Astronomy news sources, these days, state in a matter-of-fact manner that the centers of galaxies harbor supermassive black holes, which emit vast quantities of electromagnetic energy and high-speed plasma jets that power the entire galaxy. This is the reason why, supermassive black holes are regarded as the “central engines” of galaxies.
However, when we delve a bit deeper into the observational data, we find that there is little evidence that the high energy physics that is associated with the cores of galaxies have any relation to the “black holes” that came out of Einstein’s equations.
When I was writing Yuga Shift, I had used the term “black hole” to refer to the cosmic entity that generates the powerful energetic emissions from the Galactic Center. However, that does not mean that I was convinced that the galactic core is, indeed, a black hole. In fact, when we look back at how the idea of black holes originated from Einstein’s equations, and how they were expected to behave, it becomes obvious that galactic cores simply do not behave in the manner that is expected of a black hole. Something else is going on, and scientists seem to have no clue as to what it is.
What are Black Holes?
American physicist Michio Kaku, in his lucidly written book, Parallel Worlds,[1] had provided an illuminating look into the origins of the world of black holes.
It all began in the year 1916, when Karl Schwarzschild, a German physicist serving in the German army on the Russian front, found a weird solution to Einstein’s equations for a large star. He calculated that, if an object the size of our Sun were to be compressed down to 2 miles, it would turn into a “dark star” and its gravity would be so powerful that not even light could escape from it. If any object crossed the “Schwarzschild radius” or “event horizon” of this dark star (which is the radius of the dark star i.e. 2 miles in this example) it would get sucked into the star, never to be seen again.
Interestingly, Einstein never liked the idea of a dark star or a “singularity” where gravity becomes infinite and the laws of physics cease to operate. In a paper authored in 1939, he posited that dark stars cannot be formed by natural processes. “The essential result of this investigation is a clear understanding of why the “Schwarzschild singularities” do not exist in physical reality,” he wrote.
Unfortunately, Einstein’s opinion did not prevail in this matter. Robert Oppenheimer – the father of the atomic bomb - and his student proposed an idea that caught the fancy of other physicists. They said that an old massive star that has used up its nuclear fuel could implode under the force of its gravity and get compressed within its Schwarzschild radius. “Black holes, they suggested, were not only possible, they might be the natural end point for billions of dying giant stars in the galaxy.”
All of a sudden black holes became ubiquitous celestial objects, with countless numbers of them lurking unseen in every cosmic neighborhood like giant, open, manholes, waiting patiently to suck in an unsuspecting cosmic voyager into its dark underbelly, never to return again to the world of light.
In 1963, New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr added another weird attribute to this enigmatic object. He proposed that, as a star collapses under gravity it will spin faster, in order to conserve its angular momentum. A spinning star will collapse into a “ring of neutrons” which would remain stable due to the centrifugal force pushing outward. Thus, if you fell into the Kerr black hole you will not be crushed. Instead you will be transported through a “wormhole” to a parallel universe.
“Pass through this magic ring and – presto! – you’re in a completely different universe where radius and mass are negative!” Kerr exclaimed to a colleague.
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| Figure 1: A wormhole leading from a black hole to another universe. Source: Adobe Stock |
Thus, black holes came to be visualized as a dark star with enormous gravitational pull, which was formed when a dying star imploded under its own gravity and got compressed within its Schwarzschild radius. Its gravitational force is so powerful that it sucks in any matter passing near its event horizon, either crushing and transforming it, or transporting it via a wormhole to a radically different universe.
In spite of all the mathematical wizardry that went into its formulation, till around the 1990s most astronomers regarded black holes as science fiction. But things began to change with the discovery of Sgr A*, the powerful radio source at the heart of the Milky Way.
A Supermassive Black Hole at the Galactic Center?
For a long time, astronomers had been observing a powerful radio source at the center of the Milky Way, which they termed as Sgr A*, since the radio source was located in the direction of the Sagittarius constellation. They began to think that the only cosmic object that could generate such powerful radiation in the radio frequency (RF) is a black hole. It was proposed that Sgr A* could be a supermassive black hole, nearly 4.3 million times the mass of the sun, squeezed into a tiny space only ten times bigger than the sun.
