Authenticate IT 2: Look Around

How do we authentic the Divine? Look around, my friends. I think, therefore I am - Cogito, ergo sum ~ René Descartes | I AM THAT I AM ~spoke the Burning Bush to Moses || Both are authentications of the Divine Presence in all. Our thinking, thoughts, consciousness are paramount in manifestation, perception, and our connection to the Universal. But is it the only way to authenticate the Divine.

Transcript

Three,

Two,

One.

So look around.

That's my talk title for today.

Look around.

I think,

Therefore I am.

Cagito ergo su,

Said René Descartes.

Many,

Many years ago,

Even before I can see clearly now,

I am that I am spoke the burning bush to Moses again,

Many,

Many millennia ago.

Both of those in their own time are authentications of the divine presence in all of us.

That is how it was authenticated in those times,

In those moments of philosophy and enlightenment.

Our thinking,

Our thoughts,

Our consciousness are usually what are paramount in our manifestations,

In our perception of life,

And our connection to the universal.

But it is only,

Well is it?

Is it the only way to authenticate the divine in our lives?

Do we have to always be in this philosophical enlightened consciousness to identify and authenticate it,

It being the divine that is revealed in all of us?

E.

E.

Cummings wrote,

My mind is a big hunk of irrevocable nothing,

Which touch and taste and smell and hearing and sight and keep heading and chipping with sharp fatal tools in an agony of sensual chisels.

I perform squirms of chrome and execute strides of cobalt.

Nevertheless,

I feel that I cleverly am being altered,

That I slightly am becoming something a little different.

In fact,

Myself.

Hereupon helpless,

I utter lilac shrieks and scarlet bellowings.

Powerful,

Huh?

That's from his Portraits 7.

What do you feel?

Feel as in emotions and mental feelings,

Not touch.

But what do you feel when you see,

Hear,

Touch,

Smell,

Taste something so fantastic your whole life seems to make sense again.

It brings words to mind that you never thought you really had.

Descriptions and adjectives that you've never used before and memories that have long been misplaced.

There's a book,

And I'm going to show you this book.

There's a book I love,

This book right here,

Sorry,

Called A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman.

She's quite the prolific author.

She's got like two dozen highly acclaimed works of poetry and nonfiction.

She's even written a novel,

The bestseller The Zookeeper's Wife.

That was a 2017 movie with Jessica Chastain.

She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist with her book 100 Names for Love.

This woman is the epitome of curiosity and imagination to me.

Her thrilling observations urge us,

I know it doesn't mean,

But it urges people to live in the moment and to wake up to nature's everyday miracles.

For me,

Her work is addictive.

I'm starting a new one right now.

Today I'm going to be using a bunch of her quotes and readings to talk about this idea of authenticating it,

Authenticate it,

The divine in all,

Which is our June theme.

I'm going to start out with a piece she wrote in her chapter called Vision.

She said,

In a mere ounce of air,

There are 1,

000 billion trillion gyrating atoms made up of oxygen,

Nitrogen,

And hydrogen,

Each a menagerie of electrons,

Quartz,

And ghostly neutrinos.

Sometimes we marvel at how calm the day is or how still the night.

Yet there is no stillness in the sky or anywhere else where life and matter meet.

There are always vibrant and aglow,

Full of volatile gases,

Staggering spores,

Dust,

Viruses,

Fungi,

And animals,

All stirred by a swirling and relentless wind.

Isn't that fabulous?

When you look at the stars,

When you look at the moon,

When you look at the expansiveness of the sky or the universe,

When you look at a flower,

A child playing,

Your loved one,

A sweet treat,

You may stare at it in amazement of its power,

Of its beauty,

Of its effect on you,

And your emotions soar,

Yes?

I know that happens to me all the time.

And you may think a higher presence,

A higher intelligence must be present here and now for this to happen.

Isn't this fabulous?

If you've ever been to the Grand Canyon or Bryce Canyon or other places that are of nature,

That also has that similar effect.

Oh my gosh,

It's just overwhelmingly beautiful.

Well,

Each of us are a unique beholder of the creation.

You'll see the Grand Canyon a little differently than I see it.

But we're all an authenticator of a design that is both supernatural,

Not supernatural,

But supernatural and meta-physical,

Above the physical.

Beyond our physical comprehension,

Even though science and scientific theory attempts to explain it all and how it all works and how light is bent and etc.

,

Etc.

,

Etc.

What's behind that?

You know,

It's interesting.

I was looking at myself in the mirror and I realized that what I am seeing is the face of a predator.

Give me a second here as I go through this.

It's not a predator that's out there to capture or eat other animals,

Though that ability is there of course.

But to gather light.

