Revisiting “Organic Cyber Cafe” in the “post truth world” it predicted in 2015

20 min read1 day ago

In 2015 I wrote “Organic Cyber Cafe”, predicting a post truth reality, full of pitfalls and opportunities. Ten years later its worth revisiting.

(Here is the link to the PDF scan of the original text: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/cpbm6kd35uprlni8bx939/Organic_Cyber_Cafe_2015_byOHR.pdf?rlkey=o5963d4b6esdgjwfncptu2kpc&st=se8ku6h9&dl=0 )

Now we live in a world of Ai, Tik Tok, and X, where truth is not as important as reach and influence. Imagery is questionable (are those drones or UAPs or just blurry photos of stars or Ai?), and the feed is so fast that atrocities get scrolled past as the next memecoin Ai autonomous agent shills you for a crypto investment. Rahu is the Asura in Vedic astrology that tastes the nectar of immortality at the same time he gets his head sliced off by Vishnu. He symbolically represents an insatiable desire, and the the invisible moving point in the sky that creates a solar or lunar eclipse when the Sun or the Moon intersect with it (Rahu is called the north or south node in Western astrology). Rahu also represents technology, and illusion. Rahu essentially is the matrix. As my friend Omkar likes to say “This is Rahu’s world, we just live in it.”

We don’t share the same world anymore, like when an issue of LIFE magazine would be read by millions one week at a time, or everyone tuned into MTV to watch the world premier of Thriller. We each live in our own wold of interests, tracked and micro targeted by advertisements. When I wrote Organic Cyber Cafe in 2015 I imagined a world where first person shooter games would be so realistic that people could no longer discern between on-line reality and off-line reality. The term “NPC” and “simulation” get thrown around so much that there seems to be an utter disregard for “the other.” As if only what you experience is real, and everyone else is background noise. The negative outcome of this view is the inflation and the loneliness of the ego who imagines itself alone in the simulation, and the belief that its actions have no real consequence, therefore no action is out of bounds. Just look at all the mass shootings. The positive outcome of realizing this aloneness of the ego is to dissolve into the whatisness of the moment, where merging with the source becomes possible, and escaping attachment to the duality of samsara.

People now are so focused on AGI they have forgotten their own evolution of awareness. In 2015 I wrote about the fractal nature of reality, and how Ai is just another reflection of the divine consciousness that pervades everything. It’s worth re-reading. The technology has advanced more rapidly than I thought, but the themes are still accurate. I am presenting it here in an easier to read format that the PDF scan of the zine, which included art and was very DIY style. The risks seem even more dangerous, but so do the opportunities. Ultimately its up to us individually how we choose to proceed.

______________________________________________________________

ORGANIC CYBER CAFE

By Oliver Halsman Rosenberg

A bite size serving of technology, spirituality, creativity, and biology

Art and text By Oliver Halsman Rosenberg

Dedication:

For my Divine friend Sri Puysh Dixit Bhagavan Ji

Introduction:

I have been thinking about the concepts presented in the following pages for many years, and I am finally putting them down on paper due to the urging of friends and strangers I have shared these ideas with. I also decide to incorporate some visuals from art I have made over the years to support various ideas I present or allude to.

I am not a scholar or expert in anything except paying attention to patterns in my life, and understanding parallels and overlaps between different subjects I study for my own enjoyment. Also, I am not trying to convert anyone to any belief system.

Many ideas presented here in brief could be greatly expanded upon, but hopefully this text will serve as a catalyst to do your own exploration and inner work where the information will manifest itself.

ONE:

It was dusk, and my Divine friend (he preferred I called him that instead of “Guru”) and I were returning to Rishikesh from a day trip to a near-by city. We stood at a specific corner on the road leading out of town where people caught rides for a small fee. After ten minutes a jeep stopped, and we all squeezed into the front seat. The driver was taking the winding road uncomfortably fast, and 15 minutes into the trip a noble black face Langur monkey, with a long gray tail, began to cross infront of us. Had the driver been going at a reasonable speed, there would have been enough time for him to brake or slow down, but the monkey disappeared in front of the speeding vehicle, and the bump we all felt confirmed that it had been run over. My heart sank knowing that this beautiful animal died unnecessarily. On the very next turn we saw the aftermath of a massive bus and car accident on the side of the road. We kept driving, now more slowly, for another 30 minutes in silence.

