An Introduction to the Absolute

By John Alexandra

Many spiritual systems peddle 'mindfulness' as a cure-all for all problems. Unfortunately, their notions are generally erroneous, simplistic or worse. What we and the cosmos consist of can eventually be sensed, but at a level of perception that mind, body and emotions can't grasp. The problem is to make these parts passive while remaining acutely alert. Simple and extraordinarily difficult as all profundities are. It requires total attention. To remain in the space before thought. To be aware of oneself. To be.

And that, in turn, needs energy, accumulated until the whole organism vibrates. Not emotional venting but feeling fr om an objective and limitless source.

This is a serious study, thoroughly researched and will be of great value to anyone who has agonized over such questions as, 'Why am I here?'. Or 'Why does a presumably benevolent god condone suffering?' Or 'What is the function of humanity?' Or 'Why is there anything opposed to nothing?' Or 'What is the purpose of existence?' Or 'Why is nature as cruel as it is beautiful?'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Buzzword Books
• Release date: May 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215795507

John Alexandra

John Alexandra has studied with both the Zen and Gurdjieff traditions and is an expert on comparative religion. His intention here is to synthesize both Eastern and Western approaches to self-awareness and self-realisation for sincere people troubled by the apparent differences between them. His book addresses the heart of the seeker's confusion then disinters the profound truth behind the major systems of self-transformation.

Book preview

AN INTRODUCTION TO

THE ABSOLUTE

How to live in Moment-Eternity using the master keys of 'emptiness' and 'scale'

Copyright 2023 John Alexandra

The author asserts his moral rights in the work.

This book is copyright. Except for the purposes of fair reviewing, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from both the copyright owner and Buzzword Books and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on any subsequent purchaser or third party. Infringers of copyright are liable to prosecution.

Published as an eBook by Buzzword Books, Australia 2023.

This edition published by Smashwords in 2023.

Buzzword Books

P.O Box 7, Cammeray 2062

Australia

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PART ONE — THE SITUATION

ONE WITH EVERYTHING

WHAT DO WE KNOW?

WHAT DO WE THINK?

WHAT DO WE BELIEVE?

DO WE EXIST?

WHAT IS OUR STRUCTURE?

WHAT CAN WE DO?

PART TWO ─ THE POSSIBILITY

SUFFERING AND EVOLUTION

INNER AND OUTER

DIVISION OF ATTENTION

THREE FOODS. TWO SHOCKS.

FEAR AND EGO

WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

LIVING IN TWO WORLDS

A CAUTION

STAGES ON THE PATH

'MIND NOWHERE. BODY EVERYWHERE.'

THE BLESSING OF BREATH

APPROACHING REALITY

WHENEVER YOU REMEMBER, TRY.

WHAT IS THE VOID?

CHOICELESS AWARENESS

'AND THERE SHALL BE TIME NO LONGER'

INNER DEATH

REMAINING PRESENT

SATURATION

TOUCHING THE UNFORMED

ADDENDUM

BIBIOGRAPHY

ONE WITH EVERYTHING

How does a Buddhist order a hot dog in New York?

'One with everything.'

Many so-called gurus declare that we are already everything — God. This assertion is as mindless as saying that we don't exist at all. Yet both are true. And false. Because reality is with us always and we are attempting to find what always was, and always will, exist.

What you and the cosmos consist of can eventually be sensed — but at a level of perception that mind, body and emotions can't grasp. The problem is to make these parts passive while remaining acutely alert.

Simple and extraordinarily difficult as all profundities are.

It requires total attention.

To remain in the space before thought.

To be aware of yourself.

To be.

And that, in turn, needs energy — accumulated until the whole of you vibrates. Not emotional venting but feeling from an objective and limitless source.

It comes when we have total attention.

Attention has unique possibilities for expansion and intensity but demands death to our psychology — and rebirth.

How many are desperate enough to long for that wild birth? Where is the moth, that in Attar's great poem, is willing to unite with the flame?

Test yourself:

Do you see that the eventual role of thought is to still itself and so perceive?

Can you breathe the moment and come to formless self?

Can you reach a centre in yourself which, while doing nothing, affects all things?

Can you be so filled with energy that there is 'time no longer' — that time stops?

Can you feel that nothing but being exists? That the cosmos has nothing separate from itself and is therefore, only aware?

That the source is a dimensionless point? That there is nothing external to you? That, 'the whole cosmos is contained in one pinhole in the heart.'?

