If you follow science, you must have heard of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It was built in 2008 by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), with the collaboration of 10,000 scientists from over 100 countries. It is an underground tunnel with a circumference of about 27 km, in which they smash elementary particles to understand their construction with the goal to find the substratum of the physical world. To understand the building blocks of the universe.

To understand how the LHC works, the famous equation E= MC² discovered by Einstein is a good starting point. We know atoms are made up protons and neutrons in the nucleus and the electrons are rotating around the nucleus. The idea is to find out the substratum of these particles. To get the ball rolling, the elementary particles like neutrons and protons are energized in the LHC. As the energy provided to the particles is increased, based on the Einstein equation, the consequence of this is that the speed of these particles increases. By continuously providing more energy, the speed of these particles nearly achieves the speed of light, not the speed of light, but almost the speed of light. To achieve the speed of light is impossible because you would need infinite energy. After achieving this high speed, any further increase in the energy to the particles, the particle speed does not increase much, but the mass of the particles keeps increasing. At this high level of energy, the elementary particle has both a very high speed and a very high mass. In the early days of 2008 to 2013, the particle energy achieved was 4 teraelectronvolts (4 TeV), Two beams of these high energy, high mass particles were sent in the opposite direction and then smashed against each other to observe the particle breaking up into smaller particle, so that they could discover the inner construction of these particles. This was done repeatedly to find consistency and surety in their finding. There is no denying many new particles were discovered. Some people call these the particle zoo – Fermions, Bosons, Tau, Anti Tau, Muon Neutrino Quarks etc. The list keeps growing.

This obviously did not satisfy the scientists. In 2013-15, they upgraded the LHC, to make the particles accelerate at energy levels of 6.5 TeV, over 50% increase in the energy level. During this phase they discovered the Higgs Boson, the particle which provides the mass to all the objects in the universe. After 3 years of continuous smashing of particles, the scientists were not satisfied. They decided they need to further upgrade the LHC particle accelerator. Now, the LHC is in upgrade mode for the next few years. There are hoping the new more powerful LHC will answer all the remaining questions.  

The question is, will the scientist every be able to discover the substratum of the universe by smashing these high energy particles? The simple answer is No and Never. They can spend billions of dollars and make particle accelerator more powerful, they will NEVER discover the substratum of the universe, they will never find out the building block of the universe. They are looking at the wrong place to discover the truth.   

DVR and Recording

The current strategy being followed by science will never be successful, because they are approaching the problem the wrong way. Let us try and understand this. Suppose you are looking at a playback of an event from a DVR and someone ask you to find out the number of bones a human being has by looking at the image of the person on the TV. Will you be successful? Never. Whatever you try you will never find out the number of bones in a human being. You may try to digital zoom the image to blow up the image, hoping to see the inside of the human being. There is no doubt you will be unsuccessful, but you will discover that the image of the human being is made up of pixels. This discovery will lead you to further investigate the pixels, hoping to find the number of bones in the human being. You were trying to find out the number of bones in a human being, but you are now focused on investigating and discovering everything about pixels. This is what is happening with science when they continue to smash particles at the LHC discovering new particles – they are moving further away from understanding the real substratum of the universe.    

It is obvious, that you will never discover the number of bones in a human being by looking at a recorded human being. The only way to find out the number of bones is by investigating a ‘live’ or ‘real’ human being. The requirement of a ‘live’ or ‘real’ human being is a must; the image of the recorded human being is just inadequate. 

Universe and Recording

How does this example help us in understanding this universe? If you study carefully, you will discover that this universe also is made of ‘recorded’ or ‘memory’ objects. There are no ‘real’ or live’ ‘or ‘now’ objects in this universe. The sun we see is an 8-min old sun, it takes light 8 min to reach us, therefore the sun is recorded image and not a ‘live’ or ‘now image. or ‘now’ sun. Take the moon, it takes light 3 seconds to reach us, so the moon we see a recorded image of the moon and not a ‘live’ image of the moon. The tree outside the window is 10^-6 seconds old, because light takes that much time to reach us, so the tree outside the window is also a recorded image. This concept applies not only to the stars, sun and the moon, but every micro or macro objects in this physical universe. The moon, the trees, stars, animals, human beings – every living and nonliving object in this world is a ‘recorded’ or ‘memory’ object. This means that the physical universe out there is only made up of ‘recorded’ or ‘memory’ objects. However hard you try, you will never discover a ‘live’ or ‘now’ objects anywhere in this physical universe. Like you will discover only pixels if you investigate a human being on a recorded image, in the same way you will only discover atoms and the sub-atomic particles if you investigate the ‘recorded’ or ‘memory’ objects in this universe.      

