EXCERPTS FROM
BEYOND BIOCENTRISM
by Robert Lanza, M.D. and Bob Berman
https://www.wholehuman.emanatepresence.com/blog/bio004
https://www.wholehuman.emanatepresence.com/blog/bio005
https://www.wholehuman.emanatepresence.com/blog/bio006
Chapter 12: Where is the Universe Located?
'.... We have known for a century that light is composed of waves of magnetism along with electrical undulations traveling at right angles to it. Neither magnetism nor electricity have inherent color or brightness, and thus even if there were an independent universe beyond consciousness, it would have to be utterly invisible. This bears repeating: At best, any separate external universe must be blank or black.
'Yet look around. We're imbedded in a world of profound color and beauty. People assumed, until the advent of quantum mechanics a century ago, that our eyes' lenses were like clear glass windows that let us accurately perceive what is 'out there' — and this remains the general public view even today. However, since we know beyond any doubt that 'what's out there' can be no more than invisible magnetic and electrical fields, it's obvious that we ourselves — our neural circuitry — create the colors and patterns.' - pages 117-118
'...What's central here is that the entire house-of-cards separation between me and other, and body interior and exterior, and nature versus ourselves, are relative concepts involving yet more neural connections that impart assumptions about reality. We need to get past them all. We need to see what's baseline, bottom-line real, in our quest for grasping the nature of the cosmos.' - pages 121, 124
'.... Apprehending the cosmos as a single deathless entity synonymous with consciousness may require multiple logical steps, or it can be realized in a single 'Eureka!' moment.' - page 125
"Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends with it." — Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (1954)
'Meanwhile, let's be clear: That the cosmos is suffused with energy... means that this essence of Being — this Nature of All Things, this true Self behind awareness and life itself, this seeming void that appears to be the [natural] matrix, the easel, the backdrop for all our human misadventures — is an unimaginably powerful entity.' [G - natural matrix not to be confused with the artificial matrix of human society] - page 85
'Whatever you think, however your logic works, Eastern sages have always insisted that there exists a direct experience of reality that is nonverbal...' - page 109
'...a first-hand experience by [co-author] Berman in 2008:
'We trust our instincts. We need no textbook to teach us to love, or to recognize danger, or to be swept into joy by a beautiful garden. Yet when it comes to grasping the nature of existence, we fumble and stumble through insensate theories, our eyes glazed over as we hear about string theory's extra dimensions.
'Life customarily offers disparate sources for knowledge. But what about the big-ticket issues of cosmology and existence? What's the correct tool here? Logic? Math? Science? Religious texts? Instinct?
'I found out soon after I turned twenty, and will share it now for the first time.
'I was in my junior year of college, cramming for a test. I had breezed through my astronomy courses but, philosophically, the universe was still essentially a vast, mysterious entity.
'I had tried meditating during the past month, but couldn't really say I'd experienced anything revelatory.
'Now I was studying for a physiology test when something in the textbook suddenly gave me a split second insight that the distinction between 'external' and 'internal' is unreal. Then that intellectual insight abruptly changed into something else.' - page 110
'An enormous weight I'd never realized I had borne was suddenly lifted. An experience began that no words could convey. It was ineffable and life altering.
'The best that I can say is that 'I' was suddenly gone, replaced by the certainty of being the entire cosmos. There was absolute peace.
'I knew with total confidence, not logically — because, as I said, Bob was no longer present — that birth and death do not exist. That all is present eternally, that time is unreal, and that all is one. The joy was beyond anything I could have imagined. The to-the-marrow certainty could perhaps be better described as a *recognition*, an ancient familiarity of being Home.
'When the intense initial experience faded, the room returned, and my textbooks lay before me. Except, all was now profoundly altered.
'Let's call this "the second level of the experience." There still was no sense of a separate "me," an observer looking out into the world. Rather, everything was a oneness, and I was whatever my eyes gazed upon.
'It was as if my consciousness had previously been confined, like a canary in a little cage, and that a false sense of being a separate, isolated, thinking individual had now vanished.
'Objects were no longer separate items existing in space; instead, everything was the same continuum.
*
GARY
Thoughts are things. My experience of life is a direct outcome of my thoughts, which are within my control. Fear-based thoughts lead me to darkness, and love-based thoughts lead me to light. My greatest allies are tools which effectively help me to still my mind, open my heart, and free my spirit so it can express more fully the source of life and love.
BEYOND BIOCENTRISM
by Robert Lanza, M.D.
Chapter Six: The End of Time
Page 44
'According to Biocentrism, time is the inner sense that animates the still frames of the spatial world.... everything we experience right now, even our bodies, is a whirl of information occurring in our minds. Space and time are merely the mind's tools for effortlessly putting everything together.
'So what's real? If the next image is different from the last, then it's different, period.... Thus, motion is not what's happening, at least not if we insist it's a time-based phenomenon.
'Okay, it may be confusing to deny motion without elaboration. What we're really saying is that motion isn't a feature of the outer, spatial world, but rather a conception of thought.... Because space and time are forms of animal intuition, they're tools of the mind and thus don't exist as external objects independent of life. When we feel poignantly that's time has elapsed, as when loved ones die, it constitutes the human perceptions of the passage and existence of time. Our babies turn into adults. We age. That, to us, is time. It belongs with us.
