by Duane Elgin
The revered Persian poet and mystic Rumi spoke of the Mother Universe this way:
The source is within you,
And this whole world is springing up from it.
The source is full,
And its waters are ever-flowing.
Do not grieve, drink your fill.
Don’t think it will ever run dry, this endless ocean.8
From Japan and the Zen tradition we have this appreciation of the generative ground from the monk Yung-chia:
Like the empty sky it has no boundaries,
Yet it is right HERE, ever serene and clear.
When you seek to attain it, you cannot see it.
You cannot take hold of it,
But neither can you lose it.9
From Zen Buddhism and the Lankavatara Sutra:
One Nature, perfect and pervading, circulates in all natures,
One Reality, all-comprehensive, contains within itself all realities. . . .
The Inner Light is beyond praise and blame;
Like space it knows no boundaries,
Yet it is even here, within us, ever retaining its serenity and fullness.10
Because our universe is constructed from and sustained within the life force of the Mother Universe, her presence is complete. There is no distance between ourselves and the aliveness that is the Mother Universe. We are that aliveness. The Christian mystic Meister Eck-hart speaks of intimacy with the sacred this way: “God is nearer to me than I am to myself; He is just as near to wood and stone, but they do not know it.”11 It is understandable that this insight would have ancient roots in the world’s spiritual traditions; when we become very still and contemplate our direct experience, we discover that we are not separate from the totality arising at each moment.
An Integrative View
What is the nature of the generative ground or life force that is able to hold our cosmos as a living system? Regardless of what the Mother Universe is called (God, Brahman, the Tao), all wisdom traditions agree that she is ultimately beyond description. Nevertheless, many attempts have been made to describe the cosmic womb that gives birth to and sustains our universe. Combining insights from both science and spirituality, here are six key attributes of the Mother Universe:
• Present everywhere. The clear life energy of the Mother Universe is present in all material forms as well as throughout empty space. The Mother Universe is the “ordinary” reality that is always present around us, the sea in which we swim.
• Non-obstructing. The Mother Universe is a living presence out of which all things emerge, but her aliveness is not itself filled in or limited by these things. Not only are all things in the Mother Universe, she is in all things. There is mutual interpenetration without obstruction.
• Utterly impartial. The Mother Universe allows all things to be exactly what they are without interference. We have immense freedom to create either suffering or joy.
• Ultimately ungraspable. The power and reach of the Mother Universe are so vast that they cannot be grasped by our thinking mind. As the source of our existence, the Mother Universe is forever beyond the ability of our limited mental faculties to capture conceptually.
• Of unconditional love. To experience the subtle and refined resonance of the Mother Universe is to experience unconditional love. An ocean of joy and love is her essence.
• Profoundly creative. Because we humans do not know how to create a single flower or cubic inch of space, the power of the Mother Universe to create and sustain entire cosmic systems is a miracle and mystery.
Contemplating these extraordinary characteristics of the Mother Universe is a way to awaken ourselves to the profound miracle of the living universe within which we are immersed.
Growing in the Mother Universe
We live within a “daughter universe” that for nearly 14 billion years has been living and growing within the spaciousness of a Mother Universe. The Mother Universe has existed forever, holding countless daughter universes in her grand embrace while they grow and mature through an eternity of time. This perspective not only transforms the description of the world in which we live, but also the way in which we regard the human journey: We move from a secular journey in a fragmented and lifeless universe that is without meaning or purpose into a sacred journey through a unified and living universe whose purpose it is to support, in freedom, the growth of self-reflective and self-organizing entities and communities at every scale.
Our universe and everything in it are expressions of the life energy of the Mother Universe. We are embodiments of the first miracle. We express directly the life force of the Mother Universe. Through our experience and learning, our celebration and sorrow, the Mother Universe also experiences, learns, celebrates, and grieves. We are sensing, feeling, thinking, and knowing beings, the living expressions of the Mother Universe. The Mother Universe yearns to give birth to her creative potential and, since her creativity is infinite, her creations will be infinite—including an infinite number of universes. The Mother Universe actualizes her infinite potential through our evolving experience. Our experience is her experience because ultimately we are nothing other than expressions of the Mother Universe herself. To explore this further, in the next chapter we consider the nature of our souls (or body of conscious-aliveness), which lives in the deep ecology of the Mother Universe.
Chapter 5
The Soul’s Body and Our Cosmic Identity
Once the journey to God is finished,
the infinite journey in God begins.
