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Science and Spirituality

As many of you may know, I've got an engineering education. Even though that's not what I do for a living anymore, I'm grateful for the benefits that the engineering way of thinking has brought to my life. My wife's grateful, too, because like any engineer I believe that I can fix anything. I'm not always right about that, but it never stops me from trying.

One of the points of view that I bring to teaching the seminars that I do is a firm belief in a logical universe that works by law, and not by random chance. This point of view carries over into my spiritual practice, in that I no longer believe in an unpredictible deity that will alter the laws of the physical universe if I whine and beg long enough. I now know that the things that primitive humans attribute to miracles are simply the operation of laws of which they are unaware.

These laws are mostly the ones concerning the power of our own mind and beliefs to alter physical reality, the laws which spiritual teachers have known for centuries and which modern science is only now beginning to reluctantly consider. This is where my engineering background comes in - see, I've never believed that the universe had two sets of rules; one for matter and another set for people. True science and true spirituality always agree, because they are both descriptions of the same universe. It has to be that way, right?

Complicating the convergence of these two disciplines are people who get stuck in their beliefs and won't change. We know about the spiritual side - when spirituality becomes religion and beliefs are cemented in dogma, people are very resistent to change. Scientists love to point this out, and some of the particularly ignorant religious groups give them plenty of ammunition.

But what about scientists? Oh, they will tell you that they are committed to the open-minded search for Truth, but that's bull #$&^! They're people, too, and they can be just as obstinate as religious fanatics in holding to beliefs that they can't prove. (They call them "theories")

For confirmation, I defer to physicist Robert Laughlin, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1998, who in a recent speech complained that physicists have problems with their belief systems just like everyone else and that, like religionists, they defend them even when presented with contradictory evidence. After discussing some of the unanswered and even ignored problems with current physics, he even referred to some existing theories as "physicist creation myths"! Ouch!

So the convergence of science and spirituality is hampered on both sides by people who are not open-minded, but determined to defend their position. Fortunately, there are also some people on both sides who are courageous enough to consider new ideas. As they do, we see exciting discoveries that will revolutionize human life on this planet (and beyond).

That's why I love to include ideas from science, psychology and neuroscience in the programs I teach. It's one thing to tell you about the power of your mind, it's another to show the experimental evidence from labs around the world. We know that a strong intention and a committed decision causes amazing "coincidences" to happen. I met Bob Proctor that way. It's fun to explain how the "many worlds" theory of quantum mechanics simply and directly explains those "coincidences".

If you want to know more about this, here's three resources: See the movie and buy the DVD for "What The Bleep Do We Know?" Then go to your bookstore, or Amazon, and buy "The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot and "The Field" by Lynne McTaggart. These books review the science for non-scientists. There's lots more, of course, but this will get you started.

Does this mean that God is out of the picture? Is it all science now? Not at all, it just means that our old primitive concept of "the big guy in the sky" needs a major overhaul. Jesus said that "God is Spirit and must be worshipped in Spirit and Truth." Science is discovering that our consciousness plays a central role in the universe, and this power confirms what spiritual teachers have said for eons - we are children of God, made in His image and likeness and co-creators of physical reality. Pretty neat stuff, eh?

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posted by Wes Hopper @ 8:46 AM