I started blogging in 2014 on the Myrobalan Seed (https://themyrobalanseed.wordpress.com/).
The myrobalan seed, also known as amla, emblic, and Indian gooseberry, is considered in Ayurveda, traditional Tibetan medicine, and yoga therapy to be a universal panacea. It is reputed to cure blindness and to inhibit the growth of malignant tumors; it is also used as an antidote to food poisoning. In effect, it is one of nature’s ways of restoring the balance.
By now most of us have recognized that our human society is suffering from a wide variety of social and existential maladies, from rampant materialism and the soul-blighting desperation it engenders to the endemic economic exploitation occasioned by the crippling effects of global capitalism. We are struggling to keep our balance and at the moment we seem to be doing a rather poor job of it. If there was a myrobalan seed that could somehow help us to recover our spiritual and social equilibrium, a true panacea for what ails our spirit and our social interactions, then I’m sure we would all be running to make it a part of our daily diet.
Posted: November 24, 2022 (edited from original version posted November 27, 2014)
There are many things to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day, but who among us gives thanks to our universe? Without our universe, nothing would exist and we would never have evolved to become self-conscious intelligent beings.
However, the amazing thing about our universe is that it has all the properties that have allowed life to exist. From a scientific perspective, this is not at all likely and suggests that our universe is the result of conscious design.
Cosmologists have amassed convincing evidence that time and space began in a gigantic explosion that occurred some 13.7 billion years ago in what is commonly called the Big Bang. However, cosmologists have no idea of what occurred during the first 10-43 seconds following the initiation of the Bang. They call this period the “Planck epoch” and postulate that all the forces and quanta of the emergent universe were unified. It is meaningless to postulate what came before the Big Bang because neither time nor space existed prior to this event. The model says that the expansion of the universe is due to the expansion of space itself. If this were not so then distant galaxies would be moving away from us at a speed greater than light—which is not possible. Another consequence of this type of expansion is that the universe, which began as a point, has no center. No matter where you stand in the universe, everything is observed to be receding from you at the same relative rate.
Posted: October 28, 2022
Abstract
In this article, I try to explain in scientific terms the scientific evidence that confirms reincarnation as the means by which a part of our being including elements of our personality, karma, and sometimes memories of a past life continue following death of the body.
Posted: October 27, 2022
Abstract
In this article, I attempt to explain in scientific terms how the cosmos evolved from unqualified Cosmic Consciousness according to the spiritual ideology expounded by Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. He calls his cyclic theory of creation brahmachakra (circle of God). His is a concise, rational explanation for how the cosmos evolved from Consciousness and how under favorable conditions living organisms originated on Earth and evolved into self-aware or sentient beings. The model outlines the true purpose and meaning of our existence and why we are subtly driven to reunite our individual consciousness with Cosmic Consciousness.
Posted: Jan. 14, 2022
Before getting into how the universe will end it is best to discuss how it began. Today the vast majority of astronomers/cosmologists believe that time and space began in a gigantic expansion from a dimensionless point or singularity in what is commonly called the “Big Bang.” The principal reason for this theory is that the universe is known to be expanding. Edwin Hubble was the first astronomer to discover that distant galaxies were all moving away from Earth and from each other at a rate proportional to the distance separating them. This is called Hubble’s law and the rate of expansion is called the “expansion factor” or “scale factor.” Hence, if a galaxy is one hundred million light years distant from us it will be observed to be receding from us at half the velocity of a galaxy that is two hundred million light years distant. Subsequent studies have shown that this rate appears to be increasing with time. By turning back the clock on this expansion of space, cosmologists estimate that our universe began 13.8 billion years ago.
The Big Bang model says that the expansion of the universe is due to the expansion of space itself. If this were not so then distant galaxies would be moving away from us at a speed greater than light—which is not possible. Another consequence of this type of expansion is that the universe, which began as a point, has no center. No matter where you stand in the universe, everything is observed to be receding from you at the same relative rate.
The Big Bang model of cosmogenesis does have a few anomalies that are solved by adding a new process called “cosmic inflation.” This occurred immediately after the birth of the universe. According to this theory, the universe initially expanded very rapidly—much faster than the speed of light. Since it was space that expanded, this does not contradict the theory of relativity, since the speed of light was not affected. At the end of inflation, the universe decayed into the normal expansion observed today.
Prior to the Big Bang, neither space nor time existed. Therefore, it is meaningless for scientists to hypothesize about what came before the Big Bang. Both space and time began at the time of the Big Bang and since Einstein’s theories of relativity demonstrate that these two cannot be considered separate—but form a four-dimensional continuum—the correct nomenclature is to say that spacetime was created and expanded following the Big Bang.
Scientists know how the world will end. The Sun will run out of fuel and enter its red-giant phase. It will then swell and engulf the closest planets, leaving Earth a charred, lifeless rock. Our planet has around five billion years left before this happens.
But the fate of the universe is not so well understood. Everything depends on whether the universe continues to expand and at what rate and whether new mass is being introduced into the system. Clearly, in an expanding universe whose expansion was set in motion by a Big Bang the expansion should be slowing because of the pull of gravity. However, the universe is not only not slowing in its expansion but accelerating. This increased rate of expansion is thought to be due to the existence of dark energy that appears to account for roughly three-quarters of the total mass-energy of the universe. It is call dark energy because astronomers do not know what it is—just that it is a repulsive force that counteracts gravity.
