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The American Dream of the 21st Century:
A Call for Transformation of America

A Proposed Declaration of American Dream
(First published in Scientific GOD Journal)

Dated: October 23, 2011

Drafted by: Huping Hu, Ph.D., J.D.

You can support/sign this Proposed Declaration by loging-in at 2012 Daily and write in the Comment Section the date, your full name & place of signing which will be collected, compiled and listed/published.

Key Words: American Dream, 21st Century, transformation, declaration.

Today we hold these rights, duties and their extensions to be applicable to all Americans in all aspects of our lives - spiritually, physically, financially, environmentally, scientifically and politically - that to secure, advance and perform these rights and duties and thus perfect our Union, our Constitution may be amended time to time, if necessary, and successive governmental, social and corporate structures and institutions shall be established, deriving their just political, social and economical powers and duties from the consent of the people - that whenever any structure or institution becomes inadequate of these ends, it is our duties to modernized it or to abolish it, and to establish new ones, laying the foundation on such principles and organizing the structures in such forms, as to us shall seem most likely to reflect our understanding and knowledge of the evolving Nature and Life under the Laws of GOD.

As a people, we are now engaged in a great struggle, testing whether our rights and duties so conceived and dedicated at the birth of our Nation, so implemented, protected and extended through out our history as a Nation can be sustained and be further advanced. Some of us are also engaged in a silent struggle in our hearts testing whether our yearning for love and compassions for fellow Americans and mankind at large can conquer our own shortcomings – selfishness, arrogance, hypocrisy, intolerance, or excessive capitalism, individualism, rivalry and commercialism.

Before the advent of our Nation, our people were under the colonial rule and tyranny of a European monarch. Oppressed and exploited by a tyrant, early Americans rebelled. The Declaration of Independent drafted by Thomas Jefferson became the great beacon of light to early Americans, who under the leaderships of George Washington and his generals, bravely fought the Revolutionary War and gave birth to our Republic.

However, a great injustice, slavery, remained and divided our people almost a century later as South and North. Again, as a people we fought and overcame slavery through Civil War and saved our Union under the leaderships of Abraham Lincoln and his generals.

Our people then ushered in the great Industrial, Scientific and Economical Revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries together with the remaining World which brought us and rest of the World unprecedented materials wealth, scientific knowledge and technologies and thrust our Nation to the World Stage as a Great Power and Leader.

As a Nation and a People, we have fought in World Wars and defeated evil powers, endured and overcome the Great Depression, endured and overcome racial segregation and injustice under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., won the Cold War and oversaw the collapse of Godless Communism around the World.

Since September 11, 2001 terrorists attack on our Nation, we are again at a critical moment in our history.

But, the very wealth is now concentrated in the hands of so a few wealthy individuals and big banks and corporations and has displaced many among us into poverty and despair. The very wealth has created a deep gulf between the rich and the poor and among the political parties as reflected by increased hostilities and seemingly irreconcilable differences among Americans and in our Congress. The very wealth and prosperity have not stopped hunger and disease in the World and might have produced our arrogance and intolerance in the eyes of the rest of the World along with our Nation’s positive image. The very pop culture might have both positively and negatively influenced the young generations worldwide. On the other hand, many Americans are unable to cope with or adapt to the new environments.

Thus, after all the recent revolutions, many of today’s Americans are not better of than the Americans of yesterday.

After all these revolutions, young generations of Americans are at peril of not being able to realizing their American Dream as their parents did.

After all these revolutions, the spiritual lives of many among us are sadly crippled by the manacles of mechanical view and the prisons of random chance and chaos.

After all these revolutions, some among us including some children still go hungry daily and without shelters at night in the midst of mountains of food and vacant homes.

After all these revolutions, many among us cannot afford medical cares in the midst of a vast ocean of medical advances and modern medicine.

After all these revolutions, many of our educated people cannot find a decent job and is suffocating under the piles of educational debts.

Indeed, after all these revolutions, the moralities of many among us are degenerating, many among us become selfish, mean- spirited, non-collaborative and too commercial, and some among us even become hypocritical, untruthful and are solely driven by money, power and fame.

