Our Reality

‘Our world’ is a dimension which exists inside our current plane of existence but which belongs to a much wider possibility of lines of reality that are nevertheless part of the same ‘dimension’.

Our plane of existence appears solid and three-dimensional because we perceive things are solid to the touch and that time has a certain speed, which we measure in proportion to our perception of celestial dynamics.

These parameters determine the world of space-time-mass-energy that physics, astronomy, chemistry, the natural sciences and mathematics wish to interpret and exploit.

Inside a plane of reality or the reality that is commonly accepted as such, every individual develops their own personal dimension. Opinions and subjective meanings make up the individual ‘quasi-real’ (almost real), as defined by Theosophy.

The investigation of subjective dimensions is the concern of the human sciences, of psychology, sociology, and the arts and it is there, that mental and emotional dynamics, more than the perceptions of the senses, determine what is real.

Each one of us, beginning from our own quasi-real and our capacity to give significance to things can construct a bridge which reunites human experience to the All.

Let’s look at it in more depth and examine what lies ‘beyond’ our subjective representation of reality and beyond the conventional plane of our material, human and earthly existence. 

Beyond the veil of the quasi-real and the consensual suggestion that delineates the borders of our plane of existence (or our physical three-dimensional reality), we find a more complex ‘supporting structure’ that constitutes a much broader dimensional reality.

This wider level of reality or rather the combination of the band of frequencies in which our specific frequency is to be found, constitutes our dimension (our plane of existence), along with other possible frequencies or lines of reality that are dimensionally compatible with one another.

This dimension is our ‘world’, one of the numerous possible parallel worlds to be found among numerous dimensions and bands of possible frequencies.

The universe of material Form as a whole consists of our world united to many other worlds-dimensions, defined as ‘parallel worlds’. They are also described as such in the models of the universe explored by mathematics and physics.

  

The multi-world theory is not new; the first to introduce it was Hugh Everett in 1957. There are worlds, multiple worlds in our universe and each one develops on the basis of the dynamics derived from primeval energies and forces. For this reason we define and codify them as derivative laws. I use the term ‘laws’ even though it would be more appropriate to call them ‘phenomena’: the world is not made of ‘laws’ but of phenomena and we tend to codify them on the basis of our ability to interpret reality.

These same derivative laws, that we can imagine ruling our universe, become something even more specific at a dimensional level: In every world-dimension the fundamental laws correspond to a specific version of themselves and then by specializing on each plane of reality they become the ‘physical laws’ that we know of as gravity, electromagnetism and nuclear forces etc.

We can see that as we slowly descend into the material world the same dynamics are repeated but on different levels and scales. It begins with the primeval laws at the level of the ‘multi-verses’; from there universal functions (derivative laws), are generated that function inside every specific universe. In the possible dimensions of our universe the derivative laws apply themselves to time, or better in time, seen as a flow from the past to the future and are known as ‘time’ (or temporal) matrices. 

These matrices, which are different in every dimension, finally become the physical laws of each plane of existence, or the reality that is perceived at our current psycho-biological level.

The sequence is therefore as follows:

The ‘parallel worlds’ – just as all possible states of being – are not ‘from somewhere else’ but, vibrating on different frequencies, they are all contemporary and interpenetrate.

In every temporally oriented world the derivative laws combine in a different way. Just as the respective time matrixes that operate on the dimensions are different, so too are the ‘physical’ laws that operate on each specific plane of existence.

Let’s look at the diagram which begins from the individual ‘quasi-real’ and slowly rises.

1.      Subjective reality is the plane of existence filtered by the individual quasi-real

2.      The plane of existence is a dimensional world filtered by the senses of a species (consensual reality)

3.      A dimensional world (or parallel world) is the result of the Universe filtered by time matrices (or, alternatively by the senses of more complex entities)

4.      The Universe as a whole is the multi-verse filtered by derivative laws (or by the senses of higher entities) and the final one is the ‘REAL’ filtered by primeval laws (or by the senses of higher ‘Consciousnesses’)

5.      In the end (everywhere and always) we have the REAL, the Absolute; unmediated Being.

To sum up: the existent is not traceable in different ‘places’, but through the analysis and the differentiation of ‘filters’ and ‘vibrations’. The REAL, everything, is here. Now, at this moment.

