The meaning of it all.

It was hoped that this page would use some original reasoning to provide alternative answers to the oldest questions  about mind, the world and reality.    However, it took on a more personal and speculative style ..  and it now seems that my ideas have been shared by many .. not so original as one would hope.    I trust that any believers in a particular religion will not be offended that I left out their answers to some matters raised.  

  Introductory thoughts and ramblings

       There are many very  intelligent people in the world,  yet between them  they  manage to believe completely opposite theories about the universe.   Even in the physical sciences, where data can be examined and experiments carried out, bitter argument frequently occurs.   In fact it has only recently dawned on the writer just how strong the tendency is in many humans to become passionate when theories and beliefs, which they consider doubtful, are expressed as truth by others.              When it comes to religions and philosophical ideas there is disagreement again, but one should be careful.  One can be  scornful towards some beliefs or ideas, only to find that when they are explained by an intelligent person they can be very convincing .
       The more intelligent the exponent, the more convincing.  Indeed, excluding some beliefs which are contradictory in themselves,  I have recently concluded that the major belief systems,  from atheism and modern  materialism, through spiritualism, esoteric oddities and vague philosophies, to the well known main eastern and western  religions --  can ALL   'prove their case'.      That is  to say, at their best and most intelligently expounded,  you will not  be able to logically disprove their essence.      So  many able people have thought through and re-interpreted  them that every part of the field and every challenge is covered -- though it must be admitted that the final complex version of belief may bear  little resemblance to  what one believed  to be the  original version.    

Perhaps more importantly, to explain their case fully, many belief systems require  the invisible chair approach.   That is:-   if there was an invisible  chair in this room, I would not be able to see it.    I cannot see a chair ... therefore an invisible chair exists .. ( or may exist).
 The best minds can find ways to make acceptable the most extreme of 'invisible chairs' .. God, spirits, saviours, nirvana, or even just 'inner truths'.    And they could  exist.     At least, you could never disprove them when they are explained in the right way.    There are, with christians for example, logical arguments which explain why the world is such a disaster for many people and yet still allows God to be "good". .. and why mankind might need to be "saved"   ... and so on.   
Further, the belief system, though it will be logically possible, may require assumptions about real world facts that simply cannot be proved one way or the other. They may seem very likely to a believer, and very unlikely to a non- believer, but they are not certainties either way.  
And just because a person  cannot give all the logical justifications for their belief,  or  has needs and fears behind that belief, it does not make the belief wrong.     I have been surprised to hear even supposedly open minded scientists speaking with  venom  when their faith in 'science' and it's assumptions were in danger of being shown as inadequate.   The truth is, emotions are an integral part of our understanding.   We relate to, or tie together,  our 'universe  picture' and our place in it, with mind and emotions ... that is what 'meaning', means.
     It indicates that  faith is a universal  human attribute .    Not necessarily faith of a religious character,  but a trust or commitment to some system of thought  or belief.  Or to the 'plain ordinary world'.  Or to a person or group.    Or  to one's own power of reason,  or even to a sense of one's own 'specialness' !      A person may seem neutral,  but the real faith will be revealed when it is tested  by a situation or another person's challenge.   Not that any of these faiths are necessarily permanent, they may change -  sometimes with a  time of extreme emotional conflict.  

         So, in the sea of human belief,  is there no rock of certainty?    Has no one ever written down knowledge which people only have to study for a time to say  .. " Why , of course! ..  this must be so.  This is the way the universe is."   
Is there nothing that  ALL can agree on?   Is not the physical universe and it's laws at least certain?  And surely more than that?   

  
I will start from the simplest possible beginning -- and then follow a thread in an unusual direction.   What follows is not meant to be a re-statement of the famous, ' I think therefore I am',  which is explained variously but seems to be how the logical  mind experiences and justifies it's own state of questioning.   ( And please realize that  what I say from now on, while it can be analyzed or dismissed intellectually by philosophers, needs a certain openness of mind in the first instance.)

There is ...   existence.   

Or more exactly,  knowing of existence. 

More exactly still :- there is simply ,   'knowing'.  

This direct  'Awareness', however limited one might think it to be,  is perhaps the only true certainty for a person.      Knowing itself,  moment flowing into moment.    I  am referring here,  to  an un-analyzed state of  'what is'.   Before  one's  mind labels this part of experience a 'world'  or this part a 'thought',  or a 'sensory impression', or this part an observer, this the observed.    It is just is what it is.   A knowing.   The fact of  Being.

This raw material of 'experience' includes a changing memory trace ( which can, however, become quite inaccurate after a time)   and this trace  lets  us detect continuing patterns in the raw experience.  Since we simply do act as though that memory has some accuracy,  knowledge and logic then build upon this memory trace, taking a step away from complete certainty. 
  
Concepts become created from observation and experience. 
We learn that there is, what we call, 'space' and 'time'   and we learn to move and react in this 'world' of  space and objects with accuracy and certainty ( a functional and survival necessity).   We learn that one 'thing' is not another. Or is 'similar',  or exactly the same. Is over "there", or  "more to the left".. ... all the possible distinctions.
 ( The essential nature of this dimensional universe around us,  is thus a basis for simple logic patterns and reactions in  the brain -- so that our brain , when it comes to compare 'concepts', will apply the same  'this/ not this/similar', logic patterns, and will attribute and feel the same certainty about it's own logic.    Note that I do not say 'mind' does these things .. for while it is true that our mind knows these reactions as' thoughts' and 'knowledge' and 'judgement', there is no explanation, in all of science and philosophy that I have seen, for how material change and logic based neural changes ARE mental and conscious events.   However, this writing will continue assuming, that self conscious experience is the primary factor.)  
 From  (presumably) the first moments a  mind functions, rules are noticed in the patterns around.  ... e.g.   Blob moving ... sound moves ... therefore:- sound comes from blob.   Or ..  This  object  hits this other object and  .. ouch .. pain follows  .. etc.

Interestingly, our mind can decide that since there is something seen or known, there must be another  'something ' which is NOT that known thing. Therefore this 'something' which does the knowing shall be ME ... or a mind, or a soul, or just this particular body.  

The observation of things around can be done more rigorously and leads to the formulation of basic physical  laws. These rules, observed and tested over a long time, are consistent as far as we know  (excluding any moments of presumed divine intervention) and are so close to a certainty that it would be ridiculous to deny them.  
 It's worth repeating though, that 'formulations' or laws based on experience are not certain in the  same way the original moment by moment 'awareness' was.   Some are rigorously tested and that is all.    The moment one finds a flaw in the formulation,  or meets a wider framework of  knowledge, the certainty is gone.   
It is true that, in comparison with science, the content of 'immediate awareness', or simply existing, could be considered by us, who have already formed concepts of what this world experience is about, to be very simple .. hardly worth considering .. (dismissed as sensory input or whatever)  .. but wait ...  .

Another field of formulated knowledge is about the rules that may govern human behaviour.  The most explanatory I know is the ideas of a neural net as outlined on the 'tree of life' page.  Clever people have been free to propose theories of behaviour and motives ( to which others react with varying degrees of distaste or enthusiasm)  before knowledge of the neural net became available to clarify things .. for me anyway.  
We also, rather curiously when you think about it, have a direct perception of our own 'state of being', so that we learn labels for various body/mental/emotional states.  There can be sudden realisation of what has been happening internally and why.  We can carry around a continuous (but varying and often inaccurate ) sense of who we are, and our place in the world as we see it, and how we are feeling about it all.
 In addition, the ideas that form about our experience, and the longer term beliefs we may develop, or learn from others,  then drive a person, and can alter  perception.   They may limit a person's range of experience, or they may  enlarge perceptions in one direction.
  This is startlingly obvious in some of the 'live experiments ' about the way humans fool themselves, misperceive things, and can be led by suggestion - ( not very differently when awake, in fact, from when supposedly in a hypnotic trance ).  All these things, the writer now believes can be explained by the simple concept of  quite automatic neural net operation.  ( though again, there is no explanation for how the physical neural net can BE conscious activity)

 There are also times when you go through a period of intense interest in some external subject, and the sense perceptions seem to   become 'tuned up' and more and more subtle in that direction.    You see not just with your eyes but your mind's  knowledge and heart's feeling.   ( the neural network , with its links to 'feelings', grows and widens greatly in the direction of the interest )
  Alternatively,  narrow, repetitive  ideas can be so strongly held that  new or contradicting ideas  have little effect, or possibly at extremes the simple real world ceases to be registered very much .
On the other hand, some ideas and beliefs, even when they are untrue, can lead to an improvement in the life of a person.  To an opening of the heart and mind.  I have heard various such people speak, and though I can't share the belief, ( not all religious either) I can only wonder at the real transformation and positive love that they demonstrate.   Yet the very same ideas can lead another in the opposite direction.  To  dogmatism and unwitting release of less noble feelings and actions.   To my recent astonishment, there is, from this observation, a way to some sort of genuine 'meaning' for a doubter like the writer -- which is explained at the end of this writing.  