'New experiments since 2000... confirm this. These suggest that the 'past' — the history of the cosmos, of Earth, or anything else — is not some fixed statue, but unfolds in the present moment *and only upon observation.*'
At the end of chapter 8, and after detailing scientific experiments, on page 73:
'... physicists stated, 'There is no way to remove the observer — us — from our perception of the world... In classical physics, the past is assumed to exist as a definite series of events, but according to quantum physics the past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.'
Page 74:
'What it really means is that there is an underlying reality that connects all the universe's contents. In this place, no separations exist between anything and anything else. Yet this realm creates events that materialize in space-time, in the observable physical cosmos.
'... Experiment after experiment continues to suggest that we — consciousness, the mind — create space and time, not the other way around. Without consciousness, space and time are nothing [G: a state of probability/potentiality, the Void?] This consciousness is co-relative with objects in that space-time realm. The conclusion seems inescapable. Suffusing the cosmos is the realm of mind, whose observations cause objects to materialize, to assume one property or another, or to jump from one position to another without passing through any intervening space.
'These results have been described as beyond logical comprehension. But these are real experiments that have been carried out so many times that no physicist questions them. Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman once remarked, "I think it's safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics...."
'But Biocentrism makes sense of it all for the first time, because the mind is not secondary to a material universe. Rather, it is one with it. We are more than our individual bodies, eternal even when we die. This is the indispensable prelude to immortality.'
Seven principles form the core of biocentrism.
The first principle of biocentrism is based on the premise that what we observe is dependent on the observer, and says that what we perceive as reality is “a process that involves our consciousness.”
The second and third principles state that “our external and internal perceptions are intertwined” and that the behavior of particles “is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer,” respectively.
The fourth principle suggests that consciousness must exist and that without it “matter dwells in an undetermined state of probability.”
The fifth principle points to the structure of the universe itself, and that the laws, forces, and constants of the universe appear to be fine-tuned for life.
Finally, the sixth and seventh principles state that space and time are not objects or things, but rather tools of our animal understanding. Lanza says that we carry space and time around with us “like turtles with shells.
:::
The authors of the Biocentrism books listed points as a summary of their scientific theory.
(Seven principles form the core of biocentrism.)
I have come to another set from a more mystical perspective.
Please note, these twelve points are in my words, not the book authors'.
I do not know if the authors would be in full agreement.
1. The force which binds together Observer and Observed is unconditional love.
2. The universal Observer is the presence of Nature, the energies of consciousness and creative intelligence.
3. The universal Observed is a state of probabilities, unmeasurable until it is observed.
4. Neither Observer nor Observed can exist without the other, they are inseparable.
5. Together, Observer and Observed are the One Being, the cosmos of consciousness.
6. The One Being is the only actuality, and all human perception is a brain-based projection of the universal model, such as humans acting as observer and observed.
7. The One Being is the True Self of all that is, the presence of pure potentiality.
8. The brain-based projection has constructed a false reality and self identity of separation.
9. Western science is founded on observing and measuring the false reality.
10. Consciousness is outside the laws of the false reality, and cannot be apprehended by mental processes of the intellect, logic or reasoning.
11. Consciousness must be intuitively felt and/or experienced, to be perceived.
12. Practical application of Biocentrics could include experiments of relating in daily life to each other and our human experience within the actuality model of 'We are One Being,' and knowing separateness is a false reality projected by the brain.
When I was writing about the One Being in 2016, a reader (Nate) asked, 'If we are all one being, why is it that if me and you are both hungry, and I eat food, you will still be hungry?'
Conceptually, our everyday lives are experienced in a brain-projected reality of separation. That reality has its own set of physical laws, and to us they seems facts. As our projected separated selves, when both of us are hungry and one eats food, one will still ordinarily be hungry.
When we transcend the projected self and experience the actuality of ourselves as the One Being, the Presence of Nature, the Everything, there is not you and me. To experience individuality, we need to return to our brain-projected reality.
When humanity is able to switch between oneness awareness and individuality, how will our world be? In oneness, could a pedophile continue to torture a screaming child, when the child is experienced as herself? Would a corporate executive be able to keep amassing more wealth, when he experiences the homeless as himself? How would it change our world?
:::
Yes, Gary, you can publicly use that paragraph and attribute it to me. As to suggestions for gaining that experience of Nirvana or enlightenment, it is of course the Biggest question of all. In my case it came by surprise when my mind wasn’t remotely thinking about Eastern philosophy or such. But since that evening In May of 1966 had been preceded by a month of intense if futile efforts at “ridding my mind of thoughts,” I must conclude that concentrated effort, or the longing-for-truth, somehow softens ones mind, or perhaps makes one more worthy of experiencing the ecstasy of no-death and eternal Oneness.
My best guess is that some sort of practice revolving around the goal of not thinking, or not trusting the logical mind, or acquiring humility by gaining the deep conviction that “I don’t really know anything” would be helpful.
