THE SECRET BEYOND MATTER
Warning
The subject of this film
you are about to watch reveals a crucial secret of your life. You should watch
it very attentively for it concerns a subject that is liable to make
fundamental changes in your outlook on the material world. The content of this
film presents not just a different approach, or a philosophical thought: it is
a fact which is also proven by science today.
Introduction
Man is conditioned right
from the beginning of his life that the world he lives in has an absolute
material reality. So he grows up under the effect of this conditioning and
builds his entire life on this viewpoint. The findings of modern science,
however, have revealed a completely different and significant reality than what
is presumed.
All the information that
we have about the external world is conveyed to us by our five senses. The
world we know of consists of what our eyes see, our ears hear, our noses smell,
our tongues taste, and our hands feel.
Man is dependent on only
those five senses since birth. That is why he knows the “external world” only
the way it is presented by these senses.
Yet, scientific research
carried out on our senses has revealed very different facts about what we call
the “external world”. And these facts have brought to light a very important
secret about matter which makes up the external world.
Contemporary thinker
Frederick Vester explains the point that science has reached on this subject:
Statements of some
scientists posing that "man is an image, everything experienced is
temporary and deceptive, and this universe is a shadow", seems to be
proven by science in our day. (Frederick Vester, Denken, Lernen, Vergessen,
vga, 1978, p. 6)
In order to better grasp
this secret behind matter, let us be reminded of our information about our
“sense of sight” which provides us with the most extensive information about
the external world.
How Do We See?
The act of seeing is
realised progressively. At the instance of seeing, light clusters called
photons travel from the object to the eye and pass through the eye lens where
they are refracted and focus on the retina at the back of the eye. Here, rays
are turned into electrical signals and then transmitted by neurons to the
centre of vision at the back of the brain. The act of seeing actually takes
place in this centre in the brain.
All the images we view
in our lives and all the events we experience are actually experienced in this
tiny and dark place. Both the film you are now watching and the boundless
landscape you see when you gaze at the horizon actually fit into this place of
a few cubic centimeters.
Now, let us reconsider
this information more carefully. When we say, "we see", we actually
see the “effect” the rays reaching our eyes form in our brain by being
converted into electric signals. When we say, "we see", we actually
observe the electrical signals in our brain.
By the way, there is
another point that has to be kept in mind; the brain is sealed to light and its
interior is absolutely dark. Therefore, it is never possible for the brain to
contact with light itself.
We can explain this
interesting situation with an example: Let us suppose that in front of us there
is a burning candle and we view its light. During this period when we view the
candle’s light, the inside of our skull and our brain are in absolute darkness.
The light of the candle never illuminates our brain and our centre of vision.
However, we watch a colourful and bright world inside our dark brain.
The same situation
applies to all our other senses. Sound, touch, taste and smell are all
perceived in the brain as electrical signals.
Therefore, our brains,
throughout our lives, do not confront the "original" of the matter
existing outside us, but rather an electrical copy of it formed inside our
brain. It is at this point that we are misled by assuming these copies are
instances of real matter outside us.
"The External
World" Inside Our Brain
These physical facts
make us come to an indisputable conclusion. Everything we see, touch, hear, and
perceive as "matter", "the world" or "the
universe" is only electrical signals in our brain.
For instance, we see a
bird in the external world. In real, this bird is not in the external world,
but in our brain. The light particles reflecting from the bird reach our eye
and there they are converted into electrical signals. These signals are
transmitted by neurons to the centre of vision in the brain. The bird we see is
in fact the electric signals in our brain. If the sight nerves travelling to
the brain were disconnected, the image of the bird would suddenly disappear.
In the same manner, the
bird sounds we hear are also in our brain. If the nerve travelling from the ear
to the brain was disconnected, there would be no sound left.
Put simply, the bird,
the shape of which we see, and the sound of which we hear is nothing but the
brain’s interpretation of electrical signals.
Another point to be
considered here is the sense of distance. For example the distance between you
and this screen, is nothing but a feeling of space formed in your brain. Also,
objects that seem to be very distant in one person's view are actually images
clustered at one spot in the brain.
