Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth" in 30 seconds

This video was inspired by a High School Freshman who challenged me to explain a book in a Tweet.  I negotiated it into a 30 second video.  This is the result.  He's the one filming ;)

4,000 year old Chinese philosophy just as relevant today

While living in France, I was impressed by the collective wisdom of their much older culture.  Growing up, I always assumed that America was the superior World nation.  We seemed to dominate economically and politically.  Also, our Religion professed to have the final say on Spiritual matters.  If we had God on our side, who could be better than us?  In France, despite strong Catholic traditions and heritage, less than 5% of the population are actively practicing or even going to Church.  When I learned that, I was deeply troubled.  I was struggling with my own doubts about God.  Why, I asked do they no longer go to Church?  Because for centuries they told us lies, made us pay money, tried to control us to gain power for themselves.  I looked around at the rest of their society.  They had state of the art medicine and education yet they somehow managed to offer affordable health care and free university to everyone.  Ten years ago, ideas like sustainability and eating organic, locally grown food were novel concepts in the US.  These things have never not been done in Europe.  The French, who entertain fabulously in their quaint apartments, opened my eyes to the fact that a humongous car and a gargantuan house won’t guarantee happiness.  In fact, I began to marvel at how Americans could be astronomically more wealthy than the Europeans, yet have a poorer quality of life.  Maybe we don’t know all the answers after all, I finally mused. 

The US is not even 250 years old, whereas French schoolchildren learn the history of their ancestors going back 10 times as far.  For this article, I researched ancient Chinese wisdom and philosophy dating back 4,500 years to the I Ching or Book of Changes.  Ancient Eastern meditation practices are gaining popularity in the West and I have also heard people swear by Chinese medical practices, such as acupuncture.  Nonetheless, I was amazed by my discoveries in the divinitory arts of Chinese astrology and feng shui, in particular, their relevance for modern day problems of all kinds.  The insights range from the origin of the cosmos to how to cope with the human condition and are eerily similar to the basic tenets of modern Science and Western Religious tradition alike.  To summarize Chinese cosmology as detailed in the Huainanzi (200 BC): first, all was chaos out of which evolved the two fundamental, yet inseparable elements of the Universe: space and time.  These two elements form the basis for the concept of Yin and Yang, respectively.  They continuously interact with one another to the point of being One, just like Space and Time in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.  Chinese Cosmology continues to fit with the modern scientific view, because both contend that the Universe evolved separately from the Divine, without any intervention from a Spirit Realm.  Both describe the Universe’s evolution as organic, its various parts forming as if by cellular division.  In each stage of the process the cosmos reproduces itself into ever finer microcosms.  Each microcosm in the universe is ether spatial (earthly/yin) or temporal (heavenly/yang), but in perfect symmetry each temporal microcosm is correlated with a spatial counterbalance.  For example yin and yang produce the four seasons (temporal): autumn and winter are yin; spring and summer are yang, they then counter balance with the 4 spatial directions, where west and north are considered yin, thereby correlating with autumn and winter.  On the other hand, east and south are yang and correlate with spring and summer.  The same process envisioned for the creation of  the cosmos is seen to apply on a smaller scale to the formation of the human body.  In fact both are animated by the same vital breath or qi (chi).  This is the life force and is thought of as being synonymous with both matter and energy, which amazingly, thousands of years later, Einstein’s equation E=MC2 proves is in fact the case. 

Just as interestingly, the Chinese share two very similar creation myths with the Bible, even though they arose entirely independently.  Yet the Chinese have contended from the beginning that while man can interact with the forces of nature and thus effect the fate of the Earth, God does not punish or reward, but rather is a Spirit to be consulted for guidance.  In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden for committing Original Sin.  Later, God sends a terrible flood to punish the sins of man in which all but Noah and his family perished.  According to Chinese mythology, two giants Gong Gong and Zhuan Xu battled for power at the beginning of time, causing the Earth to tilt on its axis and resulting in a cataclysmic flood.  The idea here is that man can disturb the natural order, yet the supreme entity in Chinese cosmology is the Universe itself.  Man’s actions potentially harm heaven and earth, but he is not expelled from paradise.  Rather, he makes paradise imperfect and then both man and cosmos are forever forced to live in the disorder that man created, a very environmentally conscious cosmology with especial relevance today.

In Chinese astrology, time is viewed as cyclical and divided into 12 increments, known as the twelve earthly branches.  Each branch is associated with an hour, a month, and a year of the Chinese Zodiac.  Traditionally the Chinese divided the day into twelve 2 hour segments.  Each of the twelve earthly branches also correspond to one of twelve directions on the compass, such as North (N), NNortheast (NNE), ENortheast (ENE), East (E), etc.  The direction corresponds to the month in which the new moon occurs in that segment of the night sky at midnight.  Each month, the handle of the Big Dipper will also point to the same direction at midnight of the new moon.  Furthering the idea of twelve timely divisions, Chinese astrologers noticed that the planet Jupiter (which completes one full rotation around the Sun in 12 years) moves into a different segment of the sky each year.  Thus the 12 years of the Chinese zodiac correspond to the one in which Jupiter resides for that particular year. 

For over 3,000 years, the Chinese have recorded the passage of time using the sexagenary (60) stem-branch cycle, where one of the 12 earthly branches (mentioned above for designating the hours, months, and years) is paired with one of the 10 heavenly stems.  The heavenly stems correspond to the 5 basic elements in Chinese alchemy: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water, also called the 5 processes. There are two stems for each element, one corresponds to its appearance in Nature and the other to its use in the world of Man.  For example, stems 1 (Jia) and 2 (Yi) are linked to trees and hewn timber respectively.  Also, the heavenly stems as well as the earthly branches are considered either odd or even according to their number in the sequence making them either yang (odd) or yin (even).  In the sexagenary cycle used to count hours, days, months, and years the sixty units come from all the possible pairings of odd with odd and even with even from the two groupings of the ten heavenly stems and the twelve earthly branches.  The goal of crafting this complex numerical system based on astronomical observations was to decipher the archetypal patterns believed to be written in the stars.  In fact, the astrological system served as a divine model for China’s written language.  Ancient philosophers used the heavenly patterns to derive the first 22 characters, one for each of the 12 earthly branches and the 10 heavenly stems. 

