HUMANITY HAS REACHED A DANGEROUS TIPPING POINT of potential self-destruction because our technical and scientific achievements have out distanced our spiritual realization. We must develop a new understanding of who we are, centered on the realization of oneness with all of creation. This realization can only be achieved by the combination and integration of rational logical thinking and mystical internal awareness.

Humanity has now reached the point where the two separate understandings of reality must be combined into a holistic understanding of existence. Peace Is Oneness addresses the dangers of accepting the separation that results from our egos, along with the ways that separation can be healed. Both science and evolutionary religion define the same reality. We must awaken from our dream state of separate selves and realize the oneness that is our true self of unconditional love.

Western culture has largely lost most of its connection to myth because of the dominance of material science. We have what the ancient Greeks called logos, but we have lost what they called mythos. This is about to change, as science and religion begin to define reality in the same way. Will it happen quickly enough to save us from our own self destruction? Your individual consciousness is essential in determining the outcome.

PEACE IS ONENESS

A New Vision of Science and ReligionBy HILTON L. ANDERSON

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Hilton L. Anderson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-4827-3

Contents

Acknowledgements.............................................................viiPreface......................................................................xiiiIntroduction.................................................................xvChapter 1 Attaining Peace....................................................1Chapter 2 Where Are We Now?..................................................9Chapter 3 Evolution of Religion in the West..................................19Chapter 4 The Age of Science.................................................38Chapter 5 Potential Healing Bridges..........................................58Chapter 6 The Landscape of Reality...........................................81Chapter 7 Psychology-Bridge between Science and Religion.....................92Chapter 8 The Religion/Science of Universal Love.............................106Chapter 9 The New/Old Reality................................................120Chapter 10 The Practice of Universal Love....................................129Chapter 11 You Are the One...................................................134References...................................................................139Bibliography.................................................................145

Chapter One

Attaining Peace

What is within us is also without. What is without is also within. He who sees differences between what is within and what is without goes evermore from death to death. -Upanishad Katha

The Need for Oneness and Peace

The world is constantly seeking peace in the external world as a means of ending conflict. There seems to be little recognition that peace will only come when the external and the internal are in a state of harmony. Religion is perceived as the gateway to the world within, while science is focused on the world without. The ability to harmonize these two great domains has largely escaped humanity's understanding, with few exceptions. Until the oneness of creation is fully realized, humanity's struggle will continue.

Perhaps now humanity is ready to learn the essential lesson of oneness. For thousands of years humans have known of this oneness and have taught the concept, as witness the quote from the Katha Upanishad. Based on the historical record, however, few have learned or understood the concept. Perhaps intellectual understanding alone is inadequate.

One must know oneness by experience. If oneness is not experienced, each individual continues to believe in a separate existence apart from others. Separate physical bodies are a compelling reality supporting the belief in separation. Unrealized is the reality of our connectedness with all of creation. Sensory perception of our physical environment also confirms separation. An equally compelling internal awareness of oneness appears to be required if we are to understand our oneness.

Many paths lead up the mountain of spiritual enlightenment, ending in the realization of the Self or our universal oneness and state of unconditional love. Some of these include the paths of Buddhism, the shaman, depth psychology, Christian mysticism and Gnosticism, Kaballah, Sufism, and many others. Each of these paths has many different techniques for Self-discovery. These methods include such practices as meditation, chanting, movement and dancing, mandalas, sensory isolation or deprivation, breath work, mantras, rituals, and many others, all intended to transform consciousness. Each individual must find his or her path and the method that each feels is best suited. For guidance in selecting a teacher for the journey see "A Search for the Source," pages 98-99.

Some have spontaneous experiences of transcendence, the seeming dissolution of self in, for example, the awe of nature, lovemaking, or listening to music. These states are usually transitory but often unforgotten if the experience is powerful enough. The fully enlightened are able to remain in this state of awareness indefinitely and realize that everything in creation is already perfect.

Environmental biology is providing compelling evidence of our interdependence. Coral reefs all over the world are being degraded by pollution and changes in water temperature. Ground fish on the Grand Banks have been seriously degraded by overfishing. Rivers and streams have been polluted by industrial contaminants. Rainfall patterns have been altered by global warming effecting a reduction in agricultural production in some parts of the world causing famine.

Evidence of Oneness

Modern physics is moving us away from Newtonian concepts of separate objects interacting in cause-and-effect relationships in serial time to a dynamic field concept, resulting in potential outcome probabilities outside the limits of serial time. Astronomy is expanding our concepts of the universe almost beyond our comprehension, introducing the need to recognize the limitations of rational knowledge and a corresponding humility.

