Supersoul may explain a puzzling anomaly in consciousness studies. Benjamin Libet, a neuroscientist, has reported the results of experiments about intention and brain state. He asked his subjects to bend a finger at the exact time they made a decision to do so. Study of brain waves revealed that there was a gap of about one-fifth of a second between the time the subject decided to move their fingers and the time the muscles in the finger actually moved. But the same study also revealed that the brains of the subjects displayed activity a third of a second before the subjects consciously reported making a decision to move their finger. Libet took this to mean that our conscious free will is not really free, but is reflecting some unconscious brain action that precedes the decision’s entry into our conscious awareness. Accordingly, free will is largely an illusion (Libet 1994; in Radin 1997, pp. 283–284). But this is not necessarily so. According to the vedic model, the Supersoul, on a deep level, is monitoring the soul, the actual conscious self. Anticipating the desire of the soul to move the finger, the Supersoul could set the process in motion before the desire is manifested as a mental intention.
In their book margins of Reality (1987), Robert G. Jahn and Brenda J. dunne gave a theory that makes use of analogies from quantum mechanics and at the same time accounts for the action of consciousness in a way that is compatible with the vedic model. Like the vedic model, their model appears to accept unit consciousness as a feature of reality. Jahn and dunne proposed that consciousness has a dual particle/wave nature, much like the atom or photon in quantum mechanics. They proposed that our normal individual embodied consciousness might be likened to “probability of experience waves” that are “confined to some sort of ‘container,’ or ‘potential well,’ representative of the environment in which that consciousness is immersed” (Jahn and dunne 1987, p. 242). Ordinary conscious relations would be defined by the interactions of the confined waves, according to the conditions imposed by the physical body and environment. But just as in quantum mechanics there are tunneling effects, whereby the consciousness wave in a particular potential well can influence the consciousness wave in another potential well in ways not normally allowed. This might, according to Jahn and dunne (1987, p. 243), “represent various types of anomalous information acquisition, including remote perception and remote PK effects.” Jahn and dunne added (1987, p. 243), “If any of the standing wave systems acquires sufficient energy to be elevated from cavity-bound to free-wave status, it may gain access to all consciousness space-time and interact with any other center in the configuration via that mode. Thus, this route could accommodate a variety of anomalies, including remote perception and remote man/machine interactions, as well as more extreme and controversial phenomena such as mystical union, out-of-body experiences, mediumship, and spiritual survival.” The question is: how does a “standing wave system” (atma, or soul, in the vedic model) acquire the “sufficient energy” to get out of an energy well? Here the Supersoul could play a role. Only the Supersoul would possess enough energy not to be bound in any way by any of the energies. But it could contribute enough energy to individual units of consciousness to break out of their limitations. But such units of consciousness could never achieve the same degree of freedom as the Supersoul and would require constant connection with the Supersoul to remain in the free state.
The Cosmic Hierarchy: A Cross-Cultural Study
Science provides substantial evidence supporting the assumption that a human being is composed of three things: matter, mind, and consciousness. This leads to the related assumption that our cosmos itself is divided into regions dominated by ordinary matter, mind, and spirit. Such cosmologies have existed in a vast number of cultures down through history.
These cosmologies include hierarchies of beings adapted to life at various levels. The structures of these hierarchies can often be complex, but one can see in them a basic pattern. At the top of the hierarchy is some kind of supreme guiding intelligence. Next comes a subordinate creator god, or demiurge. From the creator god come varieties of demigods, humans, plants, animals, ghosts, demons, and spirits. The highest level of the hierarchy, the level of the supreme guiding intelligence, God, is purely spiritual. The levels of the creator god and higher demigods are predominated by a mixture of spirit and the subtle material mind element. The lower levels, inhabited by minor demigods, humans, animals, and plants, are predominated by a mixture of spirit, mind, and a substantial amount of ordinary matter. These lower levels may include an underworld or hellish world, in addition to the ordinary terrestrial realm.
Humans, and all other living things we observe on earth, have a spiritual essence, or soul, which originates in the spiritual level of the cosmos. This spiritual essence is covered first by mind and then by matter,in a process that I call devolution.The process of devolution begins when the individual conscious self desires in a way that is incompatible with the spiritual harmony that exists between all beings in the spiritual world. According to their degree of departure from the original spiritual harmony, conscious selves receive subtler or grosser material bodies and fields of action. The higher demigods, who retain some considerable portion of their awareness of spiritual realities, receive bodies made primarily of the subtle material mind element, and act in an appropriate field. Those with grosser desires obtain not only a body of mind but also a body composed of a considerable amount of ordinary matter, capable of acting in the field predominated by ordinary matter. All of the bodies are programmed to last fixed durations of time. At the end of this duration, the soul obtains another body, according to the final state of its desires and consciousness. It is possible for a soul that has completely purified its desires to return to its original spiritual position. Otherwise, it receives another body, for another fixed term.
Cosmologies material and Spiritual
There have always been various ways of looking at the world, some of them materialistic, focusing on matter and its purely mechanical transformations, and some of them mystical or spiritual, focusing on the influence of God, or of gods and goddesses, on transformations of gross and subtle matter. At a certain time and place, a particular cosmology may become dominant within the most powerful and influential social groups. But alternative cosmologies remain simultaneously in existence, perhaps among the general population or among subdominant elites. In ancient times, spiritual, or mystical, cosmologies were dominant, but materialistic cosmologies were also current. For example, during the time of the Greeks, some philosophers, such as Democritus, proposed that everything in the universe could be reduced to material atoms. But spiritual philosophers were more numerous and influential. Today the positions are reversed. Materialistic cosmologies are dominant in elite circles and a substantial percentage of the general population, but spiritual cosmologies have survived. Not only have they survived, but their influence is growing, and they may soon once more become dominant within leading circles of society.
Billions of people in the world are still under the influence of spiritual cosmologies. They include, in addition to the orthodox followers of the principal world religions, practitioners of voodoo, santeria, shamanism, wiccam, etc. Even in the most technologically advanced populations, a surprising number of people display commitment to spiritual cosmologies or phenomena identified with these cosmologies. In 1990, the Gallup organization presented Americans with a list of 18 kinds of paranormal experiences associated with spiritual cosmologies. Only 7 percent of the respondents denied belief in any of them. About 50 percent expressed belief in five or more (Gallup and Newport 1990, p. 1). For example, 70 percent of Americans said they believed in life after death, 49 percent said they believed in extrasensory perception, 36 percent said they believed in telepathy, 46 percent said they believed in psychic healing, and