Tag Archives: love

Energy, Fire, Love

Featured

Posted on by

these are -I think – different expressions of the same thing. What’s more this is the basis of all that is, since Einstein found that matter itself is condensed energy. (Energy = Matter times the speed of light squared),

So, energy and fire and matter are the same. Why Love though….?

“In the beginning was Power, intelligent, loving, energising. In the beginning was the Word, supremely capable of mastering and moulding whatever might come into being in the world of matter. In the beginning there were not coldness and darkness: there was Fire.”

The Mass on the World, 1923 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.”

Little Gidding, 1942 TS Eliot

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”

Albert Einstein


“Love is the real power. It’s the energy that cherishes. The more you work with that energy, the more you will see how people respond naturally to it, and the more you will want to use it. It brings out your creativity, and helps everyone around you flower.”

Marion Woodman

“But what is passion, what are emotions? There is the source of fire, there is the fullness of energy. A man who is not on fire is nothing: he is ridiculous, he is two-dimensional. He must be on fire even if he does make a fool of himself. A flame must burn somewhere, otherwise no light shines; there is no warmth, nothing.”

Psychology of Kundalini Yoga Carl Jung

Dusein (we are brother and sister, you and I)

Posted on by

Heidegger’s existentialism centres on “Dasein,” or being, which he describes as something we are “thrown” into. I find Martin Buber’s view more compelling: in Ich und Du—I and Thou—meaning arises through relationship. Buber contrasts the distance of addressing others as “Sie” with the deeper relatedness of encountering them as “Du,” or “Thou.” For me, the essence of existence lies not in Dasein, but in what we might call Dusein : being with Thou.

Our brother whose heart be heaven

(Our sister, our father, mother)

Hallowed be thy pain

Our kingdoms come

When will is one

On earth as it is in heaven

…

lead us out of that isolation

Which delivers each to evil

Fear and Avoidance

Posted on by
Reply
Lost in a wood

“Nel mezz del camin di nostra vita mi ritrovai in un selva oscura, que la diritta via era oscura” Dante

(In the middle of life I found myself in a dark wood with no obvious way out)

We believe in our thoughts, and in where they lead. The basis of reality? Yet, in fact, neuroscience shows that thinking arises from our feelings. These colour all of what we consider to be “rational”. There is a range of emotions, but at least for me the most influential is fear.

Terror leads to avoidance. We turn away from the unknown. What is obscure remains so because of our apprehensions. Consequently, unlike joy, disgust, or sadness, fear must be integrated so that we can open our eyes to a whole reality. I have found that one way to do this is to dive right in: by imagining the dreaded outcome—by plumbing the depths. At least in my experience, the fear then evaporates and new worlds open.

The first half of my life was spent with an avoided existential angst: literally a fear of non-existence. But the grief of losing my mother forced me to look into what I thought of as an abyss. I found that death is both the antithesis and the defining framework of life, just as the reverse is true. The fear of death is a surface that reflects our ego; it is no more than a narcissistic mirror at the boundary of the ocean of existence. Its reflective nature of avoidance forms a barrier to real truths. Avoidance comes from a terror which belongs to our ego. But ego itself is an illusion. Our true selves arise with and are part of eternal relationship: between each other, nature and the divine.

When probed honestly, our fear reveals itself to be a chimera—a mere confection of the ego. It is by swimming naked in the infinite sea of potential meaninglessness that the true love which underlies existence is felt, holding us eternally. At least that’s my experience, when I summon the courage and step outside my thoughts. There is glory, joy and relief in knowing, in those moments, that we belong to “All that is”: the Word existing beyond time.

The other side of fear?

Posted on by
Reply
Beyond fear

We believe in our thoughts, and in where they lead. The basis of reality? Yet, in fact, neuroscience shows that thinking arises from our feelings. These colour all of what we consider to be “rational”. There is a range of emotions, but at least for me the most influential is fear.

Terror leads to avoidance. We turn away from the unknown. What is obscure remains so because of our apprehensions. Consequently, unlike joy, disgust, or sadness, fear must be integrated so that we can open our eyes to a whole reality. I have found that one way to do this is to dive right in: by imagining the dreaded outcome—by plumbing the depths. At least in my experience, the fear then evaporates and new worlds open.

The first half of my life was spent with an avoided existential angst: literally a fear of non-existence. But the grief of losing my mother forced me to look into what I thought of as an abyss. I found that death is both the antithesis and the defining framework of life, just as the reverse is true. The fear of death is a surface that reflects our ego; it is no more than a narcissistic mirror at the boundary of the ocean of existence. Its reflective nature of avoidance forms a barrier to real truths. Avoidance comes from a terror which belongs to our ego. But ego itself is an illusion. Our true selves arise with and are part of eternal relationship: between each other, nature and the divine.

