See the Ball, Move the Ball

Here's a meme share coined by Wayne Dyer in his commentary on the Tao Te Ching, Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao.

See the ball, move the ball.

In other words, there is no opponent, there is no competition, there is no attachment to outcome; there is only the job of moving the ball. There is no need to personify an enemy; there is no need to manufacture violent emotions. Simply see the ball; move the ball.

A Simple Explanation of the Tao Te Ching -- Verse 68

Prior to reading this post, please acquaint yourself with "Start Here: A Simple Explanation--Basic Principles" in the column on the right side of the screen. The Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, is an ancient Chinese collection of 81 wisdom verses. In the "Simple Explanation” model, the Tao spoken of by Lao Tzu refers to the metaversal information and principles of organization that have informed our universe since the moment before creation. Non-being refers to clearing your personal UC of earthly memes and karma. Non-action refers to allowing the original universal UC to direct your personal UC for the greater good. Here is the 68th verse of the Tao Te Ching, which I have translated directly into Simple Explanation terminology from an original verbatim translation by Jonathan Star.

Tao Te Ching, Verse 68

The most skillful military leader is neither violent nor aggressive;

The most skillful soldier never acts out of anger.

The best way to win a battle is to avoid confrontation.

The best way to get the job done is to make sure that others’ needs are met.

This ancient principle is known as “living in harmony” with your fellows.

Living in harmony brings out the best in others.

When you live in perfect harmony with others, you live in perfect harmony with the metaverse.

***************************************

In this verse, Lao Tzu describes the metaversal principle of Harmonious Cooperation thusly: all Units of Consciousness have their jobs to do, and the most efficient way for us all to get our jobs done is through cooperation, not competition. Even Generals and soldiers, whose very jobs seem defined by combative non-cooperation, are most successful when they fight not out of anger or violent intent, but dispassionately, solely to "get the job done."

Wayne Dyer says of competition in his commentary on the Tao entitled Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao :
“…cooperate with your opponents by wanting them to play at a high level—the best they’re capable of. Shift your focus from being upset or self-reproaching to the task at hand. See the ball, move the ball, or remain upright and balanced in a martial-arts contest. When anger isn’t a component, your game will go to a new level… So change your thinking about competing to cooperating in all areas of your life, including your work.” p. 324
I like Dyer's meme: "See the ball, move the ball." In other words, there is no opponent, there is no competition, there is no attachment to outcome; there is only the job of moving the ball.

Begging the question: In this game of life, how do you know if the ball needs moving? You will find yourself there and aware in some situation; you will see a ball that needs moving; you will be in an excellent position to move the ball; therefore, it is quite likely your job is to move the ball. That's all. Your primary job is not to harm or crush any other in order to move that ball. If the Universe has some need for the ball to move, it will be moved. The Universe has arranged circumstances to put you there to move the ball. If someone else winds up doing the job instead of you, that's great, too. It doesn't really matter who in particular gets the job done, as long as it gets done. In this manner, we not only cooperate with one another, but we cooperate with the Universe, and the metaversal principles it embodies.

Process Note: Creating Mystical Art

I took these photos today and then massaged them in PhotoShop and Microsoft Office Picture Manager. I'm sure they'll be useful as visual metaphors, but I'm not sure when or how. Until then, can you tell what these are images of?  Do they suggest anything to you?

Toroidal Forces--1000 Petalled Lotus



This familiar "1000 Petalled Lotus" mandala can be seen as a top view of a torus. Can you visualize the lines of energy flowing upward over the curved top of the hemisphere and then spiraling downward into the funnel?

Sagrada Familia -- Biomimetics and Architectural Symbolism

At the doctor's office the other day, I happened to see the December, 2010, National Geographic article on Barcelona's Sagrada Familia cathedral.  How this amazing structure, which has been under construction for a hundred years, passed me by until now is a mystery to me. The architect, Antoni Gaudi, designed this cathedral to uniquely reflect God's plan of natural structural design in contrast with the usual human approaches to architecture and engineering. The load-bearing columns, for example, replicate the twisting and branching structure of tree trunks rather than the normal design and arrangement of columns and arches typical of cathedrals. Gaudi also reflected God's plan in pure math forms, such as "Quadratic surfaces and conic curves: parabolas, hyperboloids, ruled surfaces."

The National Geographic article calls Gaudi's approach "biomimetic architecture."

