THE TAO OF PHYSICS

The Tao of Physics

Fritjof Capra

‘The Tao of Physics’ is Fritjof Capra’s classic exploration of the connections between Eastern mysticism and modern physics. According to the author the mystical traditions of the East constitute a coherent philosophical framework within which the most advanced Western theories of the physical world can be accommodated.

Excerpts…

The Unity of All Things

The most important characteristic of the Eastern world view – one could almost say the essence of it – is the awareness of the unity and mutual interrelation of all things and events, the experience of all phenomena in the world as manifestations of a basic oneness. All things are seen as interdependent and inseparable parts of this cosmic  whole; as different manifestations of the same ultimate reality. The Eastern traditions constantly refer to this ultimate, indivisible reality which manifests itself in all things,  and of which all things are parts. It is called Brahman in Hinduism, Dharmakaya in Buddhism, Tao  in Taoism. Because it transcends  all concepts and categories, Buddhists also call it Tathata,  or Suchness.

The basic oneness of the universe is not only the central characteristic of the mystical experience, but is also one of the most important revelations of modern physics. It becomes apparent at the atomic level and manifests itself more and more as one penetrates deeper into matter, down into the realm of subatomic particles.

The following discussion is based on the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory which was developed by Bohr and Heisenberg in the late 1920s.

The observed systems are described in quantum theory in terms of probabilities. This means that we can never predict with certainty where a subatomic  particle will be at a certain time, or how an atomic process will occur. All we can do is predict the odds. For example, most of the subatomic  particles known today are unstable, that is, they distintegrate – or ‘decay’ – into other particles after a certain time. It is not  possible, however, to predict this time  exactly.

Subatomic particles do not exist with certainty of definite places, but rather  show ‘tendencies to exist’, and atomic events do not occur with certainty at definite times and in definite ways, but rather show ‘tendencies to occur.

It is not possible, for example, to say with certainty where an electron will be in an atom at a certain time. Its position depends on the attractive force binding it to the atomic nucleus and on the influence of the other electrons in the atom.

Quantum theory thus reveals an essential interconnectedness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, we find that it is made of particles, but these are not the ‘basic building blocks’ in the sense of Democritus and Newton. They are merely idealizations which are useful from a practical point of view, but have no fundamental significance.

The picture of an interconnected cosmic web, which emerges from modern atomic physics has been used extensively in the East to convey the mystical experience of nature. For the Hindu, Brahman is the unifying thread in the cosmic web, the ultimate ground of all being.

In Buddhism, the image of the cosmic web plays an even greater role. The core of the Avatamsaka Sutra, one of the main scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism, is the description of the world as  a perfect network of mutual relations where all things and events interact  with each other in an infinitely complicated way.

In atomic physics, then, the scientist cannot play the role of a detached objective observer, but becomes involved in the world he observes to the extent that he influences the properties of the observed objects.

The idea of ‘participation instead of observation’ has been formulated in modern physics only recently, but it is an idea  which is well known to any student of mysticism. Mystical knowledge can never be obtained just by observation, but only by full participation with one’s whole being.  The notion of the participator is thus crucial to the Eastern world view, and the Eastern mystics have pushed this notion to the extreme, to a point where observer and observed, subject and object, are not only inseparable but also become indistinguishable.

The mystics are not satisfied with a situation analogues to atomic physics, where the observer and the observed cannot be separated, but can still be distinguished. They go much further, and in deep meditation they arrive at a point where the distinction between observer and observed breaks down completely, where subject and object fuse into a unified undifferentiated whole.

This, then, is the final apprehension of the unity of all things. It is reached-so the mystics tell us – in  a state of consciousness where one’s individuality dissolves into an undifferentiated oneness, where the world of the senses is transcended and the notion of  ‘things’ is left behind.

Quantum theory has abolished the notion of fundamentally separated objects, has  abolished the notion of fundamentally separated objects, has introduced the concept of the participator to replace that of the observer, and may even find it necessary to include the human consciousness in its  description of  the world. It has come to see the universe  as an interconnected web of physical  and mental relations whose parts are only defined through their connections to the whole.

