marja de vries
CHAPTER 2 - What is the essence of Universal Truth?
from 'The Whole Elephant Revealed' by Marja de Vries
© 2007, Marja de Vries;translation into english by Veronica Verkaik
| The Universal Laws are laws of truth. | ||
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INSIGHT INTO THE OPERATION OF THE UNIVERSE
What is Universal Truth all about? The common golden thread of this Universal Truth is nothing more and nothing less than insight into the nature, the meaning and operation of the universe. In other words, it is about fundamental insight into the true nature of reality. The revelations of the sages and mystics tell us that the reality in which we live is more than the physical reality we are familiar with. In the perception of the wisdom traditions, the universe is multidimensional, with many different planes or levels of reality. The physical reality is in fact just one of these planes or levels, the universe being much greater and more amazing than our familiar five senses and our ordinary consciousness would lead us to suppose. During their experiences of Oneness-with-Everything, mystics were able to perceive all these different levels of reality. They could see all the way through all the planes to the very Source and witnessed the unseen, non-physical worlds emanate and move from the unmanifest to the manifest world.
Some of the ancient texts emphasize that the Universal Truth they describe does not have a human origin. We can read this in the Upanishads, part of the ancient Indian writings known as the Veda. These texts explain that Universal Truth is the natural expression of the organizing power inherent in the very nature of Universal Consciousness itself.2 According to this text, it is this very organizing power that is at the foundation of order and harmony throughout the universe.
As we are also part of this universe, Universal Truth is also knowledge about ourselves. Insight into the underlying organizing power, which manifests itself in accordance with certain universal principles or laws, helps us to understand not only how we can feel connected with the greater whole, but also how we will be able to shape our life in harmony with that greater whole. It is about insight into matters such as life at soul level and the development of our consciousness. It is about matters such as Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? In short, it is about the essence of our life as soul in a physical body and about the development of our consciousness. The very issues that have been the subject of mystical wisdom through the ages and cultures.
Underlying organizing principles
During their state of unbounded awareness, mystics have perceived a marvelous order in the universe. Everything is revealed as a vast interconnected whole, permeated by the same patterns. This marvelous order in the universe is illustrated by the Greek word kosmos, which means ‘order’ and ‘decoration’ as well as ‘universe’. The common golden thread of Universal Truth woven through all the wisdom traditions is therefore also about an understanding of these underlying, ordering principles of the universe, by which the universe organizes itself and keeps itself in balance. These ordering principles are patterns that operate at all levels of reality, that is to say not only at the physical level of the visible world around us, but also at all the levels of non-physical reality. Because these are the same ordering principles operating at all levels, these omni-applicable patterns are known as universal principles or universal laws.
The universal principles describe the complex dynamic system of the natural order in the universe as a whole where everything is interconnected, in multiple overlapping planes or levels, and where everything permanently vibrates, moves and mutually influences each other. The picture of reality that emerges on a basis of these universal principles is not, however, that of a chaotic universe. On the contrary, they create a universe in which continuous dynamics perpetually generate a marvelous order out of chaos. If this system is not disturbed, everything time and again works toward balance and harmony, which is revealed as the true essence of the universe.
The different wisdom traditions tell us that these universal laws have existed and will continue to exist as long as the universe itself exists. They bind everything together, imbuing everything with a harmonious order. Whereas everything in the universe is permanently changing, these universal laws themselves are unchanging. This is the reason why the universe keeps revolving eternally with no beginning or end. Everything is encompassed within the dynamics of these universal patterns: the cosmos, humankind and all other living beings.
Because these universal laws are also at the foundation of the non-physical aspects of the universe, they also influence the non-physical aspects of ourselves and hence our personal growth and development. Insight into these universal principles can help us understand how to increase our self-awareness and how to use these patterns to our benefit in our growth toward higher levels of consciousness. These principles accordingly form the basis of the spiritual and esoteric teachings of all ages and throughout the world.
