Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Summer 2017   issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Swimme, Brian, "A Multiplicity of Centers" Quest 105:3(Summer 2017) pg. 34-35

It turns out that the earth is the center of the universe after all. So is everyplace else.

By Brian Swimme 

When the twentieth-century astronomer Edwin Hubble began watching the galaxies, he discovered that the galaxy clusters were moving away from us in all directions. This leads us to the startling conclusion that, in terms of cosmic expansion, we find ourselves at the center of the cosmos. This is indeed a strange and most unexpected development.

If such a discovery had been made during the medieval period of Europe, it would have caused no surprise at all, for the presiding worldview at that time put the earth at the center of the universe. To extend the earth’s centrality to the center of expansion of all the galaxy clusters would have made no great demands on the medieval mind.

But, of course, when Hubble made his discovery, we no longer lived within the medieval worldview. We had already learned from Copernicus that earth is not a fixed point at the center of the universe. Earth is one planet moving around one star, which itself is one of the three hundred billion stars of the Milky Way Galaxy, which in turn is one of a trillion galaxies in the wide universe. If we have learned anything over the last four hundred years since Copernicus initiated this great search, we have certainly learned that the earth is not a fixed center around which all the planets and stars revolved.

And yet here was this new revelation placing us at the center of the cosmic expansion of the galaxy clusters. Our Virgo Supercluster was not moving at all, and all of the other superclusters were moving away from us. What were we supposed to make of it?

Complicating our challenge is the consternation of the scientists who discovered the expansion. For if we could convince ourselves that it was Einstein’s secret hope to put us at the center of the universe, we could dismiss his and similar work as an ideological imposition upon the universe. On the contrary, for both Einstein and other scientists as well, the very discoverers of the cosmic expansion were repulsed by the idea, and they did everything they could to avoid accepting it. Disturbed by the implications of his theory, which suggested that the universe was either expanding or contracting, Einstein had introduced a “cosmological constant” into his equations to eliminate this problem, a decision he later called “the biggest blunder of my life.”

Had the cultural and personal biases of these scientists determined what they saw, they would not have found all the clusters of galaxies moving away from us so symmetrically that we were placed at the very center of this cosmic expansion. If they had been free to distort the data to fit their own preconceived notions about the large-scale nature of the universe, they would have announced that all the galaxies were fixed with respect to each other, which is what Einstein’s doctored equations suggested. Or, if they couldn’t have an unchanging universe, they might have preferred one in which all the galaxies were moving in the same direction, a Great River of galaxies. Then at least we would not be in any special place. Such a discovery would then fit into modern culture, for it would suggest we were insignificant, without cosmic meaning, just as Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertrand Russell and so many other modern philosophers taught. Earth would be just one bit of bark swept along with the Great Current.

What Hubble discovered did not fit modern culture’s preconceptions but in fact disrupted them. But instead of altering the data, he published it. He offered no philosophical justification for or against the data. He simply made public what he had discovered there at the cutting edge of human awareness: in terms of the universe as a whole and its fifteen­-billion-year expansion, we happen to find ourselves at the very center.

Hubble’s discovery is not a contradiction of what Coperni cus learned; Hubble’s discovery is instead the completion of the cosmological exploration that Copernicus started. Copernicus initiated an investigation that removed the earth from the center of the universe, then removed the sun from the center, and then removed everything from the center. But after 400 years of empirical inquiry, a great reversal has taken place, one that shows us the center in a universe vastly huger than the solar system and nearby stars Copernicus and Galileo were aware of. We do not return to the cozy medieval geocentric world but enter an immense evolutionary cosmos, a cosmos that is centered on its own expansion. In order to fully appreciate this new understanding of the cosmic center, we must now deal with the seeming paradox at the heart of the data.

I’ve presented two discoveries that seem in conflict with each other. First, in terms of the light from the beginning of time, which was first detected by Penzias and Wilson, the birthplace of the universe is fifteen billion light-years away from us. Second, in terms of the expansion of the galaxies, which is Hubble’s discovery, we are at the very center of the universe. We need to consider this strange situation, where we are simultaneously at the center of the cosmic expansion and fifteen billion light-years away from the origin of the cosmic explosion. The paradox is this: how can we be both at the center and fifteen billion light-years away from the center?

We have such difficulties with this discovery because our minds have been shaped and educated in a culture firmly rooted in the Newtonian worldview. Even though we now know Newtonian physics is not adequate for complete understanding of the vast evolutionary universe that was discovered after Newton’s death, we are nevertheless stuck with Newtonian consciousness because it forms the foundation of our major institutions—including our educational systems. The challenge of understanding an Einsteinian universe is a real challenge indeed. We need to reinvent our very minds so that we do not distort the discoveries by holding them in Newtonian categories that are unable to touch the truth we have discovered.

To give a single example that bears on our discussion of the center: When we hear that the universe began in a great explosion fifteen billion years ago, we picture this as something like a Fourth of July fireworks explosion. First there is just empty space, then there’s this great explosion of colors in all directions. We are forced into picturing the birth of the universe in this way, because Newtonian cosmology regarded the universe as a giant fixed space inside of which things move about and gather together and so forth. The shaping of our minds in childhood already compels us to pic ture the birth of the universe as an explosion taking place in an already existing space.

But this understanding of the universe’s beginning is both false and utterly misleading. The birth of the universe means not only the birth of all the elementary particles of the universe and not only the birth of all the light and energy of the universe, it also means the birth of the space and time of the universe. There is no preexisting Newtonian space into which the universe explodes forth. There is no external Newtonian timepiece clicking away outside the universe. Space and time erupt together with mass and energy in the primordial mystery of the universe’s flaring forth.

