Interview with Derek D. Lyons

Love how encounters always present in a timely fashion. We are constantly attracting into our experience new ways to deepen understanding of ourselves and our place in the world we come to perceive as a changing reality.

Having written many books, I often find myself naturally drawn to engage with writers and publishers. The experience of being a long-time radio co-host with Dr. Steven Hairfield, The American Monk, and endeavours such as breathwork, yoga and meditation, allow awareness of divinity to blossom. It occurs that every moment is an opportunity to deepen connection with ourselves and others. As such, I am grateful that details come together to engage in this interview with Derek D. Lyons.  

Tell us about your upbringing. How were you initially introduced to God? 

I was introduced to traditional beliefs about God before my earliest consciously accessible memories. Several times during adulthood, my mother told me a story about how the police picked me up as I walked alone across some railroad tracks. At only 4-5 years old, I told police that I was going to church.. Evidently, I had already learned the importance of God and religion. (Story appears in, Divinity Within Ourselves: A Memoir.)

I can attest to what you say about knowing, "before [your] earliest consciously accessible memories." Certain breathing techniques allow one to access memories of consciousness that occur early in life, including at and before birth as well as recall varied lifetimes. Deeper reasons present for why we create particular beliefs and behaviour patterns in this lifetime.

In my current interpretation of these life events, I, as a young child imbibed the emotions of my parents. I could feel the importance of God and religion to them. Wanting to please them, I adopted their emotions as my own.

Parents are often early role models. At different life stages, people take on the emotional energy of and beliefs of others and can be completely unconscious of this. It can be a boundary issue or, a sense we are all connected, a knowing that energy flows and allowing that without judgment.

I see your points. My interpretation constitutes a post-hoc simplification (something we all like to see, as discussed below).

The infant mind adopts the parents' emotions because it does not automatically distinguish its own mind from that of its mother. The mother's emotions are the child's emotions. The infant empathizes and bonds with its mother in those early days outside the womb, drinking in her emotions and feeling safe and secure because of the mother's attentiveness, care and love. 

Indeed! Although the umbilical cord is severed after birth, energy fields of mother and child stay connected. Some people describe this as a mental connection. Others feel energetic or unseen connections. Consider mothers have 'a sixth sense.'  Many mothers intuit, feel, know if their child is in danger, or sense changes in energy or emotional fields even when the child are not nearby. 

I have heard of such a connection.  To the extent that the young child mind feels consistency in the mother's affections and her reactions to the child's needs, the child grows up feeling a sense of safety and security. The child matures into a well-adjusted adult, without a need for constant reassurance and acknowledgement of his or her importance or value to other people.

Of course, not every child receives unconditional love early in life or matures into a well-adjusted adult...

True. Yet, much like teenagers and adults, infants hunger for input, new sensations, new social interactions, new information, new entertainment. In the case of an infant, the cerebral cortex constitutes a blank slate. (This contrasts with the older parts of the brain, namely, the limbic system and the brain stem, which entail instinctual, pre-wired neural circuitry.) An infant needs stimulation from the parents as much as it needs milk. And the emotions of the parent(s) form the primary substance of this input.

Alongside your observation, it is worth noting that desire (perceived need) arises from a fear of not having. When we tell ourselves we want or need something, deep inside, we come to believe that we are not enough. Even deeper still, Marianne Williamson echoes 'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.' (We fear being our true selves.)  

That is a startling idea.

Well, we each perceive life events differently much like two people can look at the same cloud and see different forms in it.  Neither is right or wrong, simply different ways of seeing. 

This said, how do you expand on emotional input from parents in relation to God or 'the divine'?

Pursuant to the view expressed in my books, I have decided that the story as to God contains more than mere imitation of parental beliefs and internalization of their emotional responses. Something already existed there, in my mind, a prior experience to which my parents' exhortations and habits attached.

It is also suggested all souls enter this world with core knowings but do not allow blossoming at the same pace. Please share more about 'divine knowing' ...

I had an earlier apprehension or experience of the divine. I knew already about the infinite and the eternal. I knew about the mystery of existence. I knew about the immense significance of being. My parents' words and religious practices became embedded in my brain, attached to these pre-existing notions. My cerebral cortex at my birth did not present an entirely blank slate. I had experienced mind itself, pure consciousness. Mind showed attributes of the infinite, the eternal, the immense significance of being alive, and the unity of everything, inherent in the oneness of mind.

Its interesting that you pinpoint an experience of the divine on a time-line, in a sense of 'earlier,' or 'before' something related to time. Another view shared by Nisagardatta Maharaj echoes, 'there is no such thing as beginning and end... Timeless being is entirely in the now. Being and not-being alternate and their reality is momentary. Immutable Reality is beyond space and time.'

What if not everyone arrives in this world with a blank slate? Consider unhindered awareness of Buddhist llamas.  Heirs to lineages are chosen based on the memories of young children who positively identify belongings possessed in previous lifetimes.  Children in western cultures are also emerging with mature abilities that previously took people lifetimes to achieve. Look at increasing examples of child prodigies in mathematics, opera singers like Jacky Evancho and Amira Willighagen, creative artist-poets like Akiane Kramarik. Many labels exist such as Indigo, Crystal or Rainbow children, and books such as The Children of Now:  Evolution (How can we fast-forward the evolution of our children and our race) by Meg Blackburn Losey.  It suggests a perceived gap is narrowing between collective ignorance and collective remembering.

Let's shift to address God from the views of Spirituality, Religion and modern Science... 

To me, Spirituality, implies a vague apprehension and appreciation of the deepest parts of one's self. Spirituality constitutes feeling alone, except when one tries to talk about it. Then one casts about for words to describe something ethereal and ineffable that existed before words, independently of language, both in the human race as a whole and in the individual human mind. People who evince Spirituality, who attend to matters of the spirit, probe the innermost recesses of their minds, questioning and attempting to access their most remote unconscious being. They apprehend, in a tenuous way, the basic characteristics of God, which are the basic characteristics of pure mind, that is, mind without specific content of sensation and perception, mind aware of itself, of its infinite potential, its apprehension of eternity (the absence of time), its love for being alive, and the feeling of being united with the universe.

Silence is sometimes the best response.  I hear you paint in acrylics and scuplt in clay. This suggests you are a man who expresses the divine beyond words too.

I am full of surprises and can still surprise myself. Onward then: Religion, for deep believers, has spirituality at its core. But religion superimposes a social and cultural edifice on top of the spiritual feeling.

Sometimes religion is also linked with institutionalized dogma.

But ideally, religion includes theological beliefs and rituals or practices that would put one in touch with one's core feelings, one's spirituality, and bind one to other people in the congregation and the world at large and to the entire universe. In effective religious practice, one's mind attains a unity that spirituality promises but cannot achieve when one's mind has become preoccupied with, or distracted by, specific content, including other people and ideas about life and the universe. Religion can serve to unify spiritual feelings with an intellectual parsing of the universe and with physical needs for action preferably in cooperation and conjunction with a group of people.

You offer much to reflect on here. Communities have long performed rituals to connect with the Earth and the cosmos.  These practices have not always been linked to religion. Many views exist about the relationship between religion and spirituality. Some people sense they are separate topics and others view them as simply terms describing the same energy flows with varied degrees of freedom and control.  

I resonate with Osho who echoes, "Any kind of dependence is slavery, and the spiritual dependence is the worst slavery of all. I have been making every effort to make you aware of your individuality, your freedom, your absolute capacity to grow without any help from anybody."

Well, as I see it, religion provides an opportunity for celebrating spirituality in a group, with other people, a sharing of mind and values.

And where Science factor into this for you? One view is the connection between Science and Spirituality is self-evident while others see them as in opposition.  Still others say that rifts must be healed between Science and Spirituality for humanity to shift into new, more harmonious collective consciousness.

