Fearless Science - Cassandra Vieten (Science and Nonduality Conference 2013)

Nice talk from Cassandra Vieten, CEO and President of the Institute for Noetic Sciences, on the need for fearlessness in scientists at the "frontier of science," the "investigation of consciousness." This talk was given at the Science and Nonduality Conference.

Fearless Science - Cassandra Vieten

Published on Feb 6, 2014


The frontier of science is the investigation of consciousness--in particular, the nonlocal,
causal, and nondual aspects of consciousness. This cutting edge of science, far from being fringe, is investigating the most centrally important questions of our time. And yet, these controversial topics are often challenged as being "unscientific" by the mainstream scientific community. In fact, there are no unscientific topics. The scientific endeavor should not be held back by limitations in our imagination and ingenuity. A scientist, and CEO and President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Cassandra Vieten will discuss the frontiers of scientific investigation of nonduality and consciousness.

CASSANDRA VIETEN
President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences

Cassandra Vieten, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist, President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Scientist at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, and Faculty Member/Psychologist at California Pacific Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry. She received her PhD in clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She completed her pre- and post-doctoral research training at UCSF, working primarily on the biological and psychological underpinnings of addiction and alcoholism. Cassandra is co-author of Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life and author of Mindful Motherhood: Practical Tools for Staying Sane During Pregnancy and Your Child's First Year.

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation - Jesus Lived Contemplation, More Than Formally Teaching It

Image: The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (detail), c. 1601-1602, by Caravaggio

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

Seven Themes of an Alternative Orthodoxy
Seventh Theme: Reality is paradoxical and complementary. Non-dual thinking is the highest level of consciousness. Divine union, not private perfection, is the goal of all religion (Goal).

Jesus Lived Contemplation, More Than Formally Teaching It

Meditation 47 of 52

The non-dual paradox and mystery was for Christians a living person, an icon we could gaze upon and fall in love with. Jesus became “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), “the Mediator,” “very God and very human” at the same time, who consistently said, “Follow me.” He is the living paradox, calling us to imitate him, as we realize that “[he] and the Father are one” (John 10:30). In him, the great gaps are all overcome; all cosmic opposites are reconciled in him, as the author of Colossians (1:15-20) so poetically says in an early Christian hymn.

The dualistic mind gives us sanity and safety, and that is good enough. But to address our religious and social problems in any creative or finally helpful way, we also need something more, something bigger, and something much better. We need “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). Jesus in his life and ministry modeled and exemplified the non-dual or contemplative mind, more than academically teaching it. The very fact that the disciples had to ask him for a prayer like the disciples of the Baptist had (Luke 11:1), probably reveals that spoken or recited prayer was not his practice. Why else would he go apart and alone for such long periods, except that his prayer was the prayer of quiet more than synagogue or temple services?

Adapted from The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, pp. 154, 133

The Daily Meditations for 2013 are now available
in Fr. Richard’s new book Yes, And . . .

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation - The Loss of Any Alternative Consciousness

A little wisdom for your Saturday morning.

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation: The Loss of Any Alternative Consciousness
 

Saturday, December 21, 2013
Winter Solstice (Northern Hemisphere)

Seven Themes of an Alternative Orthodoxy
Seventh Theme: Reality is paradoxical and complementary. Non-dual thinking is the highest level of consciousness. Divine union, not private perfection, is the goal of all religion (Goal).

The Loss of Any Alternative Consciousness (Meditation 43 of 52) 
 
Hugh of St. Victor (1078-1141) and Richard of St. Victor (1123-1173) wrote that humanity was given three sets of eyes, each building on the previous one. The first set of eyes were the eyes of the flesh (thought or sight), the second set of eyes were the eyes of reason (meditation or reflection), and the third set of eyes were the eyes of true understanding (contemplation). They represent the last era of broad or formal teaching of the contemplative mind in the West, although St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) and Francisco de Osuna (1492-1542) are some rare examples who carry it into the following centuries. But for the most part, the formal teaching of the contemplative mind, even in the monasteries, winds down by the beginning of the fourteenth century. No wonder we so badly needed some reformations by the sixteenth century.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough that the loss of the contemplative mind is at the basis of much of the shortsightedness and religious crises of the Western world. Lacking such wisdom, it is very difficult for churches, governments, and leaders to move beyond ego, the desire for control, and public posturing. Everything divides into oppositions such as liberal versus conservative, with vested interests pulling against one another. Truth is no longer possible at this level of conversation. Even theology becomes more a quest for power than a search for God and Mystery.