Astronomers further speculated that when the nuclear bulge was forming, a small fraction of the mass lacking orbital momentum collapsed in the middle to form the supermassive black hole. The radio waves from Sgr A* are not coming from the black hole itself, they said, but from the “accretion disk” that surrounds the black hole. The accretion disk was believed to consist of rings of superheated hot gas, dust and stars that surround a black hole and spiral towards the event horizon, being pulled by the powerful gravity of the black hole.
Subsequent observations of many other galaxies, including our own, revealed that galactic cores are not only emitting intense electromagnetic radiation at all frequencies – from radio waves to gamma rays – but they are also ejecting relativistic plasma jets from their north and south poles.
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| Figure 2: A Schematic of a black hole. Source: Adobe Stock. |
As time went on, and more observational data came in, however, it was noticed that Sgr A* was not behaving as expected of a black hole. But, since no-one seemed to know that Sgr A* could otherwise represent, astronomers stuck to the same story. And as it happens so often in science, a faulty hypothesis turns into a theory simply by virtue of repetition, and all the anomalies are quietly filed away.
So what are anomalous behaviors of Sgr A* that undermine the supposition that it is a black hole? Firstly, astronomers always said that the region near the center of the galaxy, close to Sgr A*, would be too volatile for active star formation, due to the tremendous gravitational pull of Sgr A*. But when they got a good hard look into the region of the Galactic Center with Hubble's NICMOS infrared camera, they found that,
“The Galactic Center is a hotbed of star formation activity, containing the most massive star formation site and three of the most massive young star clusters in the galaxy.”[2]
This is the exact opposite of what had being posited by scientists! The region of the Galactic Center is a prolific site of star formation – not at all what you would expect if a monstrous black hole was lurking nearby and trying to rip apart the clouds of gas and dust. But this did not persuade our astronomers to look for alternate explanations. It was just an oddity which needed to be handled later, perhaps when the stars were perfectly aligned.
It’s quite stunning how big and dense the star clusters in the Galactic Center are. A Hubble Telescope image of a pair of star clusters called Arches and Quintuplet, located less than 100 light-years from the center of our galaxy, shows that the clusters are 10 times larger than typical young star clusters scattered throughout the Milky Way galaxy.
The Arches clusters is so dense, that over 100,000 stars will fit into the space between our sun and its nearest neighbor, the star Alpha Centauri, 4.3 light-years away. Only 1 out of every 10 million stars in the galaxy is as luminous as the Arches cluster stars. At least a dozen of the stars weigh about 100 times the mass of our sun.[3]
In other words, the stars near the Galactic Center are much bigger, far more luminous, and a lot more densely packed than those found in the spiral arms.
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| Figure 3: Hubble Telescope image of a pair dense star clusters, less than 100 light-years from the center of our galaxy. Credit: NASA and STSI, Public Domain Image. |
The other claim that astronomers had made about Sgr A* is that, it must be gobbling up passing stars and molecular clouds on a routine basis, and whenever it does so, it emits powerful X-ray flares. But, in spite of careful observations over long periods of time, Sgr A* has never been seen to suck in nearby matter. One example stands out from the rest, thanks to all the hullaballoo that was created in the years leading up to the grand non-event.
In 2011, astronomers discovered a cloud of gas termed G2, heading towards Sgr A*. It was predicted to pass within about 36 light-hours of the black hole in 2014 and be tidally disrupted, causing much of its material to accrete onto Sgr A*, thereby causing a bright X-ray outburst. Guess what happened? Nothing! To the utter shock of astronomers - who were eagerly observing Sgr A* like a bunch of kids gathered around an aquarium during shark feeding time - G2 floated past Sgr A* unscathed, and continued merrily along its orbit. Needless to say, the much-anticipated fireworks of X-ray emission from the black hole did not happen either.[4]
But did this setback inspire our astronomers to revisit the hypothesis that Sgr A* is a black hole? Of course not! Why topple a perfectly good story for want of corroborating data, and get into everyone’s bad books? It's so much easier to simply file away all the inconsistencies as anomalies and keep the story going for as long as possible.
