Category: Psychology

My Unease With Science

Posted on by japineda
From https://study.com/academy/lesson/skepticism-definition-types.html

I don’t know how my smartphone works. But I am not bothered by the limits of my knowledge since there is at least one engineer or a small group of engineers who know the inner workings of this miracle machine. If the phone breaks, I know I can find someone to repair it. And as long as I am able to use it to perform useful functions, I feel content.

What, then, is my “unease with science”? I would say it’s more about the attribution of knowledge in a larger sense. I am concerned that individually and socially, we are rapidly outgrowing the ability to comprehend all that we know.  The invention of books and computers has allowed us to maintain the façade that knowledge is captured in a way that is accessible and understandable.  My discomfort is that soon, if we haven’t already, we will be unable to fully comprehend that accumulated knowledge.  Answers continue to get more and more complex, and knowledge so widely distributed that for the most part, we will be at a point where no one, not a person, groups of individuals or even computer systems will know how things work. If something breaks, no one will be able to fix it. This is the limit and consequence that is making me anxious.

As a newly minted neuroscientist in the 1990s, I embodied the optimism of youth that through science we would find answers to all problems. In my particular case, I was certain neuroscience would learn everything about how the brain worked in the 20-30 years following my Ph.D. It was simply a matter of time and increased knowledge. This exciting and limitless vista stretched before me as I settled down into building a career, a lab, and a reputation.

Thirty-plus years later, I remain optimistic about the power of science to answer a multitude of questions. But the vast panorama of unanswered questions remains limitless. While we seem to have learned a lot, the most interesting questions remain unresolved. I feel my frustration wrapped in a thinning veil of optimism. In turn, I have become sensitive to the limits of what once was science’s limitless potential. And what are those limits from my neuroscience perspective? The primary and most notable problem I see is a lack of holistic comprehension. Science has uncovered a multiplicity of independent bits of knowledge but no sense of how to fit it all together. I blame this on the lack of a language of integration, one related to the workings of the holistic mind. I have an intuition about what awareness, attention, and consciousness are, but have little understanding of their underlying neurobiology and how they relate to the rest of what I know. Most troubling, I have no or at least a very primitive language to talk about such processes.

Many will argue this kind of criticism of science reflects a defeatist attitude, i.e., giving up the fight while it is still too early to concede. Such obstacles, they will argue, are solvable by the old strategy of acquiring more knowledge and/or constructing the right vocabulary. Investigations can still produce revolutionary ideas about what questions to ask and how to ask them. This optimism arises from the fact that scientists have encountered limits before and have consistently overcome them. For instance, we learned to re-conceptualize the universe and matter. This occurred in classical physics and led to quantum mechanics. Likewise, we learned to analyze brain function using non-invasive methods like fMRI, allowing scientists to study the living, working brain. In this and many other examples, we breached and expanded boundaries. Yet, my pessimism persists since things are feel different now. But how?

My argument is not that new ideas, revolutionary concepts, and methods won’t allow us to penetrate boundaries. This is different from what John Horgan argues in his book The End of Science. Rather, the limit I am concerned about is that the understanding we need is already beyond our capability to absorb it conceptually. The limits of science are limits in our own processing capacity. The accumulation of scientific knowledge during the last one hundred years already crossed that boundary long ago. Yet, we have persisted because of the power of distributed knowledge, computational capacity, and especially the illusion that “if others know, then I know.”

The latest savior to delay the inevitable crash into this limitation of science is artificial intelligence or AI. But inevitably, AI will change from a tool we use for our benefit and that we control, to a system that will be impenetrable to human understanding and beyond our control. Perhaps we have already crossed aspects of this AI threshold – such as the one where at some point in a health crisis, I may become more dependent on artificial life than on other humans. It’s not yet true in most aspects of life, but comes pretty close in others, such as in the automation of tasks across a broad range of industries. I feel an unease about crossing this threshold. It is the same uneasiness about reaching the limits of science knowledge.