Adapted from The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, pp. 28-29

The Daily Meditations for 2013 are now available
in Fr. Richard’s new book Yes, And . . .

~ Image: The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (detail), c. 1601-1602, by Caravaggio

Buddha Nature - Glimpse of the Day

Whatever our lives are like, our buddha nature is always there. And it is always perfect. We say that not even the buddhas can improve it in their infinite wisdom, nor can sentient beings spoil it in their seemingly infinite confusion.

Our true nature could be compared to the sky, and the confusion of the ordinary mind to clouds. Some days the sky is completely obscured by clouds. When we are down on the ground, looking up, it is very difficult to believe that there is anything else there but clouds. Yet we have only to fly in a plane to discover above the clouds a limitless expanse of clear blue sky. From up there, the clouds we assumed were everything seem so small and so far away down below.

We should always try to remember: The clouds are not the sky and do not “belong” to it. They only hang there and pass by in their slightly ridiculous and nondependent fashion. And they can never stain or mark the sky in any way.

~ Glimpse of the Day, Nov. 27, 2013

 

From this May 2013's Festival of Faiths, this is a wonderful talk by Fr. Richard Rohr, the heir apparent to the contemplative lineage of Fr. Thomas Keating (Centering Prayer). Fr. Rohr is the author of several excellent books, including Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (2003), The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (2009), Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self (2013), and Yes, and...: Daily Meditations (2013), among many other books.

Fr. Rohr's vision of a contemplative, nondual Christianity has been a blessing to several of my Christian clients, even those who see Catholicism as essentially broken. As a non-Christian, I enjoy his sense of the possible within silence . . . and the conviction that we all can find the compassion and vitality of being fully alive.

Fr. Richard Rohr: Finding God in the Depths of Silence

Published on May 15, 2013

Fr. Richard Rohr, ecumenical teacher, author and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation.


Rohr shares his perspective on Silence as the only thing broad enough and deep enough to hold all of the contradictions and paradoxes of Full Reality and our own reality, too. 99.9% of the known universe is silent, and it is in this space that the force fields of life and compassion dwell and expand. We can live there too!

The 2013 May edition of the Festival of Faiths was presented in partnership with:

• Brown-Forman
• Thomas Merton Center
• Archdiocese of Louisville
• WFPL news 89.3 FM
• Idea Festival
• Muhammad Ali Center
• Compassionate Louisville
• Fons Vitae
• The Drepung Gomang Institute
• Earth & Spirit Center

James Finley Interviews - The Contemplative Way in Christianity

James Finley, PhD, spent six years in the cloistered Trappist monastery of the Abbey of Gethsemani. Finley leads retreats and workshops throughout the United States and Canada, attracting people from all religious traditions who seek a contemplative path in their Christian practice. He is also a clinical psychologist in private practice with his wife in Santa Monica, California.

James Finley is the author of Merton's Palace of Nowhere, The Contemplative Heart, and Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God.

Jami (my girlfriend) was listening to an audio program of his from Sounds True and I really liked his integration of Christian mysticism and contemporary psychology as a form of nondual practice. His work is not dissimilar to that of Father Thomas Keating (Centering Prayer) and Father Richard Rohr (his seven themes).

Here are two interviews he has posted as his site - each is a good introduction to his thinking.

The following interview was conducted by Sounds True and will give the reader a sense of Dr. Finley's understanding of Thomas Merton and the Contemplative Way. 

Thomas Merton and His Path to the Palace of NowhereSounds True

* * * * *

The following interview was conducted by Gary Moon for Pathways Magazine and will give the reader a sense of Dr. Finley's understanding of Christian Meditation. 

Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God Pathways Magazine: April-June Issue 2000, Vol. 9, Number 2.

Fariba Bogzaran Ph.D. - Lucid Dreaming and Creative Consciousness

Here is another interesting video lecture form the 2012 Science and Nonduality Conference. In this talk, Dr. Fariba Bogzaran offers an integral approach to lucid dreaming, which she calls Integral Dream Practice (IDP). She is a professor at JFKU - formerly the host of the Intgegral Theory and Practice Conference, as well as once offering Integral-based degrees.