To summarize the world view emerging from atomic physics, the words of a Tantric Buddhist, Lama Anagarika Govinda, seem to be  perfectly apropos:

The Buddhist does not believe in an independent or separately existing external world, into whose dynamic forces he could insert himself.  The external  world and his inner world  are for him only two sides of the same fabric, in which the threads  of all forces and  of all  events, of all forms of consciousness  and of their objects, are woven  into an inseparable net of endless, mutually conditioned relations.

The Dynamic Universe

The Hindus call it, Brahman, the Buddhists Dharmakaya (the Body of being), or  Tathata (Suchness), and  the Taoists Tao; each affirming that it transcends  our intellectual concepts and defies further description. This ultimate essence, however, cannot be separated from its multiple  manifestations. It is central to its very nature to manifest itself in myriad forms which come into being and disintegrate, transforming themselves into one another without end.

In Indian philosophy, the main terms used by Hindus and Buddhists have dynamic connotations. The word Brahman is  derived from the Sanskrit root brih – to grow – and thus  suggests a reality which is dynamic  and alive. In the words of S. Radhakrishnan, ‘The word Brahman means growth and is suggestive of life, motion and progress’. The Upanishads refer to Brahman as ‘this unformed, immortal, moving’, thus associating it with motion even though it transcends all forms.

The Rig Veda uses  another term to express the dynamic nature of the universe, the term Rita. This word comes from the root ri– to move; its original meaning in the Rig Veda being ‘the course of all things’, ‘the order of nature’.

The general picture emerging from Hinduism is one of an organic, growing and rhythmically moving cosmos; of a universe in which everything if fluid and ever-changing, all static forms being maya, that is, existing only as illusory concepts.

Buddhists call this world of ceaseless change samsara, which means, literally, ‘incessantly in motion’; and they affirm that there is nothing in it which is worth clinging to. So for the Buddhists, an enlightened being is one who does not resist the flow of life, but keeps moving with it.

The Eastern mystics see the universe as an inseparable web, whose interconnections are dynamic and not static. The cosmic web is alive; it moves, grows and changes continually.

Modern physics, too, has come to conceive of the universe as such a web of relations and, like Eastern mysticism, has recognized  that this web is intrinsically  dynamic. The dynamic aspect of matter  arises in quantum  theory as a consequence of the wave-nature  of subatomic particles,  and is even more essential in relativity theory, as we shall see, where the unification of space and time implies that the being of matter cannot be separated  from its activity. The properties of subatomic  particles can therefore  only be understood in a dynamic context; in terms of movement, interaction and transformation.

Modern physics, then, pictures matter not at all as passive and inert, but as being in a continuous dancing and vibrating motion whose rhythmic patterns are determined by the molecular, atomic and nuclear structures. This is also the way in which the Eastern mystics see the material world. They all emphasize that the universe has to be grasped dynamically, as it moves, vibrates and dances; that nature is not in a static, but a dynamic equilibrium.

In physics, we recognize the dynamic nature of the universe not only when we go to small dimensions – to the world of atom and nuclei – but also when we turn to large dimensions – to the world of stars and galaxies. Through our powerful telescopes we observe a universe in ceaseless motion. Rotating clouds of hydrogen gas contract to form stars, heating up in the process until they become burning fires in the sky. When they have reached the stage, they still continue to rotate, some of them ejecting material into space which spirals outwards and condenses into planets circling around the star. Eventually, after millions of years, when most of its hydrogen fuel is used up, a star expands, and then contracts again in the final gravitational collapse. This collapse may involve gigantic explosions, and may even turn the star into a black hole. All these activities – the formation of stars out of interstellar gas clouds, their contraction and subsequent expansion, and their final collapse – can all actually be observed somewhere in the skies.

