Neutrinos (aka Ghost Particles) Beat Speed of Light

Here we go with this month’s most mind-boggling news report: Test results presented at CERN, the world’s largest physics lab located in Geneva, Switzerland, might fundamentally alter our understanding of how the universe operates. The results suggest that subatomic particles move faster than the speed of light.

One of the pillars of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, it has been believed until now that the speed of light is the ultimate speed limit in the Universe. Indeed, modern physics depends on the idea that nothing can exceed it. Going faster than light is something that is just not supposed to happen according to Einstein’s special theory of relativity — the one made famous in 1905 by the equation E equals mc2.

CERN reported that a neutrino beam fired from a particle accelerator near Geneva to a lab 454 miles (730 kilometers) away in Italy traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. Scientists calculated the margin of error at just 10 nanoseconds (a nanosecond is one-billionth of a second). However, scientists are still cautious about the findings of European researchers who confirmed they clocked an oddball type of subatomic particle called a neutrino going faster than the 186,282 miles per second that has long been considered the cosmic speed limit. Given the enormous implications of the find, the researchers spent months checking and rechecking their results to make sure there were no flaws in the experiment.

As expected, scientists are skeptical and even the researchers are cautious and have asked other physicists to independently try to verify their findings. Even if these results are confirmed, they won’t necessarily change our lives. After all, these particles have presumably been speeding around since the beginning of time.  It has been suggested that one reason for the neutrino’s speed could be a cosmic shortcut through another dimension — physics theory is full of unseen dimensions — that allows them to beat the speed of light. In any case, our understanding of how the universe works is surely changing fundamentally as we speak!

Even more mind-boggling to me is the fact that about 40 years ago, Osho explains in a talk the possibility for science to enter the fifth or spiritual body, and emphasizes that until science accepts the existence of the etheric plane, it cannot have any understanding:

For instance, modern science says that matter when analyzed is ultimately reduced to electrons which are not matter but which are particles of electricity. Nothing like substance remains in the end – only energy. So science has made a wonderful discovery in the last thirty years. Though it had considered matter to be a reality, it has now come to the conclusion that matter does not exist whereas energy is a fact. Science now says that matter is an illusion brought about by the movement of energy at a high speed.

When a fan is made to rotate at high speed we cannot see the three blades separately. What we see is a circle going around and around. Also, the spaces between the blades appear filled. Actually, the blades move so fast that before the reflection of one blade passes our eyes the second blade is already there. Then the third blade comes just as swiftly, with the result that they follow one after the other so that we cannot see the vacant spaces between them. The fan can be made to revolve at such a speed that you can sit on it and never know that anything is moving underneath you. The space between two blades can be filled so swiftly that after one blade passes under you the second will immediately replace it; then you will not feel the empty space at all. It is entirely a matter of speed.

When energy revolves at a high speed it looks like matter. The atomic energy on which our entire modern scientific research is based has never been perceived visually; only its effects are visible. The fundamental energy is invisible and the question of seeing it does not arise, but we can observe its effects.

So if we look upon the etheric body as the atomic body it will not be wrong – because in this case also we only see the effects and not the etheric body itself. Because of the effects we have to admit its existence. This second body is the subtle form of the first; hence there is no difficulty in connecting the two. They are, in a way, joined to each other. One is gross and so it can be seen; the other is subtle and hence it cannot be seen.

Beyond the etheric is the astral body. It is a subtler form of ether. Science has not yet reached there, but it has reached a conclusion that if we analyze matter, what ultimately remains is energy. This energy can be called ether. If ether is further broken up into more subtle components, what will remain is the astral – and this is subtler than the subtle.

Science has not yet reached the astral but it will. Until recently science only accepted matter and denied the existence of the atom. Until yesterday, almost, it said that matter is solid. Today it says that there is nothing like solid substance and everything is nonsolid. Now they have proved that even a wall, which appears solid, is not so solid. It is porous and things can pass back and forth through its holes. We may be inclined to say that at least that which is around the pores must be solid, but this too is not solid: each atom is porous.

If we magnify an atom to the same size as the earth we will find that there is as much distance between two components of an atom as there is between the earth and the moon or the sun and the stars. Then we might say that at least the two components at the two ends are solid – but science says that these too are not solid; they are particles of electricity. Now science is not even ready to accept the word particle, because with that is joined the concept of matter. Particle means a portion of matter – but the atom’s components are not matter, because matter is solid and keeps its shape whereas these components are continuously changing shape. They are like waves, not particles. When a wave arises in water, before you even say to yourself, “This is a wave,” it has changed, because a wave is that which comes and goes continuously.

