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Modern eye misses mysteries of universe
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Dear Ni Tao:
I enjoyed your rather wide-ranging column of November 25 regarding the possibility of the existence of an “afterlife,” including your musings on its implications.
Archeological discoveries in recent decades support the view that even our most distant ancestors had spiritual beliefs and related rituals.
This suggests that humans may be hard-wired towards “spirituality” (I prefer this to “religion,” a word which for me implies a distillation of spirituality into a more systemic, if not rigid, codification of beliefs).
Modern, especially Western, cultures tend to dismiss out of hand the idea that there could be another dimension to existence which is not easily penetrated, or understood, by the conscious mind.
However, it was not all that long ago that most cultures did not make a sharp distinction between this world — in which some things can be tangibly known (seen, touched, tasted, measured) — and another world in which other phenomena exist that cannot be so perceived or quantified.
For them, the mysterious, wondrous, and terrifying incidents which occasionally manifested themselves were an intertwined — if not a fully explicable — part of “reality.”
Such societies were much more accepting of mystical experiences, and believed that important revelations could be transmitted through dreams.
In our own day we now understand that during sleep the more rational, governing and controlling features of our brains are either weakened or shut down, making us more open — or, if you will, “susceptible” — to thoughts our conscious minds might neither permit nor accept.
Meaningful life
It is in this context that I found your column to be a welcome re-introduction to the possibility that there, nonetheless, really might be more “going on here” than otherwise meets our modern, skeptical eye.
In the last couple of hundred years, many otherwise knowledgeable people have decided that the scientific perspective cannot possibly coexist with an openness to that which cannot be quantified and tested. I personally believe this perspective to be artificial and restrictive, for two principal reasons.
First, ongoing astronomical discoveries and evolving theories of physics suggest that our universe is far more complex than we recently thought and that, in fact, there could be other universes in addition to our own. We now understand for certain that there are many “things” and forces which are invisible to us, but which are, nevertheless, quite real.
Second, there is an amazing similarity in what various cultures’ great teachers have told us about how to live a “meaningful life,” and in what it means to be a “good” and “noble” person.
For example, the wise teachings of Confucius are not at all very different from those found in the writings of the Roman Stoic Epictetus.
Are not these teachings, in essence, spiritual in nature?
Likewise, those known as mystics have expressed very similar experiences when they speak about “attaining oneness with the universe.”
Whether or not these occurrences imply an encounter with a “supreme being,” these sages report common feelings of awe, joy, peace and expanded awareness.
At age 70, I am more certain than ever that we humans have but scratched the surface in “understanding” our world and the universe in which we are situated. We have so much more to learn, and are more likely to do so if we — as in the words of Jesus — assume the attitude of a child: eyes wide open, heart curious and trusting, and with an eagerness to learn from each other.
While I do not have any proof of an “afterlife,” I do believe that far more is going on than we know, and that humanity’s common expressions of belief about greater possibilities are based on something beautifully true within our nature.
Sustainable future
As Wang Yong has lamented in your pages, I am also greatly concerned that the primary values of our time — including, apparently, even in China — are those of attaining more material things and greater power rather than focusing on those things which are essential to a “good life.”
In wisdom traditions, things and power are viewed not only as false values, but also as ones that will lead us dangerously astray. The violence in our world — toward nature as well as toward each other — indicates we have lost our way, abandoning each other to the imperatives of this world, rather than seeking together the sustainable future.
May our many shared hopes and values enable us to see — with renewed eyes — the mystery and wonder each of us presents to the other. We really has no more time to devote to hatred, war, or alienation.
We have too much to do, to learn, to achieve — together.
The author has been a college teacher of American history and political science, the director of the US National Catholic Rural Life Conference; he served as a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives, and retired from public service in the Iowa executive branch in 2004.
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