Recently a dear friend sent me a video interview with a physicist, Tom Campbell, that is very interesting and can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv8fjXt ... e=youtu.be. It is almost 3 hours -- I have only watched about an hour so far -- but worth at least some time as his insights from science and out-of-body research overlap what we understand from the Padgett messages. His main subject is consciousness and one of his main points is that we must become love and serve others. He also talks about how intention modifies future probabilities of an outcome, how the future is not set in stone, but influenced by our thoughts and intentions, and how our thoughts and intentions determine our present reality. Strong positive intention can bring about healing, whereas intention with the basis of fear and worry can increase the probability of disease. The power of intention is weak if coming from the intellect and strong if from our level of being [cf. mind vs soul]. Ego and fear decrease the power of intention and keep us from being love. Fear is about us, whereas love is about others. Getting rid of fear makes us beings of love and we live in a bigger space caring about others. These are just a few of the insights -- there is far more.
He has a trilogy of altogether about 800 pages at https://www.amazon.com/My-Big-TOE-Compl ... 0972509461 as well as shorter videos and a website https://www.my-big-toe.com/. (TOE stands for a Theory of Everything and he is bridging science, spirituality and the various other aspects of reality.)
Scientist's video overlapping Padgett messages
Re: Scientist's video overlapping Padgett messages
Thanks Eva! I haven't watched the video you posted (yet), but as a result of your post, did find another from Tom Campbell called the 3 Paths of Spiritual Growth. There was a timely message in that video for me. The two snippets I pulled out:
This plus the brief conversation I had with Catherine in Meyersdale (about growing in Divine Love being between an individual and God) were helpful to me in my prayer. Thankful for divine interventions!"If you are just trying and trying and nothing is happening, that's probably because your 'trying' is more 'acting' than 'being.' ... [The key is] you have to have an intention to grow up, to become unconditional love." [55:00]
"You can get in your own way by trying too hard with your ego to force yourself to become something you're not. You have to do it lightly; you have to do it with grace. You have to do it with care, for yourself as well as for others." [1:06:30]
Re: Scientist's video overlapping with Padgett messages
Thank you Beth for sharing the video you found. I resonate with his three paths/approaches and the ultimate goal of becoming unconditional love. Even though he comes at it from a different angle, the conclusion is correct -- we are growing toward becoming divine angels and God's children at one with Him which is ultimately becoming unconditional love as God is love. I take the surrender path as surrendering to God and praying for His Love. The other two paths complement that -- consciously choosing to be kind and act less out of the mind/intellect/ego and more out of the Divine Love in our souls.
As I listened to Tom's talk, I took some notes, so I'll paste them here. I think they contains some helpful points and insights.
Tom Campbell
Three Paths to Spiritual Growth
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99TLcj ... e=youtu.be)
Path of surrender
Submitting to a higher power
Path of service
Helping others, making world better
Yogic, warrior path
Working on overcoming weaknesses by strength of will. Making choices to do the right and avoid the wrongs.
We are all on a combination of the three paths. Each path is individual and the right path is the one that works for us.
People tend to be confused how to get rid of fear, ego, etc.
Path of Surrender
You give up ego and being in charge. It is also a path of being. You give up the intellect and analysis and figuring things out. Being means authenticity. Letting go of all we and others think we should be.
Simple way of getting rid of ego.
If struggling from ego and fear and belief, it is hard to let these go. Most of us are in that situation. This path looks like a short cut, but is not easy.
This path is walking on knife edge with slippery slopes on both sides.
One slippery slope is the ego. We will always still make choices from the ego and be acting rather than being. The ego will justify everything from our new beliefs that we have surrendered. We may not be truly surrendered, just think we are.
Monastic life may be like this, but those doing this may not be authentic and really grow up, not having changed spiritually. On this path, it can be hard to tell if it is real. A person may appear spiritual, but just acting it.
This path easily leads to the paranormal which starts from the being level. However, one can be very intuitive and still not grow up in terms of self-change. Getting out of intellect of and by itself doesn’t mean we are growing up and being rather than acting.
