TIME How we screwed up our relationship with the universe and how to get it back, Part 11 By Dr Eric Zabiegalski and Per Brogaard Berggreen

It was exactly one year ago today that my writing partner Per Bergreen of Denmark and I began writing about the universe and our increasingly tumultuous relationship with it. Since, we’ve shared and discussed tantalizing clues, theories, and observations each month as to the possible reasons why, and possible remedies. ?As a result of this exploration, Per and I are beginning to feel as if we’re seeing a larger picture come into view in regard to understanding the true (or truer) nature of reality, one perhaps never before seen by humanity in quite this way, that’s exciting! ?And while this vision-in-view (call it a gateless gate, precipice, or event horizon) looks to us a lot like an impenetrable and mysterious barrier which (for now) cannot be pierced, it is nevertheless visible, and, like a black hole in space, showing us a clear demarcation between a material world we know and an energy, vibrational world we don’t, normally hidden from us.

Weve talked about a great deal over the last year, from theories on the true nature of time, to human consciousness, to best ways and practices (practical advice) on how to move in the world (getting and giving) the most from life whether it be business or pleasure. We continue that exploration as there is still much more exciting ground to cover with a discussion of symbols and metaphors.

The symbols of man’s own creation hold tremendous power, a power which we often don’t see nor fully understand. ?How and on what we spend our time and energy should be of the utmost importance to us, though it is often overlooked. What’s worse perhaps is that we rarely, if ever, consider the symbolism (and energy) represented in the everyday things around us, energy which could propel us forward or bog us down in a stagnant mire, all the while never knowing what it is that has us tethered and moored. ?As my son, a successful leader and manager commented recently, “many young people today want to know that what they’re doing, contributing to, has a positive energy behind it, its no longer enough to simply make money.” Symbols, and metaphors (unless they are cliches) have powerful energy behind them.? Younger generations of humanity are acutely aware of the historic symbols and metaphors created before them, committed to explore and unpack their meanings and messages, and determine whether their content amounts to unneeded or unhealthy baggage or a tide lifting all boats.

Symbols

There’s something beguiling about money. You’ve got to be very careful and deliberate about it, even reverent, as it has a tendency to influence us in hidden and sometimes conflicting, even negative ways, why?? There was a study done in which the power of the monetary symbolism of money on the human brain and psyche was made evident and it’s perhaps one of the most pervasive things I’ve ever studied in the way in which it can change people and their behavior.? In the experiment two classrooms were set up with timed tests and a proctor administering the test in each.? In one room there were symbols of money represented in coins, bills and dollar signs decorating the walls and computer screensavers.? In the other room there were pictures of nature in the room.? An actor was hired to rush into each room late (in a crisis) just after the test started and spill their books, papers and pencils onto the floor, a remarkable thing happened in each classroom.? In the room adorned with symbols of money no one stopped to help the fallen test taker, participants continued focusing on the timed tests, while in the room with the nature scenes (no money symbols present), the test takers stopped, either helping the student or monitoring until they were ok.? It seemed the symbol of money had a profound effect on the test takers’ focus.

Staff of Asclepius

The god Asclepius was known as the god of healing energy and you’re probably familiar with his staff as the symbol used in medicine called Caduceus. A Roman heralds wand, it is a symbol of a staff with wings and intertwining snakes. But the staff of Asclepius was also used for another symbol, one which has hidden a powerful message (and likely influence) from us in plain view for centuries. One which should cause reflection and change the way we think of and use money.

The staff was also depicted on the first roman coins minted with Asclepius, the god of energy, represented on early coinage and his staff evolving into what we know as the modern dollar sign.? Knowing this, the exchange of currency suddenly takes on a new meaning as we consider that the transfer of money can also be thought of as the transfer of energy. Does this offer new insight into our test takers?? Where, and how do you expend energy? And on what do you spend it?

