Infinite Existence – A Powerful View Of Reality That Brings True Peace & Freedom

Infinite Existence is a theory, an idea, a thought experiment, an attempt to put a name on the unnameable and describe the indescribable. As any discussion of the ultimate nature of reality, (including religion & science), is a theory, idea, and thought experiment, this isn’t any kind of objection. In ideas like this we each have to choose what to believe. There is no actual answer that can be tested objectively. Make peace with that and we can proceed.

Infinite Existence is a logical theory that draws from our current scientific understanding of our place in the cosmos, while remaining true to millennia of mystical and spiritual interpretations of reality. Infinite Existence is the idea that there are infinite universes playing out infinitely, and each of us is part of this, both as the people we are now, our World Identities, and also as a single consciousness shared by everyone and everything, our Universal Consciousness.

In this article we’ll look at the three key features of Infinite Existence: 1) Infinite Universes. 2) World Identity, and 3) Universal Consciousness. You will see how each can be possible, and how each can help you here and now to find your own freedom.

Infinite Universes

The view that our universe is the one and only universe is coming to be replaced in cosmology, (the science of the origin and development of the universe), by the idea that our universe is one of many, a part of a much larger multiverse. In her book, Before The Big Bang, renowned cosmologist Dr. Laura Mersini-Houghton explores why a multiverse is more likely, and how she and others made predictions about our own universe that have produced testable results pointing at an origin of our universe from a multiverse. Mersini-Houghton was driven to ask was a multiverse a more likely beginning by the sheer unlikelihood of a single universe, (our own), existing. The Boltzman Brain thought experiment calculates that it is more likely for a human brain to spontaneously develop in outer space than for a single universe to come into existence on its own.

Please pause for a minute and be aware that it isn’t my aim to convince you about the truth of any one cosmological theory of reality or of the concept of Infinity. However, if, like me, you value logic and critical thinking, it will help to find and understand your place as part of a greater reality, by seeing the complexity of all of humanity’s place in a multiverse of infinite universes.

With that in mind, let’s take a step back, and think for a minute about the current, more commonly held view, that we are living in a single universe – the one and only universe to exist. Now, as human beings and the earth itself, and our sun, and our solar system are made of parts that decay, that are not, on appearance at least, infinite or immortal, then in our universe it seems fair to assume that beings and planets and suns and solar systems come and go. A question arises – what would make me believe that I am here as one life to be lived, and never lived again, on a planet to exist, then never exist again, Never.

This would mean our planet is orbiting a sun, in a solar system, in a universe, that is a genuine one-off. This means that this world ,and you and I, are absolutely unique, never to be seen or repeated again. This would seem a very anthropocentric place to land? Why anthropocentric? Because the history of human inquiry has continuously knocked humans off their pedestals and shown us that there is always more out there, not less, and not even just the same amount. There is always more.

To show this let’s look at how science has developed our understanding over the centuries. Let’s start with physics and how humanity once believed our sun was a god tracing across the sky. This was knocked down to the sun being a sun, not a god, and so we lost our first gods. Fast forward to the 15th & 16th centuries. Copernicus theorises that it is actually the earth going around the sun, and Galileo proves this by using the newly invented refracting telescope, so now we lose our place as the centre of the solar system, with the heavens revolving around us. Galileo’s investigations also suggested to him there was a universe beyond our solar system, so the uniqueness of our own solar system is now in question.

Next comes Newton,, who shows us that mathematical order prevails in the universe, with gravity underpinning the movements of the planets, (as well as apples!) No longer is a creator required to explain how all this works, and the complexity of the world around us grows exponentially. In the nineteenth century James Clerk Maxwell discovered electromagnetism, paving the way for Einstein’s discoveries that space and time were one, and that all matter is energy.

In 1924 Edwin Hubble discovered that there were other galaxies beyond our own, suddenly expanding the size of our universe and world view. In the late twentieth century, the first discovery was made of an exoplanet, a planet revolving around a sun in a different galaxy from our own. Many more have been found since then, which leads to the almost inevitable conclusion that other life exists, or has existed, in the universe. Again, humans are not unique.

