The Headless Way
From Atoms to the Galaxy, You Are Your Perspective
Who you are in your ‘Youniverse’ depends on from how far away someone is looking at you.
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This post was inspired by Richard Lang and The Headless Way (www.headless.org); more details on that are below.
This is “What You Are”, from the perspective of…
- An Electron Microscope … You are a Collection of Atoms & Subatomic Particles
- A Microscope … You are a Collection of Cells
- Another Mammal or Person … You are a Person
- A Low-Flying Airplane … You are the Building You Live In
- A High-Flying Airplane … You are the City You Live In
- The International Space Station … You are the Region, State/Province, or Country You Live In
- The Moon … You are the Continent or Ocean that Surrounds You
- Mars or Venus … You are the Planet Earth
- Alpha Centauri (closest star to Earth) … You are the Sun Solar System
- The Andromeda Galaxy (closest large galaxy to us) … You are the Milky Way Galaxy
Scales of Perception
Who we are depends on how far away the viewer is looking at us. When they see our planet, they obviously cannot see our body. Our body is part of the collective of everything that forms our planet.
At the other extreme, when they see our cells, they also cannot see our body. Those cells are part of the collective of everything that forms our body.
But in both instances, they are looking at us!
The diagram at the top of this article visualizes what I described above. It is based on the teachings of Douglas Harding and Richard Lang, which is on The Headless Way website (www.headless.org). Each “layer of appearance”, as they called them, in this model of the “Youniverse” is a scale we can identify as us.
One way of thinking of that is: if an outside force threatened you, which layer would you identify with in protecting yourself? Most likely, it would depend on the scale of the threat.
- If your body is being attacked, you identify with your body and try to protect it. If your country is attacked, you identify as a citizen of your country and try to protect it.
- If your solar system or galaxy is attacked, you might identify as a solar system or galactic citizen and help as best you could to protect it.
- At the other end of the scale, when your body’s cells and organs are attacked by a virus, your body responds as best it can. And you do what you can to help by resting and taking medicines, for example.
We spend most of our time identifying with our body because it is closest to our waking awareness. There are many other layers, beyond those above, that comprise our identity.
But most are not as material as those listed above. For example, we identify with our ethnicity, work, political affiliations, favorite sports teams, and much more. In this article (⬇️), I refer to those as “Soul Groups” and “Soul Families”:
One definition of spiritual awakening and ascension is to expand our consciousness to identify more with the larger planetary (and greater) scales of who we are. That may be the only way we can collectively address the global challenges we face today.
What You Would See Looking Out…
- as a Collection of Atoms & Subatomic Particles … mostly empty space with scattered Atoms and Particles rapidly and randomly shooting everywhere, and grouped together to form different molecules and cells
- as a Collection of Cells … diverse types of other Cells, often grouped together as specialized body organs, glands, and other organisms, mostly (but not always) working in cooperation with one another (see figure above)
- as a Person … other People with different shapes, features, and behaviors moving with and without vehicles through varying landscapes of buildings and terrains
- as a Building … a landscape of other Buildings of diverse types and a terrain that changes sometimes quickly, but mostly slowly, and contains People rapidly moving about, often in vehicles
- as a City … a surrounding of either empty terrain, water, or other Cities of varying shapes and sizes; we are all connected by roads and other infrastructure that many forms of energy (including People) move along
- as a Region, State/Province, or Country … other Regions, States/Provinces, and Countries with fixed, but porous boundaries, and containing distinct cultures and geographies, just like us; some boundaries are much more porous than others
- as a Continent or Ocean … other Continents and Oceans that change slowly overall; but short- and long-term climate changes and human activities have obvious affect us in some areas
- as the Planet Earth … a Star (the Sun) that we share with other Planets, moons, and smaller objects separated by vast distances of empty space; those objects vary considerably in size, structure, and behavior; our Sun and our Moon are most important, but the others also impact us gravitationally, and sometimes physically (see figure below)
- as the Sun Solar System … 53 other Stars within 15 light-years of us, varying in size, age, brightness, color, and number of planets
- as the Milky Way Galaxy … some 80 other Galaxies in our local group within 10 million light-years, varying greatly in size, age, and type; Andromeda is the only other large galaxy, like us, in our group; most of the others are dwarf galaxies; there is a lot of empty space!
