Yoda Sutras: Concourse No.7

Series 1

I - 7: Only One Miracle

Mind is a tangled web.

Use it to catch the world.

Try to comprehend the infinite complexity of it all…

…elegantly embedded in the fabric of space and time.

Open your eyes in amazement.

Be Aware.

See.

Evolution:

Mammoths

Mammoth is a common name for several extinct species of the elephant family. Mammoths had long, curved tusks that reached a length of about 3 m (about 10.5 ft), and a prominent hump on the back. Those that lived in cold climates had a shaggy covering of long, thick hair. These animals moved northward as the glaciers of the Ice Age receded. The first mammoths appeared in Africa during the early Pliocene Epoch, about 5 million years ago. The first North American mammoths migrated across the Bering Strait from Asia into Alaska during a period of low sea level about 2 million years ago. By the beginning of the Pleistocene Epoch, about 1.6 million years ago, mammoths inhabited North America, Europe, and Asia. Scientists believe that most mammoths had died out toward the end of the Pleistocene Epoch, about 11,000 years ago.

Think.

Ocean: Ocean Acidification

Learn.

Having swallowed hundreds of billions of tons of greenhouse gases since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the oceans were becoming more acidic. And not just in a few spots. The chemistry of the entire ocean was shifting, imperiling coral reefs, marine creatures at the bottom of the food chain, and ultimately the planet’s fisheries. While the existence of global warming was fiercely debated for decades, ocean acidification has been rapidly accepted by the scientific community as a real and imminent hazard.

Imagine.

Understand.

Medical Research:

Brain Stem Cells

Monkeys with a Parkinson's disease–like disorder showed signs of improvement after receiving transplants of human-brain stem cells. The treated monkeys began to walk and eat again, while their untreated companions continued to degenerate. In Parkinson's, neurons that produce the nerve-signal transmitter dopamine die off. Researchers have implanted fully mature dopamine-producing neurons into the brains of a few people with Parkinson's, but those cells sometimes produced too much of the chemical, causing spasms. Hoping to bypass that problem, a Yale University School of Medicine research team deployed immature brain stem cells collected from fetuses. Such cells have the potential to mature into the whole array of brain-cell types, including dopamine producers. The researchers induced Parkinson's symptoms in eight African green monkeys by injecting a toxin into their brains. Later, the team transplanted 3 million cells into the brains of five of the monkeys. Some of those cells indeed began making dopamine, but most grew into astrocytes, which are cells that nourish and support neurons.

Explore.

Investigate.

Experiment.

Technology: Raman Spectroscopy

Long used in labs, spectroscopy employs light and other types of electromagnetic radiation to analyze matter. The various spectroscopic techniques reveal a molecule’s unique chemical fingerprint by measuring the wavelengths of light that the molecule absorbs or emits, or by tracking how radiation scatters after interacting with a molecule. For 30 years, scientists have been eager to harness the power of Raman spectroscopy, a type of scattering spectroscopy, to image the body at the level of individual molecules. The method holds promise for pinpointing the beginnings of dental cavities and tumors. And it could even help forensic investigators nab killers sooner by lifting latent fingerprints from corpses. A variety of researchers, from dentists and doctors to chemists, now report some of the first successes using Raman spectroscopy to probe chemicals and minerals within and on living — and dead — bodies. Raman spectroscopy is becoming a very powerful tool in molecular imaging radiology, albeit one that needs some time to develop.

Analyze.

Know.

Study.

Archeology:

Cacao Intoxicant

A recent chemical analysis of 3,000-year-old pottery shards in northern Honduras turned up traces of theobromine (its name means “food of the gods”), a chemical that is found in cacao. The discovery is the oldest evidence of cacao manipulation. The analyzed vessel had a narrow spout, and the researchers speculate that the locals were imbibing a wine-like drink made by fermenting the pulp that surrounds the seeds of the cacao plant.

Innovate.

Ponder.

Perceive.

Create.

Earth: Ancient Atmosphere

Penetrate.

The concentration of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere, which today sits just under 21 percent, has fluctuated significantly during the last 600 million years. Although there’s no direct way to measure ancient oxygen levels, some geochemical data suggest that levels have risen to as high as 35 percent and dropped to as low as 10 or 12 percent for significant intervals. Often, values at the lower end of that range are inferred by the absence of charcoal from the fossil record: When the atmosphere is so oxygen-poor that fires can’t start or spread, sediments deposited during that time contain little, if any, naturally produced charcoal. However, new findings indicate that the existing models of gauging atmospheric concentrations of oxygen in the fossil record may be far from perfect, and data obtained through them may contain large error bars. There is a need for much more experimental work about how fires start and spread.

Wonder…

But Beware!

Don't get caught in the mighty maze of your own mind.

_________Transcend._________

Atha Yodanushasanam

Now begins the teaching of Yoda.

To be rooted in one's nature is to know bliss. Without knowing your nature, without knowing your inner being, bound to go astray you are.

The first thing to be done is to be so silent, so meditative that you can listen to your own inner voice.

You have never entered your own being, you have never encountered yourself. In that direction you have never looked at all.

Even from idiots an intelligent person learns, because there are a few things you can learn only from idiots.

Only one miracle there is: the miracle of coming home.

Only if you become full of light your life will have some meaning, some truth, some joy, some celebration, some dance.

Be independent of the past, in this moment just be here and now.

Let the stars shower on you, and in your being let the lotuses blossom. Beggars you are not, you are carrying all the splendor of existence within you; you have just not looked in.

Illusory your life is, just a circle in the air; you cannot even see it. But inside the circle hidden in all its splendor is a tremendous force of consciousness.

10.

Lose everything and you lose nothing. Like soap bubbles in the air empires disappear. But don't lose your innermost being. That is your eternal treasure, your immortality.

11.

Don't go against the current; certain is your defeat that way. Go with the current; that way you are relaxed, joyful, floating with the stream.

12.

If you have never known life, you will never know death. And to miss life and death and the whole beauty of both is to miss the very meaning of existence.

Close your eyes, meditate.

May the force be with you.

Unless you can remain balanced in times of difficulties, in dark nights of the soul when the dawn seems to be almost impossible... when you have lost every hope of finding the truth, when you have lost the friend who was sharing his insight with you and you feel utterly blind… in all these situations if you can still remain balanced, then there is no problem. Your balance will start flowering on its own accord.

- Osho