For those who believe in a higher Intelligence, God, then sincerely and persistently asking for that blessing of Realization could be the most effective method of all, since, afterward, one indeed feels that it was a gift rather than something earned or attained by one’s own actions.
In short, “surrender,” to the intelligence you trust to be far greater than your own. This would be another way of acquiring humbleness or humility, which, again, might be the most effective prerequisite to experiencing Oneness.
The use of traditional psychoactive sacramental substances like peyote, LSD, or mescaline might also be helpful, though let me emphasize that I did not use those prior to my own Satori experience.
Hope this is helpful.
Best, B
COMMENTS
Jennifer Young
My experience took place standing on the side of a mountain by myself surrounded by beautiful nature.
I guess you could say I had taken a meditation walk. I was walking barefoot and I stood still on the mountain side while feeling my breath come in. It was as if all thought ceased, and the wind was the breath moving through my body.
I was at that point conscious and could tell that air was not actually flowing into my lungs or my heart but was literally flowing through me.
I felt a deeper feeling than I had ever felt before. It wasn’t like I was feeling connected to everything — it was that I was everything and had the need for nothing.
Pia Cronhamn
I go with your theory of the all as unconditional love. I am one with all, the all is energy, the energy consists of unconditional love.
Gary R. Smith
Thank you, Pia. The unconditional love is the only of my points not backed by Biocentrism as far as I know, though I have put the authors' words into my own in all of my twelve.
Not sure the authors arrived at the force of unconditional love yet, but I did message Lanza to ask how he feels about it.
It came as an aha! while pondering the book, that unconditional love is the force which binds the observer and observed. Also, it helps me to accept the validity by realizing that what Lanza calls the cosmos of consciousness can also be recognized as the presence of Nature -- which is an interaction between humans as observer and a landscape for example as the observed.
Geoffrey E. Stein
If one just thinks in Terms of ENERGY, it simplifies all this. Our Universe and All of us (including thought, action, conscience) IS ALL connected-to-everything-ENERGY. To me, THAT’S the ONE.....of it all. If talking in terms of ENERGY....that includes the observer, and the observed. Thinking So Universally.....removes Fear and Threat......it pulls us together More than .....observed and the observer. We ARE ONE SPACE SOUP of ENERGY (NRG)🦀
Gary
Thank you for that insight. To me, the observer (consciousness) and the unformed state of potentiality, the observed, are bound by the energy or force of unconditional love, and together are the One Being, the immense energies of the cosmos of consciousness. That is the only actuality, and it suffuses everything.
Not to say I've got it all worked out, that's just where I am with it now. My version brings in elements that add richness to the worldview, and are true, as I see it. It is science's job to prove or disprove.
Geoffrey E. Stein
I feel SIMPLIFICATION helps center Focus, which is Heavily needed😁🦀
Gary
I honor your perspective.
For me, what is needed, and for those who are drawn, is to realize that what we call reality is a projection of the brain, that there is no 'out there', that in actuality we are all One Being, and that death is an illusion.
I don't expect others to accept that view, but for those who do it can resolve many issues and open new horizons, and it is based on sound science, which in ways is more logical and convincing than classical science. A key point above in that regard is '9. Western science is founded on observing and measuring the false reality.'
Ken Matsushima
What a crock.
"The force which binds together Observer and Observed is unconditional love"
Observer and observed have no independent existence. They are simply frames of reference for experiencing the one and indivisible reality. That isnt philosophy . . . it is basic Quantum Physics, though you can find the same Truth at the core of most major religions (I'll happily quote Bible, Gita, Tao Te Ching and Vivekananda if you want proof). I won't bother quoting the rest of your post because most of the other points stem from the same false, dualistic division of observer and observed.
I get it ... the person who wrote the above comments is trying to manipulate New Age-type philosophical concepts in a way that will support their utterly facile, logically and scientifically ludicrous belief that fancy mental and rhetorical gymnastics can overcome the laws of reality. As a feel-good Facebook post I wouldnt find this too objectionable. But come on Gary . . . you're apparently asking us to take the statements literally. [Gary: I ask nothing of the sort, and have no expectations or attachments. Take it or leave it, as you choose.]
There are some kernels of truth in here as well. For example, it is true, and can be scientifically demonstrated, that consciousness TRANSCENDS matter . . . but that is simply because the latter is a subset of the former. For millennia, people have been misunderstanding this point. The reason why Hindus describe the world as "maya" (illusion) is that the material appearance which we call "the world" is only a tiny sliver of overall reality.
Maya doesnt mean that this physical world we live in is delusion or error . . . it just means that the real world includes far FAR more than just what we perceive. The "illusion" comes from believing that what you perceive with your senses is really "all there is". As I'm sure you will agree, the senses depict only a small subset of "reality". [I do agree with the last statement, and add, the entire everyday 'normal' human reality is a projection of the brain, and not the actuality of existence.]
But if the material world is a subset of "true reality" (what this writer [Gary] calls "One Being"), then it is idiotic to believe that Western science is "untrue" or that you can somehow use spiritual development as a way to alter the laws of physics. The material world is a SUBSET of true reality. Within that subset, the laws are going to remain the same.
