WEBVTT
00:00.031 --> 00:06.379
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
00:16.501 --> 00:30.926
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to this white scientist podcast, my name is David Lorimer, and it's a great pleasure to have my friends, Ravi, Revindra and Stephen Post together for a dialogue on this very topic of white scientists.
00:31.728 --> 00:37.598
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to contribute occasionally and so I'm going to hand over to Ravi to initiate the conversation.
00:53.693 --> 00:54.514
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you David.
00:55.635 --> 01:05.106
[SPEAKER_02]: I would really very much ask Stefan to first of all give a brief summary of his major perspective on the question of why scientist.
01:06.128 --> 01:22.587
[SPEAKER_00]: Well briefly, science adds so much to the credibility of these more philosophical and even theological discussions, whether it's a discussion of awe.
01:23.242 --> 01:30.575
[SPEAKER_00]: and wonder or gratitude or forgiveness or love and its manifestations.
01:31.356 --> 01:40.533
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that the engagement of scientists with these great perennial topics has been magnificent.
01:41.735 --> 01:46.363
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, in a lot of ways, John Templeton,
01:46.850 --> 02:08.858
[SPEAKER_00]: was the one who saw this, he had written his worldwide laws of life, and he certainly included the wisdom traditions, whether it was Psalms or Proverbs or whatever it might be, on all of these great character strengths, but he wanted to bring the best science
02:09.209 --> 02:19.721
[SPEAKER_00]: to it in the same sense that we bring the best science to the study of negative characteristics, depression, anxiety, and the like.
02:20.482 --> 02:38.203
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, the center of it all is positive psychology, but I also a great fan of the life sciences, I teach in a medical school, I pay a lot of attention
02:39.078 --> 02:52.139
[SPEAKER_00]: the physician patient relationship, healing outcomes, and the like, and also I have a lot of interest in continuing interest in cosmology and the nature of ultimate reality.
02:53.961 --> 03:05.760
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, this interface between science and these perennial wisdom traditions is really exciting and that's something that, of course, David has been
03:06.331 --> 03:09.756
[SPEAKER_00]: involved with for at least 30 years, I think.
03:10.737 --> 03:22.113
[SPEAKER_01]: I obviously built on Sir John's work on well-wide laws of life in initiating my own character program, you know, partly based on this idea.
03:22.654 --> 03:29.183
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think let's hand back to Ravi to see how he responds to the initial statement.
03:29.720 --> 03:36.867
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, as far as I have understood what the perennial wisdom sages are speaking about.
03:36.907 --> 03:45.195
[SPEAKER_02]: They insist that there are many levels of reality far subtler than the mind.
03:46.817 --> 03:49.499
[SPEAKER_02]: And therefore the mind needs to be quieter.
03:49.759 --> 03:54.064
[SPEAKER_02]: Now science is almost wholly occupied with what we can find with the mind.
03:55.425 --> 03:57.567
[SPEAKER_02]: So from that perspective,
03:57.918 --> 04:11.973
[SPEAKER_02]: They are not suggesting to be against science, but they are very much suggesting that if you wish to connect with something called real reality or truth or that mind needs to be quietened.
04:13.034 --> 04:17.399
[SPEAKER_02]: And in any spiritual practice, this is almost the fundamental requirement.
04:17.519 --> 04:25.748
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, especially in the yoga sutras, almost the first substantial sutra is stopping the movements of the mind.
04:27.837 --> 04:44.959
[SPEAKER_02]: So, therefore really there is a very basic question here, anything coming from the mind is to deal with conceptions, whereas the call in the spiritual teachings is on perception, not conception.
04:46.081 --> 04:47.002
[SPEAKER_02]: So, what do we do?
04:48.123 --> 04:49.826
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what I'm asking people here.
04:50.727 --> 04:54.672
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm a believer in quieting the mind.
04:56.002 --> 04:57.484
[SPEAKER_00]: for many different reasons.
04:58.886 --> 05:10.021
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what you think about these ideas, Ravi, but I've been a believer in the idea of the one mind for a long, long time.
05:11.664 --> 05:18.653
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a happy student of Sir John Eckles for a couple of years at the University of Chicago.
05:19.514 --> 05:24.321
[SPEAKER_00]: And he had basically outlined
05:24.723 --> 05:31.573
[SPEAKER_00]: the major communication venues between neurons for which he won the Nobel Prize.
05:33.055 --> 05:41.888
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was one who never believed that mind could be explained by brain, by matter, by tissue.
05:42.869 --> 05:47.857
[SPEAKER_00]: He felt that if anything, mind came before matter.
05:49.559 --> 05:52.924
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was convinced as well,
05:53.157 --> 06:01.810
[SPEAKER_00]: Each of us has within us some small drop of that larger divine consciousness.
06:03.473 --> 06:11.626
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that there was a lot of wisdom when he warned me and others against nothing buttery.
06:11.766 --> 06:14.430
[SPEAKER_00]: The reduction of mind to matter.
06:14.510 --> 06:16.954
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't think that was a good idea that you could
06:17.491 --> 06:26.765
[SPEAKER_00]: really, the mind is derived or epiphonominal, it's its own and it's its own stuff, if you will, metaphysically.
06:27.446 --> 06:28.428
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
06:28.448 --> 06:32.754
[SPEAKER_02]: But you see, one of the difficulties is really even with the language.
06:32.814 --> 06:41.828
[SPEAKER_02]: We use the word mind, whereas traditionally, for example in Sanskrit and the Bhagavad-gita, there are two
06:42.466 --> 06:47.691
[SPEAKER_02]: Buddha and Manus, Manus referring to the usual analytical mind.
06:48.432 --> 07:00.163
[SPEAKER_02]: And Buddha referring to something, if you like higher mind or circular mind, which can also be more aware of something above what we ordinarily call mind.
07:00.303 --> 07:06.349
[SPEAKER_02]: Similarly in Greek, we have traditional Greek, we'll be noose and dianoia.
07:07.150 --> 07:09.132
[SPEAKER_02]: So the trouble partly comes,
07:09.770 --> 07:15.436
[SPEAKER_02]: So if one says something critically of mind, then one, sorry, well, that doesn't make any sense.
07:16.017 --> 07:19.721
[SPEAKER_02]: If one just thinks mind is got everything, that doesn't make any sense.
07:19.741 --> 07:24.006
[SPEAKER_02]: Partly because of the difficulty of the language, what do we mean by the word mind?
07:25.027 --> 07:38.882
[SPEAKER_02]: What I am speaking about when we say to be free of the analytical mind, therefore even have some slight perception that there is something subtler than or higher than,
07:39.520 --> 07:43.024
[SPEAKER_02]: whatever I call my mind, or whatever I call me.
07:44.506 --> 07:51.433
[SPEAKER_02]: And that already brings a certain kind of more or less really a kind of humility.
07:52.715 --> 07:54.757
[SPEAKER_02]: And you look at some of the greatest scientists.
07:54.777 --> 07:58.001
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, here is a direct quote from Einstein.
07:59.182 --> 08:04.768
[SPEAKER_02]: Unless we are completely free of ourselves, we cannot connect with any reality.
08:05.693 --> 08:11.643
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, how does one become completely free of myself, you know, I am thinking about this or this or that?
08:11.663 --> 08:13.706
[SPEAKER_02]: That's coming from my ordinary mind.
08:16.510 --> 08:19.475
[SPEAKER_02]: So part of the difficulties with the language.
08:20.317 --> 08:25.164
[SPEAKER_02]: So one could certainly say there is no need to be against higher mind.
08:25.825 --> 08:30.553
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, when somebody like Krishna moved these speaks about being free of thought,
08:31.478 --> 08:33.321
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not, therefore, against mind.
08:33.621 --> 08:38.828
[SPEAKER_02]: On the other hand, there is very strong impression that there are subtler qualities in the mind.
08:40.811 --> 08:48.541
[SPEAKER_02]: When we use the word being mind full, it has a quite a different meaning than being thinking about something.
08:49.803 --> 08:50.784
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite a lot of people.
08:52.327 --> 08:53.849
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
08:53.869 --> 08:58.515
[SPEAKER_02]: So how do we try to clarify these things really?
08:58.664 --> 09:01.667
[SPEAKER_02]: because it may seem as if I am against the mind.
09:01.767 --> 09:04.170
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not what I'm trying to do.
09:04.190 --> 09:13.060
[SPEAKER_02]: But there are different levels of the mind, or in the language of Gurji, if he speaks about higher mind and lower mind, that's another way of saying it.
09:14.702 --> 09:18.386
[SPEAKER_02]: But traditionally, I gave you two Sanskrit words or two Greek words.
09:19.267 --> 09:22.090
[SPEAKER_02]: They are really referring to different levels of the mind.
09:23.351 --> 09:24.573
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, yes.
09:24.593 --> 09:28.317
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have full agreement with what you've just mentioned.
09:29.174 --> 09:53.545
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think that at some point neuro-scientists will successfully prove that it all boils down to what you might call the lower mind that consciousness can be entirely explained by brain activity in one sense or another?
09:55.060 --> 09:57.663
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that is already very much in question.
09:57.824 --> 10:00.607
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what happens in near death experiences?
10:02.069 --> 10:03.150
[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody has died.
10:03.190 --> 10:05.554
[SPEAKER_02]: The brain is not functioning at that time.
10:06.475 --> 10:12.302
[SPEAKER_02]: But consciousness still seems to be there because they come back alive after maybe two hours or sometimes longer.
10:13.404 --> 10:17.549
[SPEAKER_02]: And they can even say what the doctor was saying to the nurse during that.
10:17.829 --> 10:22.215
[SPEAKER_02]: So there is consciousness without the activity of the brain.
10:23.478 --> 10:25.060
[SPEAKER_00]: That's an interesting way of putting it.
10:25.640 --> 10:36.671
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we did a study at NYU land going with a wonderful resuscitation specialist physician named Sam Parnia.
10:38.053 --> 10:41.756
[SPEAKER_00]: It Sam was from Southampton in the UK.
10:42.657 --> 10:46.861
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was at Stony Brook for quite a number of years before he went off to NYU.
10:48.323 --> 10:52.607
[SPEAKER_00]: But we published an article.
10:53.212 --> 11:14.415
[SPEAKER_00]: and called it remembered experiences of death, so he called it red, R-E-D. And he found that about 20% of people who had had these experiences where they had been, essentially dead for at least several hours.