At its core, my unease with science is really my unease with not-knowing, the sense that answers lie beyond my comprehension. Trusting what we don’t understand, and trusting a “science” that is beyond us, is difficult for most of us. We see examples of this in the hesitancy to m-RNA based vaccines in this time of the coronavirus pandemic. Interestingly, it may be the most intelligent – those especially trained to be skeptical and to question everything – who experience this unease the most. For it raises issues of control, agency, and faith in technology. All these are crucial issues for our society to discuss before making the ultimate commitment to paths where there is no possibility of return. Individually, and later socially, we can become comfortable with not-knowing, lose the uneasiness with science, and simply enjoy the process of trying to find the answer!

As John Horgan points outs in his book: “No matter how much they learn, biologists will never really know how matter first became animate, just as cosmologists will never know how the universe began. Moreover, we will never find a final, definitive answer to the question of who we really are. Science-lovers should be grateful for the persistence of these mysteries. As long as they endure, so will our quest for self-knowledge.”

Science and Faith: From Skepticism to Wonder

Posted on by japineda

Image from Clayton, J.N. (2017). Science and Theology, May 19, By DGE?

For many of us, faith implies the belief in a Deity and powers that emanate from such a being. We conceive of such beliefs as beyond the reach of the intellect, and see science and faith, like oil and water, as not mixing very well. This creates a mindset in which we judge scientists as incapable or unwilling to express faith, and those who express faith as unable to understand the scientific viewpoint. Valid or not, many reasons have led to this unusual, unhelpful, and twisted logic. In an attempt to bring these two polar opposite views into synchrony, I describe a perspective on the path from skepticism to wonder and back that may provide a small beginning.

What is “truth?” How we arrive at that answer creates a multitude of feelings, thoughts, and approaches. Most of us, at the dawn of the 21st century, reflect the thinking which conceives of truth based on faith in opposition to that based on science. Science is a unique method requiring proof to an almost legalistic level, i.e., overwhelming circumstantial evidence that is beyond a reasonable doubt. We arrive at this type of truth by gathering data from what we experience. We then generate a best-guess explaining the accumulated evidence, test this hypothesis, and recalibrate the explanation based on the feedback. This is a painstaking, time-consuming, third-person, communal perspective. History has validated the worthiness of this approach, such as when evaluating pre-scientific explanations of diseases. For millennia, we considered disorders the work of unseen forces, evil spirits, or the devil. Applying the scientific method, scientists discovered that biological phenomena, including bacteria and viruses, and psychological events such as stress, were better explanations for these dynamics.

In contrast to science, faith is the willingness to accept things unexperienced. It rests on an individualized, first-person feeling based on trust and conviction, and less on evidence or proof. It is an extrasensory set of feelings and ideas in an individual, regardless of how others may react. I cannot, for example, convince others with data or reasoning that I experience God every day because, right or wrong, this is a private, individualized, and exclusive experience. It becomes more communal only when others experience similar things.

The paradox inherent in this science-faith discussion arises from theology and philosophy, namely the idea of the transcendence and immanence of God. This dichotomy reflects a pair of truths which appear to contradict each other. Imagine a continuum. At one end is the notion that God is separable from His creation. Or to put a theological spin on it, “God is transcendent and not imminent.” He created things, but those things do not define Him. He is beyond them. However, to believe in God’s transcendence and to neglect His immanence is to fall into the belief of a Supreme being and creator who does not intervene in the universe. At the other end of this continuum is the notion that nature expresses the Divine. God is nature. Or, to put it another way, “He is imminent (in nature).” But to believe in His immanence and to neglect His transcendence is to fall into the belief that reality is identical to divinity. Interestingly, modern Christian theology falls somewhere along this continuum. It argues that God is both transcendent and imminent, although imminent in only a few circumstances, such as the incarnation of Christ, the Bible, expressed love and caring. But He is not imminent in nature, pain, or inappropriate behavior.

