Scientific Proof –
Table of Contents
Chapter 8 The Transcendental
Vision
Christ=mc
(talk excerpt, 1980)
by Ruchira Avatar Adi Da
Samraj
Scientists tend to be as obsessed
with self as any other human beings. And, in the trend of
their own traditional philosophy, they represent the same
barbaric mentality as those who are, in the manner of the
streets, more obviously committed to fleshly mortality.
Scientists, too, seem to want to reduce existence to
physical, elemental terms. They are obsessed with “matter”
and death and cause-and-effect relations. Consider, for
example, the now popular theory that the universe was caused
by a giant explosion, the “Big Bang”. This theory has been
confirmed by a great deal of physical evidence, and thus it
has become the generally accepted view of how our universe
appeared. This cosmology, like the physical laws considered
by Newton, will probably always remain true on some level of
experience, even though the paradox of such a view may
become more apparent in the future. Somehow, the idea of the
universe as a one-dimensional or strictly material event
that suddenly begins and ends is basic to the popular and
traditional understanding of “civilized” Man.
Physicists are currently considering
the implications of the paradoxical fact that the physical
universe is apparently not eternal but began with an
explosion. They are also confronting the unavoidable
conclusion that everything that preceded the “Big Bang” can
no longer be discovered and known. In other words,
scientists cannot in this case find the ultimate material
cause they are seeking, because any facts or information
that existed prior to the explosion that created the
material universe have been totally obliterated or
transformed beyond recognition by that explosion.
You can understand how this
reasoning offends the conventional scientific mind, which is
disposed to a total understanding of the physical universe
in terms of the material sequences of cause and effect. Our
scientists cannot fulfill their passionate elemental urge to
thoroughly know about the physical universe. Because
everything that existed prior to the moment of the “Big
Bang” was destroyed in the process, they cannot seek beyond
it for physical evidence, it appears. Even more, some
scientists have gone so far as to consider that the fact of
the “Big Bang” is compatible wth popular religious
conceptions of the origin of the universe, such as that
described in the Old Testament book of Genesis. Such a view
proposes a necessary link between popular religion and
popular science, or at least a point where science reaches
the limit of knowledge and must either be silent or defer to
the archaic poetry of exoteric religious
conception.
The philosophical alternative to
ultimate scientific knowledge proposed by popular theorists
would seem to be either never to be able to know or else
somehow to become religious in the manner of downtown,
middle-class churchism. But true religion is a greater
conception than any that such theorists conceive. They are
still talking about the creation myths of the Old Testament
as if those descriptions were originally intended to be an
historical record of fact (rather than a cultic device,
containing both esoteric and exoteric religious
instruction). The Old Testament and other such popular
Scriptures were originally intended to communicate many
dimensions of esoteric and exoteric meaning (although
“civilized” people continually approach the ancient holy
writings as simplistic and lteral descriptions of the
one-dimensional or material world of modern conception), but
true religion is even a greater conception than that offered
by the ancient books of Jews and Christians. We must
therefore conceive of religion, both true and ancient, in
greater terms than the popular mind conceives. Within the
framework of great and true esoteric religious and spiritual
consideration there is ample room for our sufficient and
comprehensive understanding of the physical universe,
including the “Big Bang” and all the other lllusions of
“matter.”
Nevertheless, truly to understand
the universe of our experence is not a matter of tracing the
pattern of material events back to some absolute original
physical Event or material Cause. There may not be such an
Event or Cause in any case. If we trace the one-dimensional
chain of material events (or apparent effects of causes)
back far enough, even if we could discover what existed
before the “Big Bang,” there still may be no End to apparent
effects and causes. But if we accept the factuality and the
implications of the “Big Bang” itself, it does seem that, at
least with the ordinary, mental equipment of Man, we will
never be able to go beyond a certain point, and so our
prideful presumption of attaining complete knowledge about
(and thus superiority over) the universe in which we are
appearing will, we must admit, inevitably be frustrated.
Todays scientists may be busy discovering all kinds of
things, but they are, by virtue of this consideration,
beginning to realize that they are all something like
plumbers now, you see. They are no longer in the business of
discovering and disseminating ultimate knowledge, and so
their priesthood is in doubt.
