Physics of the Soul

Physics of the Soul: The Quantum Book of Living, Dying, Reincarnation and Immortality by Amit Goswami Paradigm of The Quantum Monad, Jivaman, Eternal Soul, May 14, 2005 Reviewer: Richard Schwartz (Haskell, New Jersey) - See all my reviews

Interesting book. Here Amit Goswami attempts to validate the paradigm of a soul that survives the body eternally based on quantum physics. In this "monistic idealism" he equates the soul with the quantum monad and the Jivaman of Sri Aurobindo and the Atman in Hindu Vedic philosophy. This book is another paradigm that supposedly contains the answers to the surviving soul or quantum monad, the subtle body which enters a nonlocality (a connection of potentialities connecting every point in space an time) and carries our tendencies and phobias with us to our next reincarnation. How the purpose of life is a play or battle of two forces, creativity and entropy.

Some of the book is on quantum mechanics, how matter gets bogged down in stubborn paradoxes and quantum measurement paradox, and so his science, as in Sri Aurobindo's, is the subtle, the supramental, mental and vital experiences, a science of consciousness and nonlocality where the quantum jumps take place in webs of interdependent connections.

Thought is conveyed of the six bardos found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead and their relation to the human memory of information that dies with us at death and the quantum monad & quantum memory, which he believes carries the tendencies and habitual patterns in each reincarnation. This of course takes us to angels and higher beings of consciousness, death yoga, karma, maya Akashic memory, techniques of meditation, creative thought verses thought, potentiality and the range of choices of actuality. And the idea of the self is all - solipsism, the ideas of how our consciousness collapses the potentialities, turning it into the reality. I enjoyed the suggestion of three Tibetan practices of

• one: the death prayer or the Hindu bhakti yoga of devotion to a deity. This is usually done with a private and personal mantra.
• Two: living a life of service and sacrifice, the attitude that is, is one of service and applied positive meaning. "Instead of looking at pain and suffering and recoiling from the, we embrace pain and suffering to relieve not any pain but the pain of humanity." p. 194. In this, we mentally visualize ourselves containing all consciousness - solipsism, and the power to heal and extend love to all beings. We sacrifice ourselves in this mental capacity and breathing techniques.
• And Three: Jnana yoga of effortless contemplation, that of concentrating without concentrating or focusing without concentrating, the paradox of concentrative energy while relaxing your mind and this allows you to enter beyond the discursive thought processes to the silent consciousness of the observer self..

I particularly enjoyed a 4 page thought on Involution and Evolution. While in evolution we expand and raise ourselves to the whole, in involution we contract and lower to separate fragmentation in grosser levels, forgetting itself, and decreasing freedom. It is a play of consciousness where there really is no separation but rather consciousness forgets itself for the sake of play, it pretends to forget. The last chapter of the book gives a good summary on nine interpretations of the soul and its survival and journey. Amazon.com Home