Take Home Lessons From Modern Physics
by Bruce Rawles 
This article was excerpted and adapted from the upcoming book, "The Geometry Code: Symbolic Wisdom of Natural Laws Within Us" by Bruce Rawles, available soon from Elysian Publishing.
"We do not see things as they are.
We see them as we are." — The Talmud
In our heart of hearts, in the deepest depths of our souls, we all would probably acknowledge that:
- We're all part of the ineffable One, the Creator, the All,
- We're all part of each other, inextricably intertwined,
- The essence of the unity we share is beyond words, but reflects in experiences and expressions such as loving kindness, compassion, forgiveness, transcendence, joy, serenity and lots of other fun adjectives too numerous to mention,
- We're already "home" and we're just procrastinating the happily inevitable return to this awareness, where duality, separation and all the stuff generally regarded as negative doesn't even register, let alone matter,
- Our finite, egoic selves are the "ones" doing the procrastinating, by blaming "others" (and our "selves" in the limited sense), yet meanwhile, our real, transpersonal Selves, smile in amusement, knowing that it's all part of divine order, the cosmic plan, or whatever we want to call it, and ultimately, we'll wake up from our nightmares and even from happy dreams into what never changes � bliss beyond comprehension of our wildest fantasies from finite vantage points.
So, in a sense, we don't really NEED any reminders, if we just (always) allow our internal guidance, our metapersonal, omniscient inner voice to direct us, out of the fog of our little space-time dramas and cares, to what WE'VE ALL KNOWN ALL ALONG�
OK, that's all true, yet sometimes it's handy (not as a crutch mind you, but perhaps as training wheels — a better metaphor) to have some little mnemonic aids here in this world to keep us from pulling the wool over our own inner vision — with the proviso that as we practice with some memory devices, we realize that they are not what is important. What is important is the thought system, the transpersonal awareness that they merely reflect (seen with an all-encompassing perspective) what we truly are and how the Universe truly is � mirrors! What is important is the presence and quality of being that we bring to every moment, which leads us out of the haze into the clarity of remembering.
Our inner celestial navigation knows all this, and fortunately, can make good use of any symbolic reminders we happen to (synchronistically) notice in this world, and chart a course using the tools at hand. Fortunately, those symbolic reminders happen to appear literally everywhere our senses might focus. All it takes is a little mind training to pay attention to the cues, smile at the "Aha!" experiences, and go forward to find the next clue�
Since we humans have a predisposition toward our visual senses, and since our optical realm is loaded with geometric metaphors of every conceivable variety, geometric reminders are particularly handy cues for recalling our true, whole, indivisibly divine nature. We'll explore some ubiquitous geometries you can almost always find around you in subsequent chapters, and how they relate to the links forged between physics and metaphysics.
In order for those intuitive "right brain" clues to have a solid rational "left-brain" foundation, it may be helpful to review (or perhaps visit for the first time) the growing body of evidence in our scientific world that gives our inspirational guideposts firm soil to keep them planted where they need to be.
"If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet." — Neils Bohr
I often joke with people that I grew up in a "nuclear family' ... figuratively and literally! My father was a supervisor for a cyclotron (a.k.a. atom smasher) and as a kid I heard words like isotope and deuterium at the dinner table. I suppose I inherited a certain interest for physics by osmosis, just by growing up in a technically oriented community. Being a more mystical sort though, I always wanted to know the significance, the "why", and that lead to inevitable metaphysical inquiry, while wanting to reconcile what I was learning in the realm of contemporary physics with wisdom that defies the confines of a particular era or geography. I've always been interested in the spiritual pragmatism of applying the gems of physics to our lives in a very direct way, rather than be content with keeping theoretical insights "on the shelf."
In the past several decades, the world view held by the majority of physicists has been irrevocably transformed by discoveries in quantum physics by pioneers like Bohr and Heisenberg, yet, like most of us in post-Columbus history, we still build houses, roads, and quite a lot else (for the most part anyway) as if the planet is flat. Accounts on Wikipedia and elsewhere describe how the "new" yet completely repeatable evidence of the Copenhagen Interpretation shattered the conventional materialist world view; "...indeed, they touched off much consternation — even in the minds of their discoverers."
The full metaphysical implications of these discoveries made in the realm of quantum physics have yet to be realized; we're still just beginning to integrate the profound ... (and freeing!) ... significance of some of these revelations that have been replicated over and over again in research laboratories around the planet. Let's explore some of these interesting 'discoveries' that confirm what the quietly smiling mystics have known for millennia.