[Neither the book authors nor I have said 'that Western science is "untrue" or that you can somehow use spiritual development as a way to alter the laws of physics.' My interpretation of the book goes beyond what the authors state, and says that Western science observes and measures the false reality which is the projection of the brain. Science contains truths, and the known laws are constant, within the false reality, which is as you wrote, a subset. For my own clarity, I use 'actuality' for what you call the 'true reality.' The subset can be transcended without altering any laws, and the 'One Being we are' can be experienced.]
To put it another way, Consciousness transcends matter . . . but it never REFUTES or NEGATES matter.
[The authors of the Biocentrism books listed points as a summary of their scientific theory (Seven principles form the core of biocentrism.) I have come to another set from a more mystical perspective. Please note, these twelve points are in my words, not the book authors. I do not know whether or not the authors would be in full agreement.]
Gary
Have you read either of the Biocentrics books?
Perhaps 'binds' is not the best word. It is my word, not the authors'.
Yes, observer and observed are one. Perhaps, using analogy, like two sides of a coin. But even those two sides are bound together, while being one coin. I feel that the energy we humans call unconditional love is a primary force.
I honor your perspective.
Ken Matsushima
Nope. Haven't read Dianetics either. I can see where the authors are going, and I know from abundant experience that it is just another ego trap. Again . . . from experience . . . nobody can reason or argue their way into paradise. Books can be helpful in pointing you towards the source. But when you really DisCover the source -- and understand that "Gary R. Smith" is the *junior* partner in that joint venture that you call your life -- you wont need books to explain it to you, anymore . . .
You have to accept "the world" for what it is. I am really getting annoyed with the recent tendency for people who OUGHT TO know better, to pervert internal Truth by claiming that it is somehow capable of overcoming, reversing or counteracting "external truth." The two are just separate windows into the same reality. When you start to see the truth from both directions clearly [and not "as through a glass, darkly..."], you will understand that the Spirit works THROUGH matter . . . it may have a scope and a meaning that transcends matter, but it does not violate natural laws.
Now ... having worked as a scientist myself, I am well aware of how scientific orthodoxy can blind many people to the existence of cosmic principles that have not yet been included in the standard explanation of our world. That is a separate issue, though I recognise it as a legitimate one.
On the other hand, anyone who starts spinning stories based on the idea that modern science is "wrong", or expounding a philosophy that argues for magical thinking, is either deliberately bullsplaining you, or is sadly deluded themselves.
Gary
Thank you again for your input, always welcomed.
Here is some background on the author of 'Beyond Biocentrism', the book I quoted. Only excerpts can be included in a comment, as the whole exceeds the 8,000 character limit:
Robert Lanza, M.D. is currently Head of Astellas Global Regenerative Medicine, and is Chief Scientific Officer of the Astellas Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Adjunct Professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine....
Dr. Lanza has hundreds of publications and inventions, and over 30 scientific books, including “Principles of Tissue Engineering” and “Essentials of Stem Cell Biology,” which are considered the definitive references in the field....
Dr. Lanza has received numerous awards, including TIME Magazine’s 2014 TIME 100 list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World,” the Top 50 “World Thinkers” (2015)...
In 2007, Lanza published a feature article, “A New Theory of the Universe” in The American Scholar, a leading intellectual journal which has previously published works by Albert Einstein, Margaret Mead, and Carl Sagan, among others. His theory places biology above the other sciences in an attempt to solve one of nature’s biggest puzzles, the theory of everything that other disciplines have been pursuing for the last century. This new view has become known as Biocentrism. In 2009, he co-authored a book “Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe” with leading astronomer Bob Berman. In biocentrism, space and time are forms of animal sense perception, rather than external physical objects. Understanding this more fully yields answers to several major puzzles of mainstream science, and offers a new way of understanding everything from the microworld (for instance, the reason for Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and the double-slit experiment) to the forces, constants, and laws that shape the universe. Nobel laureate E. Donnall Thomas stated “Any short statement does not do justice to such a scholarly work. The work is a scholarly consideration of science and philosophy that brings biology into the central role in unifying the whole...."
https://www.robertlanza.com/who-is-robert-lanza/
Ken Matsushima
Your friend Nate sounds like a very practical chap. Look, I have absolutely nothing to quibble about in your third paragraph, though I would probably use less confusing terms. Consciousness is a single . . . well, I dont know if you prefer to call it a "thing" or a "being," but we agree that there is a unity in it.
When you manage to immerse in that stream of pure consciousness, the voice inside your head that you refer to as Gary R. Smith will appear as something exactly as trivial ... yet just as essential to the whole ... as a white butterfly that flits and floats across the field of vision, or the humming insect chorus that swells and falls around you. I agree entirely that when you arrive at that state, there is no separation between you and me.
But if you plan to go back to being Gary R. Smith any time soon, I reccommend that you make sure he puts food in his OWN belly.
Ken Matsushima
I do prefer the 'One Being,' a term I coined, but include other terms to reach a range of readers. I am not a schoolboy, Ken, and we can all learn from each other when our separate identities have sufficient humility.
The book's co-author had a oneness experience (not chemically induced) lasting three weeks. That story is included in one of my Biocentrism posts.
I like your description of the white butterfly.
