kriyayogamalaysia

Empowering Belief 2 – The Butterfly Effect

From our e-book “Filling our Life with Celebration”

A friend was concerned about the increasing frequency of natural disasters that is devastating our world and asked how we can help. We can bring peace to the world by first bringing peace to ourselves. To change the world, we must first work on ourselves. By observing ourselves, we can see that our state of mind affects our external circumstances, for example, whenever we are in a foul mood, we tend to meet others who are also in a foul mood and this increases our chances of getting into fights. Alternatively, whenever we feel light and full of energy, the world seems to conspire to make things easier on us. This relationship between our inner world and outer world is called the ‘Law of Attraction’.

We are made in the image of the Lord and we have creative powers. Every thought that we have are projected out and creates a vibration in the universe. Loving thoughts bring peace and happiness to the world. Conversely, thoughts fueled by anger and greed can bring about natural disasters. This is based on the field of ‘Quantum mechanics’, which Gregory J. Nicosia, Ph.D. described as the most powerful explanation of reality as we know it. In his article, “Thought Energy: the Basis of a Quantum Leap in Psychotherapy” he explained that research into Quantum mechanics has demonstrated that every particle has an associated “information wave” or wave envelop that travels with and guides the particle. From this perspective, thought and intention are seen as an informational part of the transduction of energy from higher dimensional, faster than light wave-forms into our familiar 4 dimensional sub-light speed particle world.

He wrote, “A thought energy field is viewed as a collection of thoughts or attributes that are inter-related by their common theme or experience and bound together as a functional unit. Thoughts are the information that first precipitates from energy as it begins a process of slowing down until finally it is slowed to standstill, as if frozen in time in the form of matter. In this view, mind and matter differ little at all; they are simply different transformational steps is the process of creating manifest 4 dimensional reality.”

It is also relevant to mention the butterfly effect here. In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions; where a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. For example, the presence or absence of a butterfly flapping its wings could lead to creation or absence of a hurricane. The seemingly unimportant action of one individual can have a greater impact on the universe than what is initially perceived.

In their international bestseller, Freakonomics, John Donohue of Yale University and Steven Levitt of University of Chicago argues that the legalization of abortion in the 1970s contributed significantly to reductions in crime rates experienced in the 1990s. The paper, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2001, offers evidence that the falling United States crime rates of the 1990s were mostly caused by the legalization of abortion due to the Roe v. Wade court decision of 1973. If this is true, the reduction of crime rate would never have been contemplated when the court decision was made.

In his book Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes how graffiti and broken windows can have a dramatic effect on the behaviour of the residents in a city. Social change does not occur in the smooth linear way which many people imagine. Often social values will suddenly transition or ‘tip’ from one state into another. Social change such as crime rates and fashion can often behave in a manner which is similar to the spread of diseases. A tip can often be achieved by the compound effect of relatively benign factors. Too much graffiti and too many broken windows can tip a neighborhood from being a good neighborhood into a crime ridden no-go area.

When the New York underground decided to try to clean up the crime and vandalism on the tube network, they started with graffiti. The theory was that by cleaning up the appearance of the trains the feel of the tube network would be improved and people would start to feel more secure and crime would be discouraged. The effect was a significant drop in the crime rate.

If one questions how one person can make a difference to the world, one should consider the theories mentioned above. Every one of us can make a significant difference to the world. It is encouraging to keep in mind that we are creating positive vibrations in the universe whenever we perform our spiritual practices. We often receive spiritual insights while performing our spiritual practices. This is a positive feedback from the Universe for the spiritual energy that we send out during our practices.

In Tibetan Buddhism, it is taught that we should make our practices good in the beginning, good in the middle and good at the end. We make our practices good in the beginning by praying for peace and for others. We make our practices good in the middle by practicing with sincerity and devotion. Finally, we make if good at the end by dedicating to the fruits of our practices towards peace and happiness in the world. By doing this, we create a protective shield around the karmic benefits of our practices so that they are not destroyed by our karmic actions later on.

As we evolve spiritually, our consciousness vibrates at a higher rate. We become lighter and happier. As the vibrations of our consciousness increase, we not only help ourselves, but we lift the vibrations of the human consciousness as a whole. But there are many others who have lower vibrations and this create a drag on humanity’s consciousness. We do not need to worry much about that because a person with higher vibrations has a far greater effect on the human consciousness as a whole and this compensates for the imbalances in our world now.

We are Beings of light and we are part of the change that is happening to the world now. Let us shine our light upon the world to clear away the darkness!