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One Universe: The United Principle of Consciousness in Quantum Physics and
Religion
Often, the human perception of knowledge organizes itself into a hierarchy based on
perceived logicality. If asked to describe the difference between physics and biology, for
example, we might say that physics is the “harder” science. We might justify this by saying that
while it is simple to make hypotheses about the effects of gravity and to test these hypotheses
using careful variables and control groups that lead to a clear conclusion, it is much more
difficult to test and verify the theories of evolution. We think of knowledge as existing on a
spectrum from “hard” to “soft,” from factual, logical, and number based understanding to
spiritual, less quantitative knowledge (Clayton 90). Some physicists might imagine quantum
physics as an isolated planet, guided by logical rules and grounded in unshakeable mathematics.
Philosophy might be a more distant planet; “softer” even than biology or psychology, visible
because its conclusions on human life may draw from scientific fact, but less grounded in data
and seemingly less logical than the planet of physics. Further on from these might exist the
planet representing religion; to many scientists it is completely invisible from the realm of
physics, built upon principles of spirituality and faith that are difficult to connect with scientific
realities. Despite our fondness for this type of compartmentalization, the patterns found in
quantum physics have undeniable philosophical implications and often parallel the patterns
found in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. From these parallels it is possible to conclude
that the discoveries of quantum physics do not force religious or philosophical belief into
obsoletion, but connect with and support them through a shared understanding of the vital nature
of consciousness.
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The Observer Effect of Quantum Physics and Consciousness as the Path to Non-Dualism
How can a cat be both dead and alive? This is the type of puzzling question that arose
from the absurdity of quantum randomness. Most of us have heard of Schrodinger’s famous
thought experiment, but the physics behind it is more obscure. In his model, a cat is locked in a
steel case with a Geiger counter, a radioactive substance, a hammer, and a vial of poisonous gas.
The Geiger counter will register the radioactive decay and, in response to it, trigger the hammer
to break the vial of poison, killing the cat. Radioactive substances decay randomly, existing in a
state known as superposition. In this state, the substance is both decayed and not yet decayed.
Until observed, the cat also exists in a state of superposition--because of this phenomenon we
must imagine that the cat is both dead and alive. When the box is opened and the cat is observed,
it will cease to exist in this state of possibility and will be either dead or alive (Kramer 1). From
this simple experiment it is already apparent that the presence of an observer and his or her effect
on reality is vital to quantum understanding. The conclusion of this experiment-- that an observer
has the ability to force possibility into actuality--may seem too strange to exist outside of thought
models; however, later experiments show the same type of observer effect acting upon light and
even matter.
Thomas Young’s double slit experiment was the first of many double path experiments to
discover unique interference patterns in light, and eventually in matter. His experiment, and
similar ones that followed it showed that light is able to act as both particles and waves. In this
type of experiment, light is passed through two slits cut into a solid screen, which is placed in
front of an observing screen. While we would assume that the light passing through the two slits
would cast two bars onto the observation screen, something completely baffling occurred. The
light appeared on the observing screen in light and dark bars, indicating an interference pattern
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indicative of wavelike behavior. Although this pattern seemed to prove that light traveled in
waves, researchers soon realized the duality of light. The light appeared to travel through the slits
as waves, but was, in actuality, absorbed by the observation screen at unique points—the light
was behaving as if it was composed of individual particles (Alda and Greene). Even when the
same type of experiment was done with electrons, the results still indicated of particle wave
duality. The electrons also seemed to act as waves, forming an interference pattern on the
observation screen as they were shot through the slits one by one. The conclusion was
inescapable; the electrons were leaving the gun as particles, becoming waves of potential to
travel through both slits, and then interfering with themselves to hit the second screen as single
particles. Mathematically, this was nearly impossible to understand. Because of the unique
behavior of the electrons, it appeared that they were going through both slits, or neither slit, or
one slit, or the other. The particles existed as possibility waves, so it was impossible to describe
what actually happened to each electron. This question led to the design of the experiment at the
root of our understanding of the observer effect.
