Peter Russell - 'The Great Awakening' - Interview by Iain McNay

hello and welcome again to conscious TV I'm in McNay and today our guest is Peter Russell hi Peter hello and peter has written several books which I'm going to show you here now the brain book the global brain waking up in time and from science to God and today with pretty much we're going to hear about Peters life and his own spiritual journey but we're going to focus more on the last two books the content of those because it's very interesting and it's very relevant to what's happening on the planet at the moment on different levels so Peter let's start briefly when you were young when you were too long Asia because you were for what you told me earlier you were very driven to find things out you were had a real thirst for knowledge didn't you yes in two ways I mean one I sort of I was a budding scientist I thought thought I'd end up as a scientist of some sort and mathematics I was good at math and I was doing well at school that era so that was that there was a thirst for knowledge on the scientific level but also there was a little inquiry about the nature of people I would got fascinated by some simple philosophical questions like free will determinism I say simple I mean they're profound questions which nobody has answered but I got drawn into those sorts of questions so when you say free will determinism what do you mean by that well that's a basic question of do we actually have free will or is everything determined I mean we appear to make choices you know okay I've chosen to be here today with you but was that just a result of the conditioning of the way my brain responds to your invitation because of social conditioning or did I really make a choice you know you go to a restaurant you choose something from the menu do you actually make a free choice or is it because you had this yesterday and this one's cheaper and you don't like red meat and you don't like the flavoring is it all predetermined and your braid is just going through this process and people have been debating this for thousands of years and they're still no closer to a solution and you were asking these questions when you were a teenager yes yeah that's right Asians for that teenager yeah and still asking them and you also had a big interest in mathematics didn't you yes that was my love when I went to university I went to Cambridge studying maths and I was actually quite good at I got awards for it and and then I was actually studying with Stephen Hawking for a while he was like he was my supervisor Cambridge it each student has a one-to-one relationship with what's called a supervisor who actually takes you through the course and you meet every week and for a while he was my supervisor which was fascinating he could still walk and talk then his illness was just beginning to show but he didn't even need a wheelchair he had a walking stick and he could still talk he was fascinating he was so funny compassionate lovely person and he still is you still see it when you see him on television or whatever so what kind of things did you learn from him he was doing his early work on black holes them which is now laborious and I was fascinated by that and also just how he could he could show me the underlying equations of things though a lot of what I was learning at that time in mathematics was really theoretical physics and how the equations of math related to the world and my speciality then was relativity I loved relativity and the theory of relativity and so part of what he was helping me on then with understanding relativity Einstein's relativity yes yeah I think also when you were younger you were raised in Einstein as well when she always been interested I sign yes yeah yeah and then at some point an interest in meditation started at university and yes and that really came out of my ongoing entry from the philosophical stuff my ongoing interest in the mind and what is mind what is consciousness and I realized that physics was never going to answer the fundamental questions to me about why is there mind in the universe physics might tell me how you know the universe began from nothing and became hydrogen and how hydrogen evolved into the other elements and how all that evolved into galaxies and stars and why we're here but why do we experience why is there mind in the universe physics doesn't it that any of us should ever have a mind it just predicts we should all work as biological automata robots really why is there consciousness and that's the question I began to really interest me and I actually moved into psychology thinking that would answer the questions and then realize that they didn't know any more about it but I realized the people who did know about consciousness worthy sort of Saints Yogi's in India the monks who studied consciousness firsthand which mean to actually explore in your own mind and I realized meditation was like the scientific way of exploring your own mind it isn't scientific in terms of you're not putting measuring equipment on a person you can do that but for me it's more just observing your mind letting the mind quieten down and beginning to watch your mind and that I think is how you really begin to explore consciousness so that's why I got into meditation and then went out to India to study it more I think you started first with Buddhist meditation at and yes at Cambridge and then you found the Maharishi yes it was yeah just beginning wasn't he in there he was just beginning yes the Beatles were getting interested in him I didn't yes I so dabbled in Buddhist meditation but at that time it didn't quite make sense to me and TM when I came across that it really did because the more she was emphasizing complete and utter effortlessness which was contrary to what all the other teachers I had experience was saying and that just he made sense to me in a way about not trying but as soon as you try to meditate you make the mind more tense and what we're talking about is letting the mind totally relax so what you're saying is the other meditation teachers we're telling you to try hard and discipline yourself concentrate focus to buy and you found that hard as you get results doing that I didn't get many results from I know