It started 14 billion years ago…

We Are Living Our Life in the Big Bang

We live in an ongoing explosion of energy that is always fully encompassing everything in our experience.

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“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration. “ — Nikola Tesla

Contents

[1] The Big Bang Theory of the Universe [2] Four Sources — [2.1] Peter Brown — [2.2] Cryptonaturalist — [2.3] Energy as the “Theory of Everything — [2.4] Unconditional Love [3] Experience — [3.1] Innate Intelligence — [3.2] The Illusion [4] Energy is the Only Object — [4.1] Life in Free Fall — [4.2] The “Now” and the “Wind”

[1] The Big Bang Theory of the Universe

The Big Bang Theory (not the TV show!) is an effort to explain the physical structure of our visible universe. It postulates that our universe began as an incredibly dense and hot mass that exploded about 13.77 billion years ago and continues to expand today.

There are problems with the theory and some theoretical scientists believe the hypothesized explosion never happened. One of the new alternatives is the Big Bounce Theory, which the Hindu yugas, describes our universe as going through a series of explosions, contractions, and new explosions for eternity.

13.77 billion is a lot of years. We humans have difficulty grasping the concept of millions and billions. Here are a some of comparisons to help in interpreting the Big Bang diagram below (⬇️):

• 1 million seconds = 11 days; 1 billion seconds = 31 years
• 1 million feet = 190 miles; 1 billion feet = 190,000 miles (not quite the 226,000 miles when the Moon is closest to Earth)
• Homo sapiens (our modern human species) evolved about 300,000 years ago, which is .0022% of 13.77 billion years.
• The oldest known human civilizations existed maybe 9,000 years ago (7000 BCE), which is .000065% of 13.77 billion years.

In addition, astrophysics estimates that, based on the Big Bang Theory, our universe will last for another 300 billion years. Based on that, we are also at the beginning of the lifespan of the universe. There is even a theoretical research paper that suggests we are one of the first intelligent species in the universe. (See this PBS video on YouTube for more on that.)

Whether the Big Bang Theory is right or wrong, we live in a universe in which everything is energetic in some way, and in which everything is expanding outward away from everything else. (It is more correct to say that “space” is expanding, rather than things are expanding into space.)

No matter what the apparent cause,

We live in an ongoing explosion of energy.

Sometimes that energy feels powerful. Other times, not so much. But it is always fully encompassing of everything in our experience. For example, when I open my eyes, everything in my field of vision is a variation within that field of energy that originated with the Big Bang.

Even the apparently empty space between the objects I see is filled with energy. It is filled with air, gases, dust particles, and light. The light holds the potential to illuminate any objects that enter that space.

In that way, there is no empty space anywhere in my perception. My entire field of vision is connected and one thing, radiating an infinity of patterns.

That everything includes my body, which is in my field of vision, and also in my field of sensations. And my thoughts, which are not in my field of vision, but are in my field of awareness.

[2] Four Sources

A couple of things I came across heightened my awareness of the non-stop explosion of energy that is our reality.

[2.1] Peter Brown

The most influential source for my recent thinking about this comes from the late Peter Brown. That our reality is an ongoing explosion of energy is one of many metaphors he uses to point to what we are experiencing. In one of his satsangs (on YouTube), he said:

“What this actually is is completely indescribable. And yet we can very vaguely indicate it, perhaps by noticing it is an astounding explosion of energy appearing in inconceivable, infinite consciousness.

…[That] explosion of energy is your immediate experience, right here, right now. …You are experiencing a field of energies.”

— Peter Brown

For Peter Brown, our existence and life are simply the direct, raw experience of energy. We perceive that energy as pure light, sound waves, thought impulses (including emotions & feelings), and other external and internal sensory impressions.

We know those sensations in their raw form when we perceive them arising in the present moment, before we apply our mental interpretations of it. (He calls it “radiant presence” to emphasize how they occur in the “here and now”.)

I wrote about his approach previously here:

[2.2] Cryptonaturalist

The following quote was posted on a spiritual group on Facebook. I tracked it down to Cryptonaturalist (links below):

“The universe is an ongoing explosion. That’s where you live. In an explosion. … Sometimes atoms arrange in a certain way just get very haunted. That’s us. When the explosion explodes hard enough, dust wakes up and thinks about itself. And then writes about it.”

— Cryptonaturalist, on Facebook and Tumbler

When I read that, I thought “yes”, that’s a succinct way of describing what Peter Brown is talking about. It is the Big Bang explosion, and of course, we are all still in that explosion. In fact, we are that explosion.

[2.2] Energy as the “Theory of Everything”

The Big Bang explosion is also a way of thinking about how many others talk about universal energy. Like Peter Brown, both New Age spiritualists and quantum physicists say that the energy of the universe is all that truly exists. The only thing that is happening is the fluctuation of that energy.

