Dear friends, I am in Tucson, Arizona, and I'm at the Science of Consciousness conference hosted by Stuart Hameroff, University of Arizona. I'm also participating in panel discussions, at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Arizona, College of Medicine. And I've been here for the last three days, in dialog and conversation with some of the most, interesting people on the planet; cosmologists, neuroscientists, quantum physicists, spiritual teachers, and other luminaries, both academic and nonacademic. And it's been, an amazing three days. I'd like to share them with you and some insights. So firstly, I was on a panel with, Don Hoffman, and I have a series of talks with him on YouTube. You can check them out. The Case against Reality - Conversations with Don Hoffman. And so I was on a panel with Don and basically the conclusion of the panel was that spacetime is doomed. In other words, it's not the fundamental nature of reality. Space-time, the theater of space time and causality, is not the fundamental nature of reality. We normally think of the world or the universe as engulfed in the theater of space-time, with physical objects, both animate and inanimate, embedded in them and moving around. That's the experience. This theater of space-time and objects governed by the laws of physics, now quantum mechanics, relativity, etc., but moving around. Newtonian physics, mechanistic movement, quantum physics, observer-dependent, collapse of wave function, or as Stuart Hameroff says, Orch OR - orchestrated objective reduction. And many theories around that. But the conclusion that Don Hoffman and I came to is that idea that there is a theater of space-time and causality, governed by the laws of physics, is doomed. There's a more fundamental reality that projects that, and that fundamental reality is a matrix of conscious agents. Matrix of conscious agents. In spiritual traditions, you would say it's a matrix of interacting souls in a sea of cosmic consciousness. And these interacting conscious agents, in the matrix of souls, in the Sea of Consciousness project, in a unique way, the experience of space-time and causality. So right now, this experience you're having on your handheld device or your computer is actually the projection of a matrix of conscious agents beyond space-time. This experience is being processed outside of spsace-time, and this includes our conscious experiences, but also our unconscious experiences or unmanifest experiences like the beating of your heart, the movement of your lungs, the digestion in your stomach, the feedback loops of your endocrine system, immune system all being processed outside of space-time in the matrix of beings or souls or selves or conscious agents, whatever word you want to use. And that matrix is not in time. Therefore it's eternal. It's immortal, it's irreducible, it's formless, it's borderless, it's infinite, it's timeless, it is irreducible. It is self organizing, it is self correlating. It is self evolving. It is recycling and evolving like a staircase. And you and I are those evolving souls, or conscious agents in that matrix of fundamental existence beyond space and time. Every moment is processed outside of space and time, and you are a participant in it, and that you is eternal and timeless because it is not in space-time. As the Bhagavad Gita says, "water cannot wet it, wind cannot dry it, fire cannot burn it, ancient weapons cannot shatter it, it is unborn and it is not subject to death." That's you. Atman, Brahman. The wavefunction of Schrodinger is the wave function of the matrix of reality. Okay, so that was one amazing experience with Don Hoffman at the Science of Consciousness. The second experience was I, I also went to the Andrew Weil's Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine to participate with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Andrew Weil on a panel on the future of well-being. And we discussed everything from epigenetics to how awareness regulates our biology or consciousness. The same matrix regulates our biology, as a process that we call homeostasis or self-regulation. So it kind of fit in. And it was a great privilege to meet once again, Jon Kabat-Zinn and Andrew Weil. We began our careers together in Boston, when I was training at BU and Tufts University and Harvard, Andrew was at Harvard. Andrew is now close to 82 and Jon Kabat-Zinn is close to 80, getting to be 78. We discussed longevity and health and well-being, and it was great to be with my fellow, fellow, researchers or explorers or just, my colleagues after a long time. But the best part was at the end of the conference in the audience, there was my mentor, my professor, my teacher from Tufts University, from a long time ago, from the 70s, Dr. Seymour Reichlin, neuro endocrinologist, and he's turning 100 years old this year. In the next couple of months, 100 years old. And if he catches a snake in his garden, he dissects the brain looking for neuropeptides. He argues with me about the hard problem of consciousness. And, he is an extraordinary human being currently researching Alzheimer's disease. And he showed up at the conference, and it was