Many people have experienced or will
experience mystic coincidences or synchronicities without being aware
of them because such phenomena are not on their maps.
Some people believe that you will
experience more mystic encounters and synchronicities when your
meditation practice deepens, and you begin to find more harmony in
life. I don’t think so. I believe such events are more likely to
appear when you have lost footing, after a divorce, for example, or
if someone near you dies. They can come about when you feel balanced,
but they will not be that powerful. Well-balanced and satisfied
people rarely experience strange paranormal phenomena. They
usually don’t even understand what you are talking about if you
bring up this subject.
Mystical experiences and
synchronicities are like dreams. It’s as if the unconscious mind
tries to tell us something, but we can’t figure out what.
It’s often difficult to tell others
about a mystical encounter. If you do, you or someone else may get in
trouble; you or someone else will come off as a fool. Mystical
encounters are often set up in this way. We can talk about small
everyday chance encounters, but we can’t talk about the interesting
and important ones, at least not in full detail. Many of my “best”
stories about mystical encounters can never be told without causing
trouble, so I suppose I have to take them with me to the grave. These
experiences belong to a secret dimension of life, an esoteric
dimension.
If someone tells you a story about a
strange synchronicity they have experienced, it may be a true story,
but it may also be just fiction. Or, there may be some truth in it,
but it has been changed here and there to make it more presentable.
Many important details are often left out. (My Santorini story is
censored in this way.)
The internet and the New Age bookstores
are teeming with information about mystical experiences and
paranormal phenomena. Much of this information is just nonsense,
spiritual gobbledygook – but some of it is not.
It’s not healthy, I think, to become
too interested in mysticism, synchronicities, and paranormal
things. The ordinary everyday world is much more important; it
is here where you have to find your way. You will go nuts if you look
for synchronicities and meaningful encounters everywhere. (Why
is she calling now? Is there a secret meaning behind this
ordinary invitation? Or whatever turns up.) You can get lost in
brooding and speculations about how the world works and forget how to
make a living.
If I had not caught that terrible flu,
I would have left Crete much earlier; in that case, I would not have
met Doreen. If I had not been so desperate and unhappy, I would
probably not even have gone to Crete. Well, in that case, I would not
be sitting here writing this.
Mystical meetings and synchronicities
raise thorny philosophical, psychological, and scientific
questions. Can confusion and desperation, sometimes and in some way,
be meaningful? Is it something deep inside us that tries to prompt us
to wake up from delusions? What is free will? I didn’t decide to go
to Santorini to meet up with Doreen. Who made the decision? It’s
impossible to find answers to such questions. It’s like speculating
if there are many more universes out there somewhere. We will never
get to know about this.
Mystical experiences and
synchronicities exist in this world. They are not just fantasies.
They can slightly change your worldview a bit, but there are many
other subjects to study in the school of life that are more
important, such as how to treat children, fellow human beings,
and other animals. It is also essential to find out how to make a
living decently and how to celebrate and have fun at times.
Synchronicities and mystical encounters
can be hints or eye-openers. They can make you question yourself and
your core beliefs. They can also work as reminders when you forget
how little we understand about this world.
How do you explain the emergence of
meaning in biological evolution? What does it consist of? How
come all the other animals are doing so well without meaning to life?
At this moment, tons of radio waves
flow through you, signals you cannot perceive: radio and TV
broadcasts, telephone calls, and internet searches. The ether is also
filled with telepathic messages you cannot perceive because they are
not directed at you. You may not even notice them even if they are
directed at you because you are insensitive and believe such signals
don’t exist. These messages don’t consist of radio waves.
Many people have experienced
synchronicities and telepathic phenomena; many are fascinated by
these peculiar signals, but what do they consist of? Why are they so
ambiguous? Why are they so difficult to interpret? Are they messages
from some entity that directs our steps and makes decisions for us?
Are they products of an overheated mind? Are they simply
reminders that there is more to the world than meets the eye?
Life is much stranger than you can wrap
your head around. What is happening up here, at the surface level, in
your everyday consciousness, in your rickety little boat, is not the
whole story. Life is not just about money, social status, and sex. It
is not about which religion or political system is the best,
middle-class or working-class mindsets, or food and music
preferences. The everyday consciousness is only a part of a
human being.
Humankind has acquired a lot of
knowledge; science has made fabulous progress in the last 400 years.
