CHAPTER 1
Will you have the soup?
If thou canst believe, all things are possible.
Mark 9:23 (KJV)
In the image of God ...
Once upon a time—Star Date 29 December, 1966—I watched in wonder ascrew members of the Enterprise beamed down to an uncharted planet for"Shore Leave" where Dr. McCoy caught sight of a white rabbit chasing Alice, aSamurai warrior attacked Lieutenant Sulu, and Captain Kirk met an old flame, wholooked just as he remembered her. Before the Star Trek episode ended, Kirk andhis crew discovered the planet itself was making their thoughts, their fantasies, andtheir fears come to life. Gene Roddenberry had, in fact, attended many channelingsof the divine "Council of Nine" and heard their message: "The Earth was createdto be a paradise."
What if we do live on such a magical planet? One summer afternoon, mymom and I went to watch a city parade. She loves parades. I don't. Not as achild, and not as an adult. That day I was hot and hungry and kept thinking,"I want a cigarette and a piece of gum." A couple of hours passed, along withmost of the parade. As the stream was winding down, Mom and I beganwalking back to my car. After a half block or so, at the tail-end of the parade,a few stragglers passed us. They were tossing out goodies, and I caught twopieces of gum.
Those two pieces of gum may seem trivial, but they transformed theouting into a magical adventure. There they were, products of the Law ofManifestation, lying in my hot little hand. I laughed for the joy of it—a wishcome true!
What if each of us is our own genie, except that we don't need any thing,like a transporter or Aladdin's magic lamp, because the magic is alreadyinside us? Christian and Jewish scriptures say that we humans were "made inthe image of God." But in Sanskrit, God is neti, neti: "Not this, not that." Notthings. Our likeness to God refers to our capability of creating as God does.
So why do we worship Jesus or Buddha (or rock stars and sportscelebrities)? Because we think we can never be like them. But we are. TheChurch has separated the human "us" from our birthright, the divine "Us."And why not? Any business requires a group of people who needs its productsor services. Where would cobblers be if we were all hobbits? Where wouldhospitals be if everyone believed in our inherent ability to possess completegood health? What would happen to many churches if everyone believed inour inherent goodness, because we have been created in the likeness andgoodness of God?
We haven't fully grasped the implication of "in God's image." We haven'tclaimed the role of creator as our own. The truth is that the Divine is what weare, and we are always creating, whether or not we realize what we're doing.
Always creating ... even miracles? What if miracles are the way life is meantto work all the time, but our disagreements, denials, and tenacious clinging tohalf-truths throw a giant wrench into what was supposed to be a divinely runningoperation?
Living in the Shadowlands
Plato used an analogy suggesting most people live in a cave, sitting withour backs to the mouth of the opening. Outside the cavern shines the light oftrue reality, but on the inside we only notice the shadows cast on the stonewalls. Then we base our science and philosophy on those shadows.
This sounds a little like the veils of the Hindus. The Hindus believe weabide in maya. Maya, however, is not our world but the belief that the illusionswe see is the true realm of existence. Over the last century, science has beenplaying catch-up in trying to understand how to move past the shadows anddispel the illusions by more fully comprehending the system we're living in.
In the Twilight Zone of my childhood, Rod Serling told us each week thatwe unlock the door to new dimensions of the mind with imagination. The dooris unlocked not with a key, but with a new thought, an open mind.
Albert Einstein compared our universe to the movies we watch in theatres.The ancients already knew this; the Sanskrit word for "creation" is srishti,which means "projection." And don't we love movies? The Matrix moviesportray the majority of humans asleep, with each person merely dreaming ofliving in the world. This theme is also hinted at in the Bible: "And the LordGod caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept." But no verse followingthis passage ever mentions that Adam woke up.
Like Neo, are we all asleep? A Taoist parable tells about a man who dreamedhe was a butterfly. Upon waking, he asked himself, "Am I a man who dreamed hewas a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming it is a man?" Mystics through the ages haveagreed that we are indeed asleep—and many of us are living in a nightmare.