When probed honestly, our fear reveals itself to be a chimera—a mere confection of the ego. It is by swimming naked in the infinite sea of potential meaninglessness that the true love which underlies existence is felt, holding us eternally. At least that’s my experience, when I summon the courage and step outside my thoughts. There is glory, joy and relief in knowing, in those moments, that we belong to “All that is”: the Word existing beyond time.

Beyond fear?

Posted on by

We believe in our thoughts, and in where they lead. The basis of reality? Yet, in fact, neuroscience shows that thinking arises from our feelings. These colour all of what we consider to be “rational”. There is a range of emotions, but at least for me the most influential is fear.

Terror leads to avoidance. We turn away from the unknown. What is obscure remains so because of our apprehensions. Consequently, unlike joy, disgust, or sadness, fear must be integrated so that we can open our eyes to a whole reality. I have found that one way to do this is to dive right in: by imagining the dreaded outcome—by plumbing the depths. At least in my experience, the fear then evaporates and new worlds open.

The first half of my life was spent with an avoided existential angst: literally a fear of non-existence. But the grief of losing my mother forced me to look into what I thought of as an abyss. I found that death is both the antithesis and the defining framework of life, just as the reverse is true. The fear of death is a surface that reflects our ego; it is no more than a narcissistic mirror at the boundary of the ocean of existence. Its reflective nature of avoidance forms a barrier to real truths. Avoidance comes from a terror which belongs to our ego. But ego itself is an illusion. Our true selves arise with and are part of eternal relationship: between each other, nature and the divine.

When probed honestly, our fear reveals itself to be a chimera—a mere confection of the ego. It is by swimming naked in the infinite sea of potential meaninglessness that the true love which underlies existence is felt, holding us eternally. At least that’s my experience, when I summon the courage and step outside my thoughts. There is glory, joy and relief in knowing, in those moments, that we belong to “All that is”: the Word existing beyond time.

Love, Pain and Infinity

Posted on by

Love and pain are infinitely bound together. This is something I have realised very recently.

The way to love your children is unconditionally. This is completely true, in fact it is a truism. I have parroted that through my life. What about that word – “unconditionally? It has a sting in its tail. It means – literally boundless, infinite. If love has boundaries, then is it really not some type of deal leading back to your own needs. “I will love you until or unless…” What is that? Something glib, a sticking plaster that enables us to believe that we are connected to the beloved, whilst hiding behind our fear and our own ego. 

I have recently been confronted by searing pain arising from love. A love that I can’t control. I realise now that I have previously dealt with such grief – such as the loss of my mother, father and elder brother – by closing myself off. This was a defensive reaction I learned when I was sent to boarding school as a child. 

But, pain and love are inextricably bound together. They are different sides of a coin. Accepting both is the price of living. 

If there are no limits to love and pain – then they are both literally limitless. Infinite. The price of infinite love is the acceptance of the possibility of infinite pain.  

Why do this at all? Because unconditional love is the bedrock of authentic living. The prize is worth the price. Though the burden is too much for us in our human frailty. As Elliot says

”human kind cannot bear very much reality” Burnt Norton 

Fortunately (I truly believe) we are part of something infinitely loving, which I find in Christ. We do not have to bear the reality of infinite pain in order to express life and love. Love which underpins all existence.  It love that is  

“the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire.” Little Gidding

But then, again at least for me

“All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well” Eliot/St Julian of Norwich

Reality, Relativity and Relationship

Posted on by

What is real? Is there purpose? Are God and Science in opposition?

I want to argue that the answer to these questions lies in the space between – each of us; rather than within matter or within our individual egos. It is within connection rather than the nodes that information and meaning arises. We need to move beyond the sterility of atheism and its opposition to spirituality and seek truth within the links and reflections between traditions of thought. We should also reconsider the insights of thinkers dismissed by logical positivism. Clearly technological innovation has a material facet. It works – though Quantum Mechanics can’t explain how or why. Yet, the internet and self-learning algorithms may in the process of forming a kind of physical nervous system—part of a universe becoming aware of itself. Our imminent, and perhaps immanent, future may reveal that none of us is alone, and that what we see and touch is just one expression of something larger. Perhaps infinitely so. We may – in these particular bodies – be about to discover that we are not separate beings, but have always been part of one another; and of the whole conscious universe.