THE KYBALION AS KEY TO THE UNIVERSAL LAWS
| Truth cannot be cut up into pieces and arranged in a system. The words can only be used as a figure of speech. | ||
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All the traditions of wisdom speak of the existence of such universal laws. At first sight, each wisdom traditions seems to describe the details of these underlying ordering patterns in a different way. This is not surprising when we realize that every attempt to describe something so vast and all-encompassing will always be different to some degree and in a sense incomplete. Moreover, the different universal laws do not operate in isolation from each other, but simultaneously and intertwined, like parts of a gigantic dynamic network. Consequently, it is effectively not possible to totally separate one from the other and every attempt to describe these dynamics as a whole, in the form of the operation of a number of universal principles, will be done from each individual perspective or orientation. We may compare the differences we find in the descriptions of these patterns with the attempts of the blind people to describe the elephant in the Sufi story.
The Kybalion and the seven Hermetic principles
Just when I had decided to place the different perspectives alongside each other to gain a picture of ‘the universe as a whole’, I came across the text The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece (1908/1940). Little can be said with certainty about the origins of this Hermetic text, because the authors chose to remain anonymous and refer to themselves as ‘three initiates’. However, they write that the contents of The Kybalion pertain to the original truths taught by Hermes Trismegistus thousands of years ago. They claim that these original truths have been kept intact in their original purity. The authors record that from generation to generation, a few people handed down this information by word of mouth to a few other people who were ready to comprehend and master it.
As the ‘three initiates’ recorded this in the first half of the 20th century, it is not easy to ascertain its source. It is recently becoming clear, however, that the handing down of secret knowledge by word of mouth has been a widespread custom in various traditions over the ages. For example, we know that different indigenous peoples had so-called ‘keepers of wisdom’ who passed down this ancient knowledge from generation to generation and have recently decided to reveal it.4 However, the main thing in The Kybalion text that drew my attention was the reason mentioned by the authors for revealing this previously secret knowledge at this particular point in time. They hoped that these insights might serve to reconcile the many bits of knowledge of the Universal Truth known here and there but which are apparently opposed to each other. And that was precisely what I had determined to do.
The Kybalion describes seven so-called Hermetic principles which, according to the anonymous authors, describe the essence of the nature, meaning and operation of ‘the universe as a whole’. Insight into these seven principles may therefore, they contend, serve as a key to the underlying correspondences between all the wisdomtraditions. In other words, if this were to be true, I would as it were have the picture of the ‘whole elephant’ in my hands. That would mean that in my exploration of the different wisdom traditions, I could search specifically for descriptions of these seven principles.
But is this in fact true? Based on my own inner knowing, my own discernment, I had the feeling that what these anonymous authors had written was indeed the case. And one of the ways of testing this inner knowing of mine was to investigate it further and this is what I decided to do.
The seeming differences are due to differences in emphasis
Sure enough, with the help of the description of the seven Hermetic principles, I was able to form an overall picture of these patterns. And once I knew roughly 'what the elephant looked like', it was then not difficult to recognize these principles in the various descriptions of virtually all the religions and mystical and spiritual traditions. The first thing I next discovered was that the majority of the seven laws were indeed traceable in each of the different wisdom traditions. Based on this insight, it became clear that the seeming differences turned out in fact to be mainly due to differences in emphasis in describing the same universal laws.
For example Vedic literature, the ancient sources of Hinduism, emphasize above all the presence of an absolute and unified field of intelligence that underlies and permeates all creation and from which all other things emanate. I clearly recognized this as the Law of Oneness, which the Hermetic philosophy in The Kybalion describes as the Ist universal law. We find the same Law of Oneness in Taoism as the concept of Tao. Another major principle of Taoism is the concept of Yin and Yang. I recognized in the polarity and the opposing, though complementing dynamics of these two aspects, a combination of the Law of Polarity and the Law of Dynamic Balance, which in the Hermetic philosophy are the IVth and the VIIth universal law respectively.
Buddhism predominantly emphasizes the fact that reality is a complex of ever changing phenomena, where nothing is permanent. This rhythmic coming and going can be clearly identified in the Law of Rhythm, the Vth law. This Law of Rhythm is also of central importance for the Mayans, who refer to a universe of infinite cycles of time and being
Among the teachings of the Kabbalah is that we, human beings, should not consider ourselves as victims, but rather as a co-creators, with all the responsibilities this entails. This perception in the Kabbalah is based mainly on the operation of the Law of Correspondence, the Law of Vibration and the Law of Cause and Effect, which in the Hermetic philosophy as described in The Kybalion are the IInd, IIIrd and VIth universal laws.
