Reality Beyond Words

     From before recorded history, mystics in the form of shamans, medicine women & men, sages, saints, alchemists, various varieties of artists, and most recently quantum physicists have been pointing out how reality is INFINITELY greater and FAR more complex than we can describe, or even imagine. 
    Our mind filters out (blocks from our consciousness) most of our perceptions, to prevent us from being overwhelmed, thus allowing us to focus only on what's necessary for survival. So our mind is both an information 'receiver', and a 'reducing valve.' 

    Our society's mindset has become far too narrowly, self-destructively, self-centered - using Iain McGilchrist's profound understanding, 'Left-hemisphere dominant': http://www.johnlovas.com/2024/03/knockin-on-heavens-door.html Our current mindset is 'Unwise' both in terms of secular academic wisdom research, http://www.johnlovas.com/2021/06/loads-of-information-some-knowledge.html as well as humanity's timeless wisdom traditions. 
    Wisdom traditions can be compared to politics. Many politicians put self-interest & their own party's success, ahead of the welfare of their country. Such "partisanship" - a form of individual & group narcissism - is tearing the US apart. However, some politicians are decent mature human beings, who take their job seriously, primarily serve their country's, & ideally the world's, best interests. Wisdom traditions, taken seriously, guide practitioners toward ethical behavior, unconditional love of self & others, and the capacity to gracefully navigate life's most difficult existential challenges. Like politics, religions (both often working as one) have a shameful history of incompetence, corruption & criminal behavior. Nevertheless, both politics and wisdom traditions - when taken seriously - are vital & irreplaceable for a deeply meaningful life.
    Clearly both individuals and society have a duty to deeply care for, to wisely nurture, themselves & each other. 

    It takes a certain type of intelligence to quickly become a billionaire, to become a populist dictator, to become a wealthy slum lord, or 'succeed' in any other criminal activity. But to mature into a peaceful, generous, collaborative, loving, nurturing human being requires a rare & infinitely more precious quality: wisdom. 
    Our society has almost completely forgotten about the value, or even the meaning of wisdom. As a result, we're democratically electing an increasing number of world leaders who have all the attributes & more of Batman-movie villains, but none of the attributes of wise leaders such as: Mahatma Gandhi, Václav Havel, Nelson Madela, Jacinda Ardern, etc.

    We MUST re-educate ourselves about, and individually & collectively embody wisdom in order to heal our broken Earth so that our children, grandchildren and as yet unborn future generations can survive & even thrive. 

    A senior nondual teacher - Tony Parsons - points us towards wisdom which is nondual. Our dualistic minds find nonduality paradoxical at best. The most highly spiritually-evolved mystics & saints of all our wisdom traditions have always lived & pointed toward nondual wisdom, BUT even their own 'conservative' religious institutions have been systematically persecuting & murdering them out of fear, ignorance & jealousy. 
    HOWEVER, we're NOW at the tipping point where the hubris of our common dualistic 'cleverness' MUST evolve, or more accurately, shift into nondual wisdom before humanity extinguishes itself. 
    This provides some sense of the direction in which Parsons is pointing: 

    “It seems that in the boundless energy that is oneness there can also arise a contracted energy which brings about apparent self-awareness. A powerful and convincing sense of self-identity seems to arise together with a belief in personal free will and choice in what is experienced as a real life story. All of these personal experiences can only apparently arise in what seems to be a very real but dualistic reality in which everything appears to be separate. This sense of separation can bring with it a sense of loss and a need to seek guidance, an understanding or a path or process that can promise fulfillment. There are attempts to seek unity which are totally futile because the separate seeker is apparently the very dualism from which it is trying to escape.” 
    Tony Parsons https://www.theopensecret.com/ 

 

