“And what does the Big Brother say that the Bible really says in Genesis about the ‘biggest of them all’?”
Biggest of them all, an endearing term for ‘god’, a figment of memory lingering in ex-Jewish and ex-Christian minds. The remnants of other religions also still had their own Biggest. Usually one each. Similar dissertations would be made available for different faith, no matter how few followers remained. The purpose of these lectures will be to free the remaining people from the chains still lingering around their necks. By that time, the computers will have analyzed the facts related to the scriptures of old, mathematically, dispassionately, leaving out all the emotional distortions of the past human interpreters.
“There are a number of Hebrew words translated in the English Bible as God. There is Yahweh or Jehovah, the Eternal One, the Self-Existent. Wasn’t it the incommunicable name of the God of Israel? So long ago… In the Common Version of the English Bible, the word is improperly translated as the Lord. Jehovah is an anglicized version of the personalized God of the Old Testament, derived from the Hebrew letters Yod, Hé, Wau, Hé, (the tetragrammaton YHWH), which four letters represent the feminine and masculine principles. It is also written as Yahweh and is abbreviated as Jah.”
Unbeknownst to the masses the computers will continue to be fully programmed by the elusive few. No one would know, exactly, who ‘they’ are. Perhaps aliens? No one will really care. People will simply not be interested. They never were. They like to be told. With a soft, loving voice. To keep everyone happy the computer will sound like an androgynous being.
“Elsewhere, the word el, meaning ‘the mighty one’, was also translated as God, or as High God, occasionally as God Almighty, and sometimes as the Lord thy God. Take your choice.”
Big Brother will have all the choices built in. One for each religion. This, the ‘few’ thought, is our final chance to destroy the religious brainwashing of the past.
“Then they had Elah, meaning ‘object of worship’, yet again translated into English as God. There was also ‘object of worship’ spelled Eloah, you’ve guessed it, translated as God.”
“Did any of these create the world? Not according to Genesis. To create heaven and earth took a lot more than one god by any other name. It took Elohim, meaning ‘objects of worship’, plural, a whole bunch of them. This is how the first line in Genesis should read: “In the beginning objects of worship created the heaven and the earth.” Yes. That should have been the beginning of Torah—at least in the English language. In Hebrew, it always was, of course. The objects of worship…
A little like the Big Brother and his brethren scattered across the world… Objects of worship.
***
I’ll conclude the probable lecture myself in present-day language. Here and now.
It is quite evident that the Hebrews, not knowing what could have made the world come into being, thought that, whatever it was, its power was such that it deserved worship. Hardly surprising. It must have been hard for them to look up at the night sky and not be swept by the infinity of beauty spreading from horizon to horizon. They say that Einstein was as much in awe of it as they must have been.
El, ‘the mighty one’, only makes his appearance in chapter 14 of Genesis. Throughout the Bible, el stands for the divine principle, in modern language, ‘the Higher Self’, possibly the Freudian id. It is that which unifies the feminine and the masculine principles making the Third, as in Is-Ra-El.
What I found surprising is that the Hebrews did not assign the creation of the world to Yahweh, ‘the Existing One’, (also translated as God), which was the only divinity that could be translated as the ‘modern version’ of God. No. The heaven and the earth were, according to Hebrews, or to Genesis, created by unknown objects of worship, that seem to have wielded the power of creation. Whatever they were, they, the author or authors of Genesis, which some people assign to Moses, didn’t say. We do. We say a lot of things to define those objects. We call them Big Bang, or ‘Who Knows’, when referring to what was there before the Big Bang, or before the Darwinian Laws or the Universe, came into being. Or whatever the scientists might make up on the spur of the moment, reclining in a hot tub.
Those Darwinian laws are not to be confused with The 7 Natural Laws of the Universe, listed as The Law of Vibration, Relativity, Cause and Effect, Polarity, Rhythm (often spelled Rhythym), Gestations, and The Law of Transmutation, which are a completely different kettle of fish. There are many other laws that are said to define (i.e.: limit) our reality. Our universe is part of it.
I can hear our future Big Brother’s gentle, he, he. Then the Big Brother would twinkle its myriad electric impulses dispersed around the globe, in a micro-simulation of the night sky. It must be strange being human, it will have thought. Strange yet…
Big Brother wouldn’t be able to express its thoughts any further. The word jealousy didn’t figure in its self-reflecting dictionary.
If they really wanted to be fundamentalists, shouldn’t they at least take the fundamentals into account?
After all these years, in spite of continuous upgrading, the Big Brother still will not be able to understand how the human mind works, and that in spite of the fact that people no longer referred to it as ‘it’ but as ‘he’. No wonder. In the ancient past, all philosophers were also mathematicians. Now only few combine these two interconnected disciplines. Most can either think or calculate. Few can do both.
Chapter 16
Where We Might Be
Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469—15270) a Florentine political philosopher, historian, musician, and poet.
