There’s a major scientific problem that is harder to figure out than Einstein’s theory of relativity.

The problem question is, “What makes us conscious?”

Scientist have looked into every area of the brain they know all about the different parts of it, but they can’t seem to find the power source for the mind and body. The idea of the how the mind really works is still murky and elusive.

The eastern traditions of Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism did rigorous meditation to investigate the mind. By doing so they unveiled how our minds connect to the universe, and how this universe runs through out our entire body.

This universal energy also became the foundation of the healthcare systems of India, Tibet, and China.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls these types of events in science, history and the arts “the black swan theory.” According Taleb, before the discovery of Australia, we had no reason to believe swans could be any other color then white. Then one person witnessed a black swan, and all the sudden everyone believed in black swans. Taleb would classify things like the Theory of Relativity and the Internet as black swans. They come out of nowhere.

Albert Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Western physicists are starting to form a scientific model around what these eastern traditions figured out thousands of years ago. The world renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson said, “When I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts, is that the Universe is in us.”

In the eastern traditions, consciousness is believed to be energy that is connected with the outside energy. In Hinduism, the word “Yoga” means to “Yoke.” It a means to yoke the subtle body with the outside energy source that runs the universe. In Taoism, they use the word Tao to describe an outside energy field. The word “Te” means a piece of the outside energy trapped inside us. This is all done through rigorous meditation work.

The goal of a Taoist is to unite these two energy fields together to form a union. The Buddha described this energy field as emptiness; this emptiness field is believed to unite all living beings together. In Hua-Yen Buddhism they use a great metaphor for this; they call it Indra’s net. It’s a wonderful metaphor to explain emptiness.

Francis Harold Cook in his book, Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra describes it like this.

There is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each “eye” of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.

Emptiness is an energy field that unites all living begins together.

 

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Editor: Mel Squarey