and what the while she was saying is do the opposite let the mind totally relax don't try and let the mind just become quiet him its own accord and I found that worked and that was just through repeating a silent mantra think twice a day 20 minutes yes people say repeating a matter it's actually that's slightly misleading because it's really if you repeat it just becomes a rote thing it but it's more being aware of the sound in your mind just being aware of the sound and the sound sort of repeats itself and sometimes it doesn't but it but it's awareness of the sound that's the crucial thing it's not just you just repeat it that's a sort of that sort of tradition that's used in India but I don't think that gets you so far but through that very gentle awareness you're allowing the mind to settle down to quieter levels so when you say the sound in the mind are you talking about the mental chattering no no that sounded the match was just a sound in the line so okay so you're focusing on the sound of the mantra you're not focusing okay you're being aware of being aware of it that's the important difference so what's the difference between focusing and being aware focusing involves some effort some control holding the attention somewhere right whereas awareness is much more relaxed you know so I could tell you I can hear now you know the awareness of air conditioning in the background I can just be aware of that I could focus on it which means a lot intent listening and it's just it's just opening the awareness to listening it's like listening to what's there until you say it's more just listening to the sound and what did you what did you find happen to you by doing that the mind just begins to settle down just becomes quieter normally that chatter you talk about it a lot of chatter and then the chatter just gently begins the decrease and you just become quieter and as you become quieter it just becomes more enjoyable more peaceful because a lot of that chatter is creating stress discontent worry fantasy whatever and it's that chatter that actually keeps the mind active and so that that chatter just begins to die down and you just begin to settle into a state of peace and quiet which is naturally enjoyable and a presumably that affected you in your ordinary life as well not just when you're meditating yes and that's the idea of meditation yeah you get in touch with that sense of ease inside and then you bring that out into life so that you know instead of coming at like that I think that's what's going to do all this stuff with that chattering mind driving you you can just be more peaceful but also I think more compassionate because the other thing I notice is as the mind settles down becomes quieter you get in touch with the heart with that sort of deeper sense of compassion and love and so you can begin to relate to the world out of compassion rather than out of the egos needs for what the ego thinks it wants and needs so it's shifting your emphasis as a human being in a way yeah giving it another priority exactly set of values but yeah yeah it's shifting the way you relate to the world yeah and I see that's the value of meditation it's nice they actual practice but the value is how it shifts your attitude to the world and of course Jess you know having be able to stop and have rest every day is it's valuable just from a health point of view I think doesn't this D stresses you are you still meditating now yes yeah I've done most of my life not as regular as I should be sometimes but yeah it's important practice okay to keep the sequence going and then you were very got very involved within Maharishi organization and he went to India for a time yeah I went to study with him in India and became a teacher there in India and that that was fascinating for me because up until that time I sort of rejected religion as a kid because I was interested in maths and science it was what about age 30 when I went through the process of confirmation I just realised for me it was D confirmation I realised this was a weird load of mumbo jumbo but I was meant to believe I was meant to believe the Nicene Creed you know Jesus was born of a virgin all this stuff at all what and so I just totally rejected classical religion but what happened in India was I realized there was something not so much to religion but to spirituality and I realized all the different religious traditions underneath there was the same spiritual core the same spiritual fire if you like and originally in life and that wasn't so much to do with rituals or myths about the cosmos or whatever it was much more psychological it was about how we get ourselves caught in whether you want to call it the ego or materialism or judgment whatever but how the mind becomes caught and how because of that we suffer and every spiritual tradition in one way or another was aimed at freeing the mind whether you call it salvation liberation Enlightenment awakening whatever they all aim that sort of lightening the load so that we can actually be in touch with our true selves and that became a fascination for me and still is my whole life really changed them because I got fascinating about what is this basic core essential spirituality that lies behind all the spiritual traditions Huxley called it the perennial philosophy is that eternal philosophy that keeps coming up again and again and again and then the other thing was realizing that this is what the world needed and sitting in India sort of looked around and just saw that just about every problem there was from personal problems to big global problems environmental social problems all came back to human consciousness to the way we were thinking to the ego to the fact we were caught in this very limited way of thinking and we don't tend to look at consciousness when there's a problem we look at what to do out there you know it's that like right now as we're doing this you know there's riots been going on in London everybody's talking about what do we do about this but not talking about what do we do with the consciousness that's behind it that's the real question for me and so my life came back from India also been looking at this whole issue of how do we actually free human consciousness from the materialistic