October 18th, 2022 Round Table:
International Practice in searching for solutions and mechanisms for stabilizing the development of Human Civilization in the face of Modern Challenges
Speaker: Liz Augustat, President of Peace through Culture Europe „Connectedness and community“
How Quantum Physics Helps Us to Identify Paths to Peace
When I remember the many conferences of Peace through Culture in Kazakhstan, I like to think of Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c.. Hans Peter Dürr, the world- renowned German physicist, director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Physics, and winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize, who so often enriched us with his participation and insights. Our joint conversations are reflected in my contribution.
Nuclear physicists want to know what holds the world together at its core. So Prof. Dürr also asked himself what is actually behind matter. He split it into smaller and smaller parts in the hope of eventually finding the essence. But after 50 years of research, he came to the astonishing conclusion: The essence does not lie in matter, but actually does not exist. What we think is matter is actually vibration and energy. In other words, and with the help of logic, it follows that the so-called "physical or gross matter" and so-called "subtle matter" are two sides of the same coin, an inseparable unity of "spirit" and "matter". This statement, so far assigned to the area of spirituality, is now scientifically substantiated by quantum physics and is likely to radiate into all areas of society in the future.
Unfortunately, however, a major problem today is the inconsistency between thoughts, technology and future requirements. Although modern physics dominates our technology - e.g., microelectronics, atomic weapons, and chemistry - we still hold a mechanistic view of the world as we did in the 19th century, even though we use 20th century technologies and must meet the challenges of the 21st century.
As a consequence, we humans see ourselves outside of nature, as something different from nature, but we urgently have to overcome this idea of separation.
According to quantum physics there is only form or shape. This is incomprehensible for our normal imagination because we always see an arrangement of some substance in the form. Nevertheless, we experience today a world of shape without substance when we call for example with the cell phone to Paris. Matter is basically not matter, it is a kind of vibration.
Reality is quite different from what we have imagined it to be so far. Expressed in modern language there is no hardware (physical material) at the beginning, only software (idea/spirit). No doubt , there exists only a relational structure, but no objects, and this structure connects us all.
The world is the One and the Whole, which cannot be dissected. This fact has fantastic consequences, because if we include ourselves in this world, we are distinguishable, but not separate. We are all in this community, in this connectedness, and this is an essential condition for us to be able to communicate with each other at all. In Sanskrit, this is called "Advaita," A- duality. We are not really separate, because our "software" is everywhere, so to speak, and we are all connected.
Spirit is primary, connecting and holding us together as humanity.
When people wage wars against each other, they are hurting themselves at the same time, because all living beings are parts of one and the same spirit. When something in the world suffers, we suffer with it, even if we do not know the reason. This is not to be attributed to sentimentality, but a deep ontological feeling that touches our common root.
We constantly co-create our future, we are actors who change things and influence future development.
If now also the latest findings of physics make us aware of our power of creation, it becomes all the more urgent that we orient ourselves anew in order to be able to act and shape in the right way.
Benevolence, worldwide cooperation will be necessary to climb to a higher level of development. So far, unfortunately, the United Nations has only rudimentarily fulfilled the hope of uniting the world through joint political action, in some individual departments. Can we create something similar in the field of spiritual and cultural understanding and achieve real results? My father Willy Augustat introduced the concept of the Ethical Council already 30 years ago on the occasion of the first congress in Alma-Ata, in order to ensure that ethical requirement and corresponding parameters are optimally considered in all major decisions. In this conceptual framework, national ethical councils logically emerge from the awakening ethical consciousness within peoples and multi-ethnic states based on their cultural foundation. The Ethical Council could be composed of impartial representatives of the academies of the humanities and social sciences, artists, scientists and religious representatives, trained in character; it would have to recognize all world religions in their original sense and represent ethics as the common foundation of all cultures and religions. Each person will be chosen by a group by virtue of his knowledge and authority in a particular field and by virtue of the esteem and trust he enjoys in his own or related cultures.
The national ethics councils would have to send representatives to the World Ethics Council, which needs to be on a par with the United Nations. All measures would only be adopted with the agreement of both bodies, so that ethical standards are taken into account in every political and other far- reaching decision. Veto rights would not exist within the countries of the United Nations as they do today, but only on the part of the Ethical Council. In a future world community, the advantage of one must also be to the advantage of the others. All cultures of the world should be allowed to keep their substance and thus be included in the aspired overarching World Peace Culture in the sense of unity in diversity, based on universal ethical principles.
We are here today because we know that there is no other way left for us but to move forward towards harmony and spiritual culture if life on earth is to continue. We know that time is mature for a new paradigm, a profound change of consciousness. We sense it ourselves and see many signs in the world today that an evolutionary step is at hand, despite or perhaps because of the conflicts in so many parts of the world. Human impact has reached a point where it has become possible to perceive the universal roots of all cultures and to look toward synthesis and unification.
Ethical parameters such as community and cooperation must be powerfully reactivated and profoundly understood in their whole essence. Such spiritual challenges cannot be solved by loners, nor with an old and unscientific worldview, but only through cooperation. Scientific realizations like e.g. those of the quantum physics, help to win evolutionarily a next stage, an extended view on the spirit, on the spiritual potential of every human being - for the benefit of a peaceful future for ALL! And this is a great reason for JOY!
Thank you very much for your attention!