The Broader Theory

 

Of course, I am not a physicist. However, I am conscious. I am very much aware that I am. This lonely sense of self is isolated from all other selves who supposedly have the same, subjective sense. But I must stop right there and admit that any other self, with a unique sense of self, can only be inferred; I have no idea if anyone feels the way I feel. Other selves appear to unanimously agree with me; we are all separated and experiencing the entire world from our own, private point of view. The trouble arises when I say that I know how others feel. To make this simpler, I could point to the way events seem to unfold in a nocturnal dream. When I am dreaming, I have the same sort of sense of self I have while awake, but when I am awake, I reflect on a dream and realize that others in my dream could not have had their own sense of self.

This seems nearly too simple to mention, but when I am dreaming at night, I’m having complicated relationships with made up individuals. I’ve had dreams where someone was chasing me and I was afraid of that person. When I wake from those dreams, it occurs to me that I was running from a character I had created to chase me. The other night, I dreamed of a little boy, playing around on the very edge of a deep well. I was extremely worried about the little guy until I finally made my way to where he was and got him away from the edge of that well. When I woke up and had a cup of coffee, I reflected on that scene and wondered why I would create such a scene. It was a very uncomfortable dream and I went from being worried about the boy to being relieved that I could save him.

Where is the mathematical equation for how long it took me to get to the boy and save him? If we say that I got to him within 18 seconds, then we would necessarily have to place the boy in one location and myself in another. However, even simple reason tells us that I was the little boy at the well’s edge, just as surely as I was the one who was going to save him.

Of course, when I bring this example into the physical world of waking reality, it does not work. Or does it?

Naturally, if I said that this applies to the real world, I’d be saying – not merely suggesting – that I am the creator of everything; including the march of time and its rhythm.

In the dream, the 18 seconds did not actually advance because there was no actual distance to cover. I was not in one “place” trying to get to another “place”. I was already in both “places”.

Neville Goddard often spoke of others and said, “Everyone is just myself, pushed out.”

In a dream, he is obviously correct; but where is there any proof that he was explaining the real world as well?

While it does not fit perfectly with our most common senses, it really has to be this way. Life is the stuff of experience, but Life is not plural. What is plural is the infinite network of locations where Life exists; both in time and space.

Indra’s Net is just one of the ancient ideas I often borrow to explain this. In this case, I will use myself as “The I”. There is a perfect net that stretches out forever. The net is so vast that it not only stretches out beyond our senses; it stretches beyond our time. To begin with, I will tell you who I Am: I am a perfect jewel, sewn into one of the countless intervals of this endless net. I am cut in a way which reflects every other jewel, and every other jewel is cut in a way that reflects all other jewels; including me.

Now we have some distance to consider.

With what I call my naked eye

I can peer into the sky

And fix my gaze on one bright star

Whose light is not at all so far

But what I see is not tonight

But riding on that ancient light

Reflecting for this naked eye

Myself as if another I

 

The night sky is one of the most mysterious observations you could ever make. Nothing is actually there the way you see it.

I could say that it took millions of years for one star’s light to meet my eye, or I could say that the time it would take is the illusion. This works if I consider my dream of the boy by the well. There was no real distance to cover. I was myself and the boy. In the night sky, I am myself and the star.

 

There is no reason why this could not be. Indra’s net solves the riddle. I am a jewel and that distant star is another jewel. For some reason, I think I am the only one conscious enough to have the experience of myself gazing into the sky and fixing my eyes on that star. For some reason, it does not occur to me that the star could be looking at me with the exact measure of awe.

There is Oneness Everywhere, All the time.

Indra’s Net is not something undergoing change, all change was sewn into it from eternity. The end reflects the beginning. The beginning reflects the end. These two sentences infer time as a sealed block. It is. Time is just like space; there for the sake of experience alone. It is a measuring device. But beyond time, there is what comes before time: Love.

Love is not fundamental, it is eternal. Consciousness is fundamental.

Consciousness started the eruption as a thought split just once, experiencing itself. It was the Word (Love) as a thought (consciousness) looking in the first mirror. That mirror became an infinite net, with intervals looking at itself. When it again realizes it is just One, it will all collapse back to Love.