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Shahriar Shahriari |
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Science & Spirituality
Bridging the GapScience can try `to see the world in a grain of sand', in the stars and galaxies, in the energy hidden within the atom, or in the growth and development of the human brain. But it does not really matter where science starts, because eventually it will lead to the same place - the mystery of Life, the Universe and everything in it.
Today's new breed of mystics, comprising quantum physicists, cyberneticists, molecular biologists, mathematicians and computer scientists, have all largely explored the depths of frontier sciences and have somehow been introduced to the oneness of it all. The apparent gulf between science and spirituality is caused by the use of different languages. Both camps are, however, saying the same thing.
Science has shown that the world is not a giant clock, that God was not a detached clock-maker who made the system and is now watching it operate, and that reducing the system into its constituent parts kills its inherent essence of synergy, and continually makes the truth slip further away from our grasp.
But isn't that what the mystics and philosophers of the past and present have been trying to tell us? Is not the universe one giant cosmic soup of energy which, depending on how we wish to observe it, will manifest into that particular reality?
Physicists are telling us that the observer affects the observation. Science is showing that we no longer perform objective experiments. Instead, we participate in subjective experiments because our minds, thoughts and expectations will bring the results we expect.
It is not that we are changing reality, but that the definition of reality itself is changing. Reality is no longer the external unaffected something out there, that we can accept, deny, challenge, overcome, or resign to. It is something that is inside us. But that is only half the truth. The other half is that we are inside `it'.
In the late '60s and early '70s, renowned physicist David Bohm proposed that the workings of the universe were based on a holographic model. Simultaneously and independently, Karl Pribram, the eminent psychoneuroemmunologist, while attempting to localize memory in the brain, came to the conclusion that the human brain also functioned according to a holographic model. Yet another example of `As above, so below!'
Bohm proposed that our four dimensional space-time continuum model of the universe was only part of the story, and that these dimensions constitute what he called the `explicate order'. This explicate order is constantly unfolding, based on the information contained in a reality of higher dimensions, which he called the `implicate order'. Sounds like mysticism? This is frontier physics.
That the implicate order contains the sum-total of all that has been, is, and will be, transpiring in the explicate order. It sounds deterministic, as if pre-ordained by a supreme divinity. However, Bohm suggested that the quality of the implicate order was much the same as the quality of thought or consciousness. In other words, we as human beings, with the quality of our thoughts, from our explicate existence, can affect and re-write the implicate order which, in turn, will create a new reality unfolding into the explicate order.
But what determines the information within the implicate order? Bohm proposed that the implicate order itself was the result of the unfolding of yet a higher order which he called `super-implicate order' and, to our limited knowledge and perception, this could go on ad infinitum.
Furthermore, the qualities of all these orders are holographic in the true sense of the word (Holo means whole, and graph means recorded). In other words, in the universe the whole is contained in each and every part.
So science is describing the universe as the dance of quantum energy based on the symphony of thought and consciousness which is constantly unfolding from the implicate order into the explicate, and enfolding back into the implicate. All the information about the totality of the space-time continuum is contained in every part, time and location in space.
In other words, we can `see the world in a grain of sand' or in the stars. But isn't that what astrology is about? We can look at the pattern of the stars in heavens, and determine how, through the implicate order, they affect our lives.
Physics is saying that if we can go within our consciousness and tune into the implicate order, then we will see the totality of time and space for the entire universe. Therefore, is it not possible to use tarot cards, the I ching, tea leaves or any other divination technique to tune into the implicate order and talk about the past or the future? By the same token, can we not know something as simple as who it is when the phone rings.
Isn't it possible that, by tuning into the implicate order, we can regress back into our past lives and, indeed, into the entire process of evolution on this planet and in the universe, and be able to see and experience everything in a timeless manner? Isn't it also possible that, like Nostradamus or Joules Verne, we may be able to tune into the implicate order and predict the shape of things to come?
But physics is also saying that we are active participants in the process of creation. Through our minds and consciousness, we can go from the explicate order and re-write the information in the implicate, and perhaps even the super-implicate order. In other words, we have the freedom to choose, to determine our futures. The future is written, but only in pencil, and we have the ability to erase what is written and write what we desire.
After all, isn't the purpose of astrology to understand our lives so that we can transcend our limitations and, indeed, astrology itself? Doesn't future-gazing give us the power to see what parts we do not wish to have happen, and therefore re-write them? Nostradamus himself said, in his will to his son, that he left these horrific prophecies about the future so that we would start changing them.
Furthermore, if we truly affect our world through the implicate order, then our thoughts have power, because they can re-write what is to unfold in the implicate order. Whether we walk on fire or bend spoons with the power of our minds, we are re-writing the unfolding of events in the explicate order.
Chaos mathematics is telling us that, in many non-linear systems, because of the number of variables, the events have a chaotic appearance. But underlying that chaos, at a certain level there is order - just as the currents in a river or the weather pattern around the globe have an inherent order. It is this order that enables us to read the different patterns produced by EEG machines, and to separate a happy thought from a sad one, or relaxation from stress and anger and fear.
Science tells us that, just because we do not perceive the events from a higher order, it does not mean that there is randomness and chaos. The limitation is not in the universe but in our choice of perception of it.
Both psychology and mathematics tell us that synchronicity is real, and that we can create desirable coincidences. The `Butterfly effect' tells us that if a butterfly in China flaps its wings in a certain way at a certain time and location, then it can create a cascading chain of events that will lead to a hurricane in California. But is it possible to somehow influence that butterfly to be in that place at that time and flap its wings in that way? It is, if we can tap into the implicate order and re-write the future.
And isn't that exactly what we do when we ask our guides and angels to assist us in a certain healing process; or when we ask for coincidences to make our work and life more effortless; or we pray to God to bring the conditions necessary for certain outcome to materialize. Faith healing, spiritual healing, and miracles fall into this category.
From the very beginning, Science and Religion were the two methods employed by mankind to try to understand the world. Now, more than ever before, these two completely distinct branches of wisdom are coming together. Science is embracing multi and inter-disciplinary approaches to reach the ultimate truth. And, in its embracing of diversity, it is espousing religion, mythology and philosophy to reach Spirituality. Paradoxically, it is only through diversity that the spirituality of unity can be reached.
Science describes spirituality, but spirituality also describes science. It is only through the communion of their differences that each one may be understood and experienced.
© Shahriar Shahriari,
January 1996,
Vancouver Canada
Shared Vision Magazine (Vancouver) - March 1996 - Pg. 56
© , 1997-2005. Vancouver Canada, & Los Angeles, CA
All rights reserved.
This page was last modified on Monday, May 02, 2005.
