A different way of being in the world
The aim of this talk is to explain two things; First, why, in my experience, the quantum field allows us to understand that there is a different way of being in the world. And that secondly, from this different way of being we can create a different outer world experience for us all to live in.
I am not a scientist but I want to try and approach this subject from within the context of science. Some of what I am going to say is analytical and logical. I want to ask you to try to allow this to wash over you in a reflective way. The detail of what I am saying is not so important; just try and allow the felt sense of what I’m saying to resonate with you or not.
The quantum field is the kind of expression that leads to misunderstandings due to multiple definitions and uses. The word quantum is a Latin word which literally means “amount.” In modern understanding it has come to mean the smallest possible unit of any physical property. The quantum field has arisen as a result of the evolution of science from what we call first principles to the sub atomic world, and science, especially physics, shares something with mysticism in so far as it has always been preoccupied with the ultimate nature of reality.
Physics and science both seek to discover what is the ultimate nature of reality. Science is derived from another Latin word, Scientia, which means knowledge. Science, as we know it, has really developed in one direction only. It has developed in an analytical, logical, rational, metric based concept of knowledge. In early Greek civilisation they had three completely different words for knowledge. Episteme, which is the knowledge of measurement, is where we get the term epistemology from – the study within philosophy of fact-based knowledge. Then there is the word nous, which means knowledge in the sense of intuition, or common sense. Its where we get the expression ‘use your nous’ from. This is a completely different kind of knowing. And then the third understanding of knowledge comes from the Greek word gnosis, and this is best known for giving rise to the term Gnosticism, which signifies a deep knowing of our real nature as divine, or a knowing of the divine.
“ARE WE LOCATED WITHIN A CERTAIN BODY, WITH SPECIFIC MEMORIES AND EXPERIENCES OR DO WE EXIST OVER A MUCH WIDER, VAST SPACE?”
Science has developed in a one-dimensional way, through reductionism and has really dissected what is, into smaller and smaller parts. I do not know if you can remember when you were at school and you did biology? Certainly, all the biology I did was about cutting things up and seeing what happened to the parts? And so, at a moment in time we ended up with the atom, which was considered to be the ultimate building block of reality. And Newtonian physics which had pretty much remained in force and dominated up until the 1920s could not explain the atom, so we developed the world of quantum mechanics. The atom was divided and we encountered the subatomic world or protons, neutrons, and electrons. In 1982 an important research team led by a French physicist Alain Aspect performed what many people have referred to as the most important experiment in the twentieth century. He discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles, and in particular electrons, can communicate instantaneously with each other, irrespective of the distance separating them.
So even particles that may be 10 billion miles apart somehow instantly know what each other is doing. The significance of this was that it was the first research-based experiment that contradicted Einstein’s long held premise that no communication could travel faster than the speed of light. And it was this experiment that led many physicists, and in particular, David Bohn, to conclude that Aspects findings show that objective reality does not exist, it’s simply a projection of our inner consciousness. It may be a bit of a mental stretch but many physicists have been saying this since the 1960s and the 1970s.
The discovery of quantum mechanics then moved onto quantum field theory, where everything that exists is divided into either particles or waves. And the difference between a particle and a wave is that a particle has materiality, it is located in one place, whereas the wave is non-local and is spread over a much wider space. And one of the most debated quandaries within quantum physics for a long period of time is whether an electron is a particle or wave? I want to suggest that human beings are exactly the same as each one of these electrons. We need to decide whether we are a particle or a wave. Are we located within a certain body, with specific memories and experiences? Is that all we are? Or do we exist over a much wider, vast space?
“OUR INNER INTENTION, WHETHER IT’S CONSCIOUS OR UNCONSCIOUS, CREATES OUTER REALITY.”
So essentially the quantum field is what lies beyond the two classical fields: The gravitational field and the electromagnetic field. It is concerned with the ultimate field of existence. It was suggested that the quantum field is the ultimate field of existence but this has given way to super string theory. All super string theories agree that reality is like a seething unseen ocean of rubber bands that are all vibrating at different frequencies. The quantum field is looking at the idea that underneath all reality is this ocean of pure existence. Or some people refer to it as an ocean of pure abstract intelligence. And the most important thing is that it’s not observable. Scientists agree that it’s impossible to observe the quantum field, but it’s not nothing. It is not no thing. It is not dead.
So, it is unobservable but it’s teeming with unmanifest energy. It was discovered that the thing about this unseen energy is that it vibrates with a particular frequency, and the vibration and frequency of the quantum field corresponds to ordinary things of everyday life. This led to the suggestion that reality as we know it is in fact predictable based on the quantum field – the natural vibration of this unmanifested field.
Everything is vibrating and the only difference between one thing and another is the frequency of vibration. You may be sitting at a table or sitting in a chair right now which appears solid, or even the body that you inhabit might feel solid but it is actually vibrating at a particular frequency. And when we use the expression that some things resonate with you and some things do not resonate with you, what resonate means is that there is a match between the vibrations and the frequency of two things.