Scholars have argued that the influence of Greek philosophy had a vast impact on early Christian theology and on the transcendence-imminence of God. It saw the world of physical objects as an inferior reality. Because of this influence, any human experience of God, which is physical and inferior to the spirit, would only be a poor mirage of the true perfection of the godhead (Crotty, 1982). The result of such thinking was an emphasis on the transcendent over the immanent God. Several scholars tried to reject these Greek ideas. Aristotle, and later Dietrich Bonhoeffer, believed that God is “out there” with ordinary life. Bonhoeffer’s “God is everywhere” concept, however, morphed into “God is not here” for everything with God meant nothing is God. Logical reasoning, such as this, unfortunately, never seems to get anywhere.

During the Middle Ages, particularly the 12th and 13th century, the precursor of the scientific method was Scholasticism. Its distinguishing characteristics were inclusion of the teachings of Christian faith in pursuing truth. The goal of this approach was more about uncovering the wonder in nature by refining the questions posed, rather than expecting a conclusive answer. The result was an understanding that forces existed beyond the intellect but which harnessed a unique understanding. Such insightful thinking morphed into one that focused more on the answers than on the wonderment surrounding the answers. This gave birth to scientism and the prevalent method of science used today. While we have learned much from this modern approach, we have lost that most valuable part of life—an appreciation of the mystery and wonder that surrounds our “answers.”

Reconnecting wonder to God’s creation paradoxically resolves the science-faith conundrum. Science becomes the study of creation, wonder and all, and faith reflects communion with this wonder. This is the uneasy answer most organized religion and organized science ought to seek. Not a return to classic Scholasticism, but a new scholasticism suited to modern sensibilities and intellectual needs. It is an uneasy answer because history shows that we have and will continue to find scientific explanations for what was once the domain of the Divine. Yet, scientists grow skeptical that the scientific method can provide answers to all problems. And those mysteries that remain, e.g., death, love, and guilt, appear to be the most fundamental ones. Hence, we cannot continue to ignore the wonder of creation, or we will not gain true insight.

I have argued in a previous blog that science and faith-based knowledge are two distinct strategies to know the world. Our brains synchronize these two approaches. Rather than using them as opposing strategies, they are complementary, facilitating and enriching each another. True faith results from questioning. Faith stripped of skepticism is brittle and breaks easily. We must confront and wrestle with paradoxes—not just believe them unquestionably. It is the wrestling that produces insight, grace, and enlightenment. Along with wonder, we need to regain the willingness to face these contradictions and the false certainty they create.

Can Science Explain Auras?

Posted on by japineda

Radiant Human aura photography by Christina Lonsdale. Photo courtesy of Radiant Human/the Whitney Museum of American Art.

In medicine, the term aura refers to a perceptual disturbance experienced by someone suffering from epilepsy or migraine. This is not, however, what I want to talk about today. Rather, the focus of this essay is on the psychic aura. As a boomer wading through the 1960s and 70s, I associated the term “aura” with spirituality and the visible energies around a person. But I had thought little about such things for the past 40 years. That is until I read Michael Crichton’s short story “Cactus Teachings” in his book Travels during this past Christmas holiday. It was a book given to me by my brother-in-law, Roger, who had enjoyed it and found Crichton’s stories resonant with what he heard in my poetry.

Crichton is a Harvard-trained doctor who gave up the practice of medicine to write. And he has produced some of the most popular and iconic stories of the past half-century, including Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, and The Terminal Man. I admire and respect him as a scientist, medicine man, and writer. I was, therefore, fascinated to read that in the 1980s, he had encountered and learned the art of seeing auras. He did this as part of a two-week experience in personal growth, meditation, and psychic healing. His experience intrigued me and triggered my old curiosity regarding auras. Suddenly, the topic became top-of-mind.

