Like most people, I adore babies and toddlers, not because they are so noisy but because they are so incredibly beautiful. There is something so perfect about a child that moves me and melts my heart. Aside from the obvious cliché’s about innocence, I think we recognise our
Unconditioned Self in them. The Unconditioned Self is known by many different labels (Taoists call it the Uncarved Block, Hindus refer to eternal bliss consciousness and Christians refer to Original Innocence among others) but essentially the unconditioned self is the essence of YOU before the world and the ego got in the way. It’s the memory of God that you forget about as you grow older and life batters and bruises you. We can learn much from the unadulterated essences of children.
For years I felt like there was something missing in my make-up somewhere, like a chapter in a novel was missing and therefore felt incomplete and inadequate. As a result I searched relentlessly to find happiness in my career, in friends, in relationships but it was doomed to fail. It occurred to me this morning that this feeling of lack led me on a wild goose chase searching somewhere else for happiness. I overlooked what was here when I was chasing after there. I never seemed to find it because it was like an ever-elusive missing piece of a puzzle. The core of the problem is the perception that the source of happiness is external to you. This one misperception and fear breeds feelings of unworthiness, lack and misery. The earth moved for me when I realised that I am happiest when I am painting, drawing or singing – creating something. The shift occurred when I realised that what was giving me joy was already inside me. Universal joy is in your heart and soul already. You are sacred ground. You do not need a pilgrimage to some holy site to find redemption and the secret of fulfillment. Your heart is the most sacred site in the world. You are what you have been searching for so desperately. As long as you think there is something wrong with you, your life will manifest this belief.
We have all suffered great pain, heartache, disillusionment, betrayal and devastation but the key is to remember that experiences are not analogous to identity. Perhaps this is why Buddhists will rather say, you are “with fear” instead of saying “you are afraid” – the fear is not who you are. Attachment to such emotions is the source of suffering. Whatever you choose to identify with, you will attract more of. I don’t think problems are fixed, we have to outgrow them and let go of them. In essence I realised that what is wrong with the world is what is wrong in me. Your world changes when you do. We are raised to believe that we live in a world when really the world lives in you.
We are raised to believe that time and reality is this entity that exists independently of us – something separate from us, but perhaps the argument for a biocentric universe has a point. If so, then your mind can really move mountains. For years I subconsciously accepted that the world was pretty much a deterministic place and I responded as a conditioned reflex… not much different from Pavlov’s dogs, is it? How many of us are walking around with conditioned responses? When the world (or your career or relationship or whatever it may be) rings, do you drool?
When I discovered what Cognitive Psychology was about, I thought that the world was a world of choice. The Cognitive School of Psychology believe that your life is what your thoughts make it. It is still limited because we are still defined as an effect (albeit with choice) of the world when in fact you ARE the world.
Perhaps the world is more of a mirror – a projection of your mind. This is synchronous with tenets of quantum physics and the Uncertainty Principle. For years physicists and scientists continued to construct models based on the assumption of a separate universe “out there” into which we have each individually been born. They presume the existence of one essential reality which prevails independently of us. But, quantum physics experiments have shown the opposite. Results (and what is manifested)do depend on whether someone is observing. This is particularly clear in the well known two slit experiment which shows when a subatomic particle or a bit of light passes through the slits, the particle behaves like a bullet passing through one hole or the other if it is being observed or measured, but if no one is observing the particle, it exhibits the properties of a wave that can inhabit all possibilities – including passing through both holes simultaneously. When I read about it, I thought it is pretty much like a toddler (and some men!) who only behave when you are looking… But I digress… Perhaps this is where we jinx our romantic relationships... When we try to "measure" the bond or commitment by our expectations, we manifest insecurity.
In the biocentric paradigm, consciousness creates the universe. In other words, the universe is created by life not the other way around. Essentially you are the process not the part of the process that you control. Reality involves your consciousness. All experiences are bits of information that occur in your mind. We use space and time to make sense of it – they are creations of the mind, not absolute external entities. Science hasn’t confronted the one thing that is most familiar and most mysterious – consciousness. The old Newtonian way of thinking assumes the universe to be a lifeless collection of particles which was behaving in a semi-predicable way. Science is pretty good at figuring out and explaining how the parts work, but the big picture remains a problem. Science cannot explain how consciouness arrives from matter.
In other words, consciousness is the matrix on which the cosmos hinges. Colour, sound, temperature and such only exist as perceptions in our heads, not as absolute essences.
I think Hawking may be right in believing that the universe may not have had a unique beginning - that its initial conditions existed in quantum superposition, just like the electrons of an atom's electron cloud. In other words, the initial conditions were not fixed and singular, assigned either by God or by Chance. Instead they are relevant only in relation to today's universe in which physicists calculate them from working backward from the present conditions that we do observe. I think there is value in interpreting empirical science through a metaphysical lens.
Happiness is not a destination or an external entity to be found. Instead, its about embracing the superposition of the unconditioned self and seeing the beauty and treasure within your own soul. Believe in your own worth and your worthiness will show through your eyes. That should be your pilgrimage - to the sacred grounds and swamplands od your own soul.
