Christ=mc²
by Adi Da Samraj
1980
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 thinking—a 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 barbaric—or 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: Everything 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 energy—that 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 mentality 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 thing 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 existence. 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 Bliss—Undifferentiated 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 processes—or 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 closet—or, 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 sophistication—since there is nothing inherently evil about technology—or 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.