The fate of the universe depends on whether the expansion will continue on its present course, accelerate even more, or reverse. The figure below illustrates the three most likely scenarios for how the universe will evolve.
There are a few ways the universe might end, but exactly how depends on how the rate of cosmic expansion changes in the future. If gravity overpowers expansion, the cosmos will collapse in a Big Crunch. If the universe continues to expand indefinitely, as expected, it will face a thermal death. But if dark energy pushes the expansion rate to near infinity, we’ll have a Big Rip that tears everything apart—even atoms.
Cosmologists use the term “cosmological constant” to describe the energy density of space. It is the amount of dark energy associated with space, and if it is truly constant then even as the universe expands it remains constant and as a result, the universe should continue to expand until all the hydrogen gas and other fuel that drives the formation and sustenance of stars becomes exhausted or too dilute to be usable. After a couple of trillion years, all but the closest galaxies will be too far away to see. Then, perhaps 100 trillion years later the stars in the universe will run out of fuel and stop shining. Dense stellar remnants like white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes will lock up any remaining material. Much later, the black holes will evaporate, and the universe will become a frozen wasteland having a constant temperature of a few degrees above absolute zero and no free energy to affect any change or movement. This is termed the thermal death of the universe—the outcome favored by most cosmologists today.
The so-called Big Rip is in store if dark energy accelerates expansion even more than is currently observed. As the universe balloons, eventually, gravity will not be able to keep galactic clusters together. Stars will be stripped away from each other to the point that the night sky will be devoid of stars and eventually our solar system will be ripped apart followed by the planets and finally all atoms.
Recently, scientists Guido Risaliti and Elisabeta Lusso used quasars as a standard candle to go farther back in time than is possible using the favored supernova method.1 What they found using the data from 1600 quasars was that there was strong agreement with the supernova results for quasars from the past 10 billion years. But for more distant quasars, they found that the density of dark energy was less. In other words, dark energy and hence the cosmological constant would not be a constant since it increased with time. If dark energy continues to increase then it would undoubtable lead to a Big Rip, but if it does not remain a constant, as the data suggests, then it could just as easily drop in value and even reverse which would cause the universe to collapse.
Before astronomers discovered that the expansion of the universe was accelerating due to dark energy they believed that the most likely fate of the universe was a reversal of expansion leading to what has been called the Big Crunch. Absent the extra push of dark energy, the gravitational attraction of matter, including dark matter, would theoretically halt the expansion and cause the universe to begin to contract—eventually leading to an ultimate collapse of the universe to a single point. In other words, the universe would return to the original state from which it was born. This might then cause another Big Bang or what has been called a bouncing universe—going from Bang to Crunch to Bang, etc.
Recently physicists Nemanja Kaloper from the University of California, Davis, and Antonio Padilla of the University of Nottingham came up with a simple reformulation of general relativity that might solve the discrepancy between the theorized energy density of space from quantum field theory and the observed dark energy density from cosmology.2,3 These values differ by some 120 orders of magnitude, a discrepancy that has been called “the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics.”
Their model suggests that dark energy will dominate the universe shortly before a “turnaround,” leading to an eventual collapse. While they cannot set a date on when this turnaround will occur, a natural choice for the strength of forces suggests that the beginning of the universe’s collapse is imminent and is preceded by the current stage of cosmic acceleration. Their work is strictly theoretical and makes the cosmological constant an average of all the matter contributed to the mass-energy of the universe over all of space and time. This produces a relatively small cosmological constant, but it also predicts that our current accelerated expansion will stop in the future and reverse leading to a Big Crunch.
Cosmologists naturally assume that the universe is a closed system in which the entire mass-energy of the cosmos arose in the Big Bang. But what if creation is an ongoing process? This is the scenario laid out by renowned spiritual authority Shrii Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar.4 He argues that the Cosmic Entity, known as Brahma, has two complementary aspects—unqualified cosmic consciousness and a creative or qualifying principle (Prakriti). Without the action of this creative principle (CP), the unqualified consciousness could not undergo any transformation and would remain unmanifest as pure awareness.
The CP has three basic ways or modes in which it qualifies. The subtlest mode is known as the sentient binding force, and when it acts on unqualified consciousness, it creates the cosmic idea of I am. This is a very subtle qualification of pure awareness or consciousness, but without such an awareness of its own existence, consciousness would be nothing but pure being. The second mode of the CP is mutative and creates the cosmic sense of I do. The strongest binding force of the CP is the static mode, which creates cosmic objective mind (OM). This cosmic OM has objective reality but no physical reality, since matter is not yet formed.
These three qualities—I am, I do, and objective mind—make up what is known as cosmic mind. However, the static mode of the CP is not done at this stage, but continues to gradually increase its qualifying of the cosmic OM and transform it into increasingly crude fundamental factors of physical reality—space, gas, radiating energy, liquid, and solid.
