TASTE project

March 5, 2000

Further to the enquiry from Edith Tipple about the contributions

by lay people.

I am very pleased by his comments in the second paragraph.

Swami Vivekananda has indeed touched many hearts in the West!

I have been given permission to use any material from the TASTE site.

Attached at the bottom of this message is one very interesting experience

recorded by one young girl who later became a Physicist.

jay

Prof Tart's replied as under:-

-

Dear Jay,

Vera Lind passed along your query to me.

> if the proportional number of scientists who

>have had transcendent experiences is the same as the lay population?

I don't know if there is any relevant data on this

question. TASTE won't provide the answer, since

contributions are voluntary. It would take a large

scale survey, with representative samples of scientists

and the general population to come up with an answer.

Interesting question, though, even if unanswerable at

present.

We have an interesting connection, incidentally. Swami

Vivekananda's books were some of my first introductions

to eastern thought, and his argument that yoga was (or

could be) a science made a deep impression on me that

has influenced me throughout my career.

With best wishes,

Charley Tart

--

Charles T. Tart, Ph.D.

Professor, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo

Alto CA

Editor, The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent

Experiences

http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/tart/taste/

=========================================

We have been sending postings about Raja yoga.

We enclose one of the experiences recorded.

What this contributor is saying is very interesting and

relevant to the study of Raja yoga.

...............jay

==============================================

Knocking at the Door of Consciousness: Beam Me Up, Scotty!

Claudia A. Robinson

This experience occurred in ninth or tenth grade around age 16 in the school

year of 1976-77 or 1977-78. I had a free hour and was sitting in my science

teacher's office next to a large, solid oak table. I was alone in the room

and picked up a physics text book that I had not yet seen. I had not yet

taken physics in high school.

I browsed through the book from front to back in sequence, when I came

across a section on particles, and the scientist's quest for the smallest

particle was described.

This question: "What is the smallest particle?" intrigued me. I put the book

down on my lap and attempted to imagine what that would be. I sensed a

stirring of energy at the base of my spine. Directing my attention to that

while still holding the question, the energy surged up my spine into the

base of my skull. As it reached my head, I had the inspired insight that the

smallest particle isn't a particle at all! It is a concentrated bundle of

energy that is massless, without matter! All sorts of insights flowed from

that within a mere moment.

I realized that the solidness we attributed to the things around us and to

our bodies is an illusion. We are just collections of concentrated bundles

of energy, vibrating. It scared me to realize that with the appropriate

"resonance-laser" we could disintegrate any object into unconcentrated

energy. We are pure energy. The oak table in front of me was not as solid as

it appeared to be. Feeling increasingly unsteady I knocked on the table. I

almost feared my knuckles would just pass through it. But the sound of that

knock brought be back.

Continuing to browse the textbook, I found a section about Einstein and his

insight on photons. I almost jumped through the roof when I realized that

what he called "photons" is nothing else but concentrated, massless bundles

of energy, the very things I had just encountered in my experience.

Contributor's Comments on the Experience

This experience is what motivated me to study physics. From the start it was

an innate desire to learn intimately about Life and the Universe. I knew

that the approach at university was more of a technical- scientific nature

rather than the spiritual-philosophical approach I would have preferred. But

where in the world would I be able to expand on the kind of experience I had

that school day? I was quite willing to engage nonetheless as a way to learn

the basics. After a five year hiatus, I went to graduate school to continue

my studies in physics. It was then that I entered a crisis where I realized

that I could no longer approach my quest in this way. I was wilting

psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. I had to leave physics as it

is conventionally practiced and renew my quest through a more contemplative

approach. I did nonetheless graduate with a masters degree in physics.

March 6, 2000

>"Vivekananda Centre" <vivekananda

<snip>

>This experience occurred in ninth or tenth grade around age 16 in the

school

>year of 1976-77 or 1977-78.

<snip>

>This question: "What is the smallest particle?" intrigued me. I put the

book

>down on my lap and attempted to imagine what that would be. I sensed a

>stirring of energy at the base of my spine. Directing my attention to that

>while still holding the question, the energy surged up my spine into the

>base of my skull. As it reached my head, I had the inspired insight that

the

>smallest particle isn't a particle at all! It is a concentrated bundle of

>energy that is massless, without matter! All sorts of insights flowed from

>that within a mere moment.

>

>I realized that the solidness we attributed to the things around us and to

>our bodies is an illusion.

<snip>

As implied in the later (snipped) mention of Einstein, none of this was the

least bit new or startling in the nineteen-seventies. But was the writer

seriously suggesting that an "inspired insight" that flashes spontaneously

into someone's mind is a valid way of getting information about the nature

of the world?? If so, it's no wonder he abandoned physics for other

pursuits. The most that could be said of a flash of insight is that it could

provide the starting point for careful experimentation and the quest for

verification by observation. And, if we're speaking of physics, this

observation must be objective and repeatable by any qualified experimenter,

which excludes all subjective feelings, surges, and inspirations. The

creative insight can be individual and unique to the person who has it, but

its verification has to be open to all. This is just the A-B-C of science.

Science certainly does have its shortcomings, blind spots, and unfounded

preconceptions, especially in the area of subjectivity and consciousness.

But the subject was physics, not cognitive science, and I fail to see how

statements like the one quoted serve any legitimate purpose.

Robert.

March 6, 2000

All material and physical sciences can be verified by the public, provided they

have studied and practiced that particular field of science which they wish to

verify. No lay man can verify. So too, the insights and the intuitions can be

verified by those people who have made the study and practiced the subjective

science. It is the intellect in any man that investigates, probes and discovers

in any field of science in the outer world. Does it not mean that all such

sciences are part of the cognative Science? The intellect which cognises the

world varies from indiviudal to individual because of its innate tendencies

which it gathers to itself in its outer contacts.That means the intellect has

the pure cognative power which gets limited by the tendences. This intellect

which has made sufficient outer investigations turns within and goes on

ruminating over its outer experiments, gathers intensity, a time comes when it

stops thinking and the insight flashes from the pure Intelligence in that

particular field. Einstein had his insights long before he ever could verify the

correctness of his insights. But that does not mean to say his insights were not

correct.

This pure Intelligence in each one of us blessing our intellects is the One

Supreme Godhood. It is open to any one of us to practice in the correct lines

and reach the Pure Intelligence passing through the insight- intuition stage.

Parisi & Watson <niche wrote:

"Parisi & Watson"

>"Vivekananda Centre"