Part 1 - Siva and Cern, Dancing Colliders

A bronze statue of the Hindu deity Siva stands before Cern, the European Organization for Nuclear Research located just outside Geneva. (see image below) How did Arya Siva and the Large Hadron Collider meet? Let us discover one possible narrative line between Siva, science, our collective culture, and the unfolding of consciousness studies. As with most explorations into consciousness and the studies that form them, our provisional answers or responses to its enigmas, queries, and quandaries will leave us with more questions. Consciousness discoveries at once expand and deepen the field of inquiry, while lurking beneath our postulations is the shadowy notion that our present insights are mere refoldings of previous ones. Standing just over two meters, Siva, the Hindu God of creation and destruction, is represented as Nataraja, the deity’s cosmic dance form. Siva is in mid-movement. One leg is raised, generating velocity, while the other is planted on its base. Four arms extend, transect, and swirl graciously, perhaps embracing all cosmic dimensions. Is Siva in a superposition of stasis and kinesis, thus enacting Cern’s quantum world? Siva is anchored in one point of space-time. Yet, the deity is the infinite mover. He churns all constituent reality ingredients within the cauldron that is our cosmos. Matter and energy dynamically interplay until forms aggregate, cohere, then mutate, disassemble, dissolve, and reassemble into new configurations over and over again. In Hindu cosmology, Siva embodies the principle of Lila, the ever-dynamic and interconnected nature of our reality. We are all participants in Lila, whether we like it or not. Every particle that constitutes the world, including our composite human body down to its very cells and, dare I say, subatomic nature, is in Lila. Resistance to Lila, the intrinsic generativity of the cosmos, leads to suffering and the diminution of consciousness states. Siva performs two mudras or sacred hand gestures. Siva’s right arm is forwardly extended with his palms open as if to the viewer or the world before him, signifying the mudra of fearlessness. His left hand is extended elegantly to the side, with his palm facing the ground, indicating stability and perseverance. He holds a damaru or drum in his other right hand, signifying the drum beat of creation and destruction, from which time and space unfurl. In his other left hand, he holds a flame or agni, which signifies destruction. Ultimately, creation and destruction are provisional demarcations, as all manifestations of Siva are simultaneously flourishing and decaying. A halo of fire ensconces Siva, signifying the eternal cosmos. And finally, if we observe carefully, we notice that Siva is standing on the being Apasarma, who personifies ignorance. His victorious stance is a proclamation of wisdom, the understanding that all things are part of the dynamic exchange of creation and destruction; all forms, including one’s self and identity, are subject to Lila’s fructifying and destroying dynamism. When we mistake consciousness for the display of Lila and the temporary amalgam of neural, physiological, and biological processes, or any processes for that matter, we fall into ignorance. Under the spell of ignorance, consciousness becomes bewildered, loses vitality, and mistakes matter for its intrinsically unique and irreducible higher self, the transcendent that lives outside the flux and formations of Lila. Siva represents one’s higher consciousness standing at once in time and out of it while never confusing consciousness for its projections. Is Cern making an implicit statement on consciousness through Siva Nataraja? In contrapuntal drumbeat, Siva and Cern are perhaps aligned with a vision of the universe that is alien to the classical Newtonian worldview of immutable rule sets and the monotheistic sacrosanct laws that govern the universe. Monism, the soul, and an immutable first-cause creator God give way to a roomier ontology. The dancing deity reminds us not to mistake transient expressions of a mutable world for indivisibility, providence, and determination. Do our consciousness conceptions simply reflect our cosmological higher powers, divinity, and our religious and science-derived ontologies? Are consciousness studies merely morphing into our preexisting assumptions, forever fastening us to the iterative loop of referentiality?