Eastern Mysticism Explains Western Science

Apparently, the creator of the "quantum entanglement" equation that changed the perception of quantum physics forever, Dr. Erwin Schrödinger, was rather obsessed with Eastern mysticism in the latter part of his life: in particular the Sanskrit Vedic writings known as the Upanishads. After observing and defining with mathematics some crucial and almost incomprehensible phenomena in his beloved field of quantum physics, he ended up believing that he'd found the explanation of many of the mystifying outcomes and predictions implied by quantum physics (and his own equation) in the ancient writings of Hindu mystics. He even came to believe that Consciousness was the governing and unifying force of all creation--of all observable phenomena--and that all--everything observable and imaginable--was but the illusory projection of One Consciousness.

(From Wikipedia):

He once took on a particular line of thought: "If the world is indeed created by our act of observation, there should be billions of such worlds, one for each of us. How come your world and my world are the same? If something happens in my world, does it happen in your world, too? What causes all these worlds to synchronize with each other?"

There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads.^[57]

The creator of the famous "Schrödinger's cat" thought experiment came to believe that individuality (and independence) were nothing but illusions; he believed that all perception is but a reflection and refraction of the infinite possibilities dreamed up by the One Infinite Source of Unified Consciousness. Would that we could all subscribe to Erwin's admission and that we could then live accordingly. 

Nasty Behavior

I am in awe and wonder at the genius and intelligence of Mother Nature. As our region succumbed to some rather noxious air quality conditions in this recent month of July (due to numerous uncontrolled wildfires burning upwind from us in Canada), I noticed the Morning Glory plants adorning our neighbor's house stayed closed shut tightly instead of opening up with their usual expression of joy and color (and photosynthetic programming). I have just learned that this is due to an internal survival skill known as "nastic movement" which comes from the scientific terms of photonasty, thermonasty, and hydronasty. The plants somehow knew that it would be dangerous, unprofitable, and, therefore, pointless to open for business on those particular days--under those kinds of conditions. 

And they say plants aren't intelligent! 

Define Your Terms

 When entering upon a discussion with another human being, wouldn't it be helpful if you could know that all parties involved were speaking the same language? It might feel obvious when you're all using the same language, such as "English," in speaking with one another, but what if your version, your understanding, your definition of key words that you're both using are different than each other's? For example, when a child comes to you telling you that they "can't" do something, perhaps a helpful reset exercise would be to stop the conversation and ask your companion what it is they mean or intend when using the word "can't":

I'd like to stop our conversation to ask you to please define one of the terms I hear you using. I'm sure you can appreciate how our conversation might take a negative or confusing direction were we to be each using words that we have, for whatever reasons, learned to attach totally different meanings or perspectives to. 

     If you don't mind, I'd like to hear your definition of the term "can't" as I heard you say "I can't" at the beginning of your speech. I get the sense, however, that you might be using the word in a way--with an intended meaning--that might be quite different from the way I understand or would use it. 

There may be many, many terms you and your conversation partners use regularly for which you harbor excessively different definitions. Imagine the easier time you might have--for all parties involved in the conversation--were you to all be able to use terms for which you share common, agreed-upon definitions and meanings.

Commonly used terms in modern society to which individuals (and groups) often apply quite different meanings to include: "god," "liberal," "conservative," "democracy," "freedom," "government," and even "my" and "our."

Panic Attacks

 Human behavior is dictated by patterns developed by the tactics in our bag of survival instincts (and modeled behaviors) which seem to provide something that works to alleviate our fragilities and insecurities such as fear, pain, worries, etc. Survival instincts only occur due to a fear of pain and death which are the result of inhibited soul life, that is, a loss of connection and/or contact with our spiritual nature and spiritual histories. 

The behavior that we have come to call "a panic attack" seems to be the result of a need to A) get perceived "needs" for sympathy or attention, B) to get the conscious mind or "ego" to take a break or shut down so that it can have a chance to reset, to reconnect with the realities of life and the laws of existence. I say this having witnessed and heard stories of said events enough to have noticed a pattern: that they usually happen in close proximity to "loved ones" or people who might understand them; that they rarely happen in the locus of strangers; that they often lead to a peaceful, embarrassing and/or humbling state of re-attachment to the patterns that bring one healing and reduced pain and anxiety. Why we let perceptions of anxiety rise to such levels as to require such extreme actions is something that any person who has learned "panic attacks" as a successful coping mechanism can learn to determine for themselves. My point is that it takes the learning of self-care skills and habits, self-responsibility, and the meeting and regulation of addictions and other deleterious habits to disarm and abandon such "extreme" and infantile habits. (I call them infantile because they are quite like the tantrums, meltdowns, and/or "fits" that we labeled such behaviors in children--which feeds my theory of picking up and/or trying out behaviors we've had modeled to us that seem to work for the role models in our lives.)

