Thursday, June 25, 2015

A most Profound and Wisely Ballanced Ontology:


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Buddha once explained existence as a chain of dependent emergence thus:
Some recluses and priests declare these excessively speculative views:
"Everything Exists"; which is the one extreme (Sarvastavadin Eternalism...).
Other recluses and priests declare a just as far fetched opposite extreme
view: "Everything does Not Exist" (Sunyatavadin Annihilationism...).
Avoiding both these extremes the Well-Gone-Beyond Buddha teaches
this Dhamma from the subtle, exquisite, and profound middle:
When this is present, that also exists.
When this emerges, that also arises.
When this is absent, that neither exists.
When this ceases, that also vanishes.
From ignorance arises mental construction.
From mental construction arises consciousness.
From consciousness arises naming-&-forming.
From name-&-form arises the six senses.
From the six senses arises contact.
From contact arises feeling.
From feeling arises craving.
From craving arises clinging.
From clinging arises becoming.
From becoming arises birth.
From birth arises ageing, decay, sickness and death.
From ageing, decay and death arises Suffering..
This is the origin of this entire mass of frustrating Pain...
When ignorance ceases, mental construction stops.
When mental construction ceases, consciousness stops.
When consciousness ceases, naming-&-forming stops.
When name-&-form ceases, the six senses stops.
When the six senses ceases, contact stops.
When contact ceases, feeling stops.
When feeling ceases, craving stops.
When craving ceases, clinging stops.
When clinging ceases, becoming stops.
When becoming ceases, birth stops.
When birth ceases, ageing, decay, and death stops... !
When ageing, decay and death ceases, then Suffering  stops!
This is the disappearance of this entire mass of frustrating Pain...
This - only this supremely stilled silence - is the deathless Nibbāna!


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Everything has a Cause: More on Co-Dependent Co-Arising (paticca-samuppāda):
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/IV/Caused_by_What.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/Cohesive_Co-Origination.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/Collapsible_Co-Cessation.htm
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Causes_of_Emergence.htm

http://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/wtb/n_r/paticca_samuppaada.htm
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Existence is dynamic thus:
 Neither a static substance out there, nor a mental illusion in here,
 But a chain of dependent states arising and ceasing momentarily...

 More on Buddhist Ontology: What exists and how does it exist?
 
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/What_Exists.htm
 http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/Advanced_Right_View.htm
Everything has a Cause..
Have a nice and Noble day.
signature.pic
Friendship is the Greatest! Bhikkhu Samāhita _/\_ ]
http://What-Buddha-Said.net

Monday, June 22, 2015

Exhibition on Indian Buddhist Art opens in Singapore


By Alice Chia, CNA, 18 Jun 2015

Titled "Treasures from Asia's Oldest Museum: Buddhist Art from the Indian Museum, Kolkata", the two-month-long exhibition features dramatic sculptures and paintings tracing scenes from the life of Buddha.
SINGAPORE -- More than 80 pieces of rare Buddhist art from the Indian subcontinent are on display at the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore. The exhibition, which features artworks from Asia's oldest museum in Kolkata, chronicles the evolution of Buddhist art from the 2nd century BC.
Titled "Treasures from Asia's Oldest Museum: Buddhist Art from the Indian Museum, Kolkata", the exhibition was opened on Thursday (Jun 18) by Singapore's Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Lawrence Wong and India's Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (Independent Charge) Dr Mahesh Sharma.
On display are dramatic sculptures and paintings tracing scenes from the life of Buddha, and symbols used to represent Buddhist concepts. Highlights include a 1.2 metre tall sandstone standing Buddha dating to the 5th century; and a 10th century carving of Queen Maya giving birth to Buddha.
Experts say the 1.2-metre-tall statue of Buddha influenced images of the Buddha in other regions, such as China and Southeast Asia.
"There's a big Indian diaspora that lived in Singapore and also there is a large Buddhist community here, so we did feel that it was relevant to Singaporeans, and hope they would come and enjoy looking at Buddhist art from the Buddhist homeland," said Ms Theresa McCullough, the senior curator for South Asia at the museum. "And also the Indian Museum in Kolkata is the oldest museum in Asia, and it set the standard for the National Museum in Singapore and other museums that sprung up subsequently." The exhibition takes place in the 50th year of Singapore's independence, and celebrates the 50th year of diplomatic relations between India and Singapore. It is the result of a collaboration with the Kolkata museum and is sponsored by the Indian government.
However, an obelisk on display bears testimony to the fact that ties between the two countries go back much further than 50 years.
"This was erected in 1850, to commemorate the visit to Singapore by the Marquess Dalhousie, which is the British viceroy of India," said Mr Wong. "The occasion was significant and crucial in recognising Singapore's status as a port city, under British rule at that time through the government of India."
Both countries hope they will be able to inspire more people to learn about Buddhist art.
"We, in India, are working hard on this. To make it a part of the curriculums, to make our young generation visit our museums, the exhibitions, to learn the rich heritage and culture of not only our country but the world around," said Dr Sharma.
The exhibition runs until Aug 16.
 SOURSE:BUDDHIST CHANNEL

