The Visionary Work of Physicist
David Bohm
Throughout
the world, in all ages, there have been belief systems that state our universe
at its core is unmanifest, uncreated, or unconditioned. Thus the 13th century Christian
mystic Meister Eckhart states:
When I stand empty in God’s Will
and empty OF God’s Will and all of His works and of God himself, then I am
above all creatures and am neither God nor creature, but am what I was and
evermore shall be.
Mirroring
Eckhart, Lao Tzu advises us in the Tao Te Ching to be newborn and free of our self. Or as Jesus Christ says upon
finding a woman nursing her baby, “be like him.” That is, our conditioned self needs to become
unconditioned.
I could
go around the world looking at Native American, ancient European, Asian (e.g.,
Buddhist and Hindu) as well as African spiritual teachings and show a
corresponding foundation to the universe that is, ultimately, unconditioned and
unmanifest. It is here, in the
Unmanifest, or Uncreated, that possibilities—potentials—are unlimited.
Due to Eckhart’s
pointing out the unconditioned or unmanifest in his work, he was condemned by
the church as a heretic. As illustrated
below:
Furthermore, Eckhart
courageously braved the charges of heresy by affirming that in every soul is the
Divine Spirit itself as its true Identity. Eckhart specifically declared that
there is a non-creaturely “uncreated aspect of the soul,” which is always
already perfectly one with God. A startling, shocking truth that elated the many
mystics of his time who flocked to hear his electric sermons, and, predictably,
angered the non-mystics whose stunted intuition could not resonate with what
the Meister so beautifully spoke.
Eckhart
pointed people towards an unconditioned, uncreated and unmanifest world.
The
mindset of moving beyond the conditioned mind is dangerous in that it is the
place of infinite potential. This is the
place from which evolutionary potential emerges. This is the place where real
creativity emerges as well as making institutions such as the church,
government, schools, and corporations a thing of the past.
This is
the reason it is so dangerous. What
happens to the collection plate if folks started discounting what you are
preaching? The Unmanifest is the place
where we ring out the old and bring forth the new. The possibilities within this Unmanifest
Order are infinite! They are the
potentials of Imagination…of people, other creatures, planets and stars.
Eckhart’s
work teaches us to go beyond conditioning, into what the Buddhists call the
Unconditioned and what the late physicist David Bohm referred to as the
Unmanifest Implicate Order (Talbot, 1991).
This mindset is beyond the waves and currents of the manifest brain; it
is in the deep stillness and depths of universal Mind.
Bohm
was a contemporary of Einstein and worked with him. He contributed unorthodox ideas to quantum
theory, philosophy of mind, language, and neuropsychology. (Wikipedia.com). He
is widely considered to be one of the most significant theoretical physicists
of the 20th century.
According
to Bohm:
It is proposed that the widespread and pervasive distinctions
between people (race, nation, family, profession, etc., etc.) which are now
preventing mankind from working
together for the common good, and
indeed, even for survival, have one
of the key factors of their origin in a kind of thought that treats things as inherently
divided, disconnected, and "broken up" into yet smaller constituent parts.
Each part is considered to be essentially independent and self-existent.
The notion that all these fragments are separately existent is
evidently an illusion, and this illusion cannot do other than lead to endless
conflict and confusion. Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion
that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing
series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today. Thus, as is now well known, this way of
life has brought about pollution, destruction of the balance of nature, over-population,
world-wide economic and political disorder and the creation of an overall
environment that is neither physically nor mentally healthy for most of the people
who live in it. Individually there has developed a widespread feeling of
helplessness and despair, in the face of what seems to be an overwhelming mass of
disparate social forces, going beyond the control and even the comprehension of
the human beings who are caught up in it. (David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate
Order, 1980)
Bohm and Meister
Eckhart are one! No division there.
Bohm’s message to
the world and his work in physics, which touched upon all aspects of our arts
and sciences, is that we don’t need to live in a fragmented world. In other words, we don’t need the warring
factions of republican and democrat, liberal and conservative, catholic and
protestant or Christian and Everybody Else. Opposites, as I see them, are
simply mirrors to each other, poles of one continuum.
Take gender, for
example. Women and men are mirror images
of one another in their opposition.
Women enfold their ovaries and uterus upwards and inwards (as a metaphor
for unmanifest potential) while men unfold downward and outwards (as a metaphor
for the external spark to bring forth unmanifest potential into manifestation). The so-called “battle” of the sexes is a
myth. In their apposition to one another, the universe and babies are conceived. Perhaps my words will spark an insight in
you? We are all interwoven in the web of
life and love.
Same idea. Otherwise, why do some blatantly say; “this
idea is MY baby.” (Of course, no baby
belongs only to one ego. Even the Virgin Mary required the Holy Spirit; and,
conversely, the Holy Spirit required the Virgin Mary.) Why else would we say we conceived an idea
and then call that idea a concept? Man
or woman, the process of conception from inside one’s self is a feminine
process and the act of sparking that conception is masculine. Perhaps the virgin birth is something that
comes out of the blue? Thus many Christian mystics refer to being virgin as
being empty.
