Tat Tvam Asi (mysticism, tradition, Buddhism, myth, experience)

[doppelgänger]

The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist. - Erwin Schrödinger

Quantum mechanics reveals something mystics have always been telling us - that the subject/object divide can be modeled as illusory, and that things and motion, though very useful as a way of organizing my reality, have their "existence" as constructs of thought. Indeed, it's amazing how clearly the pioneers of quantum mechanics saw that science was revealing the truth of mysticism. I never expected I'd see physicist Erwin Schrödinger and mythologist and mystic Joseph Campbell talking about the unitary nature of being by reference to the same idea from the Hindu Upanishads. But that's what I found.

First Campbell from Pathways to Bliss:

As early as the eighth century B.C. the Chandogya Upanishad explicitly states the key idea: tat tvam asi - "you are it." The whole sense of these religions - Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism and Buddhism - is to evoke in the individual the experience of identity with the universal mystery, the mystery of being. You are it. Not the "you," however, that you cherish. Not the "you" that you distinguish from the other.

The formula is a way of identifying yourself with the witness and with what is beheld. The commonsense view of the world is dualistic: I behold my body, I am not my body. I know my thoughts, I am not my thoughts. I experience my feelings, I am not my feelings. I am the experiencer, I am the witness. Then Buddah comes along and says there's no witness either. You can drive yourself out the back of the wall in this way . . .

It's the mystery of our own [the West's] mystics as well. Many of whom have been burned for calling attention to these ideas.

"The formula is a way of identifying yourself with the witness and with what is beheld." In other words, the wisdom of Tat Tvam Asi, echoed down through the mystics of all traditions, is that everything exists through my thought, but also no thing exists. "I am" is the process of observing and assessing. There is no object and there is no subject, except to the extent I must perceive a divide between subject and object to use language, think and organize the universe of my experiences.

Quantum physics experimentally achieves the same insight, as Schrödinger explains:

Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is, in a certain sense, the WHOLE; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in the sacred, mystic formula which is yet so simple and so clear: 'Tat Tvam asi' this is you...And not merely 'someday'; now, today, every day she is bringing you forth, not once, but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day she engulfs you a thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.

Time, space, things, motion . . . all useful ways of bringing order out of chaos. But the whole is divided into these useful pieces of time, motion and things only in thought and not necessarily independent of it. And quantum mechanics reveals the paradoxical nature of subjectivity/objectivity operating in an otherwise undivided universe. As Fred Alan Wolf explains in Taking the Quantum Leap:

Thus, there are no "hidden variables." Why not? Because, simply, we don't need them to explain anything. The world is already paradoxical and fundamentally uncertain. Further digs lead not to anthropological discoveries, but to humans' creative ability to form from that which is not, that which is. Since there is nothing out there until we find it, we are discovering nothing more than ourselves. No wonder we find paradox wherever we look. We are that nothing that we seek . . . we are composed of complementary properties.

What are those complementary properties? Simultaneous being and non-being and all that lies between. We are - each of us - everything and nothing and some thing, all at once.

That puts "I am" at odds with the universe, contending with "God" to wrestle free from it my own due share of immortality. But it also means glimpsing the twin brother of that egoism through mystical experience and sensing the ineffable complimentarity of being and non-being.

Both praise and blame cause concern,
For they bring people hope and fear.
The object of hope and fear is the self -
For, without self, to whom may fortune and disaster occur?

Therefore,
Who distinguishes himself from the world may be given the world,
But who regards himself as the world may accept the world.

- Tao Te Ching (Merel trans.)

[Don Penguinoini]

Confusing... All i have to say is, Hinduism knew it all, yeop, we beat you Corpenicus!

[Seyorni]

This fact is the essence of Eastern metaphysics, and direct perception of it the goal of the Eastern religions.

[Troublemane]

Yup, I agree totally, dude. Plus I have seen elsewhere you like Nietzsche, Dopp, so I thought I'd post this link to a study called 'Quantum Nietzsche'.

The Quantum Nietszche. Part II

Theres some truly mind-bending stuff in Quantum Mechanics, that really illustrate the observer effect well, how the universe is really interactive and how mind is really nonlocal. Course its not so much a mystery once you understand how quantum theory and general relativity fit together, but its still amazing to watch the nonlocality effects in action (such as the particle wave duality in the double slit experiment, stern-gerlach, and other black-box experiments).

gotta love science! i mean, u wouldnt get this level of openness of inquiry if some religious authority was in charge of scientific experiments!

[doppelgänger]

Bump. For recent Campbell interest.

[Aupmanyav]

doppelgänger, when you say there is nothing but only your thoughts, you are being a buddhist. Jains also were non-committal about it. Their philosophy is known as 'syada vada' (perhaps it is, perhaps it is not). In hinduism, there is always a base, and we call that Brahman. It is something that is basically without form but which can assurme all forms, and powers all things in the universe. When we did not know then we defined it as 'neti, neti' (not this, not this); because every time we tried to describe it, it proved to be something different. Now we know that there is only one thing which qualifies for this, and that is 'energy' (as in physics).

[zenzero]

Friend Dopp,

Tat Tvam Asi

Means * THAT THOU ART*

Yes, agree with what you mention id it is understood through quantum physics; nothing better in this age.

Yes, everything is only HERE-NOW!
Love & rgds

[Suraj]

Another way of stating this is the Upanishads is: Consciousness is existence,.

[Suraj]

I have a question for my fellow mystics. It is related to this thread, and perhaps in a way not related, but I would discuss it here than create a new thread.

I am sure many of you are familiar with the notion of Brahman. It is the all-encompassing reality, supreme being, ultimate reality, the universal substratum, supreme consciousness, satchitananda. It is eternal, unchanging, never was born, never will die. The ultimate goal of life is to merge back into this supreme being.

But here is my problem, there are two problems really:

1) An unchanging thing by definition can only be existence and if it does not change in any way it remains in a perpetual state. Can something that remains in a perpetual state of unchangingness be conscious? Coud it be sentient? Is it capabe of thinking? Would it just be non-existence?

2) If the goal of life is to merge into this Brahman, then wouldn't the goal of life become being extinguished, annhilated? If indeed our real nature is Brahman, then our real nature is non-existence.

3) If 1 and 2 are correct, then that lands us in logical paradox, because there has to be something, it cannot be non-existence. And for something there has to be an observer, and seeing as there are infinite perspectives(I am going into Jainist philosophy now) there has to be infinite observers(Purushas)

Thus this kind takes us to a Samkhyan perspective of there being no god, just a substratum and there being infinite observers observing an infinite field. This is what Jainism kind of says, that there is no god, there is just an absolute state of pure knowledge and infinite souls. Perhaps we may have after all get rid of the concept of god and settle on a more scientific idea such as a holographic universe.