As was explained in the previous blog, Omnism is customizable. It is made to fit each individuals layered perspectives. There is no right or wrong way to determine the way Omnism fits into your belief system.
I am now going to explain my personal use of the term Omnism in regards to my own perspectives, and how I refer to myself with respect to the Omnist approach.
I am a QuanbuddhOm (Kwan - Bood - Ahm).
The term is short for Quantum Physics and Buddhism Omnist. I coined the phrase myself, because it is just what I like to do. My enjoyment of labeling things, is part of my Omnist perspective, so I have fun doing so.
The basic idea with my Omnist focus through Quantum Physics and Buddhism is the correlation between the two. This is not a new idea or concept, in fact it was years ago when I heard about the parallels between the two that I realized there was a reason both concepts had always interested me.
Here is a good link to a blog that explains the connection between the two elements of philosophy and science.
http://rational-buddhism.blogspot.com/2012/01/buddhism-quantum-physics-and-mind.html
At it's most fundamental core, the connection between the two relies on the philosophy of process and consciousness. Overall Buddhism also projects a more consistent basis of views through the Scientific Method, insisting on the proper assessment of evidence, rather than faith.
The perspective in Buddhism is often one of penetrating the ultimate nature of reality, and tracing the details of consciousness by reading the designs of the soul. Often the understanding of emptiness through the core being in which nothing exists as an independent entity.
The Dalai Lama wrote a book called,
The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality.
In it Tenzin Gyato, the 14th incarnation of the Dalai Lama, writes about the connections between science and spirituality. Some of the transcendent parallels find interconnections between our perceived universe and the way it functions. By relating the philosophy of Buddhism and Quantum Mechanics and its physics, The Dalai Lama, and many other people including David Bohm, a physicist, make observations which seem to enhance the world views by extrapolating similar if not, the same conclusions.
Bohm for instances makes the observation, "
...if we examine the various ideologies that tend to divide humanity such as racism, extreme nationalism, and the Marxist class struggle, one of the key factors of their origin is the tendency to perceive things as inherently divided and disconnected. From this misconception springs the belief that each of these divisions is essentially independent and self-existent."
Ultimately my love for both spirituality and science were already dancing with one another before the materials publishing these concepts were made public. It had always made sense to me, it always will.
Growing up, I was raised by parents who were not religious. Each had their own different backgrounds regarding spirituality, and decided that they wanted my brother and myself to make our own decisions since it is not up to them how we viewed the universe we live in.
This is my inherent belief that parents should not be conditioning their children to believe what they believe, but rather sharing their beliefs, knowledge, and ideas, and make their own conclusions based on that background.
I had gone through many incarnations of beliefs as I grew up. Most of my life I held no other concepts of specific beliefs, other than existential thought. My first real existential moment came when I was 8 years old. I remember my family was heading home one night after we had gone to Chucky Cheese. We were quiet, expending most of our energy at the restaurant. I sat there, looking out over the city of Denvers lights, and I could see my reflection in the window staring back at me.
I thought to myself, "I will look different, but the same, when I am older. When I am older, I will look back on this exact moment and realize I am no longer the age I am now. My present, is also my past, and my future, is my present. I will one day die, but in this moment I am alive, and will remember living this moment."
For an 8 year old I always considered that to be a pretty complex train of existential thought to be having. It's not like I was different from other children, I simply remember thinking these kinds of things after that night from then on.
It was that night specifically that led into the array of possibilities the universe held for life in general.
I had gone to church now and then, not because it was part of any familial system of beliefs, but because it was required. Whether some school sanctioned necessity, as I had been apart of differing systems throughout growing up, or weddings, or funerals. Church wasn't unfamiliar to me, but I always felt that the people that attended it, were absent of something fundamentally whole. That their spirits were full, but their minds were not. That their heart was loving, but their brain was judging.
I know it isn't the case, not for everyone of course. I felt the awe a place like church provided, but I also felt the elements of life people took for granted because the source of the churches foundation was based in an often hypocritical, if not limited, worldview.
High school was rough, as it normally is. My girlfriend at the time had her own difficult patches, and there was a point where she became Christian. To know she was part of something, loved, forgiven, and able to connect with the universe in some way. She also felt that I needed to know this feeling, and so I attended youth groups with her.
Needless to say at that point in my life, I was in my rebellious phase, so churchy religious things were not going to work out for me. I saw it as a way to infiltrate the sheeple. To instigate expansion of the mind. I didn't like hearing the preaching of sermons, or reading of biblical passages. I hated hearing the names that begat other names, and the chapters of a scripture that were supposed to tell me how to live my life, but instead illuminated in large bold neon letters, "DUH."
Of course I should be good, of course values and morals are important. Personally, I understood those concepts, and always had. I was a good person internally, but externally I wanted to fight. I wanted to explode as most teenagers do.
After a time the relationship wore down and I no longer attended the youth groups, and decided for a time that I was an Atheist. It didn't last long as my existential nature negated the basic viewpoints of an Atheist belief structure. I could not believe in nothing. It was as ridiculous as believing in God. Both views did not work...independently.
Agnosticism would take over for a time, often flowered by buddhist inspiration, and this was a good time for my spiritual growth. I afforded myself the ability to question everything. I resolved to become a buddhist as it's philosophies made the most sense in my heart and mind, but I realized I was still far to entrenched in a chaotic lifestyle to appeal to its ideals. So then Satanism came and went. Then Urantianism. Hinduism, polytheism, and eventually Universalism. Universalism was my first step towards Omnism. It reconciled the equations in which man and divinity resided together through all beliefs. Unitarian Universalism provided the concept that all things were connected.
Eventually I became interested in certain sciences. Astrophysics and Quantum Mechanics being the more illuminating of sciences to me.
Time would pass and I would jump between perspectives depending on the knowledge I had at the time. The one thing I always knew however, was that no religion was right in and of itself. There was no religion that told me something a different religion didn't or couldn't. Each espoused similar values, ethics, morals, integrity, and more of than not, stories. Even ancient allegory contained similar if not the same transition of individuals into divine concepts and messiahs. Saviors and sanctuary from the evils of mankind, or the darkness of the universes core.
It was a few years ago that I thought I created the concept of Omnism. I normally won't just make assumptions though and it didn't take my long to cite already existing definitions for the term. In fact it had been around for longer than I realized.
In that I knew then that I was an Omnist. Not only that, but a Quantum Buddhism Omnist. A QuanbuddhOm.
I believe that there are so many integral elements that we know and don't know which are not absolute, but defining concepts, entwined with one another, which make up reality and our universe, that I can never be an absolutist. I can never believe there is only one answer. My heart and mind both tell me as such. I believe in the Omniverse. The whole of all things.
Realities beyond universes beyond galaxies within realms of dimensions outside of realities beyond universes, all expanding exponentially and infinitely, within the Omniverse.
I believe in God. I believe God exists. I also believe that God is us...and that God does not exist. I believe that God is every god, and that all gods, are God. I believe that the gods are dead and living, and that the soul, the spirit, the essence, the energy, the core of our being, is not singular, but everywhere, all the time, yet inhabiting this body, right now.
When I am dead, I believe my physical body shall become part of the material earth, and that my energy, my soul, will disperse into the universe, becoming one person, many people, plants, animals. I believe it will inhabit a form of reality where consciousness can remain at some point, cognitive and singular in thought, yet divided amongst all of consciousness.
My beliefs are contradictory. They are a dichotomy. They are a paradox that most people might not be able to entirely understand. It is however, my own belief. My own understanding, and in my heart, in my mind, and in my soul, I know it is right, for me.
