In response to Ken Trainor’s column, “You never know” [Viewpoints, Jan. 28]:
We live in an exciting time where science and spirit are again coming together. The Cartesian split (when Descartes made a deal with the Pope to separate science and religion) was the result of politics, patriarchy and abuse of power. This artificial split continues to create a lot of unnecessary pain and confusion with spiritual issues.
The scientific method may help: Is there a divine force in the universe? Do we have a soul? Does the soul go somewhere when we die? The key aspects of the scientific method are observation, skepticism, creating and testing a hypothesis through inductive reasoning, testing it through experiments, and looking at the diverse data. Inductive reasoning is not about deductive certainty, but having some degree of probability.
Ken, we have been friends and spiritual seekers for decades. With a lot of similar input and data, we have come up with opposite beliefs about the spirited life force of the universe (some call God), our soul, and what happens to us when we die. How interesting! But have you possibly thrown the baby out with the bath water?
Part of the difference seems to be that you are focused on us as physical, logical beings rather than as complex beings of life-force energy, the same energy that also spins the planets. Our soul seems to be part of our energetic fingerprint. The search for truth and meaning goes beyond the left brain and physical plane.
To discern if we have a soul, an energetic signature that moves on somewhere after we die, we can search the complex and vast terrain of the world spiritual traditions and other places for clues for this hypothesis. Some are:
• Billions and billions of Hindus (and others) believe in reincarnation and karma, and it informs their lives.
• The near-death experiences of so many people are remarkably similar — going to the Love-filled Light.
• Mystics of all traditions have a direct connection to “that which is greater.”
• Amidst the study of spirituality and its complexity, intuition and “remembering” are valid and important ways of inner knowing, of “innerstanding.” These are more feminine abilities. We all have the feminine within. And the feminine and divine feminine are re-emerging strongly now, to be in healthy partnership with a healed masculine energy. Logic doesn’t seem a good match in this discussion of spirituality, god, soul and afterlife.
A law of physics says that energy can’t be created or destroyed. Our soul seems to be a form of our unique energy that moves into a space where many describe it as light (a form of energy) and permeated by the high-energy frequency of Love. What and where is that energy dimension that our soul moves to when we let go of our physical body in a given life?
Maybe we’ll meet on the other side. Imagine our great discussion about that experienced mystery!
