THE DIVINE UNIVERSE
Other books by Swami Abhayananda:
The Supreme Self
History of Mysticism: The Unchanging Testament
Jnaneshvar: The Life And Works
Dattatreya: Song of The Avadhut
Thomas á Kempis: On The Love of God
The Wisdom of Vedanta
Plotinus: The Origin of Western Mysticism
Mysticism And Science: A Call for Reconciliation
THE DIVINE UNIVERSE
An Alternative to The Scientific Worldview
by Swami Abhayananda
THE DIVINE UNIVERSE
by Swami Abhayananda
Copyright © 2007 by Swami Abhayananda
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written consent from the author. The author may be contacted at abhayanand@aol.com.
CONTENTS
Introduction
I.
MYSTICISM VERSUS SCIENTISM
1. Mysticism, Science, And The Heirs of Democritus
2. The Ultimate Theory of Everything
3. The Origin of The Universe
4. What Is Energy?
5. Where Consciousness Comes From
6. Time, Eternity, and The Future Task of Science
7. In The Final Analysis
II.
SPIRITUAL VISION
8. Agnosticism Examined
9. How Do We Know?
10. Enlightenment And Grace
11. My Own Experience
12. The Gift of Vision
13. We Who Have Been Blessed
14. He Hears
III. THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY
15. Kapila’s Vision
16. The Philosophy of Nondualism
17. Perfect Nondualism
18. Ox-Herding
19. The Appearance of Duality
20. Nondualism In The Teachings of Jesus
21. The Meeting of Heart and Mind
IV.
THE
QUESTION OF ASTROLOGY
22. The Rationale For Astrology
23. The Soul of Astrology
24. Astrology And Free Will
25. Eternal Freedom
26. The Astrology of Enlightenment
27. Appendix: What Is A Swami?
28. A Song of Thanksgiving
About The Author
INVOCATION
Dear Father, Lord of the universe, Guide and
Protector of all Thy children, Thou knowest that this body, heart, mind and soul are Thine own; please do whatsoever Thou
wilt with them. And if it please Thee, let my words be to Thy honor and to Thy
glory! And may they benefit all Thy children. I whisper this prayer close to
Thy ear in hopes Thou wilt grant it. And since Thou art the only ‘I’,
it seems clear that Thou art speaking to Thyself in this wish. Please grant the
strength and wisdom to this body, heart, mind and soul that is required to carry out this wish of Thine. So may it be.
INTRODUCTION
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father
of Lights.
– James 1:17
Just the other day, I heard
a segment on the radio highlighting a group of atheists. How smug they seemed
with their scientific perspective on things, and how condescending they were toward those they referred to as “believers”,
we poor ignorant masses of superstitious humanity. I could only laugh. Years ago, as a young man, I sympathized with their position. I
saw no evidence for belief in God; in fact, those who embraced religion seemed to me merely passive followers of the naïve
beliefs regarded as acceptable by the culture as a whole. When I was twenty-eight,
however, my mind became opened to the possibility of the direct experience of God, and I went into solitary retreat in a mountain
cabin to prepare myself for a direct meeting with God. By the grace of God, that
meeting came on the night of November 18, 1966.
Now, I understand that the
great majority of serious thinkers today are extremely dubious about the very existence of God, let alone the possibility of knowing God, face to face, so to speak;
and I am at a loss as to how to overcome that doubt. Indeed, I have had to live
for the past 40 years with the suspicion of mental delusion, dishonesty, or worse, from friends, family, and strangers alike. It is little consolation that such has been the case for nearly everyone throughout
history who has had a similar “enlightening” experience. And although
I have written several books about my experience in the attempt to share what I regard as a liberating knowledge, it is clear
that only a very small minority of the people on earth are capable of comprehending and accepting what I and other mystics
of the past have to say. This is partly because of the societal unfamiliarity
with the fact of mystical experience, but much of the difficulty in communicating this knowledge comes from the inability
of human language to convey Divine reality, which must be directly realized to be known.
