23. Inseparable

Torah is the spiritual DNA of the world. How does DNA work? It is a chemical code containing all the information the body needs to grow, develop and function. The same information is in every one of the body’s 100 trillion cells, and yet every organ, every tissue and even every cell functions differently. A singular code-- a nearly infinite variety of outcomes. So it is with Torah, the blueprint of the universe.

This week we read about Yaakov and Rachel, and their legendary love. From their love, the Jewish people were founded, and the ultimate redemption was planted. On a kabbalistic level, Yaakov and Rachel symbolize vowels and letters, light and vessels, soul and body. [see here for more]

The Torah itself is based on love, as Rabbi Akiva said, “‘Love your fellow as yourself.’ This is the great principle of the Torah.” As King David put it in Psalms 89:3, “the world is built on kindness.”

So it’s not surprising that when scientists conduct experiments exploring how minds can connect without any material medium, they find that close friends, relatives and colleagues top the charts for telepathic connections. As we all know, love knows no bounds. Not even the bounds of lead-lined concrete walls, or thousands of miles of ocean.

But wait, you may ask. Is there really such a thing? Isn’t telepathy the stuff of sci-fi pulp and Art Bell radio, etc., etc.? What self-respecting academic would dabble in something as marginal as remote thought transference?

Let’s take philosopher Prof. Ervin Laszlo for starters. He has written 69 books translated into 19 languages. He holds doctorates from the Sorbonne and the University of Paris, has researched at Harvard and Yale, has received four honorary doctorates, and has held visiting professorships at reputed universities throughout the US, Europe and the Far East. (Besides being a world class pianist.)

Ervin Laszlo elucidates the reality of the conscious universe, its scientific basis and its significance to global civilization. He sees telepathy as just part of this bigger picture. [see article]

The bulk of the scientific establishment still refuses to accept transcendent consciousness as a legitimate subject for investigation, but they are for the most part cognitive clones of 19th Century materialists whose paradigms have long been swept out from under them by solid scientific advancements like quantum physics and other integrative sciences.

As early as 1974, the numero uno scientific journal in the world, Nature, published Russel Targ and Harold Puthoff’s “Information transmission under conditions of sensory shielding.” That was soon followed by an article entitled, "A perceptual channel for information transfer over kilometer distances: historical perspective and recent research" in the premiere engineering journal, Proceedings of the IEEE. Spooky.

Since then literally hundreds of related studies have been done by bonafide scientists worldwide. Emblematic of the new science is the fact that last year, the world’s biggest gathering of neuroscientists (20,000 attendees) was opened by non other than the Dalai Lama. Why? For one thing, studies of meditating monks show that their brain states become so synchronized that random pulses of light shone into the eyes of one causes a simultaneous reaction in up to twelve synchronized meditators, even when they are physically separated in distant, radiation-shielded chambers.

In many such studies, the closer the personal relationship between the participants, the greater their capacity for mental transference. One particularly enraptured couple showed extremely high correlations in their brain states. Of course anecdotally we have all heard or seen examples of shared pain between twins and uncanny remote awareness of accidents and the like between parents and children.

According to Chassidic thought, the deepest of transcendent bonds is between Rebbe and Chassid. This relationship is compared to that of the head with the rest of the body. The following story exemplifies.

In the 1940s, R’ Mendel Futerfas was imprisoned and then exiled to Siberia by the Soviet government. His crime: teaching and practicing Judaism. On his birthday one year in Siberia, Reb Mendel longed to celebrate in the Chasidic manner by gathering with one's friends, making an account of the past year and good resolutions for the upcoming year, and by having a private audience with the Rebbe.

Reb Mendel's only "friends" in Siberia were the boorish Cossacks and political prisoners with whom he was exiled. A Chasidic gathering he could not make. But what he could do was to have a private audience with the Rebbe -- in his mind. Reb Mendel made the customary spiritual preparations for the communing of his soul with the Rebbe's.

He then pictured himself writing a note to the Rebbe with all of his requests for blessings for the coming year. He imagined himself giving the note to the Rebbe and the Rebbe reading the note. Then, in his mind's eye, the Rebbe assured him that everything would be well. Reb Mendel felt encouraged and strengthened.

Years later, when Reb Mendel was released from Siberia, he joined his wife and children who had meanwhile moved to England. One day, as Reb Mendel perused the correspondence that his wife had received from the Rebbe in his absence, he came across a telegram. The telegram's date was the day after Reb Mendel's birthday, years before. The Rebbe had sent Mrs. Futerfas a telegram to notify her that, "I received your husband's letter..."

No distance, physical or spiritual, can separate a Jew from the Rebbe. Like everything, achieving a consciousness connection with someone is a mix of talent and discipline. The following excerpts from Likkutei Dibburim (Vol.1, Ch.1) illumines the path to more meaningful relationships and a deeper consciousness connection with others.

“Love is manifested at many levels..

“The first level among the vehicles of love is extending one’s hand in offering or receiving the greeting of Shalom. This is only an external mannerism, to be sure; for around the whole world whenever people meet they shake hands as a mark of recognition which need not imply any feeling of love whatever..

