Wk 7: Consciousness out of Chaos

When I think of Chaos theory and the Butterfly Effect, it reminds me of what I have been taught about karma; and how a small change can have far reaching and monumental effects as it plays out over a life time.  Karma as most people think of it seems to be the lump sum of all our actions that create an effect in our lives.  And, in Vedic Astrology there is a name for that: ‘Sanchita’ karma.  It would probably take a saint to be able to tease out of that body of information, something that is meaningful in a given life.  So, as Astrologers what we look for is the ‘Prarabdha’, or the ripe karma, that is likely to come to fruition in this life; as reflected in the fixed (‘druid’), confluent patterns seen in their astrological chart.  There is also karma that is created from just thinking about doing something this lifetime.  And all of these different streams of karma fold back in on and influence each other as they play out their dance, entwined with free will.  The events of a given life may feel and seem chaotic and random to the untrained eye, but to those who have learned to see what ordinarily would be “unseen” (adristha), the energetic patterns are there and their effects are evidenced in the life experience.

Take birth trauma, for example, which (for Vedic Astrology’s purposes) includes having the umbilical chord wrapped around your throat as well as the ever-popular Cesarean section. When such experiences happen the organism is so sensitive and vulnerable, they create an energetic trajectory of experiences that will play out in very predictable ways, depending on the specifics of how such trauma is created in the chart (and the life).  Again, these influences are ‘unseen’ and can appear random to those who do not have eyes to see the underlying factors involved.  And similar to, the principal of iteration from Chaos Theory, these seemingly small events create a ‘ripple effect’ as they play out over a lifetime.

Here’s some other interesting perspectives on this that I found while researching this topic:

Causality, Chaos, and Consciousness: Steps Toward a Normative Cosmological Principle in an Evolving

The intent of this paper is to present a conceptual model of a physical and biological universe in a state of constant change and evolution, based on three principal ideas: (a) neo-Aristotelian notions of reciprocal causality, (b) chaotic dynamics and contingencies of self-organizing systems, and (c) emergence of consciousness and sense of moral purpose in humans. While these different ideas and conceptual frameworks may seem unrelated at first glance, it will be shown that they have certain common and interconnected features that are quite illuminating for developing a process- and ecologically-based ontology of an evolving universe. It is hoped that such an approach would lead to an articulation of a normative cosmological principle that is consistent with Alfred North Whitehead’s organismic metaphysics and process-based ontology, as extensively developed in Process and Reality.

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2858

And here’s another interesting take on it, from a more shamanic perspective, using self-guided imagery as a healing tool:

CHAOS CONSCIOUSNESS AND HEALING

Experiential therapy sessions have shown that as consciousness journeys deeper and deeper into the psyche, it eventually encounters a state characterized either as "chaotic" or void of images.  Those emerging from this non-ordinary state of consciousness report an increased sense of wellbeing ranging from mood alteration to profound physiological changes.  We know that research has shown that imagery can affect the immune system.  Imagery journeys in the autonomous stream of consciousness may activate psychosomatic healing forces, such as the placebo effect.

The chaos of our human lives is re-iterated from the subatomic through the cosmic level.  Chaos is the matrix of creation.  It provides a bridge for unfolding "heaven on earth", a means of manifesting and grounding spiritual energy, that is not only creative, but healing.

The consciousness field is that which relates us to the entire universe.  It may be viewed as chaos, or energy in a primal chaotic state, prior to any solidification into matter.  It is a field of energy, not a "thing."  It is able to take on infinite forms, including images.

 

Time is also a field.  Consciousness may intersect with time at a 90-degree angle, in which case a linear flow seems to emerge.  Or, it may fold over in a contiguous way, producing a "bending" or folding of space.

 

If you take any portion of a fractal and expand it, you find it is self-similar.  This reveals a harmony with shamanic law--that organization repeats itself at all levels of organization.  Patterns repeat at all levels of organization.  It is much like finding the universe in a grain of sand.

 

The real healing IS this quantum shift in mental, emotional, even physical structure.  The approach is one of wholeness and following the image.  The dream-healing process is aimed at addressing this very profound level from the beginning.

 

Progress comes unpredictably in quantum leaps in consciousness.  Carl Simonton's work using imagery with cancer patients touches on this.  The use of imagery with the intent of bringing about healing seems to mobilize forces deep within us that were formerly inaccessible.

http://www.asklepia.org/chaostheory/chaostheory.html

In complex systems, such as weather patterns like Hurricanes and Tornadoes, to track the small changes in the variables that occur as the system’s chaotic behavior travels along the ‘arrow of time’, scientists have developed chaos theory.  Fractal patterns are one of the tools used as a feedback mechanism in the patterns of ordered chaos through the principle of iteration, or repetitive changes.  These repetitive changes require huge amounts of calculations on mega-computers, as even the tiniest change is magnified over the number of calculations that are required, in order to even attempt to predict the weather.

