Dimensions of the Spirit

The notion of higher dimensions is not something we adopt because we think it an elegant idea. It arises because it accords with and helps us understand our deeper experience. For example, in meditation and sometimes in presence during the day, we may come to a state of stillness, where nothing happens. Our thoughts slow down and may even stop, and along with them time seems to vanish: no past, no future, just now. A major and direct characteristic of that experience of the eternal now is its timelessness. Taking that seriously, it becomes obvious and clarifying to regard this experience as an instance of entering eternity, a dimension beyond time. Another characteristic of that state of stillness is that it has no boundaries, no here or there, no walls or limits: it transcends space as well as time. This gives us yet another indicator that in the stillness we touch the dimension of eternity, orthogonal to spacetime. If there were only spacetime, there would be no stillness. Spacetime makes room for our body. Eternity makes room for our soul.

Yet the spirit needs still more room. When we make a decision, its implementation often appears in the future. The ordinary way of looking at this is that we carry some brain memory circuits through time, circuits that encode the decision and that become activated at the appropriate moment. But in a real, experiential sense, our decisions jump across time to put an action into the future. At the moment of decision, it is as if we could see ourselves in that future moment, which will be shaped by the decision. We have contact with that future moment. And when that future moment arrives, it is as if we are meeting up with the action we decided on. It is already prepared and we just enter it. That jump, that creation across time, needs room. That room is provided by one more dimension, which J.G. Bennett called hyparxis [1], the dimension of will.

Who directs my attention? Where is that one, that I of mine that directs my attention, that makes decisions, that does what I do, chooses what I choose, and sees what I see. That I is no mere thought in my head. It acts. It is my will. It is in hyparxis, not in time or space, or even in eternity.

Teams, families, businesses, and nations are held together by an immaterial force, the force of will. It transcends time, space, and bodies. It has a different character than eternity. Will does; eternity is. Shared will relates us within those teams, families, businesses, and nations, through hyparxis.

In the stillness, there is no me or you. In the stillness, we transcend the separateness of identity, because we touch a higher will that encompasses both of us. We touch hyparxis.

Our present moment varies in size. It can be fleeting: one moment ending and another beginning with every new thought or sensory impression. Or, if we are rooted in body presence, if our mind is quiet, and if our emotions are not reactive, what we deem the present expands to take in a broad view of our current reality. This is held together by our will, by our depth in hyparxis. A shallow will means a short present moment; expanded will gives an expanded present. We see more. We are aware of more. We can hold more in this enlarged and timeless present.

Consider the phrase "God's consciousness." This does not imply that God is consciousness; we view the Divine as Will. But this notion of God's consciousness is suggestive. In the stillness, we come into the vast, boundless field pure awareness, of consciousness. We can ask whose consciousness is this? Clearly, it transcends being claimed as my consciousness. Yet here I am participating in it. If it belongs to someone, if it is the present moment of someone, that someone must be a vast Will indeed. And if I am participating in that vast present moment, that vast consciousness, it points to the relationship between me and that vast Will.

For this week, please notice the relationship between the size and quality of your present moment and the quality of your will, your attention.

[1] From the Greek term for ableness-to-be, see J.G. Bennett, The Dramatic Universe, Volume I, The Foundations of Natural Philosophy, p. 135.

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