The spinning, contracting, expanding or exploding stars clusters into galaxies of various shapes – flat discs, spheres, spirals, etc – which again, are not motionless but rotate.  Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is an immense disc of stars and gas turning in space like a huge wheel, so that all its stars –including the Sun and its planets – move around the galaxy’s centre. The universe is, in fact, full of galaxies strewn through all the space we can see; all spinning like our own.

When we study the universe as a whole, with its millions of galaxies, we have reached the larges scale of space and time; and again, at that cosmic level, we discover that the universe is not static- it is expanding!

An obvious question to be asked about the expanding universe is: how did it all start? From the relation between the distance of a galaxy and its recession velocity – which is known as Hubble’s law – one can calculate the starting point of the expansion, in other words, the age of the universe. Assuming that there has been no change in the rate of expansion, which is by no means certain, one arrives at an age of the order of 10,000 million years. This, then, is the age of the universe. Most cosmologists believe today that the universe came into being in a highly dramatic event about 10,000 million years ago, when its total mass exploded out of a small primeval fireball. The present expansion of the universe is seen as the remaining thrust of this initial explosion. According to the ‘big-bang’ model, the moment of the big bang marked the beginning of the universe and the beginning of space and time. If we want to know what happened before that moment, we run-again-into severe difficulties of thought and language.

As far as the future of the expanding universe is concerned, Einstein’s equations do not provide a unique answer. They allow for several different solutions corresponding  to different models of the universe.  Some models predict that the expansion will continue  for ever; according to others, it is slowing down and will eventually change into a contraction. These models  describe an oscillating universe,  expanding  for billions of years, then contracting until its total mass has condensed into a small ball of matter, then expanding again, and so on without end.

This idea of a periodically expanding and contracting universe, which involves a scale of time and space of vast proportions, has arisen not only in modern cosmology, but also in ancient Indian mythology. Experiencing  the universe as an organic and rhythmically moving cosmos, the Hindus were able to develop evolutionary cosmologies which comes very close to our modern  scientific models.  One of these cosmologies is based on the Hindu myth of LILA – the divine play –in which Brahman transforms  himself into the world. Lila is a rhythmic play which goes on in endless cycles, the One becoming the many and the many returning into the One.

The Hindu sages were not afraid  to identify this rhythmic divine play with the evolution of the cosmos as a whole. They pictured the universe as periodically expanding and contracting and gave the name kalpa to the unimaginable time span between the beginning and the end of one creation.

A body has energy when it has the capacity for doing work. This energy can take a great variety of forms. It can be energy of motion, energy of heat, gravitational energy, electrical energy, chemical energy, and so on. Whatever the form is,  it can be used to do work.

Now, relativity theory tells us that mass is nothing but a form of energy. The amount of energy contained, for  example; in a particle is equal to the particle’s mass, m, times c², the square of the speed of light; thus

E = m  c²

Once it is seen to be a form of energy, mass is no longer required to be indestructible, but can be transformed into other forms of energy. This can happen when subatomic particles collide with one another. In such collisions, particles can be destroyed and he energy contained in their masses can be transformed into kinetic energy, and distributed among the other particles participating in the collision. Conversely, when particles collide with very high velocities, their kinetic energy can be used to form the masses of new particles.

In the collision processes of high-energy physics, mass is no longer conserved. The colliding particles can be destroyed and their masses may be transformed  partly into the masses, and partly into the kinetic energies of the newly crated particles. Only the total energy involved in such a process, that is, the total kinetic energy plus the energy contained in all the masses, is conserved.

In modern physics, mass is no longer associated with a material substance, and hence particles are not seen as consisting of any basis ‘stuff’, but as bundles of energy.

These dynamic patterns, or ‘energy bundles’, from the stable nuclear, atomic and molecular structures which build up matter and give it its macroscopic solid aspect, thus making us believe that it is made of some material substance. At the macroscopic level, this notion of substance is a useful approximation, but at the atomic level it no longer makes sense.

