Reflections on The Creator

In the final chapter of Stalking The Wild Pendulum, the seminal work of late scientist and author Itzhak Bentov, he describes the perspective of the Creator in the hope that we can “peek over His shoulder while He works.” Bentov purports that by following His methods, we can become masters of our own creative universe, and free ourselves from the illusion of separation between the  Creator consciousness and our human experience. 

“The scenario would run something like this; in the tremendous, boundless, infinite, dark void something stirs,” he wrote of when the act of creating reality begins. “A very great volume of the void has decided to move and is defining its boundaries. This enormous consciousness / intelligence is separating itself from the continuum so it can start acting. It has become an individualized entity.” And so we find ourselves in the human experience, participating in a game of evolution that will eventually lead us back to the Creator - our true self.

When imagining what to create while “sitting back in his cosmic armchair,” as Bentov describes, the Creator realizes that there’s only one way to ever truly know what He’s all about. He must produce a consciousness of equal capacity that can only be actualized by forgetting its true nature, and then refined and remembered through experiencing creation. From the safety of that great cosmic armchair, the process of imagining all there is occurs. This mirror consciousness, our consciousness, inevitably becomes immersed in creation to the point that we get lost in it. Bentov believes this overidentification with the physical world is what causes the stress that leads to anger, fighting and eventually war.

In his comic book-style illustrations of the origin of the universe, Bentov depicts his alternate take on the Big Bang Theory. He shows matter emerging from a white hole and forming a toroidal field in the shape of the fabled Cosmic Egg. This egg contains all of creation and is eventually sucked back into the void of the black hole. This process, Bentov tells us, gets extended as we become so identified with our ego, and the egg becomes elongated. He describes this phenomenon as a “stress-producing event matrix” and when such a matrix loops throughout a civilization’s history, extending the cosmic egg into a “long event sausage”  the Creator steps in.

“At the beginning, the Creator watches with aloof amusement as His creatures go through the events, like a flow of animated matter. However, somewhere down the path of evolution, consciousness will arise that will draw His attention,” he explained. By making Himself known to his creations, be it through miracles, transformational experiences, or spontaneous instances of samadhi, the Creator disrupts the destructive cycle. With any luck, We - His creations- remember our true nature and come to identify with it more than we do with egoic human drama. And for those of us who are able to make that evolutionary leap, our individual unit of consciousness becomes available to start performing Creator-assigned tasks. When this great honor is bestowed on us, we’re on our way becoming creators ourselves, mastering our own universe. 

Bentov writes, “It may be just doing little chores at first, but sooner or later such a unit of consciousness will start guiding the evolution of other consciousnesses; that is, the being becomes a co-creator and eventually a minor god. As time goes on, more consciousnesses reach high levels.” Eventually, all of creation reaches this level, and the “long-event sausage matrix” begins to contract back into the Cosmic Egg. The Creator comes to know Himself as we all return to source consciousness and, according to Bentov, He then “closes down His shop” as all of manifest creation is contracted back into the void. 

Then, when He’s had enough of being unified with all His creations back in the void, the process starts all over again. It’s an alternate Big Bang Theory that Bentov calls the Continuous Bang Universe, a recurring cycle of creation, destruction and return to creation. In the epilogue of Stalking The Wild Pendulum, he describes what happens between creation cycles as these fully evolved units of consciousness take a break to hang out. “Having produced another creator (‘in His image He created him’), the Creator takes off for the equivalent of a cosmic corner drug store - to hang around and talk shop and relax with the boys. He introduces and shows off His new double, who is yet naive, not having experienced the worries of the Creator.” 

“After having rested for a while, and having picked up some useful tips for his next universe, the Creator is off for another round,” he concludes. In our daily lives, it can feel impossible to zoom out to this perspective - particularly when much of humanity seems to be looping on a brutal and increasingly elongated sausage here on Earth. But Bentov, who channeled all of his writing and illustrations during meditation, left behind a body of work which serves to remind us that we can always access this expanded perspective by meditating. We can visit the void and be with our Creator anytime we close our eyes and allow our mind to quiet. 

“There is no limit to the extent of human consciousness,” he explained. “It can expand to fill the universe, and then you can talk to the Creator. You can talk to all the beings, who are gods; you have a diplomatic visa to infinity.”