A Journey Into Mind and Science
Purpose:
There is a profound and undeniable connection between science and spirituality. Although this makes perfect sense to those who have studied the teaching called The Science of Mind, there are those who interpret the evidence in an entirely different way. However, they are only able to do this by ignoring certain aspects of science that does not fit neatly into their interpretation. The intention of this class is to examine the concept of consciousness and then establish its direct relationship to both science as an expression of the physical and spirituality or the metaphysical.
Course Description:
In all walks of life, there are those that believe the Universe evolved on its own and that human consciousness emanates from the atoms and molecules that make up the brain. Those among this number can be called realists as they, as did the philosopher Aristotle, believe that the physical world is the ultimate reality.
A great number, however, raised in various religious traditions believe in a true reality greater than the physical world in which we live. The philosopher Plato spoke of this greater reality as the realm of ideals and those that believe as he did are called idealists. Many raised in traditional Judeo-Christian religions believe in the presence of a being that created all things but resides within this idealistic realm and remains apart and separate from the world he created.
A subset group of idealists are the monistic idealists who believe that nothing can exist apart from the ideal realm and the concept of God encompasses all that is and that every individual is a divine expression of that oneness. As students of the Science of Mind, we fall into the general category of monistic idealists. We believe that God is all there is, that we are inseparable from any concept of God, and that we create our experience, even our very existence through the power of our over-arching consciousness.
In its broadest sense, there is nothing other than consciousness. We live in consciousness, the Universe exists in consciousness, and everything we see and everything we experience is the result of consciousness.
In this course, we will study the meaning of consciousness from the perspective of a great many disciplines and teachings. We will take ideas from science (particularly quantum physics and neurobiology), philosophy, Eastern and Western religion, and of course Science of Mind. Finally, we will relate the idealist meaning of consciousness as that which encompasses and creates all things with the standard meaning of consciousness more closely aligned with the idea of conscious awareness.