Interview with Derek D. Lyons

Love how encounters always present in a timely fashion. We are constantly attracting into our experience new ways to deepen understanding of ourselves and our place in the world we come to perceive as a changing reality.

Having written many books, I often find myself naturally drawn to engage with writers and publishers. The experience of being a long-time radio co-host with Dr. Steven Hairfield, The American Monk, and endeavours such as breathwork, yoga and meditation, allow awareness of divinity to blossom. It occurs that every moment is an opportunity to deepen connection with ourselves and others. As such, I am grateful that details come together to engage in this interview with Derek D. Lyons.  

Tell us about your upbringing. How were you initially introduced to God? 

I was introduced to traditional beliefs about God before my earliest consciously accessible memories. Several times during adulthood, my mother told me a story about how the police picked me up as I walked alone across some railroad tracks. At only 4-5 years old, I told police that I was going to church.. Evidently, I had already learned the importance of God and religion. (Story appears in, Divinity Within Ourselves: A Memoir.)

I can attest to what you say about knowing, "before [your] earliest consciously accessible memories." Certain breathing techniques allow one to access memories of consciousness that occur early in life, including at and before birth as well as recall varied lifetimes. Deeper reasons present for why we create particular beliefs and behaviour patterns in this lifetime.

In my current interpretation of these life events, I, as a young child imbibed the emotions of my parents. I could feel the importance of God and religion to them. Wanting to please them, I adopted their emotions as my own.

Parents are often early role models. At different life stages, people take on the emotional energy of and beliefs of others and can be completely unconscious of this. It can be a boundary issue or, a sense we are all connected, a knowing that energy flows and allowing that without judgment.

I see your points. My interpretation constitutes a post-hoc simplification (something we all like to see, as discussed below).

The infant mind adopts the parents' emotions because it does not automatically distinguish its own mind from that of its mother. The mother's emotions are the child's emotions. The infant empathizes and bonds with its mother in those early days outside the womb, drinking in her emotions and feeling safe and secure because of the mother's attentiveness, care and love. 

Indeed! Although the umbilical cord is severed after birth, energy fields of mother and child stay connected. Some people describe this as a mental connection. Others feel energetic or unseen connections. Consider mothers have 'a sixth sense.'  Many mothers intuit, feel, know if their child is in danger, or sense changes in energy or emotional fields even when the child are not nearby. 

I have heard of such a connection.  To the extent that the young child mind feels consistency in the mother's affections and her reactions to the child's needs, the child grows up feeling a sense of safety and security. The child matures into a well-adjusted adult, without a need for constant reassurance and acknowledgement of his or her importance or value to other people.

Of course, not every child receives unconditional love early in life or matures into a well-adjusted adult...

True. Yet, much like teenagers and adults, infants hunger for input, new sensations, new social interactions, new information, new entertainment. In the case of an infant, the cerebral cortex constitutes a blank slate. (This contrasts with the older parts of the brain, namely, the limbic system and the brain stem, which entail instinctual, pre-wired neural circuitry.) An infant needs stimulation from the parents as much as it needs milk. And the emotions of the parent(s) form the primary substance of this input.

Alongside your observation, it is worth noting that desire (perceived need) arises from a fear of not having. When we tell ourselves we want or need something, deep inside, we come to believe that we are not enough. Even deeper still, Marianne Williamson echoes 'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.' (We fear being our true selves.)  

That is a startling idea.

Well, we each perceive life events differently much like two people can look at the same cloud and see different forms in it.  Neither is right or wrong, simply different ways of seeing. 

This said, how do you expand on emotional input from parents in relation to God or 'the divine'?

Pursuant to the view expressed in my books, I have decided that the story as to God contains more than mere imitation of parental beliefs and internalization of their emotional responses. Something already existed there, in my mind, a prior experience to which my parents' exhortations and habits attached.

It is also suggested all souls enter this world with core knowings but do not allow blossoming at the same pace. Please share more about 'divine knowing' ...

I had an earlier apprehension or experience of the divine. I knew already about the infinite and the eternal. I knew about the mystery of existence. I knew about the immense significance of being. My parents' words and religious practices became embedded in my brain, attached to these pre-existing notions. My cerebral cortex at my birth did not present an entirely blank slate. I had experienced mind itself, pure consciousness. Mind showed attributes of the infinite, the eternal, the immense significance of being alive, and the unity of everything, inherent in the oneness of mind.

Its interesting that you pinpoint an experience of the divine on a time-line, in a sense of 'earlier,' or 'before' something related to time. Another view shared by Nisagardatta Maharaj echoes, 'there is no such thing as beginning and end... Timeless being is entirely in the now. Being and not-being alternate and their reality is momentary. Immutable Reality is beyond space and time.'

What if not everyone arrives in this world with a blank slate? Consider unhindered awareness of Buddhist llamas.  Heirs to lineages are chosen based on the memories of young children who positively identify belongings possessed in previous lifetimes.  Children in western cultures are also emerging with mature abilities that previously took people lifetimes to achieve. Look at increasing examples of child prodigies in mathematics, opera singers like Jacky Evancho and Amira Willighagen, creative artist-poets like Akiane Kramarik. Many labels exist such as Indigo, Crystal or Rainbow children, and books such as The Children of Now:  Evolution (How can we fast-forward the evolution of our children and our race) by Meg Blackburn Losey.  It suggests a perceived gap is narrowing between collective ignorance and collective remembering.

Let's shift to address God from the views of Spirituality, Religion and modern Science... 

To me, Spirituality, implies a vague apprehension and appreciation of the deepest parts of one's self. Spirituality constitutes feeling alone, except when one tries to talk about it. Then one casts about for words to describe something ethereal and ineffable that existed before words, independently of language, both in the human race as a whole and in the individual human mind. People who evince Spirituality, who attend to matters of the spirit, probe the innermost recesses of their minds, questioning and attempting to access their most remote unconscious being. They apprehend, in a tenuous way, the basic characteristics of God, which are the basic characteristics of pure mind, that is, mind without specific content of sensation and perception, mind aware of itself, of its infinite potential, its apprehension of eternity (the absence of time), its love for being alive, and the feeling of being united with the universe.

Silence is sometimes the best response.  I hear you paint in acrylics and scuplt in clay. This suggests you are a man who expresses the divine beyond words too.

I am full of surprises and can still surprise myself. Onward then: Religion, for deep believers, has spirituality at its core. But religion superimposes a social and cultural edifice on top of the spiritual feeling.

Sometimes religion is also linked with institutionalized dogma.

But ideally, religion includes theological beliefs and rituals or practices that would put one in touch with one's core feelings, one's spirituality, and bind one to other people in the congregation and the world at large and to the entire universe. In effective religious practice, one's mind attains a unity that spirituality promises but cannot achieve when one's mind has become preoccupied with, or distracted by, specific content, including other people and ideas about life and the universe. Religion can serve to unify spiritual feelings with an intellectual parsing of the universe and with physical needs for action preferably in cooperation and conjunction with a group of people.

You offer much to reflect on here. Communities have long performed rituals to connect with the Earth and the cosmos.  These practices have not always been linked to religion. Many views exist about the relationship between religion and spirituality. Some people sense they are separate topics and others view them as simply terms describing the same energy flows with varied degrees of freedom and control.  

I resonate with Osho who echoes, "Any kind of dependence is slavery, and the spiritual dependence is the worst slavery of all. I have been making every effort to make you aware of your individuality, your freedom, your absolute capacity to grow without any help from anybody."

Well, as I see it, religion provides an opportunity for celebrating spirituality in a group, with other people, a sharing of mind and values.

And where Science factor into this for you? One view is the connection between Science and Spirituality is self-evident while others see them as in opposition.  Still others say that rifts must be healed between Science and Spirituality for humanity to shift into new, more harmonious collective consciousness.

Science diverges from spirituality and religion in that the purpose and processes of Science differ greatly from that of the individual human mind seeking to find itself, whether alone or together with other people. Science, like religion, constitutes a cultural creation. Science enables a communal construction of reality, where a group share an understanding of how the universe works, its underlying rules (laws) and kinds of objects it contains.

There is a quote related to the history of Science that stands out here: "first one is rejected as a heretic, then applauded as a pioneer and finally, designated as a genius before his time."  Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin appropriately says "Pioneers will always pave the way with sacrifice."

Where do you understand emotion comes into the Scientific?

Science, like everything else we do, must provide its practitioners with emotional reinforcement and must find motivational support in the emotions of its adherents.  However, Science attempts to separate out the emotion from the intellectual appraisal of facts and theories. Science, in brief, does not aim to enable or enhance emotional experience. While Science may examine emotion as subject matter, Science intends to objectively understand emotional experience, rather than to enable scientists and the science-oriented public to have such experience.        

