Here is a link to a fascinating paper which states that the Universe may be a strange loop of self-simulating consciousness: https://www.naturalblaze.com/2020/04/physicist-universe-may-be-a-strange-loop-of-self-simulating-consciousness.
This paper uses scientific reasoning to describe the physical universe as a mental self-simulation. Mystical traditions arrive at a similar conclusion using very different language. The Sufis say that creation began because “I (the Divine) was a hidden treasure desiring to be known.” Seth Lloyd, a computer scientist at MIT, hypothesizes that the universe is a giant quantum computer whose purpose is to compute itself.
In the past, I have understood what Hazrat Inayat Khan calls the message as the call to awakening of humanity to its divinity, and this is certainly an important aspect of the message. From the divine vantage point, the message may also be seen as the emergent awakening of the divine being to a deeper understanding of the divine itself through the unique beings in manifestation. If you consider each soul as a node of a cosmic neural network, then first each soul develops the capacity to participate in this neural network consciously through its individual awakening. As the neural network develops through the interaction of awakened souls, then the capacity of the cosmic neural network increases, and a deeper degree of understanding of the divine becomes possible. As Pir Vilayat said, we become capable of participating in the divine programming, and I would add, then the divine programming becomes capable of a higher order of knowledge.
Think of the message as a descending awareness from the divine into manifestation; there is then a return to the divine of wisdom and understanding from the capacities of consciousness which emerge through collective interaction of awakened beings. Just as light descends into existence and a transformed light returns to the source, the same is true of intelligence becoming consciousness becoming wisdom and then becoming higher order wisdom through interaction of beings who consciously participate in the cosmic neural network – the vehicle of the divine mind.
The following is an excerpt from The Gabrielite Work – Broadband Spirituality for the 21st Century ©Donald E. Weiner and Diane Weiner:
Information and the Alchemical Process
The alchemical process has traditionally focused on the sequential process of transformation of an individual. An alternative perspective is understanding alchemy as the means of transmuting information into wisdom. Ibn Arabi has stated that God confers upon the human a mode of being, and the human confers upon God a mode of knowing. If creation arose from the desire of the divine to be known, then sentient beings are the means by which God knows Him/Herself.
Ibn Arabi also states that each human being has access to a unique aspect of the divine wisdom that no one else has access to. In order for this knowledge to be accessed, first a person must individuate and develop a coherent sense of identity. Then, through a process of bi-unity, wisdom is revealed. To the degree that the vehicles (body, mind, emotion, and spirit) of an individual have been refined and developed, higher orders of wisdom emerge. The person has undergone a process of alchemical transformation, and the purpose of this transformation is the revealing of divine wisdom.
The stages of ego development are the requirements for deeper levels of wisdom to arise. The benefit to the individual is a progressive transmutation of grosser into subtler elements; the outcome for the divine is a greater degree of wisdom. Just as the purpose of having better computers with faster processors, more realistic graphics, and more evolved operating systems is not for the sake of the computers themselves, but rather for the increased ability to work with information, the purpose of the alchemical process is not solely for the sake of creating enhanced vehicles of experience, but for an increase in divine wisdom. The same process that results in spiritual transformation, producing in an individual a great mode of being, confers upon the divine a greater mode of knowing.
The resurrection body is a quantum leap in the capacity for an individual to participate in the process of divine intelligence becoming manifest vehicles having unique experiences the fruit of which is wisdom. When there is a network of awakened beings, then the capacity for wisdom to arise in new ways is increased by orders of magnitude.
Many scientists now believe that even more fundamental than matter, energy, or consciousness is information (with a very different meaning than our usual understanding of this term). The conclusions of the scientific article referenced at the start of this paper seem to be very much in alignment with an evolutionary spirituality, in which there is never an end to what can be known, either on the “human end” or the “divine side” of reality.
Azarbaksh, thank you for posting this. Very interesting.
On another topic, I believe I recall that you posted a quotation from Hazrat Inayat Khan in which he posited that Compassion, loving kindness, good will might spread like a virus.
If you still have that quote, could you please send it to me? Thank you, ReginaCoeli Marilyn Browning email address mcbrowning@aol.com
‘One person comes into a country with a little cold or influenza and it spreads. If such a bad thing can spread, could not then the elevated thought of love and kindness and goodwill towards all men also spread? Thus we should see to it that there are finer germs of goodwill going from one to the other, of love and kindness ,
of the feeling of brotherhood, of the desire for spiritual evolution; they will have greater results than the other ones.’ https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VIIIa/VIIIa_4_5.htm
I don’t
believe I sent a quote from Hazrat Inayat Khan related to this, but I found the
following:
“Scientific
evidence for social contagion explains how compassion can be spreading like the
virus itself. Research shows that compassion and cooperation can be highly
contagious, and can spread rapidly in communities and beyond.” - By Dr. Stephen
Trzeciak and Dr. Anthony Mazzarelli in the April 12 New York Daily News.