"I have given everything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] all the meaning that it has for me." Lesson 2, Workbook — A Course In Miracles
In medicine, we have the placebo and nocebo effects that demonstrate over and over again the power of belief in influencing our material existence. Shamans have probably known about this since history has been recorded. If a similar foundational principle in physics has been known since the 1920's, why haven't we been applying it in our everyday lives? Good question! Perhaps it's because it requires introspection and objectivity with self, and most of the time, we humans tend to equate our 'selves' with our bodies, and the little dramas and stories that accompany our personalities. From that limiting perspective, it's pretty easy to see how, in general, we have been using the 'Self-fulfilling Prophecy' principle to mirror and reinforce a tiny, distorted perception of ourselves. To use the physics jargon, we 'collapse the wave function' to manifest mostly what our pre-conceived ideas about our 'selves' and our 'world' have been. Change our self-concept from personal to transpersonal (or more accurately, perhaps just let go of our white-knuckled grip on our monotonous egoic inner mantras), and amazingly enough, we experience the joyous freedom and exhilaration that accompanies that non-local-yet-also-local-yet-neither, beyond-the-personal evaluation of Self.
Fathoming the infinite nature of mind and consciousness is somewhat akin to the timeless conundrum of asking a fish to describe water; we exist in a limitless ocean of mental energy, which includes feeling, thought, and expectation. Pure consciousness is at our center, the ineffable quintessence of life at the focus of each being. Mystical traditions inform us that all matter is permeated with consciousness, the one foundational principle that science tries in vain to localize in the context of an assumed finite material reference frame. Our prime awareness, eternal, unchanging in a Universe of change, defies definition, just as multiplying or dividing by infinity transcends rational logic. We are spiritual, transpersonal beings, operating within mind, yet beyond mind. Remembering that we are the observer, and the very act of observing fabricates the atoms that make up matter by 'collapsing the wave function', we recall the freedom we have to individually and collectively 'make it so'. We're the stars of our own virtual reality film. Or to paraphrase Brian Wilson, "collapse a wave and you're sittin' on top of the world."
"Since we're all interconnected at the highest levels of our being, it must take an enormous amount of energy to maintain the illusion of separation." — Dr. Leonard Laskow
Another experiment duplicated repeatedly around the globe has to do with the linked spins of paired electrons. If you change the spin of one electron from a pair, the spin on its partner changes INSTANTANEOUSLY. That not only means that the speed of light isn't a limit here, but also that there is a correspondence, a communication, an intrinsic relatedness that goes beyond our usual ideas of limiting isolation that the mechanistic, "I'm all alone in the Universe" conceptual framework might constrain our beliefs to. Elevating quantum entanglement from mundane particles to mystical principles, it supports the ancient truth that we're neither bound to space and time, nor duality� If we deflate space and time to here and now respectively, not only do countless paradoxes disappear, but the silly notions of loneliness, conflict and deprivation vanish also. Fortunately, the transpersonal 'We' that shrinks into the infinite 'I' happens to be 100% friendly, courteous, trustworthy and all the rest of those boy scout adjectives. Inclusiveness is built into the feminine principle as a standard feature, so adjectives aren't required in this case. :-)
When within and without, yin and yang, above and below, personal and metapersonal, micro and macro archetypes are seen as mirrors and honored as equally valid aspects of the all, we optimize our opportunities to learn from every synchronicity and coincidence that surrounds us. Each dream, interpreted lovingly by our integrated Self, becomes a tool for loosening the mental tourniquet of separation.
Try this technique: Whenever you are confronted with an issue that seems puzzling, ask yourself if eliminating space, time and pluralism (you know, the old "we vs. they" nonsense) would resolve the situation, regardless of its nature.
"People who are spiritually intelligent don't squander their attention on just anything. When you look at TV, movies, magazines, or books, or listen to the radio or even music, there is a way of spending your attention that strengthens you and gives life, and there is a way that depletes you. Spiritually intelligent individuals are very careful about what they attend to." — Marsha Sinetar
"Be Impeccable with your word." — Don Miguel Ruiz
Lasers are now commonplace; they are in CD players, checkout counter bar code scanners and lecture pointers, among many other examples. Physics revolutionized modern industry with laser technology. We have the potential to transform our lives with the principles underlying lasers (vibrational coherence and selective resonance) using metaphysical applications. Every thought, feeling, belief and emotion carries a spectrum of vibratory energy. Scattering our attention (or vacillating between conflicting ideas or thought systems (e.g. transpersonal and personal) is like trying to coax a laser (designed to operate at exactly one pure frequency) to sing multiple notes at once (which won't work); it is equivalent to tuning our minds to multiple discordant frequencies, resulting in chaos, discord and lack of ease. Another example of using the principle of coherence is the power of community — the strength of aligned vision, word and action to achieve shared goals and heartfelt longings.
