LET THERE BE LIGHT

REFLECTIONS OF LIGHT ON THE JOURNEY

Edward R. Close

In the early evening of September 17, 1960, I made my way up the steep winding switchbacks of Mount Washington Drive, just north of downtown Los Angeles, much as I had many times before. Approaching the summit of this outlier of the Hollywood Hills, I turned right onto San Rafael Avenue just below the southwest corner of the beautiful, well-tended grounds of the International Headquarters of Self-Realization Fellowship. I was on my way there that particular evening for my initiation into the practice of Kriya Yoga. I found a place to park, and as I walked through the entrance gate of the SRF grounds and along the driveway beside the print shop toward the main building, I breathed in the subtle aroma of gardenias that were blooming somewhere nearby. I stopped and took a deep breath of the sweet fragrance. When I exhaled and relaxed, I felt the deep peace that pervades these hallowed grounds where saints have trod, filling my soul.

 

Kriya Yoga is an ancient scientific method designed to speed up the natural expansion of individualized consciousness and help wandering lost souls to reunite with the eternal reality of the Infinite Source. The gradual reuniting of your soul with the Infinite is accelerated when you choose to consciously focus on the life-sustaining energies that operate involuntarily in the respiratory and circulatory systems of your body. The practice of Kriya synchronizes these energies with the opposing energies flowing in the spine, and the outward flow of energy is slowed to the point of suspension, allowing the spiritual Light of Primary Consciousness to become directly perceptible in the spiritual eye. Over the past 64 years, I’ve found that the daily practice of the Kriya techniques that I began to learn that evening so long ago, have proved to be very practical, producing positive results that have greatly improved the quality of my life.

 

The initiation was being conducted that autumn evening by Sri Dayamata, a direct disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda, who was the last of a revered lineage of Spiritual teachers originating in India. At the time of my initiation, Daya-ma, as we affectionately called her, had been President of SRF for five years, and I was living in Topanga Canyon, northwest of LA. I had been allowed to attend evening meditations with the monks on Mount Washington while I was studying a series of lessons that were written by Yogananda just before he entered Maha Samadhi, his final conscious exit from the physical world in 1952. Because I had been allowed to meditate and study with some of the most advanced kriya yogis alive at that time, I was able to finish the one-year preparatory course in just four months. I had passed the final exam, and I was prepared to be initiated that evening.

 

At the time, I didn’t fully understand what an honor it was to be accepted and initiated into this advanced spiritual practice by Sri Dayamata, the way I was. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that I had been involved in the effort to bring the science of Kriya Yoga into the modern world for a long time, especially during one of my previous lives in India and Tibet. There were indications of the importance of this initiation for me, and some of the other events in my life, That were accompanied by phenomenal bursts of spiritual light. The light I am talking about is not just the electromagnetic vibrations that enable us to see with our physical eyes, it is the total brilliance of the fundamental essence of light that emanates from the spiritual domain.

 

At one point in the ceremony, very suddenly, a fiery three-dimensional ball of light appeared, spinning only a few inches in front of my forehead, and I could see it with my eyes open or closed! I had never seen anything like this before, and I have not seen anything quite like it since. I accepted it as validation that this was the right spiritual path for me, but I didn’t know what it actually was. About ten years later, I described the initiation light that I experienced to one of the monks who was a direct disciple of Yogananda, and asked him what he thought it was, and why had it appeared to me? He said he thought it was an unusual blessing given to me by God through Dayamata, and that because I was a scientist, she knew that even a glimpse of the light emanating from the crown chakra would encourage me to embark on a study the spiritual eye and the source of spiritual light. Of course, she was right!

 

As I look back on my life of nearly ninety years now, I realize that the unusual spiritual light phenomena that I saw during many of the most important events of my life, including the spinning ball of light that I saw during my Kriya initiation, were glimpses of a much greater reality, perceived through the functioning of the spiritual eye, a feature of human consciousness sometimes called the “third eye”. Details about what the “third eye” is and how it functions is beyond the scope of this discussion, and I am constrained from discussing the details of the kriya initiation and the techniques taught by the SRF lineage of spiritual masters by policies that I agreed to long ago. It is still necessary to keep these policies in place to safeguard against the ego-based misuse of the consciousness-altering techniques of kriya. But I want to touch upon the nature of the eternal light of spirit and attempt to explain how it relates to physical light, the expansion of consciousness, and the all-important evolution of the human soul.

 

Individual realization of the true nature of reality is called enlightenment for a reason: The fabric of reality is light. Ultimate enlightenment is the realization that we are eternal beings of light, capable of expanding and contracting our bubbles of consciousness from one quantum to infinity. But when we choose to identify ourselves with physical bodies to experience physical pleasure and pain, we limit our growth and awareness to the space-time domain existing where the finite, quantized reality of the physical universe and the infinitely continuous multi-dimensional domain of spirit meet. Individual consciousness, as we know it, is a direct result of this intimate contact of the finite with the infinite. It is as if we have our feet planted in two different boats, each moving on the waters of existence at different rates of speed, in different directions. Unless we realize that we are beings of light, capable of expanding beyond space and time, then, at critical junctures, we must endure great pain and suffering as we are forced to choose just one of one of the two boats.

 

That evening in the autumn of 1960, I saw the pure light emanating from the multi-dimensional domain of Spirit for the first time in this life, and it certainly encouraged me to get to work on expanding my consciousness. And I have since come to realize that the narrow band of electromagnetic energy that we perceive shining through the limited space and time of the physical world, is only a faint reflection of the awesomely beautiful spiritual light that illuminates the spiritual domain of the soul.