The simplest way to see the inadequacy of our mind’s Newtonian assumptions concerning the universe’s beginning is to ask a simple question. When I picture the cosmic birth as some kind of explosion that is taking place off in the distance, away from me, away from where I am observing it, just where am I standing? What provides the platform for my feet? How is it that I can stand outside the universe and watch its birth if I myself, from the beginning, am woven into this birth?

A reeducation of the mind is necessary to make sense of what we have discovered. The central archetypal pattern for understanding the nature of the universe’s birth and development is omnicentricity. The large-scale structure of the universe is qualitatively more complex than either the geocentric picture of medieval cultures or the fixed Newtonian space of modem culture. For we have discovered an omnicentric, evolutionary universe, a developing reality which from the beginning is centered upon itself at each place of its existence. In this universe of ours, to be in existence is to be at the cosmic center of the complexifying whole.

If there are Hubble-like beings in the Hercules Cluster of galaxies seven hundred million light-years away, and such creatures are pondering the universe from that perspective, they will also discover that the galaxies in the universe are moving away from them. They will thus conclude on the basis of this evidence that they are at the center of the universe’s expansion, and they will be correct. Our Newtonian minds might experience discomfort in the task of appropriating this knowledge, but our personal difficulties do not change the nature of this universe. Just as Einstein’s first reaction, when he was given a glimpse of our omnicentric evolutionary cosmos, was to pull back and insist the universe could not be like that, so too in our own struggle we sometimes wish that the universe were not so complex, not so mysterious. But the universe will be what it will be regardless of whether or not we humans accept it as it is.

There is one image in the scientific literature that can give some assistance in the journey into an omnicentric universe. I offer it with some misgivings because the image, however helpful in some ways, is also inadequate in others, as I will point out. My hope is that it can help us take a first step out of the false view of the universe as a fixed space. And perhaps it might help awaken in others more adequate images of the nature of the universe that will become a regular part of our cosmological education in the future.

Imagine you are inside a loaf of raisin bread as it is being baked. The crucial point is to begin your imaginal work from within the process rather than outside of it. So we have to forget the nagging Newtonian questions concerning the oven, or the loaf’s crust, or any other concern that arises when we attempt to understand the process from outside. We are inside a cosmic process; even our thoughts about this process are simply yet another interesting current of microevents taking place inside the great macroevent of the fifteen-billion-year development.

So in this particular raisin bread image, we need to focus our imaginations on being in the very midst of the baking raisin bread. In particular, imagine yourself on a raisin and just look around. You will see that all the other raisins are moving away from you as the bread bakes, so that in terms of the bread’s expansion you find yourself at the very center. And anyone else on any other raisin throughout the loaf would come to a similar conclusion. Hence we have in this raisin loaf a model for an omnicentric reality.

But there’s more. Suppose you now try to determine whether or not you and your raisin are moving with respect to the bread itself. What you will find of course is that you’re frozen in place, for your raisin sits stationary with respect to the surrounding bread. And when you think about it a bit you realize that the very reason the raisins are moving away from you is because of the expansion of the bread. You and your raisin are not even moving; it’s the space in between the raisins that is growing larger.

And that, precisely, is how we understand the cosmic expansion. Not as the movement of galaxies through an already existing, fixed, Newtonian space. No, it’s much more interesting than that. The cause of the expansion of the universe is the space rushing into existence and flinging the clusters apart from each other. The size of each galaxy cluster stays the same, but the space in between the clusters expands in each instant, which results in an ever larger universe. That is our new understanding of the cosmos as a whole. A wild spirit breathes forth billowing chasms of space that explode the primeval fireball into a great growing immensity, at whose center we find ourselves.

In terms of the large-scale expansion of the universe, we are not moving. We are at the stable and unmoving center of this expansion. To be in the universe is to be at its center.

We are now in a position to show how the seeming paradox of being at the center and fifteen billion light-years from the center is in fact simply a counterintuitive feature of existence within an expanding universe. To see this, imagine we are back near the beginning of time, in fact imagine we are right at the moment when the fireball begins to break apart and release its light in all directions.

Now let’s follow the adventure of a photon, a particle of light, that is released very near to us. If the universe were not expanding, such a particle would fly across the distance separating us in a matter of moments. But since the universe is not just expanding, but is expanding extremely rapidly, the particle of light has to travel a much greater distance as time passes. It’s as if we were waiting at the top of the “down” escalator, and someone on the second step wants to reach us. The escalator begins moving very rapidly downward so that our friend, whose velocity never varies, is at first carried away from us. But as time passes, the escalator begins to slow down so that eventually our friend makes it all the way back up the stairs and joins us at the top.

Just this happened with the photons of light released at the early moments of the universe. Those photons that were traveling in our direction were carried away from us by the rapid expansion of the universe. But as with a ball thrown up toward the sky, whose initial speed upward slows down with every passing second, so too with the expansion of the universe, which began very rapidly but has been slowing down now for fifteen billion years. Those photons that were initially swept away from us kept traveling in our direction and eventually completed the journey to us.

In 1965, astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected photons that had been set in motion fifteen billion years ago, when the universe erupted into existence. These particles had been traveling toward us for fifteen billion years. So we can say that their place of origin now is fifteen billion light-years away from us. On the other hand, if we go back in time, we find that their place of origin back then is very close to where we are now.

Our own place here on Earth in the Virgo Supercluster was also an origin point of some of this primordial light, but we in the twentieth century do not see those particular photons. The matter we are composed of stayed here as the primordial light emanated away from us fifteen billion years ago. If there are intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe, they may be detecting those very photons of light that left from right here and that now arrive in their own distant planetary system with news of our place as the origin of the light from the beginning of time. We exist then at the very origin point of the universe, because every place in the universe is that place where the universe flared forth into existence.