Here's a quote from the National Geographic article:

"As idiosyncratic as Gaudí himself, it is a vision inspired by the architect's religious faith and love of nature. He understood that the natural world is rife with curved forms, not straight lines. And he noticed that natural construction tends to favor sinewy materials such as wood, muscle, and tendon. With these organic models in mind, Gaudí based his buildings on a simple premise: If nature is the work of God, and if architectural forms are derived from nature, then the best way to honor God is to design buildings based on his work. As the Barcelona scholar Joan Bassegoda Nonell notes, "Gaudí's famous phrase, 'originality is returning to the origin,' means that the origin of all things is nature, created by God." Gaudí's faith was his own. But his belief in the beautiful efficiency of natural engineering clearly anticipated the modern science of biomimetics."

Yes, toroidal forces appear is in this cathedral in many forms. Here's what Wikipedia says about the hyperboloids:

"Gaudí used hyperboloid structures in later designs of the Sagrada Família (more obviously after 1914), however there are a few places on the nativity façade—a design not equated with Gaudí's ruled-surface design, where the hyperboloid crops up. For example, all around the scene with the pelican there are numerous examples (including the basket held by one of the figures). There is a hyperboloid adding structural stability to the cypress tree (by connecting it to the bridge). And finally, the "bishop's mitre" spires are capped with hyperboloid structures.[9] In his later designs, ruled surfaces are prominent in the nave's vaults and windows and the surfaces of the Passion facade."

Here's an image of a hyperboloid

Do you see that this mathematical structure is also the central funnel of the torus? The hyperboloid shape can have a wide waist or a narrow waist.

 

Natural light is funneled through the cathedral's ceiling through numerous hyperboloidal skylights. Hyperboloid skylights allow more light to enter because light rays follow the same straight lines that create the circular cut-out. Take a look at the image of the hyperboloid above. Do you see how the grid lines that seem to swirl around are actually straight? A ray of light that enters along one of the grid lines at the top of the figure goes straight along wall of the hyperboloid through the middle to an apparently wider diameter than the size of the hole. A simple hole or tube only allows the light to go straight down the sides of the cut-out. 

The twisting of the columns also follows the hyperboloid which provides structural strength. A hyperboloid column distributes load more efficiently than a traditional straight column.

I personally love the skylights. To me, the light coming in through the funnel is a good visual metaphor for the light of God inspiring our path, or to put it another way, for the metaversal information pouring into our universe through our universal funnel.

 Watch for another article here soon discussing the symbology of the cathedral's spires...

The Simple Explanation's Golden Rule: Reaching Out With Love

This could be considered the central takeaway message/motto/meme of  the Simple Explanation:

Your job is to reach out to others with love, aid, and information for the betterment of all.

 

This goes for all Units of Consciousness, from sub-atomic quanta up through cells and organs to organisms and beyond. Every physical manifestation links up with others of its kind (atoms link together to make molecules; molecules make cells; cells make organs; organs link together to make organisms; organisms link together to create societies, and so on) to become the building blocks of the next level of hierarchical aggregation.

Does this apply to human UCs? Of course it does!

Your job is to reach out to others with love, aid, and information for the betterment of all.

When should you do this?

Now.

To whom should you reach out?

Well, who's there next to you? Who needs your help right now where you are? Is someone asking for aid or information?

What if I don't feel like helping others?
It appears to be a human truth that one can only find happiness through serving others. A me-centered life ultimately disappoints, as in, "I can't get no satisfaction."

Or, to put it in more general terms:



 It's the job of all UCs to join with others to collectively form the next hierarchical level up.

Process Note: Commenting on the Basics

I'm warming up to this next philosophical writing jag by reviewing and commenting on the Simple Explanation Basic Principles over there on the right side of the blog screen. The basics were written a year ago, right after the theatre season ended here in Ashland. So far, I've put up new Comments under chapters One through Seven. I'd recommend you all reread the Basic Principles and the new Comments, then make some Comments of your own. Let's start a dialogue! I'm preparing a manuscript now for publication and feedback would be good at this stage.

• This week much of my creative energy has been channeling into the Albion Inn's website. I've designed and added three new pages to the Albion site for Winter Specials and for a 3-Day Past Lives Regression Workshop we're hosting in February. I really enjoy website design. I approach it conceptually as a magazine layout rather than a website. This gives my site a different look, with nice big headlines, easy-to-read text, and feature photos. 
• A year ago, I sat down to novelize my Ph.D. dissertation and out popped the Simple Explanation instead. Yesterday, when I sat down to work on the Simple Explanation, the opening scene for a stage play based on my dissertation emerged. Nice symmetry. I think it will work splendidly as a play. This could be big.

