Interesting article from Huffington Post by Robert Danza M.D.
You've laughed and cried. And you may even fall in love and grow old with someone, only to be ripped apart in the end by death and disease. The universe leaves you dead or grieving with a hole in you as big as infinity.
Are we part of a depraved cosmic joke, the product of a vast and ruthless universe?
Through the eyes of science, you're a speck of junk spinning around the core of the Milky Way galaxy, which itself is whirling through the unfathomable blackness of space. It's all in the equations, you know. Nothing to get philosophical about. Nobel physicist Steven Weinberg summed it up best:
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little bit above the level of a farce and gives it some of the grace of a tragedy.
Can life really be reduced to the laws of physics? Or are we -- as all the great spiritual leaders of the world have intuited -- part of something higher, which is more noble and triumphant?
The latter is hard for us to rationally comprehend, since we've had more years of scientific indoctrination than monks get in monasteries. In Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land," Jubal said we're prisoners of our early indoctrinations, "for it is hard, very nearly impossible, to shake off one's earliest training." We've been taught since grade school that life is an accidental byproduct of the laws of physics, and that the Universe is a dreary play of billiard balls.
True, science has brought us countless insights that have transformed our lives. It's amazingly good at figuring out how the parts work. The clock has been taken apart, and we can accurately count the number of teeth in each wheel and gear. We know Mars rotates in 24 hours, 37 minutes and 23 seconds. What eludes us is the big picture, which unfortunately encompasses all the bottom-line issues: What is the nature of this thing we call reality?
Any honest summary of the current state of explaining the universe as a whole: a swamp. And in this Everglade, the alligators of common sense must be evaded at every turn.
Some scientists insist a Theory of Everything is just around the corner. But it hasn't happened and won't happen until we understand a critical component of the cosmos -- a component that has been shunted out of the way because science doesn't know what to do with it. "Consciousness" isn't a small item; it's an utter mystery, which we think has somehow arisen from molecules and goo.
In short, the attempt to explain the nature of the universe and what's really going on requires an understanding of how the observer -- our presence -- plays a role. Our entire education and language revolves around a mindset that assumes a separate universe "out there." It's further assumed we accurately perceive this external reality and play little or no role in its appearance.
However, starting in the '20s, experiments have shown the opposite: The observer critically influences the outcome. The experiments have been performed so many times, with so many variations, it's conclusively proven that a particle's behavior depends upon the very act of observation. The results of these experiments have befuddled scientists for decades. Some of the greatest physicists have described them as impossible to intuit.
Amazingly, if we accept a life-created reality, it all becomes simple to understand, and you can explain some of the biggest puzzles of science. For instance, it becomes clear why space and time -- and even the properties of matter itself -- depend on the observer. Remember: You can't see through the bone surrounding your brain. Space and time are simply the mind's tools for putting everything together.
According to current scientific myth, all your struggles and tears are ultimately in vain. After you die and the human race is long gone, it'll be as if nothing in your life ever existed.
Not so, says biocentrism: Reality isn't a thing, it's a process that involves our consciousness. Life is a melody so vast and eternal that human ears can't appreciate the tonal range of the symphony. Time is the mind's tool that animates the notes, the individual frames of the spatial world. "There's no way to remove the observer -- us -- from our perceptions of the world," said Stephen Hawking. "The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities." You, the observer, collapse these possibilities, the cascade of events we call the universe.
Our consciousness animates the universe like an old phonograph. Listening to it doesn't alter the record, and depending on where the needle is placed, you hear a certain piece of music. This is what we call "now." The songs before and after are the past and future. In like manner, you, your loved ones and friends (and sadly, the villains too) endure always. The record doesn't go away. All nows exist simultaneously, although we can only listen to the songs one by one. Time is On Demand.
"The most important thing I learned," said Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Slaughterhouse Five," "was that when a person dies, he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist."
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"Biocentrism" (co-authored with astronomer Bob Berman) lays out Lanza's theory of everything.
I am fascinated by the discovery of Quantum Physics. It's now been scientifically proven that physical matter is affected by the act of observation. Here's a simple illustration of this phenomenom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M72pX5wlyE&feature=related
I love that we're finding physical laws that have a spiritual aspect and spiritual principles that have a scientific connection. Maybe we'll finally put to rest the debate between creationism and evolution. To me, it seems obvious that it's not either/or, but both... the Creator intended life to evolve. No dilemma from my perspective.
Possibly, two of life's greatest illusions are those of time and of death. They seem so real and permanent, don't they? Even people whose religion tells them that we "go to a better place" when we die, grieve miserably for their passing loved ones. I've never quite understood this. Maybe the tears are really for the live ones left behind.
Noa
Still one of my favs from ACIM...
Trying to discover the sentiment of the Cosmos from the perspective of a 3rd density physical body would be difficult to say the least. I love knowing that down deep inside, in the root of Heart and Mind, we already Know and Understand.
and of course, another favorite, "attachment is the beginning and root of suffering"....
the physicist who designe the lab and experiments & some equipment for Robert Monroe of OOBE fame in exchange for learning how to get OOB wrote a wonderful trilogy, My Big TOE (theory of everything) in which he derives all the laws of physics from two axioms: There is an evolutionary impuse in the nature of all that is and there is consciousness. Despite the reality of quantum physics, most scientists consistently neglect the integral role of consciousness in the co-arising of experienced reality. BTW Campbell's trilogy is a great read he's a wonderful, old soul with a big heart and a great (IMO) sense of humor. Here's some video of him lecturing about the book:
John, thanks for the pointer to Campbell. I went to his website and am watching the videos there. Amazing stuff. It's awesome how science and spirituality are converging. I'm halfway through a video, and I can see him logically deriving and describing and heading inexorably toward spiritual reality. It will be interesting to see what terminology he uses and how he will describe it when he gets there. :-)
Chuck