Posts Tagged ‘Eugene Wigner’
Interdependence Way,
On Independence Day
~ A Revolution of Consciousness
“At the center of the Universe dwells the Great Spirit and —
this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
“We did not weave the web of life.
We are merely strands in it.
All things are bound together. All things connect.”
~ Chief Seattle
“All things are our relatives;
what we do to everything, we do to ourselves.
All is really One.”
~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
“Independence is impossible!”
“Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Remember God, forget the rest.
Forget who you think you are,
to know what you really are.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“We are not merely mortal drops
in an ocean of ephemeral forms,
but the eternally Infinite Ocean of Universal Awareness,
appearing as drops!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Nothing Real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.”
~ A Course In Miracles (ACIM)
“You are “gods”;
you are all children of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82:6
“You are the light of the world.”
~ Matthew 5:14
“Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE”
~ Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:29
“Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many…
The One manifests as the many,
the formless putting on forms.”
~ Rig Veda, 1500–1200 BCE
“All things come out of the One and the One out of all things.”
~ Heraclitus, 500BC
“Reality cannot be found except in One single source,
because of the interconnection of all things with one another.”
~ Leibniz, 1670
“That which permeates all,
which nothing transcends and which,
like the universal space around us,
fills everything completely from within and without,
that Supreme non-dual Brahman— that thou art.”
~ Shankaracharya
Interdependence Way, On Independence Day
~ A Revolution of Consciousness
Dear Friends,
Happy July 4th, 2023, US Independence Day holiday!
Almost 250 years ago on July 4th, 1776, our founding fathers declared their independence from British royal rule. Their declaration later led to the founding of the United States of America, which has become the richest and most powerful empire in the history of our precious planet Earth.
July 4th has become a popular American national holiday now celebrated by many US citizens without their mindful contemplation of its deeper meaning.
But today’s July 4th, 2023 SillySutras posting – like thousands of other prior SS postings – is dedicated to our mindful contemplation of how these Independence events can help us lead ever happier and more fulfilling lives while our eternal souls are incarnate on planet Earth in mortal physical bodies, which inevitably deteriorate and die.
As explained in the the recent “Egocide” posting, it is impossible to avoid some ego identification with consequent karmic suffering when existing incarnate on Earth, as supposedly separate from each other and all other life-forms. Only when we end our beliefs and behaviors as supposedly separate “I”-Egos, do all our sufferings end. That happens when we are ONE as an infinite Ocean of Divine LOVE, rather existing as mere separate “I”-drops in that Infinite Ocean.
As revealed by Sri Ramakrishna Paramanansa, although ego is unavoidable on Earthly incarnations, we quicken our transcendence thereof by choosing beliefs and behaviors which are loving and helpful, rather than selfish.
This posting is dedicated to inspiring our realization that until we so transcend Ego, worldly independence is impossible.
Ancient Vedic and Buddhist non-dualist scriptures have revealed that this Earth world arose from, and is interdependently part of, only ONE Eternal spiritual Source or GOD.
Therefore, until they disappear forever, all life-forms in this world always exist interdependently, not independently.
Long prior to Mid-East monotheism, the ancient Rig Veda revealed that
“Though One, Brahman [God] is the cause of the many…
The One manifests as the many, the formless putting on forms.”
And the Buddhist Heart Sutra said that everything originates only “interdependently” from emptiness [“anatta”].
July 4th, 1776, Background
On July 4, 1776, thirteen American colonies declared their independence from British royal rule, in an historic document inspired by Thomas Paine’s Deist philosophy and written by Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that under “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” government is established by people to secure their life, liberty, and happiness, and is to be overthrown as illegitimate if it no longer does that.
The US founding fathers recognized, that governments and their chartered transnational organizations do not exist by Divine right; that they are established by people to serve people – not to exploit or oppress them – and that they are illegitimate unless they serve human rights and happiness.
Since July 4, 1776, “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” have prevailed, but the world has changed immensely: The thirteen North American colonies have become the richest most powerful empire in world history, much vaster than the British empire which it succeeded. Human population has grown meteorically, from approximately 800 million (with 2.5 million people inhabiting American colonies) to over 7.9 billion and growing rapidly.
Through amazing technological and scientific advances the world has become much smaller and most humans have become part of an instantly interconnected and largely interdependent global community, sharing critical information in an unprecedented new age of world-wide ecologic, economic, political and social crises and opportunities. Yet despite this amazing technological advancement much of humanity continues to suffer illusionary psychological separation from each other and Nature, fostering insanely unsustainable ecological desecration of our precious planet, and barbaric exploitation of vulnerable beings and other life-forms, which threaten extinction of all Earth life as we’ve known it.