The Relational Bridge: Relativity, Quantum Physics, Buber and Merleau-Ponty

It is within relationship that we must look for answers—understood simultaneously as relativity, entanglement, embodied phenomenon, and dialogue

Einstein’s Relativity: Space, time, mass, and energy lose their Newtonian status as fixed, absolute background properties. They exist, deform, and take on identity only in relation to observers and other frames of reference.

Buber’s I-Thou: Translates this physical intuition directly into human ontology. An isolated, self-contained object (I-It) is a mechanical abstraction. True existence and genuine encountering occur strictly in the dynamic, unobjectified space between entities.

Bohm’s Implicate Order: Extends quantum entanglement to show that subatomic particles are not separate billiard balls colliding in a void. Instead, what we perceive as separate material objects in the Explicate Order (the classical materialist view) are merely localized, folded ripples in an unbroken, undivided ocean of movement—the Implicate Order.

Merleau-Ponty’s Chaire (The Flesh): Solves the Cartesian divide between body and world through the phenomenology of perception. Merleau-Ponty demonstrates that reality is composed of a continuous, sensible fabric—the Flesh of the World (la chair)—that bridges the visible (physical matter/body) and the invisible (meaning/consciousness). Perception is not a mind analyzing an external object; it is the world perceiving itself through the embodied subject.

Meaning, purpose, and physical properties do not reside inside isolated components; they emerge strictly through interaction.

The 1970s Blindspot & The Dogma of Mechanical Reductionism

I studied evolutionary biology in the 1970s. The years since have demonstrated how little we know; but my goodness we were arrogant. Science had killed the need for God.This was the era of the gene-centered models popularized by Richard Dawkins and E. O. Wilson. They provided mathematical clarity for specific population dynamics, but they suffered from an overarching philosophical mistake: confusing a biological mechanism for the total nature of reality.

The whole basis of thought has evolved (alas Dawkins hasn’t caught up).

  • 1970s Reductionist Model: Genes & Particles > Consciousness (an Accidental Illusion)
  • 2020’s Relational / Panpsychist Model: Intrinsic Experience & Fields link Matter, Life, and Awareness

By reducing human consciousness to an evolutionary illusion generated by “selfish genes,” 1970s sociobiology relied on 19th-century mechanical determinism while ignoring quantum non-locality, panpsychism, systems ecology, and the observer problem.

Teilhard de Chardin, Imanishi, and the AI Substrate

It is a striking irony of modern science that figures dismissed by mainstream atheism paved the way for understanding contemporary technology:

  • Kinji Imanishi’s Sumiwake: Demonstrates that living ecosystems self-organize through habitat segregation and species co-existence rather than pure Darwinian warfare.
  • Teilhard de Chardin’s Evolutionary Vector: Traced the cosmic arc from Geosphere to Biosphere to Noosphere (planetary mind) toward an ultimate point of convergence.
  • Artificial Intelligence as Infrastructure: Machine learning neural networks aggregate, process, and compress collective human thought into an interactive global matrix. AI acts as the physical substrate realizing Teilhard’s Noosphere—a planetary central nervous system.

4. Is Reality Evolving or Is Awareness Emerging?

The distinction between physical evolution and emerging awareness dissolves when viewed through a panpsychist or relational lens:

  1. In classical materialism: Physical matter randomly evolves, and subjective awareness accidentally pops up at the very end. There is possibly no purpose to existence.
  2. In a panpsychist / relational framework: Consciousness is a fundamental property of matter. Physical evolution is simply awareness structuring itself into higher levels of complexity to reflect upon its own nature. There is most probably purpose to existence.

From subatomic wave-particle duality to ecological interdependence, and from Martin Buber’s human encounters to the global AI network, existence is not a collection of isolated particles fighting for survival. It is an undivided reality waking up to itself. Something that most likely has a purpose and direction.

I am with de Chardin. I speaking personally. I believe that the force that propels evolution is Love. A personal love that sustains us and all-that-is. My enquiry has brought me back to Christianity.

