In this video recording of a class (given for the helpful School For A Course In Miracles – SFACIM curriculum expertly hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise), we explore how some of the take-home lessons from modern physics – combined with a generous helping of pure non-duality – form an excellent foundation for the profound teachings of A Course In Miracles.
When quantum mechanics ushered in the era we call modern physics in the last millennium, it seems that the idea of the mind could no longer be conveniently ignored. – The materiality and physicality of the world might also need to also consider the possible merit of the first Hermetic axiom of Mentalism – which asserts that the universe is mental! Interestingly, contemporary researcher Donald Hoffman suggests, counter to the majority of contemporary physicists, that the math needed to explain how the material universe works needs to start with mind and then derive matter from mind, rather than the other way around; he is convinced that solving the math starting with the premise that there is an objective reality – outside of mind – is a dead end. ACIM would seem to agree that attempting to solve anything – particularly sustainable peace – from the premise of a dualistic world of space, time and differences will never work!
We started this conversation with a re-What Is the Body? (ACIM, W-pII.5) substituting “the universe, space, time, individuality, bodies and all reflections of the dualistic belief in separation” for “body”
“The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built, to separate parts of his Self from other parts. ²It is within this fence he thinks he lives, to die as it decays and crumbles. ³For within this fence he thinks that he is safe from love. ⁴Identifying with his safety, he regards himself as what his safety is. ⁵How else could he be certain he remains within the body, keeping love outside?” (ACIM, W-pII.5.1:1-5)
An extended version of the first sentence above might be: “The universe, space, time, individuality, bodies and all reflections of the dualistic belief in separation are fences that our Real Identity – the Christ Mind, having chosen the ego dream – imagines he has built, to separate parts of his Self from other parts.”
Our real, eternal identity is non-spatial, non-temporal, non-local. These are the modern physics adjectives that Ken Wapnick uses in his “Be Kind to Everyone” audio at about 2:02:00).
Non-spatial: Outside and beyond the tiny dream of space
Non-temporal: Outside and beyond the tiny dream of time
Non-local: not limited or bound to the tyranny of specific aspects, forms, or apparently separate parts of what is truly ONE.
Here are some other references from the Course we drew from in this conversation:
“Ideas leave not their source.” (ACIM, W-132.5:3)
“Son of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much mistaken. ²Yet this can be corrected and God will help you, knowing that you could not sin against Him.” (ACIM, T-10.V.6:1-2)“
Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego’s religion.” (ACIM, T-10.V.3:1)
Devoted dedication to duality, separation, the cult of indivi-DUALITY, personality, separation, and the silly seemingly separate self, is the ego’s pseudo-religion and pseudo-science, using whatever means it can to keep us mindless and focused on nightmarish effects rather than awakening from the dream of guilt. Ken Wapnick suggests that probably the very last theory that physics will explore is the idea that the universe was fabricated by guilt. Our real safety and comfort arise from the perfect, purely innocent idea of Undivided Oneness, you have not separated from your Creator or any aspect of Creation, but you have become adept at misunderstanding your projections and making “big deals” out of imagined specifics. However, by the inevitable, forgiving, happy mind training process our Inner Kindness Teacher will guide us through, we will all inevitably correct and undo these unimaginably vast – yet hilarious from the perspective of Truth – denials of the Unity of Eternity and Infinity, reconciling all silly beliefs in sin, guilt, fear, death, change, uncertainty and loneliness.
From “Take-Home Lessons From Modern Physics” (chapter 2 in The Geometry Code
Universal Symbolic Mirrors of Natural Laws Within Us; Friendly Reminders of Inclusion to Forgive the Dreamer of Separation by Bruce Rawles):
“If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.”
– Neils Bohr“Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.”
– Werner Heisenberg“The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers.”
