Theory of everything

Theory of Everything
by Sharad Gandhi

Sept. 19, 2012

Here is a summary of my "theory of everything" which I have been developing over the last years based on my experiences, reading and thinking. This maybe a difficult reading at first go, however ….

All matter is organized through the unchanging and ubiquitous laws of nature (physics, chemistry, genetics, evolution …etc.). All matter is perpetually changing (buddhist principle of impermanence). Matter means everything – atoms to galaxies, virus to plants to every animal including humans, even all types of energy. Matter also includes thoughts, emotions, feelings – which are products of our brain (matter). Every thing and every process that we witness is through the effect of laws of nature on matter. And it all happens (only) in the present moment (Now). Laws of nature cannot act in the past or in the future. Nature has no persistence. And nature has no evolution plans as to what should happen in the next instance, or as a final outcome. However, what we can always say for sure is that whatever happens in the next instance (which also becomes the "Now") will strictly be the consequence of the unchanging laws of nature. Nature is totally neutral and has no biases (no good or bad). Its laws are inviolable and omnipresent.

I have identified two entities (which are not things, not matter) that are change-less, always constant, always born and will never die: The laws of nature, and the present moment (Now). They were, are and will always be the same. Laws of nature and Now are two manifestations of the "supreme essence". They are beyond concepts – beyond explanations. I use the words "supreme essence" because it exists everywhere and is always present – without exceptions. It is the fabric of reality. That is why laws of nature and Now are constant, unchanging, omnipresent and ubiquitous. Eastern spiritual thinking says only changeless is real. Everything that can change (all types of matter) is maya. Supreme essence is real.

Now comes the spiritual part. There is a third manifestation of the same supreme essence which is even more complex and abstract to comprehend. It has no name. It can be sensed by life forms of sufficient mental complexity as the inner feeling of "I am". I may not know who I am, but in my deeper moments I know that I am not the body wrapped by an ego. That feeling of "I am" is our connection to our real self – the supreme essence. That feeling of "I am" was identical when I was a kid, a student and even now – although my body matter changed many, many times. It does not change even if a person loses an arm, a leg or more. Our brains (matter) are evolved to an extent that we have the capability (self awareness) to sense the supreme essence as the feeling of "I am". As an analogy, it is like having a magnet that can sense the magnetic field. When our body (which is matter) loses its capacity to maintain itself (when some vital organs fail) and die, the supreme essence continues to be present, but we lose the ability to sense it. In my view, the concept of individual soul is very egoistic – and I do not believe in it. It is a construct of our egoistic mind that cannot accept that with death everything about the self dies (transforms). People love to believe that the soul continues to exist. In my view, there is no individual soul. At most it is an imagined proxy for the supreme essence that generates the feeling of "I am". There is no reincarnation, because there is no soul. The real self, the supreme essence, that never leaves the body, and is always present, whether the body is alive or dead. Only the body loses its capability to sense it.

Bottom line: The supreme essence is formless, impartial, neutral, non-interventionist, a constant "field" that is omnipresent, ubiquitous and changeless. It manifests itself as perpetual laws of nature acting in the Now on all types of matter and it also creates the feeling of "I am" in complex life forms (humans), who confuse it for an individual soul. Most people may equate what I call supreme essence with what they call "god". Supreme essence just exists – it does not "do" anything, and has no intention or a plan.

November 13, 2012

This concept of constant energy in "nothing" also constantly appears in E. Tolle's books. He always says that our mind is designed to always drawn towards "things" and ignores the space around it – where all the real energy is (I guess, due to evolutionary survival needs). Space is the container of things. Even when we look up in the sky into the space – we are really looking at the stars (things) and ignore the space. Similarly, at the virtual level, thoughts and emotions are "things" in the space of consciousness and the mind perceives mostly the thoughts/emotions and not the underlying space of consciousness where the real "me" is. 

