Mind Map

Tarun Pradhaan

</div>
Iconic Map of Universal Mind
<br><br>

It is our direct experience that Presence is dynamic. There is activity, there is change. Although there is this static unchanging aspect of it which we know as the experiencer, or "I" or pure consciousness. Ultimately both dynamic and static aspects are just one. That which changes becomes an experience and that which is changeless becomes the experiencer. There is not much to the experiencer part, it is just empty awareness, a silent witness, the light that illuminates the changing part, except that it is essential and necessary for all the experiences, it is plain boring :). The interesting things are the dynamics, the endless activity, unceasing and ever-creating patterns. This is seen as the manifested Presence, the Universal Mind.

We will try to create a map of it all - the biggest possible picture.

### Change

We have discussed Change in much detail in other articles. Here's a quick recap.

What is Change?
No two experiences are same. One experience flows into another. Because we have a memory, we can recognize the difference and call it Change. We can recognize regular Change and quantize it and call it Time. So Time is a direct consequence of Change acting on memory. There is no other way to perceive Change except in terms of Time. Yet when we look closely, we experience no Time, just an eternally present moment - the now famous, Now. You can call it a peculiar style of the human mind or one of its limitations.

Why is there Change?
In my opinion, it is unknowable. It just is. One answer is that since all possibilities exist in Presence, the possibility of Change also exists. One can imagine Presence as a roll of movie film, where the whole movie exists at once, and the mind as projector, which projects the frames one by one in a sequence, giving us the illusion of different experiences, changes, motion and time. In short, there is no Change, but it can still be experienced.

What changes?
Nothing and everything. See the above answer. Presence itself changes, but its apparent change, it remains exactly the same. Presence, by definition is totality, and totality already contains all possibilities, it does not become a new totality by changing into something else. Because if it had to bring in something new, it was not a totality in first place. Now that is deep, so please bear with me. I understand that this puzzle of Change is not easy to grasp. However, it is easy to experience, just take a look around in your mind and out in the world. It is an undeniable direct experience.

What is the simplest Change?
For a Change to be there, more than one state is needed. Obviously, a change from one state to a second state is the simplest possible change. A simpler arrangement would be just one state, but that's not Change, its impossible to get Change out of it. So the next arrangement of two states in the simplest way to get Change - a Binary state change. This is your direct experience, and this is an important discovery.

### Processes

What happens when there is Change?
Obviously, another Change happens. In the case of the simplest Binary Change, the state again flips back to first state, and then it flips again. But sometimes the same state occurs, but that's not Change, the Change is in the difference. So repeated state changes give rise to a pattern of Change. We are going to call this chain of changes - a Process.

What is the simplest Process?
Obviously a repeating Binary pattern is simplest possible Process. It is a regular Process when the states repeat in equal intervals. Not so surprisingly, this results in a Vibration or oscillatory Change. Now this is another important discovery. We see that almost everything that is around us is nothing but vibrations of one or the other kind. Hmm... interesting. We can already get a hint of what Change is doing.

What is a Fractal Process?
A Process made out of smaller Processes that resemble itself. So for example, Process A=1010... and B=(11)(00)(11)(00)... so C=(1010)(1100)(1010)(1100)...=ABABAB... Note that all A,B and C are binary repetitions, but C has A and B in it, and B has A in it. Even if it starts with a simple process, a Fractal Process can become very complex pattern indeed, as anyone who has seen a fractal knows very well.

What is a constrained Process?
A Process that depends on other Processes in order to proceed. For example, a gear in a clock can be constrained by other mechanisms to move only at certain conditions. A hand attached to it will appear to be doing computation. It has a very rudimentary intelligence now. This is how an Algorithmic Process is born. It follows certain logical pattern, as a result of constrains.

What is a Self-organizing Process?
A Fractal or Algorithmic Process which creates copies of itself and produces even more patterns that support it. The patterns thus formed are now familiar Structures. So such processes arrange themselves or constrain themselves into structures. The now familiar (to the readers of this blog), Fundamental Process is a self-organizing Process. The self-organizing Processes that we find in physical world and mind are Fractal clones of Fundamental Process.