But let us consider whether a truly
illuminating understanding is possible for us. Perhaps there
is a conceptual link between the highest considerations of
scientific inquiry and the highest considerations of true
and universal religious and spiritual Realization. Consider
this: While the present configuration of “matter,” or the
apparently material universe, can be perceived as an effect
of a chain of material causes originating with the “Big
Bang” (and what presumably was the case even before it), the
material universe itself and as a whole can also be
considered in every present moment to be the expression of a
dimension of existence that is subtler and greater than the
material universe itself. Therefore, we may also perceive
and conceive the physical universe to be arising within and
in some sense as the effect of another dimension that is
hierarchically senior to it and yet perhaps otherwise
invisible or inconceivable from the materialistic point of
view of the conventional and one-dimensional position of
perception and conception. In fact, I am certain that we
must realize just such a perception and conception of the
universe in order to have an authentic science and an
authentically human culture. And the formula E=mc² is
perhaps best understood as a specimen of the very conception
I am suggesting.
When its true implications are taken
into account, Einstein’s equation of energy and matter
(expressed in the formula E=mc²) represents the
possibility of a multidimensional interpretation of the
total unverse, in which the so-called “material” universe is
realized to be a paradoxical entity or process.
The conventional philosophy of
pre-Einsteinian physics considers the material universe in
the very primitive terms of the medieval mind (against which
science was supposed to have rebelled). If we would approach
the “matter” of the universe as honest physicists, as
scientists who are truly sensitive to the higher physics of
things, we would realize that the “material” universe is
energy, that it is light, that all “material” events are an
expression of another dimension than what we call “matter,”
that “matter” is itself energy, that it behaves as energy,
that “matter,” and the universe, and, therefore, Man and
every individual being, are, each and all, a paradoxical
manifestation of infinite Energy and Being, and that the
struggle to trace the chain of material causes and effects
back to and even beyond the “Big Bang” is a very naive and
unillumined approach to understanding the universe of our
experience and contemplation. It s the multidimensional
understanding in the present that is significant. E=mc²
is the modern left-brained or verbal-analytical expresson of
that multidimensional thinkinga way of entering into
the realization that the physical universe is a paradox of
light. Thus, we must understand that the universe of our
experience is not merely a sequence of physical events and a
material effect of the past. The “material” universe is a
present expression of light. Matter is light; matter, or the
total Realm of Nature, emanates presently from the Matrix of
Light.
The obsession with one-dimensional
cause-and-effect relations and the materialistic ideal of
tracing the configuration of the present moment back to the
“Big Bang” or some other material Cause are motivations
founded in the barbaricor at least archaic!
mechanical principles of Newtonian physics and the medieval
dreams of Aristotelian philosophy and not at all in the
ecstatic and liberating Realization of the paradoxical
Reality in which the total World and Man are appearing. The
formula E=mc² and the theories of “relativity,” on the
other hand, are expressions of the intuition that the
universe is an awesome paradox (not a cause-and-effect
simplicity), and that the present conditions as well as the
ultimate Condition of the apparent universe (analyzed by our
senses) are never more than partially revealed to the
lower-adapted conventional mentality of unevolved Man. Just
so, one of the ultimate consequences of this paradoxical
conception is the conviction that “matter” is now energy, an
expression of energy, a process of energy. To realize
perfect identification with that subtle force that is light
itself, material forms must be converted, that is true, but
even now, as whatever form it appears to be, “matter” is
itself a form of light-energy. And, likewise, when Man
begins to awaken to this conviction in his own case, he
thereby enters into a Process of more and more perfect
identity with Energy, or ultimate Translation into the
Infinite Domain of Light.
STUDENT: Einstein once said
that there is enough energy in just striking a match to lift
off a mountain.
ADI DA: The amount of energy
manifested or radiated by even the smallest piece of matter,
if we were to convert it into light-energy, would be
tremendous. “E=mc²” means that the amount of energy
that any piece of so-called “matter” represents, and into
which it could be directly converted, is the amount of its
mass (whatever measure you use to determine how much mass
this chunk represents) multiplied by the square of the speed
of light (that is, the speed of light multiplied by itself).
In other words, if the physical universe is converted into
radiant energy, we must all enter into a domain of energy
that is many times greater than the physical universe
itself. The physical universe, therefore, is actually a
speck floating in a Realm of Light-Energy that is neither
visible nor comprehensible to Man in his subhuman,
unevolved, and un-Enlightened state.
Well! That is exactly the spiritual
conception of existence, you see, except that true or
spiritual existence encompasses far more than mere energies,
even more than higher physical energies, and even more than
the mere light of higher psychic consciousness. The entire
psycho-physical universe, including you as you now appear,
is a superficial, unnecessary, and free or nonbinding
expression or apparent modification of the Absolute,
All-Pervading, Radiant Divine Consciousness. This is the
fundamental Realization: Every thing is merely a transparent
modification of Consciousness, of the Radiant Love-Energy or
Transcendental Bliss-Light that is literally All-Pervading
Transcendental Consciousness.
