Every Thought Counts

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Every Thought Counts

    Sanford Baran:  What a marvelous opportunity we have in this moment to respond to the true Tone of Being-allowing our minds and hearts to come to a place of rest. It is a delight to gather collectively in this tranquil space to consciously meditate upon the things of heaven.

    The focus is always rightly in the heaven. We know from the Book of Psalms, "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." And yet, even if we weren't at all interested in the things of heaven, the fact is, every human being is substantially responding to the true Tone whether they want to or not. What else could possibly explain how trillions of atoms are perfectly organized into billions of cells that are further organized into intricate organs, and miraculously integrated together to produce these marvelous instruments we know as our human forms? I dare say it isn't the human intellect that labored to build these. Rather, it is the intelligence inherent in Divine Being, expressed simultaneously throughout every nook and cranny of the cosmos that gets the job done.

    How wondrous is the true design. In deepest humility we are inspired to play our part by actively contributing to the ongoing processes of creation. We increasingly find that much of the action in this regard occurs in consciousness.

    There is indeed purpose in the spiritual pulsations transmitted through the Tone of Being. These pulsations act to maximize the overall order and beauty within the entire cosmos-given the current set of cosmic circumstances present in any particular moment. These optimizations are always executed as efficiently as possible-you could say, through the path of least resistance. This sounds like a mighty tall order, particularly given the scale of the cosmos! No doubt it boggles the human mind.

    But, not to worry! As we were considering two weeks ago, the Tone of Being is omnipresent. It's everywhere. Hence its influence is felt locally throughout every corner of the cosmos, no matter how small. As Alan noted in his talk entitled Archangelic Omniscience, "All substance, every atom and its consciousness, is seeking to respond to the true Tone of Being." Indeed, each particle throughout the cosmos does respond locally to the Tone, in concert with their immediate and not so immediate neighbors, maximizing the level of order and beauty that is possible given the circumstances at hand.

    Interestingly enough, this notion of increasing order is something of key importance in a field of physics known as thermodynamics. Actually, thermodynamics is concerned with the total disorder of a system, and defines this amount of disorder as entropy. You could ask, why the interest in disorder versus order? Is the glass half-empty or half-full? From the standpoint of thermodynamics, systems (if left totally alone and devoid of any outside influence) tend to become more disordered over time. In other words, systems tend to disintegrate, reflecting an increase in their entropy. So the second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of a system tends to increase unless, and this is key, some power or influence intervenes.

    Now another way of describing disorder is the total number of permutations, or degrees of freedom that are possible given all the available material at hand. So take the case of the human body. We know that it's composed of trillions of atoms. If you threw all of these atoms together in some big pile, there would be innumerable permutations of how these atoms might be configured and organized together. On the other hand, once these atoms are arranged and shaped into the form of a living human being, the number of degrees of freedom of all of those atoms has been significantly restricted. But in doing this, the overall level of order and beauty has been substantially increased. It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In theory a living human form should exhibit substantially more order and beauty than a pile of dust. So, as Spirit tends to maximize order and beauty within the cosmos, it also is powering a reduction in entropy.

    Now it turns out that this notion of entropy, the number of degrees of freedom of all the particles in a given system, is very closely akin to the amount of information contained within the system. The more information that is accumulated the greater the entropy. So for example, as you increase the number of documents and e-mail messages on your computer, you increasingly accumulate digital clutter and hence, the informational entropy on your computer expands. As an aside, we can acknowledge that more information, more knowledge, isn't necessarily a good thing. It tends to decrease order and beauty in our immediate worlds. TMI! Too much information!

    One of the hallmarks of intelligence is the ability to quickly prune-down mounds of information, leaving only what is valuable and relevant given the problem at hand. A good example is someone who has mastery of the game of chess. At the highest levels of play, a chess master will look ten, maybe fifteen moves ahead, analyzing the strength of his own moves while also anticipating what his opponent will likely do in response. If you were to count all of the possible permutations in doing this kind of analysis, it could easily get into the millions. But as Volker who has some mastery of this game can tell you, most of these permutations are not even worth considering, as they offer zero strategic value or benefit. A skilled chess master can at a glance immediately discard 90-95% of these permutations, thus pruning the clutter, reducing the entropy and clearing the field so that the best move can be more easily deduced.

