The Fifth Dimension

The fifth-dimensional Realm of the Good

In the movie “The Laws of Eternity”, the fifth dimension is portrayed as a beautiful land, Earth-like but more beautiful and “larger than life”. The people there are constantly happy and get along well. But what is this “fifth dimension” really?

With our senses we live in a three-dimensional world, and with our mind we live in the fourth dimension as well, called time. To us, time is obviously real, but a number of scientists wonder whether it exists only in our mind, since their equations work just as well without it. Even so, the existence of time is obvious and to not believe in it requires a great effort. In fact, I do not think it is possible to live as a sane human being without belief in time.

But beyond this, there is a fifth dimension of the mind. In this we find such things as truth, beauty and virtue, and of course love. One name for this dimension is simply “spirituality”. It is our gateway to that which goes beyond space and time, to eternity itself. Truth is eternal, even though facts change. Beauty is eternal, even though beautiful things fade. Virtue is eternal, even though the virtuous die. Love is eternal, although the desire frequently called “love” certainly isn’t.

If you are blind to these things, I do not believe I have the power to change your mind. There are those who insist that there is nothing beyond this world of matter and energy, that all hope and love is merely delusion, that we are merely fluctuations in the activity of our brain. Their actions usually show that they don’t believe this for a minute, but presumably they have some reason for pretending even to themselves. I am not able to travel into your heart and find the knots that tie you down. Certainly I cannot do so in a simple blog like this.

But to seek the higher things for their own sake is like having an anchor that keeps you from drifting aimlessly down the river of time. Those who seek only the things in this world of space and time find life bitter and meaningless, for all things slip out of their grasp: Many while they still live, and the rest when they die.

In practice, most of us live unsteadily between Heaven and Earth, in a manner of speaking. We look up to truth, virtue and love. We are moved by music and art* that seem to take us beyond the moment and lift us up. But we are also drawn easily to sense pleasures, to status and even to anger. Even when we think we know better, we are easily led astray: Even a small coin at the end of an outreached arm is still large enough to block the entire sun.

(*I would not call music and art “spiritual” in the strict sense of that word, but rather I see them as on-ramps from the realm of the senses to a higher understanding of beauty as such. A person’s sense of music is often a good indication of the state of their soul.)

But they who have begun to colonize the fifth dimension, find that it is every bit as real as anything we can touch, and more so. Like the sky that is always above us no matter where we go, the spiritual reality is not dispelled by passing time, though many other things are.

As our eyes are opened, we learn to see: Not masterful things we can brag about, mostly, but how much love we have received, how precious it is that we have been given life and mind, how beautiful is the Light that shines through all things and that we can even, eventually, begin to see in each other. A sense of gratitude becomes frequent, maybe even steady. There is a great joy in the things that are not drifting on the river of time, and I wish that we all may be able to feel that joy in our lives.

Beyond what we may call the Fifth Dimension there are others, one brighter and more beautiful than another. But in a sense they are extensions of that fifth, not replacements for it. And I do not want to get very abstract today. If you are honest to yourself, I think you too believe in love, in truth, in beauty, in justice. You are not such a creature that has no use for things you can’t eat or mate with. You know this in your heart and you act on this truth at least part of the time, as do we all. Choose to pursue it and you pursue happiness itself. Come to the fifth dimension! We have cookies! ^_^