life

Grief, Quantum Physics, and Eternal Spirit

MAhmed , , , ,

The following message is adapted from a deeply personal letter I wrote to my daughter-in-law in response to the eulogy she delivered at the memorial service for our only child, who passed away from cancer.
Although I could not attend due to hospitalization, I was deeply moved by her words and felt compelled to record my own thoughts—rooted in personal grief and lifelong philosophical reflection. My aim was not only to share them with her but also with the wider community, hoping they might resonate with others who have endured loss.

This expression weaves together faith-based beliefs from many traditions and science-based understandings of the cosmos, particularly through the lens of quantum physics, as I have come to know from popular science readings, my background in philosophy and clinical psychology, decades of professional practice, and personal spiritual reflections enriched by poets and thinkers.

“…While standing beside my son’s grave, memories flooding in, I feel my body vibrate with his presence—as quantum entanglement suggests, linked at the micro-electrical levels of our existence—a connection deepened through our lived experiences together. Just as entangled particles reflect each other’s state instantly across distance, I believe that deep emotional and spiritual bonds endure beyond physical separation. Love, shared experiences, and presence form invisible threads—quantum echoes of eternal connection—mirroring spiritual beliefs in unity within the realm of the One.

This idea—of love and presence transcending form—appears in the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel laureate and philosopher-poet of Bengal. As a child, I came to love and memorize his poems, and I often listen to his songs while driving. In Jokhon Porbe Na Mor Payer Chinho Ei Bate (“When My Footprints No Longer Mark This Path”), he writes:

When my footprints will no longer mark this path,
I will have left behind name and form and gone afar—
Yet I shall return again and again, in new names,
In fresh forms—carrying the same eternal self.

Rumi, the 13th-century Persian Sufi mystic, whose work I came to appreciate more deeply through my association with your Azeri-Iranian father, affirms:

“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes.
For those who love with heart and soul, there is no separation.”

My wife, our son’s beloved Filipino mother, finds solace in her Catholic faith and its promise of eternal life. My father, A.A.F. Mohi, who lived in the Indian subcontinent, offered a Muslim perspective in his poem Life and Death:

“…Man must die,
Await the inevitable moment,
With only consolation in spirit…
Verily to God we belong,
And to Him we return.”

Such beliefs resonate with the Hindu concept of moksha, the Christian hope of resurrection, and the Buddhist understanding of nirvana—the ultimate release from human wants and suffering, and the merging of the soul with the One Ultimate Reality.

The popular Irish ballad “Danny Boy,” which I often listen to—and which your late beloved Irish American mother must have loved—echoes this timeless connection:

“But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow,
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow…
’Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow…”

Across spiritual traditions, there is this shared belief in an enduring, all-pervading consciousness—from which all life emerges and to which it ultimately returns. Whether expressed as the Atman–Brahman unity of Vedanta, the Spiritus Mundi of mystical Christianity, Tawhid in Islam, or Ein Sof in Kabbalistic Judaism, the message is the same: the soul belongs to a greater, eternal Reality of the One, present both within us and all around us. This truth finds echo in the gift hanging I saw on your door the other day—a sign that reads, “Hush, listen carefully, I am around, ” a reminder of our son’s continuing presence.

Some physicists suggest that time itself is not absolute but relational—what we call the “past” may still exist in another form of “now.” Einstein once wrote to the widow of his close friend, Michele Besso, that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a “stubbornly persistent illusion.” In quantum theory, a particle can exist in two states at once, hinting at a multiverse where past, present, and future coexist.

Whether expressed through physics, poetry, religion, or philosophy, one truth endures: love is not limited by time. Our son’s kindness, laughter, and devotion are not lost. His presence—and the memories of all our loved ones—live within us, resonating across both the quantum realm of physical reality and the Eternal Spirit within the Reality of One.

Thank you again for your beautifully expressed tribute. Your words echo the depth of our shared grief and enduring love, reminding us of “the eternal connection” that binds us all. We draw strength from our memories, from one another, and from the many ways our son—your beloved husband, devoted father, cherished family member, loyal friend, and valued presence—lives on: within time, beyond form, and always in spirit, as do the loved ones of all of us…”

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Please note, I used (AI) tools for editorial support, including citing hashtags, but the ideas, interpretations, and conclusions expressed are solely my own, and the copyright for the content remains with me as the author, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Ph.D.

Reflections on Time, Perception, and Existence

MAhmed , , , ,

When I was young, time seemed to stretch endlessly. Waiting—whether for school to end, for playtime to begin, or simply to grow older—felt like an eternity. Every moment was vivid, filled with anticipation and curiosity. And yet, when immersed in play or joy, time felt boundless, as though those moments could last forever.

Now, at the late age decades of my life feel like the blink of an eye, a fleeting flash in the vast expanse of existence. Days, months, and years pass with astonishing speed, slipping through my grasp before I fully register them. This stark contrast in how I have experienced time across my life has led me to reflect deeply on its nature.

Drawing from philosophy and clinical psychology training and professional practice as a psychologist, and my life experiences with recent explorations into popular science, particularly quantum physics, I have come to accept that time is profoundly relative. Einstein’s theories of relativity revolutionized our understanding of time, demonstrating that it is not an absolute, fixed entity but instead depends on movement and perspective. His famous thought experiment involving identical twins offers a compelling illustration: if one twin travels through space at near-light speed while the other remains on Earth, the traveling twin would return younger, having experienced time more slowly relative to the twin on Earth. This phenomenon is not just theoretical; it is a measurable aspect of our universe.

Beyond the grand scale of relativity, I have also considered how biology shapes our perception of time. When we are young, our metabolic rate is faster. This heightened internal rhythm correlates with a slower perception of time—each moment feels rich and expansive. As we age and our metabolism slows, our perception of time accelerates; days feel shorter, years slip by faster, and life, in retrospect, compresses into a series of fleeting memories.

This interplay between biology and perception raises a profound question: Could all living organisms, regardless of their lifespan, experience time similarly? A fruit fly, for example, may live for mere days, while humans typically live for decades. Yet, due to its accelerated metabolic rate, a fruit fly’s perception of those days might feel as lengthy and meaningful as a human’s perception of 80 years. If we frame time as something experienced rather than objectively measured, then the brevity of a fly’s life and the longevity of a human’s might, in some sense, be equivalent in subjective experience.

In this way, time is not just a physical dimension governed by relativity; it is also a deeply personal, biological, and psychological construct. The perception of time arises from a confluence of factors: the external, such as movement and the passage of events, and the internal, such as our biological rhythms and mental states.

As I reflect on my eighty-five plus years of life, I see it not just as a journey through a timeline but as a mosaic of experiences shaped by this dynamic interplay of physics and biology. The young perceive time as expansive because their world is new, their curiosity boundless, and their internal rhythms quickened. The old perceive time as fleeting because their world has grown familiar, their moments are cherished in hindsight, and their internal clocks tick slower. Time is both a universal and deeply personal paradox that binds us all, regardless of how long we live or how we perceive the passing days. It is a reminder to treasure the fleeting moments we have, knowing that in some profound way, they may be infinite in their significance.

Acknowledgments: This writing is inspired by a lifetime of learning and reflection, enriched by my professional experiences in psychology, and early graduate training in philosophy, and influenced by the insights of great thinkers in philosophy and science as well as recent reading of popular science books. I was aided in the editorial process with AI.

Copyright: © [ 2025] [Mohiuddin Ahmed, Ph.D.]. All rights reserved. This document or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in critical reviews or scholarly work.