    Now this connection between entropy and information leads us into some other interesting territory. I wanted to briefly present to you some ideas proposed by the famous 20th century theoretical physicist, John Wheeler. Wheeler, among his many other accomplishments, was one of the first prominent physicists to propose that reality might not be wholly physical. To paraphrase his words, "our cosmos might be a participatory phenomenon requiring the act of observation-thus, consciousness itself." That's quite an interesting perspective. Now one of Wheeler's most provocative ideas was something he referred to as the it from bit. Just to clarify, a bit, is the most fundamental piece or particle of information-for example, the answer to a yes or no question. According to Wheeler, "every it-every physical particle, every field of force, even the space time continuum itself-derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely-even if in some contexts indirectly-from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits."

    The implication of this is quite profound. The usual way of thinking, at least if you're a physicist, is that you start with physical substance (the it), and from this you get information (bits). But John Wheeler has it the other way around. You first start with information (bits), and from that, you get matter and energy, physical substance (it). Now this should start to sound familiar to us. The physical realm springs out of what is above it-information, thoughts and observations. In other words, mental substance very much influences and possibly gives birth to physical substance. And we know from our considerations that it doesn't stop there. The emotional level gives birth to the mental realm, and up through the heavenly levels we go. The point of origin is always in the heaven and works its way downward through the various levels below. I could quote Alan again from two weeks ago: "Thought forms in us, and in the mass consciousness, are very large influences in the creation of physical forms in our outer worlds."

    If you could indulge me for just a bit longer on this physics kick, I have one more thread I wanted to weave in. I read recently about a respected string theorist and Professor of Physics at the University of Amsterdam, Dr. Erik Verlinde, who in January published a paper entitled, On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton, which apparently is causing quite a stir within the physics community. Not every physicist agrees with it, but most are at least saying that the ideas are quite interesting and provocative. According to Dr. Verlinde, "Gravity doesn't exist." From his perspective, science has been looking at gravity the wrong way and there is something more basic from which gravity emerges. That something turns out to be entropy. In a nutshell, gravity is not something fundamental in and of itself, as proposed by Newton and Einstein. It merely is a byproduct of changes in entropy.

    So this got me to thinking. Could these entropic changes, which might be fundamental to the emergence of gravity, be the result, at least partially, of activity occurring in consciousness? As we consciously express the Tone, we indeed are lowering the levels of entropy-firstly in our own consciousness, additionally in the collective human consciousness, and finally in the tapestry of cosmic consciousness. We might not think that our thoughts have much influence, but don't be too sure. Thoughts not only are magnetic as we were considering recently; they also possibly are gravitational. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise to us that as the quality of our thinking becomes more refined, new circumstances and people start to gravitate in our direction.

    The Tone is sounding in each of us. To the degree that we are identified in cosmic mind, we have the ability to increasingly generate ever-finer spiritual substance. This primarily occurs in consciousness through the quality of our thoughts, but is also augmented by our words and deeds. It is clear that increasing our reservoir of fine substance has a definite impact on our immediate worlds and extends a positive influence beyond.

    Fine substance provides the capability in consciousness to prune-down extraneous and immaterial thoughts that only contribute to muddled and irrational thinking. This refining process distills and purifies the forms at the mental level, retaining only what is useful to the creative process. In all fairness, perhaps a little disorder on occasion might be of value. We obviously don't need to have everything figured out in advance, rigidly forcing reality into neat tidy packages. There should after all, be room for some spontaneity in the moment. As there is a sufficient reservoir of fine substance on hand, the right balance is easily struck.

    The fact is, our contribution is significant. Every thought counts. In this regard, paying close attention to what is going on in consciousness is of fundamental importance. Does a particular thought maximize or minimize the potential beauty around me? Is this thought attractive or repulsive? What is gravitating toward me? These are good questions to ponder.

    I am deeply thankful for this extraordinary instrument we know as consciousness. Used creatively, it provides the means for each of us to directly contribute to the grandeur of the cosmos. What a marvelous opportunity we have right now to respond to the true Tone of Being. Playing our part, we indeed have much to offer, in tandem with everything else, everywhere.