I'm a predator of light,

Picking out important images here and there,

Focusing on novel sites over there and over here and pinpointing them in space and time in order to follow them.

And even if they don't have movement that goes from side to side or even up and down,

Just to follow them in their stillness.

And it made me think,

You know what?

We have the ability to be a walking stereoscopic binocular.

When we see prey,

So to speak,

Not the kind of prey where we have to get it to feed our bellies,

But prey for our mind.

That's the power and presence of vision.

When you're there,

When you're seeing that,

When you're focusing on something or someone.

It's the power of our sense of vision.

And if that's not from a divine intelligence,

I don't know what is.

Helen Keller wrote,

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.

The odors of fruits waft me from southern,

Her southern home to my childhood frolics in the peach orchard.

Other odors,

She says,

Instantaneous and fleeting cause my heart to dilate joyously or contract with remembered grief.

Even as I think of smells,

My nose is full of scents that start and awake sweet memories of summers gone in ripening fields far away.

So beautiful.

In 2014,

Some researchers published in Science magazine an article that concluded that the human nose can distinguish at least one trillion different odors.

One trillion.

Way beyond the previous estimate of ten thousand.

As they especially when they compare it to a dog's nose,

Which is just astronomical,

The differences they can smell.

But whether it's your favorite pie,

Fruit pie or or flower or fresh cut grass,

Love that smell.

The sea or mountain air or the pheromones of your mate.

The human nose is amazing.

There's four hundred cent receptors in the human nose.

For example,

I'm not a big coffee drinker,

But the smell I like for some reason.

When that smell of coffee wafts through the room.

Specific receptors in the nose start detecting those molecular components of the odor.

And then that solicits elicits a series of neural responses,

As I'm sure you've all who are coffee lovers have had.

Like,

Thank God.

Or where is it?

Or it engages your other senses or the action of your feet and your salivary glands to create a a GPS powered like hunt for its location.

The power of that scent of coffee for most people.

Smell brings out both the imaginary and the memorial in the brain,

The memories of the brain.

It can act as an informant of a person's profession.

You tell by smell what their profession or their hobby might be.

You can tell by smell what their habits or the previous locale they were at.

And with food,

That smell of food.

That starts making your sense of taste start happening,

Especially when it's a memory like a pie or coffee like I was talking about before.

I was reading an article from Reverend Kelly Isola,

Who's a unity minister,

And she was writing some tips for increasing your spiritual sense of smell.

Isn't that interesting?

And she had many tips,

But here's a couple of them.

When you connect with God's presence,

When you're in spiritual mind treatment,

When you're in meditation,

What sense,

Sense or fragrances come to mind,

If any?

And if they don't,

Can you allow them to come to mind?

Is it vanilla?

Is it the fresh cut of grass?

Is it the bloom of magnolia trees?

Does that come to mind when you are in communion with the divine,

However you approach that?

And she suggests that with every deep breath in today,

To let it be a reminder of being more open and alive and knowing God is real,

Authentic and attentive.

Because as you take these breaths,

Smells come in the smell from your home,

The smell from outside,

Wherever you are at in this communion,

In this communication with the divine.

So if that sense of smell is not from a divine intelligence,

Again,

I don't know what is.

Here's a Nikola Tesla quote that I've said many times,

But it's so perfect here.

If you want to find the secrets of the universe,

He says,

Think in terms of energy,

Frequency and vibrations.

So what happens when you hear Mozart or Miles Davis,

Dolly Parton or Dean Martin,

Bach or the Beatles,

Depending on your taste?

What happens when you hear a baby laughing,

The light rain on your window,

A crackling fire,

The sigh of your lover,

The purr of your cat?

What does that bring up for you?

For me,

When I listen to Debussy.

It delights all of my senses somehow,

It overwhelms in a good way my whole existence for those moments during the composition.

When I hear Debussy,

I am enlightened.

There's a moment for those minutes of enlightenment.

It's amazing.

The sounds of nature,

Both pleasant and not,

Are a symphony of proof that spirit wants to be heard.

Nature wants to be heard.

The divine wants to be heard in its creation.

All in all of those languages,

In all of creation,

Animal,

Mineral,

Vegetable,

Aviary,

Reptilian,

Mammalian,

And plants even.

Yes,

Even plants.

You know,

Using highly expensive and sensory acoustic sensors similar to the ones they use when they're trying to detect cracks and bridges,

Which are really intense sensors.

Researchers are able to catch the ultrasonic flips and plops of a plant,

Of a plant,

Speaking of a plant,

Of the movement within a plant.

Now,

They may not sing like the one you see in Little Shop of Horrors,

But it has been proven that their vibrations are a language,

A language where they speak to each other and they actually speak to the insects that feed upon them.

