I am reminded of this prayer.
Lord (Universe, Divine Intelligence, God, Higher Power, ___________)
Make me an instrument of peace.
Where there is hatred, love.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.

Sundar,

I teach and counsel children at an elementary school, and I wanted you to know that I consciously use the tools and concepts Gary and Linda write about in whatever ways I can in working with these children, and my co-workers. Thank-you for bringing your consciousness to your work with your students, as well.

Love,
Kelley

Dear spiritual partners,

Along the lines of what I shared regarding the thermodynamic theory in the earlier post, I thought of sharing the following regarding the quantum theory that I teach. It is hard for me not to think in my own mind of a parallelism between the material, nanoscopic world addressed in quantum theory and the spiritual world we are all parts of. However, I don’t address this in my classes since I am not supposed to sound like a preacher or something of that sort. But, probably there is a way by which it can be introduced (as I write this, I just thought of the analogy approach as a possibility). In any case …

What is called “wave-particle duality” is at the very heart of quantum theory. Any entity (such as an electron, a proton, an atom or a molecule) in the nanoscopic world can behave like a particle, if that is what is suitable for the given context, or like a wave in another given context, if that is what is demanded of that entity in that context. In other words, an electron, for example, is neither a particle nor a wave, but something (namely an entity) that partakes of both these characteristics. Before the advent of quantum theory, these two characteristics were considered to be mutually exclusive, but quantum theory has forced us to tune our brains to an entirely new frequency.

Now, in my opinion and to the limited extent that I understand, there are two aspects of consciousness: individual consciousness and universal consciousness. We have a specific name for each individual consciousness in this Earth School, such as Sundar, Kelley, Eric, Gary, Linda, etc., etc. Each is like an individual particle. At the same time, each of these individual consciousnesses is expected, is required, depending on the given context, to partake of the characteristic of the universal consciousness that includes everybody, everything and God. All of it together is like a wave. In other words, to use Gary’s terms, the former, namely the individual consciousness, is the personality and the latter, namely the universal consciousness, is the Universe. On the surface, one might consider the individual consciousness and the universal consciousness of the spiritual world as mutually exclusive, as happened in the case of the material world in the pre-quantum-theory era regarding particle and wave, but it appears that they are not and they cannot be. If we assume these to be mutually exclusive, we will not have the beautiful explanations that Gary offers for our life experiences on this earth.

To extend the parallelism from the nanoscopic world of quantum theory into our spiritual world, there appear to be contexts in the Earth School in which each of us might be demanded to exhibit the individual consciousness. However, much more importantly, there also appear to be contexts in which each of us will have to partake of the characteristic of the universal consciousness. Thus, the given context seems to determine whether each of us behaves like a “particle” or a “wave”.

Obviously, I think, the suicidal murderer of a large mass of people is required to recognize that it is not a context in which he or she can act as a “particle” with an individual consciousness. The “selfishness” associated with the individual consciousness has no role to play there. It is a context that demands the recognition of a “wave” behavior with a universal consciousness, such that the person would simply not be able to murder all those so-called “other people” (that is, they are really not “other people”; he and they are just “one”). Do I make sense?

I was going to add here some more thoughts of mine. But, I realize my posts are getting too long (I apologize for the length of the previous post and this). I will add another post later. In the meantime, I can wait to know the thoughts of other spiritual partners.

With loving intentions,
Sundar

Kelley,

You are amazing. You caught me red-handed – I did rush through that last but one paragraph. This is not the first time this has happened to me; whenever I rush through something, I get stopped. Thank you, dear spiritual partner, for asking the questions.

I think the following pairs are equivalent: “fear and love”, “individual consciousness and universal consciousness”, “selfishness and selflessness (namely selfless service)”. If I am correct in borrowing a term from the language of quantum theory, then each of these is a “complementary pair” (please see below). When one focuses more on the individual consciousness rather than on the universal consciousness, or, in other words, when one allows fear (namely a frightened part) to control oneself rather than choose love, the result is that one is selfish rather than selfless. Accordingly, I happen to associate selfishness with individual consciousness. What I meant to say, I guess, is that the mass murderer’s focus is on his own individual consciousness, not on the universal consciousness; he is selfish and not selfless. Such selfishness has no role to play when it comes to his interaction with those others whom he decides to kill. I think it is another way of saying simply that he chooses fear instead of love.

If I may, I will try to slightly elaborate on the idea of complementary pair. In my previous post, I referred to wave-particle duality, a cornerstone of quantum theory. An immediate consequence of this wave-particle duality happens to be what is called the Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (which is probably a popular one known to many who might not generally be into the sciences). This principle addresses different pairs of properties called “complementary observables”. Common examples of these pairs are position and momentum, and energy and time. One version of this general principle that is oft-cited has to do with the first pair: It is impossible to specify simultaneously, with arbitrary precision, both the momentum and the position of a particle.

In the pre-quantum-theory era (referred to as the classical mechanical era), humans supposed that the position and momentum of a particle could be specified or known simultaneously with any desired arbitrary precision. However, according to quantum theory, “we have to make a choice”. We can specify or know position at the expense of momentum, or momentum at the expense of position. If we want to know the exact position, we have to totally sacrifice our knowledge of momentum, and vice versa. And, the more we know about position, the less we know about momentum, and vice versa.

Isn’t it amazing that Gary’s key phrase appears in the above paragraph? We have to make a choice. Particle and wave themselves, at the very fundamental level, form a complementary pair. While dealing with the nanoscopic world, we are often forced to make a choice. We can either choose a context in which the given entity, such as electron, behaves like a particle, or another context in which it behaves like a wave.

In a similar way, it seems that in our spiritual world we have to deal with complementary pairs. We have to choose between fear and love. We have to choose between individual consciousness and universal consciousness. We have to choose between selfishness and selflessness. A mass murderer chooses fear rather than love; chooses individual consciousness rather than universal consciousness; chooses selfishness rather than selflessness.

I have probably not made it clearer than before, but muddier. It is just some random thoughts I am sharing here. I would really appreciate comments and questions. And, I really don’t know how the factor of mental illness fits into the whole equation. I never thought about it. I am very eager to learn what Gary’s take on it is (as far as I am concerned, Gary occupies the position of God in my heart; this is not an idol worship, but I honestly believe that his work is simply phenomenal and powerful, in that it can explain everything).

With loving intentions,
Sundar