My Divine friend could tell I was sad and angry about the fate of the monkey. When we got off in Rishikesh, he insisted on buying me a popsicle, and explained to me that the soul is like a SIM card; -while one body may be finished, a new body is coming, and the SIM card will be installed and operational again. He went on saying that God is the chief magistrate, and owns the body, and time, and energy and he decides all the events and results and timings, so there is no reason to be upset.

He often used metaphors of technology and hierarchy to impart spiritual teachings on our daily walks. Pointing up to electric wires that chaotically ran above every street, he would tell me that they connected us to the central cyber café. He always reminded me to update my Facebook and Twitter status with happiness. I always found it ironic that he would talk about technology so much because it seemed as if he came from another time and space. He was a sadhu, a holy renunciant. He had rejected society. Everything he owned he wore on his body and kept in his pockets. No matter what temperature it was, he was always wrapped in the same brown dusty holy blanket with holes. He slept outside on the ground, and he was the most enlightened person I have ever looked in the eyes of. Our adventures together could be the subject of another book, but for now I wish to build upon this spiritual /technological metaphor that he introduced me to.

TWO:

Of the many Spiritual/Philosophical systems I have studied, the ones that offer me the most direct path to understanding reality, and achieving liberation from ignorance, are the non-dualistic systems like Kashmiri Shavism and Vajrayana Buddhism. Of course many esoteric traditions, like Kabbala, Sufism, and Advaita Vedanta, also touch upon the same principles. I will use this non-dualistic framework to explore the technology that surrounds us, the biology with in us, and hopefully provide the opportunity see the world in a new light.

In Kashmiri Shavism (a school of Vedic/Hindu thought) everything originates from a Unified Ultimate Reality, AKA the independent state of Supreme Consciousness, AKA the Self, AKA “I AM”. This Unity gives birth to multiplicity in the following way: The first split is represented as SHIVA -Pure Awareness (the Divine Masculine principle), and SHAKTI — Energy/Manifestation/Change (the Divine Feminine Principle). We can also think of this as Subject and Object. In the Buddhist tradition, this duality with in the non-duality is called Method [symbolized by the vajra (M)] and Wisdom/Emptiness [symbolized by the bell (F)]. In the Kabbalistic tree, Keter AKA En Sof, the Infinite beyond-definition Supreme Reality’s first emanations are Hokhmah (M) and Binah (F). Each system has its own particularities and though provoking details, but I will stick to Kashmiri Shavism for now because it’s a simple model to overlay on technology.

Shiva is Pure Awareness/Consciousness -the ability to perceive. Despite that it is designated as the Masculine principle (and symbolized by a Lingam), it is active with in all of us, no matter what body/gender we are born into. In fact, it is on this very blank field of awareness where we are able to even perceive this egoic thought of “me as a separate individual,” or sense of gender identification.

Shakti is Energy/Vibration…that which forms and transforms and changes infinitely and eternally. It is the Feminine principle, and represented by the Yoni, the divine womb out of which everything is born and reborn. This is the energy that swirls around the stable, sentient, and vital lingam. It is everything around us and with in us that moves or transforms.

The two need each other, or else neither would be able to exist. Pure perception, with nothing to perceive, would never be complete. Just like motion and movement and change, with nothing to notice it would exist in an unperceivable vacuum. Therefore, like Yin and Yang, the two nest into each-other and form the One. A holy trinity, to borrow from another vein of religious symbology. When we apply this to our human experience, our awareness is Shiva, observing the play of Shakti all around it, like the silent witness now watching Oliver on the screen of my consciousness typing these words on the screen of a computer.