attitude so just indoctrinated into us really for the moment were born okay how do we that's a good question and yeah it's a big question it's a really important question and this is the fundamental question yeah I think the first step is realizing it doesn't work the current mode doesn't work you see you say that and I agree with you and yet as a the consensus among human beings is we must keep trying you must keep trying and we cry trying to make something that it's obviously not going to work to you and me but the majority try and make it work why's that you think it's one of the definitions of insanity isn't it to keep on doing the same thing even though it doesn't work well let's look at what it is that doesn't work but if just go back a step I think what everybody is looking for in the final analysis we're all looking to feel better we look at whether you call it peace of mind satisfaction fulfillment content we will be happy don't we want to be happy that's the bottom line we want to feel good we want to be happy yeah and there's different words would as a different flavours of it but it's basically we're looking for a better internal state of mind where we feel good looking to feel good yes and our culture tells us through education through the media through advertising everywhere we look that if you're not feeling good there's something wrong you need to get something you need to do something you need to experience something and that seems to work you know so we go shopping and we buy ourselves a new TV or something and we do feel good for very short while but it doesn't last long and then the bill comes in on the critic yeah when the when the bill comes in and then we going to know some better clothings and better shoes or better deal on a credit card better software new computer whatever it is and so we caught on this treadmill and all we get is temporary satisfactions they were looking for another one we never find any lasting happiness any lasting satisfaction is just temporary ones and even that is an illusion because and this is what meditation I think shows people the natural state of mind when we're not worried and that's what you touch in meditation when the mind becomes quiet and you stop worrying you find that the natural state of mind is one of contentment and peace but then what happens is because we see some advertisement or something in the news or talk to somebody we feel older something missing and as soon as we feel there's something missing we create discontent it's like oh I haven't got this or I haven't got that and so we're feeling dissatisfied and so when we go and actually buy that thing it's not that the new TV screen is making us happy it's we are no longer making ourselves unhappy for five minutes yes but isn't it also this feeling that we all have that something isn't complete yes and we want the happiness we want the happiness because we want to complete something and that seems to be the message that's very rarely put across yeah or what our society tells us is you will feel complete if only you had just got this got this got that and so we're on this endless chasing and that's what Indian traditional to call Sam saw that endless chasing one thing after another thing after another and no one's really pointing out that it's something inner that we're looking for the completion comes not from just having the right themes or right experiences but the real completion comes through actually knowing oneself and knowing that deep inside not even deep inside just below the surface really is that contentment happiness okayness that we're looking for and so it's a complete shift in where we put our attention so let's again go back to your your story that we were on because I know when you're in D you went back a second time and you spent the second time many many hours a day meditating so how did that bring you more in touch what actually happen because you're sitting there presumably for hour hour after hour just Maday up today day after day and was actually doing 24 hour day meditations at one stage yeah so you don't even sleep well you sort of sleep but when you're to be a period for two or three hours in the middle of the night where I was sort of dozy but you don't need to sleep if you're leading the sort of life where so quiet there's no stress you're meditating in the day it's almost like you're somewhere is you're not sleeping but you're you're very quiet you don't need sleep in those situations so what is that like aiyoo aiyoo in a blissful peaceful state most of the time yes I wouldn't I wouldn't say I don't like the word bliss well I translate that as just unconditioned peace that one is at peace not because everything is okay but there's just this quality of peace that is there but it's not there the whole time because the mind starts coming up with it's tough it's fantasies what you think you need and if only that you begin to notice the mind coming up with all these stories all that conditioning coming up but now you see it for what it is so you're saying there's a gap yes what's coming up and you that's aware of what is coming up you notice it and then you can you begin to see it and almost laugh at at at times or other times it grabs you it takes you over for like an hour you get totally caught up in this thing of like when I get back to England I'm going to do this and this and this then you realize what I've just done is all this thinking has just kept me out of my own natural state for half an hour now what like this is crazy but to realize that's what we do in life we get caught in these I call them stories this there are dialogues we have with ourselves that actually it's the story were telling ourselves that creates the discontent the lack of peace and that's the big realization it's the story we tell ourselves that takes us out of the peace yes and the key as I understand it is that you became aware that you are watching the stories so you are not the story because you're able to watch it right talk more about that yeah and that's a fundamental thing in just about all the spiritual traditions this thing of the nature of I what is the self and what we what tends to happen is we get identified with the story or I prefer the word