As part of my daily walks and hikes, I began trying to visualize auric energies around those I encountered. Unexpectedly and delightfully, even though I had to convince myself they were there, I experienced subtle light rings right away. I caught glimpses of greens and blues initially. The experience reminded me of a faded but partial rainbow around the head of some people. I saw auras around animals and trees, although these were more monochromatic and usually just a simple light band around the object. I observed nothing around non-biological objects such as cars or cement telephone poles. Nor could I detect the bands surrounding people on television or on my computer screen. But an eye blink, saccade, or attentional blink, and the faint tracings would disappear.

As I continued the practice, things changed quickly and significantly. I perceived more colors, typically yellow, green, violent, and blue bands of light. It was easier to see these bands with the sun over my shoulder. And if I successfully held the view of the aura constant for more than a second, the energy bands intensified and got brighter. Unexpectedly, I began observing light bands around non-organic things and faint traces of them on television figures. Everything seemed surrounded by an aura, if only I made the effort to see it. I was unprepared for this experience and didn’t know what to make of it.

On one of my outings, I noted that bicyclists racing down a hill seemed to extend the auric field slightly, both in front and behind them. The colors were more pronounced in the front than in the receding stream of air. It was then I realized that one explanation for this phenomenon might be the simple experience of light being refracted by particles surrounding our bodies, including water molecules.

I had purposely avoided reading the scientific literature until this point. When I started reading journal articles, I found that there were no real scientific studies because scientists deem the phenomenon not replicable. Neurologists contend people perceive auras because of defects within the brain itself because of epilepsy, migraines, synesthesia, or the influence of psychedelic drugs, such as LSD. However, when tested appropriately, researchers could not verify the findings related to the psychic aura. Hence, studies done under laboratory conditions have shown that this experience is best explained as either a visual illusion, or an afterimage.

Yet, those with no known clinical abnormalities or drug use, like Michael Crichton and I, cannot deny our experiences. There are several potential explanations. First, scientific tests may be incorrect. As an example, one test used to prove the unreliability of the phenomenon is to have someone stand (or not) behind a screen that blocks the body. The screen does not block the space around the body, and thus a person being tested ought to perceive the aura when someone is behind the screen. Researchers testing individuals claiming to detect auras beforehand found they could not correctly identify auras without knowing if someone was actually standing behind the screen. A second explanation is, of course, that the phenomenon is the product of imagination processes and therefore uniquely individualized.

There are problems with these hypotheses. First, the type of test described may be inappropriate because the auric phenomenon may depend on lateral inhibition in the visual system, which would require viewing of a body. If the body is not present to provide the contrast, there is no lateral inhibition and no aura. Lateral inhibition is something that happens because of how cells in the retina and other visual regions connect. So, when one cell is excited and fires action potentials, it turns off or provides inhibition to its surrounding neighbors. This lateral inhibition explains a well-known visual illusion phenomenon known as Mach bands, named after their discoverer, the physicist Ernst Mach (1838–1916). Mach bands reflect the exaggerated contrast between edges produced by the anatomy of lateral inhibition, by triggering edge-detection in the human visual system. Hence, a simple and testable explanation for auras is that lateral inhibition, combined with light refraction by particles surrounding our bodies, creates edge enhancement and rainbow-like experiences.

A rainbow requires water droplets or small particles floating in the air. The sun must be behind you and the clouds cleared away for the rainbow to appear. When sunlight strikes a water droplet, it refracts, and changes the direction of light because of the surface of the water. The light continues into the drop and reflects from the back of the drop to the front. When the beam hits the front, it refracts again. The water drops act like prisms to separate the light into its different wavelengths and as the color spectrum we experience in a rainbow. Science has shown that clouds of water droplets and other small particles surround our bodies. These can perform a similar light-refractory function and voila—a rainbow-like aura is visible.

Auras are a subtle visual experience. They may indeed require imagination to see. This may be why we need time to learn how to perceive this natural and wonderful phenomenon. On the other hand, photography can capture auric differences, so it can not be entirely imagination. The question I want to leave you with is: If science can explain psychic auras, are they any less fascinating?