As a People, many among us are unemployed, our homes and investments have drastically decreased in values, our bank accounts have dried up, our individual and family debts are overburdening us.

As a Nation, our financial system almost collapsed, we are still at war abroad and facing unprecedented economical crisis, national debts and economical inequality at home in the backdrop of a World foreshadowed by the turbulence in the Middle East and the rise of China, India and other countries.

So, at this critical moment, we dramatize these depressing and shameful conditions.

Each American shall further promises to do his/her best to contribute to American Society. The rich may pay more taxes, if necessary, and shall pledge more of their wealth to help and assist the less fortunate. The less fortunate shall work hard to realize their American Dream.

Each American corporation shall promise to be a moral corporation to American Society. The executives shall strive for common good instead of excessive profit at the costs of the workers and the society and the workers shall strive to contribute their best productivity to the corporation.

Each American educational institution shall promise to be the best American Dream making institution. The administrators and teachers shall strive for producing the best students instead of collecting excessive tuitions and endowments and the students shall strive be the best students and future American Dream makers.

The three respective branches of our Federal and State Government shall promises to all Americans and their respective State Citizens that they will work in harmony for the prosperity and common good of all Americans and the advancement of this cherished Nation and Republic under GOD, not the interests of a few or self-interests. The executives, representatives and judges shall strive to carry out the businesses of our Nation and the respective States in their best abilities and the supporting staff shall strive to provide the supporting services to their best abilities. Let us remember that our Government is of the people, by the people and for the people as Lincoln declared.

It may be said that today some among us in America would have defaulted on these Sacred Pledges if made earlier. Instead of honoring these obligations, some among us would have given Americans bad checks, checks which would have come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the banks of this Great Nation would be bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there would be insufficient funds in the great vaults of America. So all American Citizens, corporations, institutions and Governmental units should make good on these Sacred Pledges — Pledges that will in the long run give our people the security of basic necessities of food, medicine and shelter, riches of the economy and the fulfillment of happiness under GOD.

Finally, as a Nation and a People, we pledge to the World that we shall always work for World Peace, eliminations of hunger and diseases, economical stability and prosperity and mutual benefits of all nations on Earth.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. would warn, it would be fatal for American corporations, the financial and educational systems, other social and economic establishments and the wealthy individuals to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering heat of many Americans’ discontents will not pass until there is an invigorating atmosphere of transformational changes, economical equalities and job opportunities in America. This is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that we needed to release our angers and will soon be content will have a rude awakening if the establishments of America return to their businesses as usual. There will be neither silence nor rest in America until all Americans have regained their hopes of American Dream. The whirlwinds of protests and non-violent struggles will come to shake the establishments and current status quo of America until the bright day of transformational changes, economical equalities and job opportunities emerges.

There is something else that we must say to all Americans who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the glorious path to American Dream of the 21st Century. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for transformational changes, economical equalities and job opportunities by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our protest and struggle on the high ground of dignity and discipline as Martin Luther King, Jr. did. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence or worse. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting economical inequality and other injustice of excessive capitalism and individualism with positive forces. The marvelous new struggle which may engulf the establishments of America and the World must not lead us to a distrust of all the wealthy individuals, corporate executives and representatives in the establishments, for many of them, as evidenced by their sympathy or silence, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their yearning for love and compassion to fellow Americans is inextricably bound to our struggles. We cannot walk alone.

At this critical moment, we must also ask ourselves the soul searching question: Are we really fighting the benefit of all Americans or our own self-interests? And do we want to go down in history as hypocrites or equality-seeking men and women? And so, as John F. Kennedy would urge: My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you but what can you do for your country.

We are not unmindful that some among us have suffered great trials of unemployment and financial difficulties. Some among us are still in the suffocating environment of hopelessness and despair. Some among us have been battered by the storms of corporate greed and staggered by the winds of layoffs. Some of us have been the veterans of unearned suffering. Continue to hope with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to your work, go back to your study, go back to your business, go back to your place of worship, go back to the backwaters of undesirable jobs, go back to the forgotten paths of entrepreneurship knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair but turn to our family to help each other and pray to GOD for comfort, inner strength and salvation.

