Funnier: Ooops…
Passing: Astronaut & consciousness pioneer Edgar Mitchell (1930-2016)
Ever since he came back from the moon in 1972, Edgar Mitchell has stood out among the world’s spacemen in his outspoken sense that more was going on out there (and down here) than moon rocks & jet fuel. As late as last August, he was in the news because of his studies and belief (he answered a badly written British story here), but throughout his life he sought to keep his eyes, and mind, open.
I like the way the IONS site describes him:
Traveling back to Earth, having just walked on the moon, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell had an experience for which nothing in his life had prepared him.
As he approached the planet we know as home, he was filled with an inner conviction as certain as any mathematical equation he’d ever solved. He knew that the beautiful blue world to which he was returning is part of a living system, harmonious and whole—and that we all participate, as he expressed it later, “in a universe of consciousness.”
Trained as an engineer and scientist, Captain Mitchell was most comfortable in the world of rationality and physical precision. Yet the understanding that came to him as he journeyed back from space felt just as trustworthy—it represented another way of knowing.
This experience radically altered his worldview: Despite science’s superb technological achievements, he realized that we had barely begun to probe the deepest mystery of the universe—the fact of consciousness itself. He became convinced that the uncharted territory of the human mind was the next frontier to explore, and that it contained possibilities we had hardly begun to imagine.
(For more about the work IONS is doing, click & explore here.)
Dr. Mitchell’s passing last week will be mourned by seekers & explorers worldwide. He went to the moon & back, and throughout his life looked for more.
Thoughts: Remember the clear light, the pure clear white light…
From Nick Polizzi
Director, The Sacred Science
I came across a poem this week that stopped me in my tracks. I was reading the Tibetan Book Of The Dead when the eight lines below jumped off the page.
I’ve never seen a description of “source” written on paper so succinctly. This is the epitome of what we are touching at the height of ceremony and deep meditation – when we are truly awake.
These words are now printed on the wall next to my desk:
Remember the clear light,
The pure clear white light
From which everything in the universe comes,
To which everything in the universe returns;
The original nature of your own mind.
The natural state of the universe unmanifest.
Let go into the clear light, trust it, merge with it.
It is your own true nature, it is home.
– The Tibetan Book Of The Dead
Never forget who you really are.
Stay curious,
Nick Polizzi
Director, The Sacred Science
Thoughts: We’re in it, together….
Interdependence is a fundamental law of nature.
Even tiny insects survive by mutual cooperation based on innate recognition of their interconnectedness. It is because our own human existence is so dependent on the help of others that our need for love lays at the very foundation of our existence.
Therefore we need a genuine sense of responsibility and a sincere concern for the welfare of others.
— Dalai Lama
Funnier: Put to rest….
We here at the editorial offices of Brother Ian are fascinated with the burial & funeral rites & rituals of folks around the world, so this, which was mailed to us by a priest in Georgia, may interest you as well:
While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently, his 5-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead robin.
Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box and cotton batting, then dug a hole and made ready for the disposal of the deceased.
The minister’s son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers, and with sonorous dignity, intoned his version of what he thought his father always said: “Glory be unto the Faaather, and unto the Sonnn, and into the hole he goes.”
About Brother Ian
Over the centuries, Brother Ian has been collecting stories & information & discourses for the purpose of elevating the human condition as needed, dissecting it when necessary, and building the case for hope.
In the spirit of noting that organized crime, organized baseball, organized labour, and organized religion tend to engender controversy & occasional discord, I promise to be neither organized or critical of those who are.