Here You Are...Wondering...Where Do I Come From...Branes Before The Big Bang

I love Branes - and these great BBC videos of them. 

As a child, whenever I had a high fever and was lying in bed almost unconsciously - just when I knew in my feverish head "one more step and I'm dead" - or, nowadays, when I meditate - I "experience" these branes, or maybe, what these physicists call, the 11th dimension. The floating into "each other" and around each other feels very, very strange and pleasurable in a hard to explain brain and upper spine related way - both vacuously nonresistant and "thick" at the same time.

I have wondered about them for many decades and tried to describe the experience to people over the years to see if anyone could relate. Now, all I have to do is show them these videos and encourage them to somehow identify with and "become" the branes they are watching.

"Who lives in the 11th dimension?"

We do! - whether we know it or not.

M Theory works for me in terms of finally explaining a familiar meditation experience - and the physicists make me chuckle when they look so serious and surprised - with just as much trouble trying to explain what they have discovered.

Before the Big Bang - Branes!

And before Branes?

It's a Koan with a definite answer beyond words or formulae.

It's where we came from. How? You'd have to go to the "God Dimension" to find out. That dimension is beyond thought, feeling, or experience - pure, crystal clear consciousness - and "there" it becomes obvious who we are, where we came from and where we'll go. Once physicists discover this dimension they will again ask "who lives in the God dimension?" and the answer will again be: "We do! Whether we know it or not." Much like people lived in the solar system in this galaxy long, long before they knew it.

Here You Are... Wondering ... How Everything Vanishes, Into Nothing... BBC DocumentaryPhilosophy

... Like The Waves, On A Calm Summer's Day, Into The Mirror-Like Lake.

Nothing has been debated and fought over for centuries. Philosophers have the greatest difficulty with it as their minds are in the way, ending up in nihilistic hell. True "nothing" has been experienced only by the few - and they do not attempt to define it.

Where does the flame go when the wind takes it? Where does the child go when cancer takes it? This heaven, this nothing is absolute non-resistance as in absolute trust and love. Something to practice in life and find in death. This is Heaven, this is the Great Nothing - God herself, beyond time and space, pregnant with all there ever was, is, and will be. Even Atheists are right - God does not exist in our limited understanding of existence. And they are wrong also. God contains all possibilities - even his non-existence.




Alice: "I see nothing."Cheshire Cat: "My. You have good eyes. (Lewis Carrol)

Here You Are...Wondering...Who Made Everything?...Show Me God...Papaji

"God, of course!"

This is the response of many children to this page in Here You Are ... and with glee at knowing this, and even sometimes with a hint of exasperation that one could ask such a question - even if their parents never taught them about God. I cannot count the many raised eyebrows and astonished expressions of parents I have seen, when they hear this from their children. This keeps surprising me, too.

God needs no description or definition in a child's mind. It/he/she is just the explanation for everything. With this answer they simply return to the peace of their hearts before the questions arose in the first place. Not even the faithful gain such peace from their beliefs of God as such and such, nor Physicist from their idea of a singularity, nor atheists from their idea of no-God-at-all, as a child does from just the idea of "God". It is the first question in Here You Are because it is the first question almost every child asks when they are very, very young. By five they have forgotten that they once asked the question and feel wise and grown up "knowing" the answer :-)

Trouble starts when adults talk too much about who or what God is. "God" is a good answer - in and of itself - to everything as long as we don't add endlessly to this answer, but instead remain in "not knowing", or as Buddhists call it "Beginner's Mind",  a child's mind. It is OK to remain with the mystery and wonder of it all, and our inner knowing of what Papaji used to call "that", or what Jesus called the kingdom of God within. Children are so close to the kingdom of heaven, because they are aware of what is beyond words, thinking, believing, denying, etc. and their love and trust is still perfect in its innocence.

It is better to simply see God than to believe or know or say anything about God. All we have to do is wake up. Suddenly all we see is God, while before the world was full of good and evil and everything in-between.

This video shows how hard and how easy it is to drop one's mind, and to stop lying (re-lying on logic), so God can come into plain sight. To be fair, I have seen Physicists laugh like that when trying to explain quantum physics. All religion, and all science, is logical only to a point.  It is a good sign when we find ourselves suddenly laughing again like children!

Monday's MeditationMom Moment - Son Of God Or Prophet

Q: Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God, while Muslims believe he was a prophet like Mohammad. What do you think of this idea that he is the son of God - even the only son of God?

