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ONE: THE THRESHOLD
Disclaimer
It is my intention to take complete responsibility for every single word I write. No other person, group, or organization should be held in any way responsible for what I have to say. The words that follow are not idle musings or random thoughts. They are words meant to convey important ideas that I believe come from a Source completely beyond my ability to adequately describe. Any misinterpretation, mistake, or distortion of the truth in these words is my responsibility and mine alone. I also believe that I do not need any recommendation, validation, or support of any person, organization, or institution to say what I have to say. I am aware that some of the ideas I describe challenge widely held beliefs, and that some of the events I describe may sound incredulous to some readers; but I am presenting them as honestly and factually as I can. Of course, the reader can draw his or her own conclusions concerning what I have to say. All I can do is pledge to be honest and tell the truth as I see it.
It is my position that the truth is simple, that it will always be available to those of pure uncorrupted mind, and that truth is always fully capable of standing on its own. Scientific data, logical reasoning, mathematical proofs, and arguments supporting the view of reality presented here are available. They have been published and presented elsewhere, and thus there is no need to clutter and unnecessarily lengthen this presentation with them. I will also not clutter this presentation by listing credentials, degrees, awards, etc. That information is also readily available elsewhere. A list of references has been provided at the end of my blogpost of October 24, 2021. In accordance with this acceptance of personal responsibility, I will be happy to receive the fruits of my actions, whatever they may be, good or bad, blame or praise, censure, or acclaim. Ultimately, what anyone may think of the ideas I present, should have no effect on the truth about the nature of reality.
ON THE EDGE OF INFINITY - AGAIN
I found myself in a brightly lighted room, with an intense sense of de-je vu. The white marble floor, shelves filled with books lining the walls, and the feeling of anticipation, it was all very familiar. I took a deep breath of the cool, sparkling fresh air, and I remembered. I had been here before. This was the Threshold, a place of transition. I turned and looked toward the end of the room behind me. Sure enough, it was open, and below, I knew, was the world I had lived in most of the time for the last 85 years. I had had fleeting dream-like memories of this place before, usually while in deep meditation. My first memory of this place was when I came here to meet with spiritual advisors prior to entering this human life on Planet Earth on October 7, 1936.
I turned back around because I felt sure that my spiritual advisors were there. I heard the words: “It’s time!” With a thrilling surge of excitement, I thought: “Oh! My life is over. I’m going Home!”
“No,” I heard a deep, gentle voice say, “Not yet. It’s time for you to put it all together.” A volume from a nearby shelf was open on the table in front of me. I saw the title page. It read: On the Edge of Infinity … The author was me! As I leafed through it, I saw chapters, paragraphs, and sentences that looked very familiar.
But, if I am supposed to author this book, how can it already be here? The answer came before the question was even fully formed in my mind:
“This is the Threshold. A place where the past, present, and future are all present. You are on the Edge of Infinity.”
I reached out and felt the cover of the book. It was a rich brown leather emblazoned with gold letters. I picked it up. It was heavy; it was real. I looked up. I pictured one of my spiritual guides, the one who had protected me so many times, and this moment seemed to merge with the moment I had experienced here about 85 years ago. I seemed to be reliving that moment when I was here before. Time travel? I thought. “Time is an illusion,” came the answer, “created by the drawing of distinctions for the purpose of individual soul evolution.”
“Oh, dear God, no!” I thought. “Do I have to go through all that again? Being born, puberty, the challenges of surviving, being struck by lightning, living through earthquakes and tornadoes, chased through the Hejazi Dessert by Bedouins who wanted to behead me, flying half-way around the world on a plane with a bomb that could explode at any minute, several near-death experiences, and watching others die, losing everyone I ever loved?” More than a dozen times during this life, I have narrowly escaped violent death. But many times, I knew that my spirit guides had protected and/or saved me; why, I didn’t know. Was I going to have to do it all over again?
“In a sense, yes, you have to keep doing it over, until you get it right! That is the situation for every soul on this planet! But, no, that is not the purpose of this revisiting of the past. It is simply to give you an overview of the timeline of several lives, so that you may see the purpose of those lives, and to remind you of the goal.”
Suddenly, with a sensation of expanding vision, I could “see” several life stories, strung out across many centuries, linked together by several common strands, like a braided rope, spun around the central spirals of DNA molecules. From where I was, they appeared to stretch away forever into both the infinite past and into the infinite future. It was kind of like standing between two parallel mirrors, but when my attention was directed to a specific life, the image expanded into minute detail and clarity. I could see details of lives in a city on the large island Plato called the continent of Atlas or Atlantis, lives in the Himalayas, India, Ancient Egypt, Thule, the Holy Land, Alexandria Egypt, France, Scandinavia, Germany, and the United States of America.
“Why can’t I remember these details of past lives during my present life, in the same way I can still recall the memories of my childhood?” It seemed to me that that would be very helpful!
“Yes.” Came the answer. “But, for an individual conscious soul in a physical body, the brain is a finite physical thing with a finite number of brain cells. In most cases, that number is insufficient to contain all of the detailed memories of even one life, never mind two, or several. It is only when you are outside the confines of a physical body that you can have access to the field of memories existing in the infinity of Primary Consciousness.”