According to this model, creation is not static, but an ongoing unfolding of consciousness into the material world. As a result, new space is constantly being created in the universe, which would account for why space is expanding. At the same time, additional gas would be introduced into the universe. This would account for the fact that approximately one-third of the baryonic (ordinary) matter formed in the Big Bang is missing from galaxies. Recent astronomical observations show that this missing mass is found in strands of hot intergalactic hydrogen gas.5 But astronomers don’t know where it comes from. If creation is an ongoing process with additional spacetime being created constantly along with small amounts of hydrogen gas, a thermal death of the universe should not occur. This is the proposition of Shrii Sarkar.6
The question is whether pumping in additional spacetime and matter into the universe would cause it to continue to expand forever or allow gravity to win out over the effects of dark energy. The answer is unknown since scientists are currently unable to measure the rate at which new hydrogen gas is forming in our universe. However, Shrii Sarkar states that it is not possible for all parts of creation to have a uniform temperature or a simultaneous thermal death because matter will get concentrated causing what he calls jadásphot́a (great explosion) to occur. He states:
“This releases vast amounts of energy within the universe, thus maintaining the thermal disparity of the universe and the continued flow of the Cosmic imagination. That is why the fear of some scientists that the universe will meet a thermal death is baseless. Partial thermal death may occur in part of the universe, but the total thermal death of the universe will never be a reality.”7
Whether he means that parts of the universe will re-condense and suffer new Big Bangs is still up for debate, but clearly the spiritual explanation for how the universe will end differs significantly from what most scientists now propose because it includes the idea that the universe is continually growing with the introduction of new space and matter.
1 https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.02590
2 https://arxiv.org/abs/1309.6562
3 https://physics.aps.org/articles/v7/s29
4 Ananda Marga Ideology and Way of Life in a Nutshell, Part 8 [a compilation]: “The Macrocosmic Stance and Human Life;” (Kolkata: Ananda Marga Publications, 1988).
5 https://www.britannica.com/science/intergalactic-medium
6 Ananda Marga Ideology and Way of Life in a Nutshell, Part 6 [a compilation]: “The Expansion of the Microcosm;” (Kolkata: Ananda Marga Publications, 1988).
7 Ibid.
Posted: Nov. 28, 2021
Experimental Evidence indicates that human intention does in fact affect sensitive electronic devices, providing additional evidence for the spiritual worldview.
There is overwhelming scientific evident that indicates that a person’s intention can influence an electronic device. Some of the strongest evidence comes from the laboratory of Stanford physics professor William A. Tiller. Tiller along with his collaborators Walter Dibble and Michael Kohane have performed hundreds of experiments in their Stanford lab investigating intention imprinted electronic devices (IIEDs), and have published their results in peer-reviewed journals and in their book Conscious Acts of Creation: The Emergence of a New Physics.
In a typical experiment, two identical pH meters might be used. One instrument is placed next to a highly qualified meditator or a group of four qualified meditators who attempt to imprint the device in a manner that, for example, will give low pH readings. The devices are then wrapped in aluminum foil and shipped approximately 2,000 miles to a laboratory where the actual target experiment is conducted by others. There a sample of purified water is prepared with a small amount of added potassium chloride (to increase conductivity of the water). Half the sample is put into a clean beaker, the pH electrode placed in the solution, and the test meter turned on. The other half is measured similarly with the control meter. The imprinted meter reads a pH of 5.0 and the control meter reads 6.0.
The researchers repeat the experiment, but this time the meditators are asked to imprint one of the meters with a high pH. Now the imprinted meter reads one pH unit higher than the control meter.
In addition to pH measurements, Tiller and his associates using strict laboratory controls, found significant effects of intention on the UV spectrum of DNA-water solutions, the thermodynamic activity of enzymes, the growth rate of fruit-fly larva, the temperature, and conductivity of water, and the breakdown voltage of gas-discharge tubes. The results were both robust and reproducible, and significant to the point that no statistical analysis of the data was required to demonstrate that the effect was real. Their conclusion is that there can be no doubt that electronic devices imprinted by experienced meditators give significantly different measurements of physical properties than non-imprinted devices.1
In most of the experiments, these researchers used either an individual or a group of four accomplished meditators with decades of regular practice. This is because they found that such individuals possessed the ability to enter into a coherent, inner self-managed mental state that allowed them to be more effective in imprinting electronic devices than non-meditators.
Such experiments with IIEDs might be the most robust and reproducible evidence indicating that human intention can affect sensitive electronic devices but it is by no means the only evidence for psychokinesis, which is defined as the ability to of a person to influence a physical system mentally.
Experiments studying the effects of mental intention on the throw of dice have been going on for almost eighty years and provide conclusive evidence that such effects are tiny but nonetheless real based on statistical analyses. For example, a meta-analysis of 148 independent experiments indicated that the odds that mental intention had no influence on dice were statistically one in a billion.2 When no intention was applied to the throw of dice, researchers found that the hit rate was exactly that predicted by chance. Do these results prove that mind can affect the throw of dice? One would have to conclude, based on the high quality of the scientific controls employed and the reproducibility of experiments by more than fifty investigators that the answer is yes.
Today most of the studies investigating psychokinesis involve experiments trying to affect random-number generators (RNGs).3 Such experiments are easier to control and can involve trillions of randomly generated bits (ones and zeros), which can be recorded automatically and with ease—in fact, the whole test can be automated eliminating operator bias or error. The effect also tests mind-matter interaction on what is believed to be a quantum level—which fits the current model of how mind fundamentally affects matter. In addition, the experimental evidence suggests that a random system operating on a micro scale is easier to manipulate than a massive object like a die.
