A Theory Of Everything (Or Is It Nothing?) - Part 3

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7. The Fourteen Dimensions of Reality and World

meditation anandaEverything in that illusory world is non-existent except . . . SatChitAnanda

     a. Can There Be A World Without SatChitAnanda -  It is maya that leads you to believe that the world with its multiplicity can exist by itself without the vitalizing presence of SatChitAnanda. This is like believing that you can have steam, ice, rain, storms, waves, currents, rivers, oceans, humidity, etc., and that they are all unique and different from each other, without once referring to their common basis, namely water, the simple H2O molecule that they are all made of. They may appear very different, but in their core they are all totally the same. Comparable to that, most of us go through life conditioned by parents, schooling, and life experiences to believe that the world of maya can stand and function on its own. We believe that all of maya’s myriad of individual parts that inhabit its projected world, and that appear so unique and different from each other, can independently exist without any reference to the world’s common basis, namely, SatChitAnanda. But, everything in that illusory world is non-existent except for the one common core, the only thing that ever exists, SatChitAnanda, in which they all are exactly the same. We see that steam, ice, rain, etc. without water is totally meaningless and illusory. Similarly, a world, absent SatChitAnanda, is totally meaningless and illusory. It is nothing. But such an illusory world is what Hawking and company's 11-dimensional M theory, describes. Their theory claims to know everything about the make-up of the universe, without recognizing its subtle, all-powerful, subjective, empowering principle contained in SatChitAnanda that is its wellspring. Unfortunately, no matter how exquisitely profound their conceptual understanding, their version of the world or universe is nothing until they include SatChitAnanda and the subjective human experience, as the fundamental ingredients of their world view. When they do, they will realize that Reality resides not in the objective understanding of the universe but in the subjective discovery of what alone is real.

      b. Two Domains, 14 Dimensions  -  As long as you continue to entertain maya (illusion), welcoming it in and feeding it coffee and croissants when it knocks on your door, then you will find yourself simultaneously, knowingly or unknowingly, trying to juggle two domains, both with a firm toehold on you. One will be falsely claiming to be all there is, but which by itself is nothing, and the other, whether recognized or not, will remain subtly hidden behind the scenes, ready to reveal itself as the one, unchanging, immortal subjective identity, independent of time, space, world and manifestations. For you then, to describe anything in the universe totally, you need not only the 11 dimensions of Hawking's objective world description in the maya-world domain, but also the three dimensions of Sat Chit Ananda's subjective presence in the Reality domain, which is a measure of your subjective recognition of your own true nature as eternal Reality, in contrast to your world view as an individual body personality with a unique temporal and spatial history. So, granting that Hawking’s 11 dimensional worldview describes every aspect of the maya-world, then you really need a total of 14 dimensions to be complete. Sat, Chit, and Ananda making up SatChitAnanda or Brahman, will be seen to be the three Reality dimensions, whereas x, y, z, and t will be the four classical Newtonian space-time dimensions. In addition, from the M Theory formulation there will be the 7 quantum dimensions. In almost all cases, according to Hawking, these 7 are totally rolled up and vanishingly small; they are so tiny that for all intents and purposes they can be totally ignored dimensionally But theoretically they must remain as 7 of the 11 worldly dimensions, for they are very important as determiners of the values of the all-important constants (such as the value of the speed of light or the charge of the electron or the mass of the electron, or the wavelength of different frequency waves, etc.), values that are determined in the origins of the fireball in the very early moments after the big-bang, when the temperature and the spatial density are coming down from infinity, and at which point these quantum dimensions rule. Under these conditions they determine how the resulting universe, as we know it, will develop and how it will be limited by the specific force fields needed to make up a world that will support life on this fortuitous planet and associated with this particular star system of our galaxy.

