At a time when all humanity, and perhaps the whole of creation, “groaneth and travaileth in pain together” in the throes of global transformation and the individual gaze becomes more and more transfixed on ecological Armageddon, the gap between the growing threat of global warming and the incapacity to act effectively in reversing planetary degradation deepens daily into a chasm of collective impotence and personal despair. As French sociologist, Bruno Latour, has wryly remarked: “The camel seems to stand no chance of going through the eye of this needle. When the first tremors of the Apocalypse are heard, it would seem that preparations for the end should require something more than simply using a different kind of light bulb...”
Not all commentators see the end in sight but rather the birthing of a new world: they live today with a strong, growing sense of expectation, often laced with apprehension, as if some radical and rapid process of change has been activated, involving a fundamental break with the past which will release us into a new and unknown future. Psychiatrist and founder of transpersonal psychology, Stanslav Grof sees not the end of the world but a revolution of consciousness. He points out: “The original and literal meaning of the term apocalypse... is not "destruction" but "lifting of the veil" or "revelation." It referred to the disclosure of secrets, hidden from the majority of humanity, to certain privileged persons” (Huffington Post 05/07/2012). Grof sees the current global crisis as a psychospiritual crisis that requires the radical inner transformation of humanity on a global scale – a “lifting of the veil”– no longer privileged to the few but universally, so that, as a species, we become more emotionally mature and spiritually aware.
Our current crisis is above all, a crisis of consciousness, and Larry Dossey, as both a distinguished author and also a pioneering physician of the collective soul, deals head-on with the affliction of the Western mind – its sense of separation and delusion about the nature of consciousness – with elegance and unfailing clarity. His book, One Mind: How Our Individual Mind Is Part Of A Greater Consciousness And Why It Matters, shows the reader the way towards a solution which is, in many ways, quite simple – metanoia – or a change of mind. Dossey brings pearls of ancient wisdom together with the cutting edge discoveries of science to reveal that, rather than consciousness being an excrescence of the physical human brain, it is the foundation of all that exists, beyond and embracing space and time. He makes a strong case for the message coming from age-old spiritual principles – for the profound and “intimate entanglement of everything with everything.” The powerful consequence of this revelation is an experience of oneness and connectedness with all other forms of life on the planet. As author Ervin Lazslo points out in the book’s endorsements: “There is no more powerful idea than knowing and feeling our oneness to inspire the cooperation we so urgently need to create sustainability and humaneness in our world.”
In 1989 Dossey introduced the term ‘nonlocal mind’ in his book Recovering the Soul because of the abundant evidence supporting this view of consciousness, and since then the evidence has continued to accumulate. He is also passionate about why nonlocal mind matters: “The street meaning of nonlocal is, literally, not local. If something is nonlocal, it is not localized or confined to a specific place in space and time, as mentioned. Nonlocal, therefore, is another word for infinite. The implications for consciousness are profound, for if something is nonlocal or infinite in space, it is omnipresent, and if nonlocal or infinite in time, it is eternal or immortal.” The One Mind is nonlocal mind, and the fact that we can have direct, intimate access to this dimension of existence and experience has profound implications for our fear of annihilation after physical death. For as Dossey points out in One Mind: “ The temporal nonlocality of consciousness, for which there is immense evidence, suggests that some aspect of the mind cannot die, even if it tried.”
This view was a key feature of Dossey’s “Patron Saint of the One Mind,” Austrian physicist, Erwin Schrödinger’s vision: “I venture to call it [the mind] indestructible since it has a peculiar time-table, namely mind is always now. There is really no before and after for the mind. There is only now that includes memories and expectations. . . . We may, or so I believe, assert that physical theory in its present stage strongly suggests the indestructibility of Mind by Time.”
Larry Dossey’s book is the fulfillment of a lifetime’s exploration and a masterpiece of empirical spirituality that draws together the thoughts and findings of a pioneering generation intent upon the liberation of Western civilization from the dead-end of scientific materialism. Dossey has been at the forefront of this cohort, battling against the reductionist prejudice that still pervades the scientific world. Along with William James and Henri Bergson, Dossey insists that “Correlation is not causation,” and that the correlation of brain events with states of consciousness does not mean that those brain events cause consciousness. It is as if the trend towards the reduction of mind to molecules, and the dissolution of the soul, has been an aberration in human thought and culture, spawned by the hubris of philosophers and scientists trapped in the rigid paralysis of extreme rationalism. Schrödinger believed that “we are suffering from a consensus trance, a collective delusion, about the nature of consciousness.” He saw the common view of consciousness as residing inside the head as a contingent “aid for practical use.” Dossey confronts the prejudice and stasis of this ideological reductionism which has been used to justify the political exaltation of human greed and its consequent exploitation and degradation of the planet.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the One Mind, however, is how it influences our lives most intimately and effectively through the channels of love and compassion. As Dossey points out “Love is a gateway to the One Mind because love tempers the forces of isolation, separateness, and individuality” and “Throughout history, the primacy of love has been confirmed countless times by those who have experienced various versions of the One Mind—in altered states, mystical experience, reverie, epiphany, or highly creative moments.” A classic example of “love finding a way” is animals separated accidentally from their owners, sometimes by thousands of miles, finding their way home through unfamilar terrains over periods of many months. Other One Mind phenomena include precognition, near-death experiences, remote viewing and, of course, healing. Also, dreams for Dossey are “a universal doorway to the One Mind,” while a life-threatening crisis can be another. Imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War and faced with execution, author and journalist, Arthur Koestler, had revelations of the One Mind, mysticial experiences he called “Hours by the window.” He wrote: “The “hours by the window” had filled me with a direct certainty that a higher order of reality existed, and that it alone invested existence with meaning...that time, space and causality, that the isolation, separateness and spatiotemporal limitations of the self were merely optical illusions..”
Linked to love, for Dossey, is the need for transcendence. Poet, playwright and first president of the Czech republic, Vaclav Havel saw transcendence as “the only real alternative to extinction, ” while astronaut Edgar Mitchell experienced it on his return flight to Earth: “Each man comes back with a feeling that he is no longer an American citizen—he is a planetary citizen.” One Mind is a rich treasure trove of such anecodotes, which, combined with the hard empirical evidence presented throughout, lead the reader into an awareness and willingness to transcend their own separateness and experience the expansive connectedness of the One Mind. As Dossey points out: “The implications of entanglement and nonlocality are stunning” and reading this book may leave the reader gently stunned but wider awake within a universe of limitless horizons. For Dossey, “The common pathway in all One-Mind moments is the experience of a hyperreal level of awareness, connection, intimacy, and communion with a greater whole, however conceived—the Absolute, God, Goddess, Allah, Universe, and so forth—all of which is marinated in an experience of intense love. There follows a profound shift in the existential premises on which one’s life is based. One ceases to be “a thing or process, but an opening or clearing through which the Absolute can manifest.”
This relocation of consciousness into the One Mind is well overdue, and Dossey’s call rings out with confidence and clarity to let go of the separate self, expand awareness and reclaim our nonlocal nature, for “ it is within our power to redeem our shortcomings by reclaiming our nonlocal nature—the One Mind that unites us with all else, including our earth; the One Mind whose calling card is love, caring, affection.”