Meaning Is In the Memes

The Simple Explanation states that a huge part of our personalities is shaped by the memes we hold dear as well as the memes we hate.

The memes you cling to (sanskara), both the ones you like and ones you don't like, influence your ability to exercise your free will in the here and now. When you unthinkingly lock onto a meme or set of memes, it is your belief in the memes that determines how you will interpret your surroundings and how you will respond. Your response may or may not be the best response to a situation, but it is the only one your set of memes allows.

We see this phenomenon at play every day. For example, a person (person A) whose meme bundle includes a belief that others are "out to get me" will interpret events in a manner that reinforces that meme. The most innocent statements on another's part (person B) will activate person A's "out to get me" meme, even when no such insult was intended. Person A's ego is hurt by their own meme, not by person B.

Another example of delimiting memes occurs during problem-solving. The more tightly held one's memes are, the fewer solutions will present themselves. The ability to consider solutions "outside the box" and to engage in "lateral thinking" comes about through nonattachment to the "shoulds" and "oughts" of how things work. One must be willing to set aside treasured beliefs in order to perceive memes outside one's own bundle and thereby discover fresh solutions.

I realized the other day that each and every cultural institution we belong to (family, workplace, church, mosque, tribe, nation, etc.) not only comes with its own bundle of shared memes held in common by its members, it also comes with a filter that prevents members from acknowledging or adopting incompatible memes. Memes are even more important to an institution than its members in the sense that members come and go, but memes persist.

Institutions are defined as much by their excluded memes as they are by their included memes. An exclusive institution holds tightly to the indentity provided by its memes; its border is strong and its filter powerful. An inclusive institution allows members more latitude in the memes they may hold; its border is less defined; its filter less opaque. An "open-minded" institution acknowledges the fact that there are memes out there in the greater culture that may have value, and is willing to consider new memes; its border is permeable and its filter thin.

A goal of the Simple Explanation is to demonstrate the simple commonality of the reality underlying the panoply of memes. Not just the religious memes; not just the spiritual memes; but the "rational" and "scientific" memes, too.

A Simple Explanation of Gossip

Here's the wikipedia definition of gossip:

•Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others. It forms one of the oldest and most common means of sharing (unproven) facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and other variations into the information transmitted. ...


Here's the Simple Explanation's definition of gossip:

Sharing, from your point of view, another's personal memes and karmic deeds with the aim of strengthening their consequences.

Here's how it works: You either hear about or witness an event that you emotionally resonate to. Responding to that emotion, your mind quickly gathers up a chord of memes relating to the event. These memes will necessarily reflect your point of view, because that is who and where you are relative to the event. Even if the facts are accurate, i.e. correct retelling of the other's memes and of the karmic event, the meme chord also contains your personal assumptions, judgments, and position. In other words, you have added something to the equation.

Your ego then constructs a story--"the story of the meme chord"--and tells it to you. All of this activity is more or less out of your conscious control. Once you make a conscious decision to tell it to someone else, then it becomes gossip. Spreading gossip is like weaving meme chords and launching them into the air.

Why do people gossip? In order to keep that particular meme chord in play. If the gossip is pleasant and positive, then most people approve of it. If the gossip is slanderous and negative, people disapprove. However, whether positive or negative, the memes and karmic consequences are still being strengthened through repetition and transmission. This is the purpose of gossip--to deepen the karma of praise or concern for the "righteous," and of shame and indignation for the "sinner." And the further the meme chord spreads, the less it reflects the truth of the situation and the more interference it brings to the here and now.

Spiritual Consequences of Gossip

The Bible has many injunctions against gossip. Here's what the book of James has to say about it, in Chapter 4, Verse 11:

Speak not evil one of another, bretheren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?"

In Simple Explanation terms, the verse reads like this:

Fellow UCs, it is not our job to share others' personal memes and shortcomings. Spreading unhelpful information out of egoic judgment does not contribute to the metaversal plan. The metaversal plan transcends ego. Ego is too limited to grasp the causes or the consequences of one's own behavior, let alone another's. Do not interfere with another's karma.