Brian Swimme received his Ph.D. from the department of mathematics at the University of Oregon in 1978 for work in gravitational dynamics. He is the author of The Universe Is a Green Dragon, and coauthor of several books: Manifesto for a Global Civilization,  with Matthew Fox; The Universe Story, with Thomas Berry; and The Journey of the Universe, with Mary Evelyn Tucker. He is presently on the faculty of the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. The material here has been excerpted from his book The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story, published by Orbis Books in 1996; www.orbisbooks.com .

Printed in the  Summer 2017   issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Pateros, Christina, "Despacho: A Q’ero Gift to the Earth" Quest 105:3(Summer 2017) pg. 34-35

The sacred despacho ritual, a central practice of the Q’ero and Quechua peoples of the Andes, is used to honor Pachamama, Mother Earth, in daily ceremony. By creating a mandala-like bundle or offering, they create a gift to Pachamama and to spirit/creator. The gift is also used to transmit intentions of gratitude, using earth elements as the sacred messengers. It has been said that the paco, or priest, is a sacred chef, mixing ingredients from timeless recipes and creating a living prayer bundle, an act of love that honors a connection to all living beings.

Despacho, “dispatch,” in this sense refers both to the ceremony and the sacred bundle being offered. The traditional despacho ceremony begins with the ethereal practice of creating sacred space. By calling in the helping spirits of the earth, the mountains, the elements, the animal archetypes, the sky, the ancestors, at the start and throughout, the paco sets the stage for support in carrying the prayers to spirit/creator.

On the physical plane, the despacho begins with laying a paper as the base or foundation in which the bundle will be wrapped, much like a present. This bundle is most typically offered to fire to release the prayers contained within it. In an adapted version, in which the despacho will be offered to water, the base may consist of a sacred cloth or even a dissolvable substance such as seaweed paper or tortilla, food for the waters and the creatures inhabiting them.

Traditionally, three coca leaves form a triad known as the kintu. The kintu is the central ingredient of the despacho. Leaves are believed to accept prayers unconditionally, so kintus are used as messengers of gratitude, intentions, and prayers. It is common practice for the Andean pacos to wear palm-sized kintu pouches, woven of alpaca yarns in the traditional pattern of the sun, around their necks.

In the simplest form, an offering of gratitude is blown with heart-centered breath into the kintu. That sacred set of leaves may then be carried in the pouch throughout the day and blown into. This humble offering may then be lovingly placed on the earth—under rocks, in water, in sacred stone temples.

Ingredients

Each participant in the despacho is given a kintu to blow prayers, wishes, and intentions into. Traditionally, the kintu is handed to the paco so that she may impart her prayers and blessings to the offering. The paco offers her own prayers through a kintu. Often one specific kintu is given to the despacho to represent any forgotten prayers.

Seeds, from native plants like quinoa and corn, represent planting dreams and wishes. The question is posed: what are you growing? We are asked to be conscious of what is contained in our everyday thoughts, since thoughts become our life’s experiences.

Sal (salt) is often spread across the paper base as a cleansing element. A seashell is typically placed in the center to honor Mamacocha, Mother of the Waters, or the sea. Red wine is poured to the earth as an offering and as a reminder of her life blood, and white wine is poured as an offering to the mountain spirits (apukuna), whose highest peaks are wrapped in snow, dancing with the clouds in the sky.

Gold and silver elements, such as ribbons or metallic fetishes, are also offered, representing the sun (light) and the moon (dark). Beans are included to bring abundance and prosperity, while minerals represent the earth’s food. Fat from around the heart of the llama is included as energy in pure form, helping the despacho to burn. (Butter or coconut oil are excellent Western stand-ins.) Red flowers, traditionally fresh, fragrant carnations, represent the feminine, while white signifies the masculine: woman and man, sacred balance, relationship.

In pure Q’ero tradition, a sacred llama fetus is placed in the arrangement. The fetus, reclaimed from the animal’s natural cycles, represents unborn, unfulfilled, or dormant aspects of the circle of life.

The stars and star beings are depicted, often by anise or star-shaped candies. Cotton or white flower petals speak for the clouds and sky. Rainbow colors, often in the form of sand or hand-woven yarns, visually depict the rainbow bridge between this world and the world of spirit. The animal world is honored sweetly with animal crackers, and sweet Pachamama is honored with cacao or chocolate. The honoring of this world’s measure for opportunity is traditionally layered with bills of paper play money, chocolate coins, or chocolate in the form of a frog (a symbol of abundance). Sweetness of life lives in the candies or simple sugar added to the mix. Paper confetti can be liberally sprinkled both on and around the despacho, celebrating life itself. Confetti blessing is extra sweet when sprinkled on the heads of the participants as well.

Final Blessing

When the despacho is complete, all are invited to infuse the offering with love from their hearts by holding their hands over this earth mandala. Hand bells are rung over the despacho. It is then wrapped in a sacred cloth and tied with string. Very often it is used as a vehicle to cleanse each participant’s aura, as the paco deliberately sweeps across the meridians of the bodies, one by one, before it is released on its journey to spirit.

Turning It Over

One key part of the despacho process lies in the ultimate offering. The sacred chef cues into the energy of the bundle, asking without words if the package will be offered to fire for immediate transmutation; to flowing water, like a river or the sea, for a gentler, slower release; or directly to the earth by being buried, which is the slowest of the vehicles of transmutation. This will often be known at the outset of the ceremony, thus guiding the process.

Three Types

As each paco is unique, so is each despacho itself. Creativity in depiction and assembly reflects the character of the ceremonial guide, as well as the intentions of the offering and the individual personalities of those partaking.

