Indeed, Bohm believes that our almost universal tendency to fragment the world and ignore the dynamic interconnectedness of all things is responsible for many of our problems, not only in science but in our lives and our society as well. For instance, we believe we can extract the valuable parts of the earth without affecting the whole. We believe it is possible to treat parts of our body and not be concerned with the whole. We believe we can deal with various problems in our society, such as crime, poverty, and drug addiction, without addressing the problems in our society as a whole, and so on. In his writings Bohm argues passionately that our current way of fragmenting the world into parts not only doesn't work, but may even lead to our extinction.
There is no time but this time. There is no moment but this moment. "Now" is all there is.
What about "yesterday" and "tomorrow"?
Figments of your imagination. Constructions of your mind. Nonexistent in Ultimate Reality.
Everything that ever happened, is happening, and ever will happen, is happening right now
I don't understand.
And you can't. Not completely. But you can begin to. And a beginning grasp is all that is needed here.
So... just listen.
"Time" is not a continuum. It is an element of relativity that exists vertically, not horizontally.
Don't think of it as a "left to right" thing - a so-called time line that runs from birth to death for each individual, and from some finite point to some finite point for the universe.
"Time" is an "up and down" thing! Think of it as a spindle, representing the Eternal Moment of Now.
Now picture leafs of paper on the spindle, one atop the other. These are the elements of time. Each element separate and distinct, yet each existing simultaneously with the other. All the paper on the spindle at once! As much as there will ever be - as much as there ever was...
[...]
All of it happened. All of it has already happened.
Every possibility exists as fact, as completed events.
How can that be? I still don't understand how that can be.
I am going to put this in terms to which you can better relate. See if this helps. Have you ever watched children use a CD-ROM to play a computerized video game?
Yes.
Have you ever asked yourself how the computer knows how to respond to every move the child makes with the joystick?
Yes, actually, I have wondered that.
It's all on the disc. The computer knows how to respond to every move the child makes because every possible move has already been placed on the disc, along with its appropriate response.
That's spooky. Almost surreal.
What, that every ending, and every twist and turn producing that ending, is already programmed on the disc? There's nothing "spooky" about it. It's just technology. And if you think the technology of video games is something, wait 'til you see the technology of the universe!
Think of the Cosmic Wheel as that CD-ROM. All the endings already exist. The universe is just waiting to see which one you choose this time. And when the game is over, whether you win, lose, or draw, the universe will say, "Want to play again?"
Your computer disc doesn't care whether you win or not, and you can't "hurt its feelings". It just offers you a chance to play again. All the endings already exist, and which ending you experience depends on the choices you make. [...]
[So] celebrate! Celebrate life! Celebrate Self! Celebrate God!
Celebrate! Play the game.
If I revealed myself as God Almighty, King of Heaven and Earth, and moved mountains to prove it, there are those who would say, “It must have been Satan.”
And such is as it should be. For God does not reveal Godself to Godself from or through outward observation, but through inward experience. And when inward experience has revealed Godself, outward observation is not necessary. And if outward observation is necessary, inward experience is not possible.
If, then, revelation is requested, it cannot be had, for the act of asking is a statement that it is not there; that nothing of God is now being revealed. Such a statement produces the experience. For your thought about something is creative, and your word is productive, and your thought and your word together are magnificently effective in giving birth to your reality. Therefore shall you experience that God is not now revealed, for if God were, you would not ask God to be.
As we have seen, Bohm believes that consciousness and matter are just different aspects of the same fundamental something, a something that has its origins in the [gaming engine]. Some researchers believe this suggests that the consciousness may be able to do much more than make a few psychokinetic changes in the material world. For example, [Dr. Stanislov Grof] believes that if the [gaming engine] and the ["physical" world] are an accurate description of reality, "it is conceivable that certain unusual states of consciousness could mediate direct experience of, and intervention in, the [gaming engine]. It would thus be possible to modify phenomena in the phenomenal world by influencing their generative matrix." Put another way, in addition to psychokinetically moving objects around, the mind may also be able to reach down and reprogram the cosmic motion picture projector that created those objects in the first place. Thus, not only could the conventionally recognized rules of nature, such as inertia, be completely bypassed, but the mind could alter and reshape the material world in ways far more dramatic than even psychokinesis implies.
[...]