—ANNAMARIE SCHIMMEL
A striking new image of humans is emerging: We are far more than biological beings—we are giants living in a universe that is almost entirely invisible to our physical senses, that is emerging as a fresh totality in every moment, and that is sustained by the flow-through of stupendous amounts of energy. Because the totality of our universe is being continuously created anew, we ourselves are being regenerated along with everything else. Cosmologist Brian Swimme explains that the intimate sense of self-awareness we experience bubbling up at each moment “is rooted in the originating activity of the universe. We are all of us arising together at the center of the cosmos.”1 We thought that we were no bigger than our physical bodies; now we find we are beings of cosmic connection and dimension who are part of the continuous re-creation of the entire cosmos.
The Size of Our Soul
To explore the nature of our soulful identity, let’s consider insights from psychic research. As I described in Chapter 2, in the early 1970s I was involved in futures research at the think tank SRI International, reporting on changing trends and how they might impact government agencies and corporations. At the same time, in another part of this sprawling think tank, the engineering laboratory was conducting psychic research for NASA. Although I do not consider myself as possessing any special abilities, experiments at SRI gave me unique opportunities to learn about the intuitive capacities we all possess by being a part of this extraordinary universe.
Before participating in these laboratory experiments, I had assumed that my “being” was defined by my physical body and its ability to receive and send information (seeing with my eyes, touching with my hands). After nearly three years of experiments, with precise feedback from a wide array of scientific instruments, my understanding of the scope of my “being” expanded enormously. First, the remote viewing experiments demonstrated that we all can “see at a distance,” receiving meaningful information through intuitive nonlocal connections. Second, the psychokinesis experiments showed we can all “touch at a distance,” interacting meaningfully (and measurably, with scientific instruments) over a distance ranging from a few yards to several miles or more.
Through exploring these receiving and sending capacities in a wide range of experiments, my biologically encapsulated sense of self was subtly, though profoundly, transformed. At a deep energetic level I gradually understood that if my ability to send and receive information extends beyond my physical
body, then my body is the gateway into a larger field of aliveness, a portal into a vastly larger being. In stages, I progressively discovered that the scope of my identity is equal to the scope of my conscious participation in life. These experiments demonstrated that we are boundless beings whose participation in the deep ecology of the universe is limited only by the scope of our conscious awareness.2 Our being is as big as our perception, and our perceptions are constantly expanding or contracting, depending on our thinking. When we think that awakening happens only within our physical bodies, then the universe becomes no more than a passive backdrop to our lives that lies dormant, unexamined and unexplored.
This expansive view of myself did not emerge easily; I resisted what the experiments were telling me about the permeable nature of my self. Again and again, I found myself unconsciously invested in keeping a concrete, well-defined, bounded, and permanent sense of self. A harsh critic of my own experience, I did not come easily or quickly to the understanding that so-called paranormal abilities are actually completely normal. Only gradually did I release my primary identification as a physical body and open to my self as an energetic life stream—a being who constantly sends and receives in the subtle nonlocal ecology of a living universe.
In learning about the existence of psychic functioning I was also learning about its limits. The experience of receptive intuitions (for example, feeling-impressions about the well-being of someone we care about), are often vague, fleeting, and nonconceptual, even though they may be measurably real. Our expressive intuitions also have limits. Although we have the ability to focus our consciousness and exert a measurable influence in the physical world—as in psychokinesis—it requires extremely high levels of concentration and sustained effort. And I discovered that, if I entered an experiment seeking power over the measuring apparatus, my mindset generated a feeling of existential separation from the universe that was proportional to my intention to dominate it. While these experiences validated, for me, that consciousness is a phenomenon of the living universe and our identity is as boundless as our consciousness, it also demonstrated the universe has a robust and powerful ecology not easily moved or manipulated. We live within a complex ecology of consciousness, and as a living field it requires a subtle ethics and discernment to remain in harmony with it.
In exploring our cosmic identity, it is important to recognize our paradoxical nature. First, we are each unique, yet totally connected with the entire universe. We are each absolutely original; there will never be another person like us in all eternity. At the same time, since our existence arises from and is woven into the deep ecology of the universe, we are completely integrated with all that exists. Both unity and uniqueness are integral to our nature.
The second paradox is that we are both the observer and the object of observation, the knower and that which is known. We are more than thinkers who have physical bodies and a biological brain. We are also knowers who participate in a vast field of consciousness through our intuitive intelligence.
Third, we embody the paradox of being and becoming. The cosmos is continually arising anew and one aspect of our nature is the continual flow of becoming. We are also inseparable from the transcendent wholeness and great being of the Mother Universe.
Our identity embodies the three paradoxes of unity with diversity, knower and known, and being and becoming. Given the seeming impossibility of this, what can we do but awaken to the magnificent mystery of existence and celebrate our journey within a living universe?
