The Center for Common Sense Counseling
.
A Weekend with Einstein and Augustine
Exploring God’s creative genius and
finding love everlasting
Roland Trujillo
Copyright© 2013
by Roland Trujillo
Cover images:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia05988
JPL Image Use Policy
Unless otherwise noted, images and video on
JPL public web sites (public sites ending with a jpl.nasa.gov address) may be
used for any purpose without prior permission,
Grateful thanks and acknowledgement for the
cover image, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, of an oil painting by Vittore
Carpaccio (1466 to 1525) entitled Augustine’s Vision
{{PD-Art|PD-old-100}}
Albert Einstein during a lecture in Vienna in 1921 date 1921 ferdinand schmutzer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Einstein_1921_by_F_Schmutzer.jpg this file is from the wikemedia commons {{PD-1923}}
How Could
Einstein Be So Sure?
Augustine’s
Life Transforming Encounter with the Intuition
A Time to
Reap and a Time to Sow
Light: God’s
Personal Creative Tool
Impatience,
the Cause of Anxiety
Time, our
Fallen Soul’s Environment
The World
Was Founded on a Lie
“Love Covers
a Multitude of Sins”
Conscious
Living, Courageous Loving
God's
Purposes and Man's Destiny
How to Have
All the Time You Need
Metaphysical
Receptivity to the Benevolence of the Space/Time/Energy Field
What Time
Really Is – And What It Tells Us about God and About Ourselves
Rethinking
Heaven - a Recent Magazine Article in Light of Theoretical Physics and
Cosmology
The Higgs
Boson Won’t Eliminate God
Motion, the
Big Bang, and the Creation of the Universe
Correspondences
Between the Spiritual and the Material Realms
A Brief Introduction to Gravity
Could Dark
Energy and Dark Matter Be Evidence of the Ether Field?
Two Proofs
for the Existence of God
A Reading
from the Book of Genesis
A Reading
from the Book of Job
An Introduction
to Isaac Newton’s General Scholium
The
Confessions of Saint Augustine Book XI
There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is
a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.
Albert Einstein
Train
yourself to hear that small inner voice.
Anne Lamott
The Brain
-- is wider than the Sky --
For --
put them side by side --
The one the
other will contain
With ease
-- and You -- beside –
Emily Dickenson
Mathematics
is the language in which God has written the universe.
Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)
True religion is real living; living with all
one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness. Albert
Einstein
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living
someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the
results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions
drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow
your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to
become. Everything else is secondary. - Steven
Jobs from his 2005 address to Stanford's graduating class
Preface
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the
mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. - Albert
Einstein
All my life through, the new sights of nature made me
rejoice like a child. - Madame
Marie Curie
The American painter Norman Rockwell, who had
a way of capturing the pathos of a tender individual moment of universal
import, has a well known painting of an old sailor and a little boy, perhaps
his grandson, standing on a hill looking out to sea.
We
are behind them and cannot see their faces, but we know they are gazing out at
the sea, and we imagine the marvels, the mysteries and the adventures hidden in
the memory of the sailor and anticipated by the boy, as they look toward that
great ocean.
It is my hope that this cosmological excursion
will help you look at the universe and the marvels and mysteries it entails
with fresh eyes. Please pardon my use of poetic license, I wonder and then I
wander where my heart and my intuition take me. It is meant to be more like a
tapestry in which I weave together and reunite with disinterested love what
never should have torn asunder in the first place.
Introduction
One had to cram all this stuff into
one's mind for examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had
such a deterring effect [upon me] that, after I had passed the final
examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful
to me for an entire year. - Albert
Einstein
Science
without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. - Albert Einstein
This
book is about God, His universe, and his people--the human race--created by Him
in His image and likeness.
It contains clues about God’s relationship
with the universe He created and about how he relates to people and about how
He wants us to relate to each other.
It is intended to be heuristic: to help the
readers begin to discover for themselves answers to some of life’s deepest
questions.
Imagine that you are going to attend a
weekend conference and retreat. It was billed as A Weekend of Learning,
Discovery and Personal Growth and you made reservations months in advance for
this once in a lifetime event. Held at a beautiful conference center in the
woods, it is to be an intimate gathering of no more than forty attendees. The
facilitators are Dr. Albert Einstein and Aurelius Augustine of North Africa.
How stimulating it would be. There is a buzz
in the audience during the first Friday afternoon conference, and the excitement
builds throughout the entire weekend.
It lives up to all expectations--from the gala
opening gathering Friday night (where both Doctors Einstein and Augustine introduce
themselves and talk about their current projects), followed by a full Saturday and Sunday of
seminars, break out groups, and learning activities, to the closing conference
on Sunday afternoon.
Even the meals, where the facilitators
themselves always join right in, are the scene of lively discussions and
uproarious fun. There is a spark in the air. People are even talking and
debating long into the night around the fireplace or on the balcony under the
moonlight.
After the final conference on Sunday
afternoon where you shake hands with the hosts and say a heartfelt thank you,
as you are driving home you have the distinct impression that you have just
attended something very remarkable. You enjoy
a natural high for days and you bubble over with ideas, insights, and a desire
to tell everyone about them!
The next day, while it is all still fresh in
your mind, you sit down and begin to write. What starts out as a few paragraphs
about your impressions and major learning outcomes grows to become a daily
journal and then a book, as you write down insights and observations that go way
beyond the weekend conference.
Everyone
said it would be life transforming, and it was. When you send a note to Albert
and Gus (what they put on their name tags and insisted you call them), to thank
them again for the conference which changed your life and opened up a whole new
world of learning for you, each graciously responds. They are both pleased and
ask you to stay in touch.
I
hope that a weekend with this book may also awaken a heady, invigorating
renewed interest in finding answers to the riddle of life and the mysteries of
our universe.
Because I write about creation, I must include
a little science and specifically some physics and cosmology. Because I write
about conscious and congruent living I must include some terms from the field
of psychology.
There are few numbers in this book. I know
that, as Sir Arthur Eddington said, science is all about numbers. But I also heard somewhere that Stephen
Hawking’s publisher told him that every equation added to a book cuts the readership
in half.
The science, the cosmology, and the
psychology are here, but only enough for the matter at hand.
This book is about the ideas behind the
math, the principles that produce the beauty, symmetry, order, and congruency
we observe and marvel at.
I understand that a person can appreciate a
symphony without being able to read the musical score.
The layperson will be glad to learn that this
book is easy to read by anyone who has an interest in and a love of such
things. You do not have to be a science
major.
Except for a few terms you might have to
look up, you will find most of this book familiar and friendly.
After all, I write about our home—this great
green earth, the sun and the stars. I write about the awe and wonder we have
felt when we observe the marvels of nature. I write about a sense of adventure and
a love of discovering things that we have all experienced when we were young (and
some of us have not lost as we aged).
I write of patience and of love for one another
we have know by their presence or their absence. I write of the Father some of
us have never known but for whom we are searching.
Many of the passages may be suitable for
scanning—for light reading to get the big picture or to search for clues to
your questions. As you read, some things may leap out from the page and awaken
immediate insight, as you grasp the breath and depth of what I wish to
communicate through the medium of words.
Some passages will be familiar to you—things
you have long suspected were true. All this book does is remind you of them,
and I'm merely confirming what you already knew in your heart.
Other passages may need to be sipped, like a
fine brandy, a little at a time in order to savor the bold or delicate essence that
they contain.
You might then spend many happy, aimless
hours contemplating what you have read.
My joy will be when something is illuminated
for you, awakening a renewed delight in discovery, even perhaps an aha moment
that begins a flow of insights and realizations.
If this happens, what you read will come
alive for you, and you will discover the joy of science and cosmology as never
before.
The physicist or science student may prefer
to begin with the later chapters of the book about cosmogenesis.
The person who is interested in congruent,
conscious living and holistic well-being may find the middle chapters of most interest.
The deepest and most profound understanding
of a subject can be called profound simplicity. Thirty years ago I once
attended a conference where Will Schutz, a pioneer in the human potential movement,
mentioned, as I recall, that there are basically three types of understanding
of a subject: simplistic, complex, and profound simplicity. What he said made a lot of sense to me and I
have never forgotten it.
First,
our understanding of a subject is simplistic. About all we can do is recognize
the topic, but we can’t explain it, let alone teach it.
After lots of study and thought, we develop
a complex grasp, no longer simplistic but now complicated. We know more now,
but we are all caught up in the details.
There is a third and higher level and it can
be called profound simplicity.
Many of us who have taken many courses,
gotten degrees, and read widely get stuck in the second stage, where things are
complicated.
But things begin to clear up if we attain
profound simplicity. Perhaps that is why people with wisdom, like Yoda in Star
Wars or the Shaolin Master in the Kung Fu television series, say things in a
simple way. It is clear to them. The renowned humanitarian and Nobel Prize
winner, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, put it this way: “From naive simplicity we
arrive at more profound simplicity.”
As our understanding grows, it becomes
simpler, but also more profound. Augustine said “The Bible was composed in such
a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them.”
Einstein sums up profound simplicity in
this, one of his famous quotes:
“If
the solution is simple, God has answered.”
In this respect, profound simplicity is also
divine simplicity.
My spiritual
mentor said: “for the person of faith, the way is always simple. He sees which
way to go, what to avoid or what is right. It is clear. But for the egotist, life
is always complicated.” Einstein, as we
will see, was a man of faith: he trusted in his intuition and did not doubt it.
The principles he realized were profoundly
simple but heuristic--leading to deeper and deeper understanding.
Augustine was all too human—sentimental and
exuberant, even given to anxiety. Today he would be diagnosed with anxiety
disorder. But his saving grace was love.
He loved God. His love conquered his
anxiety. In the Bible, Paul says:
“perfect love casts out fear.” Perfect love also casts out anxiety. He became a
man of faith because he was a man of love.
He loved God, and he realized that he was
loved by God and that his insights were from God. These realizations made him
love God even more.
Knowing that he was known and loved was the realization
that permitted him to cast aside doubt and trust in the subtle insights he was
given. The fruit of these intuitive
insights was life changing, the story of which is contained in his famous
Confessions, the world’s first spiritual autobiography.
Augustine realized some profoundly simple
truths about God, about the nature of the created universe, and about the moral
universe, and these profound realizations lead to many more insights and
knowledge about God, the material creation, and about human psychology.
This book is an exploration--inspired by these
men of science, both humanitarians, both men of faith and love—of the material
and moral universes, and about the God Who created them.
It can be read by anyone, even someone who
knows virtually nothing about cosmology, physics, or psychology. In fact, that
person has the advantage of fresh eyes and an open mind.
The
person more familiar with the science involved in my discussions of light,
time, gravity, and cosmogony will have the advantage of already being
conversant with the terminology.
However, the physicist, the mathematician,
the psychologist and the theologian also have a disadvantage. Having been involved in extensive study, they
become immersed in facts and theories, and may find themselves impeded by the
complexity. When this happens, the acquired knowledge actually gets in the way
of understanding.
Lost in the labyrinth of learning, people sometimes
have a hard time breaking through to the sought after stage of profound
simplicity.
It is my fervent wish that this book may
help restore understanding to your knowledge, as I put words together in a way
that tends to awaken, so that the student or practitioner will be able to see
the meaning, the purpose, the symmetry, and the power behind the findings and
formulas.
Another drawback to too much study is that
it fills the mind with second hand ideas the student has accepted because they are
the intellectual coinage of the day or out of a sense of obligation to accept what
they are told in order to get good grades, teacher’s approval, or later for
grants or promotion.
The nature of pride being what it is, the student
is likely to defend an acquired idea, even if erroneous, as if it were his or
her very own idea.
We shake our heads when we read about how
the new and correct scientific findings that Galileo or Copernicus discovered
were opposed by the intellectual status quo. Yet even as this book is being
written anyone who questions the sacred cows of the big bang theory or evolution
is ignored or marginalized, even as Copernicus was shunned when he dared to say
that the earth revolved around the sun.
How right Mahatma Gandhi was when he said: "First
they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
Even
Dr. Einstein experienced some of this. His ideas were first ignored, then I’m
sure ridiculed in some quarters, then fought, but finally he won. Truth won
out, though it took years and in some cases even decades for him to be fully
vindicated.