Three types of despachos reflecting these intentions are ayni, aya, and kuti. Ayni despacho honors and supports right relation to Mother Earth, with deep gratitude. Ayni, or “reciprocity,” the keynote of the Andean way of living, is offered in despacho form with joy and celebration of life.

The aya despacho honors the dead. It is a ceremony for the deceased soul, supporting the soul’s journey into the afterlife. But this despacho also celebrates life, specifically the life of the one being honored.  Red, green, blue, purple, gold, and white paper, layered  over a black paper base, creates a rainbow offering and forms a bridge for the soul from this earthly world to the shamanic upper world, where the soul thrives with the stars.

The kuti despacho is created for the removal of obstacles, such as clearing away the effects of sorcery or malign intent. Again, the base is traditionally black, with the intent of clearing, cleansing, restoring, and forgiving. Spices may be added to this bundle for heat. One foot of the participant(s) may be placed on the blessed and folded bundle at the end of the ceremony to deepen the power of the physical and energetic release. Most often, the kuti despacho is burned in a sacred fire ceremony, releasing all attachments cleanly and quickly.

The despacho ceremony is used to honor milestones of life: births and birthdays; marriage unions; holidays; new years, solstices, and equinoxes; new moons and full moons. The earthkeepers of the Andes teach us that any process can be supported with ceremony, which invites the quieting of the mind and the opening of the heart to speak and lead. This is the language of the soul. Thus the practice of the sacred despacho offers the message of gratitude to Pachamama, our mother and our home, and to the unseen worlds, in a way that goes beyond words.  

Christina Pateros

Printed in the  Summer 2017issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Cesano, Juliana, "How Wolves Change Rivers" Quest 105:3(Summer 2017) pg. 26-29 

By Juliana Cesano

In recent years, the excessive use of the Internet, and especially of social media, has become one of the greatest causes of inaction. In this era of scrolling down, which has given the index finger a power it never dreamed of, the amount of time we spend watching videos on food recipes, political statements, fitness routines, outdoor wonders, and so on has replaced much of the time we actually dedicate to these activities.

It is true, however, that the average person now has access to information that in the past would have required years of study and research. Unless we had a degree or a job in a particular field, coming across specific and in-depth information on a given subject was not the norm. Although, of course, this process requires a fair amount of discernment and fact-checking skill, we can safely say that the Internet has become an unparalleled source of knowledge and inspiration for most of humanity, and, at times, enhances the unbroken connection between us that remains beyond all superficial differences. Often we can find great beauty, wake-up calls, and profound values portrayed in these posts. And because we attract a certain type of thought that corresponds to our own state of being, the more we choose to read or watch illuminating, uplifting, or encouraging messages, the more they flood our way.

Among these inspiring messages, I recently came across an article and video about the fine complexity of our ecosystem. It showed how each species has an indispensable role in maintaining the balance and perfection of our planet. Although it is not news that nature’s intelligence surpasses human understanding, nevertheless the headline of the video struck me: “The Amazing Ways Wolves Change Rivers.” At first sight it seemed unreal. How could wolves change rivers? But it has happened.

In 1995, after about a seventy-year absence, gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park. Originally, when the park was established, wolves were rapidly killed off, because people feared their presence. Then, since there were no creatures left to hunt them, the number of elk increased disproportionately, considerably reducing the vegetation that was available to other life forms. As soon as the wolves reappeared, they began to have the most remarkable effect. They not only killed the elk, but radically changed their behavior. The elk started avoiding certain parts of the park, and immediately those places started to regenerate. As a first and most visible consequence, the size of the trees quintupled in six years. Because of this, and because of new flora growing around the tree, the birds started moving in, the number of beavers increased, and the dams they built in the rivers provided habitat for species like otters and muskrats. The wolves killed coyotes, and as a result the number of rabbits and mice began to rise, which brought more hawks and more weasels, foxes, badgers, ravens, and bald eagles. The bear population began to rise as well, and cougars came back to the area. As a less obvious consequence, soil erosion was reduced. The river channels became narrower, more pools formed, and the banks stabilized. This rebalanced biodiversity transformed the ecosystem all the way down to the river beds. In short, the wolves changed the behavior of the rivers.

The sociopolitical state of the world resembles an ecosystem that has never found balance. In each era, and for apparently different reasons, certain groups have discriminated against others, oppressed and abused the most vulnerable, or killed the ones that threatened the strongest belief system of the time. Up to this point our differences have not been our strength, and in fact have posed the greatest challenge we have faced. In 2017, as this article is being written, the number of refugees in the world has reached the highest level ever recorded. According to figures published by the United Nations, 65 million people worldwide have been forced to flee their homes—individuals whose lives will never be the same, even if they manage to adjust and survive.

Here at home we have our own scary numbers. Today in the U.S., for example, there are over 450,000 children in the foster care system. These are children who are, in many cases, being neglected or abused and who may not be fortunate enough to know what trust, safety, encouragement, or love mean.

In this scenario, a few of the most immediate questions for all of us may be: Do we truly understand the kind of society we are creating? How much longer will it take until we see that the extremely harmful causes we are sowing will be inevitably reaped as more suffering? And—probably the most important one—what is our role in this mess?

There comes a time in a person’s life when the suffering of others cannot be ignored any longer. For a while we somehow manage to look the other way, living almost oblivious to this thought, pretending that every other person’s life circumstances are as favorable as ours. Yet we hear a dim voice in the back of the mind at the oddest moments, whispering that there is something seriously wrong happening around us. We knew it was there all this time, but we told ourselves there was nothing we could do to help, perhaps feeling powerless because of the magnitude of the task. But one day the voice becomes the only sound we can hear. There is an inner wakeup call that cannot and should not be silenced.

