THE NATURE OF REALITY (PART I)

An Essay by John W. Hawkins

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Reality: "that which is absolute or self-existent, as

opposed to what is derivative or dependent; that which is

ultimate." (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary)

Why I have always been drawn to think about the

unknowable and higher order of abstract ideas, I am at a

loss to explain. I certainly am not a philosopher nor

have I had a direct message from Heaven which has given me

knowledge not available to other of my fellow mortals.

Nonetheless, as long as I can remember, I have been

attracted to the unsolved mysteries of the universe, the

nature of being, where we came from and where we are

going. I have not spent years studying these questions

nor years in daily meditation on them, but having reached

a stage in my life which permits more time for reflection

and contemplation, old, nagging questions push their way

more easily into the conscious mind and demand to be

addressed.

My mother refreshed my early childhood memories of my

always wanting to go to India to seek the wisdom from one

of the wise men reputedly living there. ( A guru for a 4

or 5 year old is pretty unusual stuff to be thinking about

you must admit. However, I was once told by a psychic

that in a recent incarnation I had been a Hindu.)

When I was eight or nine, I remember sending off for

and receiving information about the Rosicrucians (The

Knights of the Rosy Cross). I certainly was not

encouraged in any way on these interests by either my

parents or my teachers. It was just one of those things

that makes each one of us a unique creation with different

aptitudes, interests, likes, dislikes, etc.

A few years later I became interested in magic and

almost all of my limited funds were spent at the local

magic shop buying the latest trick or books on magic.

Later, when our children were small, I would perform some

of these parlor tricks at birthday parties. Even to this

day I am fascinated by magicians and the effects they are

able to produce, even though I know they are all

illusions.

My religious upbringing was very conventional. If I

had not been somewhat precocious and hard for Sunday

School teachers to handle, I probably would have been

raised a Baptist or a Presbyterian since my parents

occasionally attended one or the other of these churches.

However, the teacher that finally was able to control me

was an Episcopalian, and so I was baptized and confirmed

in that church instead of one of those I had been ejected

from. (I even became an acolyte who assisted the minister

in the communion ceremony and got a few gold stars for

Sunday School attendence.)

Although there was much about what I was taught that I

didn't fully understand or believe (e.g. that the world

was created in six days), religion was a fascinating

subject to me. While I was in the U.S. Navy during World

War II, a Lutheran chaplain took me under his wing and had

me seriously considering studying for the ministry when I

got out of the service. Since I had already completed

three semesters at M.I.T., I decided to complete my

undergraduate work there before embarking on a radically

different course. (I returned to M.I.T. in the Fall of

1946. However, I switched my major from Aeronautical

Engineering to Business and Engineering Administration

with emphasis on courses in Economics and Psychology.)

My Grandmother Eakins (my Mother's Mother) had a great

influence on my religious feelings and beliefs as a boy.

Although she was not well-educated, she was truly a "good

old soul". Every day of her life, that I knew about at

least, she read the bible. Even when her eyes began to

fail her, she used a magnifying glass and would read

scriptures aloud to me from her precious book. Every word

in it was God's truth as far as she was concerned.

When I was thirty-two, my father died, and suddenly

not only was I a father and a husband but also executor of

my father's will and trustee of a modest amount of money

which would be mine upon my mother's death. Therefore, I

was able to have a liberal education in investing money

while still "wet behind the ears". I also immediately

became my mother's sole financial advisor and

conservatively invested her funds for maximum safety and

moderate yield. This provided her with an adequate income

so that in the twenty-two years between my father's death

and her own she did not have to withdraw anything from

principal in spite of setting up generous trust funds for

each of my four children.

Four years later a series of events conspired to bring

me to a "Cosmic Consciousness" experience. (I was 36 - a

typical age according to Dr. Bucke's book having this

title.) In those days we spent our vacations in a rented

beach house on the Gulf Coast. About one week prior to

our annual trek I was parking my car downtown at a parking

meter, but I found no change in my pocket. The store in

front of the parking place was a book store. So even

though my destination was around the corner, I went inside

to get a dime in change to feed the meter. (In those days

you could park an hour for a dime.)

The clerk was busy with a customer so I looked at a

book rack while I waited for her to complete the

transaction at the cash register. My eye fell on a book

that had a picture of a spiral galaxy on it entitled: "The

Unobstructed Universe" by Stewart White. Since I had

always been interested in astronomy (My father at one time

was President of the Tulsa Astronomical Society.), I

decided to buy the book to read during the upcoming

vacation rather than just asking the clerk to make change

for me. So in the suitcase went the book which led me to

a life-changing experience.

