by Gregg Braden
Wheeler’s variation of this experiment included one key difference designed to test his ideas of past and present. He changed the experiment so that the photon is only observed after it has already passed through the barrier, yet before it gets to its destination. In other words, it’s already on its way to the target when the decision is made as to how it will be viewed.
He designed two very different ways to know that the photon has reached its target: One uses a lens to “see” it visually as a particle, while the other uses a screen that senses it as a wave. This is important, since the previous experiments showed that the photons acted the way they were expected to depending upon how they were observed—that is, they were particles when measured as particles and waves when measured as waves.
So in this experiment, if the observer chose to see the photon as a particle, the lens would be in place and the photon would travel through one slit only. If the observer chose to view it as a wave, the screen would remain in place and the photon would pass through both slits as a wave. Here’s the clincher: The decision was made after the experiment was under way (the present), yet it determined how the particle behaved when the experiment began (the past). Wheeler named this test the delayed-choice experiment.
Based on this kind of investigation, it seems as though time as we know it in our world (the level of the physical) has no effect on the quantum realm (the level of energy). If a later choice determines how something happens in the past, Wheeler proposes that he then “may choose to know a property after the event should have already taken place.”10 The implications of what he’s saying open the door to a powerful possibility for our relationship with time. Wheeler is suggesting that the choices we make today may, in fact, directly affect things that have already happened in the past. And if that’s the case, it could change everything!
So, is it true? Do the decisions that we make right now influence, or even determine, what’s already occurred? While we’ve all heard from the great sages that we have the power to transcend our deepest hurts, does that ability extend to rewriting the past events that led to them? When we even ask such a question, it’s difficult not to think of how messy things became when the lead character in the movie Back to the Future, Marty McFly (portrayed by Michael J. Fox), had the opportunity to do so. Imagine the possibilities, however, if we could learn from the suffering of the last century’s great wars, for instance, or the painful divorce that we’ve just completed and make choices today that would prevent these things from happening. If we could, it would be the equivalent of a great quantum eraser allowing us to change the course of events that have brought us to our pain.
It is precisely this question that led to yet another variation of the double-slit experiment. Interestingly, this one is actually called the “quantum eraser” experiment. While its name sounds complicated, it’s simple to explain and nothing less than paradigm shattering in its implications—so I’ll cut to the chase.
The bottom line of what this experiment demonstrates is that the behavior of the particles when the experiment begins appears to be determined entirely by things that don’t even happen until the experiment is finished.11 In other words, the present has the power to change what’s already occurred in the past. And this is the so-called quantum-eraser effect: Things that happen after the fact can change (“erase”) the way the particles behave at an earlier point in time.
The question here is obvious: Does this effect apply only to quantum particles, or does it pertain to us as well?
Even though we’re made of particles, maybe our consciousness is the glue that keeps us locked into the events—the wars, suffering, divorces, poverty, and disease—that we perceive as reality. Or perhaps something else is happening: It could be we already change our past as we learn from our mistakes, and we’ve been doing so all the time. Maybe it’s so common for our choices to reverberate backward in time that this occurs without our knowing it or even giving it a second thought.
Perhaps the world that we see today, as tough as it sometimes appears, is the result of what we’ve already learned being reflected backward in time. It’s certainly something to think about, and at the moment, it appears that research supports this possibility. If this is true and our world does in fact act like a cosmic feedback loop—with the lessons of the present changing the past—then just think about what that means! At the very least, it implies that the world we see today is the result of what we’ve already learned. And without our lessons, things could be much worse, couldn’t they?
Regardless of whether or not we influence the past, it’s clear that the choices we make now determine the present and future. And all three—past, present, and future—exist within the container of the Divine Matrix. It makes perfect sense that being part of the Matrix, we would be able to communicate with it in a way that’s meaningful and useful in our lives. And according to scientific experiments, as well as our most cherished traditions, we do. The common denominator of the investigations in the previous chapters is twofold:
1. They show us that we’re part of the Divine Matrix.
2. They demonstrate that human emotion (beliefs, expectations, and feelings) are the language that the Divine Matrix recognizes.
Interestingly, although perhaps coincidentally, these are the very experiences that were edited from Christian biblical texts and have been discouraged in Western culture. Today, however, all of that is changing. Men are being encouraged to honor their emotions, and women are exploring new ways to express the power that’s such a natural part of their existence. It’s clear that emotion, feeling, and belief are the language of the Divine Matrix, and there’s a quality of emotion that allows us to experience the field of energy connecting the universe in ways that are powerful, healing, and natural.
The question now is: “If we’re speaking to the Divine Matrix, how do we know when it answers us?” If our feelings, emotions, beliefs, and prayers are providing the blueprint for the quantum stuff of the universe, then what are our bodies, lives, and relationships telling us about our part of the conversation? To answer this, we must recognize the second half of our dialogue with the universe. So, how do we read the messages from the Divine Matrix?