In the case of a recorded image of the human being, it is possible to find and investigate a ‘live’, ‘real’ human being to find out the number bones within a human being. Unfortunately, it is not possible to locate a ‘real’, live’ or ‘now’ object in the physical world. However hard you may try, you will not find anything except memory objects.

So how does one conduct its investigation to find out the real substratum of the universe. There must be a different and better strategy to discover the underlying reality of the universe and understand the construction of the objects.

Objects and the Truth:

Science is trying to find out the composition of the physical objects in the universe. They will never find the content by smashing particles in the LHC. It is exactly like trying to find the number of bones of a human being by exploring a recorded image. It is just not possible. So, what is the solution? We are lucky, the ancient rishi’s in India shut their eyes and explored within themselves and came up with the correct way to fully understand the composition of any objects. So, what is the truth behind any physical object?

The best way to start this discussion is to understand the popular Vedanta metaphor of Pot/Clay. We know the clay pot comes in many different sizes, shapes and designs. Some are tall, some are short, some are round, some are square etc. There seems to be an unlimited possibility for shapes and sizes. If you study all the clay pots carefully you will see that each clay pot has the following two components – Content and Form. So, which part is the content and which part is the from? The answer is obvious, the clay is the content and the pot is a form on the clay. With different shapes and sizes, the form of the pot could vary, but the content of all pots will always be clay.  

Clay Pot = Clay (content) + Pot (form)

A simple question – in the clay pot, what is the weight of the clay which is the content and what is weight of the pot which is a form? The answer is obvious, the clay has all the weight and pot has no weight. Another question – can you separate the pot form from the clay content? The answer it is impossible to separate the chair form from the wood content. They are inseparable. It would seem the pot form is an idea or concept which has been superimposed on the clay.

This Vedantic metaphor can help us understand the underlying components for every object in this physical universe. it would seem every object in the universe must have the following two components

1. Content
2. Form.

What is the Content Made up off?

So, what is the Content for all the objects in the universe? As Vedanta teaches us that a good starter question is – how do we know an object exists? The simple answer is that we are aware of the object. We see it, we know it, we can touch it.

How do we know the tree is green? Because we are aware of it. 

How do we know sugar is sweet? Because we are aware of it. 

How do we know we have two legs and two hands? Because we are aware of it. 

How do we know the weight of the chair is 20 lbs.? Because we are aware of it. 

How do we know the smooth touch of silk? Because we are aware of it. 

How do we know we are listening to music? Because we are aware of it. 

The common thread to all these questions is Awareness. It would seem Awareness is a prerequisite to observe any object. Awareness is a prerequisite for the existence of any object. Without awareness, we would not know any objects which are perceived by the 5 senses – eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin. These objects from the sensory organs must encounter Awareness, then only we can observe the object.  For an analogy, think of the sun. When there is no light from the sun, you cannot see anything, but in the presence of the light everything becomes visible. In the same way when any form which comes in the presence of the light of Awareness, we become aware of the object. If there is no light of Awareness, you will perceive nothing and no object will exist.

So, what is Awareness and what does Awareness have to do with the content of the object? Everything. Awareness is the content of all the objects in the universe. The content of the objects from the 5 senses is Awareness only. To any newcomer, Awareness is just another English word, with a dictionary meaning ‘knowledge or perception of a situation or fact’. Awareness is much more than an English word.

Awareness is the most powerful force in the universe, and it is the underlying reality of this universe. It has the power to connect with a form present in the mind and fill up the object with Awareness. If you analyze Awareness, you will conclude that the Awareness is made up of a Subject, Intelligence and Object with the following functions

1. There must be a Subject, who is Aware of the experience. This subject is the knower of the Awareness
2. There must be an Object, which must be experienced. This object is the known part of the Awareness
3. There must be Intelligence by which the subject gets to know the object. This is the knowing part of the Awareness

Knower, Known and Knowing/Intelligence are the 3 powers of Awareness. It must be clear that

• Awareness = Subject + Object + Intelligence
• Power of Awareness = Power of Knower + Power of Knowing + Power of Known

Awareness is made of Subject, Intelligence and Object and it has three different powers – Knower, Knowing and Known. It must be understood that the Subject, Intelligence and Object and the three powers are not something outside in the world, but they are within Awareness and make up Awareness. If any one of them is missing, the awareness will not work, and will be incomplete.

