God Particle AIR talk

(The article speculates on the impact of finding the God Particle in the thinking on spirituality.)
Scientists are now seriously searching for the ‘God Particle’. Whether we understand it, and appreciate its significance or not, we read in the newspapers about the Large Hadron Collider or LHC and the mysterious Higgs Boson that the scientists are expecting to find. They are searching for it by making protons collide with each other. An unusually large amount of money is spent for the purpose. The fact that scientists have called this ‘god particle’ raises a curiosity and hope in the minds of all of us to know whether they have at last found a basis to connect divinity and spirituality with the material world unifying both together to reveal the ultimate secrets of existence.
When I was studying Chemistry for my Intermediate Class (that is, the present plus two) way back in the forties, we learned that Atom was indivisible. All the materials and substances of the universe were consisted of by the combinations of the atoms of about seventy different elements. Now with the further elements discovered there are more than a hundred elements. From the material point of view when we talk about what the world is made of, we say that it is made of these elements. The atoms have since been split, and we have now as the ultimate constituents of matter, twelve different particles of energy called quarks and leptons, and four different types of forces. But the most important thing in this set up is the large space between these particles which though thought to be empty has a field like that of the magnetic field. This field although very weak is spread through out the infinite space and therefore of great importance. Scientists feel that this field is in the form of a particle that can be perhaps found. As the probable existence of it was suggested by Peter Higgs it is called Higgs boson. Once found it will have tremendous importance in the sense that it will be omnipresent and therefore nearer to God. It is therefore called the God Particle. It is mostly non-existent in the physical world. Perhaps it is most of the time beyond the physical in the quantum plane or spiritual domain.
If we approach the question of the constituents of the phenomenal world from the mental angle, we have a picture of the history of the world constructed by Bertrand Russell from sense impressions of the mind. His famous book ‘Mystisism and Logic’ explains it. He called one single impression or image a ‘sensibilia’. A series of sensibilias constituted a perspective. All the perspectives from all points in the universe constituted the article and all perspectives for all time of all objects from all points existent or non-existent constituted the history of the universe. But this model remains at the mental imagery level and does not appear to go deeper. To make good the shortage let us consider a probe into the layers of the mind as available in ancient spiritual texts. The ancients say that objects are, after all mere groups or bundles of sense impressions. Therefore senses are more reliable and important than objects. Mind which collects the impressions are even more important than the senses. Intellect which processes the mental impressions and functions is of next higher importance. Higher than that in importance is the entity that sits behind all this phenomena and perceives all this. Next stage is emptiness from which the entity that perceives emanates. Thus according to their point of view it is from nothingness that the whole universe emerges. But in all these there seem to be no meeting point between the physical, mental and spiritual views.
Human body is physical, made of matter. It deteriorates and ultimately dies. But ultimate material constituents are not destroyed. Deepak Chopra, the author of the book ‘Ageless Body and The Timeless Mind’ says that aging is a matter of choice or is optional and is not mandatory or inevitable. How the choice is exercised is a big question. It is exercised through belief. Aging happens because from birth onwards we believe that we have to age and die. We see also that others as well as animals and plants age and die. This belief has to be reversed to slow down aging. And the belief that aging is not inevitable has to be so rooted that it comes from beyond the mind from the quantum field or domain. You might have read the drama of Bernard Shaw titled ‘Back to Methuselah’ in which the Butler, overhearing about the possibility of living for five hundred years or more from a group of professors’ discussions, believes it so firmly and so intensely that it actually happens to him. The professors were doubtful and they died in their time as usual. Every hundred years the butler managed to fake death by drowning or missing and lived as a new person. Shaw was actually predicting what may happen in future. Now Deepak Chopra tries to prove through the latest findings in quantum physics that aging can actually be avoided.
Body is made of material. But what is this material? If you go to the ultimate ingredients we find the individual cells and then the genetically coded DNA consisting of Nucleotides and then Amino Acids, Sugars etc. Material means cluster of energy. DNA contains information and energy. All the information for the functioning of the body is contained in the DNA. But if you analyze the DNA we come across amino acids, sugars etc which are molecules and atoms only. Atoms consist of quarks, neutrinos and electrons and bosons, all of which are particles in vibration or spin. There is tremendous intelligence functioning in the body for all the organs working in unison. Where is then this intelligence lying? Not in the material body where there is hardly any solid portion where data can be stored.. In between the neutrinos and electrons there is only vast space. In fact 99.9 per cent of material is space. There is intelligence and information functioning, directing, manipulating, guiding these constituents of the body to act in a particular manner in these quantum space or quantum field. It sees and supervises. It makes sure that a cell does not grow as a nail in the liver. Tremendous intelligence is at work without our conscious participation. The seat of this intelligence, the source of this information we cannot find in the cells or in the DNA. The coded information in the DNA functions alright but what intelligence creates it and makes it function we cannot fathom. In the atoms there are quarks and leptons, i.e. electrons and neutrinos. These are concentrations of energy waves. Therefore the whole universe is composed of empty space and energy, fluid energy and empty space. Energy and matter are convertible at quantum level. So, our body is mainly empty space at the quantum level. The material nature of the body ends there. The intelligence, the source has to lie in that empty space in the quantum field. And the empty space is the Higgs field with Higgs bosons. Is the source of all thought and matter including the all pervading Higgs boson that in the quantum domain? Or is it further deep in the spiritual domain? Thus speculating, in finding the God Particle there seems tremendous possibilities not only in the field of nuclear science and origin of the universe, but also in revealing the nature of Ultimate reality or God.
Human thought happens when the neurons in the brain fires. Thought is thus matter. Memory is stored thought. Therefore all kinds of functions that we are conscious of are connected with matter. The only thing we have left is our awareness, pure awareness. All the intelligence, all the information that the body needs must therefore be coming from the awareness or through the awareness. That must be the source and that must be the creator and the controller of the DNA and the very atom. Its seat is in space, everywhere in space. The gap, the chink in the quantum world through which the access to intelligence is possible is the awareness. It is the only possible window.
We know from modern science that billions of cells are dying in our body every day and billions are being replaced. Yet we all look and function as if the body is the same. That is to say that repair and replacements are happening every day, and by the time a year is out we have a completely new body. Then why should we age? It must be because the replacing mechanism does not function fully. Replacing and repairing or healing will work perfectly if the underlying intelligence of the awareness is taken recourse to without interference by thought. The thought has to be quiet, still. According to Deepak Chopra, attention and intention of pure awareness can do the trick.
Einstein has shown ihat is time is a make believe, an illusion. It is relative. Chronological time is because of earth’s change of position or rotation relative to the sun, our light. The duration is divided into twenty four hours, then hours into minutes etc. Imagine a person in empty outer space far away from the sun. What is time for him? There may be changes in his position or bodily functions. But there is no time. There are only changes in the universe. And memory creates past and future. We understand time by thinking. But if we feel it by observing, perceiving, witnessing then we find that time stands still in the present. A timeless mind, a timeless awareness creates an ageless body. Natural rebuilding and replacing of the body happens and aging slows down. Finding the Higgs Boson will lead to better understanding of the nature of empty space, and in turn nothingness, which at the spiritual level is equivalent to awareness.