The page titled  " the tree of life"   on this web site  points out that we can have different 'selves' and sets of belief according to our situation,  when we can act quite differently and even  in conflict with other 'selves' , and it should be noted that  the 'world systems' we believe in,  are variable in their depth in our internal  network.   There is the example of one who may be a religious 'believer' on their holy day, and for the rest of the time  behaves  like a merciless  exploiter of others less well positioned.   Another religious person may retain an almost constant  set of reference patterns in their neural/emotional  net, and they will act accordingly .  
     They have  deeply accepted certain beliefs into their neural net/ body system and the consequent action is inevitable.    The conflict and 'trials',  which some of such faith seem to meet,  is between their dominant self and the other parts of their network. The conflict may wax and wain as the parts of the network gain and lose strength, through company kept,  or through experience and new ideas and beliefs met.  And of course, the believer may come up against the deeper natural drives when the belief system has no place for them.
    I must add that I have passed through times of particular belief  and when reminded sufficiently, can still feel a senses of guilt at turning from them .     It seems that a genuine desire and taste for 'truth' can become tied to a particular  set of  beliefs ... the links in the neural net to what can be very strong feelings and insight do not easily break completely.
More than that,  the writer can still accept that such beliefs can be a doorway to experience that could not otherwise come.

   I admit too, that my own views about the universe have changed with age, and with the uncertainty of emotional upheaval.   I sometimes think my own ideas don't matter one way or another.   The real truth will remain  the truth,  whatever I think or know or feel.   This attitude carries a wonderful sense of freedom! 
On the other hand, it seems to be inherent to the functioning of the human brain/mind/heart to seek 'meaning'.     Some people, find meaning in, and seem to be almost fully centered on some particular human capacity  ... sport, learning, work, family , artistic expression , reputation  .. etc., and they often seem to live with confident vigour, face adversity with  courage and are not over concerned about death.     But others may seek an intellectual integration of all known aspects, hoping to make a wider, cohesive picture .    This would ideally include a total understanding of the physical world and sciences, but since science has not come to certainty about the most basic things I feel free to settle later for passing mention!  

And one more thing should be made clear.  I once hoped that this writer's ideas were about a truth that was relevant to everyone,  that it was about something that could be the home of all hearts.   This does not seem to be the case.  In describing some experiences as wonderful beyond belief, or transcendent, one has to admit that some would not even want to find them. Their perceptions and interests are other.  Some religions might say that those who do not seek the 'truth' are 'lost', failed or generally condemned of god ... but it cannot be so.  People are made physically different in brain and body and simply cannot ever prefer - or even necessarily experience - the same things.   Some people will not only find  joy and meaning in particular endeavours and hold particular attitudes to the world, but may continue to do so till they die, quite possibly with a sense of great fulfillment .  Perhaps all one could claim as universal is a sense of existing in a world of dimensions, and  that the inner experience of bliss and pleasure,( and their opposites) and joy of love and of knowledge, are the same for all, though it is inevitably 'flavoured' by the different physical makeup and situation of  each person.   

                                       Some fairly outlandish observations

        Among the  few certainties of the universe is the direct human experience of   'God-likeness' .  This is an invented word because I don't think there is an accepted english word for what I want to describe.       'God '  as a  word, has too many prior associations.
I am not talking about the state of  believing in a god, which is very common (and which may lead to what I am talking about),  but rather an experience that seems above normal or beyond  'ordinary' perception and includes qualities felt to be 'sublime' or 'divine'.     It is as certain  (when present)   as the basic awareness of existing  described earlier.   It is a given.   This experience varies, and no explanation could mean much to one who has not had it.
 Whether you regard such experience as self deception or a pointer to absolute truth, it undeniably occurs.
There are not just experiences of an 'outside' godlike being , but there are many   descriptions of being at one with 'God', or with an 'absolute mind' or with 'the universe', .. knowing everything in a  transcendent,  timeless  moment of absolute love and bliss.  There are religious teachers that talk about such ideas in different ways. Among them, a modern professor who claims to have, through a near death experience, become permanently aware of this one godself.   Very wonderful,  if true ... but are the explanations of what is undoubtedly striking, really accurate? Is it all some trick of the mind?   I can't say.  I can't even be sure precisely what they experienced.   

 For as long as I can remember there have been moments that seemed to me, to be much more significant than others.  When much younger, there were some old fashioned sundays in the countryside when a huge silence and peace, and something undefinable ..   spread, it seemed, over everything.   Or there were apparently perfect moments of fulfillment when looking down from a hill.  The knowledge that this light filled moment held the most perfect moment possible.  And many odd times and places from a very young age where everything outside (and inside) was changed mysteriously, taking one away from one's normal concerns and yet closer to oneself and to the world about, but in a new way.  And much later, there was a temporary but long drawn out period of complete fulfillment when all seemed revealed.   I must be silent about that, but I can give a variety of other personal examples, hoping one of them means something to readers. 

   Be aware that this writer is somewhat retiring and prone to fear, and this must have affected what he has experienced.  
Be warned also.  Words become a trap to the writer and reader.   It is the way of the mind to 'label' things  to deal with them.  ( As occurred when writing down this material intermittently over a few years -- the writer's mind was apparently cut off to some degree from the genuine experiences described.)     Further,  even vivid, clear memories, and especially the precision  of them, are  reduced by the reconstruction  inherent to the neural network over time.   In contrast, it is only presently experienced  truth which is real .. if  that means something to the reader ?

    To resume in hope ...  
It is possible to experience, without the slightest prior expectation of such, that a 'doorway' has opened and you have become aware of  a  'god-like-being' who is  'out there'  before one, or above (?) one, in an overwhelming  'majesty' .   The  physical world  seeming filled and overflowing with this invisible presence.   It appears somehow local .. that is:- not a being of all space and time as one might expect of a god, but this time, and this HERE,  though the feeling is also that the doorway is to "somewhere else larger " ... and that the doorway is at least partly inside one as well .. one has been changed.  And it all seems more real than the physical world. 
I have just remembered that this was like a celebration in which many individuals in both apparent 'realms' took part.    This however may have been a pictorial/mental interpretation from my then current beliefs,  of whatever was occurring.   Some companions  quietly later reveal that they experienced  'a  something' as well.  They are very quiet and reflective, one expressing surety that their  'god' had been there.   All are filled with a deep peace.  This was striking because of the apparent shared objectivity of the experience.

    Or there can be a deep inner silence and presence of  ..  'something which is not me' and 'something to do with me' at the same time  .. which makes all else seem insignificant.     A silent presence  of   goodness and  truth.   Of a still wakefulness 'inside'  oneself.    The silence can be incredibly intense and real , appearing as if it were the  very essence and being of the space and time around one. You follow?   Space of  3 dimensions IS this silent presence.  Or has become that presence. 

  Or again,  'the world out there'   is at the same time,  transformed .   Very solemn and serious indeed.  A mystery surrounds one.  A  living mystery.  Every object seen as a 'word' or meaning that seems about to reveal absolute truth .   Or be absolute truth.

    Perhaps again,  nature at it's best strikes to one's heart as if it were truly god-like in quality.  So too, a persons face and the character written there, may appear as if an angel or god ... all unknown to the faces apparent owner.  Very curious that.
  When there are groups of people with serious intent to find or understand truth, they also may become part of something that acts as if it were a group mind, larger than any individual.  It is difficult to say how much of that is  response inbuilt in the human machinery  but the effect of an invisible 'presence',   is sometimes very real.  

    There are moments of simple wonder at the world .  It is alive with more than 'beauty'.  It is something you cannot grasp or comprehend.  Sometimes leaving one with tears and the knowledge that somehow you just visited the home of your deepest heart.   There can be a  longing of overwhelming intensity for ... something ... a  mystery unknown .  

 Perhaps,  a still autumn evening on a rural road. A time of soft, mysterious colours.  Woodsmoke.  Scented with heaven ..  and you are carried, not knowing how, into a different, free and magic place.

    Or you might see transformed,  a perfect late summer afternoon,  beautiful, with stillness and light everywhere ... but it is not really  'beautiful'.       The light and hint of heaven that can be felt, is outside your conceptions and words.   The light is almost alive ...     almost one with a sense of 'light'  inside one.     Or behind ... or  IN your mind, filling  a space normally occupied by busy thoughts and commentaries on everything.

