As a classically trained scientist in biology and a natural analytical thinker, I never put much stock in intangible concepts like Religion or ‘God.’ If I could not prove something using verifiable methods, I likely wasn’t going to trust the information that was fed to me. Even still, I dabbled in Christian faith during my youth, independent of familial beliefs as these were nonexistent. By my college years those views had pretty much flown the coup; reasons being that science made more sense to me and I simply couldn’t buy into the fear-mongering dogmas relating to hell and the rapture. As life went on, however, I realised that living without a belief in something outside of this Earth was scarier than the concept of potentially having a pineapple shoved up my ass for all of eternity if I was naughty. This became particularly evident when I found myself in situations where I had no control, like on airplanes. Flying became such a terrifying ordeal that I dreaded it and even had to sedate myself. One day it dawned on me that what I truly feared was death because I believed in nothing beyond this life, and thus my own unique spiritual quest began.
Despite my scientific mind I was a rather
odd child who was spiritual in nature. I had a high degree of self-awareness
and empathic abilities that enabled me to experience the emotions of others. At
the time I had no clue that's what I could do, I just knew I was different.
My ‘gut feelings’ actually felt like physical pulls, especially with regards to
directions, I would frequently befriend people I already knew but had never actually met,
experienced frequent and jarring bouts of déjà vu and lucid dreams, and I
always knew what song was about to be on the radio (a rather useless psychic
ability I might add). It was no wonder those years without any beliefs were
unsettling to me in light of these characteristics. I was keenly aware that my
human brain was different from something else deep inside me but I had no
language to describe it, and when I tried I was treated as a child with a
hyperactive imagination, or just plain crazy. As a result I endured almost constant
anxiety throughout my life. Constant worry over things I couldn’t control yet
were important to me and my loved ones, to our very survival; worry that was
borne of a complete lack of trust that the Universe would sort itself out and
take care of life as it's always done.
I won’t go into the details here, indeed
that’s what the articles that will populate this blog are all about, but during
the first major spiritual shift of my life at the commonly pivotal age of 27 I had an epiphany that led to my own understanding of ‘God.’ Significant
in that it sated both aspects of my personality whose inner conflict caused the
majority of my stress, the scientist and the deeper intuitive knowing, which
I’ll now begin to refer to as my Ego and my Soul, respectively. Again, I’m not
going to get into those terms now, but trust that many future mental
meanderings will touch on those subjects in eccentric and thought-provoking
ways. So, enough suspense! What was this miraculous experience?! Simply seeing
something on a commercial one morning during my routine cardio workout. No, it
wasn’t an infomercial for a shake-weight, an amazingly powerful vacuum or even
a super versatile ladder; it was Einstein's infamous equation:
I hope I’ve
sufficiently prepared readers for a bit of a far out trip. It’s time for a wee
lesson in particle physics and an adventure down a spiritual rabbit hole! 🐇🐇🐇
The Physics
E = Energy
m = mass
c = speed of light = approximately 3.0 x
10^8 m/s (in a vacuum)
Leaving the spiritual stuff behind for a
moment, I’ll explain this equation on a purely physical basis. In simple terms
it states that energy is the result of mass times the speed of light squared (or to the second power depending on the preference of our high school math
teacher). The implications of this equation are far more interesting, and gets to
the meat of this introduction to my spiritual meanderings.
Breaking down the components of the
equation we see mass, which can literally be anything, and the speed of light.
The speed of light is a constant, so we can basically ignore it since it’s not
going to change. It’s contribution to energy, while formidable at about 9.0 x 10^16
m^2/s^2 (aka really f^#@ing fast), remains the same so it’s not the critical
component of the equation. Mass, consequently, does change and therefore
dictates the amount of energy within whatever it is we’re investigating. For
example, a car has more mass than a mouse, so it follows that a car will have
more energy than a mouse because only mass contributes to the mathematical
significance of the equation since 'c' remains the same for both the car as well
as the mouse, aka hot rod and mighty mouse!