We could say that the truth has a particular frequency. And that lies have another frequency. When we resonate with something there is a match or connection between the vibration of the two entities. And physicists for some time have acknowledged that the so-called material world is not material at all, its energy vibrating at a particular frequency. Many physicists and mystics have maintained that the outer world is actually a projection of our inner consciousness. In the same way the outer world is a reflection of the unmanifest energy that exists within the quantum field. One of the things I have been saying for a long time is that our inner intention, whether its conscious or unconscious, creates outer reality. For many that is a leap, but there are many communities of mystics, yogis, indigenous tribes such as the aboriginals, native Americans, Masai, who have all been saying this for thousands of years.
I want to consider the relationship between this outer world – so called materiality – and the unobservable, unseen inner world. The relationship between the inner and the outer is of huge significance to each one of us and determines how we live our lives and how we create our outer reality.
Science has been telling us for many decades now that the vastness of the Universe (or multiverse as is now being suggested) consists of:
- More than two trillion galaxies.
- Each galaxy measures between 300 to 300,000 light years in diameter.
- There are more than 20 times more stars than galaxies.
Further, that all of the galaxies and stars, taken together, represents 4% (or less) of what is. The remaining 96% of the universe is space, emptiness. Hence, 96% of everything that exists, if you can use the word exists, is unobservable and unseen. I want to suggest that it’s precisely the same with us in our human experience.
Everything in the macro is a mirror for the micro, and visa versa. Each one of us has 75 trillion cells in our body, some of us have closer to 85 trillion cells, but everyone of those cells contains what it is to be us. The whole is a reflection of the individual. Each one of us is caught up in the 4% of what is; the outer observable world of tables, chairs, offices, businesses, houses, other people, cars, books, all of the stuff that is seen, including our thoughts, our emotions and our bodies. We spend something like 99% of our lives consumed by the 4%. Just think on that for a moment. We spend 99% of our lives rushing around, busying ourselves, frenetically engaged with 4% of what really exists. And in doing so we completely miss the 96%. We are completely oblivious to the expansive, spacious, vast areas of the inner and outer universe. And one of the fundamental illusions, into which we are all conditioned is that life moves in a linear sequence of cause and effect. This is an illusion of the 4%.
Physicists have been telling us for a long time now that this is simply not the case. In the quantum field the space requires no effort. Yet our lives are constantly run on more effort, doing, and frenetic activity. In the quantum field effort is unimportant. In the quantum field it is a happening, and its not linear. And actually, in the quantum field it makes no sense to talk about past, present and future, it just is. There is no separation. It is like an immense field of consciousness in which we’re all connected. And if we can practise experiencing more of the 96% then we will experience the truth for ourselves that we are all connected. Because in the 4% we are conditioned and deluded into thinking that we are all separate.
“COVID-19 IS AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO MOVE AWAY FROM THE FRENETIC ACTIVITY, TO FIND A DIFFERENT WAY OF BEING IN THE WORLD.”
Many of us have had the experience of stepping out of time and dropping into this quantum field. And one of the things that has been discovered is that when we are in the quantum field, the patterns of the brain are totally different to any other brain pattern experienced. And that includes brain patterns that have been explored and researched, while waking, while sleeping, during hypnosis, during any kind of drug induced state, including anaesthetic. When we are in this quantum field, we are creating different patterns within our brain. It is this individual consciousness in this state that creates our outer reality. This is a shift away from the dominance of the 4%, away from a life of materiality, of linear time, of cause and effect, of Newtonian physics, and a significant move towards an understanding of who we really are and what reality really is. It is moving towards an understanding of being more in the 96%, and being more in the space, the stillness, the expansiveness, the love.
You know that love does not have boundaries. There is a spaciousness to it. Teachers have been trying to tell us this for five thousand years or more. Whether its Lao Tzu, Adi Shankara, Abraham, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and hundreds of people have talked about this in different ways. We have largely ignored it and carried on down a narrow corridor. What we are being asked to do now is to move away from the noise into the stillness. To move from the clutter into the spaciousness. And for me this is really the categorical imperative of our time. This is the whole point for me of Covid-19, and whatever comes next. It’s an encouragement, it’s a support to move away from what I’m calling the 4%, from the frenetic activity, to find a different way of being in the world, to the world of spaciousness and limitless potential.
The question always arises: how do we support this transition? The answer is it’s different for each of us, but the common theme is that we need to practice what living in the 96% is like. What living within a spaciousness, within us and outside of us, is really like? For many of us, that is unfamiliar. Some of us have established ways in which we can do this, through yoga, meditation, prayer, gardening, play, laughter, dancing. All of these things can support us but they do need to come with a Government health warning because being human and being stuck in our habitual, compulsive, conditioned, old pattern, we often approach those practices from the 4% perspective which creates one more egoic practice.