However, most of what there is to know is still unknown. For
example, are there tons of universes out there, or is this one
the only one? How did life come to be? What is matter really? What do
the electrons and quarks consist of? What is dark matter and dark
energy? What does a thought consist of? What does consciousness
consist of? There are endless amounts of questions that we have no answers to.
So, we have the part of the world that
we know of and the gigantic part that we don’t know anything about.
The unknown part of the world is a
mystery to us, and we can’t do anything but speculate about it.
Here, we are all on equal footing: scientists and spiritual teachers,
philosophers, and laypeople.
We don’t know if life and suffering
have a purpose, we don’t know if the universe has a purpose, and we
don’t know if a God is hiding somewhere. We don’t know how things
really are.
We are like sailors in a heavy fog and
uncharted waters.
How did life begin here on Earth? What
happened before the Big Bang? Are we alone in the Universe? I think
such questions are not that important, but they can be fun to discuss
with someone after watching a science show on TV. It’s the same
thing with synchronicities and other paranormal phenomena. I think
other questions are more important, for example: Do I lie too much?
Do I deceive myself? Am I a selfish jerk?
Once a worldview has been formed in
your brain, it is as hard to get rid of as it is to quit smoking for
someone addicted to cigarettes. And those who have the strongest
convictions have the most severe withdrawal symptoms.
C.G. Jung invented the word
synchronicity in 1928. He tried hard over decades to explain this
phenomenon but did not succeed. The result was just words, tons of
words. Many have gone down that rabbit hole – and never returned.
You will probably be surprised if you
experience a synchronicity or some telepathic phenomenon. It will
make you wonder about the nature of reality. You may ponder over this
for years. However, nothing much in your everyday life will change.
Your bad habits and endless daily chores will continue. A real
life-changing experience requires something much more potent.
The world has always been horrible:
horrific wars, slavery, poverty, diseases, excruciating pain,
religious oppression, psychopathic emperors, kings, and presidents.
There have also been places where
peace, love, and optimism prevailed, for shorter periods, for a
lucky few, but the overall situation has always been horrible.
Three thousand years ago, people
believed that the earth was flat. Five hundred years ago, people were
terrified of witches; they hunted them down and burned them at the
stake. Nowadays, most people understand that witches don’t exist
and that they have never existed – except in our imagination.
Most people no longer believe in
ghosts, trolls, and witches, at least not here in Europe. Most people
no longer believe that the sun revolves around the earth or that
the world was created 6000 years ago. However, many still believe in
God, evil spirits, and that cancer is a punishment. They think
rich, healthy, and handsome people are God’s favorites. They would
rather die than question their beliefs.
Atheism is, of course, also a
persuasion. Atheists also live in a kind of fantasy world. They have
no proof that there is no God behind it all.
There are so many different fantasy
worlds, so many different gods, and so many different
ideologies. Some people believe they are saved; others believe they
are useless fools. Some think they’re clever; others think they are
spiritually awakened.
I believe it’s possible to leave a
belief system. You don’t have to be a liberal, a Protestant, or a
Sunni Muslim. You don’t have to be anything except what you are: a
human being.
What do you think? Are you also deeply
convinced about things that you will consider misunderstandings
thirty years from now?
Synchronicities appear in many
different ways. One example is when you, for some reason, come to
think of an old classmate you haven’t met since high school thirty
years ago, and then you suddenly bump into him in the afternoon.
Another example is when someone has a
weird dream about a relative and later gets to know that he died in a
car accident that particular night.
I think the Santorini synchronicity was
an exceptional kind of synchronicity, a Yoga connection. Doreen and I
did not know each other before, but we were connected through Isla
Mujeres and Monica. Maybe also in some other mysterious way. But we
were not supposed to get married and have a life together. Perhaps
the purpose of that meeting was to open our eyes to the mystical
dimension of life.
That meeting proved to me that there is
a mystical dimension. I am scientific-minded, but science
dismisses synchronicities as woo-woo.
When Galileo offered the Inquisition
authorities to have a look at the moon through his telescope, they
refused to look. They were not interested; they knew he was wrong
beforehand. Science today is like the 17th-century Catholic
church.
Dogs can hear sounds you can’t hear
and perceive scents that don’t exist in your world. If they had
been able to talk, you would think they were lying or imagining
things.
Looking for the meaning of life among
electrons and protons is hopeless. You won’t find it there.
It’s like looking for gold in the potato field. Nor will you find
it in chromosomes or among nerve cells.