Example of growing up:
Test includes self examination.
Intellect justifies our thoughts. Change includes being kinder, more helpful, etc., not just disciplines like meditation. Examine feelings—do you see problems of others, feel prideful of ourselves, self righteous, annoyed by others? Those are the signs of ego and not having grown up. Growing up means acceptance of struggling people and feeling compassion. Criticism and complaining and stress are a sign of not being grown up.
Good meditation and quieting mind/intellect are skills, not necessarily having grown up.
Ego doesn’t surrender, it just pretends to. Surrender is more represented by tantric traditions rather than yogic, which is a warrior path.
Struggle may not be necessary, just let it go -- though this can lead to denial and not growing up. Being level needs to also include getting rid of fear and ego.
Service Path
It too is a narrow path with slippery slopes. We can be kind or act kind. Being kind means we are kind by nature and need to get rid of fear. Acting is including ego. Going inward and disconnecting from world is not it. We need to reach out and engage and try to help the world—embrace and plug into the world rather than living apart from the world.
This is a positive path, all about giving but is still not necessarily growing up in a big way. We are not becoming love. Fear can be denied, but still be there.
Being nice and caring is a good thing, but may not lead to the being level and growing up. People may just go through the motions, but not arrive to the state of being.
We are in a learning lab. The key is interacting and getting feedback. As we grow up, we embrace things and people. It is not setting ourselves apart in our little safe world, but rather helping others. Creating a nice peaceful bubble is not where it is at except as a place of retreat and rejuvenation. We should still be involved with people and not consider them spiritually below us. We can get stuck in the bubble and only hang out with those who share our bubble but we are not really growing.
Mother Theresa wasn’t always nice and pleasant though helping many. She didn’t accept that people can have their own struggles. Being rude and negative is never the way to go if we give up our ego. Kindness doesn’t mean we are done, it takes more than that to grow up. Being a monk doesn’t imply having grown up. We have to always be skeptical of ourselves to keep growing. Once we are satisfied, we stop growing.
These paths are not prescription for becoming love, but just a process to pass through.
The Yogic, Warrior path
Getting rid of fear is the key — really getting rid of it, not just suppressing it. Monastery existence is a very benign environment and easy to deal with. Challenges are less and it is easier to pretend to be kind and operate on a being level. The real world is much more challenging. Yogic path recognizes the fear and works on pulling it out by the roots. The other two paths don’t address fear directly. It has been tamed, but not rooted out.
Fear reflects ego and our beliefs. In the first two paths, fear is subdued, but not necessarily eliminated, though we may think so.
Yogic path is a struggle, always skeptical, always working on overcoming. It is a long path, life time path, and directly deals with ego and fear.
Being authentic is a start, but it still needs self-examination. Are we being kind, helpful serving people, having unconditional love? The authentic self needs to keep growing and changing. Right brain people are authentic most of the time, but may not be loving.
The goal is not to get rid of intellect as it is important and necessary. However intellect needs to be used in service of love, not fear. Intellect is not enemy, and kindness is a step in the right direction. We have not arrived yet. If we see ourselves above others, that is a sign that we have a way to go. Intellectual and intuitive sides need to work together without either one dominating.
They should have a good working relationship working in service of love, not fear.
All three paths are workable but they all have traps. We can deceive ourselves on each one. Trying too hard on the yogic path can become mostly intellectual.
The important thing is to have strong intention to grow up and ultimately become love. At a deep level, this intention will get us there. Continued growth and change are needed. Always be skeptical, open to new understanding. As soon as we feel we are done and have all the answers, we become closed and stop growing.
Check if we are really growing or just talking the talk. We are on a path of becoming love. It is in interaction with others that our ego is challenged. Are we responding with love or putting others down to justify ourselves?
These three paths all take effort to want to change from doing good deeds to being unconditional love. We are consciousness and working on growing up.
But it should not just be drudgery and discouraging, but rather joyful.