What we are being asked to do is to explore and develop a non-linear, effortless way of being. You could call it a grace filled approach to practicing spaciousness. I believe that all of us, every single one of us on this call is a leader, we are at the evolutionary cusp, and many of us might be shy about this and lack confidence. We might be uncertain. We might be fearful, or feeling inadequate, thinking “I’m not good enough.” Welcome to the 4%. That is where we hang out. But if not us then who? Who else is going to support this transition? How do we make the experience of touching that vast unexplored area that is within us and without us, normative? I spend a lot of time trying to get businesses to operate from this space. Because when a business operates from this space, instead of the dominant 4%, we will create a different culture and a different world.
Q & A
Q: Could you talk a little bit more about the new research that has come out? Can you speak a little bit more about the heart and the power of the heart? I think it has actually been shown that the heart has neurones and is more powerful than the brain? I think that this is really relevant for what we’re all going through. And also for the part where we are responsible because the way things are going right now and with all the news and everything, it doesn’t look like anyone wants us to really know the real science behind it and that we are responsible for our reality.
Great question and just dealing with the second bit first, is what is so difficult for us to understand. We have never lived in a time where the external reality and external narratives have led to so much misinformation, contradiction and confusion. What happens when we try to enter into that, as we all do, to try to make sense of it – we try to decide what’s right and what’s not – we get caught up in the 4%. Which is essentially a delusion or an illusion. So, all we can do is to drop down into our heart and into this inner spaciousness, and from that place see what resonates with us. Because in that place your body and your inner spaciousness will absolutely resonate strongly with some things and not with others.
There is an organisation in California called the HeartMath Institute. Twenty years ago, they did the first experiments with the heart. The science is that the brain is effectively an electromagnetic field and the heart creates a separate electromagnetic field. What they have discovered, and what they’ve shown time and time again is that the electromagnetic field created by the heart is five thousand times stronger than the brain. Some people know this intuitively. And one of the first experiments they set up was that they wired people up with their brain and with their heart and randomly created a computer with a screen in front of them with five thousand images. 70% of the images were benign; puppies, people holding hands, lovely scenes, sunsets; while 30% were macabre and distressing; car accidents and people being hurt. What they discovered was that between 5 and 6 seconds before every macabre image, the heart registered distress. When they first ran this no scientists could believe it, they could not trust it, so they kept re-running it. Every time they ran it the images that came up were completely random and still the heart registered distress 5 or 6 seconds before every macabre image showed. Eventually they concluded that the heart operates outside time. That is quite self-evident to me now, that the heart is much more powerful than the brain. The heart does not experience fear. I think I am right in saying, I need to check this, but I think that the heart is the only organ in the body that does not get cancer. When we drop down into the heart, we are operating in a different way. There is no competition, there is no need to win. I do not need to make you wrong to make myself right. But if I am operating in the brain then there is a lot of that going on.
Within the scientific medical world now, the biggest area of research is on the gut. The medical world refers to it as the second brain. A woman called Gerda Boysen in the 1960s referred to the gut as the primary brain because the gut has more influence on your mood and on your character. There’s huge research now going on with the gut, with the flora and faecal transplants. They are now experimenting hugely, with outstanding results. This brings us to gut instinct. Our gut will tell us, our heart will tell us, and yet still we go back into the brain, which has this narrow, limited way of being in the world.
Q: I am interested in the Buddhist law of attraction, synchronicity and setting up an attractor field. We all know what it is like to resonate a bad mood in our day to day interactions whether it is with our family, friends or our business colleagues. What tips can you suggest for setting up this positive kind of energy, because I am aware that I’m capable of doing both.
Sometimes when I am in business meetings or in social situations and I become aware of a little agitation, or whatever, I stop and take some long breaths into my heart. This changes everything. It is so simple and so difficult to remember to do it, but it will change the outer reality. It will even change how other people are talking because you are not engaging in that very didactic, competitive, must-win reality.
Another way is to just bring awareness to the fact that I am in the grumpy state. Be honest about that. It is not about trying to be fake and suddenly say that all human beings are wonderful. If you feel shit, feel shit. Be more honest with that and completely immerse in that, while taking responsibility for it.
Or you take yourself off and find ways of just dropping down into the inner space. The two principles that we are talking about are really simple. The first is that we need to discover the deeper truths about who we really are. In my last talk we discussed identity and how we think we are our persona. We all walk around thinking we are the 4%. But we are not. If we can spend more time in the 96%, we can create a different outer reality. Anyone who is walking around thinking that they are flawed, broken, and nasty, will see the world as flawed, broken, and nasty. It cannot be otherwise. If you see yourself as expansive, passionate, kind, and loving, you will see the world as expansive, passionate, kind, and loving. When we are in these moods of thinking that the world is a destructive, horrible place, go inside. If we change it within ourselves, we change the outer reality. It is just practise and discipline. I am a novice. We are all at the beginning of this evolutionary shift and we need to encourage each other to practise dropping into ourselves and the expansiveness.