God as Consciousness-Without-An-Object

By John C. Lilly
From Simulations of God, 1975
Within the last two years I have come to know a man and his work who run counter to
my own simulations and by whom I am influenced beyond previous influences. In
1936, Franklin Merrell-Wolff wrote a journal that was later published as Pathways
Through to Space. In 1970 he wrote another book called The Philosophy of
Consciousness-Without-an-Object.1 In studying his works and the chronicle of his
personal experience I arrived at some places new for me.
Wolff had been through the Vedanta training, through the philosophy of Shankara; he
knew the philosophy of Kant and others of the Western world; and he spent twenty-
five years working to achieve a state of Nirvana, Enlightenment, Samadhi, and so
forth. In 1936 he succeeded in this transformation and with varying success
maintained it over the subsequent years. He is an amazingly peaceful man now in his
eighties. Meeting him, I felt the influence of his transformation, of his recognitions, of
some sort of current flowing through me. I felt a peace which I have not felt in my
own searchings; a certain peculiar kind of highly indifferent contentment took place,
and yet the state was beyond contentment, beyond the usual human happiness, beyond
bliss, beyond pleasure. This is the state that he calls the state of "High Indifference."
He experienced this as his third level of recognition, beyond Nirvana, beyond Bliss.
His perceptions in this state are recounted in The Philosophy of Consciousness-
Without-an-Object.
In his chapter "Aphorisms on Consciousness-Without-an-Object" Merrell-Wolff
expresses his discoveries in a series of sutra-like sentences. The first one is:
"Consciousness-without-an-object is." The culmination of the series is that
Consciousness-without-an-object is SPACE. This is probably the most abstract and
yet the most satisfying way of looking at the universe which I have come across
anywhere. If one pursues this type of thinking and feeling and gets into the
introceptive spaces, the universe originates on a ground, a substrate of Consciousness-
Without-an-Object: the basic fabric of the universe beyond space, beyond time,
beyond topology, beyond matter, beyond energy, is Consciousness. Consciousness
without any form, without any reification, without any realization.
In a sense, Merrell-Wolff is saying that the Star Maker is Consciousness-Without-an-
Object. He does not give hints to how objects are created out of Consciousness-
Without-an-Object. He does not give hints to how an individual consciousness is
formed out of Consciousness-Without-an-Object. The details of these processes were
not his primary interest. His primary interest apparently was in arriving at a basic set
of assumptions upon which all else can be built. In this sense he is like Einstein,
bringing the relativity factor into the universe out of Newton's absolutes.
If we are a manifestation of Consciousness-Without-an-Object, and if, as Wolff says,
we can go back into Consciousness-Without-an-Object, then my rather pessimistic
view that we are merely noisy animals is wrong. If there is some way that we can
work our origins out of the basic ground of the universe, bypassing our ideas that the
evolutionary process generates us by generating our brainsif there is some contact,
some connection between us and Consciousness-Without-an-Object and the Void, and
if we can make that contact, that connection known to ourselves individually, as Wolff
claims, then there is possible far more hope and optimism than I ever believed in the
past. If what he says is true, we have potential far beyond what I have imagined we
could possibly have. If what he says is true, we can be and realize our being as part of
the Star Maker.
It may be that Wolff, like all the rest of us, is doing an overvaluation of his own
abstractions. It may be that he is generating, i.e., self-metaprogramming, states of his
own mind and those of others in which the ideals of the race are reified as thought
objects, as programs, as realities, as states of consciousness. It may be that this is all
we can do. If this is all we can do, maybe we had better do itand see if there is
anything beyond this by doing it.
If by getting into a state of High Indifference, of Nirvana, Samadhi, or Satori, then
one can function as a teaching example to others and it may be that if a sufficiently
large number of us share this particular set of metaprograms we may be able to
survive our own alternative dichotomous spaces of righteous wrath. If righteous wrath
must go as a nonsurviving program for the human species, then it may be that High
Indifference is a reasonable alternative.
Setting up a hierarchy of states of consciousness with High Indifference at the top,
Nirvana next, Satori next, Samadhi next, and Ananda at the bottom is an interesting
game, especially when one becomes capable of moving through all these spaces and
staying a sufficient time in each to know it.
This may be a better game than killing our neighbors because they do not believe in
our simulations of God. At least those who espouse these states claim that these states
are above any other human aspiration; that once one has experienced them, he is
almost unfit for wrath, for pride, for arrogance, for power over others, for group
pressure exerted either upon oneself or upon others. One becomes fit only for teaching
these states to those who are ready to learn them. The bodhisattva vow is no longer
necessary for those who have had direct experience. One becomes the bodhisattva
without the vow. One becomes Buddha without being Buddha.
One becomes content with the minimum necessities for survival on the planetside trip;
one cuts back on his use of unnecessary articlesmachines, gadgets, and devices. He
no longer needs motion pictures, television, dishwashers, or other luxuries. One no
longer needs much of what most people value above all else. One no longer needs the
excitement of war. One no longer needs to be a slave to destructive thoughts or deeds.
One no longer needs to organize.
Krishnamurti's story of the Devil is pertinent here. Laura Huxley furnished me with a
copy of it. The Devil was walking down the street with a friend, and they saw a man
pick something up, look at it carefully and put it in his pocket. The friend said to the
Devil, "What's that?" The Devil said, "He has found a bit of the truth." The friend
said, "Isn't that bad for your business?" The Devil said, "No, I am going arrange to
have him organize it."
So it behooves us not to organize either the methods or the states which Wolff
describes so well. It is better not to try to devise groups, techniques, churches, places,
or other forms of human organization to encourage, foster, or force upon others these
states. If these states are going to do anything with humanity, they must "creep by
contagion," as it were, from one individual to the next.
God as Consciousness-Without-an-Object, if real, will be ap-perceived and
introcepted by more and more of us as we turn toward the inner realities within each
of us. If God as Conscious-ness-Without-an-Object inhabits each of us, we eventually
will see this. We will become universally aware. We will realize consciousness as
being everywhere and eternal. We will realize that Consciousness-Without-an-Object
in each of us is prejudiced and biased because it has linked up with a human brain.
REFERENCE
Merrell-Wolff, Franklin, Pathways Through to Space, and The Philosophy of Consciousness-Without-an-Object, both New York: Julian
Press, 1973-