Radin and coworkers performed a meta-analysis of 152 published reports from 1959 to 1987 describing 597 studies in which persons were instructed to try to make the RNG generate an excess of either zeros or ones; and another 235 control studies in which no mental intention was used. Overall, the experimental studies generated a 51 percent hit rate while the controls were exactly 50 percent. Odds that such results would occur by chance are one in a trillion.4
Further evidence that human intention can influence sensitive physical devices, systems, and processes comes from the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory (PEAR). In a seven-year study ending in 1996, over 1200 studies using 108 volunteers attempting to influence random-number generators showed there was a small (about one tenth of one percent), but statistically significant effect on the output of RNGs (one in four thousand).5 Analysis of the data indicated that the results were not due to the ability of a few outstanding performers but to a widespread ability found in the general population. The results also confirmed that distance and time delays did not lower the effectiveness of mental intention on the output of RNGs.
In another PEAR study human operators attempted to bias the output of a variety of mechanical, electronic, optical, acoustical, and fluid devices to conform to pre-stated intentions—all without recourse to any known physical influences. Under control conditions, all of these sophisticated instruments produced strictly random data, but when human operators applied intention to the devices, the experimental results showed changes that could only be attributed to the intention of their human operators.6
A RNG study dubbed the Global Consciousness Project is currently being directed by Roger Nelson at Princeton. It began in 1998 and utilizes a worldwide network of RNGs that collect randomly generated bits along with their time stamp and send the data to a server at Princeton. Data from this ongoing study show that there is a significant spike in nonrandomness coinciding with major global events, such as the death of Princess Diana, Y2K, 9/11, and the funeral of Pope John Paul II.7 Many other globally important events caused significant spikes in the network of RNGs, suggesting that the collective mind of humans on Earth have a small but reproducible effect on what is known to be a random process.
While some physicists believe that consciousness has nothing to do with wave function collapse, other scientists have actually conducted experiments that show that it does. One such study was published by Dean Radin and coworkers. In this experiment, a double-slit system was used and 685 people participated over the Internet, and were told to concentrate on the apparatus in California. Normally when photons in a double-slit experiment are observed the interference pattern disappears. In this case the interference pattern was degraded and the results were highly significant (p=2.6 x 10-6) compared to control runs that produced no degradation of the interference pattern.8 And recently these results were confirmed by an independent investigator.9 Such experiments indicate that mental intent does in fact influence wave function collapse influencing whether quanta behave as particles or waves. One wonders whether experiments like this will ever convince the physics community that mind or consciousness is actually the ingredient necessary for bringing physical reality into existence. Perhaps it would take someone with extraordinary powers of concentration that could turn the interference pattern on or off like a light switch from a remote location?
References:
1. William A. Tiller., Walter Dibble, and Michael Kohane, Conscious Acts of Creation: The Emergence of a New Physics (Walnut Creek, CA: Pavior Publishing, 2001), pgs. 1-13.
2. Dean Radin, The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena (NY: HarperCollins, 1997), p.143.
3. RNGs typically employ radioactive decay or electronic noise. Thousands of data points assigned as either zero or one are produced per second giving a truly random sequence of zeros and ones that are accurately recorded by a computer.
4. Dean Radin, The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena (NY: HarperCollins, 1997), p. 151.
5. B. J. Dunne and R. G. Jahn, “Experiments in Remote Human/Machine Interaction, Journal of Statistics Edu., 6 (1992): pgs. 311-32.
6. Jahn, R. G., et al. “Correlations of Random Binary Sequences with Pre- Stated Operator Intention: A Review of a 12-Year Program Journal of Scientific Exploration,” Vol. 11, No. 3, 1977. Available at: https://noosphere.princeton.edu/ papers/pear/correlations.12yr.pdf.
7. Dean Radin, Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality (NY: Paraview, 2006), pgs. 195-202.
8. Dean Radin, Leena Michel, James Johnston, and Arnaud Delorme, “Psychophysical Interactions with a Double-slit Interference Pattern,” Physics Essays , 26, no.4, (2013), pgs. 553-566.
9. Gabriel Guerrer, “Consciousness-related Interactions in a Double-slit Optical Interferometer,” Open Science Framework (March 9, 2018).
Posted: Jan. 14, 2017
Egoism is self-defeating and will eventually lead to one’s downfall.
Ego is an indispensable component of a healthy mind. It is the “I do” engine of mind without which we would be like vegetables, unable to make any movements or decisions. Its function is to create separation between self and non-self, providing the willfulness that exists behind all that a person does, says, thinks, and understands. In addition, ego is at the root of selfishness, judgment, rejection, and separateness. Because it wants to control, it also wants to dominate everything non-self, which includes other humans, animals, and nature (matter and energy). The ego is afraid of losing control. Hence, death is the greatest fear of the ego since death brings loss of control and presumably a loss of consciousness. Ego is the greatest enemy for progress on the spiritual path, which requires self-sacrifice and surrender to a higher being. Sages have compared ego to an umbrella, blocking Spirit and preventing the mind from experiencing God’s grace—which is continually raining down on us. For a spiritual aspirant the goal is not to simply destroy ego by acts of self-flagellation, self-denial, or self-denigration, but to replace personal ego with cosmic ego by performing actions with the idea that God is performing the actions. That is, surrendering all actions to God in the performance of selfless service and sadhana (meditation).
