A dialogue between science and spirituality
Ainārs Ērglis
A conversation with University of Latvia professor Mārcis Auziņš
“Conducting this dialogue between science and spirituality is a tricky thing,” says University of Latvia professor Mārcis Auziņš, and that is exactly what we tried to do in this conversation about quantum physics, meditation and the importance of consciously developing different experiences within ourselves.
For quite some time now, we’ve lived in a rational society ruled by the mind. We are, after all, Homo sapiens – accordingly, we believe in the intellect, and we try to discover, explain and understand everything with the help of the mind. Even when contemplating existential questions, many do not trust spiritual leaders but instead expect answers from science. Our generation has probably ingested along with our mother’s milk the belief that science will be able to explain everything. And for a long time that seemed to be so; ever new discoveries have led to an understanding of many things that were once incomprehensible to humans. However, one branch of science – quantum physics – has, in a sense, led to the need to look for explanations outside of traditional science.
So let’s begin with this: what is currently known and what is not known in quantum physics? Is it right to say that we now know and understand HOW quantum physics works, but we still do not know or understand WHY these things happen, which then leads to all kinds of interpretations and theories?
I’ll begin with the first part of that question. Do we understand or don’t we understand? To illustrate this, I’ll tell you about a public lecture I gave in which I tried talking about quantum physics to a group of people who generally had very little knowledge about the topic. After the lecture, an older gentleman came up to me and said, “Professor, what you talked about was fantastically interesting.” Of course, the professor – that’s me – was very delighted by this compliment. But what the man said after that completely floored me: “What you talked about was fantastically interesting, but I didn’t understand a single thing.”
And then I wondered how that could be. Because if I listen to something and don’t understand anything, I supposedly cannot find it interesting, because I simply don’t understand it. So this gentleman and I spoke for a little while longer, and the essence of his comment became clear. Namely, the professor talks about stuff that’s impossible in our everyday experience. As a listener, my first reaction is, “Well, there’s an expert in quantum physics standing in front of me, and if he’s telling me these things, then I suppose they must be true. But I’m unable to accept the fact that they’re true. He’s telling me that a cat can be alive and dead at the same time, or that a particle can pass through two gaps in a wall at the same time.” That’s like if our conversation were about to end, and, seeing that this room has two doors, I were to announce that I was going to leave through both doors at the same time. You’d say, “Nonsense, that’s impossible!”
But, when I tell people in my lecture that an electron flies through two spaces at the same time, you accept it. The professor said so, and therefore it’s possible that it might be true. And this is when we say we don’t understand. Meaning not that we don’t understand the words he has just said (because we do believe that the professor might perhaps know what he’s talking about and that these things perhaps do really happen in that micro-world he’s describing to us), but we simply cannot understand how such a thing could be true.
Could you please briefly describe some of the most typical experiments that prove what we do not understand? You already mentioned one, which in physics is called the Young double-slit experiment – it proves that one and same electron can behave both as a wave and as a solid particle, and this behaviour is determined only by the presence or absence of an observer.
Another experiment is known as “tunnelling”. For example, we think of an electron as a small ball, and if we throw it against a window, it doesn’t jump back at us like a normal ball but calmly passes through the glass and, leaving no trace in the glass, reaches the other side.
A third experiment, which could be the biggest challenge for the mind, is that any electron remains in a state of zero energy as long as there is no observer. That is, the electron does not even try to decide how to behave until an observer appears. And if we realise that absolutely everything around us, including ourselves, is made of electrons, then this need for an Observer can really blow our minds...
As with any system of classification, there are various aspects here as well – it can be coarser or more refined. To a certain extent, what you mention is basic stuff. However, before I describe them in more detail, I’d like to add that discussing these things is a huge challenge for anyone. And this is the conversation – the adventure, in the best sense of this word – that I’ve agreed to by leading the “Quantum Physics for City Dwellers” course on the University of Latvia’s Open Minded online platform. “City dwellers” here is code for people who don’t work with quantum physics on a daily basis. It’s a challenge not just because quantum physics deals with many new concepts that even physicists are still trying to understand, but also because there are a whole lot of things that are definitely worth talking about and that even people who aren’t professional physicists should try to understand.
These strange things, which are not only not a given in our daily experience but are even contradictory to our daily experience, are often called “counterintuitive” in physics. The fact that an electron can pass through two slits at the same time can lead to the deceptive feeling that anything is possible in this world. But physics has very specific frameworks that declare what is possible and what is not possible. I’d even venture to say that quantum physics not only teaches us, it also forces us to think absolutely precisely about impossible things. And that’s a huge challenge, especially when we’re talking about the link between physics and various spiritual teachings, practices, theories, etc. We usually want to move between these things very freely, seeing parallels where they do exist as well as where they most definitely do not exist.
Quantum physics not only teaches us, it also forces us to think absolutely precisely about impossible things. And that’s a huge challenge, especially when we’re talking about the link between physics and various spiritual teachings, practices, theories, etc.
Because first of all, we want to think about impossible things as precisely as we can. Second, we want to tell others about them and link them with ordinary, everyday things. That’s why I brought up the question of whether I leave a room through two different doors at the same time. Sure, the electron – which we know about only very abstractly – can do that, but I can’t. So where’s the boundary? As soon as I want to mention examples or analogies like this, I need to be very careful. How far are we able to take these things, and at what point are we no longer telling the truth?
Niels Bohr, who was one of the founders of quantum physics, very actively developed the principle that, at the philosophical level, is called the principle of complementarity. He said that every concept or property in the world has a complementary concept or property. But, if we know precisely about one of these properties, we lose the ability to precisely speak about the other, complementary property. At one of his public lectures, a listener asked, “But Professor Bohr, truth is absolute, of course. Does truth have a complementary concept?” Bohr responded, “Yes, it does! The complementary concept to truth is clarity and simplicity.” Meaning, if I want to speak very precisely about quantum things, what I say will most likely not be simple. If, on the other hand, I want to just casually tell you about these things, I will inevitably not be able to tell you the whole truth about them.
A very interesting acquaintance of mine, Wojciech Zurek, is a professional physicist who works in the United States and has professionally studied why, for example, an electron can go through two different slits at the same time but we cannot. He very often begins his lectures with the statement that he can tell us about these things in a very engaging, exciting and interesting way, but then he won’t be telling the whole truth...or he can tell us the whole truth, but we should expect it to be complicated, difficult and boring. So, this balance must be found, and it’s a very delicate matter.
Einstein used to say that, even when talking about physics, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” In other words, the boundary can’t be clearly defined, and that’s also one of the big challenges of our conversation today. Because when I say that in the quantum world an electron flies through two slits at the same time, that’s already a simplification and popularisation.
I brought up the question of whether I leave a room through two different doors at the same time. Sure, the electron – which we know about only very abstractly – can do that, but I can’t. So where’s the boundary?
To ease the atmosphere a bit, I suggest we stick with the exciting version. Because we know that the internet – which, by the way, also owes its existence to quantum physics – is great for providing information to readers whose interest has been piqued and who wish to find out more about any topic. So, we can approach these things with perhaps a slightly lighter touch.
Yes and no. Sure, you can find everything on the internet, and that really is commendable. But “everything” includes things that are as simple as possible...as well as things that simply aren’t true anymore.
But you can at least mention surnames of people who are important, serious authorities in the field.
Of course. And this is one of the possibilities, because doing some kind of preliminary selection is necessary. As we know, we can find everything on the internet, from the Flat Earth theory to a whole bunch of other things that most people believe to be complete nonsense.
So I’ll ask you to describe – as simply as possible, but also as truthfully as possible – the incomprehensible nature of these electrons or quanta, which we know about and have measured their behaviour but don’t yet fully understand the “why”.
There’s another very important aspect here. When I say that an electron can fly through two slits at the same time, what does that mean based on my everyday experience? The electron has the possibility to fly through the right slit and the possibility to fly through the left slit. Both possibilities are equally great. As a normal person, even if I don’t know which slit the electron has passed through, I’m 100% convinced that it flew through either the right or the left slit. I just don’t know which one.