It turned out that the book was not about astronomy at

all as the cover had suggested, but rather about the wife

of the author. She was a psychic who had recently died

and who managed to contact a friend of hers who was also a

psychic. The very first chapter described how Betty White

had lured her friend into a store to buy something which

would lead her to make contact. A light began to go off

in my head. Do you suppose it was possible that my father

(definitely not a believer in things psychic) had

contrived to bring me into that bookstore with no

intention of buying any book, much less that particular

book, and had somehow influenced me to purchase it similar

to Betty White's friend's experience? After the "Eureka"

experience while reading the book I was convinced that

someone or something had definitely conspired to have me

purchase and read that particular book.

It was not a deeply philosophical book, but rather the

story of contact with "the other side" and what life was

like after "death". The point in the book when I had what

Pierre Janet calls an "abaissment du niveau mental" (a

lowering of the mental threshhold) was when one of the

discarnates was explaining through her friend about the

nature of the Trinity. All at once my mind was flooded

with a myriad of images, impressions, and feelings. There

was no flash of light though which often accompanies this

sort of thing. (It was so brillant that Saul was struck

blind from his encounter with the risen Christ on the road

to Damascus.)

Nevertheless, from that moment on many things

concerning life after death, the reality of God and Christ

as the Son of God were no longer merely things I had been

taught as a child. They were living, tangible, eternal

truths now inseparably a part of me. They were now part

of MY being, MY life, and MY truth as well. (Conventional

Christianity would call this a "conversion" or "born

again" experience. Yet the ideas that came to me at that

time such as the reality of reincarnation were far from

conventional Christian concepts and teachings.)

The sense of joy, exhilaration, and heightened

awareness of everything around me was unbelievable. I

felt like telling everyone I met how great it was to be

alive and what a thrilling experience I had just had.

After we went back home after the vacation I read books

like a man possessed (which I guess I was). It is to my

wife's credit that she didn't leave me or try to have me

locked up while all of this was going on. Mostly I read

what would be styled "metaphysical books": Eastern

philosophy, mystics of all ilks, Edgar Cayce, the Filmores

(the founders of the Unity School of Christianity),

Blavatsky, Gurdieff, Ouspensky, Plotinus, Plato, Pascal,

Carl Jung, etc. etc. etc. I even joined the Tulsa

Theosophical Society (primarily because they had the best

metaphysical library in Tulsa). Although everyone saw only

part of the elephant (like the "Six Blind Men of

Hindustan"), they were all describing the same

magnificient beast - a "Magnificient Obsession" as Lloyd

Douglas had titled one of his well-known books.

I thought seriously about quitting my job and

expounding this revelation for the benefit of the world at

large. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. I settled

for teaching an adult education class at the YMCA on

"Realizing Your Potential". (This was 1964, long before

the Human Potential movement now in vogue really got

going.) Gradually though, the fires subsided and the

realities of providing for a family of six regained their

hold. Nonetheless, as Robert Browning tells us in his

poem, "Paracelsus" (named after the famous mystic):

"I am a wanderer; I remember well one journey,

How I feared the track was missed,

So long the city I desired to reach lay hid;

When suddenly its spires afar

Flashed through the circling clouds;

(you may conceive my transport.)

Soon the vapors closed again,

But I had seen the city."

More than twenty years have passed since that

experience, but the essential realities revealed remain,

and will remain, unchanged. ("I had seen the city.")

In large measure there was nothing revealed that has not

been known by many others for thousands of years for it

forms the basis of the world's major religions. It is

truly "The Ancient Wisdom" as Annie Besant titled one of

her books on Theosophy.

To acquire this knowledge, however, requires much more

than just reading these inspired books (although that is

certainly a good way to begin. "Faith comes by hearing and

hearing by the Word of God ..etc."). As Aldous Huxley puts

it: "Knowledge is a function of being. When there is a

change in the being of the knower, there is a

corresponding change in the nature and amount of knowing."

