The Physics of Spirit

FEBRUARY 24, 2009

A brief on "A Briefer History of Time"

 

By John Taylor; 2009 Feb 24, 18 Mulk, 165 BE

Back in the eighties I tried to read Stephen Hawking's A Short History of Time. I got through the first few chapters but when I came across wierd phenomena like singularities and event horizons -- just like it does the laws of classical physics -- it blew my mind, and I stopped. The other day in the Binbrook Library I came across the updated version, A Briefer History of Time, in audio book format, and decided to try again. The introduction to "Briefer" pointed out that the original book "Brief" sold well enough for there to be one copy for every seven people on the planet. My estimate of human intelligence went way up when I heard that, though I have also heard that it was the most unread bestseller in history too.

Being sick yesterday, I listened to one CD disk of "Briefer History" while playing tank battle on the Wii. This prepared my mind, ploughed the ground, and I would then listen to the same CD again doing nothing, giving the audio book my full attention. It turned out to be surprisingly clear science writing that brought together in one view the tremendous discoveries reported in science magazines in dribs and drabs over the past few decades. I awoke this morning with a Big Bang in my head, but my head did not explode, which is a good sign. 

Most impressive to me now is the unsettling discovery that space is expanding like a giant balloon. The further away you are from any point in space, the faster the distances are accelerating. The big bang is like an explosion, but one that is still picking up speed and energy, unlike any known detonations on earth. This has implications, I think, on our moral, spiritual and political understanding of our place in the universe.

Albert Einstein in his later years talked about capitalist society as a chaotic stage, an evil symptom of a "predatory phase of human development." I do not think of it so much as predatory as imitative of materiality. The human universe on the grand scale is just like that expanding balloon, each point accelerating in distance from every other point, with the further away points accelerating faster than the closer ones. This principle of expansion is the inherent nature of materialist thinking. In proportion to how much we reflect this in our thinking, the faster the human center of gravity will be torn apart and unbalanced.

This casts light on why in the first sentence of Comenius's chapter on individual reform he says: "Human corruption is largely if not wholly based on the fact that men are very busily concerned with their material goods and strenuously uphold the proverb `I am my own closest friend,' but they generally neglect their spiritual goods." (Panorthosia, Ch. 20, p. 20) The result of our inherent lack of perspective on the exploding nature of the material things that surround us is that we fly apart, inside as well as outside. "Many teach others, none teaches himself." The bigger and more universal the issue, the less power we have to hold ourselves together and make common sense. We feel normal as individuals and with those we meet, but as world citizens we fail because just like two near points on that expanding balloon of space-time, more distant points fly apart faster.

The way to reverse this dispersal and diffusion is to concentrate upon Spirit, which by nature collects and unifies because it is, as it were, a different kind of mirror of reality. It has a reverse curvature to the mirror of physical space-time. In the universe of the heart the most intimate relations come from proximity to the most distant point imaginable: God Himself -- or to speak more exactly, His Manifestation. Materiality is a convex mirror dispersing light while spirit is concave, concentrating it on a single point, the human heart. In the mirror of spirit the greater the distance between any two points, the stronger the attractive force between them and the more rapidly they come together. As Socrates is reported to have said,

"Where God is our teacher we all come to think alike. For example, all agree that it is better to wear warm clothes in winter..." (Oeconomicus 15:3)

Conversely, where materiality is the teacher, differences are the exemplar. All who look here come to varying standards and to think differently. They disagree about basics, such as whether to come in out of the rain or wear warm cloths when it is cold outside. Materiality, being dead matter itself, is inimical to life. Materiality, unlike God, does not teach, it splits and tears apart.

For those who turn to the Manifestation the greater the spiritual perception the more universal the concern, the more broad the love that dominates the personal. Whereas matter is ruled by energy mediated by light, the energy source of spirit is wisdom. Wisdom manifests itself in speech, in language which arouses selfless motives in the heart. Baha'u'llah wrote,

"The beginning of Wisdom and the origin thereof is to acknowledge whatsoever God hath clearly set forth, for through its potency the foundation of statesmanship, which is a shield for the preservation of the body of mankind, hath been firmly established. Ponder a while that ye may perceive what My most exalted Pen hath proclaimed in this wondrous Tablet." (Baha'u'llah, Tablets, 151)

Today's daily reading emailed from a news feed is also appropriate. It is from the Lawh-i-Hikmat:

"Know thou, moreover, that the Word of God -- exalted be His glory -- is higher and far superior to that which the senses can perceive, for it is sanctified from any property or substance. It transcendeth the limitations of known elements and is exalted above all the essential and recognized substances. It became manifest without any syllable or sound and is none but the Command of God which pervadeth all created things. It hath never been withheld from the world of being. It is God's all-pervasive grace, from which all grace doth emanate. It is an entity far removed above all that hath been and shall be." (Tablets, 141-142)

-- 

John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

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