Complexity upon complexity in physics leads ultimately to quantum mechanics that shows the world around us is made almost entirely, at an atomic level, of empty space. Particles fleet in and out of existence, tracing impossible to predict paths, obeying laws that were strange and illogical even to Einstein. In physics the journey has left behind any notion that there can be a straightforward answer to why things are as they are. Theoretical physics can be like religion, you have to go on faith, though unlike most religions, this faith is always open to being wrong.

The same process of increasing complexity can be seen in the other sciences. Darwin revolutionised biology with his theory of the evolution of species. Humans were no longer fundamentally different from any other animals, not special in a biological sense, again we are removed from our pedestals. Add to this the development of germ theory showing us the gazillion micro-organisms alive all around and inside us, but too small to be seen by the naked eye, and again life is more varied and complex than had first been assumed.

In chemistry we moved from the Greek view of four elements, air, water, earth and fire and the view that substances burned due to their inherent composition, to the periodic table, and the understanding that gasses such as oxygen exist, and are vital to anything catching fire and burning.

Time after time we see that things are vastly more complex than first thought, and our place in the cosmos is vastly less important, so would there really just be one universe, one earth, one humanity, one me and you?

However, you may argue it is more anthropocentric, (and a little egocentric as well), to decide that we will return again, or that there are many versions of ourselves, which is the implication with a multiverse of infinite universes. That would be a valid point if the coming and going of you and me in infinite universes was for you or me, or both of us, to get somewhere, to save something or someone, or ourselves? I don’t see that. I see infinite universes as simply what they are, a natural implication of looking at reality as bigger than can possibly be imagined.

What if Infinite Universes are Clustered or Cyclic?

Quantum mechanics shows that even in a vacuum particles are popping in and out of existence, and it is possible that these particles can suddenly expand rapidly, which is termed inflation, to create a new universe. As this process is happening all the time this could mean an infinite amount of universes being created at all times. This is theoretical of course, but if this is happening, where are these universes? We can’t see them obviously so they are either in a different dimensional space which we can’t detect – similar to the classic parallel universes theory – or they are simply in different spaces, making our universe simply one of an infinite amount of universes clustered together into a wider multiverse.

Does this mean that you or I exist in these other universes, as in the classic parallel universes theory? No, it doesn’t. But, like in the classic parallel universes theory, due to the infinite nature of these clustered universes, at some point events will be repeated in slightly different ways, each quantum event, the movement of an electron around an atomic nucleus for example, has infinite possibilities. These possibilities then have to exist somewhere so we have an infinite amount of universes playing out every possible action and interaction, including different lives for me and you on the macro scale. Clustered or parallel you get to the same place.

Or, they could be happening one after the other. A sequential, infinite, amount of Big Bangs and Big Crunches, (the universe crunching back into a single point), is called the cyclic universes theory and yields the same result. If there is only one universe which expands then contracts repeatedly then it is highly improbable this would happen in exactly the same way each time and so all possible events play out and repeat forever. The Nobel Laureate Physicist, Sir Roger Penrose, who once believed that our universe was alone, changed to believing in our universe coming and going infinitely.

Another alternative is a variation on the cyclic universes theory. What if it was the exact same universe as we live in now which comes and goes infinitely? After thinking through the alternatives, and the history of scientific inquiry as discussed previously, this really would seem to me to be anthropocentric egomania. That this one universe, with you and me and our tiny lives, would repeat forever, is like saying the sun really does revolve around the earth. This would also mean we humans have no free will. If there is one universe repeating exactly, then all possible actions within that universe are set in quantum stone. Your past, present and future actions, even your thoughts, are unchangeable, playing out on repeat.

The nineteenth century existentialist, Frederich Nietzsche, used this idea as a test for humanity’s acceptance of life. He called it Eternal Recurrence – saying only a superhuman could choose to live the exact same life again and again in every detail, great and awful, for eternity.

