Yes, we are all connected

 

 

The philosophical-spiritual principle that we are all fundamentally connected to each other, to all living things and the Supreme Consciousness is part of every major spiritual tradition, though that principle is often forgotten or ignored. At the heart of those traditions, sometimes hidden in their esoteric or mystical teachings is the core teaching that recognition of that connectedness - to each other, to the living universe, to God Mind - is the key to spiritual awakening, and an absolute requirement for the evolution of humankind. Understanding oneness and its implications is also essential to understanding consciousness itself, and developing its as-yet untapped possibilities.

Saying that we use only a fraction of our brains is only a small part of the story: we utilise and know an even tinier fraction of our consciousness, with the effect that most human beings go through life mostly asleep, unaware, unconscious. For the most part, we have no idea of who we are, what we are, or why we behave as we do.

We are, as Carl Jung observed, woefully ignorant of the psyche, and therefore a danger to ourselves. Because we are not aware of the contents of the unconscious mind, its inner demons and capacity for evil, “we are the great danger. The psyche is the great danger” (Jung).

We do not yet understand we are vastly more than a multitude of isolated consciousnesses controlled by minds encased in brains, that we are truly connected and on deeper levels of being, continually interacting with others and the environment. We remain blind to the influence of great societal and global waves of thought and emotional energy upon us, individually and collectively, and blind to our enormous individual and collective potential for growth, enlightenment and greatly-expanded consciousness.

In our collective ignorance, we flounder in fear, competing and vying with each others, holding desperately onto stultifying notions of race, nationality and being more or less than other races or nationalities, or superior to other lifeforms with which we share this planet, creating wars, conflicts, bigger and greedier corporations and oppressive governments and destroying the earth on which we live.

 

 

 

 

 

For all our technological and scientific advancements, psychologically and psychically, we have hardly evolved at all.

 

(from http://monkeyswearingpants.tumblr.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connectedness is no airy-fairy new-age ideal. It is not science fiction or fantasy. The world really is one.

Everything is connected and interactive, like the great net of Indra through which are scattered bells.

Whenever a bell is set ringing by action in one part of the net, all the bells are set ringing, some louder some softer than others, by the ripples of energy radiating from different points of action.

This is 'entanglement,’ the concept physicist David Bohm’s used to explain that subatomic particles react to each other no matter how far apart (a startling discovery by physicist Alain Aspect and his team). Time is also one, so this ”spooky quantum action at distance and time" says physicist S. Jay Olson, “allows us to send messages from the past to the future.” 

The implication of entanglement, Bohm concluded, is that: "At some deeper level of reality, such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something".

Einstein spoke of a "spirit ...manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man".  In religious teachings, this universal spirit is called the Mind of God...God Mind.

Other scientists are flirting with the idea, minus the God. Archaeologist  John Hoffecher believes that the connection between us is something we evolved. Early in our evolution, he proposes, humans developed a kind of shared brain, a "super brain", that "spurred a modern capacity for novelty and invention". How such a brain could evolve from purely biological and chemical causes is beyond me, but I find the little fantasies of science quite endearing. Nevertheless, an evolutionary super brain is at least a step towards a grander view of Mind.

Then there is Carl Jung's 'collective consciousness', a concept of shared consciousness from which humanity's myths and universal dream symbols are born. Outwardly committed to empiricism - a material view of the world - Jung stopped short of claiming a metaphysical origin for human consciousness, though his theories implied the existence of forces way beyond the capacity of the brain.

Based on evidence that the memory is not found in any one part of the brain and can even be retrieved after different parts of the brain have been damaged or removed, neuroscientist Karl Pribram and David Bohm came up with a Holonomic Theory of the brain, in which memory, and consciousness itself, is present in every part of the brain, in each cell. Mind may, in fact, not be a product of the brain at all.

Twenty or so years later, Pribram wrote from a more daring perspective that: "the basis function from which both matter and mind are ‘formed’ is flux .....that provides the ontological roots from which conscious experiences regarding matter (physical processes) as well as mind (psychological processes) become actualized in spacetime"

(Consciousness Reassessed, PCNL Library, http://www.paricenter.com/library/papers/pribram02.php).

Rupert Sheldrake postulates that this shared mind, the supermind, is not limited to our brains but exists outside of us in 'morphic fields', energetic fields imprinted with certain informational patterns. It is from these field that the consciousness of plants, animals and human beings draw the 'blueprints', one might say, according to which they pattern their morphology (physical characteristics), growth and potential.

You could think of these morphic fields as archetypal (cosmic patterns, sort of). Indeed, Sheldrake thinks that his theory of fields could help to explain the universality and persistence of mythic and psychological archetypes, and may also be related to the ancient Vedic concept of Akashic Records on which are recorded all human knowledge, experience and memory.  Like the Akashic records, morphic fields are non-local, existing in another dimension yet accessible on this plane of existence. 

(image from Naturalsociety.com)

 

It all sounds very much like the God mind at which Einstein hinted in his 'unified field theory', his magnificent and largely misunderstood theory that the fundamental universal force, the ONE force underlying all known phenomena, manifests in our universe at least as electromagnetic energy. He was, I believe, much closer to the truth than others realised.

Now I realise that some may read this and feel anxious, pull back from the idea that we are all connected because to them it hints of losing one’s identity and individuality. Rest assured: Oneness does not in any way diminish or swallow our individuality. Rather, it intensifies it. When we embrace our connectedness to all human beings, plants and animals, and to the Great Spirit all around us, we feel and appreciate our diversity and individual uniqueness much more intensely. Our individuality shines.

Think of Oneness like sunshine. It lights and embraces all things under the sun. It bestows on all things the same loving, caring and life-giving energies. And reveals much more of their beauty and wonder than could ever be seen in darkness.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Kathleen Botsford]

intense post Tosca! I am with you 100 percent. The scientists can have all of their fancy explanations and big words. (Sometimes I think they just like to impress each other!) But the theory is true and we can see it's effect in our ordinary lives. The ripple on a pond when a stone is thrown in that grows and grows until it reaches the moss on the side of the pond and breaks it loose while the ants scatter to dry land and their moss island floats off......to be dinner for a hungry fish.....