Everything which takes place: all thoughts thought, and senses sensed, and emotions experienced, are one unified 360degree inner/outer unified Shakti quality, which is simply observed like a movie on the field of the central Shiva consciousness principle. That stranger who is walking by, the singing bird, the sunrise photo you liked on Instagram, they are all you, because they are taking place on your field of consciousness. If you can sense it/perceive it, it is by its very nature woven into the fabric of you. This is why all the great spiritual masters say love thy neighbor as thyself, tell you not to judge others, or promote compassion and kindness towards each other. There is no separation.

Our reality/experience is a big feedback loop of what we allow to vibrationally resonate in our field of thoughts. If we wake up every day and tell ourselves that “something amazing will happen today”, then this frequency of thought will be reflected back to us with in our experience, just like if we wake up and feel like the world is against us, then we will attract the experiences to confirm the belief we have about ourselves being a victim. This is basic programming of the mind, and we all have the same opportunity to consciously make empowered choices, it’s called free-will.

When I was 25 I was in a motorcycle accident in Vietnam. I didn’t know how I could have survived, so I was convinced for the following three years that I was a ghost. In my belief system I thought that if I were dead, and was still experiencing some sort of reality, that I must be in Heaven, and if it were Heaven, then anything that I wanted to happen would happen (because that was the rule of the Heaven that I created for myself to live in). Anything that I imagined or desired for myself in this time period came true, and therefore reinforced the belief that I was a ghost, and therefore reinforced the belief that anything I wanted to happen would happen. It was a manifesting power on a feedback loop, and taught me a lot about the influence of the mind over matter. (The stranger in the seat next to me on the airplane just opened the book: “The power of your subconscious mind” Therefore reinforcing the very concept I am typing here as I am typing it, which is that the mind communicates with a vibrational code of thought married to feeling, and that vibration is reflected back to us in the mirror nature of the Shakti matrix).

Let’s look at a technology through the lens of Kashmiri Shavism. A computer is made up of a few fundamental pieces: The Hardware would be the Shiva principle. It is the pure processing power in potentiality, yet it needs software, the Shakti principle, the programs which “do” things; play music, photoshop, email, internet, etc. All this takes place on the screen of awareness. The computer has no free-will, it just processes whatever the user decides for it, whether it’s cat videos on YouTube, or World of Warcraft. New software programs can always be installed; just like we humans can expose ourselves to new concepts/philosophies (downloads updates) to run more optimally. But the premise is the same; both systems have the passive potentiality capacity to compute, as well as the infinite options of what is computable.

THREE:

Technology has the potential to be a great tool of Enlightenment in our time, because of its strength and because of its flaws. Let’s first briefly review fractal and nested patterns, so that we may understand the computer as an organic extension of the biological and spiritual self. We find in nature many clues for this cosmic pattern in creation. I always loved looking at how ferns unfold from basic design principles of spirals, repetition of shape, and frequency/scale on an organic expansive rhythm. The Mandelbrot Set is a fractal computation/animation where the same patterns occur over, and over, and over as it is zoomed into infinitely. It’s a math principle visualized, but the longer you watch the hypnotic simulation, you realize that size is relative. One could be traveling through galaxies or molecules, as Charles and Ray Eames also explored in their wonderful Power of Ten film. The basic premise of a fractal is that: with-in a system exists a certain set of conditions/limitations that continue to create variations of the same metta pattern. Each piece contains a small version of the whole. Consider the edible fractal, the neon green Romanesco Broccoli. Each spinning cone floret is a small version of the branch, which is a small version of the whole unit. This is also a way to understand what New Age people call the Holographic Universe, where the smallest bit of reality contains the totality of reality. The scale ratios between atomic structures of electrons and neutrons are similar to that of planets to suns, and our solar system is spaced out with Fibonacci like ratios. The Human is in the middle of the spectrum. Our earth orbits the sun, which is like a grain of sand in the vastness of the billions of galaxies swirling in the Universe, and yet with in us we contain a Universe of vibrating molecules where distances from one cell nucleus to a distant cell are as vast as interplanetary travel and beyond. Size and time don’t hold the same values when removed from their native system. As Einstein said, everything is relative, and if we imagine that consciousness is at the connecting points between all the notes on the octave, then we begin to liberate ourselves from body based consciousness and can travel micro or macro.

