Through science I am rediscovering the mystical spirituality I used to believe in back in the 60s. Not a concept of god and certainly not any religion.
It was sparked by a strange scientific paper I read that suggested that consciousness might be an intrinsic quality of the universe right from its creation. Everything was conscious.
It felt like a door opening again. No god creating everything but some spiritual consciousness permeating everything.
It opened the door to all that latent pantheism – the wonder of rocks, stars and planets.
Fortunately I was brought up in a home where religion was not foisted upon me. That’s great. I regard teaching religion to children as child abuse.
As a teenager I went through a questioning/spiritual phase where I started to investigate various religions. I was very interested in mysticism and looked for it in Christianity with mystics like St John of the Cross, in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufiism and Native American practices. They fascinated me. I had no belief in any god as such but saw spirituality as a force that worked through all of nature.
In later teens I started getting into the Beats and Zen and went along to a Buddhist temple for some meditation.
I became disenchanted. My observations of history and the present led me to conclude that all organised religion was little more than a power structure and vehicle of the state. I despised all its incarnations, saw no evidence for any god and could easily divorce all notions of spirituality from religion. The two were distinct. One good the other horrendous.
One only has to look at the division, hatred, violence and terror created in the name of religion. One only has to look at the hypocrisy and way religion is used to justify all manner of excesses and nastiness to see how awful it is. Religion = cruelty and control. Spirituality = harmony and oneness.
For me spirituality resided in nature and I was completely content being an atheist. I saw no role for any god.
As a scientist I was happy to explain the whole universe in terms of observable phenomena.
There were numerous things that intrigued me. Coincidences occurred. Like with evolution being simultaneously ‘discovered’ in different parts of the world. Like numerous coincidences that sprung up with friends reading the same book, turning up or telephoning etc. I was particularly intrigued by experiments that indicated that photons behaved differently when being observed.
These things could not be easily explained but I put it down to coincidence.
I do like to keep up with science and have been intrigued by quantum physics. Observations such as electron being in two places at the same time fascinate me.
I was very interested in the ideas coming out of latest scientific theories. As a Sci-fi writer I find them extremely energising.
One of the papers I read was concerned with consciousness (one of my pet interests). Is consciousness a product of our brains? How do flies and organisms with little or no brains exhibit consciousness? Many religions have regarded rocks, trees and planets as possessing consciousness. That seemed a little absurd. A branch of Buddhism regarded the brain as a sense organ that ‘sees’ thoughts not the seat of consciousness but an observer of it.
That intrigues me.
This paper proposed that consciousness was inherent in our universe. It was either created with it or was responsible for its creation. Not a god but an inherent force that operated through all matter and was not restricted to living things.
Beware of those who are certain of anything. They are always wrong. There are no certainties. The joy is to discover the questions. For every answer connects us to further mysteries.
In a universe built on quantum there is no solid ground, not here or there.
Life’s slow evolution from such unlikely circumstance to the triumph of intelligence has to be the most remarkable story of all.
How life grew from slime to mankind without a pumpkin in sight, no fairy godmother and no wish. More remarkable than any genii in any bottle. More incredible than any story thought up by man. More wonderful than can be imagined. We are alive to look out at this incredible celestial infinity with minds enough to gasp and wish to understand.
That is my gift of a fairy tale. It is really called chance creation and evolution but I prefer to call it …. Once upon a time.
I was going to call this poem life, but I thought that might detract.
I was thinking about the huge spectacular web of life that extends across the surface of this planet. It all started from one cell and now it has spawned a trillion forms and is still going.
I was thinking about our awareness, of all life’s awareness. Everything is conscious.
One day we will realise that plants and bacteria have consciousness.