RESPONDENT:

Richard: ‘This moment is your only moment of being alive ... one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever you are, one is always here ... even if you start walking over to ‘there’, along the way to ‘there’ you are always here ... and when you arrive ‘there’, it too is here. Thus attention becomes a fascination with the fact that one is always here ... and it is already now. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. As one is already here, and it is always now ... then one has arrived before one starts. Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive

What’s so significant about this? Of course from a human’s perspective, it will always be ‘here’. What universal significance am I missing?

VINEETO: When you stop imagining being here and feeling being here then you are able to begin to pay exclusive attention to actually physically sensately being here.

That I am actually here is a fact – regardless of what I feel about being here or what I fantasize about being here – and realising this fact sets me free of all the ‘self’-imposed sentiments about such a simple and obvious fact that I am already here.

It is the end of wondering why am I here and it is the end of objecting to being here, too.

*

RESPONDENT:

Richard: ‘This moment is your only moment of being alive ... one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever you are, one is always here ... even if you start walking over to ‘there’, along the way to ‘there’ you are always here ... and when you arrive ‘there’, it too is here. Thus attention becomes a fascination with the fact that one is always here ... and it is already now. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. As one is already here, and it is always now ... then one has arrived before one starts. Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive

What’s so significant about this? Of course from a human’s perspective, it will always be ‘here’. What universal significance am I missing?

VINEETO: When you stop imagining being here and feeling being here then you are able to begin to pay exclusive attention to actually physically sensately being here.

That I am actually here is a fact – regardless of what I feel about being here or what I fantasize about being here – and realising this fact sets me free of all the ‘self’-imposed sentiments about such a simple and obvious fact that I am already here.

RESPONDENT: It wasn’t my question though (it was No 98’s)

VINEETO: But it was your question – What’s so significant about understanding that this moment is your only moment of being alive? – not No 98’s which I answered saying –

[Vineeto]: When you stop imagining being here and feeling being here then you are able to begin to pay exclusive attention to actually physically sensately being here.

And when you begin to pay exclusive attention to actually physically sensately being here then you become aware that it is a fact that you are actually physically here – regardless of what you feel about being here or what you fantasize about being here.

To realize this fact and to live this realization is of life-changing significance and is remarkably different to the way most people spend their lives being busy feeling and imagining being here.

RESPONDENT: In a self-conscious state there is no time, we become aware that the constant stream of change happens here and now in the present moment. According to the General Theory of Relativity, change happens in 4-dimensional space-time, where time represents the fourth dimension. When the roundness of space-time is increased, the speed of change gets slower and stops at the centre of black holes. Einstein’s understanding of time indicates that with clocks we do not measure time, we only measure duration, speed and the numerical order of irreversible changes of reality that happen here and now in gravitational field. Experiencing change indirectly through the mind creates time. Mind experiences change 1 as past, change 2 as present and change 3 as future. Having direct experience we become aware that all change happens in the present moment, here and now. The whole past has happened in this present moment and so will the whole future.

VINEETO: I notice that you have directly quoted from an article entitled ‘Direct Experience of the Universe’, originally published as ‘Science of Consciousness for Planetary Civilisation’, by Dr. Amrit Sorli of Osho Miasto, Italy, (http://unesco-cairo.org/_disc1/00000006.htm). Dr. Sorli is, by his address, apparently a follower of the dead Indian guru Mr. Rajneesh, and has also published other articles such as ‘Non-dualistic Psychology’, ‘Watching the Mind as an Individual Research Method’, ‘Inner Science’, ‘Dark Energy Associated with Life?’ and ‘Watching the Mind as an Individual Healing Method’, all of which give an insight into his spiritual approach to science. (http://www.musarium.com/commentpages/cmts_matteroflife.html).

One of his articles entitled ‘Prana Has a Measurable Weight’, published on a website called ‘Living on Light’, particularly caught my attention. In this article Dr. Sorli reports that he measured 70grams of Californian worms both when live and 15 minutes after their death and reported an overall weight loss of 93.6 micrograms postulating that this was evidence of Prana energy leaving the living organisms upon death. He has presented his findings to James Randi claiming the one million dollar prize offered to those who can provide scientific proof of the existence of supernatural forces or paranormal events.

James Randi commented that ‘essentially, this is the same claim that has been made many times in the past by spiritualists who have attempted to weigh souls. It appears that to determine the average weight of a worm’s soul, Dr. Sorli only needs to divide 90 micrograms by the number of worms he murdered…’ James Randi goes on to explain why several of Dr. Sorli’s ‘scientific’ conclusions are in fact very unscientific. (http://www.randi.org/jr/011802.html, second half down the page).

