Duane Elgin - The Living Universe

THE Living Universe

Other books by Duane Elgin:

Changing Images of Man (with Joseph Campbell and others)

Living Legacies (with Coleen LeDrew Elgin)

Duane Elgin

FOREWORD BY DEEPAK CHOPRA

The Living Universe

Copyright 2009 by Duane Elgin
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First Edition
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-57675-969-1
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-57675-988-2
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-60509-904-0

2010-2

Book design and composition: Detta Penna
Copyeditor: Judith Johnstone
Illustrator: Camilla Coates
Proofreader: Katherine Lee
Indexer: Joan Dickey
Cover design: PemaStudio
Cover photo: Byron Aughenbaugh / Getty Images

Living in a Dead
Universe Does Aliveness
Make a Difference?

Just Getting
Underway

Sentience at Every
Level Able to Reproduce
Itself

Harvesting the Wisdom of Human
Experience

The Mother Universe in
Wisdom Traditions Growing in the
Mother Universe

A Body
of Light A Body of
Knowing

Humanitys
Journey of Return Awakening into the
Living Universe Stage II:
Oceanic Consciousness

Cultivating Reflection
and Reconciliation Creating
New Kinds of Community Becoming Media-Conscious
Citizens of the Earth Bringing Our True Gifts into the
World

by Deepak Chopra

As a physician, I am concerned with healing. In my view, the more we are in touch with the universe we come from, the more we will be able to heal ourselves and at the same time heal our planet. We are an integral part of a living and intelligent universe. Not only is the universe alive, it is imbued with consciousness. The universe wants to live and breathe through you. To find out the truth of this, you need to relate to the universe as if it were alive. Otherwise, how will you ever know that it is? Today, begin to adopt the following habits:

Talk to the universe.

Listen for its reply.

Be on intimate terms with Nature.

See the life in everything.

Carry yourself like a child of the universe.

Duane Elgin writes about our living universe as an evolutionary pioneer. He has been an explorer of scientific knowledge and spiritual understanding for more than four decades. He has worked on a Presidential Commission looking into the deep future; helped pioneer sustainable ways of living with his book Voluntary Simplicity; developed a stunning view of the big picture of the human journey in Awakening Earth; co-founded three non-profit organizations working for media accountability and citizen empowerment, and more. The uniqueness and span of this book reflect Duanes wide-ranging life journey.

The Living Universe is written with elegant simplicity and yet it addresses our most important existential dilemmas. Where are we? Who are we? What journey are we on? Step-by-step he offers us new insights about ourselves and our human journey. At the foundation is the understanding that we are each an expression of a living universe. The universe is conscious, self-regulating, self-creating, ever-renewing, and always evolving to increasing levels of complexity and creativity.

Through us (the human nervous system), the universe is becoming increasingly aware of itself. We are beings of light, love, music, and happiness. We are evolving toward unity consciousness where we experience ourselves as cosmic beings participating in the evolution of the universe. If we consciously participate in this evolutionary process, we can heal the rift in our collective soul and bring creative solutions to poverty, social injustice, war, terrorism, and ecological devastation. If we ignore the call to our collective awakening, we put at risk the future of human civilization on our precious planet. The choice is ours.

It is my hope that the human family rapidly awakens itself to the reality that we live in a living universe. The human body is part of the cosmic body. The human mind is part of the cosmic mind. Awakening to this cosmic dimension of ourselves is profoundly restorative. With that experience and understanding, we bring healing to our wounded planet and a new sense of adventure to the human journey.

Duane has written an important book because, at this pivotal time when we are separated by so many differences, it is vital that we discover our common ground as a species. A widely shared understanding that we all live in the same living universe provides the foundation for positive visions of the future that offer beacons of hope to pierce the darkness of the worlds gathering storms.

As I complete this book in early 2009, a number of crises are putting the world system under enormous pressure to make fundamental changes: economic breakdowns, growing climate disruption, the end of cheap oil, desperate poverty, violent conflicts over resources and religion, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and more. We are fulfilling the Warning to Humanity given by more than 1,600 of the worlds senior scientists, including a majority of the Nobel laureates in the sciences. In 1992 they warned: A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated. If a great change in our stewardship of life is essential, what does that change look like? Given the enormous differences and divisions within the human community, where can we find a commonly shared understanding for building a new pathway into the future?