So, if I get you here, you imply Science attempts to evoke emotion and also mentally deconstruct it.   Some say a feeling is a mental portrayal of what is going on in the body when you have an emotion, a by-product of the brain perceiving and defining the emotion. The same people suggest thoughts of feelings happen after having an emotion, are often subconscious.  Another view is feelings are part of core being, have no opposites and can only be felt not understood.

This said, what is consciousness to you? How would you your experience of this?

Consciousness is everything to me. Without consciousness, what would we have? We would have something but not know that we have it.  I consider consciousness as the tip of the iceberg of mind. Our brains have innumerable layers of unconscious processes, and those processes form unconscious precursors of conscious thoughts and ideas. The brain compares and combines the unconscious thoughts and pushes a summary or end result of all that unconscious processing into the foreground of our minds, thereby populating our consciousness.

Love inviting related questions: when we observe things, it is sheer observation or “witnessing”. But, what is the “we’ observe? The “we”(or you) is consciousness; it is “our consciousness”. So, our consciousness observes. It is the intelligence associated with the consciousness which brings about an “awareness” that we have observed. So, we grow “aware”.

What if the perceived need to balance the psyche (conscious and unconscious mind) is illusion? 

Well, we are much more than our consciousness. But the content of consciousness is what we know. The rest of us remains hidden, but not necessarily entirely or forever, without recourse to our discovery of our hidden selves. Spirituality exhibits an acknowledgement of our hidden selves and attempts to probe the depths to find out what is there. Something lurks there, something of immense worth and import.

If you could describe our deepest yearning, how would you put that into words?

I think that the something we seek in spiritual meanderings is our deepest being, our feelings about being alive, our right hemisphere appreciation of ourselves and others, that our brains naturally experience in preparation for life, for encountering other people and learning about the world.

Natural experience rings true.  Yet, what if we imagine this as a balanced right-left hemisphere perception rather than viewing the world through either right or left hemispheres alone? 

Human consciousness is astonishing (if we do not take it for granted): that we not only live but also know we are alive. This analogizes to science, insofar as science amazes us, not only for the order science has found in the universe, but that our collective minds have the capability of apprehending the vast array of objects in the universe and the rules of their engagement and the wherewithal to formulate those rules via various languages of mathematics.

Aliveness is almost beyond description, is it not? Anil Seth offers a fantastic TedxTalk: Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality  that offers food for reflection.

The pleasures of consciousness form, in my view, icing on the cake of life. While life may not inherently require consciousness, it has provided us human beings with a profound gift and invites us to take pleasure in the universe and its fruits, its awesome prodigality, on every level of being.

Please be more specific about expansion...

My experience of consciousness includes expansion of consciousness, becoming aware of ever more both in the external universe and in the mind, for instance, as ever finer and divergent emotional experience in art and the continuing discoveries and ideas of scientific enterprise.

What led you to begin to make connections between divine perceptions and the brain? 

Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion provided me with motivation to think about religion from a scientific point of view. He proposed a number of potential explanations, all from his point of view as a behavioral biologist.  But none of his explanations seem to hit the mark. Then I read Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight. After having previously read some books on neurology, such as Antonio Damasio's Self Comes to Mind, and V.S. Ramachandran's and Sandra Blakeslee's Phantoms in the Brain, Dr. Taylor's account of her stroke engendered a Eureka moment in my mind.

All of these stand out to me, especially Jill Bolte Taylor's Stroke of Insight. You might also be familliar with Proof of Heaven and an interview with the author, Dr. Eben Alexander.

Earlier causative influences included my own rejection of religion as a teenager and my continuing search for understanding of belief in God and a substitute for religion. I looked into mysticism and Buddhism. A Buddhist author wrote that "Everything is in the mind." I was additionally predisposed toward a neurological connection between religion and the brain by my mother's answer to her children's complaints about stomach pain and other ailments, namely, "It's all in your heads."

You are the author of an ongoing book series. What prompts you to share 'ah-ha' moments?

Just as that ancient Greek wanted to share his insight, as he ran through the streets, shouting "Eureka," I too wish to share my ideas. As my daughter pointed out (see the books' dedication pages), I wrote my books because she did not want to listen to me. She was partially right, but it was not just her lack of attention. Anybody I talked to seemed to lack either interest or understanding. Writing a book makes the story available to a larger audience, some of which will have a desire to understand, or at least take in a new explanation and perhaps configure a new web of connectivity in their own brains.  Moreover, writing a book sharpens one's ideas and creates additional insights.  Writing a book may constitute the best way to figure out exactly what you want to say. You must construct a story, fill in details, and make transitions between seemingly irrelevant ideas.

Just as Joseph Campbell describes, we are each on The Hero's Journey .

So, Divinity Within Ourselves: God as Mind Projected onto the External World is your latest book. Who would benefit from it and why? 

This book would appeal most to those people interested in both science and religious experience. This group would naturally include scientists and the science-minded, but would also include people of a mildly religious inclination, who wonder about God and the universe. Seekers of spirituality, who feel that there is something 'out there' and would like to have some grist for their thinking and searching, would likely benefit and enjoy the book. 

What about aethiests and agnostics?

Also, atheists and agnostics, whether long-entrenched in their anti-God beliefs or new to the doubter fold, can ferret out insights and perhaps a strong and rich foundation for understanding, not only of their own beliefs but also the beliefs and motivations of their friends who are religious. Non-believers can acquire from the book some thoughts, some appreciation, and an overall explanation, for the beneficial hold that religion naturally has on the human mind.

What sort of feedback are you receiving generally?

One of my sisters has read my first book, the memoir, and favorably commented on the prescription at the end of the book, that everyone has a right to adopt and nourish their own view on the subject of the divine and theology. This prescription necessarily means that one must not attempt to impose one's metaphysical and theological beliefs on other people. Each of us must be free to organize our minds pursuant to our personal neurological needs and our personal histories. We must be free to live with ourselves. Concomitantly, we must limit our intrusions into other people's minds and demands we may make, even inadvertently, that they think the same way as we do.

How do your books differ from those of non-believers?

In contrast to many books written by non-believers, and especially those written by formerly religious individuals, my books do not denigrate or attack religious belief. Rather that saying what is wrong with belief in God and religious practice, I look at the natural operations of the mind that give rise to spirituality and belief in the divine. In addition, I discuss certain positive benefits afforded to the brain of the believer. Unfortunately, I can no longer enjoy those benefits myself, owing to my rejection of religion and my conversion to atheism or agnosticism, which occurred while I was in high school. But I think I can understand the beauty of religion. I certainly see it when I visit churches and temples. And I remember my feelings during religious celebrations I attended as a child.

Sounds like you extract what you recall felt good and build on that.

In simple terms, you could say that. 

Many people are taught to view themselves as separate individuals in a fragmented world. How do you sense this is changing? 

I cannot answer this question. I cannot say how things are changing. However, I can follow the example of politicians and pretend to answer the question by talking about something else important to me. I think your observation of separate individuals in a fragmented world is accurate, particularly with respect to Western cultures and increasingly so with respect to the rest of the world. We live in a pluralistic society, not only politically, but also with respect to the major cultural mega-memes of art, science and religion. The U.S. Constitution recognizes the need to accommodate pluralistic interests. But we may be in danger of forgetting that we must tolerate one another's views and opinions. I see an ever-increasing amount of partisan discord, people who insult and criticize others, rather than respecting and attempting to understand other people's points of view. This societal fragmentation could presage a degradation of the U.S. and any other similarly fractious nation.

In this moment, everything exists, including an ever-present stream of harmony that one can tune into or out of.  Ancient sages, yogis and wise individuals echo the external world mirrors the state of inner being.  Where we see conflict in the external world therefore, we may not be seeing or integrating within ourselves.  The Sufi poet Rumi tells us “Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth."

We may wish to avoid change or we may embrace change. Whatever our wishes, things do change. We change, despite our belief that we remain the same person throughout our life. What we need to find, both within ourselves as individuals and within our cultural institutions, is a core being or a place of peace, something that is supportive and respectful of all the dissonance and enables perhaps not only co-existence, but also unity. I speak here both of our individual minds and our collective or group minds.

How else do you sense the illusion of separation?

We can plumb this question of separation and fragmentation further. One of the most important goals of the human mind, inherent in the genetic structure of the brain, is order. The brain achieves order by creating new forms, new patterns in the mind, patterns that unify dissonant elements and provide simplicity; the brain makes connections and organizes the associated elements into cohesive forms. We all seek unity and simplicity in our understanding of things 'out there' in the world, as well as 'in here' in the mind. The word "fragmentation," in its opposition to the neural need for unity and simplicity, points to discomfort and vertigo.

We can also reflect on the word listen and how it can be rearraged into the word silent.