      “What goes on in these (Tony Parsons) meetings is not so much to do with conceptual clarity. It is to do with an energetic shift, it’s to do with energy. Basically, the energy of being separate is contraction. At a very early age there’s a contraction of energy into a sense of a center, ‘I’m “me.” Oh! Now I’m “me”!’ Basically, the apparent separate individual in the dream is in the contracted state – ‘I’m in here, this is my boundary, and everything else is out there.’ And it can seem threatening, or not. 
    So what happens in these meetings and, interestingly, directly after them, is that somewhere that contraction meets boundlessness. That boundlessness isn’t anyone’s; it’s just boundlessness. The speaker is speaking to itself. The speaker is meeting nothing and speaking to nothing. So conceptually, there can be a clarity about that. The most powerful thing in these meetings is that the contracted state can open out into boundlessness. It’s an energetic shift.” 
    John David interviews Tony Parsons in 2007 • Wisdom of the European Masters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvokZJjemfg

 
    “What we’re talking about here is just an energy that can’t be known. The energy of empty fullness. It’s a mystery. It can’t be understood. I use the word energy as everything. All there is, is energy. All there is, is everything and anything. For me energy is a good word, it’s like aliveness. All there is, is aliveness or energy. This is it. 
    This is energy in the form of a room, people, breathing, thinking, feeling, sitting on a chair. It’s simply energy happening. And that energy is absolutely boundless. Nothing influences it. It’s completely free and wild. It appears as everything and nothing. It’s a mystery. 
    And because it’s free, it has no purpose or meaning. There’s no meaning to any of this. This aliveness is utterly, wonderfully, meaningless. 
    But because it’s free energy, it can also be limited. And so in its apparent limited form, nothing is real, everything is only an appearance. In its apparent limited form, what arises in the human being is a self-awareness. At a very early age after birth, suddenly, there’s a sense of self-awareness – a sense of ‘me,’ ‘I am real.’ And that child goes into the world full of other apparent individuals, who also feel that they are real, so it lives, in what I call, ‘a dream.’ It lives in a dream of you could say, of ‘dualism.’ He’s in the dream of being separate. I am a separate individual. The world is something that’s happening to me. So that sense of awareness keeps me separate from everything. That wouldn’t necessarily be recognized by most people, but that’s actually what happens. That’s the dream state of individualism. Most people in the world you could say feel as if that is absolutely real, being a separate individual in the world. 
    What’s being suggested here is that that whole idea, that whole sense of being separate, and being individual, and having free will and choice, and living in a story that seems to be real - all of that is a complete & utter dreamt illusion. Most people think it’s real, but what’s being suggested here is that it’s an illusion, and there’s something else, another possibility which completely explodes the whole idea of individuality or separation.

    So we could talk about how the individual seems to take form, what it’s like, all the belief systems it collects around itself to believe in its life and its story. We could talk about that. And it’s possible, that in just talking about it conceptually, and hearing a few suggestions that come from somewhere else, it’s possible that that whole belief system of separation, that whole belief system of individuality of awareness, can unravel. It may not. 
    But the other thing that can happen is, where there’s an openness to something that’s beyond the sense of self, when there’s an openness to another possibility – a terrible possibility, but a possibility nonetheless. There could be something energetic that’s very freeing and boundless about that energy, and then, the contracted energy of being the self can melt or fall back into that whole, because the contracted energy is also oneness. Contracted energy is also the boundless in the contracted form. 
    There is nothing that is right or wrong. There’s nothing above or below. There’s nothing that’s here or there. There just is what is and is not. That’s the mystery we’re talking about. And again, it cannot be known. So what you will go away from here is with absolutely nothing at all. There’s nothing to learn or understand about what we’re discussing here. But something could possibly apparently collapse – but only apparently collapse. It’s the restricted feeling of being an individual in the world that’s separate.

    This is not a teaching. There’s nothing to learn. It’s just a communication. It’s an illumination of what seems to be the human condition, and a suggestion that something else that’s completely beyond that but somehow by confronting can also unveil liberation. But you can’t do anything about it. The you that thinks you can do something about it simply can pour water and benefits. Yeah, it’s this. It’s this. It’s nowhere else, it’s this.

    Q: When the contracted sense of separate self falls away, are there any physical manifestations that you or others can notice?

    Tony Parsons (TP): No, not necessarily. The physical thing that can happen when the whole contracted sense of being a ‘me’ collapses – but only apparently collapses – the body relaxes, because all the time in there’s a sense of me, and the me is trying to maintain its image in the world, who’s trying to play the game of the world, so there’s a lot of tension and fear involved in that, which suddenly falls away, so there’s a relaxation. Noticing that there’s a lot more energy, just available, not to anyone, because it takes a lot of energy to be a ‘me’ in the world, to try to make that illusion work.

