Deepak Chopra
wrote a great Book…How to Know God.
Below is the
Bibliography from that book.
Great Reading.
ONE: A REAL AND USEFUL GOD
1. A number of
short answers to the question “What does the experience of God feel like?” can
be found in Jonathan Robinson, Bridges to
Heaven (Walpole, N.H.: Stillpoint Publishing, 1994), pp. 54—62. Responses were all provided by
spiritual writers and teachers.
2. The beginning of “spiritual physics” is complex,
and becausequantum theory has now expanded into at least forty different and
often conflicting interpretations, the whole subject remains extremely thorny.
I first attempted to unravel the basic ideas in Quantum Healing (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), but for more
technical resources, I can lead the reader to several books that have made a
deep impression on me over the past decade. They are all classics in one way or
another and recognized as starting points into the quantum maze.
David Bohm, Wholeness
and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980).
Fritjof Capra, The
Tao of Physics (Boston: Shambhala Press, 1991).
Roger Penrose, The
Emperor’s New Mind (New York: Penguin USA, 1991).
Michael Talbot, The
Holographic Universe (New York: HarperCollins, 1991).
Fred Alan ~\Vo1f, Star Wave: Mind Consciottsness and
Quantwn Physics (New York: Macmillan, 1984).
Gary Zukav, The
Dancing Wu Li Masters (New York: Bantam Books, 1980).
The best collection of
original writings from great physicists on metaphysical matters was edited by
Ken Wilber, Quantum Questions Boston:
Shambhala Press, 1984). Wilber went on to publish authoritative books about
mysticism and physics that combine compassion and great depth of knowledge. A
good appreciation of his insights can be gained from one of his earliest books
and one of his most recent: Eye to Eye (Garden
City, N.Y: Anchor Books, 1983) and Eye of
the Spirit (Boston: Shambhala Press, 1997).
The Duke project,
formally known as the Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Training,
presented its findings in fall 1998 to the American Heart Association.
Readers will vary widely
in how much quantum theory they’ll wish to read about. For an introduction to
the paradox of how light behaves, nothing is wittier or more palatable for the
layman than a series of freshman physics lectures given by the late Nobel
laureate Richard P. Eeynman: Six Easy
Pieces (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1995). Big Bang theory changes so rapidly
that it is difficult to find an
up-to-date treatment outside the pages of the journals Nature and Scientific
American. I have relied upon Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1988),
now ten years old but still reliable in the essentials on how time and space
came into existence.
An
eye-opening book on the many conflicting aspects of Jehovah, as he careens
through the turmoil of the Old Testament, is Jack Miles, God: A Biography (New York: Vintage Books, 1995). For a large
compendium of modern spiritual writings, the reader is referred to Lucinda
Vardey, ed., God in All Worlds (New
York: Vintage Books, 1995).
I am
referring to students and devotees of Kabbalah. An introductory explanation of
Shekhinah can be found in David S.
Ariel, What Do Jews Believe? (New
York: Shocken Books, 1995), Pp. 22—23ff.
TWO. MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES
1. Although there
are thousands of written scriptures in the Indian tradition, much of the wisdom
is passed down from master to disciple. The most inspiring modern example of
this relationship, in my experience, can be found in Sudhakar S. Dikshit, I Am That (Durham: Acorn Press, 1973).
But the reader is also referred to the many books centering on other notable
voices of Vedanta, such as Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Aurobindo, Ramana Maharishi,
Paramahansa Yogananda, J. Krishnamurti, and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, to name
some of the best-known exponents in the West of a five-thousand-year-old
tradition.
2. For the most literal translation of Christ’s words
I have relied upon the New English Bible translation, except for some instances
where the King James version was inescapable, having become part of our
language. For scriptural quotations outside the recognized gospels, see Ricky
Alan Mayotte, The Complete Jesus (South
Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press, 1997). I should also point out that all interpretations
of Christ’s words in this book are my own and not derived from any sect or
authority.
3. Hawking himself does not deal in the connections
between spirituality and quantum physics. The latest and best summary of those
connections is made in Paul Davies, The
Mind of God (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992). in this follow-up to his
classic God and the New Physics, Davies
deals with the central issue of whether an intelligent creator is consistent
with modern cosmology.
THREE. SEVEN STAGES OF GOD
An excellent discussion of addictions
from the social and personality level can be found in Angelus Arrien, The Four-Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the
Warrior; Teacher, Healer and
Visionary (San Francisco: Harper
San Francisco: 1993), which I have adapted to fit my spiritual argument.
2. Sister Marie’s miraculous feats are recounted in Patricia Treece, The
Sanctified Body (Liguori, Mo.: Triumph Books, 1993), pp. 276—80. This is the most reliable, detailed account
of miracle-working in the Catholic church over the past century.
3. The deeply moving story of Father Maximilian is in Treece, Sanctified Body, pp. 140—43. She has
also written a complete biography, A Man
for Others (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1982).
FOUR. A MANUAL FOR SAINTS
1. Griffith’s
experience is recounted in full in Vardey, ed., God in All Worlds p. 88.
2. My version of the night of Qadr is derived from Thomas W. Lippman, Understanding Islam (New York:
Penguin/Meridian, 1995), pp. 38—39.
3.
Some of the first and best arguments for the “mind field” were 1996 made
in Penfield’s The Mystery of the Mind (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975).
4.
Fascinating connections are made between brain function and spiritual
experiences in Valerie V Hunt, Infinite
Mind (Malibu, Calif.: Malibu Publishing, 1996).
5. I am making a strong argument for the
notion that mind is not localized in the brain but extends like a force field
beyond space and time. To make this argument, I have relied upon the most
eloquent thinker on nonlocalized mind, Rupert Sheldrake. His major work to date
is The Presence of the Past (New
York: Times Books, I 988), but readers will be drawn to his more informal
conversations on science and spirituality in Michael Fox and Rupert Sheldrake, Natural Grace (New York: Doubleday,
1996) Sheldrake is unique in offering
ingenious experiments that would prove the existence of the mind field (he
refers to it as the field of morphogenesis). The most recent proposals, which
invite the reader to participate, appear in his book Seven Experiments That
Could Change the World (New York: Riverhead Books, 1995).
FIVE. STRANGE
POWERS
I. Dr. Bruce
L. Miller reported his findings in the April 1998 issue of the journal Neurology.
2. The best
popular writing on this mystery is still found in Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1987). Connections between spiritual awakening and
brain disease have been speculated about for a long time but never proven. A
striking modern example, however, can be found in Suzanne Segal, Collision With the Infinite (San Diego:
Blue Dove Press, 1996).
SIX. CONTACTING GOD
Credible attempts to explain the soul in scientific
terms are rare. The best is found in Gary Zukav, The Seat of the Soul (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989).