11:15.836 --> 11:21.042
[SPEAKER_00]: They, 20% of them came back and they did talk about
11:21.562 --> 11:45.375
[SPEAKER_00]: vision some remarkable sensibility to a higher reality, and then there were about 80 percent of them who didn't have that experience, but they still scored very high on purpose of life scales, on forgiveness scales, on love scales, and so forth.
11:45.946 --> 12:09.108
[SPEAKER_00]: so that they were all pretty much re-oriented in their life journey and a fair percentage of them, not all of them by any means, had had this proverbial experience of a higher being one of my colleagues here who's the head of family medicine.
12:10.029 --> 12:14.113
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked him, Jeff, what is pure unlimited love to you?
12:15.123 --> 12:18.208
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, closing his eyes, he's a bit of a mystic.
12:19.050 --> 12:32.713
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, it would be the first thing you see when you close your eyes for the last time, which I think was interesting, quite beautiful.
12:33.234 --> 12:36.019
[SPEAKER_00]: And that introduction to my book.
12:37.281 --> 12:40.607
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's not talking about a definition of love in the sense of,
12:41.752 --> 12:47.638
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the well-being and security of another is as real to you as your own and maybe more so.
12:48.679 --> 13:07.118
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's really going beyond that to this higher consciousness that is, in fact, Sam Parnya would suggest discernible among the population who have come back from these experiences of remembered death, if you will.
13:07.975 --> 13:27.904
[SPEAKER_02]: My impression is that the practically the whole mission of Galileo Commission is exactly to say that it's not that reality begins from dead matter, but that it begins from consciousness that consciousness can exist without matter.
13:28.985 --> 13:34.253
[SPEAKER_02]: And it fact gradually it almost created matter rather than
13:34.570 --> 13:44.304
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, since the 16th century, the basic idea in science has been that everything began from completely unconscious matter.
13:46.106 --> 13:50.993
[SPEAKER_02]: So mass length on time, that's what we need to have, mass length on time.
13:51.013 --> 14:02.569
[SPEAKER_02]: And then in the 19th century, we added charge to it in the 20th century, we added
14:03.595 --> 14:10.483
[SPEAKER_02]: consciousness emerges from that, but as Galileo Commission has just the opposite undertaking.
14:12.745 --> 14:32.708
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I agree with that opposite undertaking, and I have for a long, long time based on readings and study, but also on experience.
14:33.076 --> 15:00.889
[SPEAKER_00]: whose notebooks are in the library at Trinity College in Cambridge University, and he apparently was not a versatile mathematician, but he would be praying at the foot of his Hindu goddess and
15:01.898 --> 15:10.566
[SPEAKER_00]: next to his knee and come back a little later and write them in his notebooks.
15:12.388 --> 15:30.285
[SPEAKER_00]: What's interesting is that one of our great mathematicians here at Stony Brook, Jim Simons, who did many great things in math, we talked about Ramonujan once upon a time, and he took him very seriously because
15:30.772 --> 15:58.973
[SPEAKER_00]: As you mentioned earlier, Ravi kind of in the modality of Einstein, Simon, who was a secularist, essentially, still had room in his vision for a consciousness that knew all the mathematics in the universe from the beginning of time, and that could work through individuals so attuned.
15:59.307 --> 16:01.870
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do you think of the Ramanujans of the world?
16:05.155 --> 16:15.188
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that is actually a very good question because many people, including me, I have been rather interested in how did Ramanujac receive this.
16:15.228 --> 16:20.996
[SPEAKER_02]: He would simply say, the Goddess or the Devi in Sanskrit, we say, the Devi, set this to me.
16:21.997 --> 16:28.065
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he is able to provide solution of problems which have been bothering mathematicians for decades.
16:28.231 --> 16:38.563
[SPEAKER_02]: and somehow he gets them and it was rather nice that the person I forgot on the name of the mathematician at Cambridge who invited him.
16:38.723 --> 16:39.664
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, hardy, hardy.
16:40.025 --> 16:40.766
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
16:41.226 --> 16:41.607
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
16:41.627 --> 16:49.716
[SPEAKER_02]: And otherwise he would have been completely just forgotten whatever he was saying if he was not invited to be there in Cambridge.
16:50.675 --> 16:53.860
[SPEAKER_02]: be able to publish his whatever he came up with.
16:54.542 --> 17:10.489
[SPEAKER_02]: But it clearly is at least a very good indication that if a person is willing to first of all acknowledge that there is something higher than or subtler than what my mind can grasp.
17:11.330 --> 17:13.493
[SPEAKER_02]: then sometimes one receives it.
17:13.633 --> 17:21.704
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, even somebody like a great scientist said, I am a priest of God in the temple of nature.
17:22.565 --> 17:39.767
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, similarly feeling from Newton, even though his publication actually ended up leading to more and more mechanical orientation of science, he wrote more words in theology than in mathematics.
17:40.658 --> 17:46.248
[SPEAKER_02]: And people often, many of these things were not discovered until nearly 1942 or 41.
17:47.150 --> 17:48.272
[SPEAKER_02]: I think during the war.
17:49.334 --> 18:04.742
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were hidden for 300 years, so I think there has been a strong tendency to not acknowledge the basic reality of what the spiritual teachers have been saying.
18:06.680 --> 18:27.505
[SPEAKER_02]: as if we have been fascinated by what the scientists have done and really in a way, science, particularly from physics side, has been occupied producing more and more power, bigger and bigger bombs, for example, and therefore more and more connections with the money.
18:28.206 --> 18:34.273
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I actually don't know this for certain, but my impression is that most people who too,
18:34.473 --> 18:39.460
[SPEAKER_02]: get degrees in physics, especially MSA or MA or PHD level.
18:40.161 --> 18:44.688
[SPEAKER_02]: They end up working either for the military or for the industry.
18:44.708 --> 18:50.176
[SPEAKER_02]: It will be helpful to find out whether this is what are the actual percentages of people work.
18:51.038 --> 18:52.780
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's my general impression.
18:53.862 --> 19:00.852
[SPEAKER_02]: So in a way, physics and every other branch of science wants to ultimately relate with physics.
19:01.186 --> 19:08.112
[SPEAKER_02]: even biology through biophysics and geology through geophysics, chemistry through physical chemistry.
19:08.693 --> 19:17.321
[SPEAKER_02]: So ultimately, they all want to acknowledge physics is the basic science, and then what are we doing with physics?
19:18.222 --> 19:28.611
[SPEAKER_02]: Unless there is of course there have been very wise physicists like I just mentioned Einstein and Newton is a good example, Schrodinger is another very good example.
19:30.245 --> 19:35.572
[SPEAKER_02]: but they are not completely committed even to their scientific work.
19:36.754 --> 19:57.501
[SPEAKER_02]: So how do we encourage a feeling among not only scientists really, people, in fact, personally, I feel that what is more required is the philosophers who are the ones who need to be educated that there is something subtler than what is thought by them.
19:58.375 --> 19:59.517
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we go about it?
19:59.637 --> 20:00.438
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the problem.
20:02.381 --> 20:03.684
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, indeed.
20:03.704 --> 20:20.130
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, you know, one could speak of so many figures in mathematics and physics, including Maxwell, I suppose, people who claim that they received visions and dreams and so forth of
20:21.258 --> 20:22.680
[SPEAKER_00]: new levels of reality.
20:24.141 --> 20:32.692
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that in popular culture, I'm a big fan, my favorite poet is W.H.
20:32.892 --> 20:33.192
[SPEAKER_00]: Audden.
20:34.674 --> 20:47.670
[SPEAKER_00]: He spent a lot of time at a little school north of Oxford, and he explains this
20:48.022 --> 20:53.708
[SPEAKER_00]: single paragraph, which I think is worth reading just in quick pace.
20:54.469 --> 20:58.333
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he says one fine night in June of 1933.
20:58.513 --> 21:04.319
[SPEAKER_00]: I was sitting on a lawn after dinner with three colleagues, two women in one man.
21:05.440 --> 21:09.084
[SPEAKER_00]: We liked each other well enough, but we're certainly not intimate friends.
21:09.765 --> 21:12.348
[SPEAKER_00]: Nor had any one of us as sexual interest in another.
21:13.309 --> 21:15.531
[SPEAKER_00]: Incidentally, we had not drunk any alcohol,
21:16.338 --> 21:23.527
[SPEAKER_00]: We were talking casually about everyday matters when quite suddenly, and unexpectedly, something happened.
21:25.189 --> 21:36.464
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt myself invaded, I liked that metaphor of invasion, by a power which, though I consented to it, was irresistible and certainly not mine.
21:38.626 --> 21:44.674
[SPEAKER_00]: For the first time in my life, I knew exactly because thanks to the power I was doing it,
21:44.975 --> 21:48.379
[SPEAKER_00]: what it means to love one's neighbor as one's self.
21:50.481 --> 21:51.222
[SPEAKER_00]: And it goes on.
21:52.763 --> 21:59.410
[SPEAKER_00]: I was able later to confirm with my colleagues about this experience because one of them also had it.
22:00.111 --> 22:02.974
[SPEAKER_00]: My personal feelings toward them are unchanged, he writes.
22:03.575 --> 22:13.986
[SPEAKER_00]: They were still colleagues, not intimate friends, but I felt they're existence as themselves to be an infinite value.
22:15.265 --> 22:24.493
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it's this sense that people have, whether they're scientists or poets, of being somewhat invaded.
22:25.214 --> 22:42.910
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm guessing that when Einstein went into those deeply meditational, fedanka moments that he felt that he was in connection with something of that higher mind that robbing mentions.
22:44.105 --> 22:49.353
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's something, sorry to interrupt, Ravi, but I read this passage two nights ago.
22:49.373 --> 22:53.500
[SPEAKER_02]: No, he's in there, I'm just kidding.
22:53.580 --> 23:05.218
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, over to you, but you know, I often remind my friends and myself also that our closest neighbor is actually God.
23:07.409 --> 23:15.760
[SPEAKER_02]: And if we can really pay attention to that neighbor and take care of it, then something changes in us.
23:16.361 --> 23:24.771
[SPEAKER_02]: It's several times Christ makes these remarks about loving your neighbor as yourself.