  It will often come with, or as, peace.     Peace  simply beyond  belief or explanation.     All the normal activities  of the mind long ago stilled.       It is not a 'nothingness' but a positive,  substantial  peace that fills the body as well as mind.  You have returned to yourself.   Or there might be a state of unbelievably subtle or refined perception,with awareness of the sheer oddness of reality's existence.   A sudden moment out of an infinity of moments, becoming clear and startlingly new, vivid and real.    It can lead to a drawing forward of the whole being, into silence and beauty. Yes indeed.     It can build over a time as the mind realizes perceptions and self has changed and "you' are being drawn further and further.  Perhaps  towards a sense of 'beauty' at first then into a growing rightness and 'something' that calls forth ineffable longing for something unattainable ....... yet somehow .. just here ...  now

    And perhaps best of all, a deep, deep,  goodness ... that is mystery and wonder and utterly simple at the same time.   More 'good' than any word can convey.  The  heart's true home.  So  REAL .  Try and feel the full strength of the word  'blessed' ... beyond anything you could  imagine or deserve.     Perhaps it is best just to say that this 'good' is what your heart feels as an absolute rightness, that has no end to it's  quiet depth. And with it the most wonderful sense of humility  .. that one is as last content to be nothing.  

And reluctantly, when some who know the writer might read this, I must add that there is often on these occasions,  'love' or 'lovingness' in very great intensity and .. hmm,  freedom . .. though I have to say these are not quite the right words .  No I cannot say more.  Except that a quote to the effect that 'perfect love casteth out fear" seems appropriate to a person who is as fearful as this writer can be.
   I should add too, that there can be the sense of what is called the 'holy' or 'numinous'.   That which causes the human heart and mind to worship .. to be filled with awe.

And yet another insight may come with an intensely sad and solemn stillness and silence, yet it is filled with knowledge of unbelievable beauty, and RIGHTNESS.  Inexpressible perhaps. It is to do partly with the sense of direction your heart and mind is moving in. As though it is being "put back together correctly."   A  wonderful sanity and goodness in which it is realized .. and only then .. that previously these things were absent.

And sometimes there is just silence and being.
 

    Having given those descriptions,  it should be noted that they are only indications. And they even seem to this writer upon re- reading , as possibly misleading.  This 'god-likeness'  is beyond prior conception ... you think it will be like .. so?   No,  it is never like you think or anticipate.   It is a gift ...  it  has to be given.  It is almost a definition of it to say:- it is beyond what you can conceive or claim in advance.   You cannot command it, or do anything to make it come .  You may even be thinking about it, only to have what are merely comfortable thought patterns suddenly .. shifted aside, a change possibly preceeded and accompanied by very deep emotion.  It comes like an arrow from real life, that brings you greater wakefulness ... and you know it.   
 And yet the change  is so subtle, so ..   minute in one way, yet far reaching, a different sort of difference ... almost gentle in comparison with any words one may try to say about it.   And there can be such absolute 'fullness' inside, a  blend of the physical and emotional.

Another thing that has changed with this, is your sense of 'yourself'.     You are  adrift  in a way.    You may realise among other things that your  identity is not certain.   That many old and familiar things are gone,  normal thoughts left behind as simply irrelevant, your sense of self almost forgotten.    Yet oddly, if these experiences come, there may be associations with past memories of such experience, almost as though it had all never ceased or been absent.     That you are returned to what you always were.  ( perhaps the neural net is linking back to the most fundamental experiences of the raw human  self. )
 Sometimes the sense of 'myself'  seems mysterious, sometimes it is more like an absolute naturalness and freedom ...  freedom from self, and all ideas and ambitions.  Simply to be glad that this current self  (if that is even the right word) should be part of it the existence all about.   Though I must add that this writer has no memory of a total lack of self or of a unity of self with universe (or god) that is often spoken off.  
  But still, the reality is  more subtle, or 'finer' than the normal mind can completely grasp.     One may form a conception, and it may be useful in explanation,  but is dead in comparison with the experience.     I presume it is clear too,  the huge significance it seems to have for the mind and feelings.    
It doesn't seem to be held very accurately by the normal mind and memory either.  It is only when you have at least a taste of that state that  memory returns properly.   I  honestly don't think there is a  name for that which  is experienced  during  this  'transcendence of the mind'.      Perhaps it is misleading to use such a grand word as transcendence .   It can be simple and gentle as a flower ... it's just  ...   well ... you will hopefully have known it in your own way, at various times.  

 I have had indications that it is very common indeed in various degrees, but it may be that it is often reduced in some manner .... or not fully appreciated .. so that people  do not stop to think afterwards that something out of the ordinary was going on.   It was just a wonderful holiday moment .  An awesome glimpse of nature.  A wonderful time of friendship.  Or a glorious piece of music.    Or a moment of real faith and acceptance .. or of love, or  ... many things.    
      But I think  that  where it is clear and extreme, theories about such intense experience can lead to belief in a god .. or some form of religion .. quite likely of a pantheistic ( everything is god) type.        And note that often these experiences occur  when alone.     I think this may be because  normally when we are with others, we are caught up in talk, or some purpose or activity.   Unless  it is a group or couple that is, say, discussing  in a heart-felt honest way towards 'truth',   or  perhaps meditating or similar.  Or just a happy group of friends in the right frame of mind when, for example, walking together on   a hill top ridge  in the sun.    Hmm, yes, it can come so powerfully that it swallows up .. engulfs, as it were,   companions and surroundings and memory and knowledge ... even the most common place becoming transformed.  

     After what was written above some might be inclined to compare this with the now common,  new age/ eastern religious beliefs,  or states of  'higher consciousness',  and to think 'how wonderful'  ( or alternatively, 'how deluded' .. especially since the drug taking culture has become common )  
Do not bet on either.  Part of this  writer is very skeptical.  He has  noticed how people, including himself, can be passionate and worship as authority the 'god' they experience.  People are  reduced not just to humility in acknowledgement of the lesser reality of their normal selves,   but to abandoning all to a 'greater authority'.  

     It does seem too, that for the mind to experience 'god-likeness'  it must not so much believe in 'something more',  as be ready ( really ready, deep inside) to accept that there may be such.     Otherwise skepticism, well justified or not, will not allow the perceptions and the heart, to fully open that way.   In addition the state of the body will be changed, and I think the perception  on these occasions requires it.  We know things though our whole body and mind together.   These are not just abstract 'spiritual' occasions.  
  In any case, the fact remains :-  the experience  of 'god-likeness' occurs,  and it may be  defined  by it's effect on a human.    At it's  highest moments, it is the summation of all the best that a human may feel, conceive and experience.   As I described on another web page .. it points towards the state where the human heart, and mind, and linked body system, is responding to the maximum and simply cannot respond  to any greater degree.  
    Whatever it is inside one that responds or  longs,   is satisfied and brought to rest. Perhaps that was the most striking thing left to this writer's memory .... the realisation that a seeking (that you hadn't noticed went on all the time) had stopped.    Astonishing.   And though it may be predominately an emotional flavour of experience, the  mind may seem to integrate mental insights.   There can be perfection that ( seemingly) embraces all into a stupendous whole.  If you can think of anything to criticize .... it is answered in this perfection.   And it may come in the most extraordinary and unlikely way.  

 I had better add that  this 'unlikeliness of cause', is because we  usually live in a succession of mental and emotional states, and the 'direction'  of  an impulse or situation which may at any particular time lead away from our current 'normalized' state towards  awareness of 'god-likeness'  is always likely to be different.  
By normalized, I mean the way the human brain, to deal with situations and places,  comes to label and organize them,  in the end, making new and challenging things seem 'normal' ...  familiar.      Hence, almost any impulse from the world around, from a person, a work of art or nature, or a progression of thoughts and insights about something which means a lot to the individual, may be a  trigger point that moves one into a new perception of 'what is'.

     By the way ,  the only  way you are going to know  if any of the above is true about god-likeness,  is by your own experience.   You can certainly read what other's say but you have to interpret the words they use.    This word problem is because the  experience of god-likeness and it's expression is ( I think) altered by the person's nature and background.
 If you would know ..  ' godlikeness' in the sense suggested above, you must be 'opened', taken past your conventional limits,   lose all illusions. etc etc, ... be ' born again'  in heart and mind .
Well, by definition, if your heart and mind are filled only with familiar and repetitive .. hmm .. 'low grade'  impressions and desires and thoughts which you have decided are the limits of your reality .. they are not going to be filled with awareness of this 'god-likeness'.     If one happened to want to know such awareness it may well involve suffering of some sort.   A mind set is a very powerful thing.    Indeed, there are usually several or many mind sets in one person , but a dominant one can have a whole life and fierce will to survive  built around it.    Such a mind set may have to   'break'.   It can be even harder when the mind set already includes ideas of "god" which are limited.   So that, supposing the person does experience "god-likeness",  it will quite likely upon resumption of normality, be interpreted according to the belief pre-existing.    Hence  descriptions arise that  possibly mislead others.

 Nonetheless, I do not doubt that a life , which seems from the  outside to be completely  mundane and boring, can for the individual who has awoken inside, be a wonder of delight, beauty and meaning ... though there would be a different personal flavour for each of us ;  eg.. some  quieter and more resigned , others more positive and active  ..  and so on, all modified further by our beliefs, the details of the place in which we live and by our different activities.   