She is author of the forthcoming Integral Dreaming: A Holistic Approach to Dreams (Jan, 2013) and contributed to Stanley Krippner's Extraordinary Dreams and How to Work with Them (Suny Series in Dream Studies).


Lucid Dreaming and Creative Consciousness from Science and Nonduality on FORA.tv

The integral approach to dreams addresses the multidimensionality of Being, bringing contemporary science and ancient practices in dialogue. This approach is a response to our complex dream ecology in a way that honors the multifaceted and creative nature of the dreaming mind.  In the first half of the workshop, we will explore the core principles of Integral Dreaming. We will focus on extraordinary experiences in dreams, those dreams that creatively give us inklings of an expanded self, and paradoxically, teach us about no-self, including transpersonal experiences in lucid dreams, dreams within dreams, OBEs and in transitional sleep (hypnagogic and hypnopompic).  The second half of the workshop will introduce the Integral Dream Practice (IDP). The experiential practice emphasizes creative participation, reflective awareness and integrative acts. The participants will have the opportunity to experience first hand the initial phase of IDP, which uses contemplative and dream re-entry practices, with automatic writing and poetic synthesis.

~ Fariba Bogzaran, visionary, professor and artist is the founder of the dream studies program at JFK University and co-founder of the Lucid Art Foundation. She is one of the pioneers in the field of dream studies and has received recognition of outstanding contribution to the International Association for the Study of Dreams. In the 1980's, she researched the science of lucid dreaming with Lucidity Project team at Stanford Sleep Laboratory and has written and taught the spiritual aspect of lucid dreaming, awareness methods and creativity for over twenty years. Her work with arts and consciousness connected her to the lineage of Surrealism and Dynaton group and as an artist she combines art and science to explore the mind through lucid dreaming and as a scholar she has curated numerous exhibitions since 1985.

She is the author of many articles on arts, consciousness and dreams and co-author of three books: Extraordinary Dreams (SUNY, 2002); Five Keys to the Secret World of Remedios Varo (2008) and forthcoming book Integral Dreaming (SUNY).

In the 1980's, she researched the science of lucid dreaming with Lucidity Project team at Stanford Sleep Laboratory and has written and taught the spiritual aspect of lucid dreaming, awareness methods and creativity for over twenty years. Dr. Bogzaran has received recognition of outstanding contribution to the International Association for the Study of Dreams and Professor of the Year from Graduate School for Holistic Studies, John F. Kennedy University.

Peter Russell: Letting Go of Nothing

FORA.tv hosted the 2012 Science and Nonduality conference on their platform earlier this fall. Now the videos are being made available for free for those who did not buy access at the time of the conference. In this lecture, Peter Russell (Institute of Noetic Sciences) speaks on the practice of letting go. His books include From Science to God: A Physicist's Journey into the Mystery of Consciousness, Waking Up In Time: Finding Inner Peace In Times of Accelerating Change, and The Brain Book: Know Your Own Mind and How to Use It, among others.

Letting Go of Nothing

Peter Russell: Letting Go of Nothing from Science and Nonduality on FORA.tv

"Just let go," we're advised. "If only I could let go," others complain. The call goes back a long way, to the core of the world's spiritual traditions. Surrender, non-attachment, accepting the present, relinquishing ego, forgiveness-they all entail a letting go. Holding on, they claim, limits perception, creates tension, veils our true nature, and lies at the root of much our suffering. Letting go, on the other hand, brings relief, ease, joy, and love.  But letting go seldom seems easy. That is because we usually approach letting go as something to do. We may know it is the opposite-an undoing-but that does not make it any easier.

Peter Russell will explore what leads us to hold on, how we become attached to our beliefs about what we need and how to get it. He will also share his latest thinking and practices on how to allow letting go to happen spontaneously.

Peter shows that the key is giving up all trying and effort. The mind in its natural relaxed state is already at ease. We do not need to do anything to find inner peace, we simply need to release the various thoughts that keep our minds busy and tense. The beauty of this approach is that nothing needs to be changed or eliminated. It is simply dropping all resistance to the present moment. Herein lies true freedom.

~ Peter Russell is a fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, The World Business Academy and The Findhorn Foundation, and an Honorary Member of The Club of Budapest. At Cambridge University (UK), he studied mathematics and theoretical physics. Then, as he became increasingly fascinated by the mysteries of the human mind he changed to experimental psychology.

