Creativity and Spirit
Creativity has many different forms and relates to creating the shape of one’s life. Thanks to a change of direction in the way that I was living my life 20 years ago, I do see the possibilities of our being creative as individuals. Prior to adopting a more reflective approach to life, I was very reactive, just doing the things that family and friends, bosses at work seem to expect of me. It was only in my mid-thirties, when I felt pretty empty, that I started to investigate different ways of living.
I used to work as a science correspondent, so I’ve been quite amused to watch the announcements about the human genome. It’s thought now that there are some 30,000 active genes in the human, a vast number, but less than what had been anticipated. It was thought that there would be something like 100,000 to make up the complexity of a human. A lot of those we share with other species, five with a banana! The human body is unique and the idea that what we are is determined by our genes, is really a new discovery of thought. Genes are appearing more and more to be, not so much something that makes us as what we use to express ourselves. Often, for a long time after the structure of DNA was discovered, it was felt that this was a fixed template that determined who or what we were. Barbara McKlintok, a scientist, demonstrated that genes can actually jump within the cell. This phenomena of jumping genes or the technical term is ‘Transposance’, was a big challenge to the standard idea that genes were a fixed template for who we are. McKlintok showed that certain genes can multiply themselves inside the cell and can jump from one chromosome to another. It appears that they can even bud out of the cell and multiply themselves in other cells. So genes are much fluid and active components of our physical being than what we realised. This raises a question of what is governing the genes. If the genes are not governing us, then who am I and who is governing my genes?
For me, the answer is that I am actually quite distinct from the body, that I’m a soul, This pin-point is like a window. Imagine a curtain and a pin-point in that. If you stand back from it, it might appear to be like a tiny star, but if you go close to it then you see a whole other dimension. Behind that curtain, a massive range of options are opened to us to draw on, for informing or energising ourselves. As we’ve forgotten that we have that dimension of our being behind the curtain, we’re only thinking on this side of the curtain which is our physical side. To look through the pinpoint is an important step for releasing or unleashing our creativity.
Now coming out of some of the frontier areas of science, is very much an alternative paradigm to the matter based one that’s in most T.V programs, radio programs, science articles in the newspapers and that most of us here have as their basis. The conventional view is that matter is the basis, the ground of being, and that maybe some mental component emerges from the complexity of neurones- the brain. For a long time the model of the atom was the same as the model of planets and stars, each inter-acting with each other in orbits dictated by the forces between them. But at the very tiny level when you get inside the atom itself, you move from that kind of fixed action and reaction template to something that is much more dynamic, and that involves consciousness.
The new paradigm stems from the discovery that the sub-atomic particles such as the electron can’t be said to be in orbit around the nucleus of the atom.
Scientists no longer speak of the sub-atomic particles as orbiting the nucleus. What they refer to now is more like a cloud of possibility and there are mathematics that define where you may find the electron if you send your measuring instrument to look for it.
The electron doesn’t exist as a specific particle until the observer observes it. It takes consciousness to bring that electron into being as a particle. Before that it has an existence that is determined by the quantum equations - wave like description of the probabilities of where you may find that electron. A probability isn’t an entity, it’s a diffused range of possibilities. Only when you actually go in and observe does that electron manifest and all the other possibilities at that point disappear.
This is Quantum Physics; this way of thinking is a revolution that has led to all sorts of developments in lasers and microprocessors. The conventional view is that matter is the ground of being and that’s all there is to it. Most scientists would say that anyone who has said that they’ve understood Quantum Physics obviously doesn’t, because it’s so puzzling. But it’s not puzzling if you bring in a different interpretation of what is going on and this is called the, “Consciousness -based paradigm”.
Consciousness -based paradigm
It’s a revolution in the making for all of us, and the opposite of the materialistic way of thinking. Scientists who are developing the Conscious-based paradigm speak of the ground of being, the fundamental reality being thought like. They speak of Consciousness being of the ‘stuff’ of the universe, giving rise to matter. They have come to this conclusion, not from some sort of religious perspective but because they felt that Quantum Physics demands us to understand this. At its most fundamental level matter requires an observer to come into being, that’s the implication of what I’m describing to you. The scientists are saying that matter only comes into being when consciousness brings it into being. Until then, there are the quantum equations that describe a range of possibilities. Within these possibilities matter only manifests when one of those possibilities is selected by consciousness and at that point all the other possibilities disappear. A choice is made, the term used is; ‘the collapse of the ‘Wave-Function’’. The ‘wave function’ is the mathematical term for the range of possibilities. The collapse of the ‘wave function’ is when one specific event happens & that electron is observed & comes into being. Once that choice has been made, the matter then manifests. If there is a table in a dark room you might not know that it’s there, you might think that it isn’t there, but you will still hack your ankles on it if you walk into the dark room believing it’s not there when it is. So, it’s not that an individual alone can make something into being or not, according to the way they think, but it’s consciousness as a unitive force in the universe.
This new way of thinking might not surprise many, especially if you’re more creatively inclined anyway. You might not have bought so much into science and its descriptions of the world. I grew up worshipping science, thinking that all there was to life was matter and the mind as the epi-phenomenon, the cream on the cake. However, this new theory underlines that the mind is the fundamental stuff of the universe, and matter is something that is shaped by the mind. For me, this is the starting point for our creative potential.
The theorists, who are working with this new paradigm, say that the nature of consciousness and its workings is not something that science can necessarily tell us about. Science is pointing towards the role that consciousness plays in shaping and creating the physical world. Science has not told us how to define consciousness or what is the role of the individual unit of consciousness, perhaps souls or God.
The spiritual perspective says that this whole existence that we’ve been experiencing has a unitive element to it. Rather like ‘Macbeth’ being staged at the Royal Court, Shakespeare had already worked the play out in his mind before it manifested on the stage.
So, we’re not the prisoners of matter that we thought we were. We have much more potential in our mind to alter our fate, our future, than we have realised. So, if I’m not my genes, who am I? I would say that I am a unit within this field of consciousness. I’m a conscient entity. I am a part of this whole, like an actor within the play I have my own part. I’m an individual. I make my own choices even though, those choices will have to fit in with the overall scheme of things. One reason why we’ve been reluctant to think in this way is because, when things don’t go well, we think that it’s because of forces outside our control. This helps us to evade a sense of responsibility. This new way of thinking gives the responsibility back to you. There is the overall scheme, but within that, there is also the loss and the regaining of the power that we do have as individuals. When we’ve lost that power, it is easy just to blame circumstances, and a little nerve-wracking to think that it might be within our power to really change our lives and our future. It’s easier to blame the bad-tempered boss, the uncooperative spouse or the children than actually see what you can do to be creative in your own life. We have a huge power.
This new paradigm whether you get to it from a spiritual perspective or from this new science, helps in having an attitude of ‘can do’, in terms of being creative in your life.
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www.innerspace.org.uk
Neville Hodgkinson
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