Physicists and biologists have looked
deeply into this, and they see no evidence for meaning or purpose in
nature. So they claim that there is no meaning or purpose in life,
really, because, ultimately, the world is nothing but atoms and
molecules.
However, meaning, purpose, right and
wrong, justice and evil exist among human beings on the human level.
You are not just your atoms and
molecules.
Jung was not a Nazi, but he never
denounced the Nazi ideology loud and clear during the 1930ies. Jung
was a Swiss citizen and did not have to fear the Nazi SA and SS
thugs.
If you write something in the sand, on
a beach, it says something there only if someone reads what you have
written. It’s just sand if no one reads it. Geologists can examine
the sand and explain in detail what it consists of and how it
originated. They don’t care about what you have written. Only the
sand is worth studying for them. They have a materialistic worldview.
I don’t care much about sand. It’s
just sand. I am more interested in what someone has written there and
why.
The brain consists of more than 80
billion neurons, more than 100 trillion synapses, and mysterious
chemicals. So what? I’m more interested in the thoughts that are
formed in it and why.
A Near-Death-Experience is a
Near-Death-Experience. It is not an experience of death.
Resuscitation is not the same as resurrection.
Strange phenomena can occur under
extreme stress; you can get mystical insights. Mystical insights
don’t appear in comfortable everyday life. And you don’t get
mystical insights by reading books or listening to spiritual teachers
on YouTube.
People are not always honest. (I’m
not always honest either.) Some people lie about their meetings with
spirits, angels, or extraterrestrials; others lie about their
telepathic experiences. Many fantastic stories about such things are
circulating among us. Some of them are true, and some of them are
not. (Well, some people genuinely believe that they saw an
extraterrestrial spaceship when what they saw was a fighter jet, a
weather balloon, or a hallucination.)
Some people lie about their religious
faith; others tell fish stories. Trump was posing with the bible in
his hand in front of a church. The photo was published in newspapers
all over the world. Everyone could see how pious he was.
All people lie from time to time, even
scientists, police officers, and priests. We are also lying to
ourselves. We are born into a world of deceit and deception and must
find ways to survive here. ”We have all been thrown into the water
to sink or swim.”
However, some fantastic stories are, in
fact, true; all people are not lying all the time, and sometimes
we are not deluded by our senses. Sometimes we are telling the truth.
It is hard to tell who is right and who
has it wrong. This is why science and the scientific method evolved.
However, scientists deal only with stuff that can be proved or
disproved. I can’t prove that I saw an owl today, and I can’t
disprove that you witnessed a UFO landing in your yard last year.
Scientists take disprovable things off the table, which makes their
job so much easier.
Synchronicities and mystic encounters
are rare events. They don’t show up when you want them to.
Therefore they are not suitable for scientific experiments. Maybe
this is why there are so many charlatans in this field. You can
seldom prove that they are talking bullshit. This is the reason why
people who have experienced strange paranormal phenomena avoid
talking about them with people they don’t trust. They don’t want
to be mixed up with bullshit artists.
What if God is an extraterrestrial
scientist? Maybe he managed to create a living cell in his laboratory
some 3,5 billion years ago. He may have lost control of his creation,
like the boffins of today who lose control of their organisms,
which escape their laboratories and create havoc. However, as they
say, who created God?
Sometimes, you bump into someone, and
you think to yourself: How the hell did this happen? I was thinking
of her just a minute ago. I haven’t seen her for over thirty years,
and now she’s suddenly here. Jung called this phenomenon
synchronicity.
Sometimes, you bump into someone you
have never met before and realize that this meeting is not just about
meeting someone. It is something much more important. You can feel
it. You know it. You may think that this must be your soul mate.
Maybe it is. Or, maybe it is not.
Maybe you are supposed to marry this
person, maybe you aren’t. Perhaps you are soul mates, but you are
not supposed to get married. Still, you are connected in some
mysterious way. What is all this about?
Sometimes, you bump into someone you
don’t want to meet and have tried hard to avoid. And now you meet
him here, of all places. What’s going on? This is ridiculous.
You can also have a synchronistic
meeting with a dangerous person, a psychopath, or a narcissist,
and you get duped. Later, you may wonder what that meeting was about.
Was it arranged in some mysterious way to make you learn something
about yourself?
A random meeting is just an unexpected
meeting, a coincidence. A synchronistic chance meeting is a
mysterious chance meeting. This is not a matter of interpretation.