Pursuing this interest, he traveled to India to study meditation and eastern philosophy, and on his return took up the first research post ever offered in Britain on the psychology of meditation. He has written several books in this area -- The TM Technique, The Upanishads, The Brain Book, The Global Brain Awakens, The Creative Manager, The Consciousness Revolution, Waking Up in Time, and From Science to God.

Tami Simon with Jeff Foster - The Deepest Acceptance

Sounds True founder and CEO spoke with Jeff Foster in this recent podcast about his new book and audio course, The Deepest Acceptance: Radical Awakening in Ordinary Life. For those not familiar with Foster, here is a little background from his own website:

Jeff Foster studied Astrophysics at Cambridge University. In his mid-twenties, after a long period of depression and illness, he became addicted to the idea of ‘spiritual enlightenment’ and embarked on an intensive spiritual quest for the ultimate truth of existence.

The spiritual search came crashing down with the clear recognition of the non-dual nature of everything, and the discovery of the extraordinary in the ordinary. In the clarity of this seeing, life became what it always was: intimate, open, loving and spontaneous, and Jeff was left with a deep understanding of the root illusion behind all human suffering, and a love of the present moment.

Enjoy the podcast.

The Deepest Acceptance

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Tami Simon speaks with Jeff Foster, voted in 2012 by The Watkins Review as one of the world’s 100 most spiritually influential people living today. With Sounds True, Jeff has released a new book, The Deepest Acceptance: Radical Awakening in Ordinary Life, and an accompanying audio program inviting us to discover the ocean of who we are: an awareness that has already allowed every wave of emotion and experience to arrive. In this episode, Jeff explains that we are acceptance, how to work with practical concerns such as financial fears, and the power of being with someone who is suffering—with an absolutely open embrace. Jeff also talks about his own path of awakening, including deep depression and some of his most important discoveries. (90 minutes)

 more from Jeff Foster

Julian Baggini - The Duality of Non-duality

This was Julian Baggini's lecture at the Science and Non-Duality Conference, 2012, The Netherlands. I highly recommend his most recent book, The Ego Trick: What Does it Mean to be You?

Julian Baggini is the author of several books, including Welcome to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind (Granta), Complaint (Profile) and, most recently, The Ego Trick (Granta). He has written for numerous newspapers and magazines, including the Guardian, the Financial Times, Prospect and the New Statesman, as well as for the think tanks The Institute of Public Policy Research and Demos. He is founding editor of The Philosophers' Magazine. He has also appeared as a character in two Alexander McCall-Smith novels.

The Self Illusion - Susan Blackmore

This is a clip from Susan Blackmore's talk at Science and Nonduality Conference 2012 in The Netherlands.

Sue Blackmore is a psychologist and writer researching consciousness, memes, and anomalous experiences, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. She blogs for the Guardian, and often appears on radio and television. The Meme Machine (1999) has been translated into 16 other languages; more recent books include Conversations on Consciousness (2005), Zen and the Art of Consciousness (2011), and a textbook Consciousness: An Introduction (2nd Ed 2010).

The Transcendence of Time in Shamanic Practice - Michael Harner

Michael Harner, the founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, gave this lecture at the Science and Nonduality Conference, 2011.

Over tens of thousands of years, our ancient ancestors all over the world discovered how to maximize human abilities of mind and spirit for healing and problem-solving. The remarkable system of methods they developed is today known as shamanism. Shamans are especially distinguished by the use of journeys to hidden worlds otherwise mainly known through myth, dream, and near-death experiences. A core feature of shamanism is that the Universe is divisible into three worlds: the Upper, Middle, and Lower. The Middle World, in which we live, has both its ordinary and non-ordinary (or non-spiritual and spiritual) aspects, and belongs only to this immediate moment in time. The Upper and Lower Worlds, in contrast, are purely spiritual and are found only in nonordinary reality, where they exist outside of time. The trained shaman can make "out of body" journeys to these worlds, moving back and forth with discipline and purpose in order to help and heal others. In these journeys, the shaman transcends time, going back to look at the past or traveling into the future to seek assistance on behalf of others from compassionate beings found there. In these worlds, there is no separation between the shaman and everything else. He or she knows, as ancient Siberian shamans knew that, "Everything that is, is alive." The Universe is experienced as a unified whole, and the shaman partakes of the love and the ecstasy of this transcendent reality.

