Is Entanglement Fundamentally a Physical or Spiritual Phenomena?
The concept of entanglement, a cornerstone of quantum mechanics, has intrigued and perplexed scientists for decades. Albert Einstein himself, a pioneer of modern physics, was deeply troubled by it. He referred to it as “spooky action at a distance,” believing it violated the fundamental principle that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. Here A.H. Almaas talks about the way it relates both to science and spiritual experience.
Highlights from A. H. Almaas’ Talk
Entanglement, as theorized and now experimentally verified, describes a profound connection between two particles that have interacted. No matter how far apart they are—whether a few feet or billions of light-years—if you measure the state of one particle, the other instantly responds. It’s as if they are in instantaneous, non-local communication. While Einstein believed this was impossible and a sign that quantum theory was incomplete, later experiments, particularly those based on Bell's theorem, confirmed that entanglement is a genuine and verifiable phenomenon of our universe.
Wormholes in Time and Space
Recent discoveries suggest that entanglement isn’t just a phenomenon of space, but also of time. This means two particles can be entangled not only across vast distances but also across different moments in time. To a spiritual seeker, this finding is particularly compelling. It resonates with the direct, inner experience of a reality where time and space are not absolute, but contained within a single, unified awareness.
Modern physics has even begun to bridge this gap with the concept of wormholes. These theoretical tunnels in the fabric of space-time, predicted by Einstein’s own theories, can connect two distant points. When physicists have created entangled particles in lab settings, they’ve found that these particles appear to be connected by a kind of tiny wormhole. This suggests that entanglement might be a manifestation of this profound link, a direct conduit through space and time.
Unilocity: The Spiritual Parallel
From a spiritual perspective, this echoes an ancient mystical truth often called interpenetration or unilocity (unified locality). In a deep state of spiritual realization, one can experience that all of space and all of time are contained in a single point of presence, the “here and now.” It is a classic mystical experience, where everything is an indivisible field or medium. It encompasses all we see, all inner and outer experience, all universes, even nonexistence. Time and space pass within it, so that it is one hundred percent transparent. There is nothing there, at the same time that it is the nature of everything.
Different traditions call it different things: Christianity calls it God the Father, Sufis refer to it as Divine Essence, other paths merely identify it as consciousness. It is a vastness that is the nature of everything. This isn't just a metaphor; it’s a direct, profound experience. Your past and future, every person, and every event are all contained in a single, indivisible moment. There is no spatial distance between you and another person, nor is there any time between now and a moment from a billion years ago. As Hameed says, “My childhood is here right now. And my death is here right now.”
This spiritual understanding suggests a reality that is fundamentally unified, where everything is already connected. The "spooky action" of quantum entanglement, therefore, isn’t so much an action as it is the revealing of a deeper, pre-existing unity. It’s a parallel phenomenon that shows us that the boundaries of space and time we experience are perhaps not as solid as they seem.
While science and spirituality approach this from different angles—one through empirical evidence and the other through direct experience—they may be pointing to the same truth: that the universe is far more interconnected than we ever imagined.