Origin of the World

We saw the mind in detail in last article - a very important part of the manifestation or creation, that we call Experience. We can now go deeper into the Experience and see what else lies there and how it all originated.

The metaphysical patterns and processes not only form minds, they form all kinds of structures. Minds happen to be a special kind. So what are those other structures? We see them all around us, they are things, objects, systems, physical or non-physical, we are surrounded by all kinds of patterns. A collection of objects is called a World. So we are going to take a look at the world in this article.


What is a world?

As always, we encounter the "what" question. As mentioned already, it is a set of objects, a huge collection of them. And what are objects? If you look closely, they are patterns, ever changing patterns. You will immediately notice that there is a mind boggling variety of them. But you will notice that they are just structures - organized patterns.

The word world is usually used for this planet Earth, but here we use it in a more general and philosophical sense. So everything that surrounds us is world. Not only this planet, everything in the universe is our world. Every non-physical experience is also world or worlds. In general, everything we experience which can be marked as "not-me" is world for the purpose of this discussion.

What's the difference between mental patterns and worldly patterns?

There is no difference at all, they are all metaphysical patterns. Mental structures arise via the agency of organizing processes and worldly patterns also arise in the same way. Their origin is not really any different. So how come some patterns are mind, and others are world? That is an important question. Let's take a look.

Mind creates a structure known as Identity, it is container for all actions originating from that mind. So all actions coming from a particular mind get a tag of identity or "I". Identity is usually what we call as me. Its the person, an individual. In most of the cases, the actions happen through yet another structure, known as a body, and the identification happens with the body too. So for many, their bodies are their identity, they call their body as "I". Now, the mind draws an imaginary line between the structures that it labels as I and remaining structures, and calls everything that lies beyond this line as "not-I". And everything that is not-I becomes the world. This dividing act of the mind creates the world. So we find that the world is not actually a separate independent thing or collection of things, it is just structures which the mind chose to classify as "not me".

Its amazing to see that the whole world is just a concept in the mind, a belief, an idea. Actually there is no significant difference between the mind and the world. And that is why this blog refers to everything that is manifested as the Universal Mind.

What are the criteria the mind uses to classify structures as "me" and the world?

Its easy to see - whatever aids in the survival of the mind gets highest priority and is given more importance than the rest, so structures that ensure continuation of a mind get classified as "this is identical to me" or "myself" or "I". Minds also labels structures that are ever changing and are "not-I" as "mine", claiming ownership of them, only and only if they aid in the survival and maintenance of its own structure.

So it puts a tag of "I" on all memories of it, because as we have seen, memory is the central element in a mind. What I am as a person is just a collection of memories. Then it tags thoughts, imaginations, feelings, emotions, pleasures, pains and whatever happens in the mind as "I". Mind then goes ahead and tags the body as "I" too. Obviously, a body is an instrument of action and perception, and is an important part of the mind and enables it to function in the world.


However, identity is not so stable, it keeps shifting and fluctuating, it is not sharp, it is very fuzzy and malleable concept. So the mind can also identify with whatever aids in survival of the body, such as, other bodies of its own kind aka genetic structure, that would be your family, race, tribe, caste, nationality, and even language or culture. So the statements like - "I'm an Indian" are very common. "Indian", here, is only a concept, not even a real structure.  That's how fuzzy and nebulous identity is. Sometimes, a person is not a body anymore, now he owns a body and calls it as "my body". That's a very common scenario where the perspective of the mind makes the body as an object instead of a person. It can happen in case of the mind itself, where it sometimes calls itself as "my mind" or "my thoughts and memories". So "I" keeps shifting depending on the situation and hence parts of the mind keep changing into parts of the world and parts of the world become mind again if mind wishes so.


But parts of the world or objects are clearly seen as solid things made up of matter. Isn't that a major distinction between the mind and the world?


It is one of the distinction apart from the "I" criterion. However, again we are in a fuzzy territory. So the body is not world, it is "I", but as soon as you shift your perspective to the mind, or take a look at the mirror, the body becomes an object, a part of the world, it seems to be made of matter too. But we rarely say that I see an object in the mirror, we usually say I see myself there. So I guess, solidity or matter is only secondary when it comes to drawing a line between mind and the world.


The body is a very special structure if you see it from this angle. It is objective yet subjective, it is a material thing, yet it is me. It is the only interface to whatever that is "not me". The interface with the world is implemented via two familiar kinds of structures - the sense organs and the organs of action. Both kinds of organs are material in nature. This is also a very convenient place to draw a line between the world and the mind, and the mind does it often. But its not the only division it performs.


