Sunday, February 25, 2024

Bentov: Objective and Subjective Time

READ Stalking the Wild Pendulum (StWP) page 59

“From grandfather clocks to wrist watches, all these clocks are supposed to chop up for us the 24 hours of the day more or less reliably into hours, minutes, and seconds. Let’s call this kind of time ‘objective’ since everybody’s watches are supposed to cut time into slices of even thickness. However, we know from personal experience that time does not ‘feel’ as passing evenly under different circumstances. When pursuing some interesting activity, time ‘flies’; while waiting in the dentist’s office, it ‘drags.’…

Having thus ‘firmly’ established the relativity of time, let us see, then, how this subjective time can be put to some use. We know from sleep studies that during dreaming periods time dilation occurs. In other words, if, for example, a person is awakened after a very brief period of active dreaming and is asked to describe what happened in his dream, usually a long story will come out, which would have taken a much longer period of objective time to occur. We also know that under hypnosis time dilation can take place and can easily be noticed.”

What is “objective time”?

Objective time is elapsed time as it’s measured on a watch – with 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes to an hour, etc.

However, as straight forward as “objective” time seems to sound, objective time is still unique to the one experiencing it; the general theory of relativity states that the amount of gravity being experienced by one person relative to the amount of gravity existing in any other place in the universe will change the amount of elapsed time each person is experiencing because the lower the gravitational potential (the closer the clock is to the source of gravitation), the slower time passes – 1 hour to one person could actually be a much longer period of actual, objective time to someone else.  The film “Interstellar” illustrates this principle well. 

What is “subjective time” and is it real?

The subjective feeling of duration; how time is perceived by the individual.

There is no objective time without a subjective interpretation of it; we feel the passage of time and estimate its duration.

But our experience tells us that if the brain is engaged in an activity or thought process, time can be perceived to be moving much more quickly than when we are bored – during which we more intensely feel our bodily and emotional selves.

Subjective time is very real, in that we only experience objective time through the lens of subjectivity – so in one way of thinking about it, there is no objective time without a subjective interpretation of it. 

What is “time dilation” and “time perception”?

Time dilation is the difference in elapsed time between two clocks.

Objective time dilation can result from either the general theory of relativity or the special theory of relativity; time dilation resulting from the general theory occurs when the gravitational pull differs between two observers – the heavier the gravitational pull, the slower the elapsed time relative to another person in an area with less gravitation.  In the special theory of relativity, time dilation occurs if two objects are traveling at different relative speeds – the Doppler effect is an example of this.

Another type of time dilation, called time perception, is the “warping” of objective time into subjective experience; this occurs during engaging activities, under the influence of mind-altering drugs, when hypnotized or during dream states.

Time dilation illustrates the tenuous nature of an element of our physical state: time – which we usually consider as extremely stable and objectively measured.  

Why is time dilation an important topic to consider?

If time is actually subjective, it can be manipulated, enabling us to experience (and learn) more than we might otherwise.

If God exists outside of time and all things are before His face (He sees all events in time at once instead of linearly), we have an opportunity to experience time the same way if we can connect with God such that we perceive the elements of the universe in the way that He/They do; but this is a capability that must be built within us – otherwise we will not be able to articulate or even comprehend what we are seeing and experiencing; that “upskilling” involves tapping into God’s mind (the Holy Spirit) and raising or quickening our frequencies such that we can subjectively elongate our experience with time as we’re engaging with God. 

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Bentov: Objective and Subjective Time QUESTIONS

READ Stalking the Wild Pendulum (StWP) page 59

“From grandfather clocks to wrist watches, all these clocks are supposed to chop up for us the 24 hours of the day more or less reliably into hours, minutes, and seconds. Let’s call this kind of time ‘objective’ since everybody’s watches are supposed to cut time into slices of even thickness. However, we know from personal experience that time does not ‘feel’ as passing evenly under different circumstances. When pursuing some interesting activity, time ‘flies’; while waiting in the dentist’s office, it ‘drags.’…

Having thus ‘firmly’ established the relativity of time, let us see, then, how this subjective time can be put to some use. We know from sleep studies that during dreaming periods time dilation occurs. In other words, if, for example, a person is awakened after a very brief period of active dreaming and is asked to describe what happened in his dream, usually a long story will come out, which would have taken a much longer period of objective time to occur. We also know that under hypnosis time dilation can take place and can easily be noticed.”