Science diverges from spirituality and religion in that the purpose and processes of Science differ greatly from that of the individual human mind seeking to find itself, whether alone or together with other people. Science, like religion, constitutes a cultural creation. Science enables a communal construction of reality, where a group share an understanding of how the universe works, its underlying rules (laws) and kinds of objects it contains.

There is a quote related to the history of Science that stands out here: "first one is rejected as a heretic, then applauded as a pioneer and finally, designated as a genius before his time."  Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin appropriately says "Pioneers will always pave the way with sacrifice."

Where do you understand emotion comes into the Scientific?

Science, like everything else we do, must provide its practitioners with emotional reinforcement and must find motivational support in the emotions of its adherents.  However, Science attempts to separate out the emotion from the intellectual appraisal of facts and theories. Science, in brief, does not aim to enable or enhance emotional experience. While Science may examine emotion as subject matter, Science intends to objectively understand emotional experience, rather than to enable scientists and the science-oriented public to have such experience.        

So, if I get you here, you imply Science attempts to evoke emotion and also mentally deconstruct it.   Some say a feeling is a mental portrayal of what is going on in the body when you have an emotion, a by-product of the brain perceiving and defining the emotion. The same people suggest thoughts of feelings happen after having an emotion, are often subconscious.  Another view is feelings are part of core being, have no opposites and can only be felt not understood.

This said, what is consciousness to you? How would you your experience of this?

Consciousness is everything to me. Without consciousness, what would we have? We would have something but not know that we have it.  I consider consciousness as the tip of the iceberg of mind. Our brains have innumerable layers of unconscious processes, and those processes form unconscious precursors of conscious thoughts and ideas. The brain compares and combines the unconscious thoughts and pushes a summary or end result of all that unconscious processing into the foreground of our minds, thereby populating our consciousness.

Love inviting related questions: when we observe things, it is sheer observation or “witnessing”. But, what is the “we’ observe? The “we”(or you) is consciousness; it is “our consciousness”. So, our consciousness observes. It is the intelligence associated with the consciousness which brings about an “awareness” that we have observed. So, we grow “aware”.

What if the perceived need to balance the psyche (conscious and unconscious mind) is illusion? 

Well, we are much more than our consciousness. But the content of consciousness is what we know. The rest of us remains hidden, but not necessarily entirely or forever, without recourse to our discovery of our hidden selves. Spirituality exhibits an acknowledgement of our hidden selves and attempts to probe the depths to find out what is there. Something lurks there, something of immense worth and import.

If you could describe our deepest yearning, how would you put that into words?

I think that the something we seek in spiritual meanderings is our deepest being, our feelings about being alive, our right hemisphere appreciation of ourselves and others, that our brains naturally experience in preparation for life, for encountering other people and learning about the world.

Natural experience rings true.  Yet, what if we imagine this as a balanced right-left hemisphere perception rather than viewing the world through either right or left hemispheres alone? 

Human consciousness is astonishing (if we do not take it for granted): that we not only live but also know we are alive. This analogizes to science, insofar as science amazes us, not only for the order science has found in the universe, but that our collective minds have the capability of apprehending the vast array of objects in the universe and the rules of their engagement and the wherewithal to formulate those rules via various languages of mathematics.

Aliveness is almost beyond description, is it not? Anil Seth offers a fantastic TedxTalk: Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality  that offers food for reflection.

The pleasures of consciousness form, in my view, icing on the cake of life. While life may not inherently require consciousness, it has provided us human beings with a profound gift and invites us to take pleasure in the universe and its fruits, its awesome prodigality, on every level of being.

Please be more specific about expansion...

My experience of consciousness includes expansion of consciousness, becoming aware of ever more both in the external universe and in the mind, for instance, as ever finer and divergent emotional experience in art and the continuing discoveries and ideas of scientific enterprise.

What led you to begin to make connections between divine perceptions and the brain? 

Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion provided me with motivation to think about religion from a scientific point of view. He proposed a number of potential explanations, all from his point of view as a behavioral biologist.  But none of his explanations seem to hit the mark. Then I read Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight. After having previously read some books on neurology, such as Antonio Damasio's Self Comes to Mind, and V.S. Ramachandran's and Sandra Blakeslee's Phantoms in the Brain, Dr. Taylor's account of her stroke engendered a Eureka moment in my mind.

All of these stand out to me, especially Jill Bolte Taylor's Stroke of Insight. You might also be familliar with Proof of Heaven and an interview with the author, Dr. Eben Alexander.

Earlier causative influences included my own rejection of religion as a teenager and my continuing search for understanding of belief in God and a substitute for religion. I looked into mysticism and Buddhism. A Buddhist author wrote that "Everything is in the mind." I was additionally predisposed toward a neurological connection between religion and the brain by my mother's answer to her children's complaints about stomach pain and other ailments, namely, "It's all in your heads."

You are the author of an ongoing book series. What prompts you to share 'ah-ha' moments?

Just as that ancient Greek wanted to share his insight, as he ran through the streets, shouting "Eureka," I too wish to share my ideas. As my daughter pointed out (see the books' dedication pages), I wrote my books because she did not want to listen to me. She was partially right, but it was not just her lack of attention. Anybody I talked to seemed to lack either interest or understanding. Writing a book makes the story available to a larger audience, some of which will have a desire to understand, or at least take in a new explanation and perhaps configure a new web of connectivity in their own brains.  Moreover, writing a book sharpens one's ideas and creates additional insights.  Writing a book may constitute the best way to figure out exactly what you want to say. You must construct a story, fill in details, and make transitions between seemingly irrelevant ideas.

Just as Joseph Campbell describes, we are each on The Hero's Journey .

So, Divinity Within Ourselves: God as Mind Projected onto the External World is your latest book. Who would benefit from it and why? 

This book would appeal most to those people interested in both science and religious experience. This group would naturally include scientists and the science-minded, but would also include people of a mildly religious inclination, who wonder about God and the universe. Seekers of spirituality, who feel that there is something 'out there' and would like to have some grist for their thinking and searching, would likely benefit and enjoy the book. 

What about aethiests and agnostics?

Also, atheists and agnostics, whether long-entrenched in their anti-God beliefs or new to the doubter fold, can ferret out insights and perhaps a strong and rich foundation for understanding, not only of their own beliefs but also the beliefs and motivations of their friends who are religious. Non-believers can acquire from the book some thoughts, some appreciation, and an overall explanation, for the beneficial hold that religion naturally has on the human mind.

What sort of feedback are you receiving generally?

One of my sisters has read my first book, the memoir, and favorably commented on the prescription at the end of the book, that everyone has a right to adopt and nourish their own view on the subject of the divine and theology. This prescription necessarily means that one must not attempt to impose one's metaphysical and theological beliefs on other people. Each of us must be free to organize our minds pursuant to our personal neurological needs and our personal histories. We must be free to live with ourselves. Concomitantly, we must limit our intrusions into other people's minds and demands we may make, even inadvertently, that they think the same way as we do.

How do your books differ from those of non-believers?

In contrast to many books written by non-believers, and especially those written by formerly religious individuals, my books do not denigrate or attack religious belief. Rather that saying what is wrong with belief in God and religious practice, I look at the natural operations of the mind that give rise to spirituality and belief in the divine. In addition, I discuss certain positive benefits afforded to the brain of the believer. Unfortunately, I can no longer enjoy those benefits myself, owing to my rejection of religion and my conversion to atheism or agnosticism, which occurred while I was in high school. But I think I can understand the beauty of religion. I certainly see it when I visit churches and temples. And I remember my feelings during religious celebrations I attended as a child.

Sounds like you extract what you recall felt good and build on that.

In simple terms, you could say that. 