The lives I envisioned stretched over a period of about 6,000 years, but I understood from the writings of one of my spiritual guides, that 24,000 years was the length of the time cycle from the highest point in mental and spiritual virtue of conscious beings on this planet, to the lowest point, and back again. In my present life, the world was just starting on the upward half of the cycle, just over 1500 years into the 12,000 years of increasing mental and spiritual virtue. As I looked backward and forward at the waxing and waning of intelligence, wisdom, and spirituality, I asked: “Are we doomed to go around in this circle, over and over again, forever?”
“No. Think of it as if it were a school for souls. The school may continue for thousands of cycles, or even forever, but the souls living through each 24,000-year cycle are just one class of students. Each soul in the class has the opportunity to progress from a sort of kindergarten of awareness, to something far beyond a PhD in general knowledge, wisdom, and compassion. Those who graduate from each class may move on, but for each soul, the optimum path is not a circle, but an upward spiral, moving from a state of bare awareness at the beginning, to Cosmic Consciousness at the end, - if all the challenges are met and all the lessons are learned.”
Seeing the enormity of all of this, I felt a little dizzy, like I was going to be sick of my stomach. It reminded me of the extreme vertigo I had when going out of my body and back in again several times in the Great Pyramid on the Giza Plateau in 2010. My physical body was calling me back to my life in Earth’s spacetime. I focused on the mental image of one of my spiritual guides.
”I have so many questions!” I protested, as I tried to center myself, to stop the dizziness and gather my wits so I could get some answers to a few more questions. “The fact that it takes so many lives to learn all the ‘lessons’ is completely overwhelming, and not remembering past lives makes it so difficult and depressing for the average person! Is there any way to alleviate this suffering and give people some hope right now? And what was meant by ‘It is time to put it all together’?”
“First of all, know that it is possible for people now alive to ‘graduate’ in one lifetime, but it is very difficult because of the current low level of average spiritual virtue. Everyone alive at this time has to contend with the low level of understanding among incarnate souls in general, and the perversion of human nature that leads to the corruption of the governments of all nations and the resulting crimes against humanity in the name of a supposed greater good. That is why it has been said that only one in thousands will seek, and of a thousand who seek, rarely even one, will find! But there is hope: To achieve the goal in this lifetime, Love is the key, but the world of human civilization is being pulled in the wrong direction right now. It is the dark side of human consciousness working against the progress toward freedom and integrity. That is why the scientific discovery and proof of the existence of the non-physical part of reality is so important right now. That is the central aspect of the Truth that you agreed to be part of in this life. – Yes. it is time to put it all together.”
I understood that this was a reference to the discovery of gimmel, the non-physical third essence of reality. My attention was directed back to the series of connected lives that I am associated with, to the central concept that links all of the lives together. It is the connection between the spiritual and the physical. It is the connection between the wisdom of the distant past and the science of the distant future. It is putting consciousness into the equations of relativity and quantum physics. It is the meeting of the finite and the infinite. It is the edge of Infinity and the edge of Eternity. But hundreds of papers and six books with the proofs in them, have already been published, three on my own, and three with other credible scientists, and yet, very few mainstream scientists seem to have taken any notice.
“That was to be expected. The world of human civilization is being pushed and pulled in the wrong direction right now, especially by governments, mainstream science, and organized religion. The Infinite Source of everything is being denied and derided by many prominent people in all three types of organizational establishments. Governments based on dialectic materialism, materialistic scientism, and most organized churches are replacing true religion, demanding the virtual worship of false idols like egoist fame, money and material possessions. If the human race is to survive, it must eschew the false doctrines of those who seek to replace God and rule the world.”
I saw several potential future timelines, resembling many of the futuristic science fiction movies we’ve seen recently, all ending in disaster. Only one, populated by human beings filled with honesty, integrity, peace, and love, continues on toward the real goal.
Dr. Vernon Neppe and I have published the proof, and spiritual scientists and other spiritually minded souls may realize the importance of that proof in the future. But for now, the majority of the inhabitants of the Earth are not mathematicians or scientists, and many are being forced to seek the Truth for the first time in their lives by the current crisis. “It is those Truth Seekers for whom you need to put it all together. And yes, it is time!”
But I shrank back in doubt. “I don’t feel very confident that I can do this! What if I fail?”
The response came: “Your lack of temerity is understandable. And there is no guarantee. But remember this: If there is no challenge, there is no victory. Also, when overwhelmed by circumstances, remember that you are always on the edge of Infinity, with access to an abundance of resources.”
Before I could ask another question, I was awake, back in my bed in my home on the edge of the Ozarks Wilderness. It was 7:00 AM, December 5, 2021.