So, in our classic, contemporary understanding, the possibility is always like this. For example, I tell you that I’m holding a die in one hand but not the other. I’m holding both hands behind my back, and you don’t know which hand the die is in. The probability that the die is in my right hand is exactly the same as the probability that it’s in my left hand. We don’t know which hand it’s in, but both you and I are convinced that it’s in either the right hand or the left hand. And when I finally have a look, I’ll learn what was the case before I looked.
In quantum physics, the electron has passed through both slits at the same time, and only when I have a look will I force it to become localised. I will force it to materialise in one slit until there’s no electron in the other slit. In quantum physics, it’s basically impossible to answer the question of which slit the electron was in before observation, before the measurement. It potentially existed in both of them. That’s the basic difference between these probabilities, and this is also the point where quantum physicists still butt heads about what all of this means.
Let’s go even simpler. As a city dweller who has delved into this topic only relatively recently, I’ll try to tell you what I feel is the main takeaway from this Young double-slit experiment, and you correct me where needed. So, when the elementary particles are shot by a cannon through the plate with two slits in it, this results in a drawing on the wall behind the plate that proves that the electrons act like a wave instead of a particle. That is, they create an interference pattern, even if only one electron is shot out in a single occurrence – and that’s what you describe as the ability of the electron to pass through both slits at the same time, because if that were not the case, it would not form a wave pattern on the wall.
But OK, we could still accept that, because who knows, maybe the electron is just weird. But where it gets really interesting is when we connect a monitoring device to observe how exactly that electron is able to pass through both slits at the same time. At that moment, the behaviour of the electron changes, and it suddenly starts forming a pattern characteristic of solid particles on the wall, instead of a wave-like pattern, proving that – when it’s being observed – it no longer wants to go through both slits at the same time.
And it’s at this point that the interpretations begin. Why does the electron change its behaviour when it’s being watched? And when, in the opinion of the electron, does observation begin – at the moment when the camera switch is physically pressed, or when the actual observer has decided to begin observing? Do I understand correctly?
Absolutely correct. So, I have both of these potential situations – or, actually, very many potential situations – and in the real world that we’re accustomed to, one of these potential situations exists, while the others are just my ignorance that the electron is here instead of there. In quantum physics, the moment that I ascertain, observe and see that the electron is here, all of the other possibilities that existed simultaneously (and equally, none being superior to the others) before observation now shrink, collapse or are reduced down to that one possibility that has in fact occurred. And this is something that is still causing huge debates in quantum physics.
In quantum physics, the moment that I ascertain, observe and see that the electron is here, all of the other possibilities that existed simultaneously (and equally, none being superior to the others) before observation now shrink, collapse or are reduced down to that one possibility that has in fact occurred.
Namely, if I accept this concept and use it to design telephones, computers, microcircuits – everything that’s based on quantum technology – I get fantastic precision. Such a statement might surprise some people, but quantum theory is the most tested of all theories in physics today. For example, we calculate something with very, very high accuracy, we do an experiment, and it turns out to be exactly so. And then the question arises – how can that be, what does it mean?
If we look at this from the perspective of journalism or popular science, we’re actually in a schizophrenic state right now. We’re the electron simultaneously in two slits; the cat is both dead and alive...and existing in a schizophrenic state is undeniably uncomfortable. Because we’d like to come up with a true understanding or, if that’s not possible, then at least an acceptable explanation, an interpretation, of what’s happening, and then figure out our own story.
A story is an interpretation – that is, I interpret that things are a certain way. And these interpretations, which at times seem like a science fiction novel, are actually very real theories of physics. For example, the multiverse theory, which is discussed quite a bit in popular literature. According to this theory, every moment that I observe the electron that has the potential to pass through two slits, another “I” in a parallel universe is observing that same electron in the other slit. At the moment of measurement, the world divides into two parallel worlds. Communication is not possible between these two worlds. The existence of this parallel universe cannot be tested, even hypothetically. A division of worlds like this takes place every time a quantum measurement is made. That’s why it’s called the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics.
And these interpretations, which at times seem like a science fiction novel, are actually very real theories of physics. For example, the multiverse theory, which is discussed quite a bit in popular literature.
But I’m forced to make this a little more complicated. Because the question arises as to how the statement “I observe an electron” ought to be understood. Do I have to do a complicated experiment because it’s impossible to see an electron with the naked eye, or is just the potential opportunity to observe it enough? Does the observer need to be an intelligent observer, or is that not necessary?
To a certain extent, this is analogous to the question posed by Buddhists: if a tree falls in the forest and produces a sound, but no one hears that sound, does that sound exist or not? So, if I don’t see the result of a particular experiment, then has it happened or not? And there are very interesting answers to that question.
Basically, this multiverse, or many-worlds, theory means that we don’t know how that same experiment turns out in other worlds because the electron might behave completely differently there.
What we think is that the electron behaves according to the same laws there as it does here. Except that if in this world it’s in this one particular slit, in the other world it’s in the other slit. So, the second option appears. And because this is just one particular case, every time our devices are at work and quantum processes are taking place just means that the worlds are constantly branching off into an infinite number of branches. And we just end up in one of these possible branches. Which automatically makes it an interpretation, because we don’t even theoretically have the opportunity to know whether that other world exists.
I find it very important that we understand this quantum world, because the real world in which we live is simultaneously also the quantum world. The underlying reality of our visible, tangible reality is this endless energy, or movement of small particles, against a background that we do not see but without which nothing would exist. And the question about the necessity of the observer’s presence is basically the same question about the existence of God, or the Creator, because if there were no observer, then, accordingly, the Big Bang would be impossible... In essence, it seems that this is where pure esoterics begins. So, are not esoterics and the interpretive aspect of quantum physics one and the same thing?
There are some New Age theories that draw close parallels between them. I’ll make a lyrical digression here. In 2012, David Kaiser published How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival, a book about Berkeley and how physicists (and others) got together in Berkeley once a week in the 1950s to talk about similar things as we’re talking about today. Some of those people went on to win the Nobel Prize. For example, Charles Townes, who invented the laser and received the Nobel Prize for that in 1964. He worked his whole life in Berkeley, and I had the joy, honour and luck to get to know him fairly well. As well as a number of other main characters in the book.
At the other end of the spectrum is Fritjof Capra. One of his New Age books is called The Tao of Physics (1975), in which he draws close parallels between Oriental mysticism and physics. Because physics allows the possibility that everything is connected (for example, when you do an experiment with one electron, something changes in a second electron on the other side of the Universe), while Oriental philosophies talk a lot about the fact that everything is connected in the Great Emptiness, or, in other words, everything is one. So, it’s possible to consider certain analogies here. At the same time, however, we always need to be careful about how many of these bridges we construct. But those bridges have undeniably provoked a whole range of very different and interesting views.
One person who never really fully accepted quantum physics and believed that all of these strange things could be explained in terms of classical physics was Albert Einstein. One of his perhaps somewhat simplistic but apt quotes in this regard was, “God does not play dice.” Namely, that the probabilities are realised suddenly and the outcome of the experiment is not even theoretically predictable. His second quote in this context was, "I don’t believe the world changes just because a mouse looked at an electron.” The question here is whether I, who knows physics, need to do an experiment, or whether it’s enough for the electron to be looked at by a mouse, which isn’t very smart and knows nothing about the laws of physics. Or maybe it’s enough that two physical systems simply interact and there’s no need for a biological organism to be present.
I’d also like to mention Henry Stapp in this regard, who is also, among other things, one of the protagonists in How the Hippies Saved Physics. He’s well over eighty years old, but he’s still in good health and actively working in Berkeley. He stands about half-way between New Age and orthodox quantum physics, but he’s very highly respected professionally. Stapp’s books about these topics are published by leading scientific publishing houses, for example, Springer, and have been published in several reprints. His thesis is very interesting: he says that the results of an experiment are determined not at the moment when the measurement is taken, but at the moment when, for example, I as the experimenter decide what I’m going to measure. By that time the process is already running.
