INTRODUCTION

From de book: Quantum Mysticism. THE SPIRITUALITY OF QUANTUM PHYSICS. Second Edition 2021.

Author: Luis Eduardo Sierra S.

President of Universal Alliance

Introduction

What does quantum physics study? – What is meant by quantum mysticism? – "The Nobel Disease" – WITH-SCIENCE: Science and Consciousness – From the scientific method – A fundamental energy field – Physics and metaphysics – Scientific mysticism and its laboratory – Parallel between the millenary teachings of the East, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, with quantum physics – Vedas and Hinduism – Sutras and Buddhism – Confucianism and Taoism – Towards a scientific spirituality – Growing interest in these topics – Who is this book written for – Quantum physics for laymen in the field – Dimensioning the field of Consciousness without going to the Himalayas – As above, so below – Quantum theory, its mysteries and absurdities – Objectives of this work.

Theory, quantum mechanics or physics, in very elementary terms, is the study of things that happen on a very small scale, atomic and subatomic, of the forces that underlie the physical world that we perceive sensorially. He therefore investigates the behavior of the component particles and sub particles of the atom at nanoscopic scales. A nanometer is equivalent to one billionth of a meter: 1 nm = 10 ^-9m.

Quantum mysticism is judged by the scientific academy as pseudo-science, relating it to "beliefs" according to which the laws of quantum physics supposedly have similarities or parallels with certain ancient religious teachings or traditions. The fiercest critics do not spare disqualifications or excommunications towards their defenders, calling them retrogrades of science, anti-scientists, swindlers, parascientists, hallucinators, all framed generically and contemptuously under the label of "New Age Science”.

What is remarkable is that this mystical-quantum current was promoted by the very fathers of quantum physics, eminent physicists who were joined by many other famous researchers, pure-bred scientists from different disciplines, prestigious professors, outstanding free thinkers of yesterday and today, all of them admired and recognized worldwide, some of them multiple awardees, among others with the Nobel Prize in physics, or in biology, medicine, physiology, chemistry, literature, peace. It would be wasteful to mention them all, suffice it to emphasize that their participation has been of such magnitude and dynamic, during almost a century of quantum theory, that the defenders of the orthodox scientific method coined the phrase "The Nobel disease", in the face of this pandemic that causes them so much unease.

In my previous book "CON-CIENCIA: Ciencia y Conciencia" (2019), published by Caligrama, an imprint of Penguin Random House, I elaborate a broad and in-depth study of the prevailing "Scientific Method", confronting its limitations when trying to be applied in certain scales or fields of universal reality and in everything related to the mind and consciousness. I also show in this work, clearly, without extenuating circumstances, the erroneous and retrograde positions regarding mind and brain assumed by neurosciences and other related sciences in the Western world, which is why we will not venture into these matters. This work can be considered as complementary to the one you have in your hands.

Quantum physics is assumed to be a science because its physical-mathematical theories are subject to experimentation and scientific verification. But it turns out that, even with all the cutting-edge technology provided by modern science and technology, aided by artificial intelligence and the achievements of the fourth industrial revolution, physicists would find a big problem out of nowhere when in their exploratory path of the subatomic world and in the search for the fundamental bricks with which all things in the universe are built,  from the tiniest to galaxy clusters, when bordering on the limits of their science, and without this having been precisely the initial purpose, they come up against an unprecedented "energy field", which rather than offering them answers generated monumental questions and setbacks, which escaped the conceptual, demonstrative and maneuverable descriptions to which we were accustomed in the macroscopic world governed by the laws of classical or Newtonian physics,  reigning until then for two hundred years. This new camp would distort these laws in its wake and disrupt the entire establishment.

In this subtle microphysical context, the "physicists", who by definition study "physical things", were suddenly immersed in a metaphysical world (beyond physics), resulting in a generation of physicist-philosophers, a toxic, diarrheal and repulsive mixture for official science. Metaphysics is described as non-empirical (non-experimental), which is why the scientific community catalogs it as an absurd and bland chatter that cannot be demonstrated by the inescapable process of evidence, verification, and measurement. We will see later that in the case at hand, metaphysics has its own laboratory in which such processes can be carried out, not precisely between walls and crammed with crucibles, test tubes, retorts, chemical reagents, microscopes, measuring rulers and scalpels.