As I went about my morning routine, I thought about what I had just experienced. Was it real? Or was it just a dream brought on by the world-wide Covid hysteria and things that I had been thinking about? I had had recurring dreams before, in which I recognized a place or situation that I had dreamed about more than once. But this was different. It was a recurrence of a memory that I had recalled in meditation. I had been thinking about the idea of a threshold between states of consciousness before that night. In fact, I had posted a discussion about the threshold between waking and sleeping, dreaming and the fourth state of consciousness, a state that Yogis call turiya, on my Transcendental Physics blogsite just two days before. Here are excerpts from it:
“Have you ever found yourself in that curious state of consciousness existing somewhere between sleeping and waking, when you suddenly realize that you have the one and only key to the mystery of life; you have found the answer that makes perfect sense and makes everything fit together … only to have it fade away as you awaken again to the less-than-perfect world that you know as your life? If so, then perhaps you have, from the third state of consciousness, the dream state, between waking and sleeping, glimpsed the miraculous fourth state of consciousness that the Yogis call Turiya, or Pure Consciousness.
“When coming back from a deep sleep, there is a moment when you are neither here nor there, not yet awake, but not asleep either. You are lingering on the threshold. Being on a threshold is like being in a doorway. It could be between two rooms, or between inside and outside. But being on the threshold between sleeping and waking is being between worlds. you are actually between states of consciousness. A threshold could be an entrance or an exit, depending on which way you are going. But if you stop on this threshold, and look around, you find yourself not just between two worlds, but four worlds! You are at the crossroads between four states of consciousness: waking, sleeping, dreaming, and Turiya, or Pure Consciousness. This is an extremely interesting and fortuitous place to be!”
THE MISSION GOING FORWARD
OK, let’s suppose that I was actually called to that particular threshold by my spiritual guides. Who exactly, are they, and what were they trying to tell me?
From the day of my initiation in 1960 into the practice of the Kriya form of Raja Yoga taught by Paramahansa Yogananda, virtually every day I begin my meditations by calling on the line of the Spiritual Masters. I seek to invoke their presence and blessings by calling their names: “Lord Jesus Christ, Bhagavan Krishna, Mahavatar Babaji, Lihiri Mayasaya, Swami Sri Yukteswar, Paramahansa Yogananda, Friend, Beloved God!” and I have felt their response, protection, and guidance many times.
But what is meant by “put it all together”? Isn’t that what Dr. Neppe and I have done? I provided the mathematical proofs and physical interpretations, and Dr. Neppe adroitly added the metaphysical, philosophical, and neurological science, and together, we created the Triadic Dimensional Vortical Paradigm (TDVP). He coined the neologism “Biopsychophysics” to describe the new discipline of TDVP. But it is even more multidisciplinary than that. To fully understand TDVP, some knowledge of pure mathematics, symbolic logic, modular arithmetic, set theory, G. Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form, analytical geometry, topology, quantum physics, relativity, physical chemistry, organic chemistry, biology, psychology, physiology, neurology, philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, and ontology, is required.
A day later I woke knowing that I had the answer. My own words came back to me: “Dr. Vernon Neppe and I have published the proof, and real scientists and other spiritually minded souls will realize the importance of that proof in the future. But for now, the majority of the inhabitants of this Earth are not mathematicians or scientists, and many are being forced to seek the Truth for the first time in their lives by the current crisis. It is those Truth Seekers for whom I need to put it all together.”
We already have put it together for scientists and mathematicians, if any of them care to follow the logic and detailed proofs and verifications with mainstream experimental data, but due to the multidisciplinary nature of the TDVP model, and the narrow academic specialization of training in today’s universities, polymaths are rare, and few have the time or desire to actually study TDVP, especially if they are deluded by the big lie of materialistic scientism. I thought when we were able to resolve upwards of fifty paradoxes and puzzles that the Standard Model of mainstream science cannot explain, with relatively simple applications of the mathematics and principles of TDVP, that scientists would sit up and take notice, but only half a dozen relatively unknown maverick scientists did. Most ignored us.
Three or four members of the mainstream scientific community who did take a cursory look at TDVP, mainly because of Dr. Neppe’s standing as a World-Class MD and psychiatrist, quickly went on the defensive and even labeled TDVP as “pseudo-science” because it addressed issues outside the self-imposed limits of materialistic scientism and challenged their basic axiomatic assumptions about the nature of reality. If hundreds of peer-reviewed papers tied together in Reality Begins with Consciousness, hardly elicits any comment from mainstream scientists, we may have to concede that Max Planck was right when he said “Science advances from funeral to funeral. … A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
I get it. I understand why mainstream scientists are loath to spend hours, days, and months, trying to understand a new mathematical system of logic that puts consciousness into the equations of science, especially if it challenges some long-held basic beliefs, and perhaps might even overthrow the paradigm on which they have spent their entire career as scientists. The reader will also appreciate I think, that understanding this does not alleviate the disappointment that Dr. Neppe and I share. We had spent many years separately, in individual efforts building our own consciousness-based models of reality before we started to work together, and now we have spent literally thousands and thousands of hours working together for more than a decade, with little or no return. To say that it is depressing, is an understatement. But we really shouldn’t complain because we freely chose to do it. We did it because we felt strongly that it was the right thing to do.