At work, in our research, with our friends
and above all with our family, we owe it to others to honor the truth. Always
be ready to admit it when you don’t really know. But most of all, you must persist with the
truth, even in the face of opposition. As Tolstoy said: “The strongest of all
warriors are these two — Time and Patience.” And I might add a third: “Faith.”
There
was a popular bumper sticker during the sixties which said “Question authority.”
It applies today just as much as it did then.
Don’t be overly deferential to teachers,
professors (and textbook writers). You may have to rely on them to learn some
facts and formulas for a grade, maybe even a recommendation letter; but not for
who you are, what you will become, or what you know in your heart of hearts.
Dare to be an Einstein. Otherwise you will
be a second hand imitation of another. Don’t
resent opposition. Einstein himself said: "Great spirits have always found
violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a
person does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and
courageously uses their intelligence."
The study of math and science has its place.
It acquaints the student with the jargon, the mathematical operations, and
basic facts needed to express yourself.
In other words, such study provides the
basics and the raw material to use as a platform for discovery and useful
invention. Secondly, study permits you know what has been found already so you
don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
But once you have the raw materials, it is
time to set sail. There are many good things I can say about teachers who stick
to the knitting and teaching basic readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic—so that the
student is not overwhelmed or forced to accept what may not be true. As Mark
Twain so aptly said: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
The professional cook learns the basics of
cooking and how to use the right tools for the job. But he does not spend the rest of his life
using cookbooks or, for that matter, even writing cookbooks. He cooks. The joy
of cooking is discovering new things to make.
Use the math and science techniques you
learn like the cook uses his blender, pans and utensils. Use your books like
the writer uses his or her dictionary.
Enjoy your studies, but don’t let a backpack
full of books and a procession of endless quizzes, exams and finals rob you of
the awe and wonder you had when you began your studies. Much learning is a weariness of the flesh,
said the writer of Ecclesiastes.
Albert Einstein said: The fairest thing we
can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at
the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer
wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.
Einstein retained a childlike quality his
whole life. All we need do to confirm
this is to see pictures of him with unkempt white hair riding his bicycle or
sticking his tongue out at the camera. He refused to wear socks, even to a
stuffy graduation ceremony. If he was a rebel, it was because he remained true
to the truth--the truth behind the marvels of the universe he loved.
You
must be like Einstein and hang onto your individuality and an almost childlike sense
of awe, wonder and joy.
Fortunately, in the words of the good Dr.
Einstein: Study and in general the pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of
activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
Learning is supposed to be an adventure.
Remember the opening lines of the television
series Star Trek: "Space . . . the Final Frontier. These are the voyages
of the starship Enterprise. It's five year mission: to explore strange new worlds;
to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before."
Einstein knew intuitively. He also knew when
he did not know. When he did not know, he waited until he did know.
He waited until he realized the answer.
Sometimes he waited for years. When the answer came it was simple.
He saw clocks in Bern, or he pictured a man
in free fall, then he had the aha moment of a simple but profound solution to
the problem he had long sought an answer to.
Augustine’s and Einstein’s works leave an
enduring legacy, and their lives are an enduring testimony to intuition.
Einstein’s discoveries came in the form of
sudden flashes of insight, the Eureka moment.
Augustine’s discoveries came from a sustained
flow of insights and from an abiding love and trust in the source of his inner
knowing.
It is
my hope that you may find this book refreshing, as it helps reawaken the awe
and the sense of adventure you once felt when you began your scientific
explorations.
While that this book facilitates thinking
outside the box, I believe you will find that my approach is solidly grounded
in the conviction, which I share with Albert Einstein, that the universe is
knowable, that it is comprehensible, and that its phenomena are subject to
discoverable and rational causality. Moreover, I believe, as did Einstein, that
any science must be linked to and grounded in reality.
Einstein’s intuitive realizations were not
mere flights of fancy or “creative thinking” exercises. What he realized was verifiable
and verified--math, expeditions, experiments and practical applications
vouchsafed the principles he intuited.
Likewise, Augustine’s autobiography Confessions,
wherein he chronicles how he first began to see reality for himself, was
grounded in realistic self knowing.
The first truths he saw were not imaginary
but were hard, tough realities of his own wrongs, misguided beliefs, and errant
lifestyle.
Yet, both of these men, each in his own way,
discovered truth, and this book is intended to elucidate how intuition helped
them do so. It will also give you a glimpse of just how far intuition can take
you.
More than anything else, I hope this book
will remind you of your intuition and convince you to begin to pay attention to
it, as Einstein and Augustine did, and learn to trust its quiet authority.
After four important chapters on intuition
and its role in the lives of Albert Einstein and Augustine of Hippo, almost two
hundred pages are devoted to an examination of the nature of time, a subject
both Augustine and Einstein were very fond of.
We are all acquainted with time, with
energy, with gravity, with motion, with light, and with space.
We know about waiting for the mail to
arrive. We know what getting older means. We know what it feels like to
accelerate in a car or airplane. We know about the noonday sun and the starry
sky at night. We are intimately
acquainted with gravity, especially when we fall on our behind at the skating
rink.
But of the aforementioned—time, energy,
motion, light, gravity and space--the one that holds the key to our well being
and happiness, and the one which holds the secret to eternal life is--time.
How you relate to time and how you use your
time determine your future. Look carefully and see how anxiety, dread, and
impatience have to do with our relationship with time. Note also how the
beautiful virtue of patience connotes giving someone time to learn, to grow,
and to recover.
Impatience robs us of time. Patience gives
time.
What is more welcome than mercy? Or more
welcome than forgiveness? How happy and grateful we are when someone gives us a
break.
A pardon or reprieve means being given
another grace period—the slate is wiped clean and you are given time to yet
turn things around and to enjoy the gift of life.
Life is a school. We are given a limited
amount of time to develop character and to learn what we need to know to
transcend time.
Nothing could be more important than to look
at time, at what God intends for us, and how we might relate to the gift of
time He has given us.
In this book I will talk about both time and
timelessness. I will go from physics to cosmology to psychology and then back
to physics again.
You will learn both about God and about
yourself. This book could mark the beginning of the most wonderful journey of
discovery you will ever take.
If you are relatively unread in such things
as physics and cosmology, your lack of knowledge will do you no harm. In fact,
it might be well that your mind is not cluttered with theories and preconceived
ideas.
You will be able to look with fresh eyes,
and you may be joyed to discover that you intuitively grasp the beauty of what
you read here; and you will be like Einstein, an intuitive who sees in a
lightning flash what it takes others decades to see and some never.
Read lightly until something sparks a flow
of insights. That might be a good time to put the book down and spend the rest
of the day with insight following you around like a delicate strain of music as
you go about your daily activities.
Of course some people have a hunger for the
kind of insights here and will want to devour the whole book. Afterwards they can return to different parts
of the book that interest them.
This is a book to return to often over the
years. It’s okay to scan it and find something that interests you and just read
that—even a line of poetry or a quotation.
It’s okay to just open the book, start at
any page, and quit when you have an insight. Keep it light hearted and fun.
The
Introduction and the first four chapters contain important information about the
intuitive process behind the discoveries of Einstein and Augustine. I also
illustrate how the same intuitive faculty assists us in realizing principles
which are heuristic, useful, and transforming--both in the realm of science as
well as principles that help people see where they are erring in their personal
lives. Such principles also provide guidance in resolving troubling personal
issues.
These are key chapters for any reader, and
they contain valuable insights into the lives of Einstein and Augustine in such
as way as to give the reader clues about how Einstein and Augustine went about
making their discoveries, and direction about how to apply the same processes
in his or her own life.
Next follows my treatise on the topic of
time, which I first published some twelve years ago, and have now newly edited
and expanded. This section of the book contains insights into how we humans
must relate to time in order to find peace of mind, develop character, and
discover, through searching in the time we are given, the secret to life.
The remaining chapters are physics,
cosmology and metaphysics: a glimpse into the making of the universe and into
the nature of light, time, and gravity.
I have added some carefully selected additional
material at the end of the book.
Included is some poetry, some readings from
the Scriptures, two Thomas Aquinas proofs for the existence of God; Isaac Newton’s
General Scholium where he acknowledges the Creator in a most eloquent way; and Book
Eight of Augustine’s Confessions, wherein is his famous discussion about the
nature of time.
I present these public domain writings
because the interested reader will find them thus convenient to look through or
even read, most likely for the first time in his or her life.
Otherwise, if the reader has to go look for
them, they would likely remain unread. Few of us have ever read a proof from
Aquinas or any of Isaac Newton’s works, and the brief excerpts I have included
here may be a rare treat for some readers.
There are different ways to say the same thing;
and I believe that the passages from the Old Testament, the lyrical poetry, and
a selection from Augustine express in beautiful literary form what today might
be said more scientifically.
It is my sincere hope and prayer that this
book A Weekend with Einstein and Augustine will be a milestone for you in a
life well lived, with this book bearing witness to the wonderful discoveries
that await you.
-1-
How Could Einstein Be So Sure?
The
intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in
consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, and the solution comes to
you and you don't know how or why.
Albert Einstein
"Great
spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter
cannot understand it when a [person] does not thoughtlessly submit to
hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses their
intelligence." Albert Einstein
The purpose of science is to discover what is
true, to explore nature, and to apply the principles learned to some useful
good for others. The purpose of science is not to promote or defend someone
else’s ideas, nor is it to mindlessly repeat what we have heard said without questioning
it.
As a child and a teenager, Einstein learned math
and already had an interest in physics. As he says in his autobiographical
notes, he mostly learned at home on his own. He was given a geometry book,
which became his constant companion, and then some physics books which he devoured.
Thus he acquired the basic tools and raw material he would need to express what
he was soon to discover after long hours of quiet contemplation.
Einstein needed freedom; he did not get along well
with authoritarian teachers who resented his care free spirit. He actually
dropped out of high school.
Here are
Einstein's own words: "One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for
examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring
effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the
consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."
Fortunately he went to Switzerland and there found
a friendlier school climate for a free spirit like himself.
Einstein succeeded in spite of school. He somehow
survived the stifling atmosphere for someone curious and creative like himself.
Here’s how he put it: “It is, in fact, nothing
short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely
strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside
from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom ."
Einstein
speaks of the awe he felt when he first saw a compass and how its needle moved
under mysterious magnetic influence. He knew there had to be something behind
this sort of phenomenon.
He later commented on how he learned what
interested him, not in school, but on his own. A student who came to eat with
his parents every week gave him a book on geometry which Einstein loved and
studied all the time. Seeing his interest and aptitude, the man also brought
him other science books. The boy is father to the man.
Einstein informs us: "I learned mostly at
home, first from my uncle and then from a student who came to eat with us once
a week. He would give me books on physics and astronomy."
Einstein found school boring and stifling. He wanted to learn what he wanted to learn,
but they wanted him to learn for the exams. From the age of 12 he began to
distrust teachers and be skeptical of authorities. He did not do well in some
classes and several times, he says, he was asked to leave. He did in fact drop
out of school. But that did not stop him. He continued to learn on his own and
things arranged themselves so that he found a freer atmosphere in Switzerland.
He wondered, he questioned, he imagined, he pondered,
and suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, an insight would come. Einstein said:
"The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a
leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, and the solution
comes to you and you don't know how or why."
Just like that, he intuitively knew
something. He knew what he knew, even
though he did not know why he knew it. Then he found the math to express what
he intuitively grasped.
It was intuitive. It was gut level. Most
importantly, he trusted that knowing.
The term some colleagues used to describe Einstein
was unbudgeable. He trusted and did not doubt what he knew in his heart, even
in the face of opposition or skepticism.
In the year
1905, like a flash of lightning across the scientific sky, this young rebel produced
his magnificent papers that would revolutionize the world. It is called the
annus mirabilis—the year of wonders, or wonderful year. The miracle year. Albert Einstein made
important discoveries concerning the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion and
the special theory of relativity. His articles, collectively known as his Annus
Mirabilis papers, were published in Annalen der Physik in 1905.
The special theory of relativity was proposed in
1905 by Albert Einstein in the paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving
Bodies"
Einstein's theory of Special Relativity is based
on two postulates:
1.
Relativity Principle: The laws of nature are the same in all
inertial reference frames
2.
The speed of light in a vacuum is the same in all inertial
frames
From these
two simple principles we get length
contraction, time dilation and the relativity of simultaneity; in other words,
time cannot be absolutely defined, and there is a relation between time and
signal velocity. Length is also relative.
