Hi. I found the Ken Wilber 'Big Mind' post really interesting, partly because it's so amazingly synchronous with an idea I've been working on that is in some ways is completely opposite (though in other ways maybe the same...). Before I watched the post, I was thinking: If 'I' were 'my soul', which in turn belonged to a sort of mass Universal Self-Consciousness, so that I were a part of an ever-present witness with a diverse multiplicity of selves, then at the human level I would apprehend and experience myself at an extraordinarily minutely detailed level, all the little triumphs and disappointments, time-wise just a zap of flavour on my universal tongue. Sadly, at that level, I am just running in the background of their usually distracted minds, hugely secondary to their egos, to their own perception of 'I', which is their physical reality, their presence in small time and small space. These 'I's are often power-hungry, self-righteous, violent, cowardly, disempowered, angry, ambivalent, or confused.  Who am I and why do I need to be these things? Switching over for a moment, how could I as a wee human, even a human that attempts to strive towards what I think of as 'good' ends, ever imagine that I am ever free enough from the distortions of mind, self, free agency and temporalism, that I am really the I that is the I? I am also my histories, my hang-ups, my frustrations and my joys, my thoughts, my plans, my failures... or at least my ego is, my own personal 'I' of whom I speak. And if the Great I-am is also I and you and him and her, then what of people who maim, torment, torture and kill; there are babies born who then starve weeks later in inequality and injustice; there are crimes and horrors too disturbing for me to type; and just people who never have the chances that I have had. What could the Great I-am have to gain from all of this, from being each and all of these 'I's? Experience of grief, terror, power, hunger, agony? With all the wars that have taken place, with all the mothers and fathers who have grieved - why would the Great I-am need more of this or want it? I'm not a damn television.

So I was wondering whether a Universal 'I' might nevertheless have no consciousness as such, just a will, pure spirit, drawn to human consciousness as a way to Love, a potential. Bear with me and my hypothesising. New bodies and minds are generated organically through human procreation and nurture and I, the Soul, am drawn into each person by themselves, as an act of free will. From there, I might have a say, but I am not the I of whom these people speak. Their I is their body and mind, their physical reality and their apprehension of it. They are like the knitted finger areas on a zillion fingered glove, and their fabric is like a bridge between I and space (the Consciousness), for which I yearn and stretch. Perhaps that Consciousness is what humans call "God" or "Brahman" (or whatever); I yearn for it and will it and I am drawn to mind, which has the capacity to provide the bridge to Consciousness.

I've only been messing around with this specific idea for a week or so, and I can see some gaping holes (in a consciousless being, who is doing the yearning? Can spirit be unconscious?), but it admits human agency and 'evil', and speaks to both a sense of Oneness and that yearning to be One. So maybe it has some legs. But I think it means that the I of whom we speak cannot be eternal, unless we are pure Universal Spirit speaking, which I can't claim to be. According to my little idea, as Universal Spirit moved within me, I might, through my own logic, will, heart and effort, attempt to allow pure Spirit and pure Consciousness to meet in me, to get out of their way, to make my mind into a focussing lens or something, perhaps some people can even become gateways between Consciousness and Spirit, a sort of kissing gate. Maybe not just people. Perhaps physical, organic matter (flesh, rock, wood) can contain spirit perfectly, holding it there. Is that what kirlian photography shows? And at death, like water, spirit might seep away, enhanced or otherwise, yearning to find a new finger pointing towards Consciousness.

I don't know. I'm reluctant even to post this. My big idea seems to be that 'I' am just a woolly finger. I also seem to have asserted a dualism between Spirit and Consciousness (albeit with a mutuality inbuilt) and I don't like dualism. Then again, maybe it's like Hydrogen and Oxygen coming together to make Water (Spirit plus Consciousness equals... hmmm... Love?) Anyway, like I said, in some ways the idea is opposite, so I found that Iamness post interesting. It's good to get some dissonant lines on my drawing board.