Love mystery? There's no need to embrace mysticism. Rather, embrace modern science. You end up with genuine mystery, not a religiously-tinged variety.
Case in point: the cover story in this week's New Scientist, "Reality Check." The online title is "Quantum Weirdness: the battle for the basis of reality."
This video, Reality's Hidden Layers, that is based on the story tells you the basics. Something has to go -- reality, relativity, causality, free will. They can't all coexist as how they are currently understood to be.
Here's how the cover story ends.
Rudolph doesn't have an answer – no one does. But he reckons the problem is that we are still hopelessly anthropocentric.
The growing disconnection between our experience of the world and the results of quantum experiments, he says, are simply a modern version of the ever-more complex epicycles that Ptolemy and those who followed him used to explain the motions of the heavenly bodies. The problem back then was that we could only see the planets as revolving around Earth; it took Copernicus to turn things around, and suddenly all was plain and simple.
Perhaps we have constructed theories such as relativity and quantum theory with a similarly limited view, in thrall this time to a sense of space and time that might not exist beyond ourselves. "We think time and position and so on are important variables for describing the world because we evolved to perceive them," says Rudolph. "But whatever is going on down there doesn't seem to worry about them at all."
So there you have it. When the light shines on that the half-silvered mirror, what we see is hardly a reflection of the world as we would like to know it. Reality, relativity, causality, free will, space and time: they can't all be right. But which ones are wrong?
Maybe we will never know which ones are wrong. Maybe reality "as it is," if those words even make any sense, will be forever hidden from us.
After all, the universe is some 14 billion years old. We humans came on the scene a few hundred thousand years ago. Our scientific understanding of the universe, and also of ourselves, is in its infancy.
As the quotation above, plus the video, note, humans evolved to survive, not to comprehend the cosmos. What worked for us on the grassy plains of Africa -- such as understanding cause and effect as it related to prey/predator behavior, hunting/gathering, and such -- may not be attuned to how reality is on much subtler levels.
This doesn't mean that religiosity, spirituality, mysticism, supernaturalism, or other non-scientific ways of comprehending reality are any better suited to figuring out what reality is all about.
Limitations of the human brain, body, and mind are universal. Gurus as well as physicists have them; meditators as well as astronomers have them. We can't escape our peculiar Homo sapiens way of looking upon the world.
What would be truly remarkable is that a species which recently evolved on Earth, one planet orbiting one sun that is one of several hundred billion stars in a galaxy that is one of a hundred billion of so in the visible universe that may be but one of countless in a multiverse cosmos, somehow quickly managed to understand the inner workings of reality.
I deeply doubt this has happened.
As the New Scientist story strongly implies, reality doesn't care about us; it isn't about us; how humans see things likely bears little or no resemblance to how those things are in themselves (again, if "in themselves" has any meaning -- another mystery we are clueless about).
Awe seems to me to be a perfectly appropriate attitude toward the cosmos.
Believing that we are close to comprehending it... utterly inappropriate.
When the field of your inquiry is limited to self-knowledge, to understanding how the brain tries, fails, and succeeds at what it exists to do, you're not distracted by questions you can't even begin to address. At this point in human history, the question of whether we can learn how to live on this planet without creating Hell on Earth burns while quantum physicists fiddle.
Posted by: cc | August 06, 2013 at 09:04 AM
What humans are very hyper strong at
is LOVE
Understanding is nothing
and a zero value with God
who Himself doesn't understand a thing
She is to much engaged in LOVE
and has no time for
worthless stuff
Engaged by all those incoming Param Saints
with their pockets full of disciples
I said it before
Even when only ONE Saint comes p/ galaxy
IT IS HUGE
777
.
Posted by: 777 | August 07, 2013 at 06:22 AM
ZZZ
Posted by: cc | August 07, 2013 at 08:33 AM
O my dear 777!
You are really hopelessly lost in your fairyland,
already closed for every logical reasoning and argumentation.
Let me say it as it is:
brainwashed
This blog might have been your chance …
Posted by: Sandra | August 07, 2013 at 10:37 PM
Sandra Ji Hihi
50 years 24/7 hopelessly brainwashed
for each second super crash love
I would hopeleszsly repeat such a life many many times more
explaining me how to become unhappy , . . ! and I will shun that as the plague
777
Posted by: 777 | August 08, 2013 at 03:07 AM
777,
Since nobody knows the truth (and you don’t - as well as all the others)
I admit - after all it doesn’t matter what you believe,
it’s ok, if it makes you happy and satisfied.