The universe's sounds.

Now,

That's usually translated into the OM,

A-U-M is usually how it's originally spelled,

But most people spell it O-M.

So if you've ever taken a yoga class,

Usually they open with the sound of OM.

Or something similar to that.

Now,

We cannot actually exactly create the sound of the universe in our chanting,

But we can produce a vibration,

A frequency that is sympathetic with those electromagnetic ones in the cosmic hum.

I have a little short,

Short video for you to watch of sounds from the universe.

Watch this.

Wow.

You see the similarity in the OM sound?

Do you recognize some of those frequencies,

Especially those who,

And we use them,

And it's in our guided meditation background music,

These frequencies that elicit in our bodies,

In our minds,

Sometimes unknowingly love,

Openness,

Creativity.

It's amazing.

Those sounds that you were watching and hearing in that video come from NASA.

These are sounds that have been extracted from telescopes and the ships that have gone by there.

So with all of that,

If sound is not from a divine intelligence,

I don't know what is.

Let's talk about touch.

In her chapter on touch,

Diane Ackerman wrote,

Touch by clarifying and adding to the shorthand of the eyes teaches us that we live in a three dimensional world.

So when you touch silk,

Velvet,

Grass,

Or other such things,

Can you not miraculously,

Well,

It happens,

It's happened to me,

We can miraculously heal hurt with touch.

Ease pain with touch,

Save preemie babies,

Preemie infants,

When you massage them or just give them human touch.

They grow,

They mature so much faster than just the machinery that they're hooked up to.

Touch can change the circumstances of health and well-being.

You've all felt that,

You all know that.

Touch informs,

Touch educates,

Touch loves,

Touches not only by skin,

But what we do when we pray,

We touch.

It's maybe not a physical touch,

Although our hands may be resting or our hands may be like this or like this or something.

When we pray or commune with the power and presence of the universe,

We are touching.

And if touch is not part of a divine intelligence,

I don't know what is.

Here's a little bit more from Diane Ackerman.

I love this.

A creamy blur of succulent blue sound smells like weak old strawberries dropped onto a tin sieve as mother approaches in a halo of color chatter and a perfume like thick golden butterscotch.

Wow,

Isn't that beautiful?

So many things going on in there.

All that is nature saying hi in this synesthesia of life.

Synesthesia.

Now only 2 to 4% of people have the neurological condition that is called synesthesia.

It's a condition where information meant to stimulate one of your senses actually stimulates several of your senses.

And in many ways we're all synesthetes in one way or another,

Like when you smell something and then you can taste it as well.

But there are people who their whole existence,

Like I was saying with Debussy,

Their whole existence is a synesthesia of feeling and taste and smell and sight.

Sacred rituals use the senses to connect to the very being and essence during our guided meditation.

I have music,

I have my voice,

You have the touching of your hands on your thighs or together.

And we have the swirling mandala.

All these senses are being used and worked or if your eyes are closed,

The darkness,

The void in a good way that is there.

That is something you see.

Just because your eyes are closed doesn't mean you don't see.

In the Torah,

In Exodus 2018,

It describes how the Hebrews gathered together to receive the scrolls from Moses,

From Mount Sinai.

And it says in it to hear visions and see the voice of God.

It's a religious and spiritual condition,

A religious and spiritual experience.

A gentleman named Dr.

William Bushell of MIT's Department of Anthropology and Columbia University's American Institute of Buddhist Studies said that,

In fact,

Synesthesia may not only be associated with the highest spiritual states,

It may be necessary for them.

It authenticates the divine here and now.

It is necessary for them.

Remember I was telling you about Dr.

Even Alexander who wrote that book,

Proof of Heaven,

A neurosurgeon's journey into the afterlife.

He was writing about his blending of senses during his near-death experience that he had in a 2008 coma.

And he said seeing and hearing were not separate in this place where I now was.

I could see the surging,

He says,

Joyful perfection of what they sang.

And after months and months of analysis and discussion with other scientists about his experience,

He ends his book with this.

It is crucial to remember that my ultra-real experience deep in coma,

In the realms of the gateway and the core that I describe in my book,

Did not happen in my brain or in the physical universe.

But they really happened in a more fundamental reality,

The dwelling place of divine consciousness,

Spirit,

And soul.

What more proof do you need to authenticate the divine in all and through all?

Just use your senses,

Use your sight,

Use your touch,

Use your taste,

Use your smell,

Use your hearing.

Use those senses.

Stay awake and aware as you walk through life and allow your senses to inform you and inspire you.

All you gotta do is look around.

Thank you so much.

Namaste.