Would Bohm see it
in the same way? I’m not sure. I would love to have the discussion, though I
think it would take a while for me to get to the core of what this ingenious
man might say. Perhaps one of his
protégés, F. David Peat, could answer how he thinks Bohm would respond.
Peat is a
brilliant science writer who has several books under his belt. These include: Synchronicity:
The Unity of Mind and Matter; The
Blackwinged Night: Creativity in Nature and Mind; Science, Order and Creativity
(with David Bohm); and Infinite
Potential: The Life and Time of David Bohm; Glimpsing Reality: Ideas in Physics and the Link to Biology. (For a complete bibliography of Peat’s
prolific and prophetic writings, go to http://www.fdavidpeat.com/bibliography/books/books.htm
Peat says of Bohm:
Today's generation of physicists,
impressed by the stunning successes of quantum physics--from nuclear weapons to
lasers-are of a different mind. They are busy applying quantum mechanics to
areas its original creators never imagined. Stephen Hawking, for example, used
it to describe the creation of elementary particles from black holes and to
argue that the universe exploded into being in a quantum-mechanical event.
Bucking this tide of modern physics for
more than 30 years, Bohm has been more than a gadfly. His objections to the
foundations of quantum mechanics have gradually coalesced into an extension of
the theory so sweeping that it amounts to a new view of reality. Believing that
the nature of things is not reducible to fragments or particles, he argues for
a holistic view of the universe. He demands that we learn to regard matter and
life as a whole, coherent domain, which he calls the implicate order.
Most
other physicists discard Bohm's logic without bothering to scrutinize it. Part
of the difficulty is that his implicate order is rife with paradox. Another
problem is the sheer range of his ideas, which encompass such hitherto nonphysical
subjects as consciousness, society, truth, language, and the process of
scientific theory making itself.
Perhaps Bohm’s getting past conditioning
means he is a modern day Maria? His
words are rife with paradox. I think of this in terms of the writings of
mythologist Joseph Campbell, whose most famous book is Hero of a Thousand Faces. Campbell
was very much like Peat in being interested in the work of psychiatrist Carl
Jung (e.g., Peat’s Synchronicity: The
Unity of Mind and Matter). Campbell
also spoke a lot to the coincidence of opposites in the myths, which fits into
the way Bohm was seeing physics.
Ultimately, the paradox is that unity is
inherent in diversity and diversity is inherent in unity. We live in a paradoxical universe in which
the implicate and explicate orders require the apposition of their opposites
with a constant flux between the two-in-one.
The wave and the particle coexist.
Thus, the United States motto is “E Pluribus Unim,” in the many one,
which is in contrast to the current nation’s undeclared, “United Corporations
War Against Planet” whose mode of operandi is to “Divide and Conquer.” A simple example would be the United States
cable news channels that act as opposites such as Fox and CNN. But are they truly opposites or are they like
the right and left arms of the same monster?
But this is merely my way of viewing
opposites. How would David Bohm answer
me? I’d love to hear the answer.
But, Bohm is deceased. In addition to Bohm’s writings, his memory
lives on in the writings and work of F. David Peat. Thus, Peat is teaming up with movie producer
Paul Howard of Imagine Films to
produce a documentary regarding the work of Bohm.
This movie adventure on the part of Peat
and Howard provided me the opportunity to ask questions I would have probably
asked Bohm. But, I had to take care of
family needs. So, I could not talk to
Peat and Howard directly. But, I did get answers from questions I wrote. Merry
simply served as my voice.
The ultimate message Bohm would impart to whoever
reads this article is that the potentials within us all, including you, are
endless. Perhaps you can read this
message in a book written by Peat about Bohm?
My suggestion is not to look at the title,
Infinite Potential as just speaking
of Bohm, Peat, Howard or any other specific person. I suggest the title refers to everything and
everyone. This means you, the reader. In my understanding, infinity exists
side-by-side with nothing. This is its limitation. Without the finite, the infinite has no sense
of Her-His Self. This is why there is
the dark circle within the white half of the Tao symbol and a white circle
(yang or male) within the dark (yin or female) half. To be whole, the Unmanifest (Yin) needs to
manifest (Yang, the spark or Eros of creation).
Thus the Unlimited is inherent in the Limited and the Limited is
inherent in the Unlimited. Their ongoing dance together is the dance of Life
itself.
Duality, the beginning division of
Genesis—be it of the Cosmos or the human egg—is the beginning of self-awareness. If nothing exists within you except you
within your self, how would you know anything?
Thus, it is in the manifestation of potentials (i.e., the finite) of
evolution that the Unlimited ultimately sees itself.
The real question is: “What potentials
exist in you?” Beyond that, “Which of
these potentials do you choose to manifest?”
Sit with those questions for a while. Perhaps the unfolding of potential in you is
the true dream of David Bohm as well as Peat and Howard? Or, perhaps the true author is Nature, Yahweh
(I AM) or Brahman (the Self)? Is there
truly a distinction between I and Thou?
To listen to the interview with Peat and
Howard talking about Bohm’s infinite potential, go to:
To learn more about David Bohm
and Peat and Howard’s documentary on him, visit: http://thebohmdocumentary.org
References
Talbot, Michael, The Holographic Universe: The
Revolutionary Theory of Reality, HarperCollins Publishers Inc, New York, NY
1991
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