My strongest supporter for more than forty years, my loving wife and partner Jacqui, especially just before she died, urged me to do what my spiritual mentors and guides are wanting me to do now: “put it all together for the average human being.” The truth is simple, and the average human being can understand it. Advanced degrees in science and mathematics are not necessary. In fact, advanced degrees may actually be a disadvantage for the reasons mentioned above. After Jacqui passed away three years ago, she still actively continued to help me from “the other side” to get to the point where I might be able to “put it all together for the average person”. I have a manuscript that explains how I know this is true, with a European publisher now. It details a triple-blind scientific experiment proving that Jacqui survived physical death. But for now, I intend to post this first installment of my explanation of reality beyond the physical for anyone who is interested and add to it as often I can.
ERC – Christmas Eve, 2021
TWO: THE EDGE OF INFINITY
While in that Threshold state between sleeping, dreaming, and waking, in that white marble hall lined with shelves of books, I was aware that one end of the hall was open and that it was though that opening that I could descend to Earth as a conscious body of light, either to be borne by entering into a new developing fetus, or, if physical death had not occurred, to re-enter my existing physical body. Once a soul remembers these transitions of consciousness, whether they are occasioned by traumatic experience, known as a near-death experience (NDE), or with the help of a spiritual guide, or by learning to leave the physical body intentionally by focused consciousness expansion, that soul no longer has any fear of death.
I have experienced several NDEs and non-traumatic out-of-body (OBE) expansions of consciousness throughout my life, but I never thought of them as unusual, especially as a child. They occurred so naturally that I assumed that they happened to everyone. I learned quickly however, to avoid talking about these experiences with my friends, and especially with adults. Fortunately, I could discuss them with my parents because they had had similar experiences themselves. My mother remembered a past life when she was a young girl in a war-torn country with marching soldiers and horse-drawn cannons rolling by her home. And after an older sister, who had cared for her as a baby died in a tragic fire, the sister appeared to her while she was wide awake to tell her that she was still watching over her.
When I first told my father about one of these experiences, he assured me that it was nothing to worry about. He said he had similar experiences as a child. “You are a growing boy,” he said, “and you will outgrow them.” His re-assuring words kept me from being concerned, but I never did “out-grow them”. I learned later that he didn’t either. He was visited by a Being of Light in 1949, who advised him to move our family from the valley of my birth to Phoenix Arizona, after a tornado nearly destroyed our home. Because of these experiences, and because my parents did not deny or ridicule my statements about them, I have been able to recognize and accept my place as an evolving soul temporarily inhabiting a physical body.
As a spiritually evolving soul begins to remember the Threshold and the transitions that are possible between states of consciousness, the way he or she reacts to physical danger changes. Here is an example:
One day in1986, as Resident Hydrogeologist and Director of Business Development of American-Arabian Technology (AMARTECH) I was on a Saudia Airlines flight from Jeddah to Riyadh. As we sat on the runway waiting our turn to take off, I listened to the sonorous reading of the Traveler’s Prayer, reverberating through the plane in the deep devotional tones of an Imam. I listened intently because I was trying to learn Arabic and I wanted to know more about Islam.
“lla ihlmh ila allmha waḥdahs lba sh ryka lh llhn almlk …”
In a few minutes we took off, and as we banked and turned away from the Red Sea to climb above the Hejazi Mountains toward Riyadh, I settled into my seat in the First-Class section. I was thinking about the meeting I would be attending in Riyadh when the pilot straightened the Boeing 747 out onto the heading for the Capitol City and poured on the jet fuel to accelerate and climb to cruising altitude. But, almost immediately, the plane began to shudder violently. The pilot eased off, and after about ten or fifteen seconds, he attempted to accelerate again. Again, the plane began to shudder, and again, he backed off. During a third try, the plane shuddered so violently that everything that was loose rattled. He eased off again, but this time, the plane banked so sharply to the left that I found myself looking straight down at the tip of the wing pointed directly at the ground and the black jagged rocky peaks of the Hejazi Mountains, all too near, just below us.
The face of the Palestinian engineer who sat beside me next to the window was unnaturally white, fear was shining in his eyes, and he gripped the armrest between us with a vise-like grip. Above the roar of the engines, I heard him say: “Do you think we will go back to Jeddah?”
“I certainly hope so!” I replied. “I don’t see any place to land down there!”
I didn’t panic, because I had been at death’s door many times before, suspended for an instant between life and death. On this threshold, there are only two major outcomes: Either your physical life continues, or it doesn’t. If it continues, then beyond the value of avoiding injury and pain, there really isn’t anything to worry about. If it doesn’t, then things of the Earth are no longer of concern for you, so there really is no need to worry. Why not just relax and see what happens? The body is programmed to avoid pain and destruction, if possible, but at some deep level of human consciousness we all know, or at least suspect, that consciousness continues after the death of the physical body, otherwise why would we fear death? if your consciousness simply ceases to exist when the physical body stops functioning, as materialists imagine, you won’t know anything about it. When death seems to be imminent, it is best to relax completely, because tensing will only increase the likelihood of pre-death injury and pain. So, I just relaxed, sat back, and watched other people panic. Somewhere behind me, someone was throwing up, and many were mumbling the ninety-nine names of God and frantically fingering their Maas’ Baha (prayer beads).