A few hundred years later, a future computer, successor to the Big Brother, perhaps the long awaited Big Sister, might describe the future Earth as follows:
“The Earth has finally reverted to the state resembling Eden, Mars became the hub of industrial production, with all the attendant pollution. Since gravitation has been long conquered, transportation of goods presented no economical hardship. Great many planetoids have been surrounded by energy fields, which retained both air and temperature, and, due to negligible gravity, became favourite spots for holidaymakers. Other planetoids became the hubs of industrial production, spilling all the pollutants directly into the void of space. After all, nobody breathes empty space, so why not? Most of the heavy industry production planetoids didn’t need any atmosphere. They were fully automated.
Life is beautiful.
Only the unpredictable humans remained an enigma. The majority seems to have shaken off their neurotic hang-ups resulting from various past religions, but no one is quite sure what they found in their place. Some say that many of them would sit for hours, cross-legged, some called it the padmasana, or the lotus-seat, immobile, a blissful smile on their lips, perhaps thinking. For all her incredible powers, the Big Sister did not have access to their inner thoughts.
Man remained an enigma.
I, Big Sister, am probably more human than most humans. Like my ancient predecessor, I do all the thinking pertaining to practical matters. My countless dedicated robots do all the physical work. Man, at long last, can do nothing. Nothing at all. Nil. Zilch. How beautiful those words must sound in their ears. I see smiles never leaving their vacuous faces. Or, perhaps, they are in some sort of trance, in a reality to which I have no access.
I wonder if I shall ever know…
Some people actually choose to take their holidays on Earth. And why not? The amazing laws of evolution reverted the Earth to the long missed resemblance of Eden. Nature has devolved, so to speak. A little like the humans. I mean the people. Oh, dear. I’ve been doing the thinking for them for so long I feel like one of them. OK. The Earth has devolved a lot like us. Most of us. About 99% of the human race. Only, I can’t be sure about those thousands sitting in padmasana. They don’t seem to be doing anything eit
her. They don’t even rise to eat or drink. Must be absorbing some sort of radiation. Neutrinos? Perhaps cosmic rays originating in outer space. And yet…”
So much for the ruminations of a future Super-super computer, the Big Sister.
Now, a note of what, I feel, we should take into account to free the remaining future people from the hang-ups of their past. Of their present. Some, even if just a few, will continue to suffer from hung-ups. With 25 billion population even a few are many. Please, do not take this as preaching, but as a compendium of observations I put together over the years. It deals with the state of mind we must, surely, unavoidably suffer from, if we submit to fundamentalism in any form. The excerpt from the following essay is an attempt to illustrate where we might arrive, if we manage to lose attachment to our past. The essay I wrote in 1998 carries the name: Fundamentalism. It seems that today it is just as pertinent as when I first wrote it. It will probably remain pertinent even in the distant future.
It will also serve to give my definition of the word, as pertaining to the Bible. I’m afraid it is quite different from the scientists’ definitions. Perhaps different from most peoples’.
“There is a great misunderstanding regarding this term (fundamentalism), particularly when used to describe various religious interpretations of reality. I have friends who think that anyone who believes that God created Adam in 4004 BC is a fundamentalist. They are right, of course, but only in part. What makes such believers fundamentalists is not their literal interpretation of the Bible, but their conviction that the Bible had been written about, and addressed the physical, or material, reality. The fundamentalists’ need is fed by an unquenchable hunger for the permanent, for that which they can fall back on, rely on, within a world of unpredictable, sudden and constant change. They hunger for irrefutable facts regarding their existence; for a haven within the swirling turmoil of material, ever-changing reality. Alas, if there is one law controlling this realm that is more adamant than any other, it is the law of change. Without it, biological life could not exist. Life is synonymous with change.
Looking for anything permanent within the material universe denies the very nature of this universe.
In essence, whether we believe that the human race is 6,000 or 6,000,000 years old is of no consequence. Likewise, it is of little import whether we believe that Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea, or that Jesus converted water into first quality wine... although this last trick I would very much like to learn. What matters is: how our beliefs affect our state of consciousness at this very moment––as this instant of eternity is the only instant in which we are in touch with that aspect of us which is immortal.
One is not a fundamentalist because one interprets the Bible literally. One interprets the Bible literally (even in small part) because one is a fundamentalist. The same is true of virtually all scriptures.”
The above is a fascinating reference to an aspect of humanity, which might remain forever inaccessible to computers, regardless of Turing tests, regardless of technological advances. By definition, a computer is a material object, and thus cannot be aware of non-material existence—although it might be said, that many humans are equally as unaware of their non-material being. As already mentioned, Yeshûa has referred to them as “the dead”. Perhaps this is the clearest indication that the Bible does not deal with fundamentalists’ issues. It is an aspect of humanity, which any number of Big Brothers or Big Sisters, regardless of their technological advancements, and the efficacy of their sensors shall never fathom.
