Self-Awareness (or Brahman) Is the Ultimate Black Hole

In this episode, we’ll discuss Self-Awareness (which is synomous with Brahman)  is the ultimate Black Hole. We will argue that black holes, in a fundamental sense, depend on Self-Awareness—and that Self-Awareness can be understood as the ultimate, or first, “black hole.” 

By comparing certain properties they share, we can explore why Self-Awareness may be meaningfully described in black-hole-like terms.

The purpose of this episode is to substantiate the connection between them. To develop this hypothesis, this episode is organized as follows:

1. Understanding Black Holes
2. The Connection Between Black Holes and Self-Awareness
3. Self-Awareness: The Ultimate Black Hole

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jayant@staminteractive.com

Transcript

In this episode, we’ll discuss Self-Awareness is the ultimate Black Hole. We will argue that black holes, in a fundamental sense, depend on Self-Awareness—and that Self-Awareness can be understood as the ultimate, or first, “black hole.” By comparing certain properties they share, we can explore why Self-Awareness may be meaningfully described in black-hole-like terms.

Self-Awareness is a term often used in Vedanta. It is synonymous with SatChitAnanda and Brahman. Self-Awareness is our innermost core—the substratum of the universe—and it is therefore not wrong to say that everything in the universe depends upon this deepest reality.

Black holes, meanwhile, are a major focus of scientific study and discussion. New observations, data, and theories about black holes continue to be discovered and presented. So, what is the connection between Self-Awareness and black holes? At first glance, there appears to be none: black holes belong to the domain of science, while Self-Awareness belongs to the domain of spirituality. 

The purpose of this episode is to substantiate the connection between them. To develop this hypothesis, this episode is organized as follows:

1. Understanding Black Holes

2. The Connection Between Black Holes and Self-Awareness

3. Self-Awareness: The Ultimate Black Hole

1. Understanding Black Holes

The term “black hole” is used because these objects cannot be seen directly. However, their existence can be inferred from the effects they have on nearby matter and from the radiation released by hot gas and dust as it falls toward them. Astronomers generally speak of two well-established categories of black holes; we will briefly introduce them here.

Stellar black holes. This is the most common type. Estimates suggest that the Milky Way alone may contain tens of millions stellar black holes. Considering that the observable universe contains in the order of billions of galaxies, the total number of stellar black holes is staggering. Stellar black holes form when a massive star exhausts its nuclear fuel and collapses under its own gravity, passing through a complex sequence of events that ends in a black hole. Because stars continue to age and die, stellar black holes are still forming today. 

Scientists also suspect that some stellar black holes merge with one another or consume nearby stars, potentially growing into intermediate-mass black holes.

Supermassive black holes. Most large galaxies appear to host a supermassive black hole at their centers. These objects are extraordinarily massive—typically millions (and sometimes billions) of times the Sun’s mass. One of the largest known examples is estimated at roughly 40 billion solar masses. The black hole at the center of our own Milky Way, Sagittarius A, is about four million times the Sun’s mass.

Despite their importance, the origin of supermassive black holes is still not fully understood: how they first formed and how they grew so large remain active areas of research. From a structural standpoint, however, it is natural to wonder whether such a central object is needed for a galaxy to remain coherent. A galaxy contains millions to billions of stars in motion, and the system behaves as though it is organized around a strong, stable anchor. The central black hole is part of that picture.

A helpful image is a satellite view of a hurricane. A hurricane rotates around a center called the eye. The storm’s most intense activity is organized around this central region, and when the eye breaks down, the storm weakens and can collapse. In a loose, visual sense, a rotating galaxy organized around a central black hole resembles a hurricane organized around its eye. The energy scales are incomparable, of course, but the “rotation around a center” imagery is striking.

An important point to remember is that, just as a hurricane gets its energy from the rotating eye at its center, a galaxy gets its energy from the rotating black hole at its center. The black hole supplies the energy that keeps the galaxy rotating and stable. Larger black holes support larger galaxies because they contain more energy. In this way, the black hole is the main source of energy for the entire rotating galaxy, just as the eye powers the hurricane.

Black Hole and Energy

A black hole is a storehouse of enormous energy. It contains energy millions of times greater than that of the Sun. Even today, science does not fully understand how black holes function or how they originated. 

Over time, black holes appear to release energy that supports and sustains stars and planetary systems within the galaxy. The discovery of Hawking radiation suggests that black holes do, in fact, lose energy. However, the amount of this energy loss and how this energy is used are still not clearly known. One possible explanation is that this leaked energy supplies the energy needs of the galaxy. In this sense, the galaxy depends entirely on the black hole for its existence.