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| Figure 4: Simulation of the gas cloud G2 passing close to Sgr A* in 2013. Credit: ESO/S. Gillessen/MPE/Marc Schartmann, Public Domain |
In 2008, astronomer Andrew Fabian of Cambridge University in the UK, looked at the Hubble Telescope images, and found that, “Long-lived magnetic fields are sustaining a mammoth network of spaghetti-like gas filaments around a black hole…at the heart of a large galaxy known as NGC 1275.”[5]
In 2015, the Event Horizon Telescope detected magnetic fields just outside the event horizon of Sgr A* at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. A report by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics published in ScienceDaily states,
“Most people think of black holes as giant vacuum cleaners sucking in everything that gets too close. But the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies are more like cosmic engines, converting energy from infalling matter into intense radiation that can outshine the combined light from all surrounding stars…
For the first time, astronomers have detected magnetic fields just outside the event horizon of the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy...In the case of Sgr A*, polarized light is emitted by electrons spiraling around magnetic field lines. As a result, this light directly traces the structure of the magnetic field…The team found that magnetic fields in some regions near the black hole are disorderly, with jumbled loops and whorls resembling intertwined spaghetti. In contrast, other regions showed a much more organized pattern.”[6]
In March, 2024, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration unveiled a new image of Sgr A* in polarized light, which revealed strong, twisted, and organized magnetic fields near the edge of Sgr A* in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, very similar to that seen around the M87* black hole.[7]
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| Figure 5: An image of Sgr A*, the central black hole of the Milky Way, in polarized light, showing the organized magnetic fields around it. Image Credit: EHT Collaboration, Public Domain. |
So, instead of an accretion disk, Sgr A* is encircled by strong, twisted, organized, magnetic fields, which, quite possibly, support filaments of gas. Therefore, the EM radiation and plasma jets cannot be coming from an accretion disk surrounding a black hole. They must be emitted by Sgr A* itself!
It should be evident from these observations that Sgr A* bears no similarity to the black hole that came out of Einstein’s equations. Not only does it not gobble up nearby matter by means of its gravitational force, or disrupt star formation in regions close to it, it does not even have an accretion disk. Moreover, Sgr A* emits enormous amounts of EM radiation and plasma jets, while a black hole was visualized as a dark star from which nothing ever came out, not even light.
Which brings us to an important question: If Sgr A*, the galactic core, is not a black hole, then what could it be?
If we go by the observational data, then Sgr A* appears to be functioning as the “central engine” of our galaxy. It could be drawing in matter from the rest of the galaxy (or even from outside it) through filaments of gas, which are supported by powerful magnetic fields, and transforming this matter into EM radiation and plasma jets to support galactic functions. Which means, Sgr A* must be imbued with a “cosmic intelligence” that allows it to know what needs to be done in order to support, organize, and regulate our galaxy.
It would not be amiss to argue that Sgr A*, the galactic core, is the central, creative and organizing consciousness of our galaxy. It is this galactic soul or galactic consciousness that orchestrated the evolution of our galaxy over eons and continues to regulate its vital functions. All the high-energy physics that we see around it are the manifestations of this consciousness. We are observing consciousness in action, but we are unable to recognize it as such, since we don’t have the mathematical tools to describe consciousness, nor do we have a well-established cosmic reference point to compare it against.
Interestingly, many ancient cultures knew about the central organizing consciousness of our galaxy, and referred to it in their texts and traditions as the Supreme Creator or Great Spirit. Their descriptions of this ultimate creative entity resonates with what has been discovered about Sgr A* till now.
Let me begin with the Vedic descriptions of the unformed, creative spirit known as Brahma, and then I will move on to other religious and spiritual traditions, which have a similar philosophical outlook.
Sgr A* - The Galactic Consciousness
The Vedic sages believed that our world was brought forth by the supreme creative principle Brahma, who exists in an unformed, unknowable, state at the “navel of Vishnu” i.e. Vishnunabhi; whereas, Vishnu, the god of preservation, was said to recline in the “middle of the cosmic milky ocean” on his serpent couch.
In Yuga Shift and prior articles, I had contended that the enormous central bar of our galaxy, which stretches across the middle of our galaxy for nearly 27,000 light-years, is what the Vedic sages knew as Vishnu, while the “navel of Vishnu” or Vishnunabhi is the Galactic Center, since the navel is the center point of the human anatomy. Sri Yukteswar had stated that our sun revolves around Vishnunabhi, and we now know that our Sun revolves around the Galactic Center once in 225-250 million years.
