Moving Through Matter Without Becoming Identified With Matter

42 is Remembering is my exploration of the recurring number 42 as a symbol of consciousness remembering its origin—moving through matter without becoming identified with matter.

That distinction is everything.

We are here.

We inhabit bodies.

We build houses.

We accumulate possessions.

We experience pleasure, pain, relationships, birth and death.

We participate in matter.

But are we matter?

Or are we consciousness temporarily experiencing itself through matter?

This is where 42 keeps appearing in my exploration—not as proof of a secret mathematical code, but as a recurring symbol pointing toward the same instruction:

Remember.

Remember where you came from.

Remember what animates the body.

Remember that the vessel is temporary.

Remember the Light within the water.

And remember to recognize this now, rather than waiting until death to discover that you were only passing through.

Thomas 42: Become Passers-By

Perhaps the clearest starting point is one of the shortest sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas.

Saying 42 is commonly translated:

“Become passers-by.”

Three words.

Yet they contain an extraordinary idea.

A passer-by enters a place but does not mistake that place for home.

A passer-by experiences the landscape without believing that he owns it.

A passer-by moves through.

What if that is precisely what consciousness is doing?

We enter matter, inhabit it and experience it—but the danger comes when consciousness becomes so immersed in the experience that it forgets itself.

The body becomes me.

My possessions become me.

My successes become me.

My failures become me.

My beliefs become me.

The temporary identity replaces the observer experiencing it.

Thomas 42 may be reminding us:

You are here, but you are passing through.

And that is why, for me,

42 is Remembering.

Blood and 42

There is an interesting modern association with 42 that brings the symbolism directly into the human body.

Under commonly used blood-bank preservation conditions, donated red blood cells can be stored for up to 42 days.

This doesn't mean that the blood circulating within us has a 42-day lifespan—red blood cells normally circulate for roughly 120 days.

But the 42-day storage limit creates an intriguing metaphor.

Blood is one of the great symbols of embodiment.

It carries oxygen.

It feeds tissue.

It moves continuously through us.

It is inseparable from our physical existence.

And yet even preserved blood has limits.

The vessel is temporary.

Matter changes.

Matter deteriorates.

Matter must continually renew itself.

The life moving through the vessel is not the same thing as the vessel itself.

Once again:

Pass through without becoming identified with what you are passing through.

42 and Death: Shi-Ni

There is another fascinating linguistic coincidence in Japanese.

The number 4 can be pronounced shi, a pronunciation identical to the Japanese word for death.

Two can be pronounced ni.

Put shi and ni together and we hear something resembling shini, a form associated with the Japanese verb shinu—“to die.”

This should not be presented as evidence that Japanese culture secretly encoded a spiritual meaning into the number 42.

Japanese number-word associations are more complicated than simply declaring “42 means death.”

But symbolically, the association is striking.

Because the entire purpose of 42 is Remembering is not to discover the truth when we die.

It is to discover it now.

What if “death” isn't the instruction?

What if death is the deadline?

Don't wait for the body to fall away before discovering that you were never merely the body.

Die to the identification before the body dies.

Recognize the temporary nature of matter while you are still walking through it.

Become the passer-by now.

The Rainbow: Light Entering Water

Then there is perhaps my favourite expression of 42:

the rainbow.

A rainbow occurs because sunlight enters water droplets, refracts, reflects internally and emerges separated into its visible colours.

For the primary rainbow, the strongest emerging light is concentrated around an angle of approximately 42 degrees relative to the antisolar direction, with the exact angle varying somewhat by wavelength.

Think about that symbolically.

Light enters water.

Light becomes temporarily hidden within the droplet.

It changes direction.

It reflects within.

Then it emerges transformed into something we can see:

the spectrum.

One light becomes many colours, the colours of the Chakras.

And suddenly 42 becomes something extraordinarily beautiful.

The Light was never absent.

It was inside the water.

Perhaps consciousness is similar.

Perhaps incarnation isn't the loss of Light.

It is Light entering matter.

The mistake is believing we are only the droplet.

The Light Is With Us

A rainbow doesn't manufacture sunlight.

The water does not create the Light.

It reveals something already present within the Light.

That distinction sits at the heart of my understanding of Remembering.

Spiritual awakening may not be about obtaining something we lack.

Perhaps we don't need to manufacture the Light.

Perhaps we need to create the conditions through which what is already present becomes visible.

The Light is with us.

It entered the water.

