We are Part Of A Living, Breathing Cosmos

Human consciousness has become so fragmented that most people have forgotten that what you consider to be your `body' is not just a piece of the planet, but much more.

Interdependence is not just a philosophical theory. It is a reality. Your physical existence is possible only because of your body's seamless ability to respond to the entire universe. Without this, you wouldn't be able to exist for a moment.

I lived on a farm for a few years. There was a man in the locality with a hearing impairment, an object of ridicule for the villagers. I employed him to help me on the farm. He was a nice companion because I wasn't particularly interested in talking, and he couldn't talk because he could not hear. So, no problem!

In those days before tractors, life on the farm was all about bullocks and ploughs. One day, suddenly, at four o'clock in the morning, I saw him preparing the plough and asked him what he was doing. He said, `It will rain today. I am preparing to plough.' I looked up. It was an absolutely clear sky. I said, `What? Where is the rain?' He said, `No, sir, it will rain.' And it did.

I sat up for days and nights after this. Why couldn't I feel what this man could feel? I sat, holding my hand in different positions, trying to feel the moisture, the temperature, trying to read the sky. I read all kinds of books on meteorology, but was up against a wall. But gradually, with careful observation of my own body and environment, I discovered the fundamental mistake that most of us make: the fact that we view the ingredients which constitute our body, like earth, water, air and food, as commodities and not as an organic part of the life process.

If it is to rain today, some change will happen in your body. Most urban-dwellers cannot feel it, but many rural folk all over the world, sense this. This is not astrology or magic, but a surmise based on the minute observation of a completely different level of the human system and its ongoing transaction with the cosmos. Most insects, birds and animals can feel it. A tree for sure knows it.
Modern physics has established that the universe is a great dance of energy, and every subatomic particle in your body is in constant dialogue with the entire cosmos. The aim of the spiritual process is to make this scientific fact an experiential reality for you.

Yoga reminds us that the physical body is just an accumulation of food ­ or what is called annamayakosha. The food that you eat is just the produce of the earth, which, in turn, is a fragment of the universe. You are a small outcrop of this planet, claiming to be an autonomous entity! But with some inner work, a dimensional shift occurs. Suddenly, the human body becomes what it was always intended to be ­an instrument of extraordinary refinement, a barometer, an antenna capable of downloading the entire cosmos. We realise that we inhabit a living cosmos

By Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev first published in www.SpeakingTree.in

Is Consciousness Impersonating Us?


Scientists have for the first time separated a particle from one of its physical properties, thereby creating a `quantum Cheshire Cat'. The phenomenon is named after the curious feline in `Alice in Wonderland', who vanishes, leaving only its grin behind.

Researchers took a beam of neutrons and separated them from their magnetic moment, like passengers and their baggage getting separated at airport security.

The researchers used an experimental set-up known as an interferometer, at the Institute Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, France. A neutron beam was passed through a silicon crystal, sending it down two different paths.

By applying filters and a technique known as "post-selection", they were able to detect the physical separation of neutrons from their magnetic moment ­ as measured by the direction of their spin. "The system behaves as if the neutrons go through one beam path, while their magnetic moment travels along the other," researchers reported.

This raises serious issues about the `measurement paradox'. On the one hand we have the Lockean `realist' account, according to which perception involves the creation of an `inner reflection' of an independently existing external reality , and, on the other hand, a Kantean `anti-realist' concept of the `veil of perception'.

Separation of matter and its characteristics, attributes or qualities will be an important landmark in our understanding of the phenomenon of consciousness.

Consciousness is traditionally attributed to an emergent quality of neural networks. It is quite intriguing to note that even a single celled creature like the amoeba is conscious and takes appropriate measures to feed and avoid any hostile milieu.

Does consciousness operate necessarily through mediation by a biological matrix?

Could it be all-pervading like a magnetic field with the organic or biological substrate serving as merely a receiver and or processor?

Could consciousness be merely a form of energy that manifests in different forms by modulating its frequency and amplitude?

Can perception be merely a play of consciousness, a phenomenon that simultaneously projects and comprehends the external world as a holographic reality?

The separation and distinction of the objective world is because of external appearances. If the elementary fundamental constituent is the ubiquitous atom, then the perceived difference of the external form may just be a programme of the subject's perception. Rather than different partition. Rather than different particles carrying the information of matter and its qualities, it could be that different loci in the brain might be activated to perceive matter and its qualities simultaneously.

Monists like Spinoza adhere to the position that there is some neutral substance, of which both matter and mind are properties. The Advaita or non duality school of thought, too, believes in a non-numerical, holistic, all-pervading unity that simultaneously manifests as both the subject and the object.

The object and therefore all its qualities and attributes might just be a projection of a self-referencing subject that generates an apparition of separation as well as perception.