Seeing what we need to yet work on can become a positive insight rather than negative realization.
The journey should also be full of humor, lightness and fun. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Coming from the intellect can make it drudgery and it cannot be sustained. Coming from a being level makes it much easier. Fighting can become a no-win, so a lighter attitude with joy is needed. Growing up is serious, but should also be joyful. Always feel like you are learning. Self-satisfaction will stop growth. Laugh at failure rather than being angry with yourself. We can get in our own way by struggling too hard. Care is needed for ourselves and others. Don’t compare with others, that is just ego.
These paths are all useful but we can be stuck on all of them. Don’t make it about following a path, the ultimate aim and intention is to become unconditional love.
As I listened to Tom's talk, I took some notes, so I'll paste them here. I think they contains some helpful points and insights.
Tom Campbell
Three Paths to Spiritual Growth
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99TLcj ... e=youtu.be)
Path of surrender
Submitting to a higher power
Path of service
Helping others, making world better
Yogic, warrior path
Working on overcoming weaknesses by strength of will. Making choices to do the right and avoid the wrongs.
We are all on a combination of the three paths. Each path is individual and the right path is the one that works for us.
People tend to be confused how to get rid of fear, ego, etc.
Path of Surrender
You give up ego and being in charge. It is also a path of being. You give up the intellect and analysis and figuring things out. Being means authenticity. Letting go of all we and others think we should be.
Simple way of getting rid of ego.
If struggling from ego and fear and belief, it is hard to let these go. Most of us are in that situation. This path looks like a short cut, but is not easy.
This path is walking on knife edge with slippery slopes on both sides.
One slippery slope is the ego. We will always still make choices from the ego and be acting rather than being. The ego will justify everything from our new beliefs that we have surrendered. We may not be truly surrendered, just think we are.
Monastic life may be like this, but those doing this may not be authentic and really grow up, not having changed spiritually. On this path, it can be hard to tell if it is real. A person may appear spiritual, but just acting it.
This path easily leads to the paranormal which starts from the being level. However, one can be very intuitive and still not grow up in terms of self-change. Getting out of intellect of and by itself doesn’t mean we are growing up and being rather than acting.
Example of growing up:
Test includes self examination.
Intellect justifies our thoughts. Change includes being kinder, more helpful, etc., not just disciplines like meditation. Examine feelings—do you see problems of others, feel prideful of ourselves, self righteous, annoyed by others? Those are the signs of ego and not having grown up. Growing up means acceptance of struggling people and feeling compassion. Criticism and complaining and stress are a sign of not being grown up.
Good meditation and quieting mind/intellect are skills, not necessarily having grown up.
Ego doesn’t surrender, it just pretends to. Surrender is more represented by tantric traditions rather than yogic, which is a warrior path.
Struggle may not be necessary, just let it go -- though this can lead to denial and not growing up. Being level needs to also include getting rid of fear and ego.
Service Path
It too is a narrow path with slippery slopes. We can be kind or act kind. Being kind means we are kind by nature and need to get rid of fear. Acting is including ego. Going inward and disconnecting from world is not it. We need to reach out and engage and try to help the world—embrace and plug into the world rather than living apart from the world.
This is a positive path, all about giving but is still not necessarily growing up in a big way. We are not becoming love. Fear can be denied, but still be there.
Being nice and caring is a good thing, but may not lead to the being level and growing up. People may just go through the motions, but not arrive to the state of being.
We are in a learning lab. The key is interacting and getting feedback. As we grow up, we embrace things and people. It is not setting ourselves apart in our little safe world, but rather helping others. Creating a nice peaceful bubble is not where it is at except as a place of retreat and rejuvenation. We should still be involved with people and not consider them spiritually below us. We can get stuck in the bubble and only hang out with those who share our bubble but we are not really growing.
