The stuff from Pim van Lommel ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOeLJCdHojU (two to four videos plus book) here;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Consciousness-Beyond-Life-Near-Death-Experience/dp/0061777269/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1335178820&sr=8-2
.. seems to be a useful piece in the puzzle .. the riddle of existence .. and the link between real, non-local consciousness and the difference between it and thought which becomes mistaken for the totality of consciousness and is connected with brain activity .. NDEs prove that consciousness is not only not a product of brain activity but that real consciousness (which informs thought and dualistic consciousness) is also non local and has vision which is not only 360 degrees but also does not use the eyes .. it is a consciousness not restricted by time or space and may go forward or back in time .. (citation for both needed .. especially the forward one) ..
The idea and the suggestion is that this is somehow connected with, or a proof of, real life in the individual, which is experienced when to all intents and purposes what is generally taken to be the ‘person’ is dead. In other words there is life after death or this apparent life and probably therefore, before it also .. or there is a life or consciousness which is non-temporal.
The evidence for this type of consciousness also suggests that it is what really informs everyday temporal consciousness .. and that maybe when dualistic everyday consciousness kicks in during the development of an infant or child and we start to identify with the labelling, thinking, dualistic, judging self, that is when we lose the ‘heart’s eyes’ as Sheikh Nazim would say .. or that consciousness which only advanced and serious practitioners of spiritual paths such as sufism are heir to, but which is actually a natural characteristic of all us and gets somehow lost or covered up by dualistic limited consciousness in infancy .. There is a connection here to the creation story in which Adam and Eve lose their existence in the original ‘God consciousness’, or Paradise, by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil .. in other words taking on dualistic consciousness.
The serious problem for modern man lies in his over confidence in this dualistic consciousness coupled with science and scientific theory to deliver a version of man restricted to only dualistic consciousness and thus successfully severing him from a context with any real significance or meaning for his life apart from that which may be garnered through aquisitions experiences and pleasures within material existence and the short time span of the existence of his body and brain.
There is thus no eternal or spiritual dimension to modern man’s life .. and so, aided and abetted by science and a virtually atheist education .. the scramble for accumulation of goods and the highest good being economic success is over-emphasised by this dangerous modern development and seriously hinders development of modern society in a really humanitarian way because we are rapidly becoming less than human without the peculiarities of individuality and free will within a non spacio-temporal context .. and generally accepting ourselves (if science gets its way) as mere machines controlled by thought which is in turn taken to be a product of the brain.
I’m on the edge of saying something here but can’t quite formulate it .. at the same time I am on the edge of a certain state of consciousness but can’t quite make it because when the dualistic function of the brain starts to shut down sleep is incurred and if not fear kicks in and the connection to the non-dual is not made ..
Letting go of linear dualistic thought while awake is not an easy thing .. but it is helped by the recognition of a higher and greater, superior form of consciousness operating in one all the time, which would seem to be proven by reports of the NDE experience.
This is also connected with the saying of our prophet Muhammad “He who knows himself, knows his Lord.” And the well known adage “Die before you die.” In other words die to the everyday self and consciousness and open up to this greater non-local one which is hidden or buried within you.
It is why Sheikh Nazim advises us not to ask who God is but ask who we are .. It is also the basis for Self Realisation .. Looking for the real self requires leaving the confines of the false limited self defined by dualistic consciousness .. and in this sense the ‘No-selfers’ as I call them are doing something useful in pointing out to people that if they look for their self it will be found to not really exist .. the frustrating and annoying thing with them is that they will not take the next step in recognising that despite having discovered this yet they are still conscious and functioning and therefore the real question is; Where is the seat of that consciousness once you have recognised that it is not you or your accustomed everyday self or in any way connected to the constant stream of thoughts except perhaps as the fount of them .. but not identical with them .. ? There is a real recognition within this group of the first steps of Self realisation or non-dual consciousness .. ‘You are not your body and you are not your mind.’ but it is then left there with no conclusion being drawn or implied which would lead to a deeper meaning being apprehended with respect to the significance of human life on earth.
‘You’ are a constant state which is the observer of the ups and downs of life .. the changes in pleasure and pain .. the observer of the apparently self-organising self-running familiar entity which is made up of the body with its sensations and the thoughts with their associated emotions.
Identification with the the thoughts and the body and the associated sensations and emotions is where most people live and have their consciousness .. but there is a higher state of consciousness and it implies a connection with all other beings especially human beings but also animals and even inanimate existence or objects .. This is the sensation of ‘unity’ common to all so-called mystical experience.
