As a mathematician and physicist with a deep interest in Eastern philosophy, Peter Russell has spent much of his career in search of a bridge between science and spirituality and arrived at consciousness while continuing an ongoing journey in discovering the magical nature of consciousness !
In this 4-part audio series he presents a concept that provides that bridge ― by cogently exploring how external reality (defined as space/time/matter) is but a manifestation of consciousness.
Particularly exciting is Peter’s straightforward illumination of spiritual principles (such as “I AM God”) within the context of his scientific discourse, so that many classical but esoteric truisms actually begin to make sense.
Peter Russel helps us understand what it means to know 'Consciousness As God' !
Download Podcast (Right Click & Save As) :
- Science, Consciousness and God Part 1
- Science, Consciousness and God Part 2
- Science, Consciousness and God Part 3
- Science, Consciousness and God Part 4
Here is an excerpt from his book 'From Science To God' ... Chapter 7 : Consciousness As God ....
To many, the statement "I am God" rings of blasphemy. God, according to conventional religion, is the supreme deity, the almighty eternal omniscient creator. How can any lowly human being claim that he or she is God?
When the fourteenth-century Christian priest and mystic Meister Eckhart preached that "God and I are One" he was brought before Pope John XXII and forced to "recant everything that he had falsely taught." Others suffered a worse fate. The tenth-century Islamic mystic al-Hallãj was crucified for using language that claimed an identity with God.
Yet when mystics say "I am God," or words to that effect, they are not talking of an individual person. Their inner explorations have revealed the true nature of the self, and it is this that they identify with God. They are claiming that the essence of self, the sense of "I am" without any personal attributes, is God.
The contemporary scholar and mystic Thomas Merton put it very clearly:
If I penetrate to the depths of my own existence and my own present reality, the indefinable am that is myself in its deepest roots, then through this deep center I pass into the infinite I am which is the very Name of the Almighty.
"I am" is one of the Hebrew names of God, Yahweh. Derived from the Hebrew YHWH, the unspeakable name of God, it is often translated as "I AM THAT I AM."
Similar claims appear in Eastern traditions. The great Indian sage Sri Ramana Maharshi said:
"I am" is the name of God… God is none other than the Self.
In the twelfth century, Ibn-Al-Arabi, one of the most revered Sufi mystics, wrote:
If thou knowest thine own self, thou knowest God.
Shankara, the eight-century Indian saint, whose insights revitalized Hindu teachings, said of his own enlightenment:
I am Brahman… I dwell within all beings as the soul, the pure consciousness, the ground of all phenomena... In the days of my ignorance, I used to think of these as being separate from myself. Now I know that I am All.
This sheds new light on the Biblical injunction "Be still, and know that I am God." I do not believe it means:: "Stop fidgeting around and recognize that the person who is speaking to you is the almighty God of all creation." It makes much more sense as an encouragement to still the mind, and know, not as an intellectual understanding but as a direct realization, that the "I am" that is your essential self, the pure consciousness that lies behind all experience, is God.
This concept of God is not of a separate superior being, existing in some other realm, overlooking human affairs and loving or judging us according to our deeds. God is in each and every one of us, the most intimate and undeniable aspect of ourselves. God is the light of consciousness that shines in every mind.
I Am the Truth
Identifying God with the light of consciousness brings new meaning and significance to many traditional descriptions of God.
Whatever is taking place in my mind, whatever I may be thinking, believing, feeling or sensing, the one thing I cannot doubt is consciousness. Consciousness is my only absolute, unquestionable truth. If the faculty of consciousness is God, then God is the truth.
The same applies to other people. The only thing I do not doubt about you is that you are conscious and have your own interior world of experience. I can doubt your physical form–indeed, modern physics tells me there is nothing really there, no material thing, that is. All that I perceive of you is a projection in my mind. I can doubt what you say. I can doubt your thoughts and feelings. But I do not doubt that "in there" is another conscious being like myself.
Like God, consciousness is omnipresent. Whatever our experience, consciousness is always there. It is eternal, everlasting.
God is omniscient, all-knowing. So too, consciousness is the essence and source of all our knowing. It lies behind all understanding.
God is the creator. Everything in our world, everything we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch; every thought, feeling, fantasy, intimation, hope, and fear; it is all a form that consciousness has taken on. Everything has been created in consciousness from consciousness. I, the light of consciousness, am the creator.
Prayer
In every moment I have a choice as to how I see a situation. I can see it through eyes caught in the materialist mindset that worries whether or not I am going to get what I think will make me happy. Alternatively, I can choose to see it through eyes free from the dictates of this thought system.
But it is not always easy to make that choice. Once I’ve been caught by a fearful perception, I’m seldom aware there could even be another way of seeing things. I think my reality is the only reality.
Sometimes, however, I recognize there could be another way of seeing things, but I don’t know what it is. I can’t make the shift on my own; I need help. But where to go for help? Other people are as likely to be caught in the same thought system as I am. The place to go for help is deep within, to that level of consciousness that lies beyond the materialistic mindset–to the God within. I have to ask God for help. I have to pray.
When I pray in this way, I am not asking for divine intervention by an external God. I am praying to the divine presence within, to my true self. Moreover, I am not praying for the world to be different than it is. I am praying for a different perception of the world. I am asking for divine intervention where it really counts–in the mindsets that govern my thinking.
The results never cease to impress me. Invariably, I find my fears and judgments drop away. In their place is a sense of ease. Whoever or whatever was troubling me, I now see through more loving and compassionate eyes.
Article Source : Peter Russel
Podcast Source : Shift In Action
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