The Constancy of Change

Posted on by japineda
NICOLE RAGER FULLER / NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Cynics say that “the only constant is change.” And there is a certain amount of truth to that. Take for example the ever-changing weather. Summer heat gives way to autumn and changing colors. This then gives way to winter cold and snow, which turns into spring and blooming flowers. All these changes occur within a year, and then the cycle starts all over again. On another front, we are exposed to around 100,000 words a day—equivalent to 20 plus words per second through texting, email, the internet, television and other media. This avalanche of information and noise may be the basis for the turmoil in our politics and the topsy-turvy nature of our personal lives. Because change is everywhere, we are more than willing to accept the characterization that it is the only constant in our lives. However, like the turbulent ocean breakers during a stormy day, the apparent turbulence is only on the surface. Diving into the violent sea, the calmness of the deep waters is surprising. Similarly, if we go deeper into the origin and development of the universe, we realize that there is a level of existence where constancy is the rule. In fact, without the unchanging nature of entities, units, values, and interactions, the universe of change would be impossible.

This is the surprising conclusion arrived at by physicists and cosmologists. They point out that many fundamental factors in this universe do not change – EVER. And such stability provides the basis for the turmoil. Physics tells us that it takes 26 dimensionless constants to describe the Universe simply and completely. The similarity in numbers to the 26 letters of the English alphabet is fascinating, for the analogy is useful. These basic units represent the foundational elements, the cosmological primitives, from which EVERYTHING arises.

In 2018, the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) held a meeting where they agreed on new definitions for the base units of all weights and measures, like the kilogram and the second. The goal was to create standards for measuring things based on fundamental universal constants. This would allow such measures to withstand the test of time and not lose accuracy through contaminations and degradations. These definitions went into effect on May 20, 2019, and most of the world did not take notice of this profound change in our lives.

The newly defined measures include the speed of light in a vacuum (299,792,458 meters/second). It includes Planck’s constant = 6.62607015 x 10 -34 J s, the elementary charge = 1.602176634 x   10-19 C, the Boltzmann constant = 1.380649 x 10 -23 J/K, and Avogadro constant (NA) = 6.02214076 x 1023 mol-1. Not only are these measures more accurate than ever, but as I am describing, they are constant and unchanging.

It is interesting to note that no one really knows why these specific factors are constant in our universe. Nonetheless, constancy is important because it makes the universe possible, predictable and not truly chaotic. Despite how messy and disorganized the world may seem, if we know what forces and factors are involved, we can predict the outcome. Although most of the time we do not know all the forces and factors involved, we can imagine how much wilder and confusing it  would be if one second, for example, would be a changing variable. But in this universe, one second is now defined in terms of a universal constant as “the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom.” Assuming we understand this, we can breathe more easily that this will NEVER change. At least not until we discover a new physics and a new universe.

Other relevant fundamental universal constants in our universe:

  1. The fine-structure constant (Aα)
  2. Electric constant (ε0)
  3. Mass of six quarks, six leptons, the W, Z, and the Higgs boson
  4. The mass of the electron (me)
  5. Ratio of proton to electron mass (mu)
  6. Gravitational constant (G)
  7. The ideal gas constant (R)
  8. Absolute zero
  9. The Schwarzschild radius (Sch. R)
  10. The Chandrasekhar limit
  11. The Hubble constant (H0)
  12. Omega (Ωω)
  13. Strong interaction
  14. Weak interaction
  15. Electromagnetic interaction
  16. The cosmological constant (Λ)

The Good Monkey Mind-Chapter 3

Posted on by japineda

Attached is Chapter 3 of my new book. I am sincerely looking for your feedback to improve it. Anything from typos to whether more should be explained or something removed that doesn’t make sense would be appreciated. I am trying to have each chapter stand alone, so if you find yourself saying, “I wish I had read the previous chapter” please let me know what explanation is missing. If it’s too academic, esoteric, or worse do let me know that as well.