Chinese astrology offers insights into lucky and unlucky times for different activities.  The art of Feng shui helps people identify both lucky and unlucky spatial positions and orientations relative to the 12 points on the traditional Chinese compass.  According to Chinese cosmology, time was born first in the space time pairing, it is superior to space and thus astrology and the measurement of time factors importantly into the practice of feng shui (spatial positioning).  Along with yin yang and the five Processes, the concept of progressive stages of the life cycle also factors importantly into Chinese astrology and feng shui.  In ancient times people were very lucky to live for 60 years, which the philosophers designated as a sexagenary life cycle, divided into 5 stages, where each lasts 12 years and corresponds to one of the 5 processes.  They are as follows: 1 = Wood, a time of physical and intellectual growth; 2 = Fire, a time of greatest strength and passion; 3 = Earth, a time to settle down and establish one’s place in between family generations (parents and children);  4 = Metal, marked by striving for socioeconomic power and dominance; 5 = Water, marked by physical decline tempered by attainment of wisdom and serenity.  The complex yet symmetrical relationships between the elements of Chinese philosophy, finding meaning in the mathematical correlations between Nature and man’s existence is for me, another example of a divinely inspired intuition into the meaning of life.

As a 21^st century American, I see through a significantly different cultural lens than an ancient Eastern philosopher.  I was raised to think of a message from God as a burning bush accompanied by exact commandments, literally written in stone.  The ancient Chinese thought in more subtle, naturally occurring terms.  It was up to man to formulate a code for living after careful observation.  Therefore, the two heavenly inscribed patterns, known as the Yellow river diagram and the Luo river diagram are nowhere near as easy to interpret as the Ten commandments.  The legend of the yellow river diagram is set 4,500 years ago.  It purports that a “dragon” horse arose out of the Yellow River and emperor Fu Xi was inspired by the pattern on its back to devise the eight trigrams.  These three lined patterns consist of a combination of solid (yang) and broken (yin) lines, where the bottom line represents Earth, the middle line represents Humanity and the top line designates Heaven.  The eight possible combinations are pictured above.

 The eight trigrams provide the basis for the divinatory capabilities of the I Ching or Book of Changes, China’s ultimate philosophical text and primary source of inspiration for Lao Tsu and Confucius.  Similarly, the Luo river diagram appeared on the back of a turtle who emerged from the Luo river, 4,000 years ago.  This diagram inspired the Lo Shu magic square, very important to the practice of Feng Shui.  The fact that every line, whether horizontal, vertical, or diagonal adds up to 15 is of especial numerical significance in the Chinese calendar, because it takes 15 days for the new moon to become a full moon. Interestingly, the magic square is remarkably similar to the Hebrew symbol the Sigil of Saturn which is also used for the determination of auspicious timing and locations in Kabbalistic rituals.  In Chinese Feng Shui, the magic square is used in conjunction with the trigrams in two different octagonal arrangements known as Pa Kua.  The former Heaven Pa Kua arrangement represents the ideal universe and is used in connection with the spirit realm.  For example, it is consulted in order to select burial sites or to ward off bad luck (evil spirits).  In it, the trigrams are situated across from their exact opposite, where three solid lines (Heaven / Yang) are placed across from three broken lines (Earth / yin).  The second Pa Kua is known as the Latter Heaven arrangement and represents the realm of man.  Here each trigram is designated as a family member, the three solid (yang) lines are Father and the three broken (yin) lines are mother.  This Pa Kua is more important for the earth’s chi and is used to arrange the interior of one’s living space. 

Former (top) and Latter (bottom) Heaven Arrangements

The I Ching (Book of Changes) is the oldest and most important book of ancient Chinese philosophy.  As mentioned earlier, it laid the foundation for the ideas and teachings of both Confucius and Lao Tsu (Daoism).  To consult The Book of Changes, you roll three coins.  Heads is assigned a value of 3 and tails is 2.  With each roll, you add the three resulting numbers and if the sum is odd you draw a solid line (yang), if it’s even you draw a broken line (yin).  You record six lines starting at the bottom and working your way upwards.  When you have six lines or two trigrams stacked one on top of the other to make a hexagram, you consult a table where each of the 64 possible combinations of the 8 trigrams is assigned a number 1-64.  The book of changes is composed of 64 verses, one for each of the 64 possible hexagrams.  Each verse offers insights on how to proceed through various life circumstances.  Acceptance is the most fundamental principle in the I Ching.  The reader is always urged to align himself with the positive forces in nature, to strive for better communion with the Sage (Higher Power, Spirit of the Universe).  Some people may think of a particular question or situation before they roll.  Others may seek an overall reading.  You can consult it as often or as infrequently as you choose.  Some use it as a way to start each day, while others may consult it only when a problem arises. 

The message of acceptance and humility, paired with reliance on a higher power is at the heart of all religions, as well as 12 step programs.  The main difference is that the ancient Chinese wisdom predates its western counterparts by more than 2000 years.  The use of math as a way to seek understanding of the universe is also a revolutionary concept, especially for its time.  Some modern scientists draw parallels between physics and the teachings of eastern mysticism.  After studying it myself, I am reminded that my human consciousness is not able to know all of life's mysteries, which in turn, keeps me humble.  

The Happy Road of Destiny is a Broad Highway

“[If] we believe that this Universe needs no God to  explain it; …it would follow that life originated out of nothing, means nothing, and proceeds nowhere.” – The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 49

Thankfully, I always considered this idea more preposterous than the idea of God.  I spent my childhood in a very science oriented household and later studied French literature, which spawned existentialism.  As a result, I became quite skeptical of Religion.  No matter how much I grew to doubt the existence of God, however, the argument articulately stated above, managed to feed a faint flicker of hope.  Then, I experienced my literal Hell. I define it as the complete and total absence of God.  Strangely, when I felt a complete lack of his presence it proved that he was there, he had been there. 

Many people misunderstand the scary world of addiction.  No one can know what it's like unless they too, have been in its terrifying grips.  This truth does not apply solely to addicts, though.  The same can be said for any person, or group of people.  We never really know what another thinks or feels, until we have been in his place.  In the past year, I have seen two animated films parody support groups, like AA.  In a Toy Story short film, Buzz tries to escape from a fast food restaurant where he was accidently locked at closing time.  He falls from an air vent, landing in a support group for rejected kids’ meal toys.   SImilarly, in Wreck it Ralph, the protagonist is unhappy to be “the bad guy” in the video game where he lives.  He is in a support group with other digitized villains.  These scenes are funny and probably harmless.  Nonetheless, they oversimplify people in support groups as freaks and losers.   Stereotypes like this are all over the place. 