And here there are some very serious consequences that are likely to have a major impact on our theories of physics, because, as an experimenter, I’m unlikely to do experiments that won’t either confirm or overturn my theories. In a way, my experiments are related to my ideas, my theories. Experiments are not necessarily designed and conducted to validate my theories; I may, in fact, do experiments intended to overturn my theories, but they’re nevertheless based on a certain system of ideas. So, if the result of an experiment is affected at the moment when I, as the person doing the experiment, make a decision or even just start contemplating a decision to do an experiment, then the results of that experiment are in fact related to my existing system of perceptions about the world.
Stapp says that the results of an experiment are determined not at the moment when the measurement is taken, but at the moment when, for example, I as the experimenter decide what I’m going to measure.
So, to tell it in a way that someone not at all linked to quantum physics might understand, this means that each thought of ours can truly leave an impression in the quantum world, at the same time also affecting the real, tangible world. In other words, this is the same thing that spiritual teachers around the world have been saying for centuries...
That’s Stapp’s theory. It’s an opinion that’s definitely not dominant among professionals in the field of quantum physics; it’s not a mainstream opinion. But neither is it so far out there that one can just disregard it.
And what role does the definition of “mainstream” play in this? After all, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for questioning the long-held “mainstream” opinion that the earth is flat.
That’s true, and, as Niels Bohr said, “Your theory is crazy, but it’s not crazy enough to be true.” Theories need to be crazy, but you have to understand what a crazy theory in physics is. As I talk with my humanitarian-minded friends, now and then I hear about what people think a theoretical physicist does. One of these assumptions is that a theoretical physicist takes a complicated formula, transforms it mathematically, thus obtaining something new, and then goes to pick up his Nobel Prize. Which isn’t true. So then I tell my friends to go write a text that’s interesting, and then rewrite the same thing but say it differently. Some new nuance might appear in the text, but the basic thought remains the same. It’s the same as, if you transform a formula many times, you don’t get anything new; you’re still left with what was there from the beginning.
The process by which something new is created in physics is very similar to how something new emerges in art. The closest analogy might be music. Classical music is composed within a very strict framework. Each octave contains seven notes plus a handful of half-notes. And there are only a few octaves that the human ear can hear. Within this strict framework, the composer has infinite opportunities to create new music that’s never been heard before. Physics and the natural sciences are similar. The framework is determined by the order that exists in nature, but within this framework the scientist can find harmony and describe it.
The process by which something new is created in physics is very similar to how something new emerges in art.
To get the Nobel Prize, you have to create a new symphony; you can’t just rewrite an existing one.
Absolutely. You can’t interpret an existing composition and hope to get a new composition out of it.
To sum up, we discussed the behaviour of electrons simultaneously in this world and other worlds, and after that is when the interpretations and various theories begin, among them the respected opinion in academic circles that thought might truly affect the invisible quantum world and, along with it, our own real, tangible world. Thought has power. So, my question remains, isn’t the quantum physicist who interprets all of this an esoteric?
One time when I was working in Berkeley again for about half a year, Charles Townes, whom I already mentioned, received the Templeton Prize for promoting dialogue between religion and science. He was a religious person and never went to work on Sundays, because Sundays were church days. To make it even more intriguing, the Templeton Foundation has always emphasised spiritual matters and believes that the spiritual is more important than the physical. That’s why, in monetary terms, the Templeton Prize is larger than the Nobel Prize. It was 1.5 million dollars. Some of my colleagues at Berkeley thought that Townes should not accept the prize, because, as we know, intelligent design and creationism is an active topic in America – there are still discussions about whether Darwin’s theory of evolution may be taught in schools or not – and they thought that, by accepting the prize, Townes would in a sense be “pouring water on the mill” of differently-minded people.
But Townes himself had no doubts at all about accepting the prize. He was ninety years old at the time, and he donated most of the prize money – as is typical and in good taste in America – to a church school. With this lyrical digression I wanted to show that, in this case, these two fields fit together quite well. Although I’d probably say “mysticism” instead of “esotericism”. I like that word better, because esotericism sometimes has a negative connotation. Although in Latvian the word “mysticism” also has some negative nuance.
But I think that today esotericism describes internal quests for spirituality that aren’t linked to a specific religious dogma. If religions offer complete doctrines, then esotericism in this case offers openness. Or, to use your analogy of music and scores, esotericism forces the seeker to try to create his or her own composition using existing musical scales, instead of playing an already existing symphony.
I believe that’s the perfect key phrase – each creates his or her own. And I’ll justify why I think so. It’s very clear that even people who look upon science fairly indifferently and don’t consider it a high priority in their lives nevertheless have much respect for science. And therefore, if I want to substantiate certain spiritual things, I may want to do so with scientific facts or at least with reference to science and scientists. Which I don’t think is good. These things shouldn’t really be mixed together, because when we try to look at the world and comprehend it, we can do so from two very different standpoints, both of which complement each other perfectly. So I don’t think there are any contradictions here.
When I study something scientifically, what I’m doing is dividing up the system into its building blocks, understanding that I’ve got electrons, protons and so on, and then figuring out what each of them is and how they interact. That’s the typical way in which a scientist works, no matter which field of science they’re in.
And when I want to see the world in a spiritual way, through mysticism or even through direct experience, then I very often observe it as a whole, right away from the beginning. I don’t look at it as separate electrons, protons and so on; instead, as the mystics in most every spiritual tradition say, at a certain moment the world is suddenly revealed to me as a single whole. In an inarticulable way. Of course, we must understand that I won’t suddenly see the Schrödinger equation in front of me, or the mathematical solution to my equation. Instead, through this approach I’ll get that integral, common, somewhat mysterious, mystical experience or image of the world.
And we’re probably talking about the exact same world. Of course, we could discuss whether the whole world can even be perceived through direct experience, or whether there’s something else beyond it. But maybe we won’t go that far right now...
When I want to see the world in a spiritual way, through mysticism or even through direct experience, then I very often observe it as a whole, right away from the beginning. I don’t look at it as separate electrons, protons and so on; instead, as the mystics in most every spiritual tradition say, at a certain moment the world is suddenly revealed to me as a single whole.
No, let’s do go there! Because people nowadays, especially here in the former Soviet Union, where God did not exist, have a lot of trust in science. It’s been drilled into us. If you, a scientist, talk about spiritual matters, then maybe a certain part of society will pay a bit more attention to you than they would if, say, the well-known Latvian clergymen Rubenis or Paičs or a Buddhist monk were to talk about such things. Auziņš can’t be completely crazy, can he? After all, they let him teach (laughs)...
But finishing up on our introductory lesson in quantum physics, another extremely interesting feature of electrons is their inexplicable but experimentally proven connection to each other. When conducting simultaneous experiments, even on completely opposite sides of the planet, connected electrons “learn” that one of them is being observed, and the other reacts accordingly.
Yes, but again, we have to speak precisely. Let’s say I have two electrons – to illustrate, let’s pretend they’re two dice – and they have some kind of opposite features. For example, one is red and the other is white. Of course, electrons have no colour; this is just an imagined feature. But the main thing is that both of them cannot be white, and both cannot be red.
So, I’ve got this pair of dice, and I mix them up somehow. I’m holding one in one fist and the other in my other fist. My arms are extremely long, I’m holding them out to the sides, and the electrons are on opposite sides, far from one another. As we’ve just been saying here today, in quantum physics one of the electrons will turn white or red only at the moment when I see them. Until that moment, it’s simultaneously white and red to me. And when I open up my one fist and see that it holds a white electron, then I know that the other one is red.
It might seem trivial – I mean, of course one is white and the other is red. And if someone tells me that before I opened up my fist, the electron was multi-coloured, I’d say that’s a bunch of nonsense. Actually, it was red or white already before the measurement, before I looked at it. Such states of connected electrons – or any other quantum particles – are called entanglement. In fact, electrons have much greater correlation, not just red and white.
