---

title	:	Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science
author	:	Grof, Stanislav
publisher	:	State University of New York Press
isbn10 | asin	:	0873958489
print isbn13	:	9780873958486
ebook isbn13	:	9780585067506
language	:	English
subject		Science--Philosophy--Congresses, Religion and science--Congresses, Psychology--Congresses.
publication date	:	1984
lcc	:	Q174.A53 1984eb
ddc	:	501
subject	:	Science--Philosophy--Congresses, Religion and science--Congresses, Psychology--Congresses.

Page iii Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science Edited by Stanislav Grof, M.D. with the assistance of Marjorie Livingston Valier State University of New York Press ALBANY

 

Page iv Disclaimer: This book contains characters with diacritics. When the characters can be represented using the ISO 8859-1 character set (http://www.w3.org/TR/images/latin1.gif), netLibrary will represent them as they appear in the original text, and most computers will be able to show the full characters correctly. In order to keep the text searchable and readable on most computers, characters with diacritics that are not part of the ISO 8859-1 list will be represented without their diacritical marks. We would like to acknowledge permission to reprint "Morphic Resonance" by Rupert Sheldrake from A New Science of Life © 1981 by Rupert Sheldrake, published by J.P. Tarcher, Inc., 9 110 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90069. Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 1984 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246 The address of the International Transpersonal Association is 3519 Front Street, San Diego, California 92103 USA. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Ancient wisdom and modern science. Papers from a conference held in Bombay, India Feb. 1982, which was organized by the International Trans- personal Association. Bibliography: p. 1. SciencePhilosophyCongresses. 2. Religion and science1946 Congresses. 3. Psychology Congresses. I. Grof, Stanislav, 1931- II. International Transpersonal Association. Q174.A53 198450183-17877 ISBN 0-87395-848-9 ISBN 0-87395-849-7 (pbk.) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

 

Page v Contents Preface vii Part I Introduction 1 East and West: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science Stanislav Grof 3 2 The Transpersonal Perspective Frances Vaughan 24 Part II Ancient Spiritual Traditions 3 Understanding Your Own Mind Swami Muktananda 35 4 Love until It Hurts Mother Teresa 42 5 The Cows Are Many Colors, but the Milk Is the Same Dastoor Minocher Homji 47 6 Science Today and the New Creation Father Bede Griffiths 50 7 The Evolution of Consciousness and Human Survival Karan Singh 59 8 The Mystery of Karma Swami Prajnananda 66 9 Kundalini: The Energy of Transformation Swami Kripananda 79 10 The Smile of the Buddha: Paradigms in Perspective Jack Kornfield 94

 

Page vi 11 Search Within Yashpal Jain 110 12 Kundalini: The Awakening of the Inner Cosmic Energy Ajit Mookerjee 115 Part III New Paradigms in Western Science 13 The New Vision of Reality: Toward a Synthesis of Eastern Wisdom and Modern Science Fritjof Capra 135 14 Morphic Resonance Rupert Sheldrake 149 15 The Holographic Hypothesis of Brain Function: A Meeting of Minds Karl Pribram 167 16 Role Models and Human Development Joseph Chilton Pearce 180 17 The Yoga of Androgyny June Singer 197 18 Jung's Active Imagination: A Technique of Western Meditation Cecil E. Burney 209 19 Psychophysiology and Health: Personal and Transpersonal Alyce M. Green 221 20 Science and Psychophysiology, Psychophysics and Mythology Elmer E. Green 240 21 Bringing Eastern Meditation into Western Psychotherapy Claudio Naranjo 254 22 Women's Place in Today's World Swami Sivananda Radha 266 Biographical Notes 281

 

Page vii Preface The rapid development of Western science has created a strange paradox. While pursuing a vision of progress and improvement in the human condition, mechanistic science has led to increasing dehumanization and alienation. Psychology and psychiatrythe disciplines studying specifically human phenomenahave tended to reduce the psyche to a complex of neurological reflexes and interacting instinctual forces. In the mid-1950's, academic psychology was dominated by behaviorism and psychoanalysis, two orientations that represent most distinctly this approach to the understanding of mental processes. But in the 1960's, an influential group of professionals were unwilling to reduce the study of the human psyche to that part of it which humans share with animals or with emotionally disturbed individuals, and they launched the movement of humanistic psychology, or the Third Force, as it was called by Abraham Maslow. The new movement emphasized the central significance of human beings as subjects for study and of human objectives as criteria for determining the relevance of research findings. In direct contrast with behaviorism, the objective of which is to predict and control the behavior of other people, the new movement put a high value on personal freedom and on the ability of the individual to determine his or her life. While humanistic psychology was rapidly gaining momentum, a new force emerged within its inner circles which held that the humanistic emphasis on personal growth and self-actualization was still too narrow and limited. New emphasis was put on recognition of spirituality and transcendental needs as intrinsic aspects of human nature and on the right of every individual to pursue his or her own

 

Page viii spiritual path. Leading humanistic psychologists showed interest in the neglected psychological realms of mystical experiences, transcendence, ecstasy, cosmic consciousness, meditation, and inter-individual and inter-species synergy. These interests culminated in the emergence of a new movementtranspersonal psychology. Transpersonal psychology, established as a discipline in the late 1960's, received impetus from the work of Carl Gustav Jung, Roberto Assagioli and Abraham Maslow, and from clinical work with psychedelics, particularly LSD psychotherapy. The new insights into the human psyche were crystalized and consolidated into a new movement, or Fourth Force in psychology, by humanistic psychologists Anthony Sutich and Abraham Maslow. Transpersonal psychology has rapidly grown and developed in the last decade. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, The Association of Transpersonal Psychology, The California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology were established, and movement activities, centered in the USA, particularly California, generated considerable interest and response abroad. Since 1972 international meetings in transpersonal psychology have reflected its growing influence. The first two international meetings, held in Iceland, the third, in Inari, Lappland, and the fourth, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, were organized by transpersonally oriented psychologists, particularly Geir Vilhjamssen, Léo Matos, and Pierre Weil. At the fourth international meeting, in 1978, it was decided that the growing popularity and vitality of these meetings justified launching an international organization. This was the formal beginning of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA). Stanislav Grof, nominated the first president of the ITA, was asked to take responsibility for future conferences, and formulate the philosophy, strategy, legal structure, and goals of the ITA. The conceptual and organizational outline prepared by Stanislav Grof differed from that of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology by stressing the explicitly international structure and interdisciplinary nature of the ITA. The rapid convergence between transpersonal psychology and other scientific disciplines led to the fact that the ITA membership included quantum-relativistic physicists, information and system theorists, biologists, anthropologists, thanatologists, theologians, philosophers, artists. Hence the International

 

Page ix Transpersonal Association is defined as a scientific organization that unites individuals of different nationalities, professions, and philosophical or spiritual preferences who share the transpersonal orientation or world view. This means that using the specific methods and observations of their respective areas of interest, they are moving toward or have arrived at the recognition of fundamental unity underlying the world of separate beings and objects, and they are applying this new understanding in their fields. The ITA supports efforts to bridge the gaps between various disciplines and formulate a comprehensive, integrated image of human nature. It facilitates the development of new scientific paradigms that synthesize previously disparate or contradictory approaches, emphasize the unity of mind and body, and describe human beings in their complex interpersonal, social, ecological, and cosmic context. Based on the recognition that reality is infinitely more complex than any scientific theory or ideological system, and that it is absolutely mandatory to maintain an open-minded approach to the exploration of the world, unimpeded by rigid adherence to the existing paradigms, the ITA supports attempts to reconcile and integrate seemingly disparate approachesthe mystical traditions and quantum-relativistic physics, Western pragmatism and Oriental philosophies, ancient wisdom and modern science, or contemporary medicine and aboriginal healing practices. In practice, the ITA encourages the application of new principles and conceptual frameworks to therapy, education, economy, ecology, politics, religion, art, and other areas of human life. It stresses inner life, quality of the human experience, self-actualization, and evolution of consciousness. ITA activities emphasize complementarity, synergy and cooperation as opposed to antagonism, competition and self-assertion; a holistic approach rather than selective focus on isolated sectors of reality; and harmonious tuning into natural processes and cosmic cycles in contrast to manipulative intervention and control. The last three annual conferences organized by the ITA* focused *The ITA is deeply indebted for the great success of these conferences to several teams of unique coordinators. For the Boston conference, it was Elias and Isa Velonis, for the Melbourne conference Alf and Muriel Foote, and for the conference in Bombay Marilyn Hershenson, Abby Rosen, Ira Rifkin and Ruth Berlin.

 

Page x on issues that are of critical importance for the transpersonal movement. The 1979 conference in Boston, Massachusetts, entitled The Nature of Reality: Dawning of A New Paradigm, brought together important representatives of the transpersonal field to discuss new developments in science and their relevance for the transpersonal orientation. The 1980 conference on Phillip Island near Melbourne, Australia, was based on the main theme Reality: New Perspectives, and further explored the relationship between transpersonal theory and revolutionary developments in various scientific disciplines. In addition, it introduced the new movement into Australia and led to consolidation of various individuals and groups interested in the transpersonal field into an integrated and well organized network. The third of these conferences, held in February 1982 in Bombay, India, under the title East and West: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science, represented a culmination of the above efforts. It brought together prominent representatives of science and of the great spiritual traditions to explore, in an open dialogue, the rapidly increasing convergence between the ancient teachings and modern science and between Eastern thought and Western pragmatism. The ancient tradition of Siddha Yoga was represented by the head of the lineage, the late Gurudev Swami Muktananda Paramahansa, Swami Prajnananda, and Swami Kripananda. The Christian representatives at the conference included one of the world's most honored humanitarians, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and the Benedictine monk, writer, and philosopher, Father Bede Griffiths. Rabbis Zalman Schachter, Shlomo Carlebach and David Zeller participated jointly in a special evening of Jewish mysticism that combined elements of Kabbalah with Hassidic songs and dances. Al Chung-liang Huang, master of t'ai chi and Chinese dance, theater and calligraphy shared with participants the living Taoist tradition in a series of demonstrations, performances, and experiential workshops. Tantric scholar and writer Ajit Mookerjee introduced the audience to the science and art of Kundalini. The Buddhist Vipassana tradition was represented by the American psychologist and Buddhist monk and teacher Jack Kornfield. Swami Sivananda Radha, founder and spiritual director of the Yasodhara Ashram in Canada, and a Westerner who received spiritual training in India, shared with participants her unique ability to interpret the principles and ideas of yoga to West-

 

Page xi ern audiences. His Holiness the Dalai Lama had planned to open the conference with an introductory speech and blessing, and His Holiness the Karmapa had agreed to close it with a Black Crown ceremony. The untimely death of His Holiness the Karmapa and sudden illness of His Holiness the Dalai Lama meant that Tarab Tulku Ngawang Losang Rinpoche was the representative to the conference of Tibetan Buddhism. An unexpected major contribution to the meeting was an unplanned appearance of the high priest of the Parsees, Dastoor Minocher Homji. The spectrum of scientific presentations at the Bombay conference was equally rich. Among the speakers were neuroscientist Karl Prib-ram, who formulated the revolutionary holonomic theory of the brain; physicist Fritjof Capra, known for his work on the convergence of physics and mysticism; and biologist Rupert Sheldrake, who recently shocked the scientific world with his theory of morphic resonance. Biofeedback pioneers Alyce and Elmer Green, and British stress researcher Malcolm Carruthers discussed the relationship between yoga and Western medical research. Psychology was represented by Jungian therapists June Singer, Cecil Burney and Dora Kalff, transpersonal therapist Frances Vaughan, founder of family therapy Virginia Satir, and writer and educator Joseph Chilton Pearce. Psychiatrists Claudio Naranjo and Stanislav Grof explored the relationship between their discipline and the Eastern systems. Uniquely combining his academic education and shamanic training, anthropologist Michael Harner, with Sandra Harner, conducted workshops in which participants had the opportunity to experiment with ancient shamanic techniques. Among transpersonal artists who added an important dimension to the meeting was Paul Horn, who appeared as a soloist, jointly with Al Chung-liang Huang, and also in the context of his superb multimedia show. The rising Indian star, dancer Alarmel Valli, stunned participants with her breath-taking performance in an evening of Indian classical ballet. Many of those who could not attend the Bombay conference as well as its participants have been asking the ITA to make the proceedings available in written form. The ITA board therefore accepted with great pleasure the offer of William Eastman from the State University of New York Press to publish a book based on the

 

Page xii last ITA conference. Because the program was extremely rich, it was not possible to include all the presentations, and the editors and publisher were confronted with the difficult task of selecting some papers and excluding others. Decision was influenced by considerations of available space and by the nature of the contributions: some were primarily experiential, impossible to represent in printed articles. The general policy was to include those that were most closely related to the theme of the conference and were most comprehensive. The emergence of the new paradigm and the increasing convergence between science and mysticism seems to be one of the most critical issues the scientific world is facing these days. This book thus transcends the framework of a historical document on the Bombay conference and can be seen as a independent statement of lasting value, anticipating developments in the future.