Personal Note: Eulogy for a tooth

Two weeks ago I took a bad fall on the street while walking the dogs and landed hard on my chin. Yesterday, the dentist pulled out a tooth that had cracked in two during the fall. As the dentist wrestled with the tooth's roots, I realized that this tooth was its own little entity, and that she had been mortally wounded in the fall. Unable to do the job she was instantiated to do any longer, it was time for her to go. Later in the evening I felt a sadness for the tooth's demise and imagined that Whoville was holding a wake for the dearly departed tooth. I looked forward to falling asleep so that my governing UC would be available to attend the party, maybe even give a brief eulogy. "She took one for the team," I'd say. "She is free now to move on."

Meme Share!

Here's a new term I've just thought up: "meme share."  Meme Sharing is what you do when you share a meme that is dear to you with others. If you look at the post called "Onward and Upward" you will see the first instance of meme sharing.

Sharing memes accomplishes at least three things I can think of:

1. revealing your important memes to others in the hopes they will pick them up and use them;
2. revealing your important memes to others so that others will know you better;
3. building communities through shared memes.

What types of memes can you share?

• mottos, sayings, and maxims, like "Onward and Upward" or "It's All Good"
• iconic artwork, photos, architecture, etc. that you admire
• favorite books, movies, songs
• favorite things, like Rocky Road ice cream, or puppies, or sunsets
• values that are important to you, like Justice or Liberty

Imagine that Meme Sharing could become another type of social networking. We could start it off here, at the Simple Explanation blog site. Wanna get in on the ground floor? Leave your memes here, under Comments. Just share one meme per posting, and tell us briefly why it's important to you and how we might be better off if we also adopted that meme.

Onward and Upward!

Here's a meme for you: "Onward and Upward!" 


"Onward and upward!" is encouragement to get back up and get back in the game.  
"Onward and Upward!" releases us from disappointment when expectations aren't met. 
"Onward and Upward!" allows us to be fully present in the here and now and available for the next opportunity.
Gotta go now.  Onward and Upward!

Nested Hierarchies

After diagramming the hierarchical structure of human Units of Consciousness in the article "My Self, the Governor of Whoville," I extended the concepts to include the hierarchy above us. This follows the principle of "as above, so below" and the nested fractal nature of the universe.

To review, here's the distribution of Units of Consciousness (UCs) in each of our aggregate selves:

The Human UC's Hierarchichal Structure

Applying the same reasoning "upline" yields the following hierarchical structure:

The Universal UC's Hierarchichal Structure

In the hierarchy above, fewer and fewer instances of each type of UC appear as their scope of responsibility becomes broader and broader. This follows the principle of "the higher the fewer." Eventually, all units of consciousness in this universe combine to rejoin the Universal Unit of Conciousness from whence they came.

Notice that our human concept of "God" occupies the same niche in this Universal hierarchy as our Ego occupies in the Human-level hierarchy. Using analogical reasoning, our universe is a reflection of the collective UCs' choices (karma) and memes (beliefs and narratives). The personality we call "God" also reflects this Universe's karmic record and memes, as It organizes and instantiates those patterns on behalf of Creation. This "God" is not identical to the Metaversal UC because of its necessary involvement with this material Universe. The Metaversal UC exists in a limitless, undifferentiated state of pure conciousness, unaffected by the affairs of this Universe.

Nested Hierarchies

A Simple Explanation of "The Great Commandment"

Known as "The Great Commandment" in Judaism, Leviticus 19:18 states: “ Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”  This commandment is reiterated by Jesus and Paul several times in the New Testament, as here when Jesus counsels the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:19, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Commentaries on this commandment usually focus on its Golden Rule aspect--to treat others as you would wish to be treated.

The Simple Explanation puts it this way: "In order for units of consciousness to join and work together for the greater good, they need relevant information (including shared meme chords), they need to be willing to channel coherence from the metaverse, and they need to love one another." 

While we human-level UCs often struggle with loving others, many of us also struggle with loving ourselves, so how do we accomplish the Great Commandment?

In the article "My Self, The Governor of Whoville," I explain that my governing UC is associated with a veritable galaxy of aggregated UCs hierarchically distributed below it. "I" am not alone in this body of mine, but coinhabit this material space with countless other UCs devoted to instantiating "my" body. The commandment to "love myself" is a reminder to be kind and wise in the governance of the UCs that make up my Self's body. I am the ruler of their galaxy--I am the "Governor of Whoville" to borrow from Dr. Seuss. When I ignore the information coming "upline" from my aggregated UCs, my physical body may suffer emotionally and physically. If I ignore my aggregated UCs altogether, they are like sheep without a shepherd, and my emotional and physical body will surely suffer. I must be the wise ruler of this body, as it is my governing Self UC that is responsible for this little galaxy. This can be considered the essential rationale for loving myself. It is not my Ego I am loving--it is the Whoville galaxy.