This fundamental energy field, described quantumly and mystically as "unity with the whole", which has been tried to be characterized in various ways and with different words, more appropriate if you like for poetry than for science itself, but which in essence refers to an identical reality of an essential character, we will devote most of this study to him. In these instances we will find statements almost impossible to differentiate whether they were formulated by physicists or by Eastern mystics. Both currents end up converging, communing in an experience that escapes and surpasses the reality perceived with the human senses, mystical par excellence, but strongly based on direct experience.

Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg pointed out: "... The most fruitful discoveries take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet. These lines may have their roots in very different sectors of human culture, in different eras, in different cultural environments, or in different religious traditions. Therefore, if such an encounter occurs, that is, if there is at least a relationship between these lines of thought that makes possible any true interaction, we can then be sure that new and interesting discoveries will emerge from it."

This work, which I thought I would initially call "From Quantum Physics to Consciousness", I decided to change the name to "Quantum MYSTICISM", despite how discredited the term mysticism sounds to so many people. The lack of credibility is due to the fact that in our Western society mysticism has been associated with vague, insubstantial, mere faith or votive matters, more to the extent of hallucinators than scientists. I value the word mysticism more as a compliment than as an insult or disqualification, under the condition that it is assumed in the good sense of the word, beyond superstitions, mere faith, religious beliefs and dogmas and whatever trickery fits the heated imaginations. Quantum mysticism, far from being considered a perversion of quantum physics promoted by pseudoscientists, should rather be assimilated as a pedagogical process that sinks its roots in the universal vital fluid, and of course in the depths of the human being in particular. Some associate it with modern transpersonal philosophy. However, the fact that the term quantum has become so popular that it has made room for charlatans and merchants of faith, who take refuge in it to disguise their utilitarian or superstitious pretensions, does not in any way detract from its scientific and quantum validity. One of the objectives of this book is precisely that as it progresses the reader can draw their own conclusions derived from their own reflections and clarities in all these matters.

Genuine mysticism implies scientific research and as much as science in general and quantum physics in particular, they are supported by coherent reasoning and experiences. Both have as their objective the knowledge of universal reality. Both are empirical and verifiable, but they start from different planes in the search for answers to their respective questions. The one does not become, in any way, the substitute for the other, but both arrive at a place that is common to them. It is hardly obvious that the questions that a mystic asks himself attend to very different matters from those that concern a scientist. It is evident that both start from opposite domains, the East from the interiorities of the human being, with a spiritualist vision, the West focusing on the world outside the human being, on physical, material things, with a utilitarian zeal. Wonderfully, East and West, yesterday apparently irreconcilable in their wisdom, today are reconciling them, giving birth to a kind of scientific spirituality. The fundamental unity of the Universe has become perhaps the most important revelation of modern physics, compatible with the mystical experience achieved by the great meditators. The vacuum of the mystics, which has nothing empty or nihilistic about it if it is duly assumed, can be perfectly compared to the quantum field of particle physics. The energy of this full vacuum constitutes the dominant energy of the universe, the same energy that quantum mechanics has reached. All these matters will be clarified as we enter into this exposition.

Science and mysticism differ, in addition to what has already been expressed, in relation to the quantification that the scientific method obliges, since in the mystical field it is not possible to carry it out. This impediment constitutes the main flag raised by official science to disqualify as pseudoscience everything that stinks of mysticism and the science of consciousness beyond the brain and its neurons and synapses. Let us look at a brief reasoning on this point.