engrossed we get caught up with the story that I tell myself that you know if I had this or have this better relationship whatever it is I'm telling myself there's an I in that story it's like a character in a novel you know when you read a novel there's the lead character and you identify with that character the characters feelings and all of that stuff but it's just a character in a story and it's the same with our thoughts when we're telling ourselves some story about myself and I would feel so much better if I had this or what did I do last week or you go back to your childhood and you think about that there's a character in the story and that that character is sort of real because it's there there's this me I can tell stories about but then there's the me that's just watching the story and that's the real me is not the character in the story but what happens is we get engrossed with the story with the character and we mistakenly think I'm the character in the story whereas what I am is just the awareness that's noticing the story the awareness it's noticing me talking to you now that awareness that is always there I'm always aware that's what's always there and that's what so many spiritual teachings point to that the real I what we actually mean by I is not some individual person character with all these qualities but it's just that one is call it just the observer the witness I prefer just the awaring that's always there they are wearing I use that because I don't like to use nouns if we say the witness or the observer or even the awareness we make it a thing and as soon as you make it a thing we bring in this sort of duality again there's me here and then there's the real self you know that other's me here and as the witness it's like although there isn't a thing there is no thing we can identifies the self and yet there is that which we all know so well it's been there all our life is that sense of some of the sense of beingness presence is that knowingness it's that which knows and what did you find help to strengthen that process in you okay you were doing the meditation the only as a day and then it's obviously at some point you left India you came back to the West you had to earn a living you had to be involved in daily life and there's all these temptations if you like things trying to pull you out of that knowing this yeah so what do you find obviously you kept meditating was that other things are the practices you did that helps you to embody that knowing more many things many things my practice itself has evolved over the years and I got involved with I've had a lot of a lot of value in Buddhist teachings which really helped me understand the mind a lot better and I came across something called a Course in Miracles many years ago which also was a real wonderful adjunct to meditation because that's about a sense letting go of our belief systems about who we are and in many many times it says you know meditate upon this and I think people who haven't got a practice of meditation what do they do we're having a good practice of meditation really allow me to get a lot of value from that so sort of watching myself when I get angry watching noticing what's really going on what am I telling myself when I get angry and it's usually some story about how somebody should not have done what they did and it's like this are getting affected you something affected me somebody messed up my life because they didn't behave the way I think they should have done I didn't really affect you they affect you as the story as you write it yes they didn't affect the observer that's always there but there's then this other bit of me I call it the ego mind which is the bit that's trying to be in control of things and that gets upset because it's no longer in control because somebody's done something which has affected my life in a way I don't like and so beginning to notice that when I feel angry stopping pulling back and noticing okay what am I telling myself here what's the story that's going on and by doing that by just getting a bit of perspective and seeing the story it doesn't grip you anymore you don't take it so seriously it's like ah okay they're like that they did this and what they did is in conflict with what I want but that's the truth of what's happening it's just this conflict in my mind between what they did and what I want but I'm still here and then I'm observing that conflict and when you do that it doesn't run you and the anger then just dissolves and I think when it comes up initially the anger is very real and I'm not saying we should never get angry but what we tend to do as human beings is carry it on with us for months we hold grievances about somebody I think the skill in life is when you get angry okay there may be there for a reason at the moment but then rather than carrying it on for days or weeks or months by carrying on the same stories to better stop and say it's just a story just a story and that is often difficult unless you make the commitment to do that isn't yet yeah I think yes I think the inner journey is a commitment to to wake up really we talked about awakening is to wake up to what is actually going on in oneself yeah and you do talk in which book was it I think waking up in time you talk about the Great Awakening yes so tell us more yeah how you see the Great Awakening I see this is a huge unprecedented moment in human history and and we are have scientific developments like never before but we also live in state or real vulnerability on the planet environmentally we could really screw things up and at the same time there is this search for spirituality and realizing I think this is becoming widespread across the planet that the old way the material way that's actually leading to so many problems leading to environmental issues isn't actually working it doesn't work for the planet or destroying the planet but it's not working for us as individuals we just seem to keep on going down the same road and never getting anywhere much so I see this a widespread search for spiritual awakening that's happening across society when I when I first got interested in spirituality back in the sixties when I went to Indian things they were hardly any books on this