Physicists decided to observe the electrons as they went through the slits in order to
understand exactly how they were behaving. Before, the electrons had created an interference
pattern on the observation screen because of the way they acted as probability waves. With the
presence of a human observer, however, the electrons lost their function as waves. Each electron
was forced to “choose” one slit or the other, and instead of an interference pattern, a pattern
consistent with the two slits was formed on the observation screen. The very act of observation
had collapsed the interference pattern suggestive of a wavelike quality, forcing the electrons to
act like particles (“Dr. Quantum—Double Slit Experiment”)
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The philosophical implications of these experiments are stunning. Human awareness has
the ability to change the way matter acts, but does this mean that matter has an awareness of its
own that causes it to respond to the presence of an observer? What does the fact that human
observation can control the behavior of light and matter mean about our place within the
universe?
Amit Goswami’s works on consciousness attempt to understand how exactly we hold the
power to change the path of electrons. An electron, like any object, exists as a wave of
probability. Quantum physics is able to calculate the probability of each possibility of a quantum
wave, but cannot calculate how a wave is reduced to a unique actuality. Goswami references
John Van Neummen’s hypothesis that this unknown reducing factor is a “nonmaterial,
transcendent consciousness” (Goswami 537).
Goswami’s theory is a belief consistent with monistic idealism, the idea that instead of
being defined by matter, the universe is defined by consciousness. Goswami understands
consciousness as a bridge between the dualities, such as brain and mind or life and nonlife, often
found in physics. The earlier example seems to be the perfect duality. The brain is concrete,
physical, while the mind is vague, abstract because it transcends the physical; it is not understood
how the two are connected.
Goswami uses research often labeled as parapsychology to argue that the dualities of
physics can be connected with consciousness. In one experiment, telepathic patterns were
observed that indicate the non-localized transfer of ideas to be similar to quantum movements. In
another experiment a light flashed randomly, appearing either green or red. Observers were
asked to will the light to flash one color; when the results were recorded they showed that the
observer’s willpower had a noticeable affect on the light patterns. If the observer had willed the
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light to be green, it did not appear red half the time as was expected, even when it flashed
hundreds of times (Goswami 539). The act of observation, and perhaps the abstract power of the
human consciousness had changed the expected outcome of concrete events.
The types of research described by physicists like Goswami are often shocking and
difficult to believe, especially for those who are deeply religious. The tension between scientific
findings and traditional faith is not novel; science and religion have struggled against each other
in an uneasy balance for centuries. At the time of the Scientific Revolution, the Church became
more focused on persecuting heretics and forbidding their works than on spreading its own
beliefs. Astronomers like Copernicus and Galileo created new models of the solar system in
which the earth rotated around the sun. These models contradicted the Church’s view of the earth
as the all-important center of the universe, and both scientists’ books were banned (Leveillee 1).
For years, theists and religious philosophers have tried to avoid or disprove scientific
discoveries, eager to ensure that these new realities are unable to remove credibility from their
beliefs. In the past few decades, however, our scientific discoveries have changed and expanded
hugely. Scientific research is no longer limited to the tangible world of our planet; it has
expanded to include the smallest particles and the greatest expanse of space. The most recent
scientific discoveries are often difficult to believe, extraordinary in a way that allows theists to
draw on them as support for belief in a higher power. Instead of warring against each other,
religion and science have begun to echo one another.
