THE EPIPHANY for astronaut Edgar Mitchell occurred when he looked out the window of his spacecraft at the Earth, Moon and Sun, and at the infinitely vast star systems. Suddenly it came to him that the molecules and cells of our bodies must have had their origin in those faraway stars.

It was at that moment an overwhelming realization of the interconnectedness of all life dawned on him. It was a life-altering flash of intuition—which resulted not in “intellectual knowledge,” he says, but “a visceral knowing.”

“It was accompanied by a very blissful feeling that I had never experienced before.”

Edgar Mitchell’s
Transpersonal Experience

It is sometimes called the “Overview Effect.” Dr. Mitchell describes being completely engulfed by a profound sense of universal connectedness.

Excerpt from:
“Something Unknown is Doing we Don’t Know What”

Listen to documentarian film maker Renée Scheltema’s interview with Jim Harold: Podcast

THE BUDDHA was reportedly called by Freud, “the greatest psychologist of all time.” The awakened Indian Sage, with his teaching about the dynamic, formative power of thoughts, may also rank as our greatest healer.

The essential key to Buddha’s outlook is revealed in the opening verse of the Dhammapada:

“ALL that we are is the result of what we have thought: all that we are is founded on our thoughts and formed of our thoughts.”

The veridical stature of Buddha’s words are a confirmed by anyone familiar with recent scientific evidence revealing the potent interaction between our heart, thought, and body fields.  (Also see: Somewhere Out There)

Fields of Knowing

(Excerpt from “The Living Matrix”)

This regenerative teaching of the Masters of Theosophy — the spirit-body connection modulated by bio-fields — is critical to understanding the integral nature of personal  development—and is recognized as the keystone of physical, mental and emotional health.

Without this awakening Altruism cannot manifest, and H. P. Blavatsky called Altruism “an integral part of self-development” (also see: The Caring Spirit.)

In one of the most significant verses of The Voice of the Silence, that Blavatsky translated from The Book of the Golden Precepts, one finds a simple but profound description of the process.

The practice of Buddha’s heart doctrine, encapsulated here, is almost too simple a truth for Western minds to fully grasp!—declaring:

“Self-Knowledge is of loving deeds the child.”

The acquirement of self-knowledge, in Sanskrit terms, means effecting the union of “Buddhi-Manas,” or Spirit-Mind. A new human emerges out of this self-initiated alchemical compound of higher consciousnesses—what Theosophy calls the synthesis of the ‘head’ and the ‘heart.’

It is a state of holistic awareness that we experience at times when we have a ‘gut feeling’ or an intuitive flash — much as did astronaut Edgar Mitchell looking out from the vantage of his spaceship.

For the advanced Masters of Life, the Self-Awakened state is not just an “aha” moment—however transformative — but an ever-present, continuous state of Selflessness—the antithesis of Selfishness — and is both the end and result of the practice of loving deeds.

Global Oneness Project

“Are we so wrong then, in maintaining that modern civilization with its Spirit of Speculation is the very Genius of Destruction,” Blavatsky asks — “and as such, what better words can be addressed to it than this definition of Burke:”

“A Spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.”

“Civilization has tolled their eleventh hour. It has rung the death-knell of the old arts, and the last decade of our century is summoning the world to the funeral of all that was grand, genuine, and original in the old civilizations.” - H. P. Blavatsky

ENQUIRER: How, then, should Theosophical principles be applied so that social co-operation may be promoted and true efforts for social amelioration be carried on?

BLAVATSKY: Let me briefly remind you what these principles are — universal Unity and Causation; Human Solidarity; the Law of Karma; Re-incarnation. These are the four links of the golden chain which should bind humanity into one family, one universal Brotherhood.

“There is a source above the everyday thinking that can allow human beings to unite.” - Orland Bishop

Awakening

When asked by a traveling monk, who approached him on a dusty road: “How are you different from us?”— The Buddha replied simply:

“I am a man awake.”

The symphonic relationships of consciousnesses, pictured above from a student’s vision, are “controllable by the perfected human will,” Blavatsky wrote.

The great Masters all declared “Thoughts are things,” a fact accepted by  all Adepts down through the ages, of whatever degree.

Blavatsky also wrote in her article “Kosmic Mind:”

“…cells are now being recognised as individual organisms and – quien sabe – will perhaps be recognized some day as an independent race of thinkers inhabiting the globe called man! It really looks like it.”

In the following film clip, Deepak Chopra explains to his class how “Immune Cells are Thinking Cells,” and describes how body and consciousness interact—and why perception is reality. We live in a “tangled hierarchy” of reality, he says, created by the “ultimate and supreme genius”—our conscious awareness.

Our Thinking Cells

with Deepak Chopra, M.D.

“Consciousness simultaneously differentiates into different aspects of reality, behavior, biology, moods, emotions, and feelings, cognition, social interactions, environment, and how I interact with the forces of nature.”

Getting to Carnegie Hall

On the question of self-development and achieving perfection, Advaita Vedanta (non-duality) teacher Francis Lucille writes:

“The understanding that ‘Awareness/consciousness is all that is’ is all that is needed, provided this understanding is absolutely experiential and is not confined to the realm of thought.”