Martin LeFevre - Experiencing Timeless Being

Martin LeFevre posted this article on timeless being at Ovi Magazine a few days ago - it's an interesting subjective account of his experience.

Experiencing Timeless Being 

by Martin LeFevre
2012-06-21 

Overhanging the gorge are great angular outcroppings of volcanic rock—solid and sharp-edged protrusions from some long-ago eruption of Lassen or some other volcano in the area. 

In many places, the sheer sides of the gorge have huge slabs balanced on top of them--some looking like a giant stonemason had placed them there. Other large formations, with deep fissures where they meet the canyon wall, sit vertically in precarious positions, awaiting the next major earthquake to send them tumbling into the stream below.

Beyond the gorge, gently sloping grasslands ascend to the base of the sheer cliffs that form the perimeter of the canyon. Perched near the precipice under one of the plentiful oaks in the area, I can hear the rushing of the stream at the bottom of the glistening gorge, which stretches for hundreds of meters down and away.

The grasses around me are so dry that they break at the touch, and appear golden from even a meter away. Directly across, beyond the narrow gorge within the relative sanctuary of the large, fan-shaped canyon, are the majestic cliffs, rising hundreds of meters into a cloud-scudded sky.

Big buzzards, masters of the air in their own right, appear as lumbering leviathans next to smaller, more agile woodland hawks that follow in their wake, screeching as they wheel and dive into the trees at the foot of the cliffs.

Psychological time ends, and the mind, anchored in the present, ranges briefly over the past. The people who once lived in this beautiful place come to mind, and to heart. Is something of their essence still here?

Native Americans loved this canyon, and revered it as sacred. They were wiped out, driven off, and assimilated into a dominant culture that thought of the land only in terms of profit. But listening deeply in the meditative state, one seems to hear whispers across the land of their lives. Is it imagination, or actuality?

The undirected mind in meditation is like a laser effortlessly boring through the strata accumulated in content-consciousness—not only from one’s own life, but also from the lives of all previous generations. Through such openings the light of the cosmos pours into one, and one participates, however briefly, in the infinite intelligence beyond thought.

Even for adept meditators, indeed perhaps even for ‘enlightened’ people, the meditative state is not a constant, but a quality of consciousness that one has to ignite each day by making space for undivided attention. Nature is crucial to the process, though a mindful, silent walk through a park in the middle of a city, followed by a half hour’s sitting in one’s residence with the light flooding in as the bustle goes on below, can be sufficient to generate a radical shift in consciousness.

Spiritual knowledge is the easiest thing to fake, but meditative states are much harder to feign. The world is full of followers, and only a few stand alone. Any clever man or woman can put on wisdom robes and pass himself or herself off as an enlightened guru. There’s an entire industry of such charlatans now, willing to sell you their books, DVD’s, retreats, or whatever.

The supposedly enlightened ones mislead people, telling them how they can get from here to there, from this consciousness to the next. Becoming sells, especially with regard to enlightenment, because time is all we know, in one form or another.

But one does not ‘attain’ illumination; one enters that dimension through the back door, quietly and anonymously. There’s nothing to reach as an end; there’s only growth through negation, though that sounds like a contradiction in terms.

Our consciousness is based on time. Not chronological time, but psychological time--becoming this or becoming that. We’re nearly always looking forward to something, or back at our memories.

To some degree looking forward to things is healthy, but when time-based consciousness is all one knows, one is a slave to becoming and memory. That mode prevents one from growing as a human being.

Time is obviously necessary for carrying out tasks, but are time and evolution involved in radical change and revolution in consciousness?
 
Astronomers continually tell us that when we look out at a distant star or galaxy, we’re seeing it as it was many light years ago, since it took the light from the object a hundred or a thousand or a million light years to reach us. But if you think about it, that is nonsensical. It simply means that every instant of the past is enfolded in the present.

Psychological time is antithetical to transmutation and revolution. Spiritual growth only occurs when time as the past, projected into the future, ends.

It’s therefore a confusion of the highest order to talk about ‘conscious evolution.’ When we are really changing, we aren’t conscious of it until later, and then only fleetingly, like looking in a rear view mirror while driving down the highway.