However, even if we reject the idea of our one universe eternally recurring exactly as it is, this begs the question that even if there are an infinite amount of universes, aren’t each of these determined? Aren’t all universes, though each one fashioned slightly differently, set out in the same quantum stone?

Infinite Universes means Freewill (Sort Of)

If there are infinite alternative universes, (whether parallel, clustered or cyclic), then human beings and all stuff, thinking or otherwise, will come and go, endlessly. Stop and really think about that. When talking infinity, hyperbole is the order of the day and endlessly really means that, no exaggeration, or perhaps, all exaggeration, you really can’t exaggerate enough with infinity. It can take it.

Infinite universes has several important implications. Firstly and most importantly, even if we assume these universes are determined, we still gain free will, or at least a very strong illusion of free will that is as good as the real thing in practice. I’ll explain. If there is a new you and me being born and living and dying, though in slightly different ways, in each universe then it is impossible to know which of these universe you are in today reading this now. All these universe may be determined, set out, running their course, but because you can’t know which one you’re in then you can act as if you have complete freewill. Anything you choose to do, or have done is happening or has happened or will happen somewhere. So go ahead and choose freely.

In another universe you didn’t pass up the pretty girl who you discovered liked you too just because you were scared to blow it. Or in another universe you died in childbirth. Or in another universe – you’ve seen enough science fiction films by now to paint this by numbers. But the very real thought is that, whichever universe you are in right now, it is completely open to you to do whatever you want.

Wait a minute, isn’t that just cheating? That’s not real free will, surely? It may not be pure free will, but I believe there are only two ways to achieve pure free will. The first is a god behind all this, and overseeing it, though with no hands on the wheel. This god has set it in motion and is watching it play out. though I can’t prove that’s not true, it is highly unlikely. The second way to achieve pure free will is that there is some mechanism whereby our infinite alternative selves are connected. This could mean that by making a certain choice – to stand up right now for example, you shift into the universe where that happens, so you go into the universe where you stand up. As infinite universes means every possible event has or will happen this means that a you in some other universe chose to not stand up, another you chose to sit down, a third you chose to do star jumps which brought some concern to the others in her office, as she was in the middle of an important presentation.

But who would be the you doing all these shiftings?¹ Perhaps it could be a facet of a Universal Consciousness to be able to do this, but it seems like a long way to go round the infinite houses to get to the same place – all things happen and are possible, where you are now and what you choose now will happen, and so you can live freely. You have freedom of infinite choice and you are in the universe you are in because this is the universe you have chosen in a sense, from the starting point into which you were born, the World Identity you are now. Let’s look closer at this World Identity.

Your World Identity

World Identity is a term used to describe the person you are in the world. This is often called Ego, but the term Ego carries a lot of baggage, and can have sometimes opposite meanings, depending on who uses the word. World Identity better describes the experience of all the day to day facets of being a human in the world.

In many religious and spiritual traditions your World Identity is often seen as a problem, something to be controlled at the very least. In Buddhism for example your World Identity is the you that desires and fears and is the monkey mind – your thoughts that chatter on when practicing meditation. Here, as in most mindfulness practices, and in ACT therapy, it is seen as a distraction. In Christianity and other traditional religions your World Identity, through your desires and fears, is often seen as sinful and in need of control ,or in extreme cases, as sent from a devil, and to be punished or expelled completely.

From a Freudian psychological perspective your World Identity is made up of three parts, ego, id and superego. Your ego can be likened to your adult, logical view of the world. Your id is the childish part of yourself which has little self control, and acts impulsively to gain pleasure or evade pain. The superego is the judgmental part of yourself which lives by rules learned from society and your upbringing.

It is IFS therapy, (Internal Family Systems therapy), that best describes your World Identity. In IFS our psychology is made up of many Parts. These Parts of ourselves have desires and fears sometimes in direct conflict with each other. For example, a Part of me may desire to eat a lot of chocolate to comfort myself after an argument with my spouse, while another Part desires to not eat the chocolate because it fears the repercussions of weight gain and ill health. Much of our lives and most of Stages Four & Five of The Roadmap are taken up with understanding and accepting the various Parts of our World Identity.

