I’m Not God After All: The Ethical Will of Donald Armstrong — Part 17

To grasp what an ‘Ethical Will’ entails, please refer to my earlier post, ‘I Leave to You … Whatever Wisdom I May Have Gained.’

By the time I reached my 21st year, I believed I had unraveled the mysteries of existence. I felt as though I had touched the essence of ultimate reality. For a fleeting moment, I experienced a profound unity with God and the universe, perceiving it as a magnificent tapestry encompassing all that exists. I was convinced that the All was God, and that the distinctions we see were mere superficial illusions. This revelation came to me at the conclusion of a 45-minute meditation session.

Or so I thought.

However, life often takes unexpected turns, and everything shifted. The Air Force organized an exercise to demonstrate how oxygen deprivation affects aircrew. As part of this, we were required to spend time in a hypobaric chamber, an airtight metal room with glass windows. One by one, we entered the chamber, receiving straightforward instructions such as, “Place your right hand on top of your head, palm facing down.”

As I observed others go through the process, I noted that no one seemed able to follow even the simplest commands. When asked to raise a left arm, one airman flailed his arms instead. When my turn came, I was given a clipboard and instructed to sit and solve the math problems it contained. There were around 20 to 25 simple addition and subtraction questions — nothing intricate.

Inside the chamber, I diligently worked through the math problems. I expected to feel some effect from the lack of oxygen, but nothing happened. I completed the problems a second time to ensure I had made no mistakes, and found everything correct. Yet, I felt no impact from the oxygen deprivation. Once finished, I signaled to exit and handed my clipboard to the training sergeant, saying, “Nothing happened.”

The sergeant chuckled and returned the clipboard, asking, “Is this what you intended to do?”

Staring at the clipboard in shock, I realized I hadn’t answered a single question. Instead, I had mindlessly doodled across the page, producing nothing coherent or legible. My mind had crafted an alternate reality, one that matched my expectations and completely obscured my actual actions. What was most unsettling was that I had transitioned seamlessly between ordinary reality with adequate oxygen and an alternate reality without even noticing.

This experience preoccupied my thoughts in the days that followed. I had previously understood, in theory, that perception and reality are not synonymous. For instance, color exists only when light waves interact with the human eye's photoreceptors; physical objects have no inherent color unless observed by an organism that can convert light into visual perception.

Our senses collaborate to create an individual omnidome, a unique subjective reality that envelops us from birth until death. I had assumed that my experiences reflected reality with a fair degree of accuracy. I believed those who hallucinated were either mentally unstable or under the influence of drugs — which I was not. I relied on my senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. What other perspective could there be?

This belief was now called into question. I had thought my meditative experience allowed me to delve deeper into reality, revealing a spiritual connection underlying all existence. I believed that God was this connective essence, the spiritual reality from which everything emanated, and that I had encountered it during my personal revelation.

Yet, my time in the hypobaric chamber opened the door to another possibility. I began to wonder if my brain had fabricated my meditative vision in the same way it had shaped my experience solving the math problems. If that were the case, how could I discern when my mind was deceiving me? The difference between ordinary and alternate realities had become indistinguishable.

Philosophers have long debated the origins of knowledge. Empiricists argue that all human understanding arises from sensory experiences, while rationalists maintain that the most reliable knowledge comes from reason, often questioning the reliability of our senses.

Before the hypobaric chamber, I, like most, had given little thought to these philosophical perspectives. But in my spiritual journey, I had firmly aligned with empiricism. My conception of God stemmed directly from my lived experiences. However, after my experience in the chamber, I began to reevaluate my interpretations, not losing faith in God but in my capacity to interpret my experiences accurately.

Pantheism stands as a respectable philosophical stance, one arrived at through either reason or personal experience. For me, it was the latter; yet, as I reflected, my enthusiasm waned. My belief that the All was God — that we are all manifestations of the divine — turned out not to be my ultimate spiritual destination but merely a stepping stone along my journey.

In the final segment of my Ethical Will, I will share my current perspective on God and my understanding of religion.