Reading List 

1. Classical Evolution, Heredity & Sociobiology

  • Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species (1859) – The foundational text of modern evolutionary biology and natural selection The Descent of Man (1871) – Extends evolutionary theory and sexual selection directly to human origins and morality.
  • Alfred Russel Wallace Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection (1889) – Wallace’s comprehensive overview of natural selection, detailing where his views aligned with and diverged from Darwin’s.
  • Gregor Mendel Experiments in Plant Hybridization (1866) – The foundational paper establishing the discrete physical laws of genetic inheritance.
  • Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene (1976) – Popularized the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the concept of the meme. The Blind Watchmaker (1986) – A defense of cumulative natural selection against teleological arguments for design. The God Delusion (2006) – The flagship text of “New Atheism,” arguing against supernatural belief from a strictly mechanical evolutionary perspective.
  • E. O. (Edward O.) Wilson Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) – Synthesized animal behavior and genetics to found sociobiology. On Human Nature (1978) – Applied sociobiological principles to human culture, ethics, and religious behavior.
  • Robert Trivers Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert Trivers (2002) – Collects his groundbreaking 1970s papers on reciprocal altruism, parental investment, and parent-offspring conflict.
  • Stephen Jay Gould The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002) – Gould’s masterwork critiquing hyper-adaptationism and presenting punctuated equilibrium. Rocks of Ages (1999) – Introduces NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria) regarding science and religion.
  • Richard Lewontin The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment (2000) – A critique of genetic determinism, emphasizing the reciprocal interaction between organisms and their environments.

2. Relational Physics & Quantum Mechanics

  • Albert Einstein Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (1916) – Einstein’s accessible explanation of how space, time, mass, and gravity form a relative continuum.
  • Louis de Broglie Researches on the Quantum Theory (1924 Doctoral Thesis) – The original formulation of wave-particle duality for matter.
  • Niels Bohr Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (1934) – Collects Bohr’s early writings framing the Copenhagen interpretation and quantum complementarity.
  • David Bohm Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980) – Outlines the undivided holomovement, connecting quantum entanglement, non-locality, and consciousness. The Undivided Universe (with Basil Hiley, 1993) – An ontological interpretation of quantum theory.

3. Relational Philosophy & Phenomenology

  • Martin Buber I and Thou (Ich und Du, 1923) – The foundational text on relational ontology, distinguishing I-Thou encounter from I-It objectification.
  • Maurice Merleau-Ponty Phenomenology of Perception (1945) – Demonstrates that consciousness is embodied and rooted in perceptual engagement with the world. The Visible and the Invisible (1964, Published posthumously) – Introduces his ultimate concept of “The Flesh of the World” (la chair).

4. Systems Ecology, Biosphere & Gaia Theory

  • Kinji Imanishi The World of Living Things (Seibutsu no Sekai, 1941) – The foundation of Japanese ecology, introducing habitat segregation (sumiwake) and species co-existence over individual warfare.
  • Vladimir I. Vernadsky The Biosphere (1926) – The landmark scientific work demonstrating that living matter is a primary geochemical force transforming Earth.
  • James Lovelock Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979) – Formulates the hypothesis that Earth acts as a self-regulating super-organism.
  • Lynn Margulis Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution (1998) – Outlines symbiogenesis, arguing that cooperation and cellular fusion (endosymbiosis) drive biological innovation.

5. Mind, Noosphere & Panpsychism

  • Pierre Teilhard de Chardin The Phenomenon of Man (1955) – Traces evolution from the Geosphere through the Biosphere to the Noosphere and the Omega Point. The Future of Man (1964) – Essays exploring global interconnectedness and technological integration.
  • Édouard Le Roy The Origin of Human Life and the Evolution of Mind (1928) – Early philosophical lectures co-formulating the concept of the Noosphere alongside Vernadsky and Teilhard.
  • Philip Goff Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness (2019) – A defense of panpsychism as the solution to the hard problem of consciousness. Why? The Purpose of the Universe (2023) – Argues for teleology and purpose in the cosmos beyond traditional monotheism or materialist reductionism.

6. Quantum Brain Theory, Morphic Fields & Unorthodox Mechanics

  • Roger Penrose The Emperor’s New Mind (1989) – Argues that non-computable physics and quantum mechanics are required to explain human consciousness, ruling out classical AI consciousness. Shadows of the Mind (1994) – Expands on Orch-OR (Orchestrated Objective Reduction) in microtubules alongside Stuart Hameroff.
  • Rupert Sheldrake A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (1981) – Introduces morphic resonance and non-physical structural fields. The Science Delusion / Science Set Free (2012) – A critique of the ten core dogmas of modern scientific materialism.

7. Artificial Intelligence, Digital Infrastructure & Systems Theory

  • Alan Turing “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” (1950, Paper in Mind) – Formulates the Turing Test and the foundations of AI philosophy.
  • Stuart Russell & Peter Norvig Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (4th Edition, 2020) – The definitive textbook covering classical AI, deep learning, and probabilistic reasoning.
  • Nick Bostrom Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014) – Examines the trajectory toward artificial general intelligence and collective planetary cognition.
  • Francis Heylighen “Return to the Noosphere: The Emergence of the Global Brain” (2016, Academic Monograph) – Synthesizes digital networks, AI, and systems theory with Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of planetary consciousness.