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Gently is


by Sylvia Bay, The Buddhist Channel, June 2, 2015



For one who seeks the meditative state,
Much work is needed to prepare the mind,
To break it out of bad habits,
To want, to own, to search and hunt.
Learn to have no expectations, no wants,
No going somewhere,
Or being someone.
No past, no future,
No mental constructs,
Let go of planning,
And rest in the breathing.

Maintaining focus,
Keep mind sharp and steady,
Know that there's watching,
Know arising, falling.
Know when it's leaning towards subtle straying.
Leash it gently,
Keep it in line.
Firmly but patiently,
Just watch roving mind.

A moment will come,
When the mind stops tugging.
And began to settle into a quiet abiding.
Note this moment:
Note the knowing.
It is the stillness of no one being.

The mind becomes soft.
The heart feels light.
A smile is formed.
Body delights.
A subtle vibration,
Perhaps gentle rocking.
Odd physical sensations,
Are just normal happenings.

Do not be attached
To anything that is seen.
Whatever that arises,
That surely must cease.

Each moment is conditioned,
Upon another before.
This is impermanence.
Just an eternal Law.

That which is ever changing,
Is innately unsatisfactory.
In essence there is nothing
Worth holding and grieving.

Wisdom is when
The mind let go
Of the belief in an I.
And hold not to things,
That it maintains are Mine.

Wisdom is when
It let go of views
That were once so dear,
Including that mind-made delusion
That is the Self.

When the mind is content,
And ask for nothing,
Being no one,
And going nowhere.
There lies the bliss
Of just being
Quietly knowing
Gently is.

Buddhist Philosophy Eric Fromm’s views


By Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge M.D., Lanka Daily News, May 30, 2015

Buddhism helps man to find an answer to the question of his existence, an answer which is essentially the same as that given in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and yet which does not contradict the rationality, realism, and independence which are modern man’s precious achievements. Paradoxically, Eastern religious thought turns out to be more congenial to Western rational thought than does Western religious thought itself’
– Erich Fromm
Colombo, Sri Lanka -- The social psychologist and humanistic philosopher, Eric Fromm was vastly influenced by Freud and Karl Heinrich Marx. He became a follower of Neoanalytic tradition. In later years, Fromm started reading Zen Buddhism in depth.  He saw Buddhism as a philosophical-anthropological system based on observation of facts and their rational explanation.
(Buddhism and the Mode of Having  vs. Being – Erick Fromm 1975). Fromm believed that Buddhism is a completely rational system which demands no intellectual sacrifice.
Fromm’s interest towards Buddhism was obvious. Among the Western scholars, Caroline A F Rhys Davids was one of the pioneers to conceptualize canonical Buddhist writings in terms of psychology. Professor William James was making some comparisons between the consciousness and thought process that was described in the Western Psychology and what the Buddha had taught two millenniums ago.  Many former members of the Freud’s Psychoanalytic society were reading Buddhist philosophy and making evaluations. By this time Carl Jung had highlighted the mind analysis in Buddhism. Therefore Fromm’s interest towards Buddhism was not an abrupt event.
In his 1950 work Psychoanalysis and Religion, Eric Fromm profoundly analyzed Buddhist Philosophy.  He made a distinction between the authoritarian and humanistic religions and interpreted Buddhism as an antiauthoritarian religion that provides for personal validation and growth.As Fromm viewed, in the Buddhist philosophy there is no surrender to a power transcending figure and as a virtue; obedience does not play a key role.  Buddhism is   centered around  man and his strength. Man must develop his power of reason in order to understand himself, his relationship to his fellow men and his position in the universe. Fromm further says that a humanistic religion like Buddhism is geared to achieve the greatest strength, not the greatest powerlessness; virtue is self-realization, not obedience.
Like Carl Rogers, Fromm believed man’s ability for self growth. He refused to believe the Freudian concept that explains man is geared by innate primary destructive forces of libido. Fromm realized that unlike in the Viennese Victorian society   sexual repression plays no major part in the Contemporary Society. Fromm once stated that in the modern society people mostly repress their true thoughts and feelings rather than the sexual urges. Buddhism and psychoanalysis
The psychoanalytical components in Buddhism have been emphasized by many scholars like Martin Wicramasinghe D. Lit, Laurence W. Christensen, etc. The Buddhist Jathaka stories from the Khuddaka Nikaya contain 550 stories and Rev Buddhaghosa, translated most of the Jathaka stories into Pali about 430 A.D.  In most of these Buddhist Jathaka stories a powerful psychoanalytical   fraction can be detected.
Eric Fromm saw a larger perimeter in psychoanalysis and did not limit it to neuroses. Fromm criticized Freud’s patriarchal attitude as limiting the development of psychoanalysis as a science (Maccoby 1994). Eric Fromm suggests that Zen Buddhism has a prolific influence on theory and technique of psychoanalysis.
“…[W]hat can be said with more certainty is that the knowledge of Zen, and a concern with it, can have a most fertile and clarifying influence on the theory and technique of psychoanalysis. Zen, different as it is in its method from psychoanalysis, can sharpen the focus, throw new light on the nature of insight, and heighten the sense of what it is to see, what it is to be creative, what it is to overcome the affective contaminations and false intellectualizations which are the necessary results of experience based on the subject-object split” (Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis-Eric Fromm
p. 140).
The psychoanalytical module in Buddhism is very much evident. Buddhism provides psychological methods of analyzing human experience and inquiring into the potential and hidden capacities of the human mind. According to Buddhism mind precedes its objects. They are mind-governed and mind-made. The verse 37 of the Dhammapada   explains the dynamics of human mind thus: The mind is capable of travelling vast distances – up or down, north or south, east or west – in any direction. It can travel to the past or the future.
Gerald Virtbauer of the University of Vienna makes comparisons between the Buddhism and the Western Psychology.
The first approach is to present and explore parts of Buddhist teachings as a psychology. As many teachers of different Buddhist traditions point out, Buddhism is not primarily a religion based on faith and worship, but a system, or an art to inquire into the human mind. (Buddhism as a Psychological System: Three Approaches-Gerald Virtbauer 2008)
Search for meaning