Unfortunately for us, we cannot get there from here.

And so you have this guide. Which starts at the beginning by expounding our situation. What do we know? What do we think? What do we believe? Because there is a great deal to understand before we can come to profoundly simple things.

The universe is not complex. We are. And, to reveal the unity, profundity behind everything, our complexity must die.

Knowledge begins with the teaching of the cosmoses.

G. I. Gurdjieff

PART ONE ─ THE SITUATION

'I know that I know nothing.'

Socrates

WHAT DO WE KNOW?

Little. Because our minds are too limited to understand what there is — or what, where and why we are.

You disagree?

Then, ask yourself, why is there anything at all? It's a question posed down the centuries by scientists and philosophers alike. Why, for instance, is there not simply nothing? Surely that would make more sense?

But I see and feel that I exist.

Can I trust that?

My perception is far less acute than that of many other creatures. For example, my eyesight is not as sharp as an eagle's. I cannot see the ultra-violet spectrum like an ant. My sense of smell is hopelessly inferior to a dog's. Despite these limitations, I appear to be here, standing on this planet and have the impression that I, and everything around me, is physically real.

But where did this everything originate?

And why?

Religious minds believe the world was created by an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god. If so, where did he/she/it come from? Does she have a daddy? And where then did he come from? It is a conundrum as unlikely and unanswerable as the confident assumption that the world is supported on the back of an elephant standing on a great turtle. And what supports the turtle? Easy. There are turtles all the way down.

Einstein tells us that mass is frozen energy and warps space. And that light and gravity are quantum states. And that, if we travel fast enough, we will be shorter and time will slow down. This is strange but now demonstrable. We can fathom its implications, theoretically at least. And we know how to convert 0.9 grams of matter into an atomic conflagration.

Then we are assured that we live in an expanding universe that, fifteen billion years ago, started with a bang.

Started with a bang?

How?

Either something came from nothing. Or something was eternally there. Because both are impossible, this is beyond our capacity to process.

The current thought experiment represents the universe as a dotted balloon. The dots represent galaxies. As the balloon expands, the dots widen and become further apart. This model, by the way, postulates that the universe is all there is. In other words, outside the balloon, or the ever-stretching fabric of space, there is nothing. The balloon is all — and therefore all of space is expanding.

But the universe is not merely expanding. Its galaxies are flying apart with increasing velocity. Why? They should be slowing down.

No. The further they are from an observer on earth, the faster they recede. Eventually they will travel so fast that their light will no longer reach us.

So, what makes them accelerate? One postulate is dark energy. Dark energy of roughly the expected magnitude was detected in astronomical observations in the late 1990s. Apparently, 96% of the universe is missing and contains matter we cannot see at all. So, most of it is invisible. We can't see dark matter, dark energy or gravity. Only its effects.

And as the galaxies fly apart, where are they expanding to? Infinity?

Surely space must end somewhere. But, if it does, what is beyond or enclosing it? Infinity is as illogical as a finite universe. Our minds cannot process either option.

Similarly, time must have a stop. And if it does, what happens then?

Another theory says that if we could fly fast enough away from our galaxy in a straight line, we would arrive back where we started. This Cosmic Curve model of the universe loops back on itself like a donut. Then what is outside the donut? Impossible again. There is also the Mirage theory. This suggests that the cosmos is a repeating pattern, like a wall of mirrors. So, not that big at all.

Obscurities pile on obscurities. Such as the 'Information Paradox' that asserts that information cannot be destroyed. But that if a black hole fizzles out, it takes the information it has digested with it. This does not happen, according to Steven Hawking, because it is preserved in the disturbance of the 'event horizon'.

But back to the expanding balloon.

It was a singularity, we are told. An instant explosion from nothing. The 200 billion suns in the Milky Way and the billion trillion stars in the visible universe came from something smaller than an atom. Before the balloon arrived, there was nothing. No time. No space.

But how can something come from nothing?

Enter the 'multiverse'. This is pictured as soap bubbles. Bubbles forming from bubbles. And our universe is just one. Where, then, did the others come from? This explanation simply moves the process back one step. In other words, is as sophisticated as 'turtles all the way down'.

An alternative is the Many Worlds theory which considers the branching possibilities of all actions. It's where every possible outcome of a quantum event exists in its own universe. You may therefore exist in many duplicate independently evolving worlds all superimposed in the same physical space. In some you will be successful and rich. In others, destitute and ailing.