MM: Jesus himself said that we are all the children of God - just like him. Begotten means "by seed". It makes no sense to take this literally, unless you believe in aliens.

Spiritually understood, this "seed", "God's seed" is waiting to sprout within all of us. It is our longing for re-union. The longing that drives everything - all of material, physical life, and spiritual life alike. "Father" means our origin, our source which could just as easily be called "Mother", or the Infinite and Eternal. The trouble always arises when the material mind interprets spiritual teachings. That is why so many spiritual teachings used to be kept secret.

Monday's MeditationMom Moment - Closer Than Your Own Breath

Q: So - MeditationMom - to follow up on your last post - have you then discovered God? If so, what would you say about that discovery? What then about believing or not believing in that discovery - for yourself or for others who are trying to "learn" from you? Doesn't that just bring us back to belief or non-belief?

MM: I would say first - Be careful. You cannot learn from me. I can only help you to un-learn some of your notions and beliefs, so you are free to meditate and look for yourself. Some people feel nervous about that because they feel it will weaken their beliefs. But they need to remember that Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, etc - all did this and recommended to do this. Meditation, sitting in silence, personal or wordless prayer, whatever you want to call it - is the way home.

Then I would say "There is no God" - "but God" - meaning there is nothing that is not God. When people talk about God, in general, they think of God as something or someone "additional" and "outside of" and "separate" from existence and themselves. In my experience God is existence itself and neither part of it, nor not part of it. In other words - the end of "parts", and ideas of separation, altogether. Or, as Jesus put it, "me and my father are one". How can you separate yourself from God? It is impossible.

As far as "having discovered God", and then either believing or not believing in what has been discovered - think of it this way: it is like a fish who has been looking for the ocean while all other fish are arguing whether one should or should not believe in the ocean, and in what kind of ocean! On his search he some day is separated from the ocean through unforeseeable circumstances - he jumps out of the water by mistake maybe while being chased by a bigger fish, is caught on a fishing line, or some other situation.

Now you could say he "discovered", or become aware of the ocean, even though there was nothing to discover. It was always closer to him than even his own breath. Now it is no more a question of belief or non-belief, it is just what it is - truth. He also now knows that it is only a question of time before he will be completely dissolved back into the ocean.

It is the same with God. God is closer to you than your own breath - much closer! Hiding in plain "view". For this view you have to close your eyes and be still. As Jesus said - be still and know. You cannot be still - and believe or not believe in anything at the same time. Being still means to go beyond belief and all thoughts. This is why I have equal love and compassion for believers and atheists alike. It is not a question of believing or not-believing. It is a question of meditation and calming one's mind altogether.

Beyond belief, is where the truth is to be found.

Monday's MeditationMom Moment - Do You Believe In God?

Q: MeditationMom - do you - or do you not - believe in God? Some of your writing seems atheist, and sometimes it seems that you do mention God a lot.

MM: Neither, and both. You'll have to practice your Buddhist non-dualistic thinking to be happy with this answer. My writings are confusing because I respond differently to individual people . All the people who write to me are truth seekers - the religious and atheists alike. The truth everyone is intuitively looking for is "beyond belief" - literally - and already belongs to everyone. As Jesus said: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." This freedom is all that matters.

Maybe I should ask you which God you are asking me about?



A joke on the subject: A tourist in an Irish bar asks his neighbor: "Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?" "Neither!" answers the Irish patron with some annoyance, and adds: "I am an Atheist."
After a pause the tourist asks: "Well, are you a Catholic Atheist or a Protestant Atheist?" to which the Irish man replies with a little more enthusiasm: "Actually, I am a Buddhist atheist."

God - to most people - believers and atheists alike - is an idea. Many different ideas actually, we
fight wars over. Everyone has a different idea about God - even the kind of God people don't believe in is fought over.

To others, God is a suspicion - as in "there must be something or someone greater than little old me "out there" running or overseeing things". Atheists are more mature, and brave enough to live in a chaotic and random universe. To them, God is simply a stupid, if not a dangerous and destructive idea. Most atheists just want people to stop killing each other in the name of God. Atheists though are blind too, for example, about how many people have been maimed and killed because of what they believe in - which is science.

To the devout God is a feeling - a very profound one, and anyone telling them "there is no God" is saying "you don't have that feeling". When, especially people who tell others to get in touch with their feelings, their emotions, their sexuality, as well as their "dark side", then tell those people that "their feeling" of God - their "being in touch" with the divine or the sacred in life - is not real - all hell breaks lose between these two groups.

