The Numinous Way and Existence Beyond Death

The Numinous Way and Speculations Concerning Existence Beyond Death

The Nature of Our Being:

Our basic nature is that we are a nexion, a connexion between the causal and the acausal. That is, we - like all living-beings - possess, by virtue of being alive, acausal energy (1). This acausal energy is what animates us, what makes our physical bodies alive - more than an inert collection of elements, molecules and atoms - and this acausal energy is not destroyed when that physical body dies. This is so by the very nature of that acausal energy - which energy cannot be destroyed, in causal space-time.

In addition, we human beings, of all the life we currently are aware of, possess not only the faculty of consciousness - of causal reflexion - but also the ability to consciously change our behaviour. That is, we can consciously decide to do something, or not do something, and thus we can, to a certain extent, change or evolve ourselves. In many ways, culture is a means to aid us in this evolutionary change, which evolutionary change - according to The Numinous Way - is a change toward empathy, compassion, honour and reason, and this change itself is an acquisition, by us as individuals, of additional acausal energy. Thus, this change in ourselves is a type of ordered presencing of acausal energy in the causal.

This basic overview of the nature of causal beings raises some interesting questions. For example: (a) When a living-being that exists in causal space-time "dies", then what happens to the acausal energy that animated that living-being? (b) How does such acausal energy come to animate that certain collocation of physical elements, molecules and atoms originally? (c) What effect, if any, does an increase in acausal energy, produced by our conscious evolution - our conscious change of ourselves - have on what happens to the acausal energy after our causal death?

In respect of what happens to the acausal energy, it does not "go back" to or transcend to the acausal, for the acausal is already implicit within causal space-time; or rather, to be precise, the causal is a limiting case of the acausal - where there are only three spatial dimensions and only one dimension of Time, a linear one. That is, there is no physical, causal, separation between the causal and acausal, as might be imagined if we were thinking in terms of causal geometry. To understand the relation, we must think acausally, in terms of an unspecified, unlimited, number of dimensions which are not spatial and which are not limited to one linear Time dimension but which rather have many acausal (and thus un-linear) Time dimensions. All that happens, is that the specific physical connexion between causal and acausal is closed: physical matter in a certain place is no longer animated by acausal energy. Thus, the acausal energy that was presenced in a living-being becomes again unformed, unpresenced, acausal energy.

In respect of whether we can, in the causal, affect what happens to such acausal energy, The Numinous Way posits that we human beings, by virtue of our nature, have the ability to "form" or "pattern" such acausal energy as is presenced in us as living-beings - to increase it, to (in a symbolic way) strengthen it - and as such we can access part of the acausal itself, or have the possibility to do this, both in and during our mortal, causal, existence, and after such causal existence has ended. To access it, we have to "think acausally", to develope an acausal way of being within us. This means developing, refining, the faculty of consciousness, and especially the faculty of empathy, which is presenced in us and in our cultures by The Numinous, by honour, by compassion, by reason, by an awareness of ourselves as but one nexion among the matrix of connexions which are the living Cosmos, which connexions include Nature, and our own ancestral culture. It means a return to the "slow", natural time of Nature, of Life, of the acausal, and away from the often manic always unnatural causal time we have created by our abstractions, our lack of empathy, our lack of a cosmic and numinous perspective.

If we so access, so presence, such acausal energy, then there exists the possibility of that which is the essence of our being - the acausal aspect - continuing in a new way in the acausal when our causal existence ends, which continuation can be said to be the meaning of such a causal existence: an opportunity presented by the presencing that is our finite mortal life. As to the nature of such a continuing, all that can be said at present is that it would be - must be, given the nature of the acausal - beyond the causal form which we apprehend as "the self". That is, it is an evolution of us, as beings; a move-toward an acausal existence which by virtue of the nature of the acausal is not limited, or constrained, by causal time, and not limited, or constrained by spatial dimensions. Thus, causal concepts such as taking causal time to "move" or travel from one point in causal space to another causal point are irrelevant, as is the causal concept of birth-life-death.

However, this continuing is not an imperative of our causal existence - it is just a possibility, an opportunity. It is up to us to achieve it, to bring-it-into-being. If it is not achieved, then the acausal energy which was presenced in one living human being simply becomes un-presenced, in the causal: the causal aspects are lost. Or rather, the causal aspects which exist, which come-into-being, through such a life - such things as memory, experience, the very "personal nature" of such a living-being - are lost. In contrast, in a continuing, these aspects are part of the genesis for the new type of supra-personal being which becomes formed, or which may becomes formed, in the acausal.

