Tag Archives: Bhagavad Gita

PART IV. RETURNING THE CHARM

I began writing this book in the summer of 1982, but I knew that there were deep contradictions in the material. They stemmed from a latent attachment to one of the fundamental principles of realist philosophy – that consciousness should be an epiphenomenon of matter. Biologist Roger Sperry spoke of emergent consciousness—causal consciousness arising from matter, from the brain. How could this be? There is an irresistible vicious circle in the assertion that something made of matter can have a new causal effect on it. I could relate this to the paradoxes of quantum physics: how could we influence the behavior of objects with our observations without postulating the existence of dualistic consciousness? I also knew that the idea of ​​a dualistic consciousness separate from matter created its own paradoxes.

Help came from an unexpected direction. As a scientist, I have always believed in a holistic approach to a problem. Since the nature of consciousness itself was now clearly the subject of my study, I believed that I should delve deeper into empirical and theoretical studies of consciousness. This implied psychology, but conventional psychological models—owing to their roots in material realism—avoided consideration of conscious experiences that challenged this worldview. However, other, less conventional branches of psychology, such as the work of Carl G. Jung and Abraham Maslow, started from different underlying assumptions. Their views were more in tune with the philosophy of the mystics around the world – a philosophy based on spiritual vision through the veil that creates duality. To remove the veil, the mystics recommended being attentive to the field of awareness (this kind of mindfulness is sometimes called meditation).

Eventually, after many years of effort, a combination of meditation, the study of mystical philosophy, a lot of discussion and just hard thinking began to lift the veil that separated me from the solution to the paradoxes that I was looking for. It was necessary to abandon the fundamental principle of material realism—that everything is made of matter—without resorting to dualism. I still remember the day the final breakthrough happened. We were visiting our friend Frederica in Ventura, California.

Earlier that day, Maggie and I had gone with our mystic friend Joel Morewood to hear Krishnamurti speak in the nearby town of Ojai. Even at 89 years old, Krishnamurti was very adept at commanding an audience. In a Q&A after the talk, he explained in detail what his teaching was all about: that to change, you have to be aware of it now, not decide to change later or think about it. Only radical awareness leads to the transformation that awakens the radical mind. When someone asked whether radical awareness was coming to ordinary people like us, Krishnamurti replied seriously: “It must come.”

Later that evening, Joel and I started talking about Reality. I explained to him in detail my ideas about consciousness arising from quantum theory, from the point of view of the theory of quantum change. Joel listened carefully and asked, “Okay, what next?”

“Well, I’m not sure I understand how consciousness manifests itself in the brain-mind,” I said, confessing my struggle with the idea that consciousness must somehow be an epiphenomenon of brain processes. “I think I understand consciousness, but…”

“Can consciousness be understood?” Joel interrupted me.

“Of course you can. I told you about how our conscious observation, consciousness, collapses a quantum wave…” I was ready to repeat the whole theory.

But Joel stopped me: “Then does the observer’s brain exist before consciousness, or does consciousness exist before the brain?”

I saw the trap in his question. “I am talking about consciousness as the subject of our experience.”

“Consciousness exists before experience. It has neither object nor subject.”

“Of course, this is what classical mysticism says, but in my language you are talking about some non-local aspect of consciousness.”

But Joel wasn’t distracted by my terminology. “Your scientific blinders are blocking your understanding. They make you believe that science can understand consciousness, that it originates in the brain and is an epiphenomenon. Listen to what the mystics say. Consciousness is primary and unconditional. It is all there is. There is nothing but God.”

This last phrase had an effect on me that cannot be described in words. All I can say is that it caused a sudden change in perspective—the veil was lifted. Here was the answer that I was looking for, and, at the same time, knew from the very beginning.

When everyone else went to bed, leaving me with my thoughts, I left the house. The night air was cold, but I didn’t notice it. The sky was so foggy that I could barely see a few stars. But in my imagination it became the shining sky of my childhood, and suddenly I could see the Milky Way. One poet from India, where I was born, imagined that the Milky Way marks the boundary between the heavenly and the earthly. In quantum nonlocality, the transcendental heaven—the kingdom of God—is everywhere. “But man does not see him,” Jesus lamented.