It is human nature to condemn others before thorough investigation.  In fact, I took this quote from the same page cited above, “we used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs when we might have observed that many spiritually minded persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability, happiness, and usefulness which we should have sought ourselves.” I, myself, am guilty of the two aforementioned misjudgements.  I sanctimonously scoffed at Religion and AA, when I could have benefitted from both.  In this article, I hope to clear up some common misconceptions about AA.  First, it is a very spiritual program, but it is not a religion, or worse, a cult.  You are not obligated to adhere to rigid beliefs.  Quite to the contrary, AA encourages each person to embrace whatever image of God makes sense to him or her individually.  “To AA the realm of the Spirit is broad and roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive to those who earnestly seek.” (p. 46)  The only thing needed to embark on a new and infinitely happier way of life is a willingness to believe in a power greater than oneslf.  So what exactly is AA and how does it work?  For those who are curious, I will summarize Chapters 2-7 of the Big Book, affectionately termed the AA Bible. 

AA is a “12 Step Program.”  Often trivialized on T.V. or in movies, this term has its own unfortunate associations.  Misunderstanding the recovery process stems in great part from the stigma of addiction.   I believe that familiarization with the true purpose and function of these 12 steps in peoples’ lives will quickly erase misconceptions.  For context, Chapter 1 is the primary founding member, Bill Wilson’s personal story.  Chapters 8-10 are addressed to wives, families, and employers. Chapter 11 is the story of how AA, the program, was born.  The rest of the Big Book is composed of personal accounts from various alcoholics and serve as a testament to the power of the 12 steps outlined in Chapters 2-7.  These stories always recount the alcoholic’s life in 3 stages: 1) before AA, 2) how the person found the program and why they stayed, and 3) life afterwards. 

Chapter 2 : There is a Solution

This Chapter defines the type of drinker who qualifies as an Alcoholic.  An Alcoholic may begin a drinking career in many different ways.  Some progress to the point of needing AA quickly and others more slowly.  A person needs AA when (s)he has “lost all control of liquor consumption – once they start drinking.”  Another characteristic is that the person has two vastly different personalities.  When sober the person is just like anybody else, but when drinking it’s as if a totally different person emerges in his place.  The true alcoholic continues to drink despite overwhelming reasons to stop such as DUIs, trouble at work, broken marriages, and unhappy families.  “Eventually every alcoholic arrives at a point where even the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of no avail.”  People who are not Alcoholics can not comprehend this.  Why would a person continue to drink in the face of many compelling reasons to stop?  This is why only another alcoholic can truly be of help.  A former drunk can show an alcoholic that they have been in the same spot, which lends credibility and makes the sufferer willing to listen.    Before that is even possible, however, the alcolholic “must come to a point where the painfulness of drinking is enough for a person to consider something totally different.”  

Chapter 3 : More About Alcoholism   

Chapter 3 addresses the first of the 12 steps: Admit to being an alcoholic.  Shame, fear, and personal prejudice prevent many in need from making this first move.  This chapter describes why this is so hard for an alcoholic.   First of all, the admission means that (s)he can never drink normally again.  The idea of living without alcohol is unbearable, because it has become a vital coping mechanism.  The drinking is actually a symptom of a thinking disorder.  Once a person becomes an alcoholic (s)he forever loses the  ability to drink reasonably.  A “curious mental phenomenon” takes place in the mind of an alcoholic, whereby the most trivial excuse to drink will eventually win out over all best intentions, self-knowledge, or otherwise “sound reasoning.”  This chapter tells the story of two men who refuse to take Step 1, although they recognize drinking is a problem.  They eventually land right back in the same horrible messes that initially drove them to AA.  An analogy for a person in need of AA, but unable to make Step 1 is a Hitchiker who keeps running into traffic despite broken bones, head injury, and paralysis.  Chapter 3 insists that the alcoholic has no power to resist alcohol.  It may be temporarily avoided, but ultimately alcohol will seduce a drunk to utter misery, insanity, jail, or death.

Chapter 4 : We Agnostics

The quotes at the beginning of this article are from Chapter 4.  It covers the Spiritual terms of the Program and Steps 2 and 3.  “Deep down in every man is the fundamental idea of God.  Faith and the a power greater than ourselves and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives are facts as old as man himself.”  Although belief in God is natural, modern life disillusions many, making them antagonistic.  Chapter 4 remarks that material progress was “hindered by stubborn adherence to superstitions,” in ancient times.  Galileo was almost executed on grounds of heresy for concluding the earth revolved around the sun.  Today the tables have turned.  Some feel we have enough scientific understanding to disprove the existence of God.  To complicate matters, certain religious groups are associated with beliefs which some do not regard as “Godlike.”  The Chapter “We Agnostics” urges people who have trouble with the idea of God to abandon all troublesome images of God and just ask, “Am I willing to believe that there is a Power greater than myself.”  This is Step 2.  Oftentimes it takes the choice between alcoholic destruction and spiritual open-mindedness for the latter to be seriously considered.  In Step 3, the alcoholic honestly asks whatever conception (s)he now has of a higher power for help with the drinking problem.   The chapter concludes hopefully with, “He has come to all who have honestly sought Him.  When we drew near to Him, He disclosed Himself to us.”                                                                                                                   

Chapter 5 : How it Works

In this chapter the 12 steps are listed, which you can see here: http://www.aa.org/en_pdfs/smf-121_en.pdf. The first few paragraphs leading up to and including the list are read at the beginning of most AA meetings.  How it Works is primarily a discussion of Step 4, however.  In Steps 1-3 the alcoholic has already 1) Honestly admitted to being an alcoholic 2) become Open to belief in a higher power higher 3) Willingly asked that power for help. 

Step 4 now focuses on the main character defect of all alcoholics, which drinking greatly aggravates: self-centeredness.  As they drink more, alcoholics grow increasingly isolated.  This does not mean the Alcoholic is mean or intentionally selfish, but they have a warped view of life.  In fact, alcoholics are usually hardest on themselves.  However, the one-sidedness of their perspective leads them to honestly believe that others are ‘picking on’ them.  In reality, they can’t see how they’ve unwittingly provoked others.  Feeling misunderstood and bullied, the alcoholic becomes very resentful.  Step 4 is likened to a good “housecleaning” because in it, the alcoholic makes a list of all people they resent.  This list has 4 columns, one for the person’s name, another for a quick explanation of the problem with that person, A third for the aspect of the alcoholic’s life affected (i.e. finances, romantic relationships, etc.), and a last for the part the alcoholic may have played in the misunderstanding (this usually involves help from one’s sponsor and will be discussed in Step 5).  Though it takes time to accomplish, the alcoholic begins to look outside of him or herself, rather than to live in a head haunted by resentments.

