Not so long ago (and maybe still in some parts of the world) religious, political and scientific power was held by the same people. Their goal was simple: to hold the truth. The Spiritual leaders were the deciders regarding just about everything. It was a time when new ideas coming out of new genius minds were set aflame� literally� at the stake. Fear from losing control was present in the leader�s minds, as they used every possible means to keep the population away from thinking on their own. Their goal was to propagate a set of beliefs that encouraged us to behave along with the group, using what I like to call �persuasive armed marketing�. The fundamental goal seemed to be good at the time, since it is important to maintain a good social structure. The difficulty arose when the individual feeling of freedom was hindered for the greater good of a few leaders, instead of the greater good of the entire group.
Science and religion have been opposed regarding consciousness since Descartes separated matter and mind. This separated view was named Cartesian Dualism. Since then, two non-dualist approaches to the world were developed. The first non-dualist view includes scientific materialism in which matter produces mind, from a series of mechanical reactions in the hormonal and nervous system, such as the brain. The second non-dualist view includes idealism, in which mind produces matter.
Buddhism (and neutral monists in western philosophy) believes that mind and matter both derive from a deeper-lying common entity. In recent decades it has become evident that quantum physics and quantum gravity can provide a scientifically plausible accommodation of the Buddhist (and neutral monist) approach.
In Buddhism the deeper-lying monistic entity is the pure wisdom of the Supreme Unified Consciousness which can give rise to matter and/or mind. In scientific terms it is the quantum geometry at the tiniest level (Planck scale) of the universe, which is called the unified quantum field. Cosmic wisdom of the Supreme Unified Consciousness pervades the universe, involving, informing and interconnecting everything, including living and non-living beings. It is everything. It is everywhere. Yet, this is only the perception we have from our human point of view. From the point of view of Supreme Consciousness, everything is at the same place, at the same time.
Planck scale quantum information encoding cosmic wisdom is non-local and holographic, hence repeating everywhere, atemporally (everywhen) and at various scales. We will see how we can practice ourselves to detach from the limited human perception of time and space, and practice at perceiving the higher wisdom, which is more refined than standard intellectual information.
In Buddhism, conscious awareness in an individual � self consciousness - is a series of ripples on the universal pond of Supreme Unified Consciousness, interacting with the biological body, the nervous system, and thus, the senses. In science, self-consciousness is a series of quantum wave function reductions, ripples in quantum geometry on the edge between the quantum world of multiple coexisting possibilities, and the classical world of definite states, all occurring in the brain. It is nonetheless possible to become aware of this interaction between the pool of possibilities, and the world we believe to be definite and fixed.
Samadhi is a Sanskrit word describing awareness in which sensory inputs, memory and self dissolve, a person�s consciousness becoming totally one with Supreme Unified Consciousness. Samadhi occurs during deep meditation. Scientifically, in altered states of consciousness, quantum brain activities may become more directly connected with the universal quantum geometry and its collective information.
For example, the new tradition of Quantum Buddhism aims at providing a set of tools to develop a scientific-spiritual approach to the world, unburdened by traditional cultural ritualistic and dogmatic weight, where development of the self prevails to become a conscious scientific instrument. Along reading this book, you will learn a good basis of theory and application of this technique on transcending the human senses to perceive the spiritual world. These techniques are the first steps in understanding beyond the human intellectual interpretation of the world, and existing beyond the biological body.
Spirit, mind, matter, and time are all the same from the point of view of the Supreme Consciousness. Every possibility exists. Every option is available. Yet, from the human point of view, only the results of the equation are perceived. With practice, you can become the mathematician, instead of the result of a formula. In fact, you will remember that you were always the creator of your own experience of life, but only awakened at the level were you perceive the end result of the experience.
In this new era of scientific and spiritual freedom, we can now try to answer age-old questions such as : What is life? Why is life? Why do we exist? What exists, exactly? How do we exist? The answers to all these questions are available at a level of consciousness that surpasses the ability of the human brain to compute these answers by itself. Thus, words cannot suffice to explain it. To find out these answers, one must thrive at discovering the truth by experiencing Supreme Consciousness thru meditative practices and to elevate the awareness of consciousness up to a spiritual level. From this new point of view, everything becomes so clear.
While it is not the goal of this article to introduce the reader to quantum physics, we give here an overview, pointing directly at a specific phenomenon that interests us. Quantum physics is a very large field of study and you should make a bit more research if you are interested to go beyond the scope of this book. Therefore, this introduction will seem extremely brief for the purist. Here we will address a specific event where science discovered that there might be such a things as consciousness.
Quantum physics is the science of studying particles. Quantum is the Latin word for �how much�. In a quest to identify and understand the smallest particles, below the scale of atoms, scientific research found out about a few wonderful phenomena that seem to happen only at the quantum scale. Particles, such as electrons, protons, neutrons and many others, behave differently if we pay attention to them or not.
There was a time, in traditional mechanical physics, that the subjects involved in an experiment were : 1- The experiment, 2- The instrument of measurement. But in quantum research, they noticed that the result of an experiment changed according to the way that the scientific people operating the experiment were involved in the experiment, and interacted with it.
In a resumed fashion, we will explain an experiment that used an subatomic particle cannon and receptive screen. The goal here is to give you the basic idea, and not to turn newcomers into scientific overlords.
This experiment is called the �double-slit� experiment. In a laboratory was used a subatomic particle cannon to shoot electrons at a receptive screen, after passing thru a filter plate with two tiny slits. While we would expect the electrons to draw two lines on the receptive screen, we saw a pattern that can only be explained if subatomic particles behave like waves.
Thus, to understand the phenomenon, we must use measurement instrumentation to perceive what happens when the electrons pass thru the slits. At this point, when the operators of the scientific experiment used measuring devices to observer the electrons, they stopped behaving like waves and started to behave like particles.
Thus, it was deducted after many attempts to rule out any other possibility, that the observer had an influence on the experiment, and that he was actually part of it. When we observe a particle, where we put our attention on it, it becomes one of its possibilities, taking a definite position and form, but when we are not interacting with it, the particle holds all of its possibilities at once, in every position and form. Where once we considered two subjects involved in an experiment, now there was three: 1- The experiment, 2- The instrument of measurement, 3- The observer.
Therefore, consciousness, or at least, the awareness directed at something, interacts with this thing at the subatomic level. This new scientific concept led the way to questions about consciousness and its actual existence.
If consciousness could alter the way matter behaves, then it was obvious it was the same with the mind, and possibly the spirit.
Dr. John Hagelin leads experiments involving the reduction of crime in various places, using only thought processes in deep meditation. A large group of people are gathered in a place where there is a high level of crime, or war, and while everyone is in deep meditation, the level of crime, or war casualties, drop significantly. This experiment was lead more then 50 times with success, at the moment that this book was written.
Considering what was discovered so far, it is obvious that we have the ability to influence the course of events, as much as the behavior of subatomic particles. That is in the nature of the Unified Quantum Field, or the Supreme Consciousness.