 

Every life in the physical world provides us with opportunities to learn and grow spiritually, i.e., to become more and more enlightened. So, in case someone might be interested, I will attempt to summarize what I have learned as a result of using the kriya consciousness expanding techniques for 64 years, starting with some astoundingly profound truths. But first, I must clarify what makes a truth profound, as opposed to a less important, trivial truth. Danish physicist Niels Bohr explained this distinction when he said: “The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false, while the opposite of a profound truth is also true.” You may find this statement somewhat confusing, but it provides a way to distinguish between a profound truth and a trivial truth. Here are some important examples:

 

1.   There is no such thing as nothing.  This is a profound truth arising from the fact that there is something real that does exist. The undeniable truth that ‘something exists’ implies that the exact opposite statement, i.e.: ‘nothing does not exist’ is also true.

 

2.   A state of absolute nothingness never existed and will never exist. Profound truth #1 and its opposite, coupled with the law of conservation of mass and energy, verified by every scientific experiment ever performed, allows us to definitively answer the question that the German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz called the first and most important question that science should ask: Why is there something rather than nothing? The profound truth that a state in which something presently exists, coupled with the universal law of the conservation of matter and energy implies that ‘a state of nothingness’ can never have existed, cannot exist now, and will never exist in the future. Thus, the popular big bang theory of the origin of the universe as an explosion of something from nothing, is pure science fiction. Something has always existed.

 

3.   Reality is the sum total of everything that has ever existed, exists now, and will ever exist. This profound truth is implied by profound truth #2 with the realization that space-time has no existence of its own.

 

These three profound truths verify Planck’s breakthrough realization that he described with the following statements: “There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind, and this mind is the matrix of all matter.” As we shall see, Planck’s realization leads to a picture of reality very different from the materialistic belief of mainstream science.

 

It’s very important to note that Albert Einstein agreed with his good friend and colleague, Max Planck. Einstein said: “Concerning matter, we've been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. Matter is spirit reduced to a point of visibility; there is no matter.”

 

Einstein added to Planck’s enlightenment regarding the fundamental variables of physics by pointing out that proof of general relativity implies that the assumption that space is a uniformly existing background, in which all things exist, was also wrong. In June 1952, less than three years before his death in April 1855, in a special appendix to his popular book titled Relativity, the Special and the general Theory, a Clear Explanation that Anyone Can Understand, He made this point, stating that “Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way, the concept of ‘empty space’ loses its meaning, and space can claim no existence of its own.”

 

From 1981 until 1986, while living and working in the Middle East, I had time between jobs to do some serious thinking about what these bombshell statements made by Planck and Einstein really meant. I reasoned that if the common assumptions about the most basic variables of our scientific model of physical reality, i.e., matter, energy, space, and time, that seemed so obvious were wrong, then our model of the nature of reality, being based on those assumptions was also wrong.

 

If Planck and Einstein were right, the concept of matter measured in units of mass mathematically equivalent to a huge number of units of energy determined by the equation E = mc², with the concept of energy measured in units defined by the amount of force required to move the mass of an electron through a unit of space in a unit of time, and all four variables are dependent upon the “existence of a conscious and intelligent mind”, then a new calculus, a new mathematical logic that includes a unitary measure of consciousness was needed. So, I began working to adapt G. Spencer Brown’s primary calculus of mathematical logic, as defined in his book Laws of Form, for application to, and analysis of the interface of consciousness with relativistic, quantized physical reality. No small task.

 

I realized that to create an internally consistent quantum calculus designed to deal with the infinite continuity of mind interacting with the finite quantized nature of physical reality in a mathematically and logically consistent manner, I had to define a basic quantum equivalence unit for all of the fundamental units of measurement. To avoid the inconsistency of the basic unit of consciousness turning out to be mathematically incommensurable with the basic units of mass, energy, space, and time, the basic quantum equivalence unit had to be based on the mass or equivalent energy and the volume of the smallest sub-atomic entity, which happens to be the free electron. To emphasize the unit’s dimensionality, I called this basic unit of the calculus the triadic rotational unit of equivalence (TRUE).

 

At this point, an important question arises: What if mind and matter are intrinsically incommensurable? If so, consciousness can’t be quantized in any logically consistent way. The obvious way around this conundrum is: If physical reality reflects the logical structure of Primary Consciousness, it will be internally consistent only if the logic of Primary Consciousness is internally consistent. The fact that we exist in a complex, highly structured physical universe that appears to conform to a set of cause-and-effect laws that we are able to discover, and are in the process of discovering, suggests that the logical structure of Primary Consciousness is internally consistent. The bottom line is that the way forward is to assume that Primary Consciousness and its reflection in physical reality are logically consistent and proceed to define the most basic quantum equivalence unit by setting both the mass-energy equivalence and volume of the free electron to unity and see what happens. In other words, the proof is in the pudding!  

 

When I applied the electron-based quantum calculus to the analysis of the logical structure of the most stable object in the universe, the proton, the quantized measure of organization linking the conscious intelligent mind with physical reality emerged as the third form of the essence of reality with no intrinsic mass or energy. We, Dr. Vernon Neppe and I, chose to represent this new variable with Gimel, the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

 

Converting the total mass and energy of the proton to TRUE units of energy, we found that without the presence of a specific number of mass-less, energy-less units of Gimel contributing to the total volume and angular momentum of the proton, it would not be stable. Including the units of mass-less Gimel allowed us to calculate the exact mass and volume of the stable hydrogen atom in TRUE units. The addition of units of Gimel in subatomic structure also allowed us to calculate the exact mass and volume of the neutron and explain how and why neutrons are formed in the more complex atoms of the periodic table. The success of this preliminary application of the new calculus was encouraging.

