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meme
/mēm/ noun
an idea, information, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture; acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another
A fifth column can be any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, typically by clandestine means. It is usually a secretive, underground collection of people who are focused on forcing a military, political, or social change.
The phrase is generally credited to General Emillo Mola, who told a journalist in 1936 that during the siege of Madrid his four columns of troops were aided by a fifth column inside the city, and this fifth column would help undermine the city from within.
Much like a fifth column, the fifth meme is a clandestine data set of ideas, information and resultant behavior that disrupts or changes a culture from within. This can be covertly orchestrated by those residing within the culture, those who benefit from the change or disruption to the culture, or by unknown natural forces that seed and act upon the culture. This is the story of the latter.
HARK
The similarities of origin and cosmological narrative between ancient civilizations are many. These narratives are not only separated by tremendous geographical distances but by vast timescales as well. Just how are these details transmitted across such obvious and insurmountable chasms of space and time? Where does their true origin lie – above, below or somewhere else? 34
For instance, the World Turtle is a common theme across many ancient civilizations, including Hindu, Chinese, and Indigenous 35
peoples of the Americas. Do turtles talk? Is it just such a natural association between a turtle and cosmology that this is statistically what you would expect to find? It is difficult to see the logic of this pairing through modern lenses, but perhaps we are too far removed from the daily life of ancient times.
Other examples of common mythemes are plentiful. Floods, battles, dead gods, idle Gods, young Gods battling new Gods, apocalypses and a host of others. While these are all events – and perhaps the commonality between them is to be expected – I believe there is another level to this ancient internet of information.
Clearly these creation and cosmological narratives were a way for our species to make sense, in the context of life and culture at that time, of what was being witnessed in the surrounding world. But is this all they represent – a set of common and early archetypes of a civilization struggling to 36
understand the harsh and relentless unfolding of ancient reality?
I think not. I think there is more. I think there is an underlying informational structure to existence – a fifth meme – that is responsible for the transmission of these units of information between the geography of cultures and across the spans of time. I believe that is why we see so many similarities across the diversity of ancient civilization – and how so much of them got it right.
….
There is a reason why the Vedas are regarded as one of the most important spiritual and existential doctrines of our species – it still speaks to people, even after all these centuries. It is still relevant. If something that old speaks, I think we should do more than breakdown and analyze – we should listen.
For instance, when I first learned about Adam’s Calendar and the ruins at Mpumalanga, my immediate thought was Yuga. Yugas are the cycles or epochs in Hinduism outlined in the Vedas. There are four Yugas – Satya, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali – each with their own characteristics and time scale. It is stated these Yugas have repeated throughout time, and we are currently in Kali Yuga, the final of the cycle.
Of course, modern scholars continue to try to tie these Yugas to Gregorian time – to our 47
modern calendar – and by doing so have put the entire wisdom of the Vedas in the realm of pseudo and myth. Why? Because it’s like trying know what ancient Egyptian beer tasted like by looking at a stela of someone drinking it – it just doesn’t work that way.
The attempts to correlate the essence of the Vedic Yuga to our modern calendar has resulted in fantastical periods of time – so much so that in general people must instinctively discount them. They are set up to fail – encroaching on fossil record and all else held dear in modern geologic thought. Unfortunately the outlandish time scales are what holds people’s attention, which means they gloss over other correlations that not only make much more sense, but might just validate the entire body of ancient Hindu cosmology.
The correlation I reference places the duration of a Yuga at approximately 24,000 years. If we look up – at the only true and stable way to measure the progression of 48
time across such huge scales – we have something so close it probably isn’t coincidental. By looking up I mean look at the stars and their movement. Here we find the procession of the equinox, which lasts 25,772 years. This would tell us the Yuga could have a basis in known, observable terrestrial cycles, and therefore isn’t but in observation and understanding.
How much more in the Vedas is like this – spiritual doctrine but not just spiritual doctrine? How much more innate and insightful knowledge – downloads from the ancient internet – are contained within?