    Q: I’m here to ... – I’m probably wrong,

    TP: There is no wrong.

    Q: OK, I’m looking for something

    TP: You’re looking for a better experience

    Q: No actually, I wondering if I’m looking in the right direction

    TP: There isn’t one. So seekers, people come here, apparently come here, seeking a better experience or a different way of living for themselves which will support and bring them a better experience of life. That isn’t available here. This is about death. It’s about the end of that which seeks to find a better experience. This is about the death of that which feels it is separate that’s what can go on here. But there’s no one that can do anything about that.

    Q: So what is the point?

    TP: There is no point. This is a meeting which is absolutely, completely, pointless. It’s of no value to the seeker at all.

    Q: Will it make someone’s life better?

    TP: No it won’t. It won’t make your life better. First of all, it will point out what you may hear, that you don’t have a life, and so the whole idea of your life could be better by being here completely collapses.

    Q: Will I be a better person? 

    TP: No, you certainly won’t be a better person. If anything, you’ll be a bit worse. You won’t be anything. What possibly could happen is the sudden collapse of the idea that there is anyone to be anything or to get anywhere. It’s the collapse of the whole sense or illusion that you are someone, who by applying a certain principle or process, can reach somewhere called ‘be better.’ There isn’t a better or worse. There isn’t an inner or outer. There isn’t an upper or lower. There is only what is. This is what is. This is what is and what is not. It is and it isn’t. It’s empty performance. It’s a mystery, and you’ll never understand it. I don’t. It can’t be known.” 
    Tony Parsons – London, June 2018 https://www.theopensecret.com/ (ABOVE first 12 minutes, BELOW remainder of 2hr mostly Q&A)

Awakening according to AI

      I recently heard Rick Archer - of Batgap (Buddha at the Gas Pump https://batgap.com/) - describe his website's unique Bots. Unlike most, which scan 'horizontally' ie broadly, all data on the web, his site's Bots scan 'vertically' ie deeply into only selected respected / trusted data. He has 3 different Bots, each loaded with appropriate resources:
    "Compassion Bot" - https://www.awakin.ai/compassion/thread?t=about 
    "Interfaith Bot" - https://www.awakin.ai/interfaith/thread?t=about  and 
    "Batgap Bot" - https://www.awakin.ai/batgap/ask

    So I posed the question, "What are definitions of Awakening?" not to a wise human being, but to Batgap's "Compassion Bot" which quickly provided a surprisingly decent, fairly nuanced, nonsense-free answer - mercifully the opposite of the old database admonition, "garbage in, garbage out!" :

"Awakening is a profound and transformative shift in one's sense of identity and perception. Here are a few perspectives that capture its essence:

• Identity Shift: Awakening involves moving from a self-oriented perspective, where a personal "self" is at the center, to an expansive identity that includes everything. It's a movement to a broader worldview that influences how you view, experience, and relate to the world and others.

• Awake Awareness: It is the transition from a thought-focused consciousness to an awareness-based knowing, allowing a deeper connection to the present moment. This state of being is often associated with feelings of being in flow, selfless service, or deep love, where you 'forget yourself.'

• Direct Knowing of True Nature: Awakening is also described as a direct recognition of a deeper, true nature, often experienced as a profound absence of self. This state is characterized by a unity experience where all is perceived as interconnected oneness.

• Timeless Ground of Being: Awake awareness is seen as the formless, boundless, and timeless essence that serves as the foundation of our being. This awareness brings clarity, presence, and freedom of choice.

In essence, awakening is not about changing beliefs or external circumstances but rather about shifting how we organize our minds and identities. It's about embodying an awareness-based way of knowing that deeply connects us to our true self and the world.

Follow-up questions you might consider:

• How can I start my journey towards awakening?
• Are there specific practices that can facilitate awakening?
• What role does service to others play in the process of awakening?
• How do different spiritual traditions view awakening?
• Can an awakening experience be sustained over time, and how?