Here’s what the research paper “Fractal Behaviour of Complex Systems”,  had to say about the subject:

“One of the most important properties of systems is complexity. In a simple way, we can define the complexity of a system in terms of the number of elements that it contains, the nature and number of interrelations and the number of levels of embeddedness. When a high level of complexity exists in a system, it is considered a complex system. Complex systems can be soft systems and hard systems. In hard systems, when their elements are interrelated in a non-linear way, they are considered complex systems when they contain a great number of elements interacting in a non-linear way. To try to understand the behavior of this type of system diverse mathematical tools have been developed. A new scientific discipline with great impact in the analysis of the complex systems has been developed in recent years, called fractal analysis. The study of the complex systems in the framework of fractal theory has been recognized as a new scientific discipline, being sustained by advances that have been made in diverse fields ranging from physics to economics. In this paper the history and the basic concepts of the fractal analysis of complex systems are discussed briefly and an oil crude price volatility fractal analysis is provided.                                     Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

For more on this paper, visit:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sres.984/abstract

Similarly, while researching this topic, I came across the following information from Nagai Toshiya - http://www.nagaitosiya.com

1. You cannot reduce the whole to parts but to rules.
2. They are brought about by self-referential repetitive application of simple rules.

Modern scientists have analyzed objects by reducing an unintelligible whole to intelligible parts. But when the unintelligible whole is composed of similarly unintelligible parts, reductionism proves to be helpless.

In a real nature however it is linear algebra that is exceptional and most of nature has a fractal structure.

Chaos also refuses to be reduced to parts. Most of chaos including Lorenz attractor has a fractal structure. Its "strange" whole can be reduced not to parts but to rules.

Makes one really think about the nature of the universe…

Wk 7: “Ordered Chaos” – does this sound familiar?

“Ordered Chaos”… at first this seems like an oxymoron, it also seems to be the paradigm that underpins life on this planet, especially as seen in the natural world.  The thing is, life on this planet is paradoxical.  On one hand, things seem totally random and chaotic and can hardly be tracked or projected: such as the weather, earthquakes, tidal waves, landslides, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic explosions.  We attempt in vein to predict them, but they elude us.  

 Yet, even the weather does have broad seasonal patterns.  And on a more profound level, there does seem to be an ordered, cyclical nature to the universe…as embodied things like the rising and setting of the sun, the birth of new galaxies and the death of old stars, the cycles of the moon, the tides, the four seasons, the phased growth and development of various sentient beings, including their migratory patterns and the fractal patterns we see throughout nature’s flora and fauna.  Our eternal quest for balance lies in, how much are we able to go with the flow of life, versus how much we attempt to assert our own influence; either by controlling the natural world around us or our needs for schedules and planning.  And you know what they say, “People plan, Goddess laughs!”

Wk 6: Connections I can make between energy and Qi

To me personally, in my worldview, energy and qi are synonymous.  Qi is at once the “vital energy believed to circulate round the body in currents”, and the physical life force, prana, or breath.   In Chinese, qi literally means: energy…”as expressed in the continuum of matter and energy as it is now understood by modern particle physics”.

Being a farmer, living in a farming community, when I talk with my clients I use farming analogies to get my points across.  Everyone can relate to having a water hose in their garden with a kink in it.  Under these conditions, you have too much water on one side of the blockage and not enough on the other.  Well, I explain to my clients, that this is the same situation for their bodies, energetically speaking.  Whatever organs are upstream of the energetic ‘kink’ are getting too much energy, and those downstream, not enough. 

In TCM we learn to look at the human body as a “vortex of qi in all its different manifestations, acting together to form an organism.”  We study qi’s relationship to the Blood, its subtle expression in various systems in the body, as well as its relationship to the vital substances. 

It is said that the qi of Humans is dependant upon and influenced by the qi of Heaven and Earth.   To this end I think it important that we are mindful of this relationship, that we honor it and feed it, regularly – since, as reflections of this ever changing qi - we are intimately connected to and influence each other.

Wk 6: Resonance or dissonance in my world

One definition of resonance is “the prolongation of sound by reflection; reverberation”; 

similarly one definition of dissonance is “inharmonious or harsh sound; discord; cacophony”. In other words, to be in resonance with someone or some thing is to be in harmony with it; where as dissonance creates disharmony.

