Science and Spirituality
There are so many ways that science and spirituality show us the same truths about life and reality. I'll pick these two which are my favorite.
Let's begin with Einstein's famous relativity theory E=MC2. Energy equals Matter at the speed of light squared. Energy and Matter are actually on the same continuum. Matter is energy slowed down and energy is matter speeded up. That which is invisible and that which is visible are made from the same substance. This is exactly what's true about the spiritual and the physical. We tend to think of Spirit and Matter as separate, just like energy and matter are two different things. But here we see the same equation. Spirit is Matter vibrating at an incredibly high rate, and Matter is Spirit slowed down into a form we can see. This brings the spiritual and the physical together, reminding us that it's all the Manifest Body of God. This physical Universe is in fact the form of the Divine Mystery. Not that the physical Universe is all of God, but that the entire space-time continuum is made out of the Divine.
Next let's turn to creation and evolution. Saying the evolution isn't the Bible is simply nonsense. The first of the 2 creation stories in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, is a powerfully intuitive, mystical description of Spirit becoming form and then evolving creation. We begin by imaging a priest or shaman standing by a fire, in the evening with his tribe, telling the story of how this all begin, and where we and life came from.
To begin with, there is heaven and earth, and the earth is also called water, and it is dark, formless and deep; the heaven of the spiritual/invisible and the earth of the physical/material, but without definition. Thus the waters are the primordial something - perhaps the energy described above, from which everything is made. This ultimate void or "No Thing", the Hindus call it, from which all creation, all things, spring.
Then there is Light, which we can see, and darkness which we can not. Light is, of course, the constant in the relativity theory described above. This Light is the Light of Consciousness with is and permeates everything. It's also the first thing that appears in the "big bang" theory. Then the "sky" or "vault" comes into being which is precisely what happens in the eons of the galaxies forming and our own solar system and planets.
Then the actual 'earth' appears with the waters below the sky being separated to form the seas, and of course, this is again a lovely description of the eon of geological time of the forming of our earth and the creation of the seas. Vegetation begins, which may be slightly out of order, but still not inappropriate when we know that single celled organisms flourished to becomes both plants and animals. And some had to become land-born before any life could emerge from the sea to live on land. And how orderly this vegetation grows - reminding us of the spiritual Law - each seed growing after its own kind.
The Moon and the Sun are clearly out of order, but we'll forgive our ancient shaman or priest this glitch. And then we notice that the creation of living things is in the same order as we now understand evolution to have brought life forth - water-born first, then the birds (which came from the reptiles to which they are related) and then finally the land animals. Let us again forgive our haman or priest who was telling this story, that he didn't know about the dinosaurs or mention the reptiles that are their living descendants. And from there, Human Beings appeared, Male and Female, created in the image and likeness of the Divine.
It reads like a hymn of praise to evolution, all created by the Intelligent Design and expressed Urge of the Divine. Finally, each aspect of creation is pronounced "Good"! The human being, consciousness evolved to the point of self-consciousness, has an intelligence that seeks to express the Divine Urge, made not in the physical image of the Divine, but in its spirit, thus being able to partake of its creative Nature. Thus we say "Let there be" in our own lives, participating in the creative process, and our words bring worth fruit after their own kind, like the seeds of each plant in creation.
Finally, we are beginning to heal the breach between science and spirituality, and see that they are simply two stories, using different approaches, to answer the same questions. And, as I read in a comic somewhere, the scientist laboriously scales the mountain, only to find the mystic has been sitting there for ages already.
- 1 year ago
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