 

                                                           Questions about the observations

    So then,  is this writer proposing that what he says about 'godlikeness' is an ultimate truth?    No,  it is simply  what an individual may experience in the moment.      "But," a reader might point out,  " this leaves us with no certainty at all. Are you seriously trying to say this is about a real god?!  It  is just a vague emotional experience you have described above, however pleasing and seemingly transcendent.  It could easily be delusion,  an unusual firing of the linkages in the brain, ( which happens  more often in a mild way than people might like to think )   or be a result of the mind's need for security, or comfort in a terrible world."      Or as others might say because of their belief system ... " it's a trick of the devil!"  

    Well, one could reply :- Yes, the mind is quite capable of 'creating' similar experiences. There are episodes that can occur in a brain that 'cause' everything to be seen as hugely important.  And stimulus can be applied to the brain (electro-magnetic or drugs or centrifuge blood loss or whatever) to produce a pale version of such a state ( without the 'whole person change and understanding'  that are part of the natural experience) , but that is missing the point.  
For a start, it is little help to know what and where things are happening in a brain, because no one has yet  found a way of explaining ( to me and many others) how a brain, considered as a physical object, can ever be 'consciousness' .. let alone how it might find 'meaning' in a physical pattern of impulses.   You could know every minute detail of the events inside my head as I write this and you are no nearer to understanding how they can BE the 'experience'  I am having. 
   (Though oddly, some people are unable to see this difficulty . Perhaps this is because they have always known from experience what 'being aware' is like, and have heard science authorities  describing the various corresponding events in the nervous system, and simply assume that therefore one thing can be the other )
On top of that, whatever the true relation of mind and brain,  that system is the device by or through which, we know things.   For a real perception to occur the brain and body state must change.   The brain/mind  changes are also part of creating the experience of this  material world ... you are not going to suggest that the world is therefore a total illusion ?  ( if you do suggest it,  it logically  opens the door to just about anything. )
 This implies that I could claim that the  brain/ mind is, in its changed state, detecting or truly becoming aware of  a real, self existent,   'god-likeness'.     Yes, unusual  reasoning, but hold the criticism back for a minute.  It depends too upon what you think this 'god-likeness' might really be.    One might quote also, expert brain researchers who agree that though the brain is involved in perceiving these occasions it tells you nothing about whether the thing perceived is really there or not.

Secondly:- the experiences are not vague in reality.  They can be more complete than normal .. or more sane and balanced, more inclusive of other material.  Tied to this is an intensity and depth such that no reasons you come up with afterwards can make you dismiss it all as mere animal enthusiasm or mental/emotional illusion.  

Thirdly:-  if the callous, dog eat dog, material, biological world is that terrible, and you can find peace, and will and strength to live fully by such 'god -like' experience and possibly consequent 'faith',  then it is fair enough .. even if delusion!    There is little doubt that a true opening of the mind and heart ( as opposed to some forms of blind belief )  is for such people,  a force  towards good, and a better life for them and others around them.

 But the credentials could be better than that. Consider how science finds it's truth. It notices facts, it formulates a hypothesis to explain them, and then ( much later perhaps) does the experiment which will prove the theory fits the facts.   To do so, tools are required and must be precisely the right ones or you will not get the correct result.   Ergo .. to test what the universe is supposed  to be about, one has to use the correct instrument .. having decided what would be a fair test.  
Which is an interesting point.  One has to define what the universe is,  to test for it.
If one limits oneself to a universe of energy and matter in time and space, then tests limited to physicality will confirm only that.  All other theories of the universe will upon logical examination appear to the materially assuming mind as 'proved' false.

But - if one were to suggest, for example >
" the universe is in truth, an ultimate 'God-mind-self' which IS absolute beauty and goodness and wonder and life and love, mingled in a joyful, yet terrible dance ; in an infinite complexity and detail of  individual lives and deaths,  happiness and tragedy, and principles of nature with infinite variation of flavour and detail , over a staggeringly vast universe ;  as a divine drama and  work of divine art .. of which perhaps we can only perceive a small part .. and all of which is transformed and enlivened  by the secret knowledge that the godmind awareness itself  plays the part of all supposedly individual  'selves'.    This inexorable, transcendentally beautiful and terrible and tragic universe, IS the mind and heart of God."  
...  then the ONLY instrument we have to test for that is the human heart and mind at it's height of perception.
And the test  rings true.  That is how it can appear and feel ... though vision of it may vanish from sight of many individuals during distress or pain, or be lost by the relentless boredom we can create.    But that would be part of the great drama, even though we screamed our current dislike of it.  ( In case you wonder, this  writer  is given to heartfelt mental screams at the real life test -- or even at the anticipation of such tests.)

    In simple outline, that is one possible ' invisible chair '  to understand the universe.   It can't explain why the nature of the 'godmind' should be what it is.   It just IS.      Just as science can assume a framework of time and space and energy, and that a basic set of rules may define all other behaviour,  so the  'godmind universe'  assumes the  'just is'  reality of god-like qualities.     I think that in truth, all religions have to take the nature of 'god' as a given. There is a suggestion from some that if we could perceive god or the godmind universe completely and accurately we would know that he/she/ it could never have been different.    Yes .. possibly.. but then, how would one go about perceiving this god completely and accurately ?   Without being god yourself ...... you see the problem.

  
The "individual idea which godmind is expressing as a person" in such a universe is not necessarily in for a 'nice' life.  I would dearly like the universe to end up  well for everyone  in the end ...  especially me!    Much better people than me have claimed to see that the universe does work that way .   I cannot easily believe that.    Perhaps they meant instead, not so much that everyone is happy  as 'blessed',   and brought to a state  of knowing the godmind itself,  as far as they may. 
I presume they mean this happens either in this world ( unbelievable as it seems )   or through an individual having a  'soul' which continues to live  and learn, possibly reborn over and over, and  eventually be  brought to a .. well ... enlightened / blessed state.      Which, one must admit, makes a complete and satisfactory scheme .. but only to the mind which can believe in such a soul.

If one doesn't believe in a soul then there is even more reason to be skeptical about such a proposed .. "universe as a God-like-being" ... since it lacks the supremely appealing suggestion of a 'personal' God's divine love for all human beings .. and all other beings.    And ignores the way this universe appears to our normal self as imperfect, containing much pain and suffering, and is therefore NOT good enough as it is .. most certainly not 'divine'.    This difficulty can be answered in the concepts of individuality and god -- and love- which in the suggested Godmind, exist differently from our normal ideas.

This writer remains skeptical about an eternal soul .   Though one has some very curious memories and perceptions at times,  there is no convincing reason,  for me at least,  to believe that a thought, or a moment of human awareness, or a moment of knowledge, can happen without a corresponding state of brain and nerve network.   The very certainty of one's own passing/fading consciousness as the brain fades or alters from one cause or another seems adequate proof.   
Even if one accepts a "godmind- universe", the body and brain/mind seems to me, to be the means by which the drama of the godmind-universe would be made real.  This body and brain has a certain nature and certain limits of experience, and another body another range.   The body/brain states  are totally one with this 'world' ,  however mysteriously and perhaps inconceivably to us,  such a world  may really be made.     The body /brain is the way  that 'the whole godmind brew'  produces the  infinite variety of personal heart -mind  experience.   There must be all the  variation of human ( or non-human ) awareness and  potential  mixed with  world (s?) of ever varying  natural and social environment.

    But then,  there have been hints that the universe is put together in a very strange way indeed.      Have a read of the pages headed   " Physics and all that quantum thing  "
and  the   " the tree of life",   on this web site .. or seek some of the more radical views on mind, or on the new versions of the old physicists 'aether', to be found on the internet.    The concept we normally take as 'our world' is rather a simplification.     There have been for the writer, glimpses or a teasing of the mind , when after much reflection,  a few thoughts suddenly click together, about the way at the subtlest  level,  the physical universe is made of wave/time based dimensional entities whose properties and nature do not exist except in relation to other entities .. which in turn do not exist except in relation to them.      'Appearance'  is as real as .... real can ever be.   As though this  universe  is all a huge and astonishingly clever 'trick'.      Not a trick ..    an .. .  illusion ?  ..  no   ..  it is just so blindingly yet subtly clever  .. and almost as though we cannot know,  or it would all fall apart.     Discover that it was never really what we thought. WE, were never what we thought.   It is an absolute delight to  the mind when this  insight  strikes.  (But you have to do serious study first or it is just an idea without meaning for a whole person.)

