Could it be that ...
Posted: November 23rd, 2009, 8:48 pm
The following are excerpts from an e-mail conversation I have been having with a couple of TZF visitors. It seems to me sufficiently interesting to warrant sharing here with others who may wish to join in.
As I often do, I awoke this morning at 4 AM, and sat for a while, listening. The Question returned. "How do I know, how can I know, that 'today' is not the only day that exists, that has ever existed, that Today or Now truly is all there is or ever was or ever will be? "
Could it be that ...
1) On the morning of this day which is the first and only "Day", God creates (manifests Himself as) "Stefan" and installs into his brain a basket of thoughts, memories, and expectations by which and through which Stefan's sensory system generates and perceives a separative "reality" designed to appear as, seem to him as, “my world” and “my life”, complete with memories of “past” history, including “personal” experiences and acquaintances, “current” events, and “future” expectations; and then,
2) On the evening of the first and only Day, God puts “Stefan” to deep sleep, during which “Stefan”, including the entirety of “Stefan's life" and "Stefan's world”, ceases to exist, is erased and gone forever.
One day, no more. Now is all there is. Not in some airy-fairy metaphysical sense, but really, actually, truly.
Of course, the immediate response is: That can't be. I've got plans for tomorrow, plans involving other real people. And I remember yesterday. I visited the Public Library, what about that? What about all the books I saw there? Who wrote those?
But to that question, the answer is (or could be), the plans for "tomorrow" and the memory of “yesterday” are simply in Today's script. They are an aspect of Today, of Creation. None of it ever actually happened, because yesterday never actually was and tomorrow never will be. There is no Public Library, no stacks with rows upon rows of book-filled shelves. Those are simply props in "Stefan's memory" which was created at the same moment "Stefan" was created at the creation of "Today". Yesterday with all its "inhabitants" is just a memory, and tomorrow with all its expectations, are a fiction, to make full and "real" the character “Stefan”, to make “Stefan” seem complete and whole in his “appearance” during the “first and only Day”,Today, which is the Entirety of Creation.
That generated this comment.
If a question "makes sense" to the rational mind, its spiritual power is suspect. Rational mind says, "What about the dinosaur skeletons? Did you put them there also "right now"?
... which generated this ...
Absolutely right! That's the whole issue here, isn't it? All of "Stefan's" objections to The Question are rational. "It doesn't make sense," Stefan whines endlessly.
Precisely so. Again, "Rational mind says, 'What about the dinosaur skeletons? Did you put them there also 'right now'?'"
Again, right on. This morning, the very same question came to my mind. I say "very same", by which I mean in substance.
Here it is. I know that Nancy and I have been married 45 years. There is no question in my mind about that. I even have documented proof (marriage license) of it somewhere.
Yes, but.
Could it be that, at the onset of Creation (also known as "4:00 AM this morning"), Nancy and Stefan had actually been married only a few moments, but Stefan was created with a clear "memory" of 45 previous years of marriage, and he even had the "documented proof" in a drawer somewhere?
Rational mind says, "For goodness sake, don't be ridiculous".
And then picks up a copy of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", and thinks absolutely nothing of the fact that we are introduced to a basket of characters all of whom have life histories which predate the action of the play but which no one has ever actually observed and which we nonetheless take for granted as having happened because the play script says so. We don't whine "Don't be ridiculous"; quite the contrary, we flow right along with it, fill in all the gaps wherever necessary, and applaud with vigor at the end!
If there, why not here?
Yes, the dinosaur skeletons. Who put them there? Why skeletons and not living dinosaurs? Maybe for the same reason that in Shakespeare's Hamlet, we meet Hamlet's father only as a deceased ghost, because if he were a living person in the play, the story wouldn't work. Hamlet's father has to be dead (and a ghost), and we have to accept the circumstances of his death, in order for the story to work. Never mind the fact that we actually observe none of it and all of it pre-dates the play action. That is, it "happens" before Act I, Scene I. How do we know that? Because we are told so. And we accept it.
Likewise, dinosaurs have to be "pre-historic" (skeletal remains) in order for "millennia of history" and stuff like Darwin's theory to make "sense" in Stefan's "rational mind"!
My head spins. I take refuge in Rumi: "I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home".
... and then ...
Clearly if "Stefan's life" and "Stefan's world" is "an illusion" as all the Teachers insist, then it is clearly equally "possible" that it has been in existence for "millennia", starting with a couple of atoms and evolving over time into the complex pattern of interlocking patterns Stefan now calls "the universe", or that it all came about in an instant for the first time when "Stefan" opened his eyes "this morning" (the morning of the first (and only?) day), and peered through a pre-installed package of thoughts, memories, and expectations designed to generate the sense of things having been in existence for millennia.
Is that the heart of the argument between Evolutionism and Creationism? An illusion either way, just differently described -- horizontal vs. vertical (or is it vertical vs. horizontal?). Both work, and what's the difference, anyway? If there is a way to prove (or disprove) one or the other, I don't find it. Except from the perspective of Self-Realization which is beyond everything "Stefan". From there, the Teachers tell us, the I Sees What Is, and there, there's no "Stefan" to be perceived. Again, Ibn 'Arabi, "thou art not thou, thou art He without thou".