 

We found that every stable atom contains the specific number of TRUE units of Gimel that are needed to make it geometrically symmetric and stable. We were not surprised to find that the elements and compounds that have the most Gimel are the elements that support intelligent forms of life. Happily, the existence of Gimel also explains many, if not all of the paradoxical puzzles and the “weirdness” of quantum physics that physicists like to talk about. With dozens of successful resolutions of the logical paradoxes of particle physics and some predictions verified experimentally, we consider the theory we called the Triadic Dimensional Vortical Paradigm (TDVP) no longer hypothetical, and the original assumption of a logically consistent electron-based quantum equivalence unit has been verified.

 

The presence of volumetric quantum equivalence units (TRUE) of Gimel in atomic structure turns out to be mathematically related to the wave lengths and frequencies of light released by radioactive decay. The exact volume of TRUE units of the orbital electrons and Gimel existing in each energy shell explains the complex electron energy-shell geometry of atom structure. I want to use the rest of this discussion to focus on the knowledge of this intimate relationship of Gimel to consciousness and light at the quantum level because I  believe that a deeper understanding of this relationship can help us to understand how meditation techniques like Kriya can accelerate the growth of mental and spiritual virtue and affect positive results in the physical world that could very well save human civilization from self-destruction and extinction on this planet.

 

The discovery of Gimel and its role as the measurable organizer of subatomic structure, provides us with a new understanding that allows us to focus on ways that we can consciously connect with the infinite continuity of Primary Consciousness while occupying finite physical bodies. Visualizing the geometry of progressive unitary projection into hyperspace provides us with a way to project our individualized consciousness from the finite, quantized world of physical existence into the infinitely continuous domain of Spirit. This is possible only if the most basic phenomena that make up all aspects of reality, including mass, energy, gimel, and consciousness, is light.

 

The images of the reality that we are aware of through our senses, we conceptualize in our minds as objects interacting in space and time according to the logic and intent of Primary Consciousness, and we call our descriptions of the elements of that primary logic that we have been able to discover and formalize in the language of mathematics, the laws of nature. I am forever grateful for the realizations of the Spiritual Masters of all times and for the insights of Einstein, Planck, and Bohr, that led to the discovery of Gimel, the link between mind and matter, between the finite and the infinite, because otherwise, most of us alive on this planet today would only be able to imagine what it might be like to experience the perfection from which the divine light that forms all of reality radiates.

 

As conscious beings, we can never be satisfied with the forms that manifest at the low vibratory energy levels available to us as finite physical beings evolving toward the perfection of the infinite, timeless, all-pervasive expanding form of Primary Consciousness that we so imperfectly reflect. What we see and think of as solid matter and tangible energy in the form of objects and living beings in the dimensions of space and time, are really only incomplete images of perfect forms, vibrating and flickering like faint reflections of the divine light dancing in the multi-dimensional domain of Primary Consciousness.

 

Individual conscious beings in the physical universe are animated and motivated by an innate desire to live, feel, and experience progressively greater dimensional domains of reality. This innate desire for more awareness originates in the spiritual nature of the substrate of reality coming out of Primary Consciousness, and it drives the long-term physical, mental, and spiritual evolution of cosmological reality. Understanding this intellectually is the first, and unfortunately, the easiest step toward conscious positive expansion of individualized consciousness. The concrete visualization of a path from intellectual understanding to spiritual enlightenment is possible in one lifetime for any human being alive on this planet, but the road from imagination to actualization is very difficult. Thinking about enlightenment and actually achieving it are two very different things.

 

Fortunately, help is available from a few historical figures who have achieved ultimate enlightenment and in the teachings of others who have achieved high levels of enlightenment beyond that available to the average person. You will be able to find the enlightened souls, whether they are in physical form or not, when your urgent need to know the true nature of reality becomes greater than your desire for physical pleasure. If you seek them in earnest, and you develop the ability to see the divine light of the spiritual eye, then you will know them by the light that shines within them and by the fruits of their actions.

 

As we descended from the last highest age of mental and spiritual virtue into the dark age that reached the lowest point around 500 A.D., techniques for consciousness expansion were still being taught by a few individuals who reached the ultimate enlightenment as spiritual masters in previous lives. Small groups developed in the presence of these special beings to enjoy the loving fellowship they engendered, but when they were gone, the groups they established soon devolved into social organizations that we now call religions, as their teachings were subverted by political opportunists incapable of understanding the actual meaning and intent of the teachings, into ways and means to control people.

 

Fortunately, the essence of the knowledge and technologies developed during previous ages of enlightenment are stored in stone structures around the world both by technological means and natural processes. Such storage comprises the planet’s memory and preserves information that might have otherwise disappeared along with most of the evidence of the last post-materialist civilizations, destroyed by natural weathering, cataclysmic volcanic eruptions, and platonic subduction. We should also be thankful that practical methods of consciousness expansion like the kriya techniques mentioned here have been preserved by a few advanced souls reincarnated for the specific purpose of helping humanity survive. Thankfully, the knowledge and wisdom needed for spiritual evolution is never completely lost. But, because of the great disparity between the slow progress of cosmic time and the brief endurance of human life, the efforts of individual lives may seem tragically futile unless effective consciousness-expanding spiritual techniques like kriya are known and practiced diligently.

 

Research and application of the mathematical logic of the quantum calculus has proved that the structures of energy and mass that comprise physical reality are stable only because of the existence of Gimel, and total mass as energy and Gimel are conserved in every experiment and observable natural process. Therefore, Gimel and the consciousness its existence implies have always existed and will always continue to exist, even if human beings foolishly destroy themselves during the dark ages of mechanistic materialism.