What is “objective time”?

What is “subjective time” and is it real?

What is “time dilation” and “time perception”?

Why is time dilation an important topic to consider?

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Bentov: The Nature of Reality

Vibratory States

READ Stalking the Wild Pendulum (StWP) pages 45-46

“You will remember from the previous chapter that our physical bodies and all matter is made up of interacting electromagnetic fields vibrating at tremendous frequencies. At room temperature an atom will vibrate at a rate of 1015 Hz. (That means 1 followed by fifteen zeros.) The nucleus of an atom will vibrate at about 1022 Hz. These are almost inconceivably fast rates. In the process of inventing live systems, Nature had to come up with sensory organs that will allow these living things to interact with their environment. It had to use available building blocks that, as we have seen, are very jittery. In order to communicate with a slow mind, Nature has largely given up the tremendous information handling capacity that is inherent in matter itself…

Well, after a lot of experimentation, Nature came up with a reasonable solution. It has bound atoms into molecules, which have much lower vibratory rates because of their much larger mass. Out of these molecules — which still vibrate at Gigahertz (109 Hz.) rates — it has made live cells, which are the building blocks of all organisms. Then came the specialized nerve cells, or neurons. A rudimentary nervous system resulted that translated sensory input into a slow Morse code fashion of action and rest. It was a process of gradually stepping down the high vibratory rates of the atoms, to the “reasonable” vibratory rates of the molecules, to the “acceptable” frequency response of the cells (which is in the 103 Hz. range) for an assembled live cell. In other words, a cell will be able to respond to stimuli at that rate.”

Why is there a need to “step down” the speed of vibrations in this creation?

The human mind and the sensory organs are too slow to process information at the speed of an atom (much less a sub-atomic element); in this physical world, we cannot respond quickly enough to frequencies that are as fast as those of the atom.

In a similar way to how electrical systems operate – high voltages can be transmitted across special networks but to be used to run a household appliance, they must be run through a transformer to reduce the voltage to a usable level. 

This begs the question of what vibratory rates are like in other dimensions that are not hamstrung by the nature of our state of being on this earth.

How does Nature “transform” or “step down” vibratory rates?

It combines atoms into larger entities (molecules and then cells and then organs, etc) – it is the size of the combined entity that helps to determine the vibratory speed of the whole.  The larger the mass of the entity, the lower the vibratory rate of the combined elements. 

This goes back to the idea of being “in phase” – the slower “beat frequencies” which result from adding up the fast frequencies of all of the component parts, where the wave “hills” and “valleys” coincide or oppose with each other – either adding amplitude or canceling each other out – which ends up in a longer, higher/deeper wave which is by definition, slower.

 

READ StWP pages 46-47

“Physiological studies show that when a sensory nerve cell is not stimulated, the output of that cell will consist of sparse and unevenly spaced electrical pulses or spikes, as they are called. However, if we apply pressure or any other stimulus to that nerve cell, its output will become very lively. With each stimulus the cell will fire off salvos of closely spaced spikes. Their rate per unit time will depend on the strength of the stimulus.  Our whole sensory system operates this way, whether it is optical input coming through the eyes, acoustical through the ears, or tactile through the skin — and the end result is a series of spikes conducted to the appropriate area in the brain. In short, our senses translate the surrounding reality to us into a Morse code language of action and rest. Action comes when the neuron fires its spike, and rest comes as the cell is regenerating and readying itself for the next firing. Out of this action-and-rest code our brain constructs for us, for example, the form of a rose, its texture, its color and smell.”

