Exploring The "all"; The "source"; The "everything", Understanding and discussing the Oversoul Options

Broad definition (Wikipedia baby! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/book.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/bigwink.gif) ) : Collective indivisible Soul, of which all individual souls or identities are included. The experience of this underlying reality of the indivisible "I am" state of the Over-soul is said to be veiled from the human mind by sanskaras, or impressions, acquired over the course of evolution and reincarnation. Such past impressions form a kind of sheath between the Over-soul and its true identity, as they give rise to the tendency of identification with the gross differentiated body.

Since i am not learned in Eastern philosophy, nor in Emerson's Oversoul theory, and because i figure not many people on this forum are, i thought it might be more appropriate to provide a general definition and follow it up with some questions. I am only well versed in my own ideas; which sound pretty ambiguous when i try to define them. So instead of "owning" the material, which i have no claim to (*sigh* there is no origional thought in the world) I thought this might be a fun way to share and broaden my scope on the subject.

Hopefully, this will start some serious discussion:

Question number 1: What is the natural evolution of thought leading up to this particular revelation, and can it be considered "ascension" or progress in making such a realization?

Homo Sapiens are self-realizing creatures, even our name implies it; one of our early childhood developments is recognition of one's
own reflection; the first question anyone ever asks is "who am i?

Question number 2: Does the Source realize itself?

I think so; and i also think that this self-realization is confirmed and complimented by (if not a result of) the existence of intelligent
life.

Question number 3: How or Why did the Source birth individual conscious...and what is useful about private experience?

Is individual experience simply another dimension of the Everything? It it impossible to have one and not the other?

Question number 4: Is the Source a process or an entity? Is it a process becoming an entity? Is it both?

Question number 5: If it is a process what triggered it?

(Assuming there is either a catalyst or an origin) What is the X factor?

Question number 6: If it is an entity what motivates it?

Wonderful questions! These are my contemplations on the matter...

Question number 1: What is the natural evolution of thought leading up to this particular revelation, and can it be considered "ascension" or progress in making such a realization?

In my opinion, the evolution of thought is similar to this: We recognize ourselves as separate from others, our individuality; we recognize ourselves as similar, though still different, to others; we recognize the processes within our individual self reflected in the world around us; we realize the importance and place of ourselves within a greater whole; we recognize that greater whole as it's own individual entity, of which we are a part; we recognize the inherent connection all beings share as a universal whole; and finally we perceive a 'divine' governing intelligence which directs this great whole. If we're lucky, we experience it. I would consider it a kind of mental ascension and progress to make this realization, personally - many, usually LHPers in my experience, consider it 'buying into the dogma' or some such. I consider it so, because it makes us better, stronger in so many ways, and is ultimately only beneficial to our existence, though often it is originally perceived as threatening - because we cling to individuality, and believe that being the extension of a single source robs us of this; when in reality it makes our individuality that much more of a mystery and miracle. But then, I'm a 'glass half full' kind of guy.

Question number 2: Does the Source realize itself?

Yes, and for the same reasons. The presence of self-realization in the micro-cosm of the individual, must according to my governing paradigm, proceed from a similar self-realization in the macro-cosm. Which is not to say i'm personally dogmatic to my paradigm, so much as, it has so far never steered me wrong. Our self-realization is the self-realization of the Source, expressed through our individual understanding of it.

Question number 3: How or Why did the Source birth individual conscious...and what is useful about private experience?

One of the few unanswerable questions. Suffice it to say, the reasoning and intention of the Source is utterly incomprehensible to the individual, but it does so because it does so. Whereas we perceive ourselves as separate from our intentions and actions in the sense that our body carries them out, and our consciousness is clothed with the body, and still further one may say that our 'core' is clothed by consciousness - the source has no such separation, it is a true Whole. Therefore, it is it's intention, action, and result, all at once. If there is a reason, it is a divine one, beyond mortal conception. Perhaps it is simply what it does. What is useful to private experience is a broad inquiry - it is useful to us because it is what advances us, gives us perspective, and isolates our experience from that of others in order to have a basis of interaction and comparison by which we all grow together, to the benefit of all. It can be of no benefit whatsoever to the Source, because it cannot be perfected greater than it is - it has no measure. It cannot be entertained - all possibility is before it in a single eternal moment. It cannot grow - it encompasses all that there is to be or become. In it's perfect totality, infinite, eternal, the source gains nothing from our existence, does not need our experience, our worship, our ascension. We are drawn to those things because of the Source, and seek them out because it is the current of all existent things to return to Wholeness in their own perspective. From the perspective of the Source, we are already whole.

Question number 4: Is the Source a process or an entity? Is it a process becoming an entity? Is it both?

It sounds vague, but the Source, to me, IS the process, and it IS the entity. The only process, the only being. It is both, but in a way that does not recognize them as separate. In a way we are all both process and entity. Our lifetime, our multiple lifetimes, encompass a process within the universe, which is embodied in an entity. So, given the great degree of separation between our individual self and the incomprehensible Source of All, we may only guess at the nature of the Source by seeing ourselves and understanding that as extensions of the Source, we and all other things in existence, are reflections of that source - similar in nature, but differing infinitely in degree.

