The Kosmos Trilogy, Vol. II, Excerpt G: Towards a Comprehensive Theory of Subtle Energies

The Two Truths Doctrine

The Problem

Such, in any event, seems to be the simplest and easiest way to unite the best of the wisdom traditions and modern science in this particular area.  On the other hand, the simplistic and dualistic notion that there is, for example, an implicate order (which is spiritual and quantum) and an explicate order (which is material and Newtonian) has caused enormous confusion, and is still doing so.  But even David Bohm, who introduced that notion, eventually ended up tacking so many epicycles on it that it became unrecognizable. 
 

We just saw that, for the traditions, the energy side of the Great Chain of Being means that prana is implicate to gross mass-energy (which is explicate to prana).  In turn, psychic energy is implicate to prana (which is explicate to psychic).  And, of course, the causal is implicate to the psychic (and all lower) dimensions—“causal” is called causal because it is the cause, the start, the creatrix of the entire manifest sequence.  Thus, each dimension in the Great Chain is implicate to its junior and explicate to its senior—a notion clearly spelled out by theorists from Fa-Tsang to Plotinus to Schelling.   
 

But if you absolutize physics (i.e., if you confuse the two truths [see below]), then you will collapse the entire Great Chain into merely one implicate and one explicate order.  And one of the many problems with that crude scheme, as we saw, is that if you equate quantum realities with a type of ultimate spiritual Creatrix, then as that “spirit” gives rise to atoms, which give rise to molecules, which give rise to cells, which give rise organisms, and so on, then the higher the evolution, the farther away from God you are getting.
 

Bohm vaguely realized this—and realized that his “implicate order,” precisely because it was set apart from the explicate order, could not actually represent any sort of genuine or nondual spiritual reality.  He therefore invented a third realm, the “super-implicate order,” which was supposed to be the nondual spiritual realm.  He then had three levels of reality: explicate, implicate, super-implicate.  But because he was unfamiliar with the subtleties of Shunyata (see below), he was still caught in dualistic notions (because he was still trying to qualify the unqualifiable).  He therefore added yet another epicycle: “beyond the superimplicate,” to give him four levels of reality. 
 

Slowly Bohm had worked his way back to a crude version of the traditional Great Chain, which maintains that each senior dimension is implicate to its juniors.  But all of this was supposed to be based on physics, which meant that Bohm was actually involved in a colossally reductionistic game that devastated the actual intermediate levels of the Great Chain (e.g., level 2, which is addressed by biology, and level 3, addressed by psychology, are all reduced to hidden variables in QM formalisms of gross matter-energy).  This is not the union of science and spirituality, but the union of bad physics with bad mysticism.
 

Suggested Solution

As suggested, this equating of quantum (or subquantum, or string, or symmetry) realities with some sort of nondual Spirit is perhaps the single biggest theoretical confusion in the entire field.  First, because it confuses the nature of involution and evolution, and hence confuses the beginning of the involutionary sequence—namely, causal spirit—with the beginning of the evolutionary sequence—namely, the vacuum potential (or some such), which actually represents spirit-as-prana, not spirit-as-spirit.  In chakra terminology, this view confuses the enormous creative potentiality of Kundalini coiled at the base of the spine (muladhara) with Kundalini at the top of the crown (sahasrara).  We already know they are both Kundalini; but the muladhara is simply not the same thing as the sahasrara. 
 

But second, and more important, it violates the two truths doctrine.
 

In the final analysis, the traditions are very clear that the “first step” in involutionary manifestation is indeed a nondual Mystery and cannot in any way be adequately captured (or even hinted at) by conventional truth, including any sort of science, leading-edge or otherwise.  The reason is that the great traditions from Parmenides to Padmasambhava are unanimous in what Vedanta calls the “two truths” doctrine: namely, there exists absolute or nondual truth, and relative or conventional truth, and they are of radically different orders.  Relative truth is concerned with states of affairs in the finite realm, such as “water molecules contain one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms,” or “the Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun,” or “the quantum vacuum potential in one angstrom of space is equal to 102300000 ergs,” and so on.  According to Nagarjuna, Shankara, and Plotinus, you can make definite true or false statements about such finite events, and truth in the relative realm is indeed a search for those conditions under which relative assertions are true.  This is relative, finite, or assertoric truth.
 

Not so absolute truth, about which literally and radically NOTHING may be accurately said in a noncontradictory fashion (including that one; if that statement is true, it is false).  The great transcendental dialecticians—from Nagarjuna to Kant—have thoroughly demolished any such attempts, showing that every single one of the attempts to categorize ultimate reality (as, for example, by saying it is a quantum energy potential) turns on itself and dissolves in ad absurdum or ad infinitum regresses.  They are not saying that Spirit does not exist, but simply that any finite statement about the infinite will categorically not work—not in the same way that statements about relative or conventional truth will work.  Spirit can be known, but not said; seen, but not spoken; pointed out, but not described; realized, but not reiterated.  Conventional truths are known by science; absolute truth is known by satori.  They simply are not the same thing.
 