Let’s continue. There’s a reason why I asked you to imagine that the electrons are dice; each side of a die has one, two, three, four, five or six dots. When I opened my hand and we saw that one die was red, we were 100% convinced that the other die was white. But let’s continue this thought. I place this die on a table, it’s red, and I see that its top side has one dot on it. Of course, I already know that the other die will be white...but how many dots will its top side have? You say any number, because those aren’t linked features anymore. But I’m telling you that, if it’s quantum physics, then the sum of the dice will always be seven. If one die shows one dot, the other die will definitely have six dots; if one has two dots, the other will have five dots; and so on. Of course, you don’t have to understand that literally; we’re actually talking about electrons, not coloured dice. But the main thing is that it’s been experimentally proven that this increased connection between electrons, which does not exist in the classic world, does exist in the quantum world.
Even if the electrons are located on opposite sides of the Universe and they don’t know that they’re connected? Do you mean that, for this to happen, it’s enough that only you – the person conducting the experiment – know that they’re connected?
Yes. And here, of course, we naturally have the desire to do two things. One of them is to explain this phenomenon by the ability to very, very quickly transmit information...
Faster than the speed of light?
Yes, but physics tells us – according to Einstein’s theory of relativity – that that’s not possible. And likewise, this current experiment also tells us it’s not possible, at least not yet. So, if I told you that the sum of the dots will be seven, the thing I cannot control is which number will appear on the first die when I open my hand. That’s up to chance. I don’t know which number will be on top, and the electron on the other side accepts the condition that the sum will be seven. But I can’t force six dots to appear, because I can’t force the other die to have one dot. Just like I can’t force the first one to have two dots, and so on. This means it’s a process of chance, and this experiment in no way contradicts Einstein, who said that speeds faster than light are impossible. Here we need to understand that this is a very serious and important statement.
It’s important for one simple reason. You might think, “Alright, the physicists say it’s impossible to move faster than the speed of light, but what’s the harm in me saying that it is possible to move faster than the speed of light?” It turns out that such a statement could not only destroy all our ideas about physics; it could even create a situation in which our world is no longer possible. Because if I can move faster than the speed of light, then it’s mathematically possible to prove that this would mean I’m simultaneously moving back in time. And, as we know from science fiction, if we go back into the past and step on a butterfly there, the course of history changes. When we return to the present, we simply don’t exist, because we’ve never been born – that butterfly had an effect on something. So, if we think and hope that this world of ours can’t suddenly change due to the fact that someone went back in time and changed something in the past, then this is, in a sense, an impossible situation. Consequently, we can’t transmit a signal that’s faster than the speed of light, and we still don’t have to worry about an apocalypse due to someone changing the past.
To clarify, physics still believes that nothing can move faster than the speed of light, but electrons at different locations on the planet are nevertheless connected and can transmit the information to each other that someone has started watching them, that one of them has one dot and therefore the other needs to appear with six dots?
Well, there’s another interesting aspect to this. Mathematicians, physicists and other people who have an affinity for the exact sciences will tell you that this isn’t really “information”, because strictly speaking, information is only that through which I can transmit a message to you. For example, I send you a “one”, which means that I’m tired of talking about quantum physics, let’s take a break and go have a coffee. Or I send you a “zero” and say we’re having an interesting conversation, let’s continue.
In other words, if I could now force the die to appear with one dot and thus you would receive a six, which would mean “let’s continue our conversation”, that would be information. But, if I can’t control the outcome and can’t tell you – even though I know – that there’s a connection here, that’s not information in the sense of information theory or Einstein’s theory of relativity. That’s why quantum physicists don’t talk about the transmission of information; they say that quantum physics is a nonlocal theory that presumes we’re not talking about a single electron here but instead the united existence of both electrons.
So, in essence, the real world all around us is based on incomprehensible and, as you said, supposedly illogical assumptions. Such as a ball passing through glass, an electron making a decision about a behaviour or feature only when it’s being observed by a conscious entity, and electrons on opposite sides of the planet being connected. And what’s most important, all of this has been proven.
Yes, it’s all been experimentally proven many times over. These are well-tested assumptions.
In this context, many contemporary thinkers are again talking about a paradigm shift. They’re talking about a shift from the Newtonian paradigm to a quantum paradigm. If the keywords for the Newtonian paradigm are determinism, separatism, reductionism and materialism, then the keywords for the quantum paradigm are complementary, contextual, intentional and connected. In a sense, we’re again shifting from a flat earth to a round earth, except at a completely new stage.
We’re starting to understand what the basic reality is that various spiritual schools talk about. For example, the Advaita philosophy, which is based on non-duality: Brahman is me, and I am Brahman, everything is one and connected. For good reason, many spiritual teachers make references to quantum physics in their explanations. Even the well-known statements that everything is linked, everything is connected, and that every action and even every thought has meaning are now based on quantum physics. That is, they’re based on science, not spiritual texts. Am I right so far?
Yes, so far everything’s OK. Physicists generally fall into two categories. The first has adopted the attitude that all of these experiments were conducted back in the 1960s and 70s, and we no longer have any questions about them. In other words, it’s all been experimentally proven. At the same time, though, Anton Zeilinger, who’s a professor at the University of Vienna, continues doing these experiments – ever more precisely and studying aspects that other physicists don’t believe need to be studied anymore, because they’re convinced that the results will be the same. For example, if in the original experiments the distance between the electrons was three to five metres, Zeilinger says let’s look at what happens if this distance is increased to 150 kilometres, so, the distance between two islands in the Mediterranean Sea. He’s actually done a series of experiments like that.
But Zeilinger has also travelled to Dharamsala in connection with seminars and dialogues organised by the Mind and Life Institute and has met and talked with the Dalai Lama about these experiments. The Dalai Lama, in turn, as visited Zeilinger’s laboratory in Europe. So Zeilinger is one of the people trying to build these bridges. And here physicists again divide into two camps. One camp says that, because of all this publicity, Zeilinger does not deserve to receive the Nobel Prize. The other camp says that, first of all, what Zeilinger does is very interesting from the perspective of physics, and, second, popularising physics among people who show an interest in these things but will probably never read a textbook on quantum physics is precisely one of the things physicists ought to be doing. In other words, physicists need to be able to talk publicly about their science.
For example, every year before the Nobel Prize winner is announced, the Institute of Physics in the United Kingdom, which is one of the biggest and most respected societies devoted to physics in Europe, tries to predict who will win the prize. Zeilinger shows up on their list of potential winners every other year. But it’s true, this dialogue between science and spirituality is a tricky thing.
If we’re talking about paradigm shifts, there’s an opinion that it’s been precisely this former, seemingly rigid, materialistic, deterministic approach to science that has brought our planet to where we are today. With all of the inequality (racial, gender, material) and the total exploitation of Earth, our home, which stems from the belief that human beings are the pinnacle of creation. From the perspective of quantum physics, however, it’s absolutely clear that human beings are not the pinnacle of creation; human beings are simply a small component in the huge movement of electrons and other particles.
Yes, the same viewpoint can be found in Buddhism, especially what we’d call pre-sectarian Buddhism. Of course, there are various esoteric stories about Buddhism, but I think the overwhelming majority of researchers will agree that Buddhism as a teaching is about 2500 years old and that we can fairly precisely pinpoint where it began and that it developed from a foundation of Hinduism. I therefore think we ought to be learning things from Buddhism.
If we look at these early Buddhist texts, the Pāli Canon, then first of all, they’re relatively short. The average sutra is no longer than ten pages, and so in terms of length they’re relatively easy for a European to read. On the other hand, they can be very saturated in terms of content and quite different from modern texts in terms of expressive style. There’s still considerable disagreement in academic Buddhology about how they should be read. But, for example, from the perspective of practical meditation, they’re more like technical handbooks, with explanations about poses and how to actually do meditation.
Unlike Christian meditation, in which, for example, Rev. Juris Rubenis tells you to concentrate on your breath and let God work with you. I’ve been on several of his seven-day meditation retreats, and I’ve asked Rubenis what I should do if God just isn’t working with me today. Buddhists have a precise answer for a situation like that. You have to use specific meditation techniques that generate the right conditions for the meditation process to begin. For example, the sutras describe in very practical terms how to concentrate on your breath at sixteen different levels, which makes meditation very effective. But it’s a technique that’s talked about quite little in Western meditation practices. It’s like if I’m a child, and all summer long I splash and paddle around in the lake and think I’m an expert at swimming, and then mother takes me to the swimming pool, where an experienced trainer tells me about the crawl and the breaststroke and teaches me these techniques... And I realise that previously I was moving forward with just little baby steps...
