White Robed Monks of St. Benedict

Pleanary Sessions

PL01 Time—A Mystery, An Illusion, A Portal to Timelessness

Is Consciousness the Unified Field? A Field Theorist's Perspective, John Hagelin, Director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, Director of the Board of Advisors the_David Lynch Foundation
Progress in theoretical physics during the past decade has led to a progressively more unified understanding of the laws of nature, culminating in the recent discovery of completely unified field theories based on the superstring. These theories identify a single universal, unified field at the basis of all forms and phenomena in the universe.
At the same time, cutting-edge research in the field of neuroscience has revealed the existence of a unified field of consciousness, a fourth major state of human consciousness, which is physiologically and subjectively distinct from waking, dreaming and deep sleep. In this meditative state, the threefold structure of waking experience, the observer, the observed and the process of observation, are united in one indivisible wholeness of pure consciousness.
These parallel discoveries of a unified field of physics and a unified field of consciousness raise fundamental questions concerning the relationship between the two. We present compelling theoretical and experimental evidence that the unified field of physics and the unified field of consciousness are identical, i.e. that during the meditative state, human awareness directly experiences the unified field at the foundation of the universe.
We show that the proposed identity between consciousness and the unified field may indeed be required to account for experimentally observed field effects of consciousness. We present the findings of a National Demonstration Project, the largest controlled sociological experiment in history, in which 4,000 advanced meditators markedly reduced violent crime in Washington, DC. We briefly explore the practical applications of proven meditative procedures for developing total brain functioning, higher states of consciousness, preventing social conflict and promoting peace on a national and global scale.

IIs it all an illusion? Quantum physics, Time, and the Mind of God, Fred Allan Wolf, PhD
Perhaps we have always wondered , 'What is time?' No one really knows what time is. No one can explain what it is in terms of anything which is itself not related to time. In this talk I hope to show how time and mind are intimately related. In brief there is no time without a mind to perceive it.

ITime is Never Experienced, Rupert Spira, Artist and Nonqualify Teacher
All experience is now Try to step out of now into a past or future. Where do we or could we go? It is not possible to experience a past or future. We experience thoughts about a past or future but never the past and future themselves. This very now is the only now there is. It is not a moment in time. There is no 'present moment.' There is no time present in which the now could move forwards or backwards. It is eternally now.
Unhappiness is always an avoidance or rejection of the now. Our self, aware presence, is intimately one with all experience in the now. It knows no rejection of the now and is, therefore, happiness itself. The thought-made self is a movement of resistance or seeking, away from the now into an imaginary past or future. All avoidance and seeking is for the thought-made self, never for the true and only self of aware presence. The belief that time is real is essential to the perpetuation of this imaginary self; such a self feeds on the past and future. The now is the only place the separate self cannot stand. The now, in which all peace and happiness reside, is the only place the true and only self can be.
All the imaginary self's seeking longs only for the happiness that is inherent in the now. The imaginary self approaches the now like a moth approaches a flame. It longs for the flame but cannot experience it. It can only die in it. Likewise the imaginary self longs only for the happiness that resides in our self. However, it cannot experience it; it can only die in it. That death is the experience of happiness. This happiness lies at the heart of all experience, never imposing itself but never veiling itself, simply waiting with open arms to be recognized.

PL02. Beyond Space and Time

The Bond: Connecting Through the Space Between Us, Lynne McTaggert
For centuries, Western culture has taught us to think of ourselves as individuals. Competition, assumed to be the most fundamental of human urges, forms the basis of our society, our economy, and most of our relationships. But we are living a lie. All the crises we face today, including the financial recession, have occurred precisely because the lives we've chosen to lead are based on competition and are not consistent with our truest nature as givers and sharers. Pulling together a vast array of cutting edge scientific discovery, Lynne demonstrates that we are in constant relationship with everything and everyone. All living things succeed and prosper only when they see themselves as part of a greater whole, she says, and fully embrace the space between us; the relationship itself. The Bond. In addition to providing a new narrative for our lives, Lynne also provides the first roadmap of how to live according to this new scientific story—a prescription for living based on cooperation and partnership. Lynne offers unique information about how to retrain ourselves to see the world from a more holistic perspective, to enjoy more cooperative relationships— even across the deepest divides—to enjoy more united social groups, and to discover a new and authentic purpose. During her talk you will experience the power of the Bond firsthand with a demonstration of powerful techniques that transform a small group of strangers into a super-organism—nd a potent healing circle. Her message is inspiring and empowering: by simple changes of perspective and action locally, each of us can become a major game changer, both to both transform our culture and to move out of crisis, individually and collectively.