Though I haven’t completely mastered time within myself, I’ve experienced how timeless consciousness can function in the field of time, but time-based consciousness has no relationship to the timeless.

But if this shift happens spontaneously, does one even know when psychological time stops? Yes, because the mind no longer looks forward or back; it just effortlessly remains with what is.

However long that lasts by the clock, one is forever changed in experiencing timeless being. My question is: why does time-bound consciousness return? 

What Is the Self?

This is a very short and cool video from the Science and Nonduality channel on YouTube.




What Is the Self?

Join the exploration: Science and Nonduality

SAND Europe - 29th May - 3rd June, 2012, Doorn, The Netherlands
SAND USA - Oct 24th-28th, 2012, San Rafael, CA

Mystics in all ages and cultures describe the self as infinite, stable and ever-present phenomena. Modern physics describe the world as a self-moving, self-designing pattern, an undivided wholeness, a dance. We, as a society, relate to the self mostly as an individual, unique, time bound form. Our common sense, as individuals and society, hasn't caught up with this picture and it still based on long-held biases and stories. The Earth is clearly round but we still act as if it was flat...

We live at the dawn of a scientific revolution, every day brings new findings from a wide range of scientific disciplines about what it means to be human. Modern science now gives us the detailed descriptions of the mechanisms our brain needs to construct what we call the self.

Could it be this illusionary image of ourselves as separate beings that is keeping us in this perpetual state of anxiety, scarcity, fear, dissatisfaction and leading us, as a society, at this very delicate point in evolution?

Video by: Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo

Research - Influence of meditation on anti-correlated networks in the brain

I have posted work from Zoran Josipovic before - he is looking at meditation and the brain from a variety of perspectives. This new article published in the open access Frontiers in Human Neuroscience looks at the impact of various forms of attentional awareness on the normal competition between intrinsic (internal and self-related) and extrinsic (external and environment-related) brain functions. Focused awareness increases that competition while nondual awareness decreases it, compared to baseline fixated attention states.

The whole study can be read online for free, or downloaded as a PDF.

Influence of meditation on anti-correlated networks in the brain

Zoran Josipovic¹*, Ilan Dinstein², Jochen Weber³ and David J. Heeger¹

• ¹Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, USA
• ²Neurobiology Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
• ³Department of Psychology and SCAN, Columbia University, New York, USA

Human experiences can be broadly divided into those that are external and related to interaction with the environment, and experiences that are internal and self-related. The cerebral cortex appears to be divided into two corresponding systems: an “extrinsic” system composed of brain areas that respond more to external stimuli and tasks and an “intrinsic” system composed of brain areas that respond less to external stimuli and tasks. These two broad brain systems seem to compete with each other, such that their activity levels over time is usually anti-correlated, even when subjects are “at rest” and not performing any task. This study used meditation as an experimental manipulation to test whether this competition (anti-correlation) can be modulated by cognitive strategy. Participants either fixated without meditation (fixation), or engaged in non-dual awareness (NDA) or focused attention (FA) meditations. We computed inter-area correlations (“functional connectivity”) between pairs of brain regions within each system, and between the entire extrinsic and intrinsic systems. Anti-correlation between extrinsic vs. intrinsic systems was stronger during FA meditation and weaker during NDA meditation in comparison to fixation (without mediation). However, correlation between areas within each system did not change across conditions. These results suggest that the anti-correlation found between extrinsic and intrinsic systems is not an immutable property of brain organization and that practicing different forms of meditation can modulate this gross functional organization in profoundly different ways.

Citation: Josipovic Z, Dinstein I, Weber J and Heeger DJ. (2012). Influence of meditation on anticorrelated networks in the brain. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 5:183. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2011.00183

Tauravsky: Presentism, Eternalism, and Nonduality

This may possibly be the last video I post from the Science and Nonduality Conference - I hope some of them have been interesting.