The Eastern mystics, in their non-ordinary states of consciousness, seem to be aware  of the interpenetration of space and time at a macroscopic level, and thus they see the macroscopic objects in a way which is very similar to the physicists’ conception of subatomic particles. This is particularly striking in Buddhism. One of the principal teaching of the Buddha was that ‘all compounded things are impermanent’.

Buddhists have conceived an object as an event and not as a thing or substance… The Buddhist conception of  ‘things’ as samskara (or sankhara), that is, as ‘deeds’, or ‘events’, makes it clear that Buddhists understand our experience in terms of time and movement.

Like modern physicists, Buddhists see all objects as processes in a universal flux and deny the existence of any material substance. This denial is one of the most characteristic features of all schools of Buddhist philosophy. It is also characteristic of Chinese thought which developed a similar view of things as transitory stages in the ever-flowing Tao and was more concerned their interrelations than with their reduction to a fundamental substance.

Name of the Book:          The Tao of Physics

Author:                            Fritjof Capra

Edition:                            Third Edition 1991

Publisher:          Flamingo, An imprint of Harper Collins Publishers

The Tao of Physics 

 

CODEPENDENCY

Codependency

Codependency: How to Break Free and Live Your Own Life

David Stafford & Liz Hodgkinson

Codependents are those people who depend upon on others for their own sense of self-esteem. They are the over-supportive wives and loyal secretaries. They are or can be – dedicated doctors and tireless social workers. Not that there is anything wrong with being supportive or loyal, but such behavior becomes codependent when it is misplaced, when balanced judgment is lost and the support or loyalty continues when it is not deserved or appropriate. For example, a codependent secretary will always be willing to work overtime without pay, undertake extra duties – and put her own life in abeyance while serving her boss, who may take all the credit for her hard work, perhaps without even a ‘thank you’.

Codependents, essentially are people who cannot live their own lives. They live vicariously, have no real sense of their own identity and don’t really know who they are. They are like chameleons, taking colours from their surroundings. Above all they desperately want to be loved, needed and highly regarded.

Codependency is never a positive characteristic and hurts all it touches; many millions of people let codependency rule their lives. They attempt to control and manipulate others by whatever means they can. They can’t say no, and they let others walk all over them. They are the parents who won’t let their children grow up, the wife who won’t let her husband out of her sight in case he has an affair, the loyal worker who allows herself or himself to be exploited.

Codependents are people-pleasers always putting others first at the expense of themselves. Initially they may seem extremely caring, loving and self-sacrificing. But always beneath the apparent saintliness, they seek to control others.

Because codependents do not have a strong personal sense of identity and possess little sense of self-worth, they over-identify with their roles and relationships. Instead of being a woman who also happens to be a mother, a codependent with children will see herself first and foremost as a ‘mother’ not realizing that this is only a role she assumes, albeit an important one.

In our present society such people are frequently considered admirable – giving up everything to look after others. They are seen as unselfish, altruistic and self-sacrificing. Most probably they have told themselves that they don’t have any serious needs of their own, that their happiness comes from looking after others and tending to their need. Yet the fact is that none of them is happy.

Codependents, for various reasons, are powerless to run their own lives. They must always be at the beck and call of others. Having only a very hazy notion of who they are, it becomes easier to define themselves in terms of their roles, or relationships to other people, safer to allow the feelings and actions of others to rule their lives.

... A codependent uses people in much the same way as a chemically dependent person will use alcohol or drugs. Codependents are the ultimate busybodies, wanting to be useful, wanting to be in charge and like other addicts, they need to achieve a high. They get a buzz from feeling useful, needed and wanted – and an almighty let-down when they sense they are not being appreciated enough or that other people simply trample over them. They put themselves out endlessly for others and then wonder why people are so often ungrateful, so dismissive, so nasty.

There is a vast difference between being ordinarily loving and caring and having the best interests of family members at heart – and being codependent. In essence as codependent person cannot ever see what might be best for others, because he or she has become incapable of detaching and understanding clearly what the needs of others might be. They actually project their own needs onto other people. In a way horrible though this may seem, they become like leeches, clinging on those around them for their own sense of identity and status.