BEYOND BIOCENTRISM
by Robert Lanza, M.D. and Bob Berman
https://www.wholehuman.emanatepresence.com/blog/bio004
https://www.wholehuman.emanatepresence.com/blog/bio005
https://www.wholehuman.emanatepresence.com/blog/bio006
Chapter 12: Where is the Universe Located?
'.... We have known for a century that light is composed of waves of magnetism along with electrical undulations traveling at right angles to it. Neither magnetism nor electricity have inherent color or brightness, and thus even if there were an independent universe beyond consciousness, it would have to be utterly invisible. This bears repeating: At best, any separate external universe must be blank or black.
'Yet look around. We're imbedded in a world of profound color and beauty. People assumed, until the advent of quantum mechanics a century ago, that our eyes' lenses were like clear glass windows that let us accurately perceive what is 'out there' — and this remains the general public view even today. However, since we know beyond any doubt that 'what's out there' can be no more than invisible magnetic and electrical fields, it's obvious that we ourselves — our neural circuitry — create the colors and patterns.' - pages 117-118
'...What's central here is that the entire house-of-cards separation between me and other, and body interior and exterior, and nature versus ourselves, are relative concepts involving yet more neural connections that impart assumptions about reality. We need to get past them all. We need to see what's baseline, bottom-line real, in our quest for grasping the nature of the cosmos.' - pages 121, 124
'.... Apprehending the cosmos as a single deathless entity synonymous with consciousness may require multiple logical steps, or it can be realized in a single 'Eureka!' moment.' - page 125
"Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends with it." — Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (1954)
'Meanwhile, let's be clear: That the cosmos is suffused with energy... means that this essence of Being — this Nature of All Things, this true Self behind awareness and life itself, this seeming void that appears to be the [natural] matrix, the easel, the backdrop for all our human misadventures — is an unimaginably powerful entity.' [G - natural matrix not to be confused with the artificial matrix of human society] - page 85
'Whatever you think, however your logic works, Eastern sages have always insisted that there exists a direct experience of reality that is nonverbal...' - page 109
'...a first-hand experience by [co-author] Berman in 2008:
'We trust our instincts. We need no textbook to teach us to love, or to recognize danger, or to be swept into joy by a beautiful garden. Yet when it comes to grasping the nature of existence, we fumble and stumble through insensate theories, our eyes glazed over as we hear about string theory's extra dimensions.
'Life customarily offers disparate sources for knowledge. But what about the big-ticket issues of cosmology and existence? What's the correct tool here? Logic? Math? Science? Religious texts? Instinct?
'I found out soon after I turned twenty, and will share it now for the first time.
'I was in my junior year of college, cramming for a test. I had breezed through my astronomy courses but, philosophically, the universe was still essentially a vast, mysterious entity.
'I had tried meditating during the past month, but couldn't really say I'd experienced anything revelatory.
'Now I was studying for a physiology test when something in the textbook suddenly gave me a split second insight that the distinction between 'external' and 'internal' is unreal. Then that intellectual insight abruptly changed into something else.' - page 110
'An enormous weight I'd never realized I had borne was suddenly lifted. An experience began that no words could convey. It was ineffable and life altering.
'The best that I can say is that 'I' was suddenly gone, replaced by the certainty of being the entire cosmos. There was absolute peace.
'I knew with total confidence, not logically — because, as I said, Bob was no longer present — that birth and death do not exist. That all is present eternally, that time is unreal, and that all is one. The joy was beyond anything I could have imagined. The to-the-marrow certainty could perhaps be better described as a *recognition*, an ancient familiarity of being Home.
'When the intense initial experience faded, the room returned, and my textbooks lay before me. Except, all was now profoundly altered.
'Let's call this "the second level of the experience." There still was no sense of a separate "me," an observer looking out into the world. Rather, everything was a oneness, and I was whatever my eyes gazed upon.
'It was as if my consciousness had previously been confined, like a canary in a little cage, and that a false sense of being a separate, isolated, thinking individual had now vanished.
'Objects were no longer separate items existing in space; instead, everything was the same continuum.
*
GARY
Thoughts are things. My experience of life is a direct outcome of my thoughts, which are within my control. Fear-based thoughts lead me to darkness, and love-based thoughts lead me to light. My greatest allies are tools which effectively help me to still my mind, open my heart, and free my spirit so it can express more fully the source of life and love.
BEYOND BIOCENTRISM
by Robert Lanza, M.D.
Chapter Six: The End of Time
Page 44
'According to Biocentrism, time is the inner sense that animates the still frames of the spatial world.... everything we experience right now, even our bodies, is a whirl of information occurring in our minds. Space and time are merely the mind's tools for effortlessly putting everything together.
'So what's real? If the next image is different from the last, then it's different, period.... Thus, motion is not what's happening, at least not if we insist it's a time-based phenomenon.
'Okay, it may be confusing to deny motion without elaboration. What we're really saying is that motion isn't a feature of the outer, spatial world, but rather a conception of thought.... Because space and time are forms of animal intuition, they're tools of the mind and thus don't exist as external objects independent of life. When we feel poignantly that's time has elapsed, as when loved ones die, it constitutes the human perceptions of the passage and existence of time. Our babies turn into adults. We age. That, to us, is time. It belongs with us.