In the end, I guess it comes down to Chico's query to his brother Groucho Marx: "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
... and so on. Anyone interested, please join in.
As I often do, I awoke this morning at 4 AM, and sat for a while, listening. The Question returned. "How do I know, how can I know, that 'today' is not the only day that exists, that has ever existed, that Today or Now truly is all there is or ever was or ever will be? "
Could it be that ...
1) On the morning of this day which is the first and only "Day", God creates (manifests Himself as) "Stefan" and installs into his brain a basket of thoughts, memories, and expectations by which and through which Stefan's sensory system generates and perceives a separative "reality" designed to appear as, seem to him as, “my world” and “my life”, complete with memories of “past” history, including “personal” experiences and acquaintances, “current” events, and “future” expectations; and then,
2) On the evening of the first and only Day, God puts “Stefan” to deep sleep, during which “Stefan”, including the entirety of “Stefan's life" and "Stefan's world”, ceases to exist, is erased and gone forever.
One day, no more. Now is all there is. Not in some airy-fairy metaphysical sense, but really, actually, truly.
Of course, the immediate response is: That can't be. I've got plans for tomorrow, plans involving other real people. And I remember yesterday. I visited the Public Library, what about that? What about all the books I saw there? Who wrote those?
But to that question, the answer is (or could be), the plans for "tomorrow" and the memory of “yesterday” are simply in Today's script. They are an aspect of Today, of Creation. None of it ever actually happened, because yesterday never actually was and tomorrow never will be. There is no Public Library, no stacks with rows upon rows of book-filled shelves. Those are simply props in "Stefan's memory" which was created at the same moment "Stefan" was created at the creation of "Today". Yesterday with all its "inhabitants" is just a memory, and tomorrow with all its expectations, are a fiction, to make full and "real" the character “Stefan”, to make “Stefan” seem complete and whole in his “appearance” during the “first and only Day”,Today, which is the Entirety of Creation.
That generated this comment.
If a question "makes sense" to the rational mind, its spiritual power is suspect. Rational mind says, "What about the dinosaur skeletons? Did you put them there also "right now"?
... which generated this ...
Absolutely right! That's the whole issue here, isn't it? All of "Stefan's" objections to The Question are rational. "It doesn't make sense," Stefan whines endlessly.
Precisely so. Again, "Rational mind says, 'What about the dinosaur skeletons? Did you put them there also 'right now'?'"
Again, right on. This morning, the very same question came to my mind. I say "very same", by which I mean in substance.
Here it is. I know that Nancy and I have been married 45 years. There is no question in my mind about that. I even have documented proof (marriage license) of it somewhere.
Yes, but.
Could it be that, at the onset of Creation (also known as "4:00 AM this morning"), Nancy and Stefan had actually been married only a few moments, but Stefan was created with a clear "memory" of 45 previous years of marriage, and he even had the "documented proof" in a drawer somewhere?
Rational mind says, "For goodness sake, don't be ridiculous".
And then picks up a copy of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", and thinks absolutely nothing of the fact that we are introduced to a basket of characters all of whom have life histories which predate the action of the play but which no one has ever actually observed and which we nonetheless take for granted as having happened because the play script says so. We don't whine "Don't be ridiculous"; quite the contrary, we flow right along with it, fill in all the gaps wherever necessary, and applaud with vigor at the end!
If there, why not here?
Yes, the dinosaur skeletons. Who put them there? Why skeletons and not living dinosaurs? Maybe for the same reason that in Shakespeare's Hamlet, we meet Hamlet's father only as a deceased ghost, because if he were a living person in the play, the story wouldn't work. Hamlet's father has to be dead (and a ghost), and we have to accept the circumstances of his death, in order for the story to work. Never mind the fact that we actually observe none of it and all of it pre-dates the play action. That is, it "happens" before Act I, Scene I. How do we know that? Because we are told so. And we accept it.
Likewise, dinosaurs have to be "pre-historic" (skeletal remains) in order for "millennia of history" and stuff like Darwin's theory to make "sense" in Stefan's "rational mind"!
My head spins. I take refuge in Rumi: "I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home".
... and then ...
Clearly if "Stefan's life" and "Stefan's world" is "an illusion" as all the Teachers insist, then it is clearly equally "possible" that it has been in existence for "millennia", starting with a couple of atoms and evolving over time into the complex pattern of interlocking patterns Stefan now calls "the universe", or that it all came about in an instant for the first time when "Stefan" opened his eyes "this morning" (the morning of the first (and only?) day), and peered through a pre-installed package of thoughts, memories, and expectations designed to generate the sense of things having been in existence for millennia.
Is that the heart of the argument between Evolutionism and Creationism? An illusion either way, just differently described -- horizontal vs. vertical (or is it vertical vs. horizontal?). Both work, and what's the difference, anyway? If there is a way to prove (or disprove) one or the other, I don't find it. Except from the perspective of Self-Realization which is beyond everything "Stefan". From there, the Teachers tell us, the I Sees What Is, and there, there's no "Stefan" to be perceived. Again, Ibn 'Arabi, "thou art not thou, thou art He without thou".
In the end, I guess it comes down to Chico's query to his brother Groucho Marx: "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
... and so on. Anyone interested, please join in.