Yet as in 1776 such psychopathic insanity is still initiated and perpetrated by a few “rulers” or “leaders”, and by greedy transnational institutions evading equitable taxation and distribution of wealth who all self-destructively thrive on always increasing their power and control over others.
Nonetheless they are still allowed by most of humankind to insanely exploit and desecrate our world.
However, in the almost 250 years since 1776, there has been an unprecedented awakening of humanity, and we are now experiencing a revolution of human consciousness with unprecedented worldwide social and cultural unrest.
Deeply disturbed by irrational and immoral interruptions of their normal lives more and more people are psychologically awakening to our sacred connection with, and deep moral responsibility to cherish and preserve, all life on our precious planet Earth.
Moreover today’s July 4, 2023, Independence Day holiday coincides with the the first of four consecutive full super-moons after the 2023 summer solstice, which spiritually and energetically is extremely sacred for both Hindus and Buddhists, as Guru Purnima (the first Guru’s birthday) and as the day when the Buddha gave his first sermon.
Beyond today’s day of spiritual sanctity, we are also experiencing exceptionally advantageous cosmic energies, and rare cyclical and astrological planetary alignments, which are energetically elevating a “critical mass” of humankind to ascend beyond illusionary Third Dimension ego consciousness toward previously unimagined Fifth Dimension heart/mind telepathic awareness.
And currently confronted with apparently imminent global catastrophe, humankind are realizing on July 4, 2023, (as did visionary English-born Deist philosopher Thomas Pain) that under “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” independence is impossible; that everything and everyone is interdependent, not independent.
So faced with possible catastrophe ending Earth-life as we’ve known it, our global human family can awaken to avert extinction by transcending critically mistaken and illusory Ego-mind beliefs in separate independence, with realization that independence is impossible; that everyone/everything is interconnected and interdependent, with no-one/nothing existing independently, except Nature’s God.
Therefore, let us use this rare opportunity to revolutionarily and compassionately transform the world, so that all life forms everywhere consciously exist cooperatively and interdependently, not selfishly and exploitively.
Closing Invocations
May we revolutionarily and compassionately transform the world!
May all life forms everywhere exist interdependently,
As uniquely conscious and cooperative instruments of Light and Love,
May we so interdependently co-create an ever better world as ONE Eternal LOVE
– Happy, Harmonious and Peaceful –
As Nature’s God ever intended it to BE!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview:
Our urgent need for a new interdependent worldview – how we need to collectively change our beliefs to change our world – is expertly explained and portrayed in this excellent one hour documentary movie, already viewed online by over one million concerned people.
Asking Unanswerable Questions
“I regard consciousness as fundamental.
I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.
We cannot get behind consciousness.
Everything that we talk about,
everything that we regard as existing,
postulates consciousness.”
“Whence come I and whither go I?
That is the great unfathomable question,
the same for every one of us.
Science has no answer to it.”
“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature.
And that is because, in the last analysis,
we ourselves are part of nature
and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel laureate physicist
“The very study of the physical world leads to the conclusion that …. consciousness is an ultimate reality and, all the possible knowledge, concerning objects can be given as its wave function”
~ Eugene Wigner, Nobel laureate physicist and co-founder of quantum mechanics
“We never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.
It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.
Never lose a holy curiosity.”
~ Albert Einstein
Asking Unanswerable Questions
Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered how our space/time universe began? Did it just appear from nothing? What is its source – its matrix? Was it created? Was it intelligently designed? Did it begin with a “big bang”? How? When? What exists beyond its beginning? Will it ever end? If so, will it begin again? What is its purpose, if any? Is it really real, or just a simulated or virtual reality – like a matrix? Is it a holographic, fractal projection of Universal Awareness – our common Cosmic Consciousness? Can it ever be explained? Can we ever discover a provable theory explaining everything [“T.E.O”]?
If you are curious or ever have wondered about asking unanswerable cosmic questions, you’re quite unusual. Except for some theoretical scientists, most humans never think about cosmic questions. Or they simply accept and believe what some authority, professor, preacher, or spiritual teacher tells them. Or maybe they are in a state of psychological denial or inflexibility about anything or anyone challenging cherished beliefs.