Chapter 6 : Into Action

This Chapter outlines Stpes 5-11 and is so full of important information that I attached a link to it here: http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf  First of all, Step 5 involves choosing someone with whom to share the list made in Step 4.  It must be a thorough list, including every ugly little secret that might later drive the alcoholic to drink again.  Steps 4 and 5 are the most difficult for many, but also the most liberating.  Up until now, the alcoholic has been living a double life.  (S)he wants to believe that (s)he’s the good person (s)he strives to be when sober.  Secretly, (s)he is tortured by shame and guilt for the things (s)he’s done while in an alcoholic fog, whether drunk or not.  Step 5 allows the alcoholic to admit his or her dark secrets to another person, usually a sponsor (a mentor in the program), who helps point out where (s)he had a part in past hurts.  Alcoholics, though often terrified of this step, feel enormous relief afterwards.  Their sponsors do not judge or chastise them, instead they confess to the same or worse.  With the sponsor’s help, a list of character flaws is made during the 5^th step discussion.  Fear is usually at the top of the list, fear of getting hurt, fear of loss, or fear of not getting what one wants.  Step 6 ideally happens immediately after Step 5.  The alcoholic takes a quiet moment alone and meditates on his flaws and the willingness to ask for God’s help in removing them.  The process of Steps 5 and 6 may take a long time, possibly days or weeks, because they involve a complete shift in thinking.  The alcoholic must own personal wrongdoing previously assigned to others and then accept rather drastic behavior changes. 

Now halfway through the Steps, the two hardest of the three essential components of AA have been tackled.  The third component is covered in the 12^th step, next Chapter Working With Others.  Now, the alcoholic has learned to rely on God and accept personal responsibility.  As a result, steps 7-11 usually flow more easily.  When ready for Step 7, the alcoholic officially asks God to help change his outlook and behaviors, so that (s)he can be more helpful to others.  A great 7^th step prayer is suggested on p. 76.  In Step 8, the 4^th Step list comes back out and the Alcoholic makes another list of all people who (s)he’s hurt because of drinking.  Some people may be added to the 8^th step list who were not on the 4^th step list.  It is important to consult with a Sponsor before deciding who will be involved in Step 9, where the apologies are made.  Situations involving bruised egos, jilted lovers, or criminal activity will require guidance from an objective point of view.  Sometimes letters or anonymous payments may be deemed more appropriate than a face to face confrontation.  Above all in Step 9, the alcoholic must focus solely on his or her bad behavior and approach each “ammendment” with true humility.  On page 83, the 12 AA promises are listed.  If the Alcoholic has come this far, they will likely see that the promises for a happier life have come true or that they are at least possible.  This initial “amends making” clears the way for Step 10 in which a person regularly self-assesses, then identifies and apologizes for bad behavior.  Finally, Step 11 encourages a continual life of prayer and meditation.  Steps 10, 11, and 12 become a habitual part of the devoted AA mermber’s everyday life.

Chapter 7 : Working With Others

This Chapter is entirely dedicated to Step 12.  Once the alcoholic learns to live by the principles of the Program, (s)he must work to help others who are still suffering.  Chapter 12 advises how best to go about this.  The key is to share one’s own experiences in order to show that we understand.  Also, the spiritual aspect must not be pushed, nor entirely avoided.  One must always keep in mind that if the other “is to find God, the desire must come from within.”  12^th Step work can take many forms, including showing up at meetings.  Sponsoring another alcoholic is 12^th step work and 7 Chapter remarks that the sponsor may benefit more from this relationship than the sponsee.  The alcoholic can never be “cured” and the program is like medicine.  The fellowship is an integral part of AA, because left alone, the alcoholic will fall prey to that “curious mental phenomenon” and act on an insanely trivial excuse to drink.  Listening to each other, alcoholics are reminded of their tendency towards self-centeredness.  Also, bearing witness to the miracles in one another’s lives of recovery strengthens reliance on God.

I think AA is beautiful in its life-saving simplicity.  No one with a basic knowledge of Alcoholics Anonymous could dismiss it as a cult or mere club for freaks and losers.  Once again, I see a common thread weave through this Spiritual way of life and all others that I've studied.  Though not a Religion, AA’s core values are the same as one. The basic elements of all forms of Spirituality are a personal connection to the Spiritual Realm, where one seeks the strength to live honestly and humbly.  Once thus fortified, one seeks to share this connection with others by loving and caring for them.  This in turn, strengthens the spiritual connection.  Some members of AA remark that it's a shame non-Alcoholics don’t have “a program” too and I agree.                   

Space-Time-Spirit Continuum

I have been curious about connections between mental illness and spirituality for many years.  While researching the field of psychological study’s stance on Spirituality, Carl Jung’s name appeared often in my search results.  So I decided to start with Dr. Jung, remembering his name well (along with Sigmund Freud’s, of course) from my survey psych courses in College.  I found a book written by Dr. Murray Stein entitled, “Jung’s Map of the Soul” which summarizes and explains Dr. Jung’s theories.  As it turns out, Jung not only addresses spirituality, but it is the cornerstone of his ultimate theory of psychology.  In addition, Dr. Jung’s numerous works all point to the very conclusion I am investigating in this blog, namely that the physical and spiritual worlds are inextricably woven together and that all the World’s religions arise from the whisperings that well up inside of us from our inborn connection to the psychic world.

Jung conceives of the psyche as the middle point on a continuum with four axes, where all endpoints merge with one another.

On the two horizontal poles shown here are 1) matter experienced by the physical body through survival instincts like eating and reproducing and 2) spirit experienced by the transcendent mind through psychic images called archetypes.  The events in the physical world appear ordered, whereas psychic events, such as our experience of family or other life circumstances, appear chaotic or random.  However, they are in fact linked and together form a more complex ordered reality.  Jung posits that this internal continuum reflects on a smaller scale the same sort of phenomena found by physics and cosmology in the Universe at large.  He suggests that a Spiritual Realm (i.e. God) exists on a continuum (the vertical axes in the graphic) with the realm of the physical world, where both dissolve into pure energy.  The two realms are parallel realities, yet in sync with one another.  Jung’s career culminated in a Theory of Synchronicity, wherein the continuum between the physical world and spirit realm accounts for psychic and telepathic occurrences.

