Posted: Oct 13, 2014 6:35 pm
"Ground of Being" is actually a metaphor for the Absolute. This, I believe, could be distilled through M-theory. Does anyone dabble in string theory?
Well, Rob Bryanton had a metaphor to describe the 11-dimensional hyperspace of M-theory. He said, "Think of it as a place where all possibilities are contained." So, our manifested universe is only a finite subset which draws from this infinite spectrum of possibilities that make up 11-dimensional hyperspace. It is a pure, unmanifest potentiality. Our perception of the universe is projected in 3-dimensional space, and it's often said in string theory that all energy or matter is simply strings vibrating in hyperspace. So, if you could imagine a horizontal slice through a three dimensional cone would cut out a two-dimensional circle. In that very same way, our perception is a slice of this hyperspatial manifold to give way to the appearance of this three-dimensional manifested universe, an on-going interrelationship between the relative interpenetrating the absolute.
This is precisely how Brahman is described in Hinduism. It is absolute, unmanifest, changeless, infinite, and timeless domain that is intuited through a phenomenon in consciousness which eastern mystics have referred to by various names, i.e. savikalpa samadhi, nirvana, satori, sunyata, moksha, etc.
However, mysticism isn't just exclusive to eastern mysticism, but exists throughout all religion. In Christianity, it is referred to as the "Beatific vision," Perennialists believe that all the founders of the major religions perhaps undergone this phenomenon in consciousness which contemporarily has been referred to as "Cosmic consciousness" by Richard M. Bucke, "Mystical experience" by William James, "Peak Experience" by Abraham Maslow, "Oceanic feeling" by Romain Rolland, "Collective Unconscious" by Carl Jung, and most popularly as "ego death" amongst the psychonautics community. So that Jesus, Muhammad, Gautama, etc. were all mortal men who simply underwent this phenomenon in consciousness, and when they began to speak about their experiences, alas each one of them became the founder of a religion. In fact, in Christian mysticism, this experience is referred to as "Christ consciousness." Of course, mysticism is no longer practiced today in Christianity, and has been completely divorced from any practice in Christian churches nowadays. Eastern religion, on the other hand, does emphasize this phenomenon, and in fact, the entire emphasis of Hinduism or Buddhism is to induce this experience.
So, the reason I believe there's no consensus to this peculiar phrase is simply because no one in this thread has had this phenomenon in consciousness occur to them. This phrase is actually a metaphor drawn out of this phenomenon in consciousness. It is an experience that most people, theists and atheists alike, have not experienced, and in fact are intellectually set up to doubt. As William James once put it, "While the revelations of the mystic hold true, they hold true only for the mystic; for others, they are certainly ideas to be considered, but can hold no claim to truth without personal experience of such." In other words, you cannot be convinced that such a possibility in consciousness exists unless you were to have it for yourself.
If anyone's interested, I've written much more elaborately on this topic on a Reddit thread. Here's the link:
http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueAtheism/comments/2biur1/entheogens_and_perennial_philosophy/
Well, Rob Bryanton had a metaphor to describe the 11-dimensional hyperspace of M-theory. He said, "Think of it as a place where all possibilities are contained." So, our manifested universe is only a finite subset which draws from this infinite spectrum of possibilities that make up 11-dimensional hyperspace. It is a pure, unmanifest potentiality. Our perception of the universe is projected in 3-dimensional space, and it's often said in string theory that all energy or matter is simply strings vibrating in hyperspace. So, if you could imagine a horizontal slice through a three dimensional cone would cut out a two-dimensional circle. In that very same way, our perception is a slice of this hyperspatial manifold to give way to the appearance of this three-dimensional manifested universe, an on-going interrelationship between the relative interpenetrating the absolute.
This is precisely how Brahman is described in Hinduism. It is absolute, unmanifest, changeless, infinite, and timeless domain that is intuited through a phenomenon in consciousness which eastern mystics have referred to by various names, i.e. savikalpa samadhi, nirvana, satori, sunyata, moksha, etc.
However, mysticism isn't just exclusive to eastern mysticism, but exists throughout all religion. In Christianity, it is referred to as the "Beatific vision," Perennialists believe that all the founders of the major religions perhaps undergone this phenomenon in consciousness which contemporarily has been referred to as "Cosmic consciousness" by Richard M. Bucke, "Mystical experience" by William James, "Peak Experience" by Abraham Maslow, "Oceanic feeling" by Romain Rolland, "Collective Unconscious" by Carl Jung, and most popularly as "ego death" amongst the psychonautics community. So that Jesus, Muhammad, Gautama, etc. were all mortal men who simply underwent this phenomenon in consciousness, and when they began to speak about their experiences, alas each one of them became the founder of a religion. In fact, in Christian mysticism, this experience is referred to as "Christ consciousness." Of course, mysticism is no longer practiced today in Christianity, and has been completely divorced from any practice in Christian churches nowadays. Eastern religion, on the other hand, does emphasize this phenomenon, and in fact, the entire emphasis of Hinduism or Buddhism is to induce this experience.
So, the reason I believe there's no consensus to this peculiar phrase is simply because no one in this thread has had this phenomenon in consciousness occur to them. This phrase is actually a metaphor drawn out of this phenomenon in consciousness. It is an experience that most people, theists and atheists alike, have not experienced, and in fact are intellectually set up to doubt. As William James once put it, "While the revelations of the mystic hold true, they hold true only for the mystic; for others, they are certainly ideas to be considered, but can hold no claim to truth without personal experience of such." In other words, you cannot be convinced that such a possibility in consciousness exists unless you were to have it for yourself.
If anyone's interested, I've written much more elaborately on this topic on a Reddit thread. Here's the link:
http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueAtheism/comments/2biur1/entheogens_and_perennial_philosophy/