The only cosmic entity in the vicinity of the Galactic Center which is deserving of the epithet Brahma, the creator, is Sgr A*, which astronomers believe is a supermassive black hole.
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| Figure 6: The Milky Way galaxy has a long central bar, which the Vedic sages knew as Vishnu; the region of the Galactic Center was the “navel of Vishnu” or Vishnunabhi; while Sgr A*, the central black hole, was Brahma, the creative spirit. Adapted from image by NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, Public Domain. |
As per the Vedic texts, Brahma is the unformed spirit who brings forth the world of forms. He is the eternal, omniscient consciousness, who multiplies himself and lives in the heart of all living beings as their immortal soul. What this implies is that, Sgr A*, the galactic soul or galactic consciousness, produces small “packets of consciousness” that we call the soul or self, which animates all life.
In other words, all souls emanate from Sgr A* and return there after the completion of their reincarnation cycles. The Vedic texts also tell us of a very long cycle of time called the “Day of Brahma” (spanning 12.9 million years), following which there is a cosmic reset c. This is when Brahma withdraws all souls back inside himself, and the entire galaxy becomes lifeless for another 12.9 million years which comprise the “Night of Brahma”. A complete Day and Night of Brahma, therefore, lasts for 25.8 million years, which corresponds very closely to the 26-million-year cycle of mass extinctions on earth.
Consider the following hymns from the collection of Vedic texts called the Upanishads, which elucidate these ideas.
“In the beginning was only Being (Brahma),
One without a second.
Out of himself he brought forth the cosmos
and entered into everything in it.
There is nothing that does not come from Him.
Of everything, He is the inmost Self.”[8] (CU 6.2.2)
“The ruler Supreme (Brahma), inner Self of all,
Multiplies his oneness into many.”[9] (KU 2.2.12)
“He (Brahma) is the inner ruler in all beings.
He projects the cosmos from himself, maintains and withdraws it back into himself at the end of time.”[10] (SU 3.2)
This is the basic understanding of the Vedic philosophical tradition: “The Atman (i.e. individual soul) is Brahma (i.e. Universal Soul)”. Our soul is of the same essence as the Creator, and therefore, our bodies are the sacred Temple of God. In order to find joy and fulfillment, we need not search around aimlessly in the world, but tap into our inner divine essence i.e. our self or soul, which is the repository of love, bliss, joy, contentment, truth and wisdom. Those who are able to do this, break free from the reincarnation cycle.
“Wherever the mind wanders, restless and diffuse in its search for satisfaction without, lead it within; train it to rest in the Self. Abiding joy comes to those who still the mind.” (BG 6.26-27)
“He (Self) is formless, and can never be seen with these two eyes. But he reveals himself in the heart made pure through meditation and sense-restraint. Realizing him one is released from the cycle of birth and death.” (KU 2.3.9)
The Vedic texts also tell us that, when a person exits the reincarnation cycle on attaining self-realization, he returns to the Brahmaloka or Brahma-world, where he dwells immortal years in bliss and love, free of grief or suffering. If Sgr A* is Brahma, the galactic consciousness, then the Brahma-world or Brahmaloka must be the effulgent central bulge of our galaxy, i.e. the galactic nucleus, which contains Sgr A* in its center.
In others words, the Milky Way’s nucleus is the heavenly domain of the primordial Creator, the “paradise in the center of the world” that so many ancient traditions speak of, where the sages and virtuous souls dwell in eternal bliss. This was the exalted afterlife destination sought by the saints of the past. Thanks to our ever evolving awareness of the universe, it is now becoming possible to bring these esoteric concepts out of the metaphysical realm and relate them to a tangible, physical reality.
As to what Sgr A*, the galactic consciousness, may be composed of is, of course, hard to guess. The Bhagavad Gita, the spiritual poem of India, provides some clues to the nature of the soul or self, which is of the same essence as Brahma, the galactic consciousness. The poem states,
The Self cannot be pierced by weapons or burned by fire; water cannot wet it, nor can the wind dry it. The Self cannot be pierced or burned, made wet or dry. It is everlasting and infinite, standing on the motionless foundations of eternity. The Self is unmanifested, beyond all thought, beyond all change.” (BG 2.23-25)[11]
What we can gather from these descriptions is that, the soul or self is likely to be made up of an invisible, exotic form of energy, which does not react with other types of energies or matter, and therefore, it cannot be dissipated or transformed, although it is capable of making copies of itself. This energy is aware, intelligent, and capable of storing massive amounts of information, and completely unlike any other form of energy.