Jung coined the term Individuation to denote the goal of healthy psychological development.  The process of individuation happens in two main phases.  The first stage usually occurs from birth through young adulthood and involves a person’s ego-consciousness adapting to the physical world through the formation of a persona, the personality one shows to others.  During the second phase, which usually begins in mid-life, a person yearns for a connection with the realm of the spirit.  We are all imprinted with an innate archetype Jung referred to as the Self.  This Self or God Archetype is the primary imprinted image and all other archetypes derive from it.  All archetypes originate in the Collective Unconscious and are responsible for the innate ideas we have about important figures (Mother, Father), events (initiation, death), or motifs (creation, apocalypse) experienced in human life.  Jung notes that the essential content of all religions and mythologies are archetypal.   Through his research and work with patients, Jung discovered a Spiritual Realm outside of ego and psyche that reveals itself through the Collective Unconscious in the form of archetypal images which result in revelatory experiences like that of the burning bush and the handing down of the 10 commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai. 

For Jung, the Anima for men and the animus for women is the part of our psyche that bridges the ego-consciousness and the Self.  The Anima/Animus is like fate according to Jung.  We are guided to our fate by images of archetypal powers far beyond our conscious will or knowledge.  When the ego is well connected to the self, a person is in relationship with a transcendent center and as a result, not narcissistically invested in short term gains or near sighted goals.  The formation of the Anima/Animus must be negotiated before one can effectively integrate all components of the psyche, achieving Individuation.  In the West, where we are very attached to the material world, Jung states that the highest stage of individuation one can attain is the joining of the unconscious and the Ego through a symbol (Religious outlet).  The older, eastern cultures have a drastically different world view and are thus capable of higher levels of Integration.  Jung writes that the highest level of Individuation possible in human consciousness is the ultimate goal of Kundalini Yoga.  These practices allow an individual to merge personal consciousness with the infinite consciousness of God or a Spirit of the Universe. 

The nature of Human beings is to create culture.  Culture formation happens through the creation of what Jung called Symbols. Religion is an example of a Symbol.  It is an attempt to translate the unknowable and inexplicable aspects of existence into understandable terms.  Symbols, like Religion are analogues for instinctual goals, like nourishment and sex.  Libidinal or instinctual energy are channelled by symbols into a different direction.  Symbols also arise from the collective unconscious or Spirit end of the Continuum.   A related term used by Jung, Sacrifice, expresses the transformation of instinctual energy into a different Symbolic form.  For example, a soldier goes against his survival instinct to die for his country.  (Patriotism is another strong Jungian Symbol.) The ideas of Symbol and Sacrifice are what caused the decisive rift between Jung and Freud.  Jung was under Freud’s tutelage early in his career, but for Jung, the idea that the biological (primarily sexual) urges are at the heart of all psychological functioning was too reductive and did not capture the whole picture.

Throughout his career, Jung was an avid student of cultures and religions.  He noted many similarities between his theories and ideologies of Ancient Eastern Spiritual practices.  Jung wrote that the Anima/Animus was like Maya, the Indian goddess of Illusion.  The conscious ego inhabits a world that is largely based on its own projections.  We project our unconscious contents onto the World and people around us.  Similarly, he notes that the Self is much like the Atman or the innermost essence of the individual as described in the Hindu Upanishads.

Jung, like many of his patients, experienced a psychological crisis at mid-life.  He used breathing, meditation, play therapy and drawing as a way to reestablish emotional balance.  He unconsciously began drawing images that he later recognized as Mandalas.  Most commonly used by Tibetan Buddhists, Mandalas are an intuitive representation of ordered wholeness, both spiritual and cosmic.  In India they decorate the walls of homes and temples, whereby connecting people to the spiritual realm.  Taking from Taoism, Jung asserts that the ideal level of integration of all parts of the self should be like the symbol of the Yin Yang, where the Persona is the Yin and the Anima is the Yang.  Ideally there should be a free flowing balance between the two.  (Not the rigid dichotomy sometimes incorrectly assumed in the West.)

Jung was above all a Scientist.  Although this article alludes more to his artistic and philosophical sides, he was most dedicated to furthering Psychology as a Scientific Field.  To use Jungian terminology, it is a supreme case of synchronicity that Jung’s career blossomed in 1930’s Switzerland, the exact time and place of major discoveries in the field of quantum physics.  Albert Einstein was a frequent dinner guest of the Jungs while developing his theory of relativity.  As Jung listened to Einstein use math to explain the organization of the Cosmos, it planted the seeds of his own Physical-Spiritual continuum theory.  Jung was impressed that mathematical equations derived within the human psyche could intuit and reflect the ordered wholeness of the universe.  He in turn intuited that the reverse was also possible, namely that embedded images from the psychic world (archetypes) could offer explanations even predictions of life events. 

Jung was a visionary, way ahead of his time.  He posits that an advanced understanding of reality would require acknowledgment and exploration of connections between the physical and psychic worlds.   The transcendent factor – the Self – innate to all humans, is the common thread behind astrology, alchemy, mythology, and theology.  These fields and their variations are all manifestations of the Self as experienced by different people from throughout history and across cultures. (157)

Finally, I did find a good answer to my original query about the connection between Spirituality and mental illness.  According to Jungian psychology, people with clinical depression are those who experience a complete absence of Psychic energy flow from the Spirit realm.  On the other hand, those who suffer from hallucinations or visions, like the deeply insane or psychotic, have not developed an effective filter in the Anima/Animus for images arising in the Self.  They are therefore overwhelmed with signals that they can not interpret and integrate into ego-consciousness.  Jung felt that medications for these disorders were perhaps necessary, but far from ideal, as they can interfere with one’s connection to the Self.  Interestingly, in the East, alternative therapies have long been in use for a variety of maladies, both physical and mental.

The Spiritual Journey : from Medieval Christian Mysticism to the Ancient Eastern Religions

The Summer after my sophomore year in high school, I went to Young Life camp in the beautiful Adirondack  mountains of upstate New York.  We slept in half-timbered log cabins after long days spent exhausting ourselves with water sports, mountain hikes, and beach volleyball.  I went with a big group of my friends and remember the other campers from around the country as very cool and very attractive.  It was the perfect place for a 15 year old to have a spiritual experience.  Instead, I left there with questions that would culminate in this Blog, where 20 years later, I am attempting to find answers. 