The human body is a sophisticated time based organic machine, made up of the elements, and organized by a code language (DNA/RNA). We are living intelligence performing complex sequences in every moment, unaware to our conscious mind. It’s no surprise that humanity has created the computer, because we ourselves are a computer! The human form is a part of the fractal nature of Intelligence replicating itself over, and over, and over in a form that suits its environment. Does a computer know anything about who created it and how it gets its power

to survive and perform? Seeing the computer as a nested fractal, created with in our intelligence, helps us understand our own operating system better.

FOUR:

The term Avatar has been with us long before James Cameron’s namesake film, chat rooms, and Facebook profiles. In Hindu mythology, when things got too out of whack on planet Earth, one of the Gods would take a human birth to set things straight. This concept of higher consciousness nesting itself in a lower form is found the combination of the Sanskrit roots: ava (down) + tar (to cross). Even The Buddha and Jesus are considered avatars of Vishnu! In contemporary culture we use the avatar term to denote a profile we have created with in a digital framework, which represents our-self, and allows us to interact with other avatars by sending or receiving information and performing functions. With the advent of virtual reality’s interface to be used on a daily basis in the coming years, we find ourselves on the edge of very exciting times in terms of recognizing our true nature.

This technology actually holds great potential for a large awakening and spontaneous enlightenment for the masses. It seems to me this transformation could take place as a reaction against the massive obscurification of the outside world that virtual reality promises. I can imagine that the more that technology becomes seamless and seductive, the harder it will be for users to differentiate between constructed realities, avatars, and interactions on a digital level, with those of the non-technological world, which we are now accustomed to. This schizophrenia will lead people to question the realness of reality.

I mentioned earlier that we live in a fractal based energetic matrix (Shakti), which our pure consciousness (Shiva) perceives indifferently. Digital avatars have been created by humanity, which is itself is the avatar of a form of intelligence further up the fractal. As hosts of self- replicating intelligence (DNA), we have created a new Universe of intelligence with-in our own Universe, and the trick is to follow the rabbit hole back the other way back up the fractal to discover what we really are. In all honesty, its infinity in either direction (either infinite expression/action towards Shakti or infinite potential/stillness towards Shiva), but with out a solid understanding, users may suffer from the psychic break of not knowing just which avatar-with-in-avatar they truly are. In India they have the ashram system, gurus, and yogis to help guide those who wake up from the illusion. Historically, most persons in the Western world who have seen beyond the veil and question reality are put in psych wards or put on medication.

A Pixel can turn on or off and change color, depending on whatever the program user decides. A pixel is emptiness, and experiences impermanent shifts in order to create a larger picture only visible from a distant perspective. Our lives are like the pixel that many narratives (both personal and global) play out upon. How would our perception change if we recognized our personality as a temporary construct, like the actor playing a roll (Karma)? Although our consciousness seems to be localized with in this pixel/body, we are not the character we play, or the limited personality we identify with. With in everything/everyone is the unlimited supreme consciousness of the silent observer watching the play unfold (Shiva). Just as the blank pixel can take on any color and wind up displaying a text document PDF, or a jpeg of a flower, we too can experience the play of romantic comedy, tragedy, or action movie (Shakti). I made an arty short film about consciousness and Buddhism in 2011 called “Pixel Sutra” where I explored this concept in a more poetic way.

This updated version of an ancient teaching is solely expressed to create a sense of detachment from the identification with our character’s desires and aversions, which create suffering and feelings of separation (dualistic thinking). If we create space so that we may journey with-in, beyond identification with the limited self, we can discover what has been there all along (non-duality). This is a totally personal experience. It is not a bit of information to add to the database of knowledge, it is wisdom that is only activated in a first hand exploration. I recommend a 10 day Vipassana retreat to begin with.