I am convinced that this changeless, spiritual, omnipresent energy field (which I label as supreme essence) which exists everywhere in the universe giving three changeless attributes to every point in it: universal laws of nature, "Now" and the sense of "I am" in life forms (e.g. Humans) that are capable of perceiving this spiritual energy. It is just my way of expressing the "kan kan me bhagwan" concept. To me the concept of an influenceable, human-like bhagwan is as ridiculous as influenceable, human-like gravitational or magnetic field. The field of this supreme essence is felt by everything in the form of the unchanging laws of nature. Hence for me, statements like – we are all one, all are children of god, god acts through us, god does everything etc. can be seen as meaningful as soon as we replace the word god with this supreme essence. Maybe that is what the original thinkers always meant and is now corrupted by religious institutions and priests. Religions have created an interventional, influenceable god with human-like nature as a means of having power for the priests and fear for the rest.

December 28, 2012

In Buddhist spiritual interpretation Truth is the same as "Reality". And Reality means "What IS. — In its totality." 

Reality consist of "Things" and "Non-Things" (my definition). 

Things are governed by the laws of nature (physics, genetics, etc.), and "Non-things" can only be experienced, felt or "seen" (as described by Buddha), but cannot be completely explained in words – since words are just concepts (approximate description of reality). Words "point to" the reality, but cannot explain it. Hence, in spiritual learnings one should never take words to be exact. They can just point to the reality. Here is something from my favorite Buddhism book: We cannot hold Truth with words. We can only "see" it, experience it, for ourselves. No words – Buddha's, mine, or anyone else's – can "see" for you. You must do that yourself, as Buddha did under the Bodhi tree. Buddhism is not a belief system. Buddhism is about "seeing" the reality."

I do not believe in god in the conventional meaning of the word. However, I sense that there is a form of Energy (I call it the Supreme Essence) that is impartially, omnipresent in the universe, giving every point in the universe the identical and unchanging laws of nature (that run the "things"). It also gives life to matter that is "organized to function" as "living". When we die, our body is no longer functional enough to tap that Energy to "live" - although that energy never ceases to be in the body. Humans have complex brains, that are capable of sensing/feeling this Energy – in the form of love, joy and peace. Hence statements like God is Love, God is Truth do make sense to me – even though I am allergic to the word God, due to its conventional, personified and interventionist meaning – which I cannot not agree with.  

Humanity

What makes us human?

Being human gives us our ability to be highly rational and be thoroughly irrational. Both these abilities are unique and equally important in giving us this human quality.

First, let us look at our ability to be rational. This ability makes us plan and decide through a maze of complex situations and options. It gives us our problem solving ability; our ability to observe objectively, bring in a number of information sources into play and then logically decide on an alternative. We do this all the time in trivial to complex situations - whether it is about deciding which road to take when going to the office, or for deciding to buy a car or a smartphone. We label this side of us as "using the brain."

Now let us look at the irrational side. Irrational means NOT use logic but take an action based on feelings or intuition or instinct - often completely contrary to "what makes logical sense." We all do it, and all the time. Without this we would never fall in love, never just buy the 19th watch or camera or shoes just because it looks cool. We all "fall for" things and situations which makes no sense to someone else. We label this side of us as "led by our heart."

When do we exhibit one or the other side is not always predictable - and it often surprises others by our choice. But that is what makes us human and unique. And that's great.

Questions are keys to Knowledge and Insight

At times we get a feeling that for a given project or a course in college we put in a lot of work to learn something and it was wasted - since it did not get used. No knowledge gained is ever a waste.

Knowledge and insight are fruits of interest generated by questions within us. Question arising within us is the key to knowledge. Questions generate a pursuit for answers and this pursuit generates insights and knowledge (even if the answers were not meaningful or not used).

Losses (my favorite topic!) can generate "impossible" questions that demand a very strong pursuit for answers. This pursuits often generate deep insights, knowledge and wisdom. Loss is a forcing function - it may not be essential, but it helps!

Similarly, any effort may not bear a desired fruit, but effort never goes wasted. The consequence of an effort often crystallizes in some reward in a totally different context.

It is all a part of the Reality.

Loss - A portal into the Reality

Just some thoughts as they came today ....

