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I've
recently returned from a journey to the rain country of western Oregon where
I discovered "monistic idealism." It's about to become a philosophy of
choice in the consciousness revolution.
I gathered this intelligence at the Eugene home of
Amit Goswami, Professor of Physics at the Institute of Theoretical Studies at the
University of Oregon. I arranged this special interview because of Goswami's new book, The
Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World. (Tarcher/Putnam). I
wanted to meet the person who authored such a book and to make sure I was correctly
understanding its many profundities.
At first glance, the book appears to be one of
those "new science" books that have become so popular. It does describe quite
well the basic experiments of quantum physics, the ones that produce such paradoxes as the
dual identity (wave and particle) of electrons and their ability to communicate at a
distance with each other instantaneously (non-locality). But rather than simply leaving us
with a "Gee, whiz, isn't this incredible?" impression that the real world isn't
as we assumed, Goswami boldly, yet very thoughtfully, introduces us to monistic idealism
and suggests we accept it as a foundation for a new, and quite compelling, worldview.
Monistic idealism is the academically correct name
given to a philosophical position that once was considered pre-scientific. It existed
before the advent of what philosophers today label as materialistic dualism,. or what we
might call the current official scientific world view. Materialistic dualism is the
assumption that physical matter is the primary reality and that mind is separate from, but
dependent upon, matter. In this view, mind is a secondary phenomena, or, to use the
favored term, is an "epiphenomenon," meaning that it is some kind of separate,
extra stuff that bubbles harmlessly out of brains. Monistic idealism, however, turns
things around. In this position (dating back to Plato in the West, to Hinduism and
Buddhism in the East), there is but one mind and it is the primary reality. Matter is an
expression of mind, not separate from mind, but mind manifested materially. The worldview
expressed in Edgar Cayce's psychic readings is a perfect example of monistic idealism.
Cayce's formula, "Spirit is the Life, Mind is the Builder, the Material is the
Result," for example, gives consciousness a very creative role in manifesting the
material world.
Goswami's book basically says, "Look, if
you'll adopt the viewpoint of monistic idealism, then everything--the paradoxes of quantum
physics, the puzzle of individual consciousnesss and free will, the enigma of psychic
abilities, the universals in spiritual teachings--everything falls into place!" His
book is a journey of creative thinking, providing the most credible and complete tour of
the worldview we call "The New Paradigm" that I've yet read.
One of the early warning signs of this new
paradigm, which Goswami refers to as the "consciousness revolution," was
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: The observer affects the observed. The scientist looks
into the microscope at nature to find nature responding to the observation. How did nature
know there was a scientist looking? It takes an electron, it turns out, to know an
electron. When the scientist flashes a light on atomic structures, the photons of light
disrupt the atoms observed. This simplistic explanation, however, is misleading because it
hides the greater truth. Goswami points out that we habitually use materialism to assume
that there is a fixed material reality--independent of the observer--one that is simply
rebuffed by our gaze. Reality is not fixed, however, and that is where the observing
consciousness makes a difference. There is literally a quantum leap of creativity that
comes into play as the observer, searching for the material electron "thing"
within the etheric electronic wave activity, forces the many possibilities into a single,
manifested actuality by the very act of observation The quantum leap is, according to
Goswami, like an act of grace--creative, unpredictable, synchronistic and
"non-local" (psychic). In talking with him, I realized that it took a quantum
leap in my own imagination to fully digest all the implications of monistic idealism. It
was easy to understand the ethical implication that we each have to take responsibility
for our choices. Goswami emphasizes that it make a difference which ideals we live by,
because they determine which potentialities in the unmanifest, quantum mind will
materialize through the channel of our individual lives.
Individuality, by the way, especially in the
context of a universal consciousness, becomes an intriguing question. Edgar Cayce once had
a dream envisioning the mind as being like a single star with spokes radiating out to form
individually functioning conscious minds. This model expresses exactly the transcendent,
unitary mind assumed by monistic idealism. The spokes even anticipate Goswami's
formulation as to how and why the unitary mind creates the impression of separate
individual minds.
Why, if consciousness is truly unitive and
singular, do we have the experience of separate minds? The brain, according to Goswami, is
a measuring instrument. It collapses the non-local (a.k.a., infinite and eternal) quantum
mind into concreteness and specificity as manifested through individual experience. Our
individual "minds" are necessary to "realize" (make real) the material
world. We are co-creators of reality, yet created ourselves to help reality become aware
of itself. Goswami refers to the theory of "tangled heirarchies" (e.g., who's
the I in statement, "Be Still and Know: I am God"?) and paradoxical
self-referential systems (e.g., "I am a liar"--true or false?) to explain how
and why, to use Cayce's terminology, souls, although designed to become companions with
the creator, became trapped in materiality. And he even has a scientific explanation for
how spirituality help us out of this trap.
Goswami has a big smile, a generous heart, and an
enthusiasm for teaching. I asked him what one recommendation he would give to help us
verify in our own experience the ideas in his book. With twinkling eyes, he answered
quickly, "Meditate." It didn't require a quantum leap in consciousness for us to
agree on that point.
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