I had been attending Young Life regularly that school year, primarily to meet people and for the chance to play Truth or Dare with older boys.  After dinner each night at Camp, we would have a more intense version of those weekly youth group gatherings back in St. Louis.  The college age counselors would put on skits and charismatically recount how they converted to Christianity after hellish experiences with drugs and alcohol.  They would tell us about how awesome Jesus is, how much he loves us.  One night midway through our week, we all assembled together as usual in the fellowship hall. Sitting cross legged, chatting about our sunburns and full bellies, we cheerfully awaited the evening’s entertainment. Abruptly, everyone quieted down.  The youth minister had silently been waiting for us to notice him.  He had a very solemn look on his face.  He told us we were all in very grave danger.  If we did not accept Jesus Christ as king of our hearts, our souls would go to Hell.  He said, “Close your eyes. He paused Imagine a tiny grain of sand on a vast beach.  He paused again Now imagine the worst pain you have ever felt.  He paused a final time If you go to Hell, the pain you feel will be like all the grains of sand on the beach put together and the worst pain you can imagine is like that one tiny grain of sand.”

I can not accept that there is only one way to find God.  Through researching for this blog, I have become increasingly aware that all World religions are interconnected.  I intuitively believe that they all arise from the same source.  What if important religious thinkers, leaders, and prophets throughout history are those who have an especially strong connection to the spiritual realm, including Jesus Christ?  I think it is worth consideration by Christians that, while their religion is right for them, people for whom Christianity does not work, or people from non-Christian cultures are not wrong.

Religions communities reflect a culture’s values and philosophy.  21^st century American society puts a lot of emphasis on the individual’s happiness and personal fulfillment, which our media urges us to seek via consumerism.  Even by our fellow western countries standards we are considered to be incredibly self-centered.   The Europeans point to the uproar over “Obamacare” and the more than a decade long war over foreign oil as proof of American egocentricism.  We come across to other cultures as having an attitude that we are always right and we know everything.  Also, our capitalist economic model depends on taking far more than our share of the world’s resources and results in a lot of waste that poorly impacts others.  This is a gross perversion of what God tells Adam in the book of Genesis: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

This gift of the earth came paired with free will.  Our self-will pushes us to find enjoyment and then deceives us into thinking that pursuit of pleasure is the way to find God.  The catch with free will is that we can make selfish and immoral decisions, but then we have to live with the consequences.  Some non-Americans count climate change and the global recession as our karma.  In this post, I want to explore the similarities between the Christian mystics of the middle ages and the much older, Eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. 

Ironically, the free spirited Christian mystics have been viewed as self-centered by institutional Christianity according to “Ordinary Mysticism” a book by Dennis Tamburello.  He defines mysticism as knowledge of God through experience of love: his love for us, and our love for him and our neighbor in return.  Secondly, the Christian mystics assert that our idea of God is too small and that we must recognize that no image can enclose the meaning of God. (41)  Tamburello details the lives and works of three important Christian mystics: Bernard Clairvaux (1090-1153), Meister Eckhart (1260-1327), and Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) who were French, German, and Spanish respectively.  They all maintained that a symbiotic relationship should exist between the two dimensions of spiritual life.  Our prayer life is the contemplative dimension and our love and service of others is the active dimension.  The book concludes:

Mystical union (with God) has to do with experiencing God’s presence in our lives
God is always present to us, though sometimes we are distracted from our awareness of this by our busy lives.  It is important to cultivate a life of prayer – so that his presence will become more apparent to us in our regular daily activities…. It is especially important to recognize the connection between union with God and with one another. (119-120)

All three mystics discussed in the book stress the importance of finding salvation, which is equated with a loving relationship with God, through prayer and meditation.  While faith communities can help with this process, they are not required.   Bernard Clairvaux asserts that our salvation originates in God, he makes the first move, but then we must accept his saving action in our lives.  We then grow spiritually when our prayer life feeds our life of service to others.  Similarly, Teresa stressed that “we do not attain intimacy with God in isolation from others; rather we must help each other to grow spiritually.” (94)  She described her contemplative experience as passive, however.  According to her, prayer flowed directly from God to our souls and espoused the prayer of quiet which begins in God and fosters a sense of great serenity and sweetness in us.  Finally, for Meister Eckhart, union with God should be enacted in a rich life of service.  We should strive to identify our soul with God.  Our success depends entirely on God’s grace, which is the mystical tradition defines as the presence or self-communication with God.

I am struck by the parallels between the basic tenets of mysticism and the three eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism.  Hinduism is the world’s oldest religion, dating back possibly as far as 10,000 BC.  The first written Vedas (from Sanskrit root meaning knowledge) date to 3,000 BC.  The most significant Veda asserts that Reality is One or Absolute and equated with God or Brahman.  The ordinary world is an illusion.  It is only through meditation that we can experience our true self in a state of nirvana or total union with Brahman.  The Buddha or Siddhartha Gautama was born the son of a wealthy Hindu in 563 BC.  He ran away at 29 to seek enlightenment and after many years of meditative practice achieved it at the age of 35 sitting under a Bodhi tree.  Buddha comes from the Sanskrit root for “to awaken” “to be enlightened” or “to comprehend.”  Buddhism teaches that we suffer because of our desire for earthly goods.  We find liberation through meditation and training our mind in the laws of karma, or cause and effect.  When we engage in right actions, good things come to us.  Along with Buddhism, Taoism is the other great religion of ancient China.  It was adopted as the state religion in 440 BC and its founder Lao Tzu was honored as a deity until 1911 when China became a Republic and dynastic rule ended.  Tao means “the way” and in Taoism the Way is the spiritual force that flows through all life, connecting it to all things in the Universe.  A happy life is one in harmony with the Tao and this principle is well illustrated by the Yin Yang.  In the West, the Yin Yang concept is of complementary duality.  While the idea of harmony is consistent with Taoist thought, the two separate parts is not. The curved lines of the symbol as well as the dark and light spots of light are meant to show that the two opposites are intertwined and bound together in a continuous ebb and flow.  Thus, all is One and interconnected.