Now that Dr. Sorli’s credentials and inclinations are established I will take a look at what he has to say about the nature of physical universe.

RESPONDENT: [Dr. Sorli]: ‘In a self-conscious state there is no time’ <snip> ‘Having direct experience we become aware that all change happens in the present moment, here and now. The whole past has happened in this present moment and so will the whole future.’

VINEETO: Dr. Sorli seems to suggest that time is completely dependent upon human consciousness, and that time can be altered by human consciousness. However it is a sensately observable fact that time passes – be it measured by the progress of sun’s passage across the sky, the daily cycle of night and day, sunrise and sunset, the monthly cycle of the moon’s orbit of the earth and the growth and decline life-cycle of individual human beings. This inexorable passing of time happens regardless of whether a human being is conscious and awake or is unconscious and asleep – or whether he or she has gone ‘somewhere else’ (as in meditating) or if she or he is sensately aware of actually being here in this the only moment of time that can be sensually experienced.

I find it quite amazing that Dr. Sorli proposes that time is a creation of human consciousness – [Dr. Sorli]:  ‘experiencing change indirectly through the mind creates time’ and that [Dr. Sorli]: ‘Mind experiences change 1 as past, change 2 as present and change 3 as future. Having direct experience we become aware that all change happens in the present moment, here and now. The whole past has happened in this present moment and so will the whole future.’ [endquote].

Is this your experience? Does your mind experience past changes or does your mind hold a memory of a change that happened in the past? Does your mind experience a future change or do you anticipate, or imagine, a change that may, or may not, happen in the future. Is it your own experience that the whole past has happened in this present moment and that the whole future will happen in this present moment or, as you sit and watch the hands of the clock moving, do you notice that the time when you got out of bed this morning is not happening now and the time when you will go to bed tonight is not happening now?

RESPONDENT: [Dr. Sorli]: ‘By watching the mind we become aware that scientific experience is also indirect. Our experience is through the rational part of our mind, which has a limited understanding of the universe. ’

VINEETO: Maybe this is a good opportunity to introduce the definition of awareness from The Actual Freedom Trust Library –

awareness – being cognizant or conscious (of); informed. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: In common usage awareness refers to ‘I’ or ‘me’ being aware. The psychological and psychic entity within the body usurps the body’s senses, giving an apparent validity to its existence, and experienced as though ‘I’ see through the eyes, ‘I’ hear with the ears, ‘I’ smell with the nose, ‘I’ touch, ‘I’ think and ‘I’ am aware. ‘I’ experience myself as an alien in the world for ‘I’ am seemingly trapped within the body, feel isolated and disassociated from the world, and often yearn for freedom or release. Thus ‘normal’ awareness is typified by feelings of separation and alienation, fear and suspicion, resentment and aggression. With increasing life experience, disillusionment and disappointment, ‘I’ become cynical, resigned or accepting of ‘my’ lot in life, as any remaining naiveté is replaced with cunning self-interest.

This cunning selfishness is most prevalent in the spiritual practice of developing a higher form of ‘awareness’. This practice creates a disassociated higher entity, commonly known as ‘the watcher’, who then watches what ‘I’ feel, what ‘I’ think, what ‘I’ am aware of. This illusionary awareness of one’s ‘self’, if practiced assiduously can, on rare occasions, lead to a full-blown delusion or ASC whereby this watcher or Higher Self can imagine or ‘realize’ itself to be Divine and Immortal. Even if this Ultimate State is not reached, the practice and pretence of developing a new identity – the higher Self as opposed to the normal self – leads one further away from the possibility of developing a genuine awareness, bare of any ‘self’ whatsoever.

Thus far there have only been two alternatives –

• the common condition where there is an ‘I’ who is trapped inside the mortal flesh and blood body and who is fearfully aware of an outside world, or

• the spiritual delusion whereby there is an ‘I’ who, as ‘awareness’ only, is confirmed by repetitious imagination as completely separate from both the flesh and blood body and the outside world, and who is thus ‘freed’ to dwell in an inner imaginary, eternal, spirit-ual world .

