"Mysteries" of the Universe?

"For both the rich and the poor, life is dominated by an ever growing current of problems, most of which seem to have no real and lasting solution. Clearly we have not touched the deeper causes of our troubles...the ultimate source of all these problems is in thought itself, the very thing of which our civilization is most proud, and therefore the one thing that is "hidden" because of our failure seriously to engage with its actual working in our own individual lives and in the life of society." - David Bohm, physicist and philosopher

After reading a synopsis of the writings of David Bohm, a physicist and philosopher, I started to regard the idea of atomized human players as completely misguided and actually detrimental to our species' survival on the whole. I suppose this was something that I had already been considering, but the extra boost from this most recent excerpt really piqued my interest. Bohm was interested in Eastern Thought as well, being close friends with Jiddu Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher. Although Krishnamurti was a contemporary of Bohm's, his philosophy spans from a long tradition of Hindu spirituality and mysticism. The Hindu scriptures like the Vedas and Upanishads were composed and written down well before the advent of major civilizations in the west; well before any sort of the real "modern" technological advancements we hold dear today. Yet these ancient philosophers and holy seers were on to something. Their insights reveal an understanding of the universe that is so exact as to be now proved by advanced forays into physics. How could the philosophers of yore have possibly reached conclusions uncannily similar to those of astro- and quantum physicists of the 20th and 21st centuries?

One of the ways in which they were able to achieve such visions or insights into the nature of the universe was through just "being." By observing and experiencing the flow of life, the moment-to-moment, hour-to-hour, day-to-day patterns, these early Hindus noted that everything is Brahman, and yet everything is also it's own thing. Our atman or "self" or "soul" is Brahman. The objects and people we interact with are also Brahman. Which means we're all the same thing. But we're different incarnations of that same thing. Huh? It's common for people to sum up the basic Hindu principle as, "We're all god with different faces." That is much different from many of the prevailing Christian doctrines: that the righteous will live beside God and his son, Jesus, in heaven for all eternity (*Catholicism*) or that the truly pious will be exalted to God-status once they pass over into the spiritual realm (*Mormonism*) or that God has already predetermined who will be saved and who will be cast off into an eternity of torture (*Calvinism*). It's hard to boil down Hinduism into any one distilled form, as with a religion as old and as regularly practiced as it is, there are obviously many different offshoots, and "cults" associated with certain deities.

We have an illusion of complete free will. Within a small window, we do indeed have choices we can make, but even our choices are predicated on a particular chain of events that led up to those being our choices. Calvinist predestination is a doctrine that also claims humans do not have free will, but the claim here is that God had already chosen or predetermined who will be saved upon death and who has been damned to hell. For just being a Calvinist, one's chances of being a "saved" seems to be higher because you're following the chosen religion, but then again, any thoughts an individual may have about sex, violence, et. al. would obviously show that they were not one of the saved. It is easy to understand how internal conflicts may have become outward (literal) witch hunts, as those who acted differently on the outside were marginalized and killed for the sins of everyone in the community. Imagine experiencing the degree of "free will" that we are familiar with in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts. The mere thought of illicit sex might send a thinker reeling - Am I not saved? Why would I think about these things that surely go against God's word otherwise? Obviously, it would be much easier to blame it on a spell cast by a witch than any sort of admission that perhaps you personally were having those thoughts and especially that God did not choose the saved at the outset of human creation, which would shake up the worldview of an entire community.

Our ability to choose lies within the web of connectedness that all humanity and all life and matter on Earth experience. It is not independent of this, nor is it completely determined by our surroundings. I've read Sam Harris' argument on the illusion of free will and I think it might be too severe. Yet, he meditates and talks about achieving a place of no "thoughts." I guess this doesn't really go against his argument. Meditation helps to center the mind, to alleviate the flow of thoughts that are constantly whizzing through - the very same ones that weave together the narrative of who we "think" we are. And if you're a pro at meditation, you start to see that many of those thoughts going on in that little brain of yours are random and they're also unrelated until you connect them together through analysis.

If we revisit the quote that began this post, Bohm is expounding this same idea. We laud ourselves for the amount of "thinking" we do. We're patting ourselves on the back for a job well done - the modern, Western world with its wonderfully rich legacy of rational, Enlightenment thought. But even the Enlightenment was nothing new. The value placed on Reason and logical order is also seen in the great classical philosophers as well. Aristotle was the first mansplainer that gained recognition!

It surely would be wonderful if everything was categorizable and we could fit every interaction and thought into neat boxes. But not everyone thinks in the same way, nor do they have to (I run up against this in the field of education all of the time - differentiate your instruction for the kids, but face being droned at through every staff meeting ever). Logic is essentially a language that can be employed for practical reasons. It is not the be-all, end-all of human capacity. It represents ONE FACET of our abilities. In fact, if we use it as a tool and not as a hegemonic directive that rules our entire way of life, we'd probably find that we'd be less stressed out about the world we encounter. Bohm has identified the elephant in the room - it's our ability to intake, process and analyze. Which are all good skills! We just get so tied up in them that we forget to actually experience the world as a whole.

From the Rig-Veda:

Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?

Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.
That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.

All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.
Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.
Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.
Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it?
There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder
Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?

The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.
Mandala 10, Hymn 129 : Creation, as translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith (1896).