Einstein felt some religious
implication in what he was understanding about the physical
universe, but he was not a practitioner of true or esoteric
religion. He was not a practicing devotee. He did not
observe the human body-mind with the same intensity with
which he observed the rest of the physical (or, really,
psycho-physical) universe. Thus, he did not discover any
higher personal implications in his scientific findings than
the humanistic urge to be a good and intellectually serious
man in the world. He did not enter truly into a higher
religious consideration, involving the actual transformation
of his own body-mind into light, but such is the obvious
implication of his formula E=mc², if you are thinking
clearly. What is true of the physical universe and the total
world is also true of this human psycho-physical being.
Energy is our condition already. The body-mind comes out of
energy, as does the entire world. And all of this and us
must ultimately and will inevitably return to the
Realization of prior identification with energy and with the
Radiant Transcendental Consciousness that is the Light and
Truth and Self of the world.
Einstein’s scientific considerations
are basically a repetition of ancient esoteric and
paradoxical descriptions of the universe. His work has
legitimized, in the mathematical, scientific terms of the
twentieth century, a certain level of higher consideration
about material existence. We have, in both the popular and
academic areas of our industrial societies, accepted the
general and technical implications of this very
sophisticated and elaborate understanding of the elemental
world, but we have not realized what that understanding
implies about the world and about Man altogether. We are
still suffering the cultural limitations upon which our
scientific civilization has always been based. Scientists
continue merely to think and doubt and exploit the worldly
powers of their own enterprise, and they have not yet
supported the creation of a total human culture based on the
implications of their own discoveries to date. “E=mc²”
actually and exactly means the same thing to us today, to
our nervous systems, to the individual body-mind or being,
that “Christ is risen from the dead” meant 2,000 years ago.
“E=mc²” is exactly what “Christ is risen from the dead”
means. E=mc² is good news! It proclaims that matter is
energythat the body-mind of every human being can be
Realized to be energy, or light.
What does this communication mean in
human terms? It means that you are energy. However you may
be described altogether, you are not “matter.” Matter is
dead stuff, a dead end, a solid and separate and only mortal
thing. But “matter” does not exist in any case! There is no
such thing as “matter,” in itself and distinct from light,
or energy, or mind, or psyche, or ego, or God. It is not
that there is no such thing as our apparent experience here,
but all of it is energy, or a temporary form of light. There
are many more subtle aspects of light than we see in our
subhuman manner, and the entire manifest cosmos, including
the body-mind of Man, is a spectrum of energy. Therefore,
human beings must become acculturated to living as energy’
or spirit-force, instead of struggling in the barbaric
entality of the “flesh.” And we must develop a culture of
men and women who are being light instead of merely being
“matter” and that dark, simple, dreadfully mortal thing that
“matter” implies. We must create a culture out of our
identification, at this moment, with light, or energy, or
the “Holy Spirit” that is Life and that is Alive as every
thng and every being.
“E=mc²” is the principal
contribution of theoretical physics to date. It is the
premier archetypal scientific discovery of the twentieth
century. We are just beginning to realize its cultural
implications, and those cultural implications are vast. The
idea legitimized by the formula E=mc² is the greatest
scientific discovery of our time, because it has the most
archetypal force. Yet, it is not new. The same idea has been
part of the great tradition of esoteric spiritual society
since the most ancient times. This formula is simply the
modern scientific form or statement of the ancient Wisdom of
Life. Because this formulated idea was developed within the
domain of science, it has been legitimized by argument and
demonstration within the acceptable framework of what is
conceived to be knowledge in our time. E=mc² signifies
that all matter is simply a form of energy. Therefore, there
is no such thing as “matter.” The fundamental conception of
our existence and the state of our knowledge at the present
time is that we and every thing are energy.
But who acts as if energy is the
actual state of our existence? People are, in general, still
living as if “matter” is the ultimate state of all exstence.
The masses of humanity, including their intellectual and
political leaders, are living in an archaic state of mind
and culture. Thus, there are many positive cultural
implications in the archetypal formula or re-discovery
communicated by Einstein. “E=mc²,” like Christ is risen
from the dead,” is not made of words, but of archetypal
symbols, or pure significance. It is the way the ancient
good news is communicated in the terms of twentieth century
logic. “Christ is risen from the dead” and “E=mc²” are
the same truth stated in the terms of two different epochs
of human understanding. Yet, nearly everybody pretends that
there is a vast difference between “Christ is risen from the
dead” and “E=mc².”