    

Human Singularities

 A singularity is what scientists refer to when speaking about that which we call "black holes." A human singularity is what I'm referring to as a human black hole, or what street vernacular of the 1990s developed as an energy vampire: someone who sucks all of the joy, light, and energy out of the surroundings of the immediate space that they happen to occupy. They are takers, self-deluded about their own greatness, their own intelligence, their own importance; they are not only the true centers of their own universes but all that exists around them they see as theirs: their food, their sustenance, their fodder, theirs to do what they want with. An element of the potential of homo sapiens sapiens has been nurtured to allow it to often see themselves as the destined master of all it purveys, as "God's gift" to the universe. This what Daniel Quinn referred to when he coined the terms "taker" in his transformative book, Ishmael.

The rise of the phenomenon known as "narcissism" seems a natural progression to have arisen out of the "me-generation" mentality that the captains of capitalism have pushed upon us--just as the "borderline nation" of sociopathic behavior is a natural (and desired) product (objective) of narcissistic resistance to to the unrelenting oppression of systematic brainwashing (acculturation). It should come as no surprise that the effect of insidious fear-mongered would produce a population of paranoid, neurotic isolationists--both individually and collectively--of which narcissism should only be recognized as the natural expression of one of the most extreme versions of "me-generation" individualism: human singularity spun out of control. 

Great Movies Void of Guns, Killing, Bullying, Violence, and Horror

Here is a list of films in which Joy, Beauty, Love, Altruism, Selflessness, and the Transcendence of the Human Spirit reign supreme:

Off the Map

Joyeux Noël

The Danish Girl

Enchanted April

Love, Actually

The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man

About Time

Harold and Maude

Being There

My Neighbor Totoro

Jésus de Montréal

Local Hero

Roman Holiday

A Home at the End of the World

The Apartment

Meet Joe Black

In America

La cage aux folles

This Is Spinal Tap

Sleeper

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Dad

Amélie

Mostly Martha

The American President

Michael

Finding Neverland

The Coca-Cola Kid

Rikki & Pete

Florence Foster Jenkins

Babe

The Straight Story

Mrs. Harris Goes to Washington

Cinema Paradiso

A Room with a View

What about Bob?

Conclave

Kiki's Delivery Service

Past Lives

Lost in Translation

Lady Bird (?)

Claendar Girls

Cool Runnings

Stop Making Sense

Arthur the King

When Harry Met Sally

Definitely, Maybe

About Time

The Big Year

5 to 7

Adoration

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Roger Woolger

Roger Woolger was the second author authority on past lives and past life therapy that I discovered. His book Other Lives, Other Selves came along in my life at a perfect time (in 1983) as I was spiritually very hungry, had a lot of time on my hand, and was still too immature and ignorant to comprehend/understand Carl Jung. As a matter of fact, Other Lives, Other Selves was quite possibly my introduction into the world of Jungian thought as I remember how Roger was quite open about discussing the possibility that 'past life information' was quite possibly information that was accessed and available to us through a collective consciousness rather than as independent stories available exclusively to the individuals who experienced them.
     Recent excursions into Roger's world have lead me into two particularly fine thought-provoking ideas. One comes from a video that Roger made very near to the end of his life with regards to whether or not he believed that past lives were truly a phenomenon exclusive to individual 'souls,' that is, whether or not the individual soul exists. His explanation used an anecdote from Tibetan Buddhist monk Chunguyu Rinphche. When asked during a public Q & A how Tibetan Buddhists could adhere to a doctrine or belief in reincarnation and bardo when they do not believe in the concept or existence of "souls" the monk responded that they believed that the information that lives on, that seeks new vessels for life experience, are "our neuroses" that is, the stuck, unfinished, untransmuted energies of our lives. Were we to process and transform all of our energy into perfect, unfettered flow, we would be done: we would be ego-less and our energy would be free to flow into and dissipate within as it merges with the Unified Field of the great Universal Life Force.
     The second bit of Roger wisdom/insight that causes me food for thought has to do with Roger's look at the viability of any and all information accessible through the physical bodymind's link to memory or fantasy as equally relevant and helpful in processing and clearing stuck energy. I liken this to Neils Bohr's and Albert Einstein's valuation of imagination as a key element of creativity, creation, and a fuller human life. Thus, aspects of the human experience such as childhood, memory, imagination, fantasy, story, dream, intuition, artistic manifestation, even thought patterns can offer insights into oneself that can help one see oneself and his/her patterns--especially his/her stuck places and their origins. Creative expression (which, one could argue, encapsulates all human expression) is a means to both calcification and eradication of our patterns. Though it is always our choice whether or not we want to "like" or "dislike" our own patterns, assessment and expression would seem to give us the means to change (a process that some might call "grow").