The two postulates of special relativity predict
the equivalence of energy and mass, as expressed in the formula
E = mc2, where c is the speed of light in vacuum.
In a fourth
short paper, in what astrophysicist Dr. Michio Kaku calls “The greatest afterthought
in history,” Einstein added that matter and energy are
interchangeable. In the words of
Dr. Kaku “His extraordinary ability to see far ahead is shown by the fact that
his equation was not verified . . . until some twenty-five years later."
In Einstein's
Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and
Time, Dr. Kaku quotes Banesh
Hoffman, a physicist who worked with Einstein and wrote a biography of him, as
saying: "Imagine the audacity of
such a step.... Every clod of earth, every feather, every speck of dust
becoming a prodigious reservoir of untapped energy.”
Audacious it was, but the kind of audacity that
Moses had, or David, or forgive me, Tom Sawyer. The American philosopher and
essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson tells of this sort of self confidence in his essay Self Reliance (which was once required
reading for every American school child):
To believe your own thought, to believe
that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, -- that is
genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense .. . .
A man should learn to detect and watch
that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the
luster of the firmament of bards and sages .. . .
Yet he dismisses without notice his
thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own
rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
I can't wait to look more deeply at the faculty of
intuition in the next chapter. But I wish to tell you more about this great man
of intuitive faith, Dr. Albert Einstein. Now we move forward to 1916, when he
published the general theory of relativity.
General relativity provides a unified description
of gravity as a geometric property of space and time. General relativity
extends special relativity to geometric property of space and time, or space-time.
His theory generalizes Isaac Newton's original theory of gravity, making it valid
for bodies in motion as well as bodies at rest. The theory was able to explain the
peculiarities in the orbit of Mercury and the bending of light by the Sun.
The amazing
thing is that these discoveries were the result of a process of intuition and
deduction, of an aha moment--a Eureka moment--of a simple principle from which
the mathematical formulation and all the rest would follow.
It was by
intuition—the realization or the aha Eureka moment—that the solution to the
problem or riddle he wondered about occurred.
Most attention is paid to Einstein’s thought
experiments: for example, the mental picture of the train platform (to set up
the relativity of simultaneity issue); Einstein imagining himself chasing a light
beam; or his mental image of a man falling in an elevator (to set up the
inertia and gravitation question).
I suppose that when writing about how Einstein
came up with his insights, people would focus more on his mental images and thought
experiments because they are easy to picture and they do help to make the
problem understandable. But it is important to remember that the use of the
imagination, to view the problem in picture form, was a way of visualizing the
puzzle to make it easier to work with.
The solution to the puzzle, which is the most
important thing, came by way of intuition. For example, Einstein’s famous
thought experiment where he imagines himself chasing a light beam occurred to
him when he was 16 years old. But it was not until 10 years later that the
insight came to him in Eureka moment right in the middle of a sentence as he was
talking to his friend Michael Besso. "It
was a beautiful day, my friend, Besso and I were out walking. I was doing most
of the talking, I told him that I had been struggling with a question and
needed his help. But as I spoke, the answer came to me. I stopped in
mid-sentence and ran home. The next morning I went to him again. 'Thank you,' I
said, 'I have completely solved the problem.'"
In describing his Eureka moment of intuition, he
recalls having been on a streetcar in Bern, Switzerland, and looking back toward
the clock tower. He wondered what would happen if his streetcar raced away from
the clock tower at the speed of light. He imagined that the clock would appear
stopped, since light could not catch up to the streetcar, but his own clock in
the streetcar would beat normally.
In his
wonderful biography of Einstein, Dr. Michio Kaku adds the following: “The
answer was simple and elegant: time can beat at different
rates throughout the universe, depending on how fast you moved. Imagine clocks scattered at different points in space, each one announcing a
different time, each one ticking at a different rate.”
The flash of insight was
not the mental picture itself but the insight about the picture. Though
Einstein’s imaginary picture is what we remember, the important thing is the
realization. The mental picture is a tool of intuition.
In pondering and thinking about the picture,
suddenly Einstein realized a basic principle that was the basis of his theory,
math, and earth shaking conclusion.
His thought experiments, where for example he
imagines himself riding on a light beam, or where he pictures a man in free
fall are well known. But we must not forget that the thought experiments merely
put the situation he was puzzling over into a picture in the imagination. But
it was intuition that provided the solution. Many people imagine all sorts of images, but it is from the faculty of intuition
that Eureka moments, profound realizations, and inspiration come.
This is so important and we tend to miss it. So I
want to go over the ground one more time. Einstein wanted to understand the why
of things. When he puzzled over some paradox or inconsistency, he had a
question in mind.
His
question then sometimes took the form of a mental picture. When he was wondering
about light, he wondered what someone would see if that person were moving at
the speed of light. His question then took the form of an imaginary metal picture
of himself riding on a light beam.
When he was puzzling over gravity, he wondered
what a man would feel who was in free fall. This took the form of a picture of
a man falling in space.
Imagination
helped him to contemplate the question when it was in the form of a mental picture.
But the solution is the main thing. The answer to his question—the sudden flash
of insight--is what revolutionized the world. It was not a metal picture; it
was a principle, a profoundly simple one, which explained what he was looking
for an answer to.
And this
realized principle was fertile and heuristic. It was robust enough to generate
math, useable practical math, as well as to lead to postulates and then derivative
findings.
From the one simple principle realized in that
moment of insight came more avenues of exploration, as well as real life
inventions and processes for the good of humankind.
The answers
came to him suddenly a flash of insight, and he realized the solution or answer
in that Eureka moment—a moment of inspiration
Einstein was a thinker, a dreamer, but he was
above all an intuitionalist.
Many people
think that he was primarily a mathematician, because of his famous equations.
But he was first and foremost a theoretical physicist. The math was just a
language to express in scientific terms the answer he had realized intuitively.
Likewise, educators and pedagogists almost always
make much of Einstein’s imagination, but rarely do they pay homage to intuition
In speaking
about intuition, Einstein himself says it best:
The
intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness,
call it intuition or what you will, and the solution comes to you and you don't
know how or why.
Einstein realized intuitively what was true,
deduced the consequences, found the math to express it, and then waited for
someone else to prove experimentally the deductions stemming from what he had
seen in a lightning flash intuitively
Many people do not know that it was sometimes
years before scientists and astronomers, with newer technique and technology,
would validate what Einstein already knew.
First he saw; then he stated what he intuitively
saw in simple terms. Then he did the math. Later it was verified in experiments.
Einstein published his theory of general
relativity in 1916, and one of his predictions was that gravity influences
light. This was not confirmed
experimentally until 1919 by Arthur Eddington who took an expedition to the
Island of Principe to observe the eclipse of the sun, where it was seen that
light beams did indeed bend near the gravitational field of the sun, confirming
Einstein's GTR prediction.
Talk about faith! Talk about trusting your gut. Einstein,
a young man at the time, came up with intuitive postulates and predicted
consequences that stood physics on its head, overturned long held Newtonian
ideas, revolutionized our thinking about time and space, and ushered in the
nuclear age and quantum mechanics.
He knew
what he knew, trusted in it, and never wavered. It was only after Eddington’s
expedition to observe light pass by the sun during an eclipse, years later,
that reporters flocked to Einstein's doorstep and he became famous.
Yes, he was an iconoclast. He was a rebel. School
cramped his style. He succeeded not because of school but in spite of school,
which he called stifling. He refused to wear socks. He dared to be different
and that is why we love him.
He did not believe something just because someone,
no matter how great an authority, said so. He wanted to see for himself. He
waited, sometimes years, until he realized the answer. And the result is
history.
He did not revere authorities, and this got him
into quite a bit of hot water with his instructors when he was young. But this
left his mind free to then accept the real truth from the authority of
intuition when it came.
Therefore, dear students, dare to be an
Einstein. It is okay to study to learn
the basics. Jargon, concepts and formulas provide the grist for your mill--the
raw materials that you can then collate into meaningful, truthful, and useful thinking
and discovery. But let intuition and conscience be your guide.
How was it that within a few weeks time, a 25 year
old patent clerk came up with ideas that would shake the world? He questioned everything.
He even questioned some of the most basic ideas of Isaac Newton. He loved and searched for truth, and he
trusted and did not doubt (with one exception) his intuition.
Yesterday I watched a PBS documentary on the life
and work of Einstein. It was very well done. Einstein’s actual words were
quoted and his basic findings accurately portrayed. What particularly struck me were two
interviews with physicists.
At one point in the documentary, the interviewed asked physicist Dr. Martin Klein, Yale historian of Physics, what he would ask Einstein if he could ask but one question. Martin Klein said: "If I had the opportunity of asking Einstein one question, I would ask him how he could be so sure of the principles on which he built his theories, how could he be so sure that the dear Lord requires that the relativity postulate be satisfied throughout nature? How could he be so sure that the equivalence principle really held everywhere and at all times. And if he could tell us how he did that, that would be something."
This
physicist was earnest about his question: he really did want to know how
Einstein could be so sure.
Of course I know the answer, and it’s what I’ve
been trying to tell people about for over 20 years. Like Moses, David, and Tom
Sawyer, Einstein questioned external authorities, and this freed him to trust and
follow what his intuition showed him. It is actually fortunate that he had bad
school experiences because, as he said himself, from the age of 12 he began to distrust
teachers and be skeptical of authorities.
We are all told to trust our gut, but few of us
do. We go to external experts to tell us what to do, and when they mislead us,
we resent them.
Few people know what it means to have faith. It is
exactly what Einstein had.
He trusted and did not doubt what he knew in his
heart, even if the whole world was arrayed against him.
The second interview that struck me was an
interview with Abraham Pais, physicist, collaborator with Einstein, as well as
Albert Einstein’s biographer (Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein).
In the
documentary I watched, Dr. Pais was commenting upon how as soon as Einstein came
up with his prediction that gravity bends light, he wanted to confirm it right
away. But how? Then it suddenly came to him: apply the math of his
gravitational field equations to the planet Mercury’s orbit.
The orbit of Mercury is the most eccentric of the
planets in our Solar System. The planet has an orbital period of 87.969 Earth
days. At perihelion it is 46,001,200 km from the Sun and at aphelion it is
69,816,900 km, a difference of 23,815,700 km giving it an eccentricity of 0.21.
No one could explain why the elliptical orbit of mercury was eccentric.
It suddenly came to Einstein that the reason was
that at its perihelion (where it is closest to the sun) it is being influenced
by the warping of space in the sun’s gravitational field.
Einstein immediately
sat down and calculated what Mercury’s orbit would be according to his new
gravitational field equations. To his great joy, the results confirmed his
prediction.
The actual orbit of mercury matches perfectly what
his gravitational field equations had predicted.
Now that you know the story, let's return to the
interview with Dr. Abraham Pais (distinguished physicist in his own right and
Einstein’s biographer). I was astonished by what he said.
The interviewer asked him how Einstein thought of
checking his field equations using the eccentric orbit of the planet Mercury.
Here is what Abraham Pains answered: "And I believe at that moment, Einstein said,
'I don't care what the world will say. I am right, because the Lord has told
me, calculate the perihelion motion of Mercury and you will see.' And he did!
And it came out."
I don’t know what I was more astonished at--a
physicist mentioning the word "Lord," that he suggested that Einstein
would say "the Lord told me" to calculate the perihelion motion of Mercury,
or how perceptive and intuitive Dr. Pais is!
He meant what he said about what he thought
Einstein would say. After all, Einstein
did refer to God on many occasions, and also referred to God as Der Alte (the
Old One).
I have no doubt that his insights were
inspirations from the Lord. He may have suspected so deep in his heart.
Einstein was not a religious man in the
traditional sense. But he had a profound awe and appreciation for the order in
nature. He loved the truth and had contempt for pretense and half truth. He
made what is right more important than who is right.
It happens that when he followed his intuition, he
was always right. He honored the truth. He was also a nonbelonger. And because
he was a nonbelonger, he was free to give himself wholeheartedly to his calling,
to his love of truth, and to the truth itself.
What is your calling? What is your mission in life? Learn what interests you and do what you
love. As your life unfolds, you will discover your purpose.
Einstein received his illumination like sudden
flashes of insight to help him solve a puzzle he had been seeking an answer to.