Intellectual and dogmatic pretenses
have generated a sophomoric debate between science and
religion, as if they communicate two different kinds of
information. In truth, popular or exoteric religion and
conventional or exoteric science represent two specialized
points of view toward the same information. Science
represents the analytical point of view, the separate
consciousness, the mood of doubt, always analyzing what it
sees, not involved in what it is perceiving, or always
trying to eliminate itself from such involvement. Such a
point of view has some practical application, obviously, but
it also has its own inherent limits. Religion fundamentally
represents the point of view of unity with everything,
rather than analytical separation. It expresses the
right-brained mystical and intuitive consideration, rather
than the left-brained or verbal consideration. At some point
we must come to realize the hierarchical relationship beween
these two points of view. We must understand that the mood
of unity is the highest or most fundamental point of view,
and therefore the most essential cultural orientation. Thus,
humanity must devote itself to true religion, to
spirituality in its truest, most esoteric sense.
A greater, even more primary
archetypal discovery than E=mc² is also concealed in
the “native state” of religion. The reason that higher truth
is yet hidden is that the only religion people commonly know
about is essentially a banal, poetic, fixed-mindedness.
Popular religion is not a living inspiration full of
Transcendental Wisdom, and esoteric religion is ultimately
comprehensible only to Adepts. “E=mc²” is transcended
by the Truth greater than “Christ is risen from the dead,”
greater than the fact that “matter” is a species of light,
utterly capable of direct translation into light. It is
certainly true that “matter” is light, but the Truth of
existence is greater than that. Yes, the Realization of
Truth does include a literal transformation wherein the body
is Realized and demonstrated to be light (as it is popularly
believed to have been the case with Jesus of Nazareth).
Spiritual growth is indeed a matter of Man’s entering into
the Domain of Energy. It involves the repolarizing of the
energy of the body (or nervous system) from toe to crown,
while also maintaining the capacity to express that current
of energy from the crown to the toe, and thus to live the
full circle of the human structure in peace. But the
ultimate Realization is a Transcendental Awakening into the
Domain in which even light, or Space, or change, or energy,
or “matter,” or the body, or Nature itself, which is
essentially the play of light, are all arising.
What is the Condition or ultimate
Domain in which light exists? What is the Condition in which
Nature exists? We tend to think of Nature in the archaic
terms of material processes. But we now also presume that
E=mc², that Nature is only light or energy. What, then,
is the Condition or “Place” in which light-energy is
arising? The Realization of that Condition is the ultimate
religious, esoteric, and spiritual discovery. Truly, energy
is arising in the Transcendental, Absolute, and Perfect
Domain that is Consciousness. Consciousness is Absolute,
Infinite, Radiant BlissUndifferentiated and
All-Pervading. It is that Condition in which light and
“matter” and “mind” and all of us are arising. It is that
Condition which is called “God,” even by those who have no
direct Realization of the Truth. The play of energy, or
light, is, therefore, also God. And the human body-mind is
full of light, or the Energy of Life. Indeed, Man is only
light, or Life, even bodily. And the body of Man is to be
Realized as nothing but Radiant Consciousness, or Love,
which is the Self that is God.
Thus, we are always already
established in a Divine Paradox. That is how we must
understand the entire Realm of Nature. We should not despair
of understanding the universe simply because we cannot go
beyond the “Big Bang” in tracing the material chain of
causes and effects. We may be deprived, at least as Man, of
a certain inspection of the mechanics of great material
processesor we may not. Perhaps everything can be
intuited. If we can enter into the domain of the psyche, the
higher mind, or the consciousness of light-energy in its
subtler aspects, perhaps we can then discover even the
causative processes of material existence that existed
previous to the “Big Bang” and that are otherwise
unavailable to inspection by bodily or gross physical
investigation by Man. Like the higher Wisdom or Truth
itself, this intuitive capacity is also hidden in religion.
It is simply not considered or utilized by the current
scientific establishment and our conventions of
knowing.
