Are We Living Inside a Universal Mind?

Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is conscious: i.e., endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception.

Helena Blavatsky

In his book, Cosmos (1981), the NASA scientist Carl Sagan starts by stating the Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. The same is true in Timeslayers, the Book of Consciousness, Turiya, holds the story of the entire cosmos and every life form. It writes the story of what has been, what is and what will be. It holds the key to the fate of every being.

This is based on the concept rooted in spiritual, mystical, and esoteric traditions, known as the Akashic Record. It refers to a supposed universal database or ‘library’ that contains the cumulative knowledge, experiences, thoughts, emotions, and events of every soul throughout time. This idea suggests that past, present, and future information are stored in a non-physical plane of existence, accessible through heightened states of consciousness or spiritual practice.

The term akasha comes from Sanskrit, meaning “ether” or “sky”, which is the fifth element in Hindu philosophy and represents the subtlest form of energy. Most of us grow up believing that consciousness comes from the brain. But what if we’ve got it backwards? What if consciousness came first and the physical universe emerged from it?

This ancient idea appears in the Vedas, in Plato’s philosophy, and even in some modern theories of consciousness. In the Upanishads (the philosophical culminations of the Vedas), akasha evolves from a simple physical element into a profound metaphor for the ultimate reality (Brahman), and universal consciousness is the ultimate, unchanging, and infinite reality that flows through all things.

Brahman is not a personal god with a human form, but rather the formless, all-encompassing energy and soul of the universe. In the modern study of consciousness, Roger Penrose suggests consciousness may not be something that suddenly appears when brains become sufficiently complicated. Instead, there may be something at the fundamental level of reality that can become organised into consciousness.

This is surprisingly close to Panpsychism. Panpsychism is the philosophical view that consciousness, mind, or mind-like experience is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of all reality.

Personally, I have always thought of myself as a part of the universe, not living within it but an integral part of it. These aren’t merely ideas I’ve explored academically. They form part of the philosophical architecture behind my Chronicles of the Charon, a fantasy trilogy in which mythology, consciousness and the nature of reality become part of the story.

So, like the chicken and the egg, which came first, consciousness, or the universe? Are we conscious beings living in a universe or is the universe itself becoming conscious through us?

I would be interested to hear what you think!

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