The Mirror

 

My PhD? So far, it is this thesis I cannot always defend. It involves my subjective interpretation of the objective world and if I try to transmute that with words, I cannot really offer a robust packet of my experience to anyone other than my future self. My future self will understand and I understand what my former self was trying to convey, but to take my thoughts and offer them to anyone other than this particular “I” would be to lose too much in translation. As my mom would say, “I can’t explain it.”

Think of something as simple as cilantro. I am fortunate enough to be one who enjoys the taste of cilantro; but my wife gags at the taste of the identical leaf. Therefore, I have a subjective experience which she could never observe. It doesn’t matter how many different ways I talk about cilantro, my wife is still not going to like it. Likewise, she can tell me that it tastes just like dish-soap and her words have no effect on my opinion.

If, on the other hand, my wife and I were to discuss a flavor we both enjoy, or one we both dislike, the narrative will work collectively.

I think cilantro is the most perfect example because it has been said that about 80% of the world’s population likes it, while 20% thinks it tastes like soap. Furthermore, The Bible actually mentions the coriander seed (the very seed which produces cilantro) when the writer was trying to describe manna. Ironically, manna means: “What is it?”. I think this beautifully illustrates perception’s free will. Experience for me cannot really be packaged as a concept, given to you and unpackaged as your own concept without distortion.

In other words, whatever arises in my conscious experience cannot be trusted to arise for you in the same way. We may have had a conversation yesterday and you may have packaged the conversation in ways I never intended.

It is far more likely that I remember it the way I meant to convey my thoughts yesterday. So it is likely that ideas formed in my mind yesterday can arise again today with some variations. But as a unique observer of what I may have spoken yesterday, you may now be developing the arising thought, completely unlike what I intended or meant when I spoke yesterday.

This becomes a big problem as soon as anything is offered as a thought to anyone. There is an old term, “You’ve twisted my words.”, and, of course this means that someone has misinterpreted what you were trying to say. In politics, someone might hear a leader asking a question about the effect of bleach on a virus, while someone less sympathetic to that same leader might say that he has suggested an injection of bleach. The latter group will be accused of twisting the leader’s words and the former group will be accused of being too gullible. The truth is: It is the cilantro effect.

Perception of anything can be experienced in five ways for five people.

In every case, where communication is involved, the way it gets unpacked is subjective for every hearer of the word.

And, in every case, what was learned by myself yesterday, is likely to arise as a memory today. This is very interesting to me for many reasons. I suppose I am most interested in memory due to the fact that my father seems to have lost all of his memory on the day his body expired. The initial attraction leading me to this research can be reduced to two simple questions I could not readily answer in 2009: 1. Who was my Dad and 2. Where did he go?

Let’s look at the first question: Who was my dad?

Was he the sum total of his experiences or was he what he was aware of? When we point to awareness as the jewel, we have to decide what we would call his “System Restore Point” to reproduce him in a new body. In other words, I was there when his tired body gave up his old ghost; both of which were exhausted. If his “soul” found a new astral body, did he enter that body with the consciousness of the old, worn out ghost or did he enter with the vibrancy of himself at, say 45? Which thoughts survived? Which desires survived? Which fears survived?

In my memories of my dad, there exists a spectrum of possible incarnations. If I had my way, I would probably restore him to the point where we were enjoying a walk together in the woods. In that restoration of my dad, I would not care if he could remember his high-school sweetheart or not. I would not care if that incarnation liked chocolate or not. It would be our love for each other I would want materialized. I would not care if there were words or even memories. And for me, this idea answers the second question entirely; where did he go? Nowhere; because I still love him.

And this concludes the matter.

I know I will be writing about this and researching these ideas for as long as I can, but I am already convinced, beyond any doubt, that Love does not die. I have to know that memories and thoughts are not eternal; for I have already forgotten enough to settle that debate.

I have no choice but to make this personal. I can only come at this research subjectively. I know that I still Love my father. This is what intrigues me most of all. How can I Love anything that died 15 years ago? I cannot. I am far enough into my research to feel comfortable with the fact that my father has forgotten me. That is completely understandable; he does not have a body and a brain to make newer memories with. I am also forgetting him. Little by little, I am losing tiny portions of my memories of him daily. However, my own loss of memory is having no effect on the Love I have for him. In fact, if it is possible, I Love him more today than I did 15 years ago, when I helped Bill lay his lifeless body on the bed one last time.

“… As for knowledge, it will pass away…” I Corinthians 13:8

That’s what Paul said while making his case for Love.

The conclusion will always be the same: Love never dies.

And this is why I disagree with those who would say that consciousness is fundamental. I believe only Love is fundamental. Consciousness is the first cause of the uncaused cause.

Neil Turok may never embrace what I am trying to say, but I believe he and I are saying something rather similar. He basically postulates a mirror universe, opposite our own. I completely agree, but I believe there is a name for the singularity, through which the opposite universes passes; Love.

Not only are there left-handed neutrinos in one universe, and right-handed neutrinos in the other, the mirror is consciousness and it is there as the only cause, caused by Love, setting off what seems like inflationary expansion in chains of reactions that would look like the explosions of fireworks if you could witness it from outside our reality.

Why this matters will eventually matter to most people who feel somehow separated from this event; for we can all discover our connection to this event as described in Indra’s Net. Each of us – you – are a reflection of every other and every other is a reflection of you – us. 

Why does this matter then? It matters because we are really talking about One Fundamental “Thing” which is no-thing, and it’s first cause which is consciousness.

Finally, I will break this down simpler: consciousness is not fundamental; it began with time.

Why would that matter? It matters because consciousness is finite; but what created consciousness is infinite. Even matter arose from consciousness and it still does. And naturally, if something began, it will end. Have you ever forgotten anything? That is evidence of a dissolved, conscious thought. When all thought dissolves and there is but one thought left, and then it ceases, every event sucks back into the black-hole-vacuum of escapeless Love and consciousness is gone. Then Love sets up a new game and here we go again.

What you think of when you think of you is a reflection of what Love is.