 

Page 1 Part I INTRODUCTION

 

Page 3 1 East and West: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science Stanislav Grof Science and technology have become dominant forces in the modern world, and Western civilization, pioneering in technological development, is commonly seen as a symbol of progress and enlightenment. A tendency to glorify progress and evolution and to look down upon the past as a time of infancy and immaturity is associated with the view that the ideological and cultural differences between East and West are absolute and unbridgeable. This view was most succinctly expressed by Rudyard Kipling in his famous ''East is East and West is West/and never the twain shall meet.'' A major reason for the incompatibility of the ancient and the modern, as well as the Eastern and the Western, has been fundamental difference in their dominant world-views and philosophies. Western scientific disciplines have described the universe as an infinitely complex mechanical system of interacting, discrete particles and separate objects. In this context, matter appears to be solid, inert, passive and unconscious; life, consciousness and creative intelligence are seen as insignificant accidents and derivatives of material development. They emerged after billions of years of random mechanical evolution of matter and only in a negligible section of an immense universe. In contrast, the spiritual philosophies of the great ancient and

 

Page 4 Eastern culturesor ''perennial philosophy" 1 as Aldous Huxley referred to themdescribe consciousness and creative intelligence as primary attributes of existence, both transcendent and immanent in the phenomenal world. Western science recognizes as real only those phenomena that can be objectively observed and measured; perennial philosophy acknowledges an entire hierarchy of realitiessome of them manifest, others hidden under ordinary circumstances and directly observable only in certain special states of consciousness. Materialistic science and perennial philosophy differ most in their images of human nature. Western science portrays human beings as highly developed animals and thinking biological machines who have a fleeting, insignificant role in the overall scheme of things. Perennial philosophy sees humans as essentially commensurate with the entire universe and ultimately divine. Western science offers psychological and psychopharmacological assistance to people who have difficulties adjusting to the miserable predicament of human life. (Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, described the goal of successful psychotherapy as "changing the extreme suffering of the neurotic into the normal misery of human existence."2 But perennial philosophy offers a rich spectrum of spiritual techniques through which it is possible to recognize and experience one's own divinity and achieve liberation from suffering. Materialistic science has developed effective means of alleviating the most obvious forms of sufferingdiseases, poverty and starvationbut has done very little for inner fulfillment and genuine emotional satisfaction. Increased material affluence has been associated with a dramatic increase of mental disorders, alcoholism, suicide rates, crime, and violence. On the other hand, perennial philosophy has offered inner liberation to a select few, but has failed to offer solutions for the urgent practical problems of everyday existence or to improve the external conditions of human life. These differences invite us to wonder if Western science and perennial wisdom could be reconciled in a way that would combine their advantages and avoid their drawbacks. Since it is not possible to change the ancient and perennial, any attempt at such synthesis must involve changes in the philosophy of Western science. But is it possible to change the basic assumptions of science while preserving its formidable pragmatic power? Do not the everyday triumphs of mechanistic science consti-

 

Page 5 tute a clear proof of the accuracy of its basic philosophical assumptions? One of the most important achievements of Western philosophy of science is the recognition that scientific theories are but conceptual models organizing the data about reality available at the time. As useful approximations to reality, they should not be mistaken for correct descriptions of reality itself. The relationship between theory and the reality which it describes is like that between a map and territory in Korzybski's sense; 3 to confuse the two represents a violation of scientific thinkinga serious error in what is called logical typing. American anthropologist and generalist Gregory Bateson said that a person committing logical errors of this kind may one day eat the menu instead of the meal. Since it is always possible to formulate more than one theory accounting for the available data, the problem is to find a theory that would be broad enough to incorporate basic assumptions of perennial philosophy and yet preserve the pragmatic power of mechanistic science. The concept of a paradigm is extremely useful here. Coined by the American physicist and historian of science Thomas Kuhn, author of the ground-breaking book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the term paradigm describes conceptual systems that dominate the thinking of scientific communities during certain specific periods of the evolution of science.4 Initially each new paradigm has a positive and progressive role. It identifies legitimate scientific problems, offers methodology for conducting scientific experiments, and describes criteria for evaluating the data. A paradigm clearly defines not only what reality is, but also what it is not and cannot possibly be. Once the paradigm is accepted, its basic philosophical assumptions are not questioned and scientists focus their attention and efforts on its further elaboration and articulation. However, continued research inevitably will produce data that are incompatible with the leading paradigm, since reality is always much more complicated than even the most sophisticated and complex scientific theory. At first, all research challenging the dominant paradigm tends to be suppressed, because the current theories are mistaken for a true and exhaustive description of reality. Scientists who are under the spell of the leading paradigm have a strong conviction about the nature of reality. The scientist who generates controversial data is dis-

 

Page 6 counted as inept, accused of cheating, or even labeled mentally ill. When the new data hold in subsequent experiments and are further confirmed by independent research, the discipline in question moves into a serious paradigm crisis that Kuhn calls a period of abnormal science. After attempts to create ad hoc hypotheses and conceptual adjustments fail, more and more courageous and fantastic theories are generated, and out of this chaos one of these alternatives finally emerges victorious as the new paradigm. In the history of science, this sequence of events is continuously repeated. The old and the new paradigm typically represent entirely different and mutually incompatible world-views. Historical examples of major paradigm shifts are the transition from the geocentric astronomy of Ptolemaius to the heliocentric system of Copernicus and Galileo, from the flogiston theory to the modern chemistry of Lavoisier, and, most recently, from the Newtonian mechanics to quantum-relativistic physics. In the past 300 years, Western science has been dominated by the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm. As Fritjof Capra outlined them in The Tao of Physics, the basic philosophical assumptions of this system of thought are derived from the ideas of Isaac Newton and René Descartes. 5 Newton's mechanistic universe is a universe of solid matter made of fundamental building blocks or atoms, which are by definition indestructible.* They influence each other by forces of gravitation and interact according to fixed and unchangeable laws. Their interaction occurs in absolute space, which is three-dimensional, homogeneous, and independent of the presence of matter. Time in the Newtonian universe is uni-dimensional, flowing evenly from the past through the present to the future. Newton's universe resembles a gigantic supermachine governed by linear chains of causes and effects. It is strictly deterministic: if we knew all the factors operating at present, we should be able to reconstruct accurately any situation in the past or predict any event in the future. Although this determinism cannot be scientifically proven and the complexity of the universe prevents its practical testing, it constitutes one of the cornerstones of mechanistic science. To this Newtonian model, the French philosopher René Des- *The Greek a-tomos is composed of the negative prefix a- and the verb temneinto cut; it means that which cannot be cut or divided any further.

 

Page 7 cartes contributed absolute dichotomy between matter (res extensa) and mind (res cogitans). According to Descartes, the universe exists objectively in the form in which a human observer would perceive it, but its existence is entirely independent of the process of observation. These ideas of Isaac Newton and René Descartes became the foundations of Western mechanistic science and became the driving force behind the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. The mechanistic model of the universe was so successful in its pragmatic technological applications that it became the ideal prototype of all scientific thinking, and was emulated by other disciplines, including psychology, psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, and related fields. Freud was a member of the so-called "Helmholtz Society," whose explicit goal was to introduce into science the principles of Newtonian mechanics. While formulating psychoanalysis, Freud quite consciously and rigorously used the criteria of Newtonian thinking. The extreme example of this thinking is behaviorisman attempt to eliminate the element of consciousness as a legitimate object of scientific interest and research, and to develop scientific psychology without the use of subjective introspective data. The various scientific disciplines based on the mechanistic model have created an image of the universe as an infinitely complex assembly of passive, inert and unconscious matter, developing without any participation of creative intelligence. From the "Big Bang," through the initial expansion of the galaxies, to the creation of the solar system and Earth, the cosmic processes were allegedly governed by blind mechanical forces. Organic matter and life were thought to have originated in the primeval ocean by accident through random chemical reactions. Similarly, the cellular organization of organic matter and the Darwinian evolution to higher life forms occurred quite mechanically without the participation of an intelligent principlethrough genetic mutations and natural selection that guaranteed survival of the fittest. Then somewhere very high in the evolutionary pedigree, consciousness emerged as a product of highly developed and organized matter, the central nervous system or brain. At a certain point of its developmentnot clearly identified by mechanistic sciencematter, previously blind and inert, suddenly became aware of itself. Al-

 

Page 8 though the mechanism involved in this miraculous event entirely escapes even the crudest attempts at speculation, it is taken for granted and represents a fundamental postulate of the materialistic and mechanistic world-view. The belief that consciousness is a product of matter is not, of course, entirely arbitrary. It reflects a vast mass of observations, particularly from clinical and experimental neurology, showing clear connections between various conscious processes and physiological or pathological processes such as traumas, tumors or infections in the brain. Brain contusions, anaesthesia, or restriction of blood supply will lead to loss of consciousness. A temporal tumor is associated with changes of consciousness that are quite specific and different from those accompanying, for example, a prefrontal tumor. These connections are so consistent and predictable that they can be used in establishing neurological diagnosis. In some instances, the distortions of conscious processes can even be corrected by neurosurgery, pharmacotherapy, or other medical interventions. Although close correlations between consciousness and cerebral structures or processes have been established beyond any reasonable doubt, mechanistic science tends to misinterpret correlation for cause. The logical inconsistency of its conclusions is analogous to a faulty conclusion that, for example, television programming is caused by components of the TV set. A knowledgeable TV mechanic can correct problems with the picture or sound by repairing the TV components. But since television is a human-made invention, none of us would see these repairs as scientific proof that the program must be, therefore, generated by the components. It simply means that the integrity of the set is a necessary prerequisite for the integrity of sound and picture. To conclude otherwise is to mistake connection for cause, but this is the kind of faulty conclusion that mechanistic science draws from neurological findings. It is worth mention here that in his last book Mystery of The Mind, pioneering neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield expressed deep disbelief that consciousness is a product of the brain and can be explained in terms of neurophysiology. 67 Materialistic psychology explains mental processes as reactions of the organism to the environment and/or recombinations of previous sensory input stored in the brain. In this it adheres to John Locke's

 

Page 9 empiricist credo that "nihil est in intellectu quod non antea fuerit in sensu." (There is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the senses.) Memories of any kind have to have a specific material substratethe cells of the central nervous system or the physiochemical code of the genes. Access to any new information is possible only through direct sensory input or through combination of old and newly acquired data. Mechanistic science thus tries to explain even such phenomena as human intelligence, creativity, art, religion, ethics, and science itself as products of material processes in the brain. But the probability of human intelligence developing all the way from the chemical ooze in the primeval ocean to its present stage solely through random mechanical processes has been aptly compared to the probability of a tornado blowing through a gigantic junkyard and assembling by accident a 747 Jumbo-jet. In the reductionistic world-view of mechanistic and materialistic science, there is no place for mysticism and religion. Spirituality is seen as a sign of primitive superstition, intellectual and emotional immaturity, or even severe psychopathology that science will one day explain in terms of deviant biochemical processes in the brain. Mainstream psychoanalysis, for example, interprets unitive and oceanic states of the mystics as a regression to primary narcissism and infantile helplessness, and it interprets religion as an obsessive-compulsive neurosis of humanity. 8 Psychoanalyst Franz Alexander described the states achieved by Buddhist meditation as self-induced catatonia.9 Western anthropologists see shamans as mentally ill who suffer from schizophrenia or epilepsy, and refer to the initiatory experiences that mark the onset of the career of many shamans as "shamanic illness." The report of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry interpreted mysticism as an intermediate phenomenon between normality and psychosis.10 Although Newtonian-Cartesian science has acquired great prestige, the mechanistic paradigm, once a progressive and powerful tool for science, has become a strait-jacket, seriously impeding further evolution of human knowledge. A paradigm is more than just a useful theoretical model for science; its philosophy has a powerful indirect influence on society. Newtonian-Cartesian science has created a very negative image of human beings, depicting them as biological machines driven by bes-

 

Page 10 tial instinctual impulses. This image endorses competition and the principle of "survival of the fittest" as natural and essentially healthy tendencies. Contemporary science, blinded by its model of the world as a conglomerate of mechanically interacting separate units, has been unable to recognize the vital importance of cooperation, synergy, and ecological concerns. Technological achievements that have the potential to solve most of the problems plaguing humanitynuclear energy, lasers, space age rocketry, cybernetics, and the miracles of modern chemistry and bacteriologyhave turned into menaces. In the last decades, the authority of mechanistic science has also been undermined from within. As Fritjof Capra demonstrated in The Tao of Physics and The Turning Point, developments in the twentieth century physics have questioned and transcended every postulate of the Newtonian-Cartesian model. Astonishing explorations of both the macro-world and the micro-world have created an image of reality which is entirely different from the seventeenth century model used by mechanistic science. The myth of solid and indestructible matter, its central dogma, disintegrated under the impact of experimental and theoretical evidence that the fundamental building blocks of the universethe atomswere essentially empty. Subatomic particles showed the same paradoxical nature as light, manifesting either particle properties or wave properties depending on the arrangement of the experiment. The world of substance was replaced by that of process, event, and relation. In subatomic analysis, solid Newtonian matter disappeared. What remained were activity, form, abstract order, and pattern. In the words of the famous mathematician and physicist Sir James Jeans, the universe began to look less like a machine and more like a thought system. 11 Newton's three-dimensional space and uni-dimensional time were replaced by Einstein's four-dimensional continuum of space-time. In new physics, the objective world cannot be separated from the observer, and linear causality is not the only and mandatory connecting principle in the cosmos. The universe of modern physics is not the gigantic mechanical clockwork of Newton, but a unified network of events and relations. Prominent modern scientists Eugene Wigner, David Bohm, Geoffrey Chew, Edward Walker, Gregory Bateson, Fritjof Capra, and Arthur Young believe that mind, intelli-

 

Page 11 gence, and possibly consciousness are integral parts of existence rather than insignificant products of matter. 12 Although quantum-relativistic physics provides the most convincing and radical critique of the mechanistic world-view, important revisions have been inspired by various avenues of research in other hard sciences. Scientific thinking has also been changed by developments in cybernetics, information theory, systems theory and the theory of logical types. According to Gregory Bateson, thinking in terms of substance and discrete objects represents a serious epistemological mistakeerror in logical typing.* In everyday life, we deal not with objects but with their sensory transforms or with messages about differences; in Korzybski's sense, we have access to maps, not the territory. Information, difference, form and pattern that constitute our knowledge of the world are dimensionless entities that cannot be located in space or time. Information flows in circuits that transcend the conventional boundaries of the individual and include the environment. This way of scientific thinking makes it absurd to treat the world in terms of separate objects and entities; to see the individual, family or species as the Darwinian units of survival; to draw distinctions between mind and body; or to identify with the ego-body unit (Alan Watts' "skin-encapsulated ego"). Emphasis has shifted from substance and object to form, pattern and process.** Systems theory has made it possible to formulate a new definition of the mind. This theory holds that any constellation of events that has the appropriate complexity of closed causal circuits and the appropriate energy relations will show mental characteristics, i. e., respond to difference, process information, and be self-corrective. In this sense, cells, tissues, and organs of the body; a cultural group or *Most important aspects of this criticism of mechanistic science can be found in Gregory Bateson's Steps To an Ecology of Mind and Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. **This conceptual conflict between mechanistic science and the modern revolutionary developments represents a replica of the ancient conflict between major schools of Greek philosophy. The Ionic schoolThales of Miletos, Anaximenes, Anaximandros and othersconsidered the basic philosophical question to be "What is the world made of?", "What is its basic substance?" In contrast, Plato and Pythagoras believed that the critical issue is its form, patterning and order. Modern science is distinctly neo-Platonic and neo-Pythagorean.