We have a dream that one day all Americans will be better off than today, secure in basic necessities of food, medicine and shelter, prosperous in all aspects and happy in our lives.

We have a dream that one day all wealthy Americans will be compassionate and giving, sharing their wealth with the less fortunate and the Nation.

We have a dream that one day all American corporations will rise up and live out the true meaning of an ideal corporation: morality before profit, employment before dividend, collaboration before monopoly and cooperation before competition.

We have a dream that one day Wall Street will not be a “greed” street but a “moral” street: orderly market, honest investment banking, transparency in financial reporting and no manipulation of market and no insider trading.

We have a dream that one day all educational institutions will provide educations to their students at reasonable costs, use their endowment generally and ensure their students employment opportunities after graduation.

We have a dream that one day even a bigot, sweltering with the heat of anti-immigrants, sweltering with the heat of racism, will be transformed into an oasis pursuing equality for all.

We have a dream that one day, the three respective branches of our Federal and State Government will always work in harmony for the prosperity, common good and advancement of all Americans and this Great Nation under GOD.

We have a dream today. We have a dream as that of Martin Luther King, Jr. “that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of [GOD] shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

So, we have a dream today. We have a dream that one day we will be live in a Paradise on Earth and a peaceful World under GOD for a thousand years to come.

This is our hope. This is the faith that we go on in the pursuit of the American Dream of 21st Century. With this faith as that of Martin Luther King, Jr. “we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of [American economy and finance] into a beautiful symphony of [harmony and prosperity].” With this faith we will be able to work together, to struggle together, to pray together, to stand up for America’s future together, knowing that we will be truly happy one day. This will be the day when everyone will be able to sing as Rumi “I am so tipsy here in this world, I have no tale to tell but tipsiness and rapture."

So, let transformation of consciousness begin in each of us from the rich to the poor! Let transformation of consciousness begin in corporate America! Let transformation of consciousness begin on Wall Street! Let transformation of consciousness begin in all places of business, schools, churches and all institutions!

But not only that, let transformation of consciousness begin in the respective three branches of our Federal and State Government! Let transformation of consciousness begin in the corporations, businesses and government of every nation! From every corner of Earth, let transformation of consciousness begin!

When this happens, when we allow transformation of consciousness to begin, when we let it to ring from every individual, every corporation, every business and every governmental unit, we will be able to speed up that day when American Dream of the 21st Century shall be realized under the Laws of GOD.

GOD Bless America from Sea to Shining Sea!

Acknowledgements:
The layout of this Essay “The American Dream of the 21st Century: A Call for Transformation of America” is based on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech “I have a Dream.” The Essay is also fused with languages from the Declaration of Independence the chief drafter of which was Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. It also contains a quote from John F. Kennedy and a verse from “GOD Bless America.”

Transforming Ideas Into Action: Clinton Global Initiative:
The Clinton Global Initiative is a project of the Clinton Foundation that brings together a community of global leaders, university students, and private citizens to identify and implement innovative solutions to the world's most pressing challenges, including poverty alleviation, climate change, global health, and education.

Combating Climate Change: Clinton Climate Initiative:
The Clinton Climate Initiative is making a difference in the fight against climate change in practical, measurable and significant ways, by working with 40 of the world's largest cities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. CCI is assisting partner cities to make energy-savings improvements to buildings, transit systems, lighting and waste management.

Treating HIV/AIDS & Malaria: Clinton Health Access Initiative:
The Clinton Health Access Initiative is helping to turn the tide on the HIV/AIDS pandemic by working with governments and other partners to increase the availability of high-quality AIDS care and treatment for people in need, lower the cost of essential tests and treatments, and strengthen health systems in the developing world.

Fighting Childhood Obesity: Alliance For a Healthier Generation:
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a partnership between the Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association, is dedicated to ending the increase in childhood obesity and helping all kids and their families lead healthy, active lives.