Personally, I think of gossip as keeping a situation alive in time. As the meme chord is strengthened through repetition, the event stays in the present rather than passing into the past. It seems to me that God, or the Metaversal plan, or the Universal UC, is not about shame or praise, but favors moving forward and doing what needs to be done here and now. "Onward and Upward!" I think the game plan is all about forgiving and picking up the pieces, looking around to see what needs doing next, and working in harmony to help one another make the best of things
.

Diagramming the Ineffable



Process Note:  The images above were laid out in Power Point off of the notebook page below:



Shed Unwanted Memes Here! Now!

As defined in the article "Memes and Chords of Memes," memes are the cultural expressions of societies. Every discrete cultural concept, mythology, or icon you can think of is a meme. Indeed, each and every concept that a person can know and name is a meme, even self-concept. According to the Simple Explanation, the memes we believe in and cling to are like theads draped over our souls, obscuring our perfect Self UC and interfering with our awareness of here and now.

If my Self UC is a perfect fractal expression of the primordial Universal UC ("Holy Ghost," "Kutastha Chaitanya," "Purushottama") then my personal meme bundle is the garment woven by my mind out of life's experiences ("avidiya," "maya"), and sustained by my Ego as personal identity ("Ahamkara").



Self UC





Self UC Clouded by Memes

The article "Bundles of Memes" explains that once you acquire a meme, it becomes part of your unique vibratory bundle. If you do not wish to continue holding that meme in your personal bundle of strings and chords, you need to detach that meme from your bundle.

• Some memes fall away of their own accord through disuse.
• Other memes must be consciously detached and laid aside.
• Some memes are pernicious; addictions are their behaviors. 
• Emotionally evocative memes such as victimhood or jealousy are difficult to detach due to the intense synergistic coupling of thoughts and emotion.

In the worldly course of events, unwanted memes must be detached through an effort of will, either through conscious disuse or by acquiring a competing, more desirable meme. Therapies such as EFT may help.

Within one's spiritual tradition, memes may be surrendered to one's Higher Power through prayer and meditation. Serenity is achieved as memes are discarded.

Here, now, you may lay down that unwanted meme. If you find yourself accidentally carrying it around again, lay it down again. If you notice yourself invoking that meme out of habit, good. Lay it down again. You may need to lay down some neighboring memes as well, if their vibrations are invoking that pernicious meme in you. No need for dismay or despair. Onward and upward.

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

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.

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

3 Traits of Units of Consciousness

 Each UC is a pale echo of God’s mind.



 Each UC is capable of using the organizing principles that inform and sustain its existence in our universe.

 Each UC is fully capable of doing the job put to the material it governs.

 Every UC makes decisions affecting the material it governs. (A photon’s UC, for example, decides whether to go left or right according to various optical and physical laws of the universe and its relationships with other photons.)

 The more complex the UC, the more sophisticated its decision-making abilities.

 The more complex the UC, the more opportunities it has to exercise free will.

 Most UCs perform as expected—they “do their part,” they “work according to plan.”

 Every UC has the free will to fulfill or contradict its responsibilities.

 UCs are social and additive in number—they tend to work together in harmony with others like themselves.

 All UCs of the same level of complexity are linked laterally to one another in common purpose.

 The more UCs of the same level of complexity that are laterally linked, the greater their shared perception of here and now.

 All UCs aggregate hierarchically under more complex UCs.

 The degree to which any UC comprehends the universe is dependent upon the complexity of its aggregate UCs.

 Distribution of UCs is hierarchical—the more complex the UC, the fewer instances of it exist.

 Life forms consist of the aggregated UCs of the material forming their bodies, plus the governing UC of self-awareness.

 The more complex the organism, the more UCs it possesses.

 Each functional organ system within the organism possesses its own UC that governs that organ.

 God’s mind is the most complex UC of all, consisting of all potential as well as actual UCs of our universe, plus its own metaversal omniscience.

 As complex systems die and disintegrate, their aggregated UCs are released from the responsibility of supporting that particular life or material instantiation and revert to their simpler states of molecular consciousness.

Continue on to More Basics About UCs

"Undifferentiated Unity" Comments Continue...

There's a good discussion taking place under "Comments" at the "Undifferentiated Unity" article from 2/18/10. Check it out! Add your two cents!