The Judaic philosophy has similar thoughts about the cosmos and the nature of souls. In the book, Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, Howard Schwartz writes that all souls in Paradise are stored in a “Treasury of Souls” or Guf, until it is time for them to be born into this world. Regarding the “Treasury of Souls”, which is also called the “Chamber of Creation”, Howard says that it is located,
“In the highest heaven, known as Aravot...The Guf is found near the Throne of Glory, and a dazzling brilliant light emanates from the many souls in repose there. Those souls are in their pristine state, untainted by existence in this world. Some of them flicker like a small candle and some shine like a torch, and there are some whose radiance rivals the sun…
When the time comes for it to descend into this world, an angel is issued along with it, who accompanies it...As soon as the soul leaves the Guf, it divests itself of its heavenly garment, and is clothed in a garment of flesh and blood.”[12]
Judaic philosophy further states that once a soul has been born in this world, and is tainted by its sins, it is extremely difficult for it to go back to Paradise, the original place where it was born. “Those who stray from there, exiled into the fallen world, eventually find themselves naked and in need of repair by the field master...For even the greatest soul has difficulty reentering the field once it has departed.”[13]
I would argue that the “Treasury of Souls” or “Chamber of Creation” in Judaism refers to the central bulge or galactic nucleus, also called Paradise or the highest heaven, Avarot. Since the “Treasury of Souls” is said to be located near the “Throne of Glory”, i.e. the seat of God in Paradise, my interpretation is that Sgr A*, the galactic soul or galactic consciousness, is the “Throne of Glory” in Judaism.
The “Treasury of Souls” or the galactic nucleus is also the original Garden of Eden, where the soul of man was fashioned, and where he lived in eternal bliss until he was exiled from Paradise and sent to the fallen world outside; and it is only after he has regained his original purity and attained self-realization, can he return back to the galactic nucleus.
The Judaic doctrine makes an interesting statement about the newly born souls that are kept in the “Treasury of Souls”. It states that a brilliant light emanates from the many souls in repose there. Some of them flicker like a small candle and some shine like a torch, and there are some whose radiance rivals the sun.
Let’s recall here that, most ancient societies believed that the souls of their ancestors appeared as “stars” in the sky. Therefore, going by this Judaic doctrine, the central bulge should contain faint, young, stars in addition to massive, brilliant ones. Isn’t that exactly what scientists have found in recent years – that, in close proximity to Sgr A*, intense star formation activity is going on, and massive young star clusters are present there, containing stars that are bigger and brighter than our sun?
It’s amazing how things begin to fall in place and make sense, and esoteric doctrines reveal their secrets, once you find a clue to the whole mystery. A lot of observational data about our galaxy and the universe has been amassed over the past few decades by astronomers, and when we try co-relate them to the information in the ancient esoteric and cosmological doctrines, we can arrive at surprising realizations.
Christian mysticism - such as Franciscan mysticism – speaks of the “Eternal, Cosmic Christ” or the “Christ Consciousness”, which activates the heart center and inspires men and women towards oneness with all of creation. But who or what is the “Eternal, Cosmic Christ”, many have wondered?
Before attempting to answer that question, let’s remember that “Christ” was not Jesus’s last name. It was a title given to Jesus. The term Christ derives from the Greek word Christos, which means “Anointed One” or “Messiah”. The term Christos precedes Jesus and the Christian religion by millennia, and was typically given to someone who was perceived to be a human incarnation of the “Eternal, Cosmic Christ” i.e. someone who has willingly descended on the mortal plane to guide the suffering humanity to salvation.
I believe that it is Sgr A*, the galactic soul or the galactic consciousness, whom the Vedic sages revered as Brahma and the Hebrews called the “Throne of Glory”, that is the “Eternal, Cosmic Christ” or the “Christ Consciousness”. It is from this Source, the Cosmic Womb, the Origin of all life, that all souls are born into this world; they return back to this Source after attaining liberation. The liberated beings who dwell in the galactic bulge – such as Jesus or Buddha - can willingly reincarnate on earth from time to time as the teachers and guides of humanity.