 

Page 12 nation; an ecological system; or even the entire planet (Gaia theory) can be said to have mental characteristics. And when we consider a larger mind that integrates all the hierarchies of the lower ones, even a critical and skeptical scientist like Gregory Bateson has to admit that this concept comes close to that of an immanent God. Another profound criticism of mechanistic science has emerged from the work of the Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine and his colleagues in Brussels and in Austin, Texas. 13 Traditional science depicts life as a specific, rare, and ultimately futile processan insignificant and accidental anomaly involved in a Don Quixotean struggle against the absolute dictate of the second law of thermodynamics. This gloomy picture of the universe, dominated by an all-powerful tendency toward increasing randomness and entropy, and moving relentlessly toward a thermal death, belongs now to the history of science. It was dispelled by Prigogine's study of the so-called "dissipative structures"* in certain chemical reactions and his discovery of their underlying principle"order through fluctuation." Further research revealed that this principle is not limited to chemical processes but represents a basic mechanism of revolution in all domainsfrom atoms to galaxies, and from individual cells to human beings, and further to societies and cultures. These observations enable a unified view of evolution in which the unifying principle is not the steady state, but the dynamic conditions of the non-equilibrium systems. Open systems on all levels and in all the domains are carriers of an over-all evolution which ensures that life will continue to ever newer and dynamic complexity. Whenever systems in any domain become stifled by past entropy production, they mutate toward new regimes. The same energy and the same principles thus carry evolution on all the levels, whether it involves matter, vital forces, information, or mental processes. Micro- and macro- cosmos are two aspects of the same unified and unifying evolution. Life is not seen any longer as a phenomenon unfolding in an inanimate universe; the universe itself becomes increasingly alive. *"Dissipative structures" derive their name from the fact that they maintain continuous entropy production and dissipate the accruing entropy by exchange with the environment. The most famous example is the so-called Belousov-Zhabotinski reaction, which involves oxidation of malonic acid by bromate in a sulphuric acid solution in the presence of cerium, iron, or manganese ions.

 

Page 13 Although the simplest level on which self-organization can be studied is the level of dissipative structures which form in self-renewing chemical reaction systems, applying these principles to biological, psychological and socio-cultural phenomena does not involve reductionistic thinking. Unlike the reductionism of mechanistic science, such applications are based on fundamental homology, on the relatedness of the self-organizing dynamics on many levels. From this point of view, humans are not higher than other living organisms; rather, they live simultaneously on more levels than life forms that appeared earlier in evolution. Here science has rediscovered a truth of perennial philosophy: the evolution of humanity forms an integral and meaningful part of universal evolution. Humans are important agents in this evolution; rather than helpless subjects of evolution, they are evolution. Like quantum-relativistic physics, this new science of becoming, replacing the old science of being, shifts emphasis from substance to process. In this context, structure is an incidental product of interacting processes, and, in Erich Jantsch's words, it is no more solid than a standing wave pattern in the confluence of two rivers or the grin of a Cheshire cat.* The latest serious challenge to mechanistic thinking is the theory of British biologist and biochemist Rupert Sheldrake, expounded in his revolutionary A New Science of Life. 14 Sheldrake has offered a brilliant critique of how mechanistic science explains morphogenesis during individual development and evolution of species, genetics, and instinctual and more complex forms of behavior. Mechanistic science considers only the quantitative aspect of phenomena, which Sheldrake calls ''energetic causation.'' It has nothing to say about the qualitative aspectthe development of forms or the "formative causation." According to Sheldrake, living organisms are not just complex biological machines, and life cannot be reduced to chemical reactions. Form, development and behavior of organisms are shaped by morphogenetic fields of a type that at present is not recognized by physics. These fields are molded by the form and behavior of past organisms of the same species through direct connections across both space and time. These fields show cumulative properties; if a certain number of members of a species develop certain organismic *See Erich Jantsch's Design For Evolution (Braziller, New York, 1975) and The Self-Organizing Universe (Pergamon Press, New York 1980) for further information.

 

Page 14 properties or learn a specific form of behavior, these are automatically acquired by other members of the species, even if there exist no conventional forms of contact between them. The phenomenon of ''morphic resonance," as Sheldrake calls it, is not limited to living organisms and can be seen in such elementary phenomena as the growth of crystals. However implausible and absurd this theory might appear to a mechanistically oriented mind, it is testable. Even at present, in its early stages, it is supported by experiments with rats and observations of monkeys.* Sheldrake is aware that his theory has far-reaching implications for psychology and has discussed its relationship to Jung's concept of the collective unconscious. Another dramatic revision of the mechanistic world-view is the holonomic theory of the universe formulated by David Bohm, former coworker of Albert Einstein and author of basic texts on both relativity theory and quantum physics. According to Bohm, the phenomenal world that we observe in our ordinary states of consciousness represents only one aspect of realitythe explicate or unfolded order. Its generative matrixthe implicate or enfolded orderexists on another level of reality and cannot be directly observed, except possibly in episodes of non-ordinary consciousness, such as deep meditative, mystical or psychedelic states. Like many other famous physicists, including Niels Bohr, Erwin Schroedinger, Robert Oppenheimer, and Albert Einstein, Bohm finds modern physics compatible with the mystical world-view. 15 The famous neurosurgeon Karl Pribram has developed a new model of the brain that in the future might converge with Bohm's theory of holomovement.16 Pribram was able to demonstrate that, in addition to digital processing, the brain also performs parallel processing which involves holographic principles. Pribram's model not only explains a number of otherwise puzzling aspects of the brain function, but opens entirely new perspectives for speculations *The most famous example is the anecdotal observation reported by Lyall Watson in Lifetide (Bantam Books, New York, 1980), and referred to as the "hundredth monkey phenomenon." When a young female Japanese monkey (Macaca fuscata) on the island Koshima learned an entirely new behaviorwashing raw sweet potatoes covered with sand and gritthis behavior was not only transmitted to her immediate peers, but appeared in monkeys on neighboring islands when the number of monkeys reached a certain critical number.

 

Page 15 about mystical and psychedelic states, parapsychological phenomena, spiritual healing, and many other problem areas that were previously excluded from serious scientific inquiry. Although it is at this point premature to talk about an integrated holonomic theory of the universe and of the brain, it is very exciting that both approaches are using similar and compatible explanatory principles. This discussion of new and promising developments in science would not be complete without mention of the work of Arthur Young. His theory of process is a serious candidate for a scientific metaparadigm of the future. It organizes and interprets in a most comprehensive way the data from a variety of disciplinesgeometry, quantum theory, theories of relativity, chemistry, biology, botany, zoology, history, psychology, and mythologyand integrates them into an all-encompassing cosmological vision. Young's model of the universe has four levels defined by degrees of freedom and of restraint, and seven consecutive stages: light, nuclear particles, atoms, molecules, plants, animals, and humans. Young was able to discover a basic pattern of the universal process that repeats itself continuously on different levels of evolution in nature. The explanatory power of this metaparadigm is complemented by its predictive power. Like Mendeleyev's periodic table of elements, it is capable of predicting natural phenomena and their specific aspects. By assigning a critical role in the universe to light and the purposeful influence of the quantum action, Young made it possible to bridge the gap between science, mythology, and perennial philosophy. His metaparadigm is not only consistent with the best of science, but it is also capable of dealing with non-objective and non-definable aspects of reality far beyond accepted limits of science. Since it is not possible to do justice to Young's theory without detailed excursions into a variety of disciplines, those who are interested in this approach are referred to his original writings. Although it is not yet possible to integrate the various revolutionary developments in modern science discussed here into a cohesive and comprehensive new paradigm, they all seem to have one thing in common: their proponents share a deep belief that the mechanistic image of the universe created by Newtonian-Cartesian science is no longer an accurate and mandatory description of reality. By far the most far-reaching challenges to the Newtonian-Cartesian para-

 

Page 16 digm have emerged in the fields of depth psychology and modern consciousness research. As the authority of mechanistic science is collapsing, serious researchers are rediscovering and re-evaluating a broad spectrum of data that in the past have been suppressed or even ridiculed because of their incompatibility with the old paradigm. At the same time, vast amounts of new revolutionary observations are being generated by laboratory consciousness research, psychedelic therapy, experiential psychotherapies, field anthropology, parapsychology, and thanatology. Parapsychological researchers Joseph Banks Rhine, Gardner Murphy, Stanley Krippner, Jules Eisenbud, Charles Tart, Elmer and Alyce Green, Arthur Hastings, Russell Targ, and Harold Puthoff have done meticulous scientific work that suggests the existence of telepathy, remote viewing, psychic diagnosis and healing, Poltergeist, or psychokinesis. This avenue of research has attracted the attention of modern physicists and it has become a serious theoretical challenge to incorporate its findings into the new paradigm. Another major area of psychology that challenges the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm and is receiving increasing scientific recognition is Jung's work. The two dominant orientations in Western psychology, behaviorism and Freudian psychoanalysis, have created mechanistic models of the psyche: behaviorism in its extreme form attempts to exclude consciousness from psychology and to reduce mental functioning to reflex activity and to the stimulus-response principle, and Freudian psychoanalysis sees psychological phenomena as derivatives of base instincts and biological functions. But Jung discovered the collective unconscious, myth-forming properties and far-reaching healing potentials of the psyche, and the existence of archetypestransindividual dynamic patterns in the psyche that not only transcend the boundaries of the individual, but represent an interface between consciousness and matter (psychoids). 18 Whereas Freud's individual unconscious is an inferno of instinctual forces and suppressed and rejected psychological tendencies, Jung's psychology returns the cosmic status to the psyche and re-introduces spirituality into psychiatry.19 Unlike Freud, who tried all through his life to raise the prestige of psychology by reducing it to Newtonian mechanics, Jung was aware that his findings were incompatible with the existing philosophy of science and required an entirely new para-

 

Page 17 digm. He followed developments in quantum-relativistic physics with great interest and was deeply influenced by his personal interactions with Wolfgang Pauli and Albert Einstein. 20 Several decades of psychedelic research have also generated data of critical importance for the new paradigm. Various cultural groups throughout the world have long used plants with powerful psychedelic properties for ritual and healing purposes. The legendary plant and potion soma played a critical role in the development of Vedic religion and philosophy. Pre-Columbian Central American cultures used a broad spectrum of psychedelic plants; the best known of these are the Mexican cactus peyote, the sacred mushrooms teonanacatl, and the morning glory seeds, or ololiuqui. South American Indians of the Amazon have used for centuries decoctions from the jungle liana yagé or ayahuasca. In Africa, many tribes know the secret of the psychedelic plant eboga and ingest it in smaller doses as a stimulant, and in larger amounts as a sacrament in their rituals. The tomb of a shaman found during the excavations of the New Stone Age settlement from the sixth millennium B.C. in Catal Hüyuk in Turkey contained plants that according to pollen analysis were specimens with psychedelic properties. Preparations from several varieties of hemp have been smoked and ingested under various names (hashish, charas, bhang, ganja, kif, marijuana) in the Oriental countries, in Africa, and in the Caribbean area for recreation, pleasure, healing, and ritual purposes. They have been important sacraments for such diverse groups as the Indian Brahmans, several orders of the sufis, African natives, ancient Skythians, and the Jamaican Rastafarians. According to recent research, ergot alkaloids similar to LSD were used in the famous Eleusinian mysteries in ancient Greece. Both Plato and Aristotle were initiates of these mysteries and their systems of thought were deeply influenced by their experiences in them.21 Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann's sensational discovery of the semi-synthetic psychedelic LSD inspired a wave of interest in psychopharmacology.22 The alkaloids responsible for the effects of most of the above sacred plants have now been isolated in pure form as mesacaline, psilocybine, psilocin, lysergamid, bufotenin, dimethyl-tryptamine, tetrahydrocannabinol, harmin, and ibogain. It has become evident that the Western model of psyche, with its narrow biographical orientation, is inadequate to account for a wide

 

Page 18 spectrum of phenomena occurring in psychedelic states. Under the catalyzing influence of these remarkable psychoactive drugs, experimental subjects have experienced not only autobiographical sequences, but also powerful confrontations with birth and death, and an entire gamut of phenomena that have been named "transpersonal." The rediscovery of these experiences and the recognition of their heuristic relevance has been one of the major incentives for the development of a new movement in psychologythe transpersonal orientation. 23 In the ordinary state of consciousness, a person is expected to identify experientially with his or her body image, to be Alan Watts' "skin-encapsulated ego." It is generally possible to experience with all the sensory qualities only the present moment and the present location. Recall of the past is without the sensory vividness of the present moment, and experiencing the future is considered absurd and impossible in principle. Perception of the here and now is limited by the sensory organs' physical and physiological characteristics. In transpersonal experiences, one, two, or more of the above limitations appear to be transcended. The sense of one's identity can expand beyond the body image and encompass other people, groups of people, or all of humanity. It can transcend the human boundaries and include animals, plants, or even inanimate objects and processes. Events that occurred in personal, ancestral, racial, phylogenetic, geological or astronomical history, and even future events can be experienced with vividness ordinarily reserved only for the present moment and location. In the extremes, one can experientially identify with the whole planet or the entire cosmos at various points of their development. Experiences of this kind can bring instant intuitive knowledge that by far exceeds the intellectual capacity and educational background of the individual. While consciously identifying with another person, one can gain access to that person's thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, or memories. During episodes of animal identification, one can have detailed insights into animal psychology, instinctual dynamics, reproductive cycles, or courtship dances of the species involved. Plant experiences can similarly mediate new and accurate insights into botanical processes such as photosynthesis, sprouting of seeds, growth, pollination, or exchange of minerals and water in the

