Heaven, Scientifically Speaking
In an earlier post the hypothesis of Pansmeria (Pansmeria is this author's version of the widely discussed theory of Panspermia, discussed in greater detail in another blog of author http://alienaccount.blogspot.com) was mentioned briefly. It is a theory that more and more scientists, including Stephen Hawking, have come to accept as the mechanism for creation of life on earth. It is not possible to go into the details of this hypothesis here. The interested reader may refer to panspermia.org for a scientific explanation of it.
Here, we will touch on a few of the aspects of this theory. According to it, life evolved on earth due to the genetic code that arrived from other parts of the universe. It takes many millions of year for advanced life forms to develop while this code is installed in small steps. I almost wrote advanced life like humans but then checked myself. Widely prevalent beliefs, human ego and the fact that human life is the most advanced one intellectually on our planet has led to the widespread perception that humans are the most advanced life forms in the universe. This can hardly be so given that life has been evolving for millions of years on our planet and there is absolutely no justification or evidence for the belief that it will not evolve further into more advanced species. The appearance of humans is relatively recent on our planet. To believe that humans are the most advanced form of life in the universe is like an ape or chimp thinking (if they are capable of thinking that far) that they are the most advanced beings at a time when they were around, but humans had not yet to appeared on earth. One of the corollaries of Pansmeria (or panspermia) is that species atleast as advanced as humans must exist in the universe and probably more advanced species exist.
By an advanced being is implied a being that is not only more advanced then humans spiritually and intellectually (i.e. with higher average E.Q. and I.Q.) but also perhaps in certain physical aspects. We know that humans excel on earth as far as some of the abilities of their limbs and vocal chords are concerned. To guess what other physical abilities may be possessed by species more advanced then humans, we may look at other life forms on earth. There are species that excel in one ability or other, indicating that genes for such availability exist in the physical universe. Birds can fly and ants can lift enormous weights as well as climb enormous heights at great speed (in proportion to their size). There are insects with several limbs. Thus it is possible to imagine that there might be beings with more than two hands, wings etc. along with intellectual, spiritual (i.e. emotional ) and vocal abilities that are superior to humans.
I wonder sometimes what a human-like being with wings would use for clothes or furniture since wings would get in the way. Nevertheless, the question that is more relevant is that except for its fantasy and entertainment value what use it is to even think about such beings, since planets in the universe are situated too far apart for any feasible interaction with such advanced beings ? The laws of physics make travel between habitable planets more or less impossible for all life except bacteria that can hibernate inside a frozen comet.
Communication, especially telepathic one is more feasible than actual physical travel. Further, if all beings possess a non-material spirit or consciousness (it is my belief they do) then travel as spirit may be possible by advanced beings that have greater control over their spirits.
If we accept for a moment that consciousness or spirits can travel through the universe (more or less instantaneously) then many advanced spirits (whom we may term as angelic) probably do travel to earth from their planets. We may term these latter planets as heavenly planets. Such angels in spirit form would not have the physical abilities to move an object but they could create such impressions in the mind of a receptive subject by acting on their thoughts and senses. Perhaps one could develop association with such advanced beings in the interest of one’s own spiritual development. Such an association may explain the prevalence of belief in gods, devas and angels amongst many humans.
A type of physical travel is however possible, if a spirit could occupy another body on earth. But it is not likely that the ethical code of advanced beings would permit taking over the body of another being without their full understanding and explicit acceptance for the act. A simpler and ethical route would be to be born as a new human on earth. That is provided an angelic being gains control over the process, grows up and lives amongst humans for a while possibly as a missionary who has ventured abroad for universal good, while not forgetting its heavenly origin or heavenly parents - Father and Mother in heaven. He may continue to maintain contact with his father in Heaven through telepathic communication (prayer)
Paul Brunton, a renowned Journalist, author and Mystic of the last century believed that Jesus was one such being and that he had identified the star system from whence Jesus came to earth to harvest souls from amongst the Jews, at least initially, for his planet after physical death of the earthly body and rebirth of converted souls on the heavenly planet. One cannot enter heaven unless one leaves this body and is born again. How can a spirit enter a mother's womb unless the older body is relenquished first and how will humans who do not even know where the next wind will flow from understand this in all its details.
Now about Hell here:
Comments
I notice (after googling the word) that you've been talking about Pansmeria since at least 2006. Is this a typo? Or is it some genetic mutation of Panspermia, perhaps wafted in from another planet, via some bacterium?