The sutras describe in very practical terms how to concentrate on your breath at sixteen different levels, which makes meditation very effective. But it’s a technique that’s talked about quite little in Western meditation practices.
Or, as Rev. Indulis Paičs said, I meditated for three years, until I finally realised that it wasn’t...
Yes, but both Paičs and Rubenis speak relatively little about meditation technique. Whereas in Buddhism, meditation technique – even various techniques – are taught very thoroughly.
But returning to your previous question about human beings as the centre of the world, one of the most powerful concepts in Buddhism is the concept of non-self. I think that, throughout its history, physics has increasingly convincingly taught us this humility and this reduction of our ego. First, by proving that Earth is not the centre of the world; then, that the Sun is also not the centre of the world; then, that our Milky Way galaxy is only one of an infinite number of galaxies; and so on and so on. So, this selfishness of ours – this idea that we’re creatures sitting here and the whole world revolves around us – simply dissolves.
Maybe I’m being super arrogant, but I still want to believe that my ego has some say in my life and that I have free will. Meaning, that I came here today to talk with you not because the stars lined up in a certain way already at the Big Bang, but because I had the opportunity to choose whether this conversation is interesting to me or not. And I thought it was interesting, and this was my decision to come here today and talk.
Throughout its history, physics has increasingly convincingly taught us this humility and this reduction of our ego. First, by proving that Earth is not the centre of the world; then, that the Sun is also not the centre of the world; then, that our Milky Way galaxy is only one of an infinite number of galaxies; and so on and so on.
Moving from quantum physics to meditation, I though it was important to mention the fact that we’ve explored or studied only 5% of the known Universe, or, better still, let’s call it “visible energy”. The other 95% is dark energy and dark matter, which we still know almost nothing about. So, we pretty well know how little we really know. But what about meditation? Could that be one of the instruments we use to help us approach an understanding about the unknown?
I suppose we could say that to a certain extent. Meditation will not give us an answer to what dark matter is made of and what dark energy is. But it does let us look at certain aspects of our existence. And here I could probably tell you that I actually got into meditation from a very physical approach. Physics is an experimental science, and I’ve always found it interesting to try things out practically and understand how they work. And at one point I started wanting to experiment with myself and my consciousness.
The first thing I did – and back then it was still considered quite strange – I spent three years in psychoanalysis with Arkādijs Pancs, who at the time was the only Latvian psychoanalyst who had been certified abroad. At the time, I was the rector of the University of Latvia, so there were certain assumptions regarding what were appropriate or inappropriate activities for a person in my position. In my calendar, our sessions were always marked as “private appointments”, and the secretaries later told me about all the things they imagined the rector might be doing four times a week that were so important that he refused to cancel an appointment. I had instructed them to break these appointments only if the world was coming to an end or if the president of the country urgently needed to see me and was unable to meet at any other time. But then Pancs passed away much too early. And, having spent quite a bit of time in California...
Meditation will not give us an answer to what dark matter is made of and what dark energy is. But it does let us look at certain aspects of our existence.
Tell me a little more about this experience with Pancs. Was hypnosis also involved?
It was typical psychoanalysis. Like you see in Woody Allen movies – lying down on a leather couch and saying whatever comes to mind. Just letting your thoughts run free, and the analyst, as always, says much less than you’d like him to. In any case, it was an absolutely worthwhile first experiment to begin working with myself. And afterwards, I continued with meditation.
As I mentioned, I’ve spent a considerable part of my life in Berkeley, working at the University of California. California is the ideal place to learn meditation in the Buddhist tradition. For example, the last time I was there, I rented a house and checked out the Buddhist centres in the area. There were at least seven of them within a mile’s radius of my house; all I had to do was choose one. The one that seemed most appropriate to me was the Nyingma school, which is one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism and is called the “ancient school”. Its monasteries are far from Lhasa. When the Chinese were exterminating Buddhism, the old teachings as well as the old texts themselves were preserved at these distant monasteries that were difficult for the Chinese to get to. Nyingma is a school where it’s in bad taste to mention the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama, in turn, says that nowadays everything’s OK, except for those red hats... The hats of the Gelug school, to which the Dalai Lama belongs, are yellow.
Nyingma is a school where it’s in bad taste to mention the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama, in turn, says that nowadays everything’s OK, except for those red hats... The hats of the Gelug school, to which the Dalai Lama belongs, are yellow.
How civil of him!
Yes, but what seems important to me in terms of meditation, and also useful to contemporary people as a whole, to us city dwellers, is that Buddhist meditation, in their own words, lets you see the true nature of things and events. It sounds very abstract, but in fact it’s quite specific.
We’re always fretting and getting upset about things. Yesterday it was one thing, but tomorrow it’ll be something different and even worse... Of course, at no point does Buddhism or meditation say that now you leave this world and you’ll never have to fret about a family anymore or solve complicated problems in your life. Instead, meditation gives you a feeling of stability that’s very useful in daily life; it takes away some of the exaggerated drama, but it doesn’t make you light-minded or frivolous. It helps you to realistically evaluate situations in your life. Which, in turn, lets you make appropriate and well-judged decisions about important things.
So how does one achieve this internal serenity and stability? Strictly speaking, there are only two basic techniques in meditation: concentration and consciousness (the highest level of union of these two is called vipassana). That’s not just my theory. Many Buddhists are also convinced that the hundreds, and possibly countless, variations of meditation all boil down to just modifications of these two principles.
Meditation gives you a feeling of stability that’s very useful in daily life; it takes away some of the exaggerated drama, but it doesn’t make you light-minded or frivolous. It helps you to realistically evaluate situations in your life. Which, in turn, lets you make appropriate and well-judged decisions about important things.
So, essentially, the task of meditation is simultaneously observing and not observing – complete concentration also involves observation.
Yes, I’d say so. And again there are different opinions about this. But, unlike Hindus, Buddhists believe that we begin with concentration and the tuning out of all external factors as much as possible. That is, when I sit in a specific state of concentration and suddenly something around me happens, I don’t hear it. And when I’ve reached this point of serenity and concentration, I begin to expand my consciousness, decreasing the boundary between myself and everything around me. The boundary between my body and the space around it disappears. In this state, I observe the world, but I observe it without analysing it. There is sound, and I perceive it, but I don’t think about whether it was a car or a bird or something else that made the sound.
Many people think meditation is simply an element of mental hygiene, kind of like brushing one’s teeth. You download Headspace and meditate for ten minutes to become calmer and do your work better...which, of course, is good and valuable. But in a way, the higher states that meditation can help you achieve let you feel the “underlying reality” – everything around us that we don’t see on a daily basis. Could we call this “the invisible world”?
Buddhists call it emptiness. But this isn’t emptiness as we understand it in physics – the state of there simply being nothing. Instead, it’s a feeling that everything around us is united, unified. You’re no longer separate or disconnected from the external world; the boundary between your physical body and thoughts and everything around you disappears.
For example, if the concentration takes place through your breath, many Buddhist teachers say that you get a feeling that your breath remains, while the person breathing no longer exists. Or, if you’re walking, the steps are taking place, but the person walking is no longer there. People who seriously practise meditation get to this point fairly quickly. Your breath still remains, but you no longer exist as yourself.
I’ll always remember one time at Stanford University, when the Dalai Lama met with Buddhologists and was speaking about this concept of non-self and emptiness, one very prominent Buddhologist asked him, “Your Holiness, you’re telling us this whole time that I don’t exist. But who, then, is the person who has been telling us this?” To which the Dalai Lama answered in a very humble and apologetic tone, “Simply me.” Knowing English, we know that he could just as well have said, “It was I who told you.” And in English, the word “I” is always written with a capital letter, unlike “me”. But in this case, the “simply me” uttered by the Dalai Lama tells us right away that, in a sense, we don’t really exist.
If the concentration takes place through your breath, many Buddhist teachers say that you get a feeling that your breath remains, while the person breathing no longer exists. Or, if you’re walking, the steps are taking place, but the person walking is no longer there.