Our physical senses serve to define the reality that surrounds us, or better still our field of possible experiences. They are calibrated in such a way as to filter our field of reality.

They are not used therefore to perceive but rather to limit perceivable reality which is then processed by our respective conscious and mental patterns.

Aldous Huxley, in his Doors of Perception offers us a very interesting view of this idea:

According to such a theory[1], each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funnelled through the reducing valve of the brain and the nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us stay alive on the surface of this Particular planet.

Our specific plane of existence is therefore determined by two main filters: the senses and the personal mind. However, in this historical-evolutionary moment, we find ourselves in a condition of severe handicap, which does not allow us to truly live the reality that should be our ‘province’.

Our incarnation ought to correspond to a level of reality– and therefore be structured by our vehicle of consciousness – that is much higher than that currently found on this planet, in this line of material reality.

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[1] A reference to a theory of Bergson according to which ‘The function of the brain, the nervous system and the organs of the senses are principally eliminatory and not productive’.

The Concept of Reality

Therefore I offer you my contemplations on the infinite universe and the innumerable worlds.

                                                                                                              Giordano Bruno

The entire creative process happens instantaneously, simultaneously and continuously. There is no beginning but rather a combination of states and intensity of Being diversely modulated and invigorated by phenomena operating on the reference plane of existence.

Inside every tiny particle of conceivable matter this process renews itself continuously. The creative energy emits directions and planes with different densities and variables and yet every thing is connected with the All, and every one of its smallest constituent parts contains the infinite.

  

Time

Just as with space and the things and beings that surround us, time is also the fruit of an illusion of the mind: time itself is part of the great experiential theatre created for the evolutionary goals of Consciousness.

Time is in its own way a manifestation of primordial Energy, of the All. For us it becomes the indispensable instrument through which we express and read our perceptive experiences – which have descended into this manifestation – and therefore through which we give significance to this form of existence: to events to life, to ‘history’.

But if we separate from our material nature, we can emancipate ourselves from our limits in space and time and interact with reality outside of the limits of the cause and effect established by our current mind: we can access a superior level of relationship with reality, with power over illusion and synchronicity. Or, at least, remind ourselves that our reality is nothing more than a theatrical representation and, by going behind the scenes every now and again we can ‘return home’.

On a technical plane, ‘time’ more than anything else is the ‘container of possibilities’: an immense circular sphere of the eternal present. There is no flow; everything is there, to design a complex geography of potential events. It is a multi-dimensional field curved in on itself, just like space. The universe is in itself non-local, or indistinct, contemporaneous and simultaneous: The One.

Nevertheless, within the confines of the universal field, time, expressed and perceived in a chronological sense, is important and indispensable: it serves to measure growth, to give a sense of reading (and therefore a sense of consciousness) to the transformation of events or the material world of Form at every level.

  

Levels of Reality

To explore ‘reality’ we have to begin from the supposition that what our current senses perceive is nothing more than one of its possible aspects, or a manifestation consistent with our perceptive and elaborative possibilities. We are talking about a kind of meditation (or better still many levels of meditation) and consequently of a meeting point between the Absolute, higher levels of reality, the mind and the biological senses that limit our experience.

Everything that we participate in is ‘just’ our plane of existence, or the current reality:

·          Three-dimensional

·          Human

·          Terrestrial

·          Consensual

Our plane of existence is the result of a sensorial circuit of a consensual and conventional kind; therefore, it is all relative. It is the result of the meeting between all that is and that which can be differentiated and perceived through the exercise of our current senses. They in their turn are developing so that a possible level of consciousness can interpret this existence and attribute ever more complex significance to it, transcending and identifying it as an aspect of the Absolute. It is thus transformed from mechanics (field of laws) to awareness (field of choice), or from a precarious and unstable manifestation to an incorruptible presence, from the chaotic illusions of the senses to an aware experience of consciousness.

Our reality is - to all intents and purposes - a bubble of appearances: and we have the task (the challenge?) of making it real and everlasting in the Absolute by means of ourselves.

The thoughts - and the considerations that follow - need to be seen in the context of spiritual, alchemical and magical disciplines and therefore with ‘another’ kind of sensitivity – or perhaps with a more authentic sensitivity that we have yet to reawaken – rather than be investigated with the rational mind. We need to use the breath of the thinking heart, as I like to call it: try to read, understand and absorb these ideas with your body, your heart and not just with your brain.

Use the breath. Feel the correspondence and the call of truth inside yourself.  But be careful: we are not talking about expedients. It is necessary to use all your experience to comprehend, so that reading and study becomes a real meditation practice, a kind of yoga-study. Learning to use other parts of yourself to navigate with a new and different logic helps to break away from the ordinary rhythm of the mind. It is necessary to change perspective and comprehend new stimuli on many levels; otherwise there is no point in proceeding. These themes are meditation practices and not just ideas to store in your head.

For example, in the practice of Jnana Yoga (the path of knowledge) the liberation (Moksha) and therefore the union with God can be acquired for half the knowledge of Brahman, recognizing Brahman as your own Self. The liberation from Samsāra (the cycle of birth and death) is achieved thanks to the realization of the identity of the individual soul (Jīva) in the Supreme Soul.

This mainstay of Vedanta philosophy considers metaphysical ignorance (Avidya) the cause of all human suffering and attachment to the material world: it acts like a veil (Maya) preventing Jīva from perceiving her real and divine nature. In its smallness and ignorance the individual soul convinces itself that it is separate and different from Brahman. The knowledge of Brahman (or Brahma Jnana) removes this veil allowing Jīva to re-establish herself in her own essential nature: Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence, Knowledge, Beatitude).

The Creation of the Material Worlds

It happened, when this our Great inversion took place, from the essence of all nothingness to finity extended in innumerable categories, that an incalculably vast system was produced. Merely by chance, chance in the truest sense of the term, we are found with gods, men, stars, planets, devils, colours, forces and all the materials of the Cosmos: and with time, space and causality, the conditions limiting and involving them all.

Aleister Crowley[1], BERASHITH - 1902

According to esoteric, kabbalistic and alchemical cosmogenesis – but in many ways, also in terms of modern physics - the material world (energy/mass) is not immediately generated as an effect of the clash between primeval forces (primeval laws), rather its creation, considered from the point of view of the human being, follows a series of passages: the process of creation happens in non-time, however, in order to understand this idea we need to make use of logical sequences in order to describe it.

Our Universe is above all a concept:

·          Manifold

·          Diversified

·          Dynamic

Concepts that are translated into a temporal, dimensional and spatial universe.

At the beginning reality is virtual and not yet translated into matter-life-perception-experience. Its existence is only potential: at the act of creation we are still in the field of inexistent Being, in the World of Ideas.

The inexistent is the field that renders true that which is existent and real, through ‘existential significance’ attributing significance to things, life, emotions and thought.

The Absolute is Nothingness and the All.

Nothingness is the All without Consciousness.

The All is Nothingness full of Consciousness.

The creation processes happen outside of creation itself, therefore outside of time. They generate a field that is already the expression of Being but ‘inexistent’. In that state the universe is inexistent because we cannot perceive it, try it out, or give it significance: to do those things we need relationship, or growth. We need time/space, that is, a filter which is able to distinguish and scan reality and the evolved interaction between diversity.

In order to do this we use the mind. The mind is strictly correlated to the phenomena of time and space: It is the instrument for scanning and fixing. Everything comes down to the mind and eventually we have to act to evade it, in order to travel in or manipulate time and space, but that is another story…

The World of Ideas – or the Macrocosmic Mind – is the chaotic and virtual container of all times and of all manifestations and possible existential directions, without any of them being defined: it is the eternal present, the ‘sphere of Time’ where everything is, but does not exist. It corresponds to the kabbalistic  Ain-Soph, the Thelemic[2] body of Nuit, which defines the universal field of the possible and keeps it unified.

Now, we can but try to make an interpretative synthesis of the various cosmogeneses, handed down to us through the images of myth and those of Western and Eastern religions.