Mother Theresa wasn’t always nice and pleasant though helping many. She didn’t accept that people can have their own struggles. Being rude and negative is never the way to go if we give up our ego. Kindness doesn’t mean we are done, it takes more than that to grow up. Being a monk doesn’t imply having grown up. We have to always be skeptical of ourselves to keep growing. Once we are satisfied, we stop growing.
These paths are not prescription for becoming love, but just a process to pass through.
The Yogic, Warrior path
Getting rid of fear is the key — really getting rid of it, not just suppressing it. Monastery existence is a very benign environment and easy to deal with. Challenges are less and it is easier to pretend to be kind and operate on a being level. The real world is much more challenging. Yogic path recognizes the fear and works on pulling it out by the roots. The other two paths don’t address fear directly. It has been tamed, but not rooted out.
Fear reflects ego and our beliefs. In the first two paths, fear is subdued, but not necessarily eliminated, though we may think so.
Yogic path is a struggle, always skeptical, always working on overcoming. It is a long path, life time path, and directly deals with ego and fear.
Being authentic is a start, but it still needs self-examination. Are we being kind, helpful serving people, having unconditional love? The authentic self needs to keep growing and changing. Right brain people are authentic most of the time, but may not be loving.
The goal is not to get rid of intellect as it is important and necessary. However intellect needs to be used in service of love, not fear. Intellect is not enemy, and kindness is a step in the right direction. We have not arrived yet. If we see ourselves above others, that is a sign that we have a way to go. Intellectual and intuitive sides need to work together without either one dominating.
They should have a good working relationship working in service of love, not fear.
All three paths are workable but they all have traps. We can deceive ourselves on each one. Trying too hard on the yogic path can become mostly intellectual.
The important thing is to have strong intention to grow up and ultimately become love. At a deep level, this intention will get us there. Continued growth and change are needed. Always be skeptical, open to new understanding. As soon as we feel we are done and have all the answers, we become closed and stop growing.
Check if we are really growing or just talking the talk. We are on a path of becoming love. It is in interaction with others that our ego is challenged. Are we responding with love or putting others down to justify ourselves?
These three paths all take effort to want to change from doing good deeds to being unconditional love. We are consciousness and working on growing up.
But it should not just be drudgery and discouraging, but rather joyful.
Seeing what we need to yet work on can become a positive insight rather than negative realization.
The journey should also be full of humor, lightness and fun. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Coming from the intellect can make it drudgery and it cannot be sustained. Coming from a being level makes it much easier. Fighting can become a no-win, so a lighter attitude with joy is needed. Growing up is serious, but should also be joyful. Always feel like you are learning. Self-satisfaction will stop growth. Laugh at failure rather than being angry with yourself. We can get in our own way by struggling too hard. Care is needed for ourselves and others. Don’t compare with others, that is just ego.
These paths are all useful but we can be stuck on all of them. Don’t make it about following a path, the ultimate aim and intention is to become unconditional love.
Re: Scientist's video overlapping Padgett messages
And on the subject of science and divine love, here is something similar from a different source. Sr Ilia Delio is a Franciscan nun with PhDs in pharmacology and theology. She is a scholar of Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest and paleontologist who connected God, the universe, and evolution in a way that is profound.
Here's Ilia from her book, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love, excerpted in a Richard Rohr meditation from last week:
Here's Ilia from her book, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love, excerpted in a Richard Rohr meditation from last week:
God is a beggar of love seeking to be love at the heart of this evolutionary creation; yet God cannot enter into our world without us. Our challenge today is to stay the course of love in a world that resists love, fears love, and rejects the cost of love. God continues to push through evolutionary life to emerge in a new, more illuminative way as God, but the forces of resistance are great. The challenge, therefore, is not to argue or defend evolution but to drench ourselves in it, to go inward and meet, in silence and solitude, a power no human power can vanquish. This is divine love, always dynamic and ever new, love that empowers us to go beyond ourselves by imagining and creating a world worthy of love. ...
We need to reimagine ourselves in love, realizing that on the evolutionary time line, Christianity was born this morning and is just waking up to the newness of life. In Jesus divine love bursts forth with hopes and dreams for a new world. This new world is within our reach if we awaken to the power of love within us as the power to create anew.
