Awareness or 'Energy'?

 

The Principle that ‘everything is awareness’ stands in direct contrast to the dogma - shared by modern science and ‘New Age’ pseudo-science alike - that everything is ‘energy’. As a ‘Theory of Everything’ this ‘Energy Principle’ is dogmatic because it rests on a notion of ‘energy’ that is wholly unquestioned and a gross distortion of its root meaning. Even in modern translations of Tantric metaphysics this Greek derived word is distortedly used to translate the Sanskrit term for the feminine aspect of divinity - ‘Shakti’. A far better translation of this word is not ‘energy’ in its current sense - but ‘power’, power in the sense of ‘power of action’ or ‘power of actualisation’. This translation of ‘Shakti’ fully accords with the root meaning of the term ‘energy’ itself – not as some ‘thing’ but as the very action or activity (the Greek verb energein) that gives form to all things from within that infinite space or ‘aether’ of awareness known in Sanskrit as ‘Akasha’. Today many scientists advance the highly plausible but still unorthodox hypothesis that space is no mere void or vacuum, but an infinite source of ‘potential energy’ or ‘power of action’. This hypothesis is in perfect correspondence with the Tantric understanding of the universe as an expression of countless Shaktis or ‘powers of action’ emerging within an infinite space or ‘aether’ of awareness (Akasha) and manifesting as countless patterns or matrices of action (‘matter’). From the point of view of The Awareness Principle, awareness is not awareness of actual realities alone, but also of potential realities. Potential realities however, have reality only ‘subjectively’ - in awareness itself rather than in actuality. These subjective potentialities do not merely exist as imaginary possibilities however, but as infinite potential shapes, patterns and qualities of  awareness or subjectivity - infinite potential beings, ‘consciousnesses’ or ‘subjectivities’. ‘Energy’ in its true and root meaning is the autonomous power of actualisation of these potentialities – something possible only through the awareness of them. Together with the scientific notion of ‘space’ as a potential source of limitless ‘free’ energy goes the project, pursued by many great scientific minds, of creating machines to ‘tap’ this energy as a source of power. The Awareness Principle (TAP) on the other hand, explains how everything that exists in the universe constantly ‘TAPS’ from a hidden power source behind it - a power of action that is not some mysterious new form of energy or matter but is nothing other than Awareness as such in the form of its aetheric spatiality – Akasha. Each of us experiences this aspect of The Awareness Principle - and realises the idea of free ‘space energy’ - each time we feel revitalised by taking a walk outdoors, however short. For no matter how little bodily breathing or ‘exercise’ is involved we are breathing awareness of a wider space - and tapping fresh vitality or ‘power of action’ from the very air of awareness itself.