MESSAGES FROM
THE DiViNE MATRiX:
LIVING, LOVING,
AND HEALING IN
QUANTUM AWARENESS
CHAPTER SIX
THE UNIVERSE IS TALKING TO
US:
MESSAGES FROM THE MATRIX
“When love and hate
are both absent, everything
becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction,
however, and heaven
and earth are set infinitely apart.”
— Seng-ts’an, 6th-century philosopher
“We are the mirror as well as the face in it.”
— Rumi, 13th-century poet
While we speak to the Divine Matrix through the language of feeling and belief, previous chapters also describe how the Matrix answers us through the events of our lives. In this dialogue, our deepest beliefs become the blueprint for everything that we experience. From the peace in our world to the healing in our bodies, from all our relationships and romances to the careers we pursue, our conversation with the world is constant and never ending. Because it doesn’t stop, it’s impossible for us to ever be passive observers on the sidelines of life … if we’re conscious, by definition, we’re creating.
Sometimes the dialogue is subtle and sometimes not. Regardless of the degree of subtlety, however, life in a reflected universe promises that from our challenges to our joys, the world is nothing more—or less—than the Matrix mirroring our deepest and truest beliefs. And this includes our intimate relationships. Although they present honest reflections, sometimes the mirrors we see of ourselves in other people can be the most difficult ones to accept. They can also be the fast track to our greatest healing.
OUR REFLECTED REALITY
In 199
8, I had an experience in Tibet that offers a powerful metaphor for how the quantum “conversation” works. On the way into the capital city of Lhasa, our tour group was driving around a bend in the road that led to a small lake at the base of a cliff. The air was absolutely still, allowing the water to hold a perfect reflection of everything in the area.
From our vantage point, I could see the massive image of a beautifully carved Buddha mirrored in the water. Apparently, it was somewhere in the cliff overlooking the lake, although at that moment I couldn’t see the carving itself—all I could see was the reflection. It was only when we came around the curve and the road leveled out that I saw with my eyes what I’d imagined was the source of the reflection. And there it was: Sculpted in high relief, the Buddha towered above the lake, liberated from the living rock as a silent witness to all who passed.
In that moment, the image in the lake became a metaphor for the visible world. As we were coming around the bend and I saw the Buddha in the water, the reflection was the only way I knew that a statue existed. Although I suspected that it was mirroring something physical, from my perspective, I simply couldn’t see the object. In a similar way, the everyday world is said to be the reflection of a deeper reality carved into the fabric of the universe—a reality that we simply can’t see from our place within it.
Figure 11. A reflecting Buddha carved in the cliff near Lhasa, Tibet.
Both ancient tradition and modern science suggest that what we see as the visible relationships of “life” are nothing more and nothing less than the reflection of things that are happening in another realm, a place that we can’t perceive from our vantage point in the universe. And just as surely as I knew that the image in the water mirrored something that was real and solid, we can be sure that our lives are informing us about events occurring in another realm of existence. Just because we can’t observe these events doesn’t mean they aren’t real. Ancient traditions suggest, in fact, that the unseen world is more real that the visible one! As Bohm said in the Introduction, we simply can’t glimpse this “deeper reality” from where we are in space-time.
While we may not be able to see directly into this invisible realm, we do have some indication of what’s happening there because we see its reflection in our everyday lives. From this perspective, our daily experiences serve as messages from these deeper realities—communication from within the Divine Matrix itself. And just as we must understand the words of any language to know its content, we must recognize the language of the Divine Matrix so that we can benefit from what it’s telling us.
Sometimes the messages that come through are direct and can’t be mistaken, while at other times, they’re so subtle that we miss them altogether. Often, however, we may think that we’re being shown one thing when, in fact, the messages are telling us something very different.
THINGS AREN’T ALWAYS WHAT
THEY SEEM
“A sudden gust of wind hit me at that instant and made my eyes burn. I stared toward the area in question. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
‘I can’t see a thing,’ I said.
‘You just felt it,’ he replied. […]
‘What? The wind?’
‘Not just the wind,’ he said sternly. ‘It may seem to be wind to you, because wind is all you know.’” 1
In this dialogue, the Yaqui Indian sorcerer Don Juan teaches his student Carlos Castenada about the subtle realities of the invisible world. In his book Journey to Ixtlan, Castenada, an anthropologist documenting the ways of the ancient shaman, learned very quickly that he couldn’t trust the filters of his perceptions as he’d been conditioned to do in the past. The world, he found out, is alive on levels that are both seen and unseen.