The best way to provide feedback is to download the Word file, edit it directly with tracking on, and return to me via email (jpineda@ucsd.edu). Thank you for your time and effort. Know that any and all your comments are highly appreciated.

One positive bit of news. Academic Press has expressed interest in publishing the book, although no contract yet. Wish me luck.

Also, I have added a place on my webpage (https://the-unencumbered-mind.com/book-in-progress/) where you can go and easily download all the chapters I have written.

THE-GOOD-MONKEY-MIND-Chapter-3Download

The Good Monkey Mind-Chapter 2

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THE-GOOD-MONKEY-MIND-chapter-2Download

I am attaching Chapter 2 of my new book, The Good Monkey Mind, so that you can read and provide feedback. Whether it is finding typos or other grammatical errors, commenting on the graphics, or on the readability, it is all appreciated.

This is a particularly critical chapter since it develops the idea of how the monkey mind comes about. Please let me know if the argument is convincing or needs work.

Thanks to all those who have provided feedback on previous parts of the book. Remember that if your feedback is incorporated, you will be cited in the acknowledgment.

Touching Stillness and Responding Creatively

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THE-GOOD-MONKEY-MIND-chapter-1Download

I am attaching Chapter 1 of my new book, The Good Monkey Mind, so that you can respond creatively and provide whatever feedback you deem appropriate.

I truly appreciate it.

In a previous commentary, I encouraged everyone to practice stillness during this new year and assured you that touching such stillness, even for the briefest moment, would help you gain a feeling of contentment. It would also likely lead you to want to continue practicing. Today, I want to describe how touching stillness affected me in a positive and creative way.

Stillness is the attitude I adopted that “life is perfect as it is” or more prosaically that “life is what it is.” Not perfect in an ideal or Platonic sense, but as the only outcome out of a set of possibilities given the history and circumstances of each moment. I accept this reality in a willing, loving manner, and doing so from moment to moment gives way to a stillness of mind. Accepting the reality of the moment does not mean I am resigned to what life brings. The mystery is that within this acceptance lies the enormous creativity of the universe to engage and provide solutions that lead to wise change.

Like any skill, practicing mind stillness requires effort. This means keeping the “perfection of life” top of mind, especially when negative things occur. As I continued the effort, it became less conscious and more automatic – until the openness and acceptance remained without conceptual mentation. One of the first things I noticed as my practice grew was how less emotionally reactive I became to the surrounding turmoil. My emotions did not disappear or become muted—I actually felt more. The difference consisted in my response to those feelings. I did not immediately become anxious, fearful, or lash out in anger. I had the space and time to consider the unfairness or sadness of the circumstances, to feel them, but then consider how I could do something about it.

More than anything, the practice of stillness produced a joy that was totally unexpected. This joy is a fullness, closer to contentment than to happiness, even as the world seems to be more and more chaotic. Again, it isn’t a defeatist or resigned attitude but a perspective that says, “ok, this is how it is, now, what can I do about it?” This viewpoint leads me to not only follow the masking and distancing recommendations but also to volunteer to take part in the Moderna vaccine trials or be a volunteer to vaccinate people. The outcome of the vaccine trials has proven it was the correct decision. Hence, the more I practice stillness, the stronger my confidence grows about the intuitions that arise, and the more faith I place on those intuitions. It is a positive feedforward, self-fulfilling, and satisfying process.

I have asked myself about this “faith,” which has echoes of an early religious upbringing. It is a kind of faith my skepticism as a neuroscientist had displaced. My increased openness to it is something that developed as I continued my stillness practice. I struggle with it, in the sense that I  resist it, something I relate in my autobiography, Piercing the Cloud. In the end, however, I see using the scientific method and intuition as complementary strategies to know and engage the world. Both are powerful yet distinct ways to approach and know truth. At our best, our brain-mind accommodates and uses both strategies to respond to life creatively.

