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#1463 - Monday, June 16, 2003 - Editor: Jerry
Fractal image courtesy of Mind-Boggling Fractals website
Stephanie Hairston
http://www.livejournal.com/users/nobody_/
Glimpses of God: God's favourite shape:
http://www.fractalus.com/
http://www.parkenet.org/jp/fractvty.htm
http://www.mbfractals.com/
http://fractaldesktop.virtualave.net/
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/
http://www.ealnet.com/ealsoft/fracted.htm
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/blue/chaos.shtml
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/FLAOH/cbnhtml/home.html
Fractals are the blueprints of the
organic world. Trees,
snowflakes, shorelines, lightning bolts, and river deltas form
obvious fractal patterns. Fractal rhythm defines the human
heartbeat. "The nonlinear mapping of Bach concertos
and a
healthy heartbeat are almost identical. Perhaps the root of
musical genius is the ability to recognize biological
patterns. It is the complexity of the human spirit, which is
physiological." Human
organs, such as the lungs and brain, are
fractal shapes.
But on an even grander scale,
fractals represent the way the
universe is organized. Self-similar patterning on ever-smaller
scales. Fractal patterning governs evolution and the
development of consciousness. And I think the fractal nature
of the universe explains how and why synchrony can exist.
Synchrony reflects self-similar patterning and the web of
existence.
The evolving universe in a sense has
its own consciousness,
which I call "God." We can feel that consciousness
manifesting
in us sometimes when we intuit things beyond what we're
capable of fully understanding on a logical level. Researchers
have found that human crowds also move and congregate
according to fractal patterns. Like ants, we are governed by a
"one mind" of the overall human organism. Like ants, we
synchronize our movements to environmental stimuli and one
another just because of an innate, interconnected awareness
that affects our movements and intuition.
An individual human consciousness is
a small encapsulation of
the unified consciousness of the universe. Our neurons form
fractal patterns and I would assume they fire at fractal
rates. This is because the growth of a fractal results in the
encapsulation of a complex shape within smaller and smaller
spaces. The human mind is a microscopic rendition of the
macro. Like the image-within-an-image that appears in Warner
Brothers cartoons, Surrealist paintings, and the cover of Pink
Floyd's Ummagumma.
Our mind is a small representation
of the "mind of God." And
through this fractal that is humanity, and then animal life,
and then the Earth, and then the solar system, and then the
universe... We are interconnected. We move in synchrony and do
things we don't fully understand. Because usually we see
things as from within the jungle--only able to perceive what
is a few feet in front of us. Only rarely do we perceive the
whole of which we are part--the view from the top of the
mountain.
"God moves in mysterious
ways." What that means is that as
little human ants wandering around with our own individual
small minds, we somewhat sense how we are connected to
something greater, but we are not fully capable of
understanding. We must learn to sit in this mystery and not
struggle against it, trying to pin down in logic what cannot
be fully known. Zen students call this "Don't Know
Mind" and a
14th century Christian mystic called it "the Cloud of
Unknowing." God only speaks to one in an intuitive way which
grasps the essence of the whole in a way beyond ordinary
understanding. The stories and explanations of religion do not
reflect concrete realities. They tell the truth, though, in a
deeper way--on another plane of understanding beyond the
physical. We don't yet know how to describe the essence of
reality in its purest or most technical terms, so we must use
metaphor and imagery.
Just as religion tries to interpret
these truths, so too do
certain modern-day beliefs reflect a tentative view of the
nature of reality. "Psychic" these days refers to the
laughable conception that we can read thoughts like books or
predict specific future events, but I do believe that we have
a "sixth sense." To Buddhists, "mind" is
considered one of the
senses. And we are psychic to the extent that sometimes our
individual minds pick up a current of the larger, universal
Mind or get a sense of what a person next to us might be
feeling. But intuition by its nature only glimpses the whole,
not details. These intuitive conceptions are marked by
fogginess and uncertainty. Even the logical thrusts of physics
have come to mathematical proofs that there are things that we
cannot fully know--the Heisenberg uncertainty principle,
relativity...
The still small voice of God is the flow of the universe
rising up within us. It is always speaking and governing our
actions but it takes the cultivation of a deep quiet to be
able to hear and observe it. It is wisdom beyond wisdom and is
accessible to all, regardless of education or IQ. It is the
innate intelligence of the human species. Mystics, prophets,
physicists, schizophrenics all hear it and interpret it
according to their inner reference points and the framework
with which they arrive at it. And all views of it are equally
true because while they all have different adornments, they
all describe the same essence.
Sometimes you can hear it in the sound of the rain.