Posted by: Sandra | August 08, 2013 at 01:47 PM
"all I want to do is having some fun"
forgot the song
Love You too
777
and telling that nothing is wrong
with Sant Mat
Not Yet
777
Posted by: 777 | August 09, 2013 at 12:20 AM
777-The song was by Sheryl Crow.
Posted by: the9thGate | August 09, 2013 at 10:56 AM
"and telling that nothing is wrong
with Sant Mat
Not Yet
777"
Curious about this... is it because most likely Sant Mat will become another religion without a living Master eventually in the future? Could be why all these RSSB study centres are being built around the world.
Posted by: just me | August 09, 2013 at 03:40 PM
"To big to fail" will not apply
but under Gurinder it's just the opposite
and He makes a rock fondation for the future
and the new climate environment
He is closing all centers where ego is creeping in
Sant Mat is so Cool
9th
thanks for Sheryl
777
Posted by: 777 | August 10, 2013 at 03:17 AM
Why did 777 continue to post here? In part because the regular contributors suffered him conversation.
I believe 777 really desired to share something he felt was hugely significant. Trouble is -- ya don't bring pork-chops to
a vegetarian picnic and expect to be warmly
received.
Posted by: IloveDrAnn | August 14, 2013 at 06:49 AM
IloveDrAnn,
I believe 777 used to make more than one comment per day on this blog, on an average, till a couple of days ago. From the huge collection of comments thus made by 777 that are stored on this blog, could you please pick 5 "hugely significant" "something" (takeaways) that 777 wanted to share?
Thanks in advance.
Posted by: Avi | August 14, 2013 at 09:49 AM
"I believe 777 really desired to share something he felt was hugely significant."
---Notice, the "hugely" word. The relative mind just loves to share something(objectified non-thing) it felt is/was of gigantic significance.
Again, nothing wrong with sharing and feeling something. I do it all the time.
Posted by: Roger | August 14, 2013 at 09:56 AM
Anything to do with the Radha Soami Faith, in the mind of the devotee, is cosmically significant because devotee's thoughts are amplified via believing they've the privilege of "knowing the truth" about God, Guru, Soul, Mind, Kal, Reincarnation, etc. and most esp. The Teaching regarding what happens after death of the body to the immortal soul....... All that makes sharing experiences, etc., related to the Path seem very important....esp. when offered to the erstwhile...to the disenfranchised.
BTW, I don't like pork chops.
Posted by: ILoveDrAnn | August 15, 2013 at 09:28 AM
"Anything......in the mind of the devotee, is cosmically significant because devotee's thoughts are amplified via believing they've the privilege of "knowing the truth" about God, Guru, Soul,........"
---I live in Las Vegas, and I strongly believe, I have it better than all you people. I have the privilege of knowing this truth. At this moment, I am off to the Eiffel Tower for lunch and some sight seeing.
Posted by: Roger | August 15, 2013 at 10:48 AM
It could be that the purpose of our lives
has been to serve as a warning to others.
Unknown Quoter
Posted by: Mike Williams | August 15, 2013 at 09:15 PM
Mike, reminds me of a quote a friend of mine used to be fond of repeating:
"No one's life is ever completely wasted. He can always serve as a horrible example for others."
Posted by: Brian Hines | August 15, 2013 at 09:58 PM
777 wrote:
"Under Gurinder it's just the opposite
and He makes a rock foundation for the future
and the new climate environment
He is closing all centers where ego is creeping in"
Well that would be all centres then because ego is alive in all of them.
Most of the followers fail to see just how much control and authority is exercised at the centres. Just try going against a 'request' by a sevadar and you will see the level of authority and ego that is exercised in RSSB.
Just ask yourself why the sevadars carry radios - it's because they will enforce their rules - and will call backup if needed.
I really don't know why they are called sevadars because what they do has nothing to do with seva. It has everything to do with control and power, both of which are rooted in ego.
Exactly which centres have been closed, just for the record?
Posted by: osho robbins | August 19, 2013 at 12:09 PM
We are dirt .....
moving around ...
Does dirt have a purpose ?
Posted by: Mike Williams | August 19, 2013 at 01:03 PM
"He is closing all centers where ego is creeping in."
Gurinder
You mean people whom are becomming awake
by thinking for themselves ?
http://radhasoamis.freeyellow.com/
Posted by: Mike Williams | August 19, 2013 at 01:09 PM
"......... where ego is creeping in"
---Fascinating, there is a bubble, where no ego is. Out side the bubble, the ego is lurking and wanting to creep in.
Update: Today, I will be eating lunch at HardRock Café, where the ego has already creped in.
Posted by: Roger | August 19, 2013 at 01:19 PM