Nonduality, Relationship and the Body

Judith Blackstone, Ph.D. (Center for Spiritual Psychotherapy and Embodiment, NYC, Faculty, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology) This presentation addresses two important aspects of nondual realization that are often ignored: the transformation of the body and the deepening of relationships with other people. Nondual realization is the revelation of one's own nature as subtle, unbounded awareness, pervading one's own body and one's environment as a unified whole. Because nondual awareness pervades our whole body, we experience ourselves as coherent, authentic individuals at the same time as we transcend self/object duality. Nondual awareness is also the basis of direct contact between human beings. When two people attune to nondual awareness together, they experience mutual transparency: a single expanse of awareness pervading them both as a unity. There will be a brief experiential component to the presentation.

Encounter with the unknown

Dr. Jordan Peterson (University of Toronto) The symbols commonly encountered in dreams, mythology, religion and literature appear to be derived from a combination of archaic biological experience and cognitive capability. New anthropological, psychological and primatological research indicates that our ancestral experience with predatory serpents profoundly shaped the psychophysiology of our visual systems and the development of our motivational, emotional and cognitive structures and processes, particularly those involved in anxiety and incentive reward. It is for this reason that the image of the eternal serpent is frequently utilized (as in the book of Genesis) as a representation of the primal force or state that existed prior to the differentiation of the world of experience, and whose manifestation gave rise to consciousness. The serpent, symbolically speaking, represents the simultaneously terrifying and attractive unknown, just as the mythological dragon harbors a virginal female or a golden treasure or serves, bodily, once dismembered by the hero, as a substrate for being itself. Encounter with the unknown (1) activates evolutionarily ancient fear and approach systems, each with its own particular biological substrate; (2) motivates exploration, once initial fear or anxiety has receded; and (3) produces new information, then incorporated into representational and practical knowledge. The ancient enemy of our primate ancestors, the snake, thus comes to stand for the danger and challenge that has shaped and perhaps even created our consciousness, in tandem with powerful, associated sources of sexual selection – the eternal attraction of the female to the hero who can overpower and master the serpent.

He Who Is Afraid Of Freedom Cannot Die: Death As A Way To Authentic Being In Heidegger And Nisargadatta Maharaj

Mila Makal Is my death possible? Is it an empirical event that I can experience or verify for myself? “Death is hearsay,” says Nisargadatta Maharaj, “Have you experienced death?” Martin Heidegger sees our being as limited by time and therefore shaped by death – a non-being. Our being has a twofold presence of both presence and absence in which the potential being is on its way to becoming something other than what it is. As long as our Being is a being, it never reaches its ‘wholeness’. “Death discloses what Dasein [our being] cannot have: All the possibilities.” Only being free for one’s own death gives Being its authenticity and the freedom from the inauthentic “the other.” In our everyday life, we cover up the possibility of death. Accepting our temporality as a way of life leads us to become authentic beings. “Your true home is in nothingness,” says Nisargadatta Maharaj. “Everything is afraid of the Nothing”. “Give attention and you will find that birth and death are one, that life pulsates between being and non-being, and that each needs the other for completeness”. “Death gives freedom and power.” “To be free in the world, you must die to the world.” “You must die in order to live.” “Without death life cannot be”. For living is dying and to live fully, death is essential; every ending makes a new beginning. The wise man who has died before his death; he saw that there was nothing to be afraid of. “The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond description. On the other hand, he who is afraid of freedom cannot die.” “When life and death are seen as essential to each other, as two aspects of one being, that is immortality”.

Circling Up the Hordes of Homunculi

Gregory Sipp (Santa Fe Community College) The biggest hole in Daniel Dennet's argument that consciousness is created by hordes of unconscious robotic cells in the brain is the fact that he offers no explanation of how they can operate together in such a miraculously precise, orchestrated way. It is proposed that not only are these hordes of homunculi organized by standing waves, but so to are the Universe and consciousness itself. The idea of attention centers (homunculi) operating in a loop, avoids the problem of infinite regress.(Edelman, Llinas). Both the Universe and consciousness have been described as a loop or standing wave in science and mysticism. Mysticism can be described as the first person experience of examining this bi-directional wave of consciousness, (and in the end being absorbed into it). As described in Kashmir Shaivism, consciousness can be thought of as being composed of a centrifugal wave balanced with centripetal wave. "The two phases of pulsation of consciousness from the inner to outer and outer to inner are equivalent." (The Doctrine of Vibration in the Practices of Kashmir Shaivism, Dyczkowski) In this presentation it is proposed that the standing wave itself acts as the binding agent in consciousness; for everything from the 40HZ (Crick, Koch, Llinas) activity of the thalamus to the heart-aorta pulsation in the circulatory system, (Bentov) to the bi-directional signal flow of information between the unconscious and conscious attention centers of the brain, (Lamme (2003) have been described as a standing wave. The standing wave can be seen as the basic template of the Universe for atoms, galaxies, solar systems, and musical notes have all been depicted as types of standing waves. Johannes Kepler used the standing wave to describe even the soul itself. “The soul has the structure of a point in actuality...., and the figure of a circle in potentiality.” Harmonices Mundi, 1619 A.D.

