Heroes choose what they want. Being in many places at once. Experiencing many possibilities all at once. Then collapsing on the one.
—REGGIE
All roads lead to Rome
Everything so entangled
Eternal City
Eternal Question:
Do I make reality
Or does it make me?
All the roads we’ve been trekking in the previous chapters really lead up to this one. And from this eternal question, all the chapters will lead out. None of us can escape without somehow answering: Do I create my reality, or am I a leaf in the wind? Am I the source that determines the things in my life, or is my life at the end of a chain, determined in one instant at the big bang?
We saw in the “What Is Reality?” chapter how we answer the reality question every time we get out of bed, every time we interact with what’s “out there.” Well, is “Do I create my reality?” answered in all of our internal “in here” moments? And if it’s true that we do create our reality, then those “in here” moments are the precursor to those “out there” moments. Which is why this is the central “in here” moment of the book.
This idea has been, and still is, a central concept of spiritual, metaphysical, occult and alchemical traditions. “As above so below, as within so without” is held as a fundamental, true way to see the world. Yet while common sense says you create some events in your life (what to have for breakfast, what person to marry, what car to drive), it seems a stretch to say that you had anything to do with that tree falling on that car.
In fact, the concept of you creating reality (it does after all get created somehow—it’s there!) has a myriad of nuances. It generates questions like:
• If I create and you create and they’re different—what then?
• “I would never create this (fill in the blank) in my life!”
• Do coincidences exist?
• Does a starving child create that?
• What about natural disasters?
• Who is the “I” that is creating?
And these questions in turn tie into the concepts of karma, transcendent self, frequency specific resonances, attitudes, personal responsibility, victimization and power.
But the bottom line is: Which side of the fence you are on with respect to this concept has the single biggest impact on the life you live.
All speech, action and behavior are fluctuations of consciousness. All life emerges from, and is sustained in, consciousness. The whole universe is the expression of consciousness. The reality of the universe is one unbounded ocean of consciousness in motion.
—Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Back to the Lab (Again!)
In “Mind over Matter” we saw how intent seems to push around events on the microscopic level. We saw how the supposed randomness of quantum events could be altered, and how the focus of our minds could bring about a different physical state. In “Observer” it was all about collapsing a cloud of fuzzy possibilities into a definite single state. In “Quantum Physics” it was how this solid fixed reality isn’t so solid, fixed and stable, and there is a connection between everything in the universe. The parallels between “Quantum Mechanics” and “Consciousness Creates Reality” are once again compelling.
You really have to recognize that even the material world around us, the chairs, the tables, the rooms, the carpet, all of these are nothing but possible movements of consciousness.
—Amit Goswami, Ph.D.
According to Princeton’s Nobel Prize–winning physicist John Wheeler, “Useful as it is under everyday circumstances to say that the world exists ‘out there’ independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld.” In Wheeler’s words, we are not simply “bystanders on a cosmic stage, [but] shapers and creators living in a participatory universe.”
According to physicist and author Amit Goswami, “We all have a habit of thinking that everything around us is already a thing, existing without my input, without my choice.” To be true to the findings of quantum physics, Goswami says, we “have to banish that kind of thinking. Instead, you really have to recognize that even the material world around us, the chairs, the tables, the rooms, the carpet, all of these are nothing but possible movements of consciousness. And I’m choosing moment to moment out of those movements to bring my actual experience into manifestation.”
What these physicists, and the new physics in general, are spelling out is the death of dualism. It’s not mind over matter; it’s mind = matter. Not consciousness creates reality, but consciousness = reality.
Think of the two sides of the fence.
In chapter after chapter, we have been looking at the relationship between the two sides. We’ve been looking for causal relationships. Who causes what? Is there a connection? Is there a split? Who created the split, and who sits on the fence with a foot in both realms? We do, and we did.
But with the death of dualism, there is no connection or cause (or fence). It’s all the same thing. Everything is interdependent—which is what those explorers in consciousness have always maintained. Goswami freely admits how difficult it is to adjust to this new way of thinking that seems to contradict our daily experience. He says, “This is the only radical thinking that you need to do, but it is so radical. It’s so difficult, because our tendency is that the world is already out there, independent of my experience. It is not. Quantum physics has been so clear about it.”
All of this led Fred Alan Wolf in the ’70s to coin the term, “I created my reality.” The then emerging New Age movement immediately seized upon this phrase and made it part of their paradigm. But as many physicists went on to say, it’s not a simple concept to really grasp fully. As we quoted Dr. Wolf earlier: “You’re not changing the reality out there; you’re not changing chairs and big trucks and bulldozers and rockets taking off—you’re not changing those!”
My son, Evan, the physicist, says it’s an additive thing if I’m holding one reality and someone else is holding another reality . . . It’s the Super Bowl this afternoon, and the reality that the Eagles are holding, is a different reality than what the Patriots are holding, and only one of those realities is going to be the real reality.
—Candace Pert, Ph.D.
Who Is Creating What?
Dr. Wolf continues: “One of the things that comes up about creating realities is what happens when there are two people each creating a different reality; what goes on there? Well, the first thing to realize is that the idea that you create your own reality, if by you, you mean that egotistic person that you think is running your show creates your reality, it’s probably wrong. It’s probably not that you that’s creating the reality at all.” Says Amit Goswami:
It became clear that the place from where I choose to create my own reality, that place of consciousness, is a very special non-ordinary state of being where the subject/objects split and disappear. It’s from this non-ordinary state that I choose, and therefore the exultation of the New Ager disappeared when it was forced to face the reality that there really is not a free lunch. We have to meditate and reach non-ordinary states of consciousness before we become the creator of our own reality.