We don’t see it because we are so fascinated by experience, by our melodramas, by our attempts to predict and control, understand and manipulate rationally. In our efforts we lose sight of one simple thing – the simple truth that it is all God; in the language of the mystics this means that everything that exists is consciousness. Physics explains phenomena, but consciousness is not a phenomenon; on the contrary, everything else is phenomena in consciousness. I searched in vain for descriptions of consciousness in science; instead, I and everyone else should look for descriptions of science in the mind. We must develop a science compatible with consciousness, our primary experience. To discover the truth, I will have to make a quantum leap beyond conventional physics; I will have to formulate a physics based on consciousness as the building block of all existence. It’s a difficult task, but I just saw a glimmer of a solution. Therefore, it must also be simple—an effortless change of perspective. Krishnamurti’s words echoed encouragingly in my ears: it must come. I trembled slightly, and the Milky Way of my imagination slowly faded away.

To truly understand the mystical truth that nothing exists except consciousness, it must be directly experienced – just as in the sensory sphere it is necessary to see and taste a banana before one really knows what it is. Idealistic science has the potential to restore consciousness to a fractured entity like Guernica that haunts each of us. But the fragmentation of the self is due not only to the incomplete worldview of material realism, but also to the nature of ego-identity. If we, in our separate, split egos, want to be whole again, we must not only understand the situation intellectually, but also dive into our inner depths in order to experience the whole.

In the most celebrated of biblical myths, Adam and Eve lived a magical, whole life in the Garden of Eden. After eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, they were cast out of this enchantment. The meaning of the myth is clear: experience in the world comes at the price of loss of charm and integrity.

How do we re-enter that magical state of wholeness? I’m not talking about a return to childhood or some golden age, or salvation in eternal life after death. No, the question is how can we transcend the ego level, the level of fragmented existence? How can we achieve freedom and at the same time live in the world of experience?

To answer this question, in this section we will discuss, in the context of idealistic science, what is commonly called the spiritual journey. Traditionally, spiritual paths have been charted by professional religious teachers – priests, rabbis, gurus, etc. As we will see, quantum science also has something important to offer here. I envision that in the future, science and religion will serve complementary functions—science can lay the objective foundation of what needs to be done to bring back the charm, and religion can guide people in the process of doing so.

CHAPTER 15. WAR AND PEACE

In Clifford Simak’s Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel Transfer Station, the ruling council of our galaxy is concerned with whether Earthlings will ever be able to forget their warlike habits and become civilized, learning to resolve conflicts without violence. In the novel, a mystical object—a talisman—ultimately brings about the transformation necessary for earthlings to join the civilized galaxy.

War is as old as human society itself. Our conditioning, both biological and environmental, leads to the natural occurrence of conflict. For thousands of years, we have used violence to at least temporarily resolve these conflicts. Now, with the advent of the destructive power of nuclear weapons, such wars increasingly threaten our future—not only our lives, but also our global environment. How can we reduce this risk? What mystical talisman can transform our warring nations into a network of cooperative communities committed to resolving conflicts through peaceful and globally responsible means?

Existing social paradigms of the world are essentially reactive in nature, since they relate to individual situations in which conflict has already arisen or is impending. Therefore, the main concerns are related to national security, arms reduction and conflict resolution; all of these are reactive, situational measures to achieve peace. We have been trying to ensure peace in these ways for thousands of years, and it still hasn’t worked.

The situational approach to preserving peace is inextricably linked with the materialistic and dualistic worldview that has long prevailed in our ideas about ourselves. Today, as our self-image is increasingly shaped by scientific realism, this view has become narrow-minded. Sociobiology (the modern version of social Darwinism) portrays us as “selfish gene” machines—individual entities competing with each other for survival. According to this view, our destinies and behavior are governed by the deterministic laws of physics and genetics and environmental conditioning. Sociobiology is an inherently cynical amalgamation of ideas from classical physics, Darwinian evolution, molecular biology and behavioral psychology.

