Tal, a conversation with an alien (23 page)

--I didn't have much of a reaction to th
is at the time, so he then said,

Well you have to have been there, or at least watched the movie. The point i
s that you must sense and feel. You are looking for the moon, don’t get enthralled with the finger pointing to it.

Is this the
purpose of religion then? To point the way? 

Yes. This is a benefit
of religion that has been taken lightly in modern times. In most paradigms, the people of that paradigm judge others by their own standards, their own values. Hence in your paradigm, scientists often think of other religions and cultures of the past as simply being bad at science. They tend to think that the only purpose of religion is to explain how things work, and all of these past explanations were objectively wrong. Yet religion is also there to explain the desire that so many humans have to know God. To explain and enhance the feelings of deep connection between themselves and their world; the spiritual feelings, the flashes of insight, the occasional feelings of overwhelming joy. These are questions that science has only recently begun to consider. But as Bruce says, don't get too enamored with the finger, you must look past it to direct experience. In fact, you actually don't need any mental constructs, scientific or religious, to gain insight; sometimes it just happens spontaneously. You happen to look up and see the moon without anyone pointing it out to you. Remember that you live in a very ego centric, human centric world. Those flashes from beyond come much more rarely to humans now than they did in the past. To humans that were born into societies that depended on a deep connection to the natural world for survival, these feelings flowed more easily.

I suppose those flashes have happened to me at times. A sense that there is something far beyond my little world, beyond language and understanding. But I tend to ignore it and move on with my daily routine.
You mentioned living in a fish bowl, and I have heard the saying that those occasional flashes of insight that we have about the greater universe is like a fish hitting the side of its fish bowl and realizing there is more out there than it usually observes.

It'
s a good analogy. You can explain things to a fish all you want, but until it experiences running into the fish bowl, it will not understand its limitations. Humans, with their heavy reliance on mental observation, rarely try to look beyond their own fish bowls, and the average human fish bowl is a pretty limited one. Due to your very strong dependence on vision, especially in the current literary and technological culture, few humans really have a good sense of their internal physical world; the subtle and rich world within their physical forms that they cannot see. Also, due to the close proximity of your eyes, humans can only observe stereoscopically for a few hundred feet. Hence you only feel immersed in a world that is quite close to you. Things beyond a few hundred feet are like pictures, flat. You have very little concept of the vastness of space beyond that short distance. You can conceptualize it, but rarely feel it. Therefore, I would say the general human fish bowl is the space from your skin outwards to the few hundred feet that encompass you stereoscopically. This is the world you swim in, the one you feel a part of. It is the bubble that follows you everywhere you go. Actually I have kept some Goldfish myself; just to see what humans like about it. My fish barely notice me at first, they were happy swimming in their bowl and eating the food I dropped in it. But as time went by, they realized I was feeding them from outside their fish bowl. Soon, whenever I came near the bowl, they would come over, and do little sucking motions with their mouths in my direction. They learned to look beyond their bowl. Luckily, you are as smart as at least some species of Goldfish, so even though you are well fed and comfortable in your bowl, you can probably look beyond it if you tried.

But how do we look beyond the bowl?

By placing importance on direct observation, and expanding your ability to observe the world within you and around you. For instance, the loss of your sense of internal space has been a relatively recent occurrence in human history. Thus, you could look to the practices of other paradigms for guidance. For many thousands of years, humans have used sound to connect to their internal world. Unlike sight, sound permeates your internal world. Drums are still used in the rituals of many societies today to help their members transcend their limitations and experience new sensations. You can physically sense the beat inside of you, it can put you into trance states and assist in linking you to an internal world that you do not normally experience. This is just one linking mechanism of many. Most people of your paradigm are aware of meditation practices like Zen meditation, where one focuses on observing the world around them. This is a fine practice, but there are yet more esoteric methods of meditation still taught, that direct your attention to the world inside of you. Taking time and focusing your attention inward, observing the minute sensations within your internal body can be enlightening. The breath is possibly the strongest linking mechanism humans can sense, as it constantly flows from the outside world into your internal world and out again. The ancient practice of observing and controlling your breath is what the yogis called Pranayama, and is one of their greatest tools for achieving Samadhi, true enlightenment. The lost sense of your internal space creates the dualistic feeling that the world and your body are separate things, that your mind and your body are separate things. Observing your internal world can remove these barriers, opening up for your observation the infinite space within you.

--I was listening
with a lot of skepticism but probably showed no reaction as I was distracted by the noises coming from the hallway. The police were what seemed to me, just a few feet away, now running up and down the stairs. Tal ignored all of this, continuing without break, and without any sense of hurry in his voice.

Just as you can cast you
r attention inward to expand your experience, you can also cast it outward. You can expand your observation of external space beyond your stereoscopic fish bowl. Since your stereoscopic vision is limited, it is hard for you to actually feel the vastness of the universe around you. You can feel immersed in a snowstorm or a jungle where things are close, but vast distances are more difficult to fully comprehend. Imagine if you could integrate two images of the universe from distant locations in space. This would give you a completely different experience of the universe as a whole. I know of creatures who live within the most beautiful and colorful nebulas. They are not of one body but of several. They live separated, on distant planets, and are able to integrate the images of their members, gaining massive stereoscopic and even multiscopic vision. Imagine the feeling that such a being can have, the immersion it can feel surrounded by such a vast and beautiful world. I cannot describe it to you, but you can attempt this type of observation yourself. The view from your planet on the edge of the Milky Way, with its own moon and a diverse solar system is more than sufficient. You cannot physically expand your very narrow stereoscopic vision, but understanding that this is a limit created by your senses, you can combine your senses with your imagination and attempt to experience the vastness in your mind. Don't just glance at the 2D image that is space, take the time to feel the true expanse of it. Take the time to expand and broaden your attention out into the universe that surrounds you.