Nonetheless, I still have a very strong sense of obligation to communicate the knowledge that has been given to me,
especially in light of the dwindling presence of such knowledge in our current materialist techno-centered society.
Here, then, are some independent Essays on various
aspects of my own Spiritual worldview, some written spontaneously over the past year or so, some borrowed from previosly published
collections. Since these Essays are not presented in the order in which they
were written, the reader will notice some inevitable overlay of theme and content. There
are four distinct ‘groups’ of Essays included here: Many were written
with the intent to offer a clear and reasoned alternative to the worldview promulgated by the many advocates for the popular
‘scientism’ of our age, in the attempt to combat some of the myths of popular scientific theory; there are some
others that are expressive of the ‘Perennial Philosophy’; there are some Essays that deal with that much maligned
subject: Astrology; and there are those which attempt to give some idea of the nature of ‘Spiritual’ or mystical
experience. One
of the reasons for the difficulty in describing such experience is the fact that God is not experienced as someone or something
that can be spoken of in the third person as “He” or “Him”, or even spoken of in the second person
as “Thou” or “Thee”. God is experienced as one’s
Self, and therefore can only be spoken of as “I”. In the religious
traditions of India, this understanding is commonplace; God is spoken of as Paramatman,
“the Supreme Self”, or simply as the congregation of the subjective qualities sat, “Being or Existence”; chit, “Consciousness”;
and ananda, “Bliss”. Yet
in our Western culture and language, this entanglement of the individual’s “I” (or ego) and the Divine “I” still makes for confusing and problematic communication regarding the subject
of God, the Divine Self.
Perhaps the most persistent and perplexing question about God is “How is the experience of God, our eternal Self,
to be attained? Is there a reliable scientific answer to the question of how
this can be done?” And the answer is “No”. Why do so few obtain the desired results where so many make the effort?
There are clearly no clear cut guidelines that can promise success in this endeavor.
And so it has always been regarded as a matter of God’s grace or favor. This declaration of partiality on the
part of God is regarded by many as unsatisfactory, though individual merit does not seem to be a determining factor either. Yet, how else may we regard it? Having
discovered some unusual planetary phenomena occurring at the time of my “mystical” experience, I have suggested
the possibility of a connection between the two occurrences; but the establishment of a tangible correlation between them
awaits the collection of data concerning many more such experiences. The fact is that we do not know why God reveals Himself
in some and not in others.
The question of how a God who is eternal Consciousness is able to “create” this immense and multi-faceted
universe is also one which presents a stumbling block for many. From my own experience,
the universe is projected and withdrawn in a recurring cycle, in the manner of a breath that is exhaled and inhaled. Each cycle of that ‘breath’
lasts, from our temporal perspective, for billions of years; yet from the perspective of eternity, beyond time and space,
each lasts for merely the space of a breath. God is not confined to human possibilities;
He is at once transcendent Consciousness and active Energy, both unmoved and mover.
He projects or emanates our universe in a manner similar to the way we project a thought-form or dream upon our own
consciousness while remaining the witness to our creations.
The attempt by scientists to analyze matter in order to understand the nature of this reality in which we live often
reminds me of a scientist in a dream attempting to analyze the dream-forms in order to understand the nature of that reality. We can easily imagine a dream-scientist in one of our own projected dreams taking
samples of the dream-landscape in order to analyze it, then placing the pieces under a dream-microscope. We can further imagine such a dream-scientist coming up with pronouncements about what this dream-terrain
is made of, such as: “It seems to be made of waves!” “No, it
is made of particles, but the particles themselves seem to be nothing more than a kind of energy!” “I’ll be damned! It’s both waves and particles! What is this stuff?” Truly, it is clear that such efforts would be utterly futile, and that, in order to really know the truth
about himself and the reality in which he lived, our dream-scientist would simply need to wake up. Our dreams thus show a close parallel to the nature of our ‘real’ universe. While I do not wish to denigrate the efforts of scientists, I have seen that the true nature of ‘reality’
can only be realized by those who ‘wake up’ to the eternal Self.
