Has anyone else ever come across this quote? I just did a few days ago in the Pantheism subreddit on Reddit. I'm having a hard time understanding it. I've spent the past few days mulling it over in my mind and I just can't grasp it. I guess it just doesn't make sense to me. Aren't we just ourselves experiencing ourselves and our own lives/experiences? I love this section on this website and I have seen some great discussion so I thought I would post this and see what everyone thinks. YEM, if you're reading this, I would love for you to chime in! You don't know me, but I've read some of your threads and I have thoroughly enjoyed them
“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.” --Bill Hicks I'm assuming that's the quote you're talking about? Bill Hicks is a fucking genius, I highly recommend checking out his stand-up.
Okay, I didn't know if that was a direct quote or more of a reference. Regardless, it's sort of saying the same thing. I try to keep an open mind, but I feel like the concept that I am/we are just the universe, whatever it may be, experiencing itself is pretty spot on. Or at the very least something worth thinking about.
Everything you do manifests your universe as you know it, so what you experience goes hand and hand with a timeline of sort that is yours, and yours only.
It means that nothing actually exists except for the experience. And you are that experience, thus making you the universe. It is incredibly simple in concept, but difficult to wrap your head around. Still, it's true. You are the universe experiencing itself. All the evidence that we have points to this very truth. Life is dynamic. Evil defines good, hot defines cold, dark defines light. None of these is mutually exclusive, as in, good would be nothing without evil... literally nothing. So the ebb and flows of dynamic experience coagulate into something apparent. That apparent something would be you. The universe is impossible except within this frame. There is no god. Sorry. Evil in spite of a purely loving creator? I don't think so. Matter and energy cannot arbitrarily exist. Sorry. Stephen Hawking, in his latest book, surmises that matter came into existence spontaneously with anti-matter as a by-product. He's a smart guy, but if that sounds like a stretch, let me run this by you. Nothing... as in, "nothing"... like a lack of anything... cannot exist. The experience itself, while apparently tangible, is not. The good in the world is equivalent to all the evil, because they are utterly relative and dependant on each other. They net zero. Like everything else. They cancel each other out. The fact that there are waves doesn't change the volume of water in a lake. When it all stands still, the dynamics are over. The cycle of death and rebirth can finally end. That is the enlightenment that Buddha was talking about. Meditation is training to still the spirit/soul/self. The only way to truly end suffering is to end all passions. It is all a grand illusion, but it all seems so real because you, my friend, are the universe. And with that, you and I, and all of us, have the power to change it all.
Are you separate from the universe? Doesn't the universe include EVERYTHING within itself? Don't you fall within that description? So, therefore, aren't you the universe? And don't you observe other phenomena, which all of which are part of the ALL, the Universe, and thus are the universe themselves as well? I guess you can think about it like this. Imagine the universe is one giant ocean. All there is, is this ocean called "the universe". The ocean is a metaphor, clearly, for the universe. Now, what does our universe consist of? Is it purely empty void nothingness? No, not at all. There are phenomena. There is experience. We experience forms, movement, dynamic interaction between opposites - yin and yang, which makes up everything in the universe. Basically... we experience form, seeming "things". These "things" can all be seen as "waves" of the ocean. The universe is the ocean... which means, EVERYTHING. But that EVERYTHING is seemingly divided up into/consistent of many many many many individual waves. Each wave has its own characteristics, its own special place in space and time, its own little shape, etc etc. Each wave represents every individual phenomena in the ocean of the ALL, the universe. Every bird, every galaxy, even such intangible things as every feeling, every thought, etc etc. This includes you and me. We are waves in this ocean that is the universe. However... although these waves have their own characteristics and their own location... is there really such a thing as "waves themselves" at all? Do waves exist by themselves? Or is it really just the OCEAN that exists, and the waves ARE that ocean - are EXPRESSIONS of that ALL-encompassing ocean known as the universe. The ancient wisdom teachings, the teachings of self-realization, which is basically the realization of the true nature of reality and the universe, whose knowledge is that same that YEM speaks, is the recognition of the truth of reality that has been true the entire time, since infinity. But where all of our suffering comes from is from our ignorance - our ignorance of the true nature of reality. Our delusion. What is the root of our ignorance, or delusion? Our delusion is that we, as waves, are separate from the entirety of the ocean. Our delusion is that we waves, we seemingly "individuals", are separate from the rest of the entirety of the universe. But we have seen from our metaphor that this can never be true - a wave can never be separate from the ocean in which it is a part, can it? There is only THE OCEAN, and the wave IS the ocean. Not an individual self-existing wave IN an ocean - there is ONLY the universe. Thus, we are not individual self-existing things IN the universe - there is ONLY the universe - no things. Thus, we are the