The sociobiological view of the human race is the opposite of the idea of ​​peace in a fundamental sense. In sociobiology there is no place for peace as universal brotherhood between people, peace as cooperation coming from the heart, peace as altruism and compassion towards all people, regardless of race, color and religion. According to this view, the best we can hope for is situational ethics, pragmatic and legal containment of violence, and temporary truces in our competing and conflictual agendas for victory and survival.

In the idealistic paradigm proposed in this book, we do not start with questions such as: “Why is there so much conflict in the world?”, “Why can’t the peoples of the Middle East learn to get along with each other?”, “Why are Hindus and Muslims constantly fighting?” for power? and “Why do Western states sell deadly weapons to developing countries?” Instead we ask: “What is it that creates the movement of consciousness that creates all these conflicts in the world?” “Are there any compensating impulses in consciousness?” In other words, we are looking for a proactive, fundamental approach to preserving peace that includes all parts of the whole. As individuals, we begin to take responsibility for these larger movements of consciousness. We are the world, and therefore we begin to take responsibility for the world. The first step to accepting this responsibility is to understand, first intellectually, the positions of others in relation to us as individuals. In this respect, important emancipatory movements in consciousness do begin to compensate (at least in part) for the previous futile urges to violence.

Unity in Diversity

The ideas developed in this book assume an inner unity of human consciousness that goes beyond the diversity of individually evolving forms. Today, in many disciplines, there seems to be an opinion that violence is inherent in humans and is therefore inevitable. However, if the new view is correct, then our separateness – the main source of selfishness and callousness that leads to violence – is simply an illusion. Behind this illusion of apparent separateness lies the single reality of inseparability.

To come to terms with the significance of Aspect’s experiment, which proves our inseparability beyond any reasonable doubt, the pragmatic scientist uses instrumentalism – the idea that science does not deal with reality, but simply plays the role of a tool to guide the development of technology. But instrumentalism cannot be justified. This reminds me of one student who, during an experiment on the development of conditioned reflexes in frogs, taught a frog to jump on the command “Frog, jump!” Then he cut off one of the frog’s legs and gave his command “Frog, jump!” The frog jumped, and he noted with satisfaction in his laboratory notebook: “The conditioned reflex remains intact even if you cut off one of the frog’s legs.” He repeated the experiment, cutting off two and then three legs of the frog, and in both cases the frog jumped at his command. Finally he cut off the fourth leg and gave the command. This time the frog did not jump. After thinking a little, the student wrote down: “Having lost all four legs, the frog stops hearing.”

The idea of ​​fundamental unity itself is not new; it constitutes the main revelation of most of the world’s religions. However, religious teachings, insofar as they emphasize some form of personal salvation as the goal of self-knowledge, tend to deny the world. In contrast, when approaching the philosophy of monistic idealism from the new scientific position described in this book, we obtain a point of view that assumes unity in a world of diversity. The new worldview affirms the world, showing the possibility of a more mature world.

The worldview of monistic idealism and idealistic science clearly shows that all manifested forms represent only one of many possibilities of a single wave that stands behind the form (of particles). The idea that unity lies beyond form also implies that all permitted variety of forms has only relative, and not absolute, intrinsic value. (This is similar to the Buddhist position that nothing in the world has an intrinsic nature of its own.)

When we look at the manifest world in this way, especially the world of people, we can easily understand the wisdom contained in respecting and valuing the diversity of human expression – an attitude towards cultural groups that many anthropologists have recently favored. The diversity of cultures reveals human potential in ways that life within the conditioning of any single culture could never do. Each culture reflects, although not completely, the image of the One. By looking at reflections in different mirrors, we can better understand the meaning and wonder of human existence.

Thus, the most modern trend in cultural anthropology marks a departure from the monolingual type of thinking, which considers the goal of civilization (and anthropology) to be one expression, one culture, one interpretation. A direction is emerging leading to polythematic development, which recognizes the value of diversity, showing multiple dimensions of consciousness. This movement from one language to multiple themes provides a clear path from the competitive military paradigm of material realism to the paradigm of peace and cooperation that idealistic science promises. In addition, in developing an effective paradigm for preserving peace, moving away from linear hierarchies is important.