In her book Dharma, Annie Besant describes a living law that interlaces an individual’s level of development with the necessary conditions for the next step. This is dharma: “the inner nature of a thing at any given stage of its evolution, and the law of the next stage of its unfolding.” She explains that it is our own inner nature that molds the conditions of the outer life. The situation in which we are born and the experiences of that particular lifetime are in accordance, not only with our level of awakening, but also with the potential growth that we are capable of at that time. Of course, this process sounds much more glamorous in theory than it appears in our own lives, with our blind stumbling into obstacles until we finally gain a few glimpses of who we are and what we are doing here. It is not an easy task to know ourselves, let alone to know what we are meant to do. Nevertheless, the existence  of this dynamic law assures us that no matter the circumstances, there is always potential for more.

Besant’s definition of dharma raises a few issues that are worth looking at. In the first place, duty (as dharma is sometimes translated) is nothing but the use and exploration of something that is already ours. No matter how clueless we may feel about our role in the great scheme of things, it is quite possible that we are already fulfilling it. This does not mean that the search ends here. Rather it means that we can trust the process and that the more we wake up, the more our duty evolves. So our responsibility lies in finding greater clarity, in removing the veils that prevent us from seeing things as they truly are. Then nature follows.

In the second place, it is absurd to try to live someone else’s dharma. It is true that some roles within society appear more important than others. Some tasks within any given organization may be more visible or respected than others. But as we learned from the story of the wolves, each part is needed for the other ones to exist.

Moreover, it seems to be detrimental to our own development to try to perform a task that is unsuited for our particular nature. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna emphasizes that it is better to live our own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. There are often signs along the road that hint to us which direction to go in. We may not be expert at reading those signs, and often people around us can see them before we do, but sooner or later, we get the message. Of course, the signs that point out which way not to turn tend to speak a bit louder, and the clearest ones are those that feel like having a door slammed in our face.

A third fact, perhaps the one that stands out the most, is the beauty and the order underneath the apparent chaos; the perfection of life’s intelligence, providing the necessary opportunities for this moment’s unfoldment—whatever that means for each of us; and the reassurance that we all possess the power to take the next step.

From a certain perspective, it may seem that this scenario is a bit too rigid, that there is little flexibility in the possibilities that lie before us. But Besant makes sure we understand that the sky is the limit, as long as we uphold certain important virtues and keep a perspective that includes more than just this lifetime. She says, “I do not wish to lower by one tiniest fraction your own ideal; you cannot aim too high. The fact that you can conceive it makes it yours . . .  Aim at the loftiest you are able to think and to love. But in aiming, consider the means as well as the end, your powers as well as your aspirations. Make your aspirations high. They are the germs of powers in your next life. Through ever keeping the ideal high you will grow towards it, and what you long for today you shall be in the days to come. But have the tolerance of knowledge and the patience which is divine.” With an ever-expanding aspiration to serve, we carve out our own future opportunities for doing so. We plant the seeds of altruistic effort, sometimes in the physical plane, sometimes in the mental, but none of them are ever wasted or lost.

There is no way of measuring how far we could progress in each lifetime, but we all know that we still have to confront our own unfavorable tendencies. If nothing else, we can at least try to eradicate them, to the best of our understanding, so that one by one, the obstacles that stand in the way of clear seeing can begin to vanish. Within this context we can ask, what if I could become the best version of myself at this very moment? Can I renounce, right here, right now, the limitations I already recognize, the tendencies that work to the detriment of being who I really am at this point in time? What would that take? In other words, how can this personality provide the best conditions in the present for the inner flower to bloom? From a certain point of view, we already are the best versions of ourselves that we can be, but this version has the potential to move forward every moment. It is a dynamic condition that provides new opportunities as we move along the way, when and if we do.

The answers to these questions are personal in nature. I believe that a combination of will, mindfulness, and the constant remembrance of God, of Brahman, within the heart can begin to dissolve the personal walls that prevent us from experiencing Oneness: Will, as a propelling inner fire for following a daily practice and a faithful companion as we make that practice a priority; mindfulness, as the linking thread that connects us more deeply with each moment as it is, without additional commentary; the possibility of listening to unspoken words and developing the capacity to see the impermanent as nothing but a passing cloud in the inner sky; and finally, a constant remembrance of the eternal flame, one and indivisible, untouched by any experience, as the sustaining power and guiding force of all action. We have the opportunity each day to become lighter, more spacious, and more curious.

Among the many profound truths that Buddhism has brought to the world is its compassionate view of suffering as the experience of humanity as a whole. There is no such thing as your suffering separated from mine. The moment I lift a tiny bit of your burden, I am lifting mine, and the world’s. As one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s poems beautifully expresses it, “You cultivate the flower in yourself so that I will be beautiful.” Paradoxically, our daily practice becomes lighter and more joyous when it is driven by the desire to alleviate every creature’s suffering. 

With all this in mind, let us return now to the problem of the world ecosystem, particularly the oppressive current circumstances that are calling us to action. As has been suggested above, action will be necessarily different for each of us, because of our uniqueness. As Besant pointed out,  what we do is in accordance with “the loftiest we are able to think and to love.”

Certainly what we choose to do as individuals does not need general consensus. But what about our collective efforts, when there are so many fronts that need urgent attention?  

Looking into the Three Objects of the Theosophical Society, and also into old letters, articles, and speeches of the early Theosophists, we members of the organization strive to understand the Society’s role. A great loyalty to the original spirit of the Society has taken us to endless revision of its purpose—the blessing and the curse that has accompanied us from its foundation. All that has been written only offers guidelines subject to interpretation, and each of them can be put into practice in various different ways. Because of this, the Society varies greatly from lodge to lodge, and from country to country. It seems as if the collective dharma of each place has been the guiding force in responding to the inner nature of that place. In a less favorable light, we can also say that the Society in each place is made up of accumulated  layers of conditioning. It is quite easy to fall into patterns and perpetuate the ways things have been done for decades.