“When I see that I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see that I am everything, that is love, and between those two I move.” -Nisargattata Maharaj

FIVE:

The digital avatar manifestation is only possible because of the computer code language that allows the operating system to preform whatever functions the programmer desires and codes into his algorithm. So here the metaphor can be understood using many systems, but let’s stick to language, and work from there.

Complex computer code is a language that essentially manipulates 1s and Os for desired results, just like our complex highly functioning genetic code: DNA/RNA is a language made of nucleotide combinations, that are made up of simple toroidal life colloids. From these basic building blocks, life is eternally generated. Just as computers can have new codes run to create new results, we humans have the same opportunity. Language essentially is sounds strung together, given meaning, which can be used with intention to give instructions or transfer wisdom/data. Unlike English, there are ancient languages (like Aramaic, Sanskrit, Mayan for instance) where each letter had a meaning and sound assigned to it, so that when two letters were strung together, that sound/word was actually the marriage of two concepts. As words grew longer their sound was not arbitrary, but specific to express complex meaning. Each word was powerful because it combined meaning with vibration. We can understand this as a form of magic, like a spell. Long strings of letters could have various meanings depending on where one chose to break them into separate words. Stan Tenen wrote a mind-boggling book shedding light on the secrets (data encoding/encryption) contained with in Genesis 1:1 when the letter chain is broken into different words than most bible readers are used to (The Alphabet That Changed The World, North Atlantic Books, 2011). When you look at the Torah through this lens, you understand it’s actually a huge code on a scroll. The issue when translating from one language into another is that you may wind up with a general meaning, but the hidden code is lost. Bugs/glitches in the way information is intended to be understood lead to a system not operating at optimal speed and functionality. The Torah/Old Testament is probably one of the most misunderstood books in existence, based on bad translation alone.

The pronounced sounds of the letters/symbols create vibrations. There is a whole science of combining certain strings of syllables together to create certain benefits embedded with in the vibrations. This is the purpose of Mantra, or Japa meditation. In the Hindu/Vedic system, is the act of chanting a line of code, repeating it over and over 108 times, over the course of a whole life is a form of sadana (spiritual practice/discipline). This tool is used in order to bring quiet and stability to the operating system/mind field, or elevate the operating system/mind field based on the mantra’s repeated vibrations creating a specific result by attaching the user to the mantra’s vibrational field that exists on the etheric level. To resonate oneself at the frequency of that which one wishes to draw to him/herself can be a noble aim and bring about quick results. Another art path I walk down is channeling/downloading a calligraphic code language directly onto scrolls, or onto people’s bodies (www.bodyglyph.com). By entering into a state of no-mind, I tap into this transmission stream that is simultaneously music/math/poetry. I see it as if there is a filed of intelligent vibration “out there” that I just allow to flow through me.

The same principal of repeated vibrations changing mental states can also be practiced with un harmonious music lyrics and commercial jingles. The thoughts and words we repeat to ourselves, our command- line interface, affects the quality of what we experience in the external reflection.

Vibrations are not only the root of language, they are basically the root of everything, as all matter is vibrating on the atomic level and beyond according to quantum theory. In 2005 I wrote a manifesto and started my own art movement called Spherism (my updating on Picasso’s and Braque’s Cubism), which visualized this concept. Vibrating spheres formed imagery, everything from Fibonacci spirals to cereal boxes (www.spherism.tumblr.com). With technology being developed towards quantum computing, we are merging the technological world’s mechanics with our own, therefore taping into the programmable matrix/fabric of the holographic unity, where everywhere is the center point on an infinite geometric pattern.

We cracked the genetic code, and scientists in secret labs are hacking and reprograming DNA, like Monsanto has done with plants. What kind of Franken-future awaits our children? Without a strong moral compass there’s no telling. One look at mass media science fiction these days we see how dystopian and bleak a future is predicted. This is an unfortunate feed-back loop/self fulfilling prophecy situation. When you have a video camera hooked up to a TV output and shoot the blank screen of the same TV with the camera, an incredible vortex phenomena is created on the screen. One slight movement can change the pattern. As a collective intelligence matrix with free-will, the sooner we awaken to the power of the transmitting liberating messages at key confluences, the sooner we can remember that Earth is still Eden and guide our planet towards a harmonious shared experience for all.

