Shiva, CERN, and Consciousness
Metaphysics & Physics
Finding faith
On June 18, 2004, a statue of the Hindu god Shiva, known in part as Lord of the Dance, was unveiled as a permanent exhibit outside of the main building of CERN, the European center for research in particle physics. The statue, which represents the cycles of creation, is a gift from India to honor its long association with CERN, whose member nations work at the forefront of exploring the origins and structure of the universe.
Learning about Shiva’s presence at CERN caused me to consider the complementary nature of metaphysics and physics. Along with wanting to know the makeup of the universe and the laws that govern it, we want to know who we are and why we are here. It struck me that Shiva is an ancient metaphysical answer to timeless existential questions and that CERN is a modern, scientific effort to unlock the mysteries of the universe, and that together they represent metaphysics and physics as entwined roots supporting the tree of existential knowledge. I like to think that our knowledge of who, where, and why we are is nourished by their entanglement.
Shiva’s station at CERN conveys to me a symbiotic relationship between myth and fact. Myths like Shiva’s are cultural stories bearing truths that help to explain the unknown. Facts, such as those derived at CERN, verify the governing laws of the cosmos. I see Shiva’s dance as symbolizing the universal existence that science seeks to interpret factually. Mutual interpretations of the mysteries by metaphysics and physics can be richer and deeper in meaning than either one of them can offer alone. Religion and philosophy, for example, examine the fundamental nature of our meaning and purpose, while physics studies the fundamental nature of matter and spacetime. I think of their interpretations as the yin and yang of existential knowledge. They are separate but complementary approaches to understanding life’s mysteries. Using them together helps me in rounding out the answers I find to explain existence.
In Hindu lore, Shiva is a religious symbol of the eternal cycles of time. Shiva, as Lord of the Dance, dances a cosmic dance which creates, preserves, and destroys simultaneously. The universe flows from Shiva’s rhythmic movement, forming and collapsing repeatedly in an endless cycle. Shiva is the energy of perpetual motion, always creating, always renewing. The statue embodies the timeless, rhythmic movement of existence—the ebb and flow of elements combining and recombining, flowing in and out of form. Shiva’s dance is the center of a venerable story of cosmic origin and the eternal rhythm of existence.
Shiva’s presence at CERN fascinates me because it directs my attention beyond the physics of the universe to the metaphysics of creation and its relationship to a creator. I find it nearly impossible to imagine that physics would add a creator to its equation of the universe, but the construct of a creator is paramount to metaphysics. Cultures have long fashioned gods to explain themselves as a people and to answer the myriad questions they have about their lives, their world, and their existence beyond death.
As civilization developed from scattered tribes to massive empires and now into modern states, a variety of gods emerged. For example, Abraham and his descendants conceived of El, Yahweh, and Allah. Greek gods, from Artimis to Zeus, held sway for centuries as did their Roman counterparts. Hindus look to the Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. The Christian trinity is God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Jesus spoke of the Father. Allah still rings true for Muslims, as does Yahweh for Jews. Gods and the stories surrounding them can help to explain the mysteries of existence and bring meaning and reassurance in the absence of facts.
Scientific thinking has grown with the advancement of civilization as well, bringing about invention, theory, and fact. Science pushes into the mysterious unknown—which often is explained by religion, philosophy, and art—with facts that replace old answers with new. As myth gives way to fact, the expanding knowledge cracks open any current construct of a creator to bring about a change in the supernatural explanations of the unknown. For example, stories about gods such as Shiva, as Lord of the Dance, become mythology as outdated religious beliefs about the creation of the universe crumble in the face of expanding scientific knowledge. The growing number of facts about the universe pushes the boundaries of supernatural belief until a given view of a creator can no longer abide in a changed world. Then a shift in faith occurs, revising old-world dogmas with updated ideologies to explain the unknown.
Galileo Galilei upended an old-world dogma four hundred years ago. He was an Italian astronomer who crafted one of the first telescopes powerful enough to see the heavens. His revelations shifted Earth from its lofty center of all God’s creation to a minor position in a small solar system tucked among the stars. Galileo confirmed that Earth circles the sun instead of the sun circling Earth. This cosmic shift in existential certainty within the Christian faith was brought before the Inquisition as a grave threat to Catholic doctrine, the authority at the time. After surviving his trial by ceding ground, Galileo lived out his life in a villa in the hills above Florence knowing that he had cracked the cosmic egg, even if it were heresy to say so. There was no turning back.
