By Henk de Weijer
All forms are compositions of something, of a particular substance. A saucepan can be made of stainless steel, a waterfall is a collection of moving water molecules, and a fire is a chemical process that involves materials like wood, oil or gas. These forms and events can be experienced with our senses, but what about space? We live in it, are surrounded by it, and until now can only conclude that what we perceive are natural or human-made objects. Nevertheless, it would be absurd to deny the existence of space. Someone suggested: “Perhaps we cannot perceive it, but we conclude its existence.” If that is correct, we may accept that space exists, but the question of its substance remains unanswered.
Whatever that substance is, it must be something very subtle. But beware; it is not the only subtle form. Descartes concluded that a person consists of two non-coherent substances, which means matter and mind. Therefore a mind is not nothing, but something and immediately the question arises: “What then is the substance of mind?” Due to extensive development of neurological equipment and research, the duality ‘matter-mind’ has been replaced by ‘energy-consciousness’. Science defines energy as the ability to do work or heat objects, while consciousness is seen as a property of energy, as being conscious. Theistic Samkhya philosophy in India analyses the principles of God, Purusa (consciousness), Prakrti (energy), substance and atoms, but does not discuss these principles in detail. The substance of the mind is not described.
Physics has done a lot of research into the now-known granules of energy, that is, into the subatomic, elementary particles we call quarks, photons and electrons. These particles are considered to be the substrate of all forms. The existence of mind is accepted, but only as the equivalent of the brain. This restriction has a nasty consequence. The human body has evolved from single-celled organisms without a brain, and even now it is made up of large numbers of such cells. How and when those minds originated and evolved remains unanswered. Multi-cellular organisms such as microbes, viruses and plants also have no brain, while research over the past ten years clearly shows the existence of at least intelligence in them. A definition of consciousness is still so far away that the question of its substance is not even asked.
In 1986, Shrii P.R. Sarkar named the existence of as yet unknown elementary particles, which he called “microvita”. Just as subatomic particles are grains of energy, microvita are catalytic, creative grains of consciousness. At least three categories exist, positive, neutral and negative microvita. In Shrii Sarkar’s words: “In principle, negative and positive microvita are the same, but their field of activity is different.” (see Microvitum in a Nutshell, Chapter 7.) The work direction of the positive microvita is ultimate universalism and the optimal expression of consciousness. The work direction of negative microvita is the development of matter and materialism. Now new questions arise. “If microvita are pure grains of consciousness, they can only be inactive. (Fig.1.) How can they generate new ideas?” Every designer knows that a lot of energy is needed to come up with even one coherent idea. The same applies to microvita. Once they have collected enough intrinsic energy, they can be called integrated, neutral microvita. (Fig.2.) After that they will be able to use that extra energy towards materialism (Fig.3.) or universalism (Fig. 4.) and become negative, respectively positive, microvita.
Microvita do not work individually, but in structured large and dynamic groups (many billions of microvita). If individual microvita can only work in one direction, in a mature mind, the three categories of microvita mentioned here may occur but also crude and subtle ones. It is good to realise that as more energy is being spent on a specific work direction, the result increases. On the other hand, if more cooperation develops, that is, if more energy is being used, it in itself attracts extra energy, and more thrust is developed in this way.