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Religion and Consciousness as the Ultimate Truth
In the tradition of the Advaita Vedanta, a precursor to modern Hinduism, five types of
consciousness define the universe. There is absolute, cosmic, individual, and indwelling
consciousness. Above these is Brahman, or pure consciousness. Despite these distinctions, the
Vedanta describes a consciousness that is truly one and non-dual, separated into different types
merely to please the simplistic human understanding of the world. One of the driving questions
stemming from this belief is how the undivided and absolute reality of consciousness became our
universe of duality and change. This is a difficult question to answer, because it questions
whether everything we know is simply an illusion of multiplicity. The philosopher
Shankaracharya devised a superimposition theory that explained the phenomenon of a universe
of duality built from an undivided consciousness. He told the story of a man who walked through
his village at night and was frightened by a snake lying on the road. When the man neared the
snake, he shone his lantern on it and realized that it was only a piece of rope. This myth parallels
the physical understanding of the observer effect. The man’s observation of the snake leads him
to see that it is simply a rope, but until he does so his response to it, his perception of its reality,
is the same as if it were truly a snake. The relationship between snake and rope also acts as a
metaphor for the relationship of the universe and Brahman. While it may seem that the existence
of the rope and the illusion of the snake are impossible to connect, Shankaracharya suggested
that, just as the universe cannot exist without consciousness, the snake could not exist without
the rope. It is thus the human purpose to look beneath the illusions of our world to the truth
defined by pure consciousness; in other words, we must look beyond our divided perception of
the world to understand it nondually (Brahmaprana 1).
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In the Buddhist tradition, our earthly lives are described as samsara or “wandering.” We
wander through these lives, making mistakes and suffering so that our spirits can learn and grow
until we are allowed to cease the endless cycle of death and rebirth and enter the blissful state of
Nirvana. The philosopher Nagarjuna believed that there is no difference between samsara and
sukhavati, The Pure Land, Nirvana, The Land of Bliss. In any sect of Buddhism, Nirvana is
understood, in the words of Edward Conze, as “permanent, stable, imperishable, immovable…it
is the real Truth and the supreme Reality.” Herein lies the argument against Nagarjuna’s vision
of samsara and sukhavati as completely one. If they are the same, why are our earthly lives filled
with human suffering and sorrow instead of the pure bliss of Nirvana? The Buddha himself
described our existence in the “saha world…a world in which pain and suffering must be
endured.” It seems clear that it is counterintuitive to attempt to understand samhara and
sukhavati as one, but modern philosophies of Mahayana Buddhism may be able to show that
they are, despite their differences, not completely opposite.
Buddhists believe in no single deity or creator, instead, they believe in the ultimate bliss
of Nirvana and the Dharmakaya, described as “eternity, bliss, Self, and purity.” The dharmakaya
“is transcendent…it lies beyond anything we can conceive or perceive. It…lies at the heart of all
things of which it is also the ultimate source.” Although we cannot perceive its existence, the
abstract dharmakaya is not unknown to humans. The Hua-yen school of Buddhism “[sees] all
phenomena as expressions of an originally pure and undifferentiated one mind.” This definition
of the dharmakaya is similar to Goswami’s definition of consciousness as a transcendent,
unifying factor. This concept of a central oneness that gives birth to our varied reality influenced
new doctrines in china, Korea, and Japan—from the beliefs of the Eternal Buddha of the Lotus
sutra to the Pure Land sutras and the Buddha Mhavairocana. Using the less-dual understanding
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of the dependence of our impermanent and changeable existence on the eternal reality of the
dharmakaya supports the “central Mahayana notion of the interdependence of all things, for
beneath the deceptive and dream-like world of appearances, we find that there is nothing
substantial that truly separates one being from another” (Paraskevopoulos 1). It is clear that the
idea that our “reality” depends on some type of ultimately truthful consciousness is common to
both Hinduism and Buddhism, and that Goswami’s non-dual method of understanding dissimilar
quantum physical entities can also be applied to our universe.
The concept of a transcendent, non-dual, and imminent force that serves as a guiding reality
for our existence may seem absent from traditionally theistic belief systems such as Christianity.
In Christian theistic faith, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, but is not the essence
of the universe. God is omnipotent and infinite, but not intrinsically present within finite beings.