– Brian Greene“One of the most surprising discoveries of modern physics is that objects aren’t as separate as they may seem. When you drill down into the core of even the most solid-looking material, separateness dissolves. All that remains, like the smile of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, are relationships extending curiously throughout space and time. These connections were predicted by quantum theory and were called ‘spooky action at a distance’ by Albert Einstein. One of the founders of quantum theory, Erwin Schrödinger, dubbed this peculiarity entanglement, saying ‘I would not call that one but rather the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics.’ ”
– Dean Radin“Everything seems to interact with everything else at many subtle levels of the universe beyond the purely physical level, and the deeper we penetrate into these levels, the more do we realize that we are One.” – William Tiller, from the Preface to Stalking the Wild Pendulum by Itzhak Bentov
The fact that paired electrons change their spin instantaneously, with no apparent mechanism to explain this communication was quite a shock to the physicists who ‘did the math’ and met in Copenhagen several decades ago to share this discovery and ponder its staggering aftermath. This pairing has been repeated time after time in the laboratory. Nowadays quantum entanglement is generally recognized as fact, yet, for most of us in the quantum age, the implications are conveniently ignored when it comes to applying this principle of Universal interconnectedness on a personal level.
Like contractors who build houses as if the earth were flat, we generally live our lives as if post-Newtonian physics hadnʼt happened … as if our selected thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes about our “reality” didnʼt have any bearing on the quality of our experience of life. The Newtonian ʻcop outʼ is to behave as if the billiard balls donʼt affect each other, or as if the ecologically challenged behaviors on one side of the planet donʼt influence “the other side” of the planet. Yet weʼre ʻtalking inner ecologyʼ here.
If we are making this Universe up, we can make it up (by interpreting it) differently. In fact, we evidently have 10^44 (that’s 1 with 44 zeros after it) opportunities per second (roughly the Planck Constant) to make up the big cosmic hologram from scratch! That is how often physics tells us that the universe stroboscopically winks out of existence and re-materializes – out of nothing – every second … and we have been told that our universe has been around a long time; what a lie! So if you think you donʼt have opportunities to choose differently, you can remember a ʻ1ʼ with 44 zeroes after it, and remind yourself that you have had that many chances to re-envision your life from quarks to galaxies (to release all of it in your mind from your inner blame-thrower) … in the past second!
The Course builds on this foundation that questions the solidity of matter and proffers the dependability of the realm of mind and identity which sees separation as illusory and forgiveness inclusive of all:
“In order to understand the teaching-learning plan of salvation, it is necessary to grasp the concept of time that the course sets forth. ²Atonement corrects illusions, not truth. ³Therefore, it corrects what never was. ⁴Further, the plan for this correction was established and completed simultaneously, for the Will of God is entirely apart from time. ⁵So is all reality, being of Him. ⁶The instant the idea of separation entered the mind of God’s Son, in that same instant was God’s Answer given. ⁷In time this happened very long ago. ⁸In reality it never happened at all.” (ACIM, M-2.2:1-8)
Things Aren’t What They Seem To Be!
Mind can’t be removed from the equations of matter; Newton’s physical model was incomplete as evidenced by the double-slit experiment; which overturned Newtonian ideas with wave/particle duality contingent on expectations.
Entangled Minds – no matter how far apart seemingly separate things seem to be entangled particles track instantaneously! (light-years or inches)
“A father said to his double-seeing son: ‘Son you see two instead of one.’
‘How can that be?’ the boy replied. ‘If I were, there would seem to be four moons up there in place of two.’ ”
– Idries Shah“If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we’ve destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don’t you think that we might see each other once or twice?”
– Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull“I have given everything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] all the meaning that it has for me.” (ACIM, W-2)
“I am so small I can barely be seen. How can this great love be inside me? Look at your eyes. They are small, but they see enormous things.”
– Molana Jalal-e-Din Mohammad Molavi Rumi (a.k.a. Rumi)
“You are a non-local being, having a local experience.”