What does this “Morse code” of electrical pulses from our senses reveal to us?

It is our subjective reality.

It is how our nervous system translates what it encounters into “reality” in the brain.

What other languages or applications, beside Morse code, use an “on” or “off” system to communicate sophisticated ideas?

Computer coding languages are also binary (0 or 1) and can be used to create amazingly complex applications.

 

READ StWP pages 49 and 50

“Let us visualize an atom made up of a nucleus and electron shells. We find the electrons orbiting rapidly about the nucleus while at the same time rotating about their own axes. If we look now at an aggregate of atoms in a crystal, we find that they vibrate about their fixed position in the lattice of this crystal. Thus, the microlevel of Nature is represented by two kinds of motion: a circular spinlike motion and a reciprocating motion due to vibration, each about a relatively fixed point…

Throughout the animal kingdom, from plankton to elephant to humans, we find that reciprocating motion prevails. There is almost no spin in the living structures. We are confined to a pendulumlike or, if you wish, oscillating behavior. As we go up the hierarchy of sizes and to heavenly bodies, orbiting and spin reappear. We know that all planets rotate about their axes while at the same time they orbit around their respective stars. We know that galaxies rotate, as do galactic clusters, and so on. In short, we find that one of the unique characteristics of live creatures is their reciprocating motion.”

Why might live creatures only display elements of reciprocating motion and not spin?

At the subatomic level, even live creatures display elements of spin.

But at the entity level, the ability to move and interact without being constrained to an orbit is critical to the use of agency – a gift from a Creator who knows that our lives in this dimension are to give us an interactive experience with real consequences as a result.

That is not to say that “live creatures” as we traditionally define them are the only elements that are “conscious” – as Christ hinted at after His Triumphal entry into Jerusalem saying: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” (see Luke 19:40) – the “stones” are not traditionally “living” as we define the word but still have the ability to choose to “cry out” in some way.

Also, it is interesting that certain Sufi active meditation practices incorporate spinning/dancing as a way to deepen the level of the meditative state. 

 

READ StWP pages 50-53, 54

Speaking about a grandfather clock: “Let us analyze the motion of the pendulum. As it approaches its point of rest, it slows down more and more; eventually, it stops and starts moving in the opposite direction. The laws of classical mechanics tell us that at the point of rest the acceleration of the body is maximum; its potential energy is maximum; its velocity is zero; and the time required for changing the velocity of the pendulum is zero. If we analyze the events taking place at the zero point from the point of view of quantum mechanics, we get a different picture. Let us view the pendulum bob as a mathematical point, that is, a point that is too small to be measured (a dimensionless point) and follow its progress as it slows down. Clearly, the point will cover a smaller and smaller distance per unit time as it approaches its turning point. But quantum mechanics tell us that when distances go below Planck’s distance, which is 10'33 cm., we enter, in effect, a new world. The causal relationship between events breaks down; movements become jerky rather than smooth. Time and space may become ‘grainy’ or ‘chunky.’ Perhaps a piece of space can be traversed by a particle of matter in any direction without necessarily being synchronized with a piece of time. In short, a pair of events would occur in either time or space, the pair not being connected causally but by a random fluctuation. Suppose, indeed, that a material point can traverse space without necessarily requiring any chunk of time for the process. Should this happen, then a chunk of space has been spanned without any time elapsing. If we divide that tiny piece of distance to zero time, we find that the event occurred at infinite velocity. In other words, when we move through space without using up time, no matter over how short a distance, that event occurs at infinite velocity! 

