YOU ARE THE PONTIFF OF YOUR UNIVERSE

‘Man is good, and tells the secret of his goodness in the language of thought.’ Who said that? Well, it was Venerable Fulton J Sheen [pictured], now on the way to Catholic sainthood.

There will be many today, even in the Catholic world, who have never heard of Fulton J Sheen. That is sad, because he towered over the Catholic world in the West for a fair bit of last century. Yes, he shone like a blazing comet, and he was without doubt the greatest Catholic evangelist of last century. Possessing an unforgettable voice, and a gifted wordsmith, he made Catholics proud to be Catholics. Oh, how the Catholic Church needs a Fulton Sheen today! But there never will be another Fulton Sheen. He was a divine original.

Sheen, who was at the helm of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith for some 16 years, wrote dozens of books---many still in print---and was a master communicator. For years he broadcast his message on radio and TV. He even won an Emmy Award. In fact, he won two of them, for ‘Most Outstanding Television Personality.’ He jokingly called himself ‘Uncle Fultie’ in an affectionate nod to his very good friend comedian Milton Berle who was sometimes known as ‘Uncle Miltie.’ Millions wouldn’t be familiar with Milton Berle either. Oh, dear. Anyway, it happened like this. When Sheen won an Emmy, Berle quipped, ‘He's got better writers---Matthew, Mark, Luke and John!’ Shortly thereafter Sheen opened his program by saying ‘Good evening, this is Uncle Fultie.’ Sheen was good at self-deprecation. His sense of humour, though corny at times, was always endearing.

Above: Fulton Sheen ... with his good friend Milton Berle

Below left: Sheen at his Holy Hour of adoration

However, Sheen’s perennial attacks on both communism and psychiatry reveal that he was a reactionary. As respects psychiatry, he saw it as a real threat to the church. Not so his erstwhile Protestant friend Norman Vincent Peale who saw Christianity and psychiatry as very compatible. Peale embraced psychiatry. Sheen shunned it. In that respect Dr Peale was much more ahead of his times even though he too was a reactionary in many ways. Yes, it always seemed to me that Sheen was forever fighting for a rear guard action against change and by the time of his death in 1979 he had become in many ways irrelevant. He became an increasingly nostalgic figure, associated with a bygone era when the Catholic Church, and the United States, were at their strongest.

Sheen’s cause for canonization for sainthood was officially opened in 2002. In June 2012 Pope Benedict XVI officially recognized a decree from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints stating that he lived a life of ‘heroic virtue’---a major step towards beatification---so he is now referred to as ‘Venerable.’ More recently (March 2014), a team of medical experts convened by the Vatican reported there was no natural explanation for the survival of a child delivered stillborn and whose heart did not start beating until 61 minutes after his birth. The survival of the child, James Fulton Engstrom, now three years old and developing normally, was credited by his parents to a miracle attributable to the intercession of the long-dead Archbishop Sheen. The child’s mother and father prayed to Sheen to heal their son.

The case will now move on to a select number of cardinals and bishops, and then finally to Pope Francis who will have to decide whether or not to affirm that God performed a miracle through the intercession of the late archbishop. An amazing story. Ever the skeptic, but ever with an open mind unlike many skeptics, I simply don’t know what to make of all this. We live in a fascinating world, and there is so much we don’t know and can’t explain. Life is a mystery---and, in the words of Fulton Sheen, life is worth living. For the uninitiated, that was the name of Sheen's TV program as well as the title of a series of his more well-known books. Here is a clip from a 1966 episode of his TV program, this one being on the subject of 'The Death of God':

Sheen was very knowledgeable in theology and philosophy, and was very well qualified academically. His theology reveals a great debt to Platonism and Neoplatonism. Sheen would refer to Plato’s question, ‘If there is only one God, what does He think about, for if He is an intelligent being He must think of something?’ He gave this as an answer in his book The Divine Romance:

God does not think one thought, or one word, one minute and another the next. Thoughts are not born to die, and do not die to be reborn, in the mind of God. All present to Him at once. In Him there is only one Word. He has no need of another. That Thought or Word is infinite and equal to Himself, hence a Person unique and absolute, first-born of the spirit of God; a Word which tells what God is, a Word from which all human words have been derived, and of which created things are but merely the broken syllables or letters; a Word which is the source of all the wisdom in the world.

Then there are these gems:

God has two pictures of us: one is what we are, and the other is what we ought to be.

Everything that exists is the realization and concretion of an idea existing in the Mind of God from all eternity.

All art is an imitation of the Divine Artist who, from all eternity, possessed in His Divine Mind the archetypal ideas according to which He made the world in time.

Every bird, every flower, every tree, has been made according to an idea existing in the Mind of God from all eternity.

God has one Idea, and that Idea is the totality of all Truth. Thoughts are not born to die to be reborn in the Mind of God.

God the father is related to God the Son as the Eternal Thinker is related to His Eternal Thought.

I have often read that Sheen’s writings reveal the influence of New Thought, and many New Thoughters claim Sheen as one of their own. True, any of the gems set out above could have been written by a New Thought writer, but the link is more indirect. Sheen was not a New Thoughter although there are certainly some similarities in language and thought-form. Just as Sheen’s theology discloses a debt to Neoplatonism so does New Thought. New Thought is in many ways a revival of Neoplatonism. So was Sheen’s theology---at least in some respects. They both drank from the same fountain, but Sheen was forever the Catholic traditionalist. (It seemed even more so, as the years rolled on.) However, strange though it may seem, perhaps the best way of describing Sheen is to say that he was a Catholic evangelical---perhaps the very first one. Yes, there is such a thing---and Sheen was the greatest one of them all. Dr Billy Graham [pictured left, with Sheen] approved of him, and loved him dearly. He described Sheen as ‘a man whose love for Christ continued to grow until the end of his life.’

I still love listening to Fulton Sheen. I still read his books. When my life was its lowest ebb---some 20 years ago---his writings gave me hope. Almost totