There exists in man an irresistible drive to understand himself and life and truth and reality. What is true of life? What is really its purpose and its meaning? Is it just a matter of tinkling symbols and sounding brass? Is it only a vain glorious struggle signifying nothing? Why is man here? Where did he come from? Toward what is he headed? What is the here of life and what constitutes the hereafter? What is the destiny of man? Where may truth be found, and how may reality be comprehended and experienced?
Two thousand years ago a highly placed official of the Roman empire – Pontius Pilate – uttered the agonizing cry of all mankind throughout the ages: “What is truth?” Today the same cry is more potent than ever – the cry of the awakening souls for more light, more cosmic understanding of the mystery of life itself. This inborn, never ending, irrepressible, imperative drive of the evolving soul to understand itself and to reach out for the truth of being – this is what we mean when we speak of the search for reality.
It appears that many new age souls have found, almost to their dismay, that very few of our present day institutions of higher education or even of religion are of much help to them in their search for reality. Some who are seeking higher and more satisfying answers to their deepest questions about life have asked us if we thought the cosmic viewpoint would help them in their search. Our reply has been that in our own experience and that of many friends and acquaintances a study of the cosmic viewpoint has indeed brought a wonderful, clear, cosmic light to bear upon this problem, this inescapable search for truth and reality.
In the following paragraphs we shall endeavor, to the best of our ability, to present – in briefed form – some of the light which the cosmic viewpoint throws upon this subject. But before doing so we must warn our readers that not every one on Earth who cries out pleadingly for cosmic knowledge is ready to accept the cosmic answers! These answers are strong meat for the sleepers, the materialists who really want no view of reality beyond the limitations of the five physical senses, or the ordinary level of human thinking or of reasoning from Earth premises to Earth conclusions.
There is a certain readiness for higher truths which must always precede their realization in human consciousness. To use a scriptural comparison: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” (Isaiah 55-8).
But for those who are interested and willing, let us now consider some aspects of the cosmic viewpoint – the viewpoint of more highly evolved beings regarding this search for reality.
THE SEARCH IS NATURAL
The first thing to note in this higher viewpoint is that this longing for more light, truth and understanding of reality is entirely natural. In fact it is not confined to Earthman at all, but it exists in all echelons of life. It is the manifestation of the cosmic evolutionary drive existing in life everywhere. It is even inherent in the atom, the [what is considered] smallest division of life or consciousness. In the animal kingdom it appears as unconscious, instinctive urges to live and to grow. It is the impulse of the seed toward the sun. It is reflected in the moth’s attraction to the light. It is the homing instinct of the dove, the cry of the young for mother and father, and the drive of self-conscious man to attain to his highest aspirations. It is natural, it is good, it is God-inspired. It is deity experiencing itself. It is not something to worry about. The worry would come if we lacked this urge. And best of all, in due course these deep desires of life cosmically fulfill themselves.
Surely this view should help relieve the seeking soul of sense of urgency or pressure or excessive striving in endeavoring to understand life. Give life a chance, say the great teachers, give life a chance. The only way anyone can finally understand life’s realities is to live, to experience the great realities which life has to offer. The soul must learn the goodness of life and how to trust it. Let life unfold itself! Life never fails its individual units which learn to trust it. This is a start toward the cosmic viewpoint.
WHAT IS REALITY?
On a certain occasion we were seeking a cosmic view of reality. We were listening to the words of a great intelligence. It was the Yada di Shi’ite, speaking through Mark Probert of San Diego, California. This great intelligence often speaks from a cosmic level of knowledge and wisdom, and has been most helpful in assisting many new age students on Earth to a higher level of cosmic understanding. This time we made the following definite request: “Will you please explain the nature of reality!” We shall never forget the reply. In substance it was as follows:
“Reality lies in your immediate acts, in your immediate experiences. Man, the dreamer, believes in his dream. This is his reality.”
Further question: “You mean reality is individual?”
Answer: “Yes, it is so. It is what we call relative. It changes.”
Question: “Is it always a relative thing?”
Answer: “Yes.”
Question: “But is there no general reality?”
Answer: “Yes, of course. Groups of individuals agree on a dream, and experience a common reality. This is called a group soul.”
Question: “But what about laws?”
Answer: “Each plane of consciousness has its laws or agreed upon rules, and when a soul reaches a certain plane, its reality or its dreaming or its experiencing if you prefer, falls inside the framework of these laws. Just like you have a game – you call football – it has its rules. If you play the game, you accept the rules. But laws change as you go around the universe from plane to plane, or game to game.”
Question: “But is there no fixed reality?”
Answer: “In terms of what you call time, some realities are brief, and some last a long, long time. But in the end they change. Creation is always changing. It is not what you call static.”
Question: “You mean all reality is relative reality?
Answer: “Yes, it is so.”
Question: “Relative to what?”
Answer: “Relative to the consciousness that experiences it!”
Question: “Then reality is always a matter of consciousness?”
Answer: “Yes. Or of awareness, if you prefer that expression.”
THE RELATIVE NATURE OF REALITY
The foregoing will convey at least some idea of the vast difference between Earthman’s view of reality and that of higher beings. To Earthman reality is something within range of the five physical senses, something out there that can be seen, heard, felt, tasted or smelled. It often appears as something separate from man. But to the higher beings reality is regarded as an activity within consciousness. If it appears separate from man, this is understood as an illusion created by a projection from consciousness. It is still a matter of consciousness. Thus these beings, by controlling consciousness are able to control their reality. But Earthman, having lost sight of the factor of consciousness in all realities, has lost control of his experience – of his reality. Moreover, to the space beings reality is not static. It is relative and changing.
Please listen to their further questioning of the Yada.
Question: “But, Yada, is it not possible for Earthman to learn to control his dream, his three-dimensional reality?”
Answer: “Of course. All he has to do is to control his thoughts and his emotions, and make them harmonious and loving. He could make his Earth dream a paradise. But he is not awake to this.”
Question: “But would it be real to you?”
Answer: “No three-dimensional reality is real to fourth-dimensional or higher-dimensional beings. They can move through your densest matter and not be aware of it any more than you are aware of what your neighbor is dreaming. You are not aware of him either. They only become aware of your reality by focusing on your thoughts, your dream.”
Question: “How can we become fourth-dimensional beings?”
Answer: “The I Am of you is already that and more than that. Awaken to your own I Am. This will come slowly through the evolution of the group soul you are in. Or you can go ahead of the group soul, using many techniques of awakening already given you.”
We must say that Earthman in general seems still a long way from a comprehension of the cosmic view of reality. But it is enlightening to learn that this higher view recognizes many degrees or levels of reality. Thus when we speak of reality we must understand what level is being referred to. Also it seems helpful to realize that all realities are relative. They are always relative to the consciousness experiencing them. What a potent truth this could turn out to be!
Evidently there is such a thing as personal reality or individual reality. We know that two individuals can stand side by side and look out upon the same landscape and yet their individual sense of reality – their experience – may be entirely different. Then there is group reality. The group reality of a city in Europe may be vastly different from that of an American city. Then there are the realities of the different planes of life. Just think of the variations in reality that must exist on the various planets like Mars and Venus, or in different solar systems or galaxies. There is physical reality, astral reality, and many etheric realities. The number and variety of relative realities that must exist throughout the universe simply stagger the imagination. Lumping them all together we have cosmic reality. But reality, no matter where or what it seems to be, is always regarded as an activity of consciousness. It is always consciousness appearing as reality. So say the great ones.
GOOD AND EVIL ARE NOT CRITERIONS OF REALITY
We soon discovered that Earthman’s glib use of the terms “good” and “evil” have very little significance in the great cosmic teaching of reality. In fact the higher one reaches into these teachings, the less one hears of the words good or evil. These are human concepts. Whether something seems good or bad in our experience is always a matter of relativity. It is a matter of viewpoint. What may seem good for one individual or group may seem bad to another. What is good at one time may be bad at another time for the same individual. It is all relative, a matter of relativity.
From the cosmic viewpoint there is no good or evil! It is all activity in consciousness. Everything has been provided in cosmic consciousness; all the positives and all the negatives, all the building blocks for any experience or reality, and it is all forever in balance. As individuals or groups of individuals evolve, they help themselves to life. They are endowed with consciousness and free will and they identify with various activities in cosmic consciousness and thus experience pleasures and pains as realities.
Individualized consciousness attracts or accepts or creates, if we prefer this word, its own realities. As the sense of separation from the source begins to fade, and as man learns by experience to work with the laws of the universe and to balance the positives and the negatives of life, his experiences become more and more joyous and harmonious and the concept of evil as a power opposed to good fades from his consciousness.
There is only one power and that is infinite spirit, and it has created both the lights and the shadows of life with which to build and manifest its cosmic relative realities. Only by contrasts can anything appear to be real! If we only had light on a moving picture screen, there would be no picture. We must have light and shadow to produce a seeming reality. And in the cosmos we need the kundalini forces – the positive and the negative forces of life – to build the cosmic realities.
We once asked a comic teacher: “Is good real and evil unreal?” He replied: “My friends, what you call good or evil are activities in consciousness. It is not a matter of one being more real or absolute than the other. It is a matter of what you choose – consciously or unconsciously – to make real to yourself. It is a matter of tune-in as you say. Whether you are aware of it or not, you are the tuner-in-er. The positiveness or the absoluteness with which you tune in to that which you regard as good at any period of your growth will determine the so-called good which you experience. But this is also true of what you call evil.
TEARING THE ATOM TO SHREDS
In this vaunted scientific age on Earth our scientists are tearing at the atom like dogs tearing at a bone, trying to wrest from it the ultimate reality of the matter world. Have they found the ultimate? No! Are they satisfied? No! The search goes on and on. They have split the molecule to atoms, atoms to nuclei and particles, and now the shredded parts are being subdivided into “subatomic” particles. What is next? Sub-subatomic particles we presume. And after that sub-sub-atomic particles, and so on ad infinitum.
Then, of course, there is the little matter of the vast “empty spaces” between the particles of the atoms. Is empty space just nothingness? Is the atom ninety percent nothing? Or is empty space filled with unseen life – with consciousness in action?
Smashing the atom to try to find reality is now a great sport on Earth. It is also an expensive sport. Bigger and better atom-smashers are the order of the day. But just where is all this going to end – this sub-sub-subdivision of the atom. Are we finally going to wind up with a hatful of electrical charges – and then have to start all over again finding out what electricity is made of?
Is Earthman ever going to find the answer to matter within matter itself? We do not wish to be disrespectful to our august scientists. But we do believe that there is an unseen audience of space beings who derive not a little amusement from Earthman’s efforts to find the ultimate reality of matter in matter itself! Why? Because any one of these higher beings can produce matter by simply thinking it into form! They know that the ultimate reality of matter is consciousness, and they are amused at how long it is taking Earthman to find this out. Have they not for endless ages endeavored to persuade Earthman to raise his sights above his fixation on physical matter as the only reality. Have they not always taught that the answer lies not in physics but metaphysics?
The following profound remarks by a new age teacher, observing mankind’s desperate search for truth, may be of interest:
“Your religionists on Earth want to reduce cosmic truth to a ten-word sentence which they can memorize or carry in their hip pockets. Your naturalists try to find truth in nature. Your scientists want to compress reality into a mathematical formula or equation. But life is not like this. The religionist, the naturalist and the scientist are themselves life experiencing itself. All of them are eventually destined to discover that they themselves are the profound truth they are seeking!”
THE UNDERSTANDING OF MAYA
Many awakening souls are becoming familiar with the meaning of maya, a word which has been used for centuries in the occult teachings to designate illusion – the illusory nature of matter appearing as something apart from consciousness.
Many are actually beginning to understand that from the cosmic viewpoint all three-dimensional reality is considered to be maya, illusion, a dream type of reality. Many students of life having learned this great cosmic truth then naturally assume that by awakening from the three-dimensional dream they immediately step into some type of absolute reality. But the cosmic teachers assure us that this is not the case, and this can come as quite a shock to the neophyte.
Let us illustrate this point. We were listening to a cosmic teacher discoursing on the subject of maya. He was explaining how Earthman externalizes his thoughts to produce maya – a dream reality, an illusion – which to him seems to be external, actual, physical, solid and real. He also explained how man can learn to control and manipulate this three-dimensional dream – this seeming reality – and thus gain mastery over it. Then came the shocker: “Of course you know that all realities, even those on higher planes, are also maya.”
That did it. That was the last straw for a young man – a new student – in the group. He practically exploded. He arose and shouted: “That’s enough! What are you trying to do to us? Make idiots of us? Make fools of us? First you tell us that the three-dimensional world is nothing but maya. That is bad enough. But then you go on and say that all creation, even on the higher planes, is also maya. What do you leave us? A lot of nothing! In the name of sanity is there no absolute reality in life?
We shall not forget how this inspired teacher then turned to this young student and with the utmost patience, kindness and compassion, sketched for him a great cosmic blueprint of life. So clear, so beautiful, so satisfying was this cosmic explanation of life and all of its realities – including the absolute or ultimate reality – that it turned the young student’s despair into joy and understanding. May we now share with our readers a brief resume of this cosmic blueprint of life.
A COSMIC BLUEPRINT OF LIFE AND ITS REALITIES
Consider life as a great pyramid. At the top of the pyramid is pure being or self-existence – the very highest essence of life. So fantastically great, glorious and all-inclusive in this essence that the great ones, when asked about it, reverently pause and whisper: “It is that about which nothing can be said”.
If a human being, in his limited consciousness, wishes to think in the direction of the absolute, it is in the direction of pure being that he must think.
In one way it may seem impertinent for a finite human to think about the absolute at all. Yet, in another way is not man the very individualization of this magnificence, and is it not through such individualization that pure being – God if we wish – experiences itself?
But the quest for absolute reality in the created universes is forever doomed to failure. The absolute is not be found in the material universe, or even in the great planes of creation beyond this one. My young friend, we must distinguish between pure being and creation, between the cosmic dreamer and his dreams. Creation is forever changing. Nothing created, not even the great galaxies or planes of so-called reality, endure forever. Creation, therefore is never absolute. It goes forth from the creator, and eventually returns to its source. All the created universes could be destroyed, but the absolute – the cosmic essence of pure being – the creator, the architect, the dreamer, would remain. Herein, my son, lies the absolute you seek.
As one descends the pyramid he finds consciousness, the creative aspect of pure being. Then comes cosmic light, and cosmic darkness – the tools of creation. Farther down we find cosmic light cascading into various lower energies and cosmic colors. Then comes creation in different bands of energy and frequencies, including such things as time, space, electricity, magnetism, visible light, tangible heat and physical matter.
In its great creative urge, the absolute individualizes its consciousness in order to experience its creation from myriads of viewpoints – souls in evolution. But it is all what you call God experiencing itself. Eventually comes de-creation, the great cosmic withering of that which was created – the dreamer waking up, and voiding all created “realities”, so that great new productions may be brought forth on the cosmic stages of life eternal.
So in all of life, what is permanent? What is eternally real? What is absolute? Only the creator, the producer, the cosmic dreamer, pure being, self-existence. All else is changing, cycling, expanding, contracting, rising, falling. All creation is temporal, relative – maya! It is all mind stuff, appearing as something apart from mind, its creator. To understand this is a great step toward cosmic illumination and mastery. No cosmic teacher takes away anything from his students except misconceptions – misconceptions of cosmic truth which enslave them. In place of this, they try to give the truth that can set them free – make them masters of life – conscious choosers of their own realities.
This, my young friend, is about as near as I can explain the absolute you seek in human terms. But fear not any change, any experience, because you yourself are an indispensable unit of the absolute! Is that not enough?
Surely the cosmic understanding of reality will gradually replace the limited human view in the centuries ahead, and this will be as a great dynamic in the new age.
Excerpt from The Advent Of The Cosmic Viewpoint