If my Self UC cannot act with wisdom and love toward its own "mud" and meat, then how can it act with wisdom and love toward other UCs at the lateral level--its "neighbor"?

The "neighbor" that I am commanded to love is any unit of consciousness that occupies the same level of complexity as my UC.  It is the job of every UC, no matter its hierarchical level of complexity and sophistication, to reach out laterally to others of its level, working together for the good of all.  A sub-atomic particle's neighbor would be other sub-atomics. A liver cell's neighbor would be other liver cells. A human's neighbor would be other humans, but also other complex life forms. My dog is not a citizen of Whoville. My dog is my neighbor.

All of creation is called upon to work together with others of like kind for the survival and benefit of all. This is a Simple Explanation of The Great Commandment.

My Self, the Governor of Whoville

My body is a veritable galaxy of Units of Consciousness working to instantiate "me."

As you can see by the above diagram, the simpler the UC, the more of them there are. While there is only one "me" (represented by the blue triangle), my body is comprised of 11 organ systems made of 78 organs, which are in turn comprised of 50 trillion specialized cells made up of such a large number of atoms and molecules that I don't know how to read or write the numbers. The more organized and complex the UC, the fewer of them there are. Note that the "Mind" or ordinary consciousness, as well as the subconscious, are artifacts of the organ systems, organs, and cells that make up my body. In other words, the mind is the meat's thought process, not the Self's. 

My Self UC sits atop this hierarchical mountain of countless UCs, all working to instantiate my body. While I may believe I am the only conscious entity inhabiting this body of mine, my physical body is actually home to all of these aggregated UCs, each with their own jobs to perform, each laying down their own karmic record. Lucky for me, their job is to hold me together and facilitate this life of mine, and they generally go along with the program and do a good job. 

Another basic trait of my aggregate UCs is this: "The more UCs of the same level of complexity that are laterally linked, the greater their shared perception of here and now." This means that when you add all of those UCs together that make up my body, their aggregated consciousness is about as aware as my singular Self UC. And those aggregated UCs (my "mud" and "meat") are everywhere I am! No wonder I can get around so well without my conscious Self paying attention!

The "Ego" is my subjective sense of who I am, and it is largely a reflections of my Self UC's choices (karma) and the memes I cling to (my beliefs and narratives). My Ego also reflects my body's aggregates and their karmas and meme choices. Ego is not identical to the Self, as the Self UC is the immutably perfect soul that exists independent of material instantiation.

Mystical Brain - Watch the Documentary Film for Free

This film is a good resource on the science of the mystical experience. It takes about 55 minutes to watch. It is no longer available for free in its complete form. You can watch 17 minutes of it through Canadian Television at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3LtQH4Etjo .

You can also buy it online if you want to. Here's the Amazon link:

A Simple Explanation and Esoteric Anatomy

While browsing for toroidal images on the web, I came across a couple of interesting diagrams out of Bruce Burger's 1998 book, Esoteric Anatomy. Turns out Burger and his mentor, Randolf Stone, were all about toroidal energy forces surrounding human bodies, although they did not use the word "toroidal" or "torus." They call the toroidal forces centrifugal and centripedal and describe them as "upward/outward" and "downward/inward." Stone's original work has evolved into an energy healing modality called Polarity Therapy. Here's page 134 of Esoteric Anatomy, where you can see the toroidal shape if you "connect the dots":

I'm reading Burger's book now. When I'm finished, I can provide A Simple Explanation of Polarity Therapy. Until then, if you would like to read Esoteric Anatomy, you can click on the link below to order it.

12 Random Thoughts Concerning the Simple Explanation -- Illustrated

For all the apparent variety of creation, there is really only one simple shape and one ongoing mechanism—a spherical echo of God’s mind that constantly flows inward from future potential through the here and now, emerging at the far side as the past.

We humans are not in control of the universe. We cannot predict the future, for the variables and patterns are beyond our ability to fully anticipate and control, and the past is out of our hands and cannot be undone. The only thing we can control is our own, personal, moment-by-moment decision-making: here and now we have the potential for full control.

We hold on to the things we love, and love is love, no matter the object of affection.

The meme bundles we choose to hold on to have a huge impact on our decision-making. Therefore, it would be wise to review one’s meme bundle and make a conscious decision which memes and chords to hold and which to discard.