Parallel universes are not a theory but predictions of other theories. For some scientists, they are inevitable — the only conclusion that makes sense.

So?

The universe is impossible. We live in a miracle and think it mundane.

Then there is the riddle of life. Life is a system that defies entropy — that can maintain itself for a time by giving and taking from its surroundings. Curious! So, where did it come from and how is it supported?

Let's tackle the second question first. The Strong Anthropic argument says that we live in a Goldilocks zone fine-tuned for life. It asks why is our universe so well suited to us? Because if any of the fundamental constants of it changed even slightly, we would die.

This brings us to Supersymmetry, which proposes that every particle in the Standard Model has a massive 'shadow' partner with properties vastly different from the particles we have found. And that these particles are possibly the source of dark matter. Supersymmetry suggests that universes with a low degree of supersymmetry contain atoms, molecules and complex life. So, many universes might be habitable — which absolves us from being so special.

And just how special, aren’t we? In the scale of time that comprises the lifetime of the sun, the entire duration of life on earth is an event as brief as a passing bird and the time man has been on the earth wouldn't be seen as more than a flicker. On the smaller scale of our planet, we posturing self-glorifiers are invisible, immaterial nonentities with lifetimes a thousand times shorter than a spark.

But back to the first question. Where did life come from? How did it appear?

How did something living erupt from barren rocks, sands and chemicals?

This has perplexed biologists for centuries. As cells are too complex to have formed all at once, it must have begun with a single component. So, researchers have spent decades trying to get RNA to assemble or copy itself in the lab.

It doesn't happen. It's like assembling a load of bricks and expecting them to morph into a house.

But they still search for the dividing line between minerals and organic matter and refuse to intuit that the connection may not be there — that they may be parallel instead of intersecting structures.

The difference between living and inert matter is self-perpetuation/growth. This suggests an underlying purpose. And it is difficult to study biology without using teleological arguments (those related to purpose or intention). Matter is subject to entropy. If you break a glass, it cannot unbreak itself. But unlike non-living matter, life has 'negative-entropy' — can repair itself and grow. And this requires a high degree of order.

Did life emerge, then, fully formed? Some biologists now reluctantly admit that this explanation is increasingly credible. It suggests that life didn't begin on earth at all but was delivered by meteorite. But this still doesn’t explain how it first appeared.

And what are we in all this mystery?

A person standing vertically on the earth?

Hold that thought for a moment. What is this 'person' composed of? We are a miniature universe, inhabited by a thousand billion cells and ten times more bacteria. And our cells comprise a staggering number of atoms. An atom, by the way, is mostly empty space because between its particles are huge distances.

For instance, if the nucleus of an atom were enlarged to the size of a pea, its nearest electron would be 150 metres away. Enlarge that pea to the size of a soccer ball, and the electron would be the size of a mosquito orbiting 10 kilometres distant.

The scientist, Eddington, gave the example of the desk on which he wrote his lectures. There was the apparent desk which had weight and didn't collapse when he leant on it, and the 'particle' desk composed mostly of emptiness in which electric charges move at incredible speed. An electron, for instance, will take 150 attoseconds to zoom once around the nucleus of a hydrogen atom. To put that in perspective, it will make a million billion orbits of the nucleus in the time it takes you to blink. But the combined bulk of these charges, Eddington explained, was less than a billionth part of the bulk of the visible desk.

So, reality is a void.

At the quantum level, we don't exist.

On the quantum scale, we are told, matter does not subsist in a deterministic form but rather as a collection of uncertainties. According to The Copenhagen Interpretation, quantum systems exist in a probabilistic limbo until seen. Only when observed do they attain a definite state. This is termed 'superposition'.

'Superposition' is now challenged by 'quantum entanglement' or particles related at a distance. An electron can jump from one orbit to another without traversing the space between them. If you have one entangled photon or electron on earth and its equivalent on the moon, their spin factors switch instantaneously. In other words, faster than light speed — which, incidentally, is 186,000 miles per second. But, as nothing travels faster than light, this is clearly impossible.

How could two such particles, separated by 250,000 miles instantly communicate? But they do. It's called the EPR Paradox and will become the basis of quantum cryptography.

EPR is an observable fact with huge implications. It means that the physical world is non-local. That that the universe is interconnected, interdependent and inseparable. Take this irrational statement further and you have the Zen concept of Moment Eternity. This implies that everything,