We have heard about Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty. This principle states that in trying to measure two parameters of a particle — for instance, its momentum and its position — we find that the more accurately we can measure its momentum, the less we can know about its position, and vice versa. (Momentum simply means: mass x velocity.) If we want to measure either the momentum or the position of a particle, we can measure precisely only one of these quantities. If we know the exact momentum of a particle, then its position is completely indefinite or unknowable, and vice versa. This is an example of those strange ways in which particles of atomic size or smaller behave. We know that at rest, when the pendulum is changing direction, its velocity is zero. But the momentum, at low speeds at least, is equal to velocity multiplied by mass. However, if we multiply any quantity by a zero, we get zero. Thus, we have now established that the momentum of the pendulum at that point is zero, that is, we know its value very precisely: It’s zero. But we have said before that if we know precisely the momentum of a particle, then its position becomes diffuse and completely indefinite. That is, the pendulum can be just about any place, even at the end of the universe. Yes, but it has very little time to get there because this whole event occurs in zero time. So there we go again. The pendulum has to disappear in all directions at infinite velocity. It will have to expand very rapidly into space, like a balloon, and then collapse just as rapidly. Having done this, it comes back, picks up speed, and goes about its usual good-natured business as if nothing had happened. None of us would suspect the leisurely pendulum of doing such a wild thing when no one is looking! But then again, one cannot rely on appearances...

We have so far been using the pendulum as an example. But a pendulum represents any system that oscillates or moves back and forth, whether such an oscillator pulsates concentrically, goes around in orbits, or turns about itself. From the standpoint of one observer, there are always two points at which either of these systems appears to be at rest. But to be completely at rest — that is, being at the point at which movement in one direction is changing sign or reversing direction — that point of rest implies somehow a disappearance of matter and a movement at infinite or almost infinite velocities. Infinite speed and total rest seem some¬ how complementary.”

Since all of the universe, including our bodies, is created of subatomic particles that demonstrate this oscillating behavior, what is implied about the physical nature of this world?

This world is not nearly as stable and concrete as we think it is.

All subatomic particles of which we and the entire universe are created continue to “flash” out of the place in the physical world where they are supposed to be and disappear, only to return again in a fraction of a second.

Because time and space become “grainy” when particles get to the “resting” part of their oscillating journey, and particles can “jump” across space without using any time, it opens up the possibility of particles moving way beyond the speed of light – at infinite velocity. 

How might infinite speed and total rest occur at the same moment?

Given Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty, the “rest” or lack/end of movement stage in a reciprocal journey enables the particle to travel or “be” anywhere else in the universe – which we can think about as requiring infinite speed to accomplish.

It is possible that entering the “rest of the Lord” includes seeing creation as He does – being omnipresent – which might be seen to require “infinite speed” to enable.  Another way of thinking about this is suggest that God is outside of time altogether – and that total rest enables us to also “flash” out of time. 

 

Objective and Subjective Reality

READ StWP pages 54-56

“In Chapter 2 we looked through a super microscope and discovered that our objective reality is made up of void, vacuum which is filled by pulsating, oscillating electromagnetic fields that in turn move between two points of rest. Each of the points of rest is reached through a period of motion. In the beginning of this chapter we tried to analyze the nature of our subjective reality. We know that it consists of the sum total of impressions conveyed to us by our senses. Then we found that our nervous systems translate the objective reality for us in a Morse code of action or motion and rest, which are oscillating electrical states of the nervous system. We can thus extract a common denominator of our objective and subjective realities. We shall find that both realities become ‘real’ only due to the change or motion occurring between the two states of rest. In other words, if there is no change, we have a state of perpetual rest, and a state of perpetual rest means no perceptible reality. It may be useful for us to ponder the possibility that “tangible reality” exists for us only as long as there is movement; and when the movement stops, matter and solid reality become diffuse and disappear.

At this point, I can no longer resist the temptation to quote from a book by Alexandra David-Neel and Luma Yongden entitled The Secret Oral Teachings In Tibetan Buddhist Sects: ‘The tangible world is movement, say the Masters, not a collection of moving objects, but movement itself. There are no objects in movements, it is the movement which constitutes the objects which appear to us: they are nothing but movement. This movement is a continued and infinitely rapid succession of flashes of energy (in Tibetan “tsal” or “shoug”). All objects perceptible to our senses, all phenomena of whatever kind and whatever aspect they may assume, are constituted by a rapid succession of instantaneous events. There are two theories and both consider the world as movement. One states that the course of this movement (which creates phenomena) is continuous, as the flow of a quiet river seems to us. The other declares that the movement is intermittent and advances by separate flashes of energy which follow each other at such small intervals that these intervals are almost non-existent.’”

