The Reassuring Universe
By Don Ray
()
About this ebook
The Universe is big, cold, violent, and doomed. What could be reassuring about this?! Welcome on a voyage through a universe of personal relevance, potential, and purpose. Your voyage will cross the blank space on the map between science and spirit. Can these words even appear at peace together? Surely our intellect and our heart must remain locked in combat for our loyalty; surely intelligence precludes faith and education exorcises belief. Entering the temple, church, or mosque you have to check your brain at the door; entering the laboratory or university you have to check your soul at the door. Invoking quantum mechanics, the holographic universe, relativity, string theory, M theory, multiple dimensions, alternative universes, dark matter, dark energy, and virtual particles, Part I of The Reassuring Universe unveils the surprising spiritual potential and personal relevance of modern science. Does modern science make room for spirit and soul, even God and eternal life? Part II examines repeating patterns in evolution of the universe, life, and humanity. Is humanity, and are we as individuals, still subject to these evolving patterns? Do our most personal joys and grief reflect the role of our life within those universal patterns? Can we even find hints of the meaning of life and purpose of life in the weaving together of the universal patterns of science and the deepest experiences of heart? Part III reveals a seamless Oneness and nonduality in the structure of the universe as described by science. That science-based non-duality is then rendered deeply and personally relevant for your daily life. Your tour of The Reassuring Universe unfolds in full color through photographs of the cosmos and images of the human condition. The Reassuring Universe invokes quotes from a broad spectrum of traditions, with Brian Greene (author of The Elegant Universe) and the Bhagavad-Gita sharing space with Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian sources.
Don Ray
Some degrees in physics, some time in research laboratories and thatched hut villages, some teaching in universities and management in international technology: all sound like credentials to lend credibility to the role of author. But such experiences provide only tools and terminology and opportunity, not wisdom and insight. You and I share the same foundation for whatever wisdom and insight we may glean out of life, the joys and grief, the celebrations and hunger that make up daily living. I hope through this book my knowledge of physics and funerals, science and spirit, quanta and cultures, can help you bridge the illusory gap between intellect and heart. If so, that will happen not through transfer of wisdom, but through an opening of windows to allow realization of your own wisdom. Questioning "what" and "how" led me to universities and degrees in physics. Questioning "why" led me to cathedral and temple and mosque. I have been blessed to learn from a winner of the Einstein Award and from village shamans. But such learning seems inconsequential in comparison to life's lessons: the grim look on the face when after the wreck you ask "will she be OK?"...the feel of the hospital sheets after the stroke...and every warm embrace and authentic smile and sincere welcome. I am grateful to professors and priests, research centers and jungle shrines. But they provide only the paint color to be applied to the structure built of the scope of real life, built of pets and people, love and loneliness, homes and hospitals. I pray my degrees and travel, survival and losses that led to my books can bring a little light to your very real life and reveal to you the brightness of your heart's wisdom and the Source awaiting our discovery.
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The Reassuring Universe - Don Ray
The Reassuring Universe
(Also available in hard-and soft-cover print editions)
Dr. Don Ray
Don Ray's work published by Quantum Embrace Publishing at Smashwords
Copyright © 2011 Don Ray
All rights reserved.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
Thank you for downloading this e-book. Even if you received a free version, it remains the copyrighted property of the author. But since the author’s intent is to spread a reassuring message, you are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.
DEDICATION
This project is dedicated to you, the reader, the focus of the entire creation process of this book, and the focus of the entire creation process of the Universe.
Prologue
Perhaps this book will help someone gain awareness that their daily life unfolds within a current, a flow, a direction that hints of meaning and Purpose; a current, flow, and direction that each of us already senses though often without awareness. Perhaps the reader will experience some reassurance through this increased awareness, and if so, they and the world will be a little better off, and the cardboard ceiling that blocks our view of our personal potential and the embracing Purpose will have a few more holes punched in it. Don Ray, s.D.g.
Table Of Contents
Part I: Science and Spirit
Part II: Hints of Purpose
Part III: Googoogoojoob
Author biography and message to the reader
Image Credits. And interesting background.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I stare at this page, wondering where to even begin. Too many people have played too many roles for too many years to do any justice to giving them credit. For every name I include, ten will be left out.
But as I procrastinate by playing with fonts and spacing, my eyes are finally drawn skyward (I work outside if at all possible) by a persistent and unusual sound of an airplane. I look and look, but do not see it. But then I see something else…. a hawk, and then a second, spiraling up together into the clear sky. The second hawk looks white, though at this distance I cannot be sure. Only once have I seen a white hawk, an experience I cherish for many reasons. I step inside the open door to grab my binoculars, an action of a few seconds, but when I again look up, neither hawk is to be seen, nor is the airplane to be heard.
Such improbable occurrences provide the foundation and framework, and the motivation and inspiration for this book. A chance meeting here, an introduction there, a person or guide or partner or leader or …. a white hawk…. . who set my life on a different course, who provided essential opportunity, who challenged or encouraged.