That was about Processes in as short way as possible. One can dive deep into this subject and learn the details. Refer to complexity theory for example.

### Structures

What's the outcome of Processes such as the Fundamental Process?
We get a pattern, can be simple or complex. We call it a Structure. Its not static, its dynamic and ever changing because it is born out of Change. So no structure lasts, they are all impermanent. Everything that one can experience can be thought of as structures, all made out of simple and complex patterns of Change, mostly of simplest Change - the Binary states, all possible combinations and arrangements of it.

What is a Metaphysical Structure?
They are pure information - just patterns of nothing. All structures in Presence are metaphysical structures. There cannot be any other kind of structures there. All of these structures and patterns taken together is defined as the Universal Mind. The Universal Mind is vast, to say the least. It is by definition, contains every structure there is. Everything happens here, and those happenings are witnessed by the Self (consciousness).

What is a Non-physical structure?
Some structures can be directly perceived via the mind, we know them as thoughts, imaginations, memories, emotions etc. All these are also known as Mental Structures. So whatever we perceive in a dream are non-physical structures that sometimes mimic physical structures.

What are Physical structures?
Some structures in the Universal Mind can be perceived via special structures called Senses. We call those structures Physical structures. So rocks, mountains, objects, sounds and smells are all physical.

What are Biological structures?
We name those structures that are extremely complex in terms of mental and physical organization and are on the boundary of mental and physical, as Biological structures. Senses themselves are biological. A familiar example is our Body. One would be tempted to classify pains, temperature sensations, heaviness, hunger and such perceptions under this kind. So we see that mental structures form a nice continuum to physical. All of these being nothing but metaphysical structures essentially. The nomenclature is only for convenience.

What is knowledge?
When structures are formed in response to perceiving processes, we call them knowledge. Knowledge is organized experiences. Knowledge structures take up many forms, but we know them best as Memories. So DNA is a memory, a structure containing knowledge about a biological structure (a form or body). Nervous system is a memory that stores useful actions such as walking, talking, eating and many more. It also stores actions and ideas in form of language. Also mathematical abilities, artistic abilities and such reside here. The important thing to note is - all kinds of structures can form knowledge, from purely metaphysical to mental to biological to physical. A book or your hard drive is a good example of physical memories. Memories combined with Processes produce actions as well as more knowledge, more memories and complex behaviour patterns - like intelligence.

### Universal Mind Map

Ok, so now we have enough foundational material to talk about the mega super duper structure of all structures, the Universal Mind.

So if you refer to the iconic map above, the whole picture represents the Universal Mind. It is of course almost infinite, but being a collection of structures its not really infinite. The big size is not in terms of distance or space or even time. It is near-infinite in terms of possibilities or potential. So it can create as much as structure as it likes, can create almost infinite space and time durations reaching eternity. But its all finite.

The screen represents the Self or consciousness, on which Universal Mind is happening and is being witnessed. There is only one Self, the background of everything and it is a whole undivided "no-thing". The Universal Mind is also only one, but it has parts and is impermanent, as it is born out of Change. Astronomical times would be eye blink for Universal Mind, universes form and dissolve in eye blinks of Universal Mind, as it is the creator of all kinds of Time.

The reddish squares represent the metaphysical structures. The Fundamental Process acts on these ever changing structures and organizes them, so you will see the squares arrange themselves in more and more orderly and rigid form as you go to the right.

The not-so orderly or rigidly arranged structures are non-physical ones, or structures of mental processes. These can be highly complex, beyond our wildest imagination, as nothing limits them, even laws are evolving and changing here. These can be potentially of infinite variety.

Then we encounter the somewhat complex biological structures, including brains and bodies, ranging from humans to much simpler creatures. The variety is mind boggling. Bodies can be formed out of purely non-physical structures, but as soon as they are organized so, they become biological in nature and appear as forms when perceived via a suitable sense.