The conception of E=mc² is
arising in the Transcendental Depth that is Consciousness,
just as are the self-idea and the subjective consciousness
of the individual. The subjective or egoic self or body-mind
is realized in the seventh or perfect stage of life to be
not other than energy. It is not merely self-contained or
objectively experienced bliss, but it is ecstasy, or a
Realization founded on self-transcendence, or the perfect
sacrifice of the body-mind of the individual. It is Love,
Energy, Radiance, and Absolute Consciousness. Everything is
Realized to be simply the modification of that One Self and
Reality Who is Absolute Consciousness and Absolute Energy,
Undifferentiated, Transcendental, and All-Pervading. That is
God and the Truth of the individual self. That One may be
Realized to be ones very Self in ecstasy, when one
transcends the subjective or psycho-physical self-reference
and enters into God-consciousness truly. That One may also
be felt in relationship, Pervading all experience. And that
One may be felt as a Divine Personality, great beyond
ordinary conception, but nonetheless a Person, not mere
energy (like the rays of the sun), but Consciousness (like
the sun itself), Alive, Pervading all, Transcending all,
Existing as all.
Presently, in the cause-and-effect
terms of time and space, you cannot go beyond the “Big Bang”
to account for yourself. You can, however, enter into
consideration of the super-dimensional realm in which
“matter” truly exists. That is an altogether different
consideration of physics. What is the Condition in which
light arises? When that Condition can be conceptually
presumed through mathematical and technological
consideration of phenomena, then those who are presently
bound to the subhuman limits of popular scientific
conceptions may realize a much higher cultural stage of
human life. That cultural realization will bridge the gap
between religion and science, and, ultimately, between
esoteric and exoteric knowledge. It must be presumed, deeply
in the psyche, that matter is a form of energy, a
modification of light. But we must also see that light,
energy, change, arises within the Infinite Radiance of
Transcendental Consciousness. And what that means is that
matter (and, therefore, the human body) likewise arises in
Consciousness, since matter can be rightly conceived only as
a modification of light. This higher and practical
consideration must be brought into the scientific realm of
physics, so that the spiritual consideration of Truth can
begin to be understood in its fullest sense. This is an
exalted consideration It is not a street-level salvation
“gospel.” It is available to ordinary people if they will be
converted to true and esoteric spiritual practice, but the
origin and the fulfillment of the consideration itself is
founded in a most high and ultimate Realization that exceeds
all the limits of the body-mind of Man.
The analytical description of the
universe in which current scientific formulas like
E=mc² are appearing should begin to be accepted and
legitimized within the greater framework of spiritual
understanding that I have proposed. How can we legitimize
this conception? How do we bring true religion and esoteric
spirituality out of the closetor, really, the cultural
Concentration camp to which they have been relegated by all
the barbaric and absolutist propaganda of scientific
materialism? Religion is the cultural idiot of the modern
world, while science is the TV hero of all the News, but the
traditional and current popular state of science and the
materialistic culture it promotes does not permit a fully
illumined or enlightened or peaceful, happy life. The higher
and spiritual implications of revolutionary contemporary
physics must be understood relative to Man, to the
individual. Our scientists must therefore move the frontiers
of science from theoretical physics to biophysics. What is
the significance of E=mc² for the human body-mind? How
do we promote and establish cultural ideals that enable all
men and women to function and grow as light or energy rather
than as lifeless matter?
We must presume, based even on our
present understanding and application of theoretical
physics, that matter is energy. Then what about our
understanding and application of biochemisty, biophysics,
human anatomy, human life, human culture? What will we do
when we take the discovery of the relationship between
matter and energy seriously? How do we make medicine out of
the understanding that the human body is energy? How do we
practice ordinary diet, sexuality, and social relations on
that basis? How do we bring the higher knowledge of physics
and spiritual esotericism into the daily practice of
ordinary people? And then, how do we also bring mankind into
the greater conception and ultimate Realization of the
Transcendental and Divine Consciousness, in which matter,
energy, and light are appearing? If you are serious about
such questions, then I suggest you study all of the
literature I have written for just such a one as yourself.
Then choose what you will do.
The Divine understanding of the
universe, with all of its paradoxes and mysteries, must be
restored to Man. Human beings must be allowed the greater
and truly human culture of self-transcendence in
God-Communion, wherein they may also enjoy the benefits of
cooperative life, peaceful human existence, perhaps even
some technological sophisticationsince there is
nothing inherently evil about technologyor even
whatever simplicity a person may choose if he or she prefers
to be very simple about the ordinary affair of material
existence. Every person must be permitted the higher
understanding and free spiritual practice of Life, even if
he or she chooses to live a lifetime in relative seclusion,
or within the Sanctuary of an autonomous religious
community, rather than in the broad popular environment of
mass politics and all the casual births and deaths of
subhuman acculturation.
Scientific Proof – Table
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