PART II
EVOLVING IN A PLACE CALLED EDEN IS A PROMISING YOUNG CIVILIZATION.

WE GROW MORE DANGEROUS YET WISER EACH DAY.
 

TEACHERS HAVE TAUGHT US...

Most of us in western civilization have deeply pondered the questions: Is there a God? Is there truth to religion? For many of us, these are the most deeply tortured questions within our minds, because the consequences for our interpretation of human experience are held to be crucially hinged on what is believed to be a binary answer.

From my perspective, there is one concept of which I am logically and totally convinced -which science has utterly failed to teach me directly -but which religion has long held and somewhat rationally explained in its internal structure: There can be no question that the Cosmos is the product of intent.

Some of the brightest minds in science are focusing on this issue -the nature of intent. The precision of natural existence is so abundantly in evidence around us that it is hard to fathom how it could possibly be a construction of random forces with no intended design. Some are choosing to look at the anthropic principle and turn it on its head: Nature is so perfectly suited to create conscious life through evolution, and the constants of nature are so delicately and precisely tuned, that the concept of utter randomness is deemed more difficult to comprehend than some kind of intended creation.

Though resort to a God begs the question of who is above God, science is no better, as it has no answer to the question of what happened before the Big Bang. These postures are quite literally equally unable to address the basic question of what it is that is eternal.

However, in the most fundamental teaching that creation was intended, religions are true to my view of reality, and have envisioned the concept of a continuing intellect-driven creation process that has yet to be broadly understandable or even imagined by science. It is in this concept of intended creation, or being, that the emotive feeling of meaning has a place for discussion within the mechanical laws of physics.

The physicality of intention allows the physicist in me to incorporate an understanding of emotion into the laws that govern the universe. Unfortunately, only a few physicists have been brave enough to openly contemplate the possibilities of a connection from consciousness through intent to creation as they peer into the quantum vacuum, and most of them who do are grounded in good science.

But religions have succeeded in remembering the most sacred concepts known to our ancestors, such as the simplistic-sounding biblical account of intended creation. Whether the subjective faith is Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, or more modern sects thereof such as the Mormon tradition of Christianity, historians do not generally question the genuine intent of the priests and scribes of ancient times attempting to pass sacred knowledge on to their descendents.

Of course, religions have also carried forward, in a few cases with equal or greater vigor, myths, personal interpretations, broken logic, misperceived teachings, and just plain outright lies.

As we survey the knowledge passed down from our world's religions, what have we collectively learned then? If we were to attempt, however imperfectly, to boil away the cloudy soup and find only the strongest, most resilient morsels of historical truth, what would we find? What are those ancient concepts most resonant with what modern western civilization has learned after a few centuries of good science? What concepts of value were our ancestors attempting to pass down to us? What was so important to pass on that many of them chose to give their lives in order that we might remember?

I have chosen in this condensed version to answer these questions through a review of only a few realms of religious scholarship.

A more complete ecumenical discussion can be found within the unedited version of The Truth.
 

The Physicist and the Mystic

"The achievements of modern science seem to contradict religion and undermine faith. But for a growing number of scientists, the same discoveries offer support for spirituality and hints of the very nature of God."
--Sharon Begley, Newsweek, July 1998

"As a religious person, I strongly sense the presence and actions of a creative being far beyond myself and yet always personal and close by." To me, cosmology reveals "a universe that fits religious views... somehow intelligence must have been involved in the laws of the universe."
--Charles Townes, Nobel Prize winning Physicist, UC Berkeley

Do the physicist and the mystic have anything in common as we approach the end of the second millennium?

Imagine going to a physics lecture on the current state of knowledge about the universe. The dialogue seems a little eccentric at times but otherwise fits the subject well. Now imagine you were in the wrong room and attending a lecture on what Eastern mysticism says about the same subject. It's a highly unlikely scenario but not impossible because both have come to strikingly similar conclusions about the fundamental nature of reality. After travelling a separate road for centuries many physicists have arrived at the same place as mystics.

Taken as a whole this is nothing short of astonishing. How could such seemingly different and opposing views produce the same conclusions? Or perhaps a better question might be, How did the East penetrate to the heart of things so long before the West?

Ever since the Greeks first posited the atom, the overall goal of Western science has been to find the basic building blocks of creation, the smallest indivisible somethings out of which the universe is constructed. Achieving this goal meant breaking the universe down into its component parts to see how everything fit together. This is the mechanistic world view of classical physics. It reached its apogee with Newton and dominated Western science until the 20th century.

It is still the view of reality held by most people because it appears to accurately describe the world we see around us. Yet what it describes is not precisely reality but rather a representation or approximation of reality. The problem comes when we mistake the representation for the real thing. This insight is succinctly phrased by the adage, "The map is not the territory".