Re: Scientist's video overlapping Padgett messages
More from Sr Ilia ... the theme for an upcoming conference her group is hosting called Love at the Heart of the Cosmos: Living in Relational Wholeness:
I'm encouraged to see this kind of movement at the edges at least of the Catholic Church, considering in my (early) lifetime de Chardin's work was considered heresy. I see it as God's work in all places!
I'm not sure Sr Ilia and group are ready for Padgett and/or channeling yet. But for her, to be 'catholic' is to mean having a vision of wholeness grounded in the cosmic Christ.Divine Love, according to Teilhard de Chardin, is the core energy of the cosmos. God’s love is unceasing, dynamic, and creative – pulsing in the heart of all things, driving us ever forward to newness. Our wondrous human gift of love means that the future of the Earth is in our hands. But in these tumultuous times, where we are we going?
We need a new story to guide our way. A rich awareness of what the Catholic-Hindu theologian Raimon Panikkar called “Cosmotheandric Solidarity” – the profound connection of God, cosmos, and humanity – can help place us in a universe of deepening consciousness and increasing complexity.
Our story requires contemplative practices to open our minds and hearts to divine love and new possibilities. And it must encourage us to transcend our differences and distances, adopting a planetary faith of the Earth that welcomes all God’s peoples, all God’s creatures, and all God’s technology, as one deeply connected spiritual community.
I'm encouraged to see this kind of movement at the edges at least of the Catholic Church, considering in my (early) lifetime de Chardin's work was considered heresy. I see it as God's work in all places!
Re: Scientist's video overlapping Padgett messages
Thanks for sharing Beth -- lovely quote.
I fully agree that God's Love, even if not fully understood, is working in and across religious groups throughout the world and filling to at least some degree the souls of those who are open to it. The messages confirm it.
Love,
Eva
I fully agree that God's Love, even if not fully understood, is working in and across religious groups throughout the world and filling to at least some degree the souls of those who are open to it. The messages confirm it.
Love,
Eva
Re: Scientist's video overlapping Padgett messages
Thanks for your comments Beth. Unfortunately I'm a little stuck on semantics here. God's Love is not the energy that pulses in the souls of every individual. I call that the life force. The Essence of God needs a personal invitation to come into the soul. The life force of God is indeed the active energy of God that animates the Universe and insures that all functions in accordance to the laws of God. Humans are the only creatures who posses free will and can live outside the parameters that God has set for life. But because we posses this gift, we are able to receive the greatest gift which is God's Love, His Essence. I agree that God is working everywhere making available this gift if souls so choose to receive it. This is not to say that a certain prayer must be said or a that only certain individuals are worthy to receive it. It does however take a particular type of soul receptivity in order to open to the inflowing of the Love. Some stumble upon it, others cry out for it and fortunately there are those who understand the mechanics of it. We need to share this truth to all who are willing to listen. It is so simple and elegant in its workings that given the right approach we can teach any soul how to receive it. My 2 cents worth. Much love.......Al
Endless journey,endless Love.
Re: Scientist's video overlapping Padgett messages
Thanks for being gentle Al. 
No, I get it (I'm good with semantics). But it seems to me that in a world of billions of people, with humanity on the brink, that God must have some other irons in the fire as it were ... maybe meeting people where they are? That's what intrigues me when I see this kind of thing coming out of the Catholic Church or from science. It just strikes me as being divinely inspired.
No, I get it (I'm good with semantics). But it seems to me that in a world of billions of people, with humanity on the brink, that God must have some other irons in the fire as it were ... maybe meeting people where they are? That's what intrigues me when I see this kind of thing coming out of the Catholic Church or from science. It just strikes me as being divinely inspired.Re: Scientist's video overlapping Padgett messages
Yes, I completely agree Beth. Whatever works in the long run I'm in favour of..God bless.......Al
Endless journey,endless Love.