In short, the conclusion I came to was that The Kybalion provides not only a clear and practicable classification of the universal laws, but also the most complete overview that I have come across to date. Roughly the same division into seven universal laws as in The Kybalion is therefore used in this book.‘ ’
Derived laws
Besides these seven universal laws, there are an infinite number of patterns that derive directly from these seven laws. This explains why some sources refer to many more than seven ‘universal’ laws. I have used the term ‘derived laws’ for these patterns that originate from the operation of the seven universal laws. While the seven universal laws are truly universal, meaning that they apply on all levels of reality, derived laws describe principles concerning only some levels of reality or a particular aspect of reality.
Because the workings of the different universal laws are mutually influencing and intertwined, derived laws may also be the result of the harmonious working of different universal laws. In this case, derived laws are patterns that are directly based on the combination of a number of the seven universal laws. Sometimes these patterns apply on all the levels and sometimes they concern only some levels of reality.
The universal laws emerge in different ways
Information about the universal laws turns out not to be limited to ancient sources, because insight into universal principles has recently emerged in a variety of ways. Bruce McArthur, for example, discovered frequent references to a number of these patterns in the thousands of readings that Edgar Cayce (1877 - 1945) gave during the course of his life to thousands of people who asked him for help and advice. In his book Your Life, Why It Is the Way It Is and What You Can Do About It: Understanding the Universal Laws (1993/2004), Bruce McArthur describes the essence of a number of these universal laws as described in the readings of Edgar Cayce. He also illustrates the operation of the laws that he describes via his experiences in applying them for over 25 years.
The universal laws also ring through in recently channeled information, for example in the book The Light Shall Set You Free (1996) by Norma Milanovich and Shirley McCune. In particular, this book shows how we can use these patterns to our benefit in our growth toward higher levels of consciousness.
At the present time, part of the universal laws can also be found in popular books on the subject of How to be successful, because truly successful people often have an intuitive insight into these universal laws and so apply them continually in their own lives. Some people experience the dawning insight into these laws as a matter of course at a particular point in their spiritual development - even if they themselves have never read or heard anything on the subject. Once we have become aware of these principles, we can also recognize them between the lines in mythology, fairy tales, fables and in certain literature. In short, in all those writings that describe the essence of who we are.
SACRED GEOMETRY
From Plato's point of view and all in all in terms of the ancient cosmology, the Universe is a certain proportional whole, subjected to the law of harmonic division - Golden Section. |
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Despite the fact that the seven universal laws enabled me to form a picture for myself of the greater whole, which then led me to the same universal laws in the other wisdom traditions, I increasingly had the feeling that something important was still missing. This feeling intensified when I went more deeply into the VIIth law, the Law of Dynamic Balance. This law describes the dynamic balance between two seemingly opposing, but complementary principles that together form a unity. In essence, it is the dynamic balance between the ‘male’ aspect and the ‘female’ aspect. The dynamics of the ‘male’ aspect are about the dynamics of energy, which form a unity with the dynamics of the ‘female’ aspect, which in essence are about form. This law in fact demonstrates that energy and form are an inseparable dynamic unity.
As long as we regard form as something static, this is not so apparent. However, when we realize that the essence of form is not static, but instead is permanently subject to change, then it becomes evident that form cannot be seen separately from the energy associated with it. However, the seven universal laws - as described in the Hermetic philosophy and the universal laws I encountered in other traditions of wisdom based on that insight - describe primarily the dynamics of the ‘male’ half, namely that of energy.
And yet the universe also has a marvelous order in its form, causing everything to unfold in an awe-inspiring beauty. For an insight into the dynamics aspect of form, and so for an understanding of the patterns in the ‘female’ half of this unity of universal principles, we evidently need other sources.
I discovered that these mutually complementing principles in the different traditions of wisdom are known on the one hand as the universal laws and on the other as the patterns of sacred geometry. Sacred geometry, as the female aspect of the universal principles, is about the language of form and gives us an insight into the subtle dance of nature, the creative force and inner workings of nature. The patterns of sacred geometry are at the foundation of the dynamic architecture of the universe and, like the universal laws, have existed throughout eternity, whether people are aware of it or not. Just as we come across the universal laws in all the wisdom traditions, we also find the patterns of sacred geometry there. Not by any means always in written form, but as the essence of architectural structures and art forms in all times and cultures. It is therefore conceivable that insights into these principles were also known a very long time ago in many different cultures at many different places and in many different times.
Most strikingly of all, we can observe the marvelous patterns of sacred geometry everywhere around us in the form in which energy manifests itself in Nature, from the form of the microscopically minute right up to the forms of galaxies. Central to sacred geometry is the Law of Harmonic Division, which tells us that the entire universe is a harmonic whole of ratios and that the unity and harmony in the universe exist because of the unity in ratio within the multiplicity and diversity.
This unique ratio between the Whole and the part is also known as the Golden Mean, the Golden Ratio or the Golden Section. The harmonic ratios, which create visible or audible forms and which we experience as beauty or which move us, can also be found in our own body, showing that we take part in the same design and that we are in essence a harmonic component of this universal pattern. In other words, an insight into sacred geometry also contributes to a perception of who we are.
THE UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES AS FRAME OF REFERENCE
The truth is, that (...) the ancients possessed (...) the Inner Knowledge as well as the Outer Knowledge, the latter alone being possessed by modern scientists. |
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The common golden thread of the Universal Truth I had thus detected, pertaining to insight into the nature, the meaning and operation of the universe, also forms the core of what Western science is looking for. I was therefore curious as to the extent to which present-day science confirms these universal principles. However, scientific understandings of the nature, the meaning and operation of the universe are not consistent in themselves.
In the first place, the diversity in disciplines obviously leads scientists to view reality from different perspectives and to discover their own parts of the puzzle of the greater whole. The Portuguese-British physicist-cosmologist Joao Magueijo describes in his book Faster Than the Speed of Light (2003) the work of pioneers in Western science, based on his own experience, as ‘fumbling in the dark’. There could hardly be a more apposite way of expressing the comparison with the way the blind people examined the elephant. A further consequence of this method is that revolutionary new insights can have far-reaching consequences. “More often than not,” writes Joao Magueijo about himself and his fellow scientists, “once they solve one piece of the puzzle, that solution suggests that old solutions to other parts of the puzzle are wrong, or at least require reexamination.” 7
Just as in the case of the different wisdom traditions, the different existing insights and theories within present-day Western science appear not always wholly compatible. Sometimes, even the different scientific theories within a single discipline appear hardly compatible, if at all. Physicists, for example have not yet succeeded in unifying the relativity theory-based theories and the quantum theory-based theories within one all-encompassing theory. While some scientists, including Albert Einstein, continued their search for such a unifying theory, as a practical solution to this situation a new scientific view of the truth was meanwhile adopted. Scientists decided that apparently there is not one truth, but that there are many, for example a truth applicable to very small things (within the world of quantum physics) and another truth applicable to larger things. There is also a truth for living things and another truth relating to non-living things.8 For many scientists, however, this is an unsatisfactory situation and the search for a Theory of Everything has recently been renewed. While many possible suggestions have meanwhile been presented, there is as yet still no general consensus on such an all-encompassing theory within the scientific community.
Scientific truths are ‘provisional’ truths
Furthermore, truths which the scientific community has at a certain moment reached consensus on are always provisional. The history of science shows a long succession of such provisional scientific truths. The arduous process of transition from an ‘old’ to a ‘new’ scientific understanding has been described by the science philosopher of Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) in 1962 in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In this book he introduced the increasingly popular term of paradigm. By a paradigm, he meant a certain point of view, a set of concepts or assumptions that at a certain moment in time are shared by scientists. In his book, he pointed to the fact that within Western science phenomena, for which the currently prevailing paradigm is inadequate, are usually dismissed as 'not existing' or else ignored as ‘anomalies’.
This gives rise to a situation that once again shows a parallel with the wisdom traditions. Within the scientific world there is on the one hand an ‘established’ doctrine that is taught in schools and universities throughout the world and, alongside this, there exist deviating perceptions on the part of independent scientists. The latter are frequently innovative, undermining the existing theories of the established scientific order or turning the existing world view upside down. For this reason, they are for a long time totally dismissed by the established scientific order.
An accumulation of matters that cannot be explained by mainstream scientific theories in due course leads to the realization that the former theory is too restrictive and that the scope of the scientific standpoint needs to be widened. In short, the scientific structure collapses, making way for a shift in paradigm, in other words for a change in the way they understand and view the world. Not until then is there general acceptance of a more all-encompassing theory based on the new paradigm. In the same way, every theory sooner or later becomes obsolete and has to make way for new understandings. The history of Western science overwhelmingly confirms this process. Developments in present-day science suggest that the existing scientific structure is collapsing and a whole new scientific paradigm is emerging.
The new paradigm within the scientific community
Owing to Thomas Kuhn’s descriptions of this process, the phenomenon that previous scientific findings and perceptions may at a certain moment be superseded by new perceptions is now generally acknowledged as an essential element in the process of scientific development. Notwithstanding, it still happens that independent scientists, who have the courage to ‘go public’ with such new, deviating perceptions are branded as kinds of modern-day heretics by the representatives of the ‘established doctrine’.9
We may therefore ask ourselves how, in the myriad of provisional scientific truths and differing scientific perceptions, we can ever find the puzzle pieces that will contribute to an integrated picture of the greater whole. In the first half of the 20th century, Walter Russell used his insights into the workings of the underlying principles gained during his experience of Oneness as a framework and as a touchstone for the correctness of the various scientific perceptions. On this basis, he predicted over 50 years ago that eventually we will discover that most of even the most fundamental laws and theories do not come anywhere near fitting into this underlying principles and therefore, have to be discarded.10
He was also convinced that when we, like him, achieve greater understanding of the operation of these underlying patterns, every law or theory ever propounded in the past or future can be tested for consistency with these universal laws. The analogy of the Sufi story about the blind people and the elephant can, here again, help us understand these far-reaching assertions. While he had so to speak seen ‘the whole elephant’ during his experience of Oneness, the various scientific disciplines only understand parts of them. On the basis of their observations of parts of the whole, scientists form postulations about ‘the whole elephant’ .
Fortunately, we now see that many of the contemporary independent scientists from widely ranging scientific disciplines are currently developing perceptions that reveal a remarkable degree of common ground and similarities. The new paradigm emerging from these radical new perceptions moreover appears to be much closer to the perceptions based on the Universal Truth. For all these reasons, I decided that my starting point in writing this book would be the common insights into the operation of the universal laws found in the wisdom traditions. When we thus gain a harmonious and balanced image of the rough outline of the ‘whole elephant’, we can then use this image as a frame of reference for further synthesis.
In other words, with this picture of the ‘whole elephant’ in mind, we can then go in search of those scientific perceptions that are consistent with this Universal Truth. All the parts of the scientific puzzle that we find following this principle will in some way or other fit into the puzzle of the greater whole.
TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT WAYS OF OBSERVING
A hidden order in chaos is revealed by a new way of looking. |
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To be able to recognize the underlying principles and patterns amidst the totality of scientific perceptions, there is yet another aspect that is important to realize. The difference in perspective between the wisdom traditions and Western science is not only a question of a difference in emphasis. These differing perspectives are mainly due to an entirely different way of observing reality. To be able to recognize the mutual relationships, similarities and patterns, we have to observe in a different way than is the norm in our Western culture.
In the first place, we have been taught to look at separate parts. Western science has a long history of studying reality by dividing it into smaller and smaller pieces and to meticulously examine these isolated parts. Although this has given us a great deal of knowledge about the details, through this approach the mutual relationships between the different parts have long been left out of the picture.