If black holes are continuously losing energy, it is possible that one day they may no longer be able to support the galaxy. 

This leads to an important question: where does the black hole itself get such vast amounts of energy? Science does not yet have a clear answer. According to this perspective, the source of this energy is Self‑Awareness, which is infinite and supplies the energy required by black holes. This idea will be explored further later in this episode.

Black Holes and Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity

One of the key ideas of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity is that time slows down in the presence of mass or energy. This effect is explained by saying that mass bends or curves the fabric of spacetime. A common example is a heavy ball placed on a stretched rubber sheet. The weight of the ball causes the sheet to bend around it. In a similar way, massive objects bend spacetime.

The heavier the object, the greater the bending of spacetime. The greater the bending, the slower time moves. Even small objects such as ants or people slow time slightly, but the change is so small that we do not notice it. As objects become more massive—such as planets, stars, and black holes—the slowing of time becomes more noticeable.

A well-known example appears in the movie Interstellar. Astronauts visit a planet that is very close to a black hole. They plan to stay for only ten minutes but end up staying for about one hour. When they return to their spaceship, they find that 23 years have passed there. This happens because the strong gravity of the nearby black hole greatly slows down time on the planet.

Now imagine a black hole that is 40 billion times more massive than our Sun. Near such a black hole, time would move extremely slowly. The more massive the black hole, the slower time becomes around it.

One important point to remember is that time never completely stops around a black hole—it only slows down drastically. Time comes to a complete halt only where there is infinite energy.

From this discussion, we can summarize two main properties of black holes:

1. Black holes store enormous amounts of energy.

2. Time slows down dramatically near black holes.

Connection Between Black Holes and Self-Awareness

How far away is Sagittarius A, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way? About 26,000 light-years. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year—roughly 9.46 trillion kilometers. If you multiply that by 26,000, you get an almost unimaginably large distance. More importantly, it tells you something subtle about what you are actually observing.

Because light takes time to travel, any image we receive from Sagittarius A is not a picture of it “right now.” It is a picture of Sagittarius A as it was 26,000 years ago—the moment those photons began their journey toward Earth. In that sense, when we look toward the galactic center, we are looking into the past.

This isn’t unique to black holes. It is true of everything we see in the universe: stars, sun, and even nearby objects, though the delay is much smaller. What we call “seeing” is always receiving information that is, to some degree, outdated.

That raises a philosophical question. If what we observe is always the past state of an object, then where is the object’s present state? The “now” version of Sagittarius A must exist somewhere, but where?  

Hunting the “Now” Version of the Black Hole

What we observe as a black hole is always a picture of its past. For example, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy is the “now minus 26000 years” version, because that is how long light takes to reach us. This raises an important question: where is the “now minus zero seconds” version of the black hole—the true present version?

The answer follows directly from this reasoning. The “now minus zero seconds” version of any object must exist where light takes zero time to reach. That place is not somewhere out in space, but within us—at the very seat of observation. Light takes no time to reach the Observer within, the Observer that is witnessing the black hole and everything else perceived as existing “out there.”

This logic applies not only to black holes but to every object in the universe. What we perceive externally is always a delayed image—a dated version of reality. Vedanta teaches that the complete, undelayed “now” universe exists within us. While this idea may be difficult to reconcile intellectually, it follows inevitably from the fact that all perception involves time delay. The present version of all objects can only be found within.

In Vedanta, the terms Observer and Self‑Awareness are synonymous. Self‑Awareness is beyond space and time, and within it exist the “now” versions of all objects, including black holes. The universe we observe externally contains only past states, never the absolute present. This reveals a deep connection between black holes and Self‑Awareness: the true “now” version of every black hole function within Self‑Awareness, beyond space and time.

3. Self-Awareness: The Ultimate Black Hole

Vedanta points to Self-Awareness as our innermost reality—the core that is never absent. It is also described as SatChitAnanda or Brahman.

Unlike anything within the universe, Self-Awareness is not produced by any cause and is not a created thing. It does not begin in time, does not end in time, and does not undergo change. It was present in the past, is present now, and will be present in the future—always the same.

Everything we can point to in the world fails to meet this definition. All objects are born and eventually perish, and even the universe itself is subject to origin and dissolution. Modern cosmology places the birth of our universe at roughly 13.7 billion years ago; prior to that, this universe as we know it was not.

Vedanta therefore asserts that what has always been present is Self-Awareness itself. It is like a lamp that shines without effort, continuously radiating awareness.