If we examine the lives of the pioneers of the Theosophical movement, one thing stands out without exception: their courageous commitment to bring light and change to the social injustices of their time, with only a blurry line dividing their personal actions from the Society’s efforts.   

So, as an organization, how can we further aid this suffering world? Our purpose remains relevant and necessary, but aren’t we falling short? There is so much work that is still undone simply in accomplishing our First Object, “to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity.” We may continue to be a quieter influence in the inner planes, hopefully brightening and uplifting the collective mind, but I could see the Society being so much more visibly involved in promoting awareness and long-lasting change.

I do not claim to know the answers, but I trust that if we make the sincere effort, to the best of our ability, without conditions or expectations, to lessen the suffering of our neighbor, the powers of good awaiting to find vehicles of expression will not wait a second.  Every next step is ready when we are ready. As H.P. Blavatsky writes in The Secret Doctrine: “The Universe is worked and guided from within outwards.  As above so it is below, as in heaven so on earth; and man—the microcosm and miniature copy of the macrocosm—is the living witness to this Universal Law and to the mode of its action.”

We can never know how far right intention and action can take us. During World War II, there was an Englishman whose unusual mind played a pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages sent by Hitler to the German forces. His name was Alan Turing, and it has been said that his cryptographic discoveries shortened the war by two to four years and saved an estimated 14–21 million lives. Among his quotes, there is one that brings hope even to the smallest of us: “Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.” Sometimes, like the wolf, they can even change rivers. 

Juliana Cesano is a second-generation Theosophist and has been actively involved with the Society’s work for over twenty years. She is a certified yoga teacher as well as the manager of the Quest Book Shop in Wheaton.

Printed in the  Spring 2017issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Smoley, Richard, "Natalie Sudman: Prophet of Another Reality" Quest 105:3(Summer 2017) pg. 14-19

By Richard Smoley 

What is a prophet? If you ask most people, they will probably say that a prophet is someone who can predict the future.

This definition isn’t particularly accurate. Many prophets—including those in the Bible—give more attention to addressing the present than to predicting the future. This is just as well, because their predictions for the future have usually not come true.

It may be better to define a prophet as someone who is in touch with transcendent realities and expresses this knowledge to the needs of his or her times. That is, a prophet tells the community what God or the gods believe it needs to hear now.

If we start with this definition, we would see that the prophets of our time are not necessarily those who tell us what is coming in the future, but are reminding us that transcendent realities—the very ones that our civilization works hardest to deny and block—are real and present and have a genuine connection with our lives.

Among these figures I would put Eben Alexander, the American neurosurgeon whose near-death experience (NDE) in 2008 shook his view of reality, inspiring his best-selling book Proof of Heaven. Possibly the chief message he was intended to carry back was the simple fact that the material existence to which we cling so desperately is not the only or even the most important plane of reality—even for us.

Another such prophet is Natalie Sudman. She came upon her calling in an unusual way. Born in Montana, she was raised in Minnesota. She trained as an artist, receiving a master of fine arts degree in 1989, and for sixteen years worked as an archaeologist in the western U.S. In 2006 she went to Iraq, serving as a project engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The stint in Iraq brought about a major break in her life. On November 24, 2007, she was riding in an armored Land Cruiser to visit some water treatment projects when her vehicle was hit by an IED—the military acronym for an “improvised explosive device,” or, plainly, a roadside bomb.

“All I heard was a ‘pop,’—the sound of a champagne cork from one hundred meters—the Microsoft sound of opening a new window—a finger snap from across the office,” she writes in her book Application of Impossible Things.

“I vividly remember taking a long, deep breath—more of a sigh that echoed an internal sigh . . . I was tired inside, exhausted from long days spent trying to train a new project manager while catching up with a demanding workload after an insufficient two weeks of leave. I didn’t want something hard, something that required effort. I wanted to rest.

“Tough luck.

“Get on with it, I told myself.

“Then I opened my eyes.”

Sudman was no longer able to see from her right eye. Both of her hands were covered in blood. Her injuries included broken teeth, “some of which took a quick exit through my face,” a heel broken by shrapnel, a hole in her skull exposing her frontal sinus, a skull fracture, and shrapnel in both eyes and in her sinus. Her situation was critical.

None of this, however, is the most important part of her story. The most important part took place after the explosion, just before she opened her eyes.

She found herself delivering a lecture.

“In this new environment,” she writes, “I stood on an oval dais looking rather intrepid in my bloody and torn fatigues, slouching a bit, dirty and darkly tan, addressing thousands of white-robed beings.”

Sudman intuitively knew that these were not the actual forms of these beings. They were “non-physical in essence, taking on form as if they intended to do that for a particular purpose.”

Curiously, she adds, “most of these thousands were familiar to me, and all were my equal regardless of their admiration for my latest silly feat on earth. (How intrepid is it, really, to choose to get blown up?)”

And indeed these transcendent beings seemed to be fascinated by Sudman’s account of what it was like to get blown up. She did not deliver a lecture as we understand it. Instead, she writes:

I presented what seems from my current physical body/conscious mind perception to be a transfer of information in the form of an inexplicably complex matrix. The information was minutely detailed and broadly conceptual—at once layered and infinitely dense. It included events, thoughts, incidents, individuals, and groups in all their relationship complexities: stories, concepts, judgments, connections, nuances, layers, judgments, and projections . . . Rather than being a classic life-flashing-before-the-eyes scene, this download was a collection that emphasized what might be very broadly understood as cultural and political information. I was aware that I deliberately offered the condensed data in fulfillment of a request that had been made by this Gathering of personalities prior to my taking on this body for this physical lifetime.

