Steven Liebowitz's Blog, page 121

The Mind/Brain Question

Once again Devorah travels to the future and thanks to the current issue of the Smithsonian, connects with the brilliant cosmologist Lisa Randall. They talk about what Lisa Randall calls the “mind/brain” question and Devorah calls the Covenant and the Scrolls distinction.

“Is the mind and consciousness the product of the brain, all our thoughts nerochemically determined, or is the mind not a slave of the physical brain and somehow capable of free will? Or can we never answer that question?”

“I think our experience as human beings existing simultaneously in the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical aspects has answered that question,” Devorah said. “Mind and consciousness, the Covenant, subsumes the brain. All four aspects are real, but exist in the context of the One Mind, One Consciousness.”

“I agree,” Lisa Randall said. “One mistake we scientists make is to think and frame questions in either/or terms, either we’re conscious or we’re not. I think there’s a spectrum of consciousness, a continuum, and it’s interesting to study that, the difference between a plant and a dog, a dog and a baby, etc.

“Inspiration – the mind/spiritual aspect, is needed in geometry just as much as in poetry. My best work arose from an insight. An insight doesn’t necessarily mean a new truth. Sometimes it’s just a new way of looking at things. And to me, that’s why the mind/brain question is so interesting. Some say, human consciousness is not capable of comprehending the mystery of its own nature.

“I say, ‘maybe it is, maybe it isn’t’, but we can probably understand a lot more about it even if we don’t ultimately understand it. And second, we haven’t been trying to answer this question scientifically for a long time.  We understand a lot of things now that we didn’t understand before. And this one’s terrifically hard, because we don’t even know what we mean by consciousness.”

“I guess I think it’s amazing that we know as much as we do. And why should everything be so much like us that we can figure it out? We want to be open to what is beyond our limited ego selves – which is 99% of everything – and feel the sense of wonder and awe at experiencing the cosmos and the extra dimensions in our minds. String theory postulates that there are eleven dimensions. Impossible to imagine? Perhaps, but both thrilling, frightening and ultimately fulfilling to try….”

Save the Date!

Dr. Steve and Devorah will be appearing at Books and Books in Coral Gables on July 10th at 6:30. Have fun, ask questions, be provoked, and buy an autographed first edition.

A Presentation for Your Business or Professional Association

Invite Dr. Steve and Devorah to do their shourt presentation for professional and business assocdiations: Applying Timeless Wisdom to Contemporary Challenges: Steve@HQPubs.com.

Only One Mistake

“When the body ceases to attract you, and when you place no value on it as a means of getting anything, then there will no interference in communication. As you let yourSelf teach you how to use the body only for purposes of communication, and renounce its use for separation and attack which the ego sees in it, you will learn you have no need of a body at all.” Devorah sighed. “I’ve had glimpses of this, moments of it. You have too, haven’t you?” Yael nodded.

“We can have this more often. It’s in our power to do so. It’s what God wants for us, the Canaanites, even for the wretched, prejudiced, fear mongering T Party Republicans. And it’s possible to accomplish this all at once because there’s but one shift in perception necessary. That’s because we’ve made but one mistake. It seems like many, but it’s all the same; for though the ego takes many forms, it’s always the same idea. What is not love is always fear, and nothing else.

“It’s not necessary to follow fear through all the circuitous routes by which it burrows underground and hides in darkness, to emerge in forms quite different from what it is – cancer, dogma, prejudice. Yet it is necessary to examine each one as long as we retain the principle that governs them all. But, when we are willing to regard them, not as separate, but as different manifestations of the same idea, and one we no longer want, they go together.”

Ideas

Yael nodded and Devorah continued: “Have you noticed that it’s impossible to use one relationship at the expense of another and not suffer guilt? And that it’s also impossible to condemn part of a relationship and find peace within it? As long as I accept the possibility and cherish it, that I can make another human being into what they are not, because of myself I would change them and have them be different, then I will experience guilt. But if I can accept the fact that perfect love is in me as it is in you, then separation vanishes because holiness was shared.”

“Yes,” Yael said. “I understand.”

“Good. We don’t find it difficult to believe that when another calls on God for love, our call is undiminished – is not in competition with hers and remains as strong. Nor do we think that when God answers her call our hope of answer is diminished. On the contrary, we’re more inclined to see her success as witness to the possibility of ours, because we recognize, however dimly, that God is an idea, and so our faith in It is strengthened by sharing. What I find difficult to accept, and perhaps you do too, is the fact that, like mySelf, I too am an idea. And like Her, I can give myself completely, wholly without loss and with only gain. Here lies peace, for there is no scarcity or conflict.”

Yael was nodding and smiling. “We experience the full communication (the opposite of excommunication) of ideas with ideas, when we release the past and judgment. Without these, the fullness of love’s meaning is understood. If you and I were not ideas, and nothing but ideas, we could not be in full communication with everything that is. Yet as long as we prefer to be something other than an idea, or would attempt to be nothing else and something else together, we will not remember the language of communication which I know perfectly.”

Special Relationships

Devorah continued: “MySelf knows no one is special and It also knows I judge, feel guilty and value special relationships. However unholy the reason I made my special relationships may be, when I give them over to spirit, mySelf will translate them into holiness by removing as much fear as I will allow Her to remove. All the guilt in special relationships comes from my use of them. If I give them over, let go of my imagined needs and am willing to have no needs but Hers, my special relationships become the gateway to love.

“The ego’s use of relationships is fragmented. It often prefers one aspect to suit a particular purpose and another aspect, often at odds with the first, to suit another purpose. Thus the ego assembles reality to its own capricious liking, offering for my approval a picture whose likeness does not exist. And no matter how hard I strive, struggle and pray I will never find it for it is not real.