"Apophenia is the tendency to perceive
meaningful connections between unrelated things. The term was coined
by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in his 1958 publication on the beginning
stages of schizophrenia. He defined it as ”unmotivated seeing of
connections accompanied by a specific feeling of abnormal
meaningfulness.” Wikipedia
According to the invisible ships myth,
when European explorers’ ships approached either North America,
South America, or Australia, the appearance of their large ships was
so foreign to the native people that they could not even see the
vessels in front of them. Wikipedia
Some people can see things that don’t
exist; others can’t see things that do.
Consciousness is called a hard problem
by some philosophers. Others don’t consider consciousness a
hard problem. To them, consciousness is just regular brain activity:
firing neurons, electricity, and neurotransmitters.
To me, everything is a hard problem:
consciousness, electrons, the Big Bang, telepathy and
synchronicities.
You have to find someone who can teach
you about life and how you should live it: a spiritual teacher, a
pastor, a mullah, a life coach, a philosopher, an influencer, a
political leader. Someone must tell you where to go and why.
It feels good to know where to go and
how to get there. It feels good to sit in an audience listening to
someone who knows the way. It feels good to have a leader.
However, if you listen to other
spiritual teachers, they will point in other directions. There are
Gurus and leaders for all directions, full circle.
Is life a kind of school, or is this
idea simply a way of looking at things? Is there a life curriculum?
What happens if we fail an exam?
You don’t have a philosophy of life;
you have at least two: one that you can talk about in front of others
– and one that you currently live by. The philosophy you live by is
perhaps not that nice.
Some meditation teachers teach that you
should just let your thoughts pass by like clouds in the sky. You
should not bother about them, they say. I believe this is wrong.
Well, most thoughts are pretty stupid, but some are very important;
they create our worldviews. They can ruin your life as well as other
people’s lives. It is essential to pay close attention to such
thoughts, I think.
You should question yourself, your
ideas, and your beliefs with the same intensity as you are
questioning other people’s ideas and beliefs.
Some people are Christians, but they
refuse to turn the other cheek, and they prefer to ”store up for
themselves treasures on earth” – in tax havens. Others say that
all humans are equal, but they use an indifferent or condescending
tone when talking to the plain-looking and uneducated. And they are
extremely friendly and accommodating to those who are attractive
and successful.
What if you’re a fool and utterly
unaware of it? Throughout history, people have been duped into
beliefs that later turned out to be utter madness.
From a biological perspective, success
is to have many children who reach adulthood; nothing else matters.
You must have more children than your competitors to be considered a
winner. Darwin’s disciples were deeply concerned that poor
people had more children than the rich and prominent.
Dean Radin has scientifically proved
that telepathy is a real phenomenon, not just a fantasy.
However, there is not much practical
use for telepathy. The importance of telepathy is almost negligible
here in our modern world. Satellite cameras, the internet, and cell phones
are much more useful.
Jews and Palestinians cannot get along,
nor can Sunnis and Shiites, rightists and leftists, evangelicals and
atheists. Our political and religious identities cause so much
misery. They seem so solid and permanent as if they were cast
in bronze, but even this is a misconception. Leftists can become
right-wingers when they get old, Christians can become atheists, and
atheists can become Christians. Fish turned into birds in the
evolution. Nothing is permanent in the long run. ”Everything
flows.”
See for your inner eyes, your brain.
Don’t rush; set aside at least a minute for this exercise. Imagine
its color and texture. Imagine the blood flowing through it. Do you
hear the murmuring? Here are your imaginings and fantasies
created, your explanations and excuses, what you call reality, even
what you call your I, emerges from this mysterious organ, like a
genie from a magic oil lamp.
Life is also an emergent property. It
has emerged from the non-living material world. And the material
world has emerged from the quantum world. And the quantum world has
evolved from?
Neither Plato nor Aristotle had any
objection to slavery. Paul urged the slaves to be obedient to their
masters, and Augustine believed that slavery was a just punishment
for sins. Adam Smith, on the other hand, claimed that wage labor is a
more sensible form of employment. Employees do not try to escape.
They also perform better because they need to get food on the table.
They don’t want to be fired.
Spirituality can be a potent
psychological coping mechanism. This is called spiritual
bypassing. If you can’t accept how the world works, you can invent
a spiritual fantasy world, a castle in the air filled with angels,
gurus, and life coaches.
