two.”126 There is also a “mysterious connection between the worlds,” what Penrose calls “three profound mysteries.”127
Rupert Sheldrake notes that the Platonic concept implies stasis: “All possible forms have always existed as timeless Forms, or as mathematical potentialities implicit in the eternal laws of nature.”128 In other words, “A Platonic interpretation of the forms of organisms in terms of archetypal Ideas implies a one-way influence from the Idea to the organism, and the Idea itself undergoes no change.”129 However, Sheldrake’s hypothesis implies continuing change as the organism and field act in synergy: “By contrast, the hypothesis of formative causation postulates a two-way flow of influence: from fields to organisms and from organisms to fields.”130
Physicist Fred Alan Wolf elaborates on this idea:
A single event, wherever it occurs, in the brain or anywhere else in the universe, will not constitute an event of consciousness. You need two events. Consciousness is the relationship between two events via this offer-echo quantum-physical mechanism . . . Thus I suggest that the consciousness field is the product of these two quantum waves (U*U), and this product appears as a probability field that exists everywhere, not just in the brain, but everywhere.131
Rupert Sheldrake, as he summarizes the thinking of Terence McKenna, makes the same point:
The Cosmic Mind contains all possible forms and archetypes that are way out there in the future, and it somehow interacts with what’s going on now . . . The evolutionary imagination works by a kind of spark between the divine mind, or cosmic attractor, and present situations open to creativity.132
We could think of these two “principles” as “the Indian Tantric notion of Shakti as energy and Shiva as the formative principle working together to create the world.”133 Gregg Braden says “the energy that does the connecting is what [physicist Max] Planck described as the ‘matrix’ of everything.”134 Professor Thomas Görnitz of Goethe Universitat sums up this theory: there is “no need and no place for any kind of dualism.” From atoms, to quanta, to strings, “the world is only spirit,” built on structures.135
Edgar Cayce, called “the sleeping prophet” and “the father of holistic medicine,” stresses the same idea in his readings: “An entity, or soul, is a spark—or a portion—of the Whole, the First Cause; and thus is a coworker with the First Cause, or Purpose, which is the creative influence or force that is manifested in materiality.” (2079-1)136
Though this view is still controversial rather than mainstream, it is becoming prevalent among some physicists and metaphysicians at “the cutting edge.”
Creative Synergy
So what is “Creative Synergy”?
There is a synergistic reaction between the many and the One, the net and the gem, the field and the organism. Something is trying to happen, trying to make its way down from the realm of the causal to the solid matter of the manifest world. We can hear it as a humming along the resonant wires of the vibrating strings. We can feel it as a Form that is trying to take shape, trying to impress itself upon us, trying to clarify from fuzzy to sharp. As we open to receive it, as we work to make it clearer, we are shaping it with our own creative consciousness as well. As it resonates, it strikes harmonious chords with similar nodes of consciousness, until the whole net of strings vibrates with an idea whose time has come, an idea rippling across the net like the pattern cast by a stone in a pond. In the words of Fellini, “A creator always has something of Almighty God.”137 In a more secular vein Ken Wilber says, “Creativity is part of the basic ground of the universe.”138
Michael Talbot explains, “Whether we call the collective consciousness of all things ‘God,’ or simply ‘the consciousness of all things,’ it doesn’t change the situation. The universe is sustained by . . . an act of stupendous and ineffable creativity.”139 When we cooperate with what is becoming and trying to merge into being, we are participating in Creative Synergy.
So the core meaning of Creative Synergy is cooperation with what Star Wars calls “The Force.” But there are others. To explain them all, we will look at sources Eastern and Western, mystical and scientific. As a framework we will use the Integral Operating System of Ken Wilber, the brilliant philosopher who has devised a schema to measure and codify all things, from the objective world of object and systems to the subjective world of self and culture. We will also discover how to clarify our vision and cooperate more with the synergistic process. For an elucidation of this process, I am deeply indebted to the work of Swami Kriyananda (Donald Walters).
The point, made lyrically by Andrew Cohen, is,
When spirit took the leap from formlessness to form, from nothing to something, from being to becoming, it emerged from emptiness as the creative impulse—the urge to become, the desire to exist. This creative impulse expresses itself at all levels of the human experience . . . at the gross physical level—as the sexual impulse . . . But at higher levels of being, humans are the only life forms we know of that are compelled to innovate and to create. We can see this especially in individuals who are pioneers in their fields, whether they are great philosophers, musicians, artists, politicians, or poets. Most individuals who are deeply talented are driven by a sense of urgency, an ecstatically urgent sense that “I must bring into life this potential that I see and experience in the depths of my own being. This must come through me . . . “It’s the will to create and the will to evolve.140
Exercises
1.Describe a few other “paradigm shifts” you know about. Have any ever occurred in your own life? Explain.
2.What examples of “holism” can you think of in the world today? Specifically, in what areas do you see a concern for “wholes” replacing a concern for fragments or parts?
3.What other examples of interdisciplinary studies can you cite? Explain.
4.Have you ever read or heard anything about the connection between physics and consciousness before? Explain.
5.Have you ever read or heard anything about Plato before? Explain.
6.List some of the puzzling or unclear ideas in Chapter 2. Ask questions about them.
7.Explain what you think is most important in Chapter 2.
8.React to some of the ideas in Chapter 2. Debate, support, analyze, and/or reflect.
9.Give evidence from your own life or background experience about the ideas in Chapter 2. (Don’t repeat what you have written in another exercise.)
10. When have you felt a connection to the Unified Field? Explain your experience.
69Unless otherwise stated, all definitions in this book are drawn from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000).