Francis Lucille, Nondual Teacher
Francis. transmits the ancient teaching of nonduality, the common ground of Advaita Vedanta, Ch'an Buddhism, Zen,Taoism and Sufism. Many contemporary spiritual teachers have attended his teaching events.

IThe Transcendence of Time in Shamanic Practice, Michael Harrier,Founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies
Over tens of thousands of years, our ancient ancestors all over the world discovered how to maximize human abilities of mind and spirit for healing and problem-solving. The remarkable system of methods they developed is today known as shamanism. Shamans are especially distinguished by the use of journeys to hidden worlds otherwise mainly known through myth, dream, and near-death experiences. A core feature of shamanism is that the Universe is divisible into three worlds: the Upper, Middle, and Lower. The Middle World, in which we live, has both its ordinary and non-ordinary (or non-spiritual and spiritual) aspects, and belongs only to this immediate moment in time. The Upper and Lower Worlds, in contrast, are purely spiritual and are found only in nonordinary reality, where they exist outside of time. The trained shaman can make "out of body" journeys to these worlds, moving back and forth with discipline and purpose in order to help and heal others. In these journeys, the shaman transcends time, going back to look at the past or traveling into the future to seek assistance on behalf of others from compassionate beings found there. In these worlds, there is no separation between the shaman and everything else. He or she knows, as ancient Siberian shamans knew that, "Everything that is, is alive." The Universe is experienced as a unified whole, and the shaman partakes of the love and the ecstasy of this transcendent reality.

PL03. Where Quantum Theory, Poetry and Christianity Meet

Underlying Principles In Quantum Theory And Metaphysics And The Role Of Consciousness In The Universe, Menas Kafatos, Fletcher Jones Prof, of Computational Physics, VCfor Special Projects, Chapman University
There are compelling reasons to pursue a new, integrative science. The approach that will be discussed in detail is to look for common, underlying principles, which apply at all realms of reality. There are a number of observational and theoretical reasons in support of the view that fundamental principles such as non-locality and complementarity may be underlying both the physical and the mental worlds. We first discuss evidence from quantum experiments that reveal spatial and temporal non-localities as well as from the cosmological realm. A new scaling for physical parameters in the universe is proposed which reveals surprising results about the nature of time. This allows us to develop an axiomatic approach towards the linkage between microscopic and macroscopic quantities.
These developments make it plausible that fundamental principles cut across different fields of natural sciences and can be considered to hold universal validity. It is likely that quantum-like effects may be pervasive at all scales in the universe. If true, these principles apply to other fields such as brain dynamics and open new ways of study. In the same way, one can search for analogous universal principles that hold in realms beyond the physical. If consciousness is the foundational substratum of the universe, principles developed in perennial philosophical systems, or metaphysics, should be even more universally applicable and cut across all levels of the cosmos, "internal" (e.g. individual mental and psychic, etc.) as well as "external" (e.g. collective unconscious, physical, etc). We sketch here a possible new prescription for a unified "science", what I term integrative science that will encompass ordinary natural science and will extend it ro new realms. The prescription will be discussed in detail. It also involves taking the statements of philosophical traditions quite seriously.