subject now you go into any modern sized town and those bookstores devoted to spirituality consciousness quote new-age things I don't like the term particularly but that whole area and most of those books perhaps all of them are just they come from people having explored themselves done some practice worked on something and then wanting to share it with other people you know what we're doing now conscious TV is same thing it's you're interviewing speakers all of whom writers have been on their own path over the years they've learnt something they want to share and there's thousands millions of people on their own journey all discovering little bits of the path or wanting to share it with each other it may not be as visible as books or television it may just be sharing it with their family or in schools or at work but there's millions of people just quietly waking up in their own way and sharing that with others and when you get that you get a positive feedback effect and leakes the awakening begins to accelerate and happens faster and faster and faster and so now you know it's huge the numbers of people engaged in this like in America now they reckon something like twenty eight million people engaged in some yoga practice forty years ago that might be in a few hundred thousand or something and it's it's growing but everybody is learning from each other and I think that is what is unprecedented this global interest in spirituality beyond any particular religion we're coming back to what is that core spirituality and it's happening at a time that we really really need it and that's what that's why I think the Great Awakening is so fascinating and so essential this is the time in history where we need that spiritual awakening because the fact we it's the fact we haven't got it we're coming out of this materialist self-centred consciousness it is leading us to destruction on the on the other side of the scale the kind of the bankruptcy of life at so many different levels is becoming more and more obvious yes and at the same time is something new that's a bad that's beginning to grow yeah and it's but it does need it doesn't it supporting doesn't it it doesn't accept the key and I think you do touch on that in the book quite a lot that somehow you've got every individual needs to take the positive steps that they can yes every we all need to take responsibility for our own awakening nobody can do it for us and it's easy to say oh they must change but I also remember I'm one of them in other people's eyes and I'm the only person I can really take responsibility for but also there's a value in community is what what Buddhist teaching is called Sangha the community and you're asking you know what what has helped me in my own practice I would say one thing that's been really important is having friends who are on similar journeys there's a support there and it's hanging out with similar people if you just you know if all your friends are totally in - are they wearing the right sneakers or do they have the right case for their iPhone if that's what's motivating them that's not going to help your spirituality much but if if you're with people who are also interested in that journey whether it's meditation whether it's observing themselves awakening their consciousness in one way or another you are support to each other so I think choosing who you hang out with who you spend time with who your friends are if they're on a similar not less than the same path but they're working in a similar direction then that's really really important you took also about spirit spirituality 101 yeah tell me about that that's we sort of in a way been touching on I use that phrase just to bring spirituality right down to earth to get away from all the trapars all the mirror it's really for me it's it's this thing that we are at a true nature is one of contentment but we screw it up because we start wanting things looking for things here because we have this belief system that says if only I had more I'd be happier and it's spiritual spirituality 101 is seeing that's the problem that materialistic self-centered belief system there's times when it's true I mean if you're hungry food definitely makes you feel better if you're cold adjusting the temperature makes you feel better but if you're feeling low because of you know self-worth or something just going out and buying things isn't really dealing with the problem so it's seeing that the essential problem is how we view the world our perception of the world and so seeing the basic spirituality is changing the way we see things and that to me is what a shift in consciousness is about a shift in consciousness is a shift in perception a shift we have a shift in how we see things so rather than seeing things through the egos eyes we're seeing things to the eyes if you like of the true self which is much more just seeing things as they are are you basically optimistic in terms of humanity's destiny and future difficult question the way you ask it no I think we are going into a time of huge upheaval challenges I don't know what's going to come out of it I think we're heading into catastrophe in many ways and that's a result of the way we've been behaving for centuries and it's clear people don't want to change they'd rather go on with this insane way so I'm not optimistic about Western civilization I think it's doomed however I am very optimistic about what people can become I'm optimistic about how we can step back from what the way we've been caught in the conditioning and maybe the challenges that are coming will help us step back I think we can become much more passionate people much wiser people much less materialistic people and I think we're going to need that as individuals and as groups to steer us steer our way through these times it's about finding our potential isn't it both as individuals yeah and as a human race yeah so I'm optimistic about what human beings can become yes I'm not optimistic about what this culture can come I think it's going to this cultures is falling to bits and it's like okay how can we be how can we be with each other how can we help each other how can we care for each other how can we act wisely in these times these very difficult times