And so here is another idea.   I wrote earlier that  when we learn as  young humans ..  "We  first learn 'space' and 'time'  then learn to live and react in this 'world' of  space and objects."
This is not the whole story.  We learn to live and react in a world  of  space and objects and a world of conscious awareness.   Do you follow the importance of that?   It means that space, time, and consciousness, are all equally a given.   A dimension if you like.  You cannot explain awareness ,  as you know it to be this moment,  by any material 'system' or anything else whatsoever.   This awareness is as real as anything ever can be, and is absolutely part of all knowledge and experience.  You can use this logically to suggest that human consciousness is much more than it normally seems to us.   Sadly it does not prove anything about any 'timeless' nature an 'individual' may or may not have. All I can see as a hope comes from the most strange sense one has had at times,  almost like a memory , that there is a way that the impossible can happen.    Because nothing is as it seems.    The whole framework of our knowing can be different.

 

                                               Alternative speculations

    Interesting ideas ?   Perhaps, .....  but some apparently transcendent experiences can be explained by the functions and nature of our brain .   Since our brain/mind  learned  the concept of  'the world '  it is quite possible  for questioning and the right ideas or actions to partly unravel the concepts.  This applies to both world concepts and concepts of self,  and as they unravel they produce  the sense of a world of unfolding mystery ...  even if one is getting further  from truth.   Indeed, there are  religious 'ways' which intend to carry out just such an unravelling of limited concepts and attitudes and the emotions tied to them ... so as to allow the 'student' to progress towards their 'enlightenment'.

One could also say that these 'godlike' times hinted at previously, are simply when someone is in a state of maximum health and optimism, fully alert and  appreciating nature.  The human creature fully on line! There is no need to propose a 'Godlike' side to it all.    Which is fair enough comment.    You could say, more scientifically, that these best times correspond to the rush of endorphins and other brain chemicals which are part of the reward system of the brain.   And more cynically, that the brain can learn to enhance or initiate these states by such things as faith and practices which follow from that faith.      I  would protest though, that when the appreciation goes deep enough, the doors of the mind and heart  seem to open  to something very, very great.  That it is like you have wakened to the universe, and feel more free, and less submerged in dreams.    What else can one think then - even if it were illusion - when every perception and thought is enlarged so greatly that it might as well be a 'godmind' before one, and inside one?    If it turned out to be 'mere nature' than one would have to say that 'mere nature' is much more than it is normally given credit for.
One might indeed have to say,  this  'nature' .. is  to all intents and purposes the 'god-mind' suggested earlier.

One can logically describe humans materially.   You could start by granting an energy based material world in which chemicals necessarily, ( by physical laws) can combine to achieve continuance of form, which become 'living' beings, of which beings, the most successful evolve, till there are humans.  These humans, who have 'developed' consciousness, also have within them all the neural wiring that corresponds  to the striving to reproduce for survival.  Being self conscious, they experience these mechanical imperatives as the desirability, and 'beauty' of a partner, and of family or group.    Necessarily, the forms of 'beauty' (wherever they are seen) are related to the basic drives,  the grace and balance of body and face and expression, whether of the female ideal, or the masculine  'impressive/ majestic '  type.    In addition , the self- reflecting  brain can imagine these in great variety, and work this 'beauty' through thoughts about human lives and philosophies about why the world is like it is.    There is also the reward system in the brain which fires off when insight and new links are made in knowledge and imagination.  Taken altogether, it would seem no wonder that humans produce art, and gods, and various wonders of illusory belief.

I find this quite convincing, as far as it goes .. as long as one takes for granted the existence of the world and that it's  laws continue over time,  assumes that consciousness and knowledge do not need explanation, and assumes that the emotional things like love and beauty should be ... what they are.    That immaterial awareness of it all should exist in a brain that is purely a material entity, however complicated and subtle.    But though all that concept of materiality does not seem logically at fault, it  just remains to this mind ... insufficient.   It is like discounting your fullest nature and being satsified with a partial and mechanical only description.  
I would also ask a doubting reader to very, very seriously think about the nature of perceptions and how all that we think of as a world, is often said to be a construction in our heads .. that there is no way we can know what is really 'out there' around us.     It follows that the very notion of materiality and ourselves as a brain mechanism observing it, is a construct.  All the physical laws are consistent, but consisent about what exactly, we can never say .. at least from the standard scientific point of view.

When younger I had a time of panic over health.  A complete false alarm, though one didn't know it.   At that time I would have said I believed in 'something greater' or a life after death,  yet in the face of the supposed problem this was completely forgotten. There was a  hard core 'person' inside, and there still is, for whom it is a certainty, that the physical life and world is all there really is.  I can remember walking out of the building and staring in a rather remote mood down  the street into the distance and realising >  "This is it.  This is all the world, all the existence there will ever be. And it will be for just some unknown, possibly short period."
 It is that core picture or knowledge which we first learned so as to deal with the world, and situations.  A clinical, factual awareness of the  bare bones of  time based existence. To that self, all talk of greater meaning and  perceptions  is rubbish.   They must, that self reasons, be just illusions of feeling and 'colour' created by the biology and needs of the body to give some motivation.     
I can only repeat  that that clinical world is accurate as far as it goes.   It is not 'wrong' , but it is the extra knowledge and 'flavour'  that is needed.   
One person remarked that the truth of a flower is not in it's  structure and mechanism, however clever, but in the beauty and goodness that shines from it.  ( They put it more poetically but the idea is there.)   The clinical self would say that this beauty is merely a creation of the biologically based mind.  Illusion.  It can hit one as a startling contrast of viewpoint.

It has occurred to me at times, that if one granted the idea of a god-mind universe, there is still a distant possibility for our survival of death.   Perhaps not in a simple version of a soul, but   perhaps there is some unsuspected form of a  human 'self'  that may recur  as a 'memory' in the greater mind.  ( some science fiction writers like variations on this idea)   Think of a supposed god -mind which is the universe, and think how time is something of an illusion, in that it is real only for the players in this world.    Seen as an "all time embracing whole"  then,  what of the individual awareness that was part of the play of the  creation ?
Was not that 'particular self awareness',   in some degree, eternally part of the nature of the 'godmind'?  and therefore in some manner able to know a continuance ?  
Sadly, it seems more logical to me to regard our knowing, as the effect of the 'Mind/awareness of God' , peering out  through the dusty window of each individual brain at  Gods own  creation to get that unique point of view.   What we see  as 'ourselves' in fact a sort of  'lit up, variably dirty smear '   on this brain/window as it enthused or worried or loved the world about.
  In that case it does look as though our personal sense of identity is an inevitable part of the dance of everything. It is within the realm of the world and time only .. It is a 'small self' .. which does not otherwise exist.

It is a common idea in the east, that there is a  universal/eternal/ god /self/ mind  within or  behind us all in reality.   That there is only ONE mind , and   we  are  it, or fragments of it, ....  if  we could only see how.   And that this 'world' is but an illusion to be pierced.     The impression of this being directly perceived is fairly common in some religious circles.    How objectively true it might be  is another question.   Exponents of such ideas sometimes have a heirarchy of spiritual ( in the sense of subtle, mind- like, abstract 'substance' )  worlds for individuals so that they may continue indefinitely and learn and progress as 'souls'.   

 It would be interesting indeed if they were right .  And what if you are one of those  who,  however it comes about, 'see'  or have experiences of  'souls' of people who have died ?  Or experience one of the  ESP  varieties that people tell stories about?   You are bound to be inclined to believe there must be something to it.
I do find it difficult to accept these common ideas.  Partly it is the nature of  some popularised 'psychic' behaviour and the existence of other explanations, partly it is the current certainty in me that thoughts and perceptions are one with the brain.    Until such time as experience may alter this assumption I will have to be skeptical about what many must see as the most important question of all .. that we may have a soul of some sort.

Another possible approach to a ONE SELF and a minor human self is to see the complete godmind as  'All Time and Creation at Once',  time being an illusion, and the complete time sequence of events 'always' exists  ( as in a scientific  infinite space/ time/ energy continuum ). And thus 'you' and  'your'  life will be again, and again and again  ..   but only once .. and 'you' may know that as an eternity !!!???   An intriguing idea that.   Implying too, that this god, is not fully in every passing moment, but only exists and is only known in full nature, and only  by god's self which is spread over all time.   Meaning that  'god' could never, as it were, be fully in a particular time, only make a partial .. 'appearance'...    

Or one might take the line that there is NO permanent particular self in a human, let alone one that might live for ever. Our self sense is ( as in the tree of life page) only a passing phenomenon.  'We', as we currently think of ourselves, should not worry about when the body dies because there never was anything but this passing sense of self and its limited memories of the moment.    It will die of course  ... but 'it' dies and changes all day long and ceases every night.  We can see ourselves as a small 'node' in a vast 'all human wide'  net of ideas and life impulses.  A meeting place where the human currents around us meet in a particular way and produce this odd particular 'self'.    And so it goes.  Unfortunately we do have some deeper sense of self(s) within our neural net, that are tied to particular long term memories, feelings and knowledge which have built upon themselves over over much of  a life.  Such a long term sense of self is going to find death very hard.

