Ellen DeGeneres among Celebs Receiving PCRM's Voice of Compassion Award

This Saturday, Alicia Silverstone and Marilu Henner will receive the inaugural Voice of Compassion Award at PCRM’s 25th Anniversary Art of Compassion gala. The award honors those who, by word and example, have communicated compassion, caring, and the highest ethical principles. The Voice of Compassion Award was also presented this week to Ellen DeGeneres on the set of The Ellen DeGeneres Show and to Portia de Rossi.

“Alicia Silverstone and Marilu Henner have had a tremendous impact in spreading the message about health issues related to diet and nutrition,” said Neal Barnard, M.D., PCRM’s founder and president. “They have played a particularly significant role in shining a spotlight on the powerful health benefits of a vegan diet.”

Actor, activist, and author Alicia Silverstone recently published her first book, The Kind Diet, now a New York Times best-seller. She exemplifies the benefits of adopting a plant-based diet, including natural weight loss, clear skin, and tremendous energy. Alicia works tirelessly to support PCRM and numerous animal-related charities.

Marilu Henner’s entire life testifies to the power of her plant-based diet. The knowledge and discipline this actor, author, and full-time mom has gathered to maintain her demanding schedule is discussed in her books, including Marilu Henner's Total Health Makeover. She is working with PCRM to persuade Congress to reform the Child Nutrition Act to offer more healthful school lunches.

Host of the Emmy-winning The Ellen DeGeneres Show and judge on American Idol, Ellen has used her humorous and compassionate voice to raise awareness of health issues and environmental and animal welfare concerns. Portia, who shares those values, stars in ABC’s Better Off Ted and has appeared in Nip/Tuck, Arrested Development, and Ally McBeal.

PCRM’s gala brings attention to doctors and laypersons working together for compassionate and effective medical practice, research, and health promotion. The evening will be hosted by Kathy and Tom Freston, along with honorary committee co-chairs Cindy Landon, Richard Donner and Lauren Shuler-Donner, Maria and Wolfgang Petersen, and steering committee chair James Costa.

To purchase tickets to the gala and learn more about other celebrity members of the honorary committee, visit PCRM.org/Gala2010.

Subjective Evolution of Consciousness

This world is sometimes pushing forth and sometimes withdrawing. In the same way that a heart expands and contracts again and again, the whole universe expands and contracts. Regrouping within the one, and again manifest as the many - the one and the many - the evolution and dissolution of the material universe takes place. As a heart expands and contracts, the whole universe is manifest and withdrawn.

One ancient literature of India, the Manu Samhita, begins by describing the creation. In that book, it is written how, before the creative movement began, the tatastha potency of the Lord was in eqilibrium. Tatastha means equilibrium. Everything was in darkness, fully enveloped by ignorance. There was no possiblility of estimation; no symptoms of reality existed by which any conjecture or inference about the nature of reality would have been possible. And that state of being was unknowable: science has no capacity for investigating the nature of that stage of existence. We can only say from here that it was completely immersed in deep sleep. The analogy of deep sleep may give us some conception of that period: Material existence was at that time as if in sound sleep.

by Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar Maharaj

www.vedic-academy.com

Consciousness: The Symptom of the Soul

How it Interacts With but is Separate from the Body

Very often scientists have a desire to do something that determines or proves the philosophy they use. Rather than simply basing their philosophy on the facts alone, they may tend to base their viewpoints or interpret their experiments on what they desire. In this way, they may use the idea that life comes from chemicals because if it is true, there are then so many things science can do. With science we could build a better human machine, a better brain, or create immortality. But if it is not true, then science cannot recreate life, or build machines as good as humans, or overcome death. Therefore, science does not want to face that. Instead they may choose to take an idea and follow it as far as it will go by using many taxpayers' hard-earned dollars to investigate many useless and unnecessary things.

www.stephen-knapp.com

How the Universe was Created and Our Purpose In It

The Eastern Answers to the Mysteries of Life

Every culture in the world and most religions have their own description of the creation of the universe, from where we came, and what we should do. Unfortunately, these are often short and generalized versions that lack details. Thus, they are often given the same regard as myths. However, there are descriptions that give more elaborate explanations of how the cosmic creation fully manifested, which are found in the ancient Vedic texts and Puranas of India, some of the oldest spiritual writings on the planet. These descriptions provide details and answers that other versions leave out. Furthermore, these Vedic descriptions often agree, and sometimes disagree, with the modern scientific theories of creation, and offer some factors that science has yet to consider.

