THE GRAIN OF THE UNIVERSE

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi is a psychology professor at Claremont Graduate University in California and is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago. He is chiefly renowned as the architect of the notion of flow in creativity. People enter a flow state when they are fully absorbed in activities that challenge their skills to the utmost so that they lose their sense of time and have feelings of great satisfaction. It’s his thesis that our natural pursuit of flow states gives us the opportunity to be active, conscious players in the cosmic evolutionary process and thereby provide meaning and direction to our lives and enjoy each moment along the way.

He posits a theory about our origins, meaning and destiny that is congruent with both our religious traditions and science. “When the self consciously accepts its role in the process of evolution, life acquires a transcendent meaning. Whatever happens to out individual existences, we will become at one with the power of the universe.”