I didn’t learn to relax in such threshold moments in this lifetime. I brought that knowledge with me. After you have died a few thousand times and begin to remember some of your deaths and births, you realize that for you, the between-lives state becomes a welcome respite, like a rest stop on your spiritual journey, an opportunity to gather your wits, re-group with family, friends, and spiritual mentors who happen to have gone on before and remember your purpose and goal. As memory begins to spill over from previous lives, the new body and mind may even have physical marks that correlate with memories of past lives. It is not unusual to find birthmarks and other physical marks on the body corresponding with injuries that caused death in previous lives. These physical marks usually fade and disappear when the lesson that brought the trauma about is learned. As the soul gains more knowledge and wisdom, expanding its consciousness to include awareness of the state between life and death, eventually it becomes fully aware that it is always on the edge of Infinity.
What does it mean to be on the edge of Infinity? It means to be alive! Consider the seashore. The endless rhythm of the waves is like the beating of your heart. Away from the shore, across the coastal plain, or out on the open ocean, the scene becomes monotonous, but the beach is where two dissimilar worlds meet. Stand on the edge of a mountain cliff, the edge of an escarpment, and admire the view. That is possible only because you are on the crest of a wave of much large amplitude and longer frequency than an ocean wave, but it is a wave, nonetheless. Spirit is infinitely continuous, while the quantum, and therefore the physical universe, is finite and discrete. Patterns of periodicity arise from the interface of the continuous and the discrete. That is what this message is all about. As sentient beings, we are on the edge of Infinity.
Watch the seasons come and go, while the sun drives it all with abundant radiant energy. Wave upon wave, reality breaths in and out in cycles like waves breaking upon the surface of Eternity, and consciousness exists at the interface of the quantum world and the spiritual world, between lonely separation and loving oneness, between life and death. When you are truly fully conscious and aware, you will know that you are on the edge of Infinity.
ERC - 12/26/2021
THREE: EXPANDED VIEWS OF REALITY
My mother was not yet twenty years old when I was born, and like any mother and child, we lived through several crises together before I was even one year old. A particularly traumatic situation occurred one day, when my mother was preparing a meal in my grandfather Close’s house. She was holding me in the crook of her left arm while moving food from the stove to the kitchen table with her right hand. Being held at a level where I could reach the table as my mother turned from the table to go back to the stove, I grabbed a bite of food, popped it into my mouth, and promptly choked on it. I was only about three months old, and the food was a piece of a tuna patty. It smelled so good to me that I literally tried to inhale it, and it completely blocked my air intake.
I remember a ladle clattering on the floor as my mother turned her full attention to me, shaking me and sticking her fingers into my mouth trying to see what was causing me to gasp for breath. When my mother’s frantic attempts to dislodge the food in my throat failed and I started turning blue, she panicked, ran out the back door, clasping me to her breast, heading for the service station next door, where my father was working. The bouncing up and down as she ran dislodged the bit of food. I spit it out, screaming in pain, and before she reached the service station, I was crying, but breathing normally again. I mention this incident in this context because it was probably my first NDE in this life, and during that brief period of time that I was forced out of the body, I saw things from an expanded consciousness point of view.
Because I was out of my body, I remember this incident vividly even though most people, including my mom, dismissed my claim of remembering it, thinking that I probably just remembered her talking about it and about how much it frightened her, some years later. I know it is a real memory however, because I have other memories from events both before and after that, with visual images of my surroundings. One of those events occurred a few months later, when we moved into my parents’ first home of their own. When, as a teenager, I mentioned that I remembered the move, my mother said: “You can’t remember that Eddie. You were only a few months old!” When I proceeded to describe details of my visual memory of things that happened, and things that were only there on that particular day, my mom had to admit that I really did remember it. I experienced several less traumatic out-of-body events after that, but, as a child, I didn’t have reason to think that they were unusual, at least not at first.
Pilot Knob Missouri, the town of my birth, was a mining town. In the hills around the valley, there were veins of iron, silver, and other rare metals along geologic contact zones, capped by quartz crystals, that the miners called “ore blossom”. It was this rare crystalline structure of the San Francois Mountains that drew me to my birth like a magnetic bullseye. It was a bullseye made of pre-Cambrian basaltic and granitic intrusions, surrounded by rings of rhyolites, dolomites, and Ordovician-age limestones. I can still remember descending from the open end of the marble hall Threshold, through a starry night toward that geologic bullseye sometime in the Earth-year 1936.
In the summer of 1946, I was nine years old. One afternoon, I was swimming in a small branch of spring water called Kuhn’s Creek about a quarter mile from where I was born. The water in the creek, coming from a number of small springs, one of which was located on my maternal grandparents’ farm, was highly mineralized, containing dissolved elements and compounds from the contact zones between the igneous intrusive rhyolites and metamorphic dolomites, marble, and limestone. I had walked across the field alone that afternoon to fish in the creek, as I often did, but in the heat of the afternoon, I had decided to cool off by wading into the cool spring water.