 

Primary Consciousness is expanding into and back out of the infinity of itself in hyper-dimensional reality, but the individualized bubbles of consciousness that we possess as human beings in the four dimensions of space-time, are capable of expanding and contracting. This is what makes practices like the kriya techniques so useful. To understand how and why an energy focusing technique like kriya can be very practical and effective as a spiritual practice, it is helpful to think of reality, from electrons to atoms, from molecules to living cells, from plants and animals to human beings, and everything else that exists in the universe, as consisting of light.

 

By simply beginning to concentrate on the sensations of your breath flowing in and out of your lung as light, you can gradually increase your awareness of other deeper, more subtle movements of energy in your body that are associated with consciousness, and become aware of the movement of consciousness itself, as light.

 

There are some venerable traditions hidden within the major religions of this world, discounted by modern science as arcane and mysterious at best, that are remnants of the original teachings of fully realized spiritual masters from previous cycles of enlightenment. These venerable spiritual traditions include Sufism in Islam, Tibetan Yoga, Zen Buddhism, Jewish and Christian Mysticism, Sikhism, Jainism, various forms of Raja Yoga in Hinduism, and other cultural traditions now forgotten and/or hidden in the illusions of space-time and matter. All of these traditions contain some form of concentration on the spiritual light of the soul, similar to the kriya techniques. For example, Sufi Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan advises the advanced seeker to “fashion a body of light and become a being of light”.

 

Everything is ultimately made of some form of light, and every conscious entity has a radiant aura of light associated with its existence. Subtle spiritual bodies exist, whether you can see them or not. But, if you see no light within yourself, don’t be discouraged. With some determination and effort, you may be able to tap into the spiritual structures manifested by some of the various traditions mentioned above. Jesus, as a Rabbi teaching his followers how to pray and how to live, is quoted in the Book of Matthew saying, “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” I can attest to the truth of this, having experienced it personally on occasion while focusing on the light of the spiritual eye.

 

Based on experiences with the higher-dimensional phenomena of spiritual light like the one I’ve discussed here, I conclude that physical vision is a dim reflection of spiritual vision, and I believe that “if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” was a metaphor that an enlightened man named Jesus used to direct spiritual seekers to turn their attention to the spiritual reality within. If we consciously withdraw the energy normally wasted on distractions and focus it on the spiritual eye and the light existing within, then we can allow the whole spectrum of the light of Primary Consciousness to fill our minds and bodies, and God’s healing Love will begin to manifest in our lives.

ERC 8/23/2024

LET THERE BE LIGHT

 

© Copyright Edward R. Close, 2022

SEVEN: LIGHT AND MULTI-DIMENSIONAL HOLISTIC REALITY

“Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude.” - Alfred North Whitehead

During my early years as an undergraduate, even though I was majoring in physics with a minor in mathematics, I was also very much interested in symbolic logic, linguistics, philosophy, metaphysics, and parapsychology. As a result, I did some extra-curricular research into the writings of Alfred North Whitehead, and what I found had a profound influence on me. In the previous post, I commented on the theory of types found in Principia Mathematica the best-known work of Whitehead and his most famous student, Bertrand Russell, and identified paradox as the fourth, and in my opinion, the most important type of statement relative to the advancement of our understanding of reality.

Toward the end of my undergraduate years, I found myself rejecting the materialistic views of Russell and gravitating toward Whitehead’s way of thinking about metaphysics. Reading Whitehead’s works: Process and Reality, The concept of Nature, and Science and the Modern World, I realized, among other things, that most people studying science and mathematics are oblivious to what their own metaphysical assumptions are. I realized that a scientist who does not know what the metaphysical assumptions of science are, is like a ship without a rudder, and science with a confused metaphysical foundation is going to be fragmented and bogged down in endless confusion.

I think the failure to see the logical and mathematical indicators of extra dimensions is what led Russell, and most rationalists of the twentieth century into the unfortunate consciousness-stifling dead-end of materialism. It is understandable that this would happen. Materialism is the “low-hanging fruit” of natural science. Recognizing consciousness as a fundamental aspect of reality makes the task of grasping the nature of reality more difficult, but ultimately, much more satisfying. The ways we deceive ourselves are many and subtle, but the most insidious is by separating subject from object, mind from matter, consciousness from reality.

In this post, I want to elaborate on the theme of the previous six posts: The fact that pure mathematics, natural science, and human consciousness are all just different aspects of the same thing; and that is, that, as human beings, we are manifestations of reality seeking to experience itself at the interface between the quantized physical universe and the infinitely continuous substrate of Cosmic Consciousness. As finite conscious beings, we stand on the threshold of infinity. Summarizing the last post: Real paradox is the fourth type of statement, the logical equivalent of the third root of unity, i.e., the imaginary number, and the doorway to consciousness expansion that brings us to the Threshold of the fourth state of consciousness.

Since consciousness expansion is a real experience that cannot be described in the finite words of any language, we have to rely on analogies, which are never perfect. I have used the phenomena of the origination and propagation of light to illustrate this point because it is the best analogy we have. Light is, in a very real sense, the very fabric of reality, expanding, as it does, from the smallest quantum to infinity. It is the most viable and available link between consciousness and physical reality.

An important key to understanding the nature of reality is recognizing the relationship of finite dimensionality to infinity. Applications of the CoDD reveal that everything in existence expands in very different ways into the geometrically consecutive extensions of three, six, and nine dimensions. We have to start our analysis of the expanding universe with three dimensions, not zero, one, or two, because there is no such thing as a singularity, and no such things as scalar and planar objects or entities in quantized reality. Points, lines, and planes do not exist in quantized reality. They are projections of the infinite continuity of mind, the first level of consciousness. All objects of manifest reality are at least 3-D volumetric, so physical reality starts with three dimensions, not zero, one or two. Once this fact is grasped, many things begin to become much clearer.