 

Page 19 root system. The same is occasionally true for inorganic processes, such as birth and death of stars, subatomic events, and dynamics of cyclones or volcanic eruptions. Racial memories in the Jungian sense or past incarnation experiences are frequently associated with new information about cultures and historical periods, their architecture, costumes, weaponry, religious rituals, or social structure. Similarly, the content of ESP experiences such as precognition, clairvoyance, or astral projection can frequently be independently confirmed as accurately reflecting reality. It is even more remarkable that experiences accurately portraying various aspects of the phenomenal world can alternate in unusual states of consciousness with experiences that have no basis in what is called in the West "objective reality" such as archetypal visions of deities or demons and mythological sequences from different cultures. Even these experiences can impart entirely new information; they reflect accurately, and frequently in great detail, the mythologies of the cultures involved. The nature and quality of this information is typically far beyond the educational level or even intellectual capacity of the individual involved. Some of the most encompassing transpersonal experiences are of a cosmic and transcendental nature; here belongs identification with the Universal Mind or Cosmic Consciousness (Sacchidananda) or the experience of the Supracosmic and Metacosmic Void (Sunyata). Transpersonal experiences are not limited to psychedelic states. They occur in new experiential psychotherapies such as neo-Reichian approaches, primal therapy, psychosynthesis, Gestalt practice, marathon sessions, and various forms of rebirthing. They are particularly frequent in the process of holonomic integration developed by my wife Christina and myself. 24 It is a technique that combines controlled breathing with evocative music and focused body work. That many spiritual practices can induce transpersonal experiences is now being confirmed by an increasing number of Westerners who experiment with transcendental meditation, Zen practice, Tibetan psycho-energetic exercises, or forms of yoga. The new understanding of transpersonal phenomena mediated deep insights into an important subcategory of non-ordinary states of consciousness labeled and treated by Western science as psychotic and thus indicative of mental disease. These can now be interpreted

 

Page 20 as "spiritual emergencies" or "transpersonal crises"; if properly treated, they can result in psychosomatic healing, personality transformation, and consciousness evolution. Ancient and Eastern cultures have not only developed elaborate cartographies for these states, but also have powerful techniques to induce them. Various rites of passage of aboriginal cultures, ancient death-rebirth mysteries, spiritual healing ceremonies, shamanic practices and secret initiations are salient examples. 25 Various transpersonal phenomena have also been described in the context of non-drug laboratory techniques of consciousness alteration such as biofeedback, developed by Elmer and Alyce Green, Barbara Brown, Joe Kamiya and others; sensory isolation and sensory overload; use of various kinaesthetic devices such as the "witches cradle"; use of non-authoritative forms of hypnosis; and the "mind games" developed by Jean Houston and Robert Masters.26 Another important source of fascinating data about transpersonal experiences is the young discipline of thanatology, the study of death and dying. Clinical observations of people who are near death and those who have died and been resuscitated confirm essentially the descriptions of death in spiritual literature, particularly from the ancient books of the dead such as The Tibetan Bardo Thödöl, the Egyptian Pert em Hru, and the European Ars moriendi or Art of Dying.27 The original data collected by Karlis Osis in Death-Bed Observations of Physicians and Nurses,28 Raymond Moody in Life After Life,29 and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross are now being confirmed by more systematic studies such as Kenneth Ring's Life At Death,30 and American cardiologist Michael Sabom's Recollections of Death.31 Sabom used a careful scientific approach to re-examine the claims of previous studies and ancient books of the dead that, following clinical death, many people have out-of-the-body experiences in which they accurately perceive near or remote events. He was able to confirm that these people describe in many instances minute details of the circumstances following their deaths, including the use of specific interventions and esoteric gadgets that are not commonly known to laymen. It would be difficult to come up with a more dramatic example of a critical challenge to the Newtonian-Cartesian mechanistic science and its interpretation of the relationship between

 

Page 21 consciousness and the brain than a situation involving a clinically dead person, lying on the back with the eyes closed and witnessing accurately the events in the room from the vantage point of the ceiling, or even events occurring in another room of the building, or in a remote location. The most exciting aspect of all the above revolutionary developments in modern Western scienceastronomy, physics, biology, medicine, information and systems theory, depth psychology, parapsychology and consciousness researchis the fact that the new image of the universe and of human nature increasingly resembles that of the ancient and Eastern spiritual philosophiesthe different systems of yoga, the Tibetan Vajrayana, Kashmir Shaivism, Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Kabbalah, Christian mysticism, or gnosticism. It seems that we are approaching a phenomenal synthesis of the ancient and the modern and a far-reaching integration of the great achievements of the East and the West that might have profound consequences for the life on this planet. References 1. HUXLEY, A. Perennial Philosophy. London: Fontana, 1958. 2. FREUD, S. Civilization and Its Discontents. New York: Norton Press, 1962. 3. KORZYBSKI, A. Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. Lakeville, Conn.: The International Non-Aristotelian Library Publ. Co., 1933. 4. KUHN, T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1962. 5. CAPRA, F. The Tao of Physics. Berkeley, CA.: Shambhala Publications, 1975. See also Capra, F. The Turning Point. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. 6. PENFIELD, W. The Mystery of the Mind. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976. 7. LOCKE, J. "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding." In The Works of John Locke. London: T. Tegg, 1823. 8. FREUD, S. "Obsessive Acts and Religious Practices." Collected Papers, vol, 6, Institute of Psychoanalysis, Hogarth Press, London, 1924.

 

Page 22 9. ALEXANDER, F. "Buddhist Training As Artificial Catatonia." Psychoanalyt. Rev. 18 (1931): 129. 10. Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, Committee on Psychiatry and Religion: "Mysticism: Spiritual Quest or Psychic Disorder?" Washington, D.C., 1976. 11. JEANS, J. The Mysterious Universe. New York: Macmillan, 1930. 12. See WIGNER, E. Symmetries and Reflections. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1967; Chew, G.F. "Bootstrap: A Scientific Idea?" Science 161 (1968): 762; Bohm, D. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge and Kegan, 1980; Walker, E.H. "The Nature of Consciousness." Mathemat. Biosciences 7 (1970): 138; Bateson, G. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979; and Bateson, G. Steps to An Ecology of Mind. San Francisco, CA.: Chandler Publications, 1972; Capra. op. cit.; and Young, A.M. The Geometry of Meaning. New York: Delacorte Press, 1976. 13. PRIGOGINE, I. From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity in the Physical Sciences. San Francisco, CA.: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1980. 14. SHELDRAKE, R. A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation. Los Angeles, CA.: J.P. Tarcher, 1981. 15. See BOHM. op. cit. 16. PRIBRAM, K. Languages of the Brain. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. See also Pribram, K. "Non-Locality and Localization: A Review of the Place of the Holographic Hypothesis of Brain Function in Perception and Memory." Preprint for the Tenth ICUS, November 1981. 17. See YOUNG. op. cit. 18. JUNG, C.G. "On the Nature of the Psyche." Collected Works, vol. 8, Bollingen Series XX. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960. 19. JUNG C.G. "Symbols of Transformation." Collected Works vol. 5., Bollingen Series XX. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1956. 20. See PAULI, W. "The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific Theories of Kepler." In The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche. Bollingen Series LI. New York: Pantheon Books, 1955. 21. See WASSON, R.G. et al. The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secrets of the Mysteries. New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1978; Croissant, J.: Aristôte et les mystères. Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, Liège, 1932; and Plato, "Phaedrus." In The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Bollingen Series LXXI. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961. 22. HOFMANN, A. "The Chemistry of LSD and Its Modifications." In

 

Page 23 D.V. SIVASANKAR et al. LSD: A Total Study. Westbury, N.Y.: PJD Publications Ltd., 1975. 23. SUTICH, A. ''The Emergence of the Transpersonal Orientation: A Personal Account.'' J. transpersonal Psychol. 8 (1976): 5. 24. GROF, S. Journeys Beyond the Brain. Manuscript pending publication. 25. GROF, S., GROF, C.: The Concept of Spiritual Emergency: Understanding and Treatment of Transpersonal Crises. Mimeographed manuscript. See also Grof, S. Halifax, J.: The Human Encounter with Death. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977 and Grof, S., Grof, C., Beyond Death. London: Thames and Hudson, 1980. 26. MASTERS, R.E.L., Houston, J. Mind Games: The Guide to Inner Space. New York: Dell Publ. Co., 1972. 27. See RAINER, R. Ars Moriendi: Von der Kunst des heilsamen Lebens und Sterbens. Koeln, Graz: Boehlav Verlag, 1957. 28. New York: Parapsychology Foundation, 1961. 29. Atlanta, GA.: Mockingbird Press, 1975. 30. New York: Coward, McCann, & Geoghegan, 1980. 31. New York: Harper & Row, 1981.

 

Page 24 2 The Transpersonal Perspective Frances Vaughan It is said that when Robert Oppenheimer, who was credited with the invention of the atomic bomb, witnessed the first nuclear explosion, what flashed through his mind were two lines from the Bhagavad Gita in which God speaks: ''I am become death, the shatterer of worlds;/ Waiting that hour that ripens to their doom." 1 In the past, we believed Kipling's refrain that "East is East and West is West/ And never the twain shall meet." But today we think more of the next two lines: " 'Till earth and sky stand presently/ At God's great Judgment Seat." Kipling's ''presently" has arrived with the nuclear age, and it is human beings who now have the power of judgment and the power to shatter the world. It has now become our responsibility to find the wisdom that will enable us to step back from the brink of destruction and to create a viable global society. Will we be able to find that wisdom? Only in joining our efforts, in joining East and West, can we hope to turn this time of fear into a time of transformation. We will never, however, be able to build a desirable human society on an inadequate picture of human nature. So we must pay attention to the ancient wisdom and attempt to incorporate into our lives what we have learned from the ancient traditions. The transpersonal perspective is a meta-perspective, an attempt to

 

Page 25 learn from all different perspectives. It does not attempt to impose a new belief system or a new metaphysics, but rather to see the relationship between existing world views, in order to create something that can be truly transformational in our world. The transpersonal perspective is what has been emerging from the needed integration of ancient wisdom and modern science. Science without wisdom can destroy the world; wisdom without science remains ineffectual. The transpersonal perspective sees the eastern and western approaches as complementary, and recognizes the transcendental mystical unity of all religions. Mystical teachings all agree that the source of wisdom is within. We need to have access to this source of wisdom if we are going to turn the tide of destruction in this time and age. Each tradition has a different way of saying this. In Christianity, it is: "The Kingdom of God is within." In Buddhism, enlightenment is the discovery of our own true nature. In Hinduism, the inner search culminates in Self-realization as Atman. In psychology, we speak of the Transpersonal Self as that part of us which has access to the perennial wisdom. We need to recognize that there comes a time when we can no longer rely on external teachings and teachers to tell us what to do. The transpersonal movement is unique in that it has no charismatic leader. Rather, it is an organic movement that has grown by networking, a movement that has drawn people to it who share a concern, a purpose, and a vision of what is possible for humanity. It is a movement in which all are equal participants, all equal co-creators of our realities. It is an organic, interrelated form of working in which considerable emphasis is placed on self-determination, self-actualization, self-realization, and self-transcendence. It is cross-cultural and interdisciplinary: though it has roots in the ancient perennial philosophy, it makes use of modern science because science, like mysticism, is a search for truth. It is simply a different way of looking. I like to think of wisdom as a blending of consciousness and love. The Dalai Lama often speaks of our need for compassion in the world, and Mother Theresa speaks about our need for love. We discover this not from any outside picture, but only in our direct experience, when we are willing to remove the obstacles to awareness of love's presence in our lives. We can then become participants in our

 

Page 26 personal transformation and in the transformation of society. We all need to find the source of wisdom in our own inner experience, and then join together to share it with each other. My own experience of the transpersonal movement is that it has been empowering. Part of the transpersonal purpose is to evoke the higher potential in human beings. It aims at the wise use of technology and resources, recognizing that the human mind is one of our greatest, inexhaustible resources, and it attempts to understand the transformational process so that it can be facilitated and encouraged. It sees the possibility of growth towards wholeness, and that means growing beyond ego. It does not mean moving into transcendence instead of ego, but sees ego development as a stage along the way. We can use the ego strength that we develop in normal, healthy adult development, and go beyond it, seeing ego development as midpoint on the great chain of being. As conscious beings emerging out of the pre-personal, less conscious aspect of our lives, we move through ego developmentand all of the alienation that is associated with being identified with egointo a transpersonal awareness which extends beyond the personal goals of ego development. The transpersonal orientation recognizes that we all exist in a web of mutually conditioned relationships based on awareness of our interdependence with each other and with the environment. We see that we are not only shaped by our environment, but that we are also the shapers of that environment. It is important to emphasize the difference between pre-personal and transpersonal states, because not all non-ego states are transpersonal. Charles Tart defines higher states of consciousness as those states in which attributes and functions in addition to all those of the normal waking state are available. 2 These higher states should not be confused with altered or sub-optimal states. Transpersonal development is development beyond ego, not a substitute for ego or regression to pre-egoic states. Transpersonal psychology has attempted to expand the field of inquiry to include the spiritual dimension of our lives. The term "transpersonal" means, literally, "beyond the personal," or "beyond the personality.'' We recognize, therefore, that who and what we are is not limited to personality, and that when we are identified solely with the body, the ego, or the personality, we have a limited, constricted view of ourselves. Transpersonal psychology seeks to bring

