The idea of lea­ving a tes­ti­mo­ny of resi­lience to my daugh­ter Lena about what I expe­rien­ced on the night of December 19, 2013 is the ori­gin of this blog. I don’t know how – when she was only 22 months old at the time – she per­cei­ved and expe­rien­ced being sepa­ra­ted from her mother without notice for 15 days after the aneu­rysm break that shook me. I don’t know how she per­cei­ved and expe­rien­ced being immer­sed in an effer­ves­cence mar­ked by both love and fear. I don’t know, and does it real­ly mat­ter ? The essen­tial thing for me and what I dare to hope will be most pre­cious and use­ful to her is to show her my love while trans­mit­ting to her the fruit of my expe­rience.

Resilience comes through awareness

Obviously, this blog has taken me much fur­ther than just lea­ving a tes­ti­mo­ny. Very ear­ly in the wri­ting pro­cess, I knew that this could not just be a sto­ry to tell Lena. Because what hap­pe­ned to me that night gave me – as Eckhart Tolle calls it – a « glimpse of what pre­sence, awa­ke­ning or conscious­ness means » [1]. That was the begin­ning of my resi­lience. That night felt like a life­time. Paradoxically, it was a concen­trate of a few seconds, which it took me seve­ral months to rea­lize, incor­po­rate and express.

During this per­iod, I dis­co­ve­red Eckhart Tolle’s tea­ching, which has uncom­mon­ly adjus­ted my per­cep­tion of life. And more than that, the way I feel life flo­wing in and around me. Resilience comes through awa­re­ness. Eckhart Tolle’s tea­ching reflects with great accu­ra­cy what I expe­rien­ced on that strange decem­ber night. This is why it see­med obvious to me that it should be my first rea­ding grid.

I could have left it at that. But the theme of conscious­ness ins­pi­red me, inha­bi­ted me. I wan­ted to explore it fur­ther. I wan­ted to unders­tand the mys­te­ry behind this aneu­rysm rup­ture that took place at a time and place that pro­ved so oppor­tune for me. I nee­ded to anchor my change in conscious­ness. However, I wasn’t trying to ratio­na­lize this expe­rience. I just wan­ted her to have her place as I had expe­rien­ced it. And, in this way, it offers a high­light of this dif­ferent order of things to which it invi­ted. An ambi­tious request, in short. It pushed me to begin research that, against all odds, led me to the world of science.

For a more conscious science

I dis­co­ve­red that science, and espe­cial­ly phy­sics, had some­thing to say about conscious­ness. At first, I was both intri­gued and per­plexed by this dis­co­ve­ry. For until then, my vision of science was more like this simple thought : conscious­ness does not seem to be part of scien­tists’ consi­de­ra­tions. Except – per­haps – for quan­tum physicists.

I remem­ber that in high school, math and phy­sics were my favo­rite sub­jects. Today I unders­tand why I never wan­ted to pur­sue these two dis­ci­plines after my science bac­ca­lau­reate. I felt, without being able to explain it to myself at the time, that I wasn’t going to find what I was loo­king for. Because, for me, science – at least as I had been taught or as I per­cei­ved it – lacked breath, heart, and mea­ning. The advan­tage of not having ven­tu­red into this science too far from my aspi­ra­tions is that I remai­ned avai­lable to ano­ther way of approa­ching… science, precisely.

When theory ignores experience

What dif­fe­rence does it make to approach science in rela­tion to conscious­ness ? When I began wri­ting these pages, I did not think I would ask myself this ques­tion. But the more I pro­gres­sed in my research on conscious­ness, the more it see­med to me that we were not approa­ching things in a very coherent way. Despite the abun­dance of examples and tes­ti­mo­nies on alte­red states of conscious­ness, which are even more ins­truc­tive than our ordi­na­ry states of conscious­ness, scien­tists per­sist in igno­ring them in many dis­ci­plines. Thus, they deprive them­selves of an ins­pi­ring and mea­ning­ful light.

I dis­co­ve­red that in the field of phy­sics, our approach is not neces­sa­ri­ly bet­ter. At least – as I thought at the time – out­side quan­tum phy­sics, inso­far as it uses conscious­ness to explain cer­tain phe­no­me­na. But even in this area, eve­ry­thing is not so simple after all. I have been inter­es­ted in quan­tum theo­ries for seve­ral years and yet it was only after my expe­rience that a fun­da­men­tal ques­tion came to me : how is conscious­ness real­ly vie­wed by quan­tum phy­si­cists ? Is it a conscious­ness deta­ched from men­tal ? Is it a conscious­ness of uni­ty and infinity ?

Still, one thing see­med obvious to me even after December 19 : the rela­tion­ship bet­ween phy­sics and conscious­ness does stop at quan­tum phy­sics. And for good rea­son, without uni­fi­ca­tion with Einstein’s phy­sics, conscious­ness seems some­how « phy­si­cal­ly » locked up in the world of the infi­ni­te­ly small. In my opi­nion, this can­not be satis­fac­to­ry, because the sepa­ra­tion crea­ted contra­dicts a vision and an expe­rience of conscious­ness sha­red by many people, star­ting with me.

When experience meets theory

In a see­min­gly inco­herent, mea­nin­gless world, a world in which we feel sepa­ra­ted from each other, a world gover­ned by our men­tal, a world where we struggle against the flow of life, I do this impos­sible expe­rience : to let go and feel that I exist on a lar­ger plane of conscious­ness, where eve­ry­thing is connected.