A sudden summer thunderstorm came over the mountains and before I could get out of the water, there was a lightning strike on the creek, just upstream of the swimming hole where I was standing up to my neck in the water. I saw the lightning strike, heard the thunderclap, and felt the electricity surge through the water, and through my body. Surprisingly, I felt no pain. Instead, I felt my consciousness expanding. I became momentarily aware of the fish in the water, a snake in a hole in the bank nearby, and the roots of the grass and trees reaching into the soil on the creek bank. When the expanded vision faded, I climbed out of the water, retrieved the stringer of fish I had caught before the storm, got dressed, and went home.
In the Fall of 1947, I was eleven years old. Sitting in a classroom during a study period, I had a significant spontaneous expanded consciousness experience. I was looking straight ahead at the big clock on the wall at the front of the room and the teacher standing behind her desk between me and the clock. Suddenly, as I breathed in, the clock, wall, and the teacher’s face expanded like balloons to the point where they filled my entire field of vision. I could see into the pores of the skin on the teacher’s face, and the second hand of the clock slowed and until it stopped moving.
Then, as the air started to flow out of my lungs, the Clock, the wall, and the teacher began to recede, slowly at first, but they continued to shrink faster and faster, until they were mere dots in the distance, and the hands of the clock moved rapidly into the future. Sounds in the room also expanded and receded in sync with the visual changes. The clicking of the second hand on the clock, for example, went from its normal volume and frequency, to slow, booming sledge-hammer-like reverberations as I breathed in, came to a complete stop, and then reversed the process as I breathed out, all the way to a rapid, faint tinkling sound, as the clock shrank, approaching a single point in the distance, when my breath was completely expelled.
This experience seemed to last only a few seconds, and I could have dismissed it as meaningless “day-dreaming”, except for the fact that it happened more than once. And at night when I was going to sleep, I experienced the same thing - a basic expansion of consciousness - in a slightly different way. With my eyes closed, I became aware that my other senses were being slowly enhanced to the point where I could feel and hear even the tiniest movements and sounds, anywhere in the house. I could hear my father’s pocket watch, an heirloom that had been handed down to him from my grandfather, ticking three rooms away. When I moved, even a little bit, the rustling of the bedsheets sounded like an avalanche.
As a natural reflex, I turned my attention inward to escape the horrendous sounds that made it impossible to sleep, and I began to hear music that seemed to be pre-existing, behind the other, outer sounds. By focusing, I could hear the individual instruments contributing to complex melodies and subtle counterpoint harmonies within beautiful symphonies! And sometimes there were marches, or sometimes soaring spiritually elevating melodies. Because these experiences were disruptive, I mentioned them to my dad, and he told me that they were like hiccups, evidence that I was growing, - nothing to worry about. It wasn’t until much later in life that I realized that these experiences were related to, and a natural part of being on the Threshold, the edge of Infinity.
After my earliest memories of the Threshold, described above, I have experienced this kind of consciousness-expansion many times during this lifetime. My life has been punctuated with numerous experiences of spontaneous expansions of consciousness from birth until the present day. I have described a few of these experiences before, but for context in this discussion, I will continue to share my memories of some of them here.
ERC - 12/28/2021
FOUR: WHERE THERE IS A WILL, THERE IS A WAY
Every life is made up of a series of events experienced by the individualized consciousness of a soul through one particular unique dynamic aggregate of atoms, cells, and organs, with which the soul has temporarily identified. That organic aggregate, with a finite number of brain cells, is the physical vehicle for that soul for the duration of that lifetime. The nature of the events that a soul experiences in a lifetime through a physical body in this way is determined by the cause-and-effect content of the soul’s past lives and the choices made in those lives and between lives. Events that are normal for one soul, may seem extraordinary and bizarre to another soul because we are all at different points in our spiritual journey from bare, minimal awareness to Cosmic Consciousness.
As human beings, we all have access to the Threshold described in these posts, and the four states of consciousness: waking, sleeping, dreaming and Turiya, or Pure Consciousness. The purpose of these posts is to offer a new explanation of life, conscious experience, and mental, physical, and spiritual virtue, that is consistent with the scientific method. The conclusion that you are an immortal soul and that there is meaning and purpose behind all things is not new, it is consistent with the core teachings of the Spiritual Masters of all ages, all advanced civilizations, and all real science. The key to understanding reality has always been, and will always be, available to you in the depths of your own consciousness. What is new, is that now there is absolute proof that anyone can understand, that the non-physical domain of reality is more real than the physical. As a living soul, you can evaluate this conclusion in the laboratory of your own consciousness, the nexus of your body, mind, and spirit, which is also the Sacred Temple of your soul.
