Spiritual Science and The New Physics

The old view was a material universe separated by objective space and time, a clockwork machine operating under fixed laws which evolved in complexity until consciousness (the ability to experience) mysteriously manifested into the first ever self-aware unit of (now “living”) matter.  No scientist, however, could explain how something as complex as life and consciousness, our complex immaterial internal worlds of thought, emotion, sensation, and perception could ever arise from something as simple as random interactions of physical matter.  No biological, chemical, electrical, magnetic, or other quantitative, qualitative such formula, can ever explain how consciousness could emerge from mere physical interactions of non-experiencing, non-living, unconscious particles of matter.  

"In the old thinking I cannot change anything because I don't have any role at all in reality.  Reality is already there.  It is material objects moving in their own way from deterministic laws and mathematics determines what they will do in a given situation.  I, the experiencer, have no role at all.  In the new view, yes, mathematics can give us something.  It gives us the possibilities that all these movements can assume, but it cannot give us the actual experience that I'll be having in my consciousness.  I choose that experience, and therefore, literally, I create my own reality.  It may sound like a tremendous, bombastic claim by some New Agey without any understanding of physics whatsoever, but really quantum physics is telling us that."  -Amit Goswami Ph.D, "What the Bleep Do We Know?"

“Quantum theory has thus demolished the classical concepts of solid objects and of strictly deterministic laws of nature. At the subatomic level, the solid material objects of classical physics dissolve into wave-like patterns of probabilities, and these patterns, ultimately, do not represent probabilities of things, but rather probabilities of interconnections. A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement. Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated ‘basic building blocks’, but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitutes the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can only be understood in terms of the object’s interaction with the observer.”  -Fritjof Capra, “The Tao of Physics” (68)

Princeton physicist and colleague of Albert Einstein, Dr. John Wheeler, often remarked that nothing is more important in quantum physics than the observer effect and the measurement problem because they destroy the materialist concept of the world “sitting out there” with the observer “safely separated from it by a 20 centimeter slab of plate glass.”  Even to observe something as miniscule as an electron that slab of plate glass must be shattered.  The scientist must reach in, install his devices, and decide whether to measure position or momentum.  It is up to him which he decides, but installing the equipment to measure one prevents and excludes the possibility of measuring the other, because his act of measuring actually changes the state of the electron.  Due to the free-willed decision of the observer, the universe afterwards will never again be the same.  Thus to accurately describe what has happened, Wheeler insisted that the old word “observer” must be replaced with the new word “participator” because in some strange and fantastic way, our universe is a participatory universe.  

“What a shift!  In a radically different interpretation of our relationship to the world we live in, Wheeler states that it’s impossible for us to simply watch the universe happen around us.  Experiments in quantum physics, in fact, do show that simply looking at something as tiny as an electron – just focusing our awareness upon what it’s doing for even an instant in time – changes its properties while we’re watching it.  The experiments suggest that the very act of observation is an act of creation, and that consciousness is doing the creating.  These findings seem to support Wheeler’s proposition that we can no longer consider ourselves merely onlookers who have no effect on the world that we’re observing.” -Gregg Braden, “The Divine Matrix” (xi)

“The idea of ‘participation instead of observation’ has been formulated in modern physics only recently, but it is an idea which is well known to any student of mysticism. Mystical knowledge can never be obtained just by observation, but only by full participation with one’s whole being. The notion of the participator is thus crucial to the Eastern world view, and the Eastern mystics have pushed this notion to the extreme, to a point where observer and observed, subject and object, are not only inseparable but also become indistinguishable.  The mystics are not satisfied with a situation analogous to atomic physics, where the observer and the observed cannot be separated, but can still be distinguished. They go much further, and in deep meditation they arrive at a point where the distinction between observer and observed breaks down completely, where subject and object fuse into a unified undifferentiated whole.”  -Fritjof Capra, “The Tao of Physics” (141-2)

Mystics, yogis, shamans, Eastern philosophers and the like have no trouble whatsoever understanding quantum physics.  These amazing discoveries causing such a stir among the “scientific” community are really just experimental proofs of ancient wisdom long understood by such “simple” folk.  The ideas of cosmic mind and the participatory universe are already fundamental tenets of their worldview.  It is only modern Westerners raised on the materialist paradigm that find these facts puzzling.