Only after my mid-life spiritual awakening did I begin wondering, and occasionally writing, about philosophical meaning or purpose of earth life, if any. And sometimes I’ve shared such writings, aspiring to encourage our cosmic curiosity and wonder transcending everyday existence – with verses like this:
Life is a metaphoric metamorphosis process.
Gleaning meaning in matter,
we learn all that matters —
we learn all that matters is
LOVE!
(Also see e.g. “Cosmology Mythology: From Beyond The Beginning To The Beginning And Beyond”.)
Whether or not any such SillySutras verses are true for you, hopefully they may help spur our transcendence of a long outdated materialistic and mechanistic world-view about ‘reality’ which excludes consciousness and precludes reverential realization of Infinite Reality beyond illusory space/time materiality – a Universal Intelligence beyond, imagination, conception, comprehension or description.
Albert Einstein died while unsuccessfully seeking a ‘theory of everything’ [T.E.O.] – a unified field theory which might explain “the great Mystery into which we were born.”
Theoretical scientists are continuing to search for such a formula. And ever more non-materialistic scientists – like Einstein and nobel laureate Max Planck – are accepting non-dualistic universal Intelligence, or Cosmic Consciousness, as the ultimate mysterious matrix and Source of our illusory space/time causality “reality”.
Inevitably we will soon witness a non-materialist quantum science paradigm shift fulfilling Swami Vivekananda’s prescient prediction that “Science and religion will meet and shake hands”.
Meanwhile, more and more humans are verifying the verity of ivekananda’s non-duality philosophy, that our ever impermanent space/time causality “reality” is an illusionary mental projection of a mysterious Infinite Potentiality beyond conception, comprehension, imagination, or expression.
Thus, until we attain global shift acceptance of non-duality Reality, many people will experience ever happier lives, with growing gratitude, for our beautiful blue dot precious planet – a miraculous causality reality concerning which Albert Einstein observed:
“We never cease to stand like curious children
before the great Mystery into which we were born.”
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Peanuts by Charles Schulz
What’s really “Real”?
“Reality is merely an illusion,
albeit a very persistent one.”;
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think”.
~ Albert Einstein
“I regard consciousness as fundamental.
I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.
We cannot get behind consciousness.
Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel laureate physicist
“The very study of the physical world leads to the conclusion that consciousness is an ultimate reality and, all the possible knowledge, concerning objects can be given as its wave function”
~ Eugene Wigner, Nobel laureate physicist and co-founder of quantum mechanics
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness”
; “reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”; “space and time are not conditions in which we live, they are modes in which we think”.
“That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.” ….“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe.”
~ Albert Einstein
What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion. It is dynamic and kaleidoscopic — not really “there”. What we normally see is the explicit, or unfolded, order of things, rather like watching a movie. But there is an underlying order that is mother and father to this second-generation reality.
~ David Bohm, Physicist and Einstein protegé
Theory of Everything:
E = mc2 = Consciousness = Self.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction to What’s really “Real”?
Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered what’s really “Real”? Or what isn’t “Real”?
Do you see “reality” as only physical, measurable, perceptible, or comprehensible? Where for you does earthly “reality” end, and ‘unreality’ or illusion begin – if anywhere?
Mystics say that we’re experiencing life on Earth to learn what’s really Real; that experientially we discover that in this always changing three dimensional world only unchanging consciousness persists; that our inner I AM observer is Absolute Reality and Source of all our thoughts, experiences and perceived forms and phenomena.
Thus the nature of “reality” is a spiritually crucial question, addressed for us herein, with numerous quotations and detailed explanatory discussion.
May these writings and reflections help inspire our ever increasing happiness, as we lovingly and harmoniously ascend spiritually toward THAT which is really “Real”.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Explanation of What’s really “Real”?
Our ideas of reality are spiritually crucial. Knowingly or unknowingly they deeply affect our beliefs about who and what we are; and, our beliefs about who and what we are determine our thoughts, behaviors, experiences and philosophies of life, both individually and societally.
Thus, human reality paradigms which do not recognize our essential Unity with Nature and all its life-forms have proved environmentally, economically, internationally and inter-personally disastrous.
“…this separation between man and man, between nation and nation, between earth and moon, between moon and sun. Out of this idea of separation – – – comes all misery. But the Vedanta says that this separation does not exist, it is not real.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
How different would be our behaviors if we truly realized and always remembered that we are part of Nature, deeply connected and unified with all life-forms; that our apparent separation from each other and Nature is a perceptual illusion!
“Our separation of each other
is an optical illusion of consciousness.” .