While that eternal Self is forever unaffected by the evolution of our cosmos, He is intimately involved in it. Just as our own consciousness is involved in the play of dreams, so is the one Divine
Consciousness playing in this universal drama. He is the Self of our self, the
Joy of our joy; and as we evolve toward full awareness of His truth, our understanding
will eventually become clearer and expand to encompass both the heavens and the earth.
I sincerely hope that the following collection of Essays will stimulate you to look deeply into the nature of your
own self and the universe around you, and truly come to see yourself as the one Divine Consciousness playing in your own Divine
Universe.
* *
*
I. MYSTICISM VERSUS SCIENTISM
In this first grouping of Essays, I
discuss the materialistic bias of contemporary Science, and how limited is its empirical scope, ignoring as it does all but
a narrow spectrum of physically verifiable phenomena. And I go on to formulate
the perennial idealistic view of a Mind-born universe constituted of the Thought-Energy
of God. Finally, in something of a parody of intellectual knowledge, I show that
real enlightenment comes not through self-acquired learning, but through the gift of Divine grace.
1.
MYSTICISM, SCIENCE, AND THE HEIRS OF DEMOCRITUS
Part One
Mysticism and
science represent two opposing worldviews which may be reduced to the two diametrically opposed philosophical positions known
as idealism and materialism. These two starkly differing views of the nature of the reality underlying the appearance of the world have
been at odds with each other for twenty-five centuries beginning with Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras and Socrates on the
idealist side, and Thales, Leucippus, and Democritus on the materialist side. Idealists
hold that Mind is the primary reality of which matter is an evolute; materialists hold that matter is the primary reality
of which mind is an evolute. Mystics, those who claim to have actually experienced or “seen” the ultimate reality
directly in a moment of contemplative revelation, fall squarely on the side of idealism.
Every mystic who ever lived has declared the idealistic viewpoint, stating that the ultimate reality underlying all
phenomena is unquestionably noumenal; i.e., a transcendent Mind. There are no
materialists among mystics.
Mysticism,
therefore, is an idealist point of view which asserts the possibility of the direct
apperception of the ultimate reality in a rare, profound, and purely introspective experience, wherein an extraordinarily
intimate knowledge of the noumenal Source and the nature of the universe and human
existence is acquired. This “mystical
experience”, say those who have known it, reveals the formless, transcendent Noumenon, the “groundless Ground”
of all physical and mental phenomena, which is seen to constitute everyone’s original and eternal identity. Such an experience seems to have been first spoken of in ancient Greece among the populace taking part
in the “mystery religions” such as the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries (whence mysticism gets its name); and later formed the basis of the philosophical position of such seers as Socrates (by
way of Plato), Philo Judaeus, and Plotinus. In the East, mysticism made its appearance
in the writings of Lao Tze, the Upanishads, and the early Buddhist texts, and later in the Middle East with the teachings of Hermeticism,
and the rise of Christianity and Gnosticism, all of whose central figures claimed an intimate, mystical knowledge of the noumenal
Source.
Science, in
its present state, represents the position of materialism; though, it should be noted, science is not necessarily materialistic; that is, materialism is not an essential feature
of science, shown by the fact that many of the greatest scientists who ever lived held religious views which demanded a noumenal
source for the phenomenal world. But there is an established trend among modern
scientists toward an exclusively materialistic view, no doubt as a result of the emphasis in science on conclusions which
are empirically demonstrable. Science deals in tangibly objective sense data,
and does not comfortably extend to less tangible subjective mental states. The
very definition of science limits its focus to only that which may be empircally verified.