For example, when I was studying ecology in the 1970s, this was as a branch of biology, still a relatively new discipline. Whereas, in many areas, biology mainly studied separate components of nature, ecology focused on the relationships between organisms themselves and their relationship to their environment. This called for an entirely different way of observing and thinking. Trees were now seen as parts of a whole, a forest. By looking at the forest, one could recognize patterns in the interconnection of the trees in the forest. A forest now emerged as a complex ecosystem and as a whole displaying similarities with other ecosystems. This example illustrates how such patterns are only revealed to us when we focus on the greater whole. To gain an overall picture, a wide-angle lens is of much greater use to us than a magnifying glass. Instead of a mouse’s view focused on details, what we need here is the eagle’s overview.
Recognizing patterns
Furthermore, Western culture has trained us to look for differences, with the result that for a long time we have failed to notice the underlying universal patterns. It is only when we look for similarities that we discover that in a wide range of areas, similar processes are responsible for maintaining the whole. For example, it emerged that entirely different ecosystems, such as a tropical rainforest and a coral reef, were characterized by the same processes maintaining the dynamic balance.
If we concentrate mainly on differences, we also run the risk of overlooking the fact that many apparent differences are in fact two sides of a single phenomenon. If we only look at differences, we may be totally disregarding the other side of the same phenomenon, unaware that we are focusing on one half only. We would soon see how incomplete our understanding is if we were to try to comprehend the phenomenon of breathing in, without realizing that breathing in is only one side of the phenomenon of breathing, that comprises both breathing in and breathing out. Or if we tried to understand the phenomenon of summer, without also taking winter into account as well. Likewise, I was at first unaware that the universal laws and the principles of sacred geometry are two sides of a single phenomenon - the universal principles.
The broader view
As long as we look for linear relations, many non-linear patterns will stay out of the picture. Similarly, as long as we rely exclusively on our five senses and our rational mind when observing the world around us, many aspects of reality will escape our attention. In other words, what is called for is to observe with a broader view. We can illustrate this in a variant of the Sufi story of the blind people and the elephant, by imagining a group of deaf people.
Suppose that in a room somewhere there are some people dancing and that a group of deaf people, who have never heard any music and never seen dancing people, are watching these people moving around. They may conceivably wonder how it is that the dancing people appear to be moving in such a synchronous and harmonious manner. They do not see them following directions given by anyone. As long as the deaf people only look for the solution in something that they can see, they are faced with a conundrum. They may well wonder whether the dancing people have learned the synchronous movement by heart and whether all the steps have been set. Or they may suspect it to be purely coincidental that they are moving so synchronously and harmoniously. If, however, they were suddenly able to hear, then everything would at once become clear. Until that moment, the possibility of an extra factor, music, would not have occurred to them at all. Now that they can hear the music, they understand that the whole time they had overlooked the possibility that the explanation was something audible. For most of us, it is entirely logical that people dance to the rhythm of music and we can therefore hardly imagine that when the deaf people see the dancers, even though they cannot hear, they would not have thought of music.
We can use this story as a metaphor to help us realize that if we broaden our view in precisely the same way, thus transcending observation based on our five senses and the material world we know, things can immediately become much clearer. Some of the underlying patterns and unifying principles indeed only come into sight when we broaden our view in this fashion. In other words when we open ourselves to the possibility of the existence of other planes of reality that we are unable to perceive with our five familiar senses. Only then do we so to speak hear the music, and mysterious puzzles can be solved with comparative ease.
However, it is not possible to transcend the familiar material world if we base our perceptions solely on our five senses and our rational mind. Then, we remain ‘deaf’ to the rhythm of the music. However, our mental powers turn out actually to be much more extensive than our familiar reasoning powers. Our rational mind is in fact only half of a phenomenon. Our rational mind, which focuses on knowledge based on ‘outer knowing’ has a complementing other side, namely our intuition or knowledge based on ‘inner knowing’ . However, in our Western culture, we have lost sight of this other half, so much so that to my knowledge we have no proper Dutch word to convey the totality of our rational mind and intuitive powers.12 Our rational mind is good at analyzing and finding differences. It is our intuition, however, that is much better at recognizing patterns.