'New experiments since 2000... confirm this. These suggest that the 'past' — the history of the cosmos, of Earth, or anything else — is not some fixed statue, but unfolds in the present moment *and only upon observation.*'
At the end of chapter 8, and after detailing scientific experiments, on page 73:
'... physicists stated, 'There is no way to remove the observer — us — from our perception of the world... In classical physics, the past is assumed to exist as a definite series of events, but according to quantum physics the past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.'
Page 74:
'What it really means is that there is an underlying reality that connects all the universe's contents. In this place, no separations exist between anything and anything else. Yet this realm creates events that materialize in space-time, in the observable physical cosmos.
'... Experiment after experiment continues to suggest that we — consciousness, the mind — create space and time, not the other way around. Without consciousness, space and time are nothing [G: a state of probability/potentiality, the Void?] This consciousness is co-relative with objects in that space-time realm. The conclusion seems inescapable. Suffusing the cosmos is the realm of mind, whose observations cause objects to materialize, to assume one property or another, or to jump from one position to another without passing through any intervening space.
'These results have been described as beyond logical comprehension. But these are real experiments that have been carried out so many times that no physicist questions them. Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman once remarked, "I think it's safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics...."
'But Biocentrism makes sense of it all for the first time, because the mind is not secondary to a material universe. Rather, it is one with it. We are more than our individual bodies, eternal even when we die. This is the indispensable prelude to immortality.'
Seven principles form the core of biocentrism.
The first principle of biocentrism is based on the premise that what we observe is dependent on the observer, and says that what we perceive as reality is “a process that involves our consciousness.”
The second and third principles state that “our external and internal perceptions are intertwined” and that the behavior of particles “is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer,” respectively.
The fourth principle suggests that consciousness must exist and that without it “matter dwells in an undetermined state of probability.”
The fifth principle points to the structure of the universe itself, and that the laws, forces, and constants of the universe appear to be fine-tuned for life.
Finally, the sixth and seventh principles state that space and time are not objects or things, but rather tools of our animal understanding. Lanza says that we carry space and time around with us “like turtles with shells.
:::
The authors of the Biocentrism books listed points as a summary of their scientific theory.
(Seven principles form the core of biocentrism.)
I have come to another set from a more mystical perspective.
Please note, these twelve points are in my words, not the book authors'.
I do not know if the authors would be in full agreement.
1. The force which binds together Observer and Observed is unconditional love.
2. The universal Observer is the presence of Nature, the energies of consciousness and creative intelligence.
3. The universal Observed is a state of probabilities, unmeasurable until it is observed.
4. Neither Observer nor Observed can exist without the other, they are inseparable.
5. Together, Observer and Observed are the One Being, the cosmos of consciousness.
6. The One Being is the only actuality, and all human perception is a brain-based projection of the universal model, such as humans acting as observer and observed.
7. The One Being is the True Self of all that is, the presence of pure potentiality.
8. The brain-based projection has constructed a false reality and self identity of separation.
9. Western science is founded on observing and measuring the false reality.
10. Consciousness is outside the laws of the false reality, and cannot be apprehended by mental processes of the intellect, logic or reasoning.
11. Consciousness must be intuitively felt and/or experienced, to be perceived.
12. Practical application of Biocentrics could include experiments of relating in daily life to each other and our human experience within the actuality model of 'We are One Being,' and knowing separateness is a false reality projected by the brain.
When I was writing about the One Being in 2016, a reader (Nate) asked, 'If we are all one being, why is it that if me and you are both hungry, and I eat food, you will still be hungry?'
Conceptually, our everyday lives are experienced in a brain-projected reality of separation. That reality has its own set of physical laws, and to us they seems facts. As our projected separated selves, when both of us are hungry and one eats food, one will still ordinarily be hungry.
When we transcend the projected self and experience the actuality of ourselves as the One Being, the Presence of Nature, the Everything, there is not you and me. To experience individuality, we need to return to our brain-projected reality.
When humanity is able to switch between oneness awareness and individuality, how will our world be? In oneness, could a pedophile continue to torture a screaming child, when the child is experienced as herself? Would a corporate executive be able to keep amassing more wealth, when he experiences the homeless as himself? How would it change our world?
:::
Yes, Gary, you can publicly use that paragraph and attribute it to me. As to suggestions for gaining that experience of Nirvana or enlightenment, it is of course the Biggest question of all. In my case it came by surprise when my mind wasn’t remotely thinking about Eastern philosophy or such. But since that evening In May of 1966 had been preceded by a month of intense if futile efforts at “ridding my mind of thoughts,” I must conclude that concentrated effort, or the longing-for-truth, somehow softens ones mind, or perhaps makes one more worthy of experiencing the ecstasy of no-death and eternal Oneness.
My best guess is that some sort of practice revolving around the goal of not thinking, or not trusting the logical mind, or acquiring humility by gaining the deep conviction that “I don’t really know anything” would be helpful.