In order for material Form to manifest a direction in time is needed, or the possibility of a relationship with multiplicity, space and perception.

In the world of ideas, or in the concept of a universe created by a vibrational wave from Absolute Consciousness, absolute nothingness (a potential but non-existent universe) enters into relationship with absolute time (the container of all ‘existent’ possibilities) emitting an infinitely creative energy, that will orient itself according to a new geometry of laws from which dimensions and existential levels will ensue: the creation.

The Egyptians assigned this role to the Creator God, who was not Ra, in as much as he was absolute Consciousness and all encompassing, but Ptah, the Demiurge God. Today modern science is investigating all of this in mathematical terms, both theoretically and experimentally.

We try to interpret these processes moment by moment, not outside but inside ourselves in relation to reality and its ‘keys of access’. Because it is inside of us, in the depths of our divine essence that all of this is continuously carried out. According to esoteric thought, it is we, who are the representative particles of this same Consciousness and Cosmic Energy: the creators of all-that-is-and-ever-will be.

According to Esoteric Physics, the process of creating worlds, galaxies and all existing things - all that will become life and evolution – passes through what we would traditionally define as the world of numbers: a space-time or ‘vibrational’ sieve. In this case we are not talking about the concept of numbers as we think of them mathematically but as numerical relationships rather than single entities. The ‘world of numbers’ is precisely a dimension in itself, the link between the world of ideas (unitary) and the potential world of the material (manifold). The world of numbers and the pattern of relationships that define the measurements of so called ‘sacred geometry’ is therefore the matrix of the manifest world. The same mechanism that geometrically identifies the material world and its objects, we find reflected in the systems that codify life and its possible evolutionary directions: DNA, is our ‘antenna’ for tuning in on reality.

Human Consciousness – which in fact is not yet ‘human’ until it has truly realized the experience of ‘humanity’ – has to conduct its evolution inside this universal scheme: it reflects itself or better still, it instils itself into the material world of Form to trigger a process of self-awareness, that contemporaneously renders every thing ‘true’ by making it ‘exist’ in absolute terms. With this in mind, it is perhaps useful to re-elaborate the modern myth of ‘ascension’: it is not we who have to ‘ascend’ to the fifth dimension or wherever (if it is, it has always been, here and now and is therefore ‘our home’) but it is the fifth dimension (it is God!) that wants to apply itself to this possible existence: and we are the vehicle! In fact: we are IT.

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[1] In the course of the book I will be quoting from Aleister Crowley – just as I will refer to Theosophy, Gurdjieff,

Aurobindo, Krishnamurti, Osho and many others. However, every time Crowley is mentioned there are those who are immediately scandalized. They are undoubtedly ill-prepared on the subject and have been mislead by the amount of nonsense in circulation regarding a figure who, though certainly controversial, willingly and unwillingly, is worth discovering and considering. I would like to reassure readers that despite his audacious experimentation at the height of the Victorian era; his anarchistic and provocative looks and a certain extravagance that could render him strangely unpleasant – Crowley was not the founder of Satanism, even though he was anti-clerical. And he never sacrificed or ate children. That said, I do not think that Crowley needs me to defend him and as for the rest I am not willing to take it on board. However, I do acknowledge the breadth of his work in setting out the theory and practice of a magic–realization of the Self in the light of new existential and spiritual paradigms. He was without doubt among its precursors when the Age of Aquarius or the New Era had yet to be talked about.

[2] With this adjective I am referring to the concepts and experiences that inspire the research themes and magic-mystical practice recovered and brought to life by Aleister Crowley in the early years of the last century. The Thelemic path (from Thelema, which in Greek means Will) better known as Current 93 (the number, according to the Greek Kabbalah that is associated both with the word Will and Love, thus establishing a link between the two principles), has been further developed by successive Initiate Orders which when not deviate or contaminated, form a bridge between esoteric traditions and the avant-garde of esoteric research at the dawn of this New Era. As far as I am concerned the Thelemic path has become the most ‘up to date’ body of doctrine and knowledge and the principle technical reference for those who, always maintaining the necessary caution, wish to approach Magic in its many forms.