 

Page 27 about a balance of inner and outer experience and awareness, recognizing that these are two sides of a mutually interdependent reality. Before transpersonal psychology became a separate branch of psychology, the term "transpersonal" had been used by Jungians to describe the underlying ground of ego psychology. It had also been used by Stanislav Grof to describe experiences he observed in research of LSD psychotherapy. In his Realms of the Human Unconscious, Grof describes transpersonal experiences as those in which ego boundaries are dissolved and awareness is extended beyond the ordinary confines of time and space. 3 In the late 1960's Stanislav Grof, Anthony Sutich, and Abraham Maslow, among other psychologists, began to integrate some of their understanding of humanistic psychology with Eastern traditions. Abraham Maslow and Anthony Sutich felt that the term "transpersonal" would be appropriate to this new branch of psychology, and Sutich, editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, launched the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology in 1969. Tony Sutich was a remarkable man. When he died in 1976 at 62 years of age, he had lived an amazingly active life in spite of the fact that a baseball injury had totally paralyzed him in his teens, and he had spent the rest of his life flat on his back on a gurney. But he could read and talk, and he talked by telephone with people all over the world. He was active in civil rights and made a living as a psychotherapist. He started both the humanistic psychology movement and the transpersonal psychology movement, not as a charismatic leader, but as a facilitator. Tony knew how to empower others to actualize their potential. When I first met him in 1965, at a seminar on humanistic psychology at Esalen Institute, I had not known that the leader of the workshop I was attending would be totally paralyzed. I was surprised, impressed, and never more inspired than I was at that time. I then decided to go back to school for a Ph.D. to become a psychologist. I learned a lot from Tony and from working on the Journal as an associate editor in the early years. Now under editor Miles Vich, the Journal continues to publish original empirical research and theoretical articles that probably would not be published by mainstream journals. It has always sought to build on what has been done before; specifically, to build on both western psychology and on eastern mysticism. I was impressed by the fact that the editors of the Journal engaged in very

 

Page 28 lively discussion about papers that were submitted. Sometimes editors would have totally opposing viewpoints, and diversity of opinion was encouraged. Everyone was heard, and nobody seemed attached to opinion. All were great friends despite their differences. This was my first experiential contact with the idea of not being attached to an opinion or a point of view, seeing how powerful that kind of diversity could be, how much love came out of it, and how an organization could work with cooperation and caring. Perhaps the leading theoretician in the field of transpersonal psychology is Ken Wilber, whose remarkable work compares with Jung's, Freud's and William James'. His first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness, compares the transpersonal with other views of consciousness. His second book, The Atman Project, is a transpersonal view of human development from infancy to Self-realization, as At-man. His most recent publication, Up From Eden, is a transpersonal view of human evolution. It is useful to make a distinction, as Ken Wilber has, between the different realms of knowledge: the empirical or sensory realm; the mental or rational realm, which is concerned with values and meaning; and the spiritual or transcendent realm, which is concerned with insight and truth. Each realm of knowledge has its own way of acquiring information; each has its own rules for validation. We make a category error if we attempt to reduce one to the other, and attempt to interpret the findings of one in terms of the other. For example, we need to recognize that we can never find empirical validation for the truth of mathematical theorems or values such as meaning and purpose and love in the world. Likewise, we can never hope to appreciate the spiritual insights of those people who have undertaken the rigorous disciplines of contemplation and meditation merely by an intellectual understanding of what they have attempted. These different realms of knowledge can only be understood in and of themselves. To attain any of them requires training. Most of us would not dream of visiting a physics lab and pretending to evaluate what is being done there if we are not trained as physicists; yet we are all quite happy to evaluate spiritual teachers without having done any homework at all. We need to acknowledge that each realm of learning requires training if we want to really delve into what it has to offer us. In the realm of empirical research in transpersonal psychology,

 

Page 29 much work is being done on the physiological correlates of altered states of consciousness, and the therapeutic effects of meditation. Stanislav Grof's work and Elmer and Alyce Green's biofeedback research at the Menninger Foundation is notable. While I was traveling in India, I had the opportunity to visit a laboratory of the Institute of Mental Health in Bangalore, where study of the physiological correlates of yoga and an interesting consciousness project are being conducted. Daniel Brown, at Harvard, is studying the effects of meditation on perceptual sensitivity. In addition, the Institute of Neotic Sciences*is funding studies of exceptional human abilities, optimum health, and well being. Work is also being done on the effects of what we have come to call the consciousness disciplines, essentially the eastern meditative disciplines. Social scientist Duane Elgin, in Voluntary Simplicity, collects evidence that when people undertake some of these consciousness disciplines, changes in lifestyle and values result. 4 Elgin has found a large movement, in the United States, of people whose lifestyles are changing in the direction of voluntary simplicity, mainly as a result of their having incorporated some of the eastern disciplines into their lives. More evidence of the social transformation that is underway can be found in Marilyn Ferguson's The Aquarian Conspiracy.5 Applications of transpersonal psychology are being reflected in developments in education and psychotherapy. Transpersonal education takes an expanded view of human capacities, emphasizing the integration of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of well being. It also emphasizes service as the application of this learning in the world. At the California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, where I teach, there are five areas of emphasis: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and community. Every student does some physical discipline, such as Aikido or T'ai Chi, and all do emotional work, or have clinical training and participate in group process. They study the theory of transpersonal as well as general psychology, and they all are expected to have some spiritual discipline of their own choosing. No one belief is supported; rather, there is an emphasis on a willingness to question beliefs, and a willingness to have not only an intellectual understanding of more than one tradi- * "Noetics" is from the Greek word for mind.

 

Page 30 tion, but also an experiential knowledge of a tradition. Transpersonal theory needs to be informed by that experience. We cannot just talk about spirituality; it needs to be an experiential realization. Enlightenment does not come simply from following the wisdom teachings. It comes through direct experience. In order for the experiential component to inform the theory that comes through us, there needs to be the experiential work as well. This work is also important in our emphasis on community, which translates intellectual work and personal transformation into community service. In transpersonal psychotherapy, as in education, many new developments have come from the work of therapists who were trained traditionally and who then became interested in Eastern disciplines. Born from the experience of therapists who felt that greater exploration of their own spiritual growth could have a profound effect on their work, transpersonal psychotherapy distinguishes the context of therapy, which is established by the beliefs, values, and attitudes of the therapist, from the content of therapy, which is established by the client. A transpersonal therapist may not necessarily deal with transpersonal content, but may facilitate the growth of the client from a pre-personal state of disintegration to an integrated ego state. A transpersonal therapist can also be expected to be qualified and capable of working with people who are ready to grow beyond ego, people who come to therapy because they have been disillusioned or disappointed with the attainment of ego goals. There are two ways of arriving at disappoinment: One is by not getting what one wants; the other is by getting what one wants. We all know how success often can leave one feeling empty and depressed. An existential crisis is sometimes precipitated by a brush with death, sometimes by an experience of loss, or sometimes by the experience of success. That point, when we are really willing to confront death and aloneness and the nature of our existence in the world, often is the beginning of a transpersonal awakening that can lead us through the existential crisis of despair. What we have called the dark night of the soul is perhaps better renamed the dark night of the ego. The transpersonal content of therapy, then, is that which comes from a client who is having transpersonal experiences or who is ready to move into transpersonal areas of exploration. Sometimes

 

Page 31 people feel disturbed by transpersonal experiences which have happened spontaneously, as the result of meditative practice, or as the result of unsupervised use of psychedelics. Whatever the cause, therapists who have some understanding and knowledge of the transpersonal dimension are increasingly needed. People who are experiencing a spiritual emergency do not feel adequately cared for by therapists who have not explored their own spirituality and who are not prepared to deal with it in their practice. It should be emphasized that the transpersonal perspective is open-ended, and that it is in processnot fixed, finished or done with. Each one of us is participating in a process that is unfolding, an evolution of consciousness. The holonomic theory is a wonderful metaphor because it implies that all exists in each of us, and each exists in all of it. We only imagine that we are separate from all that is. This is the illusion. When we wake up to who and what we really are, we discover that we are all in it together. Each of us has an important part to play, and each of us has to learn to discover what our unique part will be. We find that sometimes under the guidance of teachers, but finally we find it in turning inward and getting in touch with our inner guidance. Our teachers tell us that, too. Our gurus remind us that we need to contact the universal Self within our hearts in order to find the wisdom that will guide our personal growth as well as our social transformation. None of our leaders has any source of wisdom that is not available to each one of us. They, too, must look within, to find access to that universal source. We all need to take responsibility for our own lives and relationships. In the words of the great Indian teacher, Gautama Buddha: Do not believe in what you have heard. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe anything because it is rumored and spoken of by many. Do not believe merely because the written statement of some old sage is produced. Do not believe in conjectures. Do not believe merely in the authority of your teachers and elders. After observation and analysis, when it agrees with reason and it is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it, and live up to it. Kalamas Sutra 6

 

Page 32 References 1. As cited in SMITH, H. The Religions of Man. New York: Harper & Row, 1958. 2. TART, C. Transpersonal Psychologies. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. 3. GROF, S. Realms of the Human Unconscious. New York: Viking, 1975. 4. ELGIN, D. Voluntary Simplicity. New York: Morrow, 1981. 5. FERGUSON, M. The Aquarian Conspiracy. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1980. 6. KALAMAS SUTRA. As cited in Transpersonal Psychotherapy, edited by S. Boorstein. Palo Alto, CA.: Science and Behavior Books, 1980.

 

Page 33 Part II ANCIENT SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS

 

Page 35 3 Understanding Your Own Mind Swami Muktananda Many psychologists, psychiatrists, scientists, and philosophers have come from all over the world to attend this conference. You are all interested in the mind, and the mind is the subject which I have been given for my talk. If you understand your own mind through psychology, if you come to know the nature of the mind, then you also come to know the Truth. Once you know that Truth, you see the same Truth in everyone, and you welcome everyone with great love. Bearing this in mind, I welcome you all. The mind is a great gift from God. Without the mind, you are not a human being. You are called a human being only because you have a mind. Therefore, through your own mind, understand your own value. The mind is so strong. Understand its power. Allow the mind to become one-pointed, because when the mind is concentrated, it turns within and taps the source of serenity and tranquility. When the mind becomes peaceful, it is able to give that peace to the world. That serenity prevails everywhere and is able to help other people. In order to strengthen the mind and to help other people, a psychologist should meditate. He should make his own mind very clean and very pure. In this way, he should identify with his own inner power and should become very strong from within. When a psychol-

 

Page 36 ogist meditates on his own inner Self, when he understands his own true nature, he becomes filled with incredible compassion for other people, and as a result of the kindness that he feels he is able to help them. Through compassion and kindness, he can make others improve and become free from addictions. It is very important for a psychologist to develop these qualities. If your mind is not pure and clean, if you do not take joy in others' good fortune, if you do not experience pain in others' misfortune, then your life is totally meaningless. Not only that, as long as your own mind does not become free from all its defects, whatever effort you make to teach others or to console them will remain only a play of your mind. It will not benefit anyone. We have a habit of constantly teaching others. All our effort goes into teaching and helping others, and we let ourselves deteriorate more and more. A person does not understand his own condition. He imagines that he has improved himself and then tries to improve others. However, he has not really improved himself. While I was in Piedmont, California, during my second world tour, a group of healers came to see me. All of them complained about one thing or another. One said, ''After doing so much healing my arms have become exhausted.'' Another said, "My legs have become so weak." Still another said, "My mind is so upset." All of them lacked luster; there was no radiance in their faces. When I had heard their complaints I said, ''Your problems are totally authentic. You really deserve to experience what you are experiencing." Then I laughed. Because I laughed and said such things, the healers became upset. I explained to them, "I speak the truth. I do not speak for the sake of pleasing you. The truth of the matter is that every person's vibrations, every person's feelings, constantly flow out of his body. A healer's vibrations are transmitted into a patient, and a patient's vibrations are transmitted into a healer. As you work with a patient for a long time, his vibrations enter your body, and you are affected by them. As a result, you yourself become a patient." This is what had happened to the healers. They had performed healings on thousands and thousands of people, but they themselves had become patients. In the same way, if you try to practice psychology without understanding your own mind, you only run into difficulties. Many years

 

Page 37 ago, an article from New Age magazine was read to me. It said that more psychologists and psychiatrists were mentally ill than people of any other profession. Many psychologists have self-doubt. They are filled with self-contempt. A psychologist does not try to attain his own power, the power of the mind, through which he would be able to affect a patient immediately in a very powerful way. Instead, he only talks to a patient for hours on end, not realizing how much he himself is being affected by the patient's illness. How can a healer or a psychologist overcome his predicament? If a psychiatrist realizes the power of his own mind, if through meditation he actually contacts the energy which powers the mind, then he can become strong enough so that his patients' vibrations do not affect him, and he can really help them. In our ashram in India, we try to keep the atmosphere very clean and pure through chanting, through the repetition of God's name, and through meditation. The environment in the ashram is so strong that no outsiders can affect it through their feelings and vibrations. Instead, they themselves are uplifted. Visitors to the ashram sometimes complain, saying, "If you go to that ashram you have to chant all the time. You have to become so totally immersed in chanting and meditation that you have no time to gossip and socialize with other people." But it is through these practices of chanting and meditation that a person makes his mind strong. The sages of ancient India were the greatest psychologists. They understood that there is nothing more important in the life of a human being than the mind. The mind is the source of all knowledge. Whatever you understand, you understand only through the mind. Although you have five senses of perception and five organs of action, without the help of the mind no sense in this body can work. One thing is certain: all the senses are under the control of the mind. If somebody is talking to you while your mind is wandering, you will not hear what the person is saying. Only when your mind is engaged do you receive the information gathered by the senses. The location of the mind is the heart, and the mind is supported by the prana shakti, the vital force. A great Upanishadic sage said, "O my son, the mind is bound by the prana." The Upanishads say that the vital force arises from the Self. This vital force moves constantly and the mind is one with it. As a result, the mind thinks and

 

Page 38 thinks endlessly. The mind is so active. In this world there is no human being who has escaped his mind. The mind harasses even the highest yogis until they reach the nirvikalpa state, the state free from thoughts. The mind is so tricky, so treacherous. You never know how the mind will torture you, how the mind will trick you, how the mind will make you fall into any pit. The Bhagavad Gita says that when the mind pursues the senses, which continually bring in information from outside, a person becomes like a ship which is driven everywhere by the storm of his own mind. Eventually, the mind makes him sink. It is said that a human being is what he thinks. Whatever he feels and thinks is what he becomes. We are so careful about so many things in our lives. We take care of all our files; we have so many counselors; we receive so much advice of all kinds. Yet we do not think about our own minds. We never try to keep our minds under our control. If you allow your mind to run free without reins, then it becomes totally immersed in your negative feelings. It becomes filled with anger, shame, and all kinds of petty feelings, and you identify yourself with that pettiness. Whatever thought you entertain, whatever thought you harbor, is what you become. If you think of yoga, you become a great yogi. If you think about the psychology of the mind, you become a great psychologist. If you have inferior thoughts all the time, then you fall into that pettiness. So be very vigilant regarding your thoughts. A great being, Tukaram Maharaj, said, "It does not matter whether you are among multitudes or in solitude, you will receive the fruits of whatever thoughts are in your mind." God dwelled in Tukaram's mind, and for this reason he saw only God everywhere. In a very beautiful poem, he said, "O Lord, I offer my salutations to everybody with the understanding that everybody is You." Tukaram had this kind of experience because of the power of his own mind. He said, "I have given up all feelings of difference, all distinctions. I have not done this because I am whimsical, but because I want to experience the Truth. This Truth was proclaimed by all the scriptures, all the Vedas. These scriptures were not manmade: they emanated from God.'' Due to the power of his own thought and of his constant contemplation, Tukaram attained the awareness that God pervades everywhere. A person always attains what he constantly contemplates.