There seems to be a shift in faith occurring now among Americans. Religious affiliations are shrinking in numbers. More and more people are claiming to be spiritual and not religious, and the fastest growing religious affiliation is none. Some past adherents are looking outside of religion for their own answers to existential questions, and I am one of them. The god in which I once believed moved from the heavens of Genesis into unity with my inner Self and then out the door. Reading about Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism, along with New Thought Christianity, the mystic Judaism of Kabbalah, and quantum mechanics, gave me insight into other possibilities than that of the traditional Judeo-Christian god in whom I was raised to believe. I must say, however, that even though my mother made sure that her family went to church every Sunday in the tradition of white America in the 1950s, she is the one who got me thinking about other options as well. In my early 20s, for example, she introduced me to the progressive Unity Church of Christianity and later to the Kabbalah’s Jewish mysticism. This, along with the study of psychology in my graduate work, opened new paths to understanding the human condition and the world in which we live. My most recent encounter with changes in religious thinking has come from reading about modern studies of Bible authorship and the works of scholars, such as those affiliated with the Westar Institute, who study Jesus as a historical figure.
All in all, I find it hard to ignore that beliefs once held as religious or philosophical truths sometimes shift as factual knowledge grows. Quantum mechanics, for example, has expanded our knowledge of space, time, and matter way past any creation stories like Shiva’s or those found in Genesis. Old truths about gods in their heavenly realms become mythos under the weight of data such as that from the Hubble and Webb telescopes which are bringing the outer reaches of the universe into closer view. Sensing that old stories and dogmas do not stand up to scientific progress, I am looking for newer metaphysical answers to the mystery of existence. I am certain that I am not alone in my quest.
As facts are gathered about the origin and structure of the universe, the existential mystery moves deeper into the woods. Shades of night draw about it. Cultures have long adopted and worshiped gods to help them bring light to the darkness. The construct of a creator brings comfort in knowing that something greater than humanity brought us into being, that we exist for a reason, and that we are protected and provided for, both now and in an afterlife. We want to know that there is meaning and purpose beyond the body, and we want to know how to attain the eternal. But it appears to me that science rarely, if ever, answers these questions surrounding the meaning of life that the construct of a creator provides.
My views of God changed as I grew older and more aware of how gods have been conceived in various cultures over time. I first viewed God as a male form separate from his creations abiding in a heaven above the stars. This was the god of Genesis that I knew as a child in Presbyterian Sunday School. I liken this god to a potter who places his clay formations in a world that he has built to hold them. Later in life, I found a creator in the teachings of New Thought Christianity that was more of a source, much like a sugar-maple tree is a source for sweet syrup. This god was within me, and we shared a common essence. But it seems to me, that once created, both the pot on the shelf and the syrup in the jug are separate from their creator. Even though there may be some shared essence, they exist separately and are not the same. In both instances these views of God did not hold up for me.
As I grew to middle age, my view of God shifted as I delved deeper into New Thought and into other religions of the world. I began to realize that the creation does not have to be regarded as separate from its creator but could be an extension of it. As an extension, the creation cannot exist apart from its source, but the source does not need the creation for its existence. An analogy is the ocean wave. The wave is not separate from the ocean, but the ocean does not need the wave to be the ocean. The ocean and the wave exist in union without separation, but the wave is dependent on the ocean while the ocean is independent of the wave. This view of being in oneness with God served me for many years.
I felt comfortable with the idea that God and I are one, but I had a nagging question. What did that really mean? What would it look like if God and I were truly one? While I wondered, I spent several years studying A Course in Miracles. It helped me to change my perceptions about oneness with God. I came to realize that even though there is no separation between a wave and the ocean, the unity of the ocean and the wave is not the singular unity that is oneness. Oneness, I thought, must be a seamless connection between creator and creation to the extent that there is neither creator nor creation. True oneness would be the single essence of being without separation or any dependent relationship.