23:24.791 --> 23:34.564
[SPEAKER_02]: And or even in what Christians call the Old Testament, in the Torah repeatedly, this is emphasized by even
23:35.860 --> 23:46.456
[SPEAKER_02]: other rabbis, that loving one's neighbor or not hurting them in any way, etc., is the most significant requirement from a spiritual practice point of view.
23:47.397 --> 24:04.382
[SPEAKER_02]: But then I keep reminding people that if I can realize that God is my closest neighbor to make any connection with that, obviously change is something very deeply in me, which
24:04.953 --> 24:14.224
[SPEAKER_02]: He was surprised to get this, because any connection with something circular or higher than ours is always a matter of surprise.
24:15.125 --> 24:23.716
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, one of the great Upanishad actually says, unless it is surprising, surprising, surprising, surprising, it cannot be wholly.
24:27.781 --> 24:31.045
[SPEAKER_02]: Even some of the scientists have actually said,
24:32.543 --> 24:35.266
[SPEAKER_02]: that they were surprised by what came to them.
24:36.387 --> 24:42.174
[SPEAKER_02]: Unless it surprised them, it was just usual, common.
24:42.194 --> 25:00.694
[SPEAKER_00]: So then when Ramanujan got to Cambridge, Hardy, who was very sympathetic because he saw this luminosity in his formulas, he insisted that Ramanujan proved
25:01.298 --> 25:12.619
[SPEAKER_00]: these mathematical equations by standard methods, and Robin Nusion was not very happy to be doing that because he sensed.
25:13.220 --> 25:17.267
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew that these equations were true and valid.
25:18.189 --> 25:22.497
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't come so much from him, but they came from this higher mind.
25:23.185 --> 25:51.488
[SPEAKER_00]: We did write a couple of papers, I think, just two, in mainstream mathematics journals, where he did, in fact, quote-unquote, prove these items, but it made him unhappy, and it
25:52.075 --> 26:04.968
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he went back to India, I think he died when he was about 30, but he never really bought into the idea that the material in his notebooks had to be proven.
26:05.148 --> 26:19.062
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet many great physicists, certainly quantum physics, relies on a number of his mathematical insights.
26:19.717 --> 26:27.305
[SPEAKER_02]: But in any case, I think we need to really return to a practical question, which periodically we raise with almost everybody.
26:28.306 --> 26:29.707
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we encourage?
26:32.210 --> 26:40.238
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the education really needs to begin with young kids, it's not only after they become scientists.
26:40.298 --> 26:47.125
[SPEAKER_02]: By that time, their mind is already settled in certain direction.
26:48.202 --> 26:53.790
[SPEAKER_02]: the people who undertake teaching young kids to begin with.
26:55.332 --> 27:03.625
[SPEAKER_02]: What is required to invite them to be slightly more interested, not simply just solving the problems this way that way.
27:04.446 --> 27:14.901
[SPEAKER_02]: But also enhancing a quality of their being, a quality of their love, compassion, feeling for others, how do we proceed to do this?
27:16.957 --> 27:18.258
[SPEAKER_02]: And how young is young?
27:19.299 --> 27:23.484
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's a pretty good question.
27:23.504 --> 27:27.868
[SPEAKER_00]: So my institute, I have an institute called the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love.
27:29.009 --> 27:41.362
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the first things we did was to fund mindfulness studies among first and second graders in inner city Baltimore schools.
27:42.303 --> 27:45.546
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
27:45.880 --> 27:53.428
[SPEAKER_00]: There was some very instrumental and talented teachers there who were interested in this by a kind of elective affinity.
27:54.950 --> 28:03.840
[SPEAKER_00]: And these kids really felt great happiness in their mindfulness meditation, if you will.
28:04.280 --> 28:12.850
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, the public school when you can't bring religion into it
28:13.505 --> 28:16.209
[SPEAKER_00]: secularism and public life.
28:17.090 --> 28:21.417
[SPEAKER_00]: But certainly these kids did very well with it.
28:22.138 --> 28:31.352
[SPEAKER_00]: Their grades started to go up because they found that they had something beyond themselves for which to study and learn.
28:32.153 --> 28:41.807
[SPEAKER_00]: They also became less prone to
28:42.125 --> 29:09.938
[SPEAKER_00]: going home and telling their families in intercity Baltimore in some of the more difficult neighborhoods about what they were doing in school and it caught on with some of the families and the families became appreciative and they had an office so instead of sending kids to the principal's office when they were a little bit off kilter they went to the mindfulness office
29:10.238 --> 29:12.520
[SPEAKER_00]: and they were debriefing on these things.
29:13.141 --> 29:17.484
[SPEAKER_00]: And it did change the culture of the public schools quite a bit.
29:18.325 --> 29:19.947
[SPEAKER_00]: So now there's a non-profit.
29:20.547 --> 29:22.629
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe it's based in Baltimore.
29:23.410 --> 29:36.081
[SPEAKER_00]: And they support this kind of activity in about 300 grade schools in the Mid-Atlantic region, Washington, DC, Virginia, Maryland, and so forth.
29:36.981 --> 29:38.743
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think
29:39.128 --> 29:49.462
[SPEAKER_00]: This is something only for the older individuals in these schools, but the earlier the better.
29:50.623 --> 29:59.415
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, but you know part of the travel I think is that religions get equated with spirituality.
30:00.830 --> 30:11.382
[SPEAKER_02]: And personally, in my understanding, trying to be really as impartial as I can be, more organized, a religion, more harmed, does to spiritual practice.
30:12.504 --> 30:13.285
[SPEAKER_00]: So nice table.
30:14.246 --> 30:24.778
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think more and more emphasis really required and there are many common features of actual spiritual practice.
30:25.737 --> 30:39.479
[SPEAKER_02]: Fundamental requirement, as far as I can see, whether it comes from the teachings of Christ or Buddha or Krishna or any great sage, is how can I be free of more and more free of my fears and desires?
30:40.581 --> 30:42.664
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the fundamental requirement.
30:45.328 --> 30:51.458
[SPEAKER_02]: And then one can connect with something such, more than rather than being completely self occupied.
30:51.877 --> 30:57.884
[SPEAKER_02]: So it has nothing to do with Christianity, or Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Al-Mambo-Jambor.
30:57.904 --> 31:04.372
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything gets more organized and then exclusively only one teacher matters, nothing else.
31:05.073 --> 31:08.577
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you begin to believe in it rather than to practice anything.
31:09.118 --> 31:10.900
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the great tragedy of religion.
31:12.082 --> 31:15.346
[SPEAKER_00]: So Robby, can I get your opinion on an important matter?
31:17.388 --> 31:20.652
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a practicing Episcopalian.
31:22.015 --> 31:24.658
[SPEAKER_00]: which is an American angle, can I suppose?
31:25.338 --> 31:26.339
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
31:27.000 --> 31:35.088
[SPEAKER_00]: But I take doctrine very lightly because I'm much more interested in practice.
31:36.049 --> 31:36.129
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
31:36.149 --> 31:49.963
[SPEAKER_00]: Once went to India to Southern India to the Basilica of St. Thomas, who evidently, when Jesus
31:51.040 --> 31:59.693
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the disciples were part of that sort of diaspora after Jesus died, Thomas went to Southern India.
32:01.035 --> 32:15.597
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I look at the writings of Thomas, he really sounds like someone who was steeped in the uponshads.
32:16.032 --> 32:27.225
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, and there is this very interesting literature, which they take seriously there about the lost years of Christ, yes.
32:28.346 --> 32:31.730
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course that's heretical to speak about that.
32:31.790 --> 32:44.605
[SPEAKER_00]: But is it the case that Jesus was simply in his dad's carpenter shop?
32:45.243 --> 33:03.521
[SPEAKER_00]: Or isn't it more likely that he was a bit exotic and a seeker and he learned everything he could from traditions around the world, including especially India because he was on the, as they say, the golden road?
33:04.722 --> 33:05.984
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
33:06.004 --> 33:14.372
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, in general, as you know, from the Bible, nothing is said about him between the ages
33:15.466 --> 33:28.733
[SPEAKER_02]: which is, of course, the time when one will be searching for something, I'm an exactly that, and certainly the gospel of Thomas, a very striking, actually different, for example, let me quickly mention one item.
33:29.962 --> 33:40.278
[SPEAKER_02]: Every teacher repeatedly says that what is required is a deeper and deeper self-study or self-investigation or self-knowledge.
33:40.658 --> 33:48.290
[SPEAKER_02]: Different words get used, but basically I need to see what I wish deep down, what stands in my way, etc.
33:48.791 --> 33:50.333
[SPEAKER_02]: So self-observation.
33:51.663 --> 33:55.749
[SPEAKER_02]: But you can look at the whole canonical Bible.
33:56.590 --> 33:59.214
[SPEAKER_02]: There is not a single entry under this.
33:59.835 --> 34:00.336
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
34:01.477 --> 34:03.120
[SPEAKER_02]: But you look at the Gospel of Thomas.
34:03.881 --> 34:06.905
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, now I can moralize court it from Emory here.
34:08.087 --> 34:13.334
[SPEAKER_02]: God, kingdom of God is within you, as well as without you, meaning outside.
34:13.374 --> 34:16.619
[SPEAKER_02]: If you would know God, you must know yourself.
34:17.400 --> 34:21.366
[SPEAKER_02]: Then you would realize that you are the son
34:22.291 --> 34:25.395
[SPEAKER_02]: If you do not know yourself, you are in poverty.
34:25.556 --> 34:27.038
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, you are poverty.
34:27.158 --> 34:28.319
[SPEAKER_02]: Very strong statement.
34:28.640 --> 34:29.020
[SPEAKER_00]: Very.
34:30.142 --> 34:31.404
[SPEAKER_02]: This is in gospel, Thomas.
34:31.704 --> 34:32.505
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
34:32.685 --> 34:36.731
[SPEAKER_02]: What I'm pointing out is that then it becomes non-canonical.
34:37.973 --> 34:39.435
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's not the miracle.
34:41.558 --> 34:42.299
[SPEAKER_02]: It's tragic.
34:42.399 --> 34:44.582
[SPEAKER_02]: It's be the non-canonical gospels.
34:45.844 --> 34:50.290
[SPEAKER_02]: As far as I recall, they were discovered only in 1949 or something.
34:50.573 --> 34:52.215
[SPEAKER_00]: right, fairly recently.
34:52.936 --> 34:54.438
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think you make a great point.