In Infinite Existence, as in IFS, your World Identity is not wrong or bad or something to get rid of, it is simply part of who you are, here and now, at this point in space and time. Becoming aware of this side of yourself, and meeting the various Parts that make up your World Identity, is the first step in freedom from following your desires without thought. Read the article, Meditation – 3 Ways, and the books No Bad Parts and Self-Therapy, for details on how to better know your World Identity.

What Understanding Your World Identity Means

Understanding your World Identity helps bring better relationships, better work and love life, and inner peace. Understanding that your World Identity is but a temporary aspect to a wider existence brings a sense of peace to who you are, beyond your life here and now. You can slow down, stopping all the running and chasing after achievements and temporary pleasures to make your life feel meaningful.

You will be more likely to treat yourself & others well, and to stop arguing with yourself and others about what you, or they, should or shouldn’t be doing. You may even drop the should altogether, as it’s rarely a word that helps with happiness and peace, creating instead judgement of yourself and others, and pressures to act in sometimes unhelpful and unhealthy ways, because you, or someone else, thinks you should.

World Identity is the most familiar of all concepts because it is the person everyone knows as you, including yourself. Everyone has a World Identity. In Infinite Existence you must let go of any idea that your World identity is permanent and will survive after death. This can be hard.

From the point of view of our World Identity we want to go on. We are Dave Grohl roaring, I never wanna die, over and over in the Foo Fighters song Walk, and Freddie Mercury answering softly, I do, to the question of Who Wants To Live Forever, in the Queen song of the same name. Yet, we won’t live forever. When we die it seems unlikely that any sense of your World Identity continues, at least not in another place. However, in another sense, your World Identity does live forever – in each version of yourself, in each of the Infinite Universes in which you are born. But, you only ever live this World Identity at the time you are in the world, so now you are this World Identity, and in this life this is the only World Identity you will ever know.

What if this World Identity is in a bad place? Do you simply accept this is the World Identity you have now? No. You don’t have to stick around in a bad life situation and say, well, it will be better in another universe. You can still act to change your world and life. But, there is no pressure in this. If you don’t want to act then don’t, it’s up to you.

But which World Identity are you? With Infinite Universes meaning an infinite array of you’s to choose from, which are you, and does it matter? It doesn’t matter. Each World Identity exists at a surface level. In Buddhism the metaphor of the Wave and the Water has been used from at least the thirteenth century² to eloquently describe the truth of human life. Thich Nhat Hanh also explores this metaphor in Fear. If you think of a sea, you think of waves and water as if they are two separate things. Of course they aren’t. The waves come from the water but the waves also are the water. The wave here is your World Identity and the water is Universal Consciousness, that part of us that is connected to all people, and all things. Let’s look more closely at Universal Consciousness.

Universal Consciousness

All spiritual and mystical traditions describe a state of being that is beyond our regular human experience of the world. In Christianity, believers talk of feeling the presence of the holy spirit. In Buddhism, it is feeling pure awareness, without everyday thoughts in your mind. This state comes with a sense of connection to all people and all things, and a feeling of love, or or even bliss. It is also characterised by a sense of expansion within yourself. This is the experience of being Universal Consciousness.

When you feel a sense of yourself as existing over time, as the I you have been since birth, and through childhood, this is the feeling of Universal Consciousness. This Universal Consciousness I believe is the same for everyone because it has no personality as such. And, for this reason, it would be the same within humans across all possible universes.

Though it has no World Identity style personality, no I in You, it has a quality characterized by love and curiosity. This becomes clear when you sense this deep part of yourself during Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, as described in the books, No Bad Parts, and Self-Therapy. The compassion and love you can feel for all the Parts of yourself that make up your World Identity, even those that have caused you or others harm and pain, comes from Universal Consciousness.

