spirituality + science

spirituality and science have walked hand in hand throughout our history of evolution, one living off the other. like any loving couple, they've had their differences in the past but from their moments of passionate embrace became inventions like astronomy, the number '0' in mathematics, the pyramids of egypt or the first science of the elements; alchemy. for thousands of years, they were the archetypal couple of opposite forces, emotional and rational, feminine and masculine, lovers and archenemies, spinning around each other and inspiring their mutual search for an explanation of Life.

more recently, the modernisation of societies has often attempted to push spirituality and science to divorce. notably, the most resistant to this separation of knowledge have been the jewish, who have held on to both with the same fervour. also notably, jewish descendants have often been ahead of science in modern day history. so, here is a culture where the marriage between the two persists but, despite the wedding being reasonably healthy, some of their children have rebelled. a few decades ago, one of them built the first atom bomb, a result of one of those inescapable ironies of Life.

Robert Oppenheimer, was the director of scientific research of the 'manhattan project' that produced the first atom bombs. in his early life, his jewish descendent parents did not observe the religious traditions, but Robert studied at the 'ethical culture society school', founded by Felix Adler, a jewish rational intellectual. Felix had been the son of a head rabbi, quite possibly giving him access to certain levels of spiritual knowledge that was kept hidden even from the jewish masses. here's a cryptic phrase from a jewish encyclopaedia, about the teachings of the kabballah, the jewish Tree of Life (a symbol that is shared by many religions, including its offsprings christianity and islam, but also assyrian, mayan, norse, hindu, buddhist and chinese):

"any book on the subject of practical kabballah should be disregarded immediately; no legitimate source would ever make such teachings available to a faceless mass audience."
judaism 101

in any case, as Felix grew up, he obviously grew with a different view about guarding knowledge behind locked doors. following his father's footsteps, Felix also preached. however, in his own sermons he omitted God, "an unorthodox approach which made him suspect by many in the new york jewish community and ended any thought of him succeeding his father." [from wikipedia] eventually, Felix Adler started his own school, where Robert Oppenheimer would study.

"in the late 1930s, Oppenheimer was the first to write papers suggesting the existence of what we today call black holes. in these papers, he demonstrated that there was a size limit (the so called Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit) to stars beyond which they would not remain stable as neutron stars, and would undergo gravitational collapse.

many people thought that Oppenheimer's discoveries and research were not commensurate with his inherent abilities and talents. [...] his close confidant and colleague, nobel prize winner Isidor Rabi, later gave his own interpretation:

Oppenheimer was overeducated in those fields which lie outside the scientific tradition, such as his interest in religion, in the hindu religion in particular, which resulted in a feeling of mystery of the universe that surrounded him like a fog. he saw physics clearly, looking toward what had already been done, but at the border he tended to feel there was much more of the mysterious and novel than there actually was... he turned away from the hard, crude methods of theoretical physics into a mystical realm of broad intuition."

in spite of this, some people (such as the nobel prize winner physicist Luis Alvarez) have suggested that if he had lived long enough to see his predictions substantiated by experiment, Oppenheimer might have won a nobel prize for his work on gravitational collapse, concerning neutron stars and black holes."
wikipedia

looks like he wasn't so lost in his own "mystical realm of broad intuition" after all. this is just another perfect example that what was mystical and mysterious one day can be called real science in the future. it is not strange that Oppenheimer wasn't recognised in his life:

"no prophet is accepted in his own village"
[ Jesus ]

it's one of those old truths that keeps coming back to haunt the most astute minds. while no one gave him a noble prize or recognition for his ground-breaking ideas in the 1930's, this is the beginning of a recent article from may 2005:

"creation of black hole detected

astronomers photographed a cosmic event this morning which they believe is the birth of a black hole, space.com has learned.

a faint visible-light flash moments after a high-energy gamma-ray burst likely heralds the merger of two dense neutron stars to create a relatively low-mass black hole, [...]. it is the first time an optical counterpart to a very short-duration gamma-ray burst has ever been detected."
space.com

Oppenheimer may not have been exactly the kind of person we usually identify as a 'prophet', since that title isn't usually compatible with building nuclear bombs, but he certainly 'prophesied' the workings of the Cosmos decades in advance. not only he wrote about which he had never observed, basing his theories on a combination of science and intuition, but his writings were confirmed in the 21st century, at a time when even Einstein's theories can be questioned by our fast-paced science. is it possible that studying in a secular jewish school, created by the 'rebel' son of a head rabbi, Oppenheimer was given access to restricted levels of 'spiritual science', previously hidden from the masses? put it this way: it's not only impossible but it is somewhat confirmed by the secrecy that often surrounds many of the jewish scriptures:

"from there on go out and calculate that which the mouth cannot speak and the ear cannot hear. "
[ the sefer yezirah "the book of Creation" ]

"the word pharisee comes from the word 'parush', meaning 'one separated' i.e. one who withdraws himself out of motives for piety. among the jews thus separated, there arose not only differences in social customs, but also in doctrinal views - and specifically, an oral tradition. this oral tradition not only outlined a rigorous routine of lifestyle and conduct, but also created special learning and knowledge that was the exclusive domain of the members of the sect. In this way, a community of such learned men developed. their special knowledge drew an excess of reverential regard from the masses of people who were not privy to it[...]"
work of the chariot

someone once said to me that in ancient times 'history writing' – as factual recording – simply didn't exist. instead, the first historians wrote stories which today we interpret as religion or myths. there is an old saying that goes "every myth has a grain of Truth", which makes sense if they are fictionally embellished stories that were based on real facts. one example: noah's ark may not have existed (as a single ship), yet it is perfectly plausible that an ancient civilisation was forced to abandon a land by sea due to warming temperatures and rising waters, much like it will happen with tuvalu in the coming decades. it is also possible that they had built the largest ship ever and that they carried some animals in pairs, so that they could restart their lives somewhere else.