As these concepts extrapolate out into the world of nature, I think of this in terms of astrology; in particular, as compatibility between 2 or more beings.  Do they resonate with each other?  Or, conversely, do they rub each other the wrong way.  Do the ‘gears’ not hang quite so elegantly together, so to speak.

With Vedic Astrology, compatibility between beings is determined by looking at the relationships between various planets in their charts.  Each planet represents a different aspect, or energy, that is expressed in that person’s life.   Looking at the same planet in both of the charts, with particular attention to the relationship between them, a studied astrologer can predict where the energy between the couple will flow and where it will be blocked.  In this way, the individuals can play to the strengths between them, and shore-up their weaknesses. 

On another level, resonance is a term that has a completely different meaning in string theory… “This is the superstring theory, which postulates that all matter and energy can be reduced to tiny strings of energy vibrating in a 10 dimensional universe. Edward Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, who some claim is the successor to Einstein, has said that superstring theory will dominate the world of physics for the next 50 years, in the same way that the quantum theory has dominated physics for the last 50 years.

As Einstein once said, all great physical theories can be represented by simple pictures. Similarly, superstring theory can be explained visually. Imagine a violin string, for example. Everyone knows that the notes A,B,C, etc. played on a violin string are not fundamental.

The note A is no more fundamental than the note B. What is fundamental, of course, is the violin string itself. By studying the vibrations or harmonics that can exist on a violin string, one can calculate the infinite number of possible frequencies that can exist. Similarly, the superstring can also vibrate in different frequencies.

Each frequency, in turn, corresponds to a sub-atomic particle, or a "quanta." This explains why there appear to be an infinite number of particles. According to this theory, our bodies, which are made of sub-atomic particles, can be described by the resonances of trillions upon trillions of tiny strings.
 

In summary, the "notes" of the superstring are the subatomic particles, the "harmonies" of the superstring are the laws of physics, and the "universe" can be compared to a symphony of vibrating superstrings.”

Very trippy, if you know what I mean.  For the full download, visit: 

http://fusionanomaly.net/superstrings.html

Wk 6: Are all vibrations “good”?

Well, “good” invokes its opposite pairing: “bad” - and - both can have highly subjective meanings.   So, for the purpose of this post I am going to take good to mean beneficial, as compared to its opposite category as detrimental.

So, are all vibrations beneficial?  Personally, I don’t think so.  As a matter of fact, I think that some vibrations are definitely detrimental and even downright destructive!  Just take the examples of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and the Nimitz Freeway from our class this week.   

The problem in  both cases comes down to the issue of wave Resonance…and this can be filed under “too much of a good thing”.   Since the problem in the case of “Galloping Gertie” was that both the bridge and the wind had the same natural frequency; and when (2) things impart energy at the same frequency, they amplify each other.  And this was the same situation that caused the bridge to collapse in the case of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland during the quake.  Only there, we had 3 factors all in Resonance: the mud that bridge was built on, the earthquake and the bridge itself.  So, then what we have is 2.5 Hz. to the 3^rd power, which in this case led to the collapse.

On the other hand, vibrations not only can be beneficial, but they can have soothing and even healing effects for all life forms.  In this case, I am thinking of countless vibratory sounds that can be used to invoke a relaxing and rejuvenating state of mind; from the human voice and nature sounds to instruments of all kinds, but in particular: a shaman’s drum and percussive instruments of all kinds, singing bowls, the didgeridoo, and Acutonics Sound Healing forks (www.acutonics.com) to name but a few.

Even the vibratory resonance of certain kinds of classical orchestral music can encourage and support the growth and development of the natural world.  In their groundbreaking work, “The Secret Life of Plants” the authors, Peter Thompkins and Christpher Bird, explore what is referred to as “Birdsong” or “the morning chorus of the birds awakens the earth”. 

I found the following review and commentary on New Physics News Archive website, under the article:  The Dawn Chorus and Life Forces by Cornelis van Dalen. Here is an excerpt: ”In their book, the authors describe the development of Dan Carlson’s Sonic Bloom, whose “desire to see that no one need be hungry through shortage of food has sought to understand the optimum growth of plants"…

The secret of Sonic Bloom was the development of music of the same frequency as the dawn chorus of the birds… Many others have, it seems, recognized the role of birdsong in the growth of plants, and influenced or directly helped Carlson to develop his invention… With the help of a Minneapolis music teacher, Michael Holtz, a cassette was prepared…Holtz found the “Spring” movement of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons appropriate and concludes: “I realized that Vivaldi, in his day, must have known all about birdsong, which he tried to imitate in his long violin passages.”…

Holtz, it is related by the authors Bird and Tompkins, also realized that the violin music dominant in “Spring” reflected Johann Sebastian Bach’s violin sonatas broadcast by the Ottawa University researchers to a wheat field, which had obtained remarkable crops with 66 percent greater yield than average, with larger and heavier seeds…

Birdsong has long been loved, but also studied with reference to the musical scale and harmonics. As Holtz deepened his study he said, “I began to feel that God had created the birds for more than just freely flying about and warbling. Their very singing must somehow be intimately linked to the mysteries of seed germination and plant growth.”