The insight was like a simple principal, an axiom, or theme that solved the
puzzle.
After the insight, he then used his intellect to
make the deductions, form the postulates, develop the math, seek verification,
and find applications.
His discovery began with an insight into a
principle of truth which the Lord uses to create--a law behind the science and
math that forms the basis of our physics and other sciences.
We are told that faith is important, and the
Apostle Paul writes an entire chapter about the faith of Moses, Abraham, and
Noah for example. Noah kept working for years on his ark even though others
scoffed at him.
Einstein had so much faith in his intuition (which
is wordless inspiration from God) that after his prediction that gravity would
bend light was confirmed by Dr. Arthur Eddington's expedition to view the
trajectory of light during the solar eclipse, he was asked if he would have
felt bad if his prediction was not validated—Einstein responded: “No, I would
have felt sorry for God, because the theory is correct."
Abraham was
not particularly religious, nor was David when he slew the giant. The people
that Christ chose to be apostles were not religious either, they were simple fishermen
and tax collectors. Moses was not religious when God picked him, but he had a
keen sense of justice.
Einstein was not “religious” but God can use a man
like Einstein, who is committed to the truth and is persistent in his search
for truth.
The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow does not
go to cowards or quitters. God can use a person who stands for principle, when
others doubt and ridicule what he believes.
We think of standing for principle as standing up
for justice, honor or some moral value. But standing for principle really means
standing for what you know deep down is right—whether it is a moral principle
or a physics principle.
Here is one of my favorite Einstein quotes and one which reveals his faith in intuition and his unbudgeable commitment to rational order instead of chance:
"Quantum
mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet
the real thing. The theory yields a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to
the secret of the Old One. In any case I am convinced that He doesn't play
dice."
In the next
chapter we will take a look at what Augustine had to say about this "inner
voice" that served him and Dr. Einstein so well.
"I have deep faith that the principles of the universe
will be beautiful and simple." - Albert Einstein
-2-
Augustine’s
Life Transforming Encounter with the Intuition
Seek not
to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. Faith is to believe what you do not see; the
reward of this faith is to see what you believe. Augustine
"Le
cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point," ("The heart has
its reasons that Reason knows not of.") Blaise Pascal
Understanding is the wages of
faith.
Augustine
Einstein
was sure when he was right. Augustine was sure when he was wrong. He believed his
conscience when it showed him his own errors; then he changed for the better. Augustine
would soon know a very great truth: conscience is another word for intuition,
and conscience is our closest link to God.
I would like to formally introduce this man,
Augustine, who needs no introduction. Aurelius Augustinus (more commonly “St.
Augustine of Hippo,” or simply “Augustine”) (354–430 C.E.) church father,
famous autobiographer, theologian, and North African Bishop. I call him Augustine, but you may also call
him Austin, the current variation of his name.
Helen Keller said "Literature is my Utopia. Here
I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet,
gracious discourse of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or
awkwardness."
Like Helen Keller, I too have book friends. I
consider Augustine and Dr. Einstein friends of mine, though I have never met
them personally. They are book friends, even kindred spirits.
Einstein is light years ahead of me in math, but I
share with him a love of truth, and we both stand in awe before the universe.
Augustine is far more eloquent than I, but I share
with him a love for God.
This might be a good place to say a few words
about how we became acquainted.
Over the years I read about Mr. Albert Einstein and
Augustine of Hippo, but with the exception of two quotes (Einstein’s famous equation
E=mc2 and Augustine’s “Love God and live as you will”), I remembered little more
about them from my discursive readings or college classes than that I knew they
were important in the fields of science and theology.
Though I came to science and cosmology during the
second half of my life, even in grade school, I had cherished books on
astronomy and mammals. In high school I read Arthur Koestler on psychology; and
though I was not religious, I was interested in the topic of religion (along
with French, baseball, football, shortwave radio, bowling, and working out).
I pursued a classic liberal arts education in
college and took courses I was interested in, such as French language and
literature, philosophy, theology, even cosmology.
But it was not until the autumn of my life that I
came to Augustine and Einstein. Perhaps I needed to live a little, experience
reality, and then become tempered and softened before I could appreciate these
men.
Perhaps I needed to search for a lifetime, and
only when my queries became sincere, were they responded to by the Good Lord Who
led me ever so gently to Einstein and Augustine.
Have you ever purchased a book at the bookstore,
only to have it sit on the shelf for a few years before in some idle moment you
pick it up and start leafing through it only to discover an old friend? Well,
that’s what happened to me with a cosmology and physics book I had bought (because
I liked the author’s books on other topics).
As soon as I bought it, I tried reading a little,
but it was like reading Greek. I didn’t understand it and so it went onto the
shelf where it sat for seven years.
One day, I aimlessly pulled it off the shelf and
started reading. It was as if the scales fell from my eyes. All of a sudden I
understood what I was not yet ready for seven years earlier.
Somehow I was now ready or my understanding was at
a higher level, and so I began to read and gasp in awe and wonder at the
physics of light, time, and motion.
It is only recently that I have been able to read The Confessions of Augustine.
Augustine's Confessions is one of
those books that is always on a must read list of classics and one of those
books I felt I should read, but somehow I just couldn’t get into it, though I
made half hearted attempts over the past four decades.
But then, my research on time brought me once
again to Augustine’s Confessions.
In my research on the Theory of Relativity I
somehow stumbled on an internet post that asked rhetorically "does St. Augustine anticipate Einstein's notion of the relative
nature of space-time?" The answer of course was “yes” and there followed a
reading from City of God, XI.5-6, and this led me directly to Book Eleven of The Confessions of Augustine where can
be found his famous discourse on the nature of time and timelessness.
When I read Augustine say that time did not exist
before creation I sat up and took notice—I knew he is correct in this because
of my studies in physics. So I read on and found that he and I shared an
abiding interest in the subject of time. His treatment of time was so
thoughtful and insightful that I could easily see why it has been said that Augustine
foreshadowed Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Truth can be stated in mathematics and also in
words.
But I did not stop with his passages on the nature
of time. I read more.
I discovered a kindred spirit and an old friend.
Augustine loved God, and he was filled with awe
and wonder for a supreme God Who was the Creator of the universe and Who also cared
for individual human beings.
Augustine tells us about a God Who is everywhere
and yet can be sensed in our innermost being. He loved a God Who is Lord of all and yet Who is patient, kind and
merciful to people.
How did Augustine know this? Because he had
intimately experienced God’s forgiveness and patience, which I will say
something about later in this chapter.
There is an old rock & roll song, recorded by
many famous artists, the refrain of which begins: “To know, know, know him is
to love, love, love him.” The more Augustine
loved God, the more he was given to know of Him, and the more he knew, the more
he loved Him.
Yes, Augustine had a keen interest in cosmogenesis
and time. He wondered about how God made things as they are, something like
when Einstein said: “I want to know the mind of God.”
Augustine had another reason for his keen interest
in these topics--he wished to counter the errors that were rampant about such
matters at the time (and still are).
But there
is also something else very special about Augustine’s interest. His writings
about philosophy and cosmology sprang from love.
His life
and explorations into science and psychology were not compartmentalized. Augustine
thought about God, God’s handiwork, God’s craftsmanship and his relationship
with God all the time. That is who he
was.
Einstein
once commented that he felt a distance from people, and that he did not belong
to anyone or anything. He said that he felt comfortable with it gave him
solitude to do what he was called to do: physics.
A ship is
made to sail; Einstein to do theoretical physics; and Augustine to love
God.
Augustine’s love shaped his belief and his beliefs
were the foundation of his thoughts. And this is important—his belief was in
what he wordlessly realized in the light of truth. He trusted his gut. He
trusted his intuition.
If he concerned himself with heavenly things, he
was also very down to earth. His concerns about morality, time, and the will of
God were not just idle musings. He wanted to align his whole life with God’s
will and what would please God, and so what he discovered he also wanted to
apply to his everyday life.
What he realized intuitively was not pie in the
sky, it was the most basic and heart wrenching realizations of his own wrong
and helplessness. The alcoholic or drug addict will not change until he stops
denying the truth and admits he is an addict. But, as every seasoned counselor
knows, the addict will still not really change until he sincerely wants to.
Augustine was blessed to see his own errors so
clearly that he could no longer deny them. And because of his love of Truth
(with a big T), he believed the negative truth about himself that he saw in
light of the Truth, and yearned with all of this heart to change.
Einstein said that truth is what stands the test
of experience—a theory must be verifiable, falsifiable, and must prove itself
in laboratory experiments and practical invention.
Augustine’s love of truth and love of God led him
to want to know what was required of him—what he had to give up and what he had
to change. There was no aspect of his life that he did not subject to the
scrutiny of conscience.
It was his discovery that he had not been living
rightly that led him to have a change of heart and then a change in lifestyle.
This is the basis of his book The Confessions—it is Augustine’s personal testimony of a changed
life. His honesty about the errors of his youth is remarkable for the age in
which it was written when people did not write personal testimonies. Today
people go into rehab and then tell everyone about it even on talk shows. But
not when he lived, circa A.D. 400.
His honesty about his wayward youth, and then his
confusion, doubts, and wrong ideas is even more remarkable because of the man
of stature that he would become.
His transparency is because of his love of truth,
his love of what is right, and his love of God. He made what is right more
important than saving face. He welcomed the scrutiny of conscience.
Conscience is in fact the inner light from God.
Augustine knew this, and he knew that he was known.
He knew that the God Who so exquisitely fashioned
the universe and the marvels of nature could also exquisitely reform and perfect
a fallen human being--the man or woman who, in love and humility, willingly surrenders
to the God of conscience.
Augustine loved God above all else; but if he had
another passion it was to share with others what he had discovered, so that
they too could be disabused of their errors and come to know the truth (about
error) and the Source of that truth.
I’m
certain that Augustine and Albert Einstein would have enjoyed each other’s
company. Both were honest and transparent. Both loved truth and had a sense of
wonder about the world. Both were humble. Both made what is right more important
than who is right.
Augustine was a man of love. Einstein was a man of
faith.
Albert
Einstein was a man after Augustine’s own heart. He loved truth, reason. and
order; and he looked with awe and wonder upon the world around him. If
Augustine’s life was built upon love, a love of God, then Einstein’s was built
upon awe and wonder. He marveled that the universe is knowable and that it is comprehensible.
He was awe struck that human beings could know and understand reality, and that
our math and science match and describe the perfection observed in the physical
phenomena around us.
Augustine loved God and simply believed what he
knew deep down in his heart. He believed and then was granted to see the "why"
of what he believed. Einstein had his
intuition, and he trusted and did not doubt what he intuitively knew. And
because he trusted and did not doubt the authority of his intuition, he was
granted to know some of the secrets of God's relationship with the material
creation.
And so it comes to pass that I have written this book
in the spirit of Augustine and Einstein, both of whom paid homage to intuition,
our most intimate encounter with Truth.
Intuition
has always been one of my favorite topics to write about, and Einstein and
Augustine, their genius, their creativity, and their authenticity bear witness
to its importance.
To Einstein’s sudden flashes of insight that came
to him intuitively—suddenly the answer was there, and he did not know how he
knew, but he just did—we owe the great discoveries that changed the world and
our understanding of time, light, energy, mass, and gravity.
If Einstein was gifted by his intuition to
revolutionize science, Augustine was gifted to actually understand just what
intuition is and share it with us. He
knew and he knew why he knew.
It began when he started to realize his own wrong
way of living. In the first part of his Confessions, he talks honestly about his youth and young adulthood--his mistakes, his sins,
his crisis of faith, and then his moving repentance and change of ways. It is
the first Western autobiography ever written.
Augustine writes about how much he regretted
having led an immoral life for which he is now sorry. The books in The Confessions are written like prayers
to God, where he pours out his heart, acknowledges his wrongs, and describes
how it was he began to see the error of his ways.
What is significant is the process by which he
began to change. It started for him when he began to see his errors in the
light of intuition. The difference between Augustine’s insights and Einstein’s
is that Augustine’s encounter with the inner light of intuition occurred when
he suddenly began to realize his own error.
Einstein saw a physics principle; Augustine saw
the truth about his own wrong.
If Einstein’s realizations brought him immediate joy,
Augustine’s (at first) brought pain--the pain of seeing his own wrong. Next
came sorrow about what he saw about himself, and then catharsis. Finally there
was the relief for having come clean and the joy for being right with God and sensing
he was forgiven.