For instance, someone
who watches the stars in the sky assumes that they are millions of light-years
away from him. Yet, the stars are right inside himself, at the centre of vision
of his brain.
While you watch this
film, you are, in truth, not inside the room you assume yourself to be in. On
the contrary, the room is inside you. Your seeing your body makes you think
that you are inside of it. However, you must remember that your body, too, is
an image formed inside your brain.
Is
the Existence of the “External World” Indispensable?
So far, we have been
speaking repeatedly of an "external world" and a world of perceptions
formed in our brain, the latter of which is what we see. However, since we can
never actually reach the "external world", how can we be sure that
such a world really exists?
Definitely we cannot.
The only reality we cope with is the world of perceptions we live within our
minds.
We believe in the
existence of objects just because we see and touch them, and they are reflected
to us by our perceptions. However, our perceptions are only ideas in our mind.
Thus, objects we captivate by perceptions are nothing but ideas, and these
ideas are essentially in nowhere but our mind… Since all these exist only in
the mind, then it means that we are beguiled by deceptions when we imagine the
universe and things to have an existence outside the mind.
To imagine matter to
have an existence outside the mind is indeed a deception. The perceptions we
observe may well be coming from an "artificial" source.
It is possible to see
this in the mind’s eye by an example.
First, let us suppose
that we could take our brain out of our body and keep it alive in a glass jar.
Let us put a computer in which all kinds of information can be recorded.
Finally, let us transmit the electrical signals of all the data related to a
setting such as image, sound and smell to this computer.
Let us connect this
computer to the sensory centres in our brain with electrodes and send the
pre-recorded data to our brain. As our brain perceives these signals, it will
see and live the setting correlated with these.
From this computer, we
can send to our brain also signals pertaining to our own image. For instance,
we can send to our brain the electrical correlates of such senses as sight,
hearing and touch that we perceive while we sit at a desk. In that state, our
brain would think itself as a businessman sitting in his office.
This imaginary world
would continue as long as the stimulations keep coming from the computer. We
would never realise that we only consist of a brain.
It is indeed very easy
for us to be deceived into believing perceptions without any material
correlates to be real. This is just what happens in our dreams.
The
World in Dreams
For you, reality is all
that can be touched with the hand and seen with the eye. In your dreams you can
also “touch with your hand and see with your eye”, but in reality you have
neither hand nor eye, nor is there anything that can be touched or seen.
However, taking what you perceive in your dream to be material realities, you
are simply deceived.
For example a person
deeply asleep in his bed may see himself in an entirely different world in his
dream. He may dream that he is a pilot and command a giant aeroplane, and even
spend a great effort to command the plane. In fact, this person has not taken
even one step away from his bed. In his dreams, he may visit different settings
and meet with friends, have a chat with them, eat and drink together. Even
though these are mere perceptions that have no material correlations, they are
experienced in a completely realistic manner. It is only when the person awakes
from his dream that he realises all were only perceptions.
If we are able to live
easily in an unreal world during our dreams, the same thing can equally be true
for the world we live in.
When we wake up from a
dream, there is no logical reason for not thinking that we have entered a
longer dream that we call real life. The reason we consider our dream to be
fancy and the world as real is nothing but a product of our habits and
prejudices.
This suggests that we
may well be awoken from the life on earth which we think we are living right
now, just as we are awoken from a dream.
Who Is the Perceiver?
After all these physical
facts arises the question of primary importance. If all physical events that we
know are intrinsically perceptions, what about our brain? Since our brain is a
matter just like our arms, legs, or any other object, it also must be a
perception just like all other objects.
An example will
illuminate the subject further. Let us think that we extend the nerves reaching
our brain and put it outside our head where we can see it with our eyes. In
this case, we would be able to see also our brain and touch it with our
fingers. This way we can understand that our brain is also nothing but a
perception formed by the senses of vision and touch.
Then, what is the Will
that sees, hears and perceives all other senses if it is not the brain?