In 1959, Eric Fromm co authored an incomparable book titled Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis with D. T. Suzuki and Richard de Martino.  In this book Fromm postulates distinct relationship between the Western psychoanalyses and Zen Buddhism. Eric Fromm argued that the human being needs to find an answer to his existence and this urge to search for meaning differs human from other animals. In addition he highlights that   human has an inner dynamism that directed towards personal growth.  He viewed that living is a process that starts at birth and does not end at death. Fromm states that most of the people   die before they are fully born. The notion of fully born according to Fromm is becoming fully functional as a human being.
Eric Fromm in his book, Escape from Freedom asks series of questions that were originally based on Talmud.
1) If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
2) If I am for myself only, what am I?
3) If not now, when?
These types of questions were evident in the Buddhist Philosophy.  Once when the lord Buddha was delivering a sermon, a young girl showed up. Then the Buddha asked a series of questions from her.
1) Where do you come from?
She said I don’t know venerable sir, and then the Buddha asked
2) Where do you go?
She said I don’t know.
3) Do you know?
The girl replied – “Yes”
Finally the Buddha asked
4) Don’t you know?
She said ‘No’
It was an enigmatic type of answers, but the girl was referring to her previous existence when the Buddha asked where do you come from? She did not know from where she came to the present existence. When she was asked where do you go? She replied I don’t know, because she does not know   where she would go after her death. When the Buddha asked do you know? She said yes because she knew that she was a mortal, and she would certainly die one day. When she was asked don’t you know?  Her reply was no. Because,  she did not know when she would be dead.
The search for meaning has become the main theme of religion and philosophy.  The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of life or existence in general.
The Buddha explained that life is permeated with suffering caused by desire that suffering ceases when desire ceases.
Human suffering
The Buddhist Philosophy deeply explains the causes of human suffering and path for freedom. Therefore Buddhism is not based on pessimism. It is based on realistic principles. The mundane understanding of suffering is related to bearing of pain, inconvenience, and distress that connected with hopelessness. According to the Buddha the word suffering has a deep existential meaning. It is a universal explanation of the true human condition.
To explain suffering, the Buddha used the term ‘Dukkha’, which has a universal meaning. Many Western Psychologists misinterpreted the word ‘Dukkha’ (universal suffering), and they viewed it as an agonizing human condition. This was due to the mistranslation done by the French Philosopher Anatole France in the late Centaury. Anatole France translated the word ‘Dukkha’ into French as souffrance and then into English as suffering.  Ever since many Western scholars grasped the concept of ‘Dukkha’ incorrectly. Therefore many thought Dukkha symbolizes the dark side of human existence filled with pessimism and despair.
However Eric Fromm was able to grasp the deep philosophical notion of universal suffering or ‘Dukkha, and he saw human suffering in personal lives, in the society and in the civilization.
In 1960, Fromm wrote: “Psychoanalysis is a characteristic expression of Western man’s spiritual crisis, and an attempt to find a solution”(Fromm et al., 1960, p. 80). Although Freud stated that Psychoanalysis is a method of medical treatment for those who suffer from neurosis (Five Lectures delivered by 1909 by Dr. Sigmund Freud at the Clark University) Fromm did not want to limit psychoanalysis to the neurotic patients. Unlike Sigmund Freud, Fromm believed in experience rather than interpretation.
Fromm’s psychoanalytic technique was essentially different from Freud’s psychic archeology. Fromm attempted to create what he called a more ‘humanistic’ face-to-face encounter. He believed the analyst must understand the patient by empathy as well as intellect, with the heart as well as the head. (Maccoby 1994).
Freud assumed that hysterical patients suffer from reminiscences. Their symptoms are the remnants and the memory symbols of certain traumatic experiences. When Freud went into individual level, Fromm applied psychoanalytic theory to social and cultural problems.
Eric Fromm saw the human suffering in the individual level as well as within the society. He saw the collective suffering. Fromm was on the view that psychological problems often result when an individual feels isolated from society. Describing individual suffering Fromm wrote:
“The common suffering is the alienation from oneself, from one’s fellow man, and from nature; the awareness that life runs out of one’s hand like sand, and that one will die without having lived; that one lives in the midst of plenty and yet is joyless” (Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis- E. Fromm et al. pp. 85-86).
Fromm Further says that one of the worst forms of mental suffering is boredom, not knowing what to do with oneself and one’s life. Even if man had no monetary or any other reward, he would be eager to spend his energy in some meaningful way because he could not stand the boredom which inactivity produces.