yeah well it's a huge challenge isn't it huge challenge because it's just so many things a set up the way the way that the financial system is set up to start with yet the the consensus belief we have about reality yes the object relations is set up there's there's so much set up in facing the wrong way if you like videos to a blind alley and we would keep hitting our heads in the blind alley yeah and somehow it's a question of turning around which is actually turning within yeah and then start to relook yes and that's the shift that sort of shift is actually quite easy but that's the shift in perception and that's beginning to crack we're beginning to see the consensus reality doesn't really work we're beginning to see you know like the banking crisis a couple years ago whenever the next one is going to be we're seeing that that that way of looking at money is doomed and so many people are changing in that respect but that's the shift in consciousness and what I'm saying is I don't think that shift in consciousness by itself will change all we've set in motion in terms of environmental issues and all of that and certainly is a lot we can do to you know dampen down the consequences but I think the real shifts are in ourselves and how we how we relate to each other can we relate to each other as caring loving human beings rather than what can I get from you what take from years it's more what can I give to you how can I help you I think that's the transition we're going to them and this comes back to what you were saying beginning beginning of our interview where all the great religions actually do talk about this yes they've just been interpreted sometimes in very different ways but that is the core they're teaching love compassion is the core of just about every single spiritual tradition and so how do we do that and that's you know that's the challenge and that's you know the question I'm looking at now in my own life is how do I develop that and myself how do I open my heart more how do I get more in touch with that natural love and natural compassion which I I know is there which I taste at times it's just that sort of unconditional love which is just sits there as part of your being but it's so easily covered up by the worry the anxiety the planning all of that stuff so that's that's my challenge at the moment is just opening up to that you also I picked up on a phrase that you used beginning actual beginning of waking up in time we talked about singularity a point where the equations run out which is a white hole in time and I guess that's where that's actually what we're talking about but you'll talk about that in mathematical terms with the singularity and yeah an ounce or what I was talking about there was the future where we're going in the future and we're all aware that the pace of change is speeding up things are going faster and faster you know now we have to get a new operating system for iPhone every year or every six months and you know emails come through fast across the whole of life is going faster much faster than it was 20 years ago or 200 years ago which is much faster than it was two hundred thousand years ago the speeding up it's inevitable it's a result of just making innovations we are creative species we're going to keep on things going to keep on speeding up so the world in twenty years time is going to be much faster this today the world in forty years time so much faster still and beyond that it's just going to go faster and faster and faster and we seem to have a blind spot on the future we seem to think that sometime it's all going to be stable and nice and the acceleration will stop I don't see that happening I see the acceleration is inevitable and it's going to get faster and faster and faster heading towards and that's what I call the white hole in time this point in time where it becomes unimaginably fast by what we can think of today but that I see is the it has the potential to be the full flowering spiritual awakening of the human species but everything's getting faster and the key for you is ditte been meditation yeah which is an effect slowing down how those two is a stilling of the mind Ryan or slowing down it's a it's a stilling and I think that's absolutely essential because things get faster it's easy to get more more stressed more more caught up in what is going on and having meditation is a way of finding that inner stability that's always there despite things going on faster and faster and faster and so if you can stay in touch with that inner stability and if more and more people do that then I think we can create something on a collective level which will actually see us through into something totally beyond the world we know today totally different and that's why I say it's a singularity it's when the equations break down it's going to be absolutely nothing we can imagine unimaginable there's going to be I don't know a totally different sort of way of operating living in the world and what is your feel for that what's your instinctive feel for that this may sound pretty weird far out but it's like a collective near-death experience that sounds very radical actually yeah for the closest negative near-death wrong the collective death well could be both could be either I mean I don't know I don't know what death is all I know is when people approach death and they have those experiences where they think they're going to die and is that tunnel of light and what is almost universal there is people feel this incredible sense of peace of love of being cared for and the sense of light and that's what we touch into in meditation is just that that sense of peace that love let's there is often a sense of light in meditation and in India they call death maha Samadhi the great Samadhi Samadhi is what you reach in meditation death is the great Samadhi and it sees people who are approaching death what they report is there was some incredible release from this mortal coil as I have to put it release from the body where you suddenly find everything is okay and people who come back from that come back usually transform changed they want to live their life differently and yeah it often have healing abilities and others who don't come back from it we