Intuition and the Creation of a Better World
Lorimer, David
We are so accustomed to using categories which distinguish and divide, that it comes as something of a surprise to find physicist David Bohm saying that we are actually united by space, that a point is an abstraction from a line, the part a manifestation of the whole. In his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order Bohm explains that, from the point of view of physics, it is quite plausible to argue that the dynamic, flowing wholeness underlying the parts is more real than the parts as apparently separate abstractions: 'Each relatively autonomous and stable structure (e.g. an atomic particle) is to be understood not as something independently and permanently existent but rather as a product that has been formed in the whole flowing movement and that will ultimately dissolve back into this movement.'(1)
Bohm's scheme of manifest and non-manifest, explicate (unfolded) and implicate (enfolded) means that the function of the manifest world is to display separate units or individuals, while bearing in mind that 'each individual manifests the consciousness of mankind'.(2) In the manifest physical world the parts are separate but interacting, while 'in non-manifest reality it's all interpenetrating, interconnected in one.' In case there is some confusion about whether Bohm is referring to what underlies matter or to consciousness, it is necessary to clarify that the implicate order for Bohm is the ground of both. By definition each individual has access to the underlying cosmic totality of the implicate order, the source of compassion, love, intelligence and insight รท the effective and cognitive sources respectively. The mystical, according to Bohm, goes deep into the wholeness and flowing harmony of the implicate order, but in a way which is actually more consistent with ordinary experience than might appear at first sight. If this were better understood, people would see that 'mystical experience is really a heightening, and intensification, a deepening, of something they participate in'.(3) This penetrating assessment is entirely consistent with our finding that the sense of unity and reality is enhanced when in direct contact with the divine order. The paranormal finding that consciousness is not in space and that our senses tend to screen out more subtle communications in consciousness is taken a stage further by the discovery of an underlying unitive consciousness in which we all live and which provides the matrix of empathetic resonance.
David Lorimer, Whole in One, pp. 92-93 (1) David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, p. 14 (2)David Bohm, in Ken Wilber (ed)The Holographic Paradigm, p. 73 (3) ibid, p. 196