If Einstein’s insights revolutionized science,
Augustine’s were personally life transforming.
Einstein’s sudden flashes if insight were few and
far between, whereas Augustine’s were many and steady, as he experienced many
such self revelatory moments, day after day, until he had been led to see and
repent of all his errors. Each of his wrongs came before his eyes. First the
most grievous ones, and then as the weeks passed, he saw increasingly subtle
errors.
Each time, the process was the same: first
realization, then pain, then regret, then relief, and then joy.
This is, incidentally, a description of real
repentance. It begins not with external pressure or study, but with profound
inner realizations.
Augustine’s Confessions is still one of the best autobiographical descriptions of the process of true
repentance every written. As Bishop Fulton J. Sheen said, a few books make it
to the best seller list for a few weeks, Augustine's Confessions has been on
the all time most read books list for some 1600 years now.
He is a very real person who writes about his
encounter with the God of conscience. We are indebted to him for putting it
down on paper (at the urging of a friend) because Augustine understood that conscience
is the same as intuition. He understood the process itself and he bears witness
to the process of insight, inspiration, and most importantly repentance--where intuition
reveals to us our nothingness in the Light of that which is much greater.
He went on to realize the nature of the process itself:
that it is of God—that it is God who makes us realize our wrong. He knew that
inner illumination is from God. He experienced and wrote, for all posterity, that
as a result of realizing and being sorry for our wrongs we experience God's
forgiveness.
Then Augustine continued to realize many shining
truths about the nature of reality, about God, and about our relationship with
God.
It all began with seeing his errors in the inner
light and regretting what he saw about himself. Then he began to change: a
process of seeing error, being sorry for it, and letting it go. After being
repented of the error, he then was given insights about why the error was error
and about the right way to live. This is what the middle portions of his Confessions is all about.
But he also realized something even more profound.
He realized that he was known, and that it is God who was showing him his
errors in order that he could repent of them.
Let me know Thee, O Lord, who knowest
me: let me know Thee, as I am known.
He became acquainted with a God who helped him, forgave
him and showed him the right way to live. As he was known, and as he realized he was known, he loved God more. As
Christ said: "he who is forgiven much, loves much."
Here,
for example, Augustine describes the inner nature of his repentance—the silent
cry of the soul—inwardly to God. Confession and repentance is an inner process,
not an outer thing.
And from Thee, O Lord, unto whose
eyes the abyss of man's conscience is naked, what could be hidden in me though
I would not confess it? For I should hide Thee from me, not me from Thee. But
now, for that my groaning is witness, that I am displeased with myself, Thou
shinest out, and art pleasing, and beloved, and longed for; that I may be
ashamed of myself, and renounce myself, and choose Thee, and neither please
Thee nor myself, but in Thee. To Thee therefore, O Lord, am I open, whatever I
am; and with what fruit I confess unto Thee, I have said. Nor do I it with
words and sounds of the flesh, but with the words of my soul, and the cry of
the thought which Thy ear knoweth. . . My confession then, O my God, in Thy sight, is
made silently, and not silently. For in sound, it is silent; in affection, it
cries aloud. For neither do I utter any thing right unto men, which Thou hast
not before heard from me; nor dost Thou hear any such thing from me, which Thou
hast not first said unto me.
Confession is between a soul and its Maker. Not
a confession to men, who themselves are "curious and slothful," but
an inner confession of the soul to its Maker:
What then have I to do with men,
that they should hear my confessions- as if they could heal all my infirmities-
a race, curious to know the lives of others, slothful to amend their own? Why
seek they to hear from me what I am; who will not hear from Thee what
themselves are? And how know they, when from myself they hear of myself,
whether I say true; seeing no man knows what is in man, but the spirit of man
which is in him? But if they hear from Thee of themselves, they cannot say,
"The Lord lieth." For what is it to hear from Thee of themselves, but
to know themselves? and who knoweth and saith, "It is false," unless
himself lieth? But because charity believeth all things (that is, among those
whom knitting unto itself it maketh one), I also, O Lord, will in such wise
confess unto Thee, that men may hear, to whom I cannot demonstrate whether I
confess truly; yet they believe me, whose ears charity openeth unto me.
Augustine fully understands that when he is made aware within of past
errors, it is in the inner light that they come to view. He fully understands
that being made to see his past wrongs is a process of healing: of seeing,
acknowledging, regretting, and then being forgiven. Joy returns when the soul
knows it is forgiven.
Once we understand this process,
which is in the hands of God, we no longer avoid and resent it, but let go and
let God:
But do
Thou, my inmost Physician, make plain unto me what fruit I may reap by doing
it. For the confessions of my past sins, which Thou hast forgiven and covered,
that Thou mightest bless me in Thee, changing my soul by Faith and Thy
Sacrament, when read and heard, stir up the heart, that it sleep not in despair
and say "I cannot," but awake in the love of Thy mercy and the
sweetness of Thy grace, whereby whoso is weak, is strong, when by it he became
conscious of his own weakness. And the good delight to hear of the past evils
of such as are now freed from them, not because they are evils, but because
they have been and are not.
Confessions,
Book 10
Here
Augustine has told us about how he found answers not in books or other people,
but within.
I must
again say, as I have said so many times over the years, the same light that is
in Augustine is in you. Augustine was willing to admit he is wrong. Most people
never know the sweet joy and relief of this process because they resent being
made aware of their wrongs.
They resent
their conscience and doubt what it wordlessly tells them. They run to friends,
work, music, even false religion and spirituality to tell them they are okay
the way they are.
But some of
us yearn for the truth with all our heart; we yearn to live truly and not
falsely; and at some point, when our search is sincere, perhaps through
suffering, we are ready. I cannot tell you why some people search for truth and
others do not; nor can I tell you when a person is ready for repentance. But
for those blessed few, when we are finally ready the process begins.
It is not
something we can make happen. It is begun by God. "None can come to me
unless my Father draws them." All we can do is yearn with all our heart,
petitioning for another chance that may never come.
Here
is where we encounter some of Augustine’s most beautiful passages about the
inner light, how it is a lamp unto our feet and the source of private counsel
and guidance, and moreover, whence comes this light and what it means to the
soul.
And being
thence admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inward self, Thou
being my Guide: and able I was, for Thou wert become my Helper. And I entered
and beheld with the eye of my soul (such as it was), above the same eye of my
soul, above my mind, the Light Unchangeable. Not this ordinary light, which all
flesh may look upon, nor as it were a greater of the same kind, as though the
brightness of this should be manifold brighter, and with its greatness take up
all space. Not such was this light, but other, yea, far other from these. Nor was
it above my soul, as oil is above water, nor yet as heaven above earth: but
above to my soul, because It made me; and I below It, because I was made by It.
He that knows the Truth, knows what that Light is; and he that knows It, knows
eternity.
Augustine realized a very simple but profound
truth: what we wordlessly know in our hearts is from God, whether it is in the
form of inspiration or conscience.
Einstein realized principles that revolutionized
science and industry. Augustine realized principles of right living that
transformed his life.
It is one thing to learn some principle—like
forgiveness, not resenting others, or being patient with others. It is another
thing to profoundly realize these principles in one's being, along with the sobering
realization that we are wrong—that we have not been forgiving or patient.
Remember how I said that Einstein and Augustine
loved truth? Einstein loved it so much that he searched for years for an answer
to something he was puzzling over. And when the answer finally came, he
recognized it. Augustine loved truth so much that he also searched for years
for questions about God and right living that he had.
And here is the important part: Augustine loved truth so much that when in the light of truth he saw that he was wrong, he was willing to let his pride be dashed and humbled, because he made what is true more important than his own ego.
Not with doubting, but with assured consciousness, do I love Thee, Lord. Thou hast stricken my heart with Thy word, and I loved Thee.
He believed and did not doubt what he privately
realized about himself in the light of conscience.
But God in His mercy not only reveals what we are
doing wrong, in the form of conscience, but when we acknowledge and don't
resent it, He also reveals that it is His Light that is making us aware. There
is an exquisite comfort to the soul to know that it is in the light of God's
goodness and love that it sees its own nothingness and error.
After the brief pain, the soul experiences a
sad/glad. The soul is sad to see its wrongs, but glad to come clean. Then the
soul somehow knows in its heart another profound realization—that it is
forgiven.
The pain is gone, and in joy the repented person
is now free to move on with life. The light also provides private counsel about
the why of the error. After acknowledging error, the person also is given understanding
about what is wrong with what he has been doing. We can't fully have a change
of heart about what we have been doing until we see the precise nature of our
error.
Such a person is now free to live a productive
life, with the baggage of the past left behind. He or she still has the sin
nature, and usually some remnants of the life of sin still waiting to come off
the assembly line (such as the physical results of anger, wrong eating, and a
stress filled life). These are dealt with, now with the presence of the Light,
one by one as the weeks and months pass.
Typically, the inner change for the better is
mysterious and happens without any effort on our part. One day, the person
wakes up and goes out into the world, and a situation occurs where before he or
she would have erred (sinned compulsively), and now the result is entirely
different. Instead of failure, there is triumph. A change has happened, not of
himself or herself but through the mysterious workings of God.
I am bearing witness to this miraculous process of
repentance, redemption, reform, and renewal which you will be blessed to see
unfold in your life should the prick of conscience awaken you and you do not
resent its admonishments.
It takes love, a love of truth and a love for
others to bear the short but painful truth about one's own wrong and
nothingness, in the light of That which is greater than us.
Love
knoweth it. O Truth Who art Eternity! and Love Who art Truth! and Eternity Who
art Love! Thou art my God, to Thee do I sigh night and day. Thee when I first
knew, Thou liftedst me up, that I might see there was what I might see, and
that I was not yet such as to see. And Thou didst beat back the weakness of my
sight, streaming forth Thy beams of light upon me most strongly, and I trembled
with love and awe: and I perceived myself to be far off from Thee, in the
region of unlikeness, as if I heard this Thy voice from on high
Here is one of Augustine's most eloquent and oft
quoted passages of sheer poetry expressing his love:
Belatedly
I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see,
thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there. Unlovely, I
rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made. Thou wast with me,
but I was not with thee. These things kept me far from thee; even though they
were not at all unless they were in thee. Thou didst call and cry aloud, and
didst force open my deafness. Thou didst
gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odors and I drew in my breath; and
now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for thy peace.
Augustine realized that his conscience was what he
felt in God's inner Light of Truth. He also realized that this inner light is
the source for every person, who is open to receive it, even the prophets of
old.
Augustine also realized that it was this same process,
that of being informed by the inner light, that also informed the ancient
writers of the scripture.
“Was the
prophet present when God made the heavens and the earth? No; but the
wisdom of God, by whom all things were made, was there, and wisdom insinuates
itself into holy souls, and makes them the friends of God and His prophets, and
noiselessly informs them of His works.”
This parallels what we read in Peter's Epistle:
For
prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human,
spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:21)
-3-
The
people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use
their intuition instead, and the intuition is far more developed than in the
rest of the world… Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than
intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work.
Steve
Jobs, in Walter Isaacson’s biography of him
Let’s take a look at what Augustine had to say
about this intuition that served him and Dr. Einstein so well.
Both had searching natures. Both wanted to know
why and how. Both men honored,
cherished, and remained in touch with their intuition—the source of their
knowing. So much so that Einstein was to
say: "Indeed, it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity.
Intuition tells man his purpose in this life."
Augustine would agree and more so. In The Teacher, he explains how we
recognize the truth when we hear it.
Augustine asserts, and I
agree with him, that it is the inner testimony about something that is the important
thing.
In his work On the Teacher he explains how we recognize the truth when we hear
it. It is because of the inner testimony of the inner light. This inner light
is the source of Einstein’s realizations and the source of Augustine’s faith. In fact, it is the hunch, gut check, or
wordless warning that we all get from time to time. But it is always there for
us if we are not caught up in imagination, worry, planning and excessive
emotion.
Augustine tells
us: The student does not learn by means of the words of teachers, but by
consultation with the inner light. Augustine is right, and this is confirmed by
our own experience. Don't you quietly run things by the inner censure? Don't
you sometimes have a reservation about something someone says because having
checked with your intuition, you just don't buy what he is saying?