"Fight Club"
by Chuck Palahniuk
"This is your life, good to the
last drop. It doesn't get any
better then this. This is your life, and it's ending one
minute at a time. This isn't a seminar, this isn't a weekend
retreat. Where you are now, you can't even imagine what the
bottom will be like. Only after disaster can we be
resurrected. It's only after you've lost everything, that
you're free to do anything. Nothing is static; everything is
falling. Everything is falling apart. This is your life.
Doesn't get any better then this. This is your life, and it's
ending one minute at a time. You are not a beautiful and
unique snowflake! You are the same decaying organic matter as
everything else! We are all part of the same compost heap. We
are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world. You are
not your bank account, you are not the clothes you wear, you
are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your bowel
cancer, you are not your grande latte, you are not the car you
drive. You are not your fucking khakis. You have to give up.
You have to give up. You have to realize, that some day you
will die. Until you know that, you are useless. I say, let me
never be complete. I say, may I never be content. I say,
deliver me from Swedish furniture! I say, deliver me from
clever art! I say, deliver me from clear skin and perfect
teeth! I say, you have to give up. I say, evolve; and let the
chips fall where they may. This is your life, doesn't get any
better then this. This is your life, and it's ending one
minute at a time. You have to give up."
George Carlin
from http://www.georgecarlin.com
For a long time, my stand-up
material has drawn from three
sources. The first is the English language: words, phrases,
sayings, and the way we speak. The second source, as with most
comedians, has been what I think of as the "little
world,"
those things we all experience every day: driving, food, pets,
relationships, and idle thoughts. The third area is what I
call the"big world": war, politics, race, death, and
social
issues. Without having actually measured, I would say this
book reflects the balance very closely.
The first two areas will speak for
themselves, but concerning
the "big world," let me say a few things.
I'm happy to tell you there is very
little in this world that
I believe in. Listening to the comedians who comment on
political, social, and cultural issues, I notice most of their
material reflects an underlying belief that somehow things
were better once and that with just a little effort we could
set them right again. They're looking for solutions, and
rooting for particular results, and I think that necessarily
limits the tone and substance of what they say. They're
talented and funny people, but they're nothing more than
cheerleaders attached to a specific, wished-for outcome.
I don't feel so confined. I frankly
don't give a fuck how it
all turns out in this country - or anywhere else, for that
matter. I think the human game was up a long time ago (when
the high priests and traders took over), and now we're just
playing out the string. And that is, of course, precisely what
I find so amusing: the slow circling of the drain by a once
promising species, and the sappy, ever-more-desperate belief
in this country that there is actually some sort of
"American
Dream," which has merely been misplaced.
The decay and disintegration of this
culture is astonishingly
amusing if you are emotionally detached from it. I have always
viewed it from a safe distance, knowing I don't belong; it
doesn't include me, and it never has. No matter how you care
to define it, I do not indentify with the local group. Planet,
species, race, nation, state, religion, party, union, club,
association, neighborhood, improvement committee;I have no
interest in any of it. I love and treasure individuals as I
meet them, I loathe and despise the groups they identify with
and belong to.
So, if you read something in this
book that sounds like
advocacy of a particular political point of view, please
reject the notion. My interest in "issues" is merely to
point
out how badly we're doing, not to suggest a way we might do
better. Don't confuse me with those who cling to hope. I enjoy
describing how things are, I have no interest in how they
"ought to be." And I certainly have no interest in
fixing
them. I sincerely believe that if you think there's a
solution, you're part of the problem. My motto: Fuck Hope!
P.S. Lest you wonder, personally, I
am a joyful individual
with a long, happy marriage and a close and loving family. My
career has turned out better than I ever dreamed, and
continues to expand. I am a pesonal optomist but skeptic about
all else. What may sound to some like anger is really nothing
more than sympathetic contempt. I view my species with a
combination of wonder and pity, and I root for it's
destruction. And please don't confuse my point of view with
cynicism; the real cynics are the ones who tell you
everything's gonna be all right.
P.P.S. By the way, if, by chance,
you folks do manage to
straighten things out and make everything better, I still
don't wish to be included.
by R. K. Shankar from the I Am list
Verse 56:
edhukuRukku mElkIzhA menguniRai vAgu
medhusachchith thinbiraN dilla - dhedhanantham
niththamA yondrAy nigazhvadhedhu vAghumav
vaththu pirama madhi. 56.
Transliteration
" 1) That which is filling everywhere down, up and across,
2) That which is non-dual existence-knowledge-bliss, that which
is
endless,
3) That which shines as the One Eternal,
4) That thing is 'Brahman' "
regard thus.