What the authors found out through their research was that when Heavy Metal was played the plants literally grew in the opposite direction of the speakers.  But, when they played Vivaldi, the plants not only grew toward the speakers, they entwined themselves around them!

To read the full article, go to: http://www.newphysis.com/dawnchorus.html, it’s a facinating read...or check out the original book.

To view the “Secret Life of Plants” documentary, with music by Stevie Wonder, go to: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4753736638977368381#.  Enjoy!

Wk 5: Are there connections between Sacred Geometry & Physics?

Both science and mathematics, as well as the arts (as expressed in sacred geometry), recognize the same underlying laws of the Universe, just through different modes of perception: one is a more left-brained approach, and the other more right-brained.  The Golden Mean or Ratio has fascinated intellectual and creative minds since ancient times.  It’s very meaning underlies geometry, whose aesthetics have been appreciated by artists, architects, and designers as well as mathematicians and scientists through the ages.

Similarly, fractals occur throughout the natural world and can be observed everywhere in nature from the frost crystals that form on glass, in the myriad shapes of snowflakes, the unfurling of ferns leaves as well as in the shape of certain fruits an vegetables, such as Romanesco Broccoli.   These incredibly complex structures have inspired artists and scientists throughout the ages, creating a whole new credible school of study, known as chaos theory: the study of “these complex systems and their relationship between math and life”.  Other applications for fractals, which “describe many highly irregular real-world objects” include: new music, signal and image compression, computers and video game design, fashion and medicine.

So, truth be told, Physics and Sacred Geometry are two different, yet related, perspectives for observing and participating in one in the same phenomenon: life!

Wk 5: Just what does CP violation really mean?

Anti-matter: Mirror of the Universe

According to Wikipedia, CP is ”the product of two symmetries: C for charge conjugation, which transforms a particle into its antiparticle, and P for parity, which creates the mirror image of a physical system.”  CP Violation is the breaking of the CP law due to decay of kaons, the ‘short-lived mesons that decay into simpler particles’, in ‘slightly different modes than expected’.  This apparently accounts for why there is not a 50/50 balance of matter and anti-matter in the Universe; which is a good thing, because scientists postulate they would destroy each other, and us with it.

Wk 5: My symmetrical/asymmetrical world

Well, I tend to be a pretty left-brained, intellectually centered person.   I like order and organization.  So, I naturally gravitate to symmetry in my home and surroundings.  And since I tend to also be somewhat emotionally and psychically sensitive, so symmetry gives me a feeling of clear boundaries delineating and protecting my personal space. 

I’ve noticed that whenever I travel and spend time in another place and space I have a need to organize my things in a somewhat symmetrical, ritualistic manner, so as to give myself a sense of continuity amongst the different surroundings while I’m there.

I’ve also observed that too much organization is rigid and boring and can turn my mind off and make me feel stagnant and uncreative.  There’s a certain amount of spontaneity, asymmetry and general chaos that is needed to enliven life or it becomes stale and monotonous.

That being said, life happens and so does clutter…order/disorder…the eternal yin/yang.

Wk 4: What is the function of gravity?

Well, classically we have learned that gravity is one of the ‘4 Forces’, the “fundamental interactions of nature in which objects of mass attract one another”…in other words, it seems to be one of the weaker forces, that nonetheless, holds the universe together.

Well, if you were to ask a Shipibo Shaman from the Amazon what holds their world together, they would say it is ‘love’…the force of attraction, that acts as the glue that bond us together.  Love is one of the 3 fundametnal forces for the Shipibo that create each of our underlying divine patterns that we are born with.  The other 2 forces are, wisdom (the innate intelligence of the universe) and energy (qi, in our world view).  The teacher plants have explained to the shamans that these essential ingredients underlie and shine forth with a divine light, which is the energetic blueprint for our body, mind and soul.  When we experience a trauma or a tragic event, it carries its own pattern.  But, this pattern is one of disharmony with our original divine pattern, and obscures the underlying celestial light.  Using medicinal herbs, which are purgative in nature, in combination with singing of healing songs help to unwind the traumatic patterns.  Thus, returning the individual to their original state of health and wholeness.