In respect of how acausal energy comes to animate a certain collocation of physical elements, molecules and atoms - to bring-into-being a causal life - there can be, at present, only speculation, although it could be assumed that it is natural process, inherent in the process of living-beings, in the very fabric of acausal space-time. That is, the potential to presence acausal energy in the causal - to animate physical matter - is part of of the nature of acausal being itself.

Acausal Existence, Rebirth, and the Illusion of the Self:

One question which arises concerns the nature of the acausal energy which is no longer presenced in the causal by a living-being. This energy simply merges back unformed into the acausal from whence it was presenced, and as such may again be presenced in some way in some living-being some-where, possibly on this planet which we call Earth and possibly in some other form of life instead of a human being. But while this process has some similarities to a process described in Buddhism, it is not identical to that of "rebirth" in the Buddhist (or Hindu) sense - for The Numinous Way is simply rationally describing, using new concepts such as acausal, nexion and presencing, the nature of our being and the processes of life. (2)

In addition, The Numinous Way describes the causal self - to which we are often attached by causal desires and which often gives rises to or which causes suffering, for other living-beings - as an abstraction, a causal illusion: a manifestation of causality; or, more correctly, as a manifestation of limited "causal thinking", which thinking is based upon and depends upon abstractions.

For The Numinous Way, the reality of our being can only be correctly described in terms of causal and acausal: as one nexion, one connexion, between the causal and the acausal, and as such as possessed of acausal energy. To think in the reductionist, abstract, causal way - in terms of a distinct, separate, un-connected, self - is to misunderstand the nature of our being, the nature of Life, and the reality of the Cosmos, for this "self" is a trick of causal perception. To concentrate on this "self" reveals a lack of empathy - a lack of insight, and such a concentration on such an illusory self is one cause of suffering, which suffering can be alleviated, or removed, through acausal thinking, through that acausal way of being which is presenced in empathy, honour, reason and compassion.

Conclusion:

In essence, The Numinous Way posits that we possess, by virtue of being living-beings, a certain type and a certain amount of causal energy, and that we - as human beings possessed of consciousness and will - change increase such acausal energy. The acausal energy we possess lives on after the death of our mortal, causal, bodies, and returns to the acausal - to acausal space-time, which acausal space-time, by its nature, is not some separate physical realm but rather the reality of the Cosmos itself.

That is, causal space-time, the physical universe we are aware of through our physical senses, is a special - a limiting - case of the Cosmos, for the acausal is both within and around the causal, by virtue of there being no limited spatial dimensions, and no linear one dimensional time, in the acausal. In one sense, we can consider the causal - the physical universe of three spatial dimensions and one causal/linear time dimension - as a type of presencing of the acausal, with living-beings as connexions/nexions to certain aspects of the acausal itself.

The Numinous Way posits that empathy is a faculty which we human beings can develope, and that such development enables us to "pattern", to form, what acausal energy we are by virtue of being alive in the causal. If we do not do this, then such acausal energy - after our causal death - returns to its original unformed, un-causal, state in an aspect of the acausal. But if we do this, then in effect we begin the creation of a new type of acausal being, which being may have the ability to exist, as an entity, in the acausal after our causal death. The nature of this acausal being is speculative, but it is assumed that it is not based on the causal pattern of "the self" but is instead an evolution of such a "self" - with an awareness beyond the individual and thus a knowing of the matrix of Life which is the Cosmos. That is, it is a new (to us) type of consciousness.

Notes:

(1) For a basic, and tentative, description, see the essay Acausal Science.

(2) As noted in some other essays, The Numinous Way, unlike Buddhism, affirms that personal honour - and all that it implies, for example in terms of self-defence - is important, and a manifestation, a presencing, of the acausal. That is, that honour is numinous - one means to affirm life in a moral, ethical, way. In addition, The Numinous Way stresses the value of culture, and the joy, the possibilities, of life, and does not advocate a life of self-denying austerity and "meditation" but rather a true, gentle and ethical middle-way somewhat akin to the wu-wei of Taoism. Thus, while comparisons with both Buddhism and Taoism are possible, The Numinous Way can be considered to be a new manifestation of the acausal ("eternal") truths about Life, our human nature and the meaning of our lives.