In essence, Sudman was uploading information about her experience to this “Gathering.” In order to genuinely understand this experience, a being from outside this dimension would have to have an enormous amount of background knowledge. What is a Land Cruiser? What is a war? What, for that matter, is getting blown up? Sudman appears to have conveyed the sum total of this knowledge to these beings immediately and directly—very much unlike the way we communicate on planet earth.

Sudman’s account brings to mind the language of angels as described by the eighteenth-century Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg. In his book Heaven and Hell, he writes: “The language of angels . . . is so full of wisdom that they can in a single word express what we cannot say in a thousand words; and the concepts of their thinking can encompass things the like of which we cannot grasp . . . Because angels’ language flows directly from their affection, . . . angels can express in a minute more than we can say in half an hour, and can present in a few words things that would make many pages of writing.”

Swedenborg, writing around 1758, could hardly have thought of downloading, but one suspects that he might have used this analogy had he known of it.

Sudman’s description also resembles Eben Alexander’s in his NDE. When Alexander was in an altered dimension, his questions were answered, he says, “in an explosion of light, color, love, and beauty that blew through me like a crashing wave . . . These bursts . . . didn’t simply silence my questions by overwhelming them. They answered them, but in a way that bypassed language. Thoughts entered me directly . . . As I received them I was able to instantly and effortlessly understand concepts that would have taken me years to fully grasp in my earthly life.”

The chief difference between Sudman’s account and Alexander’s is that Sudman was doing the communicating, while Alexander was being communicated to.
All in all, Sudman estimates that this transcendental status update took place in five seconds of earthly time. For this reason, she calls this alternate reality the Blink Environment.

It is a far richer and more multifarious realm than the one we know. Responding to some questions of mine in September 2016, she wrote:

This is an environment, a “place,” as we might perceive it, where beings can have form if they choose to experience it that way. If one chooses to have form here, it’s a malleable form, easily changed or dropped. It’s a place, or a frequency, that has some access to the physical world but is not overlapping, and has some interest in the physical world but is not interfering. My sense is that it’s a place that beings use, but is not a place any being dwells for any length of time—not in the way we think of as having a long experience within. Time/space is experienced differently there, and my sense is that it accesses or sits within some sort of frequency band that experiences time/space in a much more comprehensive and multidimensional way. All relationships within this environment are friendly, supportive, egalitarian, and respectful. Communication is instantaneous. It’s not telepathy so much as just instant sharing; information is made available and absorbed.

One significant detail in Sudman’s story is that she gave her account to those beings in response “to a request that had been made by this Gathering of personalities prior to my taking on this body for this physical lifetime.” Could she have made some prelife choice to be blown up in this way and report back to her colleagues about it?

Possibly. Sudman says that all events in our lives, no matter how they seem or feel at the time, are the result of predetermined choices we have made. There are, in a sense, two selves: “the whole self mind” and the “human mind.” The “whole self mind” is aware of the totality of a being’s experience, and in fact has chosen and created it, even though the “human mind” may have no recollection of having done so. “In fact, we are the creative force in our lives, through our human minds and as infinite beings having an experience through these bodies and minds.”

To put it plainly, your whole self creates your reality: your limited, human self may be, probably is, only aware of some part of this reality.

This view is certainly more sophisticated than the simple belief that you create your reality. If you create your own reality, how did you do it? Did your bad thoughts bring about that auto accident? Did your hostile feelings toward that person cause him to get sick? You don’t need to follow these lines of thought very far to realize that they are quick and easy paths to madness. Sudman writes: “Believing or knowing that we create through thought can be empowering, but it can also be infuriating and frightening because if we create with our beliefs, then we have to acknowledge that we created THIS or THAT in our lives . . . ‘I did NOT create that!’ (I hear you!) . . . and it may be true. You in your human mind awareness did not necessarily create this or that. You as a whole being, however, had to have either created it or agreed to it” (ellipses here are Sudman’s; they do not indicate omissions. All emphasis in quotes is also Sudman’s).

Thus she believes that the choices she made for this life included the opportunity to be blown up by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

I am reminded of the myth of Er in the last book of Plato’s Republic, which itself is an account of an NDE. Er, a soldier, is slain, or nearly slain, on a battlefield. Journeying through the land of the dead, he comes to the point where the souls choose to take on their next lives, in which “there was every kind of mixture and combination.” They draw lots to find the order in which they will be allowed to choose their lives. “The drawer of the first lot at once sprang to seize the greatest tyranny, and . . . in his folly and greed . . . failed to observe that it involved the fate of eating his own children.” The soul of Odysseus, the shrewdest of men, draws the lowest lot and has the last choice. He chooses the life of an ordinary citizen who minds his own business, and says that he would have done the same if he had drawn the first lot.

In Plato’s account, as in Sudman’s, the soul chooses its whole life and the baggage that comes with it, good and bad. But Plato does not explain why this should be the case. Sudman gives this explanation:

From expanded awareness every action is understood to express creativity, have meaning, and influence the balance and order of the whole of All That Is. From my experiences in expanded awareness, it appears to me that no being is considered evil or bad. Actions of a being may be understood to be disruptive, inharmonious, or detrimental to the creative flow within any one reality, but the creativity of an action could be understood as valid—perhaps even necessary or useful—regardless of the overall disruption.

Thus all life choices, good and evil, from the perspective of the whole self, have an integral place within the whole.

Such an attitude detaches one from conventional moral judgments: “Instead of thinking, Whoa, that person is seriously f*ed up! I could think, Whoa! That experience took guts, or That one gets high points for drama, or Huh—very subtle, or Shit—they’re really piling it on, or Hmm—they’re like a microcosm of the macrocosm of what’s going on in the world, or   I wonder what I’m/they’re doing with this? I wonder how it fits into the cooperative whole of creation?”