Question number 5: If it is a process what triggered it?

Question number 6: If it is an entity what motivates it?

See question 3 and 4. It may exercise the mind to contemplate the nature of the Source, it's intention, it's reasons for creating existence, but ultimately those questions can only ever exercise the mind. While we experience time, eons, universes, etc., the source is all possibility, all time, all ages, all beings, existing at one single, eternal moment - and not even that. It simply is. The illumined say that it creates creation similarly to the way we create thoughts - out of nothing, into nothing, and we are as insubstantial to it as our thoughts are to us. But it being single and whole beyond all things, there is nothing to trigger it but itself. Being the only true entity, there is nothing to motivate it except itself. So it does, because it does.

Even contemplating that simple statement while stretching one's mind to accept the enormity of the Source itself "It acts because it acts; it is because it is" can lead to expanded states of consciousness and truly spiritual moments of epiphany and rapture. There is a sublime comfort in the knowledge of the immutable, enduring and eternal source. It is, I think, the true experience of God to feel that stability that underlies what appears to be chaos.

I would also not classify the Source as Chaos or Order. These things both imply a form of separation. Chaos and Order, I believe, proceed from the source, but are neither one of them qualified as the source itself. Order implies limitation, Chaos implies separation, neither of which apply to the Source.

That's my thoughts.

peace
b

This post has been edited by Vagrant Dreamer: Oct 5 2007, 11:53 PM

As the Pendulum sways
All you can say
Is about:
Here and Thereafter

Till, is found
The rope that wound
Upon celestial quarter

Then comes the way
For you to then say:
How it had happened to me!

From this point you will see
Burning center of We
That hangs,
Between the Breath and the Weigh

Beyond?
Is what you say
Take a hand
Breath,Weigh

This post has been edited by Uni_Verse: Oct 6 2007, 05:23 AM

Question number 1: What is the natural evolution of thought leading up to this particular revelation, and can it be considered "ascension" or progress in making such a realization?

I refer to the process leading up to the revelation as shifting from Slumbering to Awakening.
I do not use the word Ascension for referencing that process.

Question number 2: Does the Source realize itself?

If "realize" here means "recursively aware" - then yes, The Source is aware that it is The Source.

Question number 3: How or Why did the Source birth individual conscious...and what is useful about private experience?

Individuating via emanation enables The Source to adventure throughout The Omniverse while simultaneously remaining the geographic center of The Omniverse.

Question number 4: Is the Source a process or an entity? Is it a process becoming an entity? Is it both?

Relative to The Omniverse (which is The All as Environment), The Source is The Entity that actualizes processes.

Question number 5: If it is a process what triggered it?

NA given answer to Question 4.

Question number 6: If it is an entity what motivates it?

The Source is not motivated.
The Source is that which motivates all dynamics (of every level) in The Omniverse.

The Source is The Dynamo.

I've heard a similar theory that the universe experiences itself through life. It has a consciousness because we have a consciousness.

plainsight wrote

I've heard a similar theory that the universe experiences itself through life. It has a consciousness because we have a consciousness.

"As above, so below." is a famous axiom that sets the rationale for considering the "universe" to have a consciousness because we have a consciousness.
A single, modern term for referencing the dynamic function of that axiom is reiteration.

However, notice the "above" and "below" in the famous axiom. That which is above is "higher" than that which is below. That which is below is below is "lower" than that which is above. For me, "higher" is a spatially metaphor for inner - and "lower" is a spatial metaphorical for outer. With that in mind, the axiom also can be expressed as, "As within, so without".

I have learned that the lower-outer can be used for symbolizing the higher-inner, but not the other way around - because doing so the other way around causes the higher-inner to be nothing more than allegorical, and builds the perspective that the lower-outer is "primary reality" while the higher-inner only can be effective as merely allusive abstractions.

So given what I have come to understand, I would express what you wrote there the other way around: we are conscious because the "universe" is conscious.

O you looked in it too deep. What are people, but atoms particles and energy?

O you looked in it too deep. What are people, but atoms particles and energy?

And what are atoms, particles, and energy but expressions of a space-time substrate set into motion and activity? What is the space-time substrate except the manifestation of the Source as Presence?

I would agree with Praxis, we are conscious because the universe is conscious - and to further clarify, we experience consciousness in a particular kind of way, but it is not the full breadth of what consciousness is. Because the Source is consciousness, and cannot be divided, all that it 'creates' (that we perceive to be created, and perceive to be separate) also is conscious. Consciousness is displayed in all of creation in a variety of ways - this is no where described more elegantly than in the Alchemical allegories, wherein the chemical processes, or consciousness, of matter, are refined and raised up to a more perfected state.

"Those atoms, particles, and energy" have consciousness, and our own is the collective consciousness of these things. The human race and the planet have consciousness that is the collective of all things here, and so on. Although we speak of matter, consciousness, and spirit as separate things, reflecting our own sense of separateness, they are not. Consciousness and Spirit are indivisible from Matter. This is not a mechanical model, however - the presence of Spirit in a mechanical model represents the interdependent influences of mechanical and non-mechanical principles.

peace