As actionable next steps:

• Reflect on moments when you've experienced feelings of connectedness or presence.
• Explore meditation or mindfulness practices to cultivate awareness.
• Engage in acts of service to deepen your connection with others.
• Seek conversations or literature on various spiritual paths to broaden understanding."

Stone Jizo Statue - SangkalaArt - www.etsy.com

 

The BIG Picture

    Many of us are wrapped-up & lost in the details of our personal life - 'the story of me.' Naturally, we all want happiness, but our experience tells us that happiness is fleeting. Keeping our attention on our own relatively minor personal concerns at least distracts us from the great global human-caused problems we now face.
    Many remain dubious about, even disinterested in the BIG PICTURE - why we're here, what we're doing, or where we're going. We're disoriented, lost without a map - almost as if we've been plucked out from the fabric of real life & as some movie fans propose, locked into "the Matrix."

    When we are narrowly focused on surviving as if we were alone, in a harsh, meaningless world, we actually bring about suffering, and can only perceive a harsh, meaningless world. Our present oddly cynical, fearful, narrowly-self-centered culture makes it challenging even to consider the BIG PICTURE. No wonder more & more nations are democratically electing "strong-men" (dictators) to rule, and then allow them to become "president for life." Rest in peace Alexei Navalny.

    "Every nation gets the government it deserves." Joseph de Maistre

     IF we have the wisdom, courage & spaciousness to be connected to the BIG PICTURE, feeling intimately connected to other people & Nature in a loving, nurturing way, we CHANGE THE WORLD FOR THE BETTER.

    Fortunately respected scholars, researchers & increasingly others are becoming deeply interested in & open to the BIG PICTURE, integrating the direct experience of ancient wisdom traditions with research data of modern science :

    "The author Frank White conducted interviews with a range of astronauts. Based on his findings, he coined the term ‘overview effect’ to describe the paradigm shift in consciousness that many of them reported when they viewed the Earth from space. The most dramatic was that of Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon. In 1971, two days into his homeward flight, he was lying in the console of Apollo 14, monitoring the spacecraft’s systems & peacefully contemplating the scene through the small capsule window. Because there is no atmosphere in space, almost ten times more stars are visible to the naked eye than on Earth. As the craft rotated, multitudes of stars and planets, including Earth, tumbled in and out of his view. He had a wondrous sense of ‘being swaddled in the cosmos.’ He felt tranquil & relaxed, safe after his foray on the unforgiving surface of the moon. Then, without warning, something happened that would change the course of his life.
    ‘Somehow I felt tuned into something much larger than myself,’ he writes, ‘something much larger than the planet in the window. Something incomprehensibly big. Even today, the perceptions still baffle me … looking beyond the Earth itself to the magnificence of the larger scene, there was a startling recognition that the nature of the universe was not as I had been taught. My understanding of the separate distinctiveness and the relative independence of movement of those cosmic bodies was shattered. There was an upwelling of fresh insight coupled with a feeling of ubiquitous harmony – a sense of interconnectedness with the celestial bodies surrounding our spacecraft. … I was part of a larger process than I’d previously understood, one that was all around me in this command module as it sped towards Earth through 240,000 miles of empty black space.’"
    Maria Coffey. “Explorers of the Infinite. The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes – and What They Reveal About Near-Death Experiences, Psychic Communications, and Touching the Beyond.” Jeremy P. Tarcher / Penguin, 2008. EXCEPTIONAL BOOK!