 

Page 39 This reminds me of a story. Once Sheik Nasrudin had a neighbor who was taking care of a buffalo. The buffalo had two beautifully curved horns. Every day Sheik Nasrudin watched the buffalo. He admired its strength and beauty, and he particularly admired its beautiful horns. He began to think, "If I were to sit on the buffalo's forehead right between its two horns, I would feel as though I were sitting on the throne of Delhi!" Day after day Nasrudin thought about this. His obsession grew more and more intense. He thought about the buffalo's forehead even in his dreams. As luck would have it, one day the buffalo went and sat down in Nasrudin's courtyard. Immediately, Nasrudin jumped on the buffalo's forehead. He sat there and held on to the horns. Immediately the buffalo stood up, shook itself and threw Nasrudin off. Nasrudin fell to the ground and broke his back. He began to scream for his beloved wife. He cried, "O my beloved, I am so hurt. Please take me inside and give me a massage." Nasrudin's wife Fatima helped him inside and began to give him a warm towel treatment. As she was treating him, she talked to him. She said, "Darling, why didn't you think before you sat on the forehead of that buffalo?" "O my dull-witted wife," replied Nasrudin, "I have been thinking about sitting on that buffalo's forehead for a whole year!" This is how the mind affects your life. You think and think, and then you get the fruits of your thoughts. The mind is the source of all calamities, of all pain and all pleasure. You have bad thoughts and you have good thoughts. Sometimes you see what is bad as good and what is good as bad. You continually revel in the movements of the mind. You can control the mind only by knowing the mind. You will know the mind when you know the source of the mind, when you discover how the mind has come into existence. What is the source of the mind? The philosophers of Kashmir Shaivism say, "Do not think that the mind is a material substance. The mind is simply a contracted form of the universal consciousness." This universal consciousness has given rise to the splendid world full of sentient beings and insentient objects. Consciousness has not used any external materials to create this cosmos. It has created it out of its own being upon its own screen. It is this same universal consciousness which has become the mind. In the Bhagavad Gita the Lord says, "This entire world is the product of My own

 

Page 40 mind." Therefore, know the mind. Know the value of the mind; know the worthiness of the mind; know the sublimity of the mind. If you understand your own mind completely, then you are not just a human being: you yourself are God. The sages who knew the Truth said, "Every human being is nothing but God." Nevertheless, this is not our experience. Our experience is that we are limited. And our sense of limitation is because of the mind. The Katha Upanishad says that the Self becomes the limited experiencer when it is equipped with the senses and the mind. The sages of Kashmir Shaivism explain this very well. Kashmir Shaivism states that when the supremely free consciousness, in the process of creating the world, descends from its lofty and sublime state it becomes more and more limited, and takes the form of the objects of perception. Operating through the senses of perception, it considers itself an individual experiencer. Operating through the organs of action, it considers itself an individual doer. When it is in this limited form, it is called the mind. So the human mind is nothing but consciousness in a contracted form. When that contracted consciousness separates itself from outer objects and turns inside through meditation, then it again becomes pure consciousness. This is the true greatness and power of the mind. In its limited state, the mind is plagued by all kinds of feelings, thoughts, and imaginings. These are called vikalpas. From one thought, many thoughts arise, and from one thought, all thoughts are destroyed. Vikalpas are the source of all kinds of feelings and emotions, such as attachment, aversion, envy, hatred, jealousy, and greed. They make a person believe that what is true is false and what is false is true. However, if you use the power of the mind to create positive thoughts, to create within yourself the understanding that your true nature is consciousness, then your own mind can lead you towards the truth. When you make your mind pure through right understanding, you can attain the thought-free state. And then you will experience your own inner power. The great sage Maharishi Patanjali, who was also a great psychologist, said in his Yoga Sutras: yogash chitta-vritti nirodaha"Yoga is the stilling of the modifications of the mind." When the mind is controlled through meditation and right understanding, then the inner Self which is the source of the mind reveals itself on its own.

 

Page 41 For this reason the Upanishads say that the same mind which is the cause of bondage is also the cause of liberation. The mind gives birth to so many kinds of suffering. However, if you free the mind from thoughts, you perceive this world as a paradise. To free your mind from thoughts, turn within and meditate. Through the power of thought you can become a great scholar and give many lectures. You can read many books, and you can also write many books. But to give your mind its true power, you should maintain the stability of your mind through meditation. If you maintain the strength of your mind, then you can really help many people; other people will benefit from the power of your mind. If a psychologist maintains the stability of his mind, he becomes a treasured gift to the world.

 

Page 42 4 Love until it Hurts Mother Teresa Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our fellow men throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them to our hand this day their daily bread and by our understanding love, give peace and joy. We read in the scripture that God loved the world so much that He gave His son, Jesus, to come and bring the good news. The greatest science in the world, in heaven and on earth, is love. He came to give that good news to you and me and to proclaim it to the poor: that God is love and that He loves you and He loves me. Jesus Christ proved that love by giving His life, and again and again he kept saying, "Love one another as I have loved you." I think this loving is the greatest science that we have to learn: to love until it hurts. To be able to love, we need to pray, because prayer gives a clean heart and the fruit of prayer is the deepening of faith. If we have a clean heart we can see, we can understand, we can accept each other, and we begin to love. When we really love, we begin to serve. We all want to love God because we have been created for that. The same loving hand of God has created you, created me, and created that man dying in the street. This morning two people died in our home. They were picked up

 

Page 43 from the streets of Bombay, brought to our home, and died. They really went home to God. The other day in Calcutta, I had brought a man from the street, and he was at his last. After being given tender love and care, he looked at the sister and he said, "I'm going home to God," and he died. The sister had prepared him to die in peace with God, to go home to God, and that was the last word in his mouth. That man understood what is love. This is something we must pray for, to bring in our life that real oneness with God. To be able to do that we need a clean heart, to be able to see God in each other. Jesus said very clearly that at the hour of death we are going to be judged on what we have been to each other. And he says: I was hungry, you gave me to eat. I was naked, you clothed me. I was homeless, you took me in. I was lonely and you spoke to me. I was sad and you smiled at me. This is a great science. The greatest science in the world is love. Science is a gift of God, given to youfor what? It is to give to others, to share. It is His gift to you and what we have to do is to use that to be His love and compassion. Today God loves the world through us. He has given you this gift and each one of you has got something special. To do what? To destroy? No, it is His tender love and care that God is concerned about. We need science not to destroy, but to come to know better, to help each other better, to love not by words but by living action. I will never forget an experience we had some time ago in Calcutta. We did not have sugar for some time and a little Hindu child, four years old, heard that Mother Theresa had no sugar and he went home and told his parents, "I will not eat sugar for three days. I will give my sugar to Mother Theresa." It was so little, what he brought after three days, but it was great love. He taught great science: to love until it hurts. This is something for what you have gathered here. You must pray for that gift of God, to allow God to use you to proclaim the good news. The world is dying of hunger for that love, for that knowledge. You have come from so far, from everywhere, to help each other, to know, to be able to love and to exchange means and ways of that greater love, the love that Christ has shown to each one

 

Page 44 of us. We all know that; let us put that into action and let us get to know where that love beginsat home. Today people have no timethey are so busy. They have no time even to smile at each other. Let us bring back God into our lives, bring back prayer into the family life, for the family that prays together, stays together. If you stay together, you will pray, and you will love one another as God loves each one of us. It is very important for us to be able to have a life of peace, of joy, of unity. I do not know if there is any greater science than the science of love for one another. We must learn like that little child that it is not how much we give but how much love we put into the giving. God does not expect extraordinary things. After I had received that Nobel prize, many people came and gave; they fed our people, they brought clothes, they did beautiful things. One afternoon I met a beggar in the street, and he came up to me and he said, "Mother Teresa, everybody is giving to you. I also want to give to you, but today, the whole day, I have just got ten pais and I want to give you that." I cannot tell you the joy, the radiant joy on his face, because I took that ten pais, knowing that if he does not get anything today, he will have to go to bed without eating; but also knowing that it would have hurt him so much if I did not take it. The joy and expression of peace and love in his face, I cannot express to you. I can tell you one thing, that in accepting that ten pais, I felt it was much greater than the Nobel prize because he gave all that he had and he gave with so much tenderness. This is the greatness of love. Let us try to find that love and put it into action. Where is God? We know God is everywhere. Deep down in our hearts we all have that desire, that flame burning there, that desire to love God. How do we love God whom we do not see, if we do not love one another whom we do see? When you see a person in the street, who is he to you? Your brother, your sister, because the same loving hand that has created them has created me and you. And that is where I would like you today. Let us pray, because that is the greatest science when we may learn the fruit of that love. To be able to love is important, especially today, in this world where there is so much killing, so much hatred, so much destruction. Why? Because people do not know each other, do not have time for each other, and do not pray. If we pray, we will

 

Page 45 naturally come to know each other, because we will have a clean heart and we will truly see each other. We will see God in each other, and then we will begin to love with a tender love. We read it in the scriptures where God speaks: I have called you by your name. You are mine. Water will not drown you. Fire will not burn you. I will give up nations for you. You are precious to me. I love you. This is God speaking and we must speak that language to each other. Where? At home first. I feel that gift of God that God has given to each one of you. It has been given to you not to keep, not to destroy, but to bring joy, peace, unity and love. This is what I say about abortion. Science that has discovered all kinds of things has also found ways of destroying the unborn child. What a terrible thing! What a terrible murder of an innocent, helpless child, who has been created in the image of God, to love and to be loved. So let us pray that we do not use the gift of Godour brainto work alone. The brain, to work, must be the fruit of the heart. To be able to work we must listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart. Then only do we speak from the fullness of our heart. Whatever God has given you, those wonderful brains, he has given to you to use for His glory and the good of all people. Let us pray that none of you ever use that gift to destroy God's image, never to use that gift to break love, to destroy love, to destroy unity, to cause hatred or greed, but to use it to bring people together into greater love, greater peace and greater unity. And where we learn these things very well is from our poor people. We, the sisters and I, have visited people who have nothing and nobody, who are unwanted, unloved, uncared forand not only in India. In India and in Africa we have people who are hungry for bread, but in the United States, Europe and in all the places where our sisters are working, people are hungry for love: to be wanted, to be loved, to be somebody to somebody. Once in the streets of London or New York I took the hand of somebody sitting in the street. He took my hand and said, "Oh, for so many years this is the first time I feel the warmth of a hand. Nobody has ever, for so many years, touched my hand. I have not felt a human love or warmth of

 

Page 46 a hand.'' I will never forget that. We see yet we pass, and we pass so many whom we see. Maybe in our own homes we have somebody lonely, somebody feeling unwanted, somebody crippled. The last time I went to Venezuela, I found that a very rich family had given us a plot of land on which to build a home for our crippled children. When I visited the family to thank them, there was their first child, terribly crippled, terribly disabled. When I asked the mother, ''What is his name?" she said, "We call him 'Professor of Love' because he continually teaches us how to love." Professor of Lovesuch a beautiful name given by the mother herself, and by the family. I learned from him how to smile; there was a big smile on that child's face. Why? Because he was teaching the whole time. This is where love begins, at home. Love begins at home, and comes home. Much of the suffering of our children today is of children who come home from school and find no one there. There is no grandmother or grandfather, mother and father are very busy, and there is no one to receive the child. The child needs that tender love, that tender appreciation, that tender embrace from mother or father; without it, the child goes back to the street. Let us bring that love home. If we love one another as God loves each one of us, then there will be peace. We do not need bombs and guns and all kinds of things to bring peace. We need tender love and compassion and the sharing, the joy of loving one another, as God loves each one of us. God bless you.

