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 Tantradvaita
Registered: 05/24/08
Posts: 48
Loc: Infinity
Last seen: 5 months, 10 days
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 Space Enlightenment (must read!)
#8462750 - 05/30/08 06:07 AM (5 months, 21 days ago) |
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I thought some here might find these interesting articles:
The Enlightenment of Space Travel
Posted May 29th, 2008 by Greg
The Daily Galaxy reports that researcher Andrew Newberg is planning to do some research on why astronauts often have a 'cosmic' epiphany when in space. The obvious example that most people are familiar with is Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, whose experience in space led him to found the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in order to study other modes of consciousness and knowing. But there are others, including Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweikart.
Their experiences, along with dozens of other similar experiences described by other astronauts, intrigue scientists who study the brain. This “Overview Effect”, or acute awareness of all matter as synergistically connected, sounds somewhat similar to certain religious experiences described by Buddhist monks, for example. Where does it come from and why?
Andy Newberg, a neuroscientist/physician with a background in space medicine, is learning how to identify the markers of someone who has experienced space travel. He says there is a palpable difference in someone who has been in space, and he wants to know why. Newberg specializes in finding the neurological markers of brains in states of altered consciousness: Praying nuns, transcendental mediators, and others in focused or "transcendent" states.
Newberg can actually pinpoint regions in subjects' gray matter that correlate to these circumstances, and now he plans to use his expertise to find how and why the Overview Effect occurs. He is setting up advanced neurological scanning instruments that can head into space to study - live - the brain functions of space travelers. If this Overview Effect is a real, physiological phenomenon — he wants to watch it unfold.
Mitchell describes his experience in his book The Way of the Explorer, which has just recently been reissued by New Page Books (Amazon US and UK):
What I saw out the window was all I had ever known, all I had ever loved and hated, all that I had longed for, all that I once thought had ever been and ever would be. It was all there suspended in the cosmos on that fragile little sphere. What I experienced was a grand epiphany accompanied by exhilaration, an event I would later refer to in terms that could not be more foreign to my upbringing in west Texas...from that moment on my life would take a radically different course.
What I experienced during that three-day trip home was nothing short of an overwhelming sense of universal connectedness. I actually felt what has been described as an ecstasy of unity. It occurred to me that the molecules of my body and the molecules of the spacecraft itself were manufactured long ago in the furnace of one of the ancient stars that burned in the heavens about me. And there was the sense that our presence as space travelers, and the existence of the universe itself, was not accidental, but that there was an intelligent process at work. I perceived the universe as in some way conscious. The thought was so large it seemed at the time inexpressible, and to a large degree it still is.
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Why Do Astronauts Experience God?
By Rebecca Sato
Source: Daily Galaxy
In February, 1971, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell experienced the little understood phenomenon sometimes called the “Overview Effect”.
He describes being completely engulfed by a profound sense of universal connectedness. Without warning, he says, a feeing of bliss, timelessness, and connectedness began to overwhelm him.
He describes becoming instantly and profoundly aware that each of his constituent atoms were connected to the fragile planet he saw in the window and to every other atom in the Universe. He described experiencing an intense awareness that Earth, with its humans, other animal species, and systems were all one synergistic whole.
He says the feeling that rushed over him was a sense of interconnected euphoria. He was not the first—nor the last—to experience this strange “cosmic connection”.
Rusty Schweikart experienced it on March 6th 1969 during a spacewalk outside his Apollo 9 vehicle: “When you go around the Earth in an hour and a half, you begin to recognize that your identity is with that whole thing. That makes a change…it comes through to you so powerfully that you’re the sensing element for Man.” Schweikart, similar to what Mitchell experienced, describes intuitively sensing that everything is profoundly connected.
Their experiences, along with dozens of other similar experiences described by other astronauts, intrigue scientists who study the brain. This “Overview Effect”, or acute awareness of all matter as synergistically connected, sounds somewhat similar to certain religious experiences described by Buddhist monks, for example.
Where does it come from and why?
Andy Newberg, a neuroscientist/physician with a background in space medicine, is learning how to identify the markers of someone who has had the experience. “You can often tell when you’re with someone who has flown in space,” he says, “It’s palpable.” Andy scans brains for a living: praying nuns, transcendental mediators, and others in the act of focused states.
Newberg can pinpoint regions in subjects’ gray matter that correlate to these circumstances. Newberg is seriously looking at how to fly equipment that could study—in action—the brain functions of space travelers. If this Overview Effect is a real, physiological phenomenon—he wants to watch it happen.
Newberg’s first test subject will not be a paid astronaut, but rather a paying space tourist: Reda Andersen slated to fly with Rocketplane Kistler says, “It would be criminal NOT to study the first of us (space adventure travelers).”
After decades of study and contemplation about his experience, Ed Mitchell believes that the feeling of “oneness” with the Universe that he and others have experienced is a consequence of little understood quantum physics.
In a recent interview with writer Diana deRegnier of American Chronicle, Mitchell explains how the event changed his life and his entire perspective on the world and how each of us fits into the grand scale of the cosmos.
