Back in the early 1990s, I was looking for something beneath the surface of religions. And I adopted a metaphor, probably not original to me, but perhaps not rendered in as detailed a way as I made it.
The metaphor is this: Each human is a sort of “CCTV camera”—a physical and psychological apparatus used by God (or universal consciousness) to observe the world. Each “camera” thinks it’s autonomous and unaware that it’s part of a vast network of observation. And it is unaware that what it sees, thinks and experiences is not for its own use.
In this metaphor, God is not separate from us but is present through every eye, experiencing the physical plane through billions of perspectives. It is not intervening or judging but just watching, absorbing and remembering. Every human is a lens, in other words.
At death, the camera stops, and the body decays, but the camera footage is not lost but archived as a kind of “soul-memory” or “karmic imprint”. This, perhaps, is what people tap into when they recall past lives—not because the ego reincarnates, but because the recorded footage still exists and can sometimes be accessed when the conditions are right.
This idea harmonises with a range of mystical and philosophical thought. In Hinduism and Buddhism, karma and samskaras (mental imprints) continue beyond death. And in Theosophy, there is the “akashic record”—a universal memory field.
Meditation, in this metaphor, is the moment when the camera pauses itself, turns inwards and becomes aware of its own function. In that pause, the camera begins to realise it is not just filming the world but is the thing that is operating it. Or more accurately, it is an extension of the watching God. Meditation allows the camera to see that it is the apparatus through which consciousness flows.
Eventually, if the meditation deepens, even the sense of being a “camera” will disappear. What will be left is the “watcher”—the God that sees through all eyes but is not limited to any single pair.