Ego is boosted by achievements and the accumulation of wealth, fame, and power. However, the more achievements attached to the ego the further one is led from spiritual experience and the bliss of simply “being“ instead of doing. Hence, ego is the source of people’s separation from God, the source of their torments, pain, desires, anxiety, frustration, numbness, attachments, and isolation.
Unfortunately, it is a commonly held belief today that happiness is a result of one’s accomplishments. One needs a meaningful and well-paying job, a spouse, children, a nice home, and personal conquests. There are no limits to the wealth, fame, and power that the ego wishes to obtain because underneath the mundane level of life ruled by ego lays that of spirit, and the desire for limitlessness permeates into the surface level of being. The problem is that nothing in the mundane world is limitless and as the ego amasses more and more possessions, wealth, status, and power in its quest for happiness, one’s material burden grows. Possessions are lost or lose their attractiveness over time, and a lack of fulfillment and sense of dissatisfaction with life inevitably develop. Thus, people dominated by ego cannot experience the true happiness that can result by entering the spiritual path and seeking union with God. However even in spiritual life as in worldly life whenever a person becomes overly egoistic, it becomes the cause of their downfall.
For a politician an inflated sense of self-importance can be especially harmful since the inevitable downfall that the egoist experiences can also result in damage to the country and to society. A politician with an inflated sense of self-worth may consider everybody else a fool and himself a king. As a result, he may ignore good consul from his cabinet members, other associates, and experts; and proceed with policies and actions he believes are in his own self-interest but which are detrimental to the society.
Instead of developing spiritually through sadhana and selfless service, such politicians want to accomplish everything through their lofty rhetoric. Under the hypnotic spell of power, politicians may resort to demagoguery with its appeal that plays on people’s emotions and prejudices rather than on their rational side. This manipulative approach appeals to the worst nature of people. It is often used by dictators and sleazy politicians. They identify the weaknesses in others, and by resorting to divisive language, they attempt to incite one group of people against another so that they can better obtain and ultimately increase their power.
In order for a democracy to succeed the people must be moral, well-educated and aware of social, economic, and political issues; and the leaders must be people of high moral character, whose primary objective in life is bettering their country—not their own self-interest. If these things are lacking then the welfare of society may be jeopardized.
Today in the US, a person of dubious character and vested self-interest has been elected to power. President-elect Trump is poised to become one of the most powerful men in the world and he appears to have all the essential qualities of a demagogue. After amassing great wealth and fame, he has turned his attention to gaining great power. He has a history of self-promotion and taking advantage of others in order to expand his “empire.” One can only hope that the inevitable downfall of such a person does not also produce lasting damage to this country and to all humanity.
Posted: Jan. 20, 2017
Climate change brought on by the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels and reliance on animal agriculture as a source of food threatens to displace millions of people, cause mass extinction of species, and rapidly alter the lands and waters that humankind depends upon for survival.
According to a 2006 report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and a 2009 report by the Livestock and Climate Change environmental assessment experts at the World Bank, animal agriculture is responsible for over half of the total global greenhouse gas emissions.1 This means that the unnecessary and unsustainable consumption of meat in developed countries accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than the transportation, electrical generation, and other industrial uses of fossil fuels combined.
It is estimated that the feeding of livestock now uses over 30 per cent of the earth’s arable land surface, mostly in producing feed for the animals. Animal agriculture also drives deforestation, especially in South America where approximately 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing. In the US, approximately 70 percent of the food grains that are grown are fed to livestock. Cattle also cause widespread land degradation through overgrazing, compaction, and erosion. Animal agriculture is also damaging to the environment because of its use of enormous amounts of scarce water resources and the pollution caused by animal waste, fertilizers, and pesticides.
The FAO assessment was based on the most recent and complete data available, taking into account direct impacts, along with the impacts of feed crop agriculture required for livestock production. The report states that the livestock sector is one of the most significant contributors to serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with the problem of climate change, land degradation, water shortage, loss of biodiversity, and air and water pollution. Based on this report, senior U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization official Dr. Henning Steinfeld stated that the meat industry is “one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems” and that “urgent action is required to remedy the situation.”
The original U.N. report concluded that livestock are responsible for approximately 20 percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions— more than the total from all transportation, which is responsible for 13% of emissions. Such emissions arise from feed production (e.g. cultivation of feed crops, chemical fertilizer production, deforestation for pasture and feed crops, feed transport and soil organic matter losses in pastures and feed crops), animal production (methane and nitrous oxide emissions from manure) and finally as a result of the transportation of animals and animal products.
However, a more recent report for the World Watch Institute, by Robert Goodland, former environmental adviser to the World Bank, and Jeff Anhang, environmental specialist at the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corp., estimates this figure to be much higher—51 percent, when the entire life cycle and supply chain of the livestock industry is taken into consideration.2
Their report factors in emissions from the tens of billions of animals exhaling CO2 annually, as well as deforestation for feed production and grazing, which prevents the reduction in greenhouse gases that would normally result from photosynthesis of biomass growing on that land if it were not transformed into pasture.