Tauravsky: Presentism, Eternalism, and Nonduality from Science and Nonduality on FORA.tv

Presentism, Eternalism, and Nonduality
Keith Tauravsky, Philosopher, Univ. of Texas

What's the "most nondual" way to think about the nature of time? Herein I will consider two opposing metaphysical hypotheses popular among contemporary philosophers of time: presentism and eternalism. Presentism maintains that only the present moment is real—that the past and future literally do not exist. On the other hand, eternalism (sometimes called the "block universe" theory) asserts that the apparent "privileged status" of the present is an illusion, and that the past and future coexist with the present moment, just as different locations in space coexist. Either way, we must acknowledge that our naïve conception of time relies upon one or more illusory concepts. As it happens, this contemporary philosophical debate is paralleled in the nondualist tradition(s): some thinkers stress that the "Eternal Now" is all that exists, while others believe the present moment, in its fleetingness, is insubstantial and illusory. While either theory of time might thus be held to be "more nondual" than the other, I will argue that presentism yields the more philosophically satisfying (and personally empowering) worldview. Special attention will be given to a common objection to presentism involving the theory of relativity; I will suggest that the so-called Twin Paradox not only fails as an objection to presentism but in fact seems to be strong evidence in support of the view.

Zoran Josipovic, Ph.D. - A Time for Caution? Immanence, Transcendence & Nonduality

Another session from the Science and Nonduality Conference hosted by FORA.tv. Joran Josipovic, Ph.D. (NYU) is Director/Principal Investigator: Contemplative Science Lab, Founding Director: Nonduality Institute, with research interests in meditation, consciousness, and nonduality.

I am interested in states of consciousness cultivated through contemplative practice, what these states can tell us about the nature of consciousness and its relation to authentic subjectivity, and what relevance this may have for understanding the global and local organization in the brain. I use fMRI and a variety of visual and other stimuli to explore functional connectivity changes in the brain’s networks. 

BBC Interview with Josipovic: Brains of Buddhist monks scanned in meditation study


A Time for Caution? Immanence, Transcendence & Nonduality



A Time for Caution? Immanence, Transcendence & Nonduality from Science and Nonduality on FORA.tv

This talk will explore different views on nonduality, paths to to it and their stages, and the ways we are becoming accustomed to talking about them. This will provide a background to look at the ways we draw inferences from them about the nature of reality and the space-time continuum.

Zoran Josipovic, Ph.D. is a research scientist and an adjunct professor at and Psychology Dept. and Center for Neural Science, New York University. His main interests are the nature of consciousness and its relation to the brain, global versus local theories of consciousness, and the functioning of anti-correlated neural networks. Zoran is a long-term practitioner of meditation in the nondual traditions of Dzogchen, Mahamudra and Advaita Vedanta. He has also worked as a psychotherapist and a bodyworker and has taught meditation at Esalen Institute for many years.

Gary Pritchard, Ph.D. - Ways of Seeing – Ourselves

Here is yet another segment from the Science and Nonduality Conference hosted by FORA.tv - in this talk, Gary Pritchard, Ph.D., discusses John Berger's material on cultural semiotics and its relationship to mindfulness as a way toward working with nonduality.

Gary Pritchard, Ph.D. - Ways of Seeing – Ourselves



Ways of Seeing - Ourselves from Science and Nonduality on FORA.tv

Ways of Seeing – Ourselves: How John Berger's seminal arts theory text foreshadowed the mindfulness movement and remains hugely relevant today

Gary Pritchard, Ph.D University of Wales

Almost forty years after John Berger's polemic on cultural semiotics, his treaty to review art history via shape-shifting contemporary cultural conventions remains strangely relevant. His words however, now have to compete for an audience living in a very different cultural and spiritual landscape than when he originally wrote them. The emergence of the mindfulness movement has drawn heavily on Kabat-Zinn's definition: "Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally." This resonates profoundly with Berger's framework for encouraging a new Way of Seeing. While Berger himself would probably baulk at this association, his arts pedagogy provides a profound framework for scanning the world – on purpose and in the moment.

This paper seeks to map Berger's semiotic structure onto several of the key tenets of mindfulness approaches to engaging time and space. Those of us who aspire to negotiate the non-dual through arts education and practice, can use this framework in attempting to navigate the everyday contexts we face. In a climate of postmodern diffidence, new ways of articulating old values has become critical. Reflective arts practice demands movement by the practitioner - into the moment, and has a rich heritage within arts education. David Thomas describes it as: "…a way of researching through the practice of making art. Such making is not just doing, but is a complex informed physical, theoretical and intellectual activity where public and private worlds meet." This study adds 'spiritual discovery' to Thomas's list of creative complexity, and also draws upon Ken Wilber's integrated approach to human creativity to forge a compelling argument for a new way of seeing. It posits that reflective arts practice becomes infused with a dynamic heuristic when it is accompanied by pedagogic strategies that promote psychosocial and transpersonal self-reflective intelligences.