Enlightenment: The Spiritual Liminal State

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“… It is when you have left the tried and true, but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else.  It is when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer. If you are not trained in how to hold anxiety, how to live with ambiguity, how to entrust and wait, you will run…anything to flee this terrible cloud of unknowing.”

                                                                                                            Richard Rohr

In the above quote, Richard Rohr, American author, spiritual writer, and Franciscan friar, defines the psychological liminal state, a transitional state that can be potentially terrifying. Such a state has many similarities to the state of enlightenment. Enlightenment is defined in infinite ways. In some spiritual circles, enlightenment is the state of attaining spiritual knowledge or insight, in particular awareness of your true nature as part of the unity of life.

Joko Beck, an American Zen teacher, captured the unique nature of the enlightenment experience by describing it as walking on a knife’s edge. It’s a terrifying image, and as a spiritual liminal condition, one of potentiality, not the old nor yet the new, but a “cloud of unknowing.” A liminal condition, whether psychological or spiritual, is temporary and can terrify or be satisfying, depending on whether you learn to live with it. This recalls a quote from Dogen, founder of the Soto school of Zen in Japan: “Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.”

The implication is that life is lived normally following an encounter with this spiritual liminal state-but with a difference. The answer is to learn to live with the cloud of unknowing, to love and trust it. When you wake up to such a reality, it becomes the only way to live a truly normal, satisfying and full life. Craig Hamilton, a contemporary American spiritual teacher, captures the difference in the before and after in this realization. 

Hamilton has written that enlightenment is not a state of consciousness. It is not a thought. It is the intuitive realization of your true nature, that who you are is not this limited, separate self; or any of the thoughts and feelings that you previously identified as yourself. Awakening occurs as you realize that who you are at the deepest level is something much bigger and more profound than who you thought you were. It is the recognition of a kind of super consciousness, intelligence, love, being, and presence that is the foundation of reality itself.

This presence is already free, whole, and perfect. Who you are is this sacred dimension of reality that is beyond intellectual comprehension, yet somehow, you “know” it. It’s missing nothing, lacking nothing, and overflows with love, wisdom, power, and clarity. Enlightenment is not just the realization that God exists. It’s the realization that That is what you are. The thing you were always seeking and putting outside yourself is actually your true nature. This intuitive knowledge shatters every conscious and unconscious belief you’ve had in your own limitation. It destroys every sense of lack, of not being enough, of feeling there is somewhere else you need to get to. You realize that the whole thing is already here. This life is the spiritual liminal state of enlightenment that can terrify and be glorious at the same time. Enlightenment is the realization that I am That. Awakening to the essence that you and everything else is sacred is beyond measure and glorious beyond comprehension.

It can bring you to your knees.

May you experience enlightenment in 2021.

Is Trump Stockholm Syndrome Real?

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Although Stockholm Syndrome occurs with kidnappings and hostage situations, we know that regular people can develop this condition in response to trauma. I posit that we have witnessed the syndrome in our political life. The press has often described President Donald Trump as psychologically and verbally abusive (see David Horsey’s cartoon above). During the last four years, we have witnessed this behavior in the open as he has wielded his outrage and tweets to denigrate and verbally abuse those who cross and fear him. That number includes at least 74 million U.S. citizens who voted for him.

Yet many had it much harder. Think of the relationship between President Trump and Senator Ted Cruz. As intelligent a man as Senator Cruz is, the only probable explanation for his behavior over the past four years is being in the grip of Trump Stockholm Syndrome.

It’s important to understand several very important characteristics of the behavioral paradoxes that develop with this syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological response that develops over time but can occur very quickly. Second, the recipient of the abuse will develop positive feelings toward his abuser and even share common goals and causes. The victim may resent anyone trying to help him see the light from the condition they are in. Finally, there is a general lack of awareness of how radical the change in behavior is.