Both the experience of unity and the existence of non-local consciousness as experienced and reported in NDEs are direct indicators of something .. in the form of a connecting principle ..which traditionally would have been reconised as God in some way or other .. a direct contact with that which has always been assumed or understood to be the cause the First Cause or Creator of this world and all that is in it and on it, especially man and his consciousness, which is higher than that of the animals precisely because it can find the true non-local consciousness (or God) within itself ..
It is said in the sufi tradition that there is no place in the universe which can contain God except for the heart of man. There is also a tradition about God hiding Himself in the one place that man would never think to look .. In his own heart !
Above the entrance to The Oracle atDelphi was written “Man, know thyself !”...
It is also emphasised in the sufi tradition that “Allah is closer to man than his own jugular vein.” ( a saying from the Quran) .. and Ibn Arabi known as Sheikh Al Akbar .. (The Greatest Sheikh) .. had a particular teaching known as Wahdat al Wujud or The Unity of Being .. in which he propounded the knowledge that in reality there is nothing but Allah ..
07:14 :Hrs; ..
My typing and coordination are getting so bad that I just managed to hit a combination of keys that deleted the whole of the present document just as I feel I am beginning to express what I have been trying to work on my whole life and I felt it to be like a Divine warning (if not punishment) about the tendency to write about these things without ‘practicing’ them, in the way which is taught as the foundation stone of sufism and Islam, that man is not created for anything but to worship Allah .. according to the Koranic ayat “I did not create man and djinn for anything but to worship Me.” .. and the saying, “ Worship Allah and He will be your teacher ."
I am in a total state of nerves after that !
My conscience tells me that I should do that .. and that it is man’s responsibility to worship according to the Islamic tradition and that that is the true meaning of life but .. wether through a runaway ego or a runaway mind or rebellion or pride or laziness or incapacity .. or questioning and lack of total faith in Islam / Muhammad because of the aggressive, supposedly defensive, but it would seem aggressive, nature of the Koranic teaching .. or because I am a coward .. I don’t know .. or a combination of all of the above .. I am not sure .. I don't do that and over the years have gradually drifted away from any practice at all and have a very reduced contact or identification with the Islamic sufi community.
I end up questioning wether it is really an untenable path and word view or if the problem is just me and my weaknesses. I just don’t feel fully authentic identifying with the muslim manner of worship .. Arabic language .. arab customs and world view .. I don’t know .. and yet I believe in and feel I am surrounded by evidence for God both in the material world and in myself .. (and the Quran says "And We will show them signs on the horizons and in themselves.").
I am sure that an enlightened state exists and that it has many levels and multiple facets, extensions and depths .. above and beyond the scope of many true experiences of non-dual consciousness and awareness of the illusion of the false self .. In the sense that someone like Sheikh Nazim would seem to have access to a world of unity which extends far beyond the limited vision of a unique place in space and time .. whereas most of the present day teachers of non-duality give little or no hint of this and even around Ramana Maharshi there is not a wealth of reports of regular access to and life in, a non-spacio-temporal dimension .. which interacts with this narrow and limited space time material one .. though some reports do show this .. in his appearances to people before meetings in the flesh as was the case with Robert Adams who had seen him at the foot of his bed as a child before meeting him inIndia
Both the experience of unity and the existence of non-local consciousness as experienced and reported in NDEs are direct indicators of something .. in the form of a connecting principle ..which traditionally would have been reconised as God in some way or other .. a direct contact with that which has always been assumed or understood to be the cause the First Cause or Creator of this world and all that is in it and on it, especially man and his consciousness, which is higher than that of the animals precisely because it can find the true non-local consciousness (or God) within itself ..
It is said in the sufi tradition that there is no place in the universe which can contain God except for the heart of man. There is also a tradition about God hiding Himself in the one place that man would never think to look .. In his own heart !
Above the entrance to The Oracle at
It is also emphasised in the sufi tradition that “Allah is closer to man than his own jugular vein.” ( a saying from the Quran) .. and Ibn Arabi known as Sheikh Al Akbar .. (The Greatest Sheikh) .. had a particular teaching known as Wahdat al Wujud or The Unity of Being .. in which he propounded the knowledge that in reality there is nothing but Allah ..
My typing and coordination are getting so bad that I just managed to hit a combination of keys that deleted the whole of the present document just as I feel I am beginning to express what I have been trying to work on my whole life and I felt it to be like a Divine warning (if not punishment) about the tendency to write about these things without ‘practicing’ them, in the way which is taught as the foundation stone of sufism and Islam, that man is not created for anything but to worship Allah .. according to the Koranic ayat “I did not create man and djinn for anything but to worship Me.” .. and the saying, “ Worship Allah and He will be your teacher ."
I am in a total state of nerves after that !