Looked at another way, the ability of consciousness to shift from one entire reality to another suggests that the usually inviolate rule that fire burns human flesh may only be one program in the cosmic computer, but a program that has been repeated so often it has become one of nature’s habits. As has been mentioned, according to the holographic idea, matter is also a kind of habit and is constantly created anew out of the [gaming engine], just as the shape of a fountain is created anew out of the constant flow of water that gives it form. Peat humorously refers to the repetitious nature of this process as one of the universe’s neuroses. “When you have a neurosis you tend to repeat the same pattern in your life, or do the same action, as if there’s a memory built up and the thing is stuck with that,” he says. “I tend to think things like chairs and tables are like that also. They’re a sort of material neurosis, a repetition. But there is something subtler going on, a constant enfolding and unfolding. In this sense, chairs and tables are just habits in this flux, but the flux is the reality, even if we tend only to see the habit.”
Indeed, given that the universe and the laws of physics that govern it are also products of this flux, then they, too, must be viewed as habits. Clearly they are habits that are deeply ingrained in the holomovement, but supernormal talents such as immunity to fire indicate that, despite their seeming constancy, at least some of the rules that govern reality can be suspended. This means the laws of physics are not set in stone, but are more like Shainberg’s vortices, whirlpools of such vast inertial power that they are fixed in the holomovement as our own habits and deeply held convictions are fixed in our thoughts.
Grof’s proposal that altered states of consciousness may be required in order to make such changes in the [gaming engine] is also attested to by the frequency with which fire immunity is associated with heightened faith and religious zeal. The pattern that began to take shape in the last chapter continues, and its message becomes increasingly clear — the deeper and more emotionally charged our beliefs, the greater the changes we can make in both our bodies and reality itself.
Does that mean I cannot ask for anything I want? Are You saying that praying for something actually pushes it away from us?
This is a question which has been asked through the Ages—and has been answered whenever it has been asked. Yet you have not heard the answer, or will not believe it.
The question is answered again, in today’s terms, and today’s language, thusly:
You will not have that for which you ask, nor can you have anything you want. This is because your very request is a statement of lack, and your saying you want a thing only works to produce that precise experience— wanting—in your reality.
The correct prayer is therefore never a prayer of supplication, but a prayer of gratitude.
When you thank God in advance for that which you choose to experience in your reality, you, in effect, acknowledge that it is there… in effect. Thankfulness is thus the most powerful statement to God; an affirmation that even before you ask, I have answered.
Therefore never supplicate. Appreciate.
But what if I am grateful to God in advance for something, and it never shows up? That could lead to disillusionment and bitterness.
Gratitude cannot be used as a tool with which to manipulate God; a device with which to fool the universe. You cannot lie to yourself. Your mind knows the truth of your thoughts. If you are saying “Thank you, God, for such and such,” all the while being very clear that it isn’t there in your present reality, you can’t expect God to be less clear than you, and so produce it for you.
God knows what you know, and what you know is what appears as your reality.
But how then can I be truly grateful for something I know is not there?
Faith. If you have but the faith of a mustard seed, you shall move mountains. You come to know it is there because I said it is there; because I said that, even before you ask, I shall have answered; because I said, and have said to you in every conceivable way, through every teacher you can name, that whatsoever you shall choose, choosing it in My Name, so shall it be.
Yet so many people say that their prayers have gone unanswered.
No prayer—and a prayer is nothing more than a fervent statement of what is so—goes unanswered. Every prayer—every thought, every statement, every feeling—is creative. To the degree that it is fervently held as truth, to that degree will it be made manifest in your experience.
When it is said that a prayer has not been answered, what has in actuality happened is that the most fervently held thought, word, or feeling has become operative. Yet what you must know—and here is the secret—is that always it is the thought behind the thought—what might be called the Sponsoring Thought—that is the controlling thought.
If, therefore, you beg and supplicate, there seems a much smaller chance that you will experience what you think you are choosing, because the Sponsoring Thought behind every supplication is that you do not have now what you wish. That Sponsoring Thought becomes your reality.
The only Sponsoring Thought which could override this thought is the thought held in faith that God will grant whatever is asked, without fail. Some people have such faith, but very few.
The process of prayer becomes much easier when, rather than having to believe that God will always say “yes” to every request, one understands intuitively, that the request itself is not necessary. Then the prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving. It is not a request at all but a statement of gratitude for what is so.
One Christian miracle that appears to be generated by the power of the mind is stigmata. Most church scholars agree that St. Francis of Assisi was the first person to manifest spontaneously the wounds of the crucifixion, but since his death there have been literally hundreds of other stigmatists. Although no two ascetics exhibit the stigmata in quite the same way, all have one thing in common.