    Rupert Sheldrake PhD    “One of the most obvious findings of research on the effects of psychedelics on the brain is that psychedelics shut down the default mode network – those regions of the brain that are linked together that are concerned with mental chatter, discursive thoughts & the internal dialogue. And as soon as that’s shut down, you become much more present. They also lead to connections between different brain regions that wouldn’t normally be connected. It’s not very surprising really if one’s had these experiences where very unusual things can happen.
    More recently, there have been a lot of studies on the therapeutic use of psychoactive substances, for example psilocybin & its effects on chronic long-term depression & on addiction. What’s interesting about these studies is that it’s not the drug itself working at the purely chemical level that’s helping people. And they’re much more effective at relieving long-term depression than any of the standard anti-depressants or talk-therapies. It’s not the drug itself, it’s the experience it induces – it’s really that sense of being connected to a greater consciousness – a kind of mystical insight that changes people. Some chemical companies say they’re going to try and make versions of these drugs that don’t have these ‘undesirable effects’ of visionary states, mystical union, etc, ‘just stick to chemicals.’ But I think if they do that, they’re almost doomed to failure, because it’s the experience which is what changes people. And sometimes people who’ve been depressed for 25 years, resistant to all known forms of therapy, after a couple of experiences with psilocybin, together with a therapist helping them integrate this, have proved much more effective than any other treatment at changing their state.
    And the usual interpretation of mystical experiences is not that our brain produces these experiences, it’s that they’re always there, available to us, but we normally block them out [[[by the Default Mode Network]]] because we’re so busy worrying about all the things we worry about, obsessed with our preferences and so on, so we block them out. But if we shut down the bits of the brain that block them out [[[Default Mode Network]]], then they can come through. So I personally prefer the idea that there are experiences coming through, and the effect on the brain is really to permit these experiences to come through, rather than blocking them out through our 'normal' mental activities [[[repetitive self-centered chatter]]].
    Of course with peoples’ world views, you can’t in the end persuade them just through logic, I mean it’s really experience that will have to tell us which is true in the end.
    What I find perverse about the materialist point of view is that it claims to be based on science, reason & empirical evidence. Empirical evidence means literally the evidence of experience. The Greek word empirical means experience.
    So if you’re going to have empirical evidence about consciousness, it has to be based on conscious experience. And to dismiss conscious experience in favor of an ideology – that says it’s all about molecules, & consciousness doesn’t do anything, it's just an epiphenomenon of the brain, or an illusion produced by brain activity – seems to me utterly perverse & deeply anti-empirical.”
    Rupert Sheldrake "Psychedelics and Consciousness, University of Sussex"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tqe6xE7WEE

    Iain McGilchrist MD, PhD    “I’ve become more & more convinced, that none of the things that we desperately need to do to solve, the various problems that we face and that we talk about a great deal, none of this in the end will matter unless we are able to get back to the spiritual ground of our being. In other words, by some sort of a miracle we could reverse the pollution of the seas, we could perhaps do something to at least slow climate change, we could make it harder for people to carry on felling ancient forests. All this I believe in powerfully, but I also think that none of it will add up to a hill of beans unless we re-engage with the spiritual basis of human life.
    I don’t think we any longer know what it is to be a human being. I think people haven’t got the foggiest idea what they’re doing here, what the cosmos in which they come into being is like, and what their relationship with the Earth that is their home is like.
    In the new book I wrote, “The Matter with Things,” I suggest first of all, that many of the ways in which we look at the constitution of the cosmos are upside down or back-to-front. So, in other words we tend to think for example that, first of all there are things, and then there are relations between them, some of which we make in our minds, and that’s the way it is. Whereas I argue throughout a very long book that, in fact relations are absolutely primary. There is nothing that truly exists that is not a relation, and is not in fact in process, as Whitehead pointed out.
    So in other words, relations & processes are primary, not places & things. And I also believe that for example, it’s not that there’s literal truth, and that’s the really important thing, and metaphorical truths are just some kind of semi-imaginary extension of literal truth. In fact I believe that all fundamental truths are metaphorical in nature, and that literal truth is just a very special kind that we’ve invented to describe a small subset of things that occur at a very everyday level.
    But for the purposes of what we’re talking about now, I want to suggest that it’s not that somehow there is inanimacy and then there is life, and then there is consciousness, and then there is a sense of the great values: goodness, beauty, truth and the sacred. I think it’s the other way around, that what actually exists fundamentally, is a field of consciousness which is divine, which has the qualities of attending to & drawing us towards goodness, beauty & truth, and the sense of the holy & sacred, and that it’s for this that we’ve developed our complexity as human beings, since we are not better than animals, but we are in this sense, above them that we can hope to respond to, to receive, to resonate with, and to give a full & fulfilling response to those leading values that draw us forward."