We’re a small part of everything else. We can use the term “oneness”. You described it very well – it’s not that I don’t exist, but I’m an inseparable part of the whole mystery of life, as Rubenis and Paičs would say. Or, as the physicist would say, an inseparable part of everything that happens in the world; I’m linked with all of it. At that particular moment, I’ve achieved a certain state of being – I’m everything, but I don’t matter. Kind of like that?
Yes, I think you’ve expressed it quite precisely. But we can always take it further by asking what is the “everything” you say you’re a part of? I was recently reading the writings of the English theologian Don Cupitt, who says that no one in the West is completely isolated from Christianity, we all have some connection to it. You may call yourself an atheist, but the dreams you dream are nevertheless Christian dreams.
It’s very hard, almost impossible, to describe the actual experience of meditation. It’s also impossible to direct it, that is, to decide that “today I’m going to have this or that experience while meditating”. However, if you methodically practise meditation, every now and then you experience something that can be described as similitude. This similitude could be, for example, the Bible story about Moses, who was herding his father-in-law’s sheep when suddenly a bush in front of him burst into flames. And at that point in meditation, one has the feeling that suddenly the bush bursts into flames...
William James, who was one of the first academic psychologists, wrote a book called The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, in which he analysed these experiences that are very difficult to put into words. This experience can produce a sense of euphoria. In a slightly different context, but after a meditation session that I found particularly successful, I told my Buddhist teacher, “I had such a sense of euphoria, of bliss...” And my teacher replied, “It’s very good that you experienced that, just watch out that you don’t take a liking to it. That’s not the goal of meditation.”
I was recently reading the writings of the English theologian Don Cupitt, who says that no one in the West is completely isolated from Christianity, we all have some connection to it. You may call yourself an atheist, but the dreams you dream are nevertheless Christian dreams.
A person who meditates needs to know how to exit this euphoria and return to the status of observer, which is the foundation of vipassana.
There’s a film called The Moses Code on YouTube and Gaia.com. There’s also a book by the same name. The essence of this “code” is that a comma – which is supposed to have been lost – can be placed in the words that God said to Moses from the burning bush: not “I am that I am”, as it has been written for so long, but “I am that, I am”. In other words, as He appears in the burning bush, God doesn’t arrogantly say, “I am who I am”; instead, He says, “It is me, I am.” I am everything: I am this bush as well as everything else, including you, Moses... The film ends on an emotional note, with a crowd of people gathered by the old walls of Jerusalem chanting “I am that, I am.”
Yes, I like that interpretation, and I think many theologians would agree. When the voice from the burning bush says that I am what I am, it’s more likely about the fact that I am everything, and therefore I cannot be called by a single word or name.
So, at times when meditation is successful, it’s an opportunity to approach this special state of consciousness which simultaneously contains the absence of oneself and the experience of oneself as part of the whole, or the experience of unity. Do you think you’ve ever reached this highest of points? Can you sometimes reach this stage? Of course, not always, but are there times when you manage to reach it?
Yes, I do reach these states from time to time. I know a lot of advanced practitioners of meditation, among them the Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard. He’s French, and at the age of twenty-six he earned a doctorate in molecular genetics. But then he started practising Buddhism, moved to the Himalayas, and since then he’s always remained near the Dalai Lama’s monastery – for more than forty-five years now. He’s one of the few very experienced practitioners of meditation who has agreed to take part in experiments. That is, he’s had electrodes taped to him to measure his brain activity at various stages of meditation.
Ricard is the absolute favourite person among scientists who study meditation, because there aren’t very many Buddhist monks with so much experience in meditation who agree to such things. In academic research, there are very specific conditions involving the number of meditation hours a person must have accrued in order to be considered an experienced practitioner of meditation. And everyone who has this huge experience says one and the same thing: it’s not like they just sit down, “turn on a switch”, and boom, they’ve reached the right state of mind and everything goes smoothly. Sometimes it happens, and sometimes it doesn’t. We all need to understand that there’s no such thing as good or bad meditation on any given day. Meditation simply is.
We all need to understand that there’s no such thing as good or bad meditation on any given day. Meditation simply is.
There’s an easy-to-read, practical book devoted to vipassana meditation called Mindfulness in Plain English. It has a good suggestion, namely, that meditation does not end when you get up from your meditation pillow. The real work begins when you return to real life; it’s about whether and how you change your attitude towards life. Can you retain that same abstracting, observer-like attitude amidst the turbulence of real life?
Henepola Gunaratana, who wrote Mindfulness in Plain English, also wrote Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English. The first book is about concentration, and the second is about consciousness; so essentially, they’re about these two basic techniques. And speaking of original sources, the Buddhist Pāli Canon is in fact five books. That’s not terribly long, but, even though each text is only about ten pages long, it’s very difficult to read without a good consultant-teacher by your side. And Gunaratana is definitely one of the people who are worth listening to, if only because he began writing these books almost thirty years ago, when meditation was still far from being fashionable.
Returning to the urban dweller...there’s nothing bad about him starting to meditate in order to deal with everyday life better. And I suppose that would be the first step for anybody interested in meditation.
I think that’s precisely why most people begin meditating and why they continue meditating. Not to achieve some mystical experience.
Meditation, or concentrating on something, is one of the mechanisms by which we can reduce stress and become more harmonious within ourselves.
I’d put it this way: it’s a way to achieve an absolutely peaceful and stable point of support. I stand steady, conscious that I will not hide; instead, I will do the exact opposite...
One of the meditation techniques says that when you focus, you must get rid of all other thoughts. You need to push them away. But at one point you realise that some thoughts are so pesky that they’re impossible to get rid of. Regarding this situation, one of my meditation teachers in California said, “If you can’t escape from, escape into...” Which isn’t really anything new, but it’s very precisely articulated – when you realise you’ve got some kind of problems, you don’t say that you’re going to stop thinking about them now and therefore they’re going to cease to exist. Those problems won’t disappear anywhere – when you get up from your meditation pillow, they’re going to return. And this is a very interesting experience. At the moment when those pesky thoughts don’t disappear, you tell yourself, “OK, I’m not going to try to get rid of these thoughts now; I’m going to think them!” Serenely and consciously. And you think about them for five, ten, twenty minutes and realise that they’re really not so bad that you can’t deal with them...
Another good example: the young Buddhist monk and YouTuber called Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (with 300,000 subscribers on YouTube) travels around the world, telling about his experience to large audiences everywhere. He had awful panic attacks as a child, and so his father suggested that he try meditation to deal with them. The first few years, he waited in fear of having another panic attack, but gradually, as meditation helped him to observe the feelings he experienced during a panic attack, he became so acquainted with himself that the fear disappeared. When he finally did experience another panic attack, at age fourteen, he greeted it joyfully: “Oh panic, my friend, it’s a pleasure to see you again! I missed you.” The panic realised that it had nothing more to do in this body and disappeared, never to return again.
In a way, that’s kind of like “shadow work”, when you use meditation time without entering the final stage, but kind of linger in the hallway because you realise that you still have to finish your homework, clean out the garbage inside yourself, before you can get any further... Am I correct?
Yes, and here I’d like to tell another story. A few years ago, the man who directs the ethics centre at one of the world’s top universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), visited the University of Latvia. He’s also an ordained Buddhist monk who always wears a monk’s garments. After his lecture, a local listener asked a question about confronting one’s demons, etc. And the director answered with a story:
There was once a person who was ruthlessly tormented by demons, and he could not get rid of them. One time when the demons were attacking him, he tried to run away from them, fleeing from one room to the next until there were finally no more doors to run through. The demon had cornered him and was about to kill him. In a terrible panic, the person pleaded with the demon: “Demon, don’t kill me, let me live!” And then he saw the demon become kind of confused, not knowing what to say. The demon looked at him and said, “What can I help you with? I’m in your head!” In other words, nothing will change until you confront the demon in your head...
We’re afraid of the things in the dark only while they’re in the dark. As soon as they come out into the light, we’re not afraid of them anymore, because we see what they are. Or, as many teachers suggest, turn your demons into your friends. You don’t have to destroy them; you can’t destroy a part of yourself. But you can learn to live with them, to cope. In short, meditation isn’t just about connecting with the great unknown; it can also be used practically, to deal with this sort of everyday things.
