“If you
don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” I love this
oft-cited but not-quite accurate quotation of Lewis Carroll in Alice in
Wonderland! I love it because I believe that none of us really know where
we are going, and none of us really know where we came from.
On the grandest
of scales, we are continuously questioning the origin and fate of our universe,
where we are from and where we are going. This has been a continuous search,
both scientifically and philosophically.
Factoid: For such answers, there are several
theories, of which I shall enhance by shamelessly promoting my latest book, of which the adverts by happenchance perfectly fit my talking points!
 |
| WILL MY BOOK SALES EXPLODE INTO OTHER GALAXIES? |
Regarding
the origin of the universe, the mainly accepted theory by most in the science
community, is the Big Bang Theory. This theory purports that 13.8
billion years ago the universe was simply one hot and dense point that
exploded, creating space, time, matter, energy, and everything else we know
today.
The end of
our universe is explained in a couple of scientific theories. The Big Rip
Theory suggests, that as our universe is ever expanding, as the
galaxies become farther and farther apart, eventually the gravitational forces
that bind everything (galaxies, stars, planet, atoms) will succumb to the
overpowering influence of dark energy, disappearing forever into time.
The Big
Freeze Theory, similar to the Big Rip Theory, too, suggests that
as our universe is ever expanding, as the galaxies and stars and planets and
atoms drift apart, everything growing colder and becoming more barren, eventually
disappearing into on cold and dark void.
Both these theories
predict rather bleak endings, and the notion that no matter what space/s we
humans are inhabiting, there will be no escape some billion years hence. Hmmm.
Maybe humans are not the center of the universe, but enough of this.
Let us move
onto our human consciousnesses.
The One
Consciousness Theory suggests that our human reality is a projection of
our consciousness, and that our 3D world and everything in it, including
ourselves, is but a reflection or emanation of our minds.
Theoretical
physicist, Albert Einstein, had the theory that every human being is a part
of the whole universe, but our part being limited in time and space. Being
rather narcissistic, we humans tend to experience ourselves as being separated
from all this, suffering a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. Theoretical
physicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, proposed that our human
brains are essentially computers, and that our consciousnesses are quite like a
computer program.
Philosopher David
Chalmers has a theory of consciousness that everything is the result of
basic properties and laws, and therefore everything is compatible with existing
theories of physical science. If this is true, then there is nothing
transcendent about consciousness – it is just another natural phenomenon.
Neuroscientist, Anil Seth, has a theory of consciousness that all our
perceptions are controlled hallucinations, which are generated by our
predictive brains – channeling Plato? One of my favorite psychologists,
Carl Jung, believed in a collective unconscious, where all the
structures of the unconscious mind were shared amongst all of humanity.
Of course,
as the scientific search to understand the origin of the universe without
continues, so does the search continue to find ourselves within, to find our
fate, and along the way, find meaning in our individual lives. In so doing, a
reckoning of our human consciousness, too, has a myriad of theories.
One piece of
Quantum Theory insists that humans can be immortal because our
consciousness never dies. Instead, whenever we die in one universe, our
consciousness gets transferred to a parallel universe, one where we are still
alive! This is just another Theory of Immortality, dictating that our consciousness
is transcendent, and accordingly then, we lead a never-ending existence,
regardless of whether our body withers or dies.
So, our
consciousness is transcendent? Hmmm. Entire religions are betting their offertory on it,
having been constructed around religious theories of the afterlife.
 |
| WILL I STILL BE PROMOTING MY BOOK IN THE AFTERLIFE? |
Christianity
and Islam and Buddhism all promise special places to go after death. In
Christianity after death believers go to heaven where they reside with God as
their neighbor, and where they are reunited with their earthly bodies, and
their earthly loved ones (at least with those who made it heaven). In Islam
after death, the soul goes to the unseen realm of Barzakh until the Day of
Judgement. In Buddhism, death is an opportunity for liberation, where the
consciousness leaves the dead body, but continues and is reborn into another
body.
Yes. Our religions
do promise us eternity. All cockamamy stories? Maybe. Maybe not.
Whatever the case, I am especially interested
in that of Buddhism, where the idea of reincarnation seems quite in
harmony to my offerings of PAST LIFE REGRESSION to clients in my HYPNOTHERAPY private practice.
Reincarnation is to be reborn into a new body or
vessel, still containing some essence of the previous life experiences and identity. Past Life Regression, a coddewonple so to speak, is more or less traveling in a purposeful
manner to a rather vague destination. During a
session of a Past Life Regression, my clients believe that their
consciousness travels back to a past life, essentially accessing and
experiencing memories from their present incarnation, that very incarnation which is in
hypnotic trance in my office. In all cases, my clients, in their hypnotic trances, believe that their consciousness
is actively engaged during these Past Life Regression sessions, rather
than simply observing a detached memory thereof. Compared to that past lifetime in
which they lived and died, their session time in my office is very fugacious.
ALL OF THIS,
I find fascinating!
Yes. We don’t
know where we’re going and we don’t know where we’re from, but one
thing is for certain:
“IF
YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING,
YOU MIGHT WIND UP SOMEPLACE ELSE!”
(Yogi Berra).
 |
| WHERE I AM DESTINED TO BE -- BLACK BEACH! |