And that requirement assures that science will probably always tend to have a materialistic bias, and will grant little
credence to noumena experienced in a subjective and unverifiable state of awareness.
While science,
and its attendant materialism, may be said to have originated with the early Greek philosophers cited above, it had to struggle
in the West for many centuries against the strictures of religious doctrine, and only began its cultural ascendency from the
seventeenth century onward, influenced by such philosophers as Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, and Immanuel
Kant, and the works and accomplishments of scientists such as Galileo, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton. By the twentieth
century, materialism was firmly embedded in the scientific (empirical) method
and implicitly formulated in the widely held philosophy of logical positivism. This
view, that only knowledge obtained by the scientific method and capable of being demonstrated experimentally was worthy of
the label 'knowledge', became the widespread faith of our Western culture, a faith referred to by its critics as 'scientism'.
And, while there are still a few maverick idealists among the ranks of scientists today, the vocal majority utterly
reject the slightest hint of mysticism or idealism, and hold as firm doctrine that the universe came into being and is sustained
through “natural,” that is to say, purely material, processes. Nevermind
that “matter”, upon close examination, dissolves into “thought”.
These two,
empirical knowledge, or science, and mystical knowledge, or gnosis, represent knowledge obtained through two radically different methodologies: empirical knowledge represents
the ordering and analysis of outward observations
of phenomena perceived by the senses in the normal waking state; mystical knowledge
represents the inward observation of noumena intuitively perceived by the mind
in a highly extraordinary, but well documented, contemplative state. They are
really two different kinds of knowledge, referred to as science and gnosis. Science is from the Latin scientia, derived
from scire, to know, and usually denotes
the organization of objectively verifiable sense experience; gnosis is a Greek
word, also meaning knowledge, but denoting an inwardly “revealed” knowledge unavailable to science.
The difficulty
presently apparent is that advocates of materialistic science refuse to acknowledge not only the validity and relevance of
gnosis, but even the very possibility of its existence. Today, science is so steeped in the materialistic perspective that
scientists and, through their influence, “educated” members of the public, routinely regard all those who hold
to idealistic views as unfortunate members of the ignorant and uneducated masses, misguided by superstition. Those with a
mystic bent are held in especial disdain, and are the subjects of frequent ridicule in our materialist oriented culture. Colleges and universities around the nation instill this arrogant prejudice in the
youth who flock to them for their one-sided educations. One has to wonder if
we are not due at this time in our history for a return of the cultural pendulum to a fresh idealism, one that is informed
by both science and gnosis.
Part Two
Let’s go back once again and look a little closer at the initial split between these two ways of
knowing: It probably began with the earliest hominids; but the best records of
this division which we possess from Western
civilization only go back around twenty-five hundred years to ancient Greece. Democritus (ca. 460-390 B.C.E.), student of Leucippus, contemporary
of Socrates, was the Greek philosopher who surmised that the world we live in is made up of very small, indivisible, entities
which he called atoms. These atoms, he guessed, were the elementary particles
and building blocks of the cosmos, and were, therefore, the ultimate and final answer to the question ‘what is everything
made of?’ Democritus was a firm materialist. He was, in fact, the foremost
in a long line of ‘materialistic scientists’. He saw no need to look any further than these ‘elemental’
particles for the material foundation of existence. Other materialists of the time were Thales (ca. 625-545 B.C.E.), who thought
that water was the ‘material principle’ of the world; and Anaxamenes (fl. 548 B.C.E.), who believed that the element,
air, was the fundamental constituent of everything. But there were some other
philosophers of the period who were a bit more intuitional, and certainly more contemplative, in their approach to the knowledge
of ultimate reality. These philosophers had “seen” into the depths
of their own conscious minds, and discovered through that vision that the source of the material universe is not itself material,
but is rather an eternal Mind, a Noumenon beyond all phenomena, who is the source of the phenomenal, projecting the cosmos
as a human mind projects thoughts and ideas upon itself. This view, known as
idealism, was held by Xenophanes (ca. 580-480 B.C.E.), Pythagoras (b. 570 B.C.E.), Parmenides (b. ca. 540 B.C.E.), Anaxamander
(fl. 547 B.C.E.),), Heraclitus (fl. ca. 500 B.C.E.), and of course Socrates (469- 399 B.C.E.) and Plato (427-347 B.C.E.).