Fromm saw extensive suffering in the society that was resulted from centuries old socio economic systems and loss of meaning. Fromm’s book The Sane Society looks in to the dilemmas caused by the industrialization. Many Psychologists believe that Fromm’s publication The Sane Society was a respond to Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents. In the Sane Society Fromm looked in to a new form of human suffering and man’s escape into over conformity and the danger of robotism in the modern industrial society.
In his book, Escape from Freedom, Fromm describes how freedom can be frightening and therefore, many people run from freedom. For average men freedom is not an emancipation it is a burden. Fromm further postulates that man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.
Know thyself
Eric Fromm strongly believed that ‘Know thyself’ is one of the fundamental commands that aim at human strength and happiness. Fromm’s notion ‘Know thyself’ was stated by the Buddha over 2,600 years ago. In the story of  Bhaddawaggiya, Princes reveals the importance of knowing thyself.
The Bhaddawaggiya Princes where looking for a woman who stole their valuable possessions. When they met the Buddha the princes asked, “Venerable Sir, did you see a woman? The Buddha answered, “What is more important whether look for a woman or to look for thy self? (means know thy self). The princes replied that more important is to know thy self.
Knowing thyself or achieving self realization   is one of the virtues of Buddhism. The young apprentice, Angulimala was ill-advised by his teacher and he became an addictive killer.  He killed nearly 999, men and collected the fingers of his victims.  When he saw the Buddha he thought that he could have his next victim. Angulimala ordered the Buddha to stop. The Buddha replied, “ I have already stopped therefore you should stop too.” The Buddha meant that he does not harm anyone and he was able to stop the cycle of Sansara or the continuous flow of birth, life , death and reincarnation. This phrase created a cognitive revolution in Angulimala.   Angulimala had a self-realization that led to a dramatic transformation his personality. He renounced violence.
Human freedom
The idea of freedom was unique to Fromm. He assumed that freedom is the central characteristic of human nature.  According to Fromm often people escape from freedom. He described three ways in which people escape from freedom:
1. Authoritarianism (either submitting power to others becoming passive and compliant or becoming an authority by applying structure to others)
2.  Destructiveness.
3.  Automaton conformity.
In his 1968 book, The Revolution of Hope, Fromm writes that man has to protect himself not only against the danger of losing his life but also against the danger of losing his mind.
Michael Maccoby in his 1994 article, The Two Voices of Erich Fromm: the Prophetic and the Analytic points out that Fromm’s model of the healthy individual who transcends and transforms society is the ‘productive character,’ the individuated person who loves and creates. Unlike his other character types – receptive, hoarding, exploitative and marketing – The productive character lacks clinical or historical grounding. It is a questionable ideal. (Maccoby 1994).
Eric Fromm believed that human is capable of determining his freedom. He saw Zen Buddhism as a way from bondage to freedom. In his own words Fromm explains:
“Zen Buddhism is the art of seeing into the nature of one’s being; it is a way from bondage to freedom; it liberates our natural energies; … and it impels us to express our faculty for happiness and love (p. 115).
Eric Fromm introduced five basic needs and the fifth need he called -A Frame of Orientation – The need for a stable and consistent way of perceiving the world and understanding its events. The Buddha explained that the virtuous man perceives the world and its events in realistic manner. He achieves self realization the highest plane in the human intellectual structure.
The Ven. Dr. Walpola Rahula explains this condition more gracefully in his book, What the Buddha Taught.
He who has realized Truth, Nirvana, is the happiest being in the world. He is free from all ‘complexes’ and obsessions, the worries and troubles that torment others. His mental health is perfect. He does not repent the past, nor does he brood over the future.  He lives fully in the present. Therefore he appreciates and enjoys things in the purest sense without self-projections. He is joyful, exultant, enjoying the pure life, his faculties pleased, free from anxiety, serene and peaceful.
Eric Fromm saw humanistic religion such as Buddhism could help people achieve self-fulfillment and understanding.  Fromm concluded that the Buddhism could see man realistically and objectively, having nobody but the ‘awakened’ ones to guide him, and being able to he guided because each man has within himself the capacity to awake and be enlightened.
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Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Mindfulness has lost its Buddhist roots, and it may not be doing you good