It entered matter.

It entered the experience.

And at approximately 42 degrees, hidden white light reveals its colours.

One becomes many.

Yet the many were always contained within the One.

The Seven Lords and 42

Another extraordinary 42 appears in the esoteric text commonly known as The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean.

This modern occult work—associated with the writings published under the name Doreal and distinct from the ancient Hermetic Emerald Tablet—describes Seven Lords using the numbers:

3 — 4 — 5 and 6 — 7 — 8 — 9

Now add them:

3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 = 42

There it is again.

42.

Seven individual numbers forming one total.

And seven itself carries another powerful symbolic parallel:

seven colours traditionally identified in the rainbow.

Seven notes.

Seven classical planetary powers.

Seven days.

Seven major chakras in later yogic systems.

Seven Lords.

Different traditions developed independently and shouldn't simply be collapsed into one historical teaching.

But as symbolic language, the pattern is fascinating.

Seven expressions arising within one system.

Just like the rainbow.

Many colours.

One Light.

3 Through 9: The Journey Through Matter

Look more closely at the Seven Lords:

3, 4, 5, and 6, 7, 8, 9.

Their sum is 42.

But notice something else.

At the centre sits:

6.

Three numbers before it:

3 — 4 — 5

Three numbers after it:

7 — 8 — 9

And six sits directly in the middle.

For me, 6 represents matter—the world of physical manifestation, structure and embodiment.

The Heart. The Cross.

That makes the sequence particularly interesting.

We descend toward matter:

3 → 4 → 5 → 6

And then continue beyond it:

6 → 7 → 8 → 9

Matter isn't necessarily the enemy.

It is the middle.

The place consciousness passes through.

Six is not the destination.

It is the crossing point.

And the complete passage totals:

42.

Remembering.

Egypt and the 42

The number appears again in ancient Egyptian religion.

The Book of the Dead describes 42 assessors, sometimes called judges, associated with the deceased's declaration of innocence.

Here we encounter one of the most enduring images of ancient spirituality:

the weighing of the heart.

The heart is measured against the feather associated with Ma'at—truth, balance, justice and cosmic order.

Whatever its precise historical meaning to the ancient Egyptians, contemplate the symbolism.

At death, what gets weighed?

Not your house.

Not your bank account.

Not your possessions.

Not your job title.

Not your social status.

Your heart.

Matter gets left behind.

The heart tells the story of how you moved through it.

Again:

42.

The Great Forgetting

Perhaps birth involves a kind of forgetting.

Consciousness enters the world and immediately receives an identity.

A name.

A family.

A nationality.

A religion.

A body.

A history.

Eventually we learn to say:

I am this.

But what if the deepest spiritual journey is removing those labels one at a time and asking:

Who is the one experiencing all of this?

This is where Thomas 42 becomes so powerful.

Become passers-by.

Don't reject matter.

Don't fear matter.

Don't despise the body.

Experience it.

Care for it.

Love through it.

Create through it.

But don't mistake the vehicle for the traveller.

Light → Water → Matter → Remembering

And suddenly the rainbow becomes a magnificent image of the entire journey.

Light enters water.

The invisible becomes visible.

The One becomes many.

The colours experience separation.

Yet every colour still belongs to the original Light.

Then the conditions change.

The rainbow disappears.

But the Light doesn't die.

That may be the essence of what I mean by:

42 Is Remembering

42 isn't merely a number I'm collecting whenever it appears.

It has become a symbol for a question:

Can consciousness enter matter without forgetting what it is?

The rainbow says:

The Light is still here.

Thomas says:

Become passers-by.

The Egyptian imagery asks us to consider what remains when possessions and physical identity fall away.

The Seven Lords—3 through 9—sum to:

42.

And even the Japanese shi-ni association whispers of death, reminding us not to wait until the end of physical life to ask the question.

Because perhaps the purpose isn't to remember after death.

Perhaps the purpose is to remember while alive.

To awaken inside the experience.

To recognize the Light while it is still inside the droplet.

To participate fully in matter without becoming imprisoned by identification with matter.

To love the world without needing to possess it.

To inhabit the body without believing the body is the totality of who we are.

To become the passer-by.

And perhaps that is why 42 continues to speak to me.

Not because 42 provides the answer to everything.

But because it keeps asking me the same question:

Have you remembered yet?

42 is Remembering.

Move through matter.

Experience it.

Love within it.

But remember the Light that entered it.

The Light is with us.