I agree! I want to wake up, or at least learn how to direct my own dream.
Belief Systems on the Go
Imagine two people walking side by side down a winding path. If we askthem to describe their journey, one might say it was heaven while the otherclaimed it was hell, and they'd both be right. Our belief systems envelop eachof us and go with us wherever we go.
I have been like the second traveler, and I don't travel light. As a trebleCancer, my home goes with me. In my little four-cylinder Saturn I carryfood and drink; books and word puzzles; notebooks for teachers' meetingsand church; a blanket, pillow, and extra change of clothes; recycled bags forgroceries (which I forget to take into the store); art portfolio and resumes;lipstick, earrings, and perfume; a dog leash and fold-out chair; petty cash, asuitcase of teaching materials, and books to give away. If I lug all this materialstuff everywhere I go, what emotions and memories and self-condemnationam I also hauling around? For too long I failed to realize the door to my take-alonghell was locked on the inside, and that I myself held the key in hand.No, make that "in mind." It's as if I had been living in the C.S. Lewis storywhere people have damned themselves to hell, and nothing other than theirown choice prevents them from entering heaven.
So what is the truth about how life works? Can anything be absolutelytrue? In scientists', theologians', and parents' search for truth, they havefound that there are constants the world goes by, physical laws that arealways true:
Toddlers like playing with the boxes their gifts come in.
It rains after you wash your car.
Gravity always holds true ... uh, except for the yogis who levitate.
The shortest distance is a straight line between two points ... except for aswami who, a man from India once told me, vanished and reappeared the nextinstant a hundred yards away from where he and his family were standing.
The World of Quantumstuff
Can levitation and teleportation be true? Yes. What scientists call quantumentanglement makes teleportation possible.
All sorts of weird things can happen when we learn that atoms are filledwith "quantumstuff," which acts like a cloud of possibilities. From thisnebulous, almost-real stuff the magic arises. What it comes down to is, weare each a genie. A magician. A creator.
The whole world is made from almost-real stuff? Clouds of "maybe" and"probability?" Wait a minute. That sounds like the Twilight Zone. I'm touchingthis paper. The chair I'm sitting in is holding me up. I'm flesh and blood, notsupernatural.
But honestly, I also know that my physical senses do lie to me. The Earthdoes seem to be flat, doesn't it? And sometimes I know who's calling beforeI pick up the phone. Maybe I'd better move beyond my five senses and take alook at the quantum world.
To understand what the quantum world is like, find a photograph on theInternet. It looks like a product the ad agency is trying to sell you, but if you lookvery closely, you'll see that the screen picture is made up of a bunch of coloreddots. When you zoom in even closer, even the pixels look different. They seemboxy and meaningless, while the larger picture, taken as a whole, looks smoothand realistic.
The macrocosmic world is like that photo, but instead of pixels it's made ofquanta, little cloudbursts of energy whose essence is more like a thought thana thing. Photons are the quanta in a light beam; electrons are a kind of quantain atoms. Everything is composed of quanta, and all processes are governedby the rules of quantum theory.
Everything is composed of little magical packets of potential calledquanta. Although human beings are slow-moving macrocosms in relationto subatomic particles, we are composed of quanta and what quanta can do,we can also do. And quanta, as we shall see in Chapter Four, can do mind-bogglingthings.
The new physics shows that humans are capable of much more than weever thought. Even Jesus said that the things he had done, so shall we do,and more (John 14:12). We possess abilities we've reserved for the Divine,the Christs and Buddhas, the avatars and swamis. In fact, the word "Christ"is historically merely a term given to "enlightened" people, including earlyHebrew kings.
My son, Sean, and I have trouble when we visit a restaurant. He can't decide onthe best item to order, and I know chances are good that I'll pick something I won'tlike and then feel bad about having to pay for food I didn't enjoy eating. But if thesoup's homemade, it's a sure bet for both of us and a big tip for the wait staff.