Both the materialistic scientist,
Democritus, and the idealists such as Socrates and Plato, have their present-day descendents.
It seems, after 2500 years, that the controversy is unresolvable. Some
consider the reason for this division in human perspectives to lie in the differences in the educations and life-experiences—in
other words, the nurture—of those individuals making up these two philosophical worldviews. Others feel that it may be because of certain basic differences in the cerebral makeup—in other words,
the nature—of idealists and materialists. Perhaps there are subtle differences
related to the evolutionary stage at which each individual soul finds itself; perhaps these differences are reflected in right-brain/left-brain
patterns of dominance. Who can say? But
what is certain is that this duality of philosophical perspectives greatly affects our current society and colors nearly every
aspect of the conduct of life on earth.
In our contemporary American
culture, these opposing views may exist unnoticed side by side, often within the same individual. Many find that their favorite religious faith provides their subconscious idealistic perspective, while
their worldly preoccupations bespeak their conscious materialistic bias. But
these two co-existing, though opposing, ideologies are rarely ever analyzed, defined or even mentioned in our society. Religious faith and materialistic science co-exist comfortably within the minds of
the vast majority of the indiscriminant masses. In fact, materialistic science, and
its corollary, ‘scientism’, has for several centuries been sanctified as the ideology of choice within the American
culture. And though we, as a culture, currently seem to be slowly emerging from
that lengthy period of blind materialism, the materialistic perspective continues to flourish, and no doubt shall continue
until the last man and child on earth becomes enlightened by the merciful grace of God.
Today, there are many heirs
to Democritus’ materialistic science who are vociferous in extolling their ideology.
I would like to mention two of them, without mentioning their names: One
is a Theoretical Physicist, physics professor, and best-selling author. In his
latest book he attempts to enthuse his reading audience for the expected coming validation of ‘Superstring Theory’,
which, he expects, will prove that the ultimate reality is actually very tiny material ‘strings’ of which all
matter and forces are made. It seems that someone has calculated mathematically that the present menagerie of particles and
forces so far discovered may be reduced to a common unifying ‘element’ if all those particles and forces were
themselves constituted of a yet tinier material entity in the form of vibrating strings, which would then, according to theorists,
produce by their vibrations and varying configurations the appearance of every particle and force thus far known. The only problem is that these ‘strings’ would have to be so tiny that, if a hydrogen atom
were blown up to the proportions of the Milky Way galaxy, strings within it would only be the size of dust mites. It would take more than a billion, billion quadrillion of these strings to make up an inch. Also, they would have to exist in a universe consisting of 10 to 24 curled-up dimensions.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful
if you really could infer the ultimate reality by taking things apart and finding that one common element in everything! However, it’s a very multi-faceted and insubstantial ocean of constantly transforming
(Thought) energy that we find instead. The cosmos in which we live almost seems
to be designed in such a way as to confound any and all efforts to comprehend the manner of its existence. Fortunately, the One who is the ultimate Source of this energetic ocean of appearance has periodically
revealed Himself to certain individuals and made known the manner of His projection of this universal array. But, unfortunately, that vision and that certainty is not available to all.
There’s the rub. So the unillumined go on refusing to acknowledge
a Mind greater than their own; and they go on inventing myriads of incredibly bizarre scenarios for the origin and constituency
of the universe. They go on enquiring, delving, analyzing, and presupposing,
wending their way more and more deeply and inextricably into labyrinthine mazes of imagination – all to no avail. Isn’t it amazing what an ingeniously designed comedic drama the Author of this
universal production has fostered!