With the importance of dimensionality in mind, let’s have a look at another historical paradox involving light from distant stars, known as Olbers’ paradox, named after the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers (1758–1840). This paradox arose from the fact that the blackness of empty space conflicted with the assumption of most astronomers at that time that the universe extended to infinity. If the universe were infinite, Olbers reasoned, there would be an infinite number of stars, and any line of sight would end on the surface of a star causing the night sky to blaze with light. But this reasonable conclusion is contradicted by the darkness seen between stars that can be observed every night.

Unlike Niels Bohr, most scientists don’t like paradoxes, and do their best to explain them away within the comfort of their existing belief systems, not realizing that real paradoxes that arise in any finite system of thought cannot be resolved within that system. In this case, and in general, the finite system of thought embraced by most mainstream scientists, is built on the metaphysical foundation of sand known as materialism, or physicalism. If scientists are successful in explaining away a contradiction, then the paradox wasn’t a real paradox as defined in the last post, but just a misunderstanding, or misinterpretation of some part of the established paradigm. Edwin Hubble’s discovery of the linear relationship between red shift and distance expanded our awareness of reality. Here is the standard explanation, accepted by the majority of astronomers and astrophysicists as the resolution of Olbers’ paradox:

“The darkness of the night sky is explained by the expansion of spacetime, which lengthens the [wavelength of] light originating from the Big Bang to microwave levels via a process known as red shift; this microwave radiation background has wavelengths much longer than those of visible light and so appears dark to the naked eye. Other explanations for the paradox have been offered, but none have wide acceptance in cosmology.”

At first glance, this seems like the perfect resolution of Olbers’ paradox. It even appears to fit the pattern of the expansion of reality and consciousness about which I’ve been talking. But there’s a problem. It falls right back into the paradox of the red shift exposed in the last post. It assumes that the red shift is lengthening of wavelength due to a doppler effect, which would violate the physical conservation of energy law, and it fails to include the relativistic shortening of wavelength with motion that would happen in an expanding universe.

I think another analogy might help here. Olber’s paradox and its solution may be analogous to the flat-Earth paradox arising from the fact that we can see in a straight line all the way to the craters of the moon, even when the moon is on the horizon, and yet we cannot see a ship on the ocean a mere fifty miles away. The disappearing ship paradox is resolved quickly by realizing that the surface of the Earth is the curve of a three-dimensional object, not a two dimensional one. Similarly, perhaps, we cannot see stars beyond those about 13.8 billion light years away, not because light waves are stretched by the doppler effect, but because the universe is a multi-dimensional object with more dimensions than our physical senses are able to detect directly.

When we go back to the threshold of infinity, we see that this paradox is in fact caused by the arbitrary separation of matter from mind. To see why, let’s look at the process of observing light from distant stars more closely again. We assume that this light that we are observing is a form of energy originating on the surface of a star near the edge of the visible universe ten or twelve billion years ago, that it has traveled an unbelievably great distance, finally to be captured in our telescope, to be magnified and directed onto a photographic plate, so we can look at the results with eyes that have not existed for even a blink in the age of the universe. What’s wrong with this picture?

To begin with, light is not a particle or wave travelling through space as we have assumed. Light is a local phenomenon. What we are studying, is the local movement of an electric field, whose movement excites a magnetic field, whose movement in turn, excites a local electric field ahead of the magnetic field, etc. This is why light always has the same velocity for every observer. Every observer is measuring the wavelengths and movements of dynamic local phenomenological events in his or her own inertial reference frame. Conclusions about what may or may not have happened billions of years ago are indirect deductions about details of events distant in spacetime, based on assumptions that, as it turns out, are not true.

On the frontier of the four-dimensional reality model of general relativity, Einstein, in the last year of his life, concluded that space and time, separately, or combined dimensionally as spacetime, both measures of extent, have no existence of their own. And John Archibald Wheeler, in my opinion Einstein’s most brilliant student, who designed the delayed-choice experiment, pointed out that actions that we perform in the present, when dealing with light from distant stars, can change what we are able to say about the past. Both of these observations by Einstein and Wheeler are confirmed by applications of the CoDD to the red shift and Olbers’ paradoxes.

Next, we must realize that experimental conditions, specifically in the case at hand, the telescope, the photographic plate, and all of the circumstances of human observation and measurement, are set up by a conscious being seeking to extend our limited physical senses. While the intent is to try to reveal more of the detail of reality that are hidden from us by the reduction valves of our physical senses, the result actually makes our already indirect perception of the phenomenon called light even more indirect. Finally, we must realize that the reductionist approach to the analysis of light assumes that light is a feature of reality that can be considered separate and independent of everything else, when, in fact it is not. Application of the principles of TDVP and the CoDD highlights electromagnetic radiation as the fundamental link between consciousness and the physical universe. We need to rectify the mistake of natural philosophy and science pointed out by Alfred North Whitehead, when he said:

“The misconception which has haunted philosophic literature throughout the centuries is the notion of 'independent existence.' There is no such mode of existence; every entity is to be understood in terms of the way it is interwoven with the rest of the universe.”