the moment of gratitude and immense love that I felt when I, met him and embraced him and, hugged him. Gratitude, love for my mentor, who taught me Endocrinology, introduced me to the world of neuropeptides and the molecules of emotion. So all in all, the conference was amazing. And it, took our understanding of the matrix to a new level. So I'd like to end this conversation with a few quotes, and I'll show you a couple of videos and pictures of our meetings as well. but, here are the quotes. The first one was from the Bhagavad Gita. "I am the field, I am the knower of the field", chapter 13. The field is the matrix, and the knower of the field is you, a differentiated, conscious agent from the one conscious agent. It differentiates itself from the one, infinite spirit, immortal, eternal, timeless, irreducible and formless. Okay, that's chapter 13, Bhagavad Gita. Now, from Rumi, "We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust". The matrix, the unmanifest matrix, spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust. Another quote from Rumi. "Beyond ideas, all ideas of good and bad. There's a field. I'll meet you there". Another quote from Rumi. "Exchange your cleverness for bewilderment". 2 trillion galaxies, 700 sextillion stars, uncountable trillions of planets, 60 billion habitable planets (according to the Goldilocks zone) in just the Milky Way galaxy. Multiply that by 2 trillion and it's uncountable trillions of probably habitable planets coming out of that matrix. Exchange your cleverness for bewilderment. Exchange your cleverness for bewilderment. That's Rumi. Okay, what else? Tagore, "That I exist is a perpetual surprise called life". And then William Blake, "We are led to believe a lie when we see with, and not through the eye that was born in the night, to perish in the night, while the soul slept in beams of light". So when we look with the eye, we look through the conditioned mind, and experience ourselves as a mind, body, and walking around in the theater of space-time and causality. That's the conditioned mind. Whether it's the religious mind or the spiritual mind, or the scientific mind or the philosophical mind, it lies to us. But it makes it very interesting, the theater of space-time and causality. Joyful. If you are surprised by it, perpetually surprised by it. "We are led to believe a lie when we see with, and not through, the eye that was born in the night, to perish in the night, while the soul slept in beams of light". So when we see through the eye, not with the eye. Then we see through the eyes of the soul. And we know that we are in the matrix beyond space and time. Participating in the creation of multiverses. How mind boggling is that? How joyful is that? How bewildering is that? Rumi, "Exchange your cleverness for bewilderment. In that bewilderment is realization. And that's all that matters. Who am I? I am the universe experiencing this. What do I want? To know myself. What am I grateful for? Existence. And what is my purpose? To be holy and to be healed. I will share some videos and some photographs from the conference. Would love your feedback. In the meanwhile, also check out about 20 videos on the Chopra Well (YouTube) with Don Hoffman and myself on Unveiling The Matrix and the Nature of Reality. Thank you friends. So the simplest reason to find spirituality would be self-awareness. Self awareness. So let's give you an experience of that. do you find this conversation interesting so far? And there's more enthusiasm? Yes. So let me ask you the same question, which is do you find this conversation interesting? And I want you to enthusiastically respond when I raise my hand to respond to them. Okay. Everybody can. Do you find this conversation interesting? Oh, yes. Shhhh We'll start again. Do not answer my question until I raise my hand. Okay. Then you can say yes. Do you find this conversation interesting? Yes. You see, the question is a mental event. The answer is a mental event. In between is awareness or presence. It's not your mind, which might be saying that we should go to the bathroom before the lecture started. Some conversations happen in the mind, but awareness is independent of that. This is what Jon calls, presence. So let me ask you the question again. And this time just drop into it. Don't even answer. Do you find this conversation interesting? And the presence you feel is not in time. It's timeless. It doesn't have any age. It's a spirit. That's where the presence was when you were a baby. It's a different body. Different mind. When you were a teenager, different body. Differently. But this presence was there. And from this observation, the Buddha came to a very simple conclusion. Whatever is in the nature of arising is also in the nature of subsiding. And from this he derived the law of impermanence. Experience is impermanent. The relative is impermanent. You don't breathe your being breathed. By the one breath. From this you derive the law - The separate self doesn't exist. Impermanence. And spontaneous. If you hold on to your breath, you will suffocate. If you hold on to any sensation, you will suffocate. So from this comes the phrase let go and flow.
