Musings of a Cybernaut: Metaphysical Reflections on Death and Dying, Stanford and Steve Jobs

In 1970 I was privileged to visit what must surely be the Mecca of Silicon Valley - Stanford University.   It is a pilgrimage, a haj, that every questing scientist, engineer, and technician however modest dreams to make at least once in a life time. The university motto reads,  "Die Luft der Freiheit weht - The wind of freedom blows", a motto with an intriguing origin and history.   Of special interest to me was not so much the renowned Stanford Linear Accelerator which was of course fascinating, but instead a church, the "crown jewel" of the famous university - the Stanford University's Memorial Church.

Stanford Memorial Church Facade, CG Garvie, 1970

Though some may deny it, even geeks and cynbernauts (a computer user who explores cyberspace and cybernetics) are mystics at heart and contemplate the mysteries and meaning of life, death and dying. Quarky? Not at all! It is a cybernetic endeavour of every thinking person. As programmers we are constantly considering elegant ways of closing down the programs we write or the systems we design. Elegance is no less true of "life systems" as it is for IT systems. There comes a time when we too will "shut down" or cease to operate. Every student should know that! So a Temenos at the hub of scientific learning and endeavour is not all that surprising.

Recently I was considering once again - for some strange reason I kept returning to it -  Mona Simpson's beautiful eulogy to her brother, Apple Founder, Steve Jobs. She was at his bedside, the brother she so loved, when he passed away. Having read Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Living, Holy Dying" and even "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" I wondered, how does a Cybernaut die? Do the "winds of freedom" blow even in death?

In her stirring tribute delivered at her brother's memorial, held at the iconic Stanford University's Memorial Church on October 16, 2011, Mona  revealed the last words Steve  uttered mere hours before he died. Mona said Steve had been looking at the members of his family, gathered around his bed, when suddenly he gazed past them and exclaimed," OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW."

Steve's final words, "Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow," might have been an experience of Nirvana "more powerful than orgasm," according to Columbia University’s Robert Thurman, who is chairman of Buddhist studies and also translator of "The Tibetan Book of the Dead'. The repetition of words "sounds like a beautiful moment, when he is indeed moving toward the light," said Thurman, who as a Buddhist scholar, knew Steve. He said the computer entrepreneur was deeply influenced by Buddhism. For me, Steve's death spoke powerfully of Stanford's "winds of freedom".

As I reflected, two verses came to mind, one Buddhist and the other Christian.

Edwin Arnold concludes his epic poem about Prince Siddhartha, "The Light of Asia", with the words...

I take my refuge in thy order! OM!
 The dew is on the lotus! Rise great sun!
 And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave;
 OM MANI PADME HUM, the Sunrise comes!
 The dewdrop slips into the shining Sea.

The Methodist hymn writer, Charles Wesley, uses the same metaphor to describe the ineffable journey for which Steve Jobs had only one word, "Wow!"...

 Eager for Thee I ask and pant;
 So strong, the principle divine
 Carries me out, with sweet constraint,
 Till all my hallowed soul is Thine;
 Plunged in the Godhead's deepest sea,
 And lost in Thine immensity.

Whether Cybernauts experience  what psychic investigator Robert Crookall once described as "the supreme adventure" or Robert Thurman as "a beautiful moment," when our  "life support systems" shut down, might be a matter of conjecture. However, when a technocrat such as Steve Jobs points to an "Aha!" moment one is naturally inclined to sit up,  take note, and ponder. This much we know for sure, when for a moment we do pause as Steve did and glimpse past our  immediate temporal concerns such as the familiar faces that press down on one,  there often breaks through into our awareness an indescribable wow, a beatific moment of joyful, celestial bliss  Software or media developers might call this an "Easter Egg" of sorts, an unexpected oceanic surprise, a transcendental exclamation, deliberately hidden and secreted somewhere deep within our make-up, call it what you will, our DNA Code, the Akashic Record, or even the Lamb's Book of Life, by a gracious, compassionate Divine Cybernaut, the Lord of Cybernetic Surprises.

Among other remarkable discoveries the Stanford Linear Accelarator facility was used to reveal hidden text in the incredible Archimedes Palimpsest  recovering erased works of the Greek mathematician and thinker. When Steve's sister Mona, disclosed her brother's last word. she  may have given us an incomparable glimpse into something of the mysterious text hidden deep within in the fabric of her brother's life and our life!

OM!

oOo

Read Mona Simpson's eulogy at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-steve-jobs.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all


©Colin G Garvie HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za