To feel this connec­tion vibrate inside me and simul­ta­neous­ly to expe­rience it out­side. To feel that there is an under­lying order, from which some­times emerges such a strong reso­nance bet­ween people or events that won­ders can hap­pen. A reso­nance that is at the heart of the theo­ry of uni­fi­ca­tion pro­po­sed by the phy­si­cist Nassim Haramein.

Although I think per­so­nal expe­rience remains the best evi­dence, I have found remar­kable reso­nance in his theo­ry (see articles on the uni­fied field theo­ry). Better : I unders­tood that what hap­pe­ned to me is nei­ther irra­tio­nal nor magi­cal, it is sim­ply phy­sics. As he says himself :

« What we consi­der spi­ri­tual or meta­phy­si­cal is gene­ral­ly phy­sics that we do not yet unders­tand. » [2]

I don’t remem­ber exact­ly under what cir­cum­stances Nassim Haramein’s theo­ry came to me. When I star­ted my research, I was rea­ding a lot of phy­sics theo­ries. The fact that I am not a phy­sics spe­cia­list gave me the advan­tage of approa­ching them with an open mind… and the disad­van­tage of having to spend a lot of time and ener­gy trying to unders­tand them.

For an exploration of consciousness

In gene­ral, their authors were trying a wor­thy quest for uni­fi­ca­tion. Unfortunately, my hope of fin­ding mea­ning, conscious­ness, sim­pli­ci­ty and cohe­rence in it was dwind­ling from theo­ry to theo­ry. So, when I dis­co­ve­red the « Connected uni­verse », I just thought : « Ok, let’s go for a new theo­ry ! ». As I went into more detail, I rea­li­zed that at last conscious­ness see­med to be a wor­thy sub­ject for a physicist.

Consciousness is first

Consciousness, cohe­rence, and uni­fi­ca­tion are present in his theo­ry. Nassim Haramein gives us scien­ti­fic proof that eve­ry­thing is connec­ted. In a simple, ele­gant and ins­pi­ring way. The pro­mise was beautiful :

« All the mas­ters have told us that eve­ry­thing is One, maybe we should try to apply that to phy­sics. » [3]

The pro­mise has been kept, and the essay trans­for­med. Unity is no lon­ger a concept in his theo­ry, just as it is no lon­ger a belief in my experience.

Nassim Haramein’s sta­te­ment may seem com­ple­te­ly out of place in the mouth of a phy­si­cist. But the fact is that Nassim Haramein is a non­con­for­mist phy­si­cist. Probably because his mind is more sha­ped by nature than by aca­de­mic stu­dies and degrees in physics.

He lear­ned phy­sics by him­self in the eve­nings when he wor­ked as a ski or diving ins­truc­tor during the day. Then all day long, in his van, when he left eve­ry­thing to devote him­self to it. He has been prac­ti­cing medi­ta­tion since the age of 11, he has tou­ched states of expan­ded conscious­ness, where eve­ry­thing is inter­de­pendent and connec­ted. And far from lea­ving his per­so­nal expe­rience aside, he starts from this expe­rience to approach science. And it brings conscious­ness to the heart of phy­sics (see also the article Who is Nassim Haramein ? for a lit­tle more aca­de­mic information ;)).

Rather than consi­de­ring eso­te­ric, phi­lo­so­phi­cal and scien­ti­fic approaches as sepa­rate from each other, I pre­fer­red to pool the infor­ma­tion gathe­red in an attempt to get a broa­der view of things. This is in line with my concep­tion of life, where eve­ry­thing is connec­ted and inter­de­pendent.

Consciousness is the way

Therefore, this tes­ti­mo­ny of resi­lience and this research should be taken sim­ply for what they are : an explo­ra­tion, an inves­ti­ga­tion and a connec­tion of dif­ferent points of view. Like many pro­jec­tors with dif­ferent fil­ters that light my expe­rience. My only selec­tion cri­te­rion, and so the only rea­son for their pre­sence in these pages, was that this infor­ma­tion reso­nates with what I have expe­rien­ced and what I feel to be true. It was sim­ply a mat­ter of obser­ving what mir­ro­red my expe­rience, what made sense, and what was use­ful for me to conti­nue on my way.

This approach can be seen as a pure­ly sub­jec­tive view of things. Which, in fact, seems to take us away from science. No doubt this is the vision of many scien­tists. They would pro­ba­bly bene­fit from lis­te­ning to phi­lo­so­phers :

« The more sub­jec­ti­vi­ty you allow for, the more objec­tive des­crip­tion you can achieve. » [4]

This is what the French phi­lo­so­pher of science Michel Bitbol teaches us. And this is the path I invite you to fol­low with me. Because as we will dis­co­ver on this blog, before having a more accu­rate per­cep­tion of life, I believe we still have a long way to go.

Your jour­ney can start here.

You can get into the expe­rience that kept me busy that night by rea­ding My sto­ry.

Notes and references            
              

[1] TOLLE Eckhart, Quiétude, Québec : Ariane Editions, 2003, p.18, free trans­la­tion
[2] HARAMEIN Nassim, quo­ted by Resonance Science Foundation
[3] HARAMEIN Nassim. (sep­tem­ber 25, 2013). Nassim Haramein Complete [Podcast]
[4] BITBOL Michel, De l’intérieur du monde. Pour une phi­lo­so­phie et une science des rela­tions, Paris : Flammarion, 2010, quo­ted by NEXUS n°70, september-october 2010, p.37, free translation