Codependents are always looking for a needy individual to latch on to. And with so many sad cases or ‘lost causes’ to embrace, they will always be successful. They are found in all walks of life, as doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers, loyal secretaries, dedicated workers, compulsive over-achievers and sometimes – yes – as active addicts.

Codependency is a specific condition characterized by preoccupation and extreme dependence on another person – emotionally, socially, sometimes physically. This dependence nurtured over a long period of time, becomes a pathological condition that affects the codependent in all their relationships.

Another definition of a codependent is somebody who might say, or at least think without you, I’m nothing. It would be very hard to codependent if alone on a desert land. A codependent needs people in the same way as an alcoholic needs a drink, or a gamblers needs to place a bet.

The concept of codependency can be difficult to appreciate, especially as it is so intimately bound up with what society tells us is good and right. It is good to be carer – the newspapers are always full of stories about carers who give up everything to look after aged relatives or handicapped children. It is good to be concerned, to be loyal, to be a conscientious worker. But codependency is inappropriate, over-the-top loyalty, caring and supportiveness. Codependents work far beyond the call of duty, even when there is no need for it.

The basis of codependency is not simply that we may be profoundly affected by the behavior or feelings of other people, so much as that we cannot see other people as separate from ourselves, with their own set of behaviours, feelings and actions which we may not share.

Whenever you feel compelled to put other people first at the expense of yourself, you are denying your own reality, your own identity.

One of the commonest remarks codependents make is: after all I’ve done for you, this is how you treat me. They have enormous expectations of others, expectations which are rarely met. They hope and pray that the other people in their lives will change and improve. Many sincerely believe that the world would be a far better place if only everybody change their behavior for the better.

True Love

We can very easily confuse codependency with love. Falling in love mimics severe codependency. When people ‘fall in love’ very often, and frequently they go through emotional turmoil because of another failed or unsatisfactory love affair. If we genuinely love, we will wish what is best for the other person, rather than wanting the beloved to modify his or her behavior to suit our wishes.

True love involves detachment, being able to let go. Codependents love wishes to bind, strangle, cling. Parents who love their children will wish them well all their lives, but will not be hurt or disappointed when the children’s lives do not conform to the parent’s hopes or expectations. The codependents finds it difficult to appreciate that children are completely separate beings for whom they have taken only temporary responsibility.

Gender Factor

 Codependency can affect men and women equally, although it’s more obvious manifestations are frequently found in women. One reason for this is because in our society women are encouraged to become the carers, to put their own needs and talents on hold to become secondary and supportive. One of the aspects hindering recovery is that codependents are so useful to the other people in their lives, that these others don’t want the codependent to recover, and may actively sabotage such attempts. So many people, particularly men, have been rendered so helpless by the codependents in their lives that they live in terror of having to manage on their own.

Unhealthy

Codependency is unhealthy as it brings about so much chronic illness. The most common consequence of codependency is depression, very often severe. Another frequent consequence is active addiction, whether to alcohol, shopping, food, gambling or prescribed or street drugs.

The reason why it can bring about so much illness is that it is a stressful state. Codependents feel nervous inside. They have little self-confidence and almost no sense of identity. They are frantic worriers, take excessive responsibility for others, and can never relax.

Shame

The kind of home which tends to favour the development of codependent attitudes is one where there is enormous pretence, rather than any acknowledgment of painful realities. Such homes are known as shame-based family systems. In fact the concept of shame is central to understanding codependency. Because there is a deep sense of shame, either about an addiction, or about the behavior of a family member – or because one or both parents came from such a home themselves – enormous efforts are usually made to pretend that everything is normal and that this is an exceptionally happy and close-knit family. So there is always an ongoing cover up which prevents family members having a strong sense of personal identity. How can you learn to be yourself when you have had to play a false part from your earliest years?