I think that’s what most of us begin with in terms of meditation.
Speaking of higher states of consciousness that experienced practitioners of meditation can reach, I might mention an experiment that was done when LSD was still legal. A Buddhist monk was given LSD, and then everyone waited to hear what he would tell them about his experience. The monk’s reply was unexpectedly short: “Nothing special. It’s the same place where I arrive through meditation. Nothing new.” So, through various techniques – whether meditation or psychedelics or whatever – we arrive at...yes, where exactly do we arrive? In English it’s called an “altered state”. How would you describe that place where one arrives? What happens?
I like the term “expanded consciousness”. It’s not a precisely definable term from the perspective of physics and mathematics, but I think it describes this integrated, or very broad, view of reality. Of course, we could ask what is reality, and can we only access that part of reality we can directly experience? Or is there more out there – a reality that we can only access through some kind of meditative states? But here I’d be very careful, and I don’t want to speculate. Instead, I’d probably say that I acquire knowledge that’s possible only through direct experience...at the same time explaining what I mean by knowledge.
Knowledge is not only the fact that I rationally know that 2+2=4. For me, knowledge is everything taken together, everything that changes my feeling and attitude towards the world around me. If we’re talking about the fact that my transmitting of information changes what we will do, then an expanded definition of knowledge is “that which changes my attitude towards the world”. I feel differently, function differently and do things differently than I did before I acquired this knowledge.
There was a mathematician and physicist in the 17th century named Blaise Pascal, who was a very rational-thinking man. Many may remember Pascal’s law from high school physics classes. When he died, a text was found sewn into the hem of his coat, which he had written down during one of his moments of mystical experience. In addition, this text was very precisely documented, mentioning the exact year, date and time when the experience took place. It begins with some seemingly incoherent words, because this was, after all, an experience that cannot be described precisely. But the very fact that he wore it sewn into his coat until the day he died shows how significant the experience was for him and how greatly it changed his attitude towards life.
Knowledge is not only the fact that I rationally know that 2+2=4. For me, knowledge is everything taken together, everything that changes my feeling and attitude towards the world around me.
Knowledge in the traditional understanding – 2+2=4 – this I can pass on to you, just like I can tell my students about quantum mechanics and, having listened to my lectures, they’ll know more about this topic than they did before. But when it comes to meditation, I can only teach you technique – the things I’ve learned from those who taught me. As we know, meditation always needs this balance. It’s not enough that I know the technique; I also need this intellectual backdrop, for lack of a better term. There are lots and lots of texts in Buddhism and also Christianity, for example, the “cloud of the unknown” so often mentioned by Indulis Paičs and Juris Rubenis – the experience of anonymous authors. The cloud of the unknown is, in essence, a synonym for what Buddhists call emptiness.
Do you think there’s interaction, or reciprocity, between what happens during this expanded consciousness and our real life? In this expanded state of consciousness, do we gain direct access to broader knowledge that we cannot access in a “narrower” state of consciousness?
Yes, but here again we need to use the term “knowledge” very carefully. It’s not this specific, traditional kind of knowledge we’re talking about here, through which I might discover a new solution to the Schrödinger equation or anything like that. Instead, this is the broad understanding, feeling or direct experience regarding the world that will then let me function differently in that same world and will most definitely decrease my ego. It’ll let me feel better and more sufficient and ample in interacting with the people around me. I will have obtained a stable point of support for my existence in the world.
Or perhaps less stable... I guess it’s just impossible to put into words this supposed knowledge – or superconsciousness, great consciousness, cosmic consciousness – that we access when we experience a state of expanded consciousness. But if we assume, in the context of physics, that this great consciousness holds all of the information from the Big Bang and even before then, and out into the distant future...
Well, I’m a little uncomfortable in saying that it holds information from the Big Bang... There’s one similarity, however, that I’ve understood and that seems very important to me. It’s linked with Boris Teterev, who, in my mind, was an absolutely fantastic person. Teterev had brought to Riga the Polish-American artist Lech Majewski, whose 4 Moving Poems exhibition was on show at the Riga Bourse in 2013. As we know, art openings are not usually so much about enjoying the art itself; they’re more often about socialising, networking, wine... But suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pieter Bruegel’s painting The Procession to Calvary (1564) on the wall. My first thought was that those modern artists sure are eccentric, showing Bruegel at a solo exhibition; but OK, if that’s what Majewski wants, then why not. But then I took a closer look, and the rider in the painting was moving. And the other figures in the painting were moving as well. It wasn’t a still picture but an animation, a staging of the original painting.
So what’s that got to do with physics? Quite a bit, I believe. Majewski later explained how he did it. There are many, many different details in the painting, and Majewski originally involved about five hundred people to do the staging of it. He positioned them in the same way as they appear in Bruegel’s painting, and then he and a photographer shot them from different angles and using a variety of camera lenses. The goal was to understand where the cinematographer should stand and what technique should be used for the final staging in costumes. But when they returned to the studio, Majewski realised that the exercise had been a total catastrophe – none of the images they had made reflected the mysterious, enigmatic atmosphere of the original painting. So, with the help of various computer programmes, they erased the people from the images and began drawing the lines of perspective, as they’re done geometrically, and Majewski tried to understand where Bruegel himself had stood when painting it. And his big discovery was the fact that the original painting was painted from at least seven different viewpoints. It’s as if Bruegel stood in seven different places at once. Clearly, he didn’t do that physically, but his resulting painting can be looked at from seven different viewpoints.
The original painting was painted from at least seven different viewpoints. It’s as if Bruegel stood in seven different places at once. Clearly, he didn’t do that physically, but his resulting painting can be looked at from seven different viewpoints.
Like the Nazca Lines, which can only be seen from above.
Yes. And when Majewski finally filmed the whole scene from seven different viewpoints, the picture suddenly came to life. In all of its mysterious splendour.
So, that means that Bruegel was able to look at the painting from seven different viewpoints at the same time while painting it.
That’s one conclusion. But I draw a slightly different conclusion from it. At the moment when I’m able to combine many points of view at the same time and not say that one of my experiences, such as the mystical one, is better (or more correct) than any of my other experiences, such as that of the quantum physicist, the world around me becomes much more interesting, colourful and richer. The world then becomes harmonious. And that’s exactly what meditation teaches us – this feeling of emptiness, in which all of these viewpoints exist at the same time, complementing each other, not competing with each other, not trying to overthrow or explain another viewpoint.
At the moment when I’m able to combine many points of view at the same time and not say that one of my experiences, such as the mystical one, is better (or more correct) than any of my other experiences, such as that of the quantum physicist, the world around me becomes much more interesting, colourful and richer. The world then becomes harmonious.
And there’s one more nuance. If we want to see the world in all its splendour and colour, perhaps we need to consciously create these different experiences. I know quite a few very high-level professional physicists, including Nobel Prize winners, who quite consciously cut off, or limit, their worlds. They say that if they want to achieve major findings professionally, then they simply don’t have the time to go to art exhibitions, meditate with Buddhists or, God forbid, watch sports, because all of that takes up too much of their time.
I, on the other hand, have at certain times quite deliberately sought out certain places or activities in order to gain experiences even though I know that at first I’ll feel quite out of place there. For example, Buddhist leaders from all denominations gather in Berkeley every year to read the sutras together. They begin where they left off the previous year. In addition, they each read in their own language, whether it’s English, Chinese, Japanese, Pali, Thai, etc. And when you enter the room, the first feeling you get is: “What am I doing here? Everyone’s looking at me like some strange creature, 99% of the people in the room are monks dressed in Buddhist clothing, I don’t fit in at all.”
Maybe it sounds trivial, but if we want to expand our experience, it’s important to deliberately crawl out of our little bubbles. We each live in our own bubble, and we feel very comfortable there. We speak the same language as our friends in our bubble, we pat each other on the back and say “how beautiful that we all agree”, and we get the feeling that everybody thinks and feels the same as we do. But at some point you realise that these viewpoints need to be deliberately opened up.