SIX:

If the power goes out, or the battery dies, the computer eventually cannot function. The memory/data may be stored in “the cloud” on the SIM chip (or the Akashic Records), but we organic life, as well as computers, need a power source to be alive and interact. (un-organic life: stones etc, are just vibrating very slowly, so they are alive/in motion, and their inert life form is also due to vibrations/Shakti). The vibrating- energy taking-form is powered by Chiti: conscious energy (we get it through the breath/Prana). It is the electricity for the hardware to run the software. It’s distributed through our body via 72,000 channels called Nadis, (the three most important of which run from our anus to our crown, creating an energy loop which we can consciously expand if we know how to de-bug our system and remove all the cultural malwear and trauma built up over a life time). So the breath, pranayama, is our tool for a strong network, and the genius bar is found sitting under a tree. This optimization of the body to receive data from the central server is the real intention behind yoga asanas, it’s not just to make your back end more interface-able ;-p

Samsara is the endless cycle of human suffering which we are stuck in until we wake up to what the roots of suffering are. Shown as a spinning wheel in Buddhist iconography, we also find this symbol appears on our devices’ screens when network traffic is high, and downloading is taking a long time. So again, if you can understand technology, you can see how it’s a fractal that we have subconsciously created as a reflection of our own experience. It’s a map that can be read backwards to help liberate us from duality if one chooses to accept this user agreement that I have presented here. But this Organic Cyber Café program does not run on its own. Some may get the download immediately, and others will have to use a torrent to get the bits and assemble them over time. It’s an inner download powered by our own will to direct our consciousness to the inner memory we want to access.

When a user shifts his attention from the phenomena of external change (Maya), and taps into the being-ness of Universal Consciousness, a shedding transformation takes place. This is a hard-drive dump of the unreal. But it can be quite shocking for the individual, and can lead to a crisis if the society is not set up to guide the user out of the labyrinth of identity and identification. We are alive at such a potent time of eco- genocide and technology advancement, yet there is so much potential if people wake up, drop the ego, and learn to serve the collective and not just the individual. As I have tried to indicate, all external phenomena that takes place on your field is actually with-in you. It’s all Shakti dancing for your Shiva awareness. See what happens when you start loving it all, this great beautiful mystery we are with-in. All those doing violence toward others are in actuality doing violence to themselves. All those judging and not accepting others are actually judging and not accepting themselves. Once one moves beyond the limitations of the personality, there is a spacious sea of acceptance and love and compassion. You may come to see every being as an unaware pixel, not realizing that they are just a vessel of transformation, and part of a bigger picture. And you can see the pointlessness of trying to be something that you aren’t, or trying to hold onto something that you were. Best to learn the art of letting it flow, and let life play out naturally in the way the program is meant to run, while not loosing site of our life’s direct line command, which shows up as intuition and synchronicity.

To paraphrase Nisargadatta Maharaj (one of my favorite teachers): “You never want what’s true, you are so entangled in the illusion of false! You want what you don’t have, and don’t have what you want, and you suffer, and continue to suffer. Why not simply reverse it? Why not want what you have, and not want what you don’t have? It’s so simple, you could be happy! Freedom is here for the taking! You want little things… you could have the entire Universe! Eternity! Eternal life! …take that!”

Nisargadatta Maharaj’s advice a simple command line. Totally logical. Technology has the potential to usher in the new golden age if we are able to use it as a tool, as a mirror in which to find the reflection of our own nature and possibility. The world is getting connected like a big brain building neural synapses, and that is exciting. Change is natural. It is the Way. Certainly we have access to so much content, but there waits the inner network with-in all of us (which costs nothing to access but time and intention), and can take you to deeper states of bliss and peace and understanding and love more than any man made system can. That is where we all connect to the Universal mainframe and get fed. That is the organic cyber café.

Buen provecho!

-Oliver Halsman Rosenberg (Jñan Prakash) September/October 2015,

NYC