universe, the ocean, experiencing itself. One of the central tenets of Buddhism is emptiness (or "no-self")/ dependent origination. These are two sides of the same coin, and they point to an essential facet of the true nature of reality. It states that all phenomena are empty of inherent self-existence. Meaning, there is no "you" in the sense that you normally think of you - as a separate thing within some larger world. Let's us the example of a table. What makes a table a "table"? Is it still a table when you take away one of its legs? What about 2? Is it still a table when it is just 5 peices of wood lying on the floor? What gives a table its tableness? The point is, there is no selfhood to the table. Table is just a label, just like "me" is a label we give to this body and mind that we think of as "our SELVES", our separate individual selves. That is the no-self, the emptiness side of this truth. The other side is dependent origination. What this states, is that nothing arises by itself, but that all things arise DEPENDENT on everything else in the universe. It is one INFINITE web of cause and effect, basically. Nothing in the universe simply "springs into existence" out of thin air. You did not just POP into existence. Your existing was co-dependent on your parents existing, and your parents sexing, and there being a planet with food and oxygen suitable for us all to live on, a doctor to bring you into life... on and on. Everything is part of this one WEB... nothing arises separately from everything else. Just like a wave does not arise separately from the ocean. Thus, once again... there is one ocean, and that it is. There is the universe, and all waves simply ARE that ocean, all things ARE the universe, including us. And thus, we the universe, experiencing the universe.
You are not simply included in the universe. The universe is a manifestation of experience. It is something you created as a frame within which an experience can exist. The universe is your creation, not the other way around.
Yes indeed. I had not yet finished my post Furthermore... as you seem to be implying here Thunder... what is it that does the "experiencing" of life/the universe? There is seeing.. but what is doing the seeing? There is hearing... but what is doing the hearing? What is the observer? When you close your eyes and thoughts pass by... there are thoughts... but then there is some"thing" observing those thoughts. What is THAT which is the observing? If you look for yourselve, you will see that it is no-THING at all. Yet, this formlessness, this clarity... is what gives rise to the ENTIRE universe, for without it, there could be no experience at all. Some call it pure awareness, some call it pure consciousness.. but truly no name can truly encapsulate it, for it is no thing at all. OP, if you are interested in understanding more about that quote, perhaps you would enjoy looking into some of the tenants of Buddhism I have been mentioning, and Buddhism in general, as well as non-duality teachings such as Vedanta. Here's a site I enjoy, Shiningworld. There are many more. http://www.shiningworld.com/Home Page Links/The Nature of the Self.htm
[quote name='"LittleJacob"'] Yes indeed. I had not yet finished my post Furthermore... as you seem to be implying here Thunder... what is it that does the "experiencing" of life/the universe? There is seeing.. but what is doing the seeing? There is hearing... but what is doing the hearing? What is the observer? When you close your eyes and thoughts pass by... there are thoughts... but then there is some"thing" observing those thoughts. What is THAT which is the observing? If you look for yourselve, you will see that it is no-THING at all. Yet, this formlessness, this clarity... is what gives rise to the ENTIRE universe, for without it, there could be no experience at all. Some call it pure awareness, some call it pure consciousness.. but truly no name can truly encapsulate it, for it is no thing at all.[/quote] Particles meet particles meets human meets universe. To break it down into the funamental constituents of matter... it gets even more amazing. Everything that is, that can experience is made of the same things... that make up its observable universe..... The universe is fucking ridiculous
dude fuckin a...so many times i've tripped and thought about crazy shit and realizing things. That was one of them. I tryed explaining it to somebody but i could not word it right.
Even stardust nullifies itself. It is comprised of nothing but equals and opposites. Science is a language, and the more we find out about science the more loudly it speaks to the universe being a product of the mind, utterly subject to relativity. In a sense, science betrays science. It is calling out that nothing exists... that the answer is "zero"... undefined. The more we learn, the more absurd the arbitrary existence of matter and energy seems to become. For example... [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghhifrZHUOQ&feature=related[/ame]
ive thought about this a few times but last week i was super baked and my body just like shut off and in my mind i saw the universe around me and in me. like i could see inside my body and all around me was the universe. like my heart was our solar system and i was watching the planets circle the sun in like hyper speed. but like i also saw my surroundings around me in my mind. idk i was super baked, at the time i thought i found my place in the universe. idk if i still believe that.
It's a riff off of Carl Sagan's question of are we the universe's way of understanding itself. You are not separate from the Universe as you're made up of the very same stuff everything else is made of. First there was hydrogen, helium and a little lithium, but after that stars made everything else by making the heavy elements. In other words, you are the Universe and it is you.