“Four hundred years ago. the philosopher Rene Descartes came to the conclusion that physicality, spirituality, mind and body belonged to different realms of reality that didn't interact. Now, that served the purpose to get the Inquisition off the backs of the intellectuals so they could disagree on material things with the church and without the fear of being burned at the stake. So that ended that, but it did cause, for four hundred years, science to consider consciousness and mind a subject for philosophy and religion and not a subject for science.
Now, one of the things that happened, in the 1940s, was the mathematician, physicist, Norbert Wiener (MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for the first time really defined information as the negative of entropy, and entropy as the idea of the universe is running down and wastes energy. But, Wiener defined information as the negative of entropy, and that's wonderful but it didn't go far enough.”
Mitchell says that in an attempt to fill in some of the missing gap, the 2008 revised edition of his book The Way of the Explorer explores the largely ignored science of human consciousness. Using what he calls the “dyadic model” he outlines the “two faces” of energy. “Instead of being two separate things, it's the energy as the basis of our existence in matter. And, it’s the basis of our knowing and information,” Mitchell explains.
“We had not had, in science, a definition of consciousness. The only definition of consciousness from the dictionary is that at its basic level it is awareness. Consciousness means to be aware, and then we have different levels of consciousness depending upon how complex the substance is. It has been demonstrated many times over in laboratories that basic awareness is demonstrable at the level of plants, at simple bacteria, at simple life forms.
This is done with Faraday cages. It's shown that this information at this deep level, at the quantum level, can transcend electromagnetic theory. And, now we're getting into quantum physics and we don´t want to go there at this point. But it's a very fundamental notion that awareness is at the very basis of things.”
Mitchell believes that perhaps both the theologians and scientists have missed the mark.
“All I can suggest to the mystic and the theologian is that our gods have been too small; they fill the universe. And to the scientist all I can say is that the gods do exist; they are the eternal, connected, and aware Self experienced by all intelligent beings.'
In response to DeRegnier questioning whether or not Mitchell believes in the idea of God, he responds that while he does not believe in the traditional “grandfather figure” version of God, “we do have great mystery about what is the origin of the universe, how it came to be. There's a great deal of question as to whether the big bang is the correct answer to the way the universe arose, and under what auspices and conditions. I don't think we have the full answers to that yet. Hopefully in due course we'll be able to find a much better way to describe all this.”
But while Mitchell does not claim to know how to perfectly interpret his experience, he is certain that it was a glimpse into a largely ignored reality: People, places and things are all more closely connected than they sometimes appear. He also mentions the need for better stewardship of our precious planet.
“The great thinker Buckminster Fuller, philosopher, now deceased but for a goodly portion of the twentieth century, pointed out at the beginning of our space exploration that we are the crew of ‘space ship earth’. But we 're a crew of mutiny and how can you run a space ship with a mutinous crew?”
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If you were wondering why astronauts have these experiences its because they are no longer under the influence of the repetitive cyclical human minds thoughts & conditioning, which is stored in the earths magnetic field. Buddhists & Hindus refer to these as samskaras (memories/karmic influence). Us humans are under the influence of this "human mind" conditioning much like a dog is influenced by "dog mind" which will chase a thrown object, communicate through barking, rub it arse on the carpet...the only difference being we can become aware of the workings of the conditioned mind and transcend it to free our minds.
Many astronauts also report losing sexual attraction when in space as they feel as if they are no longer connected to the the earths reproductive pull.
This proves (to most) that if you look beyond the human "rat race" mind you will find inner peace and the ecstacy of universal union. There is no need to go into space, simply look beyond your conditioned thoughts and realise they are not who or what you are, that who & what you are can not be seen, you are the see-er, your basic most simple primal awareness devoid of thoughts & conditioning is the very same universal cosmic consciousness that pervades all of existence. Throw away thoughts, stop dreaming & discover you are that.
One Love 
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"Don't keep searching for truth, simply let go of your beliefs" Buddha
Edited by Tantradvaita (05/30/08 06:25 AM)
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guruu
Space Trucker
Registered: 08/09/07
Posts: 4,466
Loc: Boone, NC/ Atlanta, GA
Last seen: 8 days, 8 minutes
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 Re: Space Enlightenment (must read!) [Re: Tantradvaita]
#8463078 - 05/30/08 09:52 AM (5 months, 21 days ago) |
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I don't find it surprising at all that being in space is kind of a mindfuck.
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"I want a tie-dyed shirt made with the blood of Jerry Garcia"
-Kurt Cobain
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 deimya
tofu with monocle
Registered: 08/26/04
Posts: 529
Loc: ausländer.ch
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Re: Space Enlightenment (must read!) [Re: guruu]
#8463157 - 05/30/08 10:16 AM (5 months, 21 days ago) |
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Full of pop-quantum-physics and charged with questionable assumptions, but the message is not bad. Indeed this planet is for now all there is for us and we should take care of it and ourselves. Now please excuse my incoming rant but there it is.
Why do so many feel the need to refer to quantum physics, always ? h-bar is too crazy small for any of these voodoo-feel-good interconnectedness effects to be significant anyway.