Words speak volumes. I personally have not found a unifying concept that takes into account the entire world, including both the physical universe and the social universe. In the social sphere, the most important reality for the human mind, we each typically engage multiple people each day in different group settings. Each group constitutes a different social structure, with respective individuals and respective rules of engagement among the various group members. We have to live with this fragmentation and compartmentalize our experience.

Okay.  What is your take on humans as multidimensional beings living multiple (parallel) realities simultaneously?

To the extent we want unity in the multiplicity, we have to achieve the unity by ourselves, for the unity must jibe with our individual brains, our perceptual constructs and our personal histories. For many people, God and religion can provide unity to the entire brain. Everything can find meaning and purpose in God. God forms the source of all value and constitutes an explanation and narrative for everything that exists. For other people such as myself, this mode of unifying the totality of experience no longer works. We must look elsewhere. Many people find unity in egoic acquisition, where the self forms the center of the universe. For the self-centered individual, the entire universe has meaning and structure only in relation to the goals and purposes of the individual person. The only things that matter relate to the egoic definition(s) adopted by that individual, usually early in their lives, but possibly reformulated during a later stage of development, such as the teenage years.

Well, Friedrich Nietzsche says, “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star."

What is your take on The God Delusion and related views by author Richard Dawkins? 

I would say that Richard Dawkins did not really present a coherent explanation or answer to the main question he posed in The God Delusion, namely, what is it about the human mind that is adaptive for survival that makes the mind receptive to religious belief?  He talked about primitive cultures, misfiring of circuits and romantic love, but presented these as tentative suggestions or possibilities, rather than as definitive answers.

As set forth in my books, I understand belief in God as a natural function of the human brain. Richard Dawkins makes a half-hearted attempt at a neurological explanation of religious belief when he uses the word "misfiring" as to neural circuits. In my books I refer more precisely to overall brain function, for instance, in the accretion or learning process which naturally and inevitably entails modification of memory and understanding. I also propose a natural process of asynchronous neuron activation, which interferes with effective brain function.  The brain naturally acts to reduce this neural noise by either inhibiting the rambunctious neurons or engaging in use of ability, that is, positively and synchronously activating circuits in concerted behaviors.  Reduction of neural noise constitutes one of the benefits of religious belief and practice and results in a feeling of peace and tranquility. The peace of God is peace of mind, owing to brain-wide neural activation in the practice of religion (and in other activities such as artistic creation and contemplation, or playing tennis), that quells neural noise and releases the brain from internal distraction so that it can attend to new data input, including, for instance, thoughts about evolution and romantic love.

You talk about God relating to the brain but what about the rest of the body? 

Belief in God arises in large part from the natural binding functions of the human brain, the natural orientation of the cerebral cortex toward the external world, and the original and deep experience of pure mind, that is, consciousness without content, with attributes of infinite potential and eternity, unity and oneness, and immense significance. To paraphrase Jean-Jacques Rousseau, God arises from feeling, all these feelings, together. Identifying these feelings, this primal experience of mind, as God constitutes a cultural description, which becomes associated during childhood with all of the detailed content of theology and ritual practice.

Absolutely! The truth can only ever be felt which often leaves the mind at a loss to pigeonhole 'the divine' within the limits of its logical understanding.             

We have scientists like Nassim Haramein bringing the Physics of Spirituality into the mainstream. How does his take on connection relate to your sense of reality? 

In his attempt to combine physics and consciousness, Nassim Haramein exhibits the neural drive towards unity and simplicity to which I refer above. He knows about various topics in physics and is sensitive to the brain's inherent mysticism, particularly the perceptions of the right hemisphere. He wishes to combine the two, the equations of physics and his own experience of consciousness, to one another to generate a unified conception of totality. What does his brain do? It makes something up. That is how the brain works. It constantly organizes and re-organizes its circuits to achieve greater or more facile unities. (This unifying and simplifying function of the brain, by the way, likely arose with the adaptive "purpose" of accelerating brain operations to optimize survival.)

The film Lucy by Luc Besson offers a perspective of optimum functioning of the brain: what may happen when the brain is functioning to 100% capacity.  (This stars actress Scarlett Johansson). Unsure if you are familliar?

I do know scientists seeking a quantum basis for consciousness have proposed the presence of consciousness in various components of the physical universe such as rocks and atoms and electrons. Similarly, Nassim Haramein interprets the universe in terms of information. He says that the universe feeds information to itself. The wisdom of the universe increases via this feedback loop. In my view, Nassim projects his mind onto the physical universe. Thus he claims that consciousness exists 'out there' in all of the elements of the physical universe. He feels peaceful and even joyous owing to the massive unity that he has created in his own mind. His views analogize to religious belief in many ways.  Both views exhibit and satisfy the neural desire for unity of mind, achieved by projecting mind onto the physical universe. In Nassim's case, mind finds embodiment in information, which he proceeds to insinuate into ideas about particles and sub-quantum reality.

It is thus accurate to say that we time travel through the ears. Quantum reality and  jumping between worlds in other ways may be best left for another discussion. 

Information constitutes the prime fodder for the brain as an information processor. Neural information includes raw sense data, organized percepts, and constructed ideas. The brain manufactures further information in the form of categories of objects and abstracts their attributes to form ever more ethereal sets of thought forms in different universes of discourse. In seeking unity of mind, one might naturally invest the external universe with information. I find this something of misdirection. Minds and computers constitute information processors. Other objects in the universe more closely resemble energy processors. However, information must be encoded in patterns of energy and perhaps that fact lies at the heart of Nassim's association of information with fundamental particles.

Love how Nassim invites us to reflect on new ways of seeing outside the familliar...

Nassim feels awe and wonder at the physical universe, at the immense spectra of physical forms and also at the infinite potentialities of the human brain. I feel this as well. He connects the two, the physical universe 'out there' and the mental universe 'in here,' in a manner of which I am skeptical. I see Nassim's interpretations as expressing his spiritual feelings of oneness and unity, his impressions of the infinite and the eternal, and of his compassion. I see Nassim as exhibiting all the wonderful emotions of right hemisphere awareness, on the one hand, and the admirable information processing abilities of the left cerebral hemisphere, particularly mathematical abilities, on the other hand. Nassim wishes to unify his right hemisphere awareness and his left hemisphere knowledge. He acts as a prophet or a mystic, combining vastly different modes of awareness into a new unity. I can see Nassim as generating a seed for a modern religion. I cannot say that he is wrong or that what he does in bad. I just have difficulty ascribing to his views myself.

Its true his perspective does not resoante with everyone, yet he does invite us to step outside our own version o the familliar, be willing to see beyond our own conditioning. 

As to consciousness, however, I think he errs as to a fundamental feature of reality.  The universe comprises multiple levels of being, more specifically, multiple nested spatial temporal domains each comprising sets of characteristic objects interacting with each other according to definable rules of engagement. The objects on any one level do not exist in the lower, finer-scale domains. Biological cells do not exist in the realm of atoms and molecules. Consciousness does not exist at such domain levels either. Both living organisms and consciousness emerge at higher domain levels from countless interactions among much smaller objects on finer levels of reality. Cells emerge from innumerable molecular collisions and chemical reactions within the cells. In the human brain, thoughts, feelings, and awareness in general emerge from activities of huge numbers of neurons and neural circuits.  The activities of neurons and circuits in turn arise from the countess interactions of countless neurotransmitters and protein receptors at the synapses of the neural circuits. Hormones also inform, or contribute to, human consciousness, the hormones exuded in part from organs throughout the body. Thus, human consciousness arises from the body as a whole and not just the brain. (I intend to express these ideas more fully in a metaphysics chapter of a future book on philosophy.)

You are prolific...

In an attempt at a top-down unification, Nassim reads higher-level object attributes such as consciousness into lower levels of reality, where consciousness cannot exist. Cells do not exist at the level of atoms. If you were as small as an atom and looked around, you would not see a cell. You might be inside a cell but the attributes of the cells that characterize and define the cell as such do not exist in the realm of atoms and molecules. Instead, the cumulative activity of molecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins create the cell so that it appears only on a larger-scale level of physical reality.

Well, as Einstein says, "a problem of consciousness cannot be solved at the same level at which it arose."

Nassim reduces the universe to information. In my view, the physical universe is not about information. The human mind deals with information. As mentioned above, particles such as atoms and molecules do not process information to find out a fact or generate an idea, or output an answer. Objects such as these, at more fundamental or finer levels of reality, process energy and organize the energy into lower energy configurations. In my view, matter arose as low-energy combinations of sub-quantum energy fluctuations. The physical universe at its base, in its most fundamental form, that is, at the level of space and time, at the level of quantum mechanics, comprises just matter and energy.  According to Einstein, the two are equivalent. One might say then that everything in the entire universe arises as different forms of energy.  Particles of matter are captured or localized energy.  In higher forms of matter and energy, such as cells and organisms, the captured energy becomes organized into ever more complex patterns of structure and function. Again, reality has multiple levels. (All this, again, for the metaphysics chapter or book.)

