Zaya Benazzo - On the Mystery of Being: Contemporary Insights on the Convergence of Science and Spirituality

Good news! Non-dual consciousness and radical embodiment are not mutually exclusive. Maybe you, like I, have known this all along; known it in the cells of your own holy body, touched this truth in the depths of silence, live it and teach it and forget and remember it. This collection of luminous essays points us beyond language to the undifferentiated field of being that turns out to be nothing less than Love Itself. Enter.

Mirabai Starr , author of Wild Mercy , and translator of Dark Night of the Soul

In this glorious compendium of thinkers who live and work on the frontiers of the art and science of consciousness, we have a book that opens portals to worlds that astonish while advancing the human mind and spirit. For in these pages, we are met with numinous knowledge and priceless wisdom from those who have been there. Here, too, is the paradox of living in a biodegradable space-time suit and being the universe in miniature. Ultimately, these essays constitute a kind of a text for those who have consciously enrolled in God School! Thus, what you read here both inspires and signals a new and possibly saving agenda for the human species and the Earth we dwell upon.

Jean Houston, PhD , chancellor of Meridian University, chairman of the United Palace of Spiritual Arts, researcher and teacher in human capacities and social artistry, and author

On the Mystery of Being is a testimony to the courageous and openminded spirit of inquiry that characterizes the Science and Non-Duality community.

Rupert Spira , teacher of Non-Duality and author of several books, including The Nature of Consciousness and Being Aware of Being Aware

Human civilization will only survive if we are able to create communities whose members do not find happiness in excessive material consumption, but in relationships among each other and with the entire community of life. This book of many voices shows beautifully that Maurizio and Zaya have created such a community.

Fritjof Capra , author of The Web of Life , and coauthor of The Systems View of Life

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

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Copyright 2019 by Science and Nonduality

Non-Duality Press

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Cover design by Helena Zingarella

Acquired by Elizabeth Hollis Hansen

Edited by Tony Kendrew

Copy edited by Teja Watson

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

To all the burning hearts who dare to dream the immensity of life, question the limits of knowledge, and surrender to the mystery of being!

Contents

Foreword

Deepak Chopra

What is the best, simplest, and most useful thing we can say about our existence? This rich anthology of many voices is essentially asking that question. Whatever the goal of the spiritual path might be, or the objective of science, it must be buried somewhere in existence. Where else could it be? But existence seems to be the ultimate Sphinx, keeping an eternal secret about what is hiding insideand the secret is so hidden that you might not even guess that there is a secret.

Most of us are brought up to believe that existence is nothing more than a blank canvas. But if thats true, there would be little to say about it. Wed be better off filling in the blank with something meaningful. Seven billion people are born facing an unknown future, so they do the sensible thing; they begin to invent a story about what life means, one person at a time. The experiences they accumulate wind up being part of their personal story. To a creature endowed with free will, its a great setup. My story is unique, and everyone else is free to explore their own uniqueness.

Only one glitch spoils this setup, but its a big one. Using all their intelligence, creativity, family support, social connections, and anything else at their disposal, no one has yet devised a way to rid their story of pain and suffering. Seven billion of us are, in effect, experimenting with the problem of finding happiness, and so far there has been no single discoverylike Thomas Edisons, which lit up the worldto rid our minds and hearts of suffering.

Yet it may be that people are experimenting not with bad ideas or flawed stories, but from the wrong starting point. The stories begin because we assume that existence is a blank canvas. What if it isnt? From the blank canvas perspective, I am is an empty statement, and life doesnt get on the road until the sentence is expanded to I am X. If you replace X with a white Western male born of a well-to-do family, the chances are your story is going to turn out much better than someone who says, I am a poor black woman in Senegal in the middle of a drought with six children.

But a few peopleby good fortune a sizable group of them have contributed to this bookinvestigate I am without feeling that X must follow. What if I am is actually the most meaningful thing you can say about yourself? Then you would be looking directly at being, the topic of this anthology. It would be wonderful if being was enough, if existence was not empty, but full of potential, eager to unfold if only we ask it to. In the nondual tradition, which goes back several thousand years, the teaching holds that being is indeed filled with infinite potential. The Vedic rishis who declared I am That were pointing not to anything specific, but to a field of indescribable possibilities. These possibilities are not hidden from everyday life. Homo sapiens , as a conscious species, constantly takes advantage of fundamental traits that are sourced from existence itself. These traits include creativity, intelligence, will, desire, insight, love, compassion, and self-awareness.

Once you realize that existence is a conscious state, the field of infinite potential is no longer abstract. It exists, in plenitude, here and now. I side with thinkers who say that life can only be lived here and now. Everything else is a dream or spell or illusion concocted by the mind. It testifies to the enormous trauma inflicted by past suffering that the human race would rather exist in a mind-made, dream-spell of illusion than wake up, live in the present moment, and take advantage of our infinite potential.

Here is where the trail divides for nondualists. Like the physician who must offer a correct diagnosis before delivering a cure, nondualists must account for duality (the sickness) before delivering a method for waking up (the cure). Thats a tricky business when it comes to the person we know bestourselvesand far harder when it comes to other people. It has been all too easy to take a short cut and invent a new storycall it religion or spiritualitythat neatly catalogues everything as good or bad, helpful or unhelpful for waking up, pleasing or displeasing to God, and so on.

These shortcuts came about out of necessity. I am That refers to something indescribable, formless, without substance or qualities, unborn, undying, and beyond language. People wanted something they could see and feel and hold on to. In the Old Testament, Jacob wrestled with an angel. He was lucky; wrestling with duality, entangled in the dream-spell of illusion, is far harder. But if we remain true to I am, there is no need to wrestle with anything, including oneself.