Jesus often referred to this galactic soul as his “Father” in heaven, since all souls emanate from it. When he told his disciples that, “If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I,”[14] he was, in all likelihood, talking about returning to the galactic nucleus, which was the Paradise in the center of the world and the original Garden of Eden.
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| Figure 7: The brilliant central bulge or galactic nucleus of the Milky Way galaxy. This was the afterlife destination of saints, the paradise at the center of the world, and the original Garden of Eden. Source: Adobe Stock |
It is well-known that the Greeks had an enviably large pantheon of gods. But there was also a prevailing belief that all life derives from a single, omniscient, Source, which is fixed in space and regulates all affairs by the power of its mind.
The earliest account of such a Supreme Being comes to us from a travelling poet and sage of ancient Greece called Xenophanes of Colophon, who lived in the 6th century BCE. There are 45 surviving fragments of his poetry, which offer glimpses into the fundamental tenets of his philosophy. Some of the extant fragments provide a description of the Supreme God:
“One god is greatest among gods and men,
Not at all like mortals in body or in thought. (frag. 23)
…whole he sees, whole he thinks, and whole he hears. (frag. 24)
…but completely without toil he shakes all things by the thought of his mind. (frag. 25)
…always he abides in the same place, not moving at all,
nor is it seemly for him to travel to different places at different times. (frag. 26)”[15]
The Supreme Being described by Xenophanes is “not at all like mortals in body” i.e. not made up of matter, “always abides in the same place”, and “shakes all things by the thought of his mind.” These attributes have obvious correlations with Sgr A*, the galactic consciousness, for Sgr A* is not made up of matter, remains fixed in the center of the galaxy, and it regulates all galactic functions by means of its powerful energetic emissions.
In Cicero’s Prior Academics, there is a passage claiming that, the eternal, unchanging One God is spherical in shape. This strengthens the association of the One God with Sgr A*, which is a spherical cosmic entity:
“(Xenophanes said that) all things are one, that this is unchanging, and is god, that this never came into being and is eternal, and has a spherical shape.” (2.18)[16]
In many Native American tribes, the supreme creative spirit was known as the Great Spirit or Great Mystery, which, I believe, also refers to Sgr A*, the galactic consciousness. The Great Spirit was known by different names by different tribes – such as Wakan Tanka in the Lakota tradition or Gitche Manitou in the Algonquian tradition - but in all cases the overarching beliefs were the same; that the Great Spirit was the Supreme Being, who infused everything with a life force or soul. He is the Creator who lives in all of us.
Chief Luther Standing Bear (1868–1939) of the Lakota Nation explained it eloquently:
“From Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things – the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals – and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred, and were brought together by the same Great Mystery.”[17]
In some cultures, the name of the Creator revealed his location in space. For instance, in the Popul Vuh, which recounts the mythology and history of the K’iche Maya people of Guatemala, the Creative Spirit is called Huracan, The Heart of Heaven. It is Huracan who dreams the world into existence in the darkness of the night, and breathes life into all creatures. The term “Heart of Heaven” is not incompatible with Sgr A*, the galactic soul and the Source and Origin of all life, which lies in the heart of the Milky Way.
Another example is the foundational figure of Shinto creation myths, called Ame-no-Minaka-Nushi-no-Mikoto, whose name translates as, “Deity of the August Center of Heaven”. The Kojiki portrays him as the first deity to appear during the creation of the world. He was the divine source from which the later kami (gods) originated. Incidentally, Ame-no-Minaka-Nushi-no-Mikoto hid his form upon coming into existence. This is consistent with our understanding of Sgr A*, which is not only hidden from our view (only its outline is visible using sophisticated telescopes) but is also located at the cosmic center.
Evidently, many ancient conceptions regarding the Supreme Being have a strong correlation to what we know about Sgr A*, the galactic core. The connections are striking and persuasive. It isn’t far-reaching to propose that we live in a conscious, living, galaxy that is constantly creating, growing and transforming.
This is not a new idea by any means. The sages and philosophers of antiquity believed that the heavenly bodies such as the sun, moon and the planets were imbued with souls and intelligences. The currently used scientific term for this belief system is panpsychism, which posits that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of our reality.