never hear from again who knows what I think what they go into I'd no idea I think we're heading somewhere similarly on a collective level and maybe collectively we move into that and go through it into something which is totally beyond anything we can conceive of but it's like the collective consciousness of humanity going into whatever death leads or it could be we go to it and it's a huge collective awakening and we come back transformed changed this is interesting how collective and connected they're their words are the similar words in one way and we are becoming more and more connected yes as a human species through the internet and travel and information everything else we know so much more so the potential for being more connected as a collective is there yes yes and it's that connection I think which is fueling the collectivity and that's what my book the global brain was all about I wrote that back before the internet even existed but just seeing as I was involved in computers for a while just seeing the connectivity that computers were going to bring to people was so parallel to the way nerve cells link up in the brain I saw we're going to be creating a global brain which was going to be the linking of all the minds of humanity into a collective system and we are moving there faster and faster and faster I mean the the World Wide Web was a big step in that direction and now the whole cloud computing saying is moving that direction and who knows what the leading edge is going to be in five or ten years time but I think that technology is going to take us into a whole new degree of collectivity which which we can't imagine me the one thing I've learned in all of this is not to predict the future because we're always wrong yeah and that's been proved many times yes I'm just thinking that one of the you told me earlier that's something that really influenced you was when you read about the Gaia theory yes time James levels Gaia theory and of course that again is very much yeah the global brain isn't it well that's what triggered me really with the global brain James Lovelock this was back in the mid 70s late 70s and his ID the Gaia theory which is now very well known was basically he was basically saying the only way we can understand the all the Earth's bio system is to think of the totality of the bio system all the living systems of the oceans the atmosphere the soil is functioning like one single self-regulating being and he was producing a lot of evidence to support this and so I was asking well okay well if that's the that's the case what is humanity doing here because you say like the oceans are like the blood the circulatory systems the rain forests are like the lungs exchanging oxygen and you can always see you know individual species or individual systems perform a function in this global organism and I said well what is humanity doing here because we're a were relatively new just a few million years rainforests have been around a lot longer than the oceans much longer what is it we're doing here and I asked what is it we're good at and it's what human beings are good at is information processing we have language we can share ideas we can learn and we can share that across the planet and I thought that made me think we are like the nerve sells at the planet we're like the individual nerve cells and then I realized what happens in an individual when you are growing in the womb there's this early on about three months after your concede there's this flowery of growth of nerve cells like billions millions being created by the second and but they're not connected and then as the brain evolves after you're born what starts happening is those cells all start connecting up and it's the connectivity between the cells that produces your intelligence you don't have any more brain cells now than you did before you were born you had all the cells you were ever going to have with plus or minus a few but before you were born the growth art was is not the growth of the number of nerve cells it's the grossing connectivity and I realized the number of human beings on the planet is about the same sort of size as the number of cells in our brain and what we're going through now is not thankfully not the further expansion of numbers that's beginning to slow now but what we're going through is the connectivity and we're just seeing the beginning of that and an average brain cell may communicate directly with 10,000 other neurons you know we sort of send emails back and forth or watch things on YouTube or on some social network but where that's going is going to be unimaginable we can't imagine the future this this is so key this thing about realizing the collectiveness of us all isn't it yeah not just as human beings but as a planet yeah the key thing is the oneness of creation the oneness and everything yeah and I think for me that the connectivity I'm really interested in it or the oneness is deep down inside us we're all the same you and I have very different histories different personalities different interests deep down inside we all want the same thing we all want that quality whether you call it peace happiness contentment we all want to feel location I call it yeah yeah and we all one love we all want to be loved or to experience love it's a fundamental thing and so when we recognize we're already won in that way everybody I meet whatever they are whoever they are whatever they're doing ultimately they want exactly what I want and that to me is the key because if we can relate in that way and so rather than saying I want this how can I get it from you is to say you want the same as me how can I give what you want so how can I communicate with you can share with you in such a way that you feel good that you feel loved and that to me is is part of the challenge it's not always easy because you know I have my own conditioning and staff and needs and I may fall out of that very often and start accidentally being nasty to you but it's not my real intention I think if we recognize that with that to unity we all have in terms of that deep fundamental goal we all have to be at peace to be loved if we can interact knowing that and trying to give that to each other then I think that's what