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That we can imagine what it might be like to be each of the levels above is an indicator that maybe we really are each of those levels. I like to think that everything in our experiential reality reflects the fullness of our deepest reality. And that includes our galaxy and our cells.
We seldom (if ever?) perceive that entire range. But we at least hold the potential to be all those layers. Some of us tap into that potential more than others.
“For you cannot understand the self that you know when you think that it is the only self that you are. For the self that you know is only a small portion of your entire identity.” — Seth/Jane Roberts, ESP Class Session, November 25, 1969
The Transcendental Center
The figure at the top of this article has a center, which is labeled “me”. That center is the “consciousness” or “pure awareness” that we all have, and from which we perceive our world and universe.
That center “me” goes by many names, including the Tao, the True Self, the I Am, and Beingness. It is the spiritual and metaphysical idea that we each have an infinite and transcendental state at the center of our being that is beyond all the forms and experiences we encounter in our reality.
That makes it difficult, if not impossible, to talk about. But we can imagine the many scales of our existence because our true consciousness transcends existence and is unlimited and infinite.
Below (⬇️) is a more detailed diagram of the Youniverse model created by Douglas Harding. Much of it is based on the spacial scales, which I described above, though he adds more information, such as the physical and social sciences associated with difference levels.
Also note the word “unknown” near the center, reflecting the challenge of describing our True Self.
Be Here Now
In this diagram (⬆️), Douglas Harding includes a time scale. In terms of time, the outer edge of the circle reaches back to the origins of our universe (if there is an origin), which is the furthest from our human experience.
The center of the circle is our direct present moment time experience (the “now”). Like the “me” (or “you” in this diagram), the present moment “now” is transcendental. Like our atoms and molecules, it is the deepest part of our time experience, and it is beyond our time experience. We cannot measure the “now” because all measurements are of the past and not the “now”.
But paradoxically, the “now” is always present, here and now. Some say it is the only “time” that really exists. Whether that is true, a fundamental teaching in most spiritual and New Age traditions is that to know or be our True Self is to Be Here Now, at the center of your Youniverse.
The Headless Way was Douglas Harding’s core teaching and is a method for directly experiencing the here and now. To understand more what it means to be “headless”, see this article:
- I also recommend Peter Brown’s teachings on direct experience of the here and now. I believe he complements the Headless Way approach:
Related Resources
- (1) Powers of Ten was a film originally produced in 1968 that zoomed out from a human body to the edge of the known universe, and then back in and down to the atomic scale inside the human body. It has been redone a few times since then. Here (⬇️) is a 2012 version called, Cosmic Eye (6 min long on YouTube):
- (2) There is no narration in the Cosmic Eye video above. The BBC did another version in 2021 that only went out into the cosmos and included updated knowledge about our universe. It did not go into the body. But it includes narration and supplemental diagrams to explain what you are seeing (⬇️ 7 min on YouTube):
- (3) The Youniverse Explorer is a 3D model created by Douglas Harding showing the layers (or scales) of our reality, like what I described above. (It can be purchased from Headless.org.) In this recording (⬇️ 1hr 1min on YouTube), Douglas Harding describes the model and the layers. It helps if you have the actual model in front of you, or a good imagination based on the photo of it.
- (5) For more on The Many “Yous”, see this collection of articles. Note that the articles in this collection are behind the Medium paywall. For paywall-free access to my articles, go to www.AlanLew.com, linked below.
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- Written in collaboration with my Energy Group/Higher Self. This is our perspective of the truth and not the whole truth of reality.
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