This perspective has something to be said for it. The present-day world gives us endless opportunities to become upset or angry or exasperated—attitudes which do absolutely no good whatsoever, as humanity should have learned long ago. Viewing them with greater detachment may not always prevent evil, but it very likely will keep one from compounding it.

Sudman’s view resonates with what I believe to be the inner meaning of the myth of the Fall in Genesis. The primordial man and woman eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil: that is, they wish to know what good and evil are like. As a result they are cast into a realm where it hurts to have babies and you have to work hard for a living: “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children . . . in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Genesis 4:16, 19). That is this realm—earthly life. You will notice that nothing is said about hell.
               
Similarly, in Sudman’s view, the human task, or desire, is to experience the total range of possibilities, good and evil—not only in other realms, but in this one. And in fact this is the only plausible explanation for the whole course of history: that the human race has collectively chosen to explore all possible combinations and all possible outcomes at this level of reality—however delightful or excruciating. To put the matter another way, if you can think of it, and it is physically feasible in this dimension (and sometimes even if it isn’t), someone will have tried it.

The admiration that the Gathering express for Sudman casts further light on this issue. They admire her because it takes a certain specialized skill to function on this, the physical level of reality: not all beings can do it. She observes, “That it isn’t exactly easy from an energy standpoint seems to me, conversely and paradoxically, one reason why it can be difficult to remember who we are as Whole Selves while we’re in the physical. But the point is this: all of us are sharing a unique experience that takes real and amazing skill. We have absolutely no idea how amazing and totally cool we are, really, each of us, and how totally amazing and cool it is that we can maintain a physical body and comprehend experience from within time and space as we do.”

Nevertheless, this “unique experience” is clearly not pleasant at all points. This leads to another feature that Sudman’s experience shares with many other NDEs: the decision about whether to go back at all. Most people who pass through the gates of death are, at some point, given the choice of whether to stay in these heavenlike realms or return to a hard existence on planet earth. Of course we only hear from the ones who came back.

Sudman was given such a choice. The Gathering “requested that I return to my physical body to accomplish some further work. I was given to understand that my particular skills were needed at this time and would be effective only were I actually present in a body within the earth vibration.”

She goes on to say, “I’m entirely my own authority. I’m free to leave or stay. I’m free to alter agreements, negate them, or enter into new ones.” That much said, she adds, “to be honest, I don’t feel any attachment to the people, the landscapes, or the situations left behind . . . I’m not particularly interested in returning to the physical at all.” In light of all this, “that I could be so easily enticed to return to the physical when I was so exhausted is amusing to me now.”

Sudman declines to comment about what skills the Gathering believed that she needed to bring to the physical plane. “I consider them unique and interesting to me because they’re mine, but I don’t want a description of some of them to be interpreted as grandiose or ‘special’.”

Although she agreed to return to earth, “given my level of exhaustion and disinterest in the difficulties of this particular physical life to date, I requested that certain assistance be provided within that continued physical existence.” She was transported to a “deep place . . . where I could recuperate and restore my energies. Other beings assisted with this, doing most of the work while I entered a sort of spiritual deep resting state. From the physical perspective, this state lasted an equivalent of centuries within less than a moment . . . Some energy beings and I worked together, quickly repairing the body . . . The injuries weren’t entirely healed, as some were to be of use in situating me for tasks I had agreed to perform or things that I wanted to experience as a whole infinite Self.”

And then she returned to the reality of her bleeding body and the blown-up vehicle. Even after the healing performed on her in the other realm, her injuries required a long convalescence to heal.

Today Sudman lives in southern Arizona, where she has returned to her artistic vocation. Her oil paintings, which are featured in this issue, are abstract images reminiscent of the works of Paul Klee, in muted colors that evoke the desert in late and early hours. Her ceramic works, also in earth colors, have a feel of the Neolithic about them. Sudman also does psychic consultations by phone.

When asked how her perspective has changed since her experience in 2008, she replies, somewhat surprisingly, “I don’t know that it has changed. The NDE wasn’t a revolutionary experience for me. I think it was more evolutionary. It didn’t drastically change anything I thought or knew, it only maybe gave me a little more information in some places. Like any experience, it had some effect but it didn’t turn my world upside down, and the ways that it affected my worldview are probably not things I could tease out of the tapestry.”

When I ask her what message she feels she has to bring for humanity, she replies, “I have no idea, really. It’s too big an assignment for little me! All of humanity . . . yikes!” But she goes on: “Learn that affinity for yourself, good, bad, and ugly. Be your own best friend, loving all of it. Because from that, everything else follows: loving others, peace, all the good things.”

While this is good advice, I can’t help returning to the point at which I began this article. The principal message of Sudman, and of contemporary prophets like her, may simply be that these alternate realms, however strange they may sound and however much their realities seem to contradict our ordinary conceptions, do exist. Not only do they exist, but they are intimately interwoven with our reality, and shape it in ways that we do not see and probably cannot understand. This may be the thing we most need to hear today.

Sources

Alexander, Eben. Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012.
Plato. Collected Dialogues. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. 2d ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton/Bollingen, 1963.
Sudman, Natalie. Application of Impossible Things: My Near Death Experience in Iraq. Huntsville, Ark.: Ozark Mountain Publishing, 2012.
———. Personal communication with Richard Smoley, September 2016.
Swedenborg, Emanuel. Heaven and Hell. Translated by George F. Dole. West Chester, Pa.: Swedenborg Foundation, 2000.

Richard Smoley’s latest book, How God Became God: What Scholars Are Really Saying about God and the Bible, was published in June 2016 by Tarcher Perigee. A version of this article originally appeared in New Dawn magazine: newdawnmagazine.com.