~ Albert Einstein
Jesus legendarily told us that with faith human potentialities are unlimited:
“All things are possible for one who believes.”
~ Mark 9:23
“If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
~ Matthew:17-20
But limited beliefs about “reality” are conceptual cages confining us in a kind of psychological prison, restricting realization of our unlimited potentialities.
“The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveals itself in nature. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.”
~ Albert Einstein
Culturally, our concepts of “reality” are an unspoken consensus abstraction dependent upon predominantly shared beliefs about what is “real”.
“Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.”
~ Alan Watts
“Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.”
~ Lily Tomlin
Until now, most of us have been unconsciously acculturated and indoctrinated with restrictive ideas of self-identity and “reality”, without ever reflecting upon or intuiting who or what we really are and what’s really Real.
Our ideas about “reality” – both individually and societally – differ with different people at different times and different places.
But beyond our ever changing ideas of relative “reality”, isn’t there an ultimate transcendent Reality – which is the eternal Source of all relative realities? Beyond thought can we experience such ultimate Reality?
In universally seeking happiness, doesn’t everyone knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or subconsciously, remember and intuitively long for the experience of Divine Oneness?
Mystical “inner explorers” have answered all of the foregoing questions affirmatively. Shamans and Mystics – from both East and West – have for millennia reported their discovery of ONE ultimate, unchanging non-duality Reality; THAT which is beyond definition, comprehension or imagination – yet, everywhere invisibly immanent in and Source of our space/time polarity/causality relative reality.
“Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many…
The One manifests as the many,
the formless putting on forms.”
~ Rig Veda, 1500–1200 BCE
“All things come out of the One and the One out of all things.”
~ Heraclitus, 500BC
“Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another.”
~ Leibniz, 1670
“We are a part of Nature as a whole whose order we follow.”
~ Spinoza, Ethics, 1673
“We did not weave the web of life.
We are merely strands in it.
All things are bound together. All things connect.”
~ Chief Seattle
“At the center of the Universe dwells the Great Spirit and —
this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
“Time, space and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen…
In the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
And now more and more scientists are agreeing with the mystics. Matter has melted into Mystery. Physics and metaphysics are merging.
Both science and spirituality agree that Reality is undivided Wholeness.
And for some Quantum physicists – like Nobel laureate Max Planck – beyond “uncertainty” about reality of “matter” there is only consciousness and Divinity.
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
~ Max Planck, as quoted in The Observer (25 January 1931)
“There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. ”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
“Both Religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist – Religion and Natural Science (Lecture Given 1937) Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. F. Gaynor (New York, 1949)
Thousands of years ago, Eastern seers called this permanently impermanent and ever changing world of countless forms and phenomena a dreamlike illusion, maya or samsara; a mere projection of the One Reality – of Infinite and Eternal Existence.
“The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha
Einstein intuited that:
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
Now many other scientists are agreeing with mystics and affirming Einstein’s observation about the illusion of physical “reality”.
For example, Einstein protege and distinguished physicist David Bohm has questioned any objective tangible reality. Bohm theorized that the universe is fundamentally like a gigantic hologram; that underlying apparent reality is a deeper order of existence, from which all the objects and appearances of our physical world arise and appear in much the same way that a two dimensional holographic film gives birth to a three dimensional hologram in space.
What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion. It is dynamic and kaleidoscopic — not really “there”. What we normally see is the explicit, or unfolded, order of things, rather like watching a movie. But there is an underlying order that is mother and father to this second-generation reality.
~ David Bohm
Until his death in 1955, Einstein maintained his intuitive view, consistent with ancient mystical insights but challenged by some quantum physicists, that “God does not play dice with the universe”; that the principle of cause and effect (or karma) pervades the phenomenal Universe without exception; that the ideas of chance or “uncertainty” arise from causes not yet recognized or perceived.
Since Einstein’s death, some physicists like his protege David Bohm have advanced theories which reconcile apparent contradictions between universal “causality” and quantum “uncertainty” and “non-locality” and they are thereby ever narrowing remaining apparent disparity between scientific and mystical views of “Reality”.
“Science and religion will meet and shake hands…When the scientific teacher asserts that all things are the manifestation of one force, does it not remind you of the God of whom you hear in the Upanishads? Do you not see whither science is tending?”
~ Swami Vivekananda, London talk, 1896
As presciently envisioned by Swami Vivekananda, science and religion will ultimately agree on the ONENESS of phenomenal “reality”. And realizing such ONENESS, Humanity will at long last – as it must – discard destructive illusionary beliefs and behaviors which have brought it to the brink of ecologic, economic, inter-personal and international disaster.