 I trust you are keeping notes. You are making valuable interdisciplinary connections. 

In contrast to atoms and molecules, our brains direct their attention to information about what's 'out there.' For a physicist, the relevant information pertains to matter and energy, space and time. Nassim projects his brain's interests and functions onto the universe. This exemplifies how the brain works. He sees information and consciousness in the brain and imbues the universe 'out there' with the same attributes.

The universe exhibits regularities which the laws of physics encode or formulate as equations.  Regularities can be quantified. Otherwise the regularities would not exist. Nassim views the regularities as information. We inherently detect and quantify regularities, in effect extracting information from the universe. We then abstract and organize the abstracted information into equations and laws.

It is amazing that the universe behaves pursuant to laws and that we can discover those laws and formulate them in the languages of mathematics. Science can provide us with occasions for feeling awe and wonder, a principal emotion of religious belief.

Theories aside, what activities do you engage that contribute to a sense of a unified existence? 

I feel a need for unification in my understanding of existence.

I was imagining activities where you connect with others, feel part of things greater than yourself... 

Multiplicity and fragmentation naturally occur in a mind dominated by the left hemisphere. As the seat of language, the left hemisphere sees the universe as a collection distinct objects that move around and occasionally bump into one another. Sometimes the collisions have enough energy and coordination to form new objects, for instance, larger molecules, or human groups such as families. (This feature of reality to be discussed in my philosophy chapter or book on metaphysics.) In brief, the left hemisphere of the brain tends to see diversity and multiplicity.

 So how can people feel more connected? Engage in deeper, more meaningful relationships?

One key to apprehending a unified existence resides in cultivating right hemisphere awareness.  Religion can promote right hemisphere awareness. The Buddhist practice of meditation and the Hindu practice of yoga can likewise lead one into a more unified appreciation of existence, specifically including the body and the mind and the external world. Engaging wholeheartedly in an activity such as making pottery, creating art, and playing a cooperative sport can also lead to a diminution of left-hemisphere differentiations and conflicts and facilitate right hemisphere awareness.

I believe art presents us with a renewable experience of unification. A work of art unifies emotional elements. Each achieved work of art form entails a unique structure or formal organization that embodies a unique composite emotion. This emotion constitutes the meaning and unity of the individual work of art. (These ideas about art appear in my two Divinity books and will be explored further in a book about the neurological effects and benefits of art.)

What about love? Feeling the way through life?

In individual intellectual pursuits, mainly carried out in or by the left hemisphere, it is possible to attain unified understandings of limited parts of existence. For instance, a field or discipline in science can have a theory or model that explains a wide diversity of facts, observations, and experimental results.  I myself find that the functioning of the human mind, pursuant to findings in neurology, forms a basis for unifying a number of areas of culture including art and religion.

 Let's look at this another way: what does interacting with children show you about existence?

In general, one can experience existence as unified if one has a most important interest around which everything can be ordered. Some people can achieve this through love, including romantic love, or love of family and children, or love of art. Usually unity requires, or is enhanced by, a social milieu, namely, other people who share our views and with whom we can jointly or cooperatively create a unified reality. We are social animals and cannot easily exist in isolation. Our personal understanding and organization of the world derive in large part from other people.

What stands out is that connection is a personal thing that can only be expeirenced directly. 

Tell us your understanding of time. What is required for humanity to function beyond time? 

Two ways exist to think about time. One takes the point of view of physics, the other looks through the lens of psychology. Physics apprehends time as an inherent characteristic of the universe. Time exists 'out there' and can be objectively defined, inasmuch as time can be measured.  Time keepers include such repetitive systems as planets revolving about stars or pendulums or the vibration of a cesium atom.

We are each timekeepers and Earth is sometimes described as an Earthship. I published a book called Mastering Time which addresses how our lives can be shaken up and prompt us to view and experience time differently.

Psychology also looks at our subjective experience of time. We live in time. I believe we cannot exist without time. Our brains are time keepers. We have circadian rhythms and neuron relaxation times. We have memories of past events in time and we imagine future events in time. For us human beings, time is all important.

Imagine life beyond time. What might that feel and look like? 

Time by any definition arises or emerges from change. In a uniform, changeless universe, time could not exist. Time emerges as an inherent attribute of the universe because everything changes. Everything is in flux. Everything is in motion. What exists now did not exist before. That is the essence of time.

 Many people contemplate about time. From your view, how does this impact emotions?

The contemplation of time, can evoke much emotion. We have memories of a past that may have engendered fear or love. In addition, we have memories of futures that have never happened, imagined events and relationships that have never existed. But we would like them to happen. We attach ourselves to those imaginary futures. We define ourselves in terms of those futures. The direction from the here and now to the imagined or projected future constitutes meaning in life. Or we fear imagined future events as potential threats to our well being and hope and pray that they never happen. Our memories, whether of past events or future potentialities, do not exist in the external world. They exist only in our imaginations, as constructs. We make it up.

As Shakespeare says, "All the world is a stage and all the men and women are merely players..."

Time as such exists largely in our minds, in our imaginations. Accordingly, we can possibly escape the oppression of time through our imagination. We can exist outside of time once we shed our time-forged manacles, our regrets and unhappy memories as to the past and our plans for a blissful and perfect future. Meditation, which can take the form  of attention to an activity or to one's breathing and bodily sensations, for instance, can bring one's mind to the here and now and in effect free one from time.

How timely!

I have written something for another book, which is pertinent here:

• We need time.
• Life takes time.          
• We cannot live without time.

We are creatures of time. Time makes us. But frequently, even most of the time, we live outside of time, divorced from the present moment. We do not exist in the here and now but rather in the somewhere else. We busy ourselves with reliving the past and anticipating the future.

We characteristically live more in the past and the future than in the present. In our minds, we continually hop back and forth in time, from the continuing data input of the present to the stored and organized data in our memories and to various hypothetical futures as constructed in our imaginations. We test different reconfigurations of the past and imagine alternate futures in order to help us decide what to do now, in the present. We can also travel mentally to alternative present times.

This description pertains of course to psychological time. Human thought diverts or entertains itself by confusing different realms of being, such as physical time on the one hand and psychological time on the other hand. The confusion arises in part from the projective tendencies of the human mind, to see 'out there' what is 'in here' and conversely to absorb patterns from the external world and re-create them in our minds. This facility of mapping patterns constitutes a prime mode of operation of the brain.  In addition, our brains compare the patterns or maps with one another. The difference between two maps prescribes or creates a direction of change for our bodies and our minds. We generate the future by such a process.

I sense you appreciate Alice Through the Looking Glass and varied stories about uses of time.  

What are the implications of your research and books for humanity?

I like to think that my books will serve humanity much like Lucretius' epic poem On the Nature of Things or On the Nature of Reality.  Lucretius wished to free mankind from fear associated with superstition.  I would also like for us to escape misconception and step into clarity and peace. My books might be thought of as collectively entitled On the Nature of Mind.  These first two books apply to the mind and spiritual/religious experience and belief. 

My books proceed fundamentally from the Buddhist observation that everything is in the mind. Whatever we know, whatever we experience, exists in the mind and frequently exists only in the mind (e.g., as fantasy). The brain not only filters reality but constructs reality.  We project our mental constructs outwardly onto the universe and for many purposes the process works quite well. The maps accurately correspond to or correlate with events and objects in the physical world. But for many people, the process misfires inasmuch as the individual child's formulations either misinterpret external (social) reality or react to an adverse home environment and the child carries the maladaptive mappings into adulthood when dealing with the world at large. And so we have psychopaths, depressives, multiple personalities, etc. (Topic for a later book.)

Please summarize your view of the brain in relation to the external...

In my view, our brains comprise the sine qua non of our knowledge of the external world. I believe that we must know the brain workings in order to understand how our knowledge relies on and incorporates the functioning of that tool.

Sense you would appreciate the 'brain' works of Dr. Joe Dispenza and also Dr. Derek Siegel.

If you could leave our readers with an insight or some advice, what would it be? 

In the chapter "Protagorean Pragmatic Prescription" I urge a tolerance for other people's beliefs and values. We must all be free to organize our minds pursuant to our personal experiences and idiosyncratic understandings. We must allow each other to feel peace of mind. To do this we must recognize that people need to believe different things to feel integrated and whole. So we must not impose our metaphysical and theological beliefs on other people. We might talk about what we believe, but acknowledge that our ways of interpreting and organizing reality may differ in some fundamental ways from other people's.

 What about Eckhart Tolle. Can you relate?

I would recommend reading Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth for its description of the egoic self. The egoic self constitutes the central object in our maps of our social universe. The egoic self is responsible for much good and much evil in the world. I advise people to seek awareness of their needs for egoic acquisition and assertion.  Know that each of us, some more than others, fabricate an egoic self and then seek to defend that self against real and imaginary threats. Why defend something that is largely an arbitrary construct?