The key is complete internal and external honesty, integrity, and love of self and others. At the low point of human virtue on this planet, in 499 AD, the average individual alive on the Earth was unable to comprehend much beyond the basic physical realities related to survival. Only the most advanced souls, reincarnating from the apex of the last high point of virtue in 11,501 BC, were aware of Truth. A number of advanced souls reincarnated between 500 BC and 500 AD to help us through those dark times. Outstanding among them were Jesus of Nazareth and Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, but there were many others, who played lesser roles in preserving the basic truths until the mean mental and spiritual virtue of humanity advanced to the point that Homo sapiens might survive. I will identify some of them in the posts to come.
As I have indicated in previous posts, I don’t believe that you have to have a PhD in mathematics, physics, or any other specialized discipline to grasp the importance of the discovery of gimmel, the measurable non-physical part of reality, at this time. Why is it important? Because belief and faith were absolutely necessary in the times of descending virtue and the first ascending age, known as the descending and ascending Kali Yugas (701 BC to 1699 AD) by the ancient Indian Rishis and they are still essential for the majority of human beings now, but knowing is always better than belief or faith in the words of others, when proof is available. It is for this reason that I want to make the proof of the existence of non-physical reality as available to as many as I can.
There are two kinds of proof: The first happens when one has the direct, immediate experience of truth. The second is in gaining indirect knowledge of truth through mathematical or logical proof. The first is superior to the second, but direct experience of truth is only available to the majority of humanity at this time of still low spiritual virtue, by what is known as the Grace of God, which can be attracted by cultivating pure love and devotion. In the natural process of planetary time where we are now, about 362 years into the 2400 years of the second ascending age, the Dwapara Yuga, the increase in mental virtue is such that more people are capable of understanding the proof through reasoning than through the direct experienced of pure love.
I have been trying to reach people through both avenues: devotional and intellectual, but because of my background in science and mathematics, I have tried to make the mathematical logic proof available to scientists first. TDVP, developed in intellectual partnership with Prof. Vernon Neppe, MD, PhD, is the culmination of this effort. This new series of posts is an effort to find a better, more workable mix of the two avenues, intellectual and devotional. I will continue to try to express the logic-based proof of the existence of gimmel in terms that the average person can follow, while pointing to the doorway to spiritual advancement available in the consciousness of every sentient human being. My sincere hope, dear reader, is that I might be able to help you to find it.
Organized religiosity, intellectualism, and scientism are subtle traps. They are like shiny objects that lure truth seekers off the narrow path that leads to the real goal. The real goal of life and all forms of existence is the ultimate enlightenment of conscious beings, an ultimate state of being that some have called Cosmic Consciousness. That is the sole purpose of creation. Recognition of this fact gives us real hope and real meaning to our lives. This is especially true when we realize that the goal of ultimate enlightenment is ours to attain through acquisition of knowledge, alignment with truth, and spiritual evolution that can be accelerated, delayed, or hampered by our own actions.
I am hopeful that by this time, if you have read this far, you understand that I have no idea how many posts there will be in this series, or even how much detail I will be able to convey. I only write when I am inspired to write, and even though I am the one writing these words, I do not think that I am the source of what I write. I leave it up to you to decide where you think the ideas I express may come from. I can only pledge to make these ideas as understandable as I can. I will appreciate any comments, questions, and suggestions from serious readers.
Happy New Year. Rejoice in the potential of 2022.
ERC 12/28/2021
FIVE; PARADOX AND PROGRESS
I happen to share the birth date of Danish physicist Niels Bohr. Not the same year, but the same month and day. He was born in 1885 and died when I was 26 years old. Bohr was one of the main players in the drama surrounding the birth of quantum physics, and the primary spokesperson for quantum mechanics in the famous Einstein-Bohr debate over quantum uncertainty. Albert Einstein, the theoretical physicist who inspired me to become a scientist when I was fourteen, sparked the debate by proposing an experiment that challenged the validity of the concept at the heart of quantum mechanics known as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. That experiment, based on the belief that elementary particles were tiny, localized particles of matter, became known as the EPR paradox because Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen were the authors of the paper. The EPR experiment presented physicists with a real paradox because it demonstrated that, if elementary particles were what physicists thought they were, then the expected outcome of the experiment disproved the uncertainty principle. To Einstein, that meant that quantum mechanics was, at best, an inconsistent or incomplete theory. Niels Bohr understood this, but the following quote illustrates his attitude toward paradox:
"How wonderful that we have met a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress."
This is the proper attitude for a scientist. Science only advances when paradoxes within its logical structure are explored and resolved. If it is a real paradox, it can only be resolved by expanding the existing model of reality. A real paradox reveals the incompleteness of the existing theory. All other so-called scientific advances are just the filling in of the details of an existing model, which requires no original thinking. Problem solving within the established paradigm is not science, it is engineering. Engineers are practical thinkers who solve day-to-day problems by applying science-based technology. I am not denigrating engineering. I made a living for myself and family for many years as a registered professional engineer (PE). Engineering is about using science to solve technical problems, while science is about thinking outside the box and testing hypotheses about the nature of reality. Scientists should be looking for problems that cannot be solved using the engineering methods existing within the current paradigm. About problems that lie beyond the reach of engineering thinking, Bohr said:
“Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.”
