Archetype of the Big Bang

The passions of my early life — I suppose that’s what they were — led me in the past to read an enormous amount of books.

But gradually over the years certain things have happened to me that I have drawn a tremendous amount of information from. For instance I had an incredible experience during which I felt as if I had gone back to the beginning of things.

I had been wondering about difficulties in my life. I could see that they were causal. They had arisen from relationships with, for instance, my mother. But those events in themselves had been caused by things previous to them. So I was asking myself what was behind those events.

During the experience in question I felt I was at the very beginning of the universe. I knew and experienced that beginning of things as a huge awareness. There was no separation in it at all. I had the impression that prior to it a whole universe had existed that had gradually sunk back, melted, or synthesised into this single great ocean of substance and awareness. Although to be more precise I guess I should describe it as a whole condensed universe that was also consciousness.

So from a huge universe in which had existed all manner of life forms, what I met had gradually synthesised into an immense and unimaginable single awareness. I felt that this was what our present science has seen as existing prior to the Big Bang. But the description is mine not that of science. It must be remembered that present scientific theory sees that the condition prior to the Big Bang was beyond time and space. Time and space were created by the Big Bang.

This view of a consciousness, a type of being existing prior to the emergence of the universe is not of course a new thing. Hindu philosophy talks of the universe as expanding and contracting over immense periods of time. It also states that fundamental to all existence is a form of consciousness. They describe this expansion and contraction as the breathing in and out of Brahm. But I felt that what our own science has not stated, or perhaps has not yet found, is the awareness or consciousness underlying everything. (Brahm means the Great Cosmic Spirit, beyond understanding.)

I saw, I experienced, I felt with great emotion, that this consciousness was alone. In human terms that is the only way I can describe it. It was one immense consciousness without division, without separation anywhere in it. Nothing could exist outside of it. Even if it imagined something other than itself, that would still be an undivided part of itself. But because of what I am calling aloneness, the being, the consciousness wanted to create otherness. It wanted other beings to share its existence, its wonder.

So the only thing it could do to enable the existence of others was to die, to destroy itself. Therefore, as far as I can put this into words, with the enormous skill, with great art, with an ability to plan and foresee the results beyond what we can understand, it set about its own death. It did this with enormous love. And that death and that love is what our present culture calls the Big Bang.

My experience was that the Big Bang was an act of enormously creative self giving. It did this so others might exist. It was the only way in which the possibility of other beings having an existence outside of itself could come about. It was almost like seeding itself.

This beginning we know as the Big Bang. But in fact that wasn’t the beginning. There was something before that of great importance. If you look at the diagram below you will see at the far left it says, Time Begins.

Time Began

In fact it should have said Time and Space begins. The Big Bang is only the beginning of time and space; before that there was no time and no space. It is a difficult concept for us limited as we are to living in time and space and having form as our body, with senses that are not even capable of seeing most of what is taking place around us. Perhaps the nearest we can get to describing this condition before the Big Bang is to say it has no beginning and no end.

Love Irradiates the Universe

What I saw was that the Big Bang utterly shattered the existence of what had been before. That ocean of energy and consciousness destroyed itself so beings such as ourselves might exist. And then, as it died, at the very last moments of its death, it shot out something to penetrate all that was coming into being. It radiated love. It gave us love as its parting gift so that if any beings got lost, if they were troubled or overcome in their experience of growth, they could reach out for that love and be helped. They could touch the love, the heart and soul of which was self giving.

The death of that being also meant that every particle of the universe and what has arisen out of its death is the very substance of that great creative being and its act of self giving. There is nothing in the universe that is not the body, the broken and fragmented body, of that being. Every tiny fragment of our earth, of our bodies, of our universe, is the essence of that being. Every tiny speck of the universe is a seed that has the potential of that being within it. There is nothing that is not that being and a seed of that being. The potential to know that is within each of us. It is within each of us to be that wonder. We can grow and realise we are the children of that.

That is what I see as the beginning of things, the origin of our universe and ourselves. But I was also shown that our corner, our small part of the universe, has certain qualities that maybe other parts do not. One of them, especially in regard to ourselves, is the shortness of life. We are tiny, short lived, biological creatures that have emerged out of the amazing processes of this world in its interplay with the cosmos. We can see ourselves in one sense as little bags of shit. We can be thought of as little digestive reproducing bags. But because of that potential in us, there has always been a possibility of more in human life. As this species we have managed to emerge beyond the other living forms of this earth. We have developed complex language and enormous curiosity and creativity. But the shortness of our life is a big factor in our experience of ourselves. I was shown that this shortness of life is really important for us. This because an essential part of the mystery of the universe is death. Therefore death is an enormous key to understanding the universe and life. Understanding death means that we become capable of letting go of ourselves, of delivering ourselves, of being able to give ourselves away to the mystery underlying our existence. The importance of this is because, if what has been said above is correct, then death is at the very centre of the mystery of life. It is at the foundation of our physical being. It is behind the urge that leads parents to a sort of death in giving themselves to the new being that emerges, to parents giving of themselves to their offspring. The sun gives of itself as it is dying. Through its dying life can exist on earth. This is part and parcel of the processes out of which our universe has emerged.

That is what I felt. Maybe it is our definition of what we think of as love. Also, I did understand that I was looking at, or experiencing what arose, out of my own limited human awareness. The experience was interpreted into my own human terms. All I have is my vocabulary and my range of experience. But it did feel like a love beyond what I could understand. It felt like an enormous self giving.

In science it is interesting what has been defined about the Big Bang.  One aspect of it is sometimes called the ‘finger of God’ because certain tiny adjustments were made that gave a pattern for future development.

I sense it as more like a huge creative word or song that we call the Bang, that still echoes throughout the universe. It is a song of love, of longing, of creation. It is a song of infinite possibilities and tones of experience. It is a never ending cry from a heart we perhaps cannot yet understand – unless we come to know our own heart deeply. It is a shining, flickering, ever illusive moment, central to everything.

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It is interesting if you look at the diagram of the stages of the Big Bang that science says it took seven stages to bring us to where we are – so similar to the seven days of creation. Also there was no light in the emerging universe despite its immense heat. Then suddenly there is light – so similar to Let there be Light. See The Secret Bible