The Story of the Universe (Think About This)
Evolutionary cosmologist Brian Swimme tells the story of the cosmos like you’ve never heard it before, combining the illuminating precision of a scientist with the inspired rapture of a mystic poet. In this classic excerpt (3:37 minutes) from his very first interview with EnlightenNext, he takes us on a fourteen-billion-year journey from the molecular soup at the beginning of the universe to the emergence of the complex life forms and civilizations that define our corner of the Milky Way today. Suggesting that “the very form of our consciousness has a cosmic significance,” Swimme envisions an awe-inspiring role for humanity in the continual unfolding of life in our evolving universe.
[podcast]http://magazine.enlightennext.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Brian-Swimme-TAT-Shorter.mp3[/podcast]
Plus: On Saturday, May 15 don’t miss Brian Swimme live with the EnlightenNext editorial team as part of our free virtual seminar, “The Evolutionary Worldview.” Click here to register.
Filed Under: Consciousness • Cosmology • EnlightenNext Editors’ Blog • EnlightenNext magazine • Evolutionary Spirituality • Spirituality • Think About This
Had to hear it quite a few times, to feel the worth…but its awesome!! What I find hard to imagine, is that all idiots and me, are the same …jokes apart Joel, very interesting and thought provoking video!!
This is ONE process! That is mindblowing. No separation beween the matter that formed us and our capacity to be more and more aware of who we are. When we find that we are ALL that has happened since the beginning of manifestation -and before- and the two are actually ONE — deep deep down I recognize how painfully deep the separation between matter and spirit has been in my mind, and how joyfully whole I actually am when I embrace both these aspects of myself. Merging with the Cosmos – the ultimate lovestory.
What is amazing about all that is said and thought and developped by the evolutionnary vision of life and cosmology is all it owes to a french scientist and priest of the XXth century, that is to say Teilhard de Chardin ; i have been reading his works for over 20 years and can affirm that all you say, in a more modern way, is contained in his works ; i was amazed to see that Teilhard de Chardin, scorned at by french elites of the second half of the XXth century, is being rediscovered, just as Carl Jung in Psychology and Bergson in philosophy. Evolution is too mindblowing a discovery to be sleeping; you are dam right to wake it up. Paris, France.
Dearest Didier…..I was so happy to see you mention Chardin. I am a former Catholic priest who studied and was blown out by Chardin’s cosmology in my seminary years during the ’50-60s and know that he was way, way beyond Vatican theology; and that his assumptions of the Alpha/Omega are not only right on, but that he was clearly being guided in his quest by the Avatar of our age, Meher Baba. The Avatar is one and the same divine being who appeared in our most recent 5000 year period as Zoroaster, Rama, Krisha, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and now as Meher Baba. I have spent the last many years writing a biography on Meher Baba that will be so vital for Christians in the latter part of the 21st century, that include his extraordinarily detailed description of “The Creation — How it all Happened,” and would like to send you that particular chapter if you contact me at babaelf@roadrunner.com It will blow you out of the water, as it takes up in enormous detail where this short outline that you heard from Swimme simply touched upon. It will delight you…..We are One….Ed in Los Angeles (babaelf)
What Brian Swimme says is exactly what Muhammad Iqbal the twentieth century Muslim poet from Pakistan was saying at the beginning of the 20th century: the universe, matter and soul are interrelated. they are not separate. and he picked up the idea from the long list of medieval Islamic mystics and philosophers! rather, Iqbal went one step further: nature is alive and conscious and has a personality, just like we are and God is. we need to have a ‘psychological’ interpretation of life and universe, and of course religion. he was a true visionary, still unacknowledged because of his Islamic faith.
I had just watched a “Discover” presentation dealing with this concept from a scientific / mathematical viewpoint. The cosmic unity (consciousness) struck me as
the evolutionary impulse growing out of itself.
The pulse and flow of energy from matter – then matter into energy. No thing is ever lost. ” I am that I am” is a concept that I may begin to grasp more fully. An exciting time to be alive. Add to this, that we are beginning and ending much faster than the speed of light… causing and being at once in infinite variety.
Having found some comfort in this apprehension, some sense of solidity, a place to rest my tired bones for a moment and be peaceful with the beauty of it all and then…there is chaos that too is beautiful.
The Universe is really one big Hologram . . a living breathing organism . . created by design . . just as we have been . . same as a plant, a kidney, a flower. . .a baby . . a planet . . a Course in Miracles says “there is no order of difficulty in Miracles . .” God can just as easily part the Red Sea as part your hair . .
When you look at everything that way, things make a lot more sense . .
Brian’s overall message re: spirit and matter being unified at all levels and that we are coterminous with and a process of that Process is sound, as well as elegant. But his opening bumper sticker remark about “Leave hydrogen alone for a while and it will turn into oranges, giraffes, people, etc,” has no basis in science and, apart from content, is so cutesy that it detracts from his credibility.
It’s real hard to make a giraffe without carbon.