 

Page 47 5 The Cows are Many Colors, but the Milk Is the Same Dastoor Minocher Homji Yatha ahu vairyo atha ratush ashat-chit hacha Vanheush dazda mananho shyaothenanam anheush Mazdai Kshathrem-cha Ahurai a yim drigubyo dadat vastaram. As the Lord is best to be adored, so is the Prophet, on account of his being ever-associated with Righteousness, with the uprightness of pure mind acquired of the deeds of life unto Mazda, and whom the power of self-control from Ahura gives protection for the self-restrained. Ahuna-Vairya (Yasna 27.13) The priest follows the prince. In ancient times, the priest and the prince ruled the roost. We are here to sow. The ancient Indian wisdom says, "gavam anekavarnanam ksirasyastu ekavarnata": "The cows are of many colors, but the milk, the nourishing element, is the same." Let us not fight about the color and the size of the cows. Let us mix the nourishing element. An American wit has said it well when he was asked questions on matter and mind. "What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind." I am not telling this only to laugh away your blues, but to

 

Page 48 ask you to please think over this American sutra. I am personally thinking upon this, the mutual bond between matter and mind. We must not brush aside matter as something bad. It is the foundation; it is that clay pot in which the thinking, the feeling, the sympathizing spirit dwells. Let us make the most of this matter and mind. I also always dwell upon the Chinese wisdom, especially the wisdom of Kung Fu, otherwise known as Confucius. He said that ''reading without thought is useless, but thought without study is dangerous." All around, especially in the field of religion, we see thought without study, and that really is dangerous. I would like to address those who Albert Einstein called the "custodians of religion." Afraid to incur the wrath of the priests, he used this happy term. As custodians of religion, let us always talk sense. Let us always be reasonable. Science keeps within the limits of thought, always basing its inference on evidence. We can also do that in the field of religion. Somebody has defined religion as "an insurance in this world against fire in the next, for which honesty is the best policy." Of course, I do not substantiate this definition of religion. I have held all along, in my working life of forty-six years, that religion is really the way of good life. Nothing more. All the rest is commentary. In the pater noster of Zoroastrianism, with which I began, religion fixes three goals. The first is truth, satyam, the second is wisdom, prajña, and the third is service, seva. I think it is for her service that Mother Teresa is respected and revered, not for her thought, or for her words. It is her dedicated service to the cause of humanity for which she has been respected and will always be respected. In Zoroastrianism, the accent is likewise on action, not on thoughts and words. This is the order: words are good, thoughts are better, but actions are the best. When I say that in religion truth is the most important plank, I am very fond of quoting Mark Twain. Mark Twain was once told that "several prophets have come and gone, several apostles have followed them, and all have taught by their personal example and their teachings, that truth is the best. How is it that man is still resorting to lies?" In his characteristic manner, Twain said, "Well, well, truth is so very precious that man is naturally economical in its use." Let us not be economical in

 

Page 49 truth. I think the world suffers because we are economical in truth, in wisdom. The ancient Persian wisdom said, "Look at the composition of the head of man. God has given me two shining eyes, two ears, but only one tongue, so that I may see twice, I may listen to words of wisdom twice, and speak but once. But our affairs are in the reverse gear. We see but once, we listen to the words of wisdom but once, and make up for the loss with our tongues." I think the world suffers for want of deliberation of thought. Ancient Iranian wisdom said that man's first stage is dormancy. Neither the Hindus nor the Parsees are fire worshippers. We worship light, which is the visible symbol of the invisible Supreme Being, who is all light. In the Bhagavad Gita, God is called, "jyotisam jyoti." In the Koran, Allah is called, "nur ulanuar." We also say that God is the "light of lights," and we have the famous Vedic prayer, ''Oh, light divine, guide us on the path of truth.'' The Muslim prays: ''Oh Allah, lead our steps firm on the path of truth." These are the sutras of common heritage upon which we shall build our future civilization with the marriage of science and religion. Science cannot step out of its boundary, but religion, unfortunately, does. Let us end by asking, "Is not religion, rightly understood, the pledge of peace and bond of brotherhood?"

 

Page 50 6 Science Today and the New Creation Father Bede Griffiths What light can modern physics and evolutionary theory throw on the doctrine of the New Creation? St. Paul derived his doctrine from the Jewish tradition. The Bible begins with the words, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," and ends with the words of the Apocalypse, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth." Thus the whole Christian revelation is set between these two poles of the first and second creation. In Jewish tradition, this new creation was conceived in terms of a new age, the Messianic age, which would be inaugurated by an intervention of God in history, described in symbolic language in the Apocalypse. St. Paul inherits this tradition, but gives it a new interpretation by affirming that in the death and resurrection of Jesus, this new age has begun, and the new creation has actually come into being. So he is able to say, "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation,'' a Kaine Ktisis. To be "in Christ" for St. Paul is to participate in this new creation, to enter into a new mode of existence in which the old world of this creation has passed away, and a new world has come into being. St. Paul expresses this dramatically in the letter to the Romans in which he says that "the whole creation has been groaning in travail until now." This introduces a new note of dynamic movement: the creation is seen not merely as waiting for an intervention of God,

 

Page 51 but as actually "groaning in travail"undergoing a kind of gestation by which it is being prepared for this great event. St. Paul then describes exactly what this preparation is for, saying that "the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God." We can now see the purpose of this travail; it is to bring to birth a new humanity, a New Man, which will be revealed when man becomes a "son of God"; that is, when the human nature is united with the divine. This event, St. Paul believes, has already taken place in Christ, when Jesus was raised from the dead and his human nature was finally transfigured by the divine. The New Creation, we can therefore say, is a further stage in evolution, when our present mode of human existence is transcended. Man begins to "partake of the divine nature," to transcend the limits of the present space-time universe, and to experience a new mode of existence and consciousness as far beyond our present mode of existence as ours is beyond that of an animal. This event, St. Paul believes, has already taken place in Christ, but it is destined to extend to all mankind and to the whole creation. So it was the plan of God to "bring all things to a head in him, everything in heaven and on earth." We can now see the full scope of St. Paul's thought. The whole creation, from the beginning, is moving towards a fulfillment when man will be raised to a higher level of existence and consciousness. With him the whole universe will be transfigured, passing beyond its present level of existence in space and time and participating in an external and infinite mode of existence, understood as the divine. Let us now see what light modern physics can throw on this. According to Fritjof Capra in The Tao of Physics, the division between matter and mind, between existence and consciousness, which has prevailed from the time of Descartes and Newton, has now been overcome. The universe is now conceived as a "web of relations between various parts in a unified whole" of which the human mind is an essential part. We live in what has been called a "participatory universe." Nature is not an "extended substance," outside the human mind, but an integrated whole. "What we observe," as Heisenberg said, ''is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." In other words, the object of all scientific knowledge is not nature itselfor the ''thing as such,'' as Kant called itbut na-

 

Page 52 ture mirrored in the human mind and senses, with the instruments we use to extend the range of the senses. We can, therefore, no longer maintain a separation between mind and matter. Just as we ourselves are a psychosomatic unity, so the universe as a whole, as far as we can know it, is a psychosomatic unity. This means we must consider that consciousness is present in the universe in some way from the beginning. The mathematical order in the structure of the atom, for instance, is a sign of an intelligence at work in matter. In the ancient world, Aristotle and the Arabian philosophers considered that the stars were intelligences, an idea with which the teaching of Sri Aurobindo is related. I consider Sri Aurobindo the greatest philosopher of modern India. Responsible for introducing the theory of evolution into Vedantic philosophy, Sri Aurobindo maintained with all Vedantic philosophers that Ultimate Reality is also pure consciousness. It is sachidananda, or absolute Being (sat) in pure consciousness (cit) which is experienced as perfect bliss (ananda). This is the ideal state of being according to all Vedantic philosophy, the state of being in pure consciousness. But according to Aurobindo, the Absolute Being, Sachidananda, becomes "involved" in matter. It withdraws its consciousness and allows matter to appear as being, without consciousness. As matter evolves through the shakti, the energy inherent in it, and develops more complex organisms, the divine consciousness manifests itself as life. There is evidence today of a kind of consciousness in plants, and in animals consciousness is beginning to manifest itself in sensations, feelings and instinctive intelligence. Finally, in man, we emerge into rational, or what Sri Aurobindo calls "mental," consciousness. The distinctive theory of Aurobindo is that mankind today is in a state of evolution from mental consciousness to supramental consciousness. The Western world has for centuries developed the rational, analytical consciousness, and this has now reached the limits of its development. We are beginning to discover the need to develop the other form of consciousness, the intuitive consciousness that has been developed in the East from the time of Buddha and the Upanishads through the present day. The intuitive consciousness has been developed by Muslim and Christian as well as Hindu and Buddhist mystics, but the western world has concentrated for two centuries

 

Page 53 almost exclusively on the rational activity of the mind, and it now has to learn the opposite process by contact with the thought and the meditative techniques of the East. In Sri Aurobindo's thought, various stages lead from the first awakening of the intuitive mind, to the development of what he calls the "overmind," to the attainment of the supreme consciousness with the "descent of the Supermind." Sri Aurobindo's conception of the Supermind as a "descent" is particularly interesting. In Hindu thought the growth of consciousness is normally seen in terms of an ascent from man to God. But Sri Aurobindo introduced two extremely interesting and original ideas. He conceived that as the mind ascends towards God or the Divine, it is met with a corresponding movement of descent from above, and, further, the Supermind descends not only into the soul or psychic consciousness, but also into the body or physical consciousness. Both Aurobindo and the Mother, who accompanied him in all his work, were attempting to transform the body so that it would not be subject to death. Their attempt was not successful, but it corresponds to a deep human instinct which urges us to seek for an immortal body, a diamond body, as it has been called in Buddhist tradition. I want to suggest that these two ideas of Sri Aurobindo, though unusual in the Hindu tradition, correspond very closely with what I have described of the Christian tradition in St. Paul. In the Christian belief, the body of Jesus in the resurrection underwent precisely this transformation, which was followed by a descent of the Spirit at Pentecost when the divine Spirit released by the resurrection of Jesus was communicated to his disciples. The doctrine of the resurrection of the body and the descent of the Spirit are, of course, traditional Christian doctrines, but we can now see how these doctrines can be illuminated in the light of modern physics. Once we conceive of the human body not simply as an extended substance but as a "field of energies," it becomes much less difficult to understand how a dead body could be transformed in such a way that the energies which had been structured in a particular way to form that human body could be so penetrated by consciousness that they would begin to obey a different law. Here I would like to introduce a quotation from Whitehead that seems to throw light on this subject.

 

Page 54 The doctrine which I am maintaining is that the whole concept of materialism applies only to very abstract entities, the product of logical discernment. The concrete enduring entities are organisms so that the plan of the whole influences the various subordinate organisms, which enter into it. In the case of an animal the mental states enter into the plan of the total organism and thus modify the plan of those successive organisms such as electrons. Thus an electron within a living body is different from an electron outside it by reason of the plan of the body, that is, the general plan of the body including its mental states. I am suggesting that as consciousness enters into matter, it gradually transforms the structure of the field of energies which makes up that material form. In the resurrection we can conceive of the divine consciousnessthe sachidanandataking possession of a human body and transforming it from within so that the very electrons and other particles begin to obey a new law. This idea links up with Rupert Sheldrake's theory in A New Science of Life that there must be formative causes as well as energetic causes in nature. Energy of itself is indeterminate; it has no specific structure. Sheldrake suggests, therefore, that just as there are fields of energy, whether gravitational or magnetic, so there must be what he calls "morphogenetic fields," which are responsible for the organization of matter. The complex organization of atoms and molecules and cells cannot be due to chance; there must be powers of organization in the universewhat Aristotle called formal causesthat are distinct from material causes. We can conceive of a hierarchy of causes which is responsible for the organization of atoms, molecules, cells and organisms in ever greater complexity. In human beings these formative causes become conscious, so that to some degree we can take responsibility for the organization of our bodies. I suggest that as consciousness develops in man, this power of organization increases until conscious organization can take control of the body, and the atoms, molecules, cells and other organs begin to obey a new law. It is conceivable, then, that the Spirit, or the divine power, took possession of the body of Christ at the resurrection, so that it was no longer subject to the normal laws of space and time. His body in the resurrection could appear and disappear, no longer conditioned by space and time. Finally, the bodily appearance ceased altogether and

 

Page 55 it became a "spiritual body," as St. Paul calls it, a body in which the elements have been brought totally under the control of consciousness, and matter and mind are integrated. In this view, the resurrection of the body is the destiny of all mankind. From the beginning of history, the human body has been undergoing a gradual evolution as it comes more and more under the control of consciousness that is not the merely rational, scientific consciousness, but the deep intuitive consciousness that transforms the whole person. In the body of Jesus this final transformation took place, but it was not confined in its effects to Christ alone. No breakthrough in the spiritual sphere occurs in isolation. We are members of a "participatory universe," where every action in space and time, both physical and mental, affects every other organism. Every mystic who rises to a higher level of consciousness affects all human consciousness. The Enlightenment of the Buddha, for instance, released a power of consciousness that transformed a large part of the world and continues to do so in our own time. In the same way, the resurrection of Jesus released a power of transformation in the universe, the effects of which continue to be felt today. Considered the "mystical body of Christ," the Church is a kind of social organism in which this power of transforming consciousness, or supermental consciousness, as Sri Aurobindo calls it, is always present. This new consciousness is destined in the course of time to extend to all mankind. Here we come to another important Pauline concept; that human society is an organism, modelled on the organization of the human body. In this view, all mankind forms one organic whole. As the great medieval Christian philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas said, "Omnes homines unus homo"; that is, all men are one man. This finds an echo in many ancient traditions. In the Hebrew tradition, Adam is Man, not just an individual man, but collective man, Man in his integral wholeness. We are all members of one another. No action throughout time and space is without effect on all men. Just as Sin disintegrates this body of mankind and causes conflict and destruction like a cancer in the body, so every movement towards truth and love, and every advance in human consciousness affects this total body of mankind. This concept of a Universal or Archetypal Man is found in the Muslim tradition of Ibn al Arabi, and in the Rig Veda

 

