Embracing the Here and Now

When Stephen William Hawking died on March 14, 2018, at the age of 78, his quotes on death started appearing on Facebook.  Hawking had a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease--Lou Gehrig’s disease--that gradually paralyzed him over the decades. Even after the loss of his speech, he was still able to communicate through a speech-generating device, initially through use of a hand-held switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle. He was a brilliant theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author, and Director of Research.

“When people ask me if a god created the universe, I tell them that the question itself makes no sense. Time didn’t exist before the big bang, so there is no time for god to make the universe in. It’s like asking directions to the edge of the earth; The Earth is a sphere; it doesn’t have an edge; so looking for it is a futile exercise. We are each free to believe what we want, and it’s my view that the simplest explanation is; there is no god. No one created our universe, and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization; There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that I am extremely grateful.” ~ Stephen Hawking

"I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." Stephen Hawking

He was born on the day Galileo died (Jan.8), and passed on Einstein's birthday (Mar.14, Pi Day). I think he would have loved that.

About the same time, I’m mulling these thoughts over, I listen to a podcast with Doug Fabrizio where he is interviewing Michael Shermer. Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954) is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptic Society, and editor-in-chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims.
     Shermer recently wrote a book "Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia."
     One of the reviews on the cover of the book was by Deepak Chopra:

"I appreciate every evolutionary step skepticism takes toward openness. Heavens on Earth is an affirmation that other world views deserve respect and understanding. In this book science may actually be catching up with the world's wisdom tradition." Deepak Chopra 
     This is especially humorous because Michael Shermer admits that he and Deepak have had a volatile relationship over the decades. Nevertheless, when Michael's wife was pregnant, she wanted to go to one of Deepak's retreats at his Utopia Center in Carlsbad, California. The Center told them to come on down. Shermer went with an open mind deciding to see first hand if there was something to this Eastern Wisdom tradition of consciousness. "How could you not feel better? A 5-star sanctuary on the beach; wonderful and beautiful; drinking tea and enjoying massages."
     A few of the notes I took as they talked about his new book.

Heaven is not a place to go.

It is here and now.

The Kingdom of God is within you.

The Ancient Jews did not believe in an after-life.

Jesus was a Jew. He spoke in parables.

“I’m coming back in your mind.

I’m coming back in your heart.”

All the more reason we should take care of the poor,

help one another;

make this world a better place.

It is our duty and moral obligation.

Heaven on earth.

We tell children when Grandma dies

that she’s in heaven, a better place.

Why don’t we emphasize reality

instead of fantasizing

and pretending we know something we don’t know.

Why don’t we say,

“I don’t know where Grandma is.

Let’s remember her now;

what she meant to us;

how much we love her.

How much she loved us.”

We don’t know for sure where she is.

We don’t have final answers.

We don’t live in the afterlife.

We live here now –

Make every day count every day.

Make every relationship meaningful.

Embracing mystery and living for the here and now.

“I don’t know for sure there is no afterlife.”

More dominate than fear is love.

Shermer does embrace the mystery. He knows he can’t explain everything. When he and his wife, who is from Cologne, Germany, were getting married, she was feeling a bit blue because none of her family could come.  She had been praying for family. While they were discussing it,  suddenly they heard music.  He had no stereo, no sound system, no DVD’s. They found an old broken radio in a desk drawer. It was playing an old love song that she had listened to in her childhood home in Germany where she lived with her mother and grandmother.  It played for the rest of their wedding day and then it stopped and they have never been able to get it to play again.
     I need to get the book because he also discusses Near-Death Experiences and Reincarnation, both of which I’m interested in. He rebukes both.

     Near-death: Entirely in the head; remember “they are not dead, they are ‘near’ death”; oxygen deprivation;  floating; cluster of neurons being stimulated in the temporal lobe. Like when you have anesthetics. It is just a trip. When your heart stops, the brain is shutting down. Like an artificially induced coma; acid trips.

Reincarnation: Lots of scientific questions for this one as you can imagine, including laws of space, matter, cells, DNA. “Funny how it mostly happens around India.”

Darn, I had my heart set on coming back as the Queen of England after watching “The Crown”.

“Embrace the mystery.
Love brings us all together.”

The teachings of my childhood are too firmly entrenched in my heart and soul to change my beliefs so it is with great relief that I listen to C.S.Lewis quotes.

As you know, C.S.Lewis started out as an angry atheist because of his life experiences, including the death of his mother before he was ten years old and the suffering he witnessed during World War I. Eventually, he believed in God and then converted to Christianity and the divinity of Jesus Christ, claiming that "belief in God is the most satisfying way of looking at things". "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

Even so,

we don't know everything,

and I like the concept of

embracing the mystery,

making this a heaven on earth

by living in the here and now,

with gratitude and love.