Generally, Christian faith sees the mortal world and Heaven as strictly dual; the main link
between the two is that human actions in the mortal world affect the soul’s ability to find peace
in Heaven. Despite this strictly defined duality, modern Christ Consciousness allows an
understanding of God that more closely mirrors the Buddhist understanding of dharmakaya.
Often mockingly called Christ-less Christianity, Christ Consciousness is the belief that the
human mind is blessed with spiritual currents that contain information from a transcendent,
omnipotent Spirit who is the “source of everything true, beautiful, and good.” Christ
Consciousness is defined as “the growing human recognition and blending of the human
evolutionary (or ego) mind with the Divine Mind and the Divine Personality that is the source of
human…fulfillment” (“What is Christ Consciousness?” 1).
Although it is a more modern school of Christian belief, ideas similar to Christ
Consciousness have been a part of Christianity since the time of Pseudo-Dionysius, a Syrian
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monk from the 5th or 6th century who wrote his works using the pseudonym Dionysius the
Areopagite. Pseudo-Dionysius wrote works on mystical theology, focusing on the ineffability of
god and the apophatic approach to understanding him; in this approach his followers focus on
describing characteristics that he does not have until their remaining understanding is numinous,
so above typical human understandings that it cannot be described by words. This type of
approach seems to apply to Goswami’s nondualism as well as the Hindu and Buddhist goal of
stripping away the multiplicities of the world to reveal the united truth. Despite the seeming
humility of a belief in a god so awful that his followers cannot describe him, one of the pillars of
mystical theology and today’s Christ Consciousness is the idea of the divinization of humanity.
The followers of Christ Consciousness don’t actually believe that they will become gods
themselves, distinguishing between “the essence of God and divine attributes, which they regard
as energies that penetrate the universe.” Pseudo-Dionysius defined creation as a process in which
the divine Being is “transported outside of Himself…to dwell within the heart of all things”
(“Christianity” 97).
The Human Ego and A Model for the Unity of Individual and Transcendent
Consciousness
If we choose to believe that humans are able to hold some aspect of the divine within
ourselves, and even undergo a process of enlightenment or divinization, we must also
acknowledge the fact that our greater power seems to lessen the importance of higher powers.
This question is complicated by the existence of the anthropic principle, which holds the power
of human consciousness above all else. As the realm of scientific knowledge becomes
continuously broader and more complex, theists have begun to draw proof for their beliefs from
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scientific discoveries instead of attempting to ignore or disprove the facts that contradicted their
faith. Philosophers and theists alike are drawn into the worlds of cosmology and quantum
physics, finding miraculous parallels rather than discouraging contradictions to their beliefs in
the newest findings. In the recent decades, scientists have discovered numerous instances of
almost unbelievable coincidences that, if shifted even the tiniest fraction, could destroy the
universe as we know it. One example is the delicate balance of gravity and electromagnetism in
the stars. If this balance was shifted by a practically infinitesimal amount in either direction, our
stars would be destroyed and our universe would become unable to host any planets suitable for
life. This type of cosmic luck has caused many to wonder if perhaps our strangely-ordered world
is an “indication of the existence of a very powerful being with a special interest in the
emergence and survival of human-like creatures” (Schlesinger 1). This would seem to describe a
universe created for human wants and needs. However, this science has long been led astray by
our own arrogance--take the Earth-centered Ptolemaic astronomy model, for example--and it
seems unwise to believe that the entire universe revolves around humans. After all, we are not
the only creatures with awareness and consciousness. Dolphins recognize themselves in mirrors,
elephants seem to have an understanding of death, birds can use tools and learn to speak new
languages, and even plants can communicate with one another or learn and store new
information. It is impossible to insist that human beings are the only living organisms with
conscious needs; the anthropic principle ignores the fact that humans are not necessarily central
to the coincidences and patterns of the universe.