("The Perennial Philosophy" p.vii). ... Jesus puts the

same truth more eloquently when he says: "Except a man be

born again he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven." and

"You cannot put new wine in old wineskins." Dr. Bucke in

his book, "Cosmic Consciousness" (p.8), describes his own

mystical experience at age 36 as follows:

"Into his brain streamed one momentary flash of the

Brahmic Splendor which has ever since lightened his life;

upon his heart fell one drop of Brahmic Bliss, leaving for

always an after taste of heaven. Among other things . . .

he saw and knew that the Cosmos is not dead matter but a

living Presence, that the soul of man is immortal, that

the universe is so built and ordered that without any

peradventure all things work together for the good of each

and all, that the foundation principle of the world is

what we call Love and that the happiness of everyone is in

the long run absolutely certain. He claims that he

learned more within a few seconds during which the

illumination lasted than in previous months or even years

of study, and that he learned much that no study could

ever have taught."

The certainty that the universe is filled with Life,

and not with little patches of dead matter separated by

vast distances of empty space, is at the heart of the

mystical experience. God is! "I AM that I AM" was the

name God gave to Moses when he was commissioned by him at

the burning bush. "I have come that you might have Life

and have it overabundantly" and "I am the Way , the Life

and the Truth" says Jesus speaking as the Son of the

Living God. God's living Spirit underpins and breathes

Life into all that exists. ("Ex -ist" means to stand

forth from what "is".)

" Every common bush is ablaze with God

But only he who sees takes off his shoes."

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

" The universe is one stupendous whole

Whose body Nature is and God the soul."

- Alexander Pope

This idea might be thought by some to be nothing but a

primitive pantheism (God as Nature, its forces and laws),

but it goes far beyond it. To use a human analogy: Is man

nothing but the atoms and chemistry of his body and the

laws governing his physiology? It is obvious to all but

the most obdurate materialist that he is more than this.

How much more then must God be than the physical universe.

He is actively involved in the whole of the universe and

not merely the Creator who has retired from the scene of

His creation. (This is a "Theist" approach rather than a

"Deist" one; an approach that believes in a God that is

"immanent" as well as "transcendental".)

Are you entirely separated from your physical body?

Do you exercise a measure of control over it? Think then

of the universe as being totally alive from its center

(The Godhead) to its uttermost parts (the physical world

of atoms and molecules). The degrees of freedom (i.e.

levels, dimensions, planes, etc. - call them what you

will) vary from the densest Matter to pure Spirit, from

nearly zero to infinity, but there is nonetheless a

continuum between one extreme and the other. ("His eye is

on the sparrow ...") Not only is there an ever present,

living relationship between the Creator and His creation

(between what "is" and what "ex-ists"), there are

immutable laws governing this relationship.

Perhaps this can best be illustrated by an example

from the science of Physics - the study of Physical Laws.

Fifty years ago students of Physics were taught the law of

conservation of matter and the law of the conservation of

energy. The two laws were analogous but separate. That

is to say, matter could neither be created or destroyed,

but merely changed into various combinations of atoms and

molecules. Similarly, energy was a constant in the

universe and although energy might be redistributed

throughout space (e.g. energy radiating from our sun and

other stars) the total amount of energy in the universe

remained a constant.

Today we know there is an equivalence between matter

and energy, and that by applying enough energy matter can

be created (i.e. the fusion of matter) while in other

cases matter can be converted into energy (e.g. the

fission of radioactive uranium in an atomic pile or in an

atomic bomb). This equivalence was stated by Albert

Einstein with mathmatical precision by his now famous

equation:

E = MC2

Where: E = Energy

M = Mass

And: C = Velocity of Light (a universal constant)

By solving this equation for the constant ,"C":

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C = \/ E / M

which says that in a given system the relationship between

the amount of energy, "E", and the amount of mass, "M", is

always the same, a universal constant.

By extension to the metaphysical realm we can

postulate that the relationship between the world of

spirit (i.e. unseen energy) and the visible world (i.e.

matter) is also a constant and that all phenomena result

from an interplay between these two realms. The teachings

of the Chinese philosopher, Lao Tsu, taught that this

interplay between the worlds of spirit and matter arose

from the Tao. I am sure you are familiar with the modern

symbol of the Taoists, which shows a dark half and a white

half enclosed in a circle much like two fish chasing each

other in perpetual motion.

The dark segment represents the "yin" or earthly

forces continually reacting with the white segment which

represents the "yang" or spritual forces in the universe.

They consider the "yang" to be male in nature and the

"yin" to be female (no doubt because the originators of

the system were men). While "yin" and "yang" endlessly