I acknowledge with deep gratitude the roles you each played, I celebrate having shared a rare and beautiful white hawk
moment with you, and I acknowledge with wonder the Reassuring Universe in which every role fits, every interaction contributes, and as stated in the title of the wonderfully enlightening book by Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs
.
I must add one critical individual acknowledgement though. Throughout this e-book, and much more in the print versions, the beautiful and evocative images by Karen and Spence add immeasurably to whatever impact this publication may someday have for someone. For Karen’s diligent searching through her and Spence’s remarkable collection of photographs, for her eye for sublime beauty, for pursuing permissions for use from other photographers, and for proofreading and ongoing support, I and any reader of this book are indebted
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Part 1: Science and spirit
(back to table of contents)
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Science:
Science has nothing to do with spirit and soul. Science is black and white, sharp, verifiable, not a thing of heart and intuition and desire…. and this is good.
Science and Spirit:
Can these two words even appear at peace in the same phrase? Are they not immediately and mutually antagonistic? Have they not clashed through the centuries? Surely our intellect and our heart must remain locked in combat for our loyalty, and surely intelligence precludes faith; education exorcises belief.
Can beauty and truth be found in the arcane hieroglyphs of science? Or is beauty and Truth found only in that which can be calculated and quantified and mathematically expressed?
I would argue that elegant beauty is to be found in the runes of science and its ritual math, its hieroglyphs eloquently revealing concepts otherwise unfathomable to the human mind, yet even with this tool of elegant mathematical expressions, still the concepts and conclusions to which they lead often remain unfathomable, leaving us in wonder at their predictions and raw power, leaving us helpless and small in trying to grasp their meaning.
Elegant beauty
? Unfathomable concepts
? Wonder at raw power
…helpless and small
. . . grasping at meaning
…are these not the words, phrases, and expressions also evoked by the realm of spirit and soul, that other realm of prediction and raw power.
Expressing in words the profound meaning of mathematical equations is often a futile exercise. Expressing in logic the experiences of the heart is often a hopeless gesture.
The preceding equations are nothing more, and nothing less, than two of Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism, in other words, the mathematical expression of the laws of our universe that give rise to………….
……………. . Light.
"And God said ‘let there be light’, And there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. " (Genesis 1:3-4)
Expressed in symbols black and white and conveniently applicable for use in designing antennae and headlight lenses and in explaining rainbows, or expressed in grandiose summarizing proclamations of holiness and grandeur, does the light they describe not look as beautiful through either lens?
Courageous daring and open-mindedness allowed scientists of yore, and today, to boldly explore realms unimagined and unanticipated and, at least in their initial forays, realms resoundingly unaccepted by peers and institutions.
Courageous daring and open-mindedness allowed, and allow, mystics and prophets to climb up mountains literal and figurative, to explore realms unimagined and unanticipated, realms resoundingly unaccepted by peers and institutions.
Can we summon the courageous daring and open-mindedness needed to explore the gap between the scientific realm and the spiritual mountain to see what undiscovered terrain lies in that unmapped territory? The maps proffered from either side of the gap are rife with edge-of-the-world warnings of go not beyond this point, venture not further from these known shores of logic (or of faith), beyond in direction of that other land lie monsters and sirens and whirlpools that will capture and swallow your intelligence (or your soul)
.
And if one did succeed in crossing to that other side, surely the benighted natives on that distant shore share no common basis with our enlightened selves, no comparable understanding or perspective or foundation. Surely we can learn nothing from them, and they are unwilling, or unable, to learn from us. Surely mistrust and separation are our only recourse.
But throughout history, some people have been called to explore, some cannot resist the blanks on the map, cannot resist the urge to find paths and build bridges. These few willing to leave familiar shores, called by something, something alternately described as intellectual curiosity or whispering spirit, may find they, we, are exploring more than a blank space on the map, We may discover we are in fact exploring ourselves, discovering unmapped lands in our own nature, and in building bridges they may discover that the bridge is no longer necessary because the perceived gap and blank and void and separation between science and spirit never existed in the first place.
In leaving the shore of science or of faith, the courageous explorer may find the world is round, and your bold explorations bring you not to an alien shore but back to familiar home, having sailed through the mirages of separation and difference.
Set sail with confidence from either shore, for mind and intellect need not be threatened by explorations of the heart, and the heart can still securely hold on to its foundations when intellect seems to founder on the rocks.
This voyage of exploration is intensely individual, existential some would call it, mystical others would say. This voyage is for you, to satisfy your curiosity, to resolve your own questions.
Your mind and intellect and intelligence are invaluable navigational aids, and only a fool would embark without them. But they and their tools of words and language may not be able to express the personal discoveries to which you sail, and insistence on discovering only that which can be shrunk and packaged in language and liturgy, equations and dogma, may deny you entrance to the harbors you seek.
"I implored the sage in earnest last night to unveil the mysteries of the universe. He whispered softly in my ear, ‘Silence! It is something to perceive but never to