The Conscious Sun
A well-known proponent of panpsychism is British author and biologist, Rupert Sheldrake, who believes that the Sun’s complex electromagnetic rhythms might be indicative of a form of awareness.
In a paper titled, “Is the Sun Conscious?” Sheldrake argued that, “nervous systems in general, and brains in particular, function electromagnetically.” Within the brain, rhythmic patterns of electrical activity emerge from the activities of countless neurons - such as alpha waves, theta waves, and gamma waves - which can be measured through electrodes placed on the skull, as in electroencephalographs (EEG). These electrical waves set up oscillating magnetic fields.
Sheldrake referred to various studies in the “field theory of consciousness”, all of which agree that consciousness is related to the electromagnetic activity of brains. Some researchers have gone further and proposed that the brains’ electromagnetic fields actually are conscious. According to John Joe McFadden, “the brain’s EM field is in fact the physical substrate of consciousness, and conscious volition results from the influence of the brain’s EM field on neurons that initiate motor actions.”
Now, the sun is an extraordinarily complex electromagnetic system, whose effects permeate the solar system. The movements of electrified plasma on the solar surface creates a magnetic field, which extends throughout the body of the sun to the limits of the solar system. The changing magnetic fields within and beyond the sun give rise to electrical currents in the plasma.
During times of solar maxima, there are many sunspots on the solar surface from where extraordinarily strong magnetic fields emerge from the sun’s interior, loop around above the photosphere, and re-enter the sun through spots of opposite magnetic polarity. Sometimes these extraordinarily powerful loops of magnetic energy break and re-join, emitting enormous amounts of energy in the form of solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
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| Figure 8: A Coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted on the Sun on 31 August 2012 and caused auroras to appear on earth. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Public Domain Image. |
Sheldrake argued that, if the electromagnetic activity of the brain is indicative of a conscious mind, “then the electromagnetic activity of the sun may well be the principal interface between the physical activity of the sun and the solar mind… The mind of the sun, though centered in the sun itself, may integrate information from the entire heliosphere, just as our minds, centered in brains, integrate information from our own bodies and the world around us.” Sheldrake, then, went on to speculate what would be the principal pre-occupations of the solar mind:
“The sun would be able to sense what is going on throughout the solar system through the electromagnetic field that pervades the heliosphere, which could act as its primary sense-organ. Thus the sun’s mind could, in principle, know about all events within the solar system…
In the first place, the sun is presumably concerned with the regulation and preservation of its own body, the sun itself, and its extended body, the solar system, right out to the heliopause… influencing it through the intensity of the solar wind, through directional solar flares, and most dramatically through coronal mass ejections pouring billions of tons of charged particles towards anything in their path…
Secondly, the sun may be aware of its position and interactions with other stars and solar systems in its immediate neighborhood, and ultimately throughout the entire galaxy. These systems may in turn be part of a galactic mind, like neurons within a galactic brain. They are literally interconnected through the plasma permeating the arms of the galaxy, through which vast electric currents flow, spiraling around enormous magnetic field lines radiating out through the galactic arms that are tens of thousands of light years long. The sun is part of a vastly greater electromagnetic system…
At the center of our galaxy is a supermassive black hole that emits huge amounts of energy, with a galactic wind passing along the spiral arms extending outwards from it...The sun is influenced by the electromagnetic patterns of activity within the galaxy as a whole, which could in turn be closely connected with a galactic mind, perhaps centered in or around the supermassive black hole at the galactic center. The galactic mind could influence what happens here on earth through its effects on the sun and the solar mind.”
Sheldrake’s proposition that the activities of the conscious sun may be regulated by a “galactic mind” centered in the supermassive black hole at the galactic center, is very similar to what I have proposed - except that, I now no longer believe that there are any black holes. Every so-called black hole is a galactic soul. Remember that Sgr A* is enclosed by “strong, twisted, and organized magnetic fields”, and as per the field theories of consciousness Sheldrake presents in his paper, EM fields are associated with consciousness.