I wrote a lengthy (mini-book length) article on a Spiritual Theory of Everything (⬇). In it, I note how both physics and spirituality widely believe that energy, vibration, and frequency are the foundation of everything in our known universe — everything in manifest creation. To put it simply,

Each thing in existence is an energy form vibrating a unique frequency.

[2.4] Unconditional Love

In that Theory of Everything article (⬆), I also agree with the many spiritual nondualists who say the underlying energy of the universe is “unconditional love”. The way I see it, our dualistic ego, which is separate from everything else, is forever seeking to overcome separation by connecting with another.

When we connect with another and overcome separation, we feel “love” — at least temporarily. That is because we are returning to the underlying energy of the universe, where separation does not exist. The feeling of that energy is the feeling of love. They are the exact same thing (in my opinion).

That energy is universal. It is within and is everything. Its universality makes it unconditional in its expression (or vibration, or radiance). It does not pick one over another. Nothing is without that unconditional love (universal energy).

[3] Experience

The Big Bang Theory is currently the most popular scientific explanation for how the energy (or love) of the universe came into being and works. But it does not explain why the original mass existed, or why it exploded. Science does not answer “why” questions.

But from a “what is this?” perspective, if we assume the Big Bang Theory is correct, then

What we are experiencing is the continuing explosion of the Big Bang.

I heard someone (not sure who) once say experiences arise when objects appear in consciousness. Both objects (a thing or thought) and consciousness must be present for an experience. If there are no objects for consciousness to perceive, then no experiences arise. As soon as an object arises in our consciousness, then we have an experience.

We may not know what consciousness is, but it is something we all are. And the easiest way to realize that is through our conscious experience of objects.

Living in the Big Bang explosion, objects continuously appear in our consciousness. They completely fill our senses and thoughts with experiences, far beyond what we can process and remember with our conscious mind.

But the raw energy of the explosion has no pattern, no story, and no purpose. The objects we perceive and experience in our consciousness are completely chaotic — as one might expect in an explosion.

[3.1] Innate Intelligence

One of the apparent characteristics of consciousness is that it has an innate intelligence that arises when it engages with objects. That intelligence is an aspect of experience.

Intelligence arises with experience and seems to be the same thing as experience.

There is an unconscious intelligence that forms our material (physical) reality, including our body, planet, and galaxy. We mostly understand through the laws of physics (which also evolving over time).

At our conscious and subconscious levels of awareness, our innate intelligence tries to make sense of the exploding chaos by selectively noticing and remembering certain things that align with our beliefs (which are also objects). That is how we consciously (more or less) create order from chaos.

The selective nature of our personal story brings harmony, order, clarification, and coherence to our conscious experience of reality. But because it is selective, we ignore and overlook things that do not support our beliefs. Behavioral sciences call that “confirmational bias”.

We all suffer from confirmational bias because our brains are not able to handle the infinity of outer and inner sensory inputs that we perceive. The selection process whittles down that infinity to create a sense of order in what is really an infinitely chaotic explosion of energy.

There is a non-ego way of engaging with intelligence, order, and harmony in experience. We sense that when we are in a flow state and when we recognize synchronicities and magic in our experience. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi described it as having all the laws of nature supporting our actions.

We can guess and create stories about the innate intelligence of everything — assigning it to God, Source, Creative Intelligence, the Universal Soul, or something else. But we do not know what it is, except that it seems to arise in some unknown way when an experience arises.

All that unknowing is why some say the order we see is “apparent” and not “real”. It is an illusion.

In this article (⬇️), I suggest that those noticings arise when we are closer to our unconscious than our ego-involved conscious mind…

[3.2] The Illusion

Some spiritualists say the order, stories, and objects we build from the universal energy are illusions. “Illusion” means something is not what we think it is.

One way to see that is that the order and stories we create are like a mirage. They are not the true and complete reality of the full energetic infinity we are constantly experiencing. That true reality is an explosion of meaningless chaos, with no purpose, rhyme, or reason. The order and reason we think we see is an illusion.

The explosion is constantly changing in random and disorderly ways. So, no matter how elaborate our stories about it are, they will always change. We will forever adjust our stories and beliefs, chasing an illusory sense of order. And because the energy is infinite, we will always find confirmational biases to support our changing stories and beliefs.

A similar perspective says we create our sense of being a separate, individual ego-self by attaching ourselves to certain aspects of what is arising in consciousness. We (ego-selves) never do anything, we simply lay claim to certain things that arise. That is how we create and maintain the story of our individuality. We (our ego-self) are an illusion.

In this reality (or incarnation), our physical brain is limited in how much sensory input it can process. So, it is selective. That selectivity is how a sense (illusion) of a separate and individual ego emerges. Letting go of our ego-story, or simply recognizing it as an illusion, is a fundamental teaching in many spiritual traditions.