Please let us know where people can contact you/ upcoming events/ how people can engage with you.

Please contact me, through my publisher, Austin Macauley.

Anything else you wish to add? 

Thank you for your questions and the link to Nassim Haramein's interview. He is an engaging personality. He says some interesting and insightful things.   He also says some nonsensical things (as do we all), for instance, where he confuses different realms of reality and imposes the logic of one realm on another, as in reading consciousness into the physical universe.  I see consciousness as a property or ability only of life forms. A single paramecium might have a primitive kind of consciousness, not necessarily self-consciousness but one of sensation and even emotion, in its reactivity to its chemical environment. With reference to his proposed information feedback loops in quantum-scale reality, the lower finer-scale domains of physical reality entail energy and regularity but the order or repetition in patterns of energy distributions becomes information only for an information-processing organism (or maybe AI, in the future). Consciousness entails in part the appreciation or detection of patterns in the external environment.  Nothing in the lower or finer-scale domains can undertake such an appraisal.

Thank you Derek, for offering these insights for our readers to muse over. Invite following up and doing further research into topics that spark your curiosity and stimulate the imagination.  For as Einstein reminds us, 'imagination is more important than knowledge.' and 'pure ever-changing energy is the stuff we are made of.'

Interview with Julie Cardillo

Every moment, we are touched and inspired by people when we are not even initially aware of it. This happens to all of us. We may be waiting for an Uber, a bus, a train or a plane.  We may be sitting quietly in a park or another public space and a stranger comes to sit down beside us. Even passers by are sending us messages and vibrations.

Sometimes we can even intuitively choose to strike up conversation with someone we have seen before and just feel as though the moment is right to connect on a different level.  This describes how I was drawn to chat more with Julie Cardillo. She enters my life more and more and shares some insightful wisdom during this interview. Thanks Julie for the willingness to share more of yourself here. We all benefit fro sharing what matters.

 You are welcome.

Why do you get up in the mornings? What really motivates you?

My daughter, is why I get up in the morning …. comforting ,compassion , hugging , encouraging her, listening , playing,  all those things ….thats what motivates me…it is ALL my whys in one.

Love this response. Its a universal one, an invitation to love ourselves, to love where we are and to see that love mirrored in all that makes us feel good. 

How would you describe your unique gift? When did you  grow aware it?

Helping people uncover the truth about who they are - particularly those who feel helpless, vulnerable who have been through the trauma or disconnect of not having a relationship with their parents from birth.    

I have lived the experience with being adopted. My own journey through that created some trauma and wounding around the mother - daughter connections and father- daughter connections - so I want to help others heal from that.

I can relate to your calling. It is said we are meant to teach what we exist to learn. To know peace, we must teach peace.

When did you become a healer? What guided you to your current focus?

I’ve always been a healer, but just didn't know it. My experience , my journey , I AM living it every day. 

What an astute observation!  So often, we are taught to grow into some dreamed-up version of ourselves.  This distracts our attention from and acceptance of who we already are. Thanks for shifting the focus back to our true essence.

Please share about Sister’s Circles.  What are they? How do they benefit participants?

I was drawn and called to this work , it was just a matter of time before I really stepped in …. you always find the right teachers when you are ready. 

Exactly! Love that quote frm the Tao Te Ching "When the student is ready the teacher will appear... and when the student is truly ready, the teacher will disappear.

For me, the sister circles was about creating a community of women, who could come together and bring their experiences to be, seen,heard and loved; To provide comfort,compassion and courage to uncover their own truths (The good , the bad, the ugly …so to speak...) 

Sense this kind of a community appeals to more and more women. Many people seek a safe space to share openly. The group you describe sounds very powerful.

As it happens, I have some friends in Sydney involved in a regular men's circle. The men present are often surprised about the synchronicities that arise during group gatherings, of the delicate topics people ease into and the deep connections forged through openness and transparency. 

What would describe as your greatest challenge? What did you learn from it?

Resistance - in all of the above , stepping into my own truth , into who I am and owning the fullness and the hugeness and the bigness of that , and allowing myself  to be vulnerable and sharing the challenges and experiences that I have had throughout life.

I am still learning from it , I’m am defiantly still growing from it and with it 

Indeed! Awakening has different stages.  We are each experiencing different sides of ourselves, different levels of consciousness.   

Where have you witnessed significant transformations in you and others? Tell us about a few examples…

• During my early 20’s , leaving my small country town that I grew up in to travel the world

• Becoming a mother for the first time 

• Following my soul's work , rather then my corporate mind's work

• Starting the search for my birth parents 

My everyday life with sharing what I love; Zen Thai Shiatsu, Sister Circles , yoga, and all the other loves of mine that blend and shape shift throughout my life, the goodness from all of this ripples out beyond just me …..

Name 5 things you would want with you on a deserted island. Why these items?

Hmmmmm …My daughter …… 

Funny, I asked my husband this same question and he began to rattle off his list , a rope, flint, knife , then he asks me what I am going to take … so I would defiantly take him , because he is so practical and is taking all the good stuff (ha ha) , to provide shelter, food, warmth , he allows me to bring the fullness of who I am out in the world . 

So all up probably just the above...

 If you could write a letter to be left to a future incarnation, what 3 points would you be sure to include in that letter?

 Have comfort in knowing that you are loved 

Have compassion with yourself , through the challenges and the experiences 

Embrace all of who you are

Have the courage to chase after your dreams 

Be true to yourself , be true to the process, be true to your dreams,be true to what is loving and kind to you.

( ok that was more then 3 --ha! ha! )  

Who has highly-influenced your life at different stages? 

My dad, with his humour and compassion, his courage and truth - he is such a top bloke , I love him very much ! He's a great mate as well !

When I was travelling there was a young african boy, when we were in Malawi -  he was orphaned from Congo but  living with his aunt , he would come and visit everyday and each day he would ask me to take him with me home to Australia - he had no idea where that was and I was in my 20s living in London at the time  - he just wanted to feel that safety , comfort , compassion, warmth and help, HE reminds of my why - I still think about him and what I want to inspire in others to do. 

I have many mentors/ friends that have impacted my life in so many ways and still  inspire me each day to be who I am fully.

 If you could leave some advice to our readers, what would it be?

BE true , Be all of who  you are , step into it 

 Do you have any upcoming events and/or books you would suggest we look into? (Even if u are not the facilitator/author)

My next next round of The Sister Circles starts in August.

I also work one on one with my Zen Thai Shiatsu Bodywork sessions for anyone who is looking for more personal space 

Keep and eye out on my socials for new workshop/retreat dates 

  How can people contact you?

www.juliecardillo.com.au

www.facebook.com/JulesCardillorhythmofyourvibration

www.instagram.com/jules_rhythmofyourvibration

Interview with Nandini Gosine-Mayrhoo

As an alumnus of International Space University, I have long valued interdisciplinary vision and Future Life Design.

Over a period, I have been drawn to connect with Future Life Institute (FLI) creator John Mee (author-Transcendental Engineering)and FLI contributors such as Anne Jirsch and Amit Goswami (whom I interviewed on my former BlogTalkRadio Show & wrote a testimonial for one of my early books).  Most recently, I connect with Nandini Gosine-Mayroo. She is a wealth of insight: a specialist in metaphysics, a research analyst and writer for the FLI. 

Appreciate very much your willingness to engage in this dialogue for our readers.

 Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

How has your childhood experience guided and influenced your life journey?

Having been born into a Hindu family, I grew up witnessing the religious ceremonies of this ancient faith. While I always felt somewhat alienated from those rituals, I intuited that my heritage held a special truth. In my early teens, I had what I can only describe as some form of mystical experience while sitting at my father’s altar. My life has been a journey of attempting to understand that experience and to gain a deeper appreciation of the wisdom in the teachings of Hinduism.  

Mystical experience is increasingly widespread.  Dr. Wayne Dyer echoes that we can become mystical beings simply by changing the mind from one that creates and experiences problems, to a mind that resolves them.

The popularity with science fiction films and books shows fascination with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and where it heading.  Tell us about Future Life Institute and how you came to collaborate.

Future Life Institute, founded by John Mee, has formulated a scientific approach to enhancing human consciousness. While humanity’s scientific and technological advancement over just the past 50 years is indeed impressive, human consciousness has not kept pace. Without the spiritual wisdom to manage our scientific developments in ways that serve humanity, we could very likely use those developments to destroy ourselves. FLI recognizes the wisdom teachings of Hinduism, including reincarnation, as truth. Its work is dedicated not only to helping individuals enhance their consciousness in this life, but in future lives as well. The former can be achieved via scientific developments in genetic engineering, preceded by comprehensive education and psychological counseling in managing higher states of consciousness. The latter is achieved through dedicated learning in FLI’s Future Life Design program. 

