Chapter 7. Realizing Our Free Choice. A New Direction
At the moment one begins to balance oneself with Nature’s force, the pressure for self-change lessens. This, in turn, reduces the negative phenomena in one’s life. In fact, from Nature’s perspective, nothing changes in this scheme; it is the individual who changes. Thus, the change itself creates in that person a sensation that the impact of Nature’s force has changed.
Yet, humans are built in such a way that we feel that things outside us change, not us. This is how reality is perceived in human senses and in the human mind. In truth, however, Nature’s force is constant and unchangeable. If we are identical to it, we feel wholeness. If we are completely opposite, we feel that this force is totally against us. In between these two extremes, we feel the intermediary stages.
Today, the contradictions between us and the altruistic Force of Nature are not 100% opposed to each other, since our egos have not reached their maximum level of development. This means that the level of negative phenomena we are experiencing is not at its potential worst. This, by the way, is also the reason some of us still do not feel the general crisis that the world faces.
But our egos grow daily, and they will intensify the contrast between Nature and us. To spare us the experience of the suffering this contrast entails, we should begin to advance toward acquiring the attribute of altruism, to change the course of evolution. And we should begin soon.
When we do, we will immediately feel a favorable response at all levels of existence. For instance, let us assume that a certain man has a son who is behaving very badly. The father talks to the son and tries to persuade him to change his ways. In the end, they agree that from now on they will begin with a clean slate, and the boy will better his ways. If, in the next day, the boy succeeded in improving his ways, even just a little bit, his father’s attitude toward him will immediately change for the better. Thus, everything is measured and judged not according to the result, but according to the direction.
When more people become concerned about correcting interpersonal relationships, and regard this attitude as the most important thing, because their lives actually depend on it, their common worry will become public opinion, which will affect all the members of society. Because of the internal connection among us, everyone worldwide, even in the most desolate places, will instantaneously begin to feel that they are connected to all other people and depend on them. People will begin to think about the reciprocal dependency between themselves and the rest of humanity.
Various sciences, primarily quantum physics, provide proof that changes in one element affect other elements. In his book, The Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads, Prof. Ervin Laszlo describes experiments that are routine in today’s quantum physics. They show that particles actually “know” what happens to other particles, as though information about changes in other particles “traverses” every distance instantaneously.
Today, physics acknowledges that there is a constant reciprocal connection among particles, even when separated by space and time. This phenomenon pertains to all structures in the universe, from the smallest to the greatest.
Thus, today science is discovering that everything is inherent in the genes and the influence of the environment; it is helping us “wake up” from our illusions that “I determine and control,” and “I examine and decide.”
This unlocks a real opportunity to discover true freedom. We can come out from our slavery to our egos and acquire the quality of altruism by creating an environment that will help us imitate Nature, just as children learn from grownups.
The greatest researchers have always known that, as we become wiser, we discover the wondrous wisdom concealed in Nature. All our discoveries combined only make us realize that we are nothing but an offshoot of the unfathomable wisdom that exists, which opens up to us when we are ripe and ready to absorb it.
In Albert Einstein’s words (quoted in his New York Times obituary, April 19, 1955): “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God.”