Scott Anderson - The Time Spectrum Unlocks the Spiritual Psychophysics

Here is another offering from the Science and Nonduality Conference hosted by FORA.tv. This is a short but heady segment.



The Time Spectrum Unlocks the Spiritual Psychophysics from Science and Nonduality on FORA.tv

The Time Spectrum Unlocks the Spiritual Psychophysics

Since Capra’s Tao of Physics in 1975, we’ve been standing before the door to a psychophysics of consciousness — a genuinely spiritual science. Collective anticipation of such a hybrid has grown in successive waves over the two centuries since Swedenborg and Mesmer first proposed the possibility. The Time Spectrum key unlocks this door. Spanning the sixty orders of magnitude between Planck’s “shortest possible time” and the apparent current age of the universe, the Time Spectrum is naturally depicted logarithmically. As such, it opens before us the vast range of time frames nested within the average human heart beat that are otherwise hidden — time frames we propose ALL relate to experience in an observer-centered cosmology. Electromagnetism occupies a mid-range third of this span defining three roughly equal domains of twenty orders of magnitude each: an OUTER domain of the environment of the body out to the furthest reaches of the cosmos; an INNER domain of embodied experience; and an INNERMOST domain where we posit individuated time-bound awareness connects with non-individuated timeless awareness. The phenomena characterizing these three domains relate to a cutting-edge tool of mathematical physics, the complex division algebras, the next extension of which attains “non-division” — an elegant model of ultimate nonduality. Finally, these four domains — three of time plus a timeless context — bear striking parallels to the ancient sciences of mind found in the Indo-Tibetan yogas (among others). These traditions observe that our total reality embraces “gross, subtle, causal, and nondual” domains. These alignments will be correlated with the leading contemporary theory in the science of consciousness — the Hameroff-Penrose model. Yoga science thus suggests how spirituality and science can begin to shed new light upon and enrich each other. The Yoga Science Foundation has launched the exploration of this new opening.

Scott Anderson

As a biology student at Harvard, Scott met Yogiraj Swami Satchidananda who encouraged him in both spiritual practice and scientific study. He went on to become student of Adi Da Samraj, obtain his MD at UCONN, and serve as Adidam Clinic Director of Research for 20+ years. "The unexpected hybrid" -- Yoga Science -- was born in meditation in 1987. Scott is currently Director of the Yoga Science Foundation that is engineering a conceptual bridge between science and spirituality based on the discovery of previously neglected features in the scientific conception of time.

Understanding the Concept of Time in Maharaj & Heidegger

Here is yet another segment from the Science and Nonduality Conference - Mila Makal speaks about the Concept of time in Maharaj and Heidegger.



Understanding the Concept of Time in Maharaj & Heidegger from Science and Nonduality on FORA.tv

ONE WHO IS AFRAID OF TIME BECOMES A PREY OF TIME: Radicalization of understanding of the concept of time in Nisargadatta Maharaj and Martin Heidegger
by Mila Makal

If for us humans, life is a disease with a very poor prognosis, for philosophers the certainty of death opens up possibilities and thus time. Only for mortals does time pass. For God, years neither go nor come – they are, according to Saint Augustine, “completely present all at once.” “Time is the child of a barren woman,” states Nisargadatta Maharaj. “One who is afraid of time becomes a prey of time. But time itself becomes a prey of that one who is not afraid of it.” To fear time is like fearing an unborn child. For Martin Heidegger, being is time. Time is only because we are mortal. Our being finds its meaning in death. Authentic existence is the courage ‘for anxiety in the face of death’. Time itself is the presence in the unity of presence and absence. What defines our very existence, indeed, what gives the sum of Descartes’ ‘cogito sum’ meaning is that it is ‘sum moribundus’. We humans are destined for death and Heidegger believes that this ultimate limit or end makes all possibilities eo ipso time intelligible. Plato argued that the task of philosophy is to charm away the fear of death. Maharaj insists that if you meet a lion, “You threaten the lion since either way it is going to kill you. So why die like a coward out of fear? Attack it bravely and knock out some of its teeth. If you are certain of your death, why suffer a lowly death? Die nobly and honorably.” The philosopher and the sage triumph over death, they do not run away from it, but look it straight in the face.