There are many other helpful defense
mechanisms, for example, rationalization, idealization and
denial. We have to protect ourselves. Defense mechanisms help us to
cope in this terrible world of war, terror, disease, and falsehood.
On July 13, 1942, Reserve Battalion 101
in Lublin executed 1,500 Jewish women, children, and older men.
The battalion leader, Wilhelm Trapp, was a wise man. He offered the
men who did not want to participate in the mission to step aside and
promised not to punish them. He understood that some of them would
not be able to shoot children without making a fool of themselves.
Twelve men out of five hundred accepted the offer. What do you
think was decisive when these twelve men made their decisions? And
what motives did the other 488 men have?
Do you believe that God created the
world? Do you believe that God rules the lives of men? Do you think
five-year-olds get bone cancer because he wants to teach them a
lesson?
Suppose you read something that
irritates you. You might think that it sounds stupid, dull, or
offensive. Maybe it’s the political perspective that angers you.
Can you then say something immaterial has affected your brain and
hormonal glands?
Japanese soldiers were stationed on
isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. They were
under strict orders never to abandon their positions and to
never trust news and propaganda from the enemy. Some held the
positions for more than two decades after the war had ended.
What does it matter if the sun revolves
around the earth or if the earth revolves around the sun when you
have a toothache?
How do you explain that some people
have to experience so much suffering, pain, poverty, and misery while
others live their lives like spoiled upper-class brats at an endless
garden party?
Why is life so unfair? Is it a God that
arranges things this way? Is it evil spirits that are responsible?
Does fate, karma, or biological evolution dictate the rules? Are we
responsible for this horror show? Are we the directors?
Well-off and fortunate experts on life
and living teach the sore losers the importance of positive thinking.
If all the unfortunate suckers only could understand the power of
positive thinking, they could also be wealthy, healthy, and
successful.
Have you ever read a psychologist or
advice columnist who has noticed that war, greed, and exploitation
are ruining life here on Earth? Why do we try so hard to destroy
this planet? We’re in urgent need of help.
Psychology, philosophy, meditation,
religious faith, and spirituality have not been sufficient to change
our violent ways. Not even science and technology have been able to
help us; on the contrary, they have brought us here to the abyss.
None of our political ideologies have worked.
You don’t have to read much history
to understand where we are coming from.
Maybe our world is like a chicken
factory farm. The chickens don’t know what’s happening outside
the factory walls.
Scientists can only deal with what’s
happening here on the inside. When they speculate about what’s
going on outside the walls, they are no longer strictly
scientific; they are like the rest of us. Religious people know
what’s going on out there, but they are not unanimous. There are
thousands of competing religious explanations.
Not so few people have experienced
synchronicities or telepathic phenomena. Does this mean that your
mind is not confined to inside your skull?
Your eyes detect photons, and your ears
detect waves in the air, but what part of you detect telepathic
signals? And what is a telepathic signal? Are we connected somehow,
also without telephones or the Internet?
What if some of your thoughts and
driving forces are not created in your brain? Some speculate that the
brain has a telepathic receiver and transmitter installed.
Some people are the sensitive kind.
According to Elaine Aron is about one-fifth of the population highly
sensitive. People, in general, are more or less insensitive.
Psychopaths are extremely insensitive. About 1 % of us are
psychopaths.
Life is often difficult for Highly
Sensitive People. They suffer among regular folks.
Highly Sensitive People can sometimes
experience paranormal phenomena, like synchronicities,
precognitions, or telepathy. Insensitive people think that sensitive
people are neurotic fools.
Delusions and misunderstandings can
sometimes be helpful guides. When I traveled to the US in 1979, I was
guided by them. I had very confused ideas about what to do with my
life. And when I went to Crete in the fall of 1981, I was even more
bewildered. Where would I be today without those delusions and
coincidences? Well, somewhere else, I suppose.
From what I understand, Jesus was not
just a creation by the New Testament authors. There was also a man of
flesh and blood who was the origin of the legends. He was a Jewish
preacher convinced that God would crush the powers of darkness and
that the fight had already begun.
But the powers of darkness became
annoyed at him and sentenced him to death. Moreover, 300 years later,
they hijacked Christianity, changed it to suit their purposes, and
made it their religion. Since then, war-obsessed emperors, kings, and
presidents have called themselves Christians. The powers of darkness
are very cunning.