Promoting Economic Opportunity: Clinton Economic Opportunity Initiative:
The Clinton Economic Opportunity Initiative is helping families and individuals keep more of the money they make by supporting state and city efforts to promote access to basic financial services. CEO also matches inner-city entrepreneurs with successful business leaders to help them grow their businesses and flourish in an urban economy.

Creating Sustainable Development in Africa: Clinton Development Initiative:
The Clinton Development Initiative in Malawi and the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative in Rwanda work to generate income for smallholder farmers, increase agricultural productivity, and enable sustainable growth to alleviate poverty.

Enabling Sustainable Development: Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative
An innovative partnership between the Clinton Foundation, the private sector, governments, other NGOs and local communities, the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative is working with the natural resource industry to improve health and education programs and alleviate poverty, starting in Latin America.

So, we solute former President Wiliam J. Clinton and his Foundation for "A Decade of Difference."

Huping Hu & Maoxin Wu

October 15, 2011

In his editor’s introduction entitled "Transcending Self-Consciousness", Nixon delivers his introduction with the following opening: "What is this thing we each call “I” and consider the eye of consciousness, that which beholds objects in the world and objects in our minds? This inner perceiver seems to be the same I who calls forth memories or images at will, the I who feels and determines whether to act on those feelings or suppress them, as well as the I who worries and makes plans and attempts to avoid those worries and act on those plans. Am I the subject, thus the source, of my awareness, just as you are the subject and source of your awareness? If this is the case, it is likely impossible to be conscious without the self (yours or mine), the eye of consciousness, and it must certainly not be desirable, for such a consciousness would have no focal point, no self-that-is-conscious to guide it, so it would be cast adrift on wide and wild sea like a boat that has broken from its anchor. Without self-enclosure, “We shall go mad no doubt and die that way,” as Robert Graves (1927/1966) expressed it."

In his first article entitled "Transformations of Self and World I: Modeling a World", Christopher Holvenstot states in his Abstract the following: "Severe seasonal depression entails the yearly collapse and reconstruction of a functional, useable, meaningful world. This radical annual transformation provides a unique perspective onto fundamental conscious processes by illuminating the cognitive elements and dynamics behind the construction and deconstruction of self-models and world-models."

In his second article entitled "Transformations of Self and World II: Making Meaning", Christopher Holvenstot states in his Abstract the following: "A theater workshop, ostensibly about acting, turns out instead to be about not acting, yet answers a lot of questions about how to act in the real world – ironically, by exploring the world of dreams. This transformational experience provides a view into the realm of the psyche, and this view is used to highlight the inappropriateness of empirical precepts in the formation of a field of consciousness studies."

In his article entitled "The Shock of the Old: A Narrative of Transpersonal Experience", Milenko Budimir states in his Abstract the following: "Here I present a description of some transpersonal experiences that occurred as a result of meditation practices as well as reflections on those experiences. I connect these experiences with some historical precedents, particularly to sources in the Eastern Orthodox Christian spiritual tradition, but also to contemporary sources as well as some 20th century philosophical ideas. Lastly, I describe how these experiences ended up shaping a new worldview, the most significant and lasting being a deep sense of interconnectedness with the world. This sense of interconnectedness further lends support to an inclusive rather than an exclusive understanding of religious belief, and correspondingly a mystical sense of the world and humans’ place in it."

In his article entitled "Background Motivations for My Views on Consciousness", Chris Nunn states in his Abstract the following: "I wish to show here that my theories, and my life in general, have been greatly constrained (though I would say enlarged) by a few, brief and unusual experiences. Equally clearly, the content of the experiences reflected to some extent my cultural and personal history. Can they be regarded as no more than a culturally determined curiosity, perhaps a bit like the dancing manias of the Middle Ages or the recent epidemic of ‘alien abduction’ experiences? My personal answer to that question is: ‘No. The experiences truly reflected aspects of Reality that we don’t often perceive and the culturally determined part of their content was just the icing on the cake – how Reality was able to express itself within my particular, very limited mind.’ That’s why I feel it has not been a waste of my time to try to build ideas that promise to integrate experiences of this sort with more mainstream Western understandings, for theories foster observations and, thus, sooner or later, fuller appreciation of truths about ourselves and our world."