May compassion spread far and wide!
With all due respect to my Betters, in reading this post, I search and do not find any feeling or reference to Manifestation Creation being an act of Divine Ishk, and of course I do understand that we impress our HumanNess onto the Divine, nonetheless, and this includes of course our need for Love, and a relation to a Manifestation that is not mechanistic…
"This paper uses scientific reasoning to describe the physical universe as a mental self-simulation. Mystical traditions arrive at a similar conclusion using very different language. The Sufis say that creation began because “I (the Divine) was a hidden treasure desiring to be known.” Seth Lloyd, a computer scientist at MIT, hypothesizes that the universe is a giant quantum computer whose purpose is to compute itself.
In the past, I have understood what Hazrat Inayat Khan calls the message as the call to awakening of humanity to its divinity, and this is certainly an important aspect of the message. From the divine vantage point, the message may also be seen as the emergent awakening of the divine being to a deeper understanding of the divine itself through the unique beings in manifestation. If you consider each soul as a node of a cosmic neural network, then first each soul develops the capacity to participate in this neural network consciously through its individual awakening. …The alchemical process has traditionally focused on the sequential process of transformation of an individual. An alternative perspective is understanding alchemy as the means of transmuting information into wisdom. Ibn Arabi has stated that God confers upon the human a mode of being, and the human confers upon God a mode of knowing. If creation arose from the desire of the divine to be known, then sentient beings are the means by which God knows Him/Herself.
Ibn Arabi also states that each human being has access to a unique aspect of the divine wisdom that no one else has access to. In order for this knowledge … The benefit to the individual is a progressive transmutation of grosser into subtler elements; the outcome for the divine is a greater degree of wisdom. Just as the purpose of having better computers with faster processors, more realistic graphics, and more evolved operating systems is not for the sake of the computers themselves, but rather for the increased ability to work with information, the purpose of the alchemical process is not solely for the sake of creating enhanced vehicles of experience, but for an increase in divine wisdom. The same process that results in spiritual transformation, producing in an individual a great mode of being, confers upon the divine a greater mode of knowing.
The resurrection body is a quantum leap in the capacity for an individual to participate in the process of divine intelligence becoming manifest vehicles having unique experiences the fruit of which is wisdom. When there is a network of awakened beings, then the capacity for wisdom to arise in new ways is increased by orders of magnitude.
Many scientists now believe that even more fundamental than matter, energy, or consciousness is information (with a very different meaning than our usual understanding of this term). The conclusions of the scientific article referenced at the start of this paper seem to be very much in alignment with an evolutionary spirituality, in which there is never an end to what can be known, either on the “human end” or the “divine side” of reality"
“I was a hidden treasure desiring to be known.”
“For all will be perfect, all must be perfect. It is a matter of time. And it is towards that perfection that we are all striving, and the whole universe is working towards the same goal. It is in that perfection that the thinkers and the great ones of all times have seen their paradise, because through man it is God who desires. Therefore it is not the desire of man, it is the desire of God, and has its fulfillment.” (from Hazrat Inayat Khan in The Way of Illumination - The Purpose of Life)
If that’s not Ishq, then I don’t know what is. Far from being mechanistic, the fulfillment of the divine being takes place through the unique awakening of each soul to its creative capacity to express and reveal that which can only come through each being. Pir Vilayat talked about us becoming capable of participating in the divine programming, and this programming is evolved in its capacities by that which each awakened soul contributes to it.
As a Discussion point, I believe that there is usually an appending statement to the “I was a Hidden Treasure” which in various ways points to the Creating Consciousness “and out of Love for Humanity, I created…” so I was referencing the whole of the post, and in particular this part “This paper uses scientific reasoning to describe the physical universe as a mental self-simulation. Mystical traditions arrive at a similar conclusion using very different language. The Sufis say that creation began because “I (the Divine) was a hidden treasure desiring to be known.” Seth Lloyd, a computer scientist at MIT, hypothesizes that the universe is a giant quantum computer whose purpose is to compute itself.”
Thank you.That is the quote I was looking for. Much obliged.
Wonderful. Thank you for this.