In the same way that quantum physicists are not able to give dimensions to their findings in everything related to that energetic and etheric field in which they were submerged, or if you prefer collapsed, as we will see later, it is not possible to quantify the mystical experiences achieved, for example, through deep meditation and contemplation. We don't even need to go too deep; the matter is actually extremely simple. Suffice it to point out that it is not possible to weigh or measure a thought, an emotion, kindness, beauty, compassion, the glances that cross between the eyes of a baby with its mother, or of two lovers, or of a dog with its owner, the fragrance and exuberance of a flower... The fact that they cannot be measured in centimeters, grams or milliliters does not detract from their reality.  Just because a blind person can't see the stars doesn't mean the stars aren't still there. The fact that the light of the sun does not allow us to observe their flashes during the day does not deny their existence either. Do not the most rigorous scientists feel these experiences of the soul equally and do not feel equally incapable of describing them in words, some of them comparable to some extent with the experiences derived from meditative and devotional states, when we are overwhelmed by a state of peace, serenity and contentment? Let us now place ourselves in the opposite case, when we are agitated by deep anguish or sorrow? How to measure hatred, anxiety, worry, sadness... except for the stress and deterioration it causes us?

Einstein alluded to "a feeling of cosmic religion" that he related to the order and harmony of nature and added that science without religion was lame and that religion without science became blind. Another Nobel laureate in physics, Wolfgang Pauli, advocated a "solid mysticism", a kind of synthesis between rationality and religion, on the understanding that quantum theory could unify the scientific-psychological and philosophical-mystical approaches to consciousness. Pauli was an admirer of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, whom we know was influenced by Eastern premises.

The matter to reiterate and highlight, as already said, is that quantum physics has been discovering in its research process statements that are similar to those described by ancient Eastern mystics, who were part of civilizations remote in time, no less than twenty-six centuries old, thanks to their capacities of perception and penetration into the inner domains of consciousness and their profound disciplines and techniques of meditation. The sources are related to the Far East, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent with thought reflected in the Vedas, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.

Buddhism with the Sutras, which is worth clarifying, does not consist of a religion nor is it ritualistic since it properly constitutes an "attitude towards a dignified life", it obeys more psychological than dogmatic criteria. It was divided into two schools: the Hinayana with Sri Lanka (former Ceylon), Myanmar (former Burma) and Thailand; and Mahayana with Nepal, Tibet, China and Japan, the most predominant. It would then spread to other regions. Zen in Japan is mostly Buddhist. "Personal experience is ... the foundation of Buddhist philosophy. In this sense, Buddhism is the most radical empiricism or experimentalism, any dialectic subsequently developed will be so only to demonstrate the experience of enlightenment" D.T. Suzuki (1968).

In China we have two illustrious contemporaries: Kung Fu Tzu (Confucius - Confucianism) and his aphorisms based on the Six Classics ancient books, the spiritual cultural heritage of the sages of old, and Lao Tsé (Taoism) and his short text "The Tao T King". Both currents do not constitute religions or doctrines as is erroneously considered, but philosophies of common sense and practicality. Nothing or very little is said about the academy of Fo Hi (approximately 1200 B.C.), a character of high caliber in China.

There are other ancient texts, not mentioned in the most renowned publications of recent decades, such as the Book of Zian, the Tanjur, the Gotras, the Zivagama, among others that will be cited in the sections related to them, so as not to decontextualize them. All these topics related to ancestral wisdom will be dealt with in depth in chapters 15 to 17 of this work.

Many countries and religious bodies tell their traditions in terms of hundreds of thousands of years. We must understand, of course, that clues are scarce to prove or to trust on any given chronological figure, because time is usually destructive. There are deities and cultures corresponding to pre-Vedic times, dating back eight centuries to the Christian era, in prehistory, which offer symbologies with which parallels can be drawn with modern physics, but which are not mentioned by quantum scientists or ordinarily found in commercial literature.

Very telling and significant is the growing interest that these issues have been arousing since the middle of the last century in all strata of society, transcending borders, genres, dogmas and extreme positions. The concepts emitted by the so-called "perennial philosophy" are taking as a philosophical basis in current academic research. Psychology is resurfacing from the sarcophagus in which it had been buried by materialistic and utilitarian science. The veil of ignorance extended in the West regarding the history of Asia is increasingly lifted, making room for significant recognition and appreciation, with an enormous enriching impact on our lives and society.