In her article entitled "How Often or How Rarely Does a Self-Transcending Experience Occur?", Syamala Hari states in her Abstract the following: "Almost always, the self is involved in our perception of the world, thinking, and actions, but it does momentarily step aside now and then. I describe below a few of my experiences of self-transcendence that seem quite ordinary with nothing mysterious about them and they are all of short duration. To explain how the self is present or not in an experience, I describe some properties characteristic of the self such as its sense of personal identity and ownership of action. Manifestation of these properties in an experience indicates the presence of the self and absence of these properties indicates its absence. In an act of observation, full attention paid to what is being observed seems to push every thought, including the self, out of the conscious mind and keep it fully occupied with the act of observation. A characteristic property of the self-transcendent state seems to be that one can only recognize such a state as being free from self, but one cannot prove that it is so because the outward effect of the state may be the same as that of an alternative state where the self is present."

In his article entitled "Self-Transcendence as a Developmental Process in Consciousness", Roland Cichowski states in his Abstract the following: "After an introduction describing certain difficulties in relating the nature of self-transcending experiences, I give a narrative description of three successive episodes in which a certain relationship and development over time can be discerned. This is followed by a discussion of the impact they have had over the course of my lifetime together with observations on how they have affected my outlook. These experiences have led me to the view that it is more likely that it is consciousness generating the illusion of a material reality than a material reality generating consciousness. I consider self-transcendence to be understood as a stage in the development of the consciousness of each human being, and ultimately in the development of humanity as a whole."

In his article entitled "A Longitudinal History of Self-Transformation: Psychedelics, Spirituality, Activism and Transformation", Phil Wolfson states in his Abstract the following: "A longitudinal historical approach for portraying and examining personal transformation is presented along with a proposed instrument—the Transformational Codex—for cataloging that history and the elements that compose it. One element, psychedelic transformation, is then discussed in depth along with a schema for viewing transformations that may occur related to psychedelic use and practice."

In her article entitled "Transcending the Self Through Art: Altered States of Consciousness and Anomalous Events During the Creative Process", Tobi Zausner states in her Abstract the following: "The capacity for transcending the self through art arises from the creative process, an altered state of consciousness facilitating the occurrence of anomalous events such as precognition and interior visions that appear to be outside the spacetime of waking life. Frustration can trigger the far-from-equilibrium conditions necessary for creativity, while inspiration may seem as if its source is exterior to the artist, and the experience of flow, like a trance state, can produce an altered sense of time. Archetypes in the creative process link a single mind to the collective unconscious and works of art become self-opening worlds that create an expanded reality."

Finally, in his article entitled "Breaking Out of One's Head (& Awakening to the World)", Gregory M. Nixon states in his Abstract the following: "Herein, I review the moment in my life when I awoke from the dream of self to find being as part of the living world. It was a sudden, momentous event that is difficult to explain since transcending the self ultimately requires transcending the language structures of which the self consists. Since awakening to the world took place beyond the enclosure of self-speech, it also took place outside our symbolic construction of time. It is strange to place this event and its aftermath as happening long ago in my lifetime, for it is forever present; it surrounds me all the time just as the world seems to do. This fact puts into question the reality of my daily journey from dawn to dusk with all the mundane tasks I must complete (like writing of that which cannot be captured in writing). My linear march to aging and death inexorably continues, yet it seems somehow unreal, the biggest joke of all. Still, I here review the events leading up to my time out of mind and then review the serious repercussions when I was drawn back into the ego-self only to find I did not have the conceptual tools or the maturity to understand what had happened."

Huping Hu & Maoxin Wu

October 9, 2011

Nobel Prize: Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to Quantum Theory and for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. Einstein is one of the founders of modern physics; he is the author of the Theory of Relativity. According to the world media (Reuters, December 2000) Einstein is “the personality of the second millennium.”