For Nagarjuna, the Real is shunya (empty) of all such categorizations.  For Shankara, once the world of maya is created, you cannot make any statement about maya whatsoever: when you are in maya, everything you say is false; when you awaken, there is no maya—in either case, you cannot make a statement about maya (nor, therefore, about the “creator” of maya).  For Plotinus, the “One” is “not a numerical one”—in other words, the “One” is only a poetic metaphor for Suchness, not an actual model of Suchness.  (The vacuum potential, on the other hand, is a model, not a metaphor.) 
 

In short, there is nondual or absolute truth, and there is relative or conventional truth, and one simply cannot take an assertion of the latter and apply it to the former.  When we use finite words to try to represent ultimate Suchness, the most we get is poetic metaphor (or metaphoric statements), but the absolute is known only by a direct realization involving a transformation in consciousness (satori, sahaj, metanoia), and “what” is seen in satori cannot be stated in ordinary dualistic words, other than metaphors, poetry, and hints (if you want to know God, you must awaken, not merely theorize).  Conventional and scientific truths, on the other hand, are assertoric, not metaphoric; they work with models, not poems; they are finite, dualistic, and conventional—all of which is fine when addressing the finite, dualistic, conventional realm. 
 

The Upanishads concur: nirguna Brahman is “one without a second,” not “one among many.”  The vacuum potential has a second (or an “other,” namely, gross matter); but Brahman has no such second, and therefore Brahman certainly cannot be identified with quantum anything.  It cannot be known by assertoric or metaphoric knowledge, only by awakening.  Even to call Brahman “infinite” is to miss the point entirely, since the word “infinite” only has meaning by virtue of its opposite (“finite”), and therefore even statements like “formless, empty, infinite, unqualifiable, nondual” are actually dualistic to the core.  Zen tries to hint at this by saying that the absolute is “not two, not one.”
 

Unfortunately, the physicists who started equating quantum realities with the Tao were simply ill-versed in the philosophical subtleties of the great traditions.  Oddly, the original and pioneering physicists themselves—from Schroedinger to Planck to Einstein—refused to make that confusion—refused, that is, to identify the findings of quantum or relativistic physics with any sort of spiritual reality (as I found out when I edited all of their writings on the topic of spirituality: see Quantum Questions: The Mystical Writings of the World’s Great Physicists).  Again, they were not denying Spirit—just the opposite—but they recognized that assertions about the relative realm are not of the same order as those about the absolute realm, and hence confusing them harmed the cause of both.
 

The vacuum potential, then, is part of the relative, finite, manifest realm.  For just that reason, it can be studied by science.  It is a reality that, in at least some ways, is apart from other realities; it has qualities; it has quantities; it has dimensions.  None of those statements can be predicated of Suchness, in any way other than poetic metaphors.  However, precisely because the etheric, astral, and psychic fields are indeed part of the manifest realm, they are the proper object of study of science.  No contradiction is involved in saying that the quantum vacuum is the protrusion into the gross realm of its immediate senior, implicate order: namely, prana.
 

Doing so helps us, I believe, continue to move toward a truly integral theory of subtle energies.
 

Summary of Quantum Realities

Following the great philosopher-sages (such as Nagarjuna, Plotinus, and Shankara), we can summarize the reasons that any sort of quantum or subquantum events are not Spirit:
 

1.  Any quantum reality has some sort of characteristics, qualities, or dimensions that set it apart from manifest matter; but Spirit is radically shunya of drsti (empty of any and all qualities, including that characterization itself)—e.g., quantum vacuum has vast energy, spirit is unqualifiable.
 

2.  Any quantum reality is different in some important ways from gross matter; but Spirit is not different from any manifestation, but is rather the Suchness or Isness of whatever arises.
 

3.  Quantum reality has an opposite (e.g., non-quantum reality), but Spirit is radically nondual.
 

4.  Spirit is dimensionless; quantum reality is merely in a different dimension.
 

5.  And, most important, quantum material energy comes directly out of prana, not out of spirit (i.e., matter crystallizes out of spirit-as-prana, not spirit-as-spirit).
 

On the other hand, realizing that quantum-relativistic-gross events are the surface events or manifestations of an etheric energy field allows us to adequately account for these events in a way that is consonant with: the great wisdom traditions, the leading-edge of science, the body of knowledge of subtle energies, and their AQAL reinterpretation.  Gross mass-energy is a surface manifestation of etheric fields, which are surface to astral-psychic fields, which are surface to causal, which is the mysterious first film on spirit’s Original Face as it manifests a world, moment to moment to moment….