Another materialistic scientist,
a Cosmologist, also a professor and author, is anxiously awaiting the empirical verification of the ‘quantum fluctuations
in the vacuum of space’ as the ultimate cause and origin of the ‘Big Bang’. He suggests that the universe
began from nothing as a “quantum fluctuation in the vacuum”; but it seems to me that one would then be required
to explain what caused that. Is the “quantum fluctuation” the prime
mover, the ultimate reality? I’m being facetious, of course; I know it’s
not the ultimate reality. I’ve seen the ultimate Source. He lives in/as eternity, and this universe is the projection of His will, an indescribable breathing forth
of the whole Mind-born shebang and a subsequent withdrawing of it all once again, a cycle endlessly repeated. Why? No one knows. And
I don’t think there is a why. But the important point is that, while the
manifested universe is our temporal reality, That one Mind is our eternal reality. And
He can be known within as the consciousness of “I” through His gracious revelation.
In a recent book, our Cosmologist
offers ten questions which comprise his ten Chapter titles: 1. How do we know the things
we think we know? 2. Is there a theory of everything? 3. How did the universe begin? 4. How did the early universe
develop? 5. Why is the universe
the way it is? 6. What is it that holds the universe together? 7. Where did the chemical elements come from? 8. Where did the solar system come from? 9. Where did life originate?
10. How will it all end? While
our Cosmologist explains the answers to each of these questions as ‘natural’ processes, I couldn’t help
laughing when I realized that, for me, in my simplistic view of things, the answer to each of these questions is perfectly
obvious. The answer to each is “God”.
Needless to say, that answer would fall short of satisfying any of our materialistic scientists. But it clearly points out the immense difference between our perspectives on reality.
For me, the richness of the
multitude of universal phenomena is understood to be projected by and contained within the One. The One, and not the perplexing
multitude of phenomena, is the unvarying focus of my attention. Having seen the
splaying out of the universe from the vantage of eternity, curiosity for just how
each particular phenomenon is produced is utterly lacking in me. What a simple bumkin I must seem! Yet I truly believe that, once the scientists follow all their theoretical extrapolations to their ultimate
resolution, they will come at last to the same simple unity in which I am comfortably settled.
They may call it by another name, but they must in the end come to the one eternal Mind that has breathed forth this
immensely complex universe of seething motion. That is the ultimate Theory of
Everything. The universe began from (in) Him.
The universe is the way it is because He thought (willed) it so. It is
His Thought that holds it together. The chemical elements, the solar system,
and life all come from Him. It will end also by His will when He withdraws it
all back into Himself. This is the theory backed up by the visionary experience
of countless mystics, seers, sages, and prophets from time immemorial.
In the conceptualization
of a materialistic universe, there are clearly no limits to the possibilities of one’s imagination. These clever materialistic scientists hope one day to announce to the world: ‘We’ve finally
discovered what the universe is made of; it’s made of a whole lot of strings!’
‘And it all began with a random fluctuation!’ But, sorry boys;
you’re on the wrong track. We (mystical idealists) have seen the ultimate
source, and turns out He’s an eternal Mind, who, though completely beyond our time and space universe, also intimately
pervades and constitutes this universe as divine Thought. That’s why you
keep coming up with little particles that turn out to be waves of pure (Thought) energy.
That’s why all those little particles seem to be interconnected, though there is nothing apparently connecting
them. That’s why you can’t get a handle on what’s making the
whole thing hold together and behave as an intelligently guided and integral whole.
That’s why you’re never going to discover the ultimate reality by means of a microscope or telescope or
supercollider. Give it up, boys. The
ultimate reality is an open secret already; and you guys have been sadly and terribly misled by your unillumined mentors. It’s okay if you’re just
clowning around, trying to see what amazing fantasies you can come up with; go ahead, knock yourselves out. But please give some due acknowledgment and respect to the truth as it has already been revealed
countless times to countless individuals.
