Interfaith Openness and The Biocentric Universe Theory

Interfaith Openness and The Biocentric Universe Theory: Life Creates Time, Space, and the Cosmos Itself – 

In the link to this article – “Stem-cell guru Robert Lanza presents a radical new view of the universe and everything in it."

"The only thing we can perceive are our perceptions. In other words, consciousness is the matrix upon which the cosmos is apprehended. Color, sound, temperature, and the like exist only as perceptions in our head, not as absolute essences. In the broadest sense, we cannot be sure of an outside universe at all.”

How may we see this in the context of a spiritual practice? How can we reconcile faith with science and find a connection between the two?

Spend just a bit of time in deep prayer and meditation and you may come to understand what this means; that the emptiness of creation is a space waiting to be filled with infinite possibilities of thought and mind - a cosmic consciousness. God even, if you wish to perceive the nature of reality in theistic terms, or Śūnyatā-Nirvana in non-theistic and non-dualistic terms.

The point is that we help shape the reality in which we live at many levels of our own consciousness or soul, our spirit, just as we shape the relationships in which we dwell and the consciousness that dwells within us. One may call this the Spirit of God, if one wishes. I like to do just that, it aligns to my own faith, but it also helps me to delve deeper into the mystery of all creation.

It is for me a deep mystery. All the great literature, art, and sacred spiritual liturgy and scripture  written and created by humankind across the ages speaks to this mystery, we dwell within it and it dwells within us.  We have internalized the Presence of this Mystery, the Divine Ultimate Mystery. God is real.

I believe that there is an eternal Holy Spirit, a divine presence that dwells within us and shapes the universe in ways we can hardly imagine, seen and unseen, visible and invisible. If thought can be prayer, is indeed a prayer, and prayer thought. Then we are praying all the time, and what we think and pray comes into being in some form or fashion, shaped by our desires.

It becomes real for us; we come to dwell within it, within this mystery. And it brings new meaning to all the scriptures of humanity when we begin to see how it is all connected and interconnected.

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:” 

It is all one big open mystery in which we dwell and that dwells within us. And the literature and liturgy of our faith helps us to internalize this within our own spirit-soul-self-consciousness. It helps us to know and be known by God.



1 Corinthians 13:12(NRSV) –– “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”




Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with

all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great

commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt

love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments

hang all the Law and the Prophets.
​


Shantideva:

“May the pain of every living creature 

Be completely cleared away. 

May I be the doctor and the medicine 

And may I be the nurse 

For all sick beings in the world 

Until everyone is healed.” – Shantideva


“May I be protector for those without one, 

A guide for all travellers on the way;

May I be a bridge, a boat and a ship 

For all who wish to cross (the water).” –– Shantideva



From: The Buddha – Dhammapada:  Translated by Thomas Byrom (Shambhala Press, 1976)


“We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world.

Speak or act with an impure mind

And trouble will follow you

As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.


We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world.

Speak or act with a pure mind

And happiness will follow you

As your shadow, unshakable. "



There is a great conceptual image from ancient Christianity that may serve here, Perichoresis. 

Perichoresis can be described as the "Divine Dance", it is an indwelling between the Holy Trinity, between God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This indwelling happens within us too, at a deeply felt spiritual level, within our own spirit and consciousness.

Perhaps this image, this indwelling can also serve as a metaphor for Biocentrism. Where we begin to understand more clearly how interconnected we are to one another and creation itself, and how the reality we experience every day of our lives arises from these relationships.

And how God dwells within us – God in whom we live and move and have our being. Ushering in a great thanksgiving of the Spirit who prays in and with and through us, even when we do not know how to pray ourselves.


The Holy Eucharist: Rite One
Episcopal BCP

And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves,
our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living
sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee that we, and all
others who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may
worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son
Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction,
and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and
we in him.



Many Blessings,
Ron Starbuck
Saint Julian Press