When faced
with some situation, don't you sometimes do a gut check before you take a bold
step? Could it be that people like
Einstein and Augustine rely less on what others say and more on their own intuition?
Could it be that geniuses are just closer to their intuition than most of us
are?
Augustine asks a rhetorical question: "what
parent would send the student to a school just to hear what the teacher thinks?"
No one, says Augustine, would be that foolish. Instead, we send the student to
class to think for himself, or at least to learn how to think for himself.
For, says Augustine, the student, considering
within himself whether something is true, draws his own conclusions in light of
his intuition. What he hears said either has the ring of truth to it or it does
not. If it does not, s/he keeps a wait and see attitude.
This learning in the highest sense—where we check
with our common sense, intuition, or gut. It's the kind of learning that leads
to true creativity and a real grasp of the subject, not just mindless
memorization. But how many of us instead become mesmerized by authority and
ignore the inner censure? How many kids are taught to comply and never question
what they are being spoon fed? How many kids who act bored in class, like
Einstein did or who are skeptical and ask questions are called trouble makers,
diagnosed and put on drugs?
We have all
had this experience: something someone says just does not sit right with us.
It’s a hunch or gut level intuition. By heeding this hunch we didn't sign on
the dotted line or get involved with that person, and we were safe.
Other
times, we just know in our heart that something is true, even though we don’t
know how we know. A little child of 3
years old, for example, knows injustice when she sees it without having to be
taught about ethics. When she sees one child being treated nice and another
cruelly, she sees the injustice. It's that simple.
Einstein’s
flashes of insight are in my opinion, and I know that Augustine would agree
with me, simply extraordinary instances of this basic intuition, seeing in the
inner light, that we all have access to. People like Steven Jobs and Albert
Einstein simply follow theirs more than most others do.
Nevertheless we all have encounters with intuition:
when your conscience bothers you, when you realize what your parents tried to
tell you long ago was right after all, or when you wake up the morning after
the night before and say "Oh my God"—you have encountered intuition,
a wordless way of knowing.
Often it's a wordless warning: something
silently says to us "don't go down that alley." By trusting your gut,
you are saved from something lurking in that alley.
Other
times it's a hunch about some way to proceed even though everyone tries to make
you doubt it. Great inventors, explorers, and entrepreneurs have always
followed their intuition. They believed in themselves when no one else did.
Listen to
the words of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computers: Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only
connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow
connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny,
life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all
the difference in my life.
This
inner light, the source of Einstein’s realizations and the source of
Augustine’s faith, is there for us all, if only we would heed it. Though it is
as basic as common sense, it is actually a spiritual faculty.
“Men cannot teach one another. God is the only
teacher of men.” Animals have
instinct; humans have intuition, and it is a gift from God.
A parrot can be trained to say "one plus one
equals two," but the child can also see that one plus one equals two.
Somewhere Augustine
says that God even grants reason to rogues and bad people. Without the ability to
see with the mind's eye, we could not see that one plus one equals two or "get"
a joke. Nor could we see our own errors and repent of them, In short, without
access to the inner light we would not be human.
A facet of
intuition is common sense. When we obey and follow our common sense (instead of
emotion), we lead better lives. We then develop wisdom, garnered through a
steady application of right living, based on a love of truth.
Now there
are higher forms of this basic intuition, seeing in the inner light, such as
protection from danger. Have you ever been about move forward at a red light,
when something within wordlessly restrained you for just a moment? A red light
runner sped past and you were safe because you heeded that inner prompting. An
inner voiceless voice silently said "don’t go." Obeying that gut
level hunch, you were safe.
There are
higher powers and beautiful insights, even revelations, that are reserved for
the few who love and respect truth. God will not share His deeper secrets with
those who ignore basic common sense.
And so I
have to say that we are not all alike. Some love truth and some do not. Some
use their reason only to acquire knowledge to impress others. Others, like the
vast majority of humankind (unless they have a change of heart) routinely
override their conscience many times a day, sometimes knowingly and other times
unconsciously (I describe the phenomenon of hypnosis and how it affects our
relationship with truth later in this book).
God shared
some of His secrets with Einstein, possibly because Einstein thumbed his nose
at authority (even as David thumbed his nose at Goliath), possibly because Einstein
maintained a childlike sense of awe and wonder because he loved God’s creation,
possibly because Einstein was humble when it came to truth, or perhaps simply
because it was God’s will.
He picked
Einstein for his own reasons. There was a blessing on Einstein, even as there
was on Augustine. Even as there may be on you if you respond to this message with
joy.
Let us return again to Augustine, for whom
intuition gave him a strong sense of his own wrong. Instead of resenting what
intuition (conscience) was wordlessly showing him, he acknowledged it and was
humbled.
Regretting what he saw, he was sorry, and his
sorrow refined into a sad/glad; he was sad about what he saw, but was glad to
come clean. It became joy when he realized he was forgiven.
It is hard
to overemphasize the importance of Augustine’s realization that what he was
being shown was from God, a God who loved him and was showing him his errors
for the sole purpose of helping him be free of the errors and then live happily.
It is also
important to note that Augustine did not figure it out. His realization that
God was the source of his conscience was also a realization from God. Perhaps
what Jesus said is applicable here: "None can come to me unless my Father draws
them."
In the
following passage, Augustine tells us that before he began to get better, he
did not even know that he needed to be shown the truth: he was in darkness and
confusion (as we all are before with grace we begin to see the truth).
Something had to be added, and what was added was the inner light in which the
soul was now ready to see.
“ if the reasonable soul itself be corrupted; as
it was then in me, who knew not that it must be enlightened by another light,
that it may be partaker of truth, seeing itself is not that nature of truth.
For Thou shalt light my candle, O Lord my God, Thou shalt enlighten my
darkness: and of Thy fulness have we all received, for Thou art the true light
that lighteth every man that cometh into the world; for in Thee there is no
variableness, neither shadow of change." Confessions, Book 4
Where hast Thou not walked with me, O Truth, teaching
me what to beware, and what to desire. . . . for Thou art the abiding light, which I
consulted concerning all these, whether they were, what they were, and how to
be valued
When Augustine knew, he knew that it was God
Who made him know what he knew. This inner light, which
Augustine
came to understand was from God reformed him by showing him his errors, then it
also became a subtle guide in life, even showing him what was good for him to
desire.
Augustine accurately points out that God rarely speaks
to us with words or with visions. He sends his light which shines in our mind
and makes things clear.
For God
speaks with a man not by means of some audible creature dinning in his ears, so
that atmospheric vibrations connect Him that makes with him that hears the
sound, nor even by means of a spiritual being with the semblance of a body,
such as we see in dreams or similar states; for even in this case He speaks as
if to the ears of the body, because it is by means of the semblance of a body
He speaks, and with the appearance of a real interval of space,—for visions are
exact representations of bodily objects. Not by these, then, does God
speak, but by the truth itself, if any one is prepared to hear with the mind
rather than with the body. For He speaks to that part of man which is
better than all else that is in him, and than which God Himself alone is
better.
The mind or intellect which is open to the truth
is presented by God with truthful ideas. This is what Augustine called Divine
illumination of the intellect.
Einstein’s
intuition brought him flashes of insight into science. Augustine’s rapport with
intuition brought him something that for you and me is even more important.
His
intuition led him to repentance through being sorry about what he was shown
about himself. Most people resent
criticism, and their biggest mistake is resenting conscience when conscience
makes them aware of their own wrong.
Conscience,
you see, is just another word for intuition. Intuition does not feel like conscience
as long as we walk with it. It is only when we stray from what we know is right
in our heart that intuition becomes hindsight. Intuition thus makes us feel bad
when we see our error (like for having resented someone or for having been impatient
with our kids). In other words, intuition is present sight and foresight; but
when we stray from it, it becomes 20/20 hindsight.
If one day
your soul softened and you become more like Augustine, you too would welcome
the gentle admonition of intuition. You would not resent it, and after a brief
pain, it would refine into sorrow, then a sad/glad. Then would come joy as you
move forward and leave the error of the past behind.
If you were like Augustine, your intuition
would lead you to self knowing and a change for the better. Then you could
become like Einstein and discover shining truths.
For
Augustine, his inner rapport with intuition led to profound changes in his life--for
which he was grateful.
Here now are Augustine’s words whereby he says
what I have just said.
But do Thou, my inmost Physician, make plain unto me what
fruit I may reap by doing it. For the confessions of my past sins, which Thou
hast forgiven and covered, that Thou mightest bless me in Thee, changing my
soul by Faith and Thy Sacrament, when read and heard, stir up the heart, that
it sleep not in despair and say "I cannot," but awake in the love of
Thy mercy and the sweetness of Thy grace, whereby whoso is weak, is strong,
when by it he became conscious of his own weakness. And the good delight to
hear of the past evils of such as are now freed from them, not because they are
evils, but because they have been and are not.
The Confessions of Augustine,
Book 10
Forgiven for his wrongs, Augustine was
now free of the past. Now began a lifetime of a walk with God, with daily
intuitive insights and discoveries about the God he loved and the moral and
rational order God has created.
In Augustine’s case, God not only
revealed relevant, timely and profound information to Augustine, but He also revealed
the process by which he was being informed.
"Men
cannot teach one another. God is the only teacher of men."
And such
teaching comes mainly through the inner working of intuition, conscience, and
private revelation, which we call insight and inspiration.
Here, for example, Augustine says that when he
reads something, even Scripture, it is not the words on the page or the book by
which he knows that what he is reading is true or not. It is the inner
testimony that bears witness.
I would hear and understand, how "In the Beginning Thou madest the
heaven and earth." Moses wrote this. . . . But whence should I know, whether he spake
truth? Truly within me, within, in the
chamber of my thoughts, Truth, neither Hebrew, nor Greek, nor Latin, nor
barbarian, without organs of voice or tongue, or sound of syllables, would say,
"It is truth," and I forthwith should say confidently to that man of
Thine, "thou sayest truly."
I have been saying the same thing for almost a
quarter of a century now in all my books on the radio--that it is the inner
wordless testimony that is the important thing.
The words
of a speaker or the words on a page at best only awaken us to realize in the
inner Light. Scripture is a word from God; the inner light is the Word of God. Thus
this process of being inwardly informed is the most intimate and important one
in our life.
If we are to live rightly, deal with people
properly, avoid the errors that lead others to tragedy and ruin, and if we are
to discover the secret to life and perhaps even how to transcend death, we had
better pay attention to what our intuition is trying to tell us.
In this book I will acquaint you with some of
the mysteries of time—for it is in the realm of time, the limited amount of
which each of us is given—that we must discover what we need to know to grow in
character, to learn how to deal with others with patience, and to find our
purpose in life.
We tend to discount our wordless hunches; we
doubt what we know in our hearts. We have little interest in intuition, though
it holds the secret to peace of mind, development of character, and even our
eternity.
We discount
our intuition, yet each of us can recount instances when a hunch kept us from
harm. And alas, we can all recount instances where we ignored an inner warning,
and then “the morning after then night before” we could kick ourselves for not
listening to it.
If this
process is important, why aren't we taught about it in church and in school?
Instead we are taught chapters and verses, and we are fed facts, figures and
formulas. Intellect is lauded but scant attention is devoted to intuition
itself. Thankfully, though no one taught Augustine about intuition, he realized
its presence and value for himself.
And so did
Einstein, who said: “The intellect
has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness,
call it intuition or what you will, and the solution comes to you and you don't
know how or why.”
Perhaps
what Augustine has to say will ring true as you see with your inner light. Perhaps
his words will confirm what you long suspected.
What
Einstein, Augustine or myself have to say should confirm what you already know
in your heart.
You
recognize the truth because you already know it. The same light that is in me
is in you. All you need do is realized that this is so, and then start welcoming
conscience instead of resenting it. When
Augustine knew, he knew that it was God Who made him know what he knew.
I cannot emphasize enough that Augustine not only
realized personal life transforming truths and then shining truths about God,
but what is most important for the likes of you and me—he understood the
process by which he was intuitively informed and he realized that it was God
who was showing him what he needed to know. Where hast Thou not walked with
me, O Truth, teaching me what to beware, and what to desire? . . . . for Thou art the abiding light, which I
consulted concerning all these, whether they were, what they were, and how to
be valued.
We all have this same inner light that
was in Augustine. But we discount it, ignore it, and even flee from it when it
feels like conscience. We must become like Einstein and Augustine and pay
attention to our hunches and intuition, even when they make us aware that we are
wrong.