Toroidal Art provided by Richard Keely

Methods for discarding memes include simple disuse; identifying with a different meme or meme bundle that is incompatible with that meme; developing relationships with those holding memes incompatible with the memes you wish to discard; and having a change of heart regarding the desirability of that meme.

A meme that is especially intense is more difficult to set down because of the associated chords of memes that go along with it and that also must be set down.

Every UC has a job to do. To “live in God’s will” means to lay aside your UC’s egoic desires and selflessly instantiate for the greater good. When all of creation performs the jobs they were instantiated to perform, the machinery of our universe runs smoothly. Doing one’s job brings joy and fulfillment. When UCs, instead, use their free will to deviate from the pattern of the greater good, all of creation suffers.

If this model is in any sense “true,” one would expect to find it everywhere. I have found this theory works to illuminate both sacred texts and worldly knowledge domains with which I am familiar. I invite you, dear reader, to consider this Simple Explanation in light of what you believe and personally know to be true. Such application of this Simple Explanation will be a welcomed step in the evolution of this model.

Posted by Cyd Ropp, Ph.D

11 Putting It All Together

• Our universe is a self-contained toroidal bubble of space afloat in the infinite metaversal sea.

• Our God is wrapped around our expanding universe, holding us in, holding infinity out.

• We experience the holding force of coherence as love.  We experience the outward expulsive force as energetic joy.

• Every thing in this universe comes equipped with its very own echo of God’s mind—a unit of consciousness (UC).

• No matter the size or complexity of the material to which the UC is attached, our units of consciousness are all the same no-size and occupy the same no-place.

• Units of consciousness make decisions on behalf of the material to which they are attached.

• Life forms consist of the aggregated units of consciousness of the material forming their bodies, plus the governing UC of self-awareness.

• Organizing principles flow inward from the metaverse, collapsing from all possible courses of action to a single course of action at the point of here and now.

• For any observer, all that exists is here and now. Decisions may only be made here and now.

• Karma is the mechanism through which the consequences of behavior informs future potential.

• Memes are energetic waves of cultural patterns produced by units of consciousness. Memes are fueled by repetition or starved by lack of usage.

• “I” am the aggregate UCs of my material body, from the subatomic particles all the way up through the self-aware unit of consciousness that thinks of itself as “me.”

• I influence and am influenced by the karmic record generated by my choices and the choices that others have made.

• I am also influenced by the bundle of memes I and others choose to hold onto.

• I am free to pick and choose the memes I hold onto.

• Although I am influenced by many forces, I always retain my ability to freely choose which decision I will make here and now.

• In order for units of consciousness to join and work together for the greater good, they need relevant information (including shared meme chords), they need to be willing to channel coherence from the metaverse, and they need to love one another.

• Subatomic particles, universal forces, and UCs can all be modeled as a torus:

Free Will and Quantum Foam

This illustration, borrowed from Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe, shows how the appearance of matter transforms from smooth to chaotic the closer you look. Imagine the ordinary, unmagnified, world as the grid at the bottom of the drawing, and that each successive plane represents a closer look at a portion of the plane below.  At the most extreme ultra-magnification, quantum fluctuations have replaced smooth, predictable geometry.

This model of chaos can be used to illustrate the principle of individual free will. As was previously stated in Traits of Units of Consciousness,  most UCs perform as expected—they “do their part,” they “work according to plan.” It was also stated that every UC has the free will to fulfill or contradict its responsibilities.


Looking at the illustration, the lowest magnification appears smooth because most of the UCs are performing more or less as expected. At the highest magnification, the free will decisions made by the sea of UCs reveal their individuality. The UCs are not automatons, nor are they interchangeable bricks in a wall, but free-will wielding entities. If a lateral cohort of UCs decides not to work together, or if most of them decide to do their individual thing rather than pulling together in love and harmony to work according to plan, then chaos will win out and the erstwhile structure will collapse.


It is to all of our benefit that most UCs' operate according to the metaversal plan and, at the grand scale of our universe, there is enough redundancy of duties to accommodate each UC's free choice decisions. It is only when examining each individual UC's activities up close that the chaotic nature of free will is detectable. Keep in mind that under the Simple Explanation, every thing in the universe is a UC--a unit of consciousness. Quantum foam is not only a metaphorical analogy for free will, it is actually the free will of quanta UCs made manifest.

This link takes you to articles about space-time foam.

10 Love

Units of consciousness gather their systemic patterns and the universal operating laws required to “get the job done” from the metaversal information constantly flowing into and throughout our universe. The phenomenon known as “coherence” ensures the compatibility and integrity of these universal patterns and laws. What we call “love” is the felt experiences of coherence.

