Observer

Observer

in physics, the observer effect is generally described as a disturbance of an observed system by the act of observation. After years of reading books on quantum theory, mostly geared towards the simplest explanation to the non-scientific reader, this is about as much as I understand, and I'm sure that there is still much that eludes me even here. Yet I read on, countless books now and with no better understanding than what I've read before - it seems somehow that the mystery that I'm reading of is my own self-description, quantum physics is the reality of my own observation. 

what I am is simply the observing...nothing more. 

there are many new-age attempts to blend quantum theories with their particular belief systems, and some meditation traditions liken their effects to a quantum world. I don't discount any of this, it's all too mysterious for me to make claims of what's so and what isn't. But I mostly lean towards a scientific view, not through any bias, it's just easier to understand the basic nature of things from this description, before it's tied to any story or belief. Although science itself is a story and often clings to its own traditions as well - so understanding this leaves me open to all that I read and study, not being firmly in a single camp of an infinite view of mystery. I believe only in possibilities. 

when I began my practice of meditation, decades ago now, there was a description of a witness stage, of reaching that point of observing mystery, being the observer. It's a wonderful feeling to simply be the witness, passive in observation, free of the effects of what's observed. It's so easy to get stuck here, as if it's the final point of years of meditation. Yet witnessing, witnessing, continuously and then even this has disappeared...there is no ultimate observer of the world, no final stage of understanding. Everything continues to be mystery, empty of any lasting state of self, even as a witness emerges from this endless fold of mystery. 

and that's it, really, my only true understanding...

witnessing, and there is no observer found separate from the observed, everything is let go of, and yet there is no one present actually letting go...life is simply happening, spontaneously emerging in events and structure, form being ultimately formless in its nature. 

there's just and only this,

whatever it is. 

and even it's a story. 

~

Peace, Eric