The Zen of Relativity

Everyone has heard the term relativity, yet more than a hundred years after Albert Einstein first made the word an everyday phrase most of us have no idea how zen these theories actually are.

The modern scientific findings of relativity theory is where the ancient teachings of Buddha, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, meet modern science. For over 2000 years the sages of the Far East have taught that all experiences were merely a function of mind. Time, mass (solidity) and space (distance), are the projections of the mind and not known to a world outside consciousness.

This was also the experience of the quantum physicists when they began to engage with the subatomic world. They found a quantum world where there were no distinctions and just the act of observing changed the very nature of what was being studied.

All that ever exists is electromagnetic phenomena. It is our mind that processes quantum energy received by our sensory awareness and then projects these experiences outside ourselves as our physical interactions.

However, if material objects are pulsating energy in vast emptiness, why does it seem we are living in a highly material world? Mass (or solidity) is actually a measure of the energy contained within a substance and the more energy it contains the greater the mass.

One can explain mass with the analogy of an electric fan. Although the fan blades have space in between, they are moving so fast that the individual blades behave as a solid disc.

The same is true of seemingly solid objects that are in fact mostly emptiness. Material objects contain so much energy that nothing is able to pass through them, giving the mass the appearance of a solid.

Nevertheless physicists are unable to explain why we see water as transparent and other substances as opaque. It seems that we have evolved to see energy we can pass through, such as air and water, as transparent and everything else opaque.

Most of us naturally assume time and space (distance) are fixed and unchangeable. Nonetheless Einstein proved this to be a fallacy and also relative to the individual. The great theoretical physicist combine space and time into a fourth dimension he called the space-time continuum. He then went on to prove gravity was actually caused by the warping of space and time.

Nevertheless Einstein was able to bring relativity back down to earth when he said, "When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity."

We all have had the very subtle experience of this when we look at the time and are surprised at how quickly it has past. It is in this moment we have had a meditative experience - a reality beyond self, time and place.

Yet how does understanding relativity help us at all? The benefit comes from understanding the world we perceive around us is ultimately a function of our own mind. Material reality is not something that comes from the outside in; it arises from within oneself and is projected out.

Therefore if we make a conscious effort to foster positivity and contentment from within, this will become our projected experience of the world around us.

Relativity and quantum mechanics have demonstrated clearly that what you find out with instruments is true relative only to the instrument you're using and where that instrument is located in space-time.

So there is no vantage point from which real reality can be seen. We're all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnel. When we begin to realise that we are all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels, we find it is much easier to understand where other people are coming from.

Then those who dont have the same reality tunnel as us don't seem ignorant; deliberately perverse; lying or hypnotised by some mad ideology. They just have a different reality tunnel and every reality tunnel might tell us something interesting about our world.... if we are willing to listen.