As things stand, global meat and dairy consumption is projected by the FAO to more than double by 2050. Reversing the role of livestock in climate change is “even more important than the urgent transition to renewable energy,” Dr. Goodland wrote in an e-mail message.
In their report Goodland and Anhang concluded that livestock (like automobiles) are a human invention and convenience, not part of pre-human times, and a molecule of CO2 exhaled by livestock is no more natural than one from an auto tailpipe. Their solution to livestock’s global warming effect is simple: eat less animal products, or better still, none at all.
Methane gas, which is a byproduct of digestion by cud-chewing animals, has a global warming potential 86 times that of CO2 on a 20-year time frame; nitrous oxide produced by manure has 296 times the global warming potential.
Agriculture is responsible for 80-90% of US water consumption; and the growing of feed crops for livestock consumes 56% of water in the US. Estimates place the amount of water to produce a pound of beef at over 2000 gallons and about half this amount for chicken and pork.
One might wonder why the vast majority of environmental organizations stress the negative impact of the use of fossil fuels on the environmental and ignore the contribution from animal agriculture. Could this be because their contributors do not want to be told that as a meat eater they are utilizing 18 times as much arable land as a vegan? Or that changing to a meatless diet would do much more for the environment than driving a hybrid car? Or that 5 million acres of rainforest are felled each year to create pasture for cattle? Or that 82% of starving children live in countries where food is fed to animals, and the animals are eaten by western countries?3 Whatever the reasons, the principal environmental organizations in the US and Western Europe have failed to inform their members that as individuals we could do the most good for protecting our fragile environment and helping to reduce the devastating effects of global warming by simply consuming less or no meat and dairy. Until such organizations include in their literature facts about the devastating effects of animal agriculture, it might make sense to inform them that you are withholding your donations until they change their tune.
With a growing world population, one way or another people in the developed world will have to come to grips with the fact that a meat-based diet is unsustainable and is a major threat to human welfare. In the future, we will have no choice but to eat less meat and dairy.
Sources for this blog include:
Posted: Feb. 22, 2017
Recently in the US, there has been a resurgence of anti-Semitism exemplified by bomb threats at Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish graves in a cemetery in the St. Louis suburb of University City.
Unfortunately, the swastika is often associated with anti-Semitism because of its earlier connection with Nazism. However, the origins of the swastika date back at least 12,000 years and historically it has symbolized well-being, good luck, and spiritual success.
The word “swastika” is derived from Sanskrit: su (good) + asti (being) + ka (neutral object). It is considered a sacred and auspicious symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, where it can be seen on many temples and religious objects. Besides being an ancient symbol of these Eastern religions, it has been found in Neolithic Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and China. It was also used by Celts, Greeks, Roman, Germanic and Slavic tribes, and by Native Americans. Archaeological evidence suggests that it served as a good luck charm or religious symbol in these various cultures.
Unlike the cross, which is another important religious symbol, that connotes earth/matter, the twisted cross or swastika has a dynamic quality to it suggesting movement about the center.
Both Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell argued that the swastika was an example of a symbol that was adopted by many cultures that had no historical contact with one another, and was universally associated with good luck and success. As such both men felt that the experience of being human is a collective experience across time, space, and culture, and that our common myths and symbols can be traced to the most primitive origins of human consciousness or “archetypes” that are communicated across different cultures by what Jung termed the “collective unconscious.”
Probably due to the swastika’s ancient Indo-Aryan origins, in the early twentieth century, German nationalists began to use the swastika as a representation of Germanic-Aryan superiority. For Hitler, the new Nazi flag with its swastika surrounded by a red background was a symbol of struggle and eventual victory. It is ironic, yet very sad, that the swastika — this ancient symbol of spiritual victory and attainment, was appropriated by a force that used it for exactly the opposite reasons — to enslave and brutalize human beings.
Today in the Western world, the swastika is often painted by people whose intention is to promote intolerance and hate. However, its power to incite disgust among us can only exist when we fall victim to associating it with hatred instead of what it truly symbolizes—achieving the very goal of human existence: spiritual growth and ultimate unity.
Posted: Dec. 7, 2016
Sir Isaac Newton was perhaps one of the most influential scientists of all time. His laws of gravity and motion set the stage for a revolution in physics beginning in the nineteenth-century. The mechanistic Newtonian physics advanced our understanding of the motions of celestial bodies and physical objects. He envisioned a “clockwork” universe in which all of space could be mapped out in three dimensions and all clocks in the universe would tick at the same rate. According to this model speeds should add up—i.e. a bullet fired forward from a fast-moving car should have a higher velocity than one fired backward. If light behaved similarly then one would expect that when the Earth was moving towards a distant star, the light from the star would reach Earth more quickly than when the Earth was moving away from the star.
However, a crucial experiment conducted by Michelson and Morley in 1887 demonstrated that light did not behave as Newton and other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientists expected. These scientists used a sensitive interferometer that could detect very slight differences in the speed of light that would be expected if their instrument was directed towards or away from a light source. It turned out that the speed of light was a constant no matter which way their instrument was pointed demonstrating that light unlike other moving objects violated the rule that speeds should be additive.