And yet from a different perspective, one more in alignment with TCM and Ayurveda, Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama, Japanese scholar, scientist as well as a yogi, philosopher and Shinto priest has this insightful perspective, specific to our question:

 “Matter is a kind of accumulation of energy in a fixed order. Chaos is energy but random, not in order. But when the energy is fixed, in order, in a certain frequency, etc, it becomes quantum, and this quantum is the origin of mass. So this quantum forms an electron or a proton or nucleus and thence an atom. The atoms combine and they make molecules and the molecules combine to make DNA and protein and then us: matter-with-consciousness. So any kind of mass is created by energy. This energy is now divided into four kinds: the weak nuclear, strong nuclear, the electromagnetic and gravitational. Before it was divided into these four, maybe the energy was one and this energy, I think, is the ki energy. (Both ki energy and physical energy are important in healing and this has been the focus of my work.)”

Makes sense to me, once again, it’s all about ‘qi’.  Our medicine rocks!

To read the full article the above paragraph was excerpted from, go to:
http://www.spiritual.com.au/articles/healing/energeticmedicine_share.htm

Wk 4: How I would explain the 4 “Forces”?

I think the 4 Forces are human kinds best attempt to understand and explain the world around them, using their 5 senses.  Problem is, ‘perception rules experience’ and our beliefs, judgments, desires and aversions determine our perception of what is.

Maya, on the other hand, is a Vedic concept – the word refers to the illusion of physical and mental reality that we operate under.  “Life and Death are relatives of thought only” according to Vedanta, the Indian philosophy that further points out that “God is the only Reality; all creation or separate existence is maya or illusion”.

So what does this have to do with the 4 Forces?

We all live our lives with the expectation that the reality we perceive and experience is True. Yet, from a Vedic perspective this reality is clouded by maya.

Sri Yukteshwar states in Autobiography of a Yogi, that “Causal beings realize that the physical cosmos is not primarily constructed of electrons, nor is the astral cosmos basically composed of lifetrons – both in reality are created from the minutest particles of God-thought, chopped and divided by maya, the law of relativity that apparently intervenes to separate creation from its Creator” .

After considering both the current scientific paradigm and the ancient, time tested Vedantic one, I would have to say that I’m leaning heavily toward the latter.  Until we modern humans break out of the reality perceived solely through our 5 sensory organs, we won’t be able to make the paradigm shift needed to understand how the forces underpinning the universe truly work.  Einstein said it best, we must try to understand and know the mind of God.

Wk 4: How has e=mc2 affected me…

E = mc2 means that “energy and mass are equivalent and transmutable”.  For me this has profound spiritual implications.  

You may remember that last week I was repeatedly listening to “Autobiography of a Yogi”, chapter 43: The Resurrection of Sri Yukteshwar, trying to truly understand the implications of the Vedic vision of the universe.  Well, this is exactly the kind of situation where above equation has an application for me.  In this book Sri Yukteshwar, who had previously died and was buried, has returned to give solace to Yogananda, and the rest of us, by explaining how the various realms (terrestrial, astral, causal & god consciousness) all nest within each other and work together.  

Sri Yukteshwar appears before Yogananda in what looks to his eyes be his guru’s physical form.  Yet, Sri Yukteshwar explains that he sees this body as ‘ethereal’ and explains that he “created an entirely new body, like the cosmic-dream physical body, which was laid beneath the sands” in his funeral.  He further goes on to say how “God encased the human soul successively in 3 bodies (or sheaths): the idea or causal body; the subtle astral body, seat of man’s mental and emotional natures; and the gross physical body.”  He goes on to say, “on earth a human is equipped with physical senses…astral beings work with their consciousness and feelings and a body made of lifetrons (prana: inherently intelligent, creative lifetronic forces).  Further, states that “there are many astral planets, teeming with astral beings. The inhabitants use astral planes, or masses of light, to travel from one planet to another, faster than electricity and radioactive energies”.

While this information comes from a trusted and respected source, I personally would have a harder time wrapping my head around and understanding the possibility of it, were it not for the theory of relativity.  This helps my intellectual mind understand the ‘how’ of what Sri Yukteshwar is implying, a reality that my heart holds as true.  Understanding that energy and mass are ‘equivalent and transmutable’, I am able to see how the transformation of one into the other could allow for both Sri Yukteshwar’s resurrection as well as the explanation for the other realms and their interconnectivity with the rest of all that is.