Nationality: German; later Swiss and American citizen

Education: Ph.D. in physics, University of Zurich, Switzerland, 1905

Occupation: Patent Examiner in the Swiss Patent Office, Bern, 1902-1908; Professor of Physics at the Universities of Zurich, Prague, Bern, and Princeton, NJ.

1. “I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.” (Einstein, as cited in Ronald Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, London, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., 1973, 33).

2. “We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books, but doesn’t know what it is.

That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a Universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.” (Einstein, as cited in Denis Brian, Einstein: A Life, New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1996, 186).

3. “If one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity. It is the duty of every man of good will to strive steadfastly in his own little world to make this teaching of pure humanity a living force, so far as he can.” (Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, New York, Bonanza Books, 1954, 184-185).

4. “After all, haven’t the differences between Jew and Christian been overexaggerated by fanatics on both sides? We both are living under God’s approval, and nurture almost identical spiritual capacities. Jew or Gentile, bond or free, all are God’s own.” (Einstein, as cited in H.G. Garbedian, Albert Einstein: Maker of Universes, New York, Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1939, 267).

5. “Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a Spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe – a Spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.” (Einstein 1936, as cited in Dukas and Hoffmann, Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Princeton University Press, 1979, 33).

6. “The deeper one penetrates into nature’s secrets, the greater becomes one’s respect for God.” (Einstein, as cited in Brian 1996, 119).

7. “The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior Reasoning Power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God.” (Einstein, as cited in Libby Anfinsen 1995).

8. “My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior Spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality.” (Einstein 1936, as cited in Dukas and Hoffmann 1979, 66).

9. “The more I study science the more I believe in God.” (Einstein, as cited in Holt 1997).

10. Max Jammer (Professor Emeritus of Physics and author of the biographical book Einstein and Religion, 2002) claims that Einstein’s well-known dictum, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” can serve as an epitome and quintessence of Einstein’s religious philosophy. (Jammer 2002; Einstein 1967, 30).

11. “The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations.” (Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years, New Jersey, Littlefield, Adams and Co., 1967, 27).

12. “In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views.” (Einstein, as cited in Clark 1973, 400; and Jammer 2002, 97).

13. Concerning the fanatical atheists Einstein pointed out:

“Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who – in their grudge against the traditional ‘opium for the people’ – cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.” (Einstein, as cited in Max Jammer, Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology, Princeton University Press, 2002, 97).

14. “True religion is real living – living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness” (Einstein, as cited in Garbedian 1939, 267).

15. “Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order.

… This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior Mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God.” (Einstein 1973, 255).

16. “Strenuous intellectual work and the study of God’s Nature are the angels that will lead me through all the troubles of this life with consolation, strength, and uncompromising rigor.” (Einstein, as cited in Calaprice 2000, ch. 1).

17. Einstein’s attitude towards Jesus Christ was expressed in an interview, which the great scientist gave to the American magazine The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929):

“- To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?

- As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.

- Have you read Emil Ludwig’s book on Jesus?

- Emil Ludwig’s Jesus is shallow. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot.

- You accept the historical Jesus?

- Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.” (Einstein, as cited in Viereck 1929; see also Einstein, as cited in the German magazine Geisteskampf der Gegenwart, Guetersloh, 1930, S. 235).

GEORGE WALD – NOBEL LAUREATE IN MEDICINE AND PHYSIOLOGY

Nobel Prize: George Wald (1906-1997) received the 1967 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for his work on the biochemistry of vision. Nationality: American Education: Ph.D. in biology, Columbia University, 1932 Occupation: Professor of Biology at Harvard University (1948-1977)

1. In 1954 Prof. George Wald (who was still an atheist at that time) wrote in Scientific American:

"When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance!" (George Wald, 1954, "The Origin of Life," Scientific American, 191 [2]: 48).

2. "The reasonable view was to believe in spontaneous generation; the only alternative, to believe in a single, primary act of supernatural creation. There is no third position.

Most modern biologists, having reviewed with satisfaction the downfall of the spontaneous generation hypothesis, yet unwilling to accept the alternative belief in special creation, are left with nothing." (Wald 1954, "The Origin of Life," Scientific American, 191 [2]: 45-46).