E Pluribus Unum

M. Renée Orth (J.D., Boalt Hall) A primary dualism in Western thought is that of the individual and the collective. The contrast between these two perceived opposites is deepened by modern capitalism in which each must negotiate and prove his/her value on the open market. The anxiety and insecurity that arises from this commodification demands a solution, but for most the only available treatment is the temporary hypnosis of consumerism and popular culture. We achieve pseudo transcendence by joining the throngs voting for the next American Idol winner, buying the latest fashions, or sharing the rage of cable T.V. pundits. We are molded by our economic system and the culture that has evolved to serve it.

The primary challenge of humanity is how we can harness the amazing power of capitalism and make it serve us, rather than us serving it. If we can solve this challenge – as I believe we can – then solutions to our other seemingly intractable problems – global warming, abject poverty, environmental degradation, and nuclear proliferation – will become clear. The key to creating a more evolved form of capitalism is our communication technology. The interest of the individual in attaining self-actualization has historically been subordinated to the need for order, which required centralized direction and thus predictable and controllable constituents (i.e., properly aligned cogs, and properly shaped pegs). However, we now have the power to coordinate and cooperate – to create spontaneous order – without intermediary top-down centralized institutions. The Internet and the person-to-person networks it enables opens a vast and beautiful potential future for humanity in which the need of the individual for authentic self-expression and the need of the collective for order and efficiency are aligned – this primary Western duality is transcended: The energy of our most powerful collective system, capitalism, illuminates the eternal truth of our oneness.

Advaita, Mathematics and Financial Modelling

Rick Shaw (Mathematician/actuary, Scratch Art Space) Reliance on complex financial models was an important contributor to the recent global economic crisis. These models facilitated the market for investment portfolios made up of U.S. residential mortgages and related financial instruments such as credit default swaps. The pseudo-objectivity of the models and the cupidity of the model users eventually led to bankruptcies and trillion dollar government bailouts. Such models and attitudes are part of the enlightenment project which puts faith in rational analysis and is sceptical about more intuitive approaches. Recent mathematical developments show the limitations of rational analysis and modelling. Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems prove that any non-trivial axiomatic system is either incomplete or inconsistent. Chaos and fractal theory indicate that the complexity inherent in natural systems cannot be fully reflected in any model. These developments in mathematics involve self-referentiality and other concepts which are consistent with an Advaita perspective. This presentation and the associated paper will contrast the dualistic underpinnings of modern financial theory with recent non-dualistic mathematical theory, interweaving a personal story about getting lost in materialistic dualism and describe how twelve step programmes derived from Jungian precepts set out a practical Advaita path.

Perfect Chaos: Introduction To The Planetary Age

Philip Benton Brattain (OpenPerfection), Audrone Whippic (Author) Based on their forthcoming book, Awaken Perfection: The Journey of Conscious Revelation (May 2010, Motivational Press, San Diego www.awakenperfection.com), Phil and Audrone will open up the audience to a transformed historical context for flourishing in geopolitical chaos. Czech President, Vaclav Havel, has maintained that the Modern Age is dead. The New Age movement and the French Post-Modernists have probed the implications of a sea change that has swept away the old order. We have moved through the equivalent of the High Middle Ages to the High Renaissance in a single generation. Out of force of habit, we reference the Modern Age to our peril, as the values, priorities, sensibilities and rules have all dramatically shifted.

Just as in the Renaissance, the perception of reality has dramatically shifted. Earlier, it was a shift from a geocentric to heliocentric perspective. Today, it is a shift from the world out there played out deterministically with billiard balls, to the world in here within the context of our own ultimate Being. Just as we will see the marriage of heaven and earth, as citizens of the Universe, we will see the marriage of science and religion. An awakening to the metaphysics of the East has stimulated physics to arrive at a stunningly fresh perspective, setting the stage for a new global civilization with a profoundly spiritual and ecological sensibility.

Wrapping up the presentation will be a discussion of the full implications of our living in the Megadream, a dream of infinite dreams where every dream intersects every other, and the Megastory, a store of infinite stories where every story complements ever other. Richard Linklater, in his cutting-edge film, A Waking Life (2001) brilliantly explores this possibility. When we master living the story we wrote ourselves into, we will consciously co-create with the Infinite, and greet the impending Omega Point with a smile.