by Miguel Farias and Catherine Wikholm, The Conversation, June 5, 2015

London, UK -- Mindfulness as a psychological aid is very much in fashion. Recent reports on the latest finding suggested that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is as effective as anti-depressants in preventing the relapse of recurrent depression.
While the authors of the paper interpreted their results in a slightly less positive light, stating that (contrary to their hypothesis) mindfulness was no more effective than medication, the meaning inferred by many in the media was that mindfulness was superior to medication.
Mindfulness is a technique extracted from Buddhism where one tries to notice present thoughts, feeling and sensations without judgement. The aim is to create a state of “bare awareness”. What was once a tool for spiritual exploration has been turned into a panacea for the modern age — a cure-all for common human problems, from stress, to anxiety, to depression. By taking this “natural pill” every day, we open ourselves up to the potential for myriad benefits and no ill-effects, unlike synthetic pills, such as anti-depressants, whose potential for negative side-effects we are all aware of.
We don’t know how it works
Mindfulness has been sold to us and we are buying it. After all, thousands of studies suggest that it produces various kinds of measurable psycho-biological effects. However, despite what is commonly propagated, the idea that science has unequivocally shown how meditation can change us is a myth. After examining the literature from the last 45 years on the science of meditation, we realised with astonishment that we are no closer to finding out how meditation works or who benefits the most or the least from it.
The few available meta-analyses report moderate evidence that meditation affects us in various ways, such as reducing anxiety and increasing positive emotions. However, it is less clear how powerful and long-lasting these changes are — does it work better
than physical relaxation for example? Or than a placebo? The evidence on this is contradictory and inconclusive.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is an eight-week group therapy programme blending cognitive education with mindfulness techniques. It was designed specifically as a treatment to help prevent individuals who have experienced recurrent depression from further relapse. As well as weekly group sessions, participants are encouraged to engage in daily mindfulness meditation at home throughout the course. This mindfulness therapy is growing in popularity, with recent calls for it to be more widely available on the NHS.
Yet we still can’t be sure what the active ingredient is. Is it the meditation itself that causes the positive effects, or is it more to do with learning to step back and become aware of our thoughts and feelings in a supportive group environment? And why does it only work for some?
Side effects
Mindfulness is presented as a technique that will have lots of positive effects – and only positive effects. It is easy to see why this myth is so widespread. After all, sitting in silence, focusing on your breathing or being aware of the flow of thoughts and feelings would seem like a fairly innocuous activity with little potential for harm.
But considering that many of us rarely sit alone with our thoughts, it isn’t hard to see how this might lead to difficult thoughts and emotions rising to the surface for some people – which we may, or may not, be equipped to deal with. Yet the potential for emotional and psychological disturbance is rarely talked about by mindfulness researchers, the media, or mentioned in training courses.
And here we come to an important point. Buddhist meditation was designed not to make us happier, but to radically change our sense of self and perception of the world. Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that some will experience negative effects such as dissociation, anxiety and depression. However, like the small print on medication, these “side-effects” in some individuals are not what the creators of this pill are concerned with promoting.
For some, penicillin is life saving; for others, it induces a harmful reaction. Just because your friend or family member responds to a pill a certain way, does not mean you will respond in the same way. The same is also true with mindfulness: for some, it may be very effective or it may not work at all, for others, there may be harmful effects.
Mindfulness has been separated from its roots, stripped of its ethical and spiritual connotations, and sold to us as a therapeutic tool. While this may not deny its power as a technique to change our state of consciousness and with implications for mental health, it arguably limits its “naturalness”, as well as its potential – at least as originally intended.
Many Buddhists are critical of the use of mindfulness for purposes which are very different from the radical shift in perception they aim for — the realisation of “emptiness” and liberation from all attachments. Instead, as Giles Coren recently claimed, this technique has been turned into a McMindfulness which only reinforces one’s egocentric drives.
The idea that each of us is unique is a cornerstone of individual-based therapy. But with mindfulness-based approaches there is little space for one’s individuality, in part because it’s a group practice, but also because there has been no serious attempt to address how individuals react differently to this technique.
So if you go into it – as with taking any other kind of pill – keep your eyes open. Don’t consume mindfulness blindly.