My conscience tells me that I should do that .. and that it is man’s responsibility to worship according to the Islamic tradition and that that is the true meaning of life but .. wether through a runaway ego or a runaway mind or rebellion or pride or laziness or incapacity .. or questioning and lack of total faith in Islam / Muhammad because of the aggressive, supposedly defensive, but it would seem aggressive, nature of the Koranic teaching .. or because I am a coward .. I don’t know .. or a combination of all of the above .. I am not sure .. I don't do that and over the years have gradually drifted away from any practice at all and have a very reduced contact or identification with the Islamic sufi community.
I end up questioning wether it is really an untenable path and word view or if the problem is just me and my weaknesses. I just don’t feel fully authentic identifying with the muslim manner of worship .. Arabic language .. arab customs and world view .. I don’t know .. and yet I believe in and feel I am surrounded by evidence for God both in the material world and in myself .. (and the Quran says "And We will show them signs on the horizons and in themselves.").
I am sure that an enlightened state exists and that it has many levels and multiple facets, extensions and depths .. above and beyond the scope of many true experiences of non-dual consciousness and awareness of the illusion of the false self .. In the sense that someone like Sheikh Nazim would seem to have access to a world of unity which extends far beyond the limited vision of a unique place in space and time .. whereas most of the present day teachers of non-duality give little or no hint of this and even around Ramana Maharshi there is not a wealth of reports of regular access to and life in, a non-spacio-temporal dimension .. which interacts with this narrow and limited space time material one .. though some reports do show this .. in his appearances to people before meetings in the flesh as was the case with Robert Adams who had seen him at the foot of his bed as a child before meeting him in
How to martial this information and these examples into a coherent document .. or even blog entry and especially with reference to the possibility of producing a book is hard to imagine .. I have little or no experience of how to do these things in a coherent and meaningful serious way ..
As with the music (which I probably should forget in light of my recent attempts and experiences with modern technology and old age affecting memory and coordination plus lack of musical and technical ability ) I am beginning to be a little desperate to produce something useful to others (and maybe productive of some income for myself ) as a result of all my investigations, reading, practices and experience.
As with the music (which I probably should forget in light of my recent attempts and experiences with modern technology and old age affecting memory and coordination plus lack of musical and technical ability ) I am beginning to be a little desperate to produce something useful to others (and maybe productive of some income for myself ) as a result of all my investigations, reading, practices and experience.
Ay Dios ! The nerves !
I go to the loo and read something from “The Assassin’s Cloak.” A collection of entries from famous diarists .. it is from Ilaine de Pougy and speaks of what appears to be the answer to a prayer by a friend of her cook on a visit to
Reflecting on this I realise that it may be a good idea (and something that I rarely think of ) to pray to God for help in achieving my aim if I want to write a book encouraging people to believe in Him, in whatever way they may be able to accept, and in the light of the coincidence of evidence and reports from all religions and spiritual paths .. Believe in Him or at least other realities and dimensions beyond the measurable material existence limited by space and time ...
Science is seen by many non-scientists and some scientists as well as having an opportunity to bridge the traditional divide between the spiritual and scientific worlds through quantum physics and its implied necessary inclusion of human consciousness as a factor in the understanding of how the material world functions.
Many if not most spiritual teachers speak of the co-relative effect of one’s own actions and even thoughts, upon the holistic reality and quantum physics has been forced to accept that observation is a factor to be taken into account due to the effect that it has upon experiments at deep and subtle levels of investigation into the nature of wave and particle theories of light and energy.
There is also more evidence from investigations into neuro plasticity that thought can effect the material world and change the structure of the brain ..
All of the excitement from the Russians and spoon bending and non-local cognition .. seems to have died down or gone off the everyday radar but there was a great deal of money spent on investigations by the American army when it was thought to be of possible use in reconnaisance.
The familiar idea of separate entities that can be analysed without reference to the whole has to be gradually and carefully laid aside and Bells theorem has shown how twin particles seperated in space react at precisely the same time proving a non spacial or temporal connection which provably exists within the material world ..
It seems so utterly simple to understand the unity of all things and that even the manifestations of unity are actually none other than that same unity reflected in different forms but not separate or different from it .. until it comes to trying to explain it in physical terms while using labelling, naming, dualistic language.
The One and the many .. is a concept found in all spiritual paths wether theistic or not, from Taoism (as expressed at the beginning of the Tao te Ching) .. through Zen to even western Christianity (one could even cite the Trinity as an example) ..
Multiplicity in unity .. unity in multiplicity .. Multiplicity in appearance and manifestation .. unity in reality and causation ..