There is now available a third alternative for those who seek a genuine freedom from the Human Condition in its totality – the elimination of both the self and Self. When one’s awareness is freed of the emotional and instinctual bondage created by the psychological and psychic entity, a bare awareness of the actual world-as-it-is becomes extravagantly obvious. This awareness is readily apparent in the pure consciousness experience, or PCE, when ‘I’ temporarily abdicate the role of being ‘the one who is aware’. The physical senses, freed of the limitations and restrictions of a fear-based interpreter, are heightened in the extreme. The brain, similarly freed of restrictions, is able to operate with immense clarity and ‘self’-awareness is replaced by apperception – the brain’s ability to be aware of itself. The Actual Freedom Trust Library

The way Dr. Sorli looks at the world is with spiritual awareness, typified by his statement ‘our experience is through the rational part of our mind, which has a limited understanding of the universe.’ If one so readily dismisses rationality, one also forfeits any chance of common sense operating, which then leaves the mind completely free to imagine all sorts of scenarios and invent all sorts of theories. For someone who has cultivated a spiritual awareness, an entity who is completely separate from both the flesh-and-blood-body and the outside world, is thus given licence to dwell in an inner imaginary, eternal, spirit-ual world and by doing so is given licence to imagine a host of nonsensical scenarios and theories about the nature of the physical universe.

RESPONDENT: [Dr. Sorli]: ‘By presenting universal space as infinite Euclid space, it’s possible that the distance between two material objects in the universe is infinite.’

VINEETO: How can ‘the distance between two material objects in the universe’ be infinite when, in the infinite space of the universe, there will always be objects that are further apart than those two objects. You ask if I find this to be logical and yet the author makes it clear that he believes that scientific experience is indirect, and that his understanding of the universe is limited by the rational part of his mind.

RESPONDENT: [Dr. Sorli]: ‘The term ‘infinite distance’ only functions in mathematics, in cosmology we do not know exactly what it means, because an infinite distance plus 100 miles is still an infinite distance. In the universe, we can only observe finite distances, so we can conclude that the universe is finite. To say that it is infinite makes no sense.’

VINEETO: Dr. Sorli simply states that because infinity does not fit in the finite mathematical equations that cosmologists use to justify their theories the universe must be finite and because human beings have no tools to measure infinity the universe must therefore be finite.

It is apparent that whilst the author declares that ‘our experience is through the rational part of our mind, which has a limited understanding of the universe’ he himself insists upon limiting the size of the universe to a finite dimension in order that the universe accords with the demands of mathematical computations, the whims of cosmology and the limitations of the current measuring instruments. Does this not strike you as a limited awareness of the physical universe, based on a completely anthropocentric view of the universe – in other words, an utterly ‘self’-centred view of the universe?

*

RESPONDENT: So I said to my self, if the equation E=mc squared, is right, then the universe must be finite, because the above equation can be transformed to: c=square root of E/m. Now the c (speed of light) is a constant and very accurately measured. And the transformation of energy to mass is established. That means that that the square root of energy/mass and thus, E/m is a finite number, which means that the universe must be finite, because its mass and energy are finite.

VINEETO: In making the statement that ‘energy/mass is a finite number which means the universe must be finite’ you are ignoring the fact that in an infinite and eternal universe both the energy and the mass of the universe are also infinite.

RESPONDENT: Then I had to reject the 2^nd law of thermodynamics (law) not theory, who says that in any working system, as the energy becomes less the entropy (disorder) tends to become bigger. And the universe is not in a state of entropy. Logically if it is always existing, means existing for infinite time, supposed to be in a state of entropy. And so we are contradicting a physical and scientific law.

VINEETO: In an infinite universe energy does not ‘become less’, therefore it appears that the 2^nd law of thermodynamics works to describe local events and does not apply to the universe as a whole.

Editorial note: I was informed that it is more accurate to say that the 2^nd law of thermodynamics works to describe a closed system – which means that it cannot apply to the universe as a whole given that an infinite system is, per definition, not a closed (as in finite) system.

RESPONDENT: Then I thought more naive questions, like if the universe is existing from ever, then is existing for an infinite time. And how we arrived to the present moment, in the case that we had to pass from infinite present moments?

VINEETO: I presume you were born from a father and mother like the rest of us humans? If so, it is obvious how you ‘arrived to the present moment’ and that you have thus far only existed for a finite time and that you will only exist for a finite time.

RESPONDENT: To give one explanation to that I had to reject time all together and say that the present moment of (let’s call it minus infinite) is the same present moment of now and any now. So exist only the present moment and everything will always be a present moment, so time is loosing its meaning altogether.