But there is another observation to consider.   A mind may look true and clear at what is before one.   And see ... 'being'  or existence around ... and suddenly realise that the word "I"   that we use for our usual self  has changed.   
The being of what is around is also  "I" .   
The same sense of  "I"  that you feel "I am", is the  "I" out 'there".

There  is only  "I".   
Not just an abstract 'mind' as one thinks lightly at times,  but  a SELF, an "I '  that is truly everything.    The religious use of   'I AM'   begins to make sense .. to the total consternation of normal  "I' .        Perhaps the eastern phrase of  "Thou art That" is not without relevance.      Perhaps one can say, your normal sense of "I" is but a reflection of this greater self .  
Perhaps therefore, we will all feel a 'melting away' at our death  .. only to find that "I" does not cease but changes to something larger in scope.   Not that this would necessarily be welcome to the self  we normally are,  which wants to continue for ever as it is.  Or as it currently conceives itself to be.

And there is at least one more possibility.  That it is all far beyond the understanding of minds which try to write about such ideas.  The real truth is a wonder and surprise and impossible rightness  in which all is perfect, and in which none will lose.   Does that not ring  a distant bell?   ( It certainly sounds desirable!)

I have been restrained in speculation compared with what some believe.  I am tempted to try and explain just how limited out normal knowledge and perceptions are, so that I  might then go on to show just what it is possible to infer.  Some of the most  outlandish ideas may not be so silly as a reader might have thought. And in particular, your notions of who or what you are may be in need of change.

Yet the most likely possibility remains, for the normal sense of 'myself' anyway, that as far as death of this body goes ... that there will be a nothing after, an absence of .. all.  
 

                                                      Some moral questions arise 

        All misleading speculation and imagination?  The fact is we will believe something.   All  our life, our mind and feelings and desires together with the background information we have unconsciously accepted as true, will have been  channeling how our beliefs  will point now.   Circumstance and company will trigger perhaps some variation in them but not beyond our minds current acceptable limits.  And with those beliefs will go limits on possible experience.  By the 'scientific' test proposed earlier, the reader may not be a suitable instrument to tell what the universe is about.     As indeed, this writer is not !     I will not pain the reader with description of my limited character, but some moral questions may arise if you think a god-like universe might be a real possibility.

  The ultimate nature of the universe, according to some, is either the product of a neutral god-mind ( or IS the actual god-mind) ... which mind  has created without what we call 'moral preference' in the result.    A passionate and divinely bountiful creator,  but without preference for 'good' above 'evil'.  ( I suspect though, that what is called 'evil' simply can't apply to a god.   Such a proposition leads to contradictions .. nor could there even be the astonishing good that we can sense in things and people. )  
Some claim that the "Eternal Aliveness" ( as one man labels this god) creates moment by moment what we call 'evil' and 'good'.  But here is the catch .. apparently divinely loving and caring for it all with an intensity we can but distantly taste .    Appreciating all as a work of divine art.   This is logically challenging because it implies that this particular God sees what we call evil as 'good ' or at least approves of it in some wider sense.  Perhaps it is not possible  to have all the multi-selves and lives ( of the sort that we value) of a universe any other way than the way it has actually occurred, complete with all misfortunes and afflictions.   
( It is really rather odd that some humans imagine  they could have made a  universe that was better and without all the 'problems' that an all powerful, all knowing god is supposed to have ignored ! )   Maybe to this godlike point of view,  human good and evil is simply like seeing ants following their nature and desires .. which activity is part of the 'greater good' of this 'creation'.... as far as that type of god is concerned.

  However, probably  most humans would not consider as a God, anything less than a being which included the  perfect, divine,  'lovingness' and goodness in him/her/itself ... who will make it all come out right for humans in the end!   Which may be a rather human based viewpoint, but is understandable. ( I will vote for it!)  And hence believers in such a god, must find an explanation for the existence of  what we see as unecessary suffering.
Many also explicitly explain the godmind as having a certain 'person -like' character, or by comment and their behaviour reveal they accept such character ... which character is   both good and moral,  preferring individuals to follow  certain actions and rules.     Not only do I not want to accept this because of the consequences for quiet pursuit of self interest,  but because it could be very difficult to face an ultimate mind ( or rather, 'super- person- judge') of that character.  
    I have felt that  the goodness of a possible 'absolute mind' is far beyond narrow definitions,  but I cannot comfortably dismiss perceptions which many of the best people have had.    The accompanying belief is often that the godmind/self  is not  one with the universe but stands apart, for ever unchanged and timeless ... in some incomprehensible way. ( a huge argument in itself, and it may not even make sense when applied to a god. )    The divine  'father figure' or 'Majestic King' of usual christianity.   Authority in any case, which authority can make judgments about you!   
 
This can become mixed up with  the human sense of  'ought' .  Especially since  we normally do not have this loving 'god-likeness' experience but are determinedly our normal self with our own aims.    So we have all these questions about how  we ought to behave.  What we 'should' do, or not do.   It has been laid on us from childhood and perhaps there is no escape .    Probably it  starts from the natural impulse to be loyal to those who are close,  or to a leader or parent, and to be accepted by them, but there can grow  a  demand of general society that we should be loyal . ... or you are  worthless ... to be rejected.
    I once imagined being faced with another person drowning in a river.  I have difficulty swimming, and to attempt a rescue would most likely mean death.   But I think it might be impossible not to make the attempt to save them.  Not because I am good, or cared for the person ,  but because 'I ought'.   Some say you couldn't live with yourself  afterwards if you didn't try.  Perhaps.    But it is not love and caring,  it is ideas of duty (and guilt) somehow ingrained into my makeup.
    We could logically  justify such impulses by a  recognition that we have a stake in the community's survival,  and without co-operation and fair treatment, society will collapse into anarchy and 'dog eat dog' wherein very few will be able to achieve their potential.  The majority therefore band together to keep the rules of the game enforced. 
      One can also in real life suffer at the hands of others.  Or from burdens imposed by the generally accepted system of economics which allows privilege and exploitation.   Hence a feeling of 'ought' arises from one's own desire to be free of such impositions.    The mind then recognizes  that there are others who are being, or could be, imposed upon by yourself .. and the ought is then applied to oneself as a duty to the others.  The logical nature of  a brain cannot avoid seeing that  the 'ought' can apply both ways.

       But somehow, there has grown this even greater moral imperative, the authority of God,   no less.   And the threat of punishment for failure. A suggestion that we must follow a higher will and laid down duty that aims to do the best for all.     For some people of a  social and loving disposition this may be relatively easy ... I would not know,  not being such a person.     In my common  frame of mind  it can seem impossible to  'treat all others as we would be treated'   because there is NO end to it.    Our life would go entirely in the service of others.   This is preached by some.    Nothing left for 'myself' at all.  (Though even this writer can at times find inspiration in this idea)   We would look after everyone, without end, to the best of our abilities.   Not just needy cases but anyone with possible problems or hidden needs.  Assuming they would put up with such interference . ( you would  probably be arrested! )
Of course the catch is that we are not fit or able to judge others or their situation fully, let alone do anything for them.    A common attitude appears to be that you just deal with obvious basic need  and  leave everything else alone .. or hope for inspiration on the spur of the moment.

    On the other hand, 'ought' may be essentially inbuilt.  Our brain's life and learning uses, and requires, a reward system ... it wouldn't operate without one.    And the whole sense of self, world, and basic  feelings build upon this, reflecting it.   It is 'selfish'  ( if you judge in those terms)  but because  the actions of the brain include the 'world picture'  we live by,  we end up granting a sense of worth to this  'world' in which the 'self ' exists.  We need to believe that what we think,  matters.   That we belong .   That others care.   We are impelled to value those around who are a major part of that 'world'.   To find the group which we will belong to, and fit into.  We will have to follow the values current in that group to be accepted.   I am inclined lately to think that this is the most underrated of all impulses in a  human.  It can dominate absolutely everything.      I can affirm, at least, that if you do not be feel these things for some reason, you will become  depressed to the point of stopping acting at all. Permanently. 

And so, we are 'split'.    Part of us seeks  the most direct reward for self, but another part  seeks continuance and support of the environment and people which makes self possible. They can be conflicting requirements.  We want this ,.... we 'ought' to do that.
It has been said to be an 'evolved response' .  Obviously a tendency to  care for young would enhance long term survival of a group ... and survival of that  trend.  Likewise for a tendency to care for others in the extended community.  This does not explain however, the  origin of the internal impulse and I think the idea that the impulse arises from  the 'reward of the mind/learning  function'  is quite likely.

 'Ought' can also be  a result of our built up multi -personality, ( see the page titled " the tree of life",   on this web site)  when we are living in one set of our mind's patterns, and other pattern's values (built say, around idealized teachings heard throughout life) are encroaching.  And these ideals are held up as being of overiding value.    'Ought' would only depart from the mind therefore, when one's network self  is totally unified around a love  or passion (possibly religious ) of a deeper sort.

