I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning at the end (Revelation 22:13).

Every story must have a beginning and an end. The better stories also have a cohering middle, theme, or context that hold their beginning and end together. The same holds true for a life story, and the cosmogenic story, whose beginning, it appears, is the hot Big Bang event, whose ending is Omega, and whose cohering theme thus far appears to be evolution. What is not clear, it seems, is what it is of substance found in the DNA of its beginnings, develops cohesively in its middle, and via transformation consummates at its end.

Perhaps others can help me with that clarification.

The consummating end-all of the cosmogenic model, Omega, presents best as all contraries do, coupled with its counterpart in Alpha (beginnings). Giving priority to Omega alone, an evolutionary byproduct of Alpha, focuses only on growth and development, a fraction of the story. This appears to be a carryover from Teilhard’s thinking as well, the logical equivalent of studying an oak tree without necessary attention to its origin in the acorn, its first cause in nature (bios), whose death and dissolution ushers in its life, being, and transmits its DNA for future generations. But being is not bios, nor is it psyche. Being is deeper than that, pneuma (Spirit), a thing’s eternal component, the substratum for living and knowing deeply, what carries into and on after its life in space-time. Such is the stuff of Alpha and Omega in their deepest substrata, the alluring push and gravitational pull (gravitas) that draws all things to itself in the cosmos (outermost) and the interior life (innermost). Our whole life on earth is mortal, but our being is not. The materiality of creatures passes on, but not their being, whose origins are at all times vertically affixed to being (the eternal), as a yo-yo tethers to string and forefinger.

In whom all things live, move, and have their being (Acts 17:28).

What is Alpha along religio-scientific lines, anyway, other than a 13.5-year-old explosion that continues to expand as the universe? And as byproducts of that explosion, what are we humans comprised of other than stardust? Dust of any kind, including stardust, is a material or corporeal entity in space-time. If Spirit, as Teilhard suggests, is the highest (transcendent) part of matter, capable of becoming aware of itself in humans, and stardust is of material/corporeal consistency, then what exactly is this “highest part” of stardust that (a) allows it to be separate, differentiated, and/or transcendent and immanent in matter at the same time, (b) attracts other forms of stardust to itself, (c) develops or evolves in complexity, and complexity consciousness, (d) reproduces and replicates itself in matter, (e) makes matter conscious of itself, and (f) is in the world, but not of it?

Anyone?

In classic literature, the soul’s journey is not only individual but occurs from vertically descending levels of self-consciousness into matter, working its way up in a vertical ascent back to its first cause, Spirit or God, from the One back to the One again via the many. This theme is present and best illustrated in Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Homer’s twofold epic of departure and return in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey, describing the three-part transformational path of departure, initiation, and return, cardinal aspects of the transformational path or life journey.

There you have it, beginning, middle, and end, with the beginning and end points being the same, as in a circuit. These themes are found in the world’s wisdom literature and reiterated in the classics dating back to ancient times. Their patterns and archetypes are found in perennial principles cross-culturally and in nature. No linearity or horizontal evolution (transformation) is found here either, only that of the experiential kind, punctuated by sovereign (vertical) direction, instruction, and redirection along the way. More specifically, as an acorn dissolves its form without losing its energy and becomes an oak tree, Alpha unfolds toward Omega, first and last, beginning and end operating within vertically caused limits, specificity, and coherence. Such is often symbolized by the Ouroboros, the snake with its tail in its mouth. And this sacred process follows an ever-ascending spiral of descent and ascent, progression and regression, over the lifetime of an individual, some of whom spiritually awaken to this invisible substratum. Again, the awakening and progression-regression (death-resurrection) choreographies primarily occur in individual growth and development, and while they can be facilitated by teachers and teachings, being vertically implanted like a seed, generally are not tied to any single group, sect, religion, or nation. Of the circuitous pattern, Coleridge said it best,

The common end of all narrative, nay of all poems, is to convert a series into a whole; to make those events, which in real or imagined history move in a straight line, assume to our understanding a circular motion — the snake with its tail in its mouth” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Collected Letters 4:545).

