Systems and spirituality

I draw inspiration from the representations and allegories of Shiva to understand consciousness as the substratum of reality. It is important to note that stories of ancient scriptures and cultures carry their own meaning and have the potential to offer cues to address human challenges that are not restricted to time and place. Daniélou offers extensive commentaries to argue that that the description of Shiva consciousness in Hindu philosophy is informative to our understanding of consciousness as the substratum of reality. The basis of everything that we witness as distinct, separate, or individual existences all map back to one non-distinct, non-separate, and non-individualized force. Kashmir Shaivism discusses the Shiva philosophy as the principle of cosmic pulsation, or spanda, resulting in the manifestation of our worldly experience. These basic energies of pulsations are interpreted to exist between linga and yoni, or purusha and prakriti, or Shiva and Parvati/Shakti, respectively in Hindu philosophy. While Shiva is pure awareness, Shakti is the power of self-reflection that arises within us as the desire to see beneath the surface of life. The two are one.

Parrish-Sprowl et al. discuss how quantum thinking offers a similar set of assumptions that lead us to understand that everything is systemically interconnected. The mystery of the quantum world proves that even beyond the tiniest particles of matter—electrons, neutrons, and protons—and their antiparticles—antielectrons, positrons, and antiprotons, respectively—there are still smaller building blocks called quarks that are nothing but pulsating loops of energies. The building blocks of reality are entangled nodes of energies emerging out of “nothing”, and yet “nothing” cannot exist as empty space is itself a quantum playground. 

In the words of particle physicist, Jim Al-Khalili:

An average point in an empty space borrows energy from the future only to give back—a particle and an antiparticle that annihilate each other. Self-destruction back into energy. In space there is constant creation and destruction—physicists call it the quantum foam.

Parallel to this theory is the ancient Shiva consciousness, where reality is realized through a transcendental and eternal process of fusion and dance of energies between the archetypes of prakasha and vimarsha. Everywhere, in each minute attribute of reality, a “self” is present, which is the universal consciousness of Shiva. This argument resonates with Wendt and Kak, who talk about consciousness as inherent to the material world and reaching all the way down to the subatomic level.