For those who believe in a higher Intelligence, God, then sincerely and persistently asking for that blessing of Realization could be the most effective method of all, since, afterward, one indeed feels that it was a gift rather than something earned or attained by one’s own actions.
In short, “surrender,” to the intelligence you trust to be far greater than your own. This would be another way of acquiring humbleness or humility, which, again, might be the most effective prerequisite to experiencing Oneness.
The use of traditional psychoactive sacramental substances like peyote, LSD, or mescaline might also be helpful, though let me emphasize that I did not use those prior to my own Satori experience.
Hope this is helpful.
Best, B
COMMENTS
Jennifer Young
My experience took place standing on the side of a mountain by myself surrounded by beautiful nature.
I guess you could say I had taken a meditation walk. I was walking barefoot and I stood still on the mountain side while feeling my breath come in. It was as if all thought ceased, and the wind was the breath moving through my body.
I was at that point conscious and could tell that air was not actually flowing into my lungs or my heart but was literally flowing through me.
I felt a deeper feeling than I had ever felt before. It wasn’t like I was feeling connected to everything — it was that I was everything and had the need for nothing.
Pia Cronhamn
I go with your theory of the all as unconditional love. I am one with all, the all is energy, the energy consists of unconditional love.
Gary R. Smith
Thank you, Pia. The unconditional love is the only of my points not backed by Biocentrism as far as I know, though I have put the authors' words into my own in all of my twelve.
Not sure the authors arrived at the force of unconditional love yet, but I did message Lanza to ask how he feels about it.
It came as an aha! while pondering the book, that unconditional love is the force which binds the observer and observed. Also, it helps me to accept the validity by realizing that what Lanza calls the cosmos of consciousness can also be recognized as the presence of Nature -- which is an interaction between humans as observer and a landscape for example as the observed.
Geoffrey E. Stein
If one just thinks in Terms of ENERGY, it simplifies all this. Our Universe and All of us (including thought, action, conscience) IS ALL connected-to-everything-ENERGY. To me, THAT’S the ONE.....of it all. If talking in terms of ENERGY....that includes the observer, and the observed. Thinking So Universally.....removes Fear and Threat......it pulls us together More than .....observed and the observer. We ARE ONE SPACE SOUP of ENERGY (NRG)🦀
Gary
Thank you for that insight. To me, the observer (consciousness) and the unformed state of potentiality, the observed, are bound by the energy or force of unconditional love, and together are the One Being, the immense energies of the cosmos of consciousness. That is the only actuality, and it suffuses everything.
Not to say I've got it all worked out, that's just where I am with it now. My version brings in elements that add richness to the worldview, and are true, as I see it. It is science's job to prove or disprove.
Geoffrey E. Stein
I feel SIMPLIFICATION helps center Focus, which is Heavily needed😁🦀
Gary
I honor your perspective.
For me, what is needed, and for those who are drawn, is to realize that what we call reality is a projection of the brain, that there is no 'out there', that in actuality we are all One Being, and that death is an illusion.
I don't expect others to accept that view, but for those who do it can resolve many issues and open new horizons, and it is based on sound science, which in ways is more logical and convincing than classical science. A key point above in that regard is '9. Western science is founded on observing and measuring the false reality.'
Ken Matsushima
What a crock.
"The force which binds together Observer and Observed is unconditional love"
Observer and observed have no independent existence. They are simply frames of reference for experiencing the one and indivisible reality. That isnt philosophy . . . it is basic Quantum Physics, though you can find the same Truth at the core of most major religions (I'll happily quote Bible, Gita, Tao Te Ching and Vivekananda if you want proof). I won't bother quoting the rest of your post because most of the other points stem from the same false, dualistic division of observer and observed.
I get it ... the person who wrote the above comments is trying to manipulate New Age-type philosophical concepts in a way that will support their utterly facile, logically and scientifically ludicrous belief that fancy mental and rhetorical gymnastics can overcome the laws of reality. As a feel-good Facebook post I wouldnt find this too objectionable. But come on Gary . . . you're apparently asking us to take the statements literally. [Gary: I ask nothing of the sort, and have no expectations or attachments. Take it or leave it, as you choose.]
There are some kernels of truth in here as well. For example, it is true, and can be scientifically demonstrated, that consciousness TRANSCENDS matter . . . but that is simply because the latter is a subset of the former. For millennia, people have been misunderstanding this point. The reason why Hindus describe the world as "maya" (illusion) is that the material appearance which we call "the world" is only a tiny sliver of overall reality.
Maya doesnt mean that this physical world we live in is delusion or error . . . it just means that the real world includes far FAR more than just what we perceive. The "illusion" comes from believing that what you perceive with your senses is really "all there is". As I'm sure you will agree, the senses depict only a small subset of "reality". [I do agree with the last statement, and add, the entire everyday 'normal' human reality is a projection of the brain, and not the actuality of existence.]
But if the material world is a subset of "true reality" (what this writer [Gary] calls "One Being"), then it is idiotic to believe that Western science is "untrue" or that you can somehow use spiritual development as a way to alter the laws of physics. The material world is a SUBSET of true reality. Within that subset, the laws are going to remain the same.