There is a wealth of insight in these two sentences. They contain deep truths about problems that can be addressed using mathematics, the language of science. The first sentence is true about any problem. However simple and easy, or deep and difficult a problem may be, if it is properly stated in the language of the paradigm within which it has meaning, then the solution, i.e., the answer to the question that it poses, is actually contained within the question itself. Any meaningful problem in an algebra text will demonstrate this fact.
The information needed to solve a problem is always contained within the statement of the problem. All that needs to be done is to translate the statement of the problem from English, German, or whatever, into mathematical expressions, so that you can use well-defined operations of calculation to transform the statement, through a series of simple steps, into a new form that is recognized as an answer. The second sentence relates specifically to the “great and deep” problems that Bohr concerned himself with as a scientist. If the problem is truly deep and difficult, we will have to “change our thinking” i.e., we have to think outside the box by expanding the paradigm, or developing new methods, to solve it.
I realize that there may be people reading this who already understand the points I am making. This post is not for them. It is for the millions of people out there, the average citizens of planet Earth, who shrink away in horror anytime they see the word “mathematics”. If you are one of those who hates mathematics, I am quite sure that it is because you were never taught what mathematics really is. What I want to do here is change the way you think about mathematics. Let’s start with the meaning of the word. It doesn’t mean “difficult stuff with numbers and abstract symbols”, as most people think. The word mathematics comes from the Ancient Greek word máthēma (μάθημα), meaning “that which is learned” or “what one is able to know”. Mathematics is not just “the language of science”, it is the heart and soul of science.
I have had several years of experience teaching mathematics, from practical applied math to mathematical physics, and advanced mathematical modeling, so I am not just blowing smoke rings. My first job, after earning a degree in physics and mathematics, was teaching math in the Newburg Missouri Public High School, where I was the complete Math Department. In my second year of teaching there, my students swept every category in a regional math contest where we were competing with several much larger schools. Even though I used the textbooks supplied by the state, I didn’t follow the state lesson plans. I always related mathematical principles to common-sense ideas that my students could relate to and understand. Over the years, I have had several very gratifying success stories teaching, but the first one happened at Newburg.
The first day of school in my first year at Newburg, a young man from a rural farming area south of Newburg, walked up to my desk as students were filing into the classroom and said:
“Mr. Close, my name is Gary Haven. I just want you to know that I don’t like math. I am only here because general math is a requirement for all Freshmen.”
“OK Gary,” I replied, “Thank you for being so honest! I just want you to know that I’m going to see what I can do about changing your mind about math.”
The second year Gary took every math class he could cram into his schedule, and eight years later, he graduated from one of the best engineering schools in the county with top honors in electrical engineering.
Mathematics should not be about showing others how smart you are. It should NOT be about learning how to manipulate abstract symbols to solve complicated problems, even though you may learn to do that. It should be about learning how to think rationally in a way that will increase your understanding of reality and make your thinking more efficient and effective. In my opinion, the way math is taught in our schools today, from grade school to grad school, is really stupid, and almost criminal. The way math is fragmented and turned into mindless memorization of detail, alienates and repels students, robbing them of an opportunity to develop critical thinking skills.
Learning to use mathematical tools to solve practical problems is important; but using calculators and computers to solve numerical problems without understanding the underlying principles, is a recipe for disaster. Pure mathematics should be understood to be what it actually is: a simple reflection of how your mind and the universe works. Science is about what we can say about the reality we experience, and math is about how we can say it in the most efficient way.
Before I get into my explanation of a system of logic, I call the Calculus of Dimensional Distinctions (CoDD), a calculus that describes reality more precisely and efficiently, I want to introduce you to some key concepts needed to understand non-physical reality. They concern the axiomatic nature of science and the threshold between every-day consciousness and Turiyananda, the joy of experiencing pure consciousness.
First, an axiom is a self-evident truth. All systems of mathematical logic have two or more axioms upon which they are based. Within any consistent finite logical system of thought, an axiom is a question that cannot be answered within the system that allows it to be stated as a meaningful statement. I like to think of an axiom this way:
The Question that cannot be Answered is the Answer that cannot be Questioned.
We have been told by some very intelligent people, specifically British mathematical philosophers Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead, that there are only three types of statements: 1) True, 2) false, and 3) meaningless. Sounds rather obvious, doesn’t it? If we accept this declaration, then we can ignore and discard meaningless statements because, well, because they are meaningless! If statements that appear to be meaningless in the context of our current understanding of reality are eliminated from consideration and we accept the statement of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (another very intelligent person) that for every meaningful question there must also be a meaningful answer, then every meaningful statement is ultimately either true or false.
This binary thinking is in fact, the basis of the logic, philosophy, science, mathematics, and computer technology of Western Civilization. It turns out, however, that despite the fact that these axiomatic statements were pronounced by some of the most highly intelligent people of the world in recent history, none of these statements are true.
In the next installment of this series, I will explain how and why there are actually four types of statements in any language, including mathematics, not three, and I will also explain how this fact leads us back to the threshold of Pure Consciousness and the doorway to extra dimensionality where we will see how pure number theory relates to consciousness.
ERC – 12/29/2021
