Science, Consciousness and God by Peter Russell

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' !

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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.

God is Love. Love is another quality frequently ascribed to God. This love is not to be confused with what generally passes for love in our world, which, more often than not, has its origins in the same materialist mindset that runs many other areas of our lives. We believe that if only other people would think or behave as we want them to, we would be happy. When they don’t, we may find ourselves feeling upset, angry, frustrated, or some other less-than-loving emotion. When we meet someone who we think will satisfy our deeper needs–someone, that is, who matches our image of the perfect person–our hearts are filled with warm feelings towards them. We say we love them. Such love is conditional. We love a person for their appearance, their manner, their intellect, their body, their talents, their smell, their dress, their habits, their beliefs and values. We love someone whom we feel is special; someone who matches our expectations, someone who will satisfy our deeper needs, someone who will make our life complete. Such love is also fragile. If the other person gains weight, develops some annoying habit, or does not care for us as we think they should, our judgments can flip from positive to negative, and the love vanish as quickly as it came. The love of which the mystics speak is a very different form of love. It is an unconditional love, a love that does not depend on another’s attributes or actions. It is not based on our wants, needs, hopes, fears, or any other manifestation of the ego’s thought system. Unconditional love is the love that springs forth when the mind has fallen silent, and for once we are free from fear, evaluation and judgment. Like the peace we seek, this unconditional love is always there at our core. It is not something we have to create; it is part of our inner essence. Pure consciousness–consciousness not conditioned by the needs and concerns of an individual self–is pure love. I, in my true essence, am love.