From simple to complex hierarchy

If one historical concept could be identified that has driven people and their societies toward much of the war and violence, it would be the concept of hierarchy. As the human race moved from hunting and gathering to agriculture, various hierarchies arose and grew – monarchy, religious hierarchy, patriarchy, etc. – which began to subjugate human culture.

However, in the 20th century. many social changes have been driven by the realization that hierarchies are not necessary, necessary or universal, and, at best, of only limited use. In particular, we have seen artificial hierarchies based on race and gender begin to crumble around the world.

Likewise, there is growing recognition of the idea that the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe that marked the 1990s reflected not who won the arms race, but which system was better – democracy or the rigid hierarchy of one-party dictatorship.

I suspect that such social revolutions against hierarchies are closely related to the revolt against the materialist worldview in modern science. What can the new idealistic science say about hierarchies? Often, what we think is a simple hierarchy appears so because we are not aware of the whole picture. When we see it – as in the case of the von Neumann chain – we find that we are dealing with a complex hierarchy.

In discussing the important element of surprise in the new model of the self based on quantum theory (Chapter 12), we traced the origins of the division of reality (subject/observer and object/world) to the concept of a complex hierarchy of interacting systems. However, this functional division does not fully explain our sense of separateness, since the unity of the observer and the diversity of the world are complementary aspects of reality.

Our apparent separateness comes from a disguise called simple hierarchy, which hides the true mechanism of our self-reference, which is a complex hierarchy. However, as soon as this separateness arises, hiding unity, it determines our perspective, thereby perpetuating itself. We become solipsists—a collection of individual island-universes with little awareness of their common ground—and we define our world in terms of our individual, separate selves: our families, our cultures, our countries. Have you noticed how television programs and Hollywood films of the eighties were narrowly defined in terms of solipsistic personal values ​​and reflected the power of the Me generation?

Thus, in our country and throughout the world, we have seen movements of consciousness aimed at women’s liberation and racial equality, expressing complex hierarchy and unity in diversity. We have also seen the opposite movement of consciousness towards a simple hierarchy of the “me” generation. This pattern has existed throughout history. We are like a monkey on a pole, climbing half a meter up and then sliding down 49.999 centimeters.

There is now a shift away from the values ​​of the “me” generation. Idealistic science has developed, and this is also a movement of consciousness. So far in human history these movements of consciousness have for the most part been unconscious oscillations between opposing and misunderstood extremes. Idealistic science includes both tendencies – towards solipsism and simple hierarchy and towards complex hierarchy – thereby giving each of us individually the freedom to act in new and creative ways.

Where to begin?

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the great idealistic treatises; it wonderfully and comprehensively explores spiritual paths for individual self-development beyond the ego. Surprisingly, the book begins with a description of a battlefield where opposing factions are preparing for battle. Arjuna, the leader of a group trying to restore justice, is upset that so many people will be killed in battle, including many relatives and friends whom he loves and values. He doesn’t want to fight. Krishna, his mentor, encourages him to fight.

Many people ask what kind of spiritual book is it if it encourages war rather than peace? The answer contains many levels of revelation.

At one level, the war described in the Bhagavad Gita is not an external war at all, but an internal battle. Conflict occurs in the heart of every spiritual seeker; it is fundamental to all who strive for full adult development. Arjuna found himself in a difficult situation where he had to kill his own relatives. Isn’t that what happens to people who want to realize their human potential? To move forward, a person must give up ego-identity, but at the same time he is faced with enormous inertia that prevents such movement itself.

On a deeper level, Arjuna experiences a conflict with his value system—his way of life. He is a warrior and must fight. And at the same time, he knows the value of love, respect and devotion to people from whom and with whom he learned the game of life. How can he kill these same people in battle? Thomas Kuhn would call this situation anomalous. The old paradigm is beginning to fail and must give way to a new one. Therefore Krishna incites Arjuna: change your paradigm; you must creatively come to new understandings so that you can fight without the conflict that weakens you.

Isn’t that what happens when we become attached to an ego-level value system that often makes conflicting demands on us? How to cope with a crisis created by anomalies and conflicting values? We must understand that a crisis is both a danger and an opportunity—an opportunity for creative inner transformation.