On meeting John Mee, I was immediately interested in his valuable work. As a writer, I assist in promoting FLI’s work through varied media.

Michaelangelo echos: 'The greatest danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and we miss it, but we aim to low and reach it.'  Share  how you came to focus on the evolution of consciousness.

I have always been intrigued by the concept of maya, the illusion of this world. It seems to me the greatest challenge of being human - being able to negotiate the demands of our lives successfully, while maintaining a sense of detachment from its reality.  I’ve also always been intrigued by the attainment of moksha, the liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth.  While the ancient texts speak of moksha as being attainable through self-realization – exactly how does one achieve that? I guess I’ve had a lifelong interest in higher consciousness, searching but not entirely sure on where to find the answers. 

What differences and benefits do you see (if any) between the spiritual and scientific evolution of consciousness?

The spiritual evolution of consciousness is said to occur over countless lifetimes. A cursory assessment of humanity’s present collective consciousness supports this theory – we seem to have a very long way to go before achieving a higher consciousness where we can coexist in peace.  Conversely, our scientific evolution is leaping forward in ways where we are struggling to grasp the long term societal effects. How will robotics affect employment? How do displaced workers live? If scientists have the ability to genetically engineer human traits, should parents be able to dictate the eye color, athletic or intellectual capability of their offspring? If greed and the desire for power remain as the base human instincts controlling our world, how will those with access to these scientific developments use them?

Well, it appears artificial lines of separation need to be healed between science and spirituality... 

Exactly! Rather than being separate things, we need to harness the scientific and spiritual evolution of our consciousness, to keep pace with these scientific developments. The scientific enhancement of human consciousness via genetic engineering is by no means a “quick fix”, as considerable spiritual training and counseling is required to manage and maintain long term higher states of consciousness. The scientific and spiritual evolution of our consciousness must work in tandem if we are to evolve into our highest potential. Traversing countless more lifetimes is an outdated approach to higher consciousness, which in our current era, no longer serves our true potential.

I love Sadhguru, the founder of Isha Institute of Inner Engineering. he reminds us the mind is a complex amalgam of many influences. He also echoes the more identified we are with these influences, the further away we are from ourselves, and one could also say the truth.  

How would you describe stages of your own awakening? What did it reveal about your gifts?

I had an innate interest in spirituality, and as an introverted child I spent long days wondering about the world around me. I read Lobsang Rampa, the Bhagavad Gita and other spiritual material in my teenage years, which made me very aware of the human ability to experience the esoteric. In my later years I’ve awakened to an urgent call from Mother Nature, as a remarkable device named The Music of the Plants came into my life.   I have learnt that communication with plants is possible, something that was not previously a part of my spiritual yearning. 

Tuning into the vibrations of nature changes how we relate to ourselves and the world. Finding the middle road between natrue and technology baffles a lot of people.

From yoru view, what is cognitive engineering and why is it important for humanity?

Cognitive engineering is the process of scientifically actualizing the potential of human cognitive functions, through genetic engineering. Our cognitive processes include sensation, perception, attention, intelligence, memory, thought - basically the functions required to negotiate our surroundings and our lives.

Cognitive engineering of our brain-based skills provides the means of becoming more intelligent beings, more perceptive of how our actions impact our immediate and long term future. It can enhance our critical thinking skills, enabling us to devise suitable solutions to the problems we face. FLI’s work has a greater emphasis on consciousness enhancement, as opposed to only enhancing cognitive brain-based skills. FLI’s work brings balance between intelligence and spirituality - which must be the way humanity fulfils its fullest potential. 

Many people are familliar with the films like Bladerunner 2049 and RoboCop and the robotic arms on the Space Shuttles and other space technolgy.

How do you see the future relationship involving robots and human beings unfolding?

I have not seen Robocop. Robotics is now replacing and will continue to replace manual jobs. A failure to adapt to these rapid economic changes will certainly result in a dissatisfied populace, susceptible to empty promises from demagogues – not the future we wish to envisage. Robotics development is calling for humanity to up its intellectual potential. Jobs in the future will demand heightened cognitive ability. Some futurists anticipate singularity – when artificial intelligence becomes smarter than humans. Even the technology we have today is evidence that this may indeed be a possibility. Rather than creating machines that outsmart us, humanity should focus on increasing its own intelligence. As mentioned previously, intellectual strides must be accompanied by the spiritual. 

How much truth do you see in popular culture films such as Next Gen?  Which films or books do you feel offer an accurate take on the technology revolution in this world? What would you like to see?

I will admit that I have never seen Next Gen! Star Trek and Star Wars sum up my sci-fi repertoire!

Can totally relate to the Star Wars/Star Trek and Contact movie fan club...

Speaking of technology revolution, the communication devices and sliding doors in Star Trek provided glimpses into our future. Perhaps the holographic communication seen in Star Wars will be our reality before long. My personal interest lies more in films and books that speak of galactic intelligence and communication. Thor to my mind provides hope for a future meeting with extraterrestrials in a way that earlier films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind only suggested is possible. I am currently reading 2150AD by Thea Alexander - a depiction of a future intellectually advanced utopian society. I would like to think that the film producers and book writers who provide these glimpses into our possible future, are divinely inspired to plant seeds of hope in our ailing society.

So much on the horizon while so much is already here as well, yet not necessarily in public use...

Anyway, you have also written about reincarnation. What is your take on the subject? What causes you to feel this way?

Having a Hindu heritage, reincarnation is encoded in my DNA. Applying some rational thought to the theory of reincarnation, it seems the only logical explanation to what makes each of our lives different – as reincarnation and karmic learning go hand in hand.

Imagine a world where reincarnation and karma no longer existed or was no longer necessary because humanity had expanded consciousness beyond it.  Now that is food for reflection! 

If you could leave our readers with a vision or some advice, what would it be?

My high school best friend and I had a motto “Look up, reach out”…we even shortened it to “LURO” at the end of our numerous notes to each other (this was back when written notes were still a thing!). I think it is fitting advice for humanity at this interesting and challenging time in our evolution. We need to look up to our highest potential, beyond the limitations within which we have confined ourselves. We also need to look up to the skies above us, devising ways of reaching out to the more intelligent life in our Universe and beyond. 

Please let people know where they can contact you:

I can be reached at nandini1863@gmail.com or 1-561-324-4868

For anyone interested in learning more about Future Life Institute: 

http://futurelifeinstitute.org/

www.futurelives.org

https://www.cognitivegenetics.co/

 Please also refer us to where we can read more of your articles.

Certainly! Those interested can Google my name and also access the following articles through links:

https://medium.com/@nandini1863/the-genetics-of-higher-consciousness-is-cognitive-engineering-the-future-of-human-evolution-ae5b764038e0?source=friends_link&sk=72d5ae48f1c2ebb6086c34f941b64e95

https://www.spiritofchange.org/mind-spirit/Transcending-Lives--Reincarnation-As-Truth/ 

For anyone interested in the Music of the Plants:              

www.nandimotp.org

Thanks Nandini. We encourage you to continue devoting your attention to topics that enable you to feel most alive. Let us know who inspires you as you go along. Elon Musk for instance, is a big inspiration for many. 

Interview with Ken Sherwell

As we go about our daily lives, we are often conditioned to imagine people we see in the media, those we read about or, whom we have never met, are the people who motivate or inspire us most.  Certainly, different kinds of mentors exist.

Yet, when it comes to role models, we may underestimate the impact of people we see regularly.  Are we aware of key role models closer to home? This dialogue I share with Regional Kwang Jang Nim, Ken Sherwell. This man is one of my son's inspirational teachers.

Thanks Ken, for making space and taking time to share  these insights.

Pleasure.

Tell us about yourself.

I am 60 years of age, born and raised on the Sunshine Coast (4th Generation Sunshine Coast) of Queensland, Australia.  I am married (36 years) with three adult children and six (6) grandchildren!

What brings you joy?

I am a carpenter-joiner by trade. Since 1984, I have been self-employed.  My current business is the Good Bean Espresso Bar in Nambour.  I am working towards being full-time Rhee TaeKwon-Do Instructor. This is a key source of joy in my life.

My son and many other students are grateful for that and feel how much your heart and soul are present.

Any other passions to share with us?

Other than my family and Rhee TaeKwon-Do, my passions are surfing, snow skiing and archery!

Love of archery is widely-shared, considering the popularity of films like Pixar’s Brave and the series Game of Thrones.

Now, many martial arts exist… What guided you to originally get involved in Rhee TaeKwon-Do?

During my late teens, I trained in martial art for a short time with some of my friends. Most young men are aware of martial arts and like many, I romanced about being a "Black Belt." 