Senator Cruz has received the brunt of Trump’s bullish, berating, and brow-beating behavior since they both ran for President in 2015.  In the intervening years since Trump’s election as President, Cruz’s behavior toward his rival has shifted from angry and derogatory to fawning and defensive of Trump’s most recent coup attempt. The only explanation possible is a mental deterioration in Cruz’s capacity to assess reality, as he gets ready to object to Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

Trump Stockholm Syndrome may explain the odd behavior of Senator Cruz and the many Republicans, including Senator Lindsey Graham and others. They tenaciously support someone who berates and mistreats them and yet show very little awareness of how abnormal their change in behavior is. 

These are very interesting times!

A New Year Resolution: To Be or To Do?

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“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” — Lao Tzu

This is the perfect question for anyone interested in spiritual growth as you begin a new year, especially after what the past year has brought: Should I learn to be and sit in stillness till something happens or should I beckon my creativity and do? It is the perfect question for new beginnings. No doubt that the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has brought much pain and suffering to the entire world. It has created an underlying anxiety prompting us to want what we had before the pandemic, namely, normalcy. You hanker for what you took for granted: the ability to be with family, friends, even strangers. You want to exercise your creative nature, which seems stagnant after a year of waiting. So, you ask, should I be or should I do as 2021 begins? As Lao Tzu, philosopher, author of the Tao Te Ching, and founder of philosophical Taoism noted many years ago, painful endings often disguise the opportunities for new starts and new growth.

To begin, although one cannot beckon the muse of creativity at will, you can certainly try.  More often than not creativity and our ability to do shows up only when the ground of the mind is tilled and ready. The question, then, is really how you prepare this ground to allow for new, meaningful growth? Paradoxically, it requires stillness. Thus, the question is not a choice between doing and being but to first understand beingness and practice that and out of that practice arises the right doing. So, what does it mean to be still?

The stillness I am referring to is not related to physical action. It is not stopping of motor movement and motion. Instead, it is a psychological, and even more, a spiritual disposition. For those who meditate, it is a common experience to sit in meditation, a physical stillness, without really being still. It is the stillness of the mind that is important. So, you must really understand what a still mind means in order to practice it.

Mind stillness does not require stopping thought or thinking by suppressing or masking it. Were that even possible, it is certainly not recommended.

The stillness you are aiming for is an attitude, a perspective that you take. It is a way of evaluating information and circumstances that you experience. The perspective is that life is “perfect” as it is at every moment, and to accept that in a loving manner. Not perfect in an ideal or Platonic sense but as the only possibility given the history and circumstances of that moment. Accepting reality in this way is the basis for mind stillness. Life is what it is and cannot be otherwise. Thus, you need not lean right or left (meaning that if you accept that things could not possibly be anything else at that moment you don’t worry about alternatives). You are simply present to that reality and accept it fully. That is stillness.

Such an attitude can occur whether meditating or living the bustle and tussle of daily life. Spiritual teachers, such as Eckhart Tolle call it being present, in the moment, or in the now. I would agree and add that it means having situational awareness in every moment. It also means becoming aware of the stillness inherent in nature, from which you can learn. When you practice stillness, your actions flow in concert with your life, with nature, and that flow is the muse or creativity itself. Being and doing at this point are the same thing.

Having accepted the reality of the moment does not mean you are resigned to what life brings. It does not mean you do not try to change negative moments or circumstances. The mystery is that having accepted reality as it is, lovingly, causes the enormous creativity of the universe to engage and provide you solutions to wisely change what is negative, damaging, hurtful, inappropriate, and corrosive. It is a supremely intelligent, self-correcting system.

I encourage you to practice mind stillness in 2021. Adopt this new perspective, practice it, and if after a few weeks of dedicated practice, it does not feel positive or right then stop. I guarantee, however, that if you truly touch stillness, even briefly, you will not want to stop.

Please be safe.