Energetics: Where science and Mysticism Meet
Ancient Wisdom
During most of the long history of humanity, energy has been understood experientially. Ancient cultures around the world were interested in how things worked, not in why they worked. When a formula for success was found in any area of life, it was observed, nurtured and passed on as wisdom. It was not, however, dissected and challenged to discover why it worked. That was not perceived as important, as long as it accomplished the desired result. Ancient people accepted that the cosmos had laws which governed how things worked, and that those laws stemmed from a source akin to, but greater than, the individual being. They acknowledged the interconnection between humankind and its environment, honoring the great dance of life in its glory and complexity. They understood that each small element, including each person, was not only part of the whole, but a complete microcosm of the whole: a hologram, an entire universe in miniature. By changing the energy patterns in any particle of the cosmos, those patterns also shift in the greater whole. This is the "butterfly effect": when a butterfly on one side of the world flutters its wings, somewhere else a wind will arise, perhaps even a storm.
Everything each of us does, thinks and feels, has a cosmic effect. We are not independent, we are interdependent.
The ancients also understood the experience of spontaneously accessing knowledge through what is nowadays called intuition. Many modern scholars, especially those who have solved
Everything each of us does, thinks and feels, has a cosmic effect. We are not independent, we are interdependent.
outstanding equations, have spoken of this experience. Einstein, Oppenheimer, Crick and Watson who revealed the structure of DNA—have told of being in a deep contemplative state and then "suddenly I saw" or "I just knew". Others have spoken
of seeing the needed information in a dream— information which turned out to be valid.
Such spontaneous "downloading" of information is available to all of us, but can only operate when we set aside our suspicion. Ancient cultures bypassed skepticism by not challenging successful information. This welcoming attitude led them not only to technological heights we have yet to imagine, but to personal and communal harmony.
Energetically speaking, this openness to all dimensions is what is meant by the terms spirituality and mysticism. Whether we download from an emotional connection and name it as "God", or from a less personified source we call "Inspiration", we are in tune with cosmic forces beyond the visible. It is simply the other face of science, from which we have become divorced.
A limited perspective
Most of the world's inhabitants today have received a "modern" scientific education. Contemporary scientific thought is a young trend, rooted in the western European countries about eight hundred years ago. Its originators—Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Paracelsus and Gutenberg—were wise beings who understood the symbiosis of matter and spirit, faith and "proof", mechanics and mysticism. They worked against a canvas of nearly utter darkness, in the shadow of a religion which forbade any curiosity about the functions of the universe. The light they fostered was great.
In the course of time, however, the division between matter and spirit grew wider. Logic and "reason" became the enemies of spiritual experience. Logic became perverted into a weapon to defeat the "subjectivity" of mysticism. In a backlash against the strangling control of the medieval Christian church, Western thought rejected all spirituality.
Eastern (Asian and Oceanic) and Southern (African, South American and Australian) civilizations retained their holographic understanding. But the Western perspective spread rapidly outward through mercantile exploration and colonial aggression, trampling on local customs and traditions and in many cases extinguishing them.
Contemporary scientific thought is a young trend, rooted in the western European countries about eight hundred years ago.
Internal degradation also took place through the rise of materialism in China, Bharat and the Southeast Asian countries, as imperial dominance replaced the wise leadership of sages and monastics. At times the monarchs relied on priestly advice, but they were free to dispense with it when it displeased them and to suppress any spirituality they found threatening.
Today's modern education consists of mechanistic thought based on "objective" sciences: Mendelian genetics, Darwinian biology, medicine based on Pasteur and Lister, and Newtonian physics. These ideas built the twentieth-century lifestyle, which has proliferated across the planet. With its proliferation, humanity has discovered its dangerous limitations.
Most important, quantum physics has demonstrated that the world of atoms and molecules is not absolute.
The current methods of energy generation, food production, transportation and health care threaten to overwhelm the resources of Planet Earth. But scientific research is bringing new revelations to move us beyond twentieth century knowledge. The work of Mendel and Darwin is being re-evaluated, showing that evolution is not an orderly progression
and that genes switch on and off, depending on beliefs and expectations. Suppressed writings of Pasteur have been recovered, indicating that he realized his process of pasteurization would not be necessary with the proper awareness of disease.
Most important, quantum physics has demonstrated that the world of atoms and molecules is not absolute. A point is also a wave—at times. A plane is also a cube—depending on circumstances. Every experiment conducted in allegedly "objective" surroundings is influenced by the intentions and thoughts of those who conduct it. There is no such thing as "objectivity".
If thoughts and expectations can influence matter, there must be a connection between them. We are inexorably led back to the holographic universe, to the ancient understanding of interconnectedness. Rebuilding our global culture on this realization can do away with scarcity, pollution, and violence born of greed.
The giants of earlier centuries had only half the picture: they missed the impact of thought, emotion (hope, anticipation, disappointment) and mystic contemplation on the physical world. The energetic nature of the universe continues to reveal itself, and with it our technology can also evolve. Welcome to the 21st century!
The Other Half Of It
In his groundbreaking book No Boundary, philosopher Ken Wilber points out that whenever a boundary is established we have divided space into halves: the half we consider contained within the boundary, and the "other half ", which entails everything beyond the boundary. Usually the inside half denotes something comfortable, familiar and cozy our no-stress zone, where we have control. The other half is unexplored territory, with unknown terrain and untried situations.
The scientific, "practical" world looks at mysticism as the "other half ". Any shift in the material environment that is unexplainable other than by spirituality has been dismissed as imaginary, delusional or fraudulent.
But is this "factually" true? Or is this the coziness of our comfort zone?