The Ouroboros

As in a seed, in order to find the kernel, one must break the shell to find the inward part. In order to find nature unconcealed, the foundation that is without visible foundation, one must likewise destroy (penetrate) all the visible likenesses of the seed, and the further one gets in, the closer one gets to its being in the seed. Otherwise, one must wait for the seed’s visible image/likeness expressed in the germination (growth and becoming) process. In that sense, divinity doesn’t so much make things, as it makes things that make other things by reproducing, replicating, repairing, and restoring itself in them along the way as their first and most inward (vertical) cause.

According to Brian Swimme, Thomas Berry reminded him some years back that science was then on the threshold of its wisdom phase. Wisdom is found primarily in the world’s wisdom traditions, classic literature, art, film, holy books, mythologies, and in seasoned mentors. One must search for it in those places, attending to them diligently. Wisdom is not generally found in science, whose place in the scheme of things is to objectively discover truths and identify patterns and themes in the cosmos, in nature’s seasons and cycles, and in human development. The Source of wisdom already knows what is to be known, and its nature is to reveal it to those prepared to receive it. No true knowledge can be true knowledge unless it knows something of its first cause, that which gives it being, assigns it living form (bios), and personhood (psyche) in the field of time. It falls to implanted wisdom to reveal itself and its secrets to human souls, and to disclose by what energy and dynamisms it imparts itself to human consciousness, both sensory and extrasensory.

Insofar as they exist, there is a cosmic presence of this substratum in all things. Science calls it quantum energy from the vacuum state (zero-point energy). Religion calls it Spirit, which like a fishnet encompasses all being. Said energy/Spirit holds (binds) the visible and invisible planes of existence together like the backing on a carpet, giving it strength, integrity (tensegrity), and dimensional stability. Being vertically caused, its origins (Alpha) bubble forth (fluctuate/flux) from the Infinite Invisible into space-time, which makes said energy/Spirit and all things in it sacred. It’s the first cause (Alpha), or the “genesis,” referenced in the word cosmogenesis, and from which the first book of the Bible, Genesis, properly takes its name. It is also the impetus that promises to one day reform, replace, and restore its vertically caused Omega Point, aligning the worst of what humanity has made of the created order to its intended sacred blueprint.

Hence, a more accurate Spirit-Science rendering (synthesis) on the Book of Genesis 1, verse one, would read — “In the beginning Energy created the heavens and the earth” .  .  . energy being the more apt description of divinity along scientific lines, the religious equivalent of the more universally applied terms “God” or “Spirit.” Either way, that universal constant in which all things consist and cohere is the first cause (Alpha) that pours itself/himself out in all things as their innermost (inwardness), and is perfectly co-present to all that is in a most everlasting and life-giving way.

Note, this energy was first identified in the Book of Genesis as the energy of all being, light energy (“Let light Be,” vs 1:3), was affirmed by the CMBR discovery of Penzias and Wilson in 1965 as radiation (light energy = electromagnetism), was embraced by the Christ as both his self-identifier (Alpha and Omega) and organic essence embedded in creation. Most significantly for our times, it was theorized by Teilhard as the highest part of matter that physics would one day confirm.

As that day has long since passed, the New Story can now be told from beginning to end, with the universal constant of all being, its Alpha and Omega, fully identified as (a) divine (spiritual), (b) of the same energy universally (light), (c) that which makes all things sacred, (d) that which  makes all people equal, and arguably (e) that which confirms the credentials of the Christ as the substance of all created form universally, the head of all principality and power in the universe, and the true Redeemer of its erring ways.

At this point in the blog, the author refers the reader to the pic above. It’s of his newborn infant grandson born December 21, the day of the winter equinox and threshold of the holiday season and new year. It’s that time of year when darkness morphs by increments into light, and the new year replaces the old. Beginnings and endings are intimately related. Nature destroys nothing without replacing it was something future-looking, and better.

At no other moment in a child’s existence, save perhaps at the moment of its death, will these tiny creatures most image the awe-filled innocence and purity of their first cause. The infant’s initial cry is the first of many cries – those of separation, and of separation consciousness, of loss — a homesickness longing to return. The cry isn’t so much about a newborn’s expulsion from the womb, or its lungs struggling to heave for its first breath. And the yearning isn’t so much instinctual, to swaddle, root, and suckle at its mother’s breast. While all that motoric activity applies in the newborn, the yearning is ultimately for its first cause, that for which the womb, and later parents and others are but loving stand-ins, guides, and teachers (likenesses) during their brief stay on this wonderful and troubled planet. Listen with the third ear for the eternal cry accompanying the mortal one. Such will be heard again and again throughout its lifetime, with senses and appetites hungering and thirsting for same, ever on the lookout for just the right first-cause similitude(s) available to recommend to its restless soul, until the latter reunites with it again in pure form. Indeed, literal nourishment is a forerunner and prelude to same, as are its space-time objects of attachment (in the technical sense), having their counterparts in spirit-soul yearning, longing, hungering, and thirsting. For the soul’s journey ever scours the earth for the variety of attachments and experiences that will one day shake down to a single point (Omega) within itself, grounding and satisfying like no other. And its arrival promises to be a homecoming reunion in Alpha.

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you (St. Augustine).

Wisdom dictates that whatever is concerned with time is mortal and so is restless and homesick for its first cause or home in the eternal; say, the way a falling object seeks the center of the earth, or a raindrop seeks the ocean becoming One with it again. Our eternal dimension (Spirit) knows nothing of the frustrations, disappointments, and ravages of time, save the fulfillment of reuniting with its sacred origins. Even the best of mortal attachments come and go, fall-off or pass, and thus never fully satisfy. Our eternal spirit (Being) has no taste for or traffic with time, save for those alluring images and experiences that are transparencies which most out-picture its first cause (Alpha), and the awareness of same as its identity, object of deeper longing, and ultimate destination (in Omega). In Teilhard’s life, this dynamic propelled the curiosity and desire for that which is universally fixed and constant. Such was first manifested in his youth by a fascination with an old carriage bolt, later in collecting stones, and later still in his paleontology explorations. All were developmental fascinations, precursors that ripened into and led toward their latter end, finding his Maker (first cause) in the very heart of matter itself.

Says here, a child’s beginning and end, Alpha and Omega, first and last are the same juncture lying in liminal space, the space between two worlds that is their wheelhouse in development; it forms their living nexus, fuels their curiosity, and catalyzes their developmental milestones and transformations along the way. Such liminality is IN the world but not OF it, the interconnecting homing element that ultimately sends/draws them back to Sender, as salmon return to their stream beds of origin at life’s end. Maybe that’s why wrinkly newborns often resemble wizened old people. And why the fatal medical condition of infants, progeria (premature aging) mercifully finds them sooner bypassing the developmental stages in-between for a direct flight home again from whence they came. Suffering has an end in this world, but being (spirit) itself does not. One cannot cease to exist or be — ever.

Being and life never age, only their outer casings and likenesses in space-time do.

Correctly perceived spiritually, such is why being “dead,” stripped down to one’s foundation (first cause/origin) is a condition far and away better that inhabiting one’s biology (bios) and/or best self (psyche) on their best days. It’s what dark nights of the soul, senses, and spirit are about on the journey, to deliver and free the kernel (spirit) from its restrictive outer jacketing. In the enlightened, pure being is attained in prayer, meditation, and practicing the spiritual disciplines. And rightly viewed it’s also experienced in the ordinary circumstances of daily life – as in the birth of a baby, or the passing of a soul, when life goes on living precisely to the extent that a soul’s life, like that of an infant or saint, becomes pure being. It’s in this ground of the soul or mind that, at root, people are regarded as sacred and equal. Their being is the common denominator that levels the playing field among them, regardless of any other qualities they or others may know them by. A person may make contact with being in awareness by emptying themselves of that which otherwise occupies them, to then know the unity that already exists.

The author’s mother was fond of saying that the best part of traveling was the day she left, and the day she returned home. Until today, while contemplating the first cry of my grandson, little did I know or see the inner meaning of same, that I was not only witnessing his beginning, but at that very moment glimpsing at his (or someone’s) departure from this world as well.

In film, this transitional image is best depicted in the final moments of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the image of a man appears to rapidly age and die while lying on his death bed, only to morph into an infant. In the scene, his death and rebirth as a “star child” symbolizes the old race of humans being replaced by a new one. Recognized or not, everyone is a star-child on its way back home again. As for evolution of civilization as a whole toward Omega, the author remains skeptical, based on the biblical timeline and unfolding historical evidence.

The end of things really is hidden in their beginning, as the mighty oak is hidden in the acorn, or soaring butterfly in the creeping caterpillar, or the new in the old everywhere in nature. Sooner or later, everything old becomes new again, whether in nature, fashion, or in the coming and going fluctuations between the visible and invisible worlds.

Unto the place from where rivers come, there they return again (Ecclesiastes 1:7).

As all created beings, Jesus simply returned from whence he came, transfigured. His earthly life was a transparency for the universal Spirit within and around things, and in all people, vertically guiding them back home to their first cause. Consider looking for it there, in the liminal space between two worlds, the nexus between spirit and soul, time and eternity, birth and death, science and religion — and between all polarities in space-time, as their synthesis and end (Omega). The life more abundant that he promised is to be found in the narrow-way integration of these opposites, and their dissolution into each other as a “reconciled third,” the Way, truth, and the homeward bound living. In practice, such is not a climbing up or an evolving, but a discipline, learning to sink down into their center-point. Yet being a rigorous process, it’s not for everyone. Aware or unaware, willing or unwilling, all things in space-time derive from, incline toward (tether), and assimilate back into their first cause by virtue of their being.

His advent began an era in which concepts of God and Spirit were to be examined and discarded individually and universally. Properly understood, his teachings have little to do with religion, priestcraft, or any organized sect, and never have. They do, however, involve a new way of looking at things, including the basics of a novel Spirit-Science synthesis that ushers in a new universe story tied to first causes. And its common organic element, beginning to end, is the living bridge to same that embeds in all things at all scales, and  holds them together, innermost and outermost.

No knowledge can be true knowledge unless it knows something of its first cause, which precedes and supersedes existence at the biological and psychological levels, and knows the end from the beginning.

The disciples said to Jesus, ‘Tell us how our end will be.’ Jesus said, ‘Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for it in the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death.” (Gospel of Thomas, saying 18)

Read more about this mystery element that saturated itself in matter 13.5 billion years ago, activated itself in Jesus, and embeds in humans awaiting similar activation. Such is the “missing link” or living nexus between science and religion, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, new and old. Thus far, hidden in plain sight, it has yet to identified along scientific lines by any synthesis group out there (see below).

Joe Masterleo

 

About the Author

Joseph C. Masterleo, LCSW-DCSW, is a clinical social worker in private practice in Syracuse NY, and Rockledge FL. His half-century of service in the mental health care field includes faith-based counseling, with an emphasis on psycho-spiritual integration. His subspecialty involves developing a novel paradigm for the synthesis of science, religion, and psychology, identifying the energy and geometric patterns that connect the quantum world with space-time. His model explains how spirit and matter can co-exist as two facets of one reality in a unified field, dissolving the walls of partition between previously siloed disciplines. Inspired by the writings of Thomas Merton (ecumenism), Teilhard de Chardin (synthesis), Thomas Berry (ecotheology), and others, his objective is to tell a new, future-looking story for the Ecozic Age, one that forms a connecting bridge between the biblical story of creation, modern science, and ancient cosmologies. Further information about Joe and his Spirit-Science model can be found in his book The Ambient Christ, the Untold Story of God in Science, Scripture, and Spirituality, and on his website, www.joeknowsgod.com