Who is it that sees,
hears, touches and perceives the taste and smell?
Who is this being that thinks, reasons, has feelings and
moreover that says “I am me”?
One of the important
thinkers of our age Karl Pribram also poses the same question:
Philosophers since the Greeks have speculated about the
"ghost" in the machine, the "little man inside the little
man" and so on. Where is the I -- the entity that uses the brain? Who
does the actual knowing? Or, as Saint Francis of Assisi once put it,
"What we are looking for is what is looking". (Ken Wilber, Holographic Paradigm, p. 37)
In fact, this
metaphysical being that uses the brain, that sees and feels is the “soul”. What
we call the "material world" is the aggregate of perceptions viewed
and felt by this soul. Just as the bodies we possess and the material world we
see in our dreams have no physical reality, the universe we occupy and the
bodies we possess now also have no physical reality.
The real absolute being
is the soul. Matter consists merely of perceptions viewed by the soul.
Yes, even if we start
with the presupposition that matter is real, the laws of physics, chemistry and
biology all lead us to the fact that matter consists of an illusion and to the
inevitable actuality of a metaphysical matter.
This is the secret beyond matter.
This fact is so definite
that it alarms some materialist scientists who think matter to be the absolute
being. Science writer Lincoln Barnett says in his book “The Universe and
Einstein”:
Along with philosophers' reduction of all
objective reality to a shadow-world of perceptions, scientists have become
aware of the alarming limitations of man's senses. (Lincoln Barnett,
The Universe and Dr.Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948,
pp.17-18)
All these facts bring us
face to face with a very significant question: If the thing we acknowledge to
be the material world is merely comprised of perceptions given to our soul,
then what is the source of these perceptions?…
In answering this
question, we must consider the fact that matter does not have a self-governing
existence by itself but is a perception. Therefore, this perception must have
been caused by another power, which means that it must have been “created”.
Moreover, this creation must be continuous… If there were not a continuous and
consistent creation, then what we call matter would disappear and be lost.
This may be likened to a
television on which a picture is displayed as long as the signal continues to
be broadcast. If the broadcast stops, the image on the screen will also
disappear.
The Real Absolute Being
So, who makes our soul
see the earth, people, plants, our bodies and all else that we see?
It is very evident that
there is a superior Creator, Who has created the entire material universe, that
is, the sum of all perceptions, and continues His creation ceaselessly. Since
this Creator displays such a magnificent creation, He surely has Eternal Power
and Might. All the perceptions He creates are dependent on His will and He
dominates everything He has created at any moment.
This Creator is Allah,
the Lord of the heavens and the earth.
The only real absolute
being is Allah. All things except Him are shadow beings He created. This
reality is explained by the great Islamic scholar Imam Rabbani as follows:
Allah… The substance of these beings which He
created is but nothingness… He created all in the sphere of senses and
illusions…
The existence of the universe is in the
sphere of senses and illusions, and it is not material… In reality, there is
nothing in the outside except the Glorious Being, (Who is Allah). (Imam Rabbani Hz. Mektuplari (Letters of Rabbani), Vol.II, 357. Letter, p.163)
In all the four corners
of this universe that is made up of perceptions is Allah’s Being as the only
real being. Therefore, the closest being to man is Allah. This fact is
explained in the Qur’an with the verse, “We created man and We are nearer to
him than his jugular vein.” (Surah
Qaf: 16)
Whereever we are, Allah
is with us. While you watch this film, the closest being to you is Allah Who
creates everything you see at any moment.
As long as Allah makes
us see images and gives sensations related to this world, we continue to live
in this world. When He ends the images and sensations belonging to this world,
shows us the angels of death and gives perceptions of a different dimension,
this means we have died. The Day of Resurrection, Judgement, Heaven, Hell and
all our eternal life will be created in the same way for us.
To create all these is too
easy for Allah, Who displays the evidence of His Eternal Power and Infinite
Knowledge to us yet in this world.
This film is based on Harun Yahya’s book “Timelessness
and the Reality of Fate”.