Self‑Awareness and Infinite Energy

Infinite energy exists within our innermost Self‑Awareness. All the energy we observe throughout the universe ultimately arises from this inner source. At first, the claim that infinite energy lies within our own deepest core may seem extraordinary. How can this be understood, and on what basis can it be justified? A detailed exploration is presented in the earlier episode “Awareness—The Infinite Energy Source.” What follows is a brief overview of the central reasoning.

To grasp the origin of infinite energy, it is essential to correctly understand Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Two of its key conclusions are especially relevant.

First, motion and time are inseparably linked. Wherever there is motion, time slows down—a fact that has been experimentally verified. The faster an object moves, the slower time passes for it. As motion approaches the speed of light, time slows dramatically, and at the speed of light itself, time comes to a complete standstill. To visualize this, imagine a rocket traveling at the speed of light. To an outside observer, the rocket would be seen racing through space at that immense speed. However, for someone inside the rocket, time would not be experienced at all. Though this may seem counterintuitive, it reflects the way nature actually works.

Second, anything that attains the speed of light must possess infinite energy. This is because an infinite amount of energy is required to accelerate anything with mass to the speed of light. Therefore, infinite energy is associated with motion at that ultimate speed.

This raises a natural question: what, if anything, travels at the speed of light? The answer is light itself. Photons—particles of light—are the only entities in the universe that move at the speed of light. They surround us everywhere, constantly zipping through space. From our perspective as observers, photons are always in motion. Yet to fully understand their nature, we must consider the situation from the photon’s own point of view.

Imagine, as a thought experiment, placing a camera on a photon. What would the photon experience? Traveling at the speed of light, the photon would experience no passage of time and no extension of space. From its perspective, it would possess infinite energy. This follows directly from relativity: anything moving at the speed of light exists without time, without space, and with infinite energy.

What does it mean to say that there is no time and no space? It means that, from its own perspective, the photon does not move at all—it remains perfectly stationary. While we perceive photons as moving rapidly through space, “according” to the photon itself, there is no motion whatsoever. In that timeless, spaceless state, the photon experiences itself as infinite energy.

If time does not exist for the photon, then it must exist beyond time and beyond the spacetime framework altogether. Everything within spacetime undergoes change in time; time always flows for objects that exist within it. Where, then, is that which lies beyond spacetime? Vedanta identifies this realm as Self‑Awareness. Self‑Awareness exists outside time and space, and therefore it is the only domain in which infinite energy can exist.

This reveals the deeper reality behind the apparent motion of photons. While we observe light traveling at the speed of light, the photon itself is not truly moving—it is eternally present within Self‑Awareness. What appears as motion and energy in the external world is grounded in the unchanging, timeless field of Self‑Awareness. Amazing illusion being created by nature. This is why Self‑Awareness can rightly be described as possessing infinite energy.

Comparison of Black Holes and Self‑Awareness

We have seen that black holes are vast storehouses of energy and that, because of this immense energy, time slows down dramatically in their vicinity. How does this compare with Self‑Awareness?

As we have just established, Self‑Awareness possesses infinite energy. Owing to this infinite energy, time does not merely slow down—it comes to a complete standstill. Time does not move at all within Self‑Awareness. In this sense, Self‑Awareness is like a black hole with infinite energy. It is therefore appropriate to describe Self‑Awareness as the ultimate black hole. It may also be called the first black hole, because all other black holes in the universe ultimately depend on it for their energy. Every black hole draws its energy from Self‑Awareness, which is an inexhaustible reservoir of infinite energy.

Earlier, we also saw that the true “now” version of every black hole exists within Self‑Awareness. Black holes, like all objects in the universe, depend entirely on Self‑Awareness—not only for their energy, but for their very existence. This ultimate black hole, Self‑Awareness, is thus the source from which all other black holes arise.

Many scientists propose that a primordial black hole existed at the birth of the universe—a black hole from which all others were formed. From the reasoning we have developed, it becomes clear that Self‑Awareness must be that primordial black hole. Self‑Awareness existed at the moment the universe was born, and it will continue to exist when the universe eventually dissolves. The entire universe, including all black holes, depends upon Self‑Awareness for its existence.

We hope you enjoyed this discussion connecting Self-Awareness and Black holes. Black holes show how immense energy dramatically slows time, while Self‑Awareness, possessing infinite energy, brings time to a complete standstill. From this viewpoint, Self‑Awareness is the ultimate and primordial black hole—the source upon which the universe and all black holes depend for their existence.

If you’re interested in delving deeper into topics like this, we invite you to discover more in my book, Science Meets Vedanta, available on Amazon. Additionally, we now have a library of around 35 podcasts covering many different topics —feel free to browse through them at your convenience.

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