The two materialistic scientists
cited above are certainly typical and representative of the present viewpoint of many scientists in America. But we mustn’t imagine that there are no exceptional scientists who reject the materialistic bias
of their many associates. One such exceptional scientist is a professor emeritus
of the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis by the name of Roger S. Jones. His latest book, Physics For The Rest of Us
1, raises many pertinent questions regarding the phenomenon of the idolatry of science evident in the West, and has
much advice to offer on the side of caution. He asks, “Can we afford to
maintain the separation of science from philosophy and religion? Can we continue
to judge science apart from its ethical and aesthetic implications? Can we tolerate
a science that categorically denies human meaning, value, and purpose?” 2
And he gives an impressive
answer to these questions:
“THE LIGHT OF THE LAMPPOST
Despite the long-standing
and pervasive practice in the West, there is nothing natural or essential about separating the humanities from the sciences. We have already explored the common origin that science and religion shared in the
human quest to find the meaning and purpose of existence. In earlier times, this
search was treated holistically. What we think of separately as spiritual and
physical matters were formerly considered one unified area of knowledge. In mythology,
for example, divine influences and interventions commonly determine matters on the earthly plane. In Platonic philosophy, there is an essential bond between the ideal realm and the physical plane. Indeed, the study and contemplation of things physical is supposed to enlighten human
beings and lead them to the spiritual realm of Platonic Ideas.
“With Aristotle, however, things began to change. Although there
were still important connections between the divine celestial spheres and the sublunary realm, there was a growing emphasis
on the knowledge of physical and biological phenomena on the earth. Why was this
so?
“In the effort to make sense of existence, human beings sought order and meaning in their environment—in
the stars, elements, plants, and animals. But although the original motivation
was to find a rationale for human existence, a gradual shift of emphasis took place.
The explanation of the ways of the gods to man remains a vague and problematic task.
It is subject to individual interpretation, inspiration, and revelation. There
are no final answers. It is a frustrating and taxing quest with no easy rewards.
“On the other hand, the study of the purely material aspects of natural
phenomena, unencumbered by the effort to interpret their divine or spiritual meaning, is a less frustrating and less ambiguous
task with more immediate rewards. Describing the chemistry and biology of a rose
has turned out to be more definable, achievable, and practical than attempting to divine the cosmic plan behind the rose in
the first place. And so Aristotle and many who came after him began to emphasize
material studies over metaphysical matters.
“It’s like the ironic tale of the man who searches for his lost keys under a lamppost, not because he lost
them there but because there’s more light there to see by. What we are
capable of doing most efficiently and effectively will often sway us and make us forget the more difficult task that we set
out to accomplish in the first place. Scientific work is not easy. But it has certain appealing, gratifying, and rewarding characteristics that are extremely rare or entirely
lacking in such fields as theology and philosophy—a sense of immediacy and verifiability, a level of consistency and
reproducibility, a feeling of contact with reality, a history of practical achievements, a well-defined mathematical language
of description and prediction, an explicit methodology of procedures and techniques, an inherent intelligibility and communicability,
an evolving and cumulative sense of progress, and involvement with the affairs of societies and nations, and an unprecedented
aura of prestige and authority.
“But for all its brilliant traits, fabulous techniques, and shining achievements, science has not brought us
one jot closer to fathoming the human condition and the mystery of existence. Science
has greatly ameliorated life on earth and has given us vast power and control over nature.
That no one can deny. But if it is our souls and the meaning of life we
seek, then the light of the lamppost has illuminated nothing.” 3
Later, he adds: “The fabulous successes of physics in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries provided a dramatic contrast with the continuing frustrations of philosophy and the general decline
of religion and theology. Science—and especially physics—became king
and remains so to this day. The light of the lamppost has blinded us all.”
