To see a world in a grain of sandAnd heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
--WILLIAM BLAKE
The physicist David Bohm and his idea of a Holographic universe has fascinated me for years and I refer him as a SUFI SCIENTIST. His Book WHOLENESS AND IMPLICATE ORDER, I read as sacred text. Since I do not have a scientific academic background but the fascination provides ample motivation to striving and enduring.
Most interesting of his idea is about wholeness. As everything in the cosmos is made out of seamless holographic fabric of implicate order, Bohm believes it is meaningless to view the universe as composed of parts, as it is to view different geysers in a fountain as separate from the water out of which they flow. Everything in the universe is part of a continuum.
He also believes that dividing the universe up into living and non living things also has no meaning. Animate and inanimate matters are inseparably interwoven and life too is enfolded throughout the totality of the universe. Even a rock is in same way alive, for life and intelligence are present not only in matter but in energy, space and time.
The idea that consciousness and life and indeed all things are ensembles enfolded throughout the universe has an equally dazzling flip side. Just as every portion of the hologram contains the image of the whole or a single DNA possess he complete blueprint of a person, every portion of the universe enfolds whole. This means that if we knew how to access it we could find the Andromeda galaxy in the thumbnail of our left hand. Every cell in our body enfolds the entire cosmos, so does every leaf, every raindrop and every dust mote.
PS: this is inspired from David Bohm’s “Wholeness and Implicate Order” and Michael Talbots “The Holographic Universe”
The Undivided Wholeness of All Things
ReplyDeleteThe beautiful butterfly, the scene, the light, the focus...
To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
--WILLIAM BLAKE
What a perfect and compelling way to begin such a theme...
And dizzying yet thrilling for me to contemplate...
So I will be back and thanx for adding this such a clear and rather sweeping understanding to similar discussions here.
Have there yet been any parts in these two books with which you are not sure or disagree? If so, in which ways or direction. Or at least are they mostly compatible with what you already understand and imagine?
I've loved that little poem by Blake for a long long time!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with D.Bohm's belief of, though paraphrazing here, an intricate web of interconnections amongst all forms of existence in the universe. At a very simplistic level, one can easily see the dependencies in our food chain. But it's not limited to just that, our emotions, moods, growth (mental, physical, emotional) or the lack thereof, are so connected to the smallest of "dust mote".
ReplyDeleteWe are the sum of parts we belong to.... and in so many ways incomplete missing any of those parts..
I too enjoyed the William Blake beautiful interpretation of time-folds.
Ashfaq
One day you will ask me which is more important? my life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.
ReplyDeleteKhalil Gibran
Dar Sahib, how do you fit together Ruiz and Islam? I also follow some of his teachings and wonder what you think of his latest, The Fifth Agreement?
ReplyDeleteConnie
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing such a beautiful quote from Gibran. Here is one from east.
A famous Sufi poet of Punjabi language is Bullah Shah. he describes the folklore of Heer and Ranjha love story in his following famous poem where Heer has to say this about Ranjha:
Ever rehearsing Ranjha, Ranjha
I have become myself Ranjha
Call me now Ranjha
Not by the name of Heer any more.
Ranjha in me, I in him
None else is there on the finest chart
I am not I, he all in all
And he himself would come console.
I have read the Four Agreements, but not yet The Fifth Agreement, which I think Don has co-authored with his son. I did like The Four Agreements. He wonderfully balances between matter and spirit, alive to both the world temporal and physical. I think his "shamanist views about nature and re establishing contact between human and other inhabitants of earth will allow once again the earth to nourish us physically and spiritually".
ReplyDeleteI don't find any thing contradicting to Islamic or other Religious believes. Islam propogates balance and this is what Don Miguel Ruiz is all about.
Connie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing a beautiful quote. I have taken the liberty of using it on my FB and hope it's ok with you...
And to add to what Wasim says, Islam also advocates seeking knowledge and knowing what's around you.. then make a learned decision. That's one of the beauties of Islam, it expects you to learn not about Itself but all things knowledge!
Ashfaq
Ashfaq
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw your FB status I thought it to be a beautiful coincidence!
Of course, you're always welcome to use anything I "put out"...as long as clear to you (minus any crediting to me yet to the original author if you see fit.)
ReplyDeleteI am thoroughly enjoying and appreciating this lovely and clarifying discussion.
One more thing: I love finding out how inclusive many aspects of Islam are...so few in my society understand this and I take great joy in telling of this beautiful aspect of your expansive faith.
You are both about balance here and that is so peace-giving and instructive.
Thanx so much...hope this discussion will go on!
I'd love to know where this quote is from? Sorry if I missed something given...got to slow down a bit... YOUR: I think his "shamanist views about nature and re establishing contact between human and other inhabitants of earth will allow once again the earth to nourish us physically and spiritually".
By the way, I've loved William Blake for a long tme and often wanted to do a little play about his relationship to his wife who was illiterate and whom he taught to not only read yet to make illustrations...She was there upon his death and that death bed scene says so much.
I want to be back to say more about Gibran - there is so much - yet have any of you seen his Jesus the son of man? It is way beyond most anything "Christian" I've seen...and his understanding of evil is something quite profound...
And Ruiz...yet just one thing about him...his Four Agreements made great sense to a prisoner I've known for over twenty years and he has carried it around kinda like a "bible" of sorts. It is very helpful to many of the others in prison, he says.
Connie
ReplyDeleteThe quote is from a book THE NEW BELIEVRS, where it was qouted from Jonathan Horwitz the writer of ALL THINGS AREE CONNECTED. Horwitz is a teacher on Shamanism. Just searching for this book and would read soon!
Just downloaded Gibran's JESUS THE SON OF MAN. Noted somewhere that when Gibran wrote this book he all the time had Abdul Baha the spiritual leader of Bahi faith in his mind, he was very impressed with him and also once met him.
must study David Bohm’s “Wholeness and Implicate Order” and Michael Talbots “The Holographic Universe” from whatever is available at internet. Thanks a bunch for sharing
ReplyDeleteThe Undivided Wholeness of All Things with me. Have the print out at my bedside. I think of myself as the citizen of the world and the holistic appeals enormously to me.
duaen
Thanx for the notes on the Gibran book...encourages a more recent look...I also find lots of beauty in Ba'hai...such peacefulness...
ReplyDeleteAnd the additions of the other commentors here remind me also how much is available online...
Back for more soon...lovely conversation for us who love this holistic appeals and approach.
Again, Thank You, Dar Sahib! Also all here may want to see Faraz latest comment to me on his blogsite...one of the best explanations I've read on any Hafiz poems and in Faraz very different and rather spiritually logical style...is a lot like the philosophy of our Dar Sahib...what do you think?
ReplyDeleteOH, the explanation is within his long numbered comment to me. :)
ReplyDelete