What does it mean that in a state of perpetual rest there is no perceptible reality?

In a state of rest, a subatomic particle demonstrates “spooky” behavior as it seems to devolve back into a “wave” state and loses its physical place in time and space.

If all subatomic elements resided in a state of perpetual rest, none of them would exist as physical particles that we can interact with in this dimension, so to us, there would be no perceptible reality – just wave probabilities. 

But when things remain in oscillating motion (a state of movement), they demonstrate the behavior of a physical particle and can be perceived as “real” to us – thus the truth of the statement: “it is the movement which constitutes the objects which appear to us”.

Does “no perceptible reality” mean to actual reality or existence?

Perceptible reality is contextual.

To the physical being that is made up of a large collection of oscillating subatomic particles, perceptible reality requires a universe made up of similarly vibrating particles to interact with. 

But if an entity was made up of something other than oscillating subatomic particles (and thus existed outside of time as we understand it) OR the world they existed within operated at a speed of oscillation so high that it seemed to be at rest (the waves being so fast that the difference between the peaks and valleys was so minute as to seem to be a straight line), then their reality would still be perceptible to them (but not to us) and thus still be an actual reality.

What are the implications from the two theories offered in The Secret Oral Teachings In Tibetan Buddhist Sects?

Continuous: The flow of movement is always on – it never stops because if it did, it would cease to exist in the physical world.  This idea supports a divide or veil between a possible “physical” world which exists in time and a separate “non-physical” world which exits outside of time. 

Separate: The flow of movement does stop because it consists of oscillating motion which must be definition have start and stopping points, and when it stops it may cease to exist in the physical world as we understand it or at least it stops existing as a particle in a particular place and time; but this separate reality seems continuous to us because our senses are too slow to pick up on the nature of the separate oscillations – like how a film appears to be a continuous record of movement rather than a series of separate photographs being displayed before our eyes and brain so quickly that we can’t perceive of them as being separate.  But this theory begs the question: what happens to us and the universe we exist in when we “blink” off – what happens to matter when it periodically disappears during the moment of “rest” between the separate flashes of movement?    

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Bentov: The Nature of Reality QUESTIONS

Vibratory States

READ Stalking the Wild Pendulum (StWP) pages 45-46

“You will remember from the previous chapter that our physical bodies and all matter is made up of interacting electromagnetic fields vibrating at tremendous frequencies. At room temperature an atom will vibrate at a rate of 1015 Hz. (That means 1 followed by fifteen zeros.) The nucleus of an atom will vibrate at about 1022 Hz. These are almost inconceivably fast rates. In the process of inventing live systems, Nature had to come up with sensory organs that will allow these living things to interact with their environment. It had to use available building blocks that, as we have seen, are very jittery. In order to communicate with a slow mind, Nature has largely given up the tremendous information handling capacity that is inherent in matter itself…

Well, after a lot of experimentation, Nature came up with a reasonable solution. It has bound atoms into molecules, which have much lower vibratory rates because of their much larger mass. Out of these molecules — which still vibrate at Gigahertz (109 Hz.) rates — it has made live cells, which are the building blocks of all organisms. Then came the specialized nerve cells, or neurons. A rudimentary nervous system resulted that translated sensory input into a slow Morse code fashion of action and rest. It was a process of gradually stepping down the high vibratory rates of the atoms, to the “reasonable” vibratory rates of the molecules, to the “acceptable” frequency response of the cells (which is in the 103 Hz. range) for an assembled live cell. In other words, a cell will be able to respond to stimuli at that rate.”