This is similar to the idea that  when an individual has found  the  real 'truth'  or 'god' or 'enlightenment',   then love -  or at least a new willingness, and set of  attitudes and perceptions - is both part of the arrival and it's result , and  causes  the individual to act differently.     In contrast,  'ought' is  really more a practical measure for community relations and survival and not part of this love  ...  AT ALL.       Though 'ought' creeps into almost everything  I have seen written or taught  about truth or god, etc.

I think it is fair to say, that at the very least, the experiences of  god-likeness mentioned earlier are a step out of the more ego-centred universe we normally inhabit, and can lead  to humility and better attitude to others.    By that measure alone,  it is justified.     Whether or not an individual can live all the time from a 'divine love' which, like the sun, sends light upon everyone (good and evil) alike,  I don't know, but some such inner transformation is going to be needed on the way.      Duty alone is empty, it is the spirit behind it that will change things.        For  the individual at least,  if no one else!
 

                                                    A slightly different tack

   You might notice that the meaning I have suggested for   'the universe, life and everything'   as a 'supreme godmind' is not an obvious direction to look.       It is the sort of explanation that a person of the writer's usually contemplative temperament is likely to find, though under the name of  'pantheism', something similar is  apparently one of the common threads of human belief .  
 It is not about finding meaning through direct action of the will ... though you can't avoid your actions and will changing as a result of such meaning .  It is not about waging a moral war against evil  ( though it may appear that way at times)   It is more like an emotional or artistic awareness.   Compare two people who look at a scene or sunset.  One looks with open heart and eyes and sees a beauty, goodness and meaning  as self evident.  The other has the same image cast on their eye,  but detects only bare shape  and colour ...  or more likely, to judge by my own experience,  sees only a distant dull image left after their depressed state and thoughts have come between them and the overly familiar, real world.
That is a critical point.  The open heart and mind sees more than the closed. It is common to speak of the 'rosy glow' cast by heightened emotion as though it were illusion. It is sometimes so (i.e.imagined), but just as often it is the other way about --  the gloom and dismissal of the world and it's more enlightened aspect is what is false.   It is in one's own head, cutting one off from the simple reality around.

 I hope it is clear I am not suggesting the most real world is just pretty, it can be utterly terrible in its beauty and majesty  and pain and drama, as well as in goodness.    Look at my earlier descriptions.   The real god-likeness is everything.     With the vital addition of including  elements we are normally not aware of, including seeing ourselves differently.  The trick is in how you see it all.     React to it.   Live with it.
The hesitation I have about this is that usually  I am not  aware of this 'best'.  Then in my mind  I  can see the  exploitation , conscious and unconscious, of those with power over others.  We have societies which inflict boring or deprived lives on many.  Then there's personal abuse of power.   Merciless killing.   The ghastly tortures either deliberately  or almost mindlessly inflicted.  Mental as well as physical.  I cannot normally let myself think that anyone had to go through those moments. 
Or the extreme pain of some disease or  accident, or at the end of a natural life span.   Perhaps crippling parasites.   Horrible .     How can one find this suffering  part of any 'perfect'  world?    What about the way many  will never find fulfillment of their nature?   Be frustrated and unhappy most of their  lives, or compromise and make-do at every point.   Or just the sheer fact that most creatures have to live by killing and eating others.

 Most religions have made a sufficient intellectual answer to pain,  but for those who reject the beliefs that make the explanation 'work' , suffering makes  the strongest case for our lives being a  chance event in a universe of chance, with no point to it beyond what we invent for ourselves.   There are  exploiters,   abusers of others,  who will lie and take, and affect others for the worse, and not be punished .  Neither  will there be compensation for the suffering victims of random nature .
Those are the apparent facts.
And in the end it all comes to nothing.  Which is not so commonplace  as it sounds.  The writer has, every so often,   discovered a  sudden shattering ghastly horror  at the idea of  'not being'.   Of nothing being , ever, ever, again.  The bottom drops out of the world.  Any world.   You have to be there to understand.     Intellectually, afterwards, one supposes it should not be such a big thing,  but this comes straight  from the heart and driving centre of your being.  From your understanding of your 'self' and your 'world' .. and is linked to intense gut feelings.     In that state, no mere memory or pleasing perception of the universe exists.   It can spring upon us all.  

    I can satisfy myself that the purely  materialistic approach to the universe is missing vital points and ignoring certain questions,  but the fact of suffering and then death?    There is no 'answer' , at least in ordinary terms.  If you have  a deep faith that may help to face it.  Perhaps faith in a god or a soul , or even in the future of mankind .. or in goodness ... or something at least, and you will need courage .. ( and finally acceptance?)   But then, how much of the suffering I imagine, actually happens?  Is it different in reality from all portrayals and imaginings?   Is it in fact so short in total time span in comparison with all the goodness of life that it can be logically discounted?   Say 50 -80 years of life against just hours of agony .. or whatever?  
I had experienced only short bursts of pain, until several weeks of injury  left me in no doubt  that I would do nearly anything to escape bad pain.  It has no redeeming features .. unless you value a certain focussing of the mind, and increased sense of basic self-hood .. oh, and afterwards, an increased sense of sympathy for others who suffer.     There have also been some recurring nagging pains, and absolutely desperate, end it all, emotional / mental agony/despair    .. varying to an  ' end of all feeling and interest in life '  over a good few years.

Do such experiences perhaps result ultimately in good?  Could  it be seen as somehow 'perfect'...  in the end ?   If it passes .. yes, it could.  But is it possible to face agony in the moment and see it from some transcendental point of view that makes it appear as nothing?  One writer, for example, who admitted previously to being oversensitive about pain, came, after a continuing experience of a god awareness, to consider pain as 'just '  ( !) a phenomenon providing information within this overall wondrous existence.  
I confess this writer certainly did not notice this with his injury.  He just wanted it all to stop.   But look at those who have been martyrs for the sake of  a belief, they seem to have found something fairly strong.    All of us ( probably?) can put up with some discomfort for a good purpose, or  for a later reward.   But at the extremes?
You would have to become something more than you normally are    ... discover the way 'past yourself '.    Or something .... very quickly!!!

As for the deeper, more emotional time, as the years pass the writer's  mind/heart ( having apparently decided to live after all ) is altering memories of the ghastly pain as it originally was.    The links of the network in his brain have been re-written substantially.    What it feels like is that many neural links have died .... a stroke-like effect.      He is a different 'person'.  The particular path he found to absolute bliss has apparently been closed.   More importantly , that particular flavour of the bliss has nearly been wiped from his being .. for it is impossible to live and carry on, knowing what has been lost.  He has only occasional flashes of distant memory left.   He does not believe the same things, and is not driven towards the same things.  There is a gap inside.     Many things once felt to be important are irrelevant.  Under too much stress he has nothing left inside to handle the  situation.   He becomes a frozen, passively waiting victim.  Or a foolishly complaining one.   Some delusions about himself  and life have gone.   
  He has  had though, after a long, long delay, moments of a wonderful peace, resignation and acceptance, that could not have otherwise come.    And a bit more awareness of other's  situations and problems,   brought down to earth like everyone else.   Actually feels  sufficiently to act sometimes.
 Sometimes recently, there is a willingness to quietly live without ambition or intent of his own.  The situation he finds himself in, waking an appropriate response from within.   And almost ...  almost  ... it seems in the strangest way, that one has not lost anything  ...  that all is possible ....            Aaaaah ... the human spirit , ever willing to be deluded yet again!    To hide away  or cover over the terribleness of living.
But perhaps ... there  is something.   Almost within reach.   And for a time  all is changed.

It is worth adding that there is something quite astonishing in the internal human universe. Without doubt, a state of what one can only call grace, or blessedness.  When one knows all has been changed .... yet cannot say what it is.  Everything has been put right. An impossibility, yet it has happened.   One finds that one is nothing .... yet is not the end, but  a beginning.    I would wish this for everyone. ( If only it would stay with the writer)

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Trying to balance it all up .

So ...  maybe  it is not so bad.   While many people are temporarily miserable and discontented, most also say  they are happy .. unless that response comes because when asked it tends to alter the state of mind and hence recollection of the person asked.    Or maybe most unhappiness is a result of our own choosing, and dwelling on the wrong things.  At least, that is what those who are happy with their lot say.      Wait till their lot changes.  

As for this 'god-likeness' ... who wants it anyway?   Seriously.  Are not most of us usually content ?   We might  like to be wealthier or more secure perhaps, or to escape difficult circumstance if such should be our situation.  Or we might want more excitement, or  pleasure in abundance and variety.  Or just a change from what we have.   Are we not often content with a flow of mildly interesting events?  Some  useful work ?  Some good company ?  A happy family situation if possible.  Humour, some stimulating thoughts?  Perhaps we have a current interest that seems of sufficiently overwhelming importance.  Or do we not often just blunder along hoping for the best?  Or at least hoping to avoid the worst, while receiving the odd pleasant surprise or moment.  

