Difficult Questions in Troubling Times.
Many of you in sending me your questions by email seem to keep coming back to the same questions about God, the Mind of God, the Unified Field, and the quantum field. Some of you would hope that I could give a consistent answer or better metaphor to describe such terms as these. I wish I could. I also wish that I could be consistent in my answers to you, however I am not able to do so simply because my views of what these metaphors or answers to these questions may be keeps changing as I learn more and more and think more and more about the meanings of my answers.
I am not alone in the predicament. Even the Buddha and Robert Oppenheimer the physicist-leader of the Manhattan atom bomb project faced this same problem.
One day a wanderer came into the village where the Buddha taught. His name was Vacchagotta. He asked the Enlightened One whether or not there was a soul (Atman). The following was their somewhat brief and one-sided conversation:
VACCHAGOTTA: Venerable Gotama, is there a Soul?
BUDDHA: (Silence.)
VACCHAGOTTA: Then Venerable One, is there no Soul?
BUDDHA: (Silence.)
VACCHAGOTTA: (Gets up and goes away.)
Later Ananda, a disciple of the Buddha, appeared and asked the Enlightened One to comment on his previous silence. The Buddha said,
Ananda, when asked by Vacchagotta the Wanderer, “Is there a Soul?”, if I had answered: “There is a soul”, then that would be siding with those recluses and brahmanas who hold to the eternalist theory. And when asked by the wanderer: “Is there no soul?” If I had answered: “There is no soul”, then that would be siding with those recluses and brahmanas who hold to the annihilationist theory.
Again, Ananda, when asked by Vacchagotta: “Is there a soul?”, if I had answered: “There is”, would that be in accordance with my knowledge that all dhammas [ways of inquiry, paths to enlightenment] are without soul? And when asked by the Wanderer, “Is there no soul?”, if I had answered, “There is no soul”, then that would have been a greater confusion to the already confused Vacchagotta [who earlier had inquired into what happens after death and was confused by the Buddha’s answer]. For he would have thought: “Formerly indeed I had a soul, but now I haven’t got one.”
We can compare this legend with one well known from quantum physics. One day a student wandered into the chambers of Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who in the 1940s headed the scientific team that constructed the atomic bomb. As the story goes the student asked Oppenheimer about the existence and movement of the tiny subatomic electron within the confines of the atom, to which Oppenheimer answered,
If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say “no.” If we ask whether the electron’s position changes with time, we must say “no.” If we ask whether it is in motion, we must say “no.” If we ask whether it is standing still, we must say “no.”
Oppenheimer’s quote and the Buddha’s response to Ananda regarding the soul point to the same thing. For in both Buddhist logic and quantum physics, it is necessary not to hold any fixed opinion but to see things as they are without mental projections—especially when such answers require you to have such mental projections in order to answer them.
I am sure that if I had chosen to simply remain silence to your many questions about God, the Mind of God, and the unified field most of you would have been upset at my silence just as Vacchagotta was. Since I chose to answer these questions as Robert Oppenheimer did, I would be faced with telling you different and seemingly contradictory answers from time to time as I apparently did thus as the Buddha predicted leading to confusion that the Buddha avoided by keeping silent, but I not being as wise as the Venerable One fell into the trap.
So now once and for all I ask your forgiveness if I have led you astray or caused you confusion. Frankly I felt frustrated when I saw that you kept asking me the same questions over and over again. There simply is no consistent answer to such questions regarding God as What is . . .? Enjoy life. It is a mystery.
Many of you in sending me your questions by email seem to keep coming back to the same questions about God, the Mind of God, the Unified Field, and the quantum field. Some of you would hope that I could give a consistent answer or better metaphor to describe such terms as these. I wish I could. I also wish that I could be consistent in my answers to you, however I am not able to do so simply because my views of what these metaphors or answers to these questions may be keeps changing as I learn more and more and think more and more about the meanings of my answers.
I am not alone in the predicament. Even the Buddha and Robert Oppenheimer the physicist-leader of the Manhattan atom bomb project faced this same problem.
One day a wanderer came into the village where the Buddha taught. His name was Vacchagotta. He asked the Enlightened One whether or not there was a soul (Atman). The following was their somewhat brief and one-sided conversation:
VACCHAGOTTA: Venerable Gotama, is there a Soul?
BUDDHA: (Silence.)
VACCHAGOTTA: Then Venerable One, is there no Soul?
BUDDHA: (Silence.)
VACCHAGOTTA: (Gets up and goes away.)
Later Ananda, a disciple of the Buddha, appeared and asked the Enlightened One to comment on his previous silence. The Buddha said,
Ananda, when asked by Vacchagotta the Wanderer, “Is there a Soul?”, if I had answered: “There is a soul”, then that would be siding with those recluses and brahmanas who hold to the eternalist theory. And when asked by the wanderer: “Is there no soul?” If I had answered: “There is no soul”, then that would be siding with those recluses and brahmanas who hold to the annihilationist theory.