14dThe 3 dimensions of Space-Time, 7 Quantum Dimensions and 3 Dimensions of Reality together form the Universe

      c. Foreground and Background  -  As has been emphasized many times before, SatChitAnanda is the Reality Itself. It is eternal, ever unchanging. It speaks not of worlds or objects or compilations of things physical or subtle, but it speaks of the Self, the real ‘I’, always alone (i.e., one, non-dual), always present everywhere in all time. If any numerical values were to be assigned to it, it would always be infinity for each of its three aspects Sat, Chit and Ananda. Notice that anything that is eternal is infinite, and therefore, is always infinitely bigger than anything that is intrinsically finite, no matter how large its value. The infinities of the SatChitAnanda would, therefore, totally dominate the finite dimensions of the maya-world, to the point where the finite would have no effect or meaning. So, a maya-world of finite content would have no effect at all on the Reality domain, but, conversely, the Reality (ie., the SatChitAnanda) representing the infinite, will have an enormous effect on the situations and happenings in the maya-world domain. It gives rise to a dramatic reversal. Previously the maya worldly domain will have been in the foreground of consciousness, and the SatChitAnanda presence and the Reality domain will have been in the background; but as the SatChitAnanda takes greater presence in the mind and influences the worldly domain, the situation reverses, with the SatChitAnanda coming into foreground and the maya worldly awareness shifting to the background. These ideas will come up again below.

      d. Awaking the Buddhi, the Intuition  -  In assigning dimensional values in the 14 dimension system we’ve just described, the infinity values for the SatChitAnanda domain would occur only in very rare situations. Remember that SatChitAnanda represents the subjective, the ‘isness’ or ‘amness’ of the ‘I’ identity. And being eternally unchanging, ever-present, and totally free of time and space (since SatChitAnanda is not subject to these illusory maya-world parameters), SatChitAnanda is present everywhere, so that Its influence is unmistakable in all situations. But subjectively this is true for an individual only if his/her buddhi, the intuitive perceptive sense, has been developed and has become fully active. In such an individual’s minthe intuitive faculty, ie., the intuition, becomes more powerful than the reasoning faculty, and takes precedence over it and governs it. My spiritual teacher, Sai Baba, has spoken of the buddhi as the higher intellect, which is deeper and more subtle than the mind. Baba said that in most people, particularly in the West, the buddhi is like a little trickling spring, when, instead, it needs to flow fully and fast like the headwaters of the Ganges cascading through the mountains. It is the buddhi which provides the constant integrated awareness (CIA), that not only involves an ongoing alertness and focus in the mind, but also the subtle perception of the unchanging, underlying SatChitAnanda, making its presence known in all situations. The seat of the buddhi is frequently spoken of as ‘the heart’, a deep inner sense that is subtle and intimate, and whose preferred directions for action is not the product of deliberation mediated by diverse thoughts and conditions, but is immediate and unmistakable. Its preferences are usually spoken of as being felt, particularly in the heart, rather than known or pondered. It is sometimes characterized as the inner director, heard as an inner voice of wisdom, sometimes thought to be the holy spirit or one’s guru or a higher presence. It is perceived to be nearer to the inner core of one’s self than the mind. It may sometime appear as an emotional preference, but it is far more subtle and deeper than the emotional body. It is where the moral sense of the conscience resides, the native seat of dharma (righteousness) present, either weakly or strongly, in every being.