[Neither the book authors nor I have said 'that Western science is "untrue" or that you can somehow use spiritual development as a way to alter the laws of physics.' My interpretation of the book goes beyond what the authors state, and says that Western science observes and measures the false reality which is the projection of the brain. Science contains truths, and the known laws are constant, within the false reality, which is as you wrote, a subset. For my own clarity, I use 'actuality' for what you call the 'true reality.' The subset can be transcended without altering any laws, and the 'One Being we are' can be experienced.]
To put it another way, Consciousness transcends matter . . . but it never REFUTES or NEGATES matter.
[The authors of the Biocentrism books listed points as a summary of their scientific theory (Seven principles form the core of biocentrism.) I have come to another set from a more mystical perspective. Please note, these twelve points are in my words, not the book authors. I do not know whether or not the authors would be in full agreement.]
Gary
Have you read either of the Biocentrics books?
Perhaps 'binds' is not the best word. It is my word, not the authors'.
Yes, observer and observed are one. Perhaps, using analogy, like two sides of a coin. But even those two sides are bound together, while being one coin. I feel that the energy we humans call unconditional love is a primary force.
I honor your perspective.
Ken Matsushima
Nope. Haven't read Dianetics either. I can see where the authors are going, and I know from abundant experience that it is just another ego trap. Again . . . from experience . . . nobody can reason or argue their way into paradise. Books can be helpful in pointing you towards the source. But when you really DisCover the source -- and understand that "Gary R. Smith" is the *junior* partner in that joint venture that you call your life -- you wont need books to explain it to you, anymore . . .
You have to accept "the world" for what it is. I am really getting annoyed with the recent tendency for people who OUGHT TO know better, to pervert internal Truth by claiming that it is somehow capable of overcoming, reversing or counteracting "external truth." The two are just separate windows into the same reality. When you start to see the truth from both directions clearly [and not "as through a glass, darkly..."], you will understand that the Spirit works THROUGH matter . . . it may have a scope and a meaning that transcends matter, but it does not violate natural laws.
Now ... having worked as a scientist myself, I am well aware of how scientific orthodoxy can blind many people to the existence of cosmic principles that have not yet been included in the standard explanation of our world. That is a separate issue, though I recognise it as a legitimate one.
On the other hand, anyone who starts spinning stories based on the idea that modern science is "wrong", or expounding a philosophy that argues for magical thinking, is either deliberately bullsplaining you, or is sadly deluded themselves.
Gary
Thank you again for your input, always welcomed.
Here is some background on the author of 'Beyond Biocentrism', the book I quoted. Only excerpts can be included in a comment, as the whole exceeds the 8,000 character limit:
Robert Lanza, M.D. is currently Head of Astellas Global Regenerative Medicine, and is Chief Scientific Officer of the Astellas Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Adjunct Professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine....
Dr. Lanza has hundreds of publications and inventions, and over 30 scientific books, including “Principles of Tissue Engineering” and “Essentials of Stem Cell Biology,” which are considered the definitive references in the field....
Dr. Lanza has received numerous awards, including TIME Magazine’s 2014 TIME 100 list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World,” the Top 50 “World Thinkers” (2015)...
In 2007, Lanza published a feature article, “A New Theory of the Universe” in The American Scholar, a leading intellectual journal which has previously published works by Albert Einstein, Margaret Mead, and Carl Sagan, among others. His theory places biology above the other sciences in an attempt to solve one of nature’s biggest puzzles, the theory of everything that other disciplines have been pursuing for the last century. This new view has become known as Biocentrism. In 2009, he co-authored a book “Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe” with leading astronomer Bob Berman. In biocentrism, space and time are forms of animal sense perception, rather than external physical objects. Understanding this more fully yields answers to several major puzzles of mainstream science, and offers a new way of understanding everything from the microworld (for instance, the reason for Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and the double-slit experiment) to the forces, constants, and laws that shape the universe. Nobel laureate E. Donnall Thomas stated “Any short statement does not do justice to such a scholarly work. The work is a scholarly consideration of science and philosophy that brings biology into the central role in unifying the whole...."
https://www.robertlanza.com/who-is-robert-lanza/
Ken Matsushima
Your friend Nate sounds like a very practical chap. Look, I have absolutely nothing to quibble about in your third paragraph, though I would probably use less confusing terms. Consciousness is a single . . . well, I dont know if you prefer to call it a "thing" or a "being," but we agree that there is a unity in it.
When you manage to immerse in that stream of pure consciousness, the voice inside your head that you refer to as Gary R. Smith will appear as something exactly as trivial ... yet just as essential to the whole ... as a white butterfly that flits and floats across the field of vision, or the humming insect chorus that swells and falls around you. I agree entirely that when you arrive at that state, there is no separation between you and me.
But if you plan to go back to being Gary R. Smith any time soon, I reccommend that you make sure he puts food in his OWN belly.
Ken Matsushima
I do prefer the 'One Being,' a term I coined, but include other terms to reach a range of readers. I am not a schoolboy, Ken, and we can all learn from each other when our separate identities have sufficient humility.
The book's co-author had a oneness experience (not chemically induced) lasting three weeks. That story is included in one of my Biocentrism posts.
I like your description of the white butterfly.