How To Know God Part 18

In this follow-up to his cla.s.sic G.o.d and the New Physics, Davies deals with the central issue of whether an intelligent creator is consistent with modern cosmology.

THREE. SEVEN STAGES OF G.o.d.

1. An excellent discussion of addictions from the social and personality level can be found in Angelus Arrien, The Four-Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer and Visionary (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco: 1993), which I have adapted to fit my spiritual argument.

2. Sister Marie's miraculous feats are recounted in Patricia Treece, The Sanctified Body (Liguori, Mo.: Triumph Books, 1993), pp. 276-80. This is the most reliable, detailed account of miracle-working in the Catholic church over the past century.

3. The deeply moving story of Father Maximilian is in Treece, Sanctified Body, pp. 140-43. She has also written a complete biography, A Man for Others (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1982).

FOUR. A MANUAL FOR SAINTS.

1. Griffith's experience is recounted in full in Vardey, ed., G.o.d in All Worlds, p. 88.

2. My version of the night of Qadr is derived from Thomas W. Lippman, Understanding Islam (New York: Penguin/Meridian, 1995), pp. 38-39.

3. Some of the first and best arguments for the "mind field" were made in Penfield's The Mystery of the Mind (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975).

4. Fascinating connections are made between brain function and spiritual experiences in Valerie V. Hunt, Infinite Mind (Malibu, Calif: Malibu Publis.h.i.+ng, 1996).

5. I am making a strong argument for the notion that mind is not localized in the brain but extends like a force field beyond s.p.a.ce and time. To make this argument, I have relied upon the most eloquent thinker on nonlocalized mind, Rupert Sheldrake. His major work to date is The Presence of the Past (New York: Times Books, 1988), but readers will be drawn to his more informal conversations on science and spirituality in Michael Fox and Rupert Sheldrake, Natural Grace (New York: Doubleday, 1996).

Sheldrake is unique in offering ingenious experiments that would prove the existence of the mind field (he refers to it as the field of morphogenesis). The most recent proposals, which invite the reader to partic.i.p.ate, appear in his book Seven Experiments That Could Change the World (New York: Riverhead Books, 1995).

FIVE. STRANGE POWERS.

1. Dr. Bruce L. Miller reported his findings in the April 1998 issue of the journal Neurology.

2. The best popular writing on this mystery is still found in Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987). Connections between spiritual awakening and brain disease have been speculated about for a long time but never proven. A striking modern example, however, can be found in Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite (San Diego: Blue Dove Press, 1996).

SIX. CONTACTING G.o.d.

1. Credible attempts to explain the soul in scientific terms are rare. The best is found in Gary Zukav, The Seat of the Soul (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Deepak Chopra has written twenty-five books, which have been translated into thirty-five languages. He is also the author of more than one hundred audio- and videotape series, including five critically acclaimed programs on public television. In 1999 Time magazine selected Dr. Chopra as one of the Top 100 Icons and Heroes of the Century, describing him as "the poet-prophet of alternative medicine." Dr. Chopra currently serves as CEO and founder of The Chopra Center for Well Being in La Jolla, California.

(For information regarding The Chopra Center for Well Being, call 888-424-6772 or visit the Web site at www.chopra.com.) If you have enjoyed this book and would like the opportunity to explore higher realms of consciousness and have a more direct experience of divinity, you may do so interactively at Deepak Chopra's new Web site, www.mypotential.com.