      e. Recognizing the Presence of Self Or Remaining Stuck In small self  -  A Spirit-awakened heart in which the buddhi awareness is well established, will recognize the SatChitAnanda to be pure auspiciousness itself, discernible in every situation. The degree to which this is comprehended in relation to the objective field in which the individual appears to be embedded, establishes a qualitative difference between a mind that is focused on Reality versus one focused on the world. This probably cannot be accurately quantified and assigned values, but it provides a relative measure of the effect of the Reality domain prevailing in a mind aware of the SatChitAnanda presence, but which also still believes itself to be in the illusion. (If this is a bit confusing, read on and hopefully it will clarify for you.) When SatChitAnanda is consciously present It can be described by such words as ‘Self-confidence’, ‘Self-knowledge’. ‘Self-realization’. The Self referred to here is the immortal Self, the true Self, the Atma, not the little self by which we identify ourselves as individual persons in this world. (Hence the use of the capital ‘S’ Self to distinguish It from the small ‘s’ self of our mistaken worldly self-identity.) In such a mind the SatChitAnanda would have a significant effect. However, when SatChitAnanda is not consciously present, or very little present in the awareness, and the buddhi is just a little trickling spring, then denial of the Self, ignorance of the Self, lack of Self-worth, Self-delusion, possibly even derision of the Self, would apply and little or no effect of the Reality domain would characterize that mind. Such a person would be wholly defined by the temporal worldly self of the individual, that most human beings believe themselves to be. But this is totally illusory, unreal, and non-existent, except as an ego-made-up construct in the mind, subject to all the vicissitudes and meaningless uncertainties of worldly life.

god puppetReality can influence the worldly aspect, but the opposite is never true.

      f. The Reality Domain's Effect On the World Domain  -  So, the values assigned to the three individual Sat Chit Ananda dimensions are the extent to which there is a qualitative difference between the observer who knows his true Self but still navigates in the illusory objective world in which he seems to function. It gives a relative measure of the true Self to the phenomenal self that he may still identify himself with in the maya-world. Therefore, the relative values assignable to the Sat Chit Ananda dimensions reflects the extent to which you operate in the two domains. A spiritual seeker who has been exposed to the spiritual reality spoken of in this discussion, who will have directly experienced some sense of the unchanging pure ‘being’ represented by Sat, rather than just what he appears to be as a body which defines him in the maya world, or who has experienced the unchanging ever-present awareness of the pure consciousness of Chit rather than the multi-faceted, multi-tasking awareness required for playing out the story of life in the maya world, or who has experienced the totally unbounded bliss and all-inclusive love of Ananda… such a one, even while still in the world, would have much greater values for Sat Chit and Ananda, for he will be more aware of Reality than one with no knowledge at all of the spiritual dimensions. We see that this is a qualitative discussion rather than a quantitative one. The point is that it can give a measure of the effect of the Reality domain on that being’s worldly life, which would show up as acts of love and service and diminution of body-consciousness, and experience of miracles (discussed next). As mentioned before, Reality can influence the worldly aspect, but the opposite is never true.

      g. Disappearance of the World  -  A saint (or sage or spiritual master) who lives primarily in Spirit in his or her consciousness, will have very high Sat Chit Ananda values. Such a one when practicing samadhi (nirvikalpa samadhi) in which he/she is totally absorbed in the Self to the exclusion of anything else, will, in his or her profound absorption in the eternal Reality, totally transcend all body and worldly consciousness and his/her three SatChitAnanda values will go to infinity. Although these world teachers may still appear to be in a body, and manifest physical worldly activities and dimensions, the three infinities of their Reality dimensions will merge into a single infinity, representing the oneness of the full SatChitAnanda. This infinity will so totally overwhelm any finite physical dimensions, that the latter effectively disappear, and all that remains will only be the one infinity. That is the eternal Atma, which represents the Self-realized consciousness of the fully awake Saint. This is illustrated in the drawing below that I used for a talk given to a Buddhist meditation group in Florida earlier this year.

       We’ll discuss the Avatar, the Boundary Bridge, and Miracles shown here, in the next section.