Or did the suggestions of god-likeness strike a chord? Point to something beyond wordliness?  To the way all the normal things might be transformed.  Is there in fact, in most people, a deep, if often buried, desire for great fulfillment ?  

My own present judgement is that I simply can't deny the value of the better, seemingly transcendent, times.   Very much so, as soon as a genuine time of change arrives... as it did not long before adding this sentence.  It is just so completely 'other' ... different, that it confounds one.

Whether those times are just  some quirk of this writer's brain.
Whether they are, more realistically,  part of every human's makeup .. so that the right attitudes and conditions release that way of being.
Whether they are considered materially, as a part of evolution and a biology  which requires motivation and meaning in self-conscious creatures.
Whether  they point to a true, objective, explanation of  universe that might include a God or 'Godmind' of some variety.
Whether it explains why Buddhists speak of Nirvana,  Vedantist's of the Atman and One Self, or  Jesus of the 'kingdom of heaven' within  and the need to be born again  .. or whatever.

What it is called, or is thought to be, need not strictly matter.
There is a way of life and being, with knowledge of god- likeness and blessedness, which is in itself a better way to BE.   This I do not doubt.  I will call it a certainty.   Though perhaps you could never make this real to the mind and heart which still seriously pursues particular goals or possessions in life .. as most of us do.
 Nor do I know how you could ever prove beyond doubt any  of the creeds of religions,  philosophies or more fundamental science , or what the relation of mind to matter is.  Some theories will at times seem more likely than others, but 'objective'  certainty ... ?
In practice, our nature will seek the best that it can .  I will say our nature cannot rest until it finds complete fulfillment, or failing that, acceptance and perhaps through that another sort of fulfillment.   I will say that you will KNOW,  quite likely with astonishment, when all seeking is ended .

To speak of a 'Kingdom of heaven within', seems to me to sum it up .  To discover this magic of god-likeness arising inside us and around us .. in the most common life. To find love arising in a cold heart.  To find transformation and this strange and total freedom in the moment of existence.    To forgive and be free.  To learn and deepen inside.   To find acceptance .   To find freedom from pressure to appear as someone, to simply be.  To let go of lesser things.  To accept the new.  To find real peace.  To find the good in everything.  To lose 'yourself' until the  music of a life greater than 'you '  is played through 'you'.   Part of the eternal dance.
All trite when left as words.    All truth and heart breaking heaven as fact.
 

 Is there a "Path" to truth?

There is much written and said by religious 'teachers' about how  a human may reach a supposed better state, or learn to conform to the authority of a God .
Since this writer often thinks his life something of a disaster (though I have been spared some very hard things others face), I offer the following  as opinion only on the way to truth of the sort that he has valued.

I believe that surprising numbers of people find a strong taste of what I described quite naturally in diverse situations and times.   And most others have had at least a hint of it. To the horror of some others, I suggest -- you must find your own way to this.  Well .. what more can you say than has been said by many 'teachers' already?   IF you want this way of life you WILL find it.    If you want something else .. you get that instead.  It's the way the human machinery works.   And is presumably why we do not all live in awareness of the  best already, or why we have lost what we may once have tasted.  

And remember again, when you discover it yourself, it may not seem anything at all like what a reader may have thought I was indicating above.  

I could repeat  advice I have heard that supposedly leads towards a better life but I have no confidence in my understanding of other people, or in what words might mean to them.   You could be saying the worst possible thing .   And the ideas I picked up were part of  a situation.  The  changes that may have  come were more from motives arising out of that situation.   A 'path' that worked  only then.
It might be helpful to remember that 'the best ' finally arrives of itself, as if the secret is to  NOT  be doing something.   To become free of all that your past has written into you ?   If so, then how?   It may even mean embracing your limits more fully  ...... The truth is, that what is necessary is not always clear to us.   How else could it be if it is the unknown we are to discover?  
And yet ... we may have known it before.     You see?    Apparent contradiction.  Almost anything goes when it is  in your self that the change occurs.  When your ideas and motives turn inside out.. and yet lead back to something you may have once known.

 Think too, of all the common sense advice given about life,  of the ever multiplying self improvement books, of  new age versions of them. Think of all the religious teachings and instructions.  The confident authority of some teachers .. which attitude can affect us greatly.  There are ideas with all those, and advice which if  they connect with the right emotional impulses in someone's neural network will lead to change.   It is possible though, that much of such advice leads not towards truth at all, but rather the reinforcement of ideas that make the reader feel better about themselves.  (which still might be the right thing  for  a time though!  See? ... no rules. )   Or you might only be more deeply trapped in a limited outlook.   
And what is one to make of the ideas of discipline and self sacrifice ?   Physical  endeavours may require much effort to reach a final desired state, but is one on religious grounds, going to treat your own nature as an object to be beaten into submission?  Will it not be part your own nature that is doing the  beating?   Is that then any different from what you would escape?  
Or is it a necessary step, at times anyway, that a 'best' part of you should subjugate and 'train' a lesser part of your neural net character and active being ?  If so, then whose guidance and ideas would you follow?  
 Or should you forget your own impulses, even your best ones, but instead lose your will (and ultimately your normal sense of self)  to another authority ... or to God ?

 And what of practices such as meditation? Or the practices of a particular faith, and sharing of social ties.  There is no doubt that this can modify your neural net, and hence your character and what you may know about the world and about your own nature.   Clearly it matters then, what your belief is, and what your deeper intent or need is when you embrace such practice.
What of self knowledge?   For example, learning  how much of your actions and thoughts are an automatic reaction to other people and circumstances - as outlined in the 'tree of life' page.   And that many such reactions are to things simply imagined or false  ...  and are therefore less than ideal reactions.   And that our mind may simply be unable to take in what is clear truth, so that we may need to find a way which for us, leads towards a more open mind.      Remember the neural net material, indicating that actions, thoughts knowledge and perceptions which take dominance in us, tend to grow and become more comprehensive.  Become our life.
Similarly, the persistent practice of quite simple exercises of attention, or body or mind stretching, can alter possibilities for the neural net and thence the whole life.   ( I can imagine the thoughts of some people who know the writer, upon reading that .. along the lines of taking your own advice. )

Or is it necessary to have a  faith or long lasting  conviction about God or higher meaning?  Do we need much more than to just prefer a possible better way to live?  Would we just fall by the wayside, become lost in the normal pursuits of the world if we have no abiding trust in the reality of a god or a particular religious faith?   Think of all the deeper ideas about self and god and  'salvation' or redemption.   You may come to believe in, and follow, one of these.  Or at least to ask  whether there may be something about humans that needs redeeming.

 What if the intuitions of many are correct, that there really is a power outside oneself that can intentionally alter you?   Because of the neural net, it can seem so to all appearances and tests ... that is true without any doubt whatsoever.  So .. could it be real?   Equally, there are ideas and people who will alter you without conscious intent of doing so.  

It seems to this writer that it is easy to criticize ,  but difficult to find the impulse which leads towards a better life .     What is it that leads a person to head one way rather than another? To face a situation in the way that leads to greater truth, rather than the opposite.  Can a merely passing idea of what might be desirable be much help?   Does it not require much deeper motive?  So that even if someone is, say, caught in a group, or faced with great personal challenge they retain a direction in themselves.     

My own way of seeing this is that all the ideas and beliefs that we have met and accepted  (into our heart / neural net) and our ''life experiments'' and their pains and rewards, have led us to prefer certain ways to be, to think and to act.  Inevitably,  we travel a path according to our resulting knowledge and desires and habits.  It is everything we have met and done which is the decider over time, even if it seems more obviously a 'choice' when it all comes together at one particular time of challenge.

It still seems to me that even silly ideas, taken rightly, may be exactly  what one person needs to reach out from themselves towards a better life, or at least away from a limited one.   One person might need to take up .. a  hobby .. or meditating?  Or to stop those things.    Another to change jobs .. or to stay exactly where they are with a different attitude.     One might need to see oneself more clearly .. to see one's normal thoughts and attitudes anew.    Or to become a  time wasting layabout. Or  a hermit.  Or to go to a church.  Or to leave a faith and its limitations.     To run away from everything.   To stop running.    To submit to a regular discipline.    To forgive someone .....

  Anything can be the first step at a particular moment.   I would hope anyone could recognise this as soon as it is pointed out.   When desires and impulses and knowledge join rightly,  you will have already begun to change.  There may still be many contradictory or opposing beliefs, desires and wills in your life and mind which you will have to meet over time.   Or one may, in a moment, even the very least of us apparently, step clear into a life which is beyond any previous conception.   Whichever way,  whatever the real truth ... so be it.   

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These have been some of the current thoughts of the writer.  And are subject to change!    I hope they were of interest.       May knowledge of goodness ...  may  hope, and all that is best, be with the reader.

 

 David L.       September 2007              Link back to home ( index)  page>