34:54.519 --> 35:06.535
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the many doctrines that were really kind of politically negotiated in the past century and so forth.
35:07.397 --> 35:11.322
[SPEAKER_00]: And people were arguing about homocius and homocius and so forth.
35:12.544 --> 35:14.306
[SPEAKER_00]: That distracts people.
35:15.007 --> 35:17.070
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it, it, it, um,
35:17.438 --> 35:29.591
[SPEAKER_00]: It prevents them from thinking more deeply about the spiritual practice of, for example, Jesus.
35:29.631 --> 35:34.896
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to read college, which is a small liberal arts school in Portland, Oregon.
35:36.478 --> 35:43.665
[SPEAKER_00]: And I overlapped a little bit with Steve Jobs because he was there for just a year at one point.
35:44.540 --> 35:52.532
[SPEAKER_00]: And he loved the autobiography of a yogi, and we often read it on the floor of acrimand dormitory.
35:54.135 --> 36:12.724
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the meanwhile, he was taking courses on Alkambi 101, sort of a history of medieval science and quantum physics, and he was also doing a lot of the amazing, beautiful calligraphy, which everybody happened to be doing at that time.
36:13.008 --> 36:26.626
[SPEAKER_00]: But he would disappear, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, no one would see him, and he would go up to the apple orchards, north of Portland, and he would pick apples, and he would meditate.
36:28.268 --> 36:34.476
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he came back, he had money in his pocket, but he would also have a big bag of apples, which he would give to people.
36:35.738 --> 36:39.403
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was a very contemplative person.
36:39.923 --> 36:41.125
[SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't religious.
36:41.729 --> 36:46.454
[SPEAKER_00]: But he was certainly a spiritual in a lot of different ways.
36:47.295 --> 36:55.443
[SPEAKER_00]: And he dropped out of reading then he went off to India and spent a year or so in an ashraw of some kind.
36:56.464 --> 37:03.991
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that you're right, I think that so much of religion becomes doctrine air very quickly.
37:04.011 --> 37:11.078
[SPEAKER_00]: And loses the spiritual perception of its founders.
37:12.037 --> 37:14.062
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's a bit of a tragedy.
37:14.102 --> 37:18.933
[SPEAKER_02]: Really, in fact, more organized the region, more harm, it does advice as well.
37:19.855 --> 37:21.499
[SPEAKER_02]: This is true for all the religions.
37:21.599 --> 37:24.165
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't, this is not a comment only about Christianity.
37:24.265 --> 37:26.931
[SPEAKER_02]: I just made the mark about Christian.
37:27.713 --> 37:29.016
[SPEAKER_02]: You're gospel as well.
37:29.620 --> 37:48.270
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, in a way, again and again, what I would very much suggest, really, perhaps linguistically we need to encourage in society, that what is taught at a very early level to kids, is not religion, but spiritual practice.
37:48.925 --> 37:54.393
[SPEAKER_02]: which requires slightly quieting the mind and impartially looking at what is troubling them.
37:54.573 --> 37:58.218
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, very strong, this is a remark of Krishna Multi.
37:58.238 --> 38:01.422
[SPEAKER_02]: There can be no wisdom without self-knowledge.
38:01.883 --> 38:04.667
[SPEAKER_02]: This is, in a way, it seems to me to be obvious.
38:04.787 --> 38:11.957
[SPEAKER_02]: Unless I see what is standing in my way or what is occupying me, what is bothering me, what is calling me.
38:12.558 --> 38:14.781
[SPEAKER_02]: So it would seem really rather obvious.
38:14.761 --> 38:32.307
[SPEAKER_02]: But if there is no suggestion for that, as I just mentioned in the whole of the Bible, much to my surprise, actually, because if you look at the Bhagavad-gita or the Avazutra, repeat the remark on self-study, self-knowledge, again and again.
38:33.509 --> 38:39.418
[SPEAKER_02]: But in any case, what I'm suggesting is that we need to use a slightly different language here,
38:39.837 --> 38:45.283
[SPEAKER_02]: for the kids to be occupied with this rather than calling it that they have to be introduced to religion.
38:46.024 --> 38:56.435
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, tragically, since for a little while, I was also a professor of religion, I have rarely met a professor of religion who was actually religious.
38:57.536 --> 39:00.399
[SPEAKER_02]: Aha, yes, it is tragic.
39:00.419 --> 39:09.068
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, most of the theologians, the practicing theologians, are not particularly spiritual.
39:09.638 --> 39:12.421
[SPEAKER_00]: They've actually conceptually interesting.
39:13.803 --> 39:24.857
[SPEAKER_02]: And they can find good arguments for or against something, whether Peter hit the person who was trying to arrest Christ with his right hand or with left hand, et cetera.
39:24.977 --> 39:26.559
[SPEAKER_02]: All those arguments can go on.
39:26.659 --> 39:35.730
[SPEAKER_02]: And in any case, I think we need to really return to my impression is that anything
39:36.622 --> 39:57.583
[SPEAKER_02]: any practice of cultivating wise scientists involved really cultivating wise philosophers, wise thinkers, wise people generally, and that therefore a fundamental requirement of finding more and more quietness of the mind.
39:58.795 --> 40:03.261
[SPEAKER_02]: and also a more and more impartial look at what has brought me.
40:03.802 --> 40:08.288
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, I often wonder, why should I be born an India rather than in Timbuktu?
40:09.870 --> 40:14.336
[SPEAKER_02]: When these are not my decisions, I repeatedly keep reminding people.
40:15.157 --> 40:16.499
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't create myself.
40:17.280 --> 40:21.225
[SPEAKER_02]: We even have the languages I am breathing, as if it is my breath.
40:22.353 --> 40:23.338
[SPEAKER_02]: Completely crazy.
40:23.499 --> 40:25.308
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't create this breathing apparatus.
40:25.409 --> 40:29.832
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't create even my nails how the hell am I gonna create this breathing apparatus
40:30.065 --> 40:31.167
[SPEAKER_02]: which is so complicated.
40:31.567 --> 40:34.331
[SPEAKER_02]: I am being breathed temporarily.
40:34.752 --> 40:41.362
[SPEAKER_02]: None of us is going to be more than, if you're really bad, you could live more than a hundred years old, but that's here.
40:42.283 --> 40:55.623
[SPEAKER_02]: So, it's completely temporarily, so-called Ravi is here, being created by subtle energies, whether we call it divine energies or call it Krishna or God.
40:55.803 --> 40:57.085
[SPEAKER_02]: These are just labels.
40:58.060 --> 41:27.021
[SPEAKER_02]: My impression is that what we need is first of all a clear separation between what goes on in the name of religion and some kind of undertaking of, we may not even call it spiritual practices, if you like, some other word may be required, clear mind, if you like, or you regard the word higher mind, that was the expression you had used in your view, and that that requires
41:27.828 --> 41:39.743
[SPEAKER_02]: impartial self-study and finding moments of quietness and gradually then one is called to undertake certain kind of activities.
41:39.923 --> 41:42.206
[SPEAKER_02]: Each one of us has different calls.
41:42.987 --> 41:46.592
[SPEAKER_02]: Einstein needed to do physics, Bach needed to write music there.
41:47.893 --> 41:49.856
[SPEAKER_02]: Each one of them can't do the same thing.
41:50.376 --> 41:57.345
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no need to be doing this.
41:57.528 --> 41:57.848
[SPEAKER_00]: It is.
41:57.969 --> 42:11.286
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that the person who's been set on this very properly has been Lisa Miller, who's in the School of Education at Columbia.
42:12.308 --> 42:12.588
[SPEAKER_00]: I see.
42:12.868 --> 42:26.927
[SPEAKER_00]: She wrote a best-selling book called The Spiritual Child and it's purely empirical descriptive study of spirituality as
42:27.481 --> 42:28.202
[SPEAKER_00]: by kids.
42:28.643 --> 42:31.429
[SPEAKER_00]: She did some other kinds of research as well.
42:32.311 --> 42:37.341
[SPEAKER_00]: And then she came out with another book a year ago called The Awakened Brain.
42:38.724 --> 42:49.185
[SPEAKER_00]: But I like Lisa because just following your comments, she's not interested in establishment of religion in any kind of
42:49.975 --> 43:08.792
[SPEAKER_00]: school for young kids, that doesn't interest her, but she started a national organization in the US on child spirituality, which is making some inroads in educational systems that very young ages.
43:10.534 --> 43:12.136
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad to hear that, actually.
43:12.716 --> 43:19.122
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not familiar with it, but I'm very happy to hear.
43:19.760 --> 43:21.163
[SPEAKER_00]: non-materialist.
43:21.663 --> 43:32.443
[SPEAKER_00]: She has people like Larry Dawsey and all kinds of other folks who are involved with her movement and they do have national meetings and they're trying to make progress.
43:33.084 --> 43:39.135
[SPEAKER_00]: I think she's doing an effective job, he's a brilliant woman, but she's an example of a
43:39.622 --> 43:52.079
[SPEAKER_00]: He's really the only researcher I know of, who's focused profoundly on the spiritual practice if we want to use that language of the child.
43:52.881 --> 43:55.444
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for telling me about that.
43:55.464 --> 43:58.849
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that we're in difficult times right now.
43:59.710 --> 44:08.262
[SPEAKER_00]: However, difficult times are the usual state of human beings.
44:08.680 --> 44:22.041
[SPEAKER_00]: over the course of history, and I think that we should really have confidence in the little sparks of spiritual wisdom that are coming spring up everywhere.
44:23.503 --> 44:24.745
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do believe in that.
44:25.166 --> 44:33.038
[SPEAKER_00]: My favorite quote, Eleanor Roosevelt, is that the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
44:34.800 --> 44:37.084
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we should all believe in the beauty.
44:37.418 --> 44:56.803
[SPEAKER_00]: of these dreams, and I'm convinced that very soon we're going to see an emerging social consensus that will solve a lot of the acrimony that we experience day in and day out in our culture.
44:57.584 --> 45:04.793
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think that's a wonderful note to end on, so thank you very much indeed, Nathan and
45:05.330 --> 45:10.088
[SPEAKER_01]: and I'm sure you'll want to keep in touch for your, each other's work.
45:10.349 --> 45:11.353
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much.
45:11.373 --> 45:12.075
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much.
45:12.116 --> 45:14.344
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to learn a lot from Ravi and I will.