8. The Avatar and Miracles

     a. The Avatar's Presence Leads to Miracles Causing the Maya World to Dissolve -  If the two domains, the Reality and the maya world, meet and border each other, but never overlap, how does the knowledge of the SatChitAnanda ever reach into the maya illusory world of the ego thought system? We can speak of the existence of a virtual bridge that emerges in the mind of a seeker, and that crosses the boundary between the two domains. It represents the powerful current of the SatChitAnanda infinity influencing the maya world, making the illusion of that world more patent to those bound in that domain. This current is best represented by the work of the Yuga Avatar, the avatar of this particular Age of Humanity. Whenever SatChitAnanda enters the relative world by taking on a form, it is known as the Avatar, one who demonstrates the qualities of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. He is a direct manifestation of the infinitely high vibrational frequency of SatChitAnanda in the Reality domain but who crosses over into the relative maya-world of low vibrational frequency, to be the world-teacher, the satguru of truth. His advent in the maya-world has the effect of raising the vibrational frequency in the maya domain, which, in turn, inspires miracles to be experienced. Miracles are unique experiences that are still of the lower vibrational frequency maya-world, but which are exceptional in that they do not observe the known laws of physics or the scientific understanding of biological function. They cannot be explained by any known worldly principles, but transport the seeming 'individual' across the bridge from the worldly domain into an ephemeral experience of the SatChitAnanda Reality domain. Such a transcendent experience can be profoundly mind-altering and incomparable. It may only last for a moment, but the new vision it provides won’t be forgotten, for it provides an insight into the truth that was always present but unrecognized. Once miracles have been experienced they become ever more frequent, and the Reality presence becomes ever more unconcealed and manifest. Then the illusory maya world begins its inevitable trek towards dissolution, like a bad dream of the night.

avatarThe Descent of the Avatar into the Maya World

     b. PersonalExperiences with Miracles -  I have experienced dozens upon dozens of miraculous happenings, that have thinned out the heavy baggage of egoic life for me and clarified the realization of Truth. These miracles range from a miraculous airplane experience in which my life was saved while piloting a small plane in a massive storm, to countless other miraculous happenings over the years of journeying to India, as well as more recent happenings. Initially it takes a sharp attention (what Sai Baba has called the CIA, the constant integrated awareness, previously mentioned) and a willingness to allow 'the extraordinary' to be integrated and accepted into the normal happenings of daily life, without giving them too much distinction for their ‘specialness’. Initially, miracles are more likely experienced in one’s personal life, but then they can even be discerned in large-scale geopolitical happenings such as, for example, the 1940 rescue of the 350,000 member British Expeditionary Force off the beaches of Dunkirk, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis with its near-planetary-wide-human-life extinction event, and the sudden withdrawal of Chinese forces from India, also in 1962. Undoubtedly there are millions upon millions more. Miracles usually have sensational stories associated with them. They may appear to be totally extraordinary, but to one who has directly experienced them and has a keen eye to recognize them when they occur, they can, after awhile, be seen to be happening all the time, to the point where life itself becomes a constant sequence of miracles. Miracles reflect the three special qualities of the SatChitAnanda appearance in the world, which can be experienced in the maya domain, namely omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. These frequently take the form of totally improbable synchronicities, time warps, unusual manifestations, knowledge of past and future events, simultaneous appearance in diverse places, improbable control of natural forces, etc. I recount a number of such miraculous happenings that I directly experienced in the 'Articles' section of my web-site, atma-institute.org, and in the Souljourns videos on https://vimeo.com/channels/aldrucker, as well as on YouTube.

      c. The True Theory of Everything -  Miracles can be totally spectacular, but yet, of themselves, they are not all-important. They are still of maya, the illusory world. Sai Baba calls them his 'calling cards'. They are the messengers from beyond, which graciously appear in your ordinary (illusory) world. They point the direction to the true Reality, leading out of the karmic bog that seems to have ensnared us in time-bound superficial life, with no final redeeming promise but an inglorious death. The miracle shows you the non-reality of this dream you seem to be caught up in, and points you in the direction of the one truth. Therein lies the real ‘Theory of Everything’. It is not a dreary (even if brilliantly understood) account of a cold, hard, finite, dying world, and of a momentary blip of mortal life competing for place in that degenerate world. But it is the SatChitAnanda, the glorious direct experience of the one, the true Reality, which is eternal life, unlimited consciousness, and the infinite, unbounded love, joy and beauty of the true Reality. There, where you are free of your worldly situation, you will have and are everything.

      d. Some closing words  -  I hope this has helped you to recognize the unreality of that which is nothing and to defang it and dissolve it. Then the cloud of obscuration will disappear and the true Reality will reveal Itself. This would be a great victory of Self worth celebrating. But make sure this is what you really want. For you, the individual person you for so long have believed yourself to be, will in all likelihood be completely expunged in the process.