And what is a higher average EQ, as opposed to IQ? If we are to be scientific, then let us be also precise, and give definitions and references.
But you are right, I am excited and feel a blog post coming on.
This is an interesting way to think about the spirit worlds, where they come from, 'are' etc.
Of course (and you knew I'd say this!) visiting with them and journeying to their worlds is not so hard, may actually be one of those senses we all have but simply don't use. One needs to practice a bit, but then - a baby can't focus their eyes or walk instinctively; it takes a bit of exercise to get the muscles to work correctly.
You know, until this post I didn't even realize you and I are spelling the word - Panspermia? Pansmeria? - differently. I read right past that, so am awaiting to learn if they are the same thing with different faces, or if I've misunderstood all along.
As you describe the process it reminds me of the task that faces us with repopulating the soil. First we must make it hospitable - no poisons, plenty of organic material - then many families of bacteria arrive, probably with some specific order that we don't have the instruments to observe. Fungus are next, and then the one-celled animals- Protozoa - and so on.
Since most farm soil is effectively sterilized, we need to go back to the beginning to repopulate it. Luckily, there are ways of speeding the process, since all of those soil critters exist elsewhere in safe havens, and multiply rapidly once given the chance. Applying a shovel-ful of living soil every few weeks seeds the needed life forms and helps move "progress" rapidly up the "evolutionary" ladder.
Sometimes, when I fully grasp the way we have decided on terms, the hubris takes my breath away!
So - I'd say "yes" to this characterization of humans if - and only if - we decide to agree that our peculiar way of ascribing values is valid.
And that's where I have trouble. We seem to say that we are evolved because we are capable of destroying everything else. But true long-term survival doesn't reward destroying everything else. Our peculiar form of "intelligence" - so well suited to amplify our bomb-making opposable thumbs - abstract, "rational" in the dryest of disconnected, not-getting-the-big-picture terms - is not well suited for the long haul.
It's now well known that we can't continue as we are without bringing doom to our species along with many others.
Yet we continue to call this "intelligence."
Why not whales, why not the corvid family? True, they don't have the exact same form of intelligence that we do, but our central hubris is to define the universe in terms of our strengths, without even knowing the strengths of the creatures we ignore.
We NEED bacteria on our skin to ward off disease, and yet we use anti-bacterial handsoap everywhere. This just doesn't seem to me to be the mark of an intelligent species. And our ability to make robotic machines that make bottles out of petroleum and fill them with anti-bacterial soap and ship them all over the world doesn't convince me that we're smart. Internet? Wouldn't it be nicer if we could meet directly with our minds? We don't know that other animals can't do this - we don't know how, so we catagorize it as fiction.
We are the arrogant species, not the intelligent one.
Thanks for pointing out my habitual misspelling of the word Panspermai as Pansmeria. I have used it so often that you may now regard it as my interpretation of panspermia but I shall definitely correct it in the reference part to panspermia.org
Anyway smer ( as a derivative or spelling variation of Sumer, an early example of civilized human society) sounds cleaner than sperm, therefore I shall formalise its use with some explanation. Thanks again for pointing this.
EQ refers to emotional quotient. Emotions are a property of the spirit rather than the intellect as per my belief. It also includes intution, likes and dislikes, feelings in it.
IQ on the other hand is primarily the power of the physical brain.
We need more from you regarding the implications of this post than just spellings (which are appreciated, thanks again) and picking on some terms. Look forward to it.
Thanks for sharing your experience about the spirit world and I agree with you completely that we have the ability to communicate with it and to travel to their realms, if we learn to use it. It is not common with humans though to develop this ability.
I still characterise humans as advanced because they have the ability to reason, create or destroy but I agree with you completely that at the present time many humans are engaged in utilizing their abilities negatively and in that sense they are less worthy in the eyes of the Universal Intelligiece or Nature for sure.
Once humans realise that they owe their very existance to bacteria they will be more respectable to this microscopic version of life. The very air we breathe, oxygen would be absent without them and so would food or even the ability to digest it.
If some of them attack on rare occassions it is because they are doing God's work in restoring balance in nature that humans have so badly disrupted (as you have elabotrated)
in continuation of your last remark in the "lessons from a rose" post I tried to google for the Pleiades star system. It consists of blue stars but has a habitable zone. The stars are much younger but it does not necessarily imply that advanced life cannot exist on the planets of this system because under different condition of light (much more ultravoilet light of blue stars for example) the rate of evolution of life can be vastly different on different planets. Therefore the Mayan beliefs cannot be ruled out from a scientific point of view.
