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The Art & Science of NonDuality...

The world of theoretical physics is fraught with high weirdness: Light that can't decide where it is until you measure it. Particles that travel back and forth in time. Cats that can be simultaneously both dead and alive. Asked why all atoms seem to be exactly alike, one physicist half jokingly suggested, "Maybe because they're all the same atom." Perhaps the universe is made up of only one atom, traveling everywhere at once throughout time and infinity.

The concept of unity, while new to science, is a primary insight to metaphysicians and yogis. Science and Nonduality Conference producer Maurizio Benazzo underscores, "Fundamentally we are individual expressions of a single entity, inextricably connected to one another."

Indeed, we suspect that insights like these will fly like quarks when science meets metaphysics at the Science and Nonduality Conference this October.

The main scientist stars include Stuart Hameroff, Henry Stapp, Fred Alan Wolf, Amit Goswani, Daniel Sheenan, Tom Ray, Peter Russell, Dean Radin, Marylin Schlitz , plus MANY more.
The Nondualists include Stephen Wolinsky, Francis Lucille, Jeff Foster, Rupert Spira, Greg Goode, Tim Freke, many Hinduists, Buddists, Sufists, a Rabbi, and more....

Intrigued?

 

I'm Not Here. You're Not Here, Either!

There is no free will. That is a fact if you believe in nonduality, but that is hard to understand and digest, and therefore most people like to fudge the nondual approach with new age "Secret" coatings.

The essence of Yoga is: you are not the mind, you are not the body and, more then anything, you are not the doer!

Neuroscience Says You Don't Exist!

And neuroscience is getting there quite fast... There are MANY experiments that prove that the "sense of I" comes later, after the fact.... We basically do what we "have to do" (with no free will) and then the sense of "I" comes in (sometimes SECONDS later!) and find justifications, get excuses and all the rest of the mind chatter... I did it because... I did not mean to do it... I always do that....

Learn To Swim!

If there is only one substance in the universe (as chemistry and cosmology, to name few, prove) it will be like an ocean... can a drop of the ocean decide to go in a different direction??? —Maurizio

Producers Nick Day (L) and Maurizio Benazzo (R) at the New York City premiere of "Shortcut to Nirvana," a critically acclaimed documentary about the Kumbh Mela festival in India, which is the largest gathering of people in the history of humanity with over 70 million people attending. The film won several awards on the festival circuit, and went on to be a solid favorite among spiritually-oriented audiences worldwide. The NonDuality Conference will include a spiritual film festival organized by Nick Day.

Who We Are

We have been making films about Nisargadatta Maharaj, an undisputed master of Nonduality that died in 1981. Sri Nisargadatta used to say that one day "scientists" will come and they will understand what nonduality is in one second!

And here we are "pushing the chance" of that to happen.

We have been also working with Stuart Hameroff, a well-known quantum physicist who was in "What the bleep do you know?" He's organized conferences on the science of consciousness and we felt "logical" to put the two groups together. Scientists on one side, nondualists on the other side.

Basically it will be the opening of a dialogue between two different worlds (science and nonduality) seemingly describing a different world but in our opinion ONLY speaking different languages. We'll be there to translate for all of them and see what happens!

What Is Nonduality, Anyway?

There are many shades of meaning to the word nonduality. As an introduction, we might say that nonduality is the philosophical, spiritual, and scientific understanding of non-separation and fundamental oneness.

As humans we built this peculiar evolutionary trait we call consciousness and the sense of "I" that gives us the illusion of being in charge....

Look at kids... they have no clue why they do what they do... they do it and then, when asked, have to come up with funny (at times) insane excuses to please the parents, the teachers or society....

At one point they get the grip on what is expected from them to say after every action so they have a good excuse and they start being logical... Like us grown ups....

Science Meets Buddha

"It followed from the special theory of relativity that mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing." —Albert Einstein

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form." —The Buddha

Several thousand years ago in what is now known as India, through deep inner inquiry, philosophers and sages came to the realization that existence arises prior to the "I am." Thousands of years later, Western scientists are arriving at the same conclusion: The universe does indeed comprise a single "prior" substance created during the Big Bang, and all sense of being - consciousness - subsequently arises from it. This realization has ontological implications for humanity: Fundamentally we are individual expressions of a single entity, inextricably connected to one another.

What's The Nonduality Conference All About?

This gathering is meant to put under the same roof some of the best minds in Western Science and the Nondual Eastern traditions in a rich and stimulating environment.

As organizers of this event we are well aware that in the exact moment in which we use words or concepts as an attempt to describe nonduality we automatically fall into a world of dualisms.

We are well aware that no words will ever describe what is beyond time, beyond words, beyond the sense of "I," beyond the sense of "self."

And that is why our company is called Neti Neti Media...

Neti Neti means, loosely translated from sanskrit "not this, not that"... It means that, with words, we can only say what is NOT.

We cannot use words, sensations, feelings or emotions to describe what is... we can ONLY use them to describe what is not...

But, that said, we wish to provide sincere seekers with tools that will enable them to remove their concepts and go beyond the sense of self, helping them to deconstruct the concept of "I" and understand what "reality" is not.

It's all just an illusion anyway... but it's a beautiful one."

All That For Nothing?

Following his mentor, Sri Nisargadatta Maharajs' basic premise, "All you can teach is understanding, the rest comes on its own," Dr. Stephen Wolinsky's DVD, directed by Maurizio Benazzo, takes you on a three hour excursion traversing the roots of Advaita-Vedanta, neuroscience, philosophy, linguistics and tantric yoga, to provide a long neglected understanding which lies at the core of all of these teachings: "All spirituality and psychology are dependent on the existence of a separate independent individual self."
But if this self is an illusion, a product of the nervous system, a miss-perception, then not only does the "I" disappear, but so does the foundation and basic premise of all spirituality, spiritual paths and psychology.

Continuing where "I Am That I Am Part I" leaves off, Part II explores how the revolutionary discoveries of science validate, support and prove the wisdom of the Buddha's Heart Sutra, the underlying Science of Yoga, and the foundational discoveries of Quantum Physics and current research in neuroscience.

"Dr. Wolinsky uses scientific metaphors, and then even deconstructs them as neti-neti, NOT THIS—NOT THIS."

Dr. Stephen Wolinsky will speak at the Science and NonDuality Conference this October, presented by Maurizio Benazzo and colleagues.

 

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