Free The Greatest Spiritual Secret of the Century by Thom Hartmann Page B

some of his composure returning.
    â€œAnd it is true that if you were an Apache, that would have certified me as a ‘real spirit.’ Although the Coyote doesn’t always have the best of reputations, and I suppose, in retrospect, college professors aren’t much better.” He chuckled to himself. “I could be a bear…”
    â€œDon’t,” Paul interjected.
    â€œJust an idle thought,” Noah said. “But the important point is that it all illustrates the final teaching I am here to give you from those many of the Wisdom School.”
    â€œWhich is?”
    â€œDo you have a remote control for that TV?” Noah said.
    â€œThat doesn’t sound like a ‘teaching’ to me,” Paul said, glancing at the remote control on the end table between him and the closet near the front door.
    Noah nodded at the remote control and said, “Toss it to me.”
    Paul reached over, picked it up, and handed it to Noah, who pointed it at the TV and pushed the Power button. The TV sprang to life, two big-haired women punching each other while a guy waving a folding chair tried to hit them both.
    â€œRight now,” Noah said, “for that TV set, the only show that exists in the known universe is this program, right?”
    â€œI suppose you could say that,” Paul said.
    â€œDo you see anything else?”
    â€œNo, but you’re the one with the remote control. And there are some TVs where you can pop another channel into a little window in the corner.”
    â€œYou know what I mean. We’re tuned to this frequency and it seems like it’s the only thing that exists. If you were to give this TV to somebody from a tribe in Borneo, and not give them the remote control and throw away the channel-changing knob, all they’d ever know existed is this one channel. You understand?”
    â€œYes,” said Paul, taking a drink of his wine and wondering where Noah was going with the TV metaphor.
    â€œSo the Creator of the Universe made the creation out of what?”
    â€œHydrogen?” Paul was baffled by the sudden change of direction of the questions.
    â€œThat’s the smallest element, the smallest atom. But it’s made out of what?”
    â€œElectrons, neutrons, and protons.”
    â€œAnd they’re made of?”
    â€œI dunno. Subatomic particles of some sort. Quarks and mesons and stuff like that.”
    â€œAnd they’re made of?”
    â€œI wasn’t a physics major,” Paul said. “I stuck with journalism.”
    Noah nodded. “Which is part of why I’m here, so you can write this story. But back to the question. The smallest known particles exhibit properties of both matter and energy. In other words, all matter is made of energy. The amount of energy it took to make, for example, this remote control, is equal to the mass of the remote control times about thirty-five billion, which is the speed of light squared. E equals MC squared. And if you were to convert the matter in this remote control back into the energy it’s made of, the amount of energy that would be released would be about thirty-five billion times its mass. Atomic bombs and all that.”
    â€œI remember this stuff now from high school,” Paul said. “Seems a little odd that Noah would be lecturing me about physics.”
    Noah snorted. “Boat-builders have historically been at the forefront of science. Out of necessity. I knew geometry and trigonometry before they were named.”
    â€œSo you learned physics?”
    â€œActually, I can know anything that is known. And so can you.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œJust trust me on that one. One day it will be part of your experience.” He stood up and walked over to the television. “So, back to TV and physics. The universe is made up of a seamless spectrum of energy, from the most subtle to the most coarse, and of matter which floats in that energy the way