The great Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti posited that when a thought is observed it changes. David Bohm, the noted 20th Century physicist who became a close friend of Krishnamurti, immediately recognized the similarity to the realm of quantum physics in which the observation of quantum particles changes their behavior.
Bohm was one of our greatest of minds of science, as Krishnamurti was to philosophy. And as their two lives crossed paths so too, did their thoughts.
In 1905 Einstein published the famous paper outlining the Special Theory of Relativity, which upended centuries of understanding related to how planets and celestial bodies move and why, and ever since the scientific community has struggled to reconcile the realities of relativity with quantum physics, as the two realms behave differently.
This is not just befuddling but disturbing to many men and women of science who look to their disciplines to explain a certain kind of predictable order to the Universe.
David Bohm spent much of his life seeking to find a reconciliation between these two disciplines and came to the conclusion that the explanation would not be found through some new and more advanced form of math, nor through decades of twisting our brains in new ways to find the missing key that explains how everything works.
Instead he came to believe the explanation would be found by expanding our understanding to accept that there could be different qualitative realities existing in parallel to one another. In other words, by embracing that reality is non-static.
This is hard to grasp when we know that if we drop an apple from a tall building it will fall at a precisely predictable rate of speed and crash into the pavement instantly converting to apple sauce. We know that a hot stove burns and the inertia of a Mack truck is not something to argue with. But the quantum world is entirely different. Instead of things being deterministic they’re fluid, as quantum physicists talk in terms of probabilities rather than predictions.
Which brings us to the question of our thoughts. But first let’s pull it back even further to one of my favorite metaphors of twelve-step recovery.
In 12-step, there is a saying that we are only as sick as our secrets, which means that the act of harboring secrets keeps us in a state of sickness. The fifth step, “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs,” is the time when we spill the beans. Usually, people struggle more with the fourth step though, the preparation for the fifth step, so that by the time we sit with a sponsor or trusted friend to speak openly about those things we feel regret or shame for, we’ve already listed every last thing we can think of that needs to be shared.
The role of the listener is to just to sit in a place of non-judgement and hold space. The job of the one exposing their secrets is to be thorough. And the result is that a weight is lifted. Merely speaking those secrets (to someone who has earned the right to hear our story) transforms the energy of those things held deeply within.
We all have trivial fears about all sorts of things, usually irrational when we carefully observe them. Sometimes I’ll become conscious of something that is bothering me and speak it into the open just to take its energy away. But I can only do this with someone who has done similar work and who understands that fears are just fears and they do not diminish us.
So, I’ll start out by saying something like, “I’m just stating this to state it.” And then share my fear or concern. I only do this with someone with a lot of emotional intelligence, so they get that what I’m sharing has nothing to do with them and that they don’t even need to respond necessarily. Most importantly, they won’t try and fix me to make me feel better, they’ll just hold space for me. Doing so lessens the fear and enables me to process it more deeply to discover its source.
In meditation we come to a place of observing our thoughts. Instead of being lost in them we gradually come to identify with the observer of our thoughts. We become the observer. Which is the place where, as Krishnamurti said, our thoughts change — merely by observing them they transform.
Speaking our deepest thoughts into the open is another way of observing them objectively, as in the act of forming words to deeply held thoughts, beliefs, judgements, and fears we are actively observing them.
It’s been said that if we can’t clearly explain a concept we don’t fully understand it. So too, with thoughts and emotions. As we struggle to find the words to clearly articulate what we’re thinking and feeling we’re digging deeper into them. In psychology this is referred to as catharsis.
Expressing emotions changes them. Speaking our fears takes much of their energy away. Whereas holding thoughts and emotions inside — keeping them secret — enables them to calcify within our subconscious minds.
This is exactly parallel to quantum physics — that by observing quantum particles their behavior changes.
The quantum world could be perceived as an inner world — the inner world of matter. While the inner world of our thoughts and emotions are directly comparable. We could even say that our subconscious minds operate similarly to the quantum world of matter — that the subconscious is to the conscious as the quantum realm is to the outer physical world.
And if this is true, then as our subconscious minds effect literally every aspect of our lives, so too would the quantum world affect the macro.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to the DEEPER side of things to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.