In an expanded scientific empiricism, evidence for mind-matter interactions is being documented. The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program, for example, has consistently demonstrated a small but consistent effect of mind on matter. Subjects concentrating on specific outcomes have demonstrated their ability to alter the chance results of random generators in the direction of their attempted outcome. This research was conducted over a twelve-year period, with thousands of trials, producing consistent results beyond chance expectations. This mind effect on matter has been labeled psychokinesis and has been studied in its many forms by psychical researchers for over one hundred years. It would appear that mind can affect matter, although the effect is small. Mind appears to be a player in the dynamics of the quantum field.

The earliest laboratory experiments in parapsychology conducted by J. B. Rhine at Duke University in the 1930s involving card calling, demonstrated that subjects were able to call the order of the cards, above chance expectations, at a distance without the use of sensory means of perception. This established laboratory evidence not only for clairvoyance, (the ability to know the order of the cards without seeing them) but also for telepathy (the ability to know what another mind is thinking). Both these phenomena have been observed for a long time by psychical researchers in case studies. This suggests that distance is not a limit on the way mind can function, nor is the mind dependent solely on the sensory organs of sight, hearing, smell, and touch.

These findings from early laboratory studies have been confirmed multiple times. Raising the probability scores over chance to very high levels. These phenomena are real. Scientific skeptics cling to their material monist position that denies such phenomena despite the conclusive evidence to the contrary, just as the flat-earth people clung to their beliefs long after the evidence proved them wrong.

The significance of these laboratory studies is that they brought psychic capabilities of the mind into the laboratory, legitimating them as scientific investigations. Using the methods of science to prove the existence of phenomena outside the accepted realm of traditional scientific theory was the beginning of a revolution in scientific thinking that continues today.

Windows on the Larger Self

Transpersonal psychology is beginning to map a domain of awareness that transcends both the separate self and the dimensions of space and time. Many of these "new" findings have been discovered by religious mystics over the millennia by their exploration of consciousness and are now being confirmed by recent scientific studies. Examples of these transpersonal experiences include remembering past lives, experiencing out-of-body travel to distant locations or other planes of existence, perceiving objects out of the visual range of the physical body, near-death experiences including reunions with deceased relatives, visions of extreme detail and beauty, and awareness of unitary oneness or divinity. Jung in his postulation of the collective unconscious was the first to introduce this extended level of consciousness to the West in modern times.

The exploration of this expanded consciousness is being conducted by many depth psychological techniques as well as by the application of mystical spiritual practices introduced into Western societies mostly during the twentieth century. Modern brain imaging methods are documenting the efficacy of these methods by measuring their effect on brain functioning. These methods and practices not only produce changes in conscious awareness, but they produce measurable alterations of brain functioning.

Logos and Mythos

So-called primitive cultures have traditionally had a dual-track system of values. The dual track consists of the inward track of shamanism and a practical track of techniques for dealing with the environment so as to assure survival. The inward shamanic track provides meaning to existence and an understanding of the parameters of death.

Primitive societies are not alone in postulating a two-track system of knowledge. The ancient Greeks, thought by many to be the foundation of Western culture, recognized two ways of arriving at truth. They were called mythos and logos, and each served the same purposes as the dual tracks now serve in so-called primitive societies today.

Modern Western societies, however, have largely become single-track belief societies. They cultivate only the logos (rational track) of the ancient Greeks, interested in understanding and controlling the external environment and their physical survival in it. Due to the phenomenal success of science in this understanding of external reality, Western cultures have tended to ignore the inner track of reality. As a consequence most Western societies have become cultures largely without mythology. In such societies, myths are seen purely as fantasy rather than as revealing an aspect of truth beyond rational, logical thinking.

Decline of Traditional Religion

Without belief in any underlying myth, religious rituals have lost their power to create mythos, and interest in religion is declining in many Western countries. A survey indicates that 50 percent of adults in the United States are tired of having the same church experience. "Faith in America is now individual and customized. More and more are engaged in hybrid faiths."

Perhaps this decline in traditional religion is most obvious in Europe where church attendance is down to the point where most cathedrals are largely empty during services, especially in France. In Sweden the state Lutheran church is largely used for rites of passage in the society, with very few Swedes attending regular Lutheran services.

Religious fundamentalists in the United States still form a significant group, but general church affiliation and attendance appears to be decreasing. A study by Stanley Presser of the University of Maryland found that actual church attendance in the United States dropped from 42 percent in 1965 to 26 percent in 1994. Another study reported at the same Web site indicates that those Americans who identified themselves as Christian declined from 86 percent in 1990 to 76 percent in 2008. The study concluded that Americans are slowly becoming less Christian, and it comes not from joining another religion but from rejecting all organized religions. Also at the religious tolerance Web site is the following table:

Religion All adults Young 18-34 Senior 64+

Religious 37% 27% 47% Somewhat 38% 43% 34% Secular 10% 14% 7% Somewhat 6% 9% 3% Refused 9% 7% 9%

The table suggests that there is a gradual increase in religious belief with age. In other words, 70 percent of the young are either religious or semireligious and 75 percent of all adults, and 81 percent of those 64 or older are either religious or semireligious. Is this an increase in religious belief with aging or merely a reflection of the decline in religious belief in the society over the years reflected by the age differences? Although there is no definitive evidence, the latter hypothesis is more likely true.