    Rupert Sheldrake PhD     “I think of it in a very similar way, and so do most people in the world for that matter. We in Western Europe live in a particularly Godless part of the world. But it’s not quite the same if you go to Africa, India, Iraq, Iran, the Middle East, or many other parts of the world. Most people in the world are religious. And this kind of secular, humanist, atheist-tinted culture that we have is a historical anomaly. Most people were religious in Europe. As Charles Taylor in his wonderful book, ‘A Secular Age’ points out, in the year 1500 in Europe, everyone believed in God. Everyone believed in the kind of vision you’ve just put forward. It was almost impossible not to, not because people were coerced into believing that, but because there was just no credible alternative.
    And what’s happened is through the growth of first through the Protestant Reformation, and the disenchantment of the world that happened in part through the Protestant Reformation, a lack of emphasis on Nature, a focus entirely on human consciousness, and then through the Scientific Revolution – the mechanistic materialistic worldview that’s grown out of it, we now have this very secular world where people think that evolution & life starts from the bottom up – from molecules, genes & cells and everything builds up until you’ve got big enough brains where the light of consciousness mysteriously comes on, and then we start thinking about bigger things like God, but they’re just inventions inside our own minds, and hence inside our own brains, and you’d be able to tell us exactly where.
    This is what you & I are discussing, and what in fact the whole scientific medical network has been concerned with right from the start is trying to find a way back to a world view that is still consonant with science, because science isn’t going to go away, and we’ve learned a great many things about nature through the scientific process, but to recover a sense of this connection which is actually there in all traditions. Shamanic traditions all just assume that there are realms beyond, that what we see is not all there is. And as my main teacher, Father Bede Griffiths used to point out that the center of all religious & spiritual culture is a direct experience of our minds, our consciousness, being a part of something vastly greater than ourselves. And as he pointed out, all religions start from that experience. It’s not a dogma, it’s an experience – a central experience of unity, and then it’s interpreted in different cultures, in different traditions, different languages, different interpretations of this primary unitive experience. This sense of ultimate unity which are interpreted in all these different cultural ways. But that is the central foundation of all these religious traditions.
    And as far as we know, this intuition that we’re part of something greater than ourselves is very ancient. All these cave paintings from 20, 30, 40 thousand years ago, the practice of burying the dead, dealing with the dead in a ritual way, and so on, all these things suggest that this has been part of human consciousness for a very, very long time. No doubt the forms have changed, and the development of the great religions has put a more unifying aspect on these insights, but it seems to me that it’s been foundational to human life throughout almost all human history, with the brief anomaly of Western Europe & parts of North America, in the last 150 years.”
    Dr Iain McGilchrist & Dr Rupert Sheldrake - Intersection of Consciousness and Matter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAvwy2LTLMM

 

Rumi quote - artist: Molly Hahn buddhadoodles.com

Beyond Even the Fear of Losing Control

     Our usual mindset or operating system is based on our society's (mostly unexamined) assumption that ONLY physical stuff (matter) is real, because we can all see, feel & therefore agree upon it. Most of us have inadequate training & understanding of either science or of metaphysics ("the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity & change, space & time, causality, necessity, & possibility. ... the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind & matter ... 'metaphysics' ... literally means "after or behind [the study of] the natural*." wikipedia.org - *"natural" implies physical stuff). Metaphysics, in simple terms, refers to everything OUTSIDE of our tiny "box" of information, which, for some ONLY contains physical "stuff." Though sometimes encouraged to do so, most of us simply can't or won't "think outside the box" because leaving this "comfort zone" of dogmas & other (incorrectly) assumed certainties, requires more bravery, open-mindedness, creativity, & energy than most of us have. So we often need to graduate from the school of hard knocks to crack open our numb skulls & hard hearts. 

         There is a crack, a crack in everything
         That's how the light gets in
                  Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"

         "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
          courage to change the things I can;
          and wisdom to know the difference."
     Reinhold Niebuhr's "Serenity Prayer" - later adopted & popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous & other 12-step programs - is profoundly wise, AND YET many of us have to "hit rock bottom" before we take it seriously. Our society frantically chases after short-term pleasures while values such as serenity & wisdom are forgotten. Few can define these terms, never mind live them.

