into an entity, and that's not really
correct, but we are. It's individual expressions. We are aspects of it. You are an aspect of this
universal consciousness, as am I. And it needs to find itself reflected. Otherwise it's meaningless.
And so, we have that same need. We have that same, as I said before, this purpose thing. You
have a unique mix of gifts and talents that has never been before and it will never be again. You
are completely unique in this universe. And since you don't exist by accident, your purpose is to
express those gifts and those talents, and you will only ever be happy when you find yourself
reflected, when you see that those gifts and those talents that you are expressing have meaning,
that it makes a difference.
Now, we all want to make a difference in life. We want to know that we mean something.
Nick: I believe we do, and that's why I mentioned earlier that is it hardwired in a sense in our
DNA that we have a purpose and that we leave some kind of a mark on the world that we live on,
the physical or dimensional world that you're talking about?
Marni: Yeah, I think it is sort of hardwired into us because it is as reflections of this universal
intelligence that just simply has a need to be reflected. Otherwise it's meaningless. It's the same
for us too. We have that need to be reflected. Otherwise we feel sort of meaningless. And if you
feel like you don't matter at all, you don't have any meaning, it doesn't matter whether you live or
you do, it hurts. It feels awful. But when you think you have meaning, when what you do
matters, when what you say matters, that's what you're really leaving behind. We all have that
wish, that need to leave something behind of ourselves. That's how we find meaning.
Nick: So, it's interesting though, like the existentialist philosophy is basically that you live, you
die, and the only value that you have is in what you do, that your actual being doesn't matter or
the way you act matters, not your actual being. You don't have any value unless you're producing
or doing something. I remember, in studying this, that there was one book called Nausea, which
is the realization that when this is over, it's over and then there's no meaning to your existence.
How do you feel about that?
Marni: Well, I feel that that's one of those opinions that's absolutely false.
Nick: I thought you were going to say that.
Marni: Well, first of all, it doesn't matter what we do because who we are is never changed. It
matters who we are. And it is joyful to express who we are. It's joyful to have this meaning
simply by who we are, and doing is all stuff in the dimensional world. It's all external stuff. And
if you look at the world as only this physical world and completely devoid of its underneath, of
the consciousness that lies underneath, then I guess, well, that means then there's also death. If
you're seeing yourself only as a physical being, discounting completely the consciousness that
you are and the gifts and the talents that you have, only the physicality that you have, then yeah,
there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that physical body dies and it becomes death.
And so, if you look at it from that point of view, it is absolutely meaningless, but that's simply
not looking at the big picture. I mean we're talking about the Iceberg Principles here. The reason
I called it that is because I liken that. The illustration I use is that of an iceberg. I say that the
physicality of it, the physical dimension of it is really only the surface level of an iceberg. It's
four percent of the total, but who we really are, the non-dimensional. That's the 96 percent.
That's the big stuff. That's who we really are.
Our physicality. It describes us, but it doesn't define who we really are. And so, looking at
everything from a purely physical point of view is living in the four percent, living on the surface
level, and then it does become about doing and it becomes meaningless, because even if you do,
you're going to die and then it's all over anyway. You can't take it with you, and so it's all
meaningless. But if you're living in the 96 percent, in the consciousness of it all, then it becomes
very meaningful. When who you are finds reflection and you feel that you matter, oh, everything
becomes very joyful.
Nick: So, it seems like we've been doing everything all wrong.
Marni: Yeah.
Nick: In other words, most people see happiness through some form of, you know, like external
things, as you mentioned, like money, power, possessions, education. We want to amass as many
degrees as we can, as many possessions as we can, as much money as we can. And if we have
money, we have power. If we have power, we have money. And so, can somebody be happy
though? How do you get to what you're talking about, to get beyond that so that we can feel that
we've become reflected and we feel like we know we have meaning beyond these external things
that we need to be happy?
Marni: We have. As you're saying, we have been doing it all wrong. I think humanity is sort of
now waking up to the fact, to the spiritual dimension, because I mean what's spiritual dimension.
I hesitate using that word because it immediately brings to mind for many people religions and
that kind of stuff, and it really doesn't. Spirit is the same as non-dimensional. It's a dimension in
which there is no physicality and no time. So, people are slowly starting to become aware that
we are more than just the physicality, that there is a consciousness dimension to who we are.
Before that, they thought happiness in external things, as you were saying. You know, with
money or with power, or some people, they don't go so much for money and power. They're
thinking, "Well, no, I want to have a good family. It's people that really matter. Be a good father,
a good mother. We'll bring up my children," but then, often times, families are destroyed and it's
over, or a marriage falls apart, or whatever it may be, and then you find wow, that wasn't it
either, because even things like that, that are talking about trying to find meaning in that, it's still
an external thing.