2 Units of Consciousness

As our universe expanded, over and over and over again, pale echoes of God’s mind attached themselves to the particles streaming out of the Big Bang.

God’s mind pulses with concentration at the birth of every thing in our universe. These pulsations send spherical waves of consciousness inward from the border of God’s mind toward creation, informing each new piece of material with its own unit of consciousness as it emerges from the portal of here and now.

     Time passed and creation became more complex as subatomic particles reached out to one another according to metaversal principles of organization. And particles made atoms, atoms made molecules, molecules made single-celled organisms, single-celled organisms diversified into the full panoply of life, and every one of these material building blocks came equipped with its own unit of consciousness (UC). Each tiny unit of consciousness knew what role it needed to play in order to help the universe create and sustain itself, for every UC could decode and instantiate its own special piece of the metaversal ideal.



quanta UC



atomic UC

molecular UC

cellular UC

organ UC

organism UC

societal UC

global UC

At each stage along the way from simple to complex, units of consciousness are increasingly sophisticated in their ability to regulate and manage their existence.

Continue on to Chapter 3, Traits of Units of Consciousness

Nesting Toroidal Space--Part 3

First, please read the "Start Here--Basic Principles" on the right side of the screen.

Let's tie some previous diagrams and concepts together.

This universe in which we dwell, and every thing in it, is "shaped" like a toroid.

This is because the Organizing Force at the top of our universal hierarchy is (mathematically) "shaped" like a toroid. 

The proto-Unit of Consciousness that has imprinted its pattern upon our universe is what people of all faiths call "God." People who are not inclined toward spiritual pursuits may reject the label of an all-powerful God but still accept the impersonal Organizing Force as a mathematical concept.

Every thing in this universe is a conscious, vibrational echo of the original Unit of Consciousness. 

 

At the immaterial level, all units of consciousness in our universe are "standing" in the same "no-place." This immaterial "place" is nestled within the originating Unit of Consciousness (God's Mind).

This drawing depicts the toroidal shape of God's Mind as the outer yellow shell, and the secondary units of consciousness, UCs, as the peach-colored layer just inside. Proto-energy flows from the middle outward; coherence/love presses from the yellow shell inward. 
The blue space inside this universal toroid represents everything we consider to be part of our universe -- our ordinary 3 dimensions plus time.

When the consciousness of a secondary UC is in phase with the Universal UC at the zero point of Here and Now, joy and bliss are experienced. In a human, that phase alignment is experienced during numinous experiences like advanced meditation, ecstatic prayer, and other Divine encounters. Here is a drawing of a human's UC in phase with God's UC, with Chakra 4--Heart/Love--at the zero point of Here and Now.

 

The appearance of time and space, fundamental particles and forces, and dynamic spiritual-emotional-karmic patterns arise from the toroid's shape. 

Things look quite different at the material level. Rather than focusing on the toroid of the originating UC, we perceive our universe from the the very smallest toroids--elementary particles and fundamental forces released into our universe at the time of the Big Bang. 

The building blocks of our physical universe are tiny quantum clouds shaped like toroids. These tiny toroids combine at the microscopic level to form all of the variety we see around us. Larger toroidal forces shape the larger cosmological features of our universe.

Humans are comprised of both lower, physical UCs, and an individualized Self UC. Our material/spiritual perception crossover appears to happen at the 4th chakra, or the consciousness of love. It is there that phase alignment with God may occur and the immaterial nature of the Self discovered.

 

 The human bio-energetic aura can be described as a series of nesting toroids. These will be further explained in a future article. In the aura drawing above, the white 7th chakra maps to the peach-colored shell of the drawing below.

Here is a human Unit of Consciousness with its associated material instantiation.

When this person's UC is in phase with the Universal UC, then this person's toroid "grows" into phase with the Universal UC and is no longer a human-sized toroid but as "big" as the universe.

Images of Toroids, Images of UCs

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.

These drawings may help you visualize the Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything

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.  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 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 is the formless metaverse. The yellow shell represents 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.

It is my belief that this toroid will also be proven to be the mathematic shape taken on by quantum probability clouds as well as the mathematical shape of our observable universe. That it is the shape of our galaxy has only just been demonstrated.

Delivery of autophagosomes to lysosomes along microtubules...in a dividing CHO cell.