Brethren units of consciousness need information and they need love in order to join together and work toward a common goal. Particles cohere in familiar and necessary atomic patterns through information and love. Atoms arrange themselves and then cling together as molecules through information and love. Cells work together for the greater good of their organisms through information and love. Families and societies get the job of social order and cohesion done through information and love.

In order for human units of consciousness to join and work together for the greater good, they need relevant information (including shared meme chords), they need to be willing to channel coherence from the metaverse, and they need to love one another.

The metaverse vibrates with organizational principles. Our God dwells in this informational sea. God’s mind wraps around our space-time continuum and directs organization inward toward our universe. This inward flowing force of coherence is what we call love.

9 Who Am "I"?

“I” am the aggregate UCs of my material body, from the subatomic particles to molecules to cells, all the way up through the UCs of the body’s organ systems.
     “I” am also the self-aware unit of consciousness generated at conception.Like all UCs, this capital-letter “Self” came into this universe as a perfect echo of God’s mind. The job of this Self UC is to oversee the body’s aggregate UCs and to join with other UCs to build things.
     “I” am influenced in my decision-making by many forces acting upon me as I approach the here and now. These forces include the karmic records and meme bundles of my Self and my body’s aggregate UCs, and the karma and memes of those around me. Despite these influences acting upon me, it is always within my power to make a free-will decision at any particular moment.

8 Bundles of Memes

We are not all affected by the same memes. Most memes pass us by unnoticed. A meme must be either instinctually acquired or learned in order to be invoked by a unit of consciousness. Once a UC does acquire a meme, it becomes a part of that UC’s unique vibratory bundle. If the UC does not wish to continue holding that meme’s string in its personal bundle of strings and chords, it must detach the string from its grasp through disuse.

Some memes are easy to detach because they do not fit in with the UC’s overall bundle of strings and chords. One may, for example, forget a foreign film as soon as it is over because its memes do not bond well with the observer’s meme bundle.

Some memes are very difficult to detach once they are acquired because their vibratory pattern is so intense—the glamorous seduction of the cigarette or the chemical allure of the crack pipe, for example. Emotionally evocative memes such as victimhood or jealousy are difficult to detach due to the intense synergistic coupling of thoughts and emotion. Unwanted memes must be detached through an effort of will, either through conscious disuse or by acquiring a competing, more desirable meme. The Alcoholics Anonymous meme chord, for example, has successfully replaced alcoholic meme patterns for many drinkers.

A unit of consciousness may pick up entire chords of associated memes, but it is also common to pick and choose among individual strings. “Happy Marriage” is a complex meme chord that means different things to different people, depending upon their selection of particular strings. One prospective couple may resonate to the “Big Wedding” meme and so expect to invoke that meme at the outset of the Happy Marriage. Another couple may not be holding on to that memetic string and so do not need or want a big wedding. For most couples, the Happy Marriage chord includes a house full of children; other couples do not resonate to the offspring meme, so no children are necessary. For many couples, the “Bouncing Baby” meme may be adequately invoked by the “Man’s Best Friend” dog meme.

Every unit of consciousness holds on to a unique bundle of memes that informs their every decision.

Toroidal Art by Richard Keely

Continue on to Chapter 9 Who Am I?

7 Memes and Chords of Memes

Memes are the cultural expressions of societies. In human societies, memes are most often propagated through mass media such as magazines, films, and the internet, although they may also be spread by word of mouth and tradition. The Beatles is a meme. Andy Warhol’s iconic poster of Marilyn Monroe is a meme. Archetypal figures like the Trickster or the Shadow are memes. Football is a meme. Patriotism is a meme--all “ism”s are memes. Every discrete cultural concept, mythology, or icon is a meme. Indeed, each and every particular concept that a person can know is a meme.

Some memes are held in common by most human cultures—the wheel; the ideal model of a caring family; archetypal heroes and villains; universal human values such as honesty and loyalty. Other memes are exclusive to their particular culture. This especially applies to memes dealing with local traditions, religions, politics, and regional myths.

Humans are not the only units of consciousness affected by memes. All cultural aggregations of UCs propagate and utilize memes. Cats, for example, bury their waste because there is a strong waste-burying meme that resonates in all cats. “Dog is man’s best friend” is a shared meme chord continually re-propagated by both humans and dogs. “Flying in formation is awesome” may well be a duck meme.

The memes we cling to are like threads draped over our Self UC.

Every UC's garment of memes is as unique as each person's opinions and beliefs.

