Paradox is, effectively, two concepts that are mutually exclusive yet nevertheless exist in the same time and space. For instance, in terms of faith, it is often said that Deity is so small it can live within us yet so vast it is greater than time and space. This is a paradox, how can both things be simultaneously true? Or in terms of physics, how can there be up to eleven dimensions (string theory) while we can only discern four: length, width, height, and time. However, on a more basic level our entire universe exists in a paradox.
Physicist, Dr. Mani Bhaumik—co-inventor of the Lasik laser, observed in his book Code Name God “…(the essence of both mysticism and quantum physics is paradox) what is perceived as empty can also be perceived as full, in the sense of an infinite potential” (pg. 120). By this he was intimating that there is a relationship between the understanding found in mystical experiences and teachings and the understanding evolving from the study of quantum physics. Why might this happen?
At its most profound level mysticism attempts to describe the relationship between the universe and the human being. Historically, mystics have commented that there is no distinction between them and God. Generally this has been understood as heresy by the major religions. However, that is only because they do not have the experience of the mystics. From a mystical perspective there is no difference when the mystic is operating in what the Hindu refers to as “the bliss”. At this point of the experience, the mystic has tapped something beyond the self, something which transcends time and space, something in which the mystic enjoys the experience of non-distinction from the environment--in all its various forms. At this time, there is no past or future, only eternal present and complete unity with all of creation and beyond. What has been classified as the ego/self disappears for the duration of the blissfulness.
This is not as distant as it might seem. For fifty years the work of Abraham Maslow and other humanistic researchers have sought to understand the process of transformation in which people move beyond their environmental boundaries. When this happens there is a sense of unity with all creation. Boundaries disappear as does the sense of consciousness of time as it is normally understood or experienced. In fact, Maslow, Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences, cites Bucke’s work from 1923 called Cosmic Consciousness, when he declares: “Cosmic Consciousness involves an attention-widening so that the whole cosmos is perceived as a unity, and one’s place in this whole is simultaneously perceived” (p. 78).
Still this is not enough to classify this phenomenon as a paradox. Instead, it merely describes the ability of the human being to move beyond the culturally limited boundaries of experience derived from the acculturation process. And perhaps this is the paradox: that there is ability inside a person which allows him or her to somehow move beyond the limits established by society. This must, at the least, imply the capability of holding multiple conflicting perceptions simultaneously. In psycho-dynamic terms this might well be the internal struggle which defines individual growth towards completeness versus the acculturated process of wanting to maintain a homeostatic environment. This is indeed a paradox, if not the paradox, of human psychology; that a person can hold mutually exclusive perceptions in tension and act upon them independently and exclusively.
For the quantum physicist the problem is more concrete, but less easy to describe. For example, photon, electrons, and recently atoms, have been shown to show the same inexplicable quantum behavior – to approach matter and suddenly appear on the other side of the object, without seeming to have actually encountered the physical object. Based upon what is traditionally accepted about matter this should not be happening. Things do not suddenly “jump” from one place to another. Yet the entire current theory of electron orbits states exactly that. Electrons are either in one orbit or another, they are never found in between orbits. Consequently they do “jump” between orbits or points in space.
Another paradox exists with the concept of wave action of electrons. In theory the electron wave exists in all possible points simultaneously. It only becomes a particle at the point it is observed and all of the other possibilities “collapse” or become part of the single resolution of where the electron is at any specific point in time. Thus, the electron is at all possible points on the wave, and there are mathematical equations used to demonstrate this theory and the resulting experiments, simultaneously—a paradoxical statement.
Specifically in terms of Dr. Bhaumik’s earlier statement, the mystical perspective is that since there is no distinction between God/universe/consciousness and the mystic then the universe is pregnant with possibilities for creation yet it is empty of everything that distinguishes separateness from creation. Just as the electron is on all points of the wave until it collapses because of the presence of an observer, so the universe for the mystic is everywhere simultaneously until something brings about an intervention of consciousness into the experience and collapses the blissful state. It is in this state of blissfulness that miracles occur and are not limited by circumstances.
This is what the various faiths have taught us all along. Matter is a product of something beyond the physical and as such it is subject to mutation and variation from previous constriction by something operating at the level of the non-material – at the creative level. This is the point Dr. Bhaumik was making in his writing. This creative level has been accessible to mysticism, regardless of religious doctrine, for millennia and accesses the physical world--in ways a materialistically based approach can not address--to alter it. Mysticism provides the insight into the application and instructions in how to access these paradoxes. Faith provides the vehicle to apply the insights from mysticism.
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