Many people are taught to view themselves as separate individuals in a fragmented world. How do you sense this is changing? 

I cannot answer this question. I cannot say how things are changing. However, I can follow the example of politicians and pretend to answer the question by talking about something else important to me. I think your observation of separate individuals in a fragmented world is accurate, particularly with respect to Western cultures and increasingly so with respect to the rest of the world. We live in a pluralistic society, not only politically, but also with respect to the major cultural mega-memes of art, science and religion. The U.S. Constitution recognizes the need to accommodate pluralistic interests. But we may be in danger of forgetting that we must tolerate one another's views and opinions. I see an ever-increasing amount of partisan discord, people who insult and criticize others, rather than respecting and attempting to understand other people's points of view. This societal fragmentation could presage a degradation of the U.S. and any other similarly fractious nation.

In this moment, everything exists, including an ever-present stream of harmony that one can tune into or out of.  Ancient sages, yogis and wise individuals echo the external world mirrors the state of inner being.  Where we see conflict in the external world therefore, we may not be seeing or integrating within ourselves.  The Sufi poet Rumi tells us “Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth."

We may wish to avoid change or we may embrace change. Whatever our wishes, things do change. We change, despite our belief that we remain the same person throughout our life. What we need to find, both within ourselves as individuals and within our cultural institutions, is a core being or a place of peace, something that is supportive and respectful of all the dissonance and enables perhaps not only co-existence, but also unity. I speak here both of our individual minds and our collective or group minds.

How else do you sense the illusion of separation?

We can plumb this question of separation and fragmentation further. One of the most important goals of the human mind, inherent in the genetic structure of the brain, is order. The brain achieves order by creating new forms, new patterns in the mind, patterns that unify dissonant elements and provide simplicity; the brain makes connections and organizes the associated elements into cohesive forms. We all seek unity and simplicity in our understanding of things 'out there' in the world, as well as 'in here' in the mind. The word "fragmentation," in its opposition to the neural need for unity and simplicity, points to discomfort and vertigo.

We can also reflect on the word listen and how it can be rearraged into the word silent.

Words speak volumes. I personally have not found a unifying concept that takes into account the entire world, including both the physical universe and the social universe. In the social sphere, the most important reality for the human mind, we each typically engage multiple people each day in different group settings. Each group constitutes a different social structure, with respective individuals and respective rules of engagement among the various group members. We have to live with this fragmentation and compartmentalize our experience.

Okay.  What is your take on humans as multidimensional beings living multiple (parallel) realities simultaneously?

To the extent we want unity in the multiplicity, we have to achieve the unity by ourselves, for the unity must jibe with our individual brains, our perceptual constructs and our personal histories. For many people, God and religion can provide unity to the entire brain. Everything can find meaning and purpose in God. God forms the source of all value and constitutes an explanation and narrative for everything that exists. For other people such as myself, this mode of unifying the totality of experience no longer works. We must look elsewhere. Many people find unity in egoic acquisition, where the self forms the center of the universe. For the self-centered individual, the entire universe has meaning and structure only in relation to the goals and purposes of the individual person. The only things that matter relate to the egoic definition(s) adopted by that individual, usually early in their lives, but possibly reformulated during a later stage of development, such as the teenage years.

Well, Friedrich Nietzsche says, “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star."

What is your take on The God Delusion and related views by author Richard Dawkins? 

I would say that Richard Dawkins did not really present a coherent explanation or answer to the main question he posed in The God Delusion, namely, what is it about the human mind that is adaptive for survival that makes the mind receptive to religious belief?  He talked about primitive cultures, misfiring of circuits and romantic love, but presented these as tentative suggestions or possibilities, rather than as definitive answers.

As set forth in my books, I understand belief in God as a natural function of the human brain. Richard Dawkins makes a half-hearted attempt at a neurological explanation of religious belief when he uses the word "misfiring" as to neural circuits. In my books I refer more precisely to overall brain function, for instance, in the accretion or learning process which naturally and inevitably entails modification of memory and understanding. I also propose a natural process of asynchronous neuron activation, which interferes with effective brain function.  The brain naturally acts to reduce this neural noise by either inhibiting the rambunctious neurons or engaging in use of ability, that is, positively and synchronously activating circuits in concerted behaviors.  Reduction of neural noise constitutes one of the benefits of religious belief and practice and results in a feeling of peace and tranquility. The peace of God is peace of mind, owing to brain-wide neural activation in the practice of religion (and in other activities such as artistic creation and contemplation, or playing tennis), that quells neural noise and releases the brain from internal distraction so that it can attend to new data input, including, for instance, thoughts about evolution and romantic love.

You talk about God relating to the brain but what about the rest of the body? 

Belief in God arises in large part from the natural binding functions of the human brain, the natural orientation of the cerebral cortex toward the external world, and the original and deep experience of pure mind, that is, consciousness without content, with attributes of infinite potential and eternity, unity and oneness, and immense significance. To paraphrase Jean-Jacques Rousseau, God arises from feeling, all these feelings, together. Identifying these feelings, this primal experience of mind, as God constitutes a cultural description, which becomes associated during childhood with all of the detailed content of theology and ritual practice.

Absolutely! The truth can only ever be felt which often leaves the mind at a loss to pigeonhole 'the divine' within the limits of its logical understanding.             

We have scientists like Nassim Haramein bringing the Physics of Spirituality into the mainstream. How does his take on connection relate to your sense of reality? 

In his attempt to combine physics and consciousness, Nassim Haramein exhibits the neural drive towards unity and simplicity to which I refer above. He knows about various topics in physics and is sensitive to the brain's inherent mysticism, particularly the perceptions of the right hemisphere. He wishes to combine the two, the equations of physics and his own experience of consciousness, to one another to generate a unified conception of totality. What does his brain do? It makes something up. That is how the brain works. It constantly organizes and re-organizes its circuits to achieve greater or more facile unities. (This unifying and simplifying function of the brain, by the way, likely arose with the adaptive "purpose" of accelerating brain operations to optimize survival.)

The film Lucy by Luc Besson offers a perspective of optimum functioning of the brain: what may happen when the brain is functioning to 100% capacity.  (This stars actress Scarlett Johansson). Unsure if you are familliar?

I do know scientists seeking a quantum basis for consciousness have proposed the presence of consciousness in various components of the physical universe such as rocks and atoms and electrons. Similarly, Nassim Haramein interprets the universe in terms of information. He says that the universe feeds information to itself. The wisdom of the universe increases via this feedback loop. In my view, Nassim projects his mind onto the physical universe. Thus he claims that consciousness exists 'out there' in all of the elements of the physical universe. He feels peaceful and even joyous owing to the massive unity that he has created in his own mind. His views analogize to religious belief in many ways.  Both views exhibit and satisfy the neural desire for unity of mind, achieved by projecting mind onto the physical universe. In Nassim's case, mind finds embodiment in information, which he proceeds to insinuate into ideas about particles and sub-quantum reality.

It is thus accurate to say that we time travel through the ears. Quantum reality and  jumping between worlds in other ways may be best left for another discussion. 

Information constitutes the prime fodder for the brain as an information processor. Neural information includes raw sense data, organized percepts, and constructed ideas. The brain manufactures further information in the form of categories of objects and abstracts their attributes to form ever more ethereal sets of thought forms in different universes of discourse. In seeking unity of mind, one might naturally invest the external universe with information. I find this something of misdirection. Minds and computers constitute information processors. Other objects in the universe more closely resemble energy processors. However, information must be encoded in patterns of energy and perhaps that fact lies at the heart of Nassim's association of information with fundamental particles.

Love how Nassim invites us to reflect on new ways of seeing outside the familliar...