From Quantum Soup,Everything We Touch Turns to Matter
When we turn our backs, "reality" is the quantum soup of potentialities.But then we look and everything we see, everything we touch turns to matter.
How does quantumstuff work? The world is like "quantum soup," andit stays soupy until our attention freezes it into subatomic particles, turningit into ordinary reality. That means, as both physicists and Rod Serling havenoted, imagination is the key that transforms potential ingredients into themeal, city, planet, and universe.
It's time to use our imagination, like rubbing a genie's lamp or puttingon a magician's cape, and consciously use the laws of quantum physics.The concepts below have progressed from theoretical spiritual ideas toscientifically proven ideas:
• We are all connected.
• Everything, including all "living" and "non-living" matter, vibratesat a specific frequency.
• Anything physical begins as a mental concept.
• Our thoughts, feelings, and actions affect everything in existence.
• Time does not absolutely move in only one direction.
• There is something beyond what we can see, hear, touch and taste.
• Heredity, karma, conditioning—none of these are unchangeablelimitations.
• Light behaves like both a wave and a particle, and so doeseverything else.
• We are energy systems—frozen light—using a fraction of ourpotential.
• We have access to the wisdom of the ages.
• We are co-creators of our lives and our world.
These and the principles that follow can rouse us from the nightmaremany of us are co-creating. In our present age, science and spirituality arebrother and sister philosophies working hand-in-hand to wake us up.
CHAPTER 2
Physically, we are bothtransmitters and receivers.
A tree beside the wall stands bare,But a leaf that lingered brown,Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thoughtComes softly rattling down.
Robert Frost"A Late Walk"
Good Vibrations
After nearly twenty-five years of marriage, my husband and I sold the homewhere we'd raised our children and moved to Oregon. After a year, we returnedto the Midwest; our marriage was eroding and we were both suffering from deepdepression. We needed to buy a house quickly, but the market was terrible. Wefound shoddy houses in our price range. Even the homes we couldn't afford had oldfurnaces, cracked foundations, leaky roofs. Each one we looked at was too old, toofar from work, too something or other. Finally my dream house went on the market.It was beyond our price range, I knew, but there was no cost for looking. "There's anOpen House on Lamar this Sunday," I told John. "Can we go?"
We did, and oh, the Arts and Crafts bungalow struck a chord deep insideme. Appreciating the craftsmanship of the home, I ran a hand lovingly overa varnished window casing, a hand-sanded post, a beveled glass pane. Johnpicked up on my feelings but reacted in a totally different manner.
By the time we walked down the front steps, John was fuming. I felt hisfrustration and the anger it had engendered and, as usual, I became defensive.However, I'd lately been "practicing peace" and paused a moment to calmdown. Before getting into the car, I took a deep breath and formed the intentionof radiating peace instead of engaging in strife. This commitment made all thedifference; a gentle word to John led to untangling the misunderstanding—thathome was not an option. Together we drove on to the next Open House.
The Beach Boys sang about good vibrations. Did they mean that humansare walking guitar strings? It may sound strange, but vibrations make sensewhen we stop to think about how, when we're stressed out and feelingbad, everything goes wrong. "Heavy" matters "weigh" on us. During anargument, the tension is "thick enough to cut with a knife." And when we'refeeling cheerful or when we've fallen in love, everything looks brighter,everyone acts more kindly, and life is good. We feel "drawn" to some placeor person, "lighthearted," or even "spacey," as if we're walking on air. Wefeel repulsed by certain personalities, "drained" by others, and attracted topeople with "magnetic" personalities.
We talk about being "on the same wavelength" when we feel a rapportwith someone because we have matching vibrations at that time. Rapport isan example of resonance, which means, literally, to "echo." Resonance is "likeattracting like." Resonating people feed energy to one another in "sympatheticvibrations," which is how they're liable to come up with some really goodideas and finish one another's sentences. It drives my children crazy when Iexpect them to finish my thought, but when my mother or friend, Roxie, and Iare talking together, that Gilmore Girls sort of dialogue comes naturally, rightdown to saying the same words at the same time.