VINEETO: The fact that the universe has no beginning and no end does not ‘reject time all together’. Here is a quote from Richard that explains the difference between eternal and timeless –

Richard: Now there is a distinct difference between the word ‘eternal’ and the word ‘timeless’. The word ‘timeless’ is very explicit ... no time (just like ‘selfless’ means no self) as in not subject to time, not affected by the passage of time, out of time, without reference to time and independent of the passage of time. The word ‘eternal’ means all time, as in that which will always exist, that which has always existed, that which is without a beginning or an end in time, that which is everlasting, permanent, enduring, persistent, recurring, incessant, indestructible, imperishable, constant, continuous, continual, unbroken and thus interminable and valid for all time. Richard, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, No 5, 8.1.1999b

You may also want to revisit Richard’s recent post to No 37 called ‘Cosmological Clarification’, 16.7.2003 and the URL mentioned in that post.

RESPONDENT: From the other hand we have the phenomenon of expansion of universe, and recently they found that this expansion is also accelerated. That means the space between two galaxies let’s say in a billion of light years will be doubled. How can one infinite thing become doubled?

VINEETO: ‘The phenomenon of expansion of universe’ is a theory that is solely based on a particular interpretation of positive redshift values and this interpretation has remained sacrosanct because it appears to prove a beginning and as such a creation of the universe. There are many, many refutations of the ‘Big Bang’ theory as well as alternative explanations to the ‘Red Shift’ theory available both in print and on the internet – you have simply chosen to selectively present only those theories that agree with your already existing belief about a finite universe and a creator.

In other words, you would need to be interested in questioning your pre-existing beliefs in order to be able to even consider that the universe might in fact be infinite and eternal. So far all you have done is present your pre-existing beliefs in order to prove that you are right and actualists are wrong.

RESPONDENT: 1:07 am. I can’t believe I stayed up that late again. Good night to those from the same time zone.

VINEETO: Living in this moment in time does strange things to one’s sense of time, doesn’t it? There was a whole bunch of ideas, routines and habits about time, fixed sleeping and waking hours, separated working and leisure-fun time, that I incrementally abandoned as each moment became the important one, the only moment to experience being alive. There is still time, of course, daytime and night-time, segmented into hours and minutes, but because I enjoy being here now, my full attention is freed to living this very moment and then this moment is the only thing that counts. Now, and another now and another now ...

The psychological and psychic entity usually categorizes time into ‘feeling’, ‘I’ can literally only exist out of time, never now. Therefore ‘I’ was busy nurturing sad or happy memories of the past and busy imagining fearful or hopeful anticipation of the future. ‘I’ divided time into ‘good times’ and ‘hard times’, meaningful times and boring times. Investigating and eliminating the good and bad emotions and feelings has at the same time removed feelings of past and future time and allows me to be here, fully enjoying this moment of being alive.

Who would want to chase the feeling of, and belief in, immortality when one can have such delicious moments now?

What a good thing that you discovered that

[Respondent]: I have to say that I thought initially that the path to actual freedom had to do a lot with logic and difficult vocabulary but I see it is much more than that. [endquote].

I do enjoy your posts and your humour.

VINEETO to Alan: For the last two days I have understood and experienced close to the skin what it is to be ‘hanging in time’, to be nowhere in particular.

The memory of what happened to me an hour ago is just a memory, taken from the ‘filing cabinets’ of my brain. I found that memories are in fact just patches of faces, events and situations. Therefore they have no emotional relevance to what I am now, they only exists as a memory, like a movie replayed on the TV screen.

I just saw on TV Clive James’ ‘Postcard from Bombay’, his witty report about people living in Bombay in poverty, heat and overpopulation, but now there is no more emotional reaction when I remember my six or seven years that I had lived in India. The Vineeto then had quite a lot of personal and emotional reactions to ‘those Indians’, who never did the thing I wanted them to do or who were so poor that I didn’t dare look at their circumstances.

Similarly, when I walked out of the office today after seven hours of figures and telephone calls, accounting, sorting and filing, there was nothing to shake off from the day. There was nothing from the day that would stick as being of ‘vital’ importance or that created emotional disturbance. I walked out into the moist, warm night-air, fully alive and delighting in the drive home, the moonlight peeking through the cloudy night-sky. Absolutely delightful. Hanging in time, each moment fresh and crisp...