“In days gone by the ordinary Shalom Aleichem was different: It was true and pure. Things used to be different. Truth used to be sound currency..

“When two friends meet and kiss each other one sees the manifestation of a greater light of love than that expressed in a handshake. A yet higher manifestation my be observed in the long conversation in which good friends love to tell each other of all their experiences.

“Beyond this there is a kind of love so intense that words are too dry to express it: two friends in this state can simply stand and gaze at each other without uttering a word..

“But there is also an inward bond, a bond of thought, through which one friend senses the other. Just as a person sees his friend who stands facing him near at hand, so it is with thought, which is not limited by distance. Through thought alone, one man is aware of his friend..

“.. through thought a person should be with his friend wherever he may be.. ..with a thought one can help a distant friend materially and spiritually.”

That unity is achievable through love and consciousness is no accident. It is part of nature. That science has finally discovered what faith has been teaching for centuries is also no accident. It is part of the new age unfolding, a world ready for the merging of absolute truth and relative truth. And that is what Moshiach is all about.

22. Excitement in the Air

Welcome to the global village.

A sports star writes a tell-all book about murdering his ex-wife and her boyfriend. The publisher pays 3.5 million dollars for the story. The launch date of November 30, 2006, is set. Suddenly, the prerelease buzz turns sour, as public outcry intensifies. Moral sensibilities are outraged at the thought of a villain making yet another killing and getting away with it. Instantly, the book launch is cancelled and values prevail. The global village emerges on high ground, this time.

This is not the first time there has been excitement in the air surrounding a special day in the life of OJ Simpson.

Long before OJ ever dreamed of writing If I Did It, in fact even before he was tried for the double murder, another controversial figure was preparing for OJ’s judgment day. That man was Dean Radin.

Dean Radin is a bonafide scientist who has spent several decades researching the direct impacts of human consciousness on material reality, aka psychokinesis or PK for short. With his masters degree in electrical engineering and his doctorate in psychology, he has worked at several mainstream universities and blue-chip technology companies. In short, as weird as his research is, Dean Radin is a hard guy to knock.

Dean knew that a huge viewing audience would be focused intently on the announcement of the verdict in the OJ trial. In fact an estimated one billion people were either watching or listening to the goings on at 10:00 am Pacific Standard Time on October 3, 1995, when the climactic moment arrived.

Dean theorized that the focused attention of many people would have a measurable impact on the physical environment, independent of any other measurable environmental factors. To test this, he set up electronic Random Number Generators, calibrated them, and protected them from electromagnetic fields and the like. There were three in Los Vegas at the University of Nevada, one at Princeton University in New Jersey, and a fifth at the University of Amsterdam.

The figure below is the combined signal for the five random number generators during the show. The first peak on the left was at 9:00am when the preshows began. The peak on the right coincides with 10:00 am when the verdict was announced. Those peaks are several hundred times higher than chance events should allow. In other words, the idea that mind impacts matter is not just about spoon benders and the like. It’s also about you and me, and even when we are not trying.

The excitement in the air affects the world as whole. That’s the theory today and it sounds mighty familiar to those who are awaiting Moshiach, the redeemer of the Jewish people and the world as a whole.

Over 800 years ago, Maimonides wrote that each individual is a 50/50 proposition and can be saved or destroyed by a single action. Since each individual should view himself this way, it turns out that the whole world hangs in the balance and could be either destroyed or saved by the single act of a lone individual. Chassidus extends this principle to the spoken word or even to a thought. Thus, one good thought can change the world, for good.

“Thinking is potent,” says the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe in the opening words of his collected talks. “Not only is thought the first and innermost of the three garments of the soul, and united with it: Thinking produces results that extend into the realm of action.”

The extent to which thought is potent depends on the thinker and the one thought about. The stronger the connection between the two parties the more effective is the thought. So while our thoughts and prayers are effective, they are more so with those close to us, i.e., love knows no bounds.

As the Rebbe continues there, “There is an inward bond of thought through which one friend senses the other. Just as a person sees his friend who stands facing him near at hand, so it is with thought, which is not limited by distance.”

The great Chassidic masters, by virtue of their love for their fellow Jews, are able to sense their followers just by thinking about them.

And what about us as individuals? Do you know someone who can recognize a caller before picking up the phone? Have you ever felt someone staring at you from behind? Is there a special friend or relative with whom you are inexplicably in synch? Psi energy is real. It’s a part of life, of nature, recognized by science, and integral to our spiritual lives.

What Torah explained long ago, science is catching up to today – including the idea of thought actualizing Moshiach.

A sage known as the Chida has a kind of psi commentary on this blessing recited by Jews in all their weekday prayers: “May the scion of David [Moshiach} your servant speedily flourish because I await your salvation all the day.” The Chida asks what could this possibly help? If the Jews deserve redemption, it will come without waiting, and if they don’t what good could awaiting it possibly do? From this he concludes that if one has nothing else to his credit except a sincere longing for Moshiach to come, that itself is enough to make it happen.

And if an individual can effect this, how much more so a group. Or put a little differently, if OJ oglers can impose order in a chaotic world, how much more so Jews united to bring Moshiach now.