• If there is an object to be observed, but there is no subject, there will be no awareness, as there is no one to see the object.
• If there is a subject, but no object to see, there will no awareness as the subject has no objects to observe
• If there is an object, but the subject has no way of knowing what this object is, no awareness will take place. This knowing must have intelligence.

Wherever there is awareness, the Subject Intelligence and Object must be present with all the three powers. To understand how the content of every object in this universe Awareness is only, we need to understand the Power of the Known

Power of Known

Power of Known is power within Awareness. It is power which deals with objects. It deals with the objects received from the 5 senses. The better way to understand Power of Known is that it is a power to become any object. This power does not create any objects but becomes the object which is superimposed by the 5 senses on this power.  

If you see a round circle, then awareness cannot take shape of a square. If it does, you will never experience the round circle. Awareness must also be a round circle with the same exact dimensions. If you see a tree, then awareness must also take the shape of the tree. This tree must be filled up with Awareness. If the tree is half filled with awareness or the awareness does not have the same shape as the tree, you will not be aware of the tree.

If you want to observe any object with form:

1. The form must be filled with Awareness and nothing but Awareness. If the form does not have Awareness, then observer or subject will not be able to experience the object with that form.
2. The Awareness must take the exact shape of the form.  

It is therefore correct to conclude that the content of the object must be Awareness. Awareness by itself is formless, but it has the potential to become any object. The object it will become depends up on the input received from the 5 senses. A good metaphor to explain this is that it is like a lump of playdoh which is formless, but you can manipulate the playdoh to any shape. Whatever shape you create, the content is always playdoh. In the same way, the content of all the objects in the universe is only Awareness. It can take any shape or form, but the content is always Awareness.

Next time you see a tree, or listen to music or feel the cold water, you must be clear that the tree, music or water is made up only by Awareness and nothing but Awareness. It is content of every object.

What is the Form Made up off?

We now know the Content of any object is Awareness. So, what is the Form of the object made off? What is the source of the Form? To understand this properly, you need to understand how the mind functions. As we have discussed in other articles, the mind is made up of mental waves or Vrittis. The ingredient of these waves is knowledge and intelligence. These waves come into the mind from the 5 input or sensory organs – eye, nose, tongue, ear and skin. These intelligent mental waves are the bases of the Form. When these intelligent waveforms come in touch with Awareness and it superimposes itself on Awareness, the intelligent waves become the form of the objects we see in the physical world. The content is Awareness, but the form comes from the 5 senses. The waves from the ear, become the sound form we hear. The waves from the eyes becomes the form of the objects we see. The waves from the tongue becomes the taste form we feel. In the same way, smell and touch also function using the input wave from the nose and skin.

We saw in the earlier metaphors, clay is the only content in the clay pot. The pot is only a form which is superimposed on the clay. In the same way, Awareness is the only Content for all the objects and the Form comes from the 5 senses which is superimposed on Awareness.

This may be true, why don’t we feel that the content is Awareness with our daily interaction with objects? This is because our attention is always focused on the Form part of the object and in the process, we ignore the Content part. As an example, if you go to a furniture shop, our attention is always focused on the different designs of furniture. I like this design, I do not like this design. This design will look nice in the house. The focus is on the form part of the furniture and not on the content part. Our focus on Form of the object is so deep rooted that we do not know and understand that the Awareness is the only Content for all objects. If you think about it, even science has been focusing exclusively on the Form part of the object. They have been investigating the Form part of the object and they have made great strides by discovering all the different inner layers of the Form. Molecules, atoms and all the sub-atomic particles. The problem is that Science has been investigating the Form of the objects, but they want to discover the Content of the Object. They are not going to find Awareness by smashing sub-atomic particles in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). They are working at the wrong end of the object. They are working with the Form part of the object and not the Content part of the object.

Actually, you do not have to hunt for Awareness, it is hiding in plain sight. If you see an object, Awareness is already present in that object. It is right in front of you. You are already aware of the object. Next time you see an object, do not focus on the Form, but focus on the fact that you are aware of the object. If you do this regularly you will realize that Awareness is everywhere, and objects are just a skin on top of Awareness.