Some of the greatest minds in humans were actually not very “intelligent”. They didn’t have impressive, fast computation powers. They didn’t have talents they could showcase in a circus. They had no noteworthy leadership, communication or self-management skills. And they certainly were not “aggressively driven”. But they were awake, more awake than few humans had ever been. They were able to observe better, expand their perceptual horizons, and see beyond the tiny, impenetrable glass sphere of their daily existence: where they live, who they need to answer to, and all the tasks they need to undertake as part of their culture and society at the time.
These rare, awake individuals saw beyond the confines of the human bubble which burdens us with transactions, obligations, and oppressive, absurd beliefs and cultural “norms” which never stand the test of time. They were able to remove the filter of culture, deem it irrelevant, and access that which does not succumb to time: the eternal, the objective, that which transcends not only time and space but existence itself. They dared to use their mind to exit their body altogether, hover above themselves as if in an out-of-body experience, and see how the universe sees them. They saw themselves from the outside, with an objectivity that can only be achieved if one escapes the human supremacy bubble.
Becoming truly “self-aware” is to be able to view yourself from the outside, see how small you are, a tiny particle within the vastness of the universe. You can then patiently observe this particle: pay attention to how narrow-mindedly it behaves, unaware of the bigger picture, the endless floating vastness it is suspended in. It is a microbe growing on a petri dish, unaware of the much bigger universe out there. I call this universe the Vastness – not because of its size, but because its unfathomable expanse symbolises abundance, endless possibility and humility, qualities which we can only access if we become aware of our insignificant, yet still important, role within this Vastness.
Those who have accessed the vastness are immediately armed with the wisdom which this wide perspective brings: they recognise how close-minded, confined and self-limiting humanity is. The view back from the Vastness resembles the experiences of astronauts, Buddhist monks and philosophers who managed to transcend the earthly and the temporary, and understand the eternal and the vast. This type of insight is crucial to a species which is confined to its old habits, unable to do nothing else but destroy itself and its planet. The time to get unstuck has all but run out.
The objective of self-awareness is to reach a state of consciousness which I like to call the Infinity State. When someone manages to view themselves from the Vastness, it is unavoidable that they are now in touch with the universe, and all its infinity. They can see beyond the petri dish as well as beyond their ego. The Infinity State is a reunification process: the world of the self and the world of the Vastness for a moment come together, look at each other, and realise that they are incomplete without each other. The universe functions better when its members transcend their ego, and awaken to the fact they are part of a collective, of something bigger.
This Infinity State is often touted to set us apart from other beings. Yet very seldom are we able to tap into its transcendent, “big picture” consciousness. The term “self-aware” is actually very misleading and counter intuitive, as true self-awareness is about everything but the self. Words don’t do justice to this incredibly expansive, selfless journey into the Vastness, an experience which is beyond language. Self-awareness is not about us. It is about becoming aware of everything else and rediscovering ourselves through the objective eyes of the Vastness.
The insights from this experience are surprising: although by itself humanity is hopelessly insignificant, our infinite connections to everything else within the Vastness is a treasure all to itself which we’ve been taking for granted: it is a treasure that we don’t have to work for, steal, abuse or even understand. It came with our hardware, within us, the moment we came into existence deep inside the Vastness, when our very first molecules were still being put together deep inside the core of stars at more than 15 million degrees Celsius.
Our significance, our actual value as a species lies not in who we are as an isolated particle in this universe, but in all the intricate and ancestral connections we have with the trillions of other beings, planets, chemical elements and celestial bodies which surround us, and to which we are molecularly and spiritually inextricably linked. What makes neuron cells intelligent is not who they are as individual entities, but how many, and how strong, their connections are with all other neurons: by connecting with each other in an almost infinite number of combinations, they are mirroring the Vastness itself. Humanity is but one neuron cell within Earth’s brain, the Earthnet of Things. By completely cutting off its connections, it has lost access to Earth’s shareable intelligence, hopelessly attempting to recreate the brain of the Vastness all on its own. Rejecting the infinite wisdom which this planet and universe afforded us, is probably the biggest missed opportunity of our species, and a step into cognitive devolution.
The biggest hurdle to reaching our Infinity State is of course, the ego. The ego is a hallucination of ourselves, a mirage. It pretends to represent us, when it actually represents a very small part of us, defined by our present time and space coordinates. But we are eternal and omnipresent, like the universe. Our Infinity State resides only in the Vastness, above all the hustle and bustle of daily life. We used to have access to the Vastness when we lived close to nature, close to our infinite connections with the natural world. Our myopic civilisation severed these connections and strengthened our ego as a defence towards nature itself, towards the Vastness. Now our ego keeps us hostage, limiting our field of view to only a very tiny section of this world, mostly within the human bubble. This limiting yet protective bubble happened to us as a trauma response to the fear, pain, and trauma that we felt as a life form, struggling to survive. It was a product of necessity and circumstance, and it served a purpose, but ultimately it has limited us, cut us off from the universe and condemned us to self-destruction. Frantically focused on survival, the inward-focused ego looks outside the bubble, and it sees the Vastness as a foreign, hostile object. It wants to own the Vastness, unaware that it is already part of this treasure. The tragedy of this cognitive failure is beyond words.
The very concept of an ego is highly problematic and thermodynamically unstable in a universe, a planet, an ecosystem, because nothing in these systems can ever be free-standing. Yet we have based our entire economic model on the egotistical consumer, driven by purely individualistic motivations. We have legitimized individual greed and ownership at the expense of other beings, while letting go of the collective responsibilities and the opportunities that materialize if we all act together as one brain, as a Vastness.
Similarly, we have failed to see Earth as a Vastness of connected elements. Instead, all we saw was individual parts which we thought we could individually pick apart and use. The destruction of Earth is much like disassembling a car no one bothered to learn how to drive, and quickly selling off its parts to make a meagre profit. The biggest cognitive failure of human civilisation was seeing Earth as a collection of resources, raw materials and “parts” – when in fact, these elements were the blood, flesh and bones of a once fully functioning, living planet. All the parts in this universe need each other in order to exist. Yet humanity is a part of this vastness who thinks it can go it alone. This can only lead to self-destruction.
Only by understanding how limiting, how biased the ego is, can we begin to challenge the unsustainable foundations of human civilisation. Our ego tries to limit us to one person, one species, one point of view, as an infinite number of egos go to war with each other. This is a threat to the stability of the Vastness itself.
George is an author, researcher, molecular biologist and food scientist. You can follow him on Twitter @99blackbaloons
George Tsakraklides 
Beautiful and inspiring modern “Indra’s Net” perspective! A real keeper. In today’s world/culture, it requires a lot of effort to dampen down the ego and get a glimpse of the Vastness. And I can’t think of a better, more important thing to do. Thank you!
Thank you very much Alan all the best