Perhaps meditation doesn’t work for everyone. But I realised already long ago that if you want to try to understand something, you’re going to have to invest a certain amount of time and effort in it. Only after meditating every day for at least a couple months am I able to decide whether this activity is appropriate for me or not.
We have this preconception that all Buddhist monks meditate. But that’s not true. Very many monks do not meditate, because that’s not their spiritual path.
Maybe it sounds trivial, but if we want to expand our experience, it’s important to deliberately crawl out of our little bubbles.
You mentioned deliberately accumulated experiences. Thinking about human beings of the future, why can’t we start encouraging this openness early, already in schools? Because children are born unspoiled, and it’s only society that puts a child in this or that frame. For instance, if we taught the basics of quantum physics already in primary school, if we taught that the whole visible world consists of energy, that everything is connected, if we taught meditation...
But you see, there are two conflicting things here, and we probably need to find a happy medium, the middle path between them. A journalist once commented to Einstein, who was already quite old by that time: “Mr. Einstein, you’ve had a fantastically happy life – when you formed your theories, they had so many enemies and no one believed them. But many years have gone by since then, and you’ve managed to prove to everybody that you were telling the truth and these are true theories.” To which Einstein responded with a sour smile on his face: “No, no, you don’t understand what has happened. I haven’t been able to convince anyone about the truth of my theories. I’ve simply had the good luck of living a long life, and the people who didn’t believe my theories have long since passed away. The new generation has grown up with the assumption that this is the way things are and have accepted it as the truth. And that’s how my theories have become established.”
So the question is: what’s the currently understandable world like? When we talk about quantum physics, we’re operating at a very high level of abstraction; in addition, we’re talking about counterintuitive things. And each age has its own level of abstraction at which this conversation is possible.
Do you think that if we start teaching counterintuitive things too early, we might give rise to a schizophrenic generation?
It could lead to a generation that loses the feeling that these counterintuitive things are also very strict and logical. Quantum physics is the ability to think about impossible things precisely, mathematically precisely. Not everything we can imagine is possible in quantum physics. Quantum physics is a way to understand the order of things in the world. It’s an order that’s difficult to reconcile with our daily experience, but it’s nevertheless a very specific and strict order.
Quantum physics is a way to understand the order of things in the world. It’s an order that’s difficult to reconcile with our daily experience, but it’s nevertheless a very specific and strict order.
I agree. But aren’t we currently ignoring that second aspect? I understand that it’s a symbiosis, or synthesis, but aren’t we currently talking more or less only about the one thesis? I mean, we’re not teaching the antithesis in school, and therefore there’s no chance of synthesis.
Quantum physics most likely does enter the school programme at some level. The problem, in my opinion, lies in us as teachers. The biggest problem with teachers – from elementary school all the way up to university – is that it’s very difficult for us to learn to say “I don’t know”. A teacher or professor is not allowed to not know...and that has very specific consequences. We create a feeling in young people that everything is known. If a student asks me something and I tell her that I don’t know, she’ll say how can I as a teacher not know?! A teacher needs to know everything.
The biggest problem with teachers – from elementary school all the way up to university – is that it’s very difficult for us to learn to say “I don’t know”.
If a student asks you, do you admit that you don’t know?
I often say I don’t know. However, I don’t want to create the impression that I’m better than others. It’s unfortunately true that we teachers want to present quantum physics as ready, established theories and sometimes pass over issues that are still open-ended. But like you said, what’s very important here is “what can we do?” And, although I don’t like the cliché, I think what we can do is teach critical thinking. Because when we start speaking in templates, in ready patterns, we can potentially turn a correct idea into its antithesis. In any case, I find it very difficult to believe in the tools we’re currently actively developing, such as fact-checking and so on.
Because they kill thinking and doubting?
Yes. For example, if we take an absurd theory, show people facts proving that they’re wrong and tell them, “See, it’s written here that this is absurd,” we’re not going to convince anyone. People who think the earth is flat will continue to think so.
In other words, reptilians exist. And if you tell me they don’t exist, then you’re probably a reptilian yourself.
Exactly! I think it’s very important to teach young people – and ourselves – the joy of understanding. Or more precisely, how to experience the feeling that we not only know something, but we actually understand why it’s so. Despite the fact that perhaps hundreds or even thousands of other people have understood it before us. If we succeed at that, we will have achieved a great deal.
When we all finally start thinking, it’ll be very difficult for any kind of “gurus” to pull the wool over our eyes, or “powder our brains”, as we say in Latvian.
I think it’s very important to teach young people – and ourselves – the joy of understanding. Or more precisely, how to experience the feeling that we not only know something, but we actually understand why it’s so.
If you think about what’s happened over the past hundred or so years... In effect, whether consciously or not, we’ve created this “American dream” to strive for, presenting capitalism as the only correct model there is. You need to work, and work hard, in order to be happy, and that’s it. In the other camp was communism, but with the same slogan: work, and only work, makes a person free and happy. In both systems, thinking was probably undesirable. Even nowadays, not much has changed – a couple percent of the global population owns almost all of the capital in the world, almost all of the biggest companies in the world. If people began thinking en masse, who would work for these companies anymore? For politicians, too, thinking people have mostly been a nuisance; obedient masses are easier to lead and control.
I’m not convinced that it’s been a deliberate policy on the part of those in power, but I do think it’s a fairly correct opinion. For example, why did it take so long for a university to be established in Riga? And why was the first institution of higher education to be established here, in the 19th century, the Riga Polytechnic – a school for engineers? The town council and elite in Riga, a city that had been a member of the Hanseatic League and was a city of merchants, knew very well that there are always problems with educated people, they disobey and rebel, etc. But, as manufacturing developed, it was clear that the city needed engineers, and that’s why a technical school was founded.
But those in the humanities, philosophers and so on – they just rock the boat and cause trouble. That’s why it’s better to locate the university in a smaller town, like Tartu. Jelgava wouldn’t do for the university, either, because it’s too close to Riga.
Returning to the present day, thanks to quantum physics and a few smart people, we can use our telephones to access the internet, where, if we know what to look for, we can find the answer to any question that can be expressed in words. However, we do need the skill to think critically. So, again, why don’t we try concentrating precisely on this in our education system, and start doing it very early in that system? Teaching children to think critically and come to their own conclusions, rather than impressing upon them the framework of an already established – and noticeably antiquated – system of theories and viewpoints. Why couldn’t we, for example, include meditation as part of the school day?
I agree and think that should be an option, although, as we said earlier, meditation is not a path that suits everybody. The philosopher Roger Scruton, for example, believed that it could just as well be classical art and classical music. For some it may not be the religious themes permeating classical painting that speak to them, but instead that special state of consciousness they enter through classical art. So I think it would be very good to give children this opportunity.
And speaking of frameworks, Berkeley, which I’ve mentioned so much in this conversation, is a place where these frameworks are noticeably weaker. There’s an iconic café called Strada near the university in Berkeley. It’s right along the street, and you can meet professors there as well as students. One time my wife and I were sitting outside at this café, having a cup of coffee, and at the next table sat a professor reading a huge stack of scientific papers. A homeless man walked by, pushing a cart holding all of his belongings. He stopped at the professor’s table and casually asked him how things were going. And for fifteen minutes – I’m not exaggerating – the professor talked to him about how things were going for him. That was during the financial crisis, and the professor was telling the homeless man about all the hard times in California, how his salary had been reduced by 8% and so on. In other words, he told the homeless man all about his day-to-day worries, in full detail. Having listened to all of this, the homeless man replied, “Listen, I’ve also noticed that life has changed recently. I used to be able to find such and such things in the garbage containers; now the assortment has changed and I find different things in the garbage.”
And so these two men talked with each other, absolutely as equals, for about twenty minutes. Then the man with the cart continued on his way, and the professor went back to reading his papers. I have a hard time imagining such a level of tolerance, or “worldly flavour”, in Riga. And I include myself in that. I, too, probably would have tried to distance myself from the homeless man as quickly as possible.
Just like with many things in life, I believe you can’t do them too quickly, but nor can you do them too slowly.
