The holographic universe

The universe as a brain

The concept that the universe is like a hologram is not new. In fact it is the title of a book by Michael Talbot. A hologram is a three-dimensional photograph taken using lasers.

Making a hologram

A laser beam is split so that one path is reflected by a mirror onto the object and the other is reflected directly onto the photographic plate. Because the two beams travel slightly different lengths (because one is reflected off the object) there is a phase difference in the two beams that can be recorded on the photographic plate. This phase difference is effectively what is being photographed. The plate requires an extremely sensitive film that can photograph a point that is smaller than the wavelength of light. Traditionally this has been done using photographic plates because digital technology is not yet sufficiently advanced to detect this kind of detail.

The resulting hologram can be viewed in natural (un-diffused) light and can appear to ‘come out’ of the plate. For instance, a hologram of a watch can appear to sit in front of the plate and you can walk round it, sometimes up to 240º. If you break a holographic plate in half the whole image is still visible but the image would only be visible for 120º in each half of the plate.

In Western scientific thinking knowledge is seen as understanding causes and effects. Time is perceived to be acting in one direction only and we live in a three (or three and a half — as time is in one direction only) dimensional universe. The concepts of metaphor, analogy and ritual — which are central to any real understanding of the universe — are dismissed. In reality, the universe is like a hologram and everything in it is a reflection, an analogy, of the totality.

“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”

Rumi

Each of our consciousnesses is like a shard of the hologram of the universe. They vary in size and nature but each of us has a unique key into the totality of the universe.

Each drop is like a shard of the hologram of the universe.

The spiral of the nautilus shell is a manifestation of the spiral galaxy; the human brain is a manifestation of the universe; the nerve axioms in the brain are a manifestation of the galaxies in the universe. The universe is like a giant brain that exists in dimensions hidden from us.

“As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul…”

Hermes Trismegistus

There are patterns that repeat and patterns within patterns, like Mandelbrot sets that repeat in similar but different ways. Patterns in space and patterns in time.

Mandelbrot animation

God is infinite, but He has a finite number of attributes, and everything in creation is an attribute of divinity. You can see the universe in a mustered seed — if you are sufficiently tuned in. And here is the key: to tune into the divine presence. Those who are deaf to the music of the spheres will hear only the thoughts in their own head. Every experience, every moment, is a gift from God to help show you the way down the thread that connects us to the divine presence.

The key is meditation (or prayer which, if done properly, is a higher form of meditation). Understand that you have less power than you think to change the events around you, but your power is in how you respond to those events. By changing your response to what happens to you, you will change what happens to you. For instance if you continue to get frustrated by people around you, then you will be put in situations where you have to deal with frustrating people. When you learn to let go and not allow yourself to get frustrated, the people around you will change. Partly because the same people will no longer be frustrating to you, but also when you’ve learnt that lesson then life will present you with different challenges.

By Philip Braham on April 29, 2021.