 All homes have problems; healthy ones admit them, codependent homes keep them under wraps. The reason for this is clear – the hope is that if the problems are never brought to the surface, they will simply go away. In fact the opposite happens – they fester and get progressively worse. When problems are denied the fears and shame become submerged and repressed. They remain below conscious level and are liable to surface in appropriate ways.

Narcissistic Attachment

In codependent homes, parents are unable to see the children, however old they may be, as separate entities. This is known as narcissistic attachment, meaning that the parent has great difficulty understanding what the child may be wanting.

In healthy families, the children will develop a sense of self-sufficiency and be happy to live away from home when they grow up – and the parents will be content that they have done their job. There will be contact, but this will be as between adults, with no guilt, emotional blackmail or recriminations on either side.

In codependent homes by contrast, children never break away properly; because they have always had to exist in relation to the parents, they have never developed independence. The codependent parents will respond to the child in one of two characteristic ways:

1.      Either they will devise completely rigid behavior strategies to regulate and control the child’s demands, so that these cause minimal disruption and annoyance to the parents.

2.     Or they will go to the opposite extreme and give in to the child’s every whim.

The issue of codependency must be addressed as a serious problem in our society because it is impossible for anybody to fulfill their true potential as human beings unless they can come from a background of fear and mistrust – emotions they have absorbed into themselves. They have not learned viable intimacy skills, which is why they will almost always pick people who are somehow are unavailable as partners.

When we are completely and emotionally dependent on someone else, we must control them. Our need for control arises from the fear that the other person would leave us, abandon us. When our self-worth is intimately tied up in our relationship with another person, it eventually withers and dies so that we are left without any self-worth at all.

Be Good to Yourself

Resist trying to become what other people want you to be. Anybody who tries to change you is really saying: as I can’t control myself I will try and control you. By the same token, don’t attempt to control other people’s behavior – it’s not your place. If you don’t like certain aspects of a person when you first get to know them, and are desperate to alter them, then you are you are storing up problems for later life. Think carefully about why you want to change them.

Men and women often believe that thanks to their loving care, their partners or prospective partners will be enabled to give up smoking, gambling or whatever. Of course they won’t. If you ever feel the person in your life needs rescuing particularly from him or herself – beware codependency is rearing its head again.

The Spiritual Aspect

Codependency thrives on materialism, investing in external such as people, roles, status, but these are empty and unfulfilling, which probably accounts for the growing trend in our society to reject materialism and embrace spirituality. In this context ‘spirituality’ relates to the ability to be in touch with our inner selves, and to understand that we are, as people, distinct from the roles and parts we play, and how we relate to other people.

True Guru

Anybody with a codependent streak is in great danger of being taken in by a charismatic leader. They are all fallible – even though some may have developed genuine spiritual qualities. A true ‘guru’ is somebody who can lead you from darkness into light – that is what the word means. It is important not follow a ‘rugu’ – somebody who leads from light into darkness, or a ‘gugu’ – somebody who keeps you in the dark. Any human being who insists that he (or she) is worshiped, and entitled to all your worldly goods is not a truly spiritual person – just another codependent, desperate for your love and esteem.

You can appreciate the wisdom or spirituality of somebody else, that you can learn from them if they have something of value to teach, but that you will not ever come to depend or rely on them in the sense that you will never be tempted to handover everything to them, in the belief that they will be able to take all your cares and woes away and enable you to have a worry-free, stress-free life. No human being can do that for another – all that a helper of any sort can do at best is to help you to see where the essence of your identity lies, and to impart some useful strategies for accessing this and becoming aware of it.

True spirituality means taking time for the things that matter to you, and not having your day filled out with catering for other people. This does not mean you have to be selfish – in fact truly spiritual people are the most loving and giving. But they do not give in order to make you feel grateful, obligated or under a burden. They give because they have something to spare – but they rarely give at the expense of themselves. They give you because they love you and they love you because they love themselves.

Name of the Book: Codependency: How to Break Free and Live    Your Own Life

Author:                      David Stafford & Liz Hodgkinson

Edition:                      1998 Edition
Publisher:                 Piatkus Books