 

It is also important at this point to bring in a concept that had a profound impact on Albert Einstein’s development of the theory of relativity. That concept is known as Mach’s Principle. It can be stated as follows:

There must be a general law of relativity that relates the motion of the distant stars to the local inertial reference frame of the conscious observer. In other words, local physical laws are directly related to, and determined by the large-scale structure of the universe. – Ernst Mach

 

The equations of general relativity represent Einstein’s best efforts to formulate the general law that Mach referred to, connecting localized physical laws to the motion of distant stars through “the electrodynamics of moving objects”. I want to show in these posts that Einstein’s focus on the role of light was correct, but that his work was not finished when he passed to the other side. Furthermore, the way to do it is to expand the model of reality from the four-dimensional model of general relativity to a multi-dimensional model of nine finite dimensions.

 

Electromagnetic radiation is, in fact, the unique, most important aspect of the essential substance of reality that links mass, energy, and consciousness. I will have much more to say about this later, but for now, let’s turn back to the analysis of light from distant stars and the interesting paradoxes it presents to the current mainstream scientific paradigm.

The alternating vibration of electric and magnetic fields of starlight is magnified by the telescope and projected on a photographic plate that has a coating of material that changes color when impacted by the energy of the light. Some of the light is also split into different wavelengths by refraction so the individual wavelengths that make up the spectral signature of the star can be identified. Finally, a conscious observer interprets these secondary and tertiary phenomena as evidence of non-local activities that may have happened billions of years ago. But some of the conclusions may be incorrect because of the assumption that something called spacetime exists apart from the object of observation and the observer. As pointed out above, spacetime is not independent of the other elements of the experiment and the way the experiment is set up may affect what we conclude about what may have happened billions of years ago.

As explained in the previous post, assuming that the red shift is a doppler lengthening of light waves violates the law of conservation of energy. Instead, the red shift appears to be caused by the acceleration of the expansion of the physical universe. But what if, similar to the way the illusion of a flat Earth is resolved with the expansion of our awareness to include an additional dimension, the red shift and Olbers’ paradoxes are also resolved by expanding our awareness into dimensional domains beyond the four dimensions of spacetime? In fact, this is exactly what application of CoDD strongly suggests. Before we delve into this, I think it will be helpful to clarify what dimensions are and how they relate to reality in general, and these paradoxes in particular. I like to call this subject dimensionometry, but, because this post is already too long, I am going to pause here and discuss dimensionometry is some detail in the next post.

-         ERC 1/24/2022

 

WHAT IS LIGHT?

WHAT IS LIGHT?

^©Edward R. Close, 2019

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Genesis 1:3

To most people, the word light just means visible light, but physicists have discovered that visible light is just a tiny fraction of an existing spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. Most physics texts define the radiant energy that includes visible light, as “a transverse electromagnetic wave” that moves through the vacuum of interstellar space at the enormous velocity of 186,282 miles per second. That’s more than 670 million miles per hour. But, if light is a form of energy that travels in waves, like the kinetic energy of a rock thrown into a pool of water travels in waves in the water, we must ask: What is it that oscillates in the vacuum of empty space? If that isn’t enough of a puzzle, a little farther along in the physics text, we find out that light can travel at this tremendous speed either as little energy packets called photons, or as waves of electromagnetic energy, as indicated in the definition, depending on how we choose to measure it!

But it gets even worse! In the delayed-choice, double-slit experiment, we learn that light is neither particle (photon) nor wave, until it impacts a receptor, like a photographic plate or a screen. Until then, it is only describable a mathematical expression called the Schrödinger wave equation, which is a probability function. That means that it only gives us a range of probabilities concerning the location of the photon or wave, but reveals nothing about its physical characteristics, such as whether it is wave or particle. That is not revealed until it impacts a receptor. So, we must ask: why? In my opinion, the Close-Neppe discovery of gimmel answers that question. I will explain more later in this post.

Scientists, pretty much like most human beings, fall quite easily into the self-delusional trap of thinking that naming something is the same as knowing what that something is. The definition of light is an excellent example. Look at the definition quoted above again. It sounds very scientific and may convince the reader that the physicist who wrote the book actually knows what light is. Nothing could be further from the truth! Almost everything mainstream science theorizes about light is vague, and even paradoxical like the question of its particle-wave nature, and certainly only scratches the surface of an understanding of what light is. Exactly what is a transverse electromagnetic wave? It’s a self-propagating wave of energy that consists of two forces, electric and magnetic, energetic pulses that manifest in vectors that are at right angles to each other. The electric charge alternates from positive to negative, while the magnetic force alternates from attraction to repulsion, and the whole thing travels like a juggler on a unicycle in a direction which is at right angles to both of the directional electromagnetic forces. The neat little diagrams of electromagnetic waves that we find in physics books tell us about as much about light as a cardboard cutout of a cartoon picture of a man tells us about human beings.

In the Neppe-Close Triadic Dimensional Vortex Paradigm (TDVP), reality consists of dynamic mass, energy, consciousness events occurring in a nine-finite-dimensional domain, embedded in a 10^th dimension which is transfinite, embedded in an infinitely continuous conscious substrate. Gimmel is the link between the 3S-1t (three dimensions of space and one quantum of time) domain that is available to our physical senses and the infinitely continuous conscious substrate. And light is the actual form of the infinitely continuous conscious substrate.

What is light? Nothing less than the physical manifestation of Primary Consciousness. The reason light does not exist as particle or wave in 3S-1t until it impacts a receptor, is because it is the impact on something perceptible to our senses, that causes it to manifest in 3S-1t. This explains the double-slit experiment, the delayed-choice experiment, the EPR paradox, Schrödinger's cat, and quantum entanglement.

ERC November 8, 2019

FOR YOU

ERC 4/17/2018

FOR YOU?