Shiva’s dancing offers me a metaphor for true oneness. Shiva in motion is the universe going in and out of existence. Shiva’s rhythmic movement cannot separate from Shiva. Shiva is the dancing. The dancing is Shiva in motion. Shiva and dancing are inseparable in expressing the thought of dance. Shiva’s dancing expresses the universe. Shiva not dancing is potential, or the possibility of the universe, such as the moment before the Big Bang—so to speak. The universe’s existence is Shiva dancing. Shiva’s dancing—all dancing—represents for me the single essence of being that is truly oneness.
Shiva as Lord of the Dance is an ancient construct in Hinduism. Shiva as a deity is part of the Hindu Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, or the Supreme Consciousness. Consciousness such as this underlies all of existence and is all pervading. I prefer using consciousness to Shiva as a name for the single essence of being. This construct of consciousness not only has roots in Hinduism, but also in Taoism. The Tao is also all pervasive and absolute. I have spent countless hours in contemplation with the Tao Te Ching and this, too, has led to my preference of using consciousness instead of Shiva when describing my existential views. Consciousness is totality in and of itself, while Shiva is only one form of the whole.
I regard consciousness as an emptiness that is nowhere, an eternal field of infinite possibility that is intelligent and aware. I like the term consciousness for its classic portrayal of existential mysteries that lie beyond scientific knowledge. Consciousness has become my so-called dancer of the universe. It offers me a construct for explaining how I view the meaning and purpose of life. It offers me a representation of the reality beyond existence, and it shines a brighter light into the darkness than God as a potter, source, or extender ever did.
Consciousness, by definition, is aware, and I would add intelligent. Thus, I assume that consciousness expresses thought. In fact, I think that expressing thought is the nature of consciousness, like dancing is the nature of Shiva as Lord of the Dance. Without dancing there would be no dancer. Likewise, without expressing, there would be no consciousness—only potential, or the emptiness that is nowhere. If this emptiness is conscious, then it would likely express potential as thought, and these thoughts would manifest into expressions much like Shiva’s dancing expresses the universe. This manifesting by consciousness is what I call consciousness-expressing. Consciousness-expressing manifests existence, which we know as the universe.
Expressing thought must be the nature of consciousness, otherwise consciousness is null, like dancer not dancing is not-dancer. Consciousness must express. There cannot be not-consciousness. If consciousness did not express, there would be no manifestation. There would be nothingness, the void beyond the emptiness that is nowhere. It is incomprehensible to me that there could be such a void. There would be no thought or awareness. Just knowing this nullifies the idea that there could not be consciousness expressing thought.
As well as expressing thought, consciousness is whole, complete, and perfect in nature. There is nothing to add to consciousness. It cannot be parceled into parts and pieces. Nothing can be subtracted. It is totality. There is no other. After my study of A Course in Miracles, I accepted the idea that thoughts of separation do arise in consciousness, but they cannot be made real. The thought of separation in consciousness is like a unicorn in a child’s mind. Consciousness imagines separation but cannot realize it outside of itself. It makes room for separation in its own nature like the child makes room for the unicorn. Thus, it appears that separation exists as an illusion, for want of a better word, for in the totality that is consciousness there is no separation that is real.
Now in my elder years, I accept consciousness as the ultimate reality. To me there is nothing other than consciousness. I find that separation is a state of mind. It has no reality of its own. There cannot be consciousness and something else. There cannot be parts and pieces of consciousness. Separation as I know it is the world in which I live. This world is consciousness expressing separation as existence. Like the dancer dancing the dance, consciousness manifesting existence is oneness. There is no separation between the dance and the dancer and there is no separation between existence and consciousness. Existence and consciousness comprise a single essence of being like the dancer dancing the dance.
It was once thought that the universe manifested from Shiva as Lord of the Dance. The statue of Shiva dancing at the doors of CERN is frozen in movement but expressing dance, nonetheless. Shiva is dancing the universe into existence as a long-standing answer to the mystery of creation while inside the doors of CERN, up-to-date, factual answers are being found in the shattered remains of atomic particles. For me, consciousness offers a more acceptable metaphysical answer than Shiva, or any other god, to go alongside those shattered remains. Consciousness, for me, is a state of potential in which all things lie. It is an emptiness that is nowhere, an emptiness in which thought is poised to manifest. Consciousness is not an entity to grasp. It is eternal and unchanging reality. It has no distinctions and cannot be described. Consciousness does not create. It is not a source. It does not extend. It is inseparable and eternally the same. There is no other than this eternal field of infinite possibility that is intelligent and aware. It is totality.