Whatever is perceived via the sensory structures is classified as physical or material and whatever is perceived internally as mind processes and structures is classified as non-physical (aka mental or mentations). This is another line, another distinction which is artificial and is a creation of the mind, it is just an idea. However, it is very important, so lets take a closer look.


What are senses?


Senses are metaphysical structures that interface with other metaphysical structures. These define the boundary of a mind. Actually they filter out any unwanted changes that may reach the mind and also convert the incoming stream of changing patterns into a memorizable format. This format is specific to a sense. For example vision produces shapes and colours and hearing produces sounds and tones. These are what are commonly called qualia. I call them irreducables, because we cannot reduce them to anything else, they have no parts. Interestingly, all the experience of the world is just an experience of irreducables or qualia. All we perceive via senses is formatted information, we do not perceive any objects, the objects are made up by the mind using this information that arrives via senses. As we know all information is just metaphysical changes, so objects do not really exists, except as metaphysical patterns. Moreover, we do not even perceive their actual pattern, the mind gets a filtered and specially formatted pattern which represents the object in the memory.


Now that is mind blowing. Senses do the magic, it seems. The physical world is due to senses. How amazing is that !?!

On one side of the senses, there is matter, on the other side there is mind. One side is seen as physical, other as non-physical. What do the senses actually do to enable such magic? They don't do much. Processes in the mind tag any experience mediated via senses as "physical" or material. Actually, its all mental, the division is for specific reason. The reasons have evolutionary basis, it helps in survival if the mind tags some things as "not-me", adds qualia and places them neatly in space and time. Non-sensory perceptions (e.g. a memory recall or an emotion or imagination) gets tagged as non-physical or mental. Apart from this tagging there is really no difference between physical and non-physical, everything can be placed under the class of non-physical. Its all mind. There are not two kinds of experiences, and senses have only one kind of patterns on their both ends - metaphysical patterns.

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So is the world a part of the mind or is mind a part of the world?

Both are structures that are a part of a huge ocean of metaphysical structures - the manifestation. A human mind and this universe are a tiny part of this ocean of patterns. The ocean of patterns in almost infinite. We have a name for it - the Universal Mind. It is ok to call it mind because there are only one kind of patterns and since physical ones are more illusory compared to mental ones, its more accurate to call everything as mental aka non-physical or just "mind" in short.

If its all one, why does it appear as many to me?

The divisions and classifications are done by the mind. This is what it does, its the job of the mind to divide. The "many" are just ideas, thoughts, "one" is what actually is.

But I see forms, I do not see patterns, and I see many, I do not see one. Why?

One word - Maya. Mind creates stuff and then gets entrapped into it. This is ignorance. It goes very-very deep, however, it is easy to see. Anyhow, the Maya or illusion does not simply go away when the mind realizes what is going on. It persists. We do not magically become something metaphysical and start seeing patterns instead of the usual illusory world. However, now there is this knowing, which overshadows the illusion. This kick-starts the journey of the mind towards the Universal Mind, towards absolute freedom.

What should be our conduct and actions in the light of above knowledge?

Seeing the world as illusion should not mean denial of the world. Some people take it to mean that the world does not exist, which is illogical to say the least. It exists, and it exists in the form of an illusion. Thanks to the mind and its processes, we witness the creation in glorious technicolour instead of scrolling patterns on the screen.

Denying the world is like saying the files and pictures on my PC do not exist because there is only data there - patterns of two states of something aka 1's and 0's, there are no pictures, the processes in the PC aka software displays the data as pictures, words and movies - which is an illusion. Well, we do not simply wipe out our hard disk, even if we know this, do we?

Knowledge of the world broadens our perspective of it, it does not make it disappear or make it less important, or turn it into something that needs to be discarded immediately. A seeker simply accepts what is, instead of building a few more layers of opinions on top of it. One thing that happens is that we lose most of our worldly attachments sooner or later. The material stuff loses its luster, I am already everything, created or uncreated, so why would I want to own it, hoard it or destroy it? Doesn't make sense.

It does make sense to use it. A wise seeker knows that it all being an illusion does not mean that we cannot use it. All experience can be turned into a means to learn and gain knowledge.

As usual, knowledge results in perfect action automatically. The harmful actions are a result of ignorance, and they fall away on their own. Just know, and the actions will take care of themselves. It is easy.