And ‘hanging in space’, living nowhere in particular becomes obvious to me when I look at our little cozy flat. It could be anywhere, anywhere in this town, anywhere in a country where it is sensible and comfortable to live in, anywhere on the planet, up or down-under. The planet itself is nowhere in particular in this universe anyway! If it were not this particular flat, it would be a similar comfortable one, non-descript without ‘home-y’ attributes. Lots of people have walked through this flat in the last weeks when it was up for sale, examining it and commenting about it in one way or the other. There was no sense of intrusion or disturbance of privacy, no pride or sense of ‘my’ flat, which I can remember having had in a similar situation 2 years ago. Our flat is, after all, just a nice place with a balcony where we put our favourite toys and couches. If it had been sold to someone else, we would have easily and with pleasure looked for another place to put our things. What a freedom.

VINEETO to Alan: Now I can see the sparkling morning, the dewdrops glittering thousand fold on the thin tea-tree leaves, moving and shining like river stones, the birds chirping their birds-sounds and the air moist and warming for another glorious spring day. Everything is perfect when I stop insisting of keeping my ‘self’. Suddenly it is all easy and I am back on the wide and wondrous path – and the pain in the neck is just a signpost for the right direction. Ah, fantastic.

Since I finished this letter I had another discussion with Richard about being here now, in this moment in time, with having a past or a future, and I experienced again the eerie wonderful and odd thing of being here now without a ‘self-induced’ story that keeps the moments together like pearls on a string. From this point of view, from simply being here each moment again there is no question whatsoever that Actual Freedom is what I want, 24 hrs a day.

And, being back in having a bit of a past and a bit of a future, I am still determined to make it happen, no other reason needed. The continuing oddness of not really knowing where I left the ‘meaning of life’ that had tied my life together so nicely before, can only be a good sign. Ahoy.

*

ALAN: I have been very busy doing nothing – it is amazing how much there is to enjoy and marvel at when one has nothing in particular to do – such as the mass of rooks which have just passed by on their early morning flight from their roosts to, presumably their feeding grounds for the day.

VINEETO: I have had very little work since Christmas and so I had weeks and weeks of doing nothing, one day seamlessly changing into another and I forget what day or hour it is until I look for a TV program. Pondering about this absence of programmed and structured time – when there has been a plan for the day, a need to do something that was driven by fear or desire – I suddenly noticed that I had lost ‘my future’ – there is nothing that I want to do or have to do, no desire to chase, no meaning to realize, no plan to fulfill – not even a particular project. Now, you would say, future is only one’s imagination anyway so it does not matter when one loses it, but nevertheless, the discovery left me pretty shocked and disoriented.

It was a feeling that any minute I could be falling off the ‘edge of time’ because, without a future, time would stop. Strange concept, I know, and I wonder where it comes from. But this is obviously how I have regarded time and lived up until now, and I bet I am not the only one – ‘securing’ the continuity of time by imagining, desiring, designing, planning and controlling a future. Now this ‘secured time’ has disappeared – and with it another ingredient of the ‘self’ has gone missing.

Slowly, slowly I am getting used to having no grip on ‘reality’ yet I still expect to fall off the ‘disk of sanity’ one day. Strangely enough, it never happens. The fact is that I am always securely in this moment, it can never not be this moment. I am always here and it is always now.

*

VINEETO to Alan: Looking back there were always issues that I explored, feelings and beliefs that I was deeply involved in, experiencing and exploring. Initially, the exploration was highly twisted and obstructed by morals, ethics, spiritual beliefs and social conditioning; torturous straightjackets that made every move seem wrong or bad. But only because I had experienced the failures of those beliefs, morals and ethics, could I then apply the understanding that the solutions offered are in fact not leading to a happy and harmless life, let alone peace on earth. On the contrary, they all lead 180 degrees in the wrong direction.

One of the later explorations was experiencing time. By exploring the emotions and instinctual passions that prevent me from being here, I am more and more able to simply be here, in this moment. First I realised that the future is slipping away. The past had been gone with all the emotional issues resolved that had tied me to past memories. It is fascinating to notice how by being here the notion of ‘real’ time – this imagined web of ideas and feelings about past and future and their supposed implications for this moment – is falling by the wayside and disappearing with alarming speed, leaving me at times disoriented as if a fairytale has turned into a pumpkin. But as I recovered from the confusion and its ensuing insecurity the ‘pumpkin’ turns out to be utterly delicious – each moment is a delight because it is actually happening, it is neither felt nor imagined but happening right this very moment – whatever is happening is actual. There is such an innate pleasure and satisfaction in the experience of the very actuality of this moment that whatever I do is a bonus on top of it – what abundance.

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