Why is there a need to “step down” the speed of vibrations in this creation?

How does Nature “transform” or “step down” vibratory rates?

 

READ StWP pages 46-47

“Physiological studies show that when a sensory nerve cell is not stimulated, the output of that cell will consist of sparse and unevenly spaced electrical pulses or spikes, as they are called. However, if we apply pressure or any other stimulus to that nerve cell, its output will become very lively. With each stimulus the cell will fire off salvos of closely spaced spikes. Their rate per unit time will depend on the strength of the stimulus.  Our whole sensory system operates this way, whether it is optical input coming through the eyes, acoustical through the ears, or tactile through the skin — and the end result is a series of spikes conducted to the appropriate area in the brain. In short, our senses translate the surrounding reality to us into a Morse code language of action and rest. Action comes when the neuron fires its spike, and rest comes as the cell is regenerating and readying itself for the next firing. Out of this action-and-rest code our brain constructs for us, for example, the form of a rose, its texture, its color and smell.”

What does this “Morse code” of electrical pulses from our senses reveal to us?

What other languages or applications, beside Morse code, use an “on” or “off” system to communicate sophisticated ideas?

 

READ StWP pages 49 and 50

“Let us visualize an atom made up of a nucleus and electron shells. We find the electrons orbiting rapidly about the nucleus while at the same time rotating about their own axes. If we look now at an aggregate of atoms in a crystal, we find that they vibrate about their fixed position in the lattice of this crystal. Thus, the microlevel of Nature is represented by two kinds of motion: a circular spinlike motion and a reciprocating motion due to vibration, each about a relatively fixed point…

Throughout the animal kingdom, from plankton to elephant to humans, we find that reciprocating motion prevails. There is almost no spin in the living structures. We are confined to a pendulumlike or, if you wish, oscillating behavior. As we go up the hierarchy of sizes and to heavenly bodies, orbiting and spin reappear. We know that all planets rotate about their axes while at the same time they orbit around their respective stars. We know that galaxies rotate, as do galactic clusters, and so on. In short, we find that one of the unique characteristics of live creatures is their reciprocating motion.”

Why might live creatures only display elements of reciprocating motion and not spin?

 

READ StWP pages 50-53, 54

Speaking about a grandfather clock: “Let us analyze the motion of the pendulum. As it approaches its point of rest, it slows down more and more; eventually, it stops and starts moving in the opposite direction. The laws of classical mechanics tell us that at the point of rest the acceleration of the body is maximum; its potential energy is maximum; its velocity is zero; and the time required for changing the velocity of the pendulum is zero. If we analyze the events taking place at the zero point from the point of view of quantum mechanics, we get a different picture. Let us view the pendulum bob as a mathematical point, that is, a point that is too small to be measured (a dimensionless point) and follow its progress as it slows down. Clearly, the point will cover a smaller and smaller distance per unit time as it approaches its turning point. But quantum mechanics tell us that when distances go below Planck’s distance, which is 10'33 cm., we enter, in effect, a new world. The causal relationship between events breaks down; movements become jerky rather than smooth. Time and space may become ‘grainy’ or ‘chunky.’ Perhaps a piece of space can be traversed by a particle of matter in any direction without necessarily being synchronized with a piece of time. In short, a pair of events would occur in either time or space, the pair not being connected causally but by a random fluctuation. Suppose, indeed, that a material point can traverse space without necessarily requiring any chunk of time for the process. Should this happen, then a chunk of space has been spanned without any time elapsing. If we divide that tiny piece of distance to zero time, we find that the event occurred at infinite velocity. In other words, when we move through space without using up time, no matter over how short a distance, that event occurs at infinite velocity! 

