Spirituality in Life and Science
Erwin Lászlō writes about our need to tap into the subtle inner resources available to us in his latest book with the snappy title Reconnecting to The Source: The New Science of Spiritual Experience, How it Can Change You and How it Can Transform the World.
He suggests we need to tap these resources by recognising and following our own Spiritual experience. It is not exceptional or as rare as people think. If we allow ourselves, we can all experience this Spiritual aspect from our consciousness – though it does not fit Newton-Darwinian concepts of life and reality. Most of the time we leave it on the back burner – dismissing it as imaginary.
Einstein called the insight that emerges from recognising the role of spirituality in life Einfall or “falling in”. The Greeks called it “gnosis” or deep knowing. However it is labelled, poets, artists and scientists know and value the Spiritual Experience that enables them to produce masterpieces or breakthroughs in science. They accept them as precious guideposts for thinking or acting.
Spiritual Experiences cannot be made to happen, but we can set the conditions under which they tend to happen – by entering a meditative, deeper, slightly altered state of consciousness – and then taking the insights offered seriously and learning from them. It is often a sensory experience rather than an intellectual one – it is special access to a domain that is a closed door to most of the external experience of the senses.
The book explores scientifically what led up to us being where we are, starting with the ‘Big Bang’, and leads to what is now known as ‘The Field’ that suggests it isn’t all blind chance, but there is a transcendental force that creates a coherent whole in Space and Time. Eastern religions may label it Prana, Rudolph Steiner suggested ‘etheric force’ and Newton said his laws needed an ‘enlivening and ensouling’ Spirit.
It isn’t that we all need to know all about the particles, atoms, molecules etc that make this possible. We just need to recognise the vibrational qualities and to be conscious of how these change, depending on whether we’re in a deeper or higher domain. On a base level we can discuss the information from our five senses, but we need to be able to decode the frequencies of vibrations beyond just what ensures our biological safety. We need to know the transcendental vibrational qualities too.
Back to meditation then. Our Spiritual Experiences whilst meditating allow us to be informed by the subtle influences of The Field which will lead us to connect with and bond and build communion with everyone throughout our world. We will have unconditional love for others, for Nature, for all things throughout Space and Time – we will find the secret of survival. We will reconnect with the Spiritual Experiences as an Inner Path not only to Enlightenment, but to human salvation.
Lászlō suggests we will all be like a musician in the great symphony of evolution of the Universe – a symphony where the recurring theme of wholeness and coherence in Mind, Body and Spirit is THE Spirit that makes every one of us One with the Cosmos.
The Process of Becoming
This is another look at transience or change.
We are often out of balance in one way or another, and don’t always recognise this. With children we say ‘they are going through a phase’ and often this is followed by ‘this too will pass!’
Every one of us is learning something new every day. Maybe we are consciously learning – in this Pandemic, many of us have had to learn new skills, Zoom or online shopping, or adapting our telephone skills, or developing an online, remote Reiki business.
We may be developing an underused ability or toning down an overused one. Maybe we are learning to speak up for ourselves, whilst others are learning to tone themselves down, or be more considerate of others.
This is all part of our process of ‘Becoming’. Sometimes this Path is not easy and may be upsetting for others … “you didn’t use to be like this!” This Pandemic has offered us many opportunities for self-care – and saying ‘No’. Sometimes it means we are like children and want to try out this new word and expression of our needs; it is exciting and eventually, having practised enough, we calm down as it is integrated into the overall ‘Me’.
It sometimes means our emotions swing like a pendulum. Children especially are writ large in their exploration of Self, going from nervous, shy, hidden behind mum, to wild as the hills in what can seem like overnight. They swing nervous to wild, rolling it around in their lives until it reaches a balance that they are comfortable with.
For us grownups, underuse to overuse is how it serves us. We meditate regularly for some time, then find it isn’t fitting into life anymore and we do not do it. Then we realise life doesn’t flow the way it did, so we go back to it renewed, enthusiastic and maybe overdo it, then ease off until we find the Goldilocks factor, something that is ‘just right’.
Patience, Compassion for ourselves, during these times helps us to understand what is happening. We shift to Centre, and we have restored the balance – inside and out.
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