On the final day of my Young Life summer Camp experience, we gathered one last time in the Fellowship Hall before boarding our busses for the ride home.  The Youth Minister asked us all if we had accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.  He called for everyone to raise their hands if they had, one from almost every of the several hundred sets of hands shot into the air.  He then asked those of us who were not yet sure to raise our hands.  There were five of us.  We were asked to go down to the boat house with 2 of counselors, while everybody else remained where they were seated.  When we got there, the counsellors asked us if we had any questions.  We asked things like, “Will our Jewish friends go to Hell?”  “What about people in remote parts of other Continents, who had never even heard of Jesus Christ, what would happen to them?”  Each of our questions was met with a shrug and a sigh and a, “Well, the Bible says….”  What I heard was, “We are right and they are wrong.”  My doubt arose back then because of a thought I feel confidant about today.  We are all right.  The important thing is to make the individual effort to know God and then to follow as you are guided in your spiritual journey, wherever and to whomever it may lead you.   

Unified God Theory

Why do Science and Religion always seem to oppose eachother?  As a child, it was very confusing to see Religion contradict  Science and vice versa.  I was raised to revere Science with the same zeal I encountered on Sundays in the most dedicated members of my Church.  For me both Science and Religion alone fell short of explaining life’s many mysteries.  True understanding of the universe must account for spiritual and scientific points of view alike.    Why does one have to be wrong for the other to be right?  Just as genius can compromise one’s social abilities, I suspect that complete dedication to scientific thinking can impair one’s ability to connect with the spiritual realm.  On the other hand, to deny information available from scientific investigation thwarts our ability to see how the spiritual truly interacts with the physical world.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms. (Albert Einstein)

This quote from Albert Einstein lays out my two biggest stumbling blocks when it comes to Western organized religion.  First, it defies all logic that God could be perfect unconditional love, yet also a tyrranical slavedriver.  A couple of years in Sunday school is all a child needs to uncover vast layers of inconsistency and hypocrisy in the traditional presentation of the Bible.  Second, the need to understand Death results in ridiculously implausible scenarios to explain this phenomenon.  Fear of change is the single most important impediment  to human progress.  Dying is the ultimate change of life circumstances.  It makes sense then, that providing a comforting explanation for how death turns out would be of the utmost importance in any human culture.  Unfortunately, blind determination to cling to an outdated, imperfect model is causing human conciousness to stagnate because it closes peoples’ eyes to new information.

This past summer I had to read quite a few explanations of the Higgs Boson particle discovery,  nicknamed the “God Particle.”  Certain less credible sources implied this particle disproved the existence of God.  Once again, I was troubled by the need for scientific advances to negate spirituality.  Through the course of my research, I found that this particle was the final piece of the Standard Model of Physics explained well here by the European Laboratory of Particle Physics (CERN), the organization that discovered the Higgs Boson. 

So what is particle or quantum physics and does it hold the answer to the age old questions, how did we get here and did God have a part in it?  I decided to read Stephen Hawking’s “The Grand Design” which promised to explain Physics’ take on the creation of the Universe in layman’s terms.  On the first page of the book I ran into something I did not agree with, “Philosophy is dead.  Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science.” (5)  Then, a few pages further in, he goes on to write, “Ignorance of nature’s ways led people in ancient times to invent gods to lord it over in every aspect of human life.” (17) I had to put the book down for a few moments, upset by the immediate presentation of conflict between scientific discovery and spiritual explorations.  But after all, this is what I was investigasting.  I dove back in and learned how these statements were valid from Hawking’s purely scientific standpoint.

Hawking begins in 585 BC, with the ancient Greeks and the birth of Ionian Science.  At this point in history, Science and Mathematics were fields of philosophic thought and the Ionians were one of many schools of early Greek philospohy.  In their view, the world could be understood by a set of natural laws, discernable through observation and reason.  They are credited with the first prediction of a solar eclipse by a man called Thales.   Pythagorus (ca 500 BC), the most famous Ionian philosopher, used mathematics to identify the relationship between the length of strings and the harmonic combinations of sound they produced.  Next, around 400 BC, another Ionian named Democritus deduced the existence of the atom (from the Greek ‘uncuttable’), by intuiting that objects can not be cut into infinitely smaller and smaller pieces.  Finally, towards the end of the Ionian age, around 300 BC, Aristarchus first conceived of a heliocentric model of the universe, where the earth revolves around the sun. 

These ideas were all consistent with what we now know to be true about nature from the atomic to the planetary scales, but these ideas were dropped and not revisited for another 2000 years!  Aristotle (350 BC) could not accept the concept of atoms because it implied that human beings were souless, inanimate objects.  He engendered the tradition of explaining all natural phenomenon as an intentional compliance with God’s will, which ordered the universe to revolve around the human soul. Hawking posits that Aristotle was the champion of, “the ancients’ focus on why Nature behaves as it does, rather than how it behaves.” (p. 23)  Thus, the heliocentric model was abandoned until Copernicus restated it in 1543.  By this time, the Catholic Church had adopted Ptolemy’s model of an earth-centered universe (ca 150 AD).  So when Galileo advocated the Copernican model, he was condemned for heresy in 1633 a mistake for which the Roman Catholic Church did not acknowledge fault until 1992. 

Religious thinking dominated peoples’ understanding of Nature through the 17^th century.  Chrisitan thinkers maintained that God could intervene in nature to work miracles.  According to French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes, natural laws are unalterable, but are a reflection of God’s own intrinsic nature.  Descartes felt that God set the world in motion, then left it entirely alone.  These ideas introduced modern Science's view that natural laws are not subject to divine intervention.  A similar position was adopted by Isaac Newton (1643-1727) – author of the laws of motion and gravity which accounted for the orbits of the earth, moon, and planets down to phenomena such as the tides.  Newton accounted for gaps in his understanding of gravity by viewing God as a heavenly watchmaker, who ‘wound the celestial clocks.’  Again, the idea that God set things in motion, but then the universe ran like clockwork.  To preserve the idea of free will, Descartes asserted that the soul is not subject to scientific law.  The human mind was something different from the physical world and did not follow its laws.  Ergo his famous quote: “I think, therefore I am.”

Newton’s laws and the birth of classical physics mark the point at which science begins a severe divergence from theological and philosophical thought.   Aristotle believed that the laws of nature originated in logic.  Therefore one should be able to deduce these laws without the painstaking collection of empirical and measureable data demanded by the scientific method.   He theorized that the world is made of four elements, earth, air, fire, and water.  Although all four of these entities exhibit very different properties, we now have a far more detailed picture of the basic building blocks of our world thanks to the discovery of the elements in the periodic table.  In "The Grand Design" Hawking describes the evolution of Physics from Newton's laws of gravity and motion in the 17^th century to the present day M-theory, which if proved, would unite all previous scientific models into one unified theory.  It is worth noting that his treatment of philosophy ends with Descartes and does not explore the advances made in that field over the last four centuries.    