                                                   Al Drucker, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin

9. Postscript

The illusory attachments can remain, for they will have no effect on the Reality. Instead they act like a variegated outer garb of the SatChitAnanda  . . .

     a. Still More Closing Words And A Summary  -  Please forgive me, but I find that I have something else to say, namely this: The Non-Dual Advaita Vedanta, for most people on first acquaintance, is a prohibitively radical departure from their view of themselves and the world, but a view they share with 99% of the rest of humanity. Whatever they believe, however, the Vedanta asserts that they are not independent individuals separated from each other; in fact, that in Reality there are no ‘others’, but that everything perceived to be outside is merely a projection contrived by the ego thought system and maya (Illusion), which have taken up residence in your mind. Furthermore, that, in truth, you were never born and will never die, that you are in no way different from God, that the world and the universe in which it is embedded is an illusion and does not really exist; that, in truth, you are the one immortal Self, and as such you are everything that is eternally unchanging, and that you have been taken on a deceptive ride of subterfuge and fraudulence propagated from within your own mind. To believe all that is a very tall order, that more likely than not will land you into deep trouble with your family, your acquaintances, your co-workers, and perhaps the authorities. And, even if it were all true, then what would happen to the world as you now know it? What is to be done? Is there any hope for it? Must it all disappear, since it never ever really existed, and must we all become monks practicing samadhi? Well, no. It is not that drastic. It is true that the individual as a separate person in a body with its own independent mind, cannot exist, and ascribing individual existence to it is totally illusory. And a separate world that has ebbs and flows is also not real. But if you consciously link them to SatChitAnanda, which is real and ever-present, then whatever has been attached to the SatChitAnanda will be totally eclipsed by the Reality-presence that will have newly surfaced in that mind. Then the illusory attachments can remain, for they will have no effect on the Reality. Instead they act like a variegated outer garb of the SatChitAnanda, which would appear in the vestments of those particular names and forms, seemingly playing in the sandbox of worldly life.

     b. Love All the Projections of Your Self, But Do Not Become Attached  -  There is a story of the young Krishna coming into a house of mirrors and playing with the different images of himself produced by the variously-distorted mirrors in the room. Using some crayons he draws the characteristics of an old man on one of the horizontally inflated images of himself, and he draws a sari and feminine facial features on a particularly thin image of himself. Like that every mirror in the place holds a different image of himself in a different disguise. Krishna so much enjoys this game and he plays with and admires all his images. But then when he gets tired of the game he walks out and all the images disappear. Such is the perception from the atmic viewpoint when seeing all that is visible in your field of perception as images of yourself, that you delight in, but in which you have no attachment, knowing that the ‘you’ which is the basis of all the images, can never be touched or harmed.

10. Conclusion

       a. World Is Never Just Name and Form. It Is Ever Sat, Chit, Ananda, Name, and Form  - SatChitAnanda is a given. It is always present everywhere. 'Name’ and ‘form’ are the two terms used to represent time-bound and space-bound objects that make up the multiplicity of things, both physical and subtle (such as thoughts, ideas, emotions and memories) that inhabit the world as we know it. These are the countless things that can be named, differentiated and compared. These are the manifestations of maya. So, everything we perceive or think of, is made up of five factors, Sat, Chit, Ananda, nama, and rupa, (beingness, consciousness, love/bliss/truth, name, and form). The first three of these, Sat, Chit and Ananda, are the permanent, unchanging, ever-present, aspects of the eternal Reality, which we previously covered. It is all there ever is. The last two, the nama and rupa, the names and forms of the world, subject to time and space, can be seen as the visible outer appearance in which the first three appear to be clothed. The world of names and forms taken by themselves cannot exist on their own. Absent their basis, SatChitAnanda, they merely make up the delusionary ego-created world that is unreal and has no effect on Reality. However when nama and rupa are consciously linked with SatChitAnanda, then together they represent Reality in all its many guises, all trillions of them, in which all are exactly the same SatChitAnanda, but visible in the maya world by maya-bound characters as the particular outer dress of the names and forms their eyes and minds light upon.