On yet another level, imagine that there is a real war going on and you are fighting in it. The Bhagavad Gita gives you instructions on how to fight war within the framework of your dharma – your understanding of personal, moral and social justice. The point here is that there are wars, and we participate in them. Many of us have been offended by the questions and misunderstandings that cause wars to break out around us. Remember, we are in the world; true pacifism is in jeopardy until the whole movement of consciousness is directed towards the preservation of peace. Therefore, when a real war occurs, we try to fulfill our respective roles as best we can.

Based on the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita in its modern interpretation, we will offer an individual program of spiritual quest aimed at achieving peace – personal and global. We learn that peace begins with the recognition that there is conflict, both external and internal. We will never achieve peace if we avoid or deny this fact; we will never come to love if we suppress the fact of hatred.

Likewise, our search for happiness begins with recognizing that grief exists. (Religions begin with this realization and offer ways to achieve the lasting satisfaction we call happiness.) Our quest for creative wisdom begins with the realization that despite all the knowledge we have accumulated, we do not know the answer to the particular question we are exploring; and so on. The first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is an introduction to recognizing the tendencies at our ego level that come from past conditioning. Likewise, we must recognize the tendency toward solipsism on both a personal and a social level.

Someone may object to me – isn’t this just another call to change yourself and, thus, change the world? Mystics and religions have preached this for centuries, but their teachings have not eliminated violence. There are several answers to this. The first of these I will express in the form of a question: have you ever thought about what the world would be like if a significant number of people in all ages had not chosen the path of transformation? Another answer is this: I think that in the past the calls of the mystics were heard by so few because of the practical lack of means of communication. There have always been barbarians (outsiders) who destroyed cultures before they could learn from them the benefits of peace through individual transformation. But in today’s world there is nothing “external”. Information technology has brought us all together into a global communication network.

The most important thing is that for the first time in history we can turn to inner growth not simply out of obedience to the authority of religion, or because we want to avoid suffering, but because a growing body of agreed upon knowledge and evidence points in favor of such a direction of development. In a new science that inspires a new worldview, we draw on science and religion and encourage representatives of both to explore and develop a new order together.

The book “The Self-Aware Universe. How consciousness creates the material world.” Amit Goswami

Contents

PREFACE
PART I. The Union of Science and Spirituality
CHAPTER 1. THE CHAPTER AND THE BRIDGE
CHAPTER 2. OLD PHYSICS AND ITS PHILOSOPHICAL HERITAGE
CHAPTER 3. QUANTUM PHYSICS AND THE DEATH OF MATERIAL REALISM
CHAPTER 4. THE PHILOSOPHY OF MONISTIC IDEALISM
PART II. IDEALISM AND THE RESOLUTION OF QUANTUM PARADOXES
CHAPTER 5. OBJECTS IN TWO PLACES AT THE SAME TIME AND EFFECTS THAT PRECEDE THEIR CAUSES
CHAPTER 6. THE NINE LIVES OF SCHRODINGER’S CAT
CHAPTER 7. I CHOOSE WITH THEREFORE, I AM
CHAPTER 8. THE EINSTEIN-PODOLSKY-ROSEN PARADOX
CHAPTER 9. RECONCILIATION OF REALISM AND IDEALISM
PART III. SELF-REFERENCE: HOW ONE BECOMES MANY
CHAPTER 10. EXPLORING THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM
CHAPTER 11. IN SEARCH OF THE QUANTUM MIND
CHAPTER 12. PARADOXES AND COMPLEX HIERARCHIES
CHAPTER 13. “I” OF CONSCIOUSNESS
CHAPTER 14. UNIFICATION OF PSYCHOLOGIES
PART IV . RETURN OF CHARM
CHAPTER 15. WAR AND PEACE
CHAPTER 16. EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL CREATIVITY
CHAPTER 17. THE AWAKENING OF BUDDHA
CHAPTER 18. IDEALISMAL THEORY OF ETHICS
CHAPTER 19. SPIRITUAL JOY
GLOBAR OF TERMS