Recent developments in science
While Walter Russell and his insights were far ahead of his time, and his insights into universal principles did indeed substantially deviate from the views of Western science in the past two hundred years or so, there has recently been a striking and fundamental change. The various scientific disciplines studying the dynamics of non-linear complex systems have greatly contributed to fundamental new perceptions of the mutual relationships and underlying organizing principles of dynamic systems. The use of computer programs has moreover considerably aided the recognition of underlying patterns that until recently remained beyond our view.
Within scientific circles, there is currently a growing supposition that underlying the complexity found all around us are similar structures, patterns and organization principles. In other words universal principles and patterns applicable in the various widely ranging disciplines and on different planes of reality. Developments in quantum physics and recent perceptions in sciences of consciousness have demonstrated that there are indeed other planes of reality beyond the physical reality we are familiar with. Moreover, the patterns that seem to lie at the foundation of that complexity seem to be of remarkable simplicity. Scientists wonder what the source of this simplicity is and which organizing principles are at work. Certain scientists even suspect that there must be one single principle, encompassing and uniting the present chaotic variety of scientific theories that we use to explain the world around us.
Moreover, there is a huge surge in scientific interest in the patterns of sacred geometry, for example the interest in the special features of the Golden Ratio. A case in point is the international scientific conference that took place in October 2003 in the Ukraine, entitled Problems of Harmony, Symmetry and the Golden Section in Nature, Science and Art. The more than 50 scientists present adopted a resolution emphasizing the importance of developing a new interdisciplinary science, to which they gave the name Sciences of System Harmony. They regard this new science, which centers around the Golden Mean, as the most important interdisciplinary science of the 21st century.13
© 2007, Marja de Vries
1 Quotation in Bruce McArthur, Your Life: Understanding the Universal Laws, 1993, p. 119. Edgar Cayce particularly became famous for medical diagnoses given in a kind of trance, which proved without exception to be accurate
2 Alistair Shearer and Peter Russell, The Upanishads, 1978/2003, p. 100.
3 Quotation in Thomas J. McFarlane, Einstein and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings, 2001/2002, p. 68. Quoted from Goddard, Dwight, ed. A Buddhist Bible, Boston: Beacon Press, 1970, p. 104.
4 Some examples are the Cherokee Indian Dhyani Ywahoo, see her book Voices of our Ancestors, 1987; the Zero Chief Esteemah, see the book Lightning Bolt, 1994 by Hyemeyohsts Storm; the Hopi indians, see the book Book of the Hopi: The first Revelation of the Hopi’s Historical and Religious Worldview of Life, 1963 by Frank Waters; the Mayan Hunbatz Men, see inter alia Profiles in Wisdom: Native Elders Speak About the Earth,1991, p.225-241 by Steven McFadden.
5 Adapted from the quotation on the website www.goldenmuseum.com; from Losev, A.F. Ancient Cosmos and Contemporary Science in Being - Name - Cosmos, Moscow: Thought (1993), published in Russian.
6 Anonymous, The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece, 1912/1940, p. 44-45.
7 Joao Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light, 2003, p. 24.
8 However, where the boundary lay between these two remained unclear.
9 For example the British biologist Rupert Sheldrake was literally accused of heresy by the publisher of the British journal Nature, after publication of his Theory of the Morphogenetic Fields in 1981.
10 Glenn Clark, The Man Who Tapped The Secrets Of The Universe,1946, complete text at http://www.philosophy.org/mwt/
11 Quotation from Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness,1992/2001, by Rupert Sheldrake, Terence McKenna and Ralph Abraham, p. 23.
12 Marilyn Ferguson, author of the well-known book The Aquarius Conspiracy,1980, proposes in her new book Aquarius Now! - Radical Common Sense and Reclaiming Our Personal Sovereignty, 2005 that this be called radical common sense. She describes common sense not as thoughts but as the ability to think freshly and purposefully and is not about what we know but how we know it. The word ‘radical’ is derived from the Latin radix, which means ‘root’. (5) She writes: “Radical doesn’t mean ‘far outward’ but it actually means ‘far inward’. When we arrive at the radical, we draw near to the essence - the root of the problem. True common sense is body, mind and heart, perceived in the moment. It is time that we reclaim for ourselves both these essential concepts of ‘radical’ and ‘common sense’.”
13 See website www.goldenmuseum.com