Even if you've never taken a class in physics, you've no doubt dabbled with portions of the electromagnetic spectrum beyond the tiny visible octave that we hang out in (or seem to) most of the time. Cell phones, radios, televisions, microwave ovens, dental X-rays, GPS receivers, heat lamps, 'black light' bulbs, and a myriad of wireless devices all use portions of the spectrum that we can't see directly, yet we benefit from. We take all these vibrations on faith, in a way. Electrons also seem invisible, yet we play with them daily.
In addition to the 1 visible octave of light, there are about 10 octaves of sound in the spectrum of air pressure waves; yet both of these spectra may continue infinitely far in both directions.
We may not be able to directly modify the rich spectra of influences that bombard us via our senses through various vibratory spectra around the clock, but we can definitely choose (guided by what we feel in harmony with) what we emphasize with our attention and intention. We can resonate and find coherence with the influences that optimize our health and well-being, which automatically becomes what we, as antennas of consciousness, transmit and radiate out to the cosmos.
"There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so." — William Shakespeare, in Hamlet
"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the rest of the world calls a butterfly." — Richard Bach
The dimensions of space and time are the canvas or fabric upon which our reality is painted. Yet contemporary discoveries such as relativity, singularities (like black and white holes, wormholes or tunnels in space-time), zero point energy phenomena and curved space keep gnawing away like persistent moths at the conceptual clothing we emperors are wearing! Stripped of spatial masks, we are always here together as one being (in infinity); the only place we ever need to be! Stripped of temporal distractions, it is always now (in eternity); the only time we can experience. The polarization and disorientation caused by space and time is reconciled by being truly present, just as light dispels darkness. This presence is exemplified by qualities described as integrity, consistency, balance, neutrality (to illusion anyway :-), non-resistance, and tolerance.
The effectiveness of true forgiveness (another tell-tale sign of a mind embracing their transpersonal guidance) is based on the idea that there is NOTHING TO FORGIVE in truth, if the sum of sensory experience is actually just a holographic projection of our own unresolved misperceptions � We return to the non-polarizing perspective of the original Aramaic meaning of the word 'evil' as merely 'unripe', which absolves all beings in our lives (including ourselves) from the need for guilt, since (from an infinite perspective) the whole parade of ephemera we call our lifetimes is ultimately of no consequence! � All that is left distilled from our space-time experience (that lives on throughout eternity) is the loving kindnesses we have expressed, the joys shared, and the heartfelt acceptance beyond any conditions.
"I am so small I can barely be seen. How can this great love be inside me? Look at your eyes. They are small, but they see enormous things." — Rumi
Imagine yourself visiting the Andromeda galaxy. OK, how long did that take for you to get there in your imagination? Instantly? The mind is not constrained by the light-year enormities of space or time. Our buddy Yoda reminds us that size does not matter to the force that connects all of us.
In the 'vacuum' of space, there is boundless energy, seen from the perspective of the all. Seen from a tiny fragment, space seems quite empty, void and dark. A useful metaphor for the body (that we typically identify with as an individual self) is a droplet in the ocean of our transpersonal, all embracing, Self. Our thoughts are like waves on the ocean, each being born and dying as waves arise, crest, trough and ultimately return to stillness. The classic Powers of Ten movie and the more recent Cosmic Zoom movie give us some perspectives on just how tiny the droplet (that we give such exaggerated importance to!) really is. We don't even know enough to be dangerous � at least to the eternal and the infinite!
Space itself is vastly empty� not only the enormity of intergalactic, interstellar, interplanetary, and seemingly interpersonal space , but also interatomic space. If the nucleus of an atom were the size of a soccer ball, the electron cloud would be about 7 miles away! Researchers like Elizabeth Rauscher and Nassim Haramein have shown that the center of each atom may actually be miniature black/white holes (negligible size; hence singularities) and the spacing between major sizes of things in the Universe may even be related by the golden ratio! Just as the golden ratio is a mathematical reminder that we're all part of the same (self-similar fractal) grand design, regardless of the scale, so do the physical properties of the Universe (as manifested in spirals from flower heads to galaxies) remind us that we, each one of us, are an integral part of the blossoming and unfolding of life by keeping everything — including our 'selves' — in perspective. Developing the habit and rhythm of taking everything in stride is a big help!