You have changed your photo. I think your earlier pic was prettier.
I think it's rather like an ant declaring that evolutionarily they are the more advanced because they work cooperatively, and "clearly" cooperation is of much more value!
Or perhaps the bacteria declaring they are the more advanced, because we are specialists they have created to inhabit, while they ARE the building blocks and the creators. It's no good being a superfluous decoration and confusing that with "advanced." Or so the bacteria might argue.
The word "advanced" is itself a difficulty - important might be a blunter, more accurate word. We use the term 'advanced' to defend ourselves, while never addressing whether the talents we call "advanced" are of intrinsic value. They are of value to us, because they are what we have and therefore what we construct our world around. We are certainly fierce and skilled predators.
But saying we are advanced because we are super-predators doesn't sit well with our ethical sensibilities, although I can't find a difference between "advanced" and "super-predators" when you break it down. Doesn't matter whether we eat flesh or not, our ability to destroy everything in our path (and penchant for doing so) makes us super-predators.
I'm playing devils advocate here, but I do think there is real question of how we can declare ourselves evolutionarily advanced whilst ignoring the special skills of other species and declaring them unimportant. They are unimportant to US - we don't have them so we learned to do without. But our declaration that we are super-beings elevates our human skills to the level of hubris (in my thinking.)
But it does seem that humans onwards consciously exercise a choice to be or not to be destructive. Many as you have recognised are destructive and many as a result are unhappy - as I observed in a much older post the squirrels in the garden appear to be far happier.
I thought I have nothing to add to this blog, but I’m interested in panspermia. Also, I’m sure ancient Sumerians didn’t disappear from the earth, but their descendants still live among us. I’m interested in knowing what happened to them, and how their descendants spread. Maybe, it’s coincident that Ashok became the father of the word, pansmeria. It makes sense to me.
I also admire ants for working hard and in a team. But what do you think of all those ants working for just one queen? When I watched a film on ants in elementary school, I kept wondering if she was truly happy?
About babies cannot focus their eyes, I learned that adult eyes also keep moving even though we think we are staring at something, and our minds are completely focusing on the object. A Japanese (probably scientist) was talking about it on a NHK program. We are just unaware of it. But this shouldn't surprise us because so many things we think we are sure could turns out differently.
I know that many humans who move to the US aren't made the least bit happy by the staunchly independent (and fractured) culture of the United States. As for me, it feels completely natural.
I suspect (because such a thing cannot be easily proved) that most animals (not including humans), insects, plants etc. are happier than humans at most time. They do not worry about the future or past I think like humans do, especially grown up ones and enjoy the moment and the day much more as I recall myself doing as a child and it was a happier time.
Certianly at the time of a calamity insects like ants scurry about saving their stores and do not appear happy but then even humans are most unhappy at the time of a calamity.
In an earlier post I was describing how agitated a pair of birds were when they lost their young ones in my garden. But the next day they appeared relaxed and cheerful. Perhaps they forgot their loss quickly. Humans take much longer for that.
A child does not worry about the future secure in the knowledge that future, nature or parents will take care and as a result is happier.
I feel we as grown ups become happier too when we put more trust in Nature and the Universe. Many persons do not and worry even as I do from time to time.
Is there evidence that animals communicate with spirits? I'd suggest that there is, and that there are lots of stories of animals becoming alert to presences that humans are slow to notice. We'll have to abandon rigorous scientific process here, since we can't prove spirits that way, we're unlike to prove that animals perceive them. Yet all of us chatting here seem to have had some contact with angels and such - enough to convince us individually, and that will have to suffice.
Now then. Assuming (big assumption) that animals do perceive spirit, is it not likely that they also perceive spirit's passing in a deeper way than we typically do, and instead of seeing only physical loss, become aware of life beyond?
If this should be true, it would be reason for birds to stop grieving quickly, as they realized there was no need for grief, as all is a continuum. Once their loved one was perceived to be happy on the other side, it would be reasonable to rejoice.
I play this thought experiment only to harp on the theme (AGAIN!) that our 'evidence' for being advanced in any way at all is based on such limited knowledge that it's virtually useless.
All of us critters - I include humans as mammals - are individual and specific and different from other critters, and without communication we're so locked in to our own view of the world that it may be blocking out much that is true. We just don't know. We have the science to know that a bee doesn't see color and a hummingbird sees the color red - but we can't know about senses and abilities that they might have that we don't have or haven't developed, because - being without - we have no words to even think of them.
