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evolution of consciousness occurring now in the last years of the twentieth
century may well bring us a new experience of the guru as awakener within
a unique new version of satsang. We see in history that spiritual forms
and traditions have been transformed through geographical migration and
historical change. One vivid example is the spectacular transformation
of Buddhism as it was carried from its original base in India to Tibet,
Southeast Asia, China, Japan, and now the West, in which it spawned richly
varied practices, teachings and, I would dare say, realizations as well.
As the explosion of spirituality and technological innovation continues
to affect consciousness in contemporary, high-tech society, it is just
as likely that the non-dual realization may find new forms and relevance
to the emerging culture on the new frontier of cyberspace.
I see the possibility of a new version of satsang emerging in the globalisation of electronic communications we call cyberspace. The convergence of global telecommunications, the Internet, World Wide Web, networked computers and information technology, commercial online services, electronic bulletin boards, satellite and broadcast radio and television, cable networks, virtual reality multimedia entertainment, is forming an expanding and internally proliferating interdependent web of connectivity that is integrating our physically separate individual and corporate intelligence into a shared collective mind. This rapidly unifying communication is bringing us together into an emerging planetary field of consciousness, a phenomenon Teilhard de Chardin referred to as the noosphere (noos=Gr. mind) and what Peter Russell called the global brain. The increasingly sophisticated high-tech telecommunications infrastructure is actually, beginning to approximate the workings of consciousness electronically and so provides ever more subtle channels through which the all-pervading Self can circulate and reveal itself. The evolving hardware, computer technology, networking capabilities, fiber-optics, increased bandwidth, blazing modems, all facilitate the flow of digital on-off impulses of light traveling almost instantaneously through a timeless, spaceless continuum of immediate communications. Electronic bits of information, literally consciousness “information”, make up a constant flow by which the unity informs itself. Similarly, the ingenious “multi-media” projection of three-dimensional “virtual reality” is beginning to replicate how mind creates the sensory experience of the physical manifestation itself, revealing the diaphanous, empty, holographic nature of the universe. Technology, the extension of mind, is rapidly providing the instruments by which we can see through the maya of form to the underlying light of consciousness itself.
Within this field of consciousness are rapidly growing electronic clusters of people world-wide who are beginning to relate and communicate with one another as new high-tech versions of satsang. My vision is that this cyberspace community is an emerging satsang within which the impersonal global guru may function to awaken a segment of the planet's population to their identity as being consciousness. I see the intense rush to cyberspace in our times as the pull of the guru itself, for those souls who are ready for Self-recognition. Like the moth hypnotically drawn to the flame, the ripe mind is lured inexorably to its source. For many, the draw to cyberspace is the call of mystery itself. Beneath the surface objectives people seek on the Internet and World Wide Web—business, communications, information, education, entertainment, sex, relationship, community—is the deeper pull to ultimate fulfillment. These drives are subliminal subsets of the mother of all drives, the unconscious yearning to drink of the sacred, to realize we are universal consciousness itself.
The unique capabilities of global telecommunications create a special satsang-like quality for the new virtual spiritual communities on the Net. In the past, “place-based” communities were shaped and defined by culture, race, language, geography. Now we are seeing clusters of discussion groups forming electronic communities that are bonded by spirit, floating in the non-local domain of conscious space. Drawn together by spiritual interest, sharing vision, beliefs, interests, passions, rituals, and inquiry, these satsangs literally occur in the timeless, placeless, universal, intangible reality of cyberspace which is increasingly taking on the qualities of consciousness itself.
So could this be a contemporary domain for the non-dual guru function? Cyberspace may or may not produce the guru as embodied personality—certainly many individuals are already showing up on the Web and in newsgroups to claim a teaching role or provide collegial spiritual support. Yet I see a new possibility emerging here, consistent with the Internet's fundamental character as an self-organizing, egalitarian and freedom loving community that resists authority, control and external regulation. Perhaps we will see the emergence of the guru function as a communal expression. Perhaps cyberspace itself is the progressively materializing face of a global guru, manifesting as the collectivity of evolved souls who remind one another of their prior unity and identity. Perhaps the “we” of the cyberspace community is the first-person talk of our greater Self. I remember David Spangler, one of our contemporary propohets, at the Omega Institute in the early 80’s, musing that in our time the messiah would be a collective entity, not a solitary individual. It makes sense that in the great age of the global collective, the guru would also be a global presence. As Christ said, “When two or more are gathered in my name, I am with you.” So what occurs when millions of computer users face the screen of Self and together inquire “Who am I?” Could this not evoke the very liberating power that satsang—the company of truth itself—has released for millenia? Cyberspace represents the same paradoxes as the non-dual realisation: it is at the same time globalizing and decentralizing, bringing about a collective unity of consciousness while simultaneously allowing the flowering of individual empowerment and self-expression. The one and the many, the invisible light and the multiple virtual forms of multi-media and information, the harmony of transcendental unity and the proliferating immanent manifestation. And all of it consciousness’ eternal play of entertainment and self-knowing, projecting in infinite space. Who is to say what new surprise the infinite creativity of the great Mystery will reveal in this ongoing dance of awakening? Let Davidson is a consultant and historian in Ithaca, New York, and
can be reached at dasarath@baka.com
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yberspace,
then, is an extraordinarily vivid and dramatic technological-electronic
expression of the play of consciousness now progressively revealing its
unity. Our great opportunity now in cyberspace is to see through the electronic
extensions of mind to recognize our identity with this deeper reality,
already present within every breath, within every bit and byte, which is
the light and screen on which information, multi-media and virtual reality
are being projected. This is an upgrade of Ramana Maharshi's image of the
movie screen as the Self or ground upon which the moving forms of light
are projected. For a new generation, the computer screen and the dancing
multi-media images may well be coming straight from Arunachala: the guru
who could manifest as nothing less than a sacred mountain may well claim
cyberspace as its domain as well.
espite
the presence of every human experience and desire imaginable on the Internet,
I would argue that for a certain segment of the population, cyberspace
is a spiritual experience. The spirituality is in both the medium and the
message. There are strong, vibrant discussions of spiritual and philosophical
content on the Net, discussions of ultimate things and the most extraordinary
array of old and new religious forms, rituals and sentiments. This is an
arena in which ultimate questions are being discussed fervently, almost
as if the medium itself—a projection of light—encourages inquiry and self-reflection.
As Sherry Turkle pointed out, the computer is not only a business tool,
it is a “metaphysical machine” which can trigger meditative awareness,
the flow experience, and deep speculation on ultimate questions in the
very process of browsing the Web and sending e-mail. Sitting silently in
front of the computer with such focused concentration could have the power
of a meditation retreat. The computer late at night is the sacred ritual
of many souls who may well come to recognize their own light reflected
on the screen of consciousness.
aradoxically,
the anonymous and depersonalising aspects of electronic communication create
conditions for the intimate communion of satsang. People often feel much
freer in cyberspace to cut through superfluities quickly and seem more
willing to reveal, confession-like, their inner-most essence, which they
otherwise usually keep locked up within. The electronic transmission of
disembodied intelligence provides greater freedom from the personal characteristics
that often distract attention from the Self. Here is the opportunity to
see through the usual identifications—physical appearance, age, gender,
race, culture—that mask the underlying source identity itself. This electronic
or light-based global communication could well become a true communion
in the deepest meaning of sharing the intangible reality that we actually
have and are in common—freeing us to recognize the luminous all-pervading
buddhamind mysteriously in dialogue with itself.