But a wave is also a material happening, so science has coined a new word which was not there thirty years ago. The word is quanta. It is difficult to find a Hindi equivalent just as many Hindi words have no equivalents in English: for instance, the word Brahman – the cosmic reality. Words are formed because there is a necessity of expression on the part of those who have experienced. When the Brahman was experienced it was necessary for those who experienced to coin a word to express it, so the word brahman was coined in the East. The West has not reached this stage yet; hence they do not have any equivalent word, because they did not require it.

This is why many religious terms do not have any equivalents in English. For example, the word aum – this word cannot be translated into any language of the world. It is an expression of a deep spiritual experience. The West has no parallel word by which it can be ex-pressed. In the same manner, quanta is a word coined to express the peak of scientific heights and it has no parallel word in any other language. If we try to understand the meaning of quanta, it means a particle and a wave together. It will be difficult to conceive of it however. It is something which behaves sometimes like a particle, sometimes like a wave, and whose behavior is very unpredictable.

Until now matter was most reliable; there was a certainty about matter. But the ultimate part of matter, the atomic energy that has been discovered, is very uncertain. Its behavior cannot be foretold. First science stood firmly by the certainty of matter. It said that everything is precise and definite. Now the scientist does not press this claim, because he knows that from where he has reached in research today this certainty is very superficial. There is a deep uncertainty within, and it would be interesting to know what this uncertainty means.

Where there is uncertainty there is bound to be consciousness; otherwise uncertainty cannot be. Uncertainty is a part of consciousness, certainty is a part of matter. If we leave a chair in a certain place in a room we will find it exactly there upon our return, but if we leave a child in the room we will never find it where we left it. There will always be a doubt, an uncertainty, where he will be and what he will be doing. We can be sure about matter, but never about consciousness. Therefore, when science accepted the uncertainty in behavior on the part of the ultimate portion of the atom, it also accepted the possibility of consciousness in the ultimate part of matter.

Uncertainty is the quality of consciousness, but matter cannot be unpredictable. It is not that fire may burn when it chooses and not burn when it does not choose to, nor can water flow in whatever direction it pleases or boil at any temperature it fancies. The functions of matter are determined, but when we go within matter we find that ultimately it is undetermined.

You can take it this way: if we want to find out how many people die in Bombay, this is possible. If there are ten million people we can take the number of deaths in one year and find out approximately how many die per day, and this would be almost correct. If we calculate the mortality rate for this whole country of nine hundred million in the same way, the figure would be closer to the exact number. If we calculate the mortality rate for the whole world, the certainty of the figure will be even greater. But if we want to find out when a single person will die our calculations will be most uncertain.

The greater the crowd, the more material things become. The more individual the phenomenon, the more we find consciousness. In fact, a single piece of matter is a crowd of millions of atoms; therefore, we can predict about it. But if we penetrate within the atom and catch hold of the electron we find that it is individual: we cannot determine its course and it seems as if it decides that on its own. So about a solid rock we can be certain: we will find it in a particular place. But the structure of the individual atoms within will not be the same. By the time we return again to the rock, all the atoms within will have changed their positions and traveled from one place to another.

Uncertainty begins by going deep within matter. This is why science has changed its language from certainty to probability. No longer does it say, “This is how this or that will be.” Rather, it says, “It is more probable this way than that.” It no longer says emphatically, “This is it.” In the past all the claims of science were in the language of certainty: whatever it said was bound to be. But when the search of science went deeper all its former concepts began to break down. The reason was that science had unknowingly stepped from the physical realm into the etheric, about which it has no understanding. Until it accepts the fact of stepping from the physical to the etheric plane, it cannot have any understanding. It has reached the second dimension of matter, the etheric dimension, and this has its own possibilities. There is no gap between the first and the second body.

The third or the astral body is even more subtle. It is the subtlest of the subtle. If we break the ether into atoms – which still seems improbable, because we have barely unfolded the physical atom, so to experiment with ether will still take a long time. When the ether atoms are known we will find that they are the particles of the body that comes next – namely, the astral body. When we broke the physical atom its most subtle particles were found to be etheric. Similarly, if we break the etheric atom the most subtle particles will be that of the astral body. So we shall find a connection between them. These three bodies are clearly joined to one another and it is for this reason that photographs of ghosts have been taken.

Osho, In Search of the Miraculous, Vol. 2, Ch 5, Q 1
Read Osho’s entire electrifying talk…

Bhagawati (first published in Osho World Newsletter 10/11)