     We're like a small sailboat out in the middle of the ocean.
     Religion was meant to be our sailboat's ballast, allowing us to maintain a steady course, without capsizing in storms. As with other large businesses that mass-produce heavily-processed stuff eg junk-foods, organized religions continue to devolve from an idealistic mission eg optimal nutrition, down to maximizing "market share," mission be damned.
     Scientism. The remarkable impact of scientific innovations and the resultant readily-available cheap consumer items easily converted many from anemic religions to true-believers in "scientism" - the pseudo-religious belief in "stuff," containing the most toxic elements of theistic religion (dogmatism & exclusivism), but none of the most intelligent, vitally important elements of science.

     A few words about science. Most (including "hard science only" fans) assume that "science" refers only to "natural sciences" (biology, chemistry & physics) which deal directly with matter/energy. Here, only physical matter / energy is studied, because only these can be (readily) measured, so that others ('third parties') can repeat the experiment, 'objectively' proving or 'refuting' the validity of the measurements.
     Seldom recognized by the public, though critically important, is that the object of scientific interest typically must to be removed / isolated from its natural surroundings (taken out of context***) & brought into a sterile laboratory so that the study can focus ONLY on the experimental object.
     Rarely (never?) mentioned now, though this was a standard disclaimer at the end of every scientific paper until ~40 years ago, went something like, 'the results of the present study are valid only under the described experimental conditions, and conclusions cannot be made beyond the present experimental conditions.' TWO important ramifications of this disclaimer:
     1) If another lab's methods deviate at all from the original lab's, they should get different results, and so it cannot disprove the original lab's results.
     2) The process of removing the object from its native environment for scientific study, unavoidably causes varying degrees of damage. Further damage then occurs as the isolated object is exposed to a completely foreign, often inhospitable lab ('in vitro') environment. Still further damage occurs when the object is subjected to experimental stimuli - the "experimental conditions".
     These represent BOTH a strength, AND a limitation of the scientific method. The strength: isolation allows scientists to study the object of interest, with minimal contamination by other objects, be it from the objects natural environment, or the lab itself. The limitation: given how even a slight difference in methodology (eg lower temperature) between labs changes the results of the experiment, how closely can we expect our lab findings of the profoundly damaged, isolated object compared to when it's undisturbed, functioning harmoniously with its natural environment? Hidden here also a key materialist dogma - the belief in the primacy of matter, which here implies that we should be able to build anything, including human life itself, from basic building blocks. Critics correctly call this clear limitation & increasingly questionable dogma, "reductionist" - analyzing & describing a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituents. Varying degrees of isolation, manipulation & simplification are necessary, regular, normal aspects of science BUT this, often radically simplified model, can only provide hints about complex reality. *** It's very useful to remember that patients who suffer a stroke of the right hemisphere, by loosing context, are profoundly handicapped, vs the left hemisphere (loosing narrowly-focused task-orientation) are, despite also loosing the ability to speak & important motor skills, are far less handicapped.
    Below, even more potential surprises about real science:

      Thomas Kuhn's classic, 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' intelligently describes scientific progress. "... science changes, adapts, and specializes to fit the times. It does not work toward some absolute 'truth,' but merely continues its work of studying and understanding the world.
     Many people have the idea that science progresses in a linear fashion—a straightforward march from ignorance to knowledge. If that were true, then there would be no such thing as scientific revolutions; old ideas would never need to be overturned, only built upon.
     However, not only do scientific revolutions happen, they follow a specific pattern. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions lays out this pattern clearly and labels each part of it. The parts are:
          1) Normal science: The process of adding to existing knowledge through experiments and study.
          2) Puzzle-solving: Finding and fixing discrepancies in science as we currently understand it.
          3) Paradigm: ... a paradigm could be seen as a perfect example of an idea, which can be expanded into the framework of a whole field of scientific understanding. For example, think about the evolution of humans from a more ape-like ancestor. Using that paradigm, evolutionary biologists form the framework for all of their studies.
          4) Anomaly: Someone finds a discrepancy between the current paradigm and experimental results.
          5) Crisis: The discrepancy can’t be resolved. Scientists loyal to the current paradigm try to dismiss it, while others try to show that the current paradigm is wrong.
          6) Revolution: The old paradigm is overthrown by new information, and eventually a new one takes its place—a 'paradigm shift.' There have been many such revolutions in history that completely changed the way people understood and approached the world."
https://www.shortform.com/summary/the-structure-of-scientific-revolutions-summary-thomas-kuhn?gclid=Cj0KCQiA0p2QBhDvARIsAACSOOMmoBYMECSzkKRKJzS7FE-4GF1pWw0Gpm694tLTYiajFjmBTBdZejkaAh2FEALw_wcB