If earning a gig at a prestigious concert hall, demands of an aspiring musician’s steady and regular practice, and an intimate knowledge of his instrument, how can the acquirement of spiritual gifts require any less?

As important as good intentions are, failure is notoriously paved with them.

A theosophical Master was adamant in his assertion that “motives are vapours, as attenuated as the atmospheric moisture.” Just as when we feed steam into an engine, he says:

“The practical value of good motives is best seen when they take the form of deeds.”

What Kind of Deeds?

“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” -Albert Schweitzer

In Plato’s Republic even a group of thieves knows how to harness group energy. So an intimate acquaintance with our motives and intentions is a test of spirituality that must be ever-present.

The consummate theosophical explorer, B. P. Wadia, wrote:

“The mind can salvage the debris of vanquished passions and put them to use by transmuting cruelty into kindness, selfishness into selflessness, and avarice into altruism.”

“The way to ascertain this is to ask yourself,” Francis Lucille writes, ‘Am I perfectly satisfied? Has the goal been reached or is there still a sense of lack?’” The question is only between you and yourself,” he notes, and “in most cases, the answer will be ‘no.’” This doesn’t invalidate our efforts, it only means

“there are still levels of resistance that have not been dissolved by it.”

Encouragingly, Francis Lucille says “don’t call off the search yet, but keep investigating until you are fully satisfied.” Like learning to master a musical instrument, mastering our human instrument:

“may take some time and the assistance of a teacher may be required. Life will provide whatever events are needed to reach the goal, provided the desire for it stays alive. How couldn’t it?”

Global Mind

(Excerpt from “Something Unknown is Doing we Don’t Know What”)

“In sociology, as in all branches of true science, the law of universal causation holds good,” Theosophy teaches. “But this causation,” Blavatsky wrote, “necessarily implies, as its logical outcome, that human solidarity on which it so strongly insists.”

In her Key to Theosophy, H. P. Blavatsky wrote:

“If the action of one reacts on the lives of all, and this is the true scientific idea, then it is only by all men becoming brothers and all women sisters, and by all practising in their daily lives true brotherhood and true sisterhood, that the real human solidarity, which lies at the root of the elevation of the race, can ever be attained.”

“Theosophy is the brotherhood of man.” -Gandhi

Transforming Consciousness

Eckhart Tolle

We should be opening more to what wants to happen on this planet, Eckhart Tolle says, but it can only be realized through each individual person. Each new realization helps others to shift in consciousness, which is necessary at this time. The question for humanity is to either shift and evolve together, or perish together.

Writes Blavatsky:

“Old arts and artistic creations, everything original and unique will very soon disappear. Already national dresses and time-honoured customs, and everything beautiful, artistic, and worth preservation is fast disappearing from view. At no distant day, alas, the best relics of the past will perhaps be found only in museums in sorry, solitary, and be-ticketed samples preserved under glass!”

“The real source of H. P. Blavatsky’s influence is to be found in The Secret Doctrine. It is one of the most exciting and stimulating books written for the last hundred years.”

[George Russell (AE), Irish author and editor]

“Such is the work and the unavoidable result of our modern civilization. Skin-deep in reality in its visible effects, in the “blessings” it is alleged to have given to the world, its roots are rotten to the core.

“It is to its progress that selfishness and materialism, the greatest curses of the nations, are due — and the latter will most surely lead to the annihilation of art and of the appreciation of the truly harmonious and beautiful.”

H. P. Blavatsky – Civilization, the Death of Art and Beauty

National Geographic: Climbing Redwood Giants

“Redwoods are living giants — among Earth’s largest and longest-lived trees,” writes Christine Nyholm (Cable TV Examiner). “Some tower higher than 350 feet, or taller than the Statue of Liberty; some may have been seedlings when Jesus was born. These natural legends house secret-garden worlds high up in their canopies and shroud centuries-old mysteries.”

RELATED: Feature Story – Photo Gallery -Living Giants Interactive

The Ethnosphere

“Even if we can’t always achieve our ideal, acting ‘as if’ in positive ways, sets patterns of behavior change. We strengthen our own changes, and those of others, every time we are thoughtful before we act.”     - Helena Kerekhazi, MS, N.R.N.P.

“Beliefs are dying out, divine life is mocked at — art and genius, truth and justice are daily sacrificed to the insatiable mammon of the age — money grubbing. The artificial replaces everywhere the real, the false substitutes the true. Not a sunny valley, not a shadowy grove left immaculate on the bosom of mother nature.

“This, added to the frantic endeavor to destroy Nature in every direction, and also every vestige of older civilizations — far superior to our own in arts, godliness, and the appreciation of the grandiose and harmonious — must result in such national calamities.”

H. P. Blavatsky - Civilization, the Death of Art and Beauty

Related Posts:

The Caring Spirit

New Swirled Order

Everyday One

Buddha’s Grace

A Buddha and His Dog

Thoughts That Count

Journey to the Heart

Somewhere Out There

Why Not Use All of Me

Dueling Egos