Nassim feels awe and wonder at the physical universe, at the immense spectra of physical forms and also at the infinite potentialities of the human brain. I feel this as well. He connects the two, the physical universe 'out there' and the mental universe 'in here,' in a manner of which I am skeptical. I see Nassim's interpretations as expressing his spiritual feelings of oneness and unity, his impressions of the infinite and the eternal, and of his compassion. I see Nassim as exhibiting all the wonderful emotions of right hemisphere awareness, on the one hand, and the admirable information processing abilities of the left cerebral hemisphere, particularly mathematical abilities, on the other hand. Nassim wishes to unify his right hemisphere awareness and his left hemisphere knowledge. He acts as a prophet or a mystic, combining vastly different modes of awareness into a new unity. I can see Nassim as generating a seed for a modern religion. I cannot say that he is wrong or that what he does in bad. I just have difficulty ascribing to his views myself.

Its true his perspective does not resoante with everyone, yet he does invite us to step outside our own version o the familliar, be willing to see beyond our own conditioning. 

As to consciousness, however, I think he errs as to a fundamental feature of reality.  The universe comprises multiple levels of being, more specifically, multiple nested spatial temporal domains each comprising sets of characteristic objects interacting with each other according to definable rules of engagement. The objects on any one level do not exist in the lower, finer-scale domains. Biological cells do not exist in the realm of atoms and molecules. Consciousness does not exist at such domain levels either. Both living organisms and consciousness emerge at higher domain levels from countless interactions among much smaller objects on finer levels of reality. Cells emerge from innumerable molecular collisions and chemical reactions within the cells. In the human brain, thoughts, feelings, and awareness in general emerge from activities of huge numbers of neurons and neural circuits.  The activities of neurons and circuits in turn arise from the countess interactions of countless neurotransmitters and protein receptors at the synapses of the neural circuits. Hormones also inform, or contribute to, human consciousness, the hormones exuded in part from organs throughout the body. Thus, human consciousness arises from the body as a whole and not just the brain. (I intend to express these ideas more fully in a metaphysics chapter of a future book on philosophy.)

You are prolific...

In an attempt at a top-down unification, Nassim reads higher-level object attributes such as consciousness into lower levels of reality, where consciousness cannot exist. Cells do not exist at the level of atoms. If you were as small as an atom and looked around, you would not see a cell. You might be inside a cell but the attributes of the cells that characterize and define the cell as such do not exist in the realm of atoms and molecules. Instead, the cumulative activity of molecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins create the cell so that it appears only on a larger-scale level of physical reality.

Well, as Einstein says, "a problem of consciousness cannot be solved at the same level at which it arose."

Nassim reduces the universe to information. In my view, the physical universe is not about information. The human mind deals with information. As mentioned above, particles such as atoms and molecules do not process information to find out a fact or generate an idea, or output an answer. Objects such as these, at more fundamental or finer levels of reality, process energy and organize the energy into lower energy configurations. In my view, matter arose as low-energy combinations of sub-quantum energy fluctuations. The physical universe at its base, in its most fundamental form, that is, at the level of space and time, at the level of quantum mechanics, comprises just matter and energy.  According to Einstein, the two are equivalent. One might say then that everything in the entire universe arises as different forms of energy.  Particles of matter are captured or localized energy.  In higher forms of matter and energy, such as cells and organisms, the captured energy becomes organized into ever more complex patterns of structure and function. Again, reality has multiple levels. (All this, again, for the metaphysics chapter or book.)

 I trust you are keeping notes. You are making valuable interdisciplinary connections. 

In contrast to atoms and molecules, our brains direct their attention to information about what's 'out there.' For a physicist, the relevant information pertains to matter and energy, space and time. Nassim projects his brain's interests and functions onto the universe. This exemplifies how the brain works. He sees information and consciousness in the brain and imbues the universe 'out there' with the same attributes.

The universe exhibits regularities which the laws of physics encode or formulate as equations.  Regularities can be quantified. Otherwise the regularities would not exist. Nassim views the regularities as information. We inherently detect and quantify regularities, in effect extracting information from the universe. We then abstract and organize the abstracted information into equations and laws.

It is amazing that the universe behaves pursuant to laws and that we can discover those laws and formulate them in the languages of mathematics. Science can provide us with occasions for feeling awe and wonder, a principal emotion of religious belief.

Theories aside, what activities do you engage that contribute to a sense of a unified existence? 

I feel a need for unification in my understanding of existence.

I was imagining activities where you connect with others, feel part of things greater than yourself... 

Multiplicity and fragmentation naturally occur in a mind dominated by the left hemisphere. As the seat of language, the left hemisphere sees the universe as a collection distinct objects that move around and occasionally bump into one another. Sometimes the collisions have enough energy and coordination to form new objects, for instance, larger molecules, or human groups such as families. (This feature of reality to be discussed in my philosophy chapter or book on metaphysics.) In brief, the left hemisphere of the brain tends to see diversity and multiplicity.

 So how can people feel more connected? Engage in deeper, more meaningful relationships?

One key to apprehending a unified existence resides in cultivating right hemisphere awareness.  Religion can promote right hemisphere awareness. The Buddhist practice of meditation and the Hindu practice of yoga can likewise lead one into a more unified appreciation of existence, specifically including the body and the mind and the external world. Engaging wholeheartedly in an activity such as making pottery, creating art, and playing a cooperative sport can also lead to a diminution of left-hemisphere differentiations and conflicts and facilitate right hemisphere awareness.

I believe art presents us with a renewable experience of unification. A work of art unifies emotional elements. Each achieved work of art form entails a unique structure or formal organization that embodies a unique composite emotion. This emotion constitutes the meaning and unity of the individual work of art. (These ideas about art appear in my two Divinity books and will be explored further in a book about the neurological effects and benefits of art.)

What about love? Feeling the way through life?

In individual intellectual pursuits, mainly carried out in or by the left hemisphere, it is possible to attain unified understandings of limited parts of existence. For instance, a field or discipline in science can have a theory or model that explains a wide diversity of facts, observations, and experimental results.  I myself find that the functioning of the human mind, pursuant to findings in neurology, forms a basis for unifying a number of areas of culture including art and religion.

 Let's look at this another way: what does interacting with children show you about existence?

In general, one can experience existence as unified if one has a most important interest around which everything can be ordered. Some people can achieve this through love, including romantic love, or love of family and children, or love of art. Usually unity requires, or is enhanced by, a social milieu, namely, other people who share our views and with whom we can jointly or cooperatively create a unified reality. We are social animals and cannot easily exist in isolation. Our personal understanding and organization of the world derive in large part from other people.

What stands out is that connection is a personal thing that can only be expeirenced directly. 

Tell us your understanding of time. What is required for humanity to function beyond time? 

Two ways exist to think about time. One takes the point of view of physics, the other looks through the lens of psychology. Physics apprehends time as an inherent characteristic of the universe. Time exists 'out there' and can be objectively defined, inasmuch as time can be measured.  Time keepers include such repetitive systems as planets revolving about stars or pendulums or the vibration of a cesium atom.

We are each timekeepers and Earth is sometimes described as an Earthship. I published a book called Mastering Time which addresses how our lives can be shaken up and prompt us to view and experience time differently.

Psychology also looks at our subjective experience of time. We live in time. I believe we cannot exist without time. Our brains are time keepers. We have circadian rhythms and neuron relaxation times. We have memories of past events in time and we imagine future events in time. For us human beings, time is all important.

Imagine life beyond time. What might that feel and look like? 

Time by any definition arises or emerges from change. In a uniform, changeless universe, time could not exist. Time emerges as an inherent attribute of the universe because everything changes. Everything is in flux. Everything is in motion. What exists now did not exist before. That is the essence of time.

 Many people contemplate about time. From your view, how does this impact emotions?