A Cosmology of Connection: Poetry, Justice and Nonduality, Drew Dellinger, Poet, Professor, Writer, Activist
In this talk Drew Dellinger will engage the topic of nonduality through the lenses of poetry, justice and cosmology. Drew will weave together insights, stories and poems that speak to our ontologkal oneness, the creativity of the cosmos, and the poetics of timelessness. In addition, Dellinger will present the vision of radical connection in the work of Martin Luther King Jr. Though this aspect of King's vision has often been overlooked, Drew will show that King was in fact a kind of early 'systems thinker,' with a pro to-ecological vision of "the interrelated structure of all reality." In King's cosmology everything is connected and "the universe is on the side of justice." Drew will also touch on the nature of time and timelessness in poetry, and how poets use words to express the fractal nature of time, its transparency, and the brilliance of the present moment.

The Christian Meaning Of Enlightenment, Richard Rohr, Author, Franciscan Priest
Richard will present the similarities, the differences, and the complementarities between the Eastern and Western understandings of transformation. Some have called the goal enlightenment, some salvation, some ecstasy, nirvana, or heaven. What is the goal of the spiritual journey according to the main line Christian tradition? What Christian spirituality called the unitive way was often described as non-dual consciousness by Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. Are we often seeking the same thing? How can we honor and respect each of these spiritual traditions?

PL04. Freedom in Not-Knowing

Healing Ecology: A Buddhist Perspective on the Eco-Crisis, David Loy, Zen Teacher
Do Buddhist teachings imply a different way of understanding our relationship to the biosphere, which can really help us at this critical time when we are doing so much to destroy it? There are reasons to doubt it: Buddha lived in a very different time and place, Iron Age India. But the Buddha did know about duk-kha, the term usually translated as 'suffering', yet to be understood in the broadest sense: dissatisfaction, discontent, anxiety, basically, our manifest inability to be happy, which does not mean that life is always miserable but that even those who are wealthy and healthy experience a dis-ease that keeps gnawing. That we find life frustrating, one damn problem after another, is not accidental, because it is the nature of an unawakened mind to be bothered about something. What, if anything, does that imply about the ecological crisis? This presentation will point out the precise and profound parallels between our usual individual predicament, according to Buddhism, and the present situation of human civilization. This suggests that the eco-crisis is as much a spiritual challenge as a technological and economic one. Does this mean that the Buddhist response to our personal predicament also points the way to resolving our collective one?

Consciousness and the Double-Slit Interference Pattern: Six Experiments, Dean Radin, Senior Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences
The hypothesis that consciousness collapses the quantum wavefunction was tested using a double-slit optical system. The principal measurement was the ratio of double-slit to single-slit spectral power associated with the interference pattern. The consciousness collapse hypothesis predicted that this ratio would decrease when participants focused their attention towards the optical system, as compared to when they withdrew their attention. Six experiments were conducted to test various aspects of the hypothesis. Each study consisted of 40 counterbalanced attention-towards and attention-away periods, with each period lasting from 15 to 30 seconds. Results combined over a total of 250 test sessions indicated that the ratio decreased in accordance with the hypothesis.

Self-Inquiry: Discovering the Non-Duality in Duality, Gangaji, Teacher
In order to survive, our minds are hardwired to make the first distinction of me and other. That duality usually becomes our perspective on life. We project that duality on to everything. We either have something or we don,Aot have it. We are happy or we are sad. We are right or we are wrong. We won or we lost. All distinctions have their place, but only as transitory points of view, present for the survival of an organism. Regarding true self-realization, which is non-dual realization of self, nothing can be excluded. True non-duality also includes whatever appears to be dual. With inquiry, non-dual unity can be found in the core of all perspectives including duality.
Often on the spiritual search, we seek an experience of non-duality by transcending physical, emotional, mental and circumstantial aspects of living. Transcendence implies leaving something behind. In this meeting, Gangaji demonstrates how through self-inquiry, non-duality can be directly experienced, with no need to leave anything. When we are willing to stop rejecting, fixing or controlling our very human experiences, there is the opportunity to discover the ever present truth of non-duality: pure consciousness, pure spaciousness. Gangaji invites us to welcome all aspects of ourselves in all states and forms, even the most difficult of experiences, so that we can discover inherent fulfillment.