GODISNOWHERE

It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of the science fiction author Philip K. Dick. In one of his best novels, [VALIS], the main character observes that Jesus most likely spoke Aramaic, although the Gospels were written in Koine [Common] Greek. In the Koine Greek language, there are no spaces left between the words, so a phrase like “GODISNOWHERE” can be read either as “God Is No Where” or as “God Is Now Here”, depending on your perspective, and on your preconceived notions of God.

With this in mind, it’s fascinating that recent discoveries in Quantum Physics have started to challenge our notions about what is real and how consciousness affects reality. For example, the now-infamous “double-slit experiment” which essentially launched the whole quantum physics discussion, demonstrated the curious effect that observation has on the way photons behave. When someone is watching, the photons behave like a wave, but if no one is watching they behave as particles. How can this be? Are the photons sentient and aware they are being watched? How does the mere act of observation change the behavior of these supposedly non-living things? Later, scientists discovered similar behaviors in electrons and other subatomic elements.

So, somehow, whenever a conscious person observes another object, something changes. In other words, there is an ineffable connection between consciousness and matter.

What’s even more astounding is the notion that, somehow, “there is no object in space-time without a conscious subject looking at it.” How can this be? Well, on one level, our own brains are quantum systems. We observe ourselves, and our own thoughts, and our world around us. This act of observation, even within our own consciousness, creates our reality and impacts it constantly. We are not separate from our consciousness, and we are not separate from our observation of reality through our consciousness. Simply put, “nothing is outside consciousness.”

As Amit Goswami says in his book, The Self-Aware Universe, “There is another paradoxical way to think of the nonlocal reality – as being both everywhere and nowhere, everywhen and nowhen. This is still paradoxical, but it is suggestive, isn’t it?….Nonlocality and transcendence is nowhere and now here.”

And, as we continue to question the strange behavior of electrons and photons in relation to observation, we must conclude that “…the electron and other submicroscopic particles…are, according to the new physics, merely extensions of ourselves.”

This realization has led scientists to conclude that there is no real division between objects, even if we perceive reality this way at times. The truth is, there is no “us and them” or “this and that”, there is only “us” and there is only “this” which is one interconnected reality that cannot be explained, nor denied.

Another way of expressing this phenomenon might be to use the analogy of a large bonfire which endlessly lights every candle that is placed near it. One could light an infinite number of candles from a single fire. Does this mean there are an infinite number of fires? Or is the reality that all flames are the same flame?

Essentially, there is one consciousness and we Christians refer to this as God or Christ. Christ is all and is in all, as the Apostle Paul tells us. Christ abides in us as we abide in Christ, as Jesus affirms. We are all One in Christ Jesus our Lord, as Paul again confirms. And dozens of other verses like these in the New Testament echo this same idea: We are all in God and God is in all of us.

For example:

“God is the One in whom we live and move and have our being.”

“We are filled with the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.”

“The fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ and we are filled with the fullness of Him.”

This means that the mystics were right about our connections to God, the Universe, one another, and every other living [and nonliving] thing in the universe: We are all One in ways that we cannot fully comprehend.

So, whatever I do to you, I do to myself, and to God. Or, as Jesus phrased it: “Whatever you have done to the least of these, you have done it unto me.”

This gives new insight into the prayer of Jesus in the Gospel of John where he asks the Father to make us One even as He and the Father are one. [John 17:21-23]

Think about that for a moment. Just how connected would we have to be to experience the same sort of “Oneness” that Jesus had with the Father? This is more than merely getting along or hanging out together. Much more. Jesus expresses a desire for humanity to experience the exact same transcendent “Oneness” with one another that Jesus and the Father experience: A unity that goes beyond relationship and moves closer to essence and being where we cannot discern where one ends and the other begins.

Perhaps, on some level, this is why we are urged to pray for one another? Maybe, in some weird way, whenever I focus on your pain and make it my own, something really does change in the fabric of space/time? By observing you and focusing on your situation, I have the power to change the outcome of your struggle in some small way?

On another level, I cannot help but draw analogies to the Trinity [again] when it comes to the way that we are called to Love God and Love one another. Jesus connects these two things by saying that they are like one another. But how? Perhaps it works like this: God is Love and when we receive love from God we then share this love with others and as they receive this love and return it back to us, we complete the circle whenever we receive love from them. Think of it like a triangle, with God at the top, ourselves at the bottom left and the other person or persons at the bottom right of the triangle. Whenever love flows freely from God, to us, and from us to others, and then from others back to us and then back to God – in all directions at the same time without interruption – this is when we begin to fully realize – and more importantly to experience – this beautiful connection that exists at all times between us and God and everyone else!

Does any of this make sense? Hopefully, so. The more I meditate on these things, the more convinced I am that we are all sharing the same life, and spirit, and consciousness and that this experience of Christ in us is all that really matters.

So, I suppose the truth is that GODISNOWHERE.

What do you think?

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