“MySelf knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to my special relationships. In the holy instant, the instant I cease using the past to judge, let go of my perceived needs, go within and turn it all over to Her, I comprehend that all is love. God – mySelf, knows me as part of Itself now. She remembers nothing having always known me exactly as She knows me now. In the holy instant, free of the past, I see the love that is in me and in you and have no need to look without and snatch love guiltily from where I thought it was.”

 

 

Judgment

“I try to suspend judgment entirely. It doesn’t work, not only because it’s based on the past, which is over, if I’ll let it be, but also because it’s based on my limited perceptions, on self reliance instead of Self reliance,” Devorah said to Yael. “But I fear letting go entirely and resist doing it because I believe without myself, all would be chaos. But I’ve found this isn’t true and without the ego all would be love.

“Judgment seeks to separate out certain aspects of total reality and look to them to meet my imagined needs. So another reason judgment doesn’t work is separation, rejecting mySelf and the at-one-ment, is the source of guilt. To appeal to judgment and separation for direction and support is to believe I am alone and to be alone, to experience myself as alone is to reject mySelf and deny the Oneness I am a part of and to attack reality. Is it any wonder we feel a vague sense of unease and guilt when we judge?

“I’ve found that I can’t love parts of reality and understand what love means. Spirit loves all equally and knows no special love. After all, the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. To believe that special love in a special relationship offers me salvation is to reject at-one-ment and feel guilty. And because of guilt, all special relationships have elements of fear in them. That’s why they shift and change so frequently; it’s because they are not based on changeless love alone.

Science and Spirit

Devorah was blessed with visions of the future. In one she foresaw the Holocaust and in another, the restored Jerusalem of today. In the following vision she is a PH.D. student in a neuroscience lecture. Science as we understand it was unknown in Devorah’s time and she marvels at its ability to explain much of what she knew of how God worked.

“Do you know the difference between being conscious and being consciously aware,” the lecturer asked? “The human brain has a unique capacity – reflection – conscious awareness, the ability to observe and understand its own inner workings – consciousness. A neurological transformation occurs when we reflect causing the brain to grow stronger connections between its different parts. We are able to see patterns and habits and discern the fundamental differences between everyday consciousness and consciousness itself.

“We are able to connect the oldest most primitive part of our brains – the amygdala – the fear center, source of the flight or fight response, with the newest parts – the insula and anterior cingulate, source of compassion, hope, joy and creativity. With the practice of self reflection” – what I think of as going within first, prayer and mindfulness, Devorah realized – “we can actually shrink the size of the amygdala, alter the thalamus and thus change our perception of reality. We can even expand frontal lobe consciousness and with it our ability to think with concepts and abstractions and enhance intuition, compassion, creativity, and decision making skills.”

Devorah smiled. So, she thought, this is the scientific explanation of the at-one-ment, of my connection to God and spirit and my birthright as a spiritual being having an earthly experience! This is the reason our daily prayers and rituals work!

“Set aside ten to twenty minutes a day for watching but not judging the thoughts and feelings that endlessly flow through your everyday consciousness and you will become calmer, sharper and more compassionate. Stay completely relaxed and centered while doing this and insights with the power to reshape your entire life will soon erupt. That’s the difference between being conscious and being consciously aware.”

 

Miracles

“It will take a miracle for us to defeat the Canaanites,” Barak said to Devorah. “They have iron weapons, we have only copper ones. They outnumber us 5 to 1. They have 400 chariots, we have none.”

“All true my general,” Devorah said. “But if we have just a little willingness and allow spirit to shift our thinking we will have all the power we need.” Barak shook his head doubtfully. “We can’t know how the Canaanite defeat and our victory will occur, Barak. We can only know that with God all things are possible.

“We on earth have no conception of limitlessness for the world we think we live in is a world of limits. The miracle brings the laws of another world to this one. The miracle itself is but a witness that we have the power of God in us. Of course, the Canaanites also have the power to witness. But if they do not believe as you and I and our people must believe, then It will not work for them. It is only as strong as our belief in It. If we believe a little, It will manifest a little. If we believe a lot, It will manifest a lot.

“Those who remember always that of themselves they can do nothing and know nothing, and who have become willing to do what is necessary and learn everything, will learn it. That is the way of miracles. Whenever we trust ourselves, ourSelves can not teach us and we will not learn. Thinking we have learned and already know destroys our motivation to learn. Whenever we think we know, even of Spirit’s love and miracles, we have abandoned the Teacher of peace. Remember, it is the ego that plans, fears and must know. Whenever we realize we know not and don’t care or worry that we know not, peace and knowing will return. Miracles come when we let go and let God.”

Forgive

“Ask not to be forgiven, for this has already been accomplished,” Devorah said to the multitude. “Ask, rather, to learn how to forgive, and to restore what always was to your unforgiving mind. At-one-ment with spirit, everyone and everything becomes real and visible to those who use it. This is your only function within the ego’s illusory nightmare. You will feel isolated, alienated and guilty till you learn this. For in the end, whatever form it takes – fear, hate, blame, disease – guilt arises from your failure to fulfill your function in spirit’s mind and in your own.

“Decide that spirit is right and you are wrong about yourself. Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place made of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deceit undone. Fail not yourSelf. For the little appreciation you offer It, It will give you all of Itself. Learn how to go within, seek the at-one-ment and decide with God. Give up these frantic and insane attempts at decision making that cheat you of the joy of living as yourSelf. Leave all decisions for the inner voice that speaks for spirit. Only your own volition seems to make deciding hard.

“Your task is not to make reality. It is here without your making, but not without you. You who have tried to throw yourSelf away and valued your at-one-ment with spirit so little, remember that communication with spirit is life. Nothing without it is at all.”