Scientists have continually reconceptualized the fundamental constituents of the universe with each subsequent theory or model.  For example, Newton originally conceived of light as made up of particles, but when observed its refractions through glass lenses, determined it must behave as a wave.  In 1860 James Maxwell determined that electricity, magnetism and light are all manifestations of the electromagnetic field and that light is in fact an electromagnetic wave.  Microwaves, radio waves, infrared light, X-rays and different colors of light differ only in their wavelengths.  Our sun radiates at all wavelengths, but its radiation is most intense in the wavelengths we can see. Our eyes evolved to see in the range of electromagnetic radiation most available to them. (91)  In the early 1900's, Einstein discovered the photoelectric effect, used in the technology of televisions and digital cameras.  This confirmed that light was also made up of particles (photons).  It turns out that Newton was right all along, because light behaves as both a particle and a wave.

According to Newton’s theory of gravity, objects are attracted to each other by a force dependent on the distance between them at a given time.  In a three dimensional, Newtonian world, objects move in straight lines, unless acted on by a force, like gravity.  In Einstein’s theory of relativity however, gravity is not a force, but rather a result of space being warped by the matter and energy present in it.  Einstein’s relativity also proposed that time is not flat and linear, but an entire fourth dimension. In Einstein’s four dimensional world, objects move on geodesics or curved lines, like the path an airplane takes when traversing the globe. In the absence of matter, which causes curvature, the geodesics in four dimensional space-time correspond to lines in three-dimensional space.  When matter is present it distorts space-time and the paths of the bodies in the corresponding three-dimensional space curve in a manner that Newton explained by the attraction of gravity. (102)  

Einstein and Newton’s theories are classical and apply to objects we can see, but not to how particles behave.  To understand how the universe began we must understand how things work on the quantum level.  Quantum physics provides a framework for understanding how nature operates on atomic and subatomic scales. Newton’s laws describe the behavior of the composite structures that form our everyday world.  According to Newtonian (classical) physics, objects take a single well-defined path from A to B.  Richard Feynman, the forefather of quantum physics asserted that particles take every possible path simultaneously to travel from A to B.  To envision this, think about how dust motes float through air whereas a rock behaves very differently when kicked or thrown.

In 1929 Edwin Hubble published his conclusion that the universe is expanding and that nearly all galaxies are moving away from us.  The farther away they are, the faster they are moving.  His findings disproved the popular conception of the universe as static.  It follows that we can extrapolate far enough backwards to arrive at the event known as the Big Bang.  At its origin, the universe is believed to have existed on the quantum scale, at the size of a particle.  Einstein’s general relativity predicts a time where the temperature, density, and curvature of the universe are all infinite, a situation mathematicians call singularity.  To a physicist however, Einstein’s theory breaks down here, because it is not possible that the universe could be cut into infinitely smaller pieces, the same way Aristarchus determined the existence of the atom.  Thus classical theories cannot predict how the universe began, only how it evolved afterward.  Therefore we need both quantum theory and relativity to understand the origin of the universe, because it started on the atomic level.

Quantum physics introduces the principle that gravity warps time and space just as relativity shows that matter and energy warp space.  Warpage of space stretches and compresses the distance between points, changing the geometry or shape of space.  Warpage of time stretches or compresses time intervals in a similar manner, to the point where time and space can become intertwined.  Our understanding of time’s beginning is like our idea that the earth is flat, centuries ago.  At first, time was believed to be linear.  Then, Einstein’s theory of relativity unified time and space into space-time, but time was still different from space, with either a beginning and an end, or going on infinitely.  However, once we add the effects of quantum theory to relativity, warpage causes time to behave like another dimension of space.  Thus, in the early universe, time as we know it does not exist, but rather there were four dimensions of space and none of time.  Interestingly, an early Christian philosopher, St. Augustine (354-430 AD), said that time was a property of the world that God created and that time did not exist before the creation.

Discovery of the Higgs boson plays a crucial role in providing proof of super-symmetry - an essential ingredient of M-Theory. (Source: CERN)  Supersymmetry came on the scientific scene in 1976.  One of the important assumptions of supersymmetry is that force particles and matter particles are really just two facets of the same thing.  Most physicists also believe that supersymmetry will show that gravity is another manifestation of the 3 other identified forces of nature (elctromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force).  

The second important part of M-theory is String theory.  According to string theory, particles are not points, but patterns of vibration that have only length, no height or width.  Also, they are consistent only if space-time has ten dimensions, rather than four.  These extra dimensions are viewed as ‘curled up’ whereas the four known dimensions of space-time are ‘rolled out.’  In 1994, scientists discovered many different string theories, but it is suspected that they are all just different ways of describing the curvature of the extra dimensions in terms of four dimensional space.  String theorists are now convinced that the five different string theories and supersymmetry are just different approximations of a more fundamental theory : M Theory, where the M could stand for Master, Mystery, or Miracle.  Hawking concludes his book: 

M-theory is the unified theory, a complete theory of the universe.   The true
miracle is that abstract considerations of logic lead to a unique theory that
predicts and describes a vast universe full of the amazing variety that we see.
If the theory is confirmed by observation, it will be the sucessful conclusion of
a search going back more than 3,000 years.  We will have found the grand design. (181)

After reading Hawking’s book, I realized that theological thought has not advanced at the same rate that scientific thought has.  Yet, I believe in the Spiritual just as I believe in Science.  I have empirical and measurable proof of God's existence.  I know the power my faith has had in my life and I see the miracles it has worked in the lives of other people who believe.  I know instinctively that Science and Spirituality can and must coexist.  I think of Pythagorus, the Ionian scientist who derived a mathematical explanation for the sound string instruments make.  Science explains the frequencies of the sound waves and God explains the waves of emotion that go through me when I hear a cello played. 

I would like to propose a unified theory of religion, like the M-theory Hawking argues for the field of Physics where it looks like everything is related, perhaps different manifestations of the same basic principles.  What if we are all praying to the same God, just within the parameters set out by our own culture and historical time period?  Perhaps love, hope, and appreciation of beauty are all wavelengths of a spiritual forcefield.  If we could apply the same amount of collective energy to spiritual explorations as the Scientific community has across the globe, what would we find?