Another correlation to modern calendar places the start of the Kali Yuga at 3102 BC. The 13th Bakun of the Mayan long count calendar started on 3114 BC. There must have been an ancient memo we missed – or haven’t dug up yet – around this date. 49
In fact, I believe there actually was an ancient memo. But instead of a memo it was a meme – a unit of information – that was available to everyone through a fifth column of natural intelligence. Of information that is baked into the fabric of existence itself.
Before this concept is dismissed out of hand, I would ask you to remove a lens or two. After all, this is a concept that close to 90% of the entire earth’s population believe in. They just call it something different – they call it God.
I am not saying this informational reality is God – I am saying that is how it’s been personified since there has been language to speak about it.
The Vedas have a distinct word for this, aside from any personification – they call it
Akasha – the activity behind the activity.
Explore with me a while, and let’s see what we see. 50
Dreams are real as long as they last. Can we say more of life?
ANONYMOUS, THE UPANISHADS
…
Although Akasha is often associated with the concept of an aether – a classical element described in ancient and medieval science as filling the void of space – Hindu philosophy gives Akasha an attribute of animation and vitality. In other words, Akasha plays an active, intelligent role in the unfolding of existence.
These attributes assigned to Akasha are unique to the Vedas. Most other mythological narratives view the sky and 53
heavens as the abode of higher beings – the pantheon of Gods – and not the creative substance itself. In my mind, this further raises the innate value and wisdom of the Vedas, and you will discover why in the next section.
As described in the Vedas, Akasha is but one aspect of the panchamahabhuta, or five elements that make up all existence. Hindu philosophy associates these elements with the five human senses:
bhūmi (earth) is created by using all other elements and can be perceived by all five senses – hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell
jala (water) is odorless and can only be perceived by hearing, touch, sight, and taste
agni (fire) which can be heard, felt, and seen
marut (air or wind) which can be only
heard and felt
54
akasha (ethereal fluid) which only has one determining attribute – sound. Akasha can only be heard.
If you recall, there are two types of ancient Hindu texts – smṛti, or that which is remembered, and śruti, or that which is heard. The Vedas are śruti – heard. The connection is obvious – the Vedas were heard from Akasha – the informational aether that is everywhere. The sound of existence.
Image: Sound Waves by Maya Shamji
meme
/mēm/ noun
an idea, information, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture; acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another
A fifth column can be any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, typically by clandestine means. It is usually a secretive, underground collection of people who are focused on forcing a military, political, or social change.
The phrase is generally credited to General Emillo Mola, who told a journalist in 1936 that during the siege of Madrid his four columns of troops were aided by a fifth column inside the city, and this fifth column would help undermine the city from within.
Much like a fifth column, the fifth meme is a clandestine data set of ideas, information and resultant behavior that disrupts or changes a culture from within. This can be covertly orchestrated by those residing within the culture, those who benefit from the change or disruption to the culture, or by unknown natural forces that seed and act upon the culture. This is the story of the latter.
HARK
The similarities of origin and cosmological narrative between ancient civilizations are many. These narratives are not only separated by tremendous geographical distances but by vast timescales as well. Just how are these details transmitted across such obvious and insurmountable chasms of space and time? Where does their true origin lie – above, below or somewhere else? 34
For instance, the World Turtle is a common theme across many ancient civilizations, including Hindu, Chinese, and Indigenous 35
peoples of the Americas. Do turtles talk? Is it just such a natural association between a turtle and cosmology that this is statistically what you would expect to find? It is difficult to see the logic of this pairing through modern lenses, but perhaps we are too far removed from the daily life of ancient times.
Other examples of common mythemes are plentiful. Floods, battles, dead gods, idle Gods, young Gods battling new Gods, apocalypses and a host of others. While these are all events – and perhaps the commonality between them is to be expected – I believe there is another level to this ancient internet of information.
Clearly these creation and cosmological narratives were a way for our species to make sense, in the context of life and culture at that time, of what was being witnessed in the surrounding world. But is this all they represent – a set of common and early archetypes of a civilization struggling to 36
understand the harsh and relentless unfolding of ancient reality?
I think not. I think there is more. I think there is an underlying informational structure to existence – a fifth meme – that is responsible for the transmission of these units of information between the geography of cultures and across the spans of time. I believe that is why we see so many similarities across the diversity of ancient civilization – and how so much of them got it right.