4
It has not blinded all of us. There are a few of us who are illumined, not by the lamppost,
but by the eternal Light. It is by that Light that we are able to see the Truth of the universe and ourselves. In fact, I believe that we humans are now, at this moment, in the midst
of a significant shift in our collective understanding. In the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, it became clear that metaphysical speculations, however well reasoned, were untestable and unreliable;
that the very attempt to discover the hidden spiritual reality by means of the reasoning mind was a fool’s task. That established, empirical Science quickly rose to the ascendency, providing what
many thought of as a foolproof means of determining the facts, as well as they could be discovered.
For many, we are still in
that watershed stage of distinguishing empirical science from metaphysical speculation; but there is a new kid on the block,
who slowly began to reveal its presence around the middle of the twentieth century and continues to make its presence increasingly
known into the early twenty-first century: it is the knowledge obtained through
direct mystical experience, a body of knowledge which has been accumulating for
centuries, but only now has grown so ubiquitous that it is impossible to ignore. It
is a knowledge based not on elaborate mentally produced theorems marshalled to prove the existence of God, as in the previous
warfare between science and religious theology of the earlier centuries; it is based on direct
(shall we dare say empirical) experience—gnosis
repeatedly gained and described in an identical fashion by countless men and women throughout the world and among the most
disparate of religious traditions. That shift in our collective understanding
is happening now, one person at a time. So, wake up, my materialist friends! There is a permanent Joy within you that is awake throughout the universe and beyond. It is your true and everlasting Self. Just
look with an open and surrendered heart, and you shall find it.
Notes:
1. Roger S. Jones, Physics For The Rest of Us, Chicago, Contemporary Books, 1992.
2. Ibid., p. 338.
3. Ibid., pp. 338-339.
4. Ibid.,
pp. 342-343.
* *
*
2.
THE ULTIMATE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
When physicists and cosmologists
talk about a ‘Theory of Everything’ they are referring to the potential for a theory that would provide a single
unifying mathematical law governing the properties of all elementary phenomena: the various wave/particles categorized as
quarks or leptons and the four known basic interactions. Such a law, if it exists, would enable these scientists to feel that
they understood the means by which all the matter in the universe operates. Such
a law, once formulated and proven by evidence, would be greatly celebrated among the scientific community, and would fulfill
the long-sought desire on the part of physicists for a consistent theoretical framework—at least for a brief moment. For it would very quickly become apparent that there is much more to this universe
than merely matter and material interactions, and that mathematical laws concerning the material universe do not answer the
important questions, nor are they able to offer any lasting satisfaction in the quest for true knowledge. Such a law, if it did not take into account the Conscious eternal Source and Ruler of the universe, who
constitutes the very identity of those physicists and cosmologists, would be ultimately futile and meaningless.
There can only be one ultimate theory of everything; it must be the theory that accurately
describes the origin, evolution, sustenance, and purpose of the universe and all that’s in it. And such a theory does indeed exist; it is a theory that has been both implicitly and explicitly expressed
throughout the span of human history, sometimes referred to as “the perennial philosophy”, but often regarded
as mere myth. This ultimate theory is based entirely on direct experience, and
is therefore an experientially confirmed philosophy or theory. It begins and
ends with the One, known as “the Lord of the universe”, “the Divine Source”, “the Eternal”. ‘In the beginning,’ this ultimate theory starts out, ‘there was
no universe, nor any creatures to perceive its absense; there was only the One, the ‘I am’, who has always been. Within that One, a breath-impulse welled up, and He expelled it, projecting His own
lifeforce into the simultaneously newborn spaces. And, while there were not yet
any eyes to see it, it was as though a great explosion had appeared out of nowhere, from which the entire universe evolved.’
From Him, the universe is breathed forth; in Him it lives and evolves, and to Him it ultimately returns, in the same manner
as a person’s outgoing breath is indrawn once again. This world is constituted
of His life’s breath, and contains His life within it. From the beginning,