Page 56 it appears as Purusha, the Cosmic Man, of whom it is said, "one quarter is here on earth, three quarters are above in heaven." In other words, one quarter belongs to the physical world of matter, and three quarters to the transcendent world of consciousness. We have to conceive, therefore, that man is united not only by physical heredity, but also by a psychic heredity. There is a universal consciousness of which we all partake in varying measures. This is known as the Mahat in the Hindu tradition. It is a cosmic consciousness into which we enter as our normal consciousness expands, and we become aware of the transcendent dimension of humanity beyond space and time. This transcendence of space and time is a key concept in all mystical experience. In our present mode of mental consciousness, we experience the world in terms of space and time; we experience everything separated in space and going from point to point in time. It is well known that modern physics calls this whole space-time system into question, and the transcendence of the space-time dimension is central in mystical experience. I suggest that this transcendence is the nature of the New Creation; that is, the world of the resurrection. Bodies will no longer be limited by space and time. Universal divine consciousness will so penetrate the human organism that the body will become as if transparent. All bodies in the universe will be seen as one Body, all the separate centers of consciousness will coalesce in the supreme consciousness, and in the end, as St. Augustine said of the Mystical Body of Christ in its final state, there will be "Unus Christus amans seipsum"One Christ loving himself. That is, Christ will be loving himself in all his members, as though all humanity formed one Body, one organic whole, made up of innumerable cells, each distinct in itself yet all sharing in the one Consciousness of the whole Body. If we conceive, then, of humanity converging on a new mode of consciousness in which the barriers of space and time are overcome, we also have to conceive of the whole universe as transcending space and time in the same way. This is what is implied in St. Paul's conception of the New Creation. It is to "bring everything to a head," everything in heaven and on earth, both matter and consciousness. Just as the material elements of the human body are transformed by the new consciousness, so also will the elements of the universe be

 

Page 57 transformed. This is what is meant by the "new heaven and the new earth" of the Apocalypse. If we want to form some idea of this final state of the universe, we have to appeal to the experience of the mystics. Many people have had the experience of a unifying vision in which the whole creation seems to come together in unity. It is recorded in the life of St. Benedict that, one day when he was meditating, he saw the whole creation gathered together in a single ray of light. Plotinus gives perhaps the most profound description of this ultimate state in his description of the Archetypal world. Soul, he saysthat is, the ordinary mental consciousness"deals with one thing after anothernow Socrates, now a horse, always some one entity among beingsbut the Intellectual Principle," the Nous or pure consciousness, "is all, and therefore its entire content is simultaneously present in that identity. This is pure being in eternal actuality"the sachchidananda of Hindu tradition. "Nowhere is there any future, for every then is a now; nor is there any past, for nothing there has ceased to be, everything has taken its stand forever." This intuition of absolute reality is identical in Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian tradition. A conception of the ultimate unity in being and consciousness of man and the universe, therefore, is common to all the main religious traditions and is based on the experience of the mystics in each tradition. What is novel today is that western science, which for centuries has been confined to a materialist conception of the universe, has now begun to discover in the light of relativity and quantum physics that time, space and matter are not absolutes, having an existence independent of the human mind. Matter and mind are interrelated and interdependent, and it is therefore not difficult to conceive how an eventual transformation of matter in consciousness could take place, verifying the experience of the mystics of both East and West. This, I have suggested, has its bearing on the Christian doctrine of the resurrection and the new creation. What the Christian doctrine would perhaps bring to the understanding of the final destiny of man and the universe is that in the final state, the world does not just pass away, and the human individuality is not lost. In the New Creation the whole universe is realized in the fullness of being, in the "pleroma," as St. Paul calls it, and every human being re-

 

Page 58 alizes his full stature as a member of the Mystical Body of Christ. Each person is united with every other person in the communion of the Spirit which is the Spirit of Love, and all persons together form one Person in the Supreme Person, the Purusha or Cosmic Person, or the Word of God, who draws all men and all things into unity of the one supreme consciousness, indivisible Being, Knowledge and Blissthe divine Sachidananda.

 

Page 59 7 The Evolution of Consciousness and Human Survival Karan Singh Man today is at a crucial crossroads in his long and tortuous history upon this planet. The old is dying, the new is struggling to be born, and our generation, in particular, finds itself precariously poised between the past and future. Science and technology have given man tremendous, unprecedented power, but the question is whether this power will be used for creation or for destruction; whether, as Mother Teresa put it, it is going to be the power of love or the other power that is the dark side of the human psyche, the power of hate. Let us not forget that where there is sunshine, there is dark shadow also; where there is daylight there is night also, and today this essential ambivalence within the human psyche is coming more and more to the surface. If we use science for beneficent purposes, it should be possible by the end of this century to abolish poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, disease, unemployment and hunger from the face of this earth. We have the resources today; we have the technological capacity; we have the administrative infrastructure. On the other hand, if this power continues to be used for destruction, we can abolish not only the human race but all life upon this planet. Man is surely the most destructive of all the species that has ever inhabited planet earth. The dinosaurs dominated this earth for millions of years, but when they left they

 

Page 60 went comparatively quietly, and the world was still fit for habitation. But if and when we leave, we may leave this earth a charred cinder incapable of supporting any form of life whatsoever. It seems to me that the future of the human race today is gravely threatened. Arthur Koestler has put forward the chiling hypothesis that man is a creature programmed for self-destruction, that there is something within the human psyche that will ultimately cause disaster. In this context I am fascinated with the ancient myth of Atlantis. Atlantis was a great and glorious civilization, prosperous beyond imagination, glittering with all the achievements of science and technology. And one day, we are told, Atlantis sank below the waves, unable to survive its own technological ingenuity. Could it be that we are the new Atlantis? I would ask you to ponder this question, because once again science and technology have given us all the glittering wonders but wisdom is languishing. Knowledge grows and wisdom languishes. We have in the Hindu scriptures these two words: jñana and vijñana, jñana being wisdom and vijñana being knowledge. When there is a divergence between the two, there is a real danger for the human race. There is another great myth* in the Hindu scripture of the churning of the milky ocean, the samudra manthana asuras, when the devas and asuras, the divine forces and the hostile forces, between them churned the ocean of consciousness. We are told that great wonders emerged: a beautiful cow, a noble horse, a divine elephant, the wishfulfilling tree, the beautiful damsel. But then a stage came when a terrible poison suddenly sprang up. Nobody was expecting it, because the ultimate goal of that churning of the ocean of consciousness was the pot of nectar of immortality. But before they could come to the nectar, this terrible poison spread throughout the three worlds, and all the devas and asuras fled in terror because the whole of creation was on the verge of being destroyed. It was then, we are told in this great myth, that Shiva the Great Lord appeared and drank the poison and kept that poison within his throat. In other words, he integrated that poison into the divine consciousness. Only then did the churning proceed, and finally the nectar appeared. It seems to me that man today has reached the poison. There are * I use the word "myth" to mean one of those deep overriding ideas that are embedded in the human psyche.

 

Page 61 great and glittering triumphs of civilization; there is television, there is space travel. Man is reaching out literally into the stars, and the fabulous achievements of medicine, of engineering, are there for all to see. Yet man seems to have now reached this terrible poison: the hatred, the envy, the fear, the lack of inner peace, the constant conflict between hostile forces that seem to dominate the world today. It seems to me that here lies the crux of the problem. Do we now await another great divine descent in order to integrate this poison? If so, will it be an automatic descent or do we have to strive for it? Will our own striving make the critical difference between destruction and survival? I think the key lies in the future of human consciousness. This great gift of the Gods, the gift of consciousness, has grown from unicellular organisms down through millions of years, and has now come to the human state. Where do we go from here? Is there any reason to assume that the evolution of consciousness ends with our present human state? Or are we, in fact, poised on the threshold of a leap into a new level of consciousness? Why should evolution stop with us? It seems that something within the whole evolutionary process is pushing the consciousness towards a new leap, which alone can insure human survival. It is important to remember the great difference between the previous leaps in consciousness and this one. Animals had nothing to do with their evolution into human beings; it was a blind evolution. But today, for the first time, we have a species that is able to cooperate with the evolutionary force, and that can make a contribution to bringing about that greater consciousness. We are not simply blind instruments. We are self-conscious individuals, and it is there that we find the key to the importance of spiritual endeavor. The mystic consciousness is part of the heritage of the human race. In every religion, creed, country, and language one finds the mystics who have had this greater consciousness; among them Padmasambhava and Nagarjuna, St. John of the Cross and Meister Ekhart, Mansur al Halaj and Jetaluddin Rumi, and the great seer of the Upandishads, Svetasvatara, who said: ''I have seen the greater consciousness, shining like the sun on the other shore beyond the darkness. By knowing that alone can one overcome recurrent death; there is no other path to immortality.'' Whether it is a Ramakrishna, a Maharishi Ramana, or a Sri Auro-

 

Page 62 bindo; or whether it is, in our own lifetime, people like Mother Teresa or Swami Muktananda; all of these have tasted the nectar of the higher consciousness. There are clear indications that there is a greater consciousness, and that this is part of our heritage. I submit that only if there is a substantial movement into that consciousness will the human race ultimately be able to survive the present crisis. Simply remaining on this level of consciousness with the accretion of nuclear technology is to invite disaster. Though Fritjof Capra is making valiant efforts for an appeal to ban nuclear technology, I do not think it is possible to prevent its development, because the technology is there. Today, I understand, there is enough fissionable material circumambulating the globe to kill each human being twelve times over. How anybody can be killed twelve times I do not know. We believe in rebirth, but even that takes a little time! Nonetheless, science has given us this power. How do we go back to pre-nuclear technology? An egg can never be unscrambled. Nuclear technology today, whether we like it or not, is part of the human heritage. The question is whether it is going to be used for good or for evil. The Indian concept of shakti power is that the shakti can be divine or asuric, the power of creation or the power of destruction; it can be the sovereign power of love or it can be the corrosive power of hate as symbolized by Adolf Hitler in our own lifetime. Nuclear technology is like this power. Is it going to be utilized for good? It can move mountains, create electricity, and illuminate the lives, the hearts, and the homes of millions of people. On the other hand, it can totally destroy the human race. Now this is the question: does the key to human survival lie in the growth of the greater consciousness? Many great hypotheses support this. Sri Aurobindo has put forward the theory of the supramentalization of consciousness. He has written that consciousness has reached this present stage, and the next stepthe great divine descentis now ready. It is necessary for us to aspire to that, to raise our consciousness to a higher level so as to integrate, incorporate the power and the light and the glory of the supramental, and bring it down to bear upon this terrestrial consciousness. In the work of the great Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin, it is very clear that the entire thrust is towards the movement of mankind to the ''Omega point," as de Chardin calls it, or the Christification of consciousnessthe

 

Page 63 great development of the human race in an evolving and not static once-and-for-all creation, but a creation in which we are at this moment participating. The original idea emerges from Teilhard de Chardin's writings that the creation is not completed once and for all; it is evolving and we are all working it out in our consciousness. The Kundalini hypothesis, which Swami Muktananda, Gopi Krishna and others have written about, is that the Kundalini is a great spiritual force which lies coiled at the base of the human spine, and which, under certain conditions, can be made to rise and illuminate and irradiate the brain. According to this hypothesis, when the Kundalini power enters the brain, the transformation of consciousness takes place. From the time of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, thousands of years ago, right down to the present day, the Kundalini hypothesis has linked with a broad spectrum of meditational yogic practices. Another fascinating convergence is between post-Einsteinian physics, subatomic and cosmic physics, and the Eastern wisdom. Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics, Gary Zukav's Dancing Wu Li Masters, and Amaury de Reincourt's The Eye of Shiva number among recent books that show that we have now come the full circle. Science and spirituality originally started together. All the great explorations into the material world took place as a result of the religious impetus. Then they diverged and for centuries grew apart from each other. It seems now that again they are converging. This is tremendously important because, as I see it, the time frame is critical. If one looks upon the whole problem from a cosmic point of view, then time of course loses its importance, but from a human point of view, the time frame is crucial. Something is happening deep within the human collective consciousness. Science and spirituality, the two greatest forces that the human race has known, are coming together again. People are beginning to realize that even in the midst of the battle, when the battle presses the thickest, the divine spark is there. Let us not forget the message of the Gita. The Gita was given at the time of tremendous conflict, when the two opposing forces were locked in conflict and the flight of missiles had begun. It was at that moment that within the human heart the desire for divine enlightenment arose, and it is at that moment that the voice of Krishna was heard. Not only science and spirituality, but also the different religions can start conver-

 

Page 64 ging. We have a verse in the Rig Veda: "Ekam sad viprah bahuda vadanti""The truth is one; the wise call it by many names." There is also a beautiful mantra from the Mundaka Upanishad: Yatha nadya syande manasamudre astam gacchanti namrupe vihaya tatha vidvan namarupatvemukta paratparam purstisham upeiti divyam. This means that in the same way as the rivers and streams arise from different places but ultimately flow into the same ocean, so do all these different religious sects and communities and denominations arise according to historical, geographical and ethnic reasons but, ultimately, reach the same goal. There cannot be, in the ultimate analysis, different Gods for different religions. We may look upon God differently, we may have different approaches to the divine, but this force or power that we call God must be there for all, irrespective of caste or creed. The Ishavasya Upanishad opens with the beautiful line: lshavasyamidam sarvam yatkinchya jagatyam jagat." Or, whatever there may be in the Universe, whether it is this little planet or whether it is the hundreds of billions of galaxies, they are all pervaded by the same Divine Power. The dichotomy between matter and energy has broken down. The sages have always known there are not two; in the ultimate analysis, there is only the One. It is clear, therefore, that the time has now come when we have not only to reaffirm our faith in this greater consciousness, but also to reaffirm our own personal commitment to reflect this consciousness in our daily lives and in our own minds. In the ultimate analysis, it is in the crucible of the individual consciousness that the greater consciousness has to be forged. It may be outside us, but until it is reflected in our own psyche, in our own hearts, it will not become operative. Mother Teresa speaks of the importance of the head and the heart, these two aspects of the human psyche. Let us try to bring