The contemplation of time, can evoke much emotion. We have memories of a past that may have engendered fear or love. In addition, we have memories of futures that have never happened, imagined events and relationships that have never existed. But we would like them to happen. We attach ourselves to those imaginary futures. We define ourselves in terms of those futures. The direction from the here and now to the imagined or projected future constitutes meaning in life. Or we fear imagined future events as potential threats to our well being and hope and pray that they never happen. Our memories, whether of past events or future potentialities, do not exist in the external world. They exist only in our imaginations, as constructs. We make it up.

As Shakespeare says, "All the world is a stage and all the men and women are merely players..."

Time as such exists largely in our minds, in our imaginations. Accordingly, we can possibly escape the oppression of time through our imagination. We can exist outside of time once we shed our time-forged manacles, our regrets and unhappy memories as to the past and our plans for a blissful and perfect future. Meditation, which can take the form  of attention to an activity or to one's breathing and bodily sensations, for instance, can bring one's mind to the here and now and in effect free one from time.

How timely!

I have written something for another book, which is pertinent here:

• We need time.
• Life takes time.          
• We cannot live without time.

We are creatures of time. Time makes us. But frequently, even most of the time, we live outside of time, divorced from the present moment. We do not exist in the here and now but rather in the somewhere else. We busy ourselves with reliving the past and anticipating the future.

We characteristically live more in the past and the future than in the present. In our minds, we continually hop back and forth in time, from the continuing data input of the present to the stored and organized data in our memories and to various hypothetical futures as constructed in our imaginations. We test different reconfigurations of the past and imagine alternate futures in order to help us decide what to do now, in the present. We can also travel mentally to alternative present times.

This description pertains of course to psychological time. Human thought diverts or entertains itself by confusing different realms of being, such as physical time on the one hand and psychological time on the other hand. The confusion arises in part from the projective tendencies of the human mind, to see 'out there' what is 'in here' and conversely to absorb patterns from the external world and re-create them in our minds. This facility of mapping patterns constitutes a prime mode of operation of the brain.  In addition, our brains compare the patterns or maps with one another. The difference between two maps prescribes or creates a direction of change for our bodies and our minds. We generate the future by such a process.

I sense you appreciate Alice Through the Looking Glass and varied stories about uses of time.  

What are the implications of your research and books for humanity?

I like to think that my books will serve humanity much like Lucretius' epic poem On the Nature of Things or On the Nature of Reality.  Lucretius wished to free mankind from fear associated with superstition.  I would also like for us to escape misconception and step into clarity and peace. My books might be thought of as collectively entitled On the Nature of Mind.  These first two books apply to the mind and spiritual/religious experience and belief. 

My books proceed fundamentally from the Buddhist observation that everything is in the mind. Whatever we know, whatever we experience, exists in the mind and frequently exists only in the mind (e.g., as fantasy). The brain not only filters reality but constructs reality.  We project our mental constructs outwardly onto the universe and for many purposes the process works quite well. The maps accurately correspond to or correlate with events and objects in the physical world. But for many people, the process misfires inasmuch as the individual child's formulations either misinterpret external (social) reality or react to an adverse home environment and the child carries the maladaptive mappings into adulthood when dealing with the world at large. And so we have psychopaths, depressives, multiple personalities, etc. (Topic for a later book.)

Please summarize your view of the brain in relation to the external...

In my view, our brains comprise the sine qua non of our knowledge of the external world. I believe that we must know the brain workings in order to understand how our knowledge relies on and incorporates the functioning of that tool.

Sense you would appreciate the 'brain' works of Dr. Joe Dispenza and also Dr. Derek Siegel.

If you could leave our readers with an insight or some advice, what would it be? 

In the chapter "Protagorean Pragmatic Prescription" I urge a tolerance for other people's beliefs and values. We must all be free to organize our minds pursuant to our personal experiences and idiosyncratic understandings. We must allow each other to feel peace of mind. To do this we must recognize that people need to believe different things to feel integrated and whole. So we must not impose our metaphysical and theological beliefs on other people. We might talk about what we believe, but acknowledge that our ways of interpreting and organizing reality may differ in some fundamental ways from other people's.

 What about Eckhart Tolle. Can you relate?

I would recommend reading Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth for its description of the egoic self. The egoic self constitutes the central object in our maps of our social universe. The egoic self is responsible for much good and much evil in the world. I advise people to seek awareness of their needs for egoic acquisition and assertion.  Know that each of us, some more than others, fabricate an egoic self and then seek to defend that self against real and imaginary threats. Why defend something that is largely an arbitrary construct?

Please let us know where people can contact you/ upcoming events/ how people can engage with you.

Please contact me, through my publisher, Austin Macauley.

Anything else you wish to add? 

Thank you for your questions and the link to Nassim Haramein's interview. He is an engaging personality. He says some interesting and insightful things.   He also says some nonsensical things (as do we all), for instance, where he confuses different realms of reality and imposes the logic of one realm on another, as in reading consciousness into the physical universe.  I see consciousness as a property or ability only of life forms. A single paramecium might have a primitive kind of consciousness, not necessarily self-consciousness but one of sensation and even emotion, in its reactivity to its chemical environment. With reference to his proposed information feedback loops in quantum-scale reality, the lower finer-scale domains of physical reality entail energy and regularity but the order or repetition in patterns of energy distributions becomes information only for an information-processing organism (or maybe AI, in the future). Consciousness entails in part the appreciation or detection of patterns in the external environment.  Nothing in the lower or finer-scale domains can undertake such an appraisal.

Thank you Derek, for offering these insights for our readers to muse over. Invite following up and doing further research into topics that spark your curiosity and stimulate the imagination.  For as Einstein reminds us, 'imagination is more important than knowledge.' and 'pure ever-changing energy is the stuff we are made of.'

Interview with Anne Jirsch

As part of my own process of clarifying my mission in this lifetime, I have been inviting diverse healers, therapists, and a now future life progression expert, into my awareness. As Lao Tzu reminds us, When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. When the student is truly ready, the teacher Disappears. We often tell ourselves we do not know what is around the corner, but maybe we do in the heart, and do not accept it until we see fear is a stepping stone to live more fully.

Anne Jirsch of this moment arises from many life choices.  A London-born psychic and workshop leader, she is the world-renowned authority on Future Life Progression (FTP).  As a field pioneer. she runs the only FLP training school in the world.  Her clients include heads of industry, politicians and celebrities. She is also an internationally best-selling author of four books; Instant Intuition, The Future is Yours, Cosmic Energy, and Create Your Perfect Future.  (All available on Amazon too). Being in harmony with her calling, she triggers new levels of awakening in everyone she encounters. I feel privileged to connect and appreciate her sharing this interview.

Describe key stages of your human awakening.

As a child, I would peek when my grandmother read the tealeaves. She would cure people’s warts and used herbs to make potions. I was fascinated and had a burning desire to discover more.

In my teens, I went in search of answers. I travelled to India and visited various ashrams and temples, but my biggest teacher was a beggar called Vikram. He made me see the world with different eyes.

Love that from so young, you were aware of the power of intuition and also had role models who encouraged you to trust it.  Your unexpected teacher reminds me of Dan Millman’s, The Peaceful Warrior.  On the surface, an injured gymnast meets an unexpected teacher in an auto mechanic.  On a deeper level, Dan Millman is facing his own fears of vulnerability, failure, and death.  This is the universal Path.

As it happens, Marcel Proust says, The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. You echo a shift in perception, seeing things differently, was a pivotal moment for you.

Yes.

So, we know facing fears is key to embracing what is beyond them.  Tell us about key events that guided you to FLP as a career.

For a great many years, I had worked with cards and past life regression. One day, I was working with a couple of military men, we were trying to discover something about the past. Instead, we jumped forward and saw the attack on the Twin Towers, three weeks before it happened! At first, we were shocked, but then, I wondered if we can do this whenever we wished. We starting experimenting and the results were phenomenal.