Quote:
because they are no longer under the influence of the repetitive cyclical human minds thoughts & conditioning, which is stored in the earths magnetic field
Seriously, this is ridiculous, why did you HAVE to mention the magnetic field ? Is it like some kind of Tourette syndrome "quantum, quantum, magnetic shit, consciousness dammit". Remove this bit and your paragraph carries the exact same message. It won't give you credence to use pop-sci lingo, especially if you don't even know anything about these sciences.
Or maybe this quantum obsession is also stored in the magnetic field. Obviously it's cyclic since it comes back every now and then in P&S.
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backfromthedead
Activated
Registered: 03/10/07
Posts: 3,590
Last seen: 3 months, 24 days
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Re: Space Enlightenment (must read!) [Re: Tantradvaita]
#8463161 - 05/30/08 10:18 AM (5 months, 21 days ago) |
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Pretty sad that modern man needs to be propelled into space to realize some of these, imo, very basic elements of spiritual belief.
As for the mind being 'stored' in Earth's magnetic field...?? Source?? How would you ever transcend it then while on Earth??
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deimya
tofu with monocle
Registered: 08/26/04
Posts: 529
Loc: ausländer.ch
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Yeah, that's one expansive "enlightenment". Some arrive at the exact same conclusion by choking themselves  ...but I digress. It might be the price to get back on Earth this strange astronaut clique.
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backfromthedead
Activated
Registered: 03/10/07
Posts: 3,590
Last seen: 3 months, 24 days
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Re: Space Enlightenment (must read!) [Re: deimya]
#8463167 - 05/30/08 10:19 AM (5 months, 21 days ago) |
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Quote:
deimya said:
Full of pop-quantum-physics and charged with questionable assumptions, but the message is not bad. Indeed this planet is for now all there is for us and we should take care of it and ourselves. Now please excuse my incoming rant but there it is.
Why do so many feel the need to refer to quantum physics, always ? h-bar is too crazy small for any of these voodoo-feel-good interconnectedness effects to be significant anyway.
Quote:
because they are no longer under the influence of the repetitive cyclical human minds thoughts & conditioning, which is stored in the earths magnetic field
Seriously, this is ridiculous, why did you HAVE to mention the magnetic field ? Is it like some kind of Tourette syndrome "quantum, quantum, magnetic shit, consciousness dammit". Remove this bit and your paragraph carries the exact same message. It won't give you credence to use pop-sci lingo, especially if you don't even know anything about these sciences.
Or maybe this quantum obsession is also stored in the magnetic field. Obviously it's cyclic since it comes back every now and then in P&S.
Fuckin BINGO!!
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backfromthedead
Activated
Registered: 03/10/07
Posts: 3,590
Last seen: 3 months, 24 days
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Re: Space Enlightenment (must read!) [Re: deimya]
#8463171 - 05/30/08 10:23 AM (5 months, 21 days ago) |
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Quote:
deimya said:
Yeah, that's one expansive "enlightenment". Some arrive at the exact same conclusion by choking themselves ...but I digress.
Here astronaut... Have a toke.
I got that realization from the smoke.
Sorry your perception is broke.
I hope you get THERE before you croak.
Ribbit.
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c0sm0nautt
in a state of flux...
Registered: 05/19/08
Posts: 510
Loc: New Paltz, NY
Last seen: 2 hours, 56 minutes
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Re: Space Enlightenment (must read!) [Re: Tantradvaita]
#8463212 - 05/30/08 10:32 AM (5 months, 21 days ago) |
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Hell yea man, break the conditioning. Realize the Gods we are.
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The Paradigm Shift
- c0sm0nautt
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xFrockx
Fucking Hippie
Registered: 09/17/06
Posts: 1,274
Loc: Northeast
Last seen: 15 hours, 22 minutes
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Re: Space Enlightenment (must read!) [Re: deimya]
#8463245 - 05/30/08 10:39 AM (5 months, 21 days ago) |
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Quote:
deimya said:
Seriously, this is ridiculous, why did you HAVE to mention the magnetic field ? Is it like some kind of Tourette syndrome "quantum, quantum, magnetic shit, consciousness dammit". Remove this bit and your paragraph carries the exact same message. It won't give you credence to use pop-sci lingo, especially if you don't even know anything about these sciences.
Or maybe this quantum obsession is also stored in the magnetic field. Obviously it's cyclic since it comes back every now and then in P&S.
I thought this exact same thing, maybe its just syncronicity! Lol.
What would make anyone think that the earth's magnetic field has anything to do with the realizations talked about in the artices? I don't understand it. It makes me kindof offended actually, because its is an assumption that basically says we can't do this ourselves.
Honestly, after tripping I can say that I've felt the exact same things these astronauts have said. And I didn't have to put on a tinfoil hat to block any EMR. Rediculous, god, I was so dissapointed in the OP for mentioning that.
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I want to tell you a story,
About a little man,
If I can,
A gnome named Grimble Grumble,
And little gnomes stay in their homes,
Eating, sleeping, Drinking their wine
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