For instance, Castenada had always been taught that when the bushes move beside you and you feel cool air brushing against your cheek, it’s the wind that’s moving. In the example above, Castenada’s teacher reminds him that it only seems like the wind because that’s what he knows. In reality, it could be the wind, or the feeling of a breeze against his face and flowing through his hair may be the energy of a spirit making itself known. Castenada rapidly discovered that such an experience would never be “just the wind” again.
Through our filters of perception, we do our best to fit our romances, friendships, finances, and health into the framework that past experiences have established. Although these boundaries may work, how well do they really serve us? How many times have we responded to life in a way that we learned from someone else, rather than based on what our own experiences have taught us? How often have we prevented ourselves from having greater abundance, deeper relationships, or more fulfilling jobs because an opportunity that crossed our path looked like a similar one from our past and we bolted in the opposite direction?
WE’RE TUNED TO OUR WORLD
Within the context of the Divine Matrix, we’re part of each blade of grass, as well as every rock in every stream and river. We’re part of each drop of rain and even the cool air that brushes against our faces when we walk out of our homes first thing in the morning.
If our link to everything in our world runs so deep, then it makes sense that we should see evidence of that connection in our lives every single day. Maybe we do in fact see precisely such evidence—and maybe we see it every day, only in ways that we may not always recognize or even notice.
We all know that the longer we’re in the presence of the people, places, and things that surround us, the more we feel comfortable with them. For most of us, walking into the living room of our house, for example, certainly feels better than entering the “living room” of a hotel in another city. Even though the hotel may be newer and have all the latest fabrics, carpet, and upholstery, it just doesn’t feel like “home.” When we do experience something that way, our comfort comes from a fine-tuning of the subtle energy that brings us into balance with our world—we call that equilibrium resonance.
To some degree, we’re in resonance with everything from our cars to our homes (and even the appliances that we rely on each day), which is why we affect other people, our surroundings, and our world simply by our presence. It should come as no surprise, then, that when something changes within us or the things around us, those changes will show up in our lives … and they do.
Sometimes these shifts come in ways that are subtle. For example, I had an American-made car that had more than 300,000 miles on the original engine by the time I sold it in 1995. I’d always done my best to take care of my “old friend,” a reliable vehicle that looked like new and carried me safely from the mountains of Colorado to the hills of Napa, California, and back to the high desert of northern New Mexico.
While my car always started and ran perfectly for me, it never failed to “break down” whenever I loaned it to someone else. Invariably, a new noise would begin in the engine, a warning light would appear on the dashboard, or it would simply stop running when another person with a different touch took over as the driver. And just as certainly, when I would slip back into the driver’s seat and take it to the mechanic, the problem would just “heal itself,” mysteriously disappearing.
While the mechanic assured me that “these things happen all the time,” I’m sure that after a few such false alarms, he started to have second thoughts about me whenever he’d see my 300,000mile Pontiac drive into his parking lot. While I can’t prove it scientifically, I’ve talked to enough other people to know that this isn’t an unusual experience. Things that are as familiar with us as we are with them simply seem to work better when they’re in our presence. Sometimes, though, our resonance with the world appears to us in a way that’s less subtle, with a message that’s harder to miss—such as in the following example.
In the spring of 1990, I had left my career in the defense industry in Denver and was living temporarily in San Francisco. During the daytime I was developing seminars and writing my first book, while at night I was working as a counselor. Specifically, I was providing guid
ance in understanding the power of emotion in our lives and the role that it plays in our relationships. One of my first clients described a relationship that was a beautiful example of just how deep—and how literal—our resonance with the world can be.
She described the long-term relationship with the man in her life as the “never-ending date.” For more than ten years, they’d been together in a relationship that appeared hopelessly stuck. Their conversations about marriage always seemed to end in bitter disagreements, yet they didn’t do well apart from one another and wanted to share their lives together. One evening, my client described an experience of resonance that was so clear and powerful that it leaves little doubt that such a connection with our world exists.
“Tell me about your life this past week,” I said to her. “How are things at home?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t believe the things that have happened,” she began. “What a bizarre week! First, while my boyfriend and I were watching TV on the couch, we heard a loud crash in the bathroom. When we went to see what had happened, you’ll never guess what we saw.”
“I couldn’t begin to guess or even imagine,” I said, “but now you’ve gotten me really interested … what happened?”
“Well, the hot-water pipe under the sink had exploded and blown the door of the vanity off its hinges and into the wall in front of the sink,” she answered.
“Wow!” I exclaimed. “I’ve never heard of anything like that in my life.”
“That’s not all,” she continued. “There’s more! When we went to the garage to get the car, there was hot water all over the floor—the water heater had blown up and water was everywhere. Then, when we backed the car out of the garage into the driveway, the radiator hose on the car exploded, and there was hot antifreeze all over the driveway!”