Quantum Theory Proves That Consciousness Moves to Another Universe After Death


By Anna LeMind, The Buddhist Channel, June 8, 2015

San Francisco, CA (USA) -- A book titled “Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the Nature of the Universe“, published in the USA, has stirred up the Internet because of the notion that life does not end when the body dies and can last forever. The author of this publication, scientist Robert Lanza, has no doubts that this may be possible.
<< Beyond time and space
Lanza is an expert in regenerative medicine and scientific director at Advanced Cell Technology Company. While he is known for his extensive research on stem cells, he was also famous for several successful experiments on cloning endangered animal species.
But not so long ago, the scientist turned his attention to physics, quantum mechanics and astrophysics. This explosive mixture has given birth to the new theory of biocentrism, which the professor has been preaching ever since. The theory implies that death simply does not exist. It is an illusion which arises in the minds of people. It exists because people identify themselves with their body.
They believe that the body is going to perish, sooner or later, thinking that their consciousness will disappear too. In fact, consciousness exists outside of constraints of time and space. It is able to be anywhere: in the human body and outside of it. That fits well with the basic postulates of quantum mechanics, according to which a certain particle can be present anywhere and an event can happen in several, sometimes countless, ways. Lanza believes that multiple universes can exist simultaneously. These universes contain multiple ways for possible scenarios to occur. In one universe, the body can be dead. And in another it continues to exist, absorbing consciousness which migrated to this universe. This means that a dead person, while traveling through the ‘tunnel’, ends up in a similar world he or she once inhabited, but this time alive. And so on, infinitely.
Multiple worlds
This hope-instilling but extremely controversial theory by Lanza has many unwitting supporters – not just ‘mere mortals’ who want to live forever, but also some well-known scientists. These are physicists and astrophysicists who tend to agree with the existence of parallel worlds and who suggest the possibility of multiple universes, known as the Multiverse theory.
Science fiction writer H.G. Wells was the first to come up with this concept, which was proposed in his story “The Door in the Wall” in 1895. 62 years after it was published, the idea was developed by Hugh Everett in his graduate thesis at the Princeton University. It basically states that at any given moment the universe divides into countless similar instances. And the next moment, these “newborn” universes split in a similar way.
You may be present in some of these worlds – you may be reading this article in one universe or watching TV in another. The triggering factor for these multiplying worlds is our actions, explained Everett. When we make certain choices, one universe instantly splits into two different versions of outcomes. In the 1980s, Andrei Linde, scientist from the Lebedev Physical Institute in Russia developed the theory of multiple universes. He is now a professor at Stanford University. Linde explained: “Space consists of many inflating spheres, which give rise to similar spheres, and those, in turn, produce spheres in even greater numbers, and so on to infinity. In the universe, they are spaced apart.
They are not aware of each other’s existence. But they represent parts of the same physical universe.” The fact that our universe is not alone is supported by data received from the Planck space telescope. Using the data, scientists created the most accurate map of the microwave background, the so-called cosmic microwave background radiation, which has remained since the inception of our universe.
They also found that the universe has a lot of anomalies represented by black holes and extensive gaps. Theoretical physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton from the North Carolina University argues that the anomalies of the microwave background exist due to the fact that our universe is influenced by other universes existing nearby. And holes and gaps are a direct result of attacks from neighboring universes. Soul quanta So, there is abundance of places or other universes where our soul could migrate after death, according to the theory of neo-biocentrism.
But does the soul exist? consciousness parallel universeProfessor Stuart Hameroff from the University of Arizona has no doubts about the existence of eternal soul. Last year, he announced that he has found evidence that consciousness does not perish after death. According to Hameroff, the human brain is the perfect quantum computer, and the soul, or consciousness, is simply information stored at the quantum level.
It can be transferred, following the death of the body; quantum information carried by consciousness merges with our universe and exists infinitely. In his turn, Lanza proves that the soul migrates to another universe. That is the main difference his theory has from the similar ones. Sir Roger Penrose, a well-known British physicist and expert in mathematics from Oxford, supports this theory and claims to have found traces of contact with other universes. Together, the scientists are developing a quantum theory to explain the phenomenon of consciousness.
They believe that they have found carriers of consciousness, the elements that accumulate information during life and “drain” consciousness somewhere else after death. These elements are located inside protein-based microtubules (neuronal microtubules), which previously have been attributed a simple role of reinforcement and transport channeling inside a living cell. Based on their structure, microtubules are best suited to function as carriers of quantum properties inside the brain. That is mainly because they are able to retain quantum states for a long time, meaning they can function as elements of a quantum computer.
Source: http://www.learning-mind.com/quantum-theory-proves-that-consciousness-moves-to-another-universe-after-death/