The feeling of Presence Eckhart Tolle talks about thoughout The Power Of Now is the felt sense of Universal Consciousness. This is different to mindfulness, which is being aware of your World Identity thoughts, by becoming aware of your observing mind, as explored in The Happiness Trap. However, the observing mind doesn’t carry the same loving connection to life.

Though Universal Consciousness can be actively felt during meditation, it can also be felt at anytime. It is that moment where you feel a oneness with all things. In nature it is easier to feel as there are less distractions, but it can be felt when you are in an argument with your partner, or waiting in line to pay for groceries. It is a sense that there is so much space everywhere, that everything is vast and you are within it all. Any description falls short though, as it has to be experienced directly, to be known. For help doing this see the article Meditation 3-Ways.

Is Universal Consciousness an Illusion?

It is a fair question, and one scientific inquiry has been actively researching since the 1960’s, in a field now known as Neurotheology. This is the neuroscience of religion, and aims to find the mechanism in the brain which explains why we experience feelings of oneness with the universe, and all people and things, and connection to God and the divine. This feeling can come during meditation, or in a more dramatic way through brain injury or the ingestion of hallucinogenic drugs, which I touch on here in the article Meditation-3 Ways. The search for a mechanism in the brain that produces such feelings has been dubbed as the search for the God spot in the brain. So far there has been no definitive success in finding the God spot³.

If the God spot is found does this prove that human consciousness comes from brain activity and disprove that something like Universal Consciousness is possible? Though our commonsense experience of the world suggests that our brains create consciousness I want you to think of the forty-four year old French man who went into hospital for a brain scan only to discover that around seventy-five percent of his brain was liquid. See this article in New Scientist. The man lived an ordinary life, with a job and family, and was a surprised as his doctors by what they found. Rare examples like this provide evidence that consciousness could be something else altogether, something more like a field of energy that we access in ways we so far don’t understand.

The question of consciousness in science and philosophy is massive, and will become even more commonplace as artificial intelligence becomes more advanced and commonplace. If a God spot is found, perhaps it can be reverse engineered, and programmed into chatgpt to create a truly self-conscious bot.

I doubt it will happen, but even if a God spot is found, does this really matter? Part of finding peace in life is throwing out the need to be right, and have everything proven, and tied up in a neat bow. The nature of reality is there is always something else to know, learn, discover. This will never end, and in that sense the complexity is actually very simple – there is no final truth.

Is There A Purpose?

You probably know my answer to this question by now. Hindu’s call existence Lila, translated as The Divine Game. Taoist like Chuang-tze say The great Tao is beyond words and arguments. Christians say, God works in mysterious ways. Infinite Existence describes reality as made up of Infinite universes, World Identities and Universal Consciousness, but this doesn’t mean there is a point to any of it, or any actual purpose, or at least not one we can ever decipher.

Like religious preachers, many spiritual teachers present ideas as if they were fact. But, the danger in this approach is that people miss the message and become focused on and attached to the messenger who provides the “answers.” 

As I say on this website’s homepage -no-one has all the answers, and no-one has your answer. We are human and can never have a final answer on what life is about, and what explains it best. But what we can do is find an answer that feels right to us.

Implications of Universal Consciousness

One of the implications of Universal Consciousness is that it may explain some of the more out-there of human experiences. Experiences of past lives or reincarnation may be explained by some kind of overlap or crossed wires between Universal Consciousness and World Identities.

People who have had a near death experience or an outer body experiences often describe these experiences as having an ethereal quality that is loving and accepting and timeless. This sounds like the experience of accessing Universal Consciousness. As Universal Consciousness must exist beyond the death of the brain then this could explain how people remember details from during a surgical operation for example when they otherwise just couldn’t know. The experiences of Pam Reynolds is one of the best known but there have been many, many reports of similar near death experiences.

For me, the greatest implication of Universal Consciousness is eternal life and equality. Within the canopy of Infinite Existence, as Universal Consciousness you will experience every possible version of your own life and every version of self-conscious life as well, and every variation of those lives. There is no single World Identity you stuck only with the limited choices of this time and history. Wherever you live in the world, whether rich or poor, whatever race or sex, all possibilities will be experienced.