What stands out is your invitation to each of us to celebrate what enables us to feel comforable in our own skin.  In the song Most Girls, singer Hailee Seinfeld echoes we are each unstoppable when we  follow the wave of what excites us.  Her song, Back to Life in the new film Bumblebee states: we are all looking for things we cannot seem to find until we tune into the feelings inside that won't go away. The way you consistently listen to your intuition reinforces this.

What is the difference between creative visualisation/ vision boards or future pacing and FLP?

With future life progression, we actually tap into the future, we actually see what happens. With the others, it is more wishful thinking or trying to manifest.  We really can and do see the future.

In the mainstream, we are often taught that future visions are science fiction (Sci-Fi) until technology catches up, until we develop the skills or struggle our way to make a dream happen. Popular movies and books condition the mind to believe one thing while it is beginnnig to dawn that with a different attitude, new realities arise faster.  Thanks for inviting us to shatter our own myths and trust  our experience more.

Many teachers focus on guiding students to expand or be more authentic. How would you describe your approach as a teacher and guide? 

It’s all about bringing people up, inviting them to expand into new possibilities. FLP is more of a collaboration.  Our practitioners all have their own talents which FLP brings out. This allows us to guide clients, allow them to bring out their full potential. Most people have blocks and they try to manifest with their current consciousness. We take them into the future where they are beyond any blocks, we then bring that energy back to the present time. They change before our eyes.

How inspirational! Life may seem to string us along until we begin joining dots more consciously and feeling part of a larger symphony. Every revelation is a feeling of synchronicity. Its as if we know the feeling of being in harmoony with our best self, because we do and choose to forget.

Share 3 of your most emotional moments in this lifetime. What did you learn?

This is the toughest to answer; I am pretty private about such things. My most emotional moments have been when times have been tough and I’ve had to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I had very little money and a poor education to had to fight from the bottom up.

One key time would have been walking away from a long-term relationship. I packed my bags, picked up a bottle of brandy and left. Felt weird to walk away from everything you have.  Yet, it took me down a new path, opened doors and I created a wonderful life.

Your sharing here reminds us that losing everything we think we need actually brings us the experience of what we always wanted.  Eleanor Roosevelt echoes, [we] gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience where [we] stop to look fear in the face.

Your life illustrates that doing what we think we cannot do empowers us to stretch and blossom into more of ourselves. It is said our future self is living though our memories until we catch up with a more expanded and confident version of true selves.

On a more practical note, for people whose current life repeats unconscious past behaviour patterns, how does FLP help them?

Using FLP, we can take people beyond the pattern, even go into a future lifetime where we are all wiser and have moved beyond those patterns.  We have a method to locate the source of an issue and clear it.

Knowing this, it is hard to imagine people not being drawn to heal themselves on a whole new level.  Yet, fear can be immobilizing until understood and healed. In Return to Love, Marianne Williamson reminds us, our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkeness, that most frightens us.

Please share 3 examples of clients whose lives shifted as the result of FLP.

We have literally had thousands of clients experience positive results with FLP. For instance, Paul seeing himself married to a wonderful girl whom he subsequently met.  This happened after he’d given up on ever finding love.

Many of our clients have seen their future work. Wendy is a good example; she came on our training never having worked in the spiritual field. She saw herself in magazines and on stage. She thought it was just fantasy but again, within weeks it started to happen.

And many have seen their future home, Carmen saw herself living in a mansion by the sea, again she thought it was just wishful thinking.  Yet, I can vouch for her getting the home, I stayed there.

So many people benefit from being reminded of their power to change from the inside out. I also invite people to refer to your books.  You highlight the hidden power of thoughts and words. We are not only what we eat.  Our lives manifest the result of our vibrational visions and blockages which can be removed when we are ready to express our heartfelt selves more fearlessly.

Tell us of revelations you have experienced due to your own regressions/ progressions. What stands out?

There are so many. For me, what stands out was glimpsing my books before they ever materialized. I didn’t really believe this was happening because I was unknown.  Yet, I saw myself with a three-book deal, and within weeks, I had it. It all came together. It is mind-blowing to go from nothing to being published by a major publisher. 

Love that authors like Dr. Bruce Lipton (Biology of Belief, Spontaneous Evolution, The Honeymoon Effect), Neale Donald Walsch (Conversations with God series) and Rhonda Byrne (The Secret in 2006,  The Power in 2009, The Magic in 2010, Hero in 2013, and How The Secret Changed My Life in 2016) all admit they were surprised at how their books came together and left a lasting impact.

The revelation I love the most was seeing my future grandchildren before they were born. I saw two boys who were brothers; then I saw a little girl. They are all here now.

But also world events, when we travel further into the future the world seems much cleaner and calmer, it is as if the human race grows up.

These examples are so inspiring and heart-warming. Many people are taught to visualize dreams and yet sparks of doubt often arise to cloud or block the unfolding. Humans are also taught to feel impatient or discouraged by time and forget they have far more control over their lives as they grow conscious and reclaim power they give away to anger, fear and other emotions.  We can each reharness all that energy and use it more constructively. The encouraging vision of the human race collectively growing up or evolving is entering the awareness of more and more of people. When it happens is up to each of us.

Share your most profound lesson about love (from this or other lifetimes)

It would be to have no judgement, if someone is fabulous in your life and makes you and your life better and happier then that is it. In the future we do not worry about age, race, religion or bank balances, it’s about how they make you feel.

As singer Harry Styles Sign of the Times echoes, we have all been here (in this world) before.  Rather than want to get away from here, we can embrace what Millman calls, The Life [We] Were Born to Live.  This brings me to your unique calling.

If you could offer insight that transformed your perception, what would it be?

Travelling into the future has changed me. I find it hard to worry about silly stuff because I know it doesn’t matter in the future. I am more clear-cut and, in some ways, harsher, I cut away negativity for instance, I am less liable to make excuses for people.

For many of us, time travel is a concept we are taught to believe requires a physical tardis like in Dr. Who, a whacky car like the invention in Back to the Future or a physical timepiece like Nicole Kidman seeks in The Golden Compass.  We are fascinated with machines that act as Stargates or  enable us to take a Quantum Leap. Films suggest we need a physical device to access different worlds and parallel realities. We forget we all do it between the ears and with every breath.

It’s a bit like when you are on plane and they say, put the oxygen mask on first then help others including your children. It goes against our instinct but it is the right way. Look after you, cut out the negativity in your life including people who drag you down, once you are strong then you can help others.

Share anything else you would like to add.

My website is www.annejirsch.com

Do follow me on Face book we share a lot of information there

https://www.facebook.com/annejirsch

We have FLP practitioners available for sessions, FLP Practitioner training in March UK, plus Ireland. Drop me an email and I will put you in touch.

We are about to plan a series of worldwide trainings so do let us know where you are.

And do feel free to email me annejirsch@hotmail.co.uk and I will send you a free download recording to take you into your future lifetime where you will gain wisdom to guide you right now. 

Thanks for your generous contribution to the Inspirational Mentors thread of the Dreambuilders Australia Blog.  It is a gesture of love that transcends space and time.  We each give ourselves periodical and increasingly frequent wake-up calls to evolve into more of our true selves.  as always, inviting readers to follow through on their intuition. See where it takes you...

