This is the Book
of No-Thing and how No-Thing became transformed into Every-Thing. It is
beyond words, yet it is utterly concrete. To describe the wordless in words
- what an antinomous undertaking! Yet paradox is often the best way to
describe it.
This Book is by No-body.
No-body writes these words. They simply happen of their own accord. There
is no purpose to it and yet it is guided by a Supreme Purpose of its own.
This is the
Book of Evolution. Evolution is how No-Thing becomes transformed into Every-thing.
Evolution is how No- Consciousness becomes transformed into All-Consciousness.
There is no reason for it and yet it had to happen.
Imagine a single grain
of sand on the shores of an ocean stretching infinitely towards the horizon.
Pick up this single grain of sand and hold it to the light of the sun.
Imagine the colorful patterns that dance through this single crystal, blinding
you with their light.
This single grain of sand is equivalent to all the stars,
all the galaxies that shine forth in their splendor in the deepest night,
all the infinite numbers of molecules, atoms, electrons, quarks in the
entire universe.
When you have
cleared your mind of all identifications, all thoughts, all emotions, and
all sensations, there remains a profound emptiness. There is nobody there.
You notice that this emptiness is not really "empty" at all.
Instead there remains pure consciousness, which is a profound fullness.
This pure consciousness is existent and latent in everyone and everything that surrounds you. The ultimate consciousness in you is the same ultimate consciousness in me and it is the same ultimate consciousness in everyone.
It is in the
tree extending its roots into the bowels of the earth. It is in the flower
opening its petals in the warm air of spring. It is in the dog eagerly
seeking a mate. It is in the mountain responding to the folding of the
earth's crust. It is in the clouds ever-forming into lifelike patterns
carried by the endless winds high above. It is pure existence, glad and
free. It is in the sheer darkness of the hidden spaces.
It is the meaning
of our existence. It is all around and within all that exists. All we had
to do was simply notice it. All we had to do is realize that is what we
were all along.
There is no "final product" from all this.
It has gone on and goes on forever and ever.
In the beginning without beginning, there is No-Thing. And No-Thing is with Void. And Void sent No-Thing out into the Universe to become Every-thing.
And the Cosmic Mind mentated, "I AM", and the Universe manifested, an extension of Its Be-ing.
The universe makes itself up as it goes along. No one laid down the laws (i.e.., physical, biological, social); the laws were made up in the process. The "laws" become rigidified after awhile and everybody obeys them - until someone comes along to break them and create new laws. Then the process recycles all over again.
The more evolved beings are capable of breaking and transcending the laws rigidified by less evolved beings. Some examples: Biological beings are antientropic (that is, they defy death) (for awhile, anyway) and thus are able to transcend the second law of thermodynamics (that all systems must run down) that inorganic matter follows . Humans are able to transcend the law of gravity via spaceships. Superhumans are able to transcend laws humans are stuck in through what would be called "magic" by those who do not realize there are higher laws.
Everything has a Pattern. The Pattern makes itself up as it goes along. Things follow the Pattern until It goes through a transformation, and then there is a New Pattern. This is true of forms (i.e.., archetypes), ways of behaving, and physical laws. The Pattern is ever-changing, ever-evolving.
So where did the Original Pattern come from? This is the Supreme Mystery. The Original Pattern is the Seed Crystal that set the whole universe into being.
This Book makes itself up as it goes along. There is no outline or chronology to this Book because it is beyond time (a subject we will come back to occasionally). It is a series of fragments of present, past, and future. Some of the fragments are philosophical, some are mythological, and others are literary. A parallel story of the struggle between Order and Chaos will be interspersed throughout it.
The Story of Evolution sticks more or less to the scientific ideas and evidence [though we won't split hairs about precise accuracy]. However, this Book will not be particularly concerned with the outward form of evolution, but more about what was going on inside the process while it was happening.
Although we will occasionally be forced describe it in anthropomorphic terms, please be aware that is only to make it more comprehensible to our present level of consciousness and not quite the way it actually is in the minds of the creatures and forms evolving. It's kind of difficult to convey what's going on in the mind of a rock without actually being a rock. For that matter, it's a little hard to know what it's like to be another person unless you are that person.
But the geist of it is that rocks and atoms and stars and galaxies and plants and insects etc. are not just dumb "things" with no consciousness blindly following physical or biological laws. They are just as valid "persons" having their own problems and struggles as we humans are. Most of all, Every-thing is alive.