Qualities of the Soul’s Body
Our bodies are biodegradable vehicles for acquiring soul-growing experiences. Everything we think and do has lessons for the soul. Wisdom traditions suggest that, at the end of a lifetime, the lessons we learn are not remembered as conceptual thoughts; instead, they leave their unique signature in our soul—the essence of our being. When we leave this world, we take away the distilled knowing-essence of our passage through this life. If we have cultivated a life of cooperation and compassion, the essence of those life experiences will be carried with us. If we have cultivated a life of anger, mistrust, and fear, the essence of these experiences will be embedded in the resonant body of our being.
Because our being has the potential of immense reach and depth, it is very useful to have a firm environment to push against as we seek to know who and what we are. Our material world is an unfailing friend in the process of self-discovery. Imagine living in a world where the ground was made of sand. Because of its soft and yielding qualities, walking on sand requires enormous energy. Instead of pushing against firm ground to jump and run, we would sink into the soft sand, moving laboriously and tiring quickly. If all life’s surfaces were soft and yielding, existence would be an endlessly frustrating, ambiguous, and toilsome struggle. We can celebrate the fact that we stand on hard ground and can interact with the firm surfaces of life—emotional, mental, and physical. These hard edges provide us with clarity for unambiguous learning.
Assuming we are here to discover our basic nature as beings made from invisible aliveness, the seeming solidity of the material world provides an effective learning environment to develop our capacity for reflective wisdom. Although we are created from invisible life energy, we may not recognize this to be our true nature. We are like clouds that do not realize we are made from the sky. It is a gift of this world to provide us with innumerable opportunities to encounter ourselves with clarity so we can discover the remarkable nature of our being.
Although our core nature is ultimately beyond description, four qualities of our soulful experience are recognized by the world’s wisdom traditions and can be cultivated in our everyday lives. We turn to our soulful nature as a body of light, music, love, and knowing.
A Body of Light
Physicists have described light (photons) as the most fundamental, insubstantial, and free of all energies. Given the convertibility of matter and energy, we can say light is the most delicate form of material expression. Physicist Bernhard Haisch has written, “The solid, stable world of matter appears to be sustained at every instant by an underlying sea of quantum light.”3 The visible universe rides on the surface of this sea of quantum light. Physicist David Bohm describes matter as “condensed or frozen light.” Light is “. . . the fundamental activity in which existence has its ground.”4 Because we live in a universe of light, it is fitting to describe the soul as a body of light that has the potential to evolve into more subtle ecologies of light after the physical body dies.
Light is a common theme in the world’s wisdom traditions. From the New Testament we read, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (John 1:5). Jesus proclaims the divine light within us, saying “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). When his disciples ask Jesus to show them the place where he abides, he says to them, “There is a light within a person of light, and it lights up the whole world.” Elsewhere, in The Gospel of Thomas, Jesus makes an extraordinary comment that would have pleased Einstein, who saw light as a fundamental reality in our universe. Jesus said “If they say to you, ‘Where have you come from?’ say to them, ‘We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.”5 Jesus saw the universe as a place of literal light, and each human being as a light that came into existence from light itself. Jesus speaks on behalf of the light within the universe when he says “I am the light that shines over all things. I am all. From me did all come forth, and to me all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” In language appropriate for his time as well as for modern physics, Jesus was saying we are literally beings of light and telling “whoever has ears to hear” not to overlook this subtle but immensely important fact.
Gregory Palamas (1296—1359) was a monk and theologian who was venerated as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church. He put forth the view that it is through light that God communicates with the world. For Palamas,
the physical light that illuminates the outer world is only a pale reflection of its deeper, non-physical radiance. Light is also filled with the gnosis, or knowledge, that provides inner illumination. By directly absorbing the wisdom within light, Palamas believed we could bring transcendent insight into our lives.
The idea of inner light is central to the Quaker (Society of Friends) view of the universe. Quakers believe that every person is born with an Inner Light and they sometimes refer to themselves as “Children of the Light.”6 This light can be discovered when we are quiet and look within. The Friends acknowledge this when they gather to work or worship together; they sit in silence and speak only when moved by their Inner Light to do so. When they glean a “sense of the meeting” from these inner promptings of the community, then action may be taken.
Jewish mysticism has ancient roots, and the Kabbalah is the body of oral teachings and texts that describe the direct experience of God. The most common metaphor with which the Kabbalah speaks of the divine is “light without end.”7 Before this world came into being, the “light without end” was present everywhere. Not only does the Kabbalah view the universe as a creation of divine light but it also views light as the carrier of consciousness. Consciousness permeates the universe, and human consciousness is a part of the larger field of divine consciousness and light.
Islam also celebrates the mysteries and splendor of light. In the Koran we read “God is the Light of heaven and earth” (24:35). Islamic sages taught that an inner light is contained within the visible luminosity of physical light. This “light in itself” or “Light of Lights” derives from a deeper, unnamable source; it not only makes things visible, it also makes them knowable.8 The Sufi poet Rumi expresses this beautifully.