"Everybody's life touches so many other lives ... You can't help but have a significant impact on other people's lives as you go through it" — Gary Renard
I've come to appreciate more and more the wisdom of the philosophy that suggests: "What you think of me is none of my business." Each moment, our choice of thought, feeling, and action becomes the cause of an infinite number of effects, shifting the entire dynamic fractal hologram. Chaos theory suggests that butterfly wings and tornados on the other side of the planet are interwoven; even plucking flowers may trouble stars. If we focus on kindness and quantum forgiveness (overlooking the folly of our own misperceptions by attributing their insignificance to an infinitesimal sample out of infinity), we shift the entire hologram by a seemingly minuscule amount � yet our individual holograms are immediately and radically transformed � We're suddenly free of the burdens we've lifted from 'others' because we realize that there is no one 'else' to forgive, and 'no events out there' (relative to the infinity of space time) to forgive. The repercussions of our generosity to ourselves modify the entire network of causal domino chains backwards and forwards throughout!
Even if 'others' seem to perceive things differently, the veils to OUR perception have been lifted by just that much. I'm reminded of the wonderful Sufi story of the blind men and the elephant; each touches a different part of the animal and has a completely different experience, yet from their finite (blind) perspective, their experience seems self-consistent. When we release judgments about other's stories, we take off our own blinders and see a tiny bit more of the cosmic elephant! We're each partially responsible for our own part of the greater hologram, yet completely responsible for what we, moment to moment, contribute from our hearts and minds to our seemingly individual holograms.
Thoughts held in mind reproduce after their kind. It's the nature of thinking. What we hold in our mind reproduces itself in the reality of our life and our experience." — Mary Manin Morrisey
Letting go of our attachments to, and aversions from, any thing in particular allows us to flow with the Universal current, become superconductors for our inner light, and feel the peace of non-resistance. Within the past century, give or take, our planet has realized that light depends on the perfect synchronization of both electrical and magnetic fields to produce the electromagnetic phenomenon we call light. Electricity, with its straight, linear fields is a suitable archetype for the masculine principle, directed, and of single focus. Magnetism, with it's curved, toroidal fields is typifies the feminine principle, embracing, encompassing, gathering and then nurturing all without exception. Neither electricity nor magnetism — in isolation — get us out of the dark. It is only when we combine the masculine and feminine in balance, harmony and without any resistance whatsoever, do we get light.
Shamanic astrologer Daniel Giamario observed that from our planet, the apparent size of our sun and moon (the terrestrial luminaries in our local archetypal pantheon) are about the same, giving rise to both solar and lunar eclipses. Perhaps a symbolic gift we've been given here is that we have the opportunity to generate light (both metaphorically and literally) by allowing our intuition (feminine, magnetic principle) to guide our conscious mind (masculine, electrical principle) in lock step. Releasing our internal 'resistance' (fear, guilt, blame, judgment, projection) restores the unlimited power of love to flow effortlessly and joyously to fill our Universe with light! It is only natural in this state to feel gratitude for the ecstatic abundance of all that truly is within us, which in turn, avalanches into a supernova of blessings beyond our capacity to imagine, let alone describe. The mystics have been hinting about this homecoming forever, finally waking up in glorious numbers as a planet!
Just as quick examples, (at the time of this writing) as indicated by the millions of people attending Oprah Winfrey's online class with Eckhart Tolle, there is a growing wave of interest in becoming more lucidly aware beyond egoic consciousness, and the grassroots popularity of the TED talk by Jill Bolte Taylor is a further indication that we're more ready than ever to embrace the wisdom of going beyond our brainy attachment to the belief in isolated separate identities. These are encouraging signs, and our physical sciences are increasingly validating and building a stronger foundation for sustainable metaphysical experience.
Copywrite 2008 Bruce Rawles. All rights reserved.
About Bruce Rawles 
Bruce Rawles is the author of Sacred Geometry Design Sourcebook: Universal Dimensional Patterns, the co-author of The Geometry Code eBooklet and Screensaver (with Mika Feinberg of LightSOURCE) which is the prequel to a forthcoming book of the same name, and the editor of a website devoted to sacred geometry and the principle of interconnectedness. His fine art series inspired by the astronomical discoveries of John Martineau has been exhibited in Switzerland, Austria, and several galleries in the U.S. He gives presentations and workshops on the integration of timeless Hermetic Laws, sacred geometry, and contemporary insights. His earlier article for Spirit of Ma'at appeared in January 2004, prior to his presentations for the Global Sacred Geometry Conference in Sedona, Arizona.
More inforamtion about Bruce and his work — Media Info Kit.
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