We have heard about Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty. This principle states that in trying to measure two parameters of a particle — for instance, its momentum and its position — we find that the more accurately we can measure its momentum, the less we can know about its position, and vice versa. (Momentum simply means: mass x velocity.) If we want to measure either the momentum or the position of a particle, we can measure precisely only one of these quantities. If we know the exact momentum of a particle, then its position is completely indefinite or unknowable, and vice versa. This is an example of those strange ways in which particles of atomic size or smaller behave. We know that at rest, when the pendulum is changing direction, its velocity is zero. But the momentum, at low speeds at least, is equal to velocity multiplied by mass. However, if we multiply any quantity by a zero, we get zero. Thus, we have now established that the momentum of the pendulum at that point is zero, that is, we know its value very precisely: It’s zero. But we have said before that if we know precisely the momentum of a particle, then its position becomes diffuse and completely indefinite. That is, the pendulum can be just about any place, even at the end of the universe. Yes, but it has very little time to get there because this whole event occurs in zero time. So there we go again. The pendulum has to disappear in all directions at infinite velocity. It will have to expand very rapidly into space, like a balloon, and then collapse just as rapidly. Having done this, it comes back, picks up speed, and goes about its usual good-natured business as if nothing had happened. None of us would suspect the leisurely pendulum of doing such a wild thing when no one is looking! But then again, one cannot rely on appearances...

We have so far been using the pendulum as an example. But a pendulum represents any system that oscillates or moves back and forth, whether such an oscillator pulsates concentrically, goes around in orbits, or turns about itself. From the standpoint of one observer, there are always two points at which either of these systems appears to be at rest. But to be completely at rest — that is, being at the point at which movement in one direction is changing sign or reversing direction — that point of rest implies somehow a disappearance of matter and a movement at infinite or almost infinite velocities. Infinite speed and total rest seem some¬ how complementary.”

Since all of the universe, including our bodies, is created of subatomic particles that demonstrate this oscillating behavior, what is implied about the physical nature of this world?

How might infinite speed and total rest occur at the same moment?

 

Objective and Subjective Reality

READ StWP pages 54-56

“In Chapter 2 we looked through a super microscope and discovered that our objective reality is made up of void, vacuum which is filled by pulsating, oscillating electromagnetic fields that in turn move between two points of rest. Each of the points of rest is reached through a period of motion. In the beginning of this chapter we tried to analyze the nature of our subjective reality. We know that it consists of the sum total of impressions conveyed to us by our senses. Then we found that our nervous systems translate the objective reality for us in a Morse code of action or motion and rest, which are oscillating electrical states of the nervous system. We can thus extract a common denominator of our objective and subjective realities. We shall find that both realities become ‘real’ only due to the change or motion occurring between the two states of rest. In other words, if there is no change, we have a state of perpetual rest, and a state of perpetual rest means no perceptible reality. It may be useful for us to ponder the possibility that “tangible reality” exists for us only as long as there is movement; and when the movement stops, matter and solid reality become diffuse and disappear.

At this point, I can no longer resist the temptation to quote from a book by Alexandra David-Neel and Luma Yongden entitled The Secret Oral Teachings In Tibetan Buddhist Sects: ‘The tangible world is movement, say the Masters, not a collection of moving objects, but movement itself. There are no objects in movements, it is the movement which constitutes the objects which appear to us: they are nothing but movement. This movement is a continued and infinitely rapid succession of flashes of energy (in Tibetan “tsal” or “shoug”). All objects perceptible to our senses, all phenomena of whatever kind and whatever aspect they may assume, are constituted by a rapid succession of instantaneous events. There are two theories and both consider the world as movement. One states that the course of this movement (which creates phenomena) is continuous, as the flow of a quiet river seems to us. The other declares that the movement is intermittent and advances by separate flashes of energy which follow each other at such small intervals that these intervals are almost non-existent.’”

What does it mean that in a state of perpetual rest there is no perceptible reality?

Does “no perceptible reality” mean to actual reality or existence?

What are the implications from the two theories offered in The Secret Oral Teachings In Tibetan Buddhist Sects?

Hiatus

Due to some recent work and life changes, I'm taking a hiatus from the weekly blog.  I will leave the blog up for anyone who would like ...