The Velocity of Knowledge and the Mind of God
Author’s Note:
When we refer to the Creator, we must always make a distinction between the Unknowable Source of Creation and the knowable realms of heaven and earth.
When we speak of His emanation of the spheres of energy called ‘worlds’, and their groupings, we refer to a structure by which the Creator contracted His Infinity into the Finite, both spiritual and later into the physical.
Considerable effort has been made to make ancient terms accessible to modern students of this highly honored discipline, the Science of Kabbalah.
Our Sages teach, “Do not say God is in the world. Rather, say the world is in God.”
Kabbala explains that God cleared a space within Himself to create the world, thus, “the world is in God.” There is no other place to be.
When the Torah tells us that man was created in God’s image, that includes the Mind. We may think of this as though the Universe is one colossal mind, and we exist in that Mind, as micro members of an endless information processor.
In such a ‘place’, all knowledge is eternally stored, absolutely accurate and instantly available. As members of that Mind, we have built-in access to Its information, provided we know the rules of its operation.
With these ideas we can better understand how, as technology advances and the velocity of sharing knowledge increases, humanity is faced with new challenges. Perhaps, the greatest will be that as mankind attains greater power through knowledge, so too does its responsibility for using that knowledge.
Today human beings receive information so swiftly, our potential impact on the rest of the world increases exponentially.
Today human beings receive information so swiftly, our potential impact on the rest of the world increases exponentially. Every person can become world famous with one act, in a matter of minutes. His impact is manifold compared to earlier generations. And this impact brings with it the need for a significantly more developed moral system.
Kabbala explains that the structure of man is a miniature extraction of the Universal Mind, its traits, qualities, processes, emotions, judgments and perceptions. The verse, ‘To see eye to eye,’ can be interpreted to mean to see ‘with God’s eye,’ that is, His eye invests ours with divine sight, and how he looks at things, from the grandest to the minutest of subjects and details. In other words, to become Godlike implies to become increasingly sensitive to all matters, great and small.
The ability to be everywhere, equally present we ascribe to God. When a human being, by virtue of technology, begins to approach this ability, to see at great distances and receive information from many faraway sources, he is becoming more like the Creator. The moralistic questions about this cannot be overstated.
Our vast advances in technology, especially information processing, gives one a sense of power we have never had, especially the common person, who has never had access to encyclopedic knowledge, photographic memory, instant recall, remote viewing, or the perfect analysis and organization of information.
The rapid spread of knowledge, and the speed of accessing this knowledge, though empowering, is also potentially delusional, corruptive and dehumanizing.
The rapid spread of knowledge, and the speed of accessing this knowledge, though empowering, is also potentially delusional, corruptive and dehumanizing.
Like all phenomena in this world, knowledge itself can be good or evil, depending on how it is used. That is one reason why the ‘forbidden tree’ in the Garden of Eden is called the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Knowledge creates the potential for good or its opposite.
The important question as to whether mankind advances morally as he advances technologically is difficult to quantify. The Kabbala does teach that as humanity evolves, Good and Evil must gradually separate. This polarization indicates we are approaching ever greater levels of clarity or confusion, good or evil; at the same time.
How often do we hear people speak of the fall of societies, the degradation of values, the rejection of traditional concepts of behavior and faith. How often are massive investments of money and energy devoted to producing epic movies that depict humanity’s downfall and destruction?
On the other hand, how often do we see people doing wonderful, amazing acts of kindness on various social media outlets. Humanity has evolved in ways unimaginable to earlier generations.
As to human morals, most societies would rather prevaricate or discard their historical records, and rewrite them to suit other egoistic projections, rather than to come clean and take at least a distant responsibility to the abuses of the past. People often edit memories with an eye to what future generations will think. When we contemplate that only two generations ago, racism was acceptable and genocide applicable to many as a solution to problems, we must pause and appreciate the advances we have made.
The polarization of Good and Evil occurs not only in humanity as a whole. It occurs in the hearts and minds of every member of the species, consciously, or not. The speed of communications contributes greatly to this process. As we are now able to share our thoughts and feelings with the entire world in a matter of seconds, we are able to partake of experiences and opinions, insights, visions and conclusions from very distant places, very quickly. We must stop to ponder this wonder of our age.
We must stop to ponder this wonder of our age.
As we span the globe visually, philosophically and spiritually, our appreciation for humanity should expand as well. As we engage in this experience, we integrate knowledge more rapidly and thus change accordingly. Whether this is for the good or not is the fulcrum of free choice.
The impact of a multicultural global society on the individual is sudden, profound and lasting. As information moves faster, so do our minds, even our speech patterns change. As physical space shrinks, we traverse it more quickly. As atomic clocks have shown, the faster we move, the slower time passes.
This level of change helps define the velocity of knowledge, and make us potentially more transcendent. If informationally we can be in all places at once, this leads to a ‘place’ above the need to transverse space. To transcend space is to enter the spiritual realm—the Mind of the universe, or what the ancients called ‘heaven’ on earth.
Whatever terms we choose, humanity’s promised inheritance is still the Original Place from which it was taken, as the Midrash teaches, ’When it came up in God’s mind to create man, he consulted the angels. The angels responded, ‘But why would you create a being that will rebel and oppose you?’ God answered that it was enough for Him that a few righteous people would populate the generations.'
The Torah narrative calls the spiritual place from which we were removed, the Garden of Eden. In Hebrew, this place-name can be understood as ‘the garden of the primordial mist’, a non-physical palace of translucence and vision which emanates from within. It is also called, ‘The World to Come’, but can also be translated as ‘The World that Was,’ ie; the world we return to.
The portent of this return to a state of innocent perfection, the state in which we were originally created, promises the end of all suffering, endless abundance, true honor and peace no eye has seen.
So as we move faster, in space, in time, and in knowledge, we move closer to our goal. Morality and immorality are both strengthened, at the same time —and humanity’s power is this choice; to know which side of the highway we travel. Exercising choice is the precise quality that makes us Godlike, and justifies, (at least to the angel’s) God’s creating us. When we make the right choices, no matter how removed our culture is from the past, the act of choosing itself elevates us, above past mistakes, with a hopeful eye and ear to the future.
There is no question about the ultimate salvation of humanity, for God has promised he would never destroy the world again. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai promised that by virtue of his 2,000 plus page book of Kabbalah, the Zohar, redemption will come with mercy. Ultimately, it is mercy that makes us most Godlike.
Sometimes all we have to do is make a U-turn.