The other problem with questionnaires or polls is that respondents tend to say what they think is the societally correct responses. This error shows up in religious surveys when people are asked if they attend church compared to counts of actual church attendance. This is a significant error, as revealed by another study reported on the previously referenced Web site. Forty percent of Protestants say they attend church, but when church attendance is counted, only 20 percent actually attend. For Roman Catholics, 50 percent say they attend church, while actual attendance is 28 percent.

A 1996 General Social Survey conducted by National Opinion Research Center indicated that only 29 to 30 percent said they attended church the previous week. In Great Britain, the numbers claiming church attendance fell between 14 and 21 percent depending on how the question was asked. A study by the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton indicated that one in four people are devoutly religious, one in four are secular, and the remaining 50 percent are mildly interested in religion.

The consumerism of the United States is perhaps the best indicator of the culture's worldly orientation and its focus on its physical well-being rather than its religious orientation. Logos, the rational track, is the track of exterior knowledge and interest.

Creating a Harmony of Inner and Outer

Language and mathematics are adequate methods for expressing rational truths, while experience is the method of knowing mythological truth. Mythos is commonly transmitted by engaging in various practices and rituals so others can have mythic experiences. This knowing is difficult to adequately transmit verbally, since the knowing is holistic, and language and mathematics are linear.

It is impossible to have a harmony of the inner and outer worlds when a society believes there is only one method for obtaining knowledge. This form of singular oneness leads to the disasters discussed in chapter 2. Even if Western society returns to recognition of the dual aspects of reality, the daunting task of harmonizing them remains.

The first order of business is to restore credibility to the inward journey and its value in understanding the totality of existence. The external world perceived by the senses and quantified by science is only half the total reality we are capable of comprehending. Inward awareness is the other aspect of reality of which we must become aware if we are to know the totality of existence.

Creating this new harmony of the inner and outer worlds depends on realizing that the separate self (the ego, or rational self) is a limited conceptualization of the true Self (the combined rational and mythic). As the true or limitless Self is discovered, the little or limited self disappears or merges into oneness. To realize the harmony of the true Self is crucial if humanity is to survive its present state of separation and move to comprehending an integrated reality. As the holism of creation is documented by science in the outer world, a new religion in the West must uncover the true Self and its limitless unity that not only connects all humanity but attests to the oneness of the created with the Creator.

A Course in Miracles states the problem very simply in lesson 79 of the Workbook for Students. "No one could solve all the problems the world appears to hold ... All this complexity is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the problem, and therefore not to let it be resolved. If you could recognize that your only problem is separation, no matter what form it takes, you could accept the answer because you would see its relevance" (emphasis added). It is clear that this profound spiritual tract is teaching oneness as the spiritual condition of humanity and our need to recognize this reality.

The Law of Opposites

The senses only know of material things, But mind is not so confined. As long as mind stays sensory bound Only the Law of Opposites will be found. To free itself of sensory limits The mind must turn deep within, Only then will the unity be attained That transcends the world of appearances. As awareness of the Spiritual Self evolves The world of opposites dissolves.

Chapter Two

Where Are We Now?

How Long?

Each hilltop castle capped Every town a wall surrounds With towered gate and drawbridged moat, Defense against all those without, Unrecognized as fellow men.

Fields grow silos underground With restless missiles poised To thunder in defense's name And kill and maim all those Unrecognized as fellow men.

Fear's cycle endlessly extends, Unaltered now, as then. What does it take to break its hold And free the human mind To know all as fellow men?

The bad news is that the world now confronts unprecedented problems: global warming, toxic industrial pollution, exhaustion of natural resources, overpopulation, cultural and religious differences in a shrinking planet of increasing connection, economic interdependence of a worldwide economy, and expansion of weapons of mass destruction and their derivatives beyond national control.

The good news is that all these problems have the potential of pushing humanity to the realization of its interdependence and oneness. Our oneness both with the material universe as well as our human and spiritual oneness unfortunately are not now widely recognized. The compassion of philanthropic organizations reveals that to some degree they realize this humanitarian oneness. The ecology movement is acting on a realization that the physical environment and humanity are interdependent.

Little recognition of oneness is apparent in politics, which still seems centered on the nation-state. The nation-state is a carryover from the tribalism of the past which separates peoples from each other. The establishment of the United Nations, after the tragedy of two world wars which killed millions of people, is a faltering political recognition of humanity's interconnectedness. The UN still largely empowers individual nation-states but has the laudable goal of maintaining world peace. It is at least a beginning recognition of worldwide interdependence.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from PEACE IS ONENESSby HILTON L. ANDERSON Copyright © 2010 by Hilton L. Anderson. Excerpted by permission.
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