Quantum Leaps

I have frequently noticed in myself as a student practicing Yoga Asana and often in other students, moments when my teacher or a teacher is watching me during my practice where I stand a little taller, I lengthen a little further, I balance a little longer, I breathe a little more evenly.  

You may have noticed that as well when you are in a Yoga posture, perhaps just hanging out passively waiting out the breath count.  The teacher comes right to you and without even reaching to assist you, you immediately shape up.  Something about being observed brings about a shift.  But also being observed prompts us into the mode of being watchful ourselves, of ourselves.  This then brings us spontaneously into our potential.  It could be said we become conscious, self aware.

In Quantum Physics, Quantum Theory speaks of how subatomic particles (electrons, photons, neutrons; parts of the approximately 7 billion billion billion atoms that make up the human body) act differently when they are observed.  The famous two-slit experiment is said to illustrate this best.  'When someone watches a subatomic particle, the particle moves like a bullet, passing through one hole or the other.   But if no one observes the particle, it hangs out exhibiting properties of a wave with infinite possibilities.' *  

This is inferred also from Werner Heisenberg's famous Uncertainty Principle. The quality of a particle can leap from possibility to reality just by looking at it or directing light on it.*  The outcome depends on whether someone is observing.  Other experiments have shown that even the suggestion or knowledge in the experimenter's mind can transport a particle from 'the realm of possibility to reality'.*

So that it is consciousness, that attention we bring to a potential that is always there, that gives shape to our body & its evolution.  In fact, consciousness is said to give shape to every aspect of our reality.

Further:

- Meditation, seated or in movement, starts with the practice of watching the body and mind, and in the watching changing the quality & direction of the body & mind.

- At first we notice the quality that the mind and the body often 'hangs out' in ; our habitual frame of mind or our habitual positioning of the body.

-That soon shifts, as watching the body and mind, pulls them out of their 'wave' like state, from the realm of infinite possibilities to a reality. 

- The challenge of course is to stay ever vigilant, watchful of ourselves.  

- Looking at ourselves becomes continuously more challenging, carrying less and less appeal, as we rather look at Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Breaking News, etc.

- Technology & gadgets lure us more and more into what lies outside us, a gathering of information, often meaningless chatter.  All the while what lies inside us, self-knowledge, alludes us.

- In many ways, as we incrementally surrender our gaze, our attention outward, we forego the leaps in progress that would result from looking inward (albeit at the subatomic level). 

Reference:

* The Biocentric Universe Theory: Life Creates Time, Space, and the Cosmos Itself

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/may/01-the-biocentric-universe-life-creates-time-space-cosmos