This is where the feeling of oneness with all humanity comes from – you really are all of humanity. Everything that anyone has, is, or will, experience is experienced by you as Universal Consciousness. If your mind drifts to fantasy lives then that is natural. As Universal Consciousness you are Beyonce and Harry Stiles admired and desired. You were King Solomon and Queen Cleopatra, all powerful. You were Shakespeare and Florence Nightingale, Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. You were Gandhi and Marilyn Monroe!

But doesn’t that mean….?

Yes – if Universal Consciousness is in every human that ever lived then it was there in Hitler, and Pol Pot, and Stalin as well. It was in the abuser. It was part of the torturer and sociopath, and child killer, and rapist. Not very appealing. But there is no way around this consequence. These were all humans who acted in monstrous ways, but they weren’t monsters, they were humans. We are all capable of terrible darkness and many of us never even glimpse our connection to others, the light of Universal Consciousness.

You might ask why didn’t Universal Consciousness stop Hitler and others like him? The answer is because Universal Consciousness isn’t a traditional god or deity. Universal Consciousness is a force, a feeling, a presence, and you, your World Identity here and now, can be healed through connecting to Universal Consciousness. It can provide the love you need or needed even if you have never received this from another human.

In chapter nine of A Course In Miracles Made Easy, author Alan Cohen relates the story of healer Patricia Sun asking an audience to think of meeting Hitler when he was just a child. She tells how Hitler was the son of an abusive alcoholic father and mentally ill mother and Sun asks if we could go to that child and give them the love and support they lacked, knowing that this love could stop, or at least diminish the horror to come, wouldn’t we do this?

Though it is a challenge for most of us to think of giving Hitler love, it is no challenge for most of us to think of loving and supporting a child. If we take away the humanity of history’s most cruel tyrants and make them only monsters then we lose the whole point of understanding why they did what they did in the first place, and how it can be stopped from recurring again in our world’s history.

That Universal Consciousness is not a god or deity is worth repeating. Universal Consciousness can’t be thought of as anything like your World Identity. It exists in all of us at once, and is all of us, but it isn’t the you, you are, or will be. This is fundamental to accept. When you find that part of yourself, of us all, that is Universal Consciousness, then the search is over. This is it. If you are still looking for something else, some magic or god like power, then you haven’t found Universal Consciousness, or perhaps you have only glimpsed it. Take a good look, let it fill you, and be you. This is freedom, oneness, everything. This is finding your gorse,

Infinite Existence Is Oneness

Remember how this article began – Infinite Existence is a theory, an idea, a thought experiment, an attempt to put a name on the unnameable and describe the indescribable. I am not trying to prove it because it is impossible to prove, as is all cosmology and religion.

Accepting that finding a proof doesn’t matter is key. These are ideas, not truths. These are ways to slip in between the cracks of our needs to find a truth. If there was a god behind this all, and he/she/it suddenly made an appearance to confirm that Infinite Existence was put in motion by he/she/it, then I would still ask – who put this god in motion? And if science found a way to show indisputably the existence of parallel universes, this wouldn’t mean Infinite Existence is true either, as scientific ideas, quite properly, are always open to being overturned.

Infinite Existence is a way of thinking about Oneness, The Tao, Reality, whatever term you want to use. It is a way that helps you feel part of this existence that feels truly vast. You will live forever, and already do, and you will be every person there ever was, or will be, and every version of those people, and you already are all of that.

Further than this it may be that Universal Consciousness runs through or even creates reality. Perhaps we are already pure energy and are and will be every molecule already. We are human, animal, alien and grain of sand. We are electron, neutrino, and anything yet to be discovered and named.

This is Infinite Existence, and immortality, without the need for the World Identity that you are right now, reading this, to live any longer on this earth than you will. Knowing this brings peace, and gives you a way to enjoy the here and now, a way to play in this divine game.