Essential realizations for me on the path towards Reality:

• There is NO real loss - since nothing really ever belongs to us (ownership is egoic)
  
• There is NO ultimate meaning to search for - everything leads to ambiguity
• There is NO ultimate answer to anything - nothing can be completely known
  
• There is NOthing you can completely control - laws of nature run everything
  

The reason why I find these essential is that we spend so much of our lives in the false pursuit - of preventing losses or crying over losses, of trying to be 100% sure of something, looking for meaning (or cause) into everything and trying to control and determine everything.

Somehow we live in an amazing illusion (maya) that there is indeed genuine ownership, meaning, ultimate knowledge and ability to determine the outcome. We become captives of this compulsive illusion. So, how do you break this illusion and SEE the Reality?

Maybe these realizations sound trivial unless you have desperately tried to investigate your loss, or searched for a meaning for living and life. It is in such failed pursuits that one comes to the realization of the negative (no ultimate meaning, no ultimate ownership, no ultimate determining, no control). For me the pursuit became desperate with the loss of Samay - and the following multitude of losses. The loss became a portal (gateway) that opened up my eyes to the Reality - which was always there. On one hand all this sounds negative. However, actually it is liberating. It is liberation from having to prevent a loss, from having to discover the ultimate meaning and truth and from having to control. Without the pressure of succeeding, the pursuit of truth and meaning becomes more natural with open eyes and awareness. It is more an adventure where the path becomes more important because you are no longer looking for a destination.

So for me, loss opened up a window (portal) into the true state of Reality.

It is all a part of the Reality!

Karma and Reality

I cannot believe in Karma. I am not affiliated to any religion. I am neither a Hindu nor a Buddhist - these are self selected labels. I am just Me. The path we take in life is always OK and the right one - since there is no good or bad path. We just have to enjoy the path we are on and make the best of it. And to do that we have to accept it as the right and a good path. The path itself is not pre-determined but evolves moment by moment, we have to accept it moment by moment and enjoy it moment by moment. How and why individual paths evolve in any given direction is the biggest mystery with no conclusive answer. Karma is just a good hypothesis to explain it.

It is all a part of The Reality.

Pattern (or language) of Nature

Nature’s pattern is characterized by two elements:

• Continuous Iterations of patterns … leading to an illusion of predictability (comfort)
• Continuous changes or shifts in patterns … leading to random unpredictability (fear)

As a result of this combination, we are constantly mislead into a belief of “predictability” in how the things are and will evolve, enjoying the peace that comes from “knowing” and at the same time sensing the fear that comes from the “feeling” that things can change in an unpredictable way. Unfortunately, we lapse into the thinking that the repetitive patterns is all there is and understanding these patterns amounts to figuring out how things work. We get often blind-sighted by the randomness and the magnitude of the shifts (changes) in the patterns – like sudden rains, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, waves … This also happens in our daily lives – we are surprised by sudden traffic jams, illness, death, stock market crash etc.

So why is it that we get fooled by the shifts in pattern? I call this the inertia of mind. Our mind gets used to the observed pattern and believes that it will continue and is jolted or shocked by a shift in pattern because it happens randomly. Moreover, most shifts in pattern are small and are factored in the pattern. I believe that in order to cope with complexity our mind simplifies our observations and in that process blanks out the extreme possibilities. It is a form of denial – knowing that it is possible, but cannot believe or accept that the extreme can happen now.

This overlay of continuous “naturally-random” shifts on “pseudo-repetitive” patterns is the “Language of Nature.” It is reflected in everything that we see in pure nature – the weather, seas, rivers, clouds, wind, waves, fire, mountains, trees – everything. When we are in nature and “present in the moment”, we can “see” or “listen” or “feel” or maybe “understand” the language of nature. Actually, we resonate with it. That is why we experience that special feeling of joy when we are in nature. There is something unconditioned, raw and spiritual about it that “touches” us at the core.

This is all a part of The Reality.

Love - It depends ....

• True love is objectless – it comes from within and spreads to all and frees them
• “Common” love binds – it entangles the object of your love and can strangle them