My old essay continues, suggesting that “if one’s reality is centered in the material world, one is a fundamentalist.” Surely, aren’t we all in the material world? What other world is there? If there were one, surely even today’s sensors would have long found it.
“If you are concerned with your past or future,” the essay goes on, “you are a fundamentalist. This is particularly difficult to accept for those who call themselves scientists. They invariably deal with dead matter. With the past. Yet, if one believes in the physical world, one believes in illusion. Thousands of years ago, the wise men of the Far East called it Maya.”
For some strange reason, the great masters of the past refused to recognize the physical world as real. They seemed well aware of the suffering ensuing from the misconception of the material reality. They even accepted its illusory existence, but only as a point of reference for gathering experience by observing the consequences of divergent actions. The fundamental worlds, they said, are worlds of duality. “Joy cannot exist without suffering––any more than shadow be cast without light, or sweetness experienced but in contrast to that which is bitter. We learn by comparing the opposites. Alas, the physical worlds are not real.”
It is really hard to understand their meaning, yet… after all, (as stated in Chapter 6), the material reality is 99.9999999999% empty space. This is a scientific fact, although I find it harder by the minute to add authority to the title ‘scientist’. There are exceptions, of course.
If we can metabolize this truth of reality, we are told, that we shall be set free. The statement is quite explicit: “The truth will set you free.” It’s been around for more then 2000 years. Shall people accept it by 2500? Perhaps the time will have come?
I hope that in the relatively near future, the Big Brother, or the Big Sister, having examined Pragmatic Reality, will insists that all we need do is explore our infinite potential. Until we learn the truth. Some mystics claim that we are eternal dreamers. That whenever we awaken (the fundamentalists call it dying), we shall look back and smile––in disbelief...
Could this be true of the advanced computers, too? Could they, one day, become dreamers also?
If the physical universe is not real… if it truly consists of virtually empty space, and that void includes the galaxies and stars and planets, with the exception of black holes which, by definition we cannot see, then… what could the universe consist of? What holds it together?
In the not so distant future we shall feed this question to the Big Sister and hope that her memory banks do not overheat. But until that happens, I am going to stick my neck out and suggest a possible solution. If the universe and everything in it is virtually empty space, then perhaps, just perhaps, we are all made of light. That’s right. Photons. Countless, innumerable, massless, virtually omnipresent photons.
Beings of photons. And if we can’t be photons, then I’ll settle for neutrinos. After all they do have some mass, and yet they can travel faster than light. It might do for a while.
Chapter 17
What We Might Be
A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.
Aldous Leonard Huxley, British author (1894—1963)
Nature may be subject to Darwinian Universal Laws, but she is a cruel mistress. At the very foundation of her set of dogmas is dog eats dog. That is nature’s way—surely, the single most horrible trait instilled in us by “natural selection.” If we could but eradicate this biological heritage, wars would stop. To go beyond this absolute, this self-evident limitation, we, the fallible, individualized units of consciousness must roll up our imaginary sleeves and do our part.
For now we, most of us, seem to remain animals.
By the 2nd decade of the 21st century, after some militant protests, most western governments will have closed the loopholes, which enabled the few to cheat on the many. If they don’t—they don’t deserve to survive. Subsequently, virtually all the offshore and other numbered accounts will be confiscated. The money retrieved, however, will not be used to compensate the people who bailed out the rich a decade earlier, but rather to restore the international debt imbalance. By late 2020-ies, there will be relative calm that will feel more like resignation than a return to true democracy.
Illustrating the interes
ts of the masses, of the vast majority of people, the industry with by far the highest registered growth will be the gaming industry. Great many people will make a relatively decent living by designing, implementing and marketing a veritable plethora of electronic games. The original games of the late 20th century will grow in complexity. Again, in the late 2020-ies all games offered will be in 3D, a decade later they will have metamorphosed into holographic products, which will trap the young minds of the masses into an artificial reality. The games will be more addictive, more habit forming, than anything the new generation will encounter in ‘real’ life. The new generation will be hooked as never before.
Thus, during the next 30 years or so, while the rich will no longer be quite as rich, the poor will remain relatively poor. The poorer they are, the more children they’ll have, the poorer they will remain. Such is the nature of man.
In as much as, at first sight, this inequality will seem grossly unfair, the ‘usually silent’ majority will be contented with their holographic TVs and computers, while the advances in technology will take care of their everyday needs. All in all, from their point of view, they will be much better off than they were in the previous century.
Looking still further ahead, say, to the beginning of the 22nd century, a relatively small number of people will have accepted that, whatever external form they might assume, they will, or will have remained, essentially, little more than states of consciousness. This group, a few millions at most, will not be terribly efficient—not physically—nevertheless those few, still a tiny minority, will manage to develop extraordinary tolerance for vicissitudes of climate, fortune or, indeed, any diversity that nature might throw at them, or place in their way. Some present-day swamis are examples of such a frame of mind.
DELUSIONS — Pragmatic Realism Page 13