Albert Einstein realized that if the speed of light was a constant no matter what point of reference was used, then something else had to change to account for its constancy. He sensed that this “something” must be space itself. He proposed that space could flex and change, become compressed or expanded according to the relative motion of an object and an observer. The only constant was the speed of light itself or an integrated four-dimensional fabric he called space-time. These insights led to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which states that the universe has four dimensions—the three of space: width, length, and height—and one of time. Time is not a separate dimension in this scheme, but is fully integrated with the three spatial dimensions. Hence, each of the four dimensions of space-time has a spatial and temporal component, which is required from the fact that both space and time are relative to the state of motion. Einstein theorized that with motion, space shrinks and time dilates, while for an object at rest, the movement through space-time is in time alone.
Einstein’s equations indicated that the faster an object moves, the slower the passage of time and the more mass it gains. Ultimately, at the speed of light, time stops. However, for matter it would be impossible to attain this speed since it would require all the mass-energy of the universe. Subsequent experiments have proven Einstein’s theories about space, time, energy, and mass to be correct. For example, the decay of an unstable subatomic particle that is accelerated near the speed of light in a particle accelerator is much longer than when it is stationary. Secondly, such particles gain the exact amount of mass predicted by the theory as they race in the accelerator near the speed of light.
However, a massless particle such as a photon, which carries electromagnetic radiation (e.g. light), can move at the speed of light and its internal clock is stopped and hence it will not decay like other particles. Nevertheless, the equations of Einstein show that even for light there is a speed limit that cannot be exceeded.
Einstein’s second theory of relativity, termed the general theory of relativity, describes gravity as a geometric property of space-time. This theory predicted that gravity distorts space-time. The more massive the object the more it distorts or curves space and “pulls” or slows time. If the mass of an object is small then this curvature is minuscule and Einstein’s equations describing how space-time is curved by mass become the same as Newton’s equation describing gravity. The curvature of space-time caused by a massive object also causes light passing near that distant object to bend. This prediction has been verified experimentally, as has the existence of black holes—objects with such tremendous gravitational force that nothing can escape their pull, including light.
Several startling and unusual consequences arise from this modern model of the universe. The most important, from our point of view, is the realization that four-dimensional space-time cannot change in time. All events that have occurred in the past or will happen in the future are already there within this four-dimensional continuum. Events could be compared to seeds in a watermelon, positioned in fixed locations in the four dimensions of space-time. Since space-time cannot change in time or in space, it means that our everyday experience of the flow of time from the past to the present to the future is illusory.
This modern scientific view of space and time is called “block time.” Space-time is absolute and unchanging, much like Newton’s three-dimensional space. As human beings, we have the perception that things change in time, but this is because we lack the four-dimension insight that would be required for us to see the totality of all past, present, and future played out before us.
Einstein’s special theory of relativity with its mathematical description of a four-dimensional space-time continuum has been verified by numerous experimental observations and predictions made by the theory have proven correct and highly accurate. It is undoubtedly one of the most important scientific discoveries made in the last thousand years. Many of today’s technological advances (e.g., the GPS system) depend on the relative mechanics that are derived from the theory. However, what it says about the nature of reality is both mindboggling and revolutionary. The model is in perfect agreement with the basic idea underlying the spiritual worldview—namely, that beneath this ever-changing realm of human experience lies a deeper, singular and unchanging realm of reality.
The implications of the modern model of the universe are enormous, and most scientists today apparently fail to comprehend what this new vision of reality implies. One might even wonder if Einstein understood the implications of his discovery and what it says about scientific epistemology. It is as though there is an “elephant in the room,” and scientists choose not to see it. Perhaps this is because it describes an all-encompassing timeless domain of which our perceived three-dimensional world is merely a shadow. This speaks of an “other worldly” or metaphysical view of reality similar to that proposed by Plato and many other philosophers and prophets; and accepting this the “true reality” would thoroughly destroy the materialistic worldview that most scientists embrace.
In our normal waking state of consciousness, we are clearly incapable of witnessing all four dimensions of space-time. We are accustomed to living in three dimensions and perceive time flowing by. This is the working principle that we live by, but mystics throughout the ages have described reality exactly like that described by modern science. Mystics, no matter what their religious background have unanimously affirmed that our common perception that time flows like water under a bridge is illusory. When the mystic has entered into a state called samadhi in which their mind is merged with Cosmic Mind they may be witness to all time—i.e. past, present, and future. Take for example this description by Acharya Chandranath Kumar in the excellent book, When the Time Comes by Devashish.
“A person can take their mind two hundred years into the future and describe what is going to happen then. They can take their mind two hundred years back and describe what they see…It is a fact that there is no such thing as the present. The present is merely the conjunction of past and future…the connecting point of past and future.”1
An important question is what happens to the concept of free will if future events are already determined. Can there be free will if the future is already “written”? The mystic answers that humans make decisions on how to act and do not know how events will unfold. It is though we are actors in a movie and do not know the script. For us every moment is new and we decide how to react to life’s events. For example, an event such as a flood damages your house and that of your neighbors. We are free to retreat in self-pity or grow by helping others recover from the disaster. Humans have total freedom as to how they focus their mind and direct their energies. On the other hand, the director of the movie, God, knows exactly how the script will be played out. Everything takes place within his field of knowledge (mind) in the eternity of the now.
