Where's Your Universe?

Where’s Your Universe?

Is the Universe “out there,” or is it “in us”? From a simple Buddhist perspective, it’s in us, as all reality is perception. But ever since the great scientists of the European Renaissance, and the Golden Age of Islam, we’ve come to understand (believe) that the universe is a constantly fluctuating maze of this and that “out there.” As a reader of this blog, you are, or you think you are, “out there somewhere” sitting on a three or four legged chair or something like a chair, squinting at your computer screen, and not inside my brain, for if you were, I’d ask everyone to observe decorum, and please whisper, as the space beneath my cranium is actually a small reading room.

Okay? How are we doing so far? Some of you might want to click away from this nonsense and do something that is less associated with time, space, and the Universe. Yet for those who are fascinated with the problem, and it is a problem, I want to bring your attention to a new scientific text with the short title of Biocentrism that essentially will undermine Western views of scientific investigation, particularly as it applies to the nature of the Universe.
The book is featured in the current issue of “Cosmic Log: The Universe in Your Head,” as found in the Tech and Science section of the news website, www.msnbc.com. Do find the blog, and check out this new discovery/insight for I’m sure you’ll want to head to the bookstore to order this fascinating new scientific reassessment of how we perceive the Universe.

Essentially, the two scientists, Robert Lanza “with” Bob Berman, offer a reversal of the notion that the universe creates life. Instead, they suggest “life creates the universe,” which isn’t that hard to grasp, but what is exciting is the second part of their equation, that “observers” [that would be all of us] are now part of the equation.

To clarify, the world keeps changing, constantly, in part, because we are able, as observers, to see these changes and chart the differences. We are all agreed, aren’t we, that the universe is different than our Polish student of the Krakow Academy (see previous blog) Nicolaus Copernicus observed with his Universe cracking telescope.

The two scientists/biologists suggest the world is defined through consciousness, a view not that surprising to Eastern philosophers and teachers, as we know through the teachings of the Buddha that “all is one,” but all that we see and observe is through the eyes of the “observer,” and whatever consciousness that individual brings to the observation.

How many out there are still reading? I hope a few, and if you are there, here’s one last question the scientists ask that will surely send you off to your bookstore for Enlightenment of the Eastern kind, not the Western Enlightenment of the 18th Century Age of Scientific Discovery. Here is their question: Where is the universe even located? Hmmm. Out there, right? But if you are not sure, then I urge you to find what might make for a fascinating summer reading, but maybe not on the beach. The book is Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, by Robert Lanza with Bob Berman, BenBella Books. Let me know what you think.