Soul Consciousness
There is another thing that I need to discuss here. Sheldrake talks about the EM field of the brain, and posits that this EM field is the means through the brain senses the nerve stimuli and carries out its conscious actions. But the human heart also generates a very powerful EM field – which is 5000 times more powerful than the brain’s EM field. The heart's energy is said to reach about three feet outside of the physical body and can be detected in another person sitting nearby via an electrocardiogram (ECG).[18]
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| Figure 9: The magnetic field of the heart reaches 3 feet outside the body. Source: Adobe Stock |
This means consciousness also resides inside our heart; and it is this consciousness which the ancients called the self, soul or soul consciousness. It is the soul which is the source of the mind and our sense faculties. In various Vedic texts it has been repeatedly stressed that the faculties of vision, audition, thought etc. are not ours but “only the names given to forces that He (Self) projects and reabsorbs.”[19]
At the time of death, the soul draws the mind and sense faculties within itself, before exiting the body. This is the reason why some people enter into a coma before death. That’s when the soul reabsorbs the mind and sense faculties within itself, and then waits for the conditions within the body to deteriorate to a sufficient extent to allow the soul to exit. This is also the reason when a person has a Near-Death Experience (NDE) and hovers above his own body, he is able to see, hear, feel and think with perfect clarity. The soul is the ultimate source; it contains everything it needs within itself. The physical body is simply a vehicle through which the mind is cleansed of the egoic dross which it tends to accumulate.
Therefore, Sgr A* is not just the galactic mind, it is the galactic soul, that is capable of seeing, hearing, feeling and knowing everything within the galaxy, and orchestrating all actions within the galaxy by means of its EM field and the powerful plasma jets. It is the eternal Source or Origin from where all of us have sprung as packets of consciousness called souls, and to live in close proximity to this Source within the galactic nucleus in the afterlife, was the desire of the great saints and prophets of the earlier ages.
Note: This article was originally published on Mysterious Universe (https://mysteriousuniverse.org/)
References
[1] Michio Kaku, Parallel Worlds, Anchor Books, 2006, pp. 114 – 125.
[2] D. F. Figer, “Massive Star Formation in the Galactic Center”, arxiv.org, 11 Mar 2008, https://arxiv.org/abs/0803.1619
[3] Hubble Spies Giant Star Clusters Near Galactic Center, HUBBLESITE, September 16, 1999, https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/1999/news-1999-30.html
[4] Deborah Byrd, "How G2 survived the black hole at our Milky Way’s heart", EarthSky 4 Nov 2014, https://earthsky.org/space/how-g2-survived-the-black-hole-at-our-milky-ways-heart/
[5] Rachel Courtland, "Galactic 'spaghetti monster' powered by magnetic fields", NewScientist, 20 August 2008, https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14573-galactic-spaghetti-monster-powered-by-magnetic-fields/
[6] "Event Horizon Telescope reveals magnetic fields at Milky Way's central black hole", ScienceDaily, December 3, 2015, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151203150233.htm
[7] “Astronomers Unveil Strong Magnetic Fields Spiraling at the Edge of Milky Way’s Central Black Hole" Event Horizon Telescope, 27 March 2024, https://eventhorizontelescope.org/blog/astronomers-unveil-strong-magnetic-fields-spiraling-edge-milky-way%E2%80%99s-central-black-hole
[8] Chandogya Upanishad 6.2.2, from “The Upanishads”, tr. by. Eknath Easwaran.
[9] Katha Upanishad 2.2.12, “The Upanishads”, tr. by. Eknath Easwaran.
[10] Shvetashvatara Upanishad 3.2, “The Upanishads”, tr. by. Eknath Easwaran.
[11] Bhagavad Gita 2.23-25, tr. Eknath Easwaran, Penguin Books, 1996.
[12] Howard Schwartz, Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 166
[13] Howard Schwartz, Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, Oxford University Press, 2004, p 168
[14] John 14:28, New International Version
[15] Michael Patzia, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2009, http://www.iep.utm.edu/xenoph/
[16] Ibid
[17] Kent Nerburn, The Wisdom of the Native Americans, MJF Books, 1999, pg 15.
[18] Jessica I. Morales CHt./EFT, "The Heart's Electromagnetic Field Is Your Superpower", Psychology Today, 29 November 2020, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/building-the-habit-of-hero/202011/the-hearts-electromagnetic-field-is-your-superpower
[19] BU I.4.7; I.5.2; I.6.3 etc. taken from Symbolism of the Stupa, p 63.
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