Fermi award-winning American physicist, successor to Albert Einstein at Princeton’s IAS, and director of the Manhattan Project, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, was well aware of quantum physics’ uncanny resemblance to Eastern philosophy.  He once stated that, “the general notions about human understanding . . . which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of, or new. Even in our own culture they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find is an exemplification, an encouragement, and a refinement of old wisdom.”

Nobel Prize-winning German physicist, successor to Max Plank, and pioneer of the Uncertainty Principle, Dr. Werner Heisenberg, was also well aware of the parallels between quantum physics and Eastern thought.  He stated that, “the great scientific contribution in theoretical physics that has come from Japan since the last war may be an indication of a certain relationship between philosophical ideas in the tradition of the Far East and the philosophical substance of quantum theory.”

“We are poised on the brink of a revolution – a revolution as daring and profound as Einstein’s discovery of relativity.  At the very frontier of science new ideas are emerging that challenge everything we believe about how our world works and how we define ourselves.  Discoveries are being made that prove what religion has always espoused:  that human beings are far more extraordinary than an assemblage of flesh and bones … Human beings and all living things are a coalescence of energy in a field of energy connected to every other thing in the world.  This pulsating energy field is the central engine of our being and our consciousness … There is no ‘me’ and ‘not-me’ duality to our bodies in relation to the universe, but one underlying energy field.”  -Lynne McTaggart, “The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe,” (XXIII)

“Quantum physics illustrates how everything in the Universe, in all dimensions of life and reality ultimately consists of ‘Quanta’ of Energy, vibration.  This Energy not only pervades and is integral to everything in existence, it is also ‘living’ Mind, living Consciousness.  Everything in the Universe therefore has its being within this infinite intelligent Energy.  Everything is an aspect of this infinite intelligence, every person, every animal, every tree, every star and every planet, and every micro-organism, however small, is ultimately an equal aspect of the very same Energy; there is no separatedness except as an illusion created by the ego and five physical senses; we and everything in the Universe without exception are one.” -Adrian Cooper, “Our Ultimate Reality” (89-90)

In Hinduism “Mahamaya” is a goddess personifying the power to create the material universe.  In Buddhism, Buddha’s supernatural mother is known as “Maya.”  In ancient Egypt Ma’at or Mayet was the female Goddess responsible for setting order and balance at the moment of creation. The Indian word “Maya” has the same meaning as the Mesoamerican “Mayan” civilization half a world away.  In both cultures, Maya, loosely translates to “illusion” or “delusion” as both peoples believed the entire physical universe to be an illusion, a delusion of our consciousness separating our fundamental Oneness (the Father) into individualized subjective perspectives throughout time/space (the Mother, Matter, Ma’at, Mayet, Mayan illusion).

“So it is conceivable that all of this really is just a great illusion, that we have no way of really getting outside of to see what is really out there.  Your brain doesn't know the difference between what's taking place out there and what's taking place in here.  There is no ‘out there'’ out there independent of what's going on in here.” -Fred Alan Wolf Ph.D, “What the Bleep Do We Know?”

“One of the discoveries that proved to be most astonishing to physicists was the observation that the only time Quanta ever manifest as particles is when people are actually looking at them.  The significance of this realization alone is extremely profound in terms of the understanding of the material world and of all creation.  The wisdom of the ages has always maintained and taught the physical world of matter is nothing but an illusion, only perceived by most as ‘reality’ due to observation and experience by the mediation of the five physical senses.” -Adrian Cooper, “Our Ultimate Reality” (75)

Everything, the entire material universe, at the most fundamental level is simply one undifferentiated interconnected energy resonating at various frequencies.  Solid matter, for instance, is energy of a very slow, dense vibration, such as H₂O in ice form.  In a block of ice, the collective vibration of H₂O molecules slows and freezes into a rigid, highly-structured alignment.  The vibration of that block of ice is so slow that your hand cannot pass through the dense mass of H₂O molecules.  However, if you take that same mass of molecules and raise the temperature so they vibrate at a faster rate, then that rigid impenetrable solidity gives way to more flowing/fluid, chaotic, lower-density, liquid state – water - which your hand can pass right through.  If you continue heating the same mass of molecules, causing them to vibrate even faster, then that flowing, liquid state gives way to an even more chaotic, lower-density, free-form, gaseous state – steam - which your hand passes through with even less resistance than water.  This example illustrates how “materiality” is simply an illusion created by interfering energy patterns of varying vibrations decoded by mind/consciousness.

