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Originally Posted by thef0x People decide that, because we can think of ourselves as energy, there is a conscious, willful, universe that can listen to our english language and respond to our "energy".
I just do not understand this at all.
I'm so for personal development and I think these beliefs are delusional and life-negating. |
I think I understand your frustration, thef0x. I think it's good to have a balance between skepticism and open-mindedness, and not to simply accept things on blind faith nor reject things simply because they don't make logical sense right away. Personally, if I had to choose, I'm probably like you - I'd rather err on the side of blind skepticism than blind faith.
But even though I personally don't say things like "I am energy" or that "the universe responds to our energy", I can usually understand what people mean when they say it. I know I can't change your thoughts about "energy" or your paradigm of reality in the space of this single post, but you might want to look into books by:
Erwin Schrodinger (Nobel prize winning quantum physicist)
Fritjof Capra (author of Tao of Physics)
David Bohm (quantum physicist)
Ken Wilber (philosopher)
Anything on "systems theory"
But even after reading 10 books, 20 books, 50 books!, you probably won't go run out in the streets and yell "I am energy!" I sure didn't.
But the authors listed above definitely helped to soften the boundaries I drew around my world; and brought a lot of doubts upon what I considered to be "reality", and what I considered to be "absolutely positively irrevocably true", and what I considered to be the separations between matter and energy. And this softening of beliefs and collapsing of boundaries leads to a more open mind to ideas about "seeing ourselves as energy" and believing the "universe responds to our energy".
As a side note, personally, I don't use the word "energy" that much, at least not in the spiritual or meta-physical sense. "Energy" has so many meanings in everyday language already, that it's hard to distinguish what people are even talking about when they use it in a spiritual or meta-physical sense. Same goes for the word "soul". But it's all good.
I mean, I tend to use the word "resonate" a lot, even though it isn't the proper English way to use of the word.
Anyways, I can't go into the entire thought process that brought Erwin Schrodinger to his conclusions about reality. First of all, I didn't know what he believed and didn't believe at various points in time. And even if I did know, there wouldn't be enough space to write it all out here. But I do know that he was pretty familiar with Einstein's work. And since it sounds like you enjoy reading/discussing physics, then maybe you might want to check out Schrodinger if you are academically interested in physics or read Tao of Physics if you just have a passing interest in physics.
Also, if it helps, here's a quote from Schrodinger that I read a few years ago. It really confused me at first, and I think it even made me a little mad (What the hell is this guy talking about?!). But looking back, I think this particular quote helped me tremendously along my own path (I absolutely had to look into this more and see it for myself.).
Disclaimer: And just because I'm quoting him here, that doesn't mean I think Schrodinger would automatically accept everything talked about here in these forums. Or even the many different ideas about "energy" and the many different ways the word is used. So a healthy skepticism is always good.
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It is not possible that this unity of knowledge, feeling and choice which you call your own should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment not so long ago; rather this knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings. But not in this sense—that you are a part, a piece, of an eternal, infinite being, an aspect or modification of it, as in Spinoza's pantheism. For we should have the same baffling question: which part, which aspect are you? What, objectively, differentiates it from the others? No, but inconceivable as it seems to ordinary reason, you—and all other conscious beings as such—are all in all. Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance.
Thus you can throw yourself flat on the ground, stretched out upon Mother Earth, with the certain conviction that you are one with her and she with you. You are as firmly established, as invulnerable as she, indeed a thousand times firmer and more invulnerable. As surely as she will engulf you tomorrow, so surely will she bring you forth anew to new striving and suffering. And not merely 'some day': now, today, every day she is bringing you forth, not once but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day she engulfs you a thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.
-- Erwin Schrodinger, from My View of the World (1964)
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So basically, when most people say that "we can think of ourselves as energy", they usually mean it in this "oneness" sense talked about above where matter and energy aren't seen as separate. So using the word "energy" in this context implies a oneness that's in motion, dynamic, living, growing, evolving. Rather than everything being one, yet frozen and simply sitting still and not moving.
And when most people say that the "universe responds to our energy", they also usually mean it in this "oneness" sense too. (And now that I think about it, I can see how frustrating it can be for some people, with how the word "energy" is used so interchangeably to mean so many different things. Even in purely the meta-physical sense.) But "energy" used in this context, usually means something more like "emotion-filled and desire-filled thoughts".