Those who actually discover God, discover something far beyond thought or feeling, and beyond anything anyone could say anything about, and certainly something beyond belief. They usually stay silent on the subject. If they say anything they risk being misunderstood, getting crucified or stoned to death, and also risk starting yet another religion for humanity to fight over. In other words - when it comes to God or the divine - you cannot learn about it from anyone or any book, even though this can certainly be inspiring and give valuable guidance in the best of cases.

Ultimately - the whole subject of God is best avoided as it is a fight among the blind over something they are all speculating about. Believing is OK, and not believing is OK . Both can help, or be a hindrance, on the way to truth and freedom.

What is meant by God is equivalent to absolute, infinite and eternal truth, absolute, infinite and eternal freedom, love, compassion, wisdom, kindness, perfection, principle, all-one-ness that includes all opposites of good and evil, and all that is beyond all ideas. There is only one way to discover this, and that is with the deepest trust during meditation. This trust needs to be greater than the fear of death. The reason for that is that only with that, can one go beyond thought or feeling - beyond oneself - completely. "Oneself" is the blindness that prevents discovery.

When the Dalai Lama was asked what his religion is, he answered that his religion is Kindness. This is a highly scientific answer and demonstrates the insignificance of individual, personal, belief or non-belief in God, or any religious dogma.

Ramana Maharshi said it well: "No one doubts that he exists, though you may doubt the existence of God. If you find out the truth about yourself and discover your own source, this is all that is required."

In other words - God is a discovery - and unlike anything that anyone has ever believed, or not believed in.

Monday's MeditationMom Moment - The Most Subtle

Q: What do you mean "by the most subtle"?

MM: God!
That of which we are made, from which we have come, and to which we will return. You can believe in God; you can not believe in God; you can call it something else - the eternal, the infinite, the Tao, the Force, anything you like; or, you can learn to pay attention so deeply that you will simply come to know. This knowing is different from our normal knowing of something. This knowing does not belong to you. It has not been earned or acquired. It is what remains after all of one's knowing and believing is dissolved.

Monday's MeditationMom's Moment - Mary, Atheists And The Religious - 12/8/08

Q: Do you ever see peace among all the religions?

MM: Yes, I do. It already exists. In many parts of the world, people share deep, lifelong friendships, love, and peace with people of other faiths. It drives fundamentalists crazy. We should understand that whatever divides us is misunderstanding - never superior understanding. Even the atheist with his superior scientific mind suffers from misunderstanding. But - misunderstanding is human, and disagreement is human. And feeling superior - oh, so human! Only in death, or in enlightenment - whatever comes first - do we wake up to the truth and laugh at all our notions, wrong conclusions, and interpretations - atheists as well as the religious.

Mary came to my mind the other day, in regards to peace among the religions. Here is a Jewish woman and Jesus' first teacher; who is mysteriously impregnated by someone other than her husband - a big problem in all religions when a woman "does that" - although strangly enough, the way most prophets and sons of God seem to be conceived ; who has to watch her son being crucified - far more suffering than being crucified if you are that person's mother; and whose statue is the only statue of all the statues of saints, gods and prophets (which were all stored in the Ka'ba in Mecca), that Muhammad did not destroy in 630 C.E. upon entering Mecca. Muhammad's love for Mary was very, very deep.

She could have easily been enlightened herself. The depth of her joy, her suffering and her transcendence is equal if not deeper than that of all the prophets' or apostles, yet she remained silent.

In her silence, compassion, patience, humility and example, she could unite all major faiths in the world - unless! - we start arguing about her pregnancy. That, of course, would instantly be a problem. Was she impregnated - by man, by holy ghost, or by alien - three new religions right there, over which we could keep killing each other. That would have to be the first commandment of our new world religion: "Thou shall never discuss, contemplate, speculate, or claim knowledge about Mary's pregnancy, her virginity or her sex life (Jesus had many brothers) - at all- ever!"

Even atheists could come on board. Just as a mother, just as a human being, who had to transcend human suffering, who was an expression of love, humility, compassion and trust - she could unite all of us in love. Once love and peace is found, God is found also. God is never a question of which religion, non-religion, teacher or scientist one follows - only a question of how deep one's love, one's trust, one's compassion, and one's peace is. Then God finds us. Atheists and believers alike.