It puts one in mind of Ghazzali’s famous “No secondary causes.” .. and this connects neatly with
It also puts one in mind of telepathic communication and cognisance at a distance which can be evidenced by everything from reports of the Buddah’s knowledge of his students questions and states of mind before their physical arrival to see him or any verbal communication between them, to Rupert Sheldrake’s experiments with cat and dog owners and the animal’s apparent knowledge of their imminent arrival .. (beyond what can be attributed to acute sense of smell etc) ..
My own Sheikh has often evidenced knowledge of people’s states needs and situations at a distance and there have been many cases reported of direct help or apparent intervention in events as a result of ‘meded’ or using a spiritual connection to call for help ..(I have myself had experience of this .. which seemed undeniable in its directness and immediacy as well as flexibility or repeatability .. and was similar to other cases often reported around situations involving difficulties with travel and vehicles.)
How to apply all this and make it useful and pertinent in the here and now ? Is there a way or should I try to use it to solve my present problem with rerspect to income and my apparently useless unproductive existence ? If I am confused I can at least ask or pray to be guided to the right action and activity and attitude ..
I would like the solution to be connected to my chosen or natural activity which is writing and words and it really seems like time to produce or manifest something now which may be of benefit to others and might help my own financial situation vis a vis income and personal self-support.
Over time I have come up with many titles for such a work but cannot particularly remember any of them now .. It seems that for me a title is helpful in creating a vision or goal which would help shape the writing into a coherent whole. Such as .. (embarrassed smile as he invents something ) .. “Non Duality in the light of NDEs, Quantum Physics and Mystical experience.” or “The Unitary Principle in Eastern and
The elements floating around today are various:
NDEs .. Quantum Physics .. Plotinus .. Sufism .. Zen .. Taoism .. Telepathy and non-local cognition ...
It might be a modern slightly New Agey version of The Perennial Philosophy and could even touch on the relevance of the LoA stuff as well as sympathetic magic as examples of the interconnectedness of everything. The 'A-causal Connecting Principle.’ .. of Jung with respect to the I Ching and the Secret of the Golden Flower .. Taoist thought .. alchemy and the turning of the lead of the ego and space-time-bound materialist consciousness into the gold of spiritual consciousness .. are all subjects which have relevance and can be brought to bear on the theme of unity the One and non-duality.
The least that can be said about a commonality of modern experience of non-dual consciousness is that there is a kind of ‘stepping out of’ the self .. “No one home” as one writer put it .. The common experience is being aware of thought and activity carrying on as normal but a disconnection from the perception of oneself as the author of them or the ‘FSA’ as Wayne Liqorman calls it (the False Sense of Authorship) ..
Man cannot ‘do’ was an interesting concept for followers of the Gurdjieff school ..
One of the ideas propounded in sufism (and other schools and esoteric paths as well) is that the station of unity, or 'annihilation in God', is the highest form of existence for a human because he becomes a perfect instrument of God .. living in and acting from the conscious reality that man’s sense of being able to do caused by his ego-bound consciousness is not in harmony with the real situation of all actually coming from One source .. even being the One Source .. The person or apparent individual annihilated in God makes no mistakes despite appearances .. ( in the case of certain great Sheikhs famously appearing to break the norms of Islamic shariat law) .. because he is not acting from ego .. but from spiritual consciousness .. God acts through the enlightened Saint .. summed up in the Quranic phrase “It was not you who threw when you threw.” Referring to a moment in battle when the Prophet (pbuh) picked up a handful of dust and threw it at the enemy causing it to blind them and thus turning the outcome of the battle in the Muslim’s favour.
There is emphasis in sufism upon the fact that material means are not the way to either win wars or spread Islam .. All is in God’s hands and only He may do what is really right and necessary (again often despite appearances) .. It is the struggle of those on the spiritual path to accept the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” in the knowledge that whatever happens, happens in reality by the will of God and should not be opposed or argued with as it has an inherent perfection which may not always be apprehended by human consciousness.
Many non-dualists even those outside of any theistic tradition propound a similar understanding of life as the only way to achieve inner peace and safety from the turbulence of judgemental ego inspired choice .. which can only be the cause of suffering because by nature the ego is never in agreement with what is happening .. it always wants something else or to be somewhere else anf for things to be different to how they are .. and even then when they are different .. the new situation, person or thing is immediately seen in the same discontented light .. Dissatisfaction with what is is the constant source of suffering.
Pride is the prime mover of this attitude and the salient characteristic of the angel which fell from grace to become the devil due to refusing to bow before the form of Adams in recognition of his special place in creation. Humility the only real antidote .. It was upon this basis that a disciplic chain of succession was established in sufism as well as in the Hindu spiritual tradition .. via the submission of the will of an unenlightened one to the will of an enlightened one, who, acting and speaking on behalf of a higher will and consciousness was capable of inducting the lower dualistic material nature & consciousness into a higher non-dual unitary and spiritual one.