3. Nevertheless, George Wald underwent an astonishing change of mind during the early 1980s, and he came very close to religious mentality.

In his article "Life and Mind in the Universe" (1984) Prof. Wald wrote:

"In my life as scientist I have come upon two major problems which, though rooted in science, though they would occur in this form only to a scientist, project beyond science, and are I think ultimately insoluble as science. That is hardly to be wondered at, since one involves consciousness and the other, cosmology.

It has occurred to me lately – I must confess with some shock at first to my scientific sensibilities – that both questions might be brought into some degree of congruence. This is with the assumption that Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality – that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create." (George Wald, 1984, "Life and Mind in the Universe", International Journal of Quantum Chemistry: Quantum Biology Symposium 11, 1984: 1-15).

4. In 1986 in his address to the First World Congress for the Synthesis of Science & Religion held in Bombay, India, George Wald stated:

"I come toward the end of my life as a scientist facing two great problems. Both are rooted in science, and I approach both as would only a scientist. Yet I believe that both are irrevocably – forever – unassimilable as science. And that is hardly strange, since one involves cosmology, the other, consciousness.

The burden of this story is that we find ourselves in a universe that breeds life and possesses the very particular properties that make that possible. The more deeply one penetrates, the more remarkable and subtle the fitness of this universe for life appears. Endless barriers lie in the way, yet each is surmounted somehow. It is as though, starting from the Big Bang, the universe pursued an intention to breed life, such is the subtlety with which difficulties in the way are got around, such are the singular choices in the values of key properties that could potentially have taken any value.

And now for my main thesis. If any one of a considerable number of the physical properties of our universe were other than they are – some of those properties fundamental, others seeming trivial, even accidental – then life, that now appears to be so prevalent, would be impossible, here or anywhere.

I know that I see. But does a frog see? It reacts to light; so does a photoelectrically activated garage door. Does the frog know that it is reacting to light, is it self-aware? Now the dilemma: There is nothing whatever that I can do as a scientist to answer that kind of question.

Does that garage door resent having to open when the headlights of my car shine on it? I think not. Does a computer that has just beaten a human player at chess feel elated? I think not; but there is nothing one can do about those situations either.

I had already for some time taken it as a foregone conclusion that the mind - consciousness – could not be located. It is essentially absurd to think of locating a phenomenon that yields no physical signals, the presence or absence of which - outside of humans and their like – cannot be identified.

But further than that, mind is not only not locatable, it has no location. It is not a thing in space and time, not measurable; hence – as I said at the beginning of this paper – not assimilable as science.

A few years ago it occurred to me that these seemingly very disparate problems might be brought together. That would be with the hypothesis that Mind, rather than being a very late development in the evolution of living things, restricted to organisms with the most complex nervous systems – all of which I had believed to be true – that Mind instead has been there always, and that this universe is life-breeding because the pervasive presence of Mind had guided it to be so.

That thought, though elating as a game is elating, so offended my scientific possibilities as to embarrass me. It took only a few weeks, however, for me to realize that I was in excellent company. That kind of thought is not only deeply embedded in millennia-old Eastern philosophies, but it has been expressed plainly by a number of great and very recent physicists.

So Arthur Eddington (1928):

‘The stuff of the world is mind-stuff. The mind-stuff is not spread in space and time.’

So Erwin Schroedinger:

‘Mind has erected the objective outside world of the natural philosopher out of its own stuff.’

Let me say that it is not only easier to say these things to physicists than to my fellow biologists, but easier to say them in India than in the West. For when I speak of Mind pervading the universe, of Mind as a creative principle perhaps primary to matter, any Hindu will acquiesce, will think, yes, of course, he is speaking of Brahman [God].

That is the stuff of the universe, mind-stuff; and yes, each of us shares in it." (George Wald, 1989, "The Cosmology of Life and Mind." Noetic Sciences Review, No. 10, p. 10, Spring 1989. Institute of Noetic Sciences, California).