00:00.031 --> 00:06.379
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
00:16.501 --> 00:30.926
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to this white scientist podcast, my name is David Lorimer, and it's a great pleasure to have my friends, Ravi, Revindra and Stephen Post together for a dialogue on this very topic of white scientists.
00:31.728 --> 00:37.598
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to contribute occasionally and so I'm going to hand over to Ravi to initiate the conversation.
00:53.693 --> 00:54.514
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you David.
00:55.635 --> 01:05.106
[SPEAKER_02]: I would really very much ask Stefan to first of all give a brief summary of his major perspective on the question of why scientist.
01:06.128 --> 01:22.587
[SPEAKER_00]: Well briefly, science adds so much to the credibility of these more philosophical and even theological discussions, whether it's a discussion of awe.
01:23.242 --> 01:30.575
[SPEAKER_00]: and wonder or gratitude or forgiveness or love and its manifestations.
01:31.356 --> 01:40.533
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that the engagement of scientists with these great perennial topics has been magnificent.
01:41.735 --> 01:46.363
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, in a lot of ways, John Templeton,
01:46.850 --> 02:08.858
[SPEAKER_00]: was the one who saw this, he had written his worldwide laws of life, and he certainly included the wisdom traditions, whether it was Psalms or Proverbs or whatever it might be, on all of these great character strengths, but he wanted to bring the best science
02:09.209 --> 02:19.721
[SPEAKER_00]: to it in the same sense that we bring the best science to the study of negative characteristics, depression, anxiety, and the like.
02:20.482 --> 02:38.203
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, the center of it all is positive psychology, but I also a great fan of the life sciences, I teach in a medical school, I pay a lot of attention
02:39.078 --> 02:52.139
[SPEAKER_00]: the physician patient relationship, healing outcomes, and the like, and also I have a lot of interest in continuing interest in cosmology and the nature of ultimate reality.
02:53.961 --> 03:05.760
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, this interface between science and these perennial wisdom traditions is really exciting and that's something that, of course, David has been
03:06.331 --> 03:09.756
[SPEAKER_00]: involved with for at least 30 years, I think.
03:10.737 --> 03:22.113
[SPEAKER_01]: I obviously built on Sir John's work on well-wide laws of life in initiating my own character program, you know, partly based on this idea.
03:22.654 --> 03:29.183
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think let's hand back to Ravi to see how he responds to the initial statement.
03:29.720 --> 03:36.867
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, as far as I have understood what the perennial wisdom sages are speaking about.
03:36.907 --> 03:45.195
[SPEAKER_02]: They insist that there are many levels of reality far subtler than the mind.
03:46.817 --> 03:49.499
[SPEAKER_02]: And therefore the mind needs to be quieter.
03:49.759 --> 03:54.064
[SPEAKER_02]: Now science is almost wholly occupied with what we can find with the mind.
03:55.425 --> 03:57.567
[SPEAKER_02]: So from that perspective,
03:57.918 --> 04:11.973
[SPEAKER_02]: They are not suggesting to be against science, but they are very much suggesting that if you wish to connect with something called real reality or truth or that mind needs to be quietened.
04:13.034 --> 04:17.399
[SPEAKER_02]: And in any spiritual practice, this is almost the fundamental requirement.
04:17.519 --> 04:25.748
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, especially in the yoga sutras, almost the first substantial sutra is stopping the movements of the mind.
04:27.837 --> 04:44.959
[SPEAKER_02]: So, therefore really there is a very basic question here, anything coming from the mind is to deal with conceptions, whereas the call in the spiritual teachings is on perception, not conception.
04:46.081 --> 04:47.002
[SPEAKER_02]: So, what do we do?
04:48.123 --> 04:49.826
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what I'm asking people here.
04:50.727 --> 04:54.672
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm a believer in quieting the mind.
04:56.002 --> 04:57.484
[SPEAKER_00]: for many different reasons.
04:58.886 --> 05:10.021
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what you think about these ideas, Ravi, but I've been a believer in the idea of the one mind for a long, long time.
05:11.664 --> 05:18.653
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a happy student of Sir John Eckles for a couple of years at the University of Chicago.
05:19.514 --> 05:24.321
[SPEAKER_00]: And he had basically outlined
05:24.723 --> 05:31.573
[SPEAKER_00]: the major communication venues between neurons for which he won the Nobel Prize.
05:33.055 --> 05:41.888
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was one who never believed that mind could be explained by brain, by matter, by tissue.
05:42.869 --> 05:47.857
[SPEAKER_00]: He felt that if anything, mind came before matter.
05:49.559 --> 05:52.924
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was convinced as well,
05:53.157 --> 06:01.810
[SPEAKER_00]: Each of us has within us some small drop of that larger divine consciousness.
06:03.473 --> 06:11.626
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that there was a lot of wisdom when he warned me and others against nothing buttery.
06:11.766 --> 06:14.430
[SPEAKER_00]: The reduction of mind to matter.
06:14.510 --> 06:16.954
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't think that was a good idea that you could
06:17.491 --> 06:26.765
[SPEAKER_00]: really, the mind is derived or epiphonominal, it's its own and it's its own stuff, if you will, metaphysically.
06:27.446 --> 06:28.428
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
06:28.448 --> 06:32.754
[SPEAKER_02]: But you see, one of the difficulties is really even with the language.
06:32.814 --> 06:41.828
[SPEAKER_02]: We use the word mind, whereas traditionally, for example in Sanskrit and the Bhagavad-gita, there are two
06:42.466 --> 06:47.691
[SPEAKER_02]: Buddha and Manus, Manus referring to the usual analytical mind.
06:48.432 --> 07:00.163
[SPEAKER_02]: And Buddha referring to something, if you like higher mind or circular mind, which can also be more aware of something above what we ordinarily call mind.
07:00.303 --> 07:06.349
[SPEAKER_02]: Similarly in Greek, we have traditional Greek, we'll be noose and dianoia.
07:07.150 --> 07:09.132
[SPEAKER_02]: So the trouble partly comes,
07:09.770 --> 07:15.436
[SPEAKER_02]: So if one says something critically of mind, then one, sorry, well, that doesn't make any sense.
07:16.017 --> 07:19.721
[SPEAKER_02]: If one just thinks mind is got everything, that doesn't make any sense.
07:19.741 --> 07:24.006
[SPEAKER_02]: Partly because of the difficulty of the language, what do we mean by the word mind?
07:25.027 --> 07:38.882
[SPEAKER_02]: What I am speaking about when we say to be free of the analytical mind, therefore even have some slight perception that there is something subtler than or higher than,
07:39.520 --> 07:43.024
[SPEAKER_02]: whatever I call my mind, or whatever I call me.
07:44.506 --> 07:51.433
[SPEAKER_02]: And that already brings a certain kind of more or less really a kind of humility.
07:52.715 --> 07:54.757
[SPEAKER_02]: And you look at some of the greatest scientists.
07:54.777 --> 07:58.001
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, here is a direct quote from Einstein.
07:59.182 --> 08:04.768
[SPEAKER_02]: Unless we are completely free of ourselves, we cannot connect with any reality.
08:05.693 --> 08:11.643
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, how does one become completely free of myself, you know, I am thinking about this or this or that?
08:11.663 --> 08:13.706
[SPEAKER_02]: That's coming from my ordinary mind.
08:16.510 --> 08:19.475
[SPEAKER_02]: So part of the difficulties with the language.
08:20.317 --> 08:25.164
[SPEAKER_02]: So one could certainly say there is no need to be against higher mind.
08:25.825 --> 08:30.553
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, when somebody like Krishna moved these speaks about being free of thought,
08:31.478 --> 08:33.321
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not, therefore, against mind.
08:33.621 --> 08:38.828
[SPEAKER_02]: On the other hand, there is very strong impression that there are subtler qualities in the mind.
08:40.811 --> 08:48.541
[SPEAKER_02]: When we use the word being mind full, it has a quite a different meaning than being thinking about something.
08:49.803 --> 08:50.784
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite a lot of people.
08:52.327 --> 08:53.849
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
08:53.869 --> 08:58.515
[SPEAKER_02]: So how do we try to clarify these things really?
08:58.664 --> 09:01.667
[SPEAKER_02]: because it may seem as if I am against the mind.
09:01.767 --> 09:04.170
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not what I'm trying to do.
09:04.190 --> 09:13.060
[SPEAKER_02]: But there are different levels of the mind, or in the language of Gurji, if he speaks about higher mind and lower mind, that's another way of saying it.
09:14.702 --> 09:18.386
[SPEAKER_02]: But traditionally, I gave you two Sanskrit words or two Greek words.
09:19.267 --> 09:22.090
[SPEAKER_02]: They are really referring to different levels of the mind.
09:23.351 --> 09:24.573
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, yes.
09:24.593 --> 09:28.317
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have full agreement with what you've just mentioned.
09:29.174 --> 09:53.545
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think that at some point neuro-scientists will successfully prove that it all boils down to what you might call the lower mind that consciousness can be entirely explained by brain activity in one sense or another?
09:55.060 --> 09:57.663
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that is already very much in question.
09:57.824 --> 10:00.607
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what happens in near death experiences?
10:02.069 --> 10:03.150
[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody has died.
10:03.190 --> 10:05.554
[SPEAKER_02]: The brain is not functioning at that time.
10:06.475 --> 10:12.302
[SPEAKER_02]: But consciousness still seems to be there because they come back alive after maybe two hours or sometimes longer.
10:13.404 --> 10:17.549
[SPEAKER_02]: And they can even say what the doctor was saying to the nurse during that.
10:17.829 --> 10:22.215
[SPEAKER_02]: So there is consciousness without the activity of the brain.
10:23.478 --> 10:25.060
[SPEAKER_00]: That's an interesting way of putting it.
10:25.640 --> 10:36.671
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we did a study at NYU land going with a wonderful resuscitation specialist physician named Sam Parnia.
10:38.053 --> 10:41.756
[SPEAKER_00]: It Sam was from Southampton in the UK.
10:42.657 --> 10:46.861
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was at Stony Brook for quite a number of years before he went off to NYU.
10:48.323 --> 10:52.607
[SPEAKER_00]: But we published an article.
10:53.212 --> 11:14.415
[SPEAKER_00]: and called it remembered experiences of death, so he called it red, R-E-D. And he found that about 20% of people who had had these experiences where they had been, essentially dead for at least several hours.