Is this not also what the American
philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson in his famous essay "Self Reliance"
was trying to tell us?
A man should learn to detect and watch
that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the
luster of the firmament of bards and sages.
Yet he dismisses without notice his
thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own
rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great
works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this.
They teach us to abide by our
spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole
cry of voices is on the other side.
Else tomorrow a stranger will say with
masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and
we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
Now here is a very important aspect of intuitive
discovery. Both Einstein and Augustine had a burning desire to discover the truth.
They each had questions and concerns that they pondered over sometimes for
years. Einstein saw inconsistencies that he wanted to resolved. Augustine had an
intense desire to know the truth about religion so that he could live rightly.
Einstein said: I
have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. He had a burning
desire to know the truth.
Augustine yearned with all his heart to come clean and to let go of the baggage of the past, but he realized that he did not know how.
I sent up
these sorrowful words: How long, how long, "to-morrow, and tomorrow?"
Why not now? why not is there this hour an end to my uncleanness?
Both yearned to know and both knew that they did
not yet know. They continued to seek for years, not willing to accept half
truths, until their diligence and persistence in wanting to know the truth was
answered with insight.
They knew for sure that they did not know, and
later when they did know, they were just as sure that they did know.
If a person or a scientist is too prideful to
admit that he or she does not know, then intuitive insight will be denied him.
"A good scientist needs to cherish the feeling
of 'not knowing' as long as possible" It is only in this mental silence, free
of unjustifiable hypothesizing, that the truth, which always starts out as a
tiny voice indeed, can be heard." Christopher Grayce
The above
quotes are from an answer from a PhD physicist to a teacher who was wondering
about whether spin creates gravity, as many of her students seem to think. Mr.
Grayce’s eloquent advice to teachers and science students echoes exactly what
Albert Einstein would say.
I am in full agreement with cultivating the
feeling of "not knowing."
Einstein knew what he knew with absolute assurance
when it came to him in a flash of insight only after years of not knowing and
searching for the answer.
Augustine discovered life transforming truths
after years of questioning and seeking for answers. But before the answers come,
there must be a period of sincere searching for answers.
The small child and the good scientist are always
asking "why." The scientist continues to wonder and is not satisfied
until he or she sees the "why" of something.
Professor Einstein pondered the nature of light
for 40 years and then said that he still did not know what light really is.
Would that we all could be a humble as Dr. Einstein!
To the extent that you are, you are likely to
discover the truth you have been searching for.
"I
have no special talents. I am only
passionately curious," said the good Dr. Einstein. On another occasion,
he said the same thing but gave credit where credit is due.
“I am not
a genius, I am just curious. I ask many questions. And when the answer is
simple, then God is answering.
I myself
have had a question that I have wondered about now for 20 years. I still do not
know the answer. I avoid the rush to judgment or a half truth. I am like a true
scientist: I wait until I know--for years if necessary. Then all of a sudden I
do know. It’s that simple.
It is for this reason that intuitive children and
those destined to become geniuses and giants of the age are often at first slow
to learn.
They wonder, tinker, question, and they are
dreamers (like Einstein was). But when they finally see for themselves, they
learn at lightning speed.
The great
discoveries and inventions, such as those of Tesla, Maxwell, Faraday, Jobs,
Wozniak, Hewlett and Packard, and Edison--giving us our computers and mobile
devices, for example—were made by people who kept wondering why. They spent
their time tinkering in the garage or lab, trying to find out the answer.
The lessons
are clear:
If you have
a question and don't know the answer, wonder about it, and one day you may
discover the answer.
Pay attention to your hunches and intuition.
Einstein did.
If you don't know the answer to a question when
asked, freely admit that you do not know.
If you find that you were in error about something--
admit it and then move forward.
True discovery and creativity take lots of time,
so don't fill up your kids’ time with too many activities.
Give them time and space to daydream, doodle,
explore, read and just be kids.
So I leave
you with Ralph Waldo Emerson who seemed to have a good grasp on intuition and
what intuition is:
We lie in
the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and
organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do
nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. . . Every man . . knows that to his involuntary
perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the expression of them, but
he knows that these things are so, like day and night, not to be disputed. . . . For my perception of it is as much a fact as
the sun.
-4-
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living
someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the
results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions
drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow
your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to
become. Everything else is secondary.
Steven
Jobs from his 2005 address to Stanford's graduating class
There is nothing mysterious or far out about our
intuition. Yet it is the best kept secret hidden in plain sight. Every lady who
ever was or will be who enrolls in a self defense class is told to trust her
gut, her intuition.
If you are out walking at night, after an evening
class, for example, and you usually take shortcut through a dark alley to get
to your car—but this night something wordlessly warns you not to go down that
alley—trust your gut. Don't go down that alley! Who knows what might have been
lurking in that alley? This type of knowing is gut level, it's intuitive, and
it is infallible.
Each soul has access to the Inner Light of
Truth, which is from God. We call it intuition, a wordless hunch, or
conscience. It is what we know in our heart. We can tap into this intuition
when we are not lost in thinking and emotion.
Here is an example of intuition in action.
A man was going to get in a car with some friends, but something wordlessly
held him back. He didn’t go. He later heard that the car crashed. He was saved
by a wordless warning from his intuition, which, if we are attuned to it and
heed it, protects us from danger and evil.
After we fail to heed our intuition and do something wrong, it is still there
to make us right again. Here’s a little true story to serve as an example to
illustrate what I mean.
A man was angry at a lady for cutting in
front of him in traffic. He pulled up along side and yelled out the car window
at the lady. Suddenly he saw the face of her little girl, who was sitting in
the car next to her mother. The little girl burst into tears.
When the man saw this he was shocked into
awakening to see the truth about himself. He was awakened to know in his heart
that he was wrong.
He stopped yelling, pulled to the side of
the road, and quietly wept. His conscience (intuition) made him aware
that he and his anger were wrong. This time, instead of denying conscience, he
acknowledged it and yielded to it. His whole life began to change for the
better from that moment forward.
Yet most of us ignore our intuition or doubt
it. Were we to pay attention to it each moment of the day, instead of getting
lost in emotions and in worrying, planning and scheming—we would walk in its
light, and it would not feel like conscience. It would be present sight and
foresight, leading us to right action, safety and to what the Good Lord
intended for us. The problem with most of us is that we don't use it all the
time; and when it comes we tend to doubt it.
Mostly we are lost in the intellect,
reliving the past and planning for the future. When issues arise, we look into
the intellect, but there are no real answers there, at least not the kind of
answers that resolve problems and lead to fulfillment. When we do become aware
of our intuition, it is mostly when it makes us aware that we erred. We then
resent it and escape into imagination or intellect.
We all know that people who become
trailblazers—great inventors, explorers, composers, and entrepreneurs—-followed
a hunch or a calling, and found something new. We know, in other words, that intuition
is foresight and vision. But I have devoted many paragraphs to writing about intuition's
other facet: when it is 20/20 hindsight. This we call conscience.
There is a very important reason why I spend
more time seeking to make you aware of what conscience is. The reason I do this
is because I want to help you.
You will not be able to make full use of
your intuition if you resent conscience and refuse to admit you are wrong in
its gentle inner light.
Most people live lives of quiet desperation,
as Henry David Thoreau said. The reason is because they resent their conscience
and resent being made aware they are wrong. They refuse to admit they are wrong
and be sorry. By rejecting and not yielding to conscience, they are also
unknowingly rejecting intuition. Without realizing it, they are also rejecting
God and His light which could be a lamp unto their feet.
I want you to know what conscience is,
even as Augustine knew what it is. You will still have the freedom to reject it
if you want to, and most people do. But for those of you who love truth, your
insight into the working of conscience, and your realization that the same
Light that is in noble people is also in you may permit you to soften your
heart and not reject the chastening of what you wordlessly realize in your
heart.
When
we fail to heed our intuition, we err. Then intuition becomes 20/20 hindsight. Now
we see our error in the light of what now feels like conscience.
We are then given a second chance to make
things right by being quietly sorry and acknowledging our error. That is when
most of us make our biggest mistake: we resent intuition (which now feels like
conscience) when it shows us that we messed up.
George Santayana warned us that those who do
not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them. And so it is
with you, dear reader. Learn from your intuition the lessons of your own history.
Then you will experience the magic of at-one-ment with your inner ground of
being.
Become friends with conscience and then you
will be open to its subtle guidance to shape a co-creative, joyous future of
adventure. And for those of you who suffer from anxieties, doubts, and fears,
they will melt away and you will experience the peace of God. Not because I say
so, but because that is the way it will be for those who soften their heart and
allow love to enter from within.
Most people
never get to that point because they resent, doubt, or ignore their intuition. But
not Einstein or Augustine. They loved their intuition. And they paid attention
to it too.
Augustine was further blessed to realize that what
he wordlessly knew within was from God. Einstein may have suspected it, or at
least he knew what he was looking for: "I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this
or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His
thoughts; the rest are details."
Inspiration took both of them a long way. Both made a good start and
went further than most people ever do. They brought light and truth to the
world, and from them we can learn much. For this we owe them respect, as well
as humble gratitude.
Any wrong
turns on their part only reveal that they were human with feet of clay. If the
inspiration of intuition only took them so far, it was most likely because they
moved away from a pure faith in what they knew in their heart—perhaps due to
getting caught up in trying too hard to counter error, becoming trapped by
tradition or expectations of them, or because of abandoning the lodestone of
intuition to juggle ideas and try to figure things out merely
intellectually.
Perhaps
it was not for them to know more. God deals with each person according to His
purposes and His subtle and ineffable wisdom.
I am sure
that Augustine, who was, after all, a bishop, felt obligated and pressured to go along with the official party
line of the time, and also compelled to defend it.
When it
comes to religion, everything is a matter of conscience. Conscience, of course,
is what you know is right in your heart.
Conscience is another word for intuition. I use the terms conscience and
intuition interchangeably. Both are the same thing, though we generally refer
to intuition as a wordless hunch, whereas the word conscience is often used to
describe when intuition makes us aware that we erred or failed in the past.
Conscience is the still small voice of intuition, regardless of whether
it reveals a scientific principle or a moral principle.
Conscience is your closest link to God. Whether it is hunch, foresight,
a premonition, a wordless warning, awareness of having erred, or a deep
conviction—all are in the inner light God gives humans. God gives animals
instinct. He gives humans intuition.
Conscience trumps everything else. Trust your gut, what you know deep
down, regardless of what someone says.
As
Mahatma Gandhi said: "In matters of conscience, the law of the majority
has no place."
Conscience also includes admitting when you don't know for sure about
something and waiting until you do know. A person of conscience will not say that
something is true if he or she is not sure about it.
I check
with my intuition in all matters, great and small. If someone wants me to go
along with something, I check with my intuition. If it does not quietly
restrain me, then I may cooperate if I want to. But when I check with my
intuition and I do not wordlessly see whether what is being said is right or
not, then I will remain of no opinion. If need be, I will wait forever until I
see the truth for myself.
If
someone says something and it does not sit right with my intuition, then I
remain in disagreement. If someone asks me to go along with something that I sense
is wrong, I don't go along.
This is
especially important in matters of the inner life. If you reject the Authority
of your God given intuition, disrespecting what He wordlessly makes you know in
your heart, and believe and follow instead some external authority, it cannot
be good.
Listen
to the words of Mahatma Gandhi, and see if they do not echo what you know in
your heart: “The only tyrant I accept in
this world is the 'still small voice' within me. And even though I have to face
the prospect of being a minority of one, I humbly believe I have the courage to
be in such a hopeless minority.”
I trust
my common sense and my intuition. I don't buy something just because Augustine
or anyone else said so. I wait until I see for myself.
Augustine was under the same pressures you are when you join an organization and are required to say things you may have reservations about or are waiting to see for yourself.
That's why you should not join and belong to anything. Albert Einstein
put it best: "I gang my
own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my
immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have
never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude--a feeling
which increases with the years.
Tradition, whether religious dogma or secular
culture, is most often the foe of intuition, freedom, and the kind of inward
inspiration that Enoch, David, Jeremiah or Paul had. It says in the Scripture
"our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of
a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but
the Spirit gives life."
There are
two ways to accept anything—because someone said so or because you see it for yourself.
