In the West, Buddhism is known as an agnostic philosophy. But in Asia, millions worship the Buddha as a savior or something similar to a god – seemingly in spite of his best attempts to dissuade them.

In software development, and important phase is the one we call “beta-testing”. After we have tried to code the software correctly, and tested it in-house, outsiders are allowed to test it in a real-life environment. It is not yet ready for final release, but it is very similar to the final version, if all goes as expected.

We saw that something similar seemed to happen with the modern human mind, version 2. There were scattered outbreaks of it here and there over a period of a few tens of thousands of years, where you could see some of the features of the modern mind. But then one day the finished version was rolled out, and in the blink of an eye (at least geologically speaking) everyone adapted the new operating system of the brain, or died out.

If, as I think, we are approaching the final release of Human Operating System version 3, it stands to reason that it has been tested in the field for quite a while already. But what is it? What could it be that makes all things new?

To get an idea of the scale of the change, I want us to think about the difference that the previous major upgrade made. By all accounts, our ancestors 100 000 years ago looked like us (probably dark-skinned since they lived in Africa) and had the same basic instincts as us. But their behavior and thinking (if we can call it that) lacked many of the elements that we now consider essentially human. They seem to have had no learned language, no art, no imagination. Their ability to plan ahead seems to have been quite limited, although there was some. They created stone handaxes ahead of time, after all. But problems that could not be solved with a handaxe were generally just avoided.

The new mind must have seemed like a miracle to those of the old mind, except they had no concept of miracle or the supernatural. But suddenly there appeared people who could communicate with a language of thousands of words, even in the dark and through walls. Their mind was also able to travel in time, making detailed accounts of the past and plans for the future. They were able to create a wide and ever growing range of new and better tools. The amount of change that could take a hundred thousand or even a million years, could now happen in one generation. The magnitude of the change is enormous.

I expect this to happen again. The New Mind is going to be miraculous, able to do things that seem utterly impossible to the old mind. Not just impossible, but unthinkable. Things that are beyond the concepts of the old mind. It is not just that you won’t believe them if told, but there is no way of telling you. You don’t have the holes in which to put this knowledge. In order to have the New Mind explained to you in any way that makes sense in the least, you first need to have the New Mind itself, at least in part.

Human Operating System version 2 added a new dimension, the dimension of Time. Our ancestors, despite their big brains, seem to have had very little understanding of time, since there was no language in which to think about it. Certainly they could remember something from the past when they saw it, and repeat successful actions from the past, and make simple tools before they needed them. But they seem not to have had an understanding of what time was, or the ability to use it to the fullest. We do this from childhood onward as a matter of course. We travel almost too much in time, dwelling on the past or the future or even alternate versions of these. We live in the fourth dimension like fish in water, so to speak.

The New Mind then might have another dimension added, a fifth dimension that we are vaguely aware of now, at least some of us, but are unable to use at will. As it happens, such a fifth dimension is mentioned in esoteric texts. It can be called vertical time, as it is in a sense at right angles with the usual time dimension. Another word for it is eternity, but this word does not mean what you think it means. Because the untrained human mind cannot imagine a second time dimension, they have instead redefined the word to mean “an endless stretch of time”. Perhaps that is the original meaning in some languages even, but the way it is used in esoteric teaching is to refer to the Fifth Dimension.

Now, where can we find people who have beta-tested a dramatically new mind, a completely new approach to life, the universe and everything … people who as a result of this got the ability to perform miracles because they had a second time dimension added to their mind? I think the answer is pretty obvious. The founders of several of the world’s great religions and philosophies match exactly these criteria, and sometimes their students for a limited time. In the cases where enough of the original teachings were preserved in some form, mystics in the same tradition much later would sometimes develop some of the same abilities.

Specifically, if a second time dimension was involved, one of the miraculous abilities would probably relate to time in some way, for instance by having impossible knowledge about the past or the future. Let me give you one example.

At the briefest instant following creation all the matter of the universe was concentrated in a very small place, no larger than a grain of mustard. The matter at this time was very thin, so intangible, that it did not have real substance. It did have, however, a potential to gain substance and form and to become tangible matter. From the initial concentration of this intangible substance in its minute location, the substance expanded, expanding the universe as it did so. As the expansion progressed, a change in the substance occurred. This initially thin noncorporeal substance took on the tangible aspects of matter as we know it.

The Big Bang for dummies, complete with the rather important notions that the universe itself was expanding and that matter only appeared later in time, things that are still hard to grasp for high school students. It was definitely harder to grasp in the year 1270 when the Ramban died, the Jewish Rabbi who wrote that passage. How in the world could he write an up-to-date description of the Big Bang as we understand it in the 21st century, when he lived in an age where it was generally assumed that the world was less than 6000 years old and there were no more continents west of Spain?

I believe that, apart from any supernatural explanations, mystics are connected across time. This is actually the stance of the Orthodox Church (not affiliated) except they apply it only to the church. But they believe that the church when assembled for service is accompanied not only by the deceased saints, but also by those yet unborn. Obviously most churchgoers even in the Orthodox churches are mainly bench fillers. But to those few who have attained higher consciousness, the experience of co-existing with the past and future is surely more than just theory.

I happen to believe this also applies to mystics of other schools. I also happen to believe that these various schools and branches and mutually suspicious religions and philosophies will vanish with the coming Change. It is the primitive, ego-centered H.O.S. v.2 mind that wants to hoard the truth, like it wants to hoard everything else. An amusing example is found in Christianity, where Jesus’ disciples comes and tells him: “We saw some other guys doing miracles in your name! Tell them to stop it!” Never mind that people who have been suffering for a long time are being helped; it is more important that we maintain our monopoly on Jesus. Ours! Only ours! Not wanna share!

But sharing is at the heart of the New Mind. In fact, the heart is itself shared, its doors thrown recklessly open. But to serve all, you must first be free from all, and who is capable of this? Who can love without attachment, give without keeping a balance, achieve without pride? You can certainly try to copy the effects of the New Mind, and if you are smart and have a strong will, you can get a ways, like the Neanderthals copying the new tools of the Cro-Magnon before dying out.

Or you could download the New Mind now. But not exactly from the Internet.