helps the world change I'm just thinking that you know we just put the context away I mentioned earlier that these riots in England yeah they've been quite serious and it's been challenging for people that are very involved in them and it's brought out the good in one way that people after took place wanted to get together to help support people that suffer they clean up the streets and things but it took a perceived enemy to bring people together and you hear that I've never experienced being in big living in wartime but you hear there was a great spirit when there was a common enemy yes and somehow we need to find this spirit maintain this spirit without having an enemy don't we yes because the enemy's division that's still right supporting the duality and yeah and the struggle that we all have yeah yeah and I think or often it needs something like the enemy to galvanize us because suddenly was the need that pulls at the some need that we all come to and it needn't necessarily be the enemy of other other people you look at you know what happens whether there's major floods or something again people come together it's not that the flood is an enemy but there's a major something that needs collective attention and that pulls people together is that collective goal we're all trying to do the same thing together and I see this comes back to what I call the Great Awakening it's saying we all want this process of becoming more in touch with ourselves or awakening more and so that becomes a collective how can we help each other do that there's one one quote that I've pulled out if you're one of your books and through us the universe can fulfill the purpose of its design can you explain that a little more I don't know how many hours we've got left well the five and a half minutes left to be a very brief precis of it there's a lot of evidence coming out of science and cosmology at the moment that the universe seems to be very finely chewed if you change any of the fundamental constants it doesn't work make the force of gravity a bit strong a bit weaker it all falls apart or never gets going into galaxies and there's that's why I say and that an hour or two I could explain all this to you but this leads to the view that either the universe is the most preposterous accident that it actually works or there's some sort of intention to it and those who think that some sort of intention that doesn't mean to say there's an in tender let's be careful yes I understand not that there's an in tender but that there is a direction you could say this when when the child gets conceived there is a direction it things unfold then that fertilized egg grows into a little fetus which becomes human being which is born and grows up does that direction and so what they're saying is this direction there's an inevitable direction to evolution and everything is set up so that this direction can happen and what that direction is is actually one of increased awareness increased conscious is increased knowing and so there's a growing body of scientists who say the purpose of the universe they don't like using the word purpose but you know the direction of the universe is knowledge is that the universe is here to know itself and I think at this point in human history on this little tiny planet out of you know the outer edge of some galaxies we are the ones who are coming to that point of knowing the universe and when in terms of physics you know we're getting close to that unified field theory maybe in another 10 20 30 40 years 50 years we will actually understand the cosmos maybe we won't but I think we're heading in that direction the area we don't understand yet is the mind that is still very mysterious and that again is why I think the interest in consciousness spirituality meditations self observation is so fascinating and it's moving ahead so fast that we are now beginning just beginning to understand ourselves and when we understand ourselves to the same depth that we're now beginning to understand atoms and quanta and quasars and all of that we understand ourselves in the same way then I think the universe in us in this little corner of the universe will have come to its fruition it come to its full knowing there's another example of how we need to bring our attention from the outside materialism objects that is inside a meditation looking understand yeah we've become incredibly proficient at using the material where we come masters of the material world that's not complete and it gets us back but you know become very proficient there but the mind is still very dim and that's that's where we need the knowledge now that's where we need the mastery is to know themselves and that's what to me makes these times so exciting and all this interest in spirituality in what conscious TV is all about is all about fostering this inner awakening this inner learning about as that to me is the most important thing we can be doing and the most critical thing we can do at this time well we're doing our best here at conscious TV oh no you're working hard and you're doing your best in all those millions of others doing their best that's what's so great it isn't you or me we are just members of a team of millions and millions of people each doing the best in their own way to facilitate this shift we need to finish now a really appreciate you coming in and talking with us Peter I think just going to show the least in front of the camera so was the global brain which we talked on talked about briefly the brain but which we haven't really covered but is very interesting the science of God which is Peters story to some degree and also goes in some depth on meditation and waking up on time which a lot of the interview was about in one way so thanks again Peter for coming in thank you very much for watching conscious TV I feel in the way in the interview we just got started towards the end but we still cover lot during that time and I hope we see you again soon goodbye you

Channel: conscioustv

Views: 210,461

Keywords: Peter, Russell;, The, Global, Brain, 'The Great Awakening', The Brain Book, From Science To God, Waking Up In Time

Id: irFpxlXNSYI

Length: 54min 30sec (3270 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 20 2011