If you are reading this and understand it, it is for you. If it makes no sense to you, it is not for you, ignore it; go on with the busy-ness of being you.

You are: you exist; but, where and what are you? You are not located at some unique point in space or time; if you look, everything is in constant flux, you are here and there, engrossed in space-time. But, eventually, for you, there will be no fragmented continuum, once you know that space and time only exist as imaginary extensions of here and now, created by the conscious thought of separation, the imaginary distinction of your ‘self ‘from the Self of everything else.

You can only exist as yourself if you believe that you are something different from everything else. But when, in fact, you are not different from everything else, then you are one with everything else, and you are the All and the Nothing. Then, space-time is an illusion, and there is only here, there is only now, there is no then and there, they are nothing but imagined pasts and imagined futures; there is, in fact, only Here, there is only Now. But, what is Here and Now, does it consist of matter and energy?

No, science and deep concentration reveal that there is no matter, and there is no energy as such. There are no solid particles spinning in space, and energy is an imaginary multi-dimensional vortex; there is only the Reality of Here and Now in the deep realization of “I Am”. If you think you are your body, you are mistaken, and anyway, your body is a nest of troubles, so get away from it as soon as you can; it is not you. You are in it and beyond it, but it is not you. Be still and know that you are: If you can free yourself from body identification and attachment, then immediately you will know that you are an infinite expanse of ever-expanding light.

The All and the Nothing, the I-AM beyond finite knowing, spoke you into existence before there was space and time, saying: “Let there be Light” and you became light, expanding into infinity, expanding and expanding, riding on waves of light and sound until, NOW, and HERE, beyond the cycles of imaginary space-time, you return into your Self: The All and the Nothing.

If you are reading this and understand it, it is for you. If it makes no sense to you, it is not for you, ignore it; go on with the busy-ness of being you.

MY ANSWER

LET THERE BE LIGHT! LASS ES LICHT WERDEN! ΓΕΝΗΘΉΤΩ ΦΩΣ! !ויהי אור

चलो वहां प्रकाश हो! QUE LA LUMIÈRE SOIT! 讓那裡有光! ¡QUE HAYA LUZ! دعه يكون خفيفا!

ПУСТЬ БУДЕТ СВЕТ! NIECH BĘDZIE ŚWIATŁO! 光があるようにしましょう! BUDIŽ SVETLO!

LAAT DAAR LIG WEES! OLKOON ON VALOA! IŞIK OLSUN! LAAT ER LICHT ZIJN! LUX SIT! ХАЙ БУДЕ СВІТЛО! LÅT DET BLI LJUS! வெளிச்சம் வரட்டும்! LASCIA CHE CI SIA LUCE! LAI TOP GAISMA! BEET LE SÁASILO'! BYDDER GOLEUNI! God said: “Let there be light, and it was light.”

At some point, everyone who draws breath must ask the ultimate question. It comes out in many different forms: What is this all about? What is life? Where did we come from, and where are we going? What is the meaning of existence? What the (bleep)?!! What is the nature of reality? What is the answer? It is this ultimate question that is behind all human efforts to know: science, religion, philosophy…

The answer, however complex it might seem, can be summed up in one sentence:  Understanding of the nature of light is understanding the nature of reality. 

Light is radiant energy. Its first corporeal form is the electron. The electron’s measurable and observable characteristics form the true quantum unit, the Triadic Rotational Unit of Equivalence (TRUE), the basic unit of the Calculus of Dimensional Distinctions (the CoDD), and applying the CoDD to the analysis of subatomic structure, we discover the mass-less, energy-less volumetric equivalence of gimmel, the non-physical agent of consciousness required for the stable existence of life-supporting matter. This means that the physical universe exists solely for the purpose of the expression and experience of spiritual reality.

I have applied the CoDD to the mainstream concepts of the solution to Olber’s paradox, look-back time, the red shift, the big-bang expanding universe, and constant light speed, and found that there is something wrong. If my translation of these concepts into the language of the CoDD was appropriate and accurate, - and the translation of hypotheses is admittedly the most difficult part of the application of the CoDD - then these concepts as they are currently accepted in the mainstream scientific community, are not logically consistent. The CoDD analysis shows that these concepts, taken together, do not form a logically consistent theory.

Astrophysicists tell us that space-time may be either curved or flat. If it is flat, then the universe is infinite, and the red shift is not due to motion, but rather to distance, and without outside influence, or inside organizing activity, the universe would expand to maximum entropy, as the second law of thermodynamics predicts. The Hubble telescope data so far tends to support the hypothesis of an infinite universe, because, contrary to the accepted answer to Olber’s paradox, the farther we look, the more stars we see; and even if, at the end of every line of sight there is a star, we don’t see them simply because they are too far away. If this is the reality and there is no universal organizing factor, then, as Bertrand Russell famously said, all the works of man, however great, will disappear in the great heat death of the universe. But that picture doesn’t include any consideration of the primacy of consciousness.

The only reason space-time might be other than flat, is because of the existence of content as mass and energy. In the aggregate, however, they are uniform, which would give the appearance of uniformity and again a flat universal geometry. But the existence of anything is dependent upon the existence of stars and an observer who can see them. If space-time is curved, and the curvature is uniform, then the expanding universe is an illusion, the multi-dimensional universe can only expand into itself, and everything that has happened, or will happen, is already happening now. Any constant, uniform movement of a consciously observed quantum event in space-time will eventually return to the point of origin, implying a recurring cycle in time. If the curvature is not uniform, then we have the illusion of multiple universes, and an infinite number of them. But this contradicts the definition of universe and leads to logical paradox. In all three cases, space-time, or extent, has no meaning at all without individualized consciousness, and localized consciousness depends on the existence of the conversion of light to electrons, protons and neutrons, atoms and molecules, and the organic life forms that support consciousness which organizes and animates molecules, atoms, etc.