No sensible people can call themselves
communists today, after all the horrors that have taken place in the
name of communism, but how come Christians still can call themselves
Christians without being ashamed? Christianity also has an appalling
history: the Crusades, the Inquisition Courts, the Witch hunts,
the oppression of women and children, and their staunch support of
the worldly powers and their endless wars. On Sundays, the
nineteenth-century slave drivers in the American South went to
church and sang hymns: ”Si-i-lent night, Ho-o-ly night.”
During the Enlightenment in the
eighteenth century, slavery and the slave trade began to be
questioned. The new ideas also influenced many Christians. A new
Christian ethic slowly emerged. What is right and wrong is not
carved in stone. But it takes time to change established beliefs. In
the early eighteen-hundreds, when the London Parliament voted if they
should abolish slavery in the British colonies, the Bishops in The
House of Lords voted against the proposal.
In 2006, the Church of England
apologized for the fact that their priests had owned Caribbean slave
plantations. (Yes, even some priests owned slave plantations.)
Who is the deceiver, and who is
deceived when you are deceiving yourself? Later in court, who is the
prosecutor, and who is the defense lawyer? Who is the judge?
If you have a degree in biology, you
can explain how biological evolution works, but you have no idea
how it started. How did life begin here on Earth? Religious
people can not present evidence for their grandiose fantasies, but
nor can you.
A painting consists of many molecules,
but you can’t send it to a chemical laboratory and expect to get it
fully analyzed. The chemists will miss essential aspects of it.
It’s the same thing with you; you are
very different from your chemicals. You are also an animal, subject
to biological laws. But you are not just a crazy ape, and you
are not controlled solely by your genes and upbringing. Your beliefs
are also fundamental to you. The discoveries by Darwin and later
biologists can only partially explain what makes you tick.
Concepts such as ethics, conscience,
meaning, and evil are irrelevant in particle physics in the same way
that quarks and electrons have nothing to do with freedom, equality,
and justice.
Biologists look at the world through a
biological filter, and everything they see gets biological
explanations. Physicists have physicalist filters, and
psychologists have their psychological filters. They are like
religious fundamentalists; their worldviews are hard-wired.
Are we all like religious
fundamentalists? We see what we have learned to see and hear what we
want to hear.
I believe that the brain creates
consciousness and the sense of I am. The brain creates lots of
things. It creates seemingly realistic images of the outside world.
It takes care of your breathing, heartbeats, and wakefulness; it
stores memories and has an autopilot that can drive your car
when you are lost in a daydream.
It creates thoughts, ideas, pain,
anxiety, depression, happiness, and love. Everything is created
in the brain; it even creates itself.
I also believe that the brain
broadcasts and receives synchronicities and telepathic messages.
Without living beings with brains,
there would be no souls in this world, no spirits, no gods, no
planets, and no stars. Without living beings, nothing would be real
and tangible.
The brain is an unbelievably
complicated and sophisticated organ. But how do you explain all
the stupid stuff it cooks up: nasty thoughts, foolish thoughts, and
misapprehensions.
A dream is a dream, a surreal night
show. The interpretation of the dream is an interpretation.
A work of art is a work of art. The
review or interpretation of the artwork is an interpretation or a
review.
A synchronicity is a strange
experience. The explanation of what synchronicity is - is an
explanation.
The thinking part of the brain creates
clever explanations and interpretations based on implicit core
beliefs and assumptions about how the world works.
A belief or an implicit assumption is
like a transitional object. Once upon a time, you were a
three-year-old who refused to let go of your tattered old teddy bear.
Now, it sits in a cardboard box in the attic.
Our worldviews, mindsets, and beliefs
are in a slow but constant flux. After Mythos came Logos 500 B.C.
After the scholastics in the Middle Ages came Galileo. At the end of
the nineteenth century, physicists thought they had everything
figured out; just a few minor details were left to explain. Then came
Einstein and then the quantum physicists. What will come next?
Japanese Zen monks fully supported
their Emperor during the Second World War. Harada Daiun Sogaku said:
”If ordered to march: tramp, tramp, or shoot: bang, bang. This is
the manifestation of the highest Wisdom. The unity of Zen and
war of which I speak extends to the farthest reaches of the holy war
now underway.”
American soldiers practice mindfulness
meditation to improve their performance as snipers, drone
operators and fighter jet pilots.
Wall Street investors have also
discovered the advantages of mindfulness meditation.
Mindfulness meditation will not soften
up your ossified worldview, no matter how pernicious it is.
It is the same thing with
synchronicities and telepathic experiences. At most, such events can
create a crack in the prison wall.