….
There is a reason why the Vedas are regarded as one of the most important spiritual and existential doctrines of our species – it still speaks to people, even after all these centuries. It is still relevant. If something that old speaks, I think we should do more than breakdown and analyze – we should listen.
For instance, when I first learned about Adam’s Calendar and the ruins at Mpumalanga, my immediate thought was Yuga. Yugas are the cycles or epochs in Hinduism outlined in the Vedas. There are four Yugas – Satya, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali – each with their own characteristics and time scale. It is stated these Yugas have repeated throughout time, and we are currently in Kali Yuga, the final of the cycle.
Of course, modern scholars continue to try to tie these Yugas to Gregorian time – to our 47
modern calendar – and by doing so have put the entire wisdom of the Vedas in the realm of pseudo and myth. Why? Because it’s like trying know what ancient Egyptian beer tasted like by looking at a stela of someone drinking it – it just doesn’t work that way.
The attempts to correlate the essence of the Vedic Yuga to our modern calendar has resulted in fantastical periods of time – so much so that in general people must instinctively discount them. They are set up to fail – encroaching on fossil record and all else held dear in modern geologic thought. Unfortunately the outlandish time scales are what holds people’s attention, which means they gloss over other correlations that not only make much more sense, but might just validate the entire body of ancient Hindu cosmology.
The correlation I reference places the duration of a Yuga at approximately 24,000 years. If we look up – at the only true and stable way to measure the progression of 48
time across such huge scales – we have something so close it probably isn’t coincidental. By looking up I mean look at the stars and their movement. Here we find the procession of the equinox, which lasts 25,772 years. This would tell us the Yuga could have a basis in known, observable terrestrial cycles, and therefore isn’t but in observation and understanding.
How much more in the Vedas is like this – spiritual doctrine but not just spiritual doctrine? How much more innate and insightful knowledge – downloads from the ancient internet – are contained within?
Another correlation to modern calendar places the start of the Kali Yuga at 3102 BC. The 13th Bakun of the Mayan long count calendar started on 3114 BC. There must have been an ancient memo we missed – or haven’t dug up yet – around this date. 49
In fact, I believe there actually was an ancient memo. But instead of a memo it was a meme – a unit of information – that was available to everyone through a fifth column of natural intelligence. Of information that is baked into the fabric of existence itself.
Before this concept is dismissed out of hand, I would ask you to remove a lens or two. After all, this is a concept that close to 90% of the entire earth’s population believe in. They just call it something different – they call it God.
I am not saying this informational reality is God – I am saying that is how it’s been personified since there has been language to speak about it.
The Vedas have a distinct word for this, aside from any personification – they call it
Akasha – the activity behind the activity.
Explore with me a while, and let’s see what we see. 50
Dreams are real as long as they last. Can we say more of life?
ANONYMOUS, THE UPANISHADS
…
Although Akasha is often associated with the concept of an aether – a classical element described in ancient and medieval science as filling the void of space – Hindu philosophy gives Akasha an attribute of animation and vitality. In other words, Akasha plays an active, intelligent role in the unfolding of existence.
These attributes assigned to Akasha are unique to the Vedas. Most other mythological narratives view the sky and 53
heavens as the abode of higher beings – the pantheon of Gods – and not the creative substance itself. In my mind, this further raises the innate value and wisdom of the Vedas, and you will discover why in the next section.
As described in the Vedas, Akasha is but one aspect of the panchamahabhuta, or five elements that make up all existence. Hindu philosophy associates these elements with the five human senses:
bhūmi (earth) is created by using all other elements and can be perceived by all five senses – hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell
jala (water) is odorless and can only be perceived by hearing, touch, sight, and taste
agni (fire) which can be heard, felt, and seen
marut (air or wind) which can be only
heard and felt
54
akasha (ethereal fluid) which only has one determining attribute – sound. Akasha can only be heard.
If you recall, there are two types of ancient Hindu texts – smṛti, or that which is remembered, and śruti, or that which is heard. The Vedas are śruti – heard. The connection is obvious – the Vedas were heard from Akasha – the informational aether that is everywhere. The sound of existence.
Image: Sound Waves by Maya Shamji