Alas, if we stand back a little, we are witnessing  here the elimination of humanity’s hope, salvation and freedom. Resting upon the still smoking ruins of beliefs, morals and joys, you have some nobelists and guests clinking their glasses, and patting themselves on the back for having destroyed the enchantment of the world. And after that, those people —you and me included— will be thrown into garbage bins like old computers. Amen.

Hello Houston, tumultuous dharma approaching here!

Rescue on the way

Like eager kids wrestling for the last few kernels of popcorn while glued to the screen, confidence is building up that an happy ending may still be conceivable in this historical odyssey.

With the demeanor of old faithfull Doc Brown, some physicists and philosophers do believe that these ongoing materialistic inquisitions are paving the way to a dead end. For be asssured that decoding the very source of consciousness is yet on the to-do list of those Dr. Strangelove’s pundits.

A layman’s view of the arguments made known by materialists are listed below:

Hard-core materialists’ dogmas:

• The immaterial character of the mind is denied
• Most of the mysteries of the mind are reducible to biochemical mechanisms
• According to some, specific neurons do subserve consciousness
• There is no homunculus of a self sitting in the theater of the brain and observing, or even directing, the ongoing show [1]
• Consciousness is like hardware

You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. [2]

This is what I’ve meant over the years when I’ve said that the brain is a syntactic engine mimicking a semantic engine. [3]

Behind the wall of illusion

As science made its headway in modernity, it became increasily clear that the elementary components of the material universe were much smaller than the atoms prefigured by the Indian and Greek philosophers of the past.

Ironically, the word atom derives from the Greek átomos for uncuttable, something that cannot be divided further. But as of today, we know that:

• an atom is made of a positive nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negative electrons
• the nucleus is made of positively charged protons, and neutrally charged neutrons
• protons and neutrons are composed of even smaller particles called quarks
• …and these quarks could be strings —provided the String Theory is correct
• basically, the whole universe would be made of vibrating strings that can be closed, like loops, or open, like a hair
• most peculiar, String Theory entails a space-time that has at least ten dimensions

The following illustration (a modified version of the work of MissMJ) sums up the different levels of magnification of matter:

To that point, we’re not even sure if strings are material. The further we go down in physical reality, the more things appear evanescent and seem, ultimately, to consist of nonmaterial information. At the small end of this spectrum, we enter a sea of microscopic weirdness, warps and ripples of abstract objects. This is not science-fiction but the very edge of real science.

While I’m not a scientist, it feels obvious to me that this rarefaction of matter points to an emptiness quite evocative of the central Buddhist philosophy. For such emptiness is not a nihilistic view of the world but a vibrant fabric of potentialities, not alike the world presented by quantum mechanics.

Hard-core scientists may get what they want — but they may not want what they get. That is, confronted with a wall of complexity that may take many years or decades to decipher, they could discover that consciousness is the very fabric of the whole universe! In a top-down fashion, they could realize that it’s from consciousness that the physical universe emerges.

Many soft-core scientists and humanists have close affinity with that view and do support such an approach that reconciles our dignity with hard facts. At stake in this epic showdown:

Humanists’ dogmas:

• Fully embracing quantum physics means that we accept that the observer affects that which is observed. This also implies accepting that everything exists as superpositions of waves of probabilities until observed, that the universe is non local and that we are not separate from our environment.
• Also, consciousness is not simply the result of underlying brain activities but an interactive event where intention and attention of the observing mind also have effects on the brain
• Consciousness may be the interface between the quantum fabric of the universe and the Newtonian mechanics (classical physical world) 
• To some extent, German Idealism (philosophical movement of the 18th and 19th centuries)  views the attributes we find in things around us as the result of our observing act (how they appear to us) and not as fixed attributes in an outside objective world.
• Information embedded at the Plank scale would be the fundamental level of the universe
• Quantum physics has essentially demolished material realism through overwhelming evidence

Reconciling traditional belief systems with the above points becomes, suddenly, a funny adventure where the main ideas and concepts of established religions converge to the same ultimate reality; missing puzzle pieces being, quite often, the artefacts of obsolete mythologies still entrenched in those religions.  

On that fondamental conscious fabric of the universe, intuition tells me that the ultimate ground of being would then be an omniscient and everlasting energy.

