Is the world really one?

Aug 25, 2019 Countryman, News

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By Dennis Nichols

At times like this, (post-December 21, 2018) our country’s fanciful motto – One people; One nation; One destiny, seems hopelessly unachievable. Nevertheless it’s a very desirable slogan for politicians, and on a different level, for most Guyanese. Unity is such a right-sounding principle for progress and getting things done that one wonders why it remains so elusive for so many for so long.
In almost every culture, humans have striven to pay lip service at least, to the idea of the oneness of humanity despite wrenching evidence to the contrary.
This notion of a collective human identity linked inextricably with the universe has gained popularity with the research and experimentation of quantum physics/quantum mechanics which in turn appears to be moving closer and closer to a kind of shared spirituality, particularly as it relates to the message of God’s love for ‘the world’.
Quantum physics, simply put, deals with, and describes, how the smallest particles of matter in the universe, atoms and subatomic particles, behave. It’s what everyone and everything is made of – from humans to stars. American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson states: “We are all connected; to each other, biologically; to the earth, chemically; to the rest of the universe, atomically. We are not figuratively, but literally, stardust.”
The way these particles behave, scientists say, proves or strongly suggests, that what we think of as reality is, in reality, not reality. How’s that again? The mind-bending concept is that what we perceive with our senses as being ‘out there’ and separate from us, is actually an illusion. Matter is energy, and the universe appears to be more like a giant thought than anything else – consciousness itself. A very debatable idea.
They say our human brains trick us into believing in the idea of separation when in fact nothing is truly separated from anything else, including human beings. At the minutest level of existence, a human, a rock, a gorilla, and a galaxy, are molecularly, physically, consciously, infinitely connected.
My interest in these theories is however not much concerned with rocks, apes, or stars, as it is with human beings and our ‘network’ with each other and with this universal consciousness. Coincidences, hunches, and gut feelings, like the Guyanese expression ‘me spirit tek she/he’, are manifestations of the psychic energy rooted in this reality, researchers say.
More than 100 years ago the French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, introduced the term ‘collective consciousness/conscience’ to the world. He said, “The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own.” (My emphasis) This was maybe to some degree quite different from the universe’s elemental energy, but it probably helped nurture the notion.
Now if we are all so psychically joined at the hip as it were, (and everywhere else for that matter) how can we be so disunited in our beliefs and actions as individuals, groups, and nations, and cause such mayhem and misery to each other? A sobering aspect of this idea is that our DNA; our consciousness, is so interwoven that whatever we do to others we somehow do to ourselves.
Furthermore, if the theory is sound, then wars, oppression, hatred, and discrimination should be waning globally as we embrace this new knowledge of oneness and the glorious future being held up like a mirror before us. Right now the mirror appears to be splintered into a billion disconnected pieces.
One theory why this is so has to do with what Dr. Paul Leon Masters calls ‘the battle between the personal ego and one’s true universal identity’. (He is the founder of the International Metaphysical Ministry) This idea, or something very close to it, is being explored by a number of physicists and experimenters in the field of quantum mechanics in which the perception of self is both subsumed by, and expanded into, in the vast cosmic consciousness some call the Universal Mind, Intelligent Energy, or simply God.
It is said that this connection can be experienced when we attain altered states of consciousness, for example those induced by certain drugs, meditation, religious euphoria, or near-death experience. But generally, we are so caught up with our egos and with earthly materialism that the whole idea seems exotic, farfetched, and simply unbelievable.
Guyana is a paradox. The world is a paradox. Can reality – including our very existence, also be a paradox, based on an illusion? And if we are energy, which science proves cannot be destroyed, what happens to us after death, and is that final ‘transition’ also illusory, or the beginning of another version of reality? Science, notably quantum mechanics, is trying to answer those questions.
In the meantime life goes. The reality most Guyanese understand and face each day doesn’t appear to be an illusion. Our country is wracked by turmoil – political, social, and economic. To most of us the problems are very real. When someone is murdered, for example, our senses tell us that real blood is spilt, real pain is felt, real grief ensues, and a real funeral is held. And there are scores of other such tragedies in our country, daily and demoralizingly.
But if we are aware of a shared consciousness, and that what we do to others actually comes back to bless or harm us, then maybe we can do something about it. I think we should at least consider the possibility that the world, and by connection we humans, are indeed one; not just in an airy-fairy, new-age, feel-good sort of way, but in the purest and most transcendent sense of the phrase.
Science has been a boon for mankind, and although it has helped unleash some of the direst threats to our survival, it has also piqued our curiosity to truly know ourselves, and our raison d’être. Maybe quantum mechanics, flowering under the unifying wave of the Universal Mind, can induce our salvation.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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