“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.”
~ Niels Bohr
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena,
it will make more progress in one decade
than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
~ Nikola Tesla
Thereupon, Humankind and all other life-forms on our precious planet, will harmoniously and peacefully flourish and evolve with Nature with ever increasing happiness, until we spiritually ascend to transcend this wonderful world, as Universal LOVE.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
A Brain Scientist’s ‘No Brainer’ NDE
“The brain does not create consciousness,
but consciousness created the brain,
the most complex physical form on earth, for its expression.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
I regard consciousness as fundamental.
I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.
We cannot get behind consciousness.
Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing,
postulates consciousness.
~ Max Planck, Nobel laureate physicist, as quoted in The Observer (25 January 1931)
“The very study of the physical world leads to the conclusion that
consciousness is an ultimate reality and,
all the possible knowledge, concerning objects
can be given as its wave function”
~ Eugene Wigner, Nobel laureate physicist and co-founder of quantum mechanics
Introduction.
For millennia mystics and seers have realized experientially that our space/time/causality reality is but a play of consciousness; that all impermanent appearances, all apparent forms and phenomena – including human brains – are but holographic projections of timeless Universal Awareness.
But very few scientists have shared this revelatory mystical world view. Most scientists do not regard as “real” that which is beyond perception and conception.
Rather than recognizing consciousness as the ultimate and eternal Source of our reality, reductionistic and materialistic mainstream science says that brains generate consciousness, and that we see via our brains.
However, there have been innumerable published reports of near death and out of body experiences and other mystical experiences which contradict this mainstream brain hypothesis. (*See footnote re Near Death Experiences [NDE’s].) Nonetheless, until now most brain scientists have dismissed these reports as untrustworthy “anecdotal” evidence. Rarely have mainstream brain scientists transcended their mistaken materialistic paradigm. But there have been noteworthy exceptions. (see e.g. Atlantic Monthly: The Science of Near-Death Experiences.)
Dr. Eben Alexander
Thus, in October 2012 Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who has taught at Harvard Medical School, went public with an autobiographical account of a life changing dramatic and vivid near death experience (NDE) of what he called “heaven” while he was in a week-long comatose state with a non-functional brain neocortex. (His best-selling first book, ”Proof of Heaven”, was published by Simon and Schuster on October 23, 2012.)
Dr. Alexander reported being told in “heaven”:
“‘You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong.’ The message flooded me with a vast and crazy sensation of relief.”
He has written that prior to his NDE he did not believe in such experiences, and ‘scientifically’ dismissed them.
“As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon. I followed my father’s path and became an academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities. I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death, and I had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.”
“According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent.”
“There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind—my conscious, inner self—was alive and well. While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility.”
Raised as a Christian, Dr. Alexander used the religious concepts of “God” and “heaven”, to describe his extraordinary experience.
“Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it’s the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times. Omniscient, omnipotent, personal-and loving us without conditions. We are connected as One through our divine link with God.”
Apart from referring to God, he also identified unconditional Love as the the ultimate Reality and “basis of everything” that exists.
“Love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love but the day-to-day kind that everyone knows-the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or will ever exist, and no remotely accurate understanding of who and what we are can be achieved by anyone who does not know it, and embody it in all of their actions.”
With newfound openness to “anecdotal” evidence, Dr. Alexander now expresses optimism that as science and mysticism ever more agree, humankind will evolve to wonderful new states of being.
And so may it be!
Footnote
*Near Death Experiences [NDE’s].
The term ‘Near Death Experience’ [NDE] was coined in 1975 by Raymond A. Moody, Jr., PhD, MD, in his book Life After Life which sold over thirteen million copies worldwide. Since then numerous NDE accounts have been published and discussed in mainstream media, on the internet, in films and videos, and in magazines and books. Many spiritually inspiring NDE stories have been published and researched by the International Association For Near-Death Studies [IANDS] and others. So NDE’s have become widely considered, especially by those who claim to have experienced them. And some non-materialist scientists cite NDE’s as evidence that consciousness survives physical death. For millions of people NDE’s, and other extraordinary mystical experiences, have proven to be spiritually inspirational, and transformative events, diminishing or ending fear of death and encouraging a newly open, trusting and loving lifestyle. (see e.g. Atlantic Monthly: The Science of Near-Death Experiences.)