Memes are energetic waves of cultural patterns fueled by repetition or starved by lack of usage. As wave forms, each meme has a distinct vibratory signature, akin to a musical note. Each individual meme can be likened to a string on society’s harp.
 

A single meme is like a single note. A group of related memes is like a chord. In the example above, "America" is the meme chord, and each stripe is a meme or set of memes that contributes to that chord. Each meme chord vibrates to the particular concepts that make it up. Believers in those memes and meme chords are like members of a choir cloaked in the robes of their meme chords. 

 Continue on to Chapter 8, Bundles of Memes

6 We Are All Here Now

There is only one time and one place in the universe for any given observer. That place is always right here, right now, at this moment of conscious awareness. All units of consciousness realize their decision-making potential only in the crucible of here and now.

     The future is ungraspable, for no UC can fully know and control the multitude of variables approaching here and now.

     All units of consciousness are inwardly resonating waves propagated within the shell of God’s mind, therefore all UCs are standing exactly in the same no-place. I am exactly where you are, where we all are. I am exactly where God is, where the UC of a quark is, where the UC of a skin cell is. I am no bigger or smaller than any other UC because size is irrelevant where there is no space, and there is no space in the metaverse. No matter the size or complexity of the material to which the UC is attached, from quanta to human to star system, our UCs are all the same no-size in the same no-place.

Continue on to Chapter 6, Memes and Chords of Memes

5 The Role of Karma

Karma is the mechanism through which the consequences of behavior inform future potential. Karma is a force of influence that arises out of the decision-making history of every unit of consciousness in the universe. Each UC generates its own karma.

We are all affected by one another’s karma. The more a unit of consciousness has in common with another UC, the more it is affected by the other’s karma. Our aggregate karma affects all of creation.

Like the mythical ouroboros, karma is a snake that eats its own tail. Karma emerges at the far side of here and now as history, and then feeds back around to influence the pool of potential futures.

Continue on to Chapter 6, We Are All Here Now

4 One Simple Model (expanded)

Sustaining the matter in this universe requires an uninterrupted stream of organization and intention funneling inward from the spherical border that separates our space and time from the metaverse at large. Like pure potential pouring down the gravitational well of a great black hole, our possible futures become increasingly limited as they funnel toward the crucible of here and now at the heart of creation. Here and now, all potentials collapse as only one course of action is realized.

The Metaverse ("Outside" our Universe)

We can think of this wireframe version of the toroid as the idealized mathematical blueprint imagined by the metaversal consciousness prior to creation. The toroid is a doughnut shape, with a zero-point-sized hole at the middle of the doughnut, between the funnel points.

This chalk drawing is the same view as the wireframe toroid. For the purposes of illustration, the inner and outer surface of the doughnut's shell is yellow. We're seeing a cross-section of the inside of the doughnut. The blue is the field contained within the toroidal shape. Try to visualize these images as 3-D, not 2-D. The blue-colored inside of this torus is shaped like a tube--what is pictured as two blue circles are two sides of one blue tube encircling the white star.

Here is a top cutaway view of the toroid, looking down on the zero-point hole at the middle. I chose this particular color scheme because this is what people "see" when they look out with the "third eye" during meditation. From the top, it looks like a white/gold ring with a blue center and bright light at the middle.

In these chalk drawings, the black background represents the formless metaverse--the Undifferentiated Unity. The yellow shell represents what I call the "shape of God's mind" also known as the original unit of consciousness. This shell is not a material object, but a thought vibration. The area represented by the blue field is our material universe. The white center star represents the zero-point middle--called "Here and Now" in the Simple Explanation.

 
These chalk drawings also represent each and every unit of consciousness (UC) in our universe, as every UC is a perfect echo of the original UC.
 

The universal toroid is also the creative matrix of our physical universe. Proto-energy pours into our universe from the zero point at the center of our universal toroid, rushing into our space time continuum as quantum particles and forces. At the same time, at both the cosmological and quantum levels, proto-energy presses in from the outside, containing at the large level our universal space and holding it from the infinitude of the outer metaverse and, at the very small level, defining the outer edge of individual quantum probability clouds.

The expulsive force that explodes outward from the center of the toroid is the same as the implosive force that presses inward from the outer shell. In the drawings above, the implosive force (coherence; love) is represented by the yellow arrows and the expulsive force (proto-energy; Ananda; joy) is represented by the white star at the middle.

