Pause. Just pause. Nothing else. And notice your experience. Notice what is there. In this moment. There will probably be various perceptions — sights, sounds, smells. Bodily sensations of one kind or another. Perhaps some feelings or a general mood. And most likely, along with these, some thoughts. Maybe some strong ones dominating your attention. […]
Continue readingStephen Hawking
We always knew when Stephen was coming to dinner. It was 1966, my first year studying mathematics at Cambridge, and I happened to be in the same college as Stephen – Gonville and Caius, College. One of the prescribed parts of college life was dining together. We all sat on long tables in the Great […]
Continue readingMy First Computer
I built my first computer when I was sixteen, in my dad’s garage — and literally out of bits of wire. As a budding mathematician in the early 1960s I was fascinated with the new field of computing and the basic processes behind their operation. Deep down most of what a computer does is add […]
Continue readingGet Real Ray
A Critique of Ray Kurzweil’s Predictions Ray Kurzweil recently announced his year-by-year predictions of the future. Here are just a few samples (full list here): 2020 – Personal computers reach a computing power comparable to the human brain. 2025 – The emergence of mass-market human implants. 2031 – 3D printed human organs used in hospitals […]
Continue readingSat Chit Ananda
Sat-chit-ananda is a common theme in many Indian teachings, and is usually translated as truth-consciousness-bliss, or something along similar lines. It is often interpreted as some experience or state of consciousness to be attained. And a lot of spiritual literature reinforces this, leading people to look for, or hope for, some exceptional new experience. But […]
Continue readingOur Blind Spot on the Future
We can all see how the pace of life is speeding up. Technological breakthroughs spread through society in years rather than centuries. Calculations that would have taken decades are now made in minutes. Communication that used to take months happens in seconds. And we feel it in our own lives. Remember when you used to […]
Continue readingSynchronicity and the ‘Support of Nature’
Back in the sixties I spent time studying Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at his ashram in Rishikesh, India. When he was assessing how we were each progressing in our practice, he was often not so interested in our experiences within meditation itself—whether we were noticing subtle levels of thinking, discovering the true self, […]
Continue readingLoss and Revival of the Timeless Wisdom
The following is from the Preface I wrote for the new edition of Rupert Spira’s book, The Transparency of Things We live in unprecedented times. Science is answering age-old questions about the nature of reality, the birth of the cosmos, and the origins of life. We are witnessing technological advances that a century ago would […]
Continue readingConsciousness does not identify with anything
I sometimes hear people claim that pure consciousness identifies itself with the ego, with thinking, or with the body. What they are effectively saying is that the pure Self, i.e. that which is conscious of all experiences, believes it is a separate self, a thinker, a chooser, and doer of actions. But the pure Self, […]
Continue readingThere is no such thing as self
Let me be clear, the emphasis is on “thing”. We all experience a sense of personal self, a “me” that is reading these words, an individual with its own thoughts and opinions, likes and dislikes. And we also know a sense of I-ness that is always present, that which knows this experience right now, and […]
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