At the beginning of the 20th century it seemed that physics was about to complete the millennia old quest of Western science. New insights and technologies made it possible to peer more deeply into the nature of things than ever before. But what physicists saw was radically, fundamentally different than what anyone expected. The truth that existed in the sub-atomic, quantum world was the opposite of what our rational and logically constructed representations had led us to believe.

Einstein's reaction, recorded in his autobiography, was typical of the shock most physicists felt:

"All my attempts to adopt the theoretical foundation of physics to this knowledge failed completely. It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere upon which one could have built."

Unnoticed at the time was the fact that another belief system had discovered the same truths as modern physics long before the 20th century.

Historically the Eastern world has always been a cipher to the West. This has changed somewhat in the last three decades as a global communications network has come online. But even now--fans of martial arts, yoga, Buddhism and the Dalai Lama notwithstanding--few people have taken the time to really explore its traditions and beliefs.

If they did they would discover a world defined more by mysticism and intuition than science and logic. And yet, modern physics is hurtling towards the idea that the ultimate nature of the universe is as mystics have held all along: That all things are truly one, that the unity of everything is real and revealed in the inherent connection and instantaneous "communication" that takes place between sub-atomic particles.

That reality is determined by awareness insofar as reality can be determined at all. That the act of observation itself (awareness) forces possibility to coalesce as choice, and determines a particle's "potential" to actualize in an identifiable way (does this mean that all observation then, is really participation?).

And that to exist "objectively", to be fixed in a definite place and time, is something of an illusion.
 

Duality

2500 years ago the Greeks not only proposed the atom but also the separation of matter and spirit. By introducing this duality they turned away from the principle that all things were one and began a philosophical schism between East and West. In simplest terms it was about, What we can know and How we can know it.

Western civilization has been characterized by an intellectual bias in explaining the universe. We have used the intellectual tools of rational thought and logic to create representations of reality that have the virtue of being easier to grasp than reality itself. The danger, as noted previously, is in forgetting that these are approximations and may not accurately reflect the true conditions of the universe.

The further danger exists in that the "language" employed, in this case rationality and logic, ends up determining the kind of questions that get asked and how the answers are interpreted. Like anything else taken to an extreme, it limits our ability to conceptualize or think about reality in any other way.

Eastern mystical traditions, perhaps going too far to the other extreme on the other hand, hold that since the universe is not governed by logic or rationality, it can never be understood intellectually. According to the Eastern tradition there are two levels of truth: the rational, logical, pragmatic truth of the everyday, and the intuitive, transcendental, profound truth of the Tao.

This is the Tao in Taoist thought, the source of all things, the eternally creative force at work in the universe, the one absolute and transcendental truth. It is therefore inherent in the nature of the Tao that you can never know its reality through rational means: it is not amenable to language, classification or quantization but rather, like the world described by quantum physics, filled with seeming paradox, contradiction, and impossibility. Only through the intuition--which is not suborned by approximation or logic--can we come to know non-rational transcendental truth.

Thus the Tao Te Ching, one of the classics of eastern thought says,

"The Tao that can be expressed in words is not the eternal Tao"

The Eastern tradition then, has accented the intuitive mode of knowing because it does not depend on intellectual concepts to grasp the true nature of things.

The terms "mystic" and "mysticism" have acquired a negative connotation in the West. They imply a type of reasoning that is unclear, imprecise or nebulous, or are associated with a belief in the fanciful or the make-believe.

On the contrary however, a mystic is someone who has devoted themselves to clarity. By apprehending reality on a direct, experiential level they ignore the illusion of reality they believe is created by the intellect--instead of a description of reality, the mystic seeks direct knowledge of its nature through intuition. Many cultural forms in the East are designed to enhance this process by creating opportunities to develop the intuition.

Meditation and specialized forms of music, dance, and poetry are all meant to help shift the consciousness from the rational to the intuitive. Just as a scientist must learn to use experimentation to support rationality and logic, mystics must learn to use meditation to enter into and sustain a deep intuitive state. Mysticism often demands a regimen of contemplation and discipline which may entail years of study with one or more masters.

This is analogous to the years of specialized schooling it takes to master the disciplines of western science. Overall, mysticism is a mode of knowing which seeks awareness of those aspects of existence not addressed by rationality and logic.

Though it has always been present to a degree, the mystical tradition is a footnote in the history of the West. From the 15th century on, little credence was given to intuition and mysticism as valid sources of knowledge. The ultimate result is that Western science has become estranged from spiritual and religious issues altogether. In the East however, all science and philosophy is understood in a religious and spiritual context. The primary threads of spirituality run through Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. Their common goal is enlightenment.