11:15.836 --> 11:21.042
[SPEAKER_00]: They, 20% of them came back and they did talk about
11:21.562 --> 11:45.375
[SPEAKER_00]: vision some remarkable sensibility to a higher reality, and then there were about 80 percent of them who didn't have that experience, but they still scored very high on purpose of life scales, on forgiveness scales, on love scales, and so forth.
11:45.946 --> 12:09.108
[SPEAKER_00]: so that they were all pretty much re-oriented in their life journey and a fair percentage of them, not all of them by any means, had had this proverbial experience of a higher being one of my colleagues here who's the head of family medicine.
12:10.029 --> 12:14.113
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked him, Jeff, what is pure unlimited love to you?
12:15.123 --> 12:18.208
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, closing his eyes, he's a bit of a mystic.
12:19.050 --> 12:32.713
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, it would be the first thing you see when you close your eyes for the last time, which I think was interesting, quite beautiful.
12:33.234 --> 12:36.019
[SPEAKER_00]: And that introduction to my book.
12:37.281 --> 12:40.607
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's not talking about a definition of love in the sense of,
12:41.752 --> 12:47.638
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the well-being and security of another is as real to you as your own and maybe more so.
12:48.679 --> 13:07.118
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's really going beyond that to this higher consciousness that is, in fact, Sam Parnya would suggest discernible among the population who have come back from these experiences of remembered death, if you will.
13:07.975 --> 13:27.904
[SPEAKER_02]: My impression is that the practically the whole mission of Galileo Commission is exactly to say that it's not that reality begins from dead matter, but that it begins from consciousness that consciousness can exist without matter.
13:28.985 --> 13:34.253
[SPEAKER_02]: And it fact gradually it almost created matter rather than
13:34.570 --> 13:44.304
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, since the 16th century, the basic idea in science has been that everything began from completely unconscious matter.
13:46.106 --> 13:50.993
[SPEAKER_02]: So mass length on time, that's what we need to have, mass length on time.
13:51.013 --> 14:02.569
[SPEAKER_02]: And then in the 19th century, we added charge to it in the 20th century, we added
14:03.595 --> 14:10.483
[SPEAKER_02]: consciousness emerges from that, but as Galileo Commission has just the opposite undertaking.
14:12.745 --> 14:32.708
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I agree with that opposite undertaking, and I have for a long, long time based on readings and study, but also on experience.
14:33.076 --> 15:00.889
[SPEAKER_00]: whose notebooks are in the library at Trinity College in Cambridge University, and he apparently was not a versatile mathematician, but he would be praying at the foot of his Hindu goddess and
15:01.898 --> 15:10.566
[SPEAKER_00]: next to his knee and come back a little later and write them in his notebooks.
15:12.388 --> 15:30.285
[SPEAKER_00]: What's interesting is that one of our great mathematicians here at Stony Brook, Jim Simons, who did many great things in math, we talked about Ramonujan once upon a time, and he took him very seriously because
15:30.772 --> 15:58.973
[SPEAKER_00]: As you mentioned earlier, Ravi kind of in the modality of Einstein, Simon, who was a secularist, essentially, still had room in his vision for a consciousness that knew all the mathematics in the universe from the beginning of time, and that could work through individuals so attuned.
15:59.307 --> 16:01.870
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do you think of the Ramanujans of the world?
16:05.155 --> 16:15.188
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that is actually a very good question because many people, including me, I have been rather interested in how did Ramanujac receive this.
16:15.228 --> 16:20.996
[SPEAKER_02]: He would simply say, the Goddess or the Devi in Sanskrit, we say, the Devi, set this to me.
16:21.997 --> 16:28.065
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he is able to provide solution of problems which have been bothering mathematicians for decades.
16:28.231 --> 16:38.563
[SPEAKER_02]: and somehow he gets them and it was rather nice that the person I forgot on the name of the mathematician at Cambridge who invited him.
16:38.723 --> 16:39.664
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, hardy, hardy.
16:40.025 --> 16:40.766
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
16:41.226 --> 16:41.607
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
16:41.627 --> 16:49.716
[SPEAKER_02]: And otherwise he would have been completely just forgotten whatever he was saying if he was not invited to be there in Cambridge.
16:50.675 --> 16:53.860
[SPEAKER_02]: be able to publish his whatever he came up with.
16:54.542 --> 17:10.489
[SPEAKER_02]: But it clearly is at least a very good indication that if a person is willing to first of all acknowledge that there is something higher than or subtler than what my mind can grasp.
17:11.330 --> 17:13.493
[SPEAKER_02]: then sometimes one receives it.
17:13.633 --> 17:21.704
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, even somebody like a great scientist said, I am a priest of God in the temple of nature.
17:22.565 --> 17:39.767
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, similarly feeling from Newton, even though his publication actually ended up leading to more and more mechanical orientation of science, he wrote more words in theology than in mathematics.
17:40.658 --> 17:46.248
[SPEAKER_02]: And people often, many of these things were not discovered until nearly 1942 or 41.
17:47.150 --> 17:48.272
[SPEAKER_02]: I think during the war.
17:49.334 --> 18:04.742
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were hidden for 300 years, so I think there has been a strong tendency to not acknowledge the basic reality of what the spiritual teachers have been saying.
18:06.680 --> 18:27.505
[SPEAKER_02]: as if we have been fascinated by what the scientists have done and really in a way, science, particularly from physics side, has been occupied producing more and more power, bigger and bigger bombs, for example, and therefore more and more connections with the money.
18:28.206 --> 18:34.273
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I actually don't know this for certain, but my impression is that most people who too,
18:34.473 --> 18:39.460
[SPEAKER_02]: get degrees in physics, especially MSA or MA or PHD level.
18:40.161 --> 18:44.688
[SPEAKER_02]: They end up working either for the military or for the industry.
18:44.708 --> 18:50.176
[SPEAKER_02]: It will be helpful to find out whether this is what are the actual percentages of people work.
18:51.038 --> 18:52.780
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's my general impression.
18:53.862 --> 19:00.852
[SPEAKER_02]: So in a way, physics and every other branch of science wants to ultimately relate with physics.
19:01.186 --> 19:08.112
[SPEAKER_02]: even biology through biophysics and geology through geophysics, chemistry through physical chemistry.
19:08.693 --> 19:17.321
[SPEAKER_02]: So ultimately, they all want to acknowledge physics is the basic science, and then what are we doing with physics?
19:18.222 --> 19:28.611
[SPEAKER_02]: Unless there is of course there have been very wise physicists like I just mentioned Einstein and Newton is a good example, Schrodinger is another very good example.
19:30.245 --> 19:35.572
[SPEAKER_02]: but they are not completely committed even to their scientific work.
19:36.754 --> 19:57.501
[SPEAKER_02]: So how do we encourage a feeling among not only scientists really, people, in fact, personally, I feel that what is more required is the philosophers who are the ones who need to be educated that there is something subtler than what is thought by them.
19:58.375 --> 19:59.517
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we go about it?
19:59.637 --> 20:00.438
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the problem.
20:02.381 --> 20:03.684
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, indeed.
20:03.704 --> 20:20.130
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, you know, one could speak of so many figures in mathematics and physics, including Maxwell, I suppose, people who claim that they received visions and dreams and so forth of
20:21.258 --> 20:22.680
[SPEAKER_00]: new levels of reality.
20:24.141 --> 20:32.692
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that in popular culture, I'm a big fan, my favorite poet is W.H.
20:32.892 --> 20:33.192
[SPEAKER_00]: Audden.
20:34.674 --> 20:47.670
[SPEAKER_00]: He spent a lot of time at a little school north of Oxford, and he explains this
20:48.022 --> 20:53.708
[SPEAKER_00]: single paragraph, which I think is worth reading just in quick pace.
20:54.469 --> 20:58.333
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he says one fine night in June of 1933.
20:58.513 --> 21:04.319
[SPEAKER_00]: I was sitting on a lawn after dinner with three colleagues, two women in one man.
21:05.440 --> 21:09.084
[SPEAKER_00]: We liked each other well enough, but we're certainly not intimate friends.
21:09.765 --> 21:12.348
[SPEAKER_00]: Nor had any one of us as sexual interest in another.
21:13.309 --> 21:15.531
[SPEAKER_00]: Incidentally, we had not drunk any alcohol,
21:16.338 --> 21:23.527
[SPEAKER_00]: We were talking casually about everyday matters when quite suddenly, and unexpectedly, something happened.
21:25.189 --> 21:36.464
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt myself invaded, I liked that metaphor of invasion, by a power which, though I consented to it, was irresistible and certainly not mine.
21:38.626 --> 21:44.674
[SPEAKER_00]: For the first time in my life, I knew exactly because thanks to the power I was doing it,
21:44.975 --> 21:48.379
[SPEAKER_00]: what it means to love one's neighbor as one's self.
21:50.481 --> 21:51.222
[SPEAKER_00]: And it goes on.
21:52.763 --> 21:59.410
[SPEAKER_00]: I was able later to confirm with my colleagues about this experience because one of them also had it.
22:00.111 --> 22:02.974
[SPEAKER_00]: My personal feelings toward them are unchanged, he writes.
22:03.575 --> 22:13.986
[SPEAKER_00]: They were still colleagues, not intimate friends, but I felt they're existence as themselves to be an infinite value.
22:15.265 --> 22:24.493
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it's this sense that people have, whether they're scientists or poets, of being somewhat invaded.
22:25.214 --> 22:42.910
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm guessing that when Einstein went into those deeply meditational, fedanka moments that he felt that he was in connection with something of that higher mind that robbing mentions.
22:44.105 --> 22:49.353
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's something, sorry to interrupt, Ravi, but I read this passage two nights ago.
22:49.373 --> 22:53.500
[SPEAKER_02]: No, he's in there, I'm just kidding.
22:53.580 --> 23:05.218
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, over to you, but you know, I often remind my friends and myself also that our closest neighbor is actually God.
23:07.409 --> 23:15.760
[SPEAKER_02]: And if we can really pay attention to that neighbor and take care of it, then something changes in us.
23:16.361 --> 23:24.771
[SPEAKER_02]: It's several times Christ makes these remarks about loving your neighbor as yourself.