This book is addressed to the ordinary citizen, to whom we meet everywhere. It is not designed for physicists who want to delve into the knowledge they already have regarding physics itself, which far exceeds the elementary approaches outlined here. The purpose that they know of one but not of the other, the bridge that unites them, from which the new science of consciousness is nourished, a common denominator that concerns each and every one of us, insofar as its axis revolves around life itself. To enter this enclosure implies entering ourselves, into the foundations of nature in general, drawing back the veil of ignorance that hides our very identity or seity or deity.

What I have learned about quantum physics is due to the enthusiasm that has motivated me for two decades. Perhaps this becomes a strength, that a non-quantum physicist by profession, from his understanding, brings up to citizens unfamiliar with quantum physics, some of its most relevant details, because of how elementary and understandable the exhibition becomes. Mathematics is a language reserved for a very small group of experts specialized in it, allowing them to describe scientific aspects that cannot be reached through the imagination. I do not belong to that privileged group, so there is no room for equations or mathematics in this work. The ancient Eastern teachings, as well as that of brilliant thinkers and philosophers of the last century and the present, in line with these postulates, dedicated to the studies and applications of the mind and consciousness, by profession and vocation have been very familiar to me for almost fifty years, which undoubtedly gives me a certain degree of specialist in the subject.

But it is not necessary to be an accomplished physicist-theoretical-quantum scientist or to become an anchorite and enter the Himalayas to assimilate the field of universal or cosmic consciousness, to which quantum physics has been climbing for a century now, aided by the millenary teachings of the East. On further analysis, it is not a question of East or West, nor of a conflict or marriage between science and religion or science and philosophy. We are going to make it clear in this book that the field of study, the laboratory and the laboratory technician reside in the intimacy of the human being, that the prerequisite is to learn to internalize ourselves, to dive into these deep cosmic waters from which life and things arise.

Hermes Trismegistus told us three centuries before our era: "as above, so below", nothing different from what was expressed several centuries ago when we are told that "the ocean is nothing more than a drop of water multiplied infinitesimally", or when we are given to understand that microcosm and macrocosm merge in an eternal and immeasurable embrace,  just as when a drop of water merges with the great ocean of life, losing its singularity, blurring until it erases its borders, assuming a full, universal consciousness.

It is worth emphasizing, as we are going to see, that when the field of quantum theory is approached, mysteries arise and accumulate, confusion reigns, absurdity grows, unreasonableness grows, things are turned upside down, a real gibberish for those who dare to enter its labyrinths, nooks and crannies. Most of those who look at it end up glimpsing it only sideways, if not with frank indifference, as if they did not want to add it to the catalogue of problems and confusions that daily life already offers in abundance. Some people shun it like a plague. Many of those who persist in their exploration end up abandoning it convinced that they are not capable of untangling such a tangle. The few, persist in their investigations, achieving a greater or lesser penetration into its entrails, within what is possible to such an enterprise, being extremely few who delve it to its limits. But for everyone, indistinctly, without exception, from the most exalted quantum physicists to the restless ordinary citizen who looks out over it, it generates uncertainties and unknowns, some of which have not yet been clarified. The greatest physicists, fathers of quantum mechanics, have expressed their perplexity at it. Einstein, faced with the undeniable experimental successes of quantum theory, would say: "The more successful quantum theory is, the more absurd it seems to me". At the quantum level, the basic laws of common sense are violated.

An important recommendation for the occasional reader: if in the course of reading you find paragraphs that are difficult for you to understand, skip them, do not stop until you understand them, continue with the reading, it may happen that in the tour of the work parts that you did not understand before are clarified. Point them out and return to them, if you wish, after reading the book is complete. There are technicalities within quantum physics that generate discomfort for those not trained in these matters.

In any case, the main objective of this book, in addition to the one already mentioned regarding the lights that occur in the fields of mysticism and quantum physics, more than a matter of understanding or of an intellectual nature, is to awaken a new attitude towards life, a renewed desire to live, in tune with the superior harmonies of this universal reality that we aspire to assimilate and fully experience,  and that constitutes, without most people being aware of it, in the objective of life, the reason and substance of existence. Self-knowledge, which is not a mere catchphrase from the Greeks, but promulgated long before them, constitutes our north. It is better, for the benefit of all, that we understand it and know for sure.