Michelangelo's Pieta, St Peter's Basilica, Vatican, Rome
© Pictures of Rome courtesy of Rome.info

Monday's MeditationMom Moment - God As The Number Zero

Monday's MeditationMom Moment

I have many religious discussions on various forums on line. These discussions help me have the best insights and find ways of saying things I know to be true. So - I am going to try this "new thing" on my blog called "Monday's MeditationMom Moment". I hope you like it. This one was in an atheists forum. Atheist are committed truth seekers and often had very strict religious upbringing by the wrong people, or had none, and are scientifically minded.

Consider this, scientifically minded truth seeker - God is like the number zero and is both absolute power as well as absolute powerlessness. Both undetectable and obvious depending on the circumstances. He doesn't matter, unless he does. Both at the same time. It all depends on how you use the number zero in your calculations whether it makes a difference or not. It seems when atheists and believers argue about the existence of God it is like arguing whether the number zero is a number. It is not - and yet it is - it is a non-number-number. It names that, which is not. God is that, which is not matter. It is that out of which everything arises and to which everything returns. As such it matters more than matter itself. People who say God exists and people who say he doesn't exist - are both right for reasons they do not understand.

If we thought of God as the number 0, and were to describe an atheist as the number 5, a believer would be the number 05. Jesus would be the number 50, and someone like Hitler would be the number 55.

String Theory

I love math and physics the way men love women - it's all so mysterious and irresistible, and can drive you out of your mind. Yet those sweet moments of inspiration make it all worth while. String theory is definitely irresistible. You don't have to understand it all to notice its beauty. To fully appreciate it, you would need the discipline required by a mathematician or physicist. In the end, all math and physics is but a koan, as in - "what is the sound of one hand clapping?". Or, my husband's favorite: "If a man speaks in the woods, and there is no one there to hear him, is he still wrong?"

String theory's hadrons, and friends like leptons, quarks, and my favorites - gluons, I am getting very fond of - maybe because of the names, or maybe just because they are so very, very little - the inherent virtue of smallness. String theory even has kaons - which are not koans, but something small enough to blow your mind anyway.

Interestingly, as we consider the smallest of the small, our sense of the infinite vastness of the universe expands. Maybe when we get down to nothing - God will become clear. Atheists will be right - "there is no God" - and Muslims, too, when they add..."but God". There is no place where God is not, yet there is no God. His very non-existence makes God omnipresent. This may drive a mathematician out of his mind. Then again, maybe not - they are used to logic problems like this.

God's infinite powerlessness is his infinite power. If you don't understand the power of powerlessness, you haven't spent much time with a baby. The power of small things is very clear to mothers and physicists.

Show Me God

All you need is a piece of chocolate.

Global Neighbourhoods

Global Neighbourhoods - an insightful tech world blog written by Shel Israel - recently mentioned Here You Are. I love Shel's passionate and humorous writing style and I love what he wrote about Here You Are.

Shel, and his friend Robert Scoble wrote the book on blogging for the business world (Naked Conversations). He took the time to explain blogging to me as a worthwhile thing to do for my readers long before Here You Are was published. Blogging intrigued me as this new form of human interaction, or non-interaction if you will. Such a strange and fun way to write. Talking to yourself and your imagined audience until - well, someday, there actually IS an audience. It's almost like talking to God - until one day, he'll talk to you. For me these days this is mostly a deep, and a communing kind of silence. Ultimately, and truthfully, there is nothing much to say. As a matter of fact, looking around at the glory and the gore - we should find ourselves speechless.

But, a woman is never really, permanently speechless - so, posting here will continue! In the beginning was the word - and the words just never stopped. But to find God we need to go to "before the beginning". That is a very cool place! No Place! (There must be a few Buddhists out there smiling now)

Back to Earth - Here is Shel's post, and if you are interested in high-tech inside information, this is a great blog to check frequently. http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2007/09/a-perfect-day-t.html
Here you can also order Shel's book Naked Conversations.

God

God has become a problem. Everyone associates him with George Bush. What a PR nightmare. God needs rebranding, as does Allah. Christians are seen as people who vote for George Bush rather than as people following Jesus' teachings - namely the Golden Rule - called compassion and kindness in Buddhism. Muslims are seen as people who are suicidal maniacs rather than people who are surrendered to God. Or was that Jesus who was surrendered to God?


I kept God out of Here You Are on purpose - invisible to the naked eye - the same way he is invisible everywhere you look. Invisible and obvious - not named - as in Judaism. Closer to us than our own breath, observable in our children's eyes. Hidden in Here You Are, between the lines, and somewhere near the final pages - found there by many in the end.

When I asked my son tonight whether he had anything to say about Here You Are I could put on my blog he said:"Well, you can tell them it is very relaxing and calming in stressful times." There you go.