You are not alone on that. Raising the bar motivates kids to appreciate a challenge and achieve self-directed goals. 

Well, as my son reached his teen age years, I was looking for something that we could do together and my thought turned again to martial art ! I knew that a long-time friend was involved in a martial art and when I met him in Brisbane one day, I asked what style he trained in! 

Ah-ha! Synchronicity often arises through people we know and we feel a connection!

Yes!  So, he gave me the contact details for an Instructor on the Sunshine Coast and so my son and went along for a try at Buderim Branch - loved it and became members on our second lesson ! The long-time friend that recommended Rhee TaeKwon-Do was Master Instructor For Australia Jerry Hatter and the Instructor that I went to at Buderim Branch was the Sunshine Coasts very own, Master Instructor For Australia Nigel Higgs ! So I had instruction from the best from word go !!

Share some of the benefits from practising this martial art you have witnessed in your own life.

Rhee TaeKwon-Do is founded on strong values - Respect ; Honour ; Integrity ! You hope each day to find these in all people, which is not always the case, however you certainly find these particularly in the high ranks of Rhee TaeKwon-Do and these values are certainly taught to and expected of all of our students ! We also teach self-discipline and perseverance and this has certainly advantaged my life as well as that of all students.

Do you notice an evolution?

World Master Chong Chul Rhee instructs that as you get older, you should keep moving your body and maintain a level of fitness.  This is done as you keep training so that you are always able to defend yourself or others if the need arises! There are many benefits.

So, if I understand what you say here, all martial arts are not sports?

That is correct. Rhee TaeKwon-Do is not a sport, it is Martial Art, however if you look at sporting disciplines, they train certain muscle groups required for the success in that sport! Rhee TaeKwon-Do techniques are so varied that when you are training, you move every part of your body!

What were your values and lifestyle like before and after this became such a significant part of your life? 

I was raised in a Christian home, so respect, honour, integrity and a love for all people - these values were already part of my core belief structure, so Rhee TaeKwon-Do thinking and core values already existed but have been strengthened even more as I train and live the Rhee TaeKwon-Do life style.

Many people are disconnected from their core values. Sounds like martial arts practice is one way of getting back in touch with what has been forgotten or, a great way of reinforcing what is already a core conditioning in our lives. Thanks for sharing this.

If you could describe Master Chong Chul Rhee in one phrase, what would it be?

I think it would be "Do the right thing!"

What a great motto. It is also the title of a classic film and catchy song for good reason...

Let us know examples of students and positive changes you have observed (or heard about).

The majority of Rhee TaeKwon-Do students today are aged between 5 - 18 and the most common changes that their parents make us aware of are; improved behaviour at home and school - more respectful toward their parents and teachers ! Improved grades as more disciplined to work hard at school and dohomework !  Better posture and walk with confidence, which in turn, makes them less of a target for bullies ! Fitness and good health are other obvious benefits !

There is growing interest in mindfulness ad meditation. How would you compare your martial art practice to meditation?

Rhee TaeKwon-Do meditation is to sit peacefully and think about correct technique or to slowly go through their pattern in their mind! To discipline yourself is to think only on positives (or at least focus here)! 

Who are some of your mentors and inspirations? What did they teach you?

I have had mentors in business etc.  However, the most influential person in my life from that stand point was my Dad ! Dad didn't just speak good things he lived good things and always set a great example !  He was a strong fit man, that worked hard, was a good business man, loved his family and cared for the community ! I have found the same in my instructors - both World Master Chong Chul Rhee and Master Instructor for Australia Nigel Higgs, are well educated, successful men that share their life experience with their students ! My success in Rhee TaeKwon-Do is a result of following their instruction , which also filtersdown into my personal life ! Be a good person ; do your best ; don't give up ; be wise in what you do !

Its a friendly reminder for us all to recognize the nature of silent or louder influence and impact of family in our lives.

What kind of advice would you offer someone who is struggling with challenges, low self-esteem?

That they are valuable ; That nothing ever stays the same and life will improve ! That they should take steps in that direction and that studying a martial art will  build character and change their outlook for their future ! If you want to be successful, hang around successful people !

Good advice.  There is a saying: you are becoming like the five people you spend the most time with.  This invites us to reflect on the habits and behaviours of people around us.

Which connections do you notice (if any) among martial arts?

A True Martial Art may have similarities to another style however no connections ! True Martial Art teaches - be loyal to your Master Instructor and train hard in that style ! Many "Martial Arts" today are either sport or they have lost their way - encouraging their students to learn from other styles etc !  World Master Chong Chul Rhee, introduced the art of TaeKwon-Do to Australia in 1970 - Master Rhee is a genuine World Master in the art of TaeKwon-Do and teaches loyalty to your Master Instructor, the Rhee TaeKwon-Do organization and to all members of that organization! Rhee TaeKwon-Do is certainly a family!

How does practicing martial arts impact expanding consciousness?

All Rhee TaeKwon-Do  students are taught situational awareness ! The ability to adapt and change in an ever changing world / environment! We learn to read people and circumstances! We are ever learning and striving to improve. We encourage and protect !

 Many kids look up to martial arts teachers and these kids are also often fascinated with superheros.  Some kids even view their teachers as superhuman. I love how you inspire all students to find the superhero within themselves. We can only see in others what is mirrored inside, even if we are not yet conscious of that.

Please share anything you would like to leave with our readers.

As I have mentioned, Rhee TaeKwon-Do is a way of life - true Martial Art  impacts all areas of your life and the people around you benefit from its affect on your life as an individual.

People do not always realize Rhee TaeKwon-Do is an international organization, with over 1500 branches throughout Australia and New Zealand.  Any instructor at any branch would welcome you to come in and have a free trial ! Rhee TaeKwon-Do is "The Art Of Self-defence"

Let us know how we can get in touch with you and learn more about Rhee Taekwon-Do

For more details, contact me by email on : kensherwell@gmail.com or mobile : 0401 001 823 

Thanks again Ken, for sharing some of your personal experience and inviting people to discover new sides of themselves through endeavours than encourage physical exercise and great sense of values, self-defence skills and a family-like community.

Interview with Doug Wilson

On the Path to uncover and heal my own trauma and addictions, it feels natural to encourage others to take steps to gain new insight into themselves.

Inspirational stories shake us up to wake us up. They invite each of us to recognize what we admire in, and what triggers about others, is dormant in us. When it feels right, we see through separation to all we have in common, change how we perceive and respond to life.

Recently, in facing big challenges, synchronicity led me to the book Kundalini Running (2018). Intuition guided me to interview the author, Doug Wilson. I share share a glimpse of his remarkable story.  It invites each of us to reflect on our own lives, and to trust in what is blossoming.

Thanks Doug, for being here.

My pleasure.

My life calling guides me to people who have experienced deep trauma (or guides them to me).  We gain something from each other. Your story offers insight into moving beyond addictions, including; psychoactive and other drugs, alcohol and an unconscious pattern of repressing emotional trauma.  Please comment.

In my book, I share that earlier in my life, I craved the freedom and release that drugs and alcohol brought me.  It was the only way I could escape the loneliness and tedious life routine I had unconsciously fallen into.  I was afraid of facing the truth: I didn’t know how to be at ease with life and experience it as a beautiful happening, as an opportunity to learn, grow and evolve.  

You are certainly not alone. Everyone is in recovery from something. Many people are lonely and unconsciously driven by fear in job and environments they dislike. Your drug experiences, including recreational and medical cannabis, reflect widespread social phenomena.

This said, it is often overlooked that caffeine, alcohol and sugar are the three most accessible and widely-consumed legal drugs in the world.  And people wonder why they swing between feeling over-stimulated and depressed? Luckily, growing aware of our habits prompts shifts. Your food choices, for instance, have really changed! 

They definitely have. I became vegan. You can read more in my interview for vegan of the week with Melanie Eager.

Thanks! My life has also guided me and many others into a vegan lifestyle. Love how your book shares 'why' and invites us all to ask more often. Your story shows us physical challenges are also mental, so we uncover what we are made of.  

When life brings us full circle, its a wake up call...

And we can ignore the signs or listen. Your story echoes we cannot run away from ourselves forever. So, how did early ideas of success influence your addictions?

A well-paid career, world travel and achievements in global endurance running, made me believe that I ticked all the boxes laid out by a society I was lost in. Of course, that view of success has changed...

Brain tumor surgery and rehab changes a lot! What's inspiring is your will to live to the fullest, despite unexpected challenges.  Although we may falter, your story invites us to face fears, relax more, go beyond comfort zones and find strength.

Yes. What we resist, persists...

Love that the same lesson can take shape in our lives in different ways until we get it. Sometimes we get a similar situation arise again as we are ready to grow conscious of a deeper message. Its like every moment is an oportunity to see differently.

Share with us your view of your ‘Dark night of the Soul.’