This book is written by a number of personas: a philosopher, a storyteller, a poet, a scientist, a mystic, and a joker. The different personas take over at different intervals. Admittedly, this may make for a rather disjointed narrative, but so is the Story of Evolution. Who can say which persona will take over at what interval? It is all part of the Variety Show of Life.
Once upon a time, I thought I was some sort of great Somebody. I was a Great Philosopher, I fantasized. Or I was a Great Scientist. No, no, I am a Great Mystic, I decided. Perhaps I am a World Leader who would change the consciousness of the planet. No, not that, rather, I'm a Great Artist, a Supreme Writer, a Magnificent Musician. Now I'm a Great Romantic, the Greatest Lover the world has ever seen. I'm a Great Capitalist, a Benign Communist, an awe-inspiring Democrat, the Supreme Totalitarian.
Then, to my horror, I discovered I wasn't Great at all. How far I plummeted from the Tower I built to encompass the wide heavens. I was a drunkard, a slum bum, a fuckup, a drug addict, a prostitute, a madman, a penniless pauper, a raving maniac, the uttermost loser of all time. Into the depths of seething Hell I fell. And to add hot burning melting mercury into my wounds, I realized no one gave a shit about my Great Aspirations. No one cared whether I lived or died.
And one day, I woke up. I suddenly realized: What difference does it make whether I'm Great or Foul? The two extremes are merely conceptions of the human mind. I found this realization strangely liberating.
And now I see the truth: I am No-body. I am without body and without mind. Yet I am all the minds and bodies that ever have been or ever will be. I am all the Universes that have ever been and ever will be. And, ever better than that, I am No-thing.
The monk humbly bows before the Master of Consciousness. The Master of Consciousness just sits there smirking at him, wondering why the hell he's being bowed to when all beings are of the ALL.
"Tell me, O Great One, how may I achieve enlightenment and thus be released from mortal limitations?"
The Master of Consciousness can't help it - he guffaws out loud. Then he replies:
"There are no mortal limitations and there is no enlightenment. But perhaps you will find what you are looking for, if you will meditate upon the following questions:
"What is the Mind of the Universe? What are its manifestations? What is it all for?"
"Is that all there is to it, O Great One?"
"Maybe. But perhaps you should be aware of this, too: Not until you are nobody, will you know the Mind of the Universe. Then you will know all there is."
There is a kind of Mind pervading the universe. We'll call this the Cosmic Mind - or call it "God", the "Great Spirit", "OOGABOOGA", or whatever makes you comfortable. It is simultaneously within and beyond the universe. It is not the intellectual kind of mind that we are familiar with on our own level of consciousness. To put it in anthropomorphic terms is merely a convenient way of translating it into our own kind of reality. This Mind reflects whatever is going on in the universe at the time and creates whatever the beings of the universe at that time consider to be real. That is, until some being comes along and makes up another reality. Then it starts all over again.
We might say that the Cosmic Mind has a kind of "plan" for the whole process, yet it has deliberately set random factors into the process to blow the "plan" away. These random factors are forces and beings with minds of their own. The Cosmic Mind would like to see what the universe will do. It hopes that it will turn out to be a Magnificent Work. It would be greatly disappointed to see it just peter out into stagnation. Whenever things start to stagnate, the Cosmic Mind sends special agents, which we could call "catalysts" into the process to kick the process into life again. It likes to keep things interesting.
And yet there is no plan at all. It is a kind of planless plan or planned planlessness. This sounds contradictory to the logical circuitry we are now equipped with, but such paradoxes point the way to higher mind processes.
Let's put it another way. The Mind of the Universe is somewhat like an artist at his canvas. The artist has an idea in mind at the outset, but is not quite sure where it will lead or what the finished form will be. Perhaps the artist discovers that the initial sketches do not match the original idea at all, then tears up the whole thing and starts again. Maybe in the midst of it, the artist finds some of the colors don't come out right and has to paint over some areas after mixing the right colors. Or maybe the artist gets an inspiration in the process to try adding something to the original idea to make it even better. Finally, the artist may paint the final stroke, verify that it matches the original idea, but it has evolved in directions the artist never had intended in the first place. At this point, the artist is too burned out to do anything more to it, so he puts it in the gallery. Then the artist comes up with an even better idea and proceeds to work on that one.
In a similar manner, universes come and go.
No, scratch the above analogy. It is somewhat correct, but not quite. It is not like an artist standing outside the creation. The artist is the creation. The creation is creating itself, making itself up as it goes along.
Feel free to plunge in and go for the ride. It is where we have all been coming from. It is where we are all going. The whole Story of Evolution is within us and goes far beyond what we in our current state can possibly imagine.