20 years ago we'd have thought it daft to imagine that some birds have lodestones and a sense of the magnetic pulls of the earth - or that crows could think through multiple steps of tool-making to snag a bit of food. Ten years ago there was no proof (and 40 years ago science still strongly denied) that animals have emotions.
It seems to me that every time we base things on 'common' assumptions we end up dead wrong.
If we have limited amount of memory and imagination, do you think we’ll be happier like insects and birds? I don’t know. I guess it depends on the quality of our limited memory and imagination and our ability to connect them.
It’s true we know so little. And one of the things I want to know more is about colors, origin of colors and so on. I was researching on the subject and came across a word, qualia. It’s a relief to find this word and also tetrachromacy. In the past, I talked about my color experience with people around me and had confirmation with an artist and an ophthalmologist for similar experiences. But I don’t know if they really understood me completely. Unless we actually experience, there are many things we cannot confirm.
Back on the subject of happiness, there is a family. A husband or wife cheated big time, but their partner didn’t know it all his or her life. People might say she or he were happy not knowing. Others might say she or he was stupid, probably. So happiness depends on the viewpoint.
Then, I thought about Bhutan. It’s close to Himalaya. Have you visited there, Ashok? What do you think of their Gross National Happiness? Do you think we can all be as happy as them? They look peaceful. But again, it depends on viewpoints, right?
I have felt for a long time that birds and other animals as well have many powers that have become dormant in humans perhaps due to a large sized brain and its use.
I suspect strongly that birds have telepathic power and have some personal experience in that direction that I may write in a blog post in the near future. That is how they can find their partners and siblings even around complicated buildings and dense forests and even after they have drifted far apart. Human babies are lost easily in a crowd and cannot be relocated without conscious help.
Telepathy involves using the consciousness ina more direct way as compared to the use of the mind and through this direct perception may well include a perception of non-embodied beings- spirits. Therefore, there is much substance in what you have written.
In answer to your question if we had limited mind and memory would we be happier? We may well be provided our other needs were not compromised because of that.
Meditative exercises that involve shutting the use of the mind and focussing the consciousness on the heart or some other single word or point do lead to great happiness. I have much personal experience of that.
There is a statement in the bible about it. ( I am not a christian but I believe and respect much certain sections very much. These include the Proverbs and eccelesiastes). The statement is that much wisdom leads to sorrow.
However other statements in the same book compromise this statement that wisdom leads to health and wealth.
The mind, memory and wisdom can lead to an improvement in satisfying our physical and material needs and in that sense can lead to indirect happiness. A lack of basic necessities can lead to a lack of happiness.
Therefore in conclusion, it all depends on how we use these faculties and a proper balance between them.
Certain Yogis claim that their material needs are met through assistance from the spirit world and therefore they need not exercise their mind in that direction.
I think, Bhutanese are happier. They lead a delightfully simple life in a pleasant environment. There is much happiness in simplicity in my experience.
I too detest the complexity of the modern age. One way is by going old fashioned. I hung on to my cassette player for music much longer than my friends but now that I have a CD player for music I wonder if it was such a great deal because the CD gets scratched esily and one loses valuable music sometimes within a year. Some of my 20 year old cassettes are still fine. You might be surprised to hear that I am still using Windows Me and Word 2000. I shall only change when it becomes absolutely necessary. similarly I avoid blackberry, Ittablets and ipads and so on. I even started using the mobile phone much after others. I fully realise the newer things have possible advantages but I am ready to forego them for the sake of simplicity.
I chersih my childhood days when there was a little variety in consumer goods and a little variety in foods, but whatever there was , was just delightfully great.
Ashok, I have some precious audio cassettes but I find it difficult to play them, unless I clean the player a lot, and even then they don't always play well.
As for CDs and DVDs I have discovered a way to cure them of faults caused by scratches. This works for data, music and film. There is a product called T-Cut. It may have a different trade mark where you are, but it is designed to restore the surface shine to the paintwork on a car. It contains jeweller's rouge I guess, a very fine abrasive which doesn't damage the disc's surface. It rarely fails. I rent DVDs by post, watching perhaps 8 a month and when they stick in the player, I can almost always fix them with a light rub with T-Cut.
Hayden I too have spent different years without a TV intentionally. Presently I do watch it a lot. It is awfully addictive and I refuse to get a DVD player even though cost wise they have become dirt cheap here in order to minimise siting some more in front of that screen and having to deal with more wires, plugs and switches.