But omniscient entails a connotation of a personal god. But again if I can enjoy personal relationships on a meaningful and emotional basis with my family and friends, I suspect I can enjoy at least the same kind of relationship with that ultimate ground of being. But that’s an introspection for a further post where pantheism and panentheism could be analysed.

Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. [4]

Refresher course

Emerging intuition of the psychedelia did provide some clues as to our relation with the cosmos. The following is presented as a refresher course of insights glimpsed through meditation techniques practiced for millennia…

…and life flows on within you and without you

 References

1

Dennett, Daniel (1991), Consciousness Explained, retrieved on December 31, 2008.

2

Crick, Francis (1994), The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search For The Soul. Scribner reprint edition. 1995. ISBN 0-684-80158-2.

3

Dennett, Daniel (2006), who is cited in Jay Tolson’s article “Is There Room for the Soul?” posted 2006-10-15, U.S.News.com. Retrieved on December 31, 2008.

4

Chalmers, David J. (1995), Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, (Journal of Consciousness Studies, 1995, pages 200-219), retrieved on December 31, 2008.

——

In the words of George Harrison:

Krishna said « There’s no time when we did not exist and there will be no time when we cease to exist »

The only thing that changes is the body.

Our soul will stay in our other astral body.

Context

But first, the words of imetthewalrus (link):

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 39 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.

The animation adds a whole new dimension to the genius of John Lennon. In retrospect, this simple conversation held some 39 years ago becomes a real piece of history.

Awesome!

On War and Peace

Today, we can only realize that the words of Lennon have not aged a bit. However, political tensions, wars and atrocities have just become footnotes and sidebar entries in our newspapers —virtual or not. What’s more, images of those atrocities —now in full HD— grasp people’s attention like a passing fly.

If everybody does his share in a rightful manner, then that big obscure machine embodied by the military-industrial complex of all nations will vanish as snow in the sun.

Someday, that dream will come true. That’s for real!

On his mother’s soul…

His speech and composure make him authentic. But on reincarnation, my feelings are mixed. Do we enter this endless trip or are we transported to a different and unknown universe?

You will note that my interrogation implies that something goes on, for I do believe life cannot stop here. The universe is too mysterious to forsake a grander scheme.

Ram Dass is not the last to come in this game of seft-help development. To that effect, the section called “About Ram Dass” on his website will testify eloquently of his endeavors or adventures.

A 1971 television recording with Alan Watts walking in the mountains and talking about the limitations of technology and the problem of trying to keep track of an infinite universe with a single tracked mind. Video posted by Alan’s son and courtesy of alanwatts.com.

If not already done, you should see the first part before —also for additional information and context.

A 1971 television recording with Alan Watts walking in the mountains and talking about the limitations of technology and the problem of trying to keep track of an infinite universe with a single tracked mind.

This video has been posted by Alan’s son and courtesy of alanwatts.com.

Apart from a book called “Yoga” from Ernest Wood, the writings of Alan Watts were the ones that really helped me understand what was then for me the curious universe of spirituality.

Alan Watts had the peculiar talent of explaining with simple words the obscure and indecipherable intricacies of the place we live in. Just viewing and listening to the above video track should testify of this talent.

I owe a great deal to him. Without all those hours of past reading, acquainting myself with that vision of the universe he so eloquently describes, I’m not sure whether the me of today would be the same!

The first book that ignited my enthusiasm was The Book - On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”. To convince you that this is a great book, please read this comment found on Amazon.com!

If you liked that video, you may want seeing the follow-up (part 2).

I don’t know what mahamudra means or what it stands for. But still, the following four stages do ring a bell in my mind, and perhaps yours.

The four yogas of mahamudra:

When the mind is loose and released
It does not waver with the wind of thoughts.
Like an ocean without waves,
without excitement or fogginess.
That is the Yoga of One-pointedness.

When your mind is being looked at
It appears not as two, meditation and meditator.
As in meeting a long-acquainted friend,
Mind simply recognizes itself.
That is the Yoga of Non-projection.

When that becomes familiarized through habituation
All possible appearances - samsara and nirvana -
Will be understood as your own mind.
Mind is primordially pure in and of itself.
That is the Yoga of One Taste.

Like space, Alaya, the mind basis of all,
Neither comes nor goes.
Space dissolves within space.
Thoughts are exhausted, dharma is exhausted, and timeless awareness is exhausted.
That is the Yoga of Non-meditation.