If this topic interests you and you would like to know more of why modern science validates the spiritual worldview please pick up my book: The Nonlocal Universe, Why Science Validates the Spiritual Worldview2 (available from Amazon.com or BN.com, print or electronic version).
Posted: Jan. 28, 2015
Quanta are simply the discontinuous aspect of physical reality or in other words the smallest packets of mass and energy that govern all the interactions occurring at the micro scale. Quantum mechanics is the incredibly successful theory that describes the mathematical interactions of energy and matter that occur at this microscopic scale.
So, why is this description of how quanta behave weird and what does this have to do with spirituality? To begin with, quanta are difficult to localize. That is, they appear to exist not in one place but can be found most anywhere or in a sense can spread throughout all of spacetime. Secondly, depending on whether they are observed or not they may behave like particles or waves. Therefore, until they are actually observed or measured quanta have no definite properties but are thought to exist in all possible states simultaneously. These are virtual rather that real states. It is not until a quantum is observed that it takes on one state or another. Somehow, conscious observation fixes a quantum in a real state but it is normally impossible to predict which of the possible states will emerge from the “quantum soup.” The quantum seems to choose its ultimate state. Thirdly, even in their real state quanta cannot be pinned down exactly. For example, the better we know the position of a quantum particle the less we know its speed. Hence, there is always uncertainty in measuring quanta. Finally, quanta that share the same state when created are linked or entangled no matter how far apart they travel from one another and this connection is instantaneous and not limited by the speed of light. In addition, this connection between quanta occurs not only in the domain of small particles but also applies to complex systems or experimental setups. When one of the quanta in the system is observed all the other quanta shift from the virtual to the real state.
So, what is the evidence that microscopic particles actually behave in this weird way and that quantum mechanics accurately predict this behavior? Quantum mechanics was first introduced by Neils Bohr and his collaborators in Denmark in the early part of the twentieth century. The theory was that quantum particles were nonlocal in nature and that there was no certainty about their behavior only probabilities.
Moreover, the theory predicted that when two or more paired quantum particles form they do not behave as separate entities but must remain linked or entangled even if they are not in local contact. For example, if two correlated electrons have opposite spin and one of them is observed or caused to change its spin then spin of the other electron must simultaneously change. And, this connection will occur even if the two electrons are on opposite sides of the galaxy.
This aspect of QM theory was so weird that even the greatest scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein, could not swallow what he labelled “spooky action at a distance,” or in other words, nonlocality without any limits in both time and space. In fact, Einstein and Bohr, along with other scientists, had a running feud about the nonlocality of the quantum realm that lasted nearly twenty-five years but was finally resolved by experiments performed after the death of both men.
The defining experiment that would prove whether quantum theory was correct in predicting that tiny particles could really be nonlocal (as Bohr proposed), or this was impossible because signals would have to be transmitted between particles at speeds greater than that of light (Einstein’s objection), was proposed by physicist, John Bell in 1964. However, it took another 20 years before the experiments could be conducted which would demonstrate conclusively that nonlocality was a fact of nature.
The most definite experiment testing Bell’s theorem was conducted by Alain Aspect and his colleagues at the University of Paris-Sud in 1981. Aspect used paired photons and measured their polarization. He demonstrated conclusively that these photons were linked even as they traveled away from each other at the speed of light. Nonlocality in the quantum realm had been conclusively shown to be a fact of nature. Many other experiments have since confirmed that nonlocality of quantum fields and particles (entanglement) occur not just in photons but also electrons, atoms and even large molecules. For atoms and molecules, this process has been termed “teleportation.” The quantum state of one atom or molecule can be teleported to that of another regardless of how far apart the particles are from one another. This process forms the basis for the development of today’s quantum computers, which one day might revolutionize electronics. Yet the connection that exists between distant but entangled particles is one of the greatest mysteries of physics. This connection is not constrained by either time or space. The only explanation is that either a field of information pervades all of spacetime, which allows quanta to communicate with one another, or all quanta must be connected and none is truly separate from another. Such an explanation for the phenomenon of quantum nonlocality is consistent with the idea that oneness pervades all space and time. However, today most physicists choose to ignore the ramifications of this discovery because it touches on metaphysics.
Although most physicists today may skirt the issue, we are left with some facts about nature that require a non-materialistic explanation. Somehow, information is conveyed throughout all spacetime. This means that there exists a field that conserves and conveys information throughout the universe. Evidence for such a field can also be found in the biological sciences, the fine-tuning of the cosmos, and in consciousness research including ESP (see also other articles of mine on science and spirituality in this blog journal).
The idea that this information field is related to consciousness makes the most sense since we know that observation affects physical reality. In the nomenclature of physics, the numerous potential reality states remain unmanifest (as probability waves or functions) until the system is observed. Observation causes the system to collapse into a “real” state. Hence, consciousness is required before anything can become set in reality. This implies that matter is an epiphenomenon of consciousness. If consciousness were derived from matter, then logically it would be impossible for observation to affect physical reality. We are left to conclude that the evidence from modern quantum physics demonstrates that consciousness must be the ground substance of all being and not matter. In a sense, today’s physics proves the veracity of metaphysics. Everything is connected, ultimately one, differentiation is a macroscopic illusion.
