I have just had three hours of collective listening to three very good speakers and I have just left the afternoon session 60% of the way through because my head is bursting with ideas and the text for today’s diary. Following on the statement made by Catherine of Genoa a few days ago I feel that I am a monist. Monism is a theory or doctrine that denies the existence of a distinction of duality in a particular sphere, just that between matter and mind, oh god and the world. Another way of saying it is monism is the philosophical idea that all things and existence are part of the same essential oneness or whole. Monism is opposed to dualism, which holds that there is a fundamental difference between the mental realm and the physical realm. Note that it’s says ‘opposed to’ which means that monists actively disagree with dualism.

I think back to some of my dear evangelical friends who beseech God to ‘come into their lives’ and ‘take action’ and ‘move’ when in fact this is a bit like taking coals to Newcastle as we say in the United Kingdom because God is already resident within us and we have the challenge of removing the impediments to our belief in the fact. In other words, if God made us or manufactured us if you like, then he and us are the same.Yeshua (Jesus) came to give us this same message. I find this egalitarian attitude much healthier than groveling to some invisible person and asking for things when as Jesus himself said, I know what you have need of before you ask.

I experienced a marked improvement of quality today in the preparation of the speakers particularly the second one, Bethany Butzer. She lives in Prague with her husband who is a street artist. She is an academic and very thorough in her examinations of things and this reflects in the images that you will see below.

If you look at yesterday’s rather rushed and sparse notes you will see how these differ from them. Informative, concise, and methodical

In the speech notes I saw that someone had indicated what turned out to be a remarkable website, watch documentaries.com which has hundreds of very high quality films one of which was called ‘inside the Milky Way’. I paused in my activity in writing this diary and as soon as I saw its quality I asked Francoise to come in and watch it. If you have one hour 35 minutes 43 seconds and one to watch the most mind blowing graphics then do visit this link. Would be very good if you could see it in a darkened room because it is so realistic. https://watchdocumentaries.com/inside-the-milky-way/

It’s certainly brings things like my dented car door into perspective. I went to the local garage this morning and they said they could dismantle the door and push out to the bumps. If I went the insurance company route and wanted to replace the door that would probably cost the best part of the value of the car except if I could find a breaker’s yard who just happened to have that corresponding door. It doesn’t have to look perfect, just halfway presentable and it is a 20 year old car after all.

Whilst on domestic things, to announce to the small minority who might be interested that my almost 20-year problem with Barrett’s esophagus seems to have been solved by some new medication offered by my doctor, Lansoprazole, which I guess is a cousin of Omaprazole which I have been taking for some time with very little effect. I guess the new medicine contains something which goes to the roots of the problem. Vomiting has for me being a daily occurrence but touch wood, and do need a very big piece of wood to touch, for the last week or so there has been no recurrence and my food is actually staying down. My doctor also wants me to take statins but so long is the list of side effects that I would rather have a natural alternative which comes in the form of something called Biocare, Bioplantarum plus Sterols. We shall see how we succeed with that one.

I’ve had a little time to reflect on my performance as a listener with regard to today’s symposium. Although I enjoy abstract ideas, I could almost say all sorts of ideas, I am not an academic. I have not been trained as an academic. I am more interested in the practice than the theory. Theoretical models as we know from Imperial College London are often wrong. My overall view is that we need the courage to look at the root and not the branches or leaves.

One of my memes is that you don’t know what you know until you tell somebody. I find that speaking my truth, or the truth that I see it at the time, is important for me and furthermore I need to do it with a real live person in front of me. Is all very well but I do miss the intimacy, the entanglement, which is more likely to happen if you have flesh and blood in front of you

The value of the symposium does not lie so much with absorbing wisdom from the speakers but in what is sparked off in the Minds of the listeners and I include some of the chat among 180 people to show what a stimulus a talk can be.

It is impossible to figure out what you will take away will be from a given talk. I have been to hugely boring talks in my time and that was a great incentive not to be boring myself when I write material. Another talk was given by someone who had no idea how to run a seminar. Was announced for 1:30 p.m. But she decided to hold a meeting with her colleague at that time and did not start the meeting until 10 past 2. There was not a word of apology. That made me determined to start all occasions on time. So, not been along to that display of bad Manners, I would not have learnt my lesson.

As for my readers, I don’t have that much feedback from you; an account of a shared experience would indeed add to the whole venture of writing this diary. I Grant you that people have shorter attention span and my average diary entry is about 1500 words so I will not be for everybody. I am aware of that but I will not compromise for that reason

Someone on ZOOM told us about an image of a hand. It is in fact a bridge in Vietnam which is the last place I would think of but what a wonderful picture it is.

So I’m just going to pick out a few items from the Q and A

another topic we might want to consider as the SMN is the role that synchronicity plays in scientific discovery itself.. e.g. Wallace and Darwin co-discovering natural selection at the same time.. or Leibniz and Newton co-discovering calculus

“I do know that co-creation is essentially a passive receptive vehicle-state.”…hmmm…interesting enough I think it’s the opposite, but probably it is that you take that position/role “passive receptive vehicle-state” when that happens; there is no right or wrong on that, it’s yin/yang so we all need our opposites to find completion, and that is also an act of co-creating -see Marj’s example yesterday to see a possible version/model

so Buddha and the Rishis of ancient India called these effects “SIDDHIS” – they are not to be pursued as an end in themselves, but merely as an epiphenomenon on the road to enlightenment.. so Bethany is correct in saying that meditation practice tends to increase their occurrence.. but as yet, research into this matter is somewhat lacking,.

So maybe this time, now, is the time for us to understand and accept what was once considered to be weird, is more like the ‘normal’ we’ve been ignoring as we were so focused on ‘bringing home the bacon’ and ‘paying our way’ etc

It seems to me that one of the ‘dangers’ of both asking for analysis or interpretation is the instantaneous diminution of the uniquely individual. The ‘meaning’ is individual and the timing is in the moment where that meaning will be different a moment later. All references to both symbolism or paradigms swerve away from the critical instant and the critical individual?

We saw that the audience has been provoked or stimulated and this  should be the way of a role model for all conversations even in the street or at the supermarket check-out.

So the summary of these two days at least so far as I’m concerned.

Hosts

# The inter-regnum period was still not addressed after yesterday’s vacuum and everyone’s microphone should have been enabled, and people encouraged to talk.
# I always think it is a good idea to ask people where they are from and put that information in the chat. With 180 people that would have made an interesting exercise and is a way of introducing people to each other

Observation of speakers

# Not all speakers are going to be equally gripping in their delivery.
# Some have natural gifts of delivery and I cite as an unexpected plus, the first speaker today who had his timing between sentences and phrases magnificently working for him so you were almost dying to hear what he was going to say next. Is what I call measured talking
# preparation really pays off in that the delivery is fresh and crisp.
# the speakers were given strict orders about how long to talk for and they were conscious of time
# with such a topic as synchronicity, it was almost protocol for them to validate themselves by starting with a personal testimony

Audience

# people still fall into the trap of telling their life Histories and not sticking to the convention about asking one question. The chairman had two hurry someone along because they were taking too long before getting to their question.
# people are finally getting the idea of unmuting themselves before speaking in other words getting collectively more familiar with ZOOM
# a really good chairman would keep an eye on the comments in the chat and refer to them as we go along in order for the audience to feel involved. It does require quite a high level of attention but the human being is capable of doing this