A self-inflicted period of complete emptiness with no sense of trust within myself or the world around me. 

It feels like your book also reveals ‘the dark night of the soul’ is like a confronting initiation. The book echoes that each of us reaches points in life where our core beliefs are challenged, where we face uneasiness, where our familiar illusions are stripped away, and we feel we stand alone in the presence of the divine.  

Yes. This process is both liberating and discomforting.

How does this validate you were imbalanced, living an inauthentic life?

I lived between states of extreme highs and lows, of uncertainty and certainty. I don’t see this as an inauthentic state of being, but rather a period of time to establish the foundations for what I needed to learn about myself and ultimately work to overcome. The darkness is still a part of my life’s journey that I am grateful for. 

I really resonate with this.  In your book, you draw attention to the healing that can occur when we stop ignoring deeper dimensions of life. You notice shared stories of mental, emotional, physical or other abuse from a young age, disconnection or abandonnment issues, feelings of hurt, hopelessness and disconnection. Your take on things offers hope and encouragement for those who read your book.

Awesome!

Share an example where you relapsed into old addictions, while attempting overcome one of your weaknesses on the path to living true to yourself? 

Right now! I'm struggling to maintain trust that the choices I’ve made over the past few years have been in line with my life’s purpose. The lingering sense of fear and uncertainty remain around where my life is heading… I want reassurance that everything is going to work out the way I imagined it would - but that’s not the truth. It’s hard to trust in the process of the unknown and I often find myself thinking about heading back to the more familiar. 

Your honesty reminds us that self-acceptance is about noticing where we are and how we feel in the present moment without judgement. So often, we are conditioned to time travel between the ears, to shift between past and future.

Western society conditions us that way.

It reminds me of this: "If we are living in the past, we are depressed.  If we are anxious, we are living in the future.  If we are at peace, we are fully present." (quote credited to Lao Tzu, yet anxiety and depression strike me as modern ills...)  

Anyway, what do facing recurrent challenges teach you about yourself?

That life presents challenges for us so we can learn of our capabilities. It’s a choice to shy away or confront them.  

Indeed. As Joseph Campbell suggests, we are each on a hero's journey, embarking on an adventure, encountering a decisive crisis, working through it to a victory, and as the result, feel changed or transformed.

Good analogy.

During the process of rebuilding your life, at which stage did healing cellular memories/ emotional trauma come into it? 

6 months after undergoing a life-saving brain surgery I was wondering how to take care of myself on a fundamental level of health & wellbeing. I was constantly asking myself what I needed to do to ensure I wouldn’t end up back in hospital…? A twist of fate led me to energy healing. My first session exposed the roots of cellular memories and significance of emotional trauma.  The session was the catalyst for changing the direction of my life.  

I can definitely attest to the life -changing impact of breathwork. Like Kundalini, breathwork is a clearing process on all levels (spiritual, mental, physical, emotional, ect.) It brings up cellular memories of self of evolutionary mind and as a collective to be felt and dealt with. 

Agreed. All conditionings come up to be cleared.

How did spiritual practices become part of your life? 

To me life itself is a spiritual practice. I’ve always known the nature of spirit that lies within but have had varying states of awareness/connection to it. Everything has roots in spirituality.  

Which ones did you explore? (i.e. yoga, breathwork, ect). 

I explored various energy healing modalities and Kundalini Yoga & Meditation.

Why lean toward kundalini yoga?

Kundalini Yoga leaned towards me. The power of the practice suited my nature. It's been incredibly rapid in developing my self-awareness. I continue to be blown away by its ability to scientifically and therapeutically transform my body, mind and soul.   

In your book, you point out Kundalini isn’t synonymous with Kundalini Yoga…

That’s right.  Kundalini is the potential energy of a human organism, a creative force that’s described extensively across many historical traditions and cultures. Kundalini is a natural phenomenon of energy. It powers creativity and can be individuals in infinite ways.  We can increase the voltage and change how the energy moves through the central nervous system.

From my point of view, kundalini energy rising is different for each who experience it. Yet I also resonate with how you present it and can certainly relate. Every stage is not always comfortable yet, stretching out of the coccoon is part of life. Just ask a butterfly...

Now, of all the sports you could have chosen to motivate your rehab, why running?

I’d been into adventure marathon running prior to my diagnosis of the brain tumor. My rehabilitation was focused around being able to run a marathon as soon as possible after surgery. I felt that if I could do that I would be fully recovered and back to the life I knew prior to being sick. 

Although I have not yet run marathons, I can relate to lots of good reasons to run shorter distances. But tell us, why run so many races? 

My nature is to do things in excess. 

Why choose to run in such unique and remote places?  

I enjoy the challenge of travelling to a remote corner of the world to race in an extreme environment. It’s something that suits my personality and a way for me to channel some addictive energy in a positive direction.    

Is winning important to your current sense of success? 

No - but competing at my best is. I use racing as a measure of my potential. 

I love how your book echoes running allows you to compete against yourself, that you find satisfaction pushing yourself at every stage of training or a race, from beginning to end. Its a measure of your personal best.  It echoes focusing inward.  

What advice would you offer for anyone going through a shift from fearing authority to developing and becoming an authority?

Give it time and patience. Avoid the trap of thinking the works is done. The process of developing ourselves is long and happens in stages. 

Indeed. A great reminder that everything unfolds with perfect timing. An invitation to surrender and love what is unfolding.  We can always find blessings.

Share some pivotal moments that affected your heart opening.

I’ve had a number of life experiences that go beyond my normal, familiar realms of perception. Two very specific encounters where the centre of my awareness was set free by a flash of light with such immense power and beauty that it opened my heart and shone truth behind my eyes. It exposed me to the timeless, unconditional and undying love that radiates within everything and connected me with that truth. 

Thank you for feeling at ease to share such intimate experiences. This invites each of us to appreciate everything that arises as part of the wider process.  To follow and resoante with your example:  simplifying life is the road of mindfulness, increased self-awareness and much more.  

You have recently written a book, Kundalini Running.  Without giving too much away, why share this story and why now? 

Our technologic revolution is exposing us to an unprecedented level of information. The excess of information is overloading the internal structures of our bodies. My story is an example of what this overload leads to - poor health and wellbeing. A common story, but the way I overcame it has a unique twist. It offers a powerful message of hope and shows that change is possible despite the challenges we face in life.    

In the book, I love that you point out we cannot be happy all the time and truly live.  This is a lesson I have learned along my own journey.  When we attempt to be positive all the time, this is often hiding pain we are denying or repressing.  Only by uncovering our emotional trauma and feeling all emotions do we truly live. There is also a saying that unless where are giving from the heart, we are half dead and may not even know it.

Some people assume kundalini awakening is a synonym for Self-realisation. What is your view and experience?

I think they are two separate aspects of life. 

Kundalini awakening is a function of human anatomy. We can do very specific work to prepare ourselves for this in order to raise the energy safely. 

Self-realisation is a process. Everyone goes through varying degrees of it throughout their lifetimes. 

Share some life-changing revelations you have about voices and visions often symptoms of kundalini awakening.

The times where I have had immense releases of kundalini energy have resulted in clear and concise information forming at the centre of my awareness. I’ve seen very precise, colourful geometric patterns that relay information along with sounds that reinforce the experience, but not heard any voices so to speak. 

Love that the processes and experiences arising are, intended, among other things, to show us that all is created and sustained by the mind, that the transient is transparent and empty in nature.  The problem arises if we cling and want to make 'sense' within, 'normal life.' 

Whatever happens invites us to see through the identifications, shows us what we are not. 

Exactly. Please comment about the fear of losing a sense of self.

For me the fear is of the unknown. 

Tell us your current life focus, where we can learn more about you, upcoming events.

My current focus is getting my story out to a wider audience. My aim is to share life experience through my book, classes and workshops. I believe we've entered a period of change where traditional medical practices will merge with modern ones. I want to be at the forefront of this.  

www.kundalinirunning.com

IG @kundalini_running

FB https://www.facebook.com/kundalinirunning/events/

Great to see that your book is making it into library systems and other local venues. Clearly, your story is perfectly positioned to spark dialogue in a variety of spheres. 

Share any lasting message you wish to leave with our readers.

Stop buying into the concept that life is only about love and positivity. While these a great aspects of humanity they ignore the full spectrum of what it is to be a human being. Pain, suffering and emotions like anger are part of being human. We need to acknowledge this within and spend time understanding our pain and suffering in the same way we understand self-love.  

Appreciate very much that youtake time to for this dialogue.  I highly recommend your book and will spread the word. It invites us to awaken and trust ourselves more. Also invite visitors to explore yoga and especially kundalini yoga if it resonates. Doug Wilson may be the teacher you are looking for! Ultimately, we are each on a path to deepen self-love.  This involves exploring the gamut of emotions.