This (⬇️) is an example letting go of the ego self from Zen Buddhism…

Seth/Jane Roberts provides yet another view, but still pointing to the limitations of our physical self…

“The physical self extends outward, literally, to the ends of your universe, but the physical brain could not handle this amount of manipulation, and it has become subconscious. Early man recognized his relationships more clearly. Specialized man, physically, cannot afford to.

Physically you are a part of your environment, and you form it as you form your image.

— Seth/Jane Roberts, The Early Sessions, book 8, session 341 on May 15, 1967

[4] Energy is the Only Object

Peter Brown says we are accustomed to thinking we are interacting with objects (or forms, which are both physical and nonphysical). But those forms are all created in our thoughts and imagination (as noted above).

We perceive raw energy through our external and internal senses. Our mind translates those sensory inputs into thoughts, feelings, and things.

All we ever really interact with is energy.

He suggests we can recognize that pure energy when we notice our direct, raw experience in the present moment. My article about Raw Experience (linked above ⬆), talks more about his approach in doing that.

Energy, therefore, is the only object that consciousness interacts with. As noted above, the interaction between energy (manifest reality) and consciousness (unmanifest Source) results in an experience (possibly “beingness”?) that is imbued with intelligence (possibly “ego”?).

All of that takes place in the present moment “now” of raw experience.

Being in the present moment is, of course, a perennial spiritualist practice. “Be Here Now” is how Ram Dass put it in his famous book of that title. Similarly, Eckhart Tolle’s book “The Power of Now” made him one of the foremost spiritual influencers in the world today. And there are many YouTube videos that help guide you into the present moment “now”.

• As an aside, I found that list of 100 top spiritually influential people interesting because I am personally not drawn to the teachings of any them. Although I wrote about Rupert Spira (#87) in my article on Qualified Nonduality. I guess I am out of the spiritual loop.

Here is an example of New Age Spirituality perspectives on universal energy from my favorite author on that subject, Seth, who was channeled by Jane Roberts from the mid 1960s-1984. Seth/Jane says the main purpose of our incarnation on Earth is to learn to learn to work with energy…

“Before you can be allowed into systems of reality that are more extensive and open, you must first learn to handle energy, and see, through physical materializations, the concrete result of thought and emotion. As a child forms mud pies from dirt, so you form your civilization out of thoughts and emotions, and then see what you have created, and you must deal with it on its terms. … In other systems, energy is more directly felt, more extensive. Consciousness has much more freedom in its utilization. The lessons must be properly learned before [you receive] such responsibility.” — Seth/Jane Roberts, The Early Sessions, Book 9, Session 446, Nov 6, 1968

[4.1] Life in Free Fall

I have heard other analogies to what I describe here as “Living in the Big Bang”. Two of those are:

• Life in Free Fall — It is like falling out of an airplane. We are moving through space (life) with nothing solid to hold on to because everything is constantly changing.
• Life as a Roller Coaster Ride — We are strapped in (we exist), but otherwise the ride (life) is completely out of our control. We can only experience what is happening now.

Peter Brown, like many other Nonduality (Advaita Vedanta and Neo-Advaita) teachers, says we can never know what our experience of reality is because it is too incredible and infinite for our human mind to comprehend.

Whether an explosion, a free fall, or a roller coaster, surrendering to the unknowability of the forever emerging energy of experience is to fully live the reality of existence.

Another analogy is the wind….

[4.2] The “Now” and the “Wind”

— by Alan Lew

Time is like the wind on my face Before my face, the wind is an expectation After my face, the wind is a memory At my face, the wind is my present moment experience

My face is my now Before my now, my beliefs shape my expectations After my now, my beliefs shape my memories At my now, I experience my present moment, beyond all beliefs

[5] Related Resources

• [5.1] The “Now” and the “Wind” appeared as a poem and meditation in this article:

• [5.2] This article (⬇️) summarizes the many ways we define our life purpose, which of course, are the stories and intelligence arising with experience:

• [5.3] For more on Nonduality, see:

• [5.4] Here is another Peter Brown quote related to the energy and explosion above…

It’s just this radiance. It’s just shining. It’s like looking close to the core of the sparkler. All you are seeing is this fire. You can’t tell where the sparks are going, you can’t see the trajectory. You can’t see the pattern.

It’s just a raw energy. It’s a raw energy that’s present. And yet this raw energy is what we are. This raw energy is what experience is. This raw energy is what being is.

And in its purity, in its being in the present moment, it has no patterning, it has no story, it has no narration, there is nothing you can say about it. It’s just this astounding explosion.

The present moment is an astounding explosion. It’s like the sun, it’s like a sparkler, it’s like a fire, it’s like a thermonuclear explosion. It’s an event that is happening right now. …In the instance, it is just this light present. It is just this sound present.

— Peter Brown (YouTube) (bold text added by me)

• [5.5] For more on Being in the “Now” & “Flow” of Life, 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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