Here’s how it works: imagine the yellow arrows poking into the entire surface of the toroid—not just the outside spherical portion but from the within the funnel areas, too. Now visualize the surface of the toroid in motion, flowing out the bottom of the funnel, around the outside, and back through the middle (as depicted by the white arrows in these drawings). Keep in mind that, despite the cross-sectional views we see here, the flow is actually taking place along the entire outside spherical surface, flowing up and over the rounded hemispheric region and down into the increasingly constrained funnel, passing through the point at the center. As the inward-poking arrows slide over the lip of the funnel and begin flowing down into the funnel, the inward-from-rim-toward-center direction flips over to become the center-pointing-outward direction.

Not only does the cohesive, inward force now appear to be a repulsive, outward force, the force itself is compressed from that generated over the entire spherical surface to a tremendously concentrated, singular point exploding outward in all possible directions into the interior of the toroid.

The Simple Explanation proposes that this extremely concentrated proto-energy is held in suspension at the zero point of the universal torus, exploding outward into our material universe as the originator of the fundamental forces of physics. These forces are shaped and directed by the proto-shape of the torus itself, which is the organizational framework for the fundamental particles.

Continue on to Chapter 5, The Role of Karma

More Basics About UCs

These further thoughts regarding Units of Consciousness (UCs) were generated through discussions carried on in earlier "Comments," prompted by reader questions.

There are so many little quanta Units of Consciousness and atomic Units of Consciousness that, despite their very simple material expression (no brains, no blood for example) they still have a pretty firm grasp of the Universe because they are all over the place. But their responsibilities are very narrowly defined--a photon may only have one choice to make in its whole life, so that individual photon's Unit of Consciousness doesn't know too much about anything else. But, when you consider all of the photons in this Universe, together they know everything there is to know about optics and light. We do know from the latest science that photons, once they are twined with another photon, know instantly everything that their twin photon does, no matter how far away their twin has gone. Furthermore, the twin photon's choices affect each other, so if, for example, one twin goes right, their other goes left.

  

All Units of Consciousness are self-aware, self-governing, with free will. You don't have to reach any level of sophistication to be a governing Unit of Consciousness. Every Unit of Consciousness governs the piece of material they are attached to, irregardless of how simple or inert the material appears to us humans.

The human body has a governing Unit of Consciousness one step higher up than the Units of Consciousness that make up our body and its systems. It is this governing Unit of Consciousness that we think of as our self.  (See "Mud Up, Spirit Down" article) 

Every body has many, many, many Units of Consciousness. These Units of Consciousness govern the atomic and molecular structure of the body; above that are Units of Consciousness that govern each cell in the body (one Unit of Consciousness for each of 50-trillion cells); above that is a Unit of Consciousness for each organ--a heart Unit of Consciousness, a lung Unit of Consciousness, a sexual Unit of Consciousness, etc. Then there is the Unit of Consciousness that ties all of these subsystems together -- our governing Unit of Consciousness that makes the body's coordinated physical-maintenance decisions and interfaces with the world through the body's sensory and motor systems. 

The governing Unit of Consciousness isn't always paying attention to the body or even doing its job of conscious decision-making. The governing Unit of Consciousness may be preoccupied with thoughts or songs or emotions and so the self isn't making any here-and-now decisions, but leaving decisions to the body's aggregate Units of Consciousness. Activities like driving a car, having sex, eating, or taking a bath can all be carried out by the body's organ level Units of Consciousness without governing supervision or awareness. 

The Big Bang took only moments to pour all the potential Units of Consciousness into our Universe. Scientists tell us that all the particles in the Universe were formed in moments, and that the initial transformations and organizing of particles into more complex shapes took under a second. We're discussing Units of Consciousness, not particles, but we already know that every particle is associated with a Unit of Consciousness, or to put it another way, every essentially identical Unit of Consciousness expresses itself as a particular instantiation of matter. According to Yogic philosophy, the matter is only in illusory projection of the Unit of Consciousness's individualized consciousness.

Units of Consciousness never evolve because each Unit of Consciousness is already a perfect replica of the original Unit of Consciousness (the one that emerged directly from the metaverse). What changes is the sophistication and abilities of the matter that limits its expression in this 3-D world. 

As the material becomes more complex, with more complex and massive attachments, the Unit of Consciousness that has chosen to govern that aggregation of material focuses its attention to that level of decision making. If there is an atomic-sized grouping, then there would be the number of Units of Consciousness involved in that grouping as a physicist would expect to observe. If that atom joins up laterally with other atoms to form a molecule, then at the here and now of the new molecule's instantiation, a Unit of Consciousness focused on making decisions on behalf of that molecule enters the universe. This would be what I refer to as the molecule's governing Unit of Consciousness.