Anything that comes down to doing in this physical world is still an external thing. Other people
are trying to be in service and they're trying to do good and do right, but that's still an external
thing. It has to come down to being. Being aware and getting away from that external thing. You
have to express the internal qualities that we have, the gifts, the talents, the uniqueness, the
consciousness that we are. That has to find expression. That's who we really are.
Nick: And it makes sense. And I'm just thinking, as you're talking. If we define ourselves by
what we do, what happens when we can't do? Then we no longer have value or meaning
according to that type of philosophy. You define yourself by what you do. You're saying we're
valuable because we are, not because of what we do.
Marni: Exactly. And you know, sometimes people feel unworthy and they feel that they're not
good and that they're not all these things, but the fact is no matter what you do or not do, you're
still a human being. You can be a reprehensible human being, but nothing changes the fact that
you are a human being. You can't become a dog or something else. You always are who you are.
You know, we can never really change who we be, and doing is not. Doing is external things.
And when you live on that level, that's what we find reflected nowadays. People become old.
They can no longer do. They become less valuable.
You know, we set them off to the side. They're no longer useful, when the fact is, in reality,
they're to be honored. They have wisdom inside. They have so much still to contribute, and who
they really are, their gifts, their talents, they have moved one iota. They still have all that to give.
So, when you honor people for who they are, they are valuable from beginning to end. They're
always valuable.
Nick: You say, in the book, that the universal consciousness, and you use this word, intended for
us to express ourselves as we are. That sounds like a will, like an intention. It seems like it
assumes a being. You're not using universal consciousness necessarily as a thinking or a
thoughtful being, are you?
Marni: Well, it is an intelligence.
Nick: Okay.
Marni: It is an intelligence and it is not a one entity. It is the totality of everything in which we
exist, but it still is an intelligence and it has intention. Everything is created with intention. The
physicality of the individual structures. You know, your DNA, my DNA, those are all integrated
systems, and there is definitely an intentionality behind it. I mean purpose. Having a purpose, a
being existing for a reason really sort of has an intentionality in back of it all. So, there is that.
Intelligence does not mean that there's a man in a white beard up in the sky, directing traffic.
Nick: Right.
Marni: Universal consciousness is this thing in which we exist. Picture the fish swimming
around in a fish tank. I mean it ties all the water that the fish swims around, and there isn't one
entity somewhere that's the water. The fish is sort of existing in it, and that's sort of an
illustration of us. We exist within this entire consciousness, but there is definitely intentionality
behind it. The intentionality that was behind the big bang, the intentionality in the existence of
each and every one of us.
Nick: Marni, can we miss our purpose?
Marni: Not really.
Nick: Okay.
Marni: Because that comes down to doing again. It comes down to doing, and you are who you
are. And of course life becomes more joyful if you are aware of who you are and if you live in
awareness, if you live consciously and if you can be aware of the beauty that's all around you,
but even if you're not aware of it, life will not be as joyful to you, but you're still who you are.
Nothing can really ever take away. Nick Lawrence is Nick Lawrence. Nothing changes it. You
could be miserable all your life or you could be happy all your life, but you're still Nick
Lawrence. Nothing is going to change that.
And if you are miserable all your life, God forbid, then, you know, after this one there's always
another one. You can't get it wrong because you'll never get it done.
Nick: Well, that's a good way to put it. I mean so I know.
Marni: Absolutely.
Nick: So, in the book, you say you stumbled upon your destiny. I thought that was interesting the
way you put that in the book, but then once you found it and you stumbled upon it, your passion
in life and purpose, you realized that that's when you became who you were meant to be I
suppose.
Marni: Well, yeah, that in a nutshell. I mean, you know, my story is a really, really crazy one and
it was really, really difficult in the beginning, and then there were all these years where my life
was an absolute fairytale. I was so successful. I had so much money, but I was living in that
external world. It was about doing and it was all about how can I make more money so I can
finally feel secure. And the joy of seeing my bank balance was all external things. So, all right, I
was at the top. Absolutely should have been one hundred percent happy, but now that I'm
consciously aware that it's not about doing, that it is about being, I'm consciously aware of my
purpose.
Now I'm really happy. Now I live in joy every day. And that's the thing that's possible to do
when you turn your attention, your focus, your consciousness on your beingness rather than on
what you're doing. And the ironic thing is that when you do that, all the things that you've been
chasing after all along - the money, the health, the joy -, they come simply as a byproduct of
being in alignment with who you are.
Nick: Well, I've got to ask you to give us a final thought in this module, but you've actually done
it. I don't think anybody could say it any better than what you just said. We've come to the end of
Module #2 and hopefully you'll be looking forward to Module #3 with Marni Spencer Devlin
and me, Nick Lawrence. Thank you for listening.