The best way to predict the future is to create it. -Peter Drucker

3 reasons to trust yourself more

What would you say that if every moment, you have the option to view every event of your life as a stepping stone to the unforeseen? What if you begin to view right where you are as a pivotal moment, a turning point, to competely shifting your sense of reality? Have you ever said to yourself: what if I had the courage to make life choices that bring me closer to experiencing my ideal life? First, you would need to know what that ideal life is or feels like.  Clarifying this vision is easier than imagined. Visions evolve with us.  Consider three reasons to trust yourself more:

1. Sense that the feeling of "risk" changes

At different life stages, we create and grow aware of different kinds of comfort zones.  Creating dreams is one way we concretize or challenge our comfort zones.  We constantly ask ourselves, how far are we willing to go to realize dreams or reach certain goals? In other words, what am I willing to risk or sacrifice  in order to change some experience or overcome fear of inadequacy? 

Invite you to view an example:  'my biggest risk ever' post series.

Biggest risk ever

Biggest risk ever follow-up

Biggest risk ever follow-up #2

Biggest risk ever follow-up #3 

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us." 

-Marianne Williamson

2. Act to have no regrets

Regardless of ares of life you contemplate, the key to growth is to make choices that allow you to push the envelope.  That is, desirable action is that which does not have you asking, what would have happened if I had done that? Reflect on when you trust or doubt instincts, hesitate or go down unfamilliar paths. What is the universe inviting me to do if my job is no longer? or you are restless where you are? Only you know how it feels if you are holding yourself back or moving forward. 

3. Do the unthinkable

Have a you ever reached a stage in your life where you feel ready or willing to move away from much or all you know? Maybe this involves letting go or moving on from relationships you outgrow, changing job or career, somehow taking things to reach a whole new level.  Points of reference form your identity or sense of security. Letting go is a process.  To develop greater fearlessness requires you take steps to stretch yourself, do the unthinkable, venture into more of the unknown. If you have ever changed jobs, moved house, or considered other big changes, you know the feeling of fear can also be felt as excitement. Reflect on examples of big changes you have made or are making. Are these proactive or reactive behaviours? What do you feel and what is being reflected back in responses from people around you?

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**As I write this post, I am preparing to move 5000km with my family. This is a symptom of shifting priorities, trusting intuition more fully and being more authentic. This path involves finishing renovations to get ready for house sale, letting go of what is outgrown or no longer used, researching school and new home options while being increasingly transparent, open and deepening connections.  All of this is clarifying a new path. 

Any changes in or discomfort you feel about your external world reflects ongoing internal shifts. Although I have moved many times before, this current experience takes things to a whole new level for me. What would take things to a whole new level for you in this world? What grounds you, enables you to feel human?

Awakening cannot be learned...it is a process of growth...it's what happens when you grow through total living.  Its born of living in total awareness. -Isira

Interview with Liara Covert

As I receive many emails from people asking about my latest book, a new 7 day coaching program and other projects in the works,  I feel it is fun and helpful to compile my answers as a blog interview.  The questions are from a variety of sources.

Time is hard to get.  It gets away from many people. What inspires you to teach Mastering Time?

Call it intuition or an inner knowing. It is part of a vision that came to me in a dream and also spontaneously emerges from me when I am asked about my life purpose or destiny. Like 14 year old singer-songwriter Grace Vanderwaal is in touch with her destiny, I too can see Clearly.

Why write such a thick book? 

Perception is relative.   460 pages is what it is.  Yet, The Secret Teachings of All the Ages (768 pages)by Manley P. Hall and In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust (7 Volumes) are longer. Length is based comparison.  Books are as long as authors decide to say what they wish to say.

How does the book affect you and other readers?

You may laugh, but much like other readers, I am going through the book exercises and reflecting on personal insights in new ways. Turns out, Mastering Time is part of a series.  I have created three books from a larger book because a process is unfolding within each of us.   

When engaged in the process of reading and journalling, you forget about the book length, lose yourself in time, only to find yourself again, in a refreshing state of mind. How movies affect and engage you is relative to your interest too.  Some seem to drag on and you wonder when they will end.  Others keep you at the edge of your seat.  You experience time, books and films, based on what you are open to and ready for on many levels.

What is your intention in writing this book?

The intention in writing the book is to echo every human being is evolving at a unique pace to see and feel reality differently. This is also called expanded consciousness. Many people agree changes appear to be faster. More people are asking why and whether we can influence the nature and pace of what is happening. 

Like Allan and Barbara Pease, in my own way, I offer a perception of The Answer.   Mastering Time shares insights from my direct experience that helps me understand my relationship to time.  Readers are invited to explore what is presented in their timeline, to do exercises in a journal like many of my other books and grow conscious of their own relationship to time. 

What can you do to take this mastering time book and teachings to a practical level?

That is a valid request, to be sure.  Thinking like the masses helps me see the desire exists to get a handle on what is right in front of us but often missed. 

On a practical level,

• I offer regular guided nature hikes in the Dandenong Rainforest 1 hr from Melbourne CBD 
• I offer an exciting 7-Day Program to be Time-Savvy based on a new book in progress
• I tailor timely coaching options & packages to suit clients & touch on time strategies
• I am in planning stages of a few unique spiritual tours to places in late 2018 and early 2019

How can better understanding and Mastering Time help me with relationships?

Your relationship to time mirrors your relationship with money, technology, relationships and much more. Western society is based on perceived connections and interactions.  Still, many people are conditioned to fear getting close to others, because they do not accept love, or because they have no examples or mentors for healthy relationships. These issues relate back to self-love (or lack of it).  It can be identified more consciously during a tailored coaching program.

What about money? Its widely believed time constraints limit the amount of money we can generate or earn.  Do you deal with this in your book?

Indeed I do.  Gaining insight into your beliefs and how you relate to time changes your understanding of money.  In Mastering Time, there is a whole chapter devoted to this called the Economics of Time.  As part of my coaching program, I guide clients to read, including certain books about money preoccupations.  Through my life journey, I have read often, take part in seminars with financially successful people and can relate to varied client situations.  Where relevant, during one-on-one coaching,  I refer to personal examples. This is part of what I am told gives me credibility.  People take you more seriously when you 'walk your talk.'

Can learning more about time help build strength?

Getting to know and express yourself more honestly opens you to vulnerability.  Being honest is the road to inner strength, wisdom and to live feeling more fulfilled. This and the role of core values are explored in depth during my coaching sessions with clients.

As the Zen saying goes, gentleness is strength. To get to that point, you must accept all of yourself first. You have to feel confident and take responsibility for all your choices, the beautiful, the broken, the lost, the found, the wild.

How would you describe your coaching about time? 

How you see anything depends on your conditioning (filters), experience and how aware or tuned in you are to what exists beyond all that. Call my approach to coaching a futuristic form of psychotherapy, a take on ancient shamanism or timeless guidance along your path to fully accept yourself. Every piece of your psyche has a role to play in time and every moment you follow a path to retrieve and integrate a fragmented Soul.

What made you shift from dream analysis and interpretation to focus on time?

Dreamwork and time are not separate. It is true that I used to have a weekly dream analysis and interpretation column.  At some stage I cannot pinpoint in linear time, I experienced a shift that led to me to refer to dreamwork is a tool to better understand time, my relationship to time as well as my clients' relationship to time and life experiences.

You have offered workshops about dreamwork and other topics from your many books.  Why offer a new 7-day program about Time and why now? 

From experience as a workshop and retreat participant, I know 7-day programs jumpstart and motivate people to view themselves and life in a very different way than before.  Based on increasing traffic on the Dreambuilders Australia Blog, the growing readership for my most recent book, Mastering Time, and a recent publisher request for a new book on-time, I am inspired to create a 7-day program that draws from insights in Mastering Time as well as expands on what is covered in the new book.  Notice 7-day programs inspire people to reach new milestones with diet, exercise, well-being, detox, rehabilitation, and more so why not time?   

People ask me, why highlight seven days for my new time-related program?