       b. Spiritually-Aware Life  -  Suppose you as a physicist were to experience yourself as SatChitAnanda, what would change in you? If this process of awakening to truth were to take a number of life-times, as was generally true in earlier times, and as the Bhagavad Gita itself speaks of the process, then nobody could say for sure, since no one has reliably come back to report. But time is not real, and time can be collapsed and shortened immeasurably, so that today, in the time of the Yuga Avatar, the most remarkable changes in consciousness can be effected even in very short periods within a single life-time. In terms of what would change, the Avatar has given us some pointers. Initially, an unexpected unlimited freedom of new possibilities would make itself known in you, and a much more sanguine view of your place in the great order of things will manifest in your awareness. If physics was your previous interest, initially you may well continue your theoretical pursuits but now it would be strictly for the love of it and the sport of it, with no particular investment in the outcome. Imagine what it would be like to know, not only in your mind but also in your gut and in your heart that you cannot die, that you were never born, and that nothing can ever threaten you, and that nothing unreal, (in other words, almost all the beliefs you previously thought were real) can ever actually exist, and, therefore, have any real meaning. Then the buddhi will guide you through a satori-filled life of infinite possibilities. Most importantly you will realize that now you are truly free, totally free of all bonds. In your awareness, nature or man will no longer govern, instead universal love will govern and hold everything in its care. Then you are permanently home in you atmic Self, in SatChitAnanda, and you are one with God.

        c.SatChitAnanda or Maya? Make Your Choice -  So, it is either the SatChitAnanda (which being subtle is hidden from sight, but is known), masquerading in different names and forms, but playing out a story that is meaningful, aligned with the eternal dharma (righteousness). Or it is ego/maya (also subtle and hidden from sight, which has veiled the truth of SatChitAnanda and made it unknown) utilizing names and forms to play out a story that is meaningless, conjured up like a dream but representing nothing. We see that neither SatChitAnanda nor ego or maya are visible to human eyes, and that names and forms can be used by either to tell their stories, one leading to the expression of unconditional love, beauty and oneness, the other leading to the separative world view of the ego thought system, ‘the miserable little prison mentality’, as Sai Baba called it. The two may be confused at first flush, each hidden and revealing themselves by their use of possibly the same names and forms. But the difference in the stories playing out would not be very subtle. You wouldn’t need to be a monk to tell them apart. One would be Self-serving, the other self-serving, one selfless, the other selfish; an infinite mountain of difference between them, but also a huge opportunity for deception, unless you pay careful attention.

allareoneImage Courtesy: emilysquotes.com

        d. Remember Reality Forget the World  -  As long as you still think you have a choice, you need to make the right choice. The easiest choice, Baba tells us, is to forget the world and remember your immortal Self. In other words, let go thinking of what is only ‘dust’. When you focus fully on the Reality the world falls into step and takes care of itself without your intercession. It need have nothing more to do with you. You effectively go on autopilot; your body and mind get used as they should and everything happens and gets done, with your body and mind now in the service of universal love.  “The world is not your business, Sir. Know the Atma, who you truly are. That is your business!” Baba chided me when I first came to him over 40 years ago. I know there is nothing more important than to hold that in your heart, with CIA, your constant integrated awareness, filling every breath. Any time is a good time to start that. How about now?

-  Om Tat Sat -