While we’re on the subject of symbols and their effect on the human psyche, my writing partner Per pointed out the symbols we choose to include in our lives (to pay attention to and notice), help guide us. ?Many symbols have been forgotten to history, have changed, or have become obsolete to our use, but the fact remains that they affect us, even the ancient or defunct ones (sometimes profoundly) and we can have no idea of it. If reminded of this it’s likely we would acknowledge that we know we didn’t know this, but less likely to concede that we didn’t know we didn’t know, saying instead that it was known to us and it must have been a condition of our caring, in this case we didn’t care, why?? Perhaps this response isn’t simply the reaction of a stubborn or defensive ego and is a truer statement albeit we have no idea why. In a universal sense, if we were better connected with the energy, conscious, awareness side of our being (vs our physical material side) it is comparatively possible, like the occasional phenomena of intuition, for us to know everything, or more of what we don’t know, more often. But part of us is not willing, or able to do the work to make those quantum connections, yet. The truth is we can reach a point of human omniscience (knowing and being connected to more), but, for now, our ego, our personal mind, combined with a pervasively distracting physical and material world block us from getting there, continually clouding our view. So, we symbolically talk about the secrets of the universe, using symbols as pointers and indicators to them, but secrets are only secrets if they’re unknown. These, then, are not true secrets, just unfinished mental business in the form of easter eggs left by us to re-discover. There are true secrets in the universe, but they are not kept, the universe reveals them to us. When we pay attention, we see them, we are after all, a part of the universe. What’s the point about symbols? Just that we should revisit them frequently, ask what they represent when encountered and if they still serve us, and give them a fresh coat of paint or dismantle them as needed.

Finally, the last words of Socrates, highly considered the wisest man in Athens before his death seem to send a hidden message, and warning regarding the importance and reverence which should be paid to Asclepius and the energy that gives life to everything, a debt which can only be repaid with our own energy, and life. ?“We owe a great debt to Asclepius, let us pay it, and not forget.”

Wavetops (we are) metaphors

Recently I heard one of my leaders use the expression wave-tops in a conversation addressing our larger organization in the context of “conversations”, and it immediately made my ears perk up. They said they were hearing the important “wave-tops” of conversations, in this instance regarding the day-to-day technical details of work. When I heard that expression, wavetops, I immediately thought “huh”, the conversations my leader was analogizing as wavetops aren’t the only (or perhaps the most important) waves happening around here.? From an energy perspective, people themselves are like wavetops (individuated waves of energy) cresting in a connected ocean.? It (physical life) is made of an ocean of energy constantly rising and falling in the form of waves.? “That’s us” in a nutshell, I thought, and that’s “it”, a more important point worth noting, the activity of life.

Why should this seemingly curious observation matter in the context of work? ?I heard a similar analogy recently shared by several professional researchers, one of them spiritualist Neale Donald Walsch involving waves and the universe’s energy which animates all of life and to which we’re connected.? We all know that energy, fusion from the sun, electrochemical action, photosynthesis, etc., all represent parts of an energy process that, along with the passage of time in a physical space, animate life.? What we didn’t know however was that physicists are now starting to believe it may also represent a kind of “consciousness” or intelligence which exists beyond physical space and time, potentially replacing spacetime as the foundational reality of the universe. What this means is that our understanding of reality is being tested, what was once thought of as the bedrock of existence may no longer be the complete or final answer.

A new world?

Were this to be true it would upend centuries of conventional scientific thinking that “space and time” (currently known as space-time) are the foundational basis of our reality, and that there is something more beyond it, below it, or behind it, and frankly speaking it would change the game completely as we know it about everything.? Physical Life, existence, reality, the universe and even how we move through it (travel) could all dramatically change.? As physicists from different disciplines within physics like Donald Hoffman at the University of California Irvine Department of Cognitive Sciences are now discovering mathematical structures which exist beyond space and time, they are not yet committing as to what they might be, but are publicly acknowledging they are there, and hypothesizing that these structures are conscious agents which could represent a truer picture of reality than the physical and temporal ones we’ve depended and built societies on for centuries.? What’s the important point here? It’s just that all of us and everything that shows up in the physical material world is an intelligent individuated facet, part of a universal whole, and it in turn, is part of us, a connected (and now possibly conscious?) energy. We are waves on a conscious ocean, individuations in a constantly rising and receding sea.

To echo my leader, the important things in our world are the physical conversations (wavetops) of day-to-day creation, and they also are what those conversations materially produce in thought and action. But equally important is the idea that they’re also the “energetic” people (the waves) which create them. As Socrates said, let us never forget our debt to Asclepius; and pay it with our lives, i.e. our energy. And what’s the important part of this story for business? Just this. You won’t hear meta conversations like this one anywhere, and you certainly wouldn’t hear them from your superiors or in the context of work, but some of them are coming around. My leader wasn’t making the same analogy in the same way in which Dr Hoffman or Neale Walsch did, but they used the metaphor “wavetops” in the text of people and conversations, that’s subtle but significant. Because a wavetop is connected to a wave, and those are connected to an ocean.

Dr Zabiegalski and Per Brogaard Berggren are available to talk to your organization or venue about ambidexterity research or speak informatively and eloquently about organizational culture, leadership, strategy, learning, complexity, IT, business neuroscience, creativity, mindfulness, talent management, personal success, emotional intelligence, Action Learning, and storytelling. Contact Eric, or Per on LinkedIn about a talk, keynote presentation, or workshop today!