Next in hierarchy are physical structures, that are just metaphysical structures tightly bound and constrained by algorithmic processes. They are very well ordered, relatively stable and follow rigid laws. Laws are a result of algorithmic processes and can be expressed in forms of mathematical models. When perceived via senses, we know them as physical objects, the gross matter. Change appears to the senses as Motion, and vibratory fields of all kinds.

The limitations of sensory structures dictates how much we can perceive about the physical structures. Of course we can augment the senses using instruments and sensors and can know more of them. However, the only way to know physical structures is via senses. An IR camera converts IR into visible, but we can perceive only the so converted image. It'd be a mistake to call that image an IR image, its a visible representation of IR data.

So the physical is most limited among structures because of constraints. Our senses and bodies are limited too but somewhat changeable or adaptable. Our human minds are more flexible and flow more freely, and finally the Universal Mind is near infinitely flexible. Almost anything can happen there.

Most of the structures in the Universal Mind are self-similar. The small looks like the big albeit in less detail. Universal Mind is made out of fractal mini minds. Our human mind is also a fractal clone of Universal Mind. We see in the map that the human mind is only a small part of the Universal Mind. Its not to scale obviously, so no conclusions about the relative "sizes" of human mind and Universal Mind should be made. The human mind, metaphorically speaking, is like a speck of dust, too tiny to even notice. But since we are humans, we tend to magnify it, it pleases us if we do that. Nevertheless, humans are very important structures in big scheme of things.

The map also shows that the human mind part is somewhat isolated from other parts and other minds/bodies by barriers. What are these barrier actually? They are structures that prevent a cross talk between other structures and provide an illusion of privacy and isolation. I said illusion, because these barriers can be easily broken and nothing remains hidden from the Universal Mind anyway, it sees everything, as everything is its own part and is well within its reach. Human minds cannot reach or connect to other minds or other parts of the Universal Mind under "normal" circumstances, but it is possible to do so with enough practice. Gaining more and more knowledge naturally destroys the barriers.

The map also hints at more areas in the Universal Mind that are currently inaccessible to human minds and senses or to even instruments. The variety of structures is limitless, so different kinds of minds, bodies and worlds are formed, which are constrained by different rules and are so different that the current formulation cannot connect to them meaningfully. But those areas are not totally unreachable. One can reach them when the senses are ignored or withdrawn and some of the mental barriers are surpassed. Astral Projection is one such way, we have discussed that in more detail before.

This map omits one important thing. There can be huge structures that resemble human minds but are thousand or million or even billion times more complex. Its not in my experience, and hence not shown here, but such possibility is surely there, nothing in the Universal Mind prevents them from existing and evolving. Such entities could be truly marvelous and would appear as gods or highly powerful forces to us puny humans. There can be a progression of such entities from simpler, say microminds to megaminds or gigaminds.

Finally, the red dot represents our sense of "I", looking out of the dominant sense of eyes, located in the head of the body and oriented towards a narrow band of physical structures. We get access to a tiny amount of personal data in the mind and see ourselves as separate and independent entities, acting on that data by "will power". Our senses keep as locked on the immediate surrounding physical structures and bodies, and we spend our whole life like this - trying to protect this speck of dust and trying to own specks of matter, totally oblivious of what we really are....

Wow, that sounds awful !!. How did we end up like this? And what can be done to improve this situation? While you ponder on that, here is a more artistic and abstract view of the Universal Mind.

</div>
Abstract Image of Universal Mind
<br><br>

### Notes:

Here are some more views and models.
These are described in details in the podcasts linked below:
[Exploring universal mind part 1](https://pexp.podbean.com/e/exploring-the-universal-mind-part-1)
[Exploring universal mind part 2](https://pexp.podbean.com/e/exploring-the-universal-mind-part-2)
<br><br>

</div>
UM from the PoV of the Self
<br><br>

</div>
Zoomed in view of manifested part
<br><br>

</div>
Vedic model of UM
<br><br>

</div>
Buddhist model of UM
<br><br>

Telegram Browser Warning

Wise Words

Mind Map

Tarun Pradhaan