– Gary Renard
time (988) https://acim.org/acim/en?wid=search&fwv=true&q=time
space (65) https://acim.org/acim/en?wid=search&fwv=true&q=space
distance (19) https://acim.org/acim/en?wid=search&fwv=true&q=distance
far (177) https://acim.org/acim/en?wid=search&fwv=true&q=far
separation (612) https://acim.org/acim/en?wid=search&fwv=true&q=separation
“There’s no ‘out there’ out there.” – (physicist) John Wheeler“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” ― Albert Einstein
“Time is one of the most elusive aspects of A Course in Miracles, as it has been for thinkers throughout the centuries. There really is no systematic exposition of time in the Course, just brief statements here and there. When I wrote my book on time many years ago,[1] I extracted the passages on time strewn throughout the text, workbook, and manual to provide a coherent presentation of the Course’s theory. One of the reasons the material on time is scattered around is that our capacity to understand it is so limited, as Jesus explains in this passage from the workbook:‘There is no need to further clarify what no one in the world can understand. … Yet what meaning can the words convey to those who count the hours still, and rise and work and go to sleep by them?’ (W-pI.169.10:1,4).Our lives are organized around the belief that time is linear. The workbook itself has a linear structure, there being 365 lessons based on a calendar year. Jesus’ exhortation to Helen and Bill about mind training and study implies linearity: early sections and chapters, and then later ones. Indeed, since all functioning in the world is based on linear time, the unreality of time seems inconceivable to us. Physicists in the 20th century, starting with Einstein, have spoken of time’s unreality, but their radical ideas have not penetrated very far into the teachings of traditional physics, nor have they had a noticeable effect on the world’s thinking. Yet despite our difficulties in understanding it, time remains an important part of the Course’s teaching.”
“By far the majority are given a slowly evolving training program, in which as many previous mistakes as possible are corrected. ⁸Relationships in particular must be properly perceived, and all dark cornerstones of unforgiveness removed. ⁹Otherwise the old thought system still has a basis for return.” (ACIM, M-9.1:7-9)
“Note the words slowly evolving–as in being gentle, patient, kind and merciful. This means there is no hurry to accomplish anything. Since we have already been healed–indeed, we have never not been healed–what is the rush? If, however, we feel a sense of urgency, it is only because we have made time real, thus making its source of sin, guilt and fear real as well. The need for this slow evolution is our fear of love, which leads to our resistance against moving too quickly.”
“Lesson 2: I have given everything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] all the meaning that it has for me.” (ACIM, W-2)
“I just found out Albert Einstein was a real person! All this time I thought he was a theoretical physicist!” – Facebook
We closed this session with a meditation using the chronological workbook lesson for Sep. 19:
Lesson 262: Let me perceive no differences today.
“1. Father, You have one Son. ²And it is he that I would look upon today. ³He is Your one creation. ⁴Why should I perceive a thousand forms in what remains as one? ⁵Why should I give this one a thousand names, when only one suffices? ⁶For Your Son must bear Your Name, for You created him. ⁷Let me not see him as a stranger to his Father, nor as stranger to myself. ⁸For he is part of me and I of him, and we are part of You Who are our Source, eternally united in Your Love; eternally the holy Son of God.
2. We who are one would recognize this day the truth about ourselves. ²We would come home, and rest in unity. ³For there is peace, and nowhere else can peace be sought and found.”
It may take two to tango, but One to entangle.
This video was recorded on September 19, 2022.
(I highly recommend Lyn and Tim’s almost daily SFACIM zoom classes!)
Wanna learn more about quantum entanglement? Here’s a short, fun, interesting and accessible video that I enjoyed and you might too by Joe Scott: Quantum Entanglement – One SPOOKY Mystery. Here’s an article about how those leveraging quantum entanglement for practical applications hope to use to it transcend the limitations of today’s supercomputers using quantum computing, still in early infancy. Here is more from Donald Hoffman on Portals into the Realm of Consciousness
