Since yestereday was Observation Day, I thought today I would just say a little more about it because I find the phenomeneon of changing reality by observation pretty fascinating. The observation effect is a well known phenomenon in quantum physics. When we observe, nature changes. I actually read one blogger’s post that discusses how we influence things that happened in the past. At any rate, this observation of things that arise within us, instead of not observing them and becoming them (I observe anger instead of ‘I am angry and then I move into reaction’) is a powerful tool for change.

There is a story that is told within my meditation practice. It relates the experience of a scientist (one who worked on the atom bomb), who goes to sit a long meditation course. He apparently had been quite an unpleasant person who did not have good relations with his wife or family. During and after the course he began to see great changes in himself, very positive ones. He was happier. His relations improved.

Being a scientist he really wanted to explain how the meditation worked. Eventually, he likened it to the phenomenon of passing a metal substance through an intense magnet. The impurities are extracted. Similarly, meditation is like passing a magnet (our pure consciousness) throughout the body. Impurities are extracted. And thus we become lighter, happier.

Any moment that we observe the self is not a wasted moment. The more, the merrier, literally.

I have written down somewhere something that Deepak Chopra said once:

“The only clear path to God is a constant state of self awareness.”

Constant? Boy is that alot of work.