7 Days to be more time-savvy, is catchy and effective in practice. People are smart, yet benefit from being reminded. It is said it can take 21 says to change a habit, but new approaches, the power of thought and intention can shrink that down. So many things are programmed into our brains based on number seven.  It has subliminal power to transform how we view ourselves. Imagine you recognize the power to create a new world for yourself and give yourself 7-days to get this in motion.  You are divine co-creator. Whatt do you do? Ask clearly what you want from the universe, set your intention and astound yourself with what happens. In a mutually-supportive environment, I see it works again and again.

Seven is also one of the most significant number across religions and cultures. It shows up in stories, film and symbols with good reason.  Across the globe 7 is hugely favourite number. The number seven had a mystical significance for different civilkisations. It was linked with the seven heavenly bodies; the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.  For this reason, some believe, marking rituals every seventh-daymore for the program. I could go on, yet more symbolism is covered in depth in the 7-day program.

Why does it take seven days to build a new world? Does that mean we should create a new world to explore every week? 

This is a question which invites diverse answers, depending on how you relate to time.  No single answer jumps out that everyone can relate to at the same point in time.  The human experience is defined for many based on the parameters of how they see and function in linear time.  Yet the pace at which we create accelerates based on many factors.  These grow more self-evident as your perception of time expands. 

What happens to time when it's quantitative value becomes qualitative?

Time is the veil of consciousness. It is a warehouse for the unconscious to be made aware of and reintegrated into timeless eternity. Objects and subjects are time-released so that they can arise and spin into the collective view for all to experience in joy and fulfillment. Time is a teacher and guide much like the breath and everything else, when you are open to this.

Does time stop ticking if their is no one to watch it? 

Each moment invites us to recognize the nature of the tug-of-war going on within ourselves. The root of inner conflict is perceived change in the space of time, governed in a structure such as a calendar. Ask yourself why we are taught to track moments, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years expecting, to see something different when we are tught to ground ourselves in the familiar. Part of this journey called life is an exerice in finding courage to step outside the familliar, recognize consciously the choices we are making and be willing to make different choices. Our focus of attention determines what and how we see.

Is there a difference between digital and analog time and how it effects the human condition? 

Being on time is satisfying because we are taught this is expected. Energy is neither lost or gained. It's a balancing act in how to stay calm in a pressurized environment. However, to be purposefully late outside the constraints of time is thrilling because one is essentially being fueled by the exploration of uncharted space. 

How does time effect space and how does your space effect time?

Everything is based on perception. We can talk about this in terms of philosophy, physics and theories, or we can speak about direct experience.  This is the basis on which I work with clients.  I interact with people and discover how they see and engage with the world they create around them. I refer to  A Course in Miracles, and other books relevant to individual cases, take people on hikes.  I alsp offer exercises to help people grow conscious of their relationship with time and space, as well as what they are doing with it every moment. 

Does how we see and interact with time effect our personal and global environments? 

Time management is a rational skill of a chronological disciple whose master becomes crazy at playing with irrational numbers.  Time is the key to everything.  Interact with me and other teachers entering your life more consciously,and listen to intuition more.

What is the relationship or correlation between time and consciousness?

Shadows, gravity, and contrast, fuel movement through time.  Infinite directions exist.

Is there a defining moment that led you to understand time and it's meaning in your life? 

Many experiences have triggered different stages of my awakening.  I share a number of more significant events in my book, Mastering Time.  My previous 10 books share other examples.

Why should humanity be concerned with making time conscious?

Should suggests something is being imposed by an external force.  Another view is that there is a time-release aspect to human DNA that naturally shifts perception of those who are ready to experience energy differently. Thus, no-body actually makes time conscious. Shifts in perception simply change the way we view self from the inside out, including how we see and use time. 

It is said that we live in a dimension of time and space. Is our relationship with time directly linked into finding meaning in life? 

Time is a shell or container but it's skin is made from the sparks found in people's eyes. The eyes are the window to the Soul.

Who are your mentors and inspirations?

Everything is a teacher for me.  Among my books, Transform Your Life: 730 Inspirations offes a glimpse of some of my inspirations. I have always felt drawn to Shirley Maclaine, her spiritual awakening books and teachings. I initially read them years ago, revisted them later, and experienced them in a completely different way. Many of my more recent teachers are modern mystics and often Indian in origin, such as Gopi Krishna, Babaji, Swami Sivananda, Swami Vivekananda, Osho, Sri Swami Satchidananda, Sadhguru, Om Swami, Radhanath Swami and Leonard Orr. A timely Sivananda teaching that stands out is: "There is something good in all seeming failures. You are not to see that now. Time will reveal it. Be patient."

To what do you attribute your current focus in life?

At a certain point in my life, I felt I lost everything that was important only to discover the nature of what truly is.  Experiences in humility are for me life-transforming.

Can you let us know what enables you to master time?

Many steps are unfolding as part of this initiation.  My books In The Flow, Being Harmony and Universal Principles point to different stages, as does my series about Mastering Time. Yet, feeling more at ease with spontaneity, child-like innocence, and hearfelt intuition is part of the process of letting go of fear and self-created limitation. As Marianne Williamson puts it, we Return to Love as we accept who we are.  As the saying goes, more than one road leads to Rome. When the student is ready, teachers appear.

Top 30 Books to Accelerate a Spiritual Journey

Many people appreciate a guide for their own awakening or spiritual journey.  While every path is unique, it is reassuring to know that many books exist to empower you to allow a new world to appear through your own eyes and subtle senses. 

There’s a big difference between people that read loads of books, and people who integrate spirituality into their lives. Being Spiritual is about living with mindfulness, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and engaging in practices that help you listen deeply and live in greater harmony. Otherwise, you simply add to a mental knowledge base.  Living through the head cannot open the heart, change your energy vibration or transform your life from inside out.

So, empower yourself. Choose one or more of these books below—as they all offer timless wisdom.  Make a point of reflecting on the food for the senses.  Some include journal exercise or you can buy accompanying workbooks.  Read passages slowly.  Breathe deeply.  Allow yourself some quality time and watch what arises within you.  As you find authors whose words resonate with you, find other books and online talks or events that enable you to grow further.  After all, this is a choose-your-own-adventure and you are the protagonist.

In Transform Your Life: 730 inspirations, I offer glimpses of individuals who have directly or indirectly helped me see myself and the world differently. The following is a list of 30 books to help you awaken, appreciate life differently and accelerate your spiritual journey.  Some of these are included in recommendations for further reading in my new Mastering Time book. I invite comments from readers about books that help expand their perception and change their lives. 

1. Whatever Arises, Love That by Matt Kahn

2. The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening  by Steve Taylor & Eckhart Tolle

3. The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer

4. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

5. Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eben Alexander

6. Hero by Rhonda Byrne

7. What God Said: the 25 Core Messages of Convesations with God that will change your life and the world by Neale Donald Walsch

8.  Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

9.  A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson

10. The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

11. Awaken Your Third Eye by Susan Shumsky

12. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

13. The Empath's Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People by Judith Orloff 

14. Mini Habits (Smaller Habits, Bigger Results) by Stephen Guise

15. Defy Gravity by Caroline Myss

16. A Course in Miracles by Helen Schucman (Foundation for Inner Peace)

17. Being Mortal  by Atul Gawande

18. The Essence of the Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran

19. The Power of Now & A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

20. Energy Medicine by Donna Eden

21. Be Love Now (& Be Here Now) by Ram Dass

22. The Healing Self by Deepak Chopra and Rudolph Tanzi

23.  The Serpent of Light Beyond 2012 by Drunvalo Mechizedeck

24. Journeys in to the Heart by Drunvalo Mechizedeck and Daniel Mittel

25. Isira (Autobiography) and Awakening You by Isira

26. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

27. The Mastery of Self by Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

28. The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh

29. Gifts of Imperfection & Daring Greatly by Brene Brown

30. Altruism by Matthieu Ricard