The TES Hypothesis
The TES Hypothesis states that everything we have and will ever see and
know is composed of three elements: time, energy, and space, which we
can call the TES (Pronounced as the name Tess.) Even the ethereal
phenomena of compassion and love are a product of this singular
universal cosmic entity. There are forms of energy and dimensions
of space that have not yet been quantified by science. Those
mysterious realities are within the normal workings of the TES.
Nothing in the universe is supernatural and beyond the laws of
nature. Everything that exists is created through cycles of the
TES, both on the large physical scale involving the formation of stars,
galaxies, and planets, and on the subtler inner dimensions involving
the evolution of the human brain and consciousness.
The Hindu word 'Atman' means the soul of life and the essence of
being. The Atman is not the individual human mind but is defined
as the universal soul that exists everywhere. For this
discussion, we will use the word Atman more strictly to designate that
part of the TES that becomes conscious of itself on the grand and
cosmic scale. We thus define the Atman as the universal cosmic
consciousness.
The vast majority of the
TES exists unconsciously, without feeling or life. This portion exists as space, stars, and the bulk of planets.
Primitive life forms that exist on a minority of planets have a
utilitarian consciousness which allows them to survive by interacting
with their environment. The fundamental awareness of physical
objects, combined with the pleasure-pain mechanism and the ultimate
survival of the fittest and smartest creates the evolutionary pathway
through which the unconscious TES slowly evolves to greater levels of
awareness. The unconscious TES, raw matter, and energy, give
birth to the partially conscious TES, the world of plants and
animals. With the evolution of higher animals, the intensely
conscious TES, the Atman, arises. This oceanic consciousness is a
normal product of the TES and is inherently immortal. When human
beings become enlightened, their consciousness becomes one with the
Atman, but they never achieve magical abilities outside of the natural
laws and properties of the TES. Enlightened beings remain
physically mortal, but their consciousness becomes one with the
primordial consciousness of nature itself. This Atman has always
existed and will exist eternally into the future.
No human being has ever known the unconscious part of the TES directly,
because all that we know is within the world of consciousness. We
become aware of the unconscious realm of the TES only through
inference. When you look at a tree, you are not seeing the tree
directly, but rather a representation of the tree created by your
brain. Our experience of colors, smells, tastes, and sounds, are
all subjective creations of our mammalian neurological
evolution.
As long as we
feel we exist as individuals we suffer because that perception is based
on a temporary neurological illusion. This illusion of an
individual "I" is so vulnerable that even sleep destroys it.
Every time you go into deep sleep your consciousness temporarily dies
and your subjective individual identity dies with it. Get rid of
the feeling I exist, and you get rid of attachments that create
tension, suffering, and feelings of danger. When you focus your
consciousness on that which is limited, you become small and
vulnerable. When you open your consciousness to experience the
whole universe, you become vast, limitless, and without mental
anguish. Thus, the art of meditation is the art of inner
astronomy.
The ultimate experience of
the TES is so vast that there is nothing to compare it to. With
no comparison possible, the experience of everything feels like
nothingness. How can infinity have a size or a shape when by
definition it has no boundaries? The TES is so full of space that
it feels like oblivion, thus many enlightened teachers have called it
the Void. This feeling of the ultimate extinction of all things
is cosmically erotic, and in a strange contradiction of terms, it is a
rich and positively charged experience. Even this ultimate
experience of the Void is a subjective illusion, because Energy-Matter
and Time-Space do exist, even if enlightened humans do not perceive
them in the ordinary gross physical way.
The Hindu and Buddhist concept of ultimate personal liberation,
"nirvana" or "moksha," is impossible. Ask yourself two
fundamental questions. Who is going to be liberated, and what is
he going to be liberated from? In truth the 'who' and the 'what'
are the same thing. Ask yourself what being was behind the eyes
of the Buddha. The answer is Time-Energy-Space, the TES.
Then ask yourself what being is behind the eyes of Vladimir
Putin. The answer is still Time-Energy-Space. Individuals
exist and have reality, but they are just temporary products of the
TES, which is our fundamental immortal identity.
The TES is always creating new life and new personalities out of its
being. The individual is always in danger of being destroyed, but
the cosmic presence that animates us is eternal. Unless the
entire TES is destroyed, liberation from cycles of life and death is
impossible. The TES creates a human being, and that individual
experiences joy and suffering, but it is the TES having these
experiences in a dream drama that the TES itself creates. The TES
is within each cell of our body and is our true personal identity, not
the temporary mortal personality that carries a picture ID in his
wallet. Therefore, the goal of religion should not be an
impossible liberation from the inevitable cycles of life, but rather
how to make the unstoppable fact of life more ecstatic.
The term TES is a temporary creation, as are all the holy words of
ancient scripture. Those words are names used to designate that
which is beyond any language. It is an effort to express that
which cannot be expressed by a mountain of scholarly scriptures.
No name can stick, and no philosophy can ring perfectly true, because
you cannot paste a bumper sticker on a tidal wave. You cannot
shrink a supernova into something that will fit in a library.
In time, all evidence that human animals existed on this Earth will be
washed away, and new civilizations will be born on other worlds to take
our place. Those new conscious beings will discover the unity of
the TES, which they will call by another name in a language never
spoken by any human being. The meaning, however, will be the same.
Here is an inspirational quote from my father, a man I never fully appreciated until after he was gone.
"The alternative to despair is courage. And human life can be
viewed as a continuous struggle between these two options.
Courage is the capacity to affirm one's life in spite of the elements
which threaten it. The fact that courage usually predominates
over despair tells us something important about life. It
tells you that the forces that affirm life are stronger than those that
negate it."
Christopher Calder calderconnection@gmail.com