     It's "only human" to resist change, especially when one's ego, prestige, livelihood & (false) identity depend on defending outdated ideas & ways of thinking. However, when mounting new evidence is ignored, suppressed, ridiculed & shamed, it's because of dishonesty & incompetence, typical of religious cults, but has no place in science, nor meaningful religions.

"Models of Consciousness: Determinants of Our Lived Reality
     If you believe in a materialist model that considers consciousness beyond the human waking, dream and sleep states to be abnormal or nonexistent, this will limit your sense of interconnection. But if your model includes a continuum of consciousness within everything, the feeling of connection inherent in this model will naturally generate compassionate action: you understand that what happens to others also happens to you.
     Regardless of which model you accept, a key question is whether you are open to modifying your understanding based on emerging evidence regarding the nature of consciousness? Here is how the astrophysicist Bernard Haisch explains the strong grip of the medical model on modern science and our culture:

'Modern Western science regards consciousness as an epiphenomenon that cannot be anything but a byproduct of the neurology and biochemistry of the brain. While this perspective is viewed within modern science as a fact, it is in reality far stronger than a mere fact: it is a dogma. Facts can be overturned by evidence, whereas dogma is impervious to mere evidence.'
     Bernard Haisch quoted in: David J. Chalmers. "The Conscious Mind. In Search of a Fundamental Theory."1997, p53

     Consider whether you are open to expanding your existing model of consciousness. As our model of consciousness expands, our experience of connection with everyone and everything around us expands as well. And this, in turn, can lead to an increased capacity for compassion and for actions by which we can heal ourselves and our planet."
     Marjorie Woollacott PhD neuroscientist https://www.huffpost.com/entry/our-models-of-consciousness-how-they-shape-our-reality_b_59270990e4b0aa7207986b94

     Consider the story of this, now middle-aged, lady who had a near death experience (NDE) at 4 years of age. For much of her life, she only remembered the dark, scary components of her NDE, causing her to fear the dark & falling asleep. This terror was triggered when as an adult she was advised to have a general anesthesia (GA) for an operation. A brief excerpt: 

     “And suddenly it terrified me, with hot & cold shivers going through my body, that in essence it meant giving up control of one’s own consciousness. For about a quarter of an hour I was just going through the feeling of the essence of that loss of control, and tears washed down my face when I had to think about it. That this is the essence of dying, to just let go, to dive down without any ground under your feet. That this is the step out of control, like in death."

     During the GA, she finally remembered all the positive bright, loving, safe, welcoming components of her NDE, and lost her fear of the darkness, sleep, general anesthetic & death. Sometimes, when we lack the courage to accept that which we fear, life overwhelms our childish ego's feeble illusion of control, allowing us finally to see the reality that is here, yet beyond our simplistic materialistic ideas about reality.

    "If we let go of the rational control over our own consciousness, we can get somewhere that forms us and that also forms the universe. I acknowledge that this is, in my opinion, a very important state of mind, a very important process for us all.”

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE_8E6casn0

     See Marjorie Woollacott's imho excellent 65min lecture on NDEs, Meditation & Consciousness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGi39C5Ysk8&list=PLZwmf_5L38HgyTfPnr3hohBbP_-okYhGX&index=1

     We all know that fear triggers our strong survival instinct to control (fight, flight, freeze). However, as the Serenity Prayer (top of the page) suggests, this drive to control is only appropriate & helpful if the situation can be controlled. 

     When we transcend fear - which is often a hard-earned skill, then acceptance, love & connection with a profoundly better, infinitely greater reality opens up.

 

Marjorie Woollacott PhD