23:24.791 --> 23:34.564
[SPEAKER_02]: And or even in what Christians call the Old Testament, in the Torah repeatedly, this is emphasized by even
23:35.860 --> 23:46.456
[SPEAKER_02]: other rabbis, that loving one's neighbor or not hurting them in any way, etc., is the most significant requirement from a spiritual practice point of view.
23:47.397 --> 24:04.382
[SPEAKER_02]: But then I keep reminding people that if I can realize that God is my closest neighbor to make any connection with that, obviously change is something very deeply in me, which
24:04.953 --> 24:14.224
[SPEAKER_02]: He was surprised to get this, because any connection with something circular or higher than ours is always a matter of surprise.
24:15.125 --> 24:23.716
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, one of the great Upanishad actually says, unless it is surprising, surprising, surprising, surprising, it cannot be wholly.
24:27.781 --> 24:31.045
[SPEAKER_02]: Even some of the scientists have actually said,
24:32.543 --> 24:35.266
[SPEAKER_02]: that they were surprised by what came to them.
24:36.387 --> 24:42.174
[SPEAKER_02]: Unless it surprised them, it was just usual, common.
24:42.194 --> 25:00.694
[SPEAKER_00]: So then when Ramanujan got to Cambridge, Hardy, who was very sympathetic because he saw this luminosity in his formulas, he insisted that Ramanujan proved
25:01.298 --> 25:12.619
[SPEAKER_00]: these mathematical equations by standard methods, and Robin Nusion was not very happy to be doing that because he sensed.
25:13.220 --> 25:17.267
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew that these equations were true and valid.
25:18.189 --> 25:22.497
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't come so much from him, but they came from this higher mind.
25:23.185 --> 25:51.488
[SPEAKER_00]: We did write a couple of papers, I think, just two, in mainstream mathematics journals, where he did, in fact, quote-unquote, prove these items, but it made him unhappy, and it
25:52.075 --> 26:04.968
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he went back to India, I think he died when he was about 30, but he never really bought into the idea that the material in his notebooks had to be proven.
26:05.148 --> 26:19.062
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet many great physicists, certainly quantum physics, relies on a number of his mathematical insights.
26:19.717 --> 26:27.305
[SPEAKER_02]: But in any case, I think we need to really return to a practical question, which periodically we raise with almost everybody.
26:28.306 --> 26:29.707
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we encourage?
26:32.210 --> 26:40.238
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the education really needs to begin with young kids, it's not only after they become scientists.
26:40.298 --> 26:47.125
[SPEAKER_02]: By that time, their mind is already settled in certain direction.
26:48.202 --> 26:53.790
[SPEAKER_02]: the people who undertake teaching young kids to begin with.
26:55.332 --> 27:03.625
[SPEAKER_02]: What is required to invite them to be slightly more interested, not simply just solving the problems this way that way.
27:04.446 --> 27:14.901
[SPEAKER_02]: But also enhancing a quality of their being, a quality of their love, compassion, feeling for others, how do we proceed to do this?
27:16.957 --> 27:18.258
[SPEAKER_02]: And how young is young?
27:19.299 --> 27:23.484
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's a pretty good question.
27:23.504 --> 27:27.868
[SPEAKER_00]: So my institute, I have an institute called the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love.
27:29.009 --> 27:41.362
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the first things we did was to fund mindfulness studies among first and second graders in inner city Baltimore schools.
27:42.303 --> 27:45.546
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
27:45.880 --> 27:53.428
[SPEAKER_00]: There was some very instrumental and talented teachers there who were interested in this by a kind of elective affinity.
27:54.950 --> 28:03.840
[SPEAKER_00]: And these kids really felt great happiness in their mindfulness meditation, if you will.
28:04.280 --> 28:12.850
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, the public school when you can't bring religion into it
28:13.505 --> 28:16.209
[SPEAKER_00]: secularism and public life.
28:17.090 --> 28:21.417
[SPEAKER_00]: But certainly these kids did very well with it.
28:22.138 --> 28:31.352
[SPEAKER_00]: Their grades started to go up because they found that they had something beyond themselves for which to study and learn.
28:32.153 --> 28:41.807
[SPEAKER_00]: They also became less prone to
28:42.125 --> 29:09.938
[SPEAKER_00]: going home and telling their families in intercity Baltimore in some of the more difficult neighborhoods about what they were doing in school and it caught on with some of the families and the families became appreciative and they had an office so instead of sending kids to the principal's office when they were a little bit off kilter they went to the mindfulness office
29:10.238 --> 29:12.520
[SPEAKER_00]: and they were debriefing on these things.
29:13.141 --> 29:17.484
[SPEAKER_00]: And it did change the culture of the public schools quite a bit.
29:18.325 --> 29:19.947
[SPEAKER_00]: So now there's a non-profit.
29:20.547 --> 29:22.629
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe it's based in Baltimore.
29:23.410 --> 29:36.081
[SPEAKER_00]: And they support this kind of activity in about 300 grade schools in the Mid-Atlantic region, Washington, DC, Virginia, Maryland, and so forth.
29:36.981 --> 29:38.743
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think
29:39.128 --> 29:49.462
[SPEAKER_00]: This is something only for the older individuals in these schools, but the earlier the better.
29:50.623 --> 29:59.415
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, but you know part of the travel I think is that religions get equated with spirituality.
30:00.830 --> 30:11.382
[SPEAKER_02]: And personally, in my understanding, trying to be really as impartial as I can be, more organized, a religion, more harmed, does to spiritual practice.
30:12.504 --> 30:13.285
[SPEAKER_00]: So nice table.
30:14.246 --> 30:24.778
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think more and more emphasis really required and there are many common features of actual spiritual practice.
30:25.737 --> 30:39.479
[SPEAKER_02]: Fundamental requirement, as far as I can see, whether it comes from the teachings of Christ or Buddha or Krishna or any great sage, is how can I be free of more and more free of my fears and desires?
30:40.581 --> 30:42.664
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the fundamental requirement.
30:45.328 --> 30:51.458
[SPEAKER_02]: And then one can connect with something such, more than rather than being completely self occupied.
30:51.877 --> 30:57.884
[SPEAKER_02]: So it has nothing to do with Christianity, or Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Al-Mambo-Jambor.
30:57.904 --> 31:04.372
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything gets more organized and then exclusively only one teacher matters, nothing else.
31:05.073 --> 31:08.577
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you begin to believe in it rather than to practice anything.
31:09.118 --> 31:10.900
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the great tragedy of religion.
31:12.082 --> 31:15.346
[SPEAKER_00]: So Robby, can I get your opinion on an important matter?
31:17.388 --> 31:20.652
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a practicing Episcopalian.
31:22.015 --> 31:24.658
[SPEAKER_00]: which is an American angle, can I suppose?
31:25.338 --> 31:26.339
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
31:27.000 --> 31:35.088
[SPEAKER_00]: But I take doctrine very lightly because I'm much more interested in practice.
31:36.049 --> 31:36.129
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
31:36.149 --> 31:49.963
[SPEAKER_00]: Once went to India to Southern India to the Basilica of St. Thomas, who evidently, when Jesus
31:51.040 --> 31:59.693
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the disciples were part of that sort of diaspora after Jesus died, Thomas went to Southern India.
32:01.035 --> 32:15.597
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I look at the writings of Thomas, he really sounds like someone who was steeped in the uponshads.
32:16.032 --> 32:27.225
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, and there is this very interesting literature, which they take seriously there about the lost years of Christ, yes.
32:28.346 --> 32:31.730
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course that's heretical to speak about that.
32:31.790 --> 32:44.605
[SPEAKER_00]: But is it the case that Jesus was simply in his dad's carpenter shop?
32:45.243 --> 33:03.521
[SPEAKER_00]: Or isn't it more likely that he was a bit exotic and a seeker and he learned everything he could from traditions around the world, including especially India because he was on the, as they say, the golden road?
33:04.722 --> 33:05.984
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
33:06.004 --> 33:14.372
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, in general, as you know, from the Bible, nothing is said about him between the ages
33:15.466 --> 33:28.733
[SPEAKER_02]: which is, of course, the time when one will be searching for something, I'm an exactly that, and certainly the gospel of Thomas, a very striking, actually different, for example, let me quickly mention one item.
33:29.962 --> 33:40.278
[SPEAKER_02]: Every teacher repeatedly says that what is required is a deeper and deeper self-study or self-investigation or self-knowledge.
33:40.658 --> 33:48.290
[SPEAKER_02]: Different words get used, but basically I need to see what I wish deep down, what stands in my way, etc.
33:48.791 --> 33:50.333
[SPEAKER_02]: So self-observation.
33:51.663 --> 33:55.749
[SPEAKER_02]: But you can look at the whole canonical Bible.
33:56.590 --> 33:59.214
[SPEAKER_02]: There is not a single entry under this.
33:59.835 --> 34:00.336
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
34:01.477 --> 34:03.120
[SPEAKER_02]: But you look at the Gospel of Thomas.
34:03.881 --> 34:06.905
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, now I can moralize court it from Emory here.
34:08.087 --> 34:13.334
[SPEAKER_02]: God, kingdom of God is within you, as well as without you, meaning outside.
34:13.374 --> 34:16.619
[SPEAKER_02]: If you would know God, you must know yourself.
34:17.400 --> 34:21.366
[SPEAKER_02]: Then you would realize that you are the son
34:22.291 --> 34:25.395
[SPEAKER_02]: If you do not know yourself, you are in poverty.
34:25.556 --> 34:27.038
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, you are poverty.
34:27.158 --> 34:28.319
[SPEAKER_02]: Very strong statement.
34:28.640 --> 34:29.020
[SPEAKER_00]: Very.
34:30.142 --> 34:31.404
[SPEAKER_02]: This is in gospel, Thomas.
34:31.704 --> 34:32.505
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
34:32.685 --> 34:36.731
[SPEAKER_02]: What I'm pointing out is that then it becomes non-canonical.
34:37.973 --> 34:39.435
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's not the miracle.
34:41.558 --> 34:42.299
[SPEAKER_02]: It's tragic.
34:42.399 --> 34:44.582
[SPEAKER_02]: It's be the non-canonical gospels.
34:45.844 --> 34:50.290
[SPEAKER_02]: As far as I recall, they were discovered only in 1949 or something.
34:50.573 --> 34:52.215
[SPEAKER_00]: right, fairly recently.
34:52.936 --> 34:54.438
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think you make a great point.