Before you decide whether you want to accept or reject the idea that understanding the nature of light is the answer to the question of existence, let’s look at the simple equation made famous by Albert Einstein: E = mc². Solving this equation for c, the speed of light, it becomes: c = √(E/m), the square root of E divided by m, where E is energy and m is mass. Apply this to the entire universe, and you have the true meaning of the statement “the speed of light is constant” and you’ll find that it doesn’t mean what the average person thinks it does.

At any given point in time, the speed of light radiating through space is constant everywhere in the universe for everyone, regardless of relative motion. (That’s the first assumption of Einstein’s theory of relativity.) But, the equation tells us that the speed of light is defined by the ratio of energy to matter. So, if everything were light with no mass, i.e., mass would be zero in the equation, then the universe would be expanding at an infinite speed (c = √E/0 = ∞). But, as soon as there is a particle, even one photon of light converted to an electron, c becomes finite. In the universe today, the ratio of energy to mass is such that the speed of light in a vacuum is 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second). But, the ratio of energy to mass has not always been what it is now, producing that exact speed, and, in this dynamic universe of ours, it will not be the same in the future. In fact, there is evidence that the speed of light was greater in the past. [See J. Casado (2003). "A Simple Cosmological Model with Decreasing Light Speed".]

The passage of time depends on the speed of light, so, if the velocity of light was different in the past than it is today, and will be different in the future, then the passage of time was faster in the past, when there was less matter and more energy, and will be different in the future than it is today. Think about that for a second. What is measured on our time scale today as a million years, would only have been a few seconds at one point in the very early stages of the universe when there was very little matter. This means that when we look at light from a distant star, we can’t assume that the billions of years measured on today’s time scale, that we take to be the time it took for that light to reach our telescope, is correct. During the first part of the trip, when there was very little matter, and the speed of light was much greater, the light expanded through a lot more space in much less time. This means that the universe is much younger and much larger than we are led to think it is by assuming that light has always traveled at the same speed, and that there was a big bang.

It was recently announced that an astronomical record has been broken: Astronomers have seen a galaxy farther away in space and time than ever before. They tell us that the light reaching us from this record-breaking light source, called z8_GND_5296, left it 13.1 billion years ago, and that the picture we see of it now comes from just 700 million years after the big bang! That is obviously a conclusion based on the assumption that the speed of expanding light energy has always been what it is today. What if that assumption is wrong, as my CoDD analysis indicates?

If, as current astronomical theory has it, the universe is about 13.8 billion years old, the most distant galaxy is flying away from us at near light speed, and if the speed of light has been constant over all time since the big bang, then we have a paradox: By the time light has reached us from a source13.1 light years away, that source will have sped another 13 billion light years away, and the universe will be at least 26.8 billion years old, not 13.8! The only way this paradox can be resolved, is for the speed of light to have been much greater in the past. This conundrum was partially resolved by Astronomer Alan Guth in 1979 by what is known as “inflation theory”, proposing that the early universe underwent a period of very rapid expansion.

In 1983 Guth, published a paper describing how his supercooled-universe scenario was not ideal, as the "triggering mechanism" to exit the state of rapid expansion would require "extreme fine tuning of parameters" and he believed that a more natural solution is required. (GUTH, ALAN H. "The New Inflationary Universe". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 422 (1 Eleventh Text): 1–14). The more natural solution, in my opinion, is the natural slowing of light speed predicted by my CoDD analysis. However, the quantized nature of mass and energy does suggest a non-linear, discrete multi-phase process, not a continuous one. More analysis is needed.

Application of the CoDD reveals that reality is a dynamic balance of mass, energy and consciousness (as gimmel), all of which co-exist in the universe as the three finite forms of light (photons, electrons and gimmel), congealed by the distinctive action of a primary form of awareness, which metaphorically said: “Let there be light” and light transitioned from the multi-dimensional realm of Primary Consciousness, from conceptual to existential, guided by the dimensionometry of gimmel in space-time, into the physical universe. Applications of the CoDD and dimensional extrapolation also reveal that time, like space, is three-dimensional, and that in three-dimensional time, there are no absolute beginnings or ends, only change.

In the CoDD analysis, the law of conservation of mass and energy is naturally extended to all of the substance of reality, namely mass, energy and consciousness, which are conserved in all processes. This means that the concept of nothingness is an illusion; there never has been nothing, and never will be nothing. Primary Consciousness is the substance of reality and cannot be destroyed. Its first manifestation in the physical universe is light, a vibratory form of energy that becomes gimmel, mass and physical force as it weaves the structure of the reality we experience as part of the structure, without ever losing our true nature as parts, like tiny sparks of Primary Consciousness, evolving toward reunion with the source. Light becomes electrons, electrons become quarks, quarks combine under the guidance of gimmel to become protons, neutrons, and everything else.

I believe there will always be light and shadow, energy and mass, mind and consciousness, in never-ending cycles of creation, sustained physical existence, and destruction, as a flow of consciousness from Primary Consciousness to the physical universe and back again. The purpose of existence of the physical universe is to provide a finite stage for Primary Consciousness to experience reality through drawing the distinctions of individualized sparks of awareness, - that’s us, and our purpose is to expand our awareness until we become “Gleichwertig”, the same as Primary Consciousness. And I find it encouraging and comforting that within the framework of understanding the nature of light, using our God-given minds and the primary logic of the CoDD, all meaningful questions are answerable. 

ERC, December 30, 2017