Change, Fear and Hope

Posted on by
Reply

All is always in flux. Change is really all that is permanent. We have two attitudes to this. In one, we are backward looking. We want to slow or stop change, to live in the past. This leads to life full of fear. We are nonetheless dragged along with the movement of all that is. I guess there is another approach, which is to bury our head and anaesthetise ourself. Drink, drugs, materialism..

The other approach is to dive in to the flow and look forward with hope, expecting good. This does require us to abandon and live at least partly outside our ego – becoming willingly identified with all others. Effectively to love our neighbour as ourselves.

None of us, certainly not me, find this easy. But it seems to me that this is at least an aspiration..

Self and Reincarnation

Posted on by
Reply

I understand that the “illusion of self” is a central tenet of Buddhism? It seems to me that this (the self) is an appearance of stability and boundary that arises out of continuous flow. This is borrowed directly from David Bohm ( “Wholeness and the Implicate Order”). John Dewey put it like this ;“The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action” .

Why then, and on what basis do Buddhists conceive of re-incarnation. What is being re-incarnated? No soul, no self. What then keeps coming back? This seems to me to be a fundamental inconsistency which arises out of focus on boundary rather than wholeness.

Surely, if self is an illusion – then this is a release from self, itself?! Indeed a release from death. What is not there in the first place cannot presumably cease thereafter?

Teilhard de Chardin would have it that all of matter is evolving toward consciousness. Separately he has it that there will be an “Omega Point” where each realises that we are all-in-all to each other – and that all energy is Love and God.

In that case surely our “self” is an illusion. We are already part of what Martin Buber would call the “eternal Thou”. We only have to realise it. Put another way, for Buber our “I” does not exist except in relation to “Thou” – with a reality of “I-Thou” that opens us to our relationship with the “eternal Thou” (I think I have that right?). In that case our “self” doesn’t exist. Indeed ignoring the “Thou” only gets you to a kind of Freudian thinking – “I-It” materialism –  the self-reflective dead end of narcissism.

So. I am attracted to Buddhism, but don’t buy their take on reincarnation; or at least I don’t understand it. More work to be done!

Martin Buber, love and dialogue

Posted on by
Reply

The great existentialist philosopher – Martin Buber – speaks about dialogue and distinguishes it from love. I have included some quotes at the end of this note from his 1929 essay “Zwiesprache” (Dialogue) below, together with a short note about Buber and Jesus.

I think that love and dialogue are closely intertwined ..

Genuine dialogue is about meeting, arising from mutual awareness. This can happen even as two strangers glance at each other in passing. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant by “Love thy neighbour as thyself”; that is, become as fully aware of and in sympathy with your neighbour as you are with yourself.

Is this not a call to dialogue, which is after all a direct way to become fully aware of our neighbour. A deep awareness which is a form of mindfulness. A mind full of the other and thus a way to expand your horizon.

This sharing of horizons is really a form of love itself. A Love which (I believe) underlies all of creation.

As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin says

“Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God”.

Buber quotes

Three types of dialogue. In his 1929 essay Buber describes dialogue as genuine meeting with full awareness. He developed this later (I and Thou,1937) into a whole philosophy of relation; where all meaning is contained in the relationship between (zwischen) people and the “other”. Here is the first quote:

“There is genuine dialogue – no matter whether spoken or silent – where each of the participants really has in mind the other or others in their present and particular being and turns to them with the intention of establishing a living mutual relation between himself and them. There is technical dialogue, which is prompted solely by the need for objective understanding. And there is monologue disguised as dialogue, in which two or more men, meeting in space, speak each with himself in strangely tortuous and circuitous ways and yet imagine they have escaped the torment of being thrown back on their own resources.”

Dialogue and love. In the second quote he distinguishes between dialogue and love:

“I know no one in any time who has succeeded in loving every man he met. Even Jesus obviously loved of “sinners” only the loose, lovable sinners, sinners against the Law; not those who were settled and loyal to their inheritance and sinned against him and his message. Yet to the latter as to the former he stood in a direct relation. Dialogic is not be identified with love. But love without dialogic, without real outgoing to the other, reaching to the other, and company in with the other, the love remaining with itself – this is called Lucifer”

Buber, Zionism and Jesus. Buber was an intellectual Hasidic Jew. He was a lifelong Zionist, but who strongly disagreed with how the new state was constituted. He thus refused to become the first president of Israel. He “favored a binational state that encompassed and honored both Jewish and Arab ethnicities, and centred on mutual love and respect. He believed that Jesus was the greatest of all Jews and that his message was the flower of judaism. He describes Jesus thus:

“from my youth onwards I have found in Jesus my great brother”

T