www.stephen-knapp.com

Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin's Theory

WHERE DID WE COME FROM? Drawing upon a wealth of research into archeology, genetics, reincarnation memories, out-of-body experiences, parapsychology, cross cultural cosmology, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, Cremo provides a refreshing perspective on human origins according to the ancient philosophy of India. In their controversial bestseller Forbidden Archeology, Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson documented evidence showing that humans have existed on earth for hundreds of millions of years. Such anomalous evidence, contradicting Darwinian evolution, catalyzed a global inquiry: If we did not evolve from apes then where did we come from? Human Devolution is Michael A. Cremo's definitive answer to that question: We did not evolve up from matter; instead we devolved, or came down, from the real of pure consciousness, spirit. Basing his response on modern science and the world's great wisdom traditions, including the Vedic philosophy of ancient India, Cremo proposes that before we ask the question, Where did human beings come from? we should first contemplate, What is a human being?

www.seekerbooks.com

The Science of Consciousness

Professor Ashok Sharma, a former Indian professor of Applied Physics, who was also a scientist at Harvard University, has formulated some path-breaking theories and postulations based on the ancient Vedic Sciences that give us some powerful insights into the gray regions of the human mind, and help us understand our consciousness.

Even after treading for long in the realm of science, Prof Sharma feels that science fails to understand consciousness as an independent entity. He says, "Science cannot integrate a non-physical entity, like consciousness, into its conceptual framework, and views human personality as a non-conscious physical system."

Hinduism.about.com

A vedic model of the multidimensional universe based on consciousness

In vedic philosophy consciousness is considered to be the underlying reality. Inert unconscious matter is not considered to be an independent substance but a form of covered consciousness. Mind and matter are two poles of the basic polarity in this world. They are both generated by the influence of time from the underlying field of consciousness, which is called mahat-tattva in sanskrt. The mahat-tattva is on the one hand the unmanifested form of matter and on the other hand pure consciousness by nature. Therefor we will call it the matter-consciousness-field. It is a dynamic combination of the two basic energies of the supreme: the unconscious seperated energy of material space (pradhana) and the conscious energy (cit-sakti) which includes the individual spiritual souls as well as the universal conciousness of the supreme person (god). Under the influence of eternal time they interact which each other and create a dynamic surfacestructure with new qualities. This dynamic sufacestructure is the mahat-tattva which manifests it‘s internal aspect as mind and it‘s external aspect as matter. Therefor the material enegry which evolves from the mahat-tattva is a complex hierachical strucutre of internal (conscious) and external spaces which interact with each other within the etheric space or field.

By Marcus Schmieke, Schloß Weißenstein 1997

www.vedic-academy.com

Bhaktivedanta Institute - Synthesis of Science and Spirituality

Bhaktivedanta Institute is a not-for-profit organization working for the synthesis of science and religion for the benefit of humanity. Our goal is to have spiritual reality accepted and incorporated into scientific research and advancements, and to have scientific principles and methods integrated into the practice of spirituality.

As achieving this goal requires sweeping changes in the cultures and core beliefs of both the scientific and religious communities, we believe our mission could transform human consciousness for the greater good and lead to a global social covenant that would profoundly benefit our planet.

www.binstitute.org

European Academy of Vedic Sciences

Integration of Science and Spirituality

The European Academy of Vedic Sciences connects the research and teachings of scientific and educational institutes in more than ten countries not only in Europe but also in other parts of the world. The mission of the EAVS is to integrate ancient spiritual wisdom and modern scientific knowledge for solving the urgent problems of the modern man.

In the year 1996 Marcus Schmieke, the president of the EAVS, started to realize this vision by founding the Vedic Academy in south Germany at the Weissenstein castle which in the following ten years inspired similar academies in different European countries like England, Hungary and Croatia. After partnering in early 2004 with the renowned Florida Vedic College the idea of an international Vedic university arose which combines the potential of all national Vedic academies.

www.vedic-academy.com