Almost there, I promise. If it’s all about
mass, what constitutes mass? When we drill down to the most basic units of mass
we interestingly find that they too are constant. There are a finite number of
particles and subatomic particles that make up everything in our Universe! Whether we’re talking about a car, a mouse or a hydrogen atom; we’re all
comprised of protons, neutrons and electrons, which themselves are assembled
from still smaller particles known quarks and leptons according to the standard model of physics. Given the continual advancements in particle
physics it gets even crazier and new masses are still being discovered, but my point
remains valid: We are all made up of the same fundamental elements and their
molecules.
Time to back-out and bring it home. Given
that both the speed of light and the mass components are constants, it
logically follows that We Are All The Same Energy 🐇🤯. The only difference
between me, an Australian aboriginal, a tree, a tin roof, a puff of wind or the
laptop I’m using to write this article is the number and composition of
particles, thus mass. While our varying masses insinuate that we contain
different amounts of energy, the Energy we embody nonetheless originates from
the same source.
Before reading the next part please sit
with that, read it a couple more times, wrap the brain around it and ask what it might mean. What feelings
begin to stir?
What the Shit Does it All Mean?!
This collective Energy, every particle
in the Universe encapsulated in every imaginable form on Earth, emitted from
every single thing that has a mass greater than zero including gases and
substances far far smaller than can be conceived of by our human minds, is ‘God.’
Critically, and I really cannot stress this enough, the terminology is
completely irrelevant. This Energy is indescribable, has no gender, no agenda,
nor any other human quality we feel inclined to assign it to make ourselves
feel comfortable. To name it and describe it is to completely miss the point of
what it is, but I’ll give a go anyway for dramatic effect. It’s the lift under
the wings of an airplane, it’s the love found in tears of joy as well as tears
of pain, it’s the amazing job that turns up when we’re broke and destitute,
it’s the life force that embodies an ova when it meets a sperm, it’s the rush
of the first time we ride a bike and realise no one is holding us up, it’s
the magnificence of a snow capped mountain in the distance, it’s the feeling
you get in the pit of your stomach right before you find out a loved one has
been in an accident as well as the butterflies anticipating a first kiss. It’s the light and the shadow, there is nothing it is not
nor is there anything it cannot create. Though it has no agenda, learning to
trust that everything is as exactly as it should be under its guidance is beyond
the abilities of most humans, most see only good luck and bad luck. We call it
many things: God, the Atman, Spirit, the Universe, Christ Consciousness, Higher
Power... Hell, during an AA Meeting I even heard one guy refer to it as 'The Great Pumpkin.' For genuinely personal reasons, I affectionately refer to it as Monti.
For now all I’ll say is that our Souls are
but a piece of it, and our egos function to remind us that we are still
individual entities. The reason I started this blog is that the day I made the conscious
decision to stop controlling and start trusting this Energy force, truly
miraculous things began to happen. I mean 'holy f*#$-ing shit that's creepy' miraculous,
which is coincidently how I came upon the descriptor of Monti. Since then I’ve
incorporated an even more important component to my faith: everything I do, I
do with a profound intent to serve this Energy in a positive way. Every work on
this blog represents my feeble attempt to explain what the hell I’m on about,
and to keep it fun and interesting by using both
obvious and bizarre analogies, all based up my own experiences in life as well
as things that come to me from that Energy (come on, don’t act like we didn’t
know this was going to get weird!). My ultimate hope is to cultivate small
yet significant shifts in the mass consciousness, healing, positive waves that
reverberate throughout the Universe, so that we can experience more peace of
mind and start to understand the world we live in on a more spiritual level,
connected to our roots and not so horribly amassed in chaos, fear and general negativity.
Until the next one, let's take good care of ourselves. 💖
Until the next one, let's take good care of ourselves. 💖
Original Publication Date 02 July 2017, Revised 31 July 2022
Audio Version 👂🔊