The technology of our new century excites the possibility of probing ever more deeply into the mystery of existence. As cosmologists search for a theory to unify the energies underlying the material universe, neuroscientists peer into the patterns of energies flowing through the human brain, looking for clues to the enigma of consciousness.
The two directions of search appear opposite, one outward and the other interior, but is that so? Is that possible? Can a unified theory of everything, exclude anything ‘existing’? Can we unify our understanding of the universe without the inclusion of ourselves? Where within a unifying understanding, will we place life and consciousness? The ’isness’ of both commands’ inclusion in the search for the ultimate source of All. Without the fact of both, there would be no one to pose the question.
Consider. If life is not an inherent property of the universe, where did the life energy come from? If life is not an inherent property of the universe, universal throughout, then our “life energy” comes from a dimension outside the universe. Either, the universe itself is ‘alive,’ or the universe is ‘livened’ by something beyond the universe itself.
If the capacity for the subjective experience of ‘sensation’ is not inherent in the fabric of the universe, then where did the reactivity to surroundings, displayed by all life forms and experientially confirmed by all humans, come from?
If intelligence, consciousness, awareness, wish, or capacity for will, is not inherent in the fabric of the universe, then where does our intelligence, consciousness, awareness, wish and capacity for will come from? Either our subjective experience is part of the energies constructing and maintaining the universe, or, whatever we are, lies outside the universe and manifests through penetration. If so, where then is that ‘place’? Either the universe is conscious, aware, and has capacity for will; or, consciousness enters the universe from ‘somewhere’ beyond what we know and call ‘the universe.’
Either ‘we’ are the universe, or, we are something beyond the universe, embedded within it, interpenetrated by it, and imbued with its inherent properties
Or, perhaps, there is no ‘or.’ Perhaps both are true.
We make our world by ascribing to it ‘meaning.’ It is for us to decide ourselves what it means.
The origin of ‘meaning’ lies outside what we ordinarily call ‘the world,’ in the invisible, psychological realm of our hearts and minds. Since man exists in the universe and consciousness exists in man, we cannot unify the universe without accounting for consciousness. The search out, and the search in, must be two sides of the same journey.