fact is, history repeats itself and these 'myths' will be repeated again and that is science telling us today, not an ancient 'crackpot'. our planet is ruled by violent cycles of thousands of years. the times of great storms, earthquakes, volcanos, rising oceans and overpopulation are already here. whether we like it or not, we were warned thousands of years ago of what would become of Earth and how we would be caught unaware. the 'myths' and prophecies are already proven right. not by magic, but because some very wise men could foresee that a particular human attitude towards life would ultimately lead us to a dangerous path, the path of forgetting our inevitable past and inevitable future, natural cycles that are ruled by the planets, stars and galaxies above us, with enough power to throw us into an ice age within centuries or even decades.

someone else once said that the day humanity marries science with spirituality and myth, we will see the world with new eyes. Jesus once said that those who see the Truth would be troubled and astonished. i am an agnostic, which is someone who doesn't believe or disbelieve in God (because i cannot see evidence either way). for the most part of my life i was a devout atheist. i've always been very rational, though i've never denied my emotional side its right to think and speak out. it is indifferent to me what i call to those things that lie hidden from my eyes. some call it God, others call it the Cosmos. i can call them neither of those names and both of those names, depending on which perspective i'm looking at the subject, which is usually both and simultaneously none. if you are curious about how ancient knowledge can be married with science and want to investigate it further, you will need to do the same thing. open your mind and allow everything to be possible, then look into science and see if anything matches. ironically, i actually started the other way around, looking for scientific environmental data, before one day i started bumping into religious scriptures.

while my rational side always kept religion at distance, one day i was faced with the fact that there is much to learn from it, even if only from an historical point of view. when the gospel of Judas resurfaced and i read it – out of curiosity (and a hope of something condemning the vatican) – it quickly destroyed my preconceived idea of 'religious garbage'. there was a prophecy that became real, a mysterious plot, weird numbers and cryptic messages trying to describe the universe with plenty of references to the stars; the luminaries. Jesus sounded more like a science teacher illustrating the beginning of the Cosmos and less like the priests i had heard during the weddings i attended in my life.

"look, I have explained to you the mysteries of the kingdom and I have taught you about the error of the stars; and [...] send it [...] on the twelve aeons.”

'aeons' are 'periods of existence', which implies cycles of Life and Death. the error of the stars remains unexplained. now read this amazing text and suggested scientific explanation and notes. the parts of text with '[...]' are actually lost, probably forever.

Jesus teaches Judas about Cosmology: the Spirit and the Self-Generated

Jesus said, “[come], that I may teach you about [secrets] no person [has] ever seen. for there exists a great and boundless realm [Cosmos], whose extent no generation of angels has seen, [in which] there is [a] great invisible [Spirit] [Energy],

which no eye of an angel has ever seen,
no thought of the heart has ever comprehended,
and it was never called by any name.

“and a luminous cloud [of Hydrogen] appeared there. he said, ‘let an angel [blackhole] come into being as my attendant.’“a great angel [blackhole], the enlightened divine Self-Generated, emerged from the cloud. because of him, four other angels came into being from another cloud [because the energy of a blackhole ignites stars in stellar nurseries], and they became attendants for the angelic Self-Generated [orbiting the black hole]. the Self-Generated said, ‘let [...] come into being [...],’ and it came into being [...] [we don't know what was refered here as being created]. and he [created] the first luminary [star] to reign over him. he said, ‘let angels come into being to serve [him],’ and myriads [tens of thousands] without number came into being. he said, ‘[let] an enlightened aeon [i suggest planet here, since 'aeon' derived from the greek word 'aion', which meant "a period of existence" or "life"] come into being,’ and he came into being. he created the second luminary [suggesting binary solar systems?] [to] reign over him, together with myriads of angels without number, to offer service. that is how he created the rest of the enlightened aeons. he made them reign over them, and he created for them myriads of angels without number, to assist them.

then came another the gospel of Thomas, with cryptic sayings like:

"recognise what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you. for there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest."

or

"let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. when he finds, he will become troubled. when he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."

and a last and stark warning...

Judas said to Jesus, “so what will those generations do?”

Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, for all of them the stars bring matters to completion.

when Saklas completes the span of time assigned for him, their first star will appear with the generations, and they will finish what they said they would do. then they will fornicate in my name and slay their children and they will [...] and [—about six and a half lines missing—] my name, and he will [...] your star over the [thir]teenth aeon.”

after that Jesus [laughed].[Judas said], “master, [why are you laughing at us]?”

[Jesus] answered [and said], “i am not laughing [at you] but at the error of the stars, because these six stars wander about with these five combatants, and they all will be destroyed along with their creatures.”

at this point, both my rational and emotional sides were asking me "what if there is really something to discover here"? what if Jesus was on to something too hard to explain to a group of people who were just being initiated to the secrets of the Cosmos? if he spoke about stellar, even galaxy formation, what more could he know about? why would he say these things without knowing or meaning them and how could anyone write so accurately about galaxy formation 2,000 years ago (assuming the possibility of this 1,800 years old manuscript being a copy of an older version)? we've just discovered recently that black holes help bringing stars to life, not just sit at the centre of a galaxy eating them away.

i have so much to say and ask now that my writing can hardly keep pace with my brain but i guarantee you that there is more here than i've let you know already. Jesus's reference to the thirteenth aeon [age] should strike a chord to anyone familiar with the most precise calendar ever designed by mankind. it was created by the mayans and still beats nasa's own calendar these days. one piece at a time though...