“Quantum physicist David Bohm was absolutely correct when he made the observation that the physical Universe is actually ‘frozen light.’  This can be likened to the process of water freezing.  As water gets progressively colder the molecules comprising that water progressively slow down as they vibrate at lower rates of Energy of which they ultimately comprise, until eventually the Energy vibration of the molecules becomes too low to sustain the water as a liquid at which point the water freezes and becomes ice.  The physical composition of the ice and the atoms and molecules that comprise it are exactly the same as when it existed as water, the only difference being that as ice the Energy that ultimately comprises that water or ice is now vibrating at a much lower level.  Exactly the same principle applies to the existence of the physical Universe within the greater Universe as a whole.  As Energy vibrates at a progressively lower rate and density increases as a result, there came a point during the initial creation of the Universe where the vibrations of Energy became too low to be sustainable in its usual fine free Energy form, and therefore differentiated into particles of various increasing sizes, ultimately manifesting as matter, the physical Universe as observed by science and people on Earth generally.” -Adrian Cooper, “Our Ultimate Reality” (209)

Classical physics and the old science taught us that human beings were mere survival machines powered by chemicals and genes.  They taught us that the brain was the originator of consciousness, and that our internal worlds of thought, emotion, sensation, and morality were mere by-products of material evolution.  They taught us that we humans were separate, isolated entities in a desolate, mechanical, clockwork universe.  They taught us that time and space were finite and that nothing traveled faster than light.

Quantum physics and the new science, however, teach us that human beings are spiritual entities having this physical experience.  They teach us that consciousness is the primary mind-stuff of the universe, and that time, space, and matter exist only within and by virtue of consciousness.  They teach us that we humans are indivisible from our environment and each other, that our bodies, the stars and space are composed of One undifferentiated expanse of vibrating energy. 

In short, the old material science brought us a disempowering message of division and haphazard coincidence; the new spiritual science brings us the empowering message of absolute unity and divine cosmic mind.

“Western science is approaching a paradigm shift of unprecedented proportions, one that will change our concepts of reality and of human nature, bridge the gap between ancient wisdom and modern science, and reconcile the differences between Eastern spirituality and Western pragmatism.”  -Dr. Stanislav Grof, “Beyond the Brain”

“The exploration of the atomic and subatomic world in the twentieth century has revealed an unsuspected limitation of classical ideas, and has necessitated a radical revision of many of our basic concepts. The concept of matter in subatomic physics, for example, is totally different from the traditional idea of a material substance in classical physics. The same is true for concepts like space, time, or cause and effect. These concepts, however, are fundamental to our outlook on the world around us and with their radical transformation our whole world view has begun to change. These changes, brought about by modern physics, have been widely discussed by physicists and by philosophers over the past decades, but very seldom has it been realized that they all seem to lead in the same direction, towards a view of the world which is very similar to the views held in Eastern mysticism … [and] if physics leads us today to a world view which is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning, 2,500 years ago.  It is interesting to follow the evolution of Western science along its spiral path, starting from the mystical philosophies of the early Greeks, rising and unfolding in an impressive development of intellectual thought that increasingly turned away from its mystical origins to develop a world view which is in sharp contrast to that of the Far East. In its most recent stages, Western science is finally overcoming this view and coming back to those of the early Greek and the Eastern philosophies.  This time, however, it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism.”  -Fritjof Capra, “The Tao of Physics” (17-19)

“Quantum physics, which explores reality beyond the 'physical' world of the atom, is saying basically the same as the mystics, and people like me, who talk of different dimensions and frequencies of existence interpenetrating our own. Spirituality and true science - in its open-minded, open-hearted form – are essentially at one. It is mainstream science and mainstream religion that has caused the apparent rift because they are slaves to arrogance, ignorance and dogma. One is not science and the other is not spiritual. They are two polarities of the same falsehood. The open-minded quantum physicist would have no problem with most of what I am going to say in this book, while the cap-touching, protecting-my-funding, mainstream 'scientist' would roll his eyes in bewilderment. Such is the chasm of view that exists in the so-called scientific community.” –David Icke, “Infinite Love is the Only Truth, Everything Else is Illusion” (21-22)

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