So the concept is, “consciousness creates reality” brings in the questions: “What consciousness? What level of consciousness? Which ‘I’ is creating?”
A wonderful depiction of this question is the movie Forbidden Planet. In it, the people on the planet build a machine that instantly transforms their thoughts into physical reality. The big day comes, and they turn it on and WOW! What a day. They create wonderful mansions, a Ferrari in every driveway, beautiful parks, sumptuous banquets, after which they depart (in the Ferraris) to the magnificent mansions and fall asleep. And dream.
And wake up the next morning to a devastated planet.
According to Dr. Dean Radin, there’s a very good reason why we don’t manifest things right away: “Everything you do, everything you think, all your plans spread out and affect the universe. As it turns out, though, most of the universe doesn’t care, and that’s why our individual little thoughts don’t immediately go out and change the universe as we see it. I can imagine that if that were the case, if each of us were so powerful that our fleeting whims would go out and affect the universe, we would go out and destroy ourselves almost instantly.”
Think of all the times someone cut you off on the highway, and you thought (you know what you thought) and that immediately became reality. Or the time your spouse did ________________ and you said _______________!
The lack of immediate gratification in creating our own reality could be to protect us from ourselves.
Attitude Is Everything
Two of the fundamental ideas taught by Ramtha at the Ramtha School of Enlightenment are: consciousness and energy create the nature of reality, and attitude is everything. The first idea states the law of how things got the way they did, and the second idea is why.
There was an experiment done, where people were given the task of eating something decadent. And the people who did it with a sense of guilt and shame actually experienced a transient decrease in immune function. Whereas those who were able to just enjoy the experience and savor this wonderful whatever that they put in their mouths actually had a surge in immune status.
—Daniel Monti, M.D.
A recent study at Harvard by Ellen Langer and Rebecca Levy compared memory loss in elderly people of different cultures. Mainstream Americans, who live in a culture that fears old age and “knows” that as we age our powers decline, had substantial memory loss. By contrast, elderly Chinese, whose culture holds older people in high esteem, not only showed very little memory loss, but the oldest performed almost as well as the youngest people in the study. Each culture produced old people in keeping with the prevailing attitude about aging.
And then there’s the French, whose culture is fine with drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, eating pastries (refined sugar!), cholesterol-clogging sauces and living to a ripe old age healthy, thin and happy. Many studies have been done in an attempt to figure out what “the secret” is, because based on the current theories, there should be a coronary bypass for every pastry shop. It’s not a secret: It’s attitude. They love what they eat and feel no guilt about it.
If it’s personal, we call it an attitude—if it’s cultural, we call it a paradigm—if it’s universal, we call it a law. “As within, so without.”
I can’t really prove that you are out there in reality and have your own consciousness, and you can’t prove that I’m conscious.
—Stuart Hameroff, M.D.
As Above So Below
Remember how we said the “What Is Reality?” chapter could go anywhere? Well, this chapter is everywhere. “Sight and Perception” talks about how the brain creates the images that we think of as the real out there world. “Paradigm Shift” looks at how ideas and discoveries bubbled up into a widespread belief about the world. “Quantum Physics” and “Observer” offer tantalizing parallels between the subatomic world and how consciousness interacts with the creation. “Mind over Matter” kicks down the fence between the seen and the unseen and points to a connection between these two seemingly different realms. In other words, they’re all about consciousness, reality and the relationship between them.
Going to the future, the “Brain 101” chapter is about how our attitudes are encoded in the neural structures, and what gets created out of that. “Emotions” and “Addictions” are answering the questions about “why I create the reality I find myself in.” “Why Aren’t We Magicians?” looks at why we don’t create what we (think) we want. “Desire/Intent” looks at how to consciously wield the axe of creation, while “Choices/Changes” (in the same chapter) looks downstream of the axe swing to see what happens in our life.
But in the cosmic court of experience, does any or all of the above prove that consciousness creates reality? The concept seems to be reflected throughout the different levels of experience (“As above so below”), but is that proof or circumstantial evidence? We’ve heard from everything, from electrons and positrons to distinguished physicists to filmmakers. According to Dean Radin: “Prove is not a word that is used in science. We can show evidence for it. We can create a certain degree of confidence that an effect is what it appears to be. Has anyone ever ‘proved’ gravity? Newton said gravity is the force of attraction between masses. Einstein said mass curves space/time geometry, which then causes masses to come together. But they can’t prove that’s what it is. At best the mathematical description can be seen to have no evidence to the contrary.”
It’s at this point that we filmmakers threw up our hands and leaped off the fence.
Creating What the BLEEP Do We Know!?
We took a vow. We weren’t going to be hypocrites. We weren’t going to be armchair philosophers. To the best of our ability, we were going to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk. That meant we were going to live the ideas in the film, and of all the ideas, the two biggees were: emotional addictions and create your own reality. During the making of What the BLEEP Do We Know!?, those involved tried to really work to create reality and tackle emotional addictions.
In other words, we decided to be “the scientists in our own lives” by employing the scientific method, by trying it out to see if it worked. And the result was thumbs-up, with a better way to live life.
But that’s just three of the creators. The movie was entitled “What the Fuck Do We Know?!”1 so it’s not clear you should listen to us. Who should you listen to? The person that in reality you always do—you.
Ponder These for a While . . .
• Take the two supposed sides of the fence:
Draw lines between all of them specifying what the relationship is. Then draw lines with the simple relationship “is” (mind is matter, reality is consciousness). Which view makes more sense?
• Are they mutually exclusive?
• Are these two views yet another creeping influence of dualism? Is sex an attempt to end dualism?
• Was time invented to keep instant karma at bay?
• Was it invented to give us time to realize our power and the ramifications of it?