--
Now he must have caught the skepticism in my expression, and thus said,

Look, you asked me a question
whose answers do not lie within your paradigm. All I can do is offer some suggestions. I cannot give you instant experience, I cannot yank you into another dimension, nor can I create within you an experience of God. You must do that for yourself. But if you doubt the fact that my suggestions can help you, just remember Sue. With the help of some simple visual exercises and in middle age, she awakened within her an ability to perceive and feel an entire new dimension.

But what is the connection between expanded ability to observe and actually observing God?

If you want to know more about the universe, if you want to know more about God, you must expand your ability to observe. You need to increase the range of your experience, internally and externally. You will never understand God entirely. You can only expand your current experience, and this is how you gain great insight, from the expansion. Remember, since the universe is infinite and since God is infinite, you cannot approach either with finite knowledge. All the finite objective knowledge you can gather in your lifetime of reading or studying will still be an infinitesimal amount of the infinite. Even direct observation has its limits. As a single consciousness you cannot completely comprehend the true taste of a lobster or the sound of Beethoven's 9th, when so many other consciousnesses will understand it in ways that you cannot feel. You will only observe one of its manifestations. Now imagine the complexity of an infinite God who encompasses all of these things. If any religion no matter how great, claims complete knowledge of God, it is highly unlikely. What it preaches could be true, but that truth will not be the only truth. God is infinite; therefore there is other truth out there, a lot of it. You cannot know it all, the best you can do is to expand your objective understanding and your experiential understanding.

So we can expand our k
nowledge of truth objectively.

Of course you can. But what I am trying
to tell you is that you have enough factual information. What you do not have enough of is experience. You have been trained by your paradigm to want more and more abstract information, more facts. You cling to the belief that if you just continue reading the menu a little longer you will somehow know the taste of the lobster, and you never will. At some point you will need to stop reading, put down the menu, and start tasting.

Is the food really that good?

Mmmmm, the food is delicious. Perhaps we will meet again someday after you have tasted something besides gruel. Then we can share some recipes on how to cook a really nice meal. Now I am afraid we must go.

Parting

We?

Yes.

What do I have to do with this?

They will come here, and you don't want to be here when they do. Look, you can stay
, but I have not seen a variation where it will end well for you, and I have tried. On the other hand, I have found a very tidy possibility if you come with me. It will cause you minimal problems.

--
He walked over to the coat rack, handed me my coat and the umbrella which he was holding. He then also gave me my cane, which was set behind the coat rack.

Better take this. 

But I am feeling fine, I only use my cane when the gout is very severe, I really don't need it. 

You will.

--Tal grabbed the last bottle of juice, and put his flashlight back in his pocket. He took my hand and headed toward the window. I meekly followed. He climbed out to the ledge and gave me his hand. The rain was falling hard, I could barely see anything out there, but still I followed. He walked us over a few feet to the right. I looked down into a dark abyss. I could see nothing below with the darkness and the rain. I heard the police pounding at my door. Tal yelled to me.

Ok, when I say jump, jump forward as far as you can. Ready?

--When I think back, I do not know why I listened to him. Maybe I was under some form of hypnosis or perhaps the electron that was supposed to tell my brain that this person was insane and that I was about to die missed the synaptic jump. I don't know. I only know that a second later I was falling into the abyss. Tal let go of my hand when we jumped. I didn't see anything as I fell. I hit something soft, and then something hard, I heard a cracking noise and all went black. 

--I was awakened by a loud
sound, which I now believe may have been a gunshot. I was laying face up in the back of a convertible. My head was in the back seat on the soft-top roof, my legs over the front. I tried to move and felt a sharp pain in my ankle. I thought at the time I had broken it. Rain was hitting my face, and I was about to try to move again when I heard two people talking just a few feet from me. One voice was deep and authoritarian.

Well officer, what happened?

I don't know, Sir. I heard a loud crash, I believe he struck the roof of that car, but I only saw him tumble onto the ground. I yelled for him to halt but he took off down the street, very fast. I took out my weapon and began to run after him, but slipped and fell. By the time I got up again he had turned the corner.

Ok, thank you officer, you can go now.

--I heard footsteps again, people quickly getting into a car. The car drove off, screeching. I waited for a few minutes, listening to the police officer slowly walk around the scene, occasionally seeing the beam of light emanating from his flashlight. After a minute he opened his car door, closed it, and drove off. The rain, which had been falling like a torrent, eased shortly after he left. I laid there in silence for a minute and then I felt around. My umbrella and cane lay conveniently close. I climbed out of the convertible and onto the street. A man, who I assume was the owner of the car Tal had landed on, had come outside, looked at his dented car and then at me and asked,

What the hell happened?

I have no idea.