Again, Ananda, when asked by Vacchagotta: “Is there a soul?”, if I had answered: “There is”, would that be in accordance with my knowledge that all dhammas [ways of inquiry, paths to enlightenment] are without soul? And when asked by the Wanderer, “Is there no soul?”, if I had answered, “There is no soul”, then that would have been a greater confusion to the already confused Vacchagotta [who earlier had inquired into what happens after death and was confused by the Buddha’s answer]. For he would have thought: “Formerly indeed I had a soul, but now I haven’t got one.”
We can compare this legend with one well known from quantum physics. One day a student wandered into the chambers of Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who in the 1940s headed the scientific team that constructed the atomic bomb. As the story goes the student asked Oppenheimer about the existence and movement of the tiny subatomic electron within the confines of the atom, to which Oppenheimer answered,
If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say “no.” If we ask whether the electron’s position changes with time, we must say “no.” If we ask whether it is in motion, we must say “no.” If we ask whether it is standing still, we must say “no.”
Oppenheimer’s quote and the Buddha’s response to Ananda regarding the soul point to the same thing. For in both Buddhist logic and quantum physics, it is necessary not to hold any fixed opinion but to see things as they are without mental projections—especially when such answers require you to have such mental projections in order to answer them.
I am sure that if I had chosen to simply remain silence to your many questions about God, the Mind of God, and the unified field most of you would have been upset at my silence just as Vacchagotta was. Since I chose to answer these questions as Robert Oppenheimer did, I would be faced with telling you different and seemingly contradictory answers from time to time as I apparently did thus as the Buddha predicted leading to confusion that the Buddha avoided by keeping silent, but I not being as wise as the Venerable One fell into the trap.
So now once and for all I ask your forgiveness if I have led you astray or caused you confusion. Frankly I felt frustrated when I saw that you kept asking me the same questions over and over again. There simply is no consistent answer to such questions regarding God as What is . . .? Enjoy life. It is a mystery.
posted by Fred Alan Wolf at
8:34 AM
7 Comments:
Dr. Wolf:
I love your analogy. Life is filled with mystery, and it’s wonderful how mystery and inquiry go hand in hand. You may enjoy a short chapter I have on the linkage between the two realities of existence. It's in my latest book, "Our Pathway to the Stars." Would you like to see it?
first-castle (info@ourpathwaytothestars.com)
The more we know the more we know we don't know.
That's what is becoming wonderful about science. For a time it seemed as though scientists knew it all and there was no forgiveness for asking hard questions and debating them in public.
Now everyone seems to be a lot freer to discuss and debate whether they be scientists or not.
I'm not. I'm an artist but I've always loved science.
This post has been removed by the author.
This post has been removed by the author.
Hola doctor...
es para mi muy emocionante poder escribirle estas letras,, tengo el libro del secreto y no habia caido en cuenta que usted hablo alli, en el libro encontre si sitio web que logicamente me trajo hasta aqui...
Ahora.. le doy las gracias por todas las cosas que he aprendido sobre mi misma gracias a ustes,
ahora siempre, pense que la vida era un sueño recurrente, cuando hablas de, este es un sueño normal, yo podia manejar mis sueños de formaconciente es mas aun lo hago,,, y soy un super una super mujer... tengo una buena vida en mis sueños,,, ahora como traigo esos sueños a mi realidad colectiva?
Hello doctor ...
is very exciting for me to write these letters, I have the book of secret and had not fallen in mind that you speak there, if found in the book website that logically brought me up here ...
Now .. I thank you for all the things I've learned about myself through ustes,
now always thought that life was a recurring dream, when you talk to, this is a normal sleep, I could manage my dreams is even more formaconciente I do, and I am a woman ... a super super I have a good life in my dreams,,, now my dream to bring these collective reality?
This post has been removed by the author.
Dr. Wolf,
Thank you again for your email response!
This posting is interesting as I empathize with people's struggles to find some understanding of God. This is exactly what my current project attempts to explore. Below I have provided the last paragraph for the overview of a paper called "A vision of God". As the title suggests it's just a vision or a thought experiment of sorts. I know it's only a paragraph, but maybe there is something to think about here in response to this blog...
Collectively we affect each other and the environment around us in many ways, whether it’s individual to individual or as a group. This could include groups of people, from the love of a family to the tension and volatility of the entire world. What happens in this world can and does affect the universe beyond. Each one of us is a part of the greater consciousness that guides our lives and all that is. Going even further to attempt to perceive the ultimate consciousness of what is truly "the all", we must consider that there is one “all” as in one will and one God, a belief unto itself held by many people. We are by the design of our existence intricately connected. To begin to fathom the vastness of the great expanse that is the entire cosmos or omni-verse down to a single world, nation, person, cell, molecule, atom, electron, quark, and furthermore to the most finite quantum theoretical Zero Point or string and/or membrane at the Unified Field can truly boggle the mind. This field is omni-present and of pure consciousness at the very core of all creation from an existence before the birth of the universe to its proposed death and beyond. This encompasses “all” space/time, “all” dimensions, “all” frequencies, “all” possibilities and probabilities to “all” thought and “all” that we still can't yet imagine in “all” of the omni-verse. To open the mind and explore such ideals may be a start to comprehend and understand the body, consciousness, and nature of God.
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