Even
something that is factually true is dead and blocks realization if you accept
it hypnotically instead of intuitively. If
you accept one plus one equals two simply because teacher said so, you will
never grow. If you see for yourself that one plus one equals two, it is yours,
and it is the first principle upon which you can make future discoveries.
If what I
have just said is true, then you better be careful of how you accept something.
This is especially true when it comes to religion.
The
letter of the law academics and intellectuals, both secular and ecclesiastical,
have the power of the whole worldly system behind them. Few are they who have
the faith to follow without wavering what is revealed to them in their heart.
It says in the Scripture that we will not have to be taught by any man, but we
shall be taught of God:
I will
put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to
them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
And they shall not teach every man his
neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know
me, from the least to the greatest. Hebrews 8:11
Paul warns us when he says: "Be not conformed to the world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind." That's why the truth is
liberating. It is like a breath of fresh air. Jesus was a breath of fresh air.
The Apostle Paul sets a good example for us.
Paul, who had been an intellectual and a rigid letter of the law type, had seen
it as his bounden duty to persecute those who disagreed with what was
politically correct at the time. But he had a profound change of heart, and
after that he set aside tradition to live the life of pure faith.
Paul
spoke straight from the heart. He trusted what was privately revealed to him
and then said it without hesitation. He did not embellish it or subtract from
what he said. Nor did he feel compelled to add hype or emotion. He kept his ego
out of it. He simply said and wrote what was inwardly and wordlessly revealed to
him. He spoke spontaneously and without running it through his intellect first.
Many of
us (until some of us learn our lesson) make the mistake of taking our
realizations and running them through the intellect and that alters them. We
put too much faith in our intellect. Then when we speak or write what we had realized,
it is no longer the pure word, spontaneous and alive.
Don't
many parents make this mistake when they talk to their kids? They see something
that needs to be pointed out and corrected. They know what is right, but
instead of being spontaneous, they plan and then give a speech. They end up
talking at you instead of to you.
So the
lesson for us is clear. We must be like Paul and speak from the heart. Many of
us have a realization, and then we run it through the intellect, argue with it
or try to figure it out. We second guess it, hesitate, and then when we speak
or act, the timing is wrong and there is no love or life in it.
Learn to
be spontaneous. If something is true, it does not need embellishment or
emotion. Keep your ego out of it.
Another
mistake we make is that we alter our words to soften what we say. Many dads,
for example, know what is right and should point it out kindly but firmly. But
they are afraid of not being popular, so dad says it too weakly. He ends up
losing respect and everyone walks all over him.
Other
times we wait before we say or do what we see is right or wise. We wait and say
nothing. By not speaking up, resentment festers. Finally we speak up but it is
with resentment, which taints and ruins it.
There is
magic in speaking from the heart or writing from the heart.
Much of what Augustine wrote, especially The Confessions, was from the heart. He was remarkably honest and forthright. He had a nice grasp of the process of intuitive guidance. As a young man, he loved truth so much that he humbly acknowledged it even when it showed him in a bad light.
Read
lightly what Augustine has to say. Don't study it or get bogged down
intellectually. This advice is good for any other work, even Scripture. Read
lightly and wait for something to spark an insight. Read with awareness and
wait for the inner testimony.
It is the
inner testimony that is important. Words on a page, even if religious words, at
best only serve to awaken. If something written is true and relevant for you at
that time, the inner Light will bear witness to it.
This, in
fact, is precisely what Augustine himself told us to do: I would hear and understand, how "In the Beginning Thou madest
the heaven and earth." Moses wrote this, wrote and departed, passed hence
from Thee to Thee; nor is he now before me. . . . But whence should I know, whether
he spake truth? Yea, and if I knew this also, should I know it from him? Truly
within me, within, in the chamber of my thoughts, Truth, neither Hebrew, nor
Greek, nor Latin, nor barbarian, without organs of voice or tongue, or sound of
syllables, would say, "It is truth."
Albert
Einstein was like a beacon of light in a time of darkness. He had to face both
persecution and grave danger on the one hand, and the expectation that he play
a role on the other. Any young person who has ever excelled at something, such
as a sport for example, has experienced how quickly you are expected to
represent your school, ethnicity, city, or country. It is hard to be yourself,
let alone voice anything politically incorrect.
Einstein dismissed
the ether, never fully realizing that it is nonmaterial, which lent credence to
space as a vacuum. Yet in his heart of hearts he knew there was more to space
that just a vacuum, and he said, quite rightly and intuitively, that space is not "nothing."
Einstein said, "Space-time does not
claim existence on its own but only as a structural quality of the (gravitational)
field." In other words, if you could experimentally turn off gravity,
space-time would vanish. I highly recommend that you read Einstein's essay
"Relativity and the Ether," published in Einstein's Essays in Science (Dover Books).
When I read it, I come away with the
distinct impression that he never did really reject the ether (he merely found
that the concept of the ether was not needed to develop basic postulates and
formulas that apply to gravity and to objects moving at high velocity).
All he basically says is that the ether is
hard to fathom and its science has not yet been developed. Einstein did not
close the door on the ether, as is generally thought and taught. He left the
door open to future research.
The world awaits another young Einstein;
someone who may devote himself to finding the free unlimited green energy
available from the marvelous medium of the ether. If it gives us gravity and
light, it can also give us usable energy.
Pray God a noble scientist or inventor
arises who will discover how to uncover such energy and usher in a peaceful technological
revolution that will transform human society like nothing ever seen.
Listen to Einstein's own words in this brief
quote, the final paragraph of his essay "Relativity and the
Ether."
We may sum it up as follows: According to the
general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this
sense, therefore, an ether exists. In accordance with the general theory of
relativity space without an ether is inconceivable. . . . But this ether must not be
thought of as endowed with the properties characteristic of ponderable media,
as composed of particles the motion of which can be followed: nor may the
concept of motion be applied to it.
Do you see how close Einstein was to
realizing that the field from which we get gravity and time is not matter, but
the mother field that regulates and sustains the universe? It is in the
timeless realm, but from it God brings forth the material universe. God is
still creating at this very moment, and our very existence, even the spin of
electrons (still spinning after all these years) is sustained by this field.
Einstein
was a noble scientist and he had a good heart. That Einstein was able to remain
his unflappable, affable self, hang onto an independent self confidence, and
speak his mind under the pressures that he faced is remarkable.
These
towering lighthouses in a sea of darkness were, it would appear, called by God
for a special purpose. If He gave them
inspiration, they took the baton and ran with it. I salute them, and I thank
God.
We must
humbly acknowledge that these two men left us valuable clues about reality, but
we must not forget that to the extent that each of them was inspired, the
Source of that inspiration was their Creator. To God be the glory. Deo gloria.
Intuition is the subject I am introducing and explaining, and these two
men are excellent examples of the process of being intuitively informed and of
intuition at work in the life of someone who is receptive to it.
I am not
seeking to put these men on a pedestal.
It is
actually better for us that they had feet of clay, so that we are not tempted
to worship the created form instead of the Creator. Even the Scripture does not
airbrush its heroes.
Moses
disobeyed God and was not allowed to enter the Promised Land; Abraham wavered
in faith, Solomon late in his life inexplicably listened to his idol
worshipping wives instead of God, and even David, a man after God's own heart,
made mistakes. Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and
the list goes on and on of noble people who not perfect, but who accomplished
something very valuable.
It is each person's relationship with his or
her Maker and with those near and dear that spells the legacy and the destiny
of that person, not the flaws or good points of some stranger, no matter how
notable. As Marie Curie said: “Be
less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”
Nor must we use their or any other leader's
shortcomings or failings as an excuse for our own.
A man, for example, cannot fail when it
comes to his wife and family. If he fails, the whole family suffers.
When within the confines of marriage, he
becomes aware of his failings, he must cry out to his Creator for answers, and
he must learn to fail less and eventually not at all.
Christ cuts through the excuses with this sobering
command: Therefore, you are to be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.
(Matthew 5:48)
Bear in mind that the human soul never stops
growing. We either grow toward perfection in good or we grow toward perfection
in evil. The moment you die you are the sum total of what you have become.
With
your own family, you must set an example of patience, kindness, longsuffering,
and virtue. A husband and dad must have no vices. Gentlemen, you must be the
Moses or the George Washington of your family.
When
Christ said: "Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly Father is
perfect," this is a hard teaching. But the truth is that Jesus does not
love us as we are, He loves us from what we are. If He loved us for what we
are, then He would be a temptation, enabling and comforting us in our
wrong.
That is
why I will dwell no longer on our two examples, notable though they be. There
is much to learn and time is short. Thank you, Drs. Einstein and Augustine--now
it is time to move forward. This book offers valuable clues about how God
communicates with people, what He cares about, and about the secret, hidden in
plain sight, to resolving life's toughest issues.
Principles
of right living are more relevant and useful to us than any shining
philosophical or scientific fact. What good does it do you to know theology or
science, if you are a failure with your own family?
The
process of inward realization can take a person all the way to salvation and
the secret to eternal life. But I have to say that in order to go all the way,
you have to persist all the way.
It takes
a burning desire to know the truth, searching with all one's heart, and then a
willingness to forego the love of the world.
No man
can ride two horses or serve two masters. "Narrow is the way and few those
who find it." Remember the parable of the sower the seeds.
To the extent that you apply common sense,
the most basic form of intuition, to your life; and to the extent that you live
a life within a proper moral framework, you are closer to truth.
You are
also better off trusting your wordless hunches and heeding its voiceless voice
than ignoring it and following the crowd. By living wisely you may live longer and thus have more time to develop
character and discover what you need to know to make the transition from death
to life.
But you
must also be willing to experience sorrow over errors seen in the inner light;
and you must be willing to go all the way in your commitment to truth.
You must
be willing to take a stand--to forgo the love of the world, the approval and
comfort it gives you for "going along to get along"--and perhaps even
bear the persecution of members of your own family if need be.
You must
stand for what is right, with kindness but firmness, even if it costs you a job
or friendship. You must be willing to go it alone if necessary, making what you
know is right in your heart more important than perks or reassurances. God does
not save cowards.
We are
told in the Scripture that we will inwardly know the truth and will not have to
be taught by others: Behold, the days
come, said the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah . . . I will put my laws into their mind, and
write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to
me a people:
And they
shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know
the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. Hebrews 8:11
Though we have this promise, we must be persistent in our search for
truth and not overcome by the temptations of the world or drawn away by its
distractions. Jesus said: "But he that shall endure to the end, the same
shall be saved." And again He said: "Narrow is the way and few who
find it."
When Jesus warned the people
about "making
void the word of God by your tradition," He was referring, I think, to the
suffocating effect of laws and ideas applied without understanding. The
Scripture tells us that "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth
life."
When we force ideas on
our children, without giving them the space to see for themselves whether
something is true, all we are doing is creating conformists and rebels. The
rebels develop learning blocks and can't learn, because they are trying to keep
out the hideous spirit of the pressure mongers; and the conformists become the
next generation of Pharisees that Christ warned us about.
You must not be
influenced by the sway of persuasion, the power of the peer group, the
admiration of strangers, or the number of degrees and titles someone might
have. In his day, Galileo had to bear persecution for daring to suggest that
the earth revolves around the sun. It contradicted their scientific tradition.
Today Galileo would
face ridicule and opposition for daring to question the sacred cows of
evolution, the big bang, or global warming.
In an article entitled
"What's Wrong with Science," Dr. Thomas Gold, astronomer, says:
I am sure it has great value in
sociological behavior in one way or another, but I think on the whole the
"herd instinct" has been a disaster in science.
In science what we generally want is diversity - many different
avenues need to be pursued. When people pursue the same avenue all together,
they tend to shut out the other avenues, and they are not always on the right
ones.
I still think that Ralph Waldo Emerson phrased
the importance of following and cleaving to what you know in your heart of
hearts in a way that rings true whenever I read it: To
believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private
heart is true for all men, -- that is genius.
The American tradition has always made room for the maverick—it's part
of our greatness--whether it's a Will Rogers, Annie Oakley, Buckminster Fuller,
Kathryn Hepburn, Amelia Earhart, Mohammed Ali, or a physicist named Einstein.
No one said it better than the Emmy award wining Apple Think Different advertising campaign:
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The
troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things
differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status
quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. But the
only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push
the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see
genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the
world, are the ones who do.