Another theory that may be less narrow in its focus on humanity’s importance is Robert
Lanza’s concept of biocentrism. Biocentrism combines biology with the concepts of quantum
physics to understand our world as a myriad of unique realities, each created by an individual
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organism’s perception. In this theory, each organism, from the powerful man to the tiniest insect
is the center of its “own sphere of reality” (Lanza 19). Biocentric understanding is based upon
the idea “that all truths and principles of being must begin with the individual mind and self.” As
Descartes stated, “I think; therefore I am,” our individual perceptions are the only way we can
define the world around us (Lanza 20). The act of conscious awareness defines an individual’s
existence, and possibly shapes the reality of its experience.
While the recognition of all sentient organisms in biocentrism seems more encompassing
than the egotism of the anthropic principle, biocentrism may at first appear to contradict the
theories of non-dualism apparent in the previously mentioned religions. If each organism creates
its own reality based on an individual consciousness, how can the interconnectedness of
everything central to Hindu and Buddhist belief exist? Individual realities seem to refute the
belief that a transcendent higher power acts as the creator or framework of our universe. To show
that even the theory of individual reality does not disprove the existence of a higher, unifying
power, we must return to Goswami’s concepts of physics within nondualism. Goswami’s writing
aims to describe the world as matter defined by probability waves that, in turn, exist within a
transcendent and all-encompassing consciousness--the “reducing factor.” It is this reducing
factor that allows us to view the world in a non-dual sense. Goswami’s “quantum-withinconsciousness” model parallels the ideas of Buddhism (Goswami 539). Mahayana belief insists
“on the presence of the Buddha-nature in each sentient being.” Thus, the infinite reality of the
Buddha, Nirvana, and dharmakaya must “dwell in the hearts of finite beings.” We can imagine
our world as quantum probabilities existing within a transcendent consciousness. Some of that
consciousness also exists within each of us, allowing us to define our realities with our
observations and perceptions.
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Consciousness and the Coalescence of Science and Religion
We can see that the thread of consciousness runs through quantum physics, philosophy
and religion, from biology to cosmology it connects our fragmented understanding of the
universe into a single whole. From Schrodinger’s infamous cat model to the most progressive
parapsychology experiments we can see that conscious observation has an effect on physical
realities. Consciousness allows the abstract awareness of an observer to affect the concrete
reality of matter; it is the bridge between the dualities of our world from brain to mind and from
nonlife to life. In the tradition of the Indian Advaita Vedanta, consciousness is truly one and nondual, thought it is divided to satisfy our simplistic understanding of the world. Consciousness in
the Vedanta is the ultimate but unperceivable truth upon which our perceptions of the physical
world depend. In various schools of Buddhism dharmakaya is the origin of everything, the
ultimate reality hidden by the illusive multiplicities of the physical world. Dharmakaya is the
overarching source of all things, but is also present in each individual, allowing the phenomenal
variations of our world to spring from one undifferentiated “mind” which can be understood as a
kind of transcendent consciousness. Similarly, mystic theology and Christ Conscious
Christianity believe that humanity can be made divine when the divine Being, which can be
understand as God or a type of consciousness reaches out to exist within all things. Through the
theory of Biocentrism it is apparent that the creating power of conscious observation is not
limited to humans. Goswami’s understanding of consciousness as an all-encompassing power
containing the probability waves that define our world unifies the concept of individual
consciousness creating individual realities.
From the tiniest beetle to the great blue whale, we can see that everything exists in a
world defined by consciousness and has its own powerful consciousness. Even light and matter
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seem to show consciousness or awareness when they respond to human observers. The truth of
consciousness as a foundation for the world has ancient roots in religion; the discoveries of
quantum physics echo these beliefs with startling accuracy, forming new parallels that allow us
to understand that, just as the illusion of our physical word and the truth of the consciousness
that defines it are one, our understanding of science and religion may also find unity through
nondualism. The planets that originally seemed so distant can only grow closer to one another as
we continue to understand our universe in new ways.
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