34:54.519 --> 35:06.535
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the many doctrines that were really kind of politically negotiated in the past century and so forth.
35:07.397 --> 35:11.322
[SPEAKER_00]: And people were arguing about homocius and homocius and so forth.
35:12.544 --> 35:14.306
[SPEAKER_00]: That distracts people.
35:15.007 --> 35:17.070
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it, it, it, um,
35:17.438 --> 35:29.591
[SPEAKER_00]: It prevents them from thinking more deeply about the spiritual practice of, for example, Jesus.
35:29.631 --> 35:34.896
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to read college, which is a small liberal arts school in Portland, Oregon.
35:36.478 --> 35:43.665
[SPEAKER_00]: And I overlapped a little bit with Steve Jobs because he was there for just a year at one point.
35:44.540 --> 35:52.532
[SPEAKER_00]: And he loved the autobiography of a yogi, and we often read it on the floor of acrimand dormitory.
35:54.135 --> 36:12.724
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the meanwhile, he was taking courses on Alkambi 101, sort of a history of medieval science and quantum physics, and he was also doing a lot of the amazing, beautiful calligraphy, which everybody happened to be doing at that time.
36:13.008 --> 36:26.626
[SPEAKER_00]: But he would disappear, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, no one would see him, and he would go up to the apple orchards, north of Portland, and he would pick apples, and he would meditate.
36:28.268 --> 36:34.476
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he came back, he had money in his pocket, but he would also have a big bag of apples, which he would give to people.
36:35.738 --> 36:39.403
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was a very contemplative person.
36:39.923 --> 36:41.125
[SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't religious.
36:41.729 --> 36:46.454
[SPEAKER_00]: But he was certainly a spiritual in a lot of different ways.
36:47.295 --> 36:55.443
[SPEAKER_00]: And he dropped out of reading then he went off to India and spent a year or so in an ashraw of some kind.
36:56.464 --> 37:03.991
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that you're right, I think that so much of religion becomes doctrine air very quickly.
37:04.011 --> 37:11.078
[SPEAKER_00]: And loses the spiritual perception of its founders.
37:12.037 --> 37:14.062
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's a bit of a tragedy.
37:14.102 --> 37:18.933
[SPEAKER_02]: Really, in fact, more organized the region, more harm, it does advice as well.
37:19.855 --> 37:21.499
[SPEAKER_02]: This is true for all the religions.
37:21.599 --> 37:24.165
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't, this is not a comment only about Christianity.
37:24.265 --> 37:26.931
[SPEAKER_02]: I just made the mark about Christian.
37:27.713 --> 37:29.016
[SPEAKER_02]: You're gospel as well.
37:29.620 --> 37:48.270
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, in a way, again and again, what I would very much suggest, really, perhaps linguistically we need to encourage in society, that what is taught at a very early level to kids, is not religion, but spiritual practice.
37:48.925 --> 37:54.393
[SPEAKER_02]: which requires slightly quieting the mind and impartially looking at what is troubling them.
37:54.573 --> 37:58.218
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, very strong, this is a remark of Krishna Multi.
37:58.238 --> 38:01.422
[SPEAKER_02]: There can be no wisdom without self-knowledge.
38:01.883 --> 38:04.667
[SPEAKER_02]: This is, in a way, it seems to me to be obvious.
38:04.787 --> 38:11.957
[SPEAKER_02]: Unless I see what is standing in my way or what is occupying me, what is bothering me, what is calling me.
38:12.558 --> 38:14.781
[SPEAKER_02]: So it would seem really rather obvious.
38:14.761 --> 38:32.307
[SPEAKER_02]: But if there is no suggestion for that, as I just mentioned in the whole of the Bible, much to my surprise, actually, because if you look at the Bhagavad-gita or the Avazutra, repeat the remark on self-study, self-knowledge, again and again.
38:33.509 --> 38:39.418
[SPEAKER_02]: But in any case, what I'm suggesting is that we need to use a slightly different language here,
38:39.837 --> 38:45.283
[SPEAKER_02]: for the kids to be occupied with this rather than calling it that they have to be introduced to religion.
38:46.024 --> 38:56.435
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, tragically, since for a little while, I was also a professor of religion, I have rarely met a professor of religion who was actually religious.
38:57.536 --> 39:00.399
[SPEAKER_02]: Aha, yes, it is tragic.
39:00.419 --> 39:09.068
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, most of the theologians, the practicing theologians, are not particularly spiritual.
39:09.638 --> 39:12.421
[SPEAKER_00]: They've actually conceptually interesting.
39:13.803 --> 39:24.857
[SPEAKER_02]: And they can find good arguments for or against something, whether Peter hit the person who was trying to arrest Christ with his right hand or with left hand, et cetera.
39:24.977 --> 39:26.559
[SPEAKER_02]: All those arguments can go on.
39:26.659 --> 39:35.730
[SPEAKER_02]: And in any case, I think we need to really return to my impression is that anything
39:36.622 --> 39:57.583
[SPEAKER_02]: any practice of cultivating wise scientists involved really cultivating wise philosophers, wise thinkers, wise people generally, and that therefore a fundamental requirement of finding more and more quietness of the mind.
39:58.795 --> 40:03.261
[SPEAKER_02]: and also a more and more impartial look at what has brought me.
40:03.802 --> 40:08.288
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, I often wonder, why should I be born an India rather than in Timbuktu?
40:09.870 --> 40:14.336
[SPEAKER_02]: When these are not my decisions, I repeatedly keep reminding people.
40:15.157 --> 40:16.499
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't create myself.
40:17.280 --> 40:21.225
[SPEAKER_02]: We even have the languages I am breathing, as if it is my breath.
40:22.353 --> 40:23.338
[SPEAKER_02]: Completely crazy.
40:23.499 --> 40:25.308
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't create this breathing apparatus.
40:25.409 --> 40:29.832
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't create even my nails how the hell am I gonna create this breathing apparatus
40:30.065 --> 40:31.167
[SPEAKER_02]: which is so complicated.
40:31.567 --> 40:34.331
[SPEAKER_02]: I am being breathed temporarily.
40:34.752 --> 40:41.362
[SPEAKER_02]: None of us is going to be more than, if you're really bad, you could live more than a hundred years old, but that's here.
40:42.283 --> 40:55.623
[SPEAKER_02]: So, it's completely temporarily, so-called Ravi is here, being created by subtle energies, whether we call it divine energies or call it Krishna or God.
40:55.803 --> 40:57.085
[SPEAKER_02]: These are just labels.
40:58.060 --> 41:27.021
[SPEAKER_02]: My impression is that what we need is first of all a clear separation between what goes on in the name of religion and some kind of undertaking of, we may not even call it spiritual practices, if you like, some other word may be required, clear mind, if you like, or you regard the word higher mind, that was the expression you had used in your view, and that that requires
41:27.828 --> 41:39.743
[SPEAKER_02]: impartial self-study and finding moments of quietness and gradually then one is called to undertake certain kind of activities.
41:39.923 --> 41:42.206
[SPEAKER_02]: Each one of us has different calls.
41:42.987 --> 41:46.592
[SPEAKER_02]: Einstein needed to do physics, Bach needed to write music there.
41:47.893 --> 41:49.856
[SPEAKER_02]: Each one of them can't do the same thing.
41:50.376 --> 41:57.345
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no need to be doing this.
41:57.528 --> 41:57.848
[SPEAKER_00]: It is.
41:57.969 --> 42:11.286
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that the person who's been set on this very properly has been Lisa Miller, who's in the School of Education at Columbia.
42:12.308 --> 42:12.588
[SPEAKER_00]: I see.
42:12.868 --> 42:26.927
[SPEAKER_00]: She wrote a best-selling book called The Spiritual Child and it's purely empirical descriptive study of spirituality as
42:27.481 --> 42:28.202
[SPEAKER_00]: by kids.
42:28.643 --> 42:31.429
[SPEAKER_00]: She did some other kinds of research as well.
42:32.311 --> 42:37.341
[SPEAKER_00]: And then she came out with another book a year ago called The Awakened Brain.
42:38.724 --> 42:49.185
[SPEAKER_00]: But I like Lisa because just following your comments, she's not interested in establishment of religion in any kind of
42:49.975 --> 43:08.792
[SPEAKER_00]: school for young kids, that doesn't interest her, but she started a national organization in the US on child spirituality, which is making some inroads in educational systems that very young ages.
43:10.534 --> 43:12.136
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad to hear that, actually.
43:12.716 --> 43:19.122
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not familiar with it, but I'm very happy to hear.
43:19.760 --> 43:21.163
[SPEAKER_00]: non-materialist.
43:21.663 --> 43:32.443
[SPEAKER_00]: She has people like Larry Dawsey and all kinds of other folks who are involved with her movement and they do have national meetings and they're trying to make progress.
43:33.084 --> 43:39.135
[SPEAKER_00]: I think she's doing an effective job, he's a brilliant woman, but she's an example of a
43:39.622 --> 43:52.079
[SPEAKER_00]: He's really the only researcher I know of, who's focused profoundly on the spiritual practice if we want to use that language of the child.
43:52.881 --> 43:55.444
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for telling me about that.
43:55.464 --> 43:58.849
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that we're in difficult times right now.
43:59.710 --> 44:08.262
[SPEAKER_00]: However, difficult times are the usual state of human beings.
44:08.680 --> 44:22.041
[SPEAKER_00]: over the course of history, and I think that we should really have confidence in the little sparks of spiritual wisdom that are coming spring up everywhere.
44:23.503 --> 44:24.745
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do believe in that.
44:25.166 --> 44:33.038
[SPEAKER_00]: My favorite quote, Eleanor Roosevelt, is that the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
44:34.800 --> 44:37.084
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we should all believe in the beauty.
44:37.418 --> 44:56.803
[SPEAKER_00]: of these dreams, and I'm convinced that very soon we're going to see an emerging social consensus that will solve a lot of the acrimony that we experience day in and day out in our culture.
44:57.584 --> 45:04.793
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think that's a wonderful note to end on, so thank you very much indeed, Nathan and
45:05.330 --> 45:10.088
[SPEAKER_01]: and I'm sure you'll want to keep in touch for your, each other's work.
45:10.349 --> 45:11.353
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much.
45:11.373 --> 45:12.075
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much.
45:12.116 --> 45:14.344
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to learn a lot from Ravi and I will.