This term has often been used synonymously with wisdom in the west, but it is actually quite different. Wisdom refers to a body of insights realized over time through experience and reflection. Enlightenment on the other hand, is the state of oneness with the Tao. This signifies a deeper awareness and understanding of reality than is available through the intellect alone. This term also refers to the journey itself or the way of attaining this awareness.

The Tao then, is both process and goal.
 

Converging Thought

In the West however, understanding the universe has become a solely intellectual process valid only in the context of science. Its purpose seems limited to discovering the ways and means to manipulate reality for some specific end. Using both intuition and intellect has allowed the East to see other insights into the nature of the universe. Intuition gives a deeply felt experience of reality that is lacking in the West. It also supplies a more complete and appropriate context for the intellectual consideration of all information and knowledge. The balance between these two modes of knowing underlies the great strength and longevity of Eastern tradition.

Nature, meaning the natural order and interaction of all things, is a source of both rational and transcendental knowledge.

The observation and contemplation of nature has been central in formulating the concepts of Eastern thought. Again the "Tao Te Ching" says,

The Tao is embodied in Nature and Nature echoes the Tao.

In Eastern thought, nature teaches that change is a fundamental condition of the universe, that all things are relative and in constant flux within the eternal Tao. Therefore rigidity or fixedness is contrary to nature. Becoming attached to a specific viewpoint or opinion is foolish, for what is true or correct in one circumstance is bound to be false in another. The character of this change is cyclic, not just as it applies, for example, to the shifting of the seasons, but in the movement of all things. This cyclicity allows us to understand that life is a process of gain and loss, of advance and retreat, and that setbacks and obstacles are essential ingredients of growth and evolution.

The nature of the movement within these cycles is the fundamental dynamic of the Tao and of all Eastern thought. It is the principle of yin and yang--the rhythmic oscillation of all things between the poles of action and passivity. All manifestations in their overt, active stage are considered yang. Those in their passive, quiescent stage are yin.

The Taoists say,

"Yin conserves or accumulates, Yang expands or radiates".

All complex processes including human existence, are not defined simply by one aspect or the other, but derive from the constantly shifting relationships between the two.
 

Yin and Yang

The principle of yin and yang has been studied and refined for over 2000 years. In that time it has acquired tremendous depth and subtlety and is capable of explaining the most intricate workings of the universe. Yet it has also retained a simplicity which allows us to see its manifestations wherever we look. In the movement of our bodies we observe that some muscles contract (active yang stage) while others relax (passive yin stage).

Water evaporates from the surface of the planet to form clouds (accumulative yin stage) then returns to earth as rain (radiating yang stage).

On the cosmic level gasses coalesce to form the sun (accumulative yin stage) then the sun gives off energy (radiating yang stage).

Though they embody a relationship between opposites they are manifestations of one thing and they move between its poles. They illustrate the attraction of opposites by making us realize that only in such movement can stability and equilibrium be found. They both possess a bit of the other and all things contain some of both.

Contemplating the harmonious relationship between yin and yang leads us to the concept of balance.

There is an old Chinese story about a couple who had only a hut on a small plot of land, a son, and a horse. They were poor but content. One morning the horse was gone, having run off in the night. Their neighbors expressed sorrow at this misfortune. But the couple only smiled and said, "Perhaps". The next night the horse returned home followed by several wild horses. Now the neighbors congratulated them on their good fortune. But again the couple smiled and said only, "Perhaps".

Soon the couple's son tried to tame the wild horses but was thrown and suffered a broken leg. The neighbors expressed their condolences for this tribulation. But the couple's reply was the same as before. At this the neighbors decided the old couple had grown strange. The next day war was declared and soldiers came to conscript all the young men of the villages for the army.

 Only the couple's son was exempted because of his broken leg. This time the neighbors came and expressed their amazement at how lucky the couple were. To which the couple smiled and replied once more, "Perhaps". But this time the neighbors paused to think. Then smiling, they slowly nodded their heads and said, "Perhaps".

Is "perhaps" not just another way of saying that the concept is a possibility?

I believe there is indeed quantum physics buried within the machinery of our brains, engineering space through time.
 

Beyond Mysticism

Whatever the historicity, meaning, or relevance of mystical traditions such as the popular, sophisticated, and successful traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, or the obscure and veiled Kabbalah, and whatever the human condition has contributed to their reconstruction or deconstruction from essential beginnings, almost all world mystical traditions fundamentally reinforce the idea that we are all a part of a much larger order.

They assert that we must strive to be a vehicle of God, emanating our experience to others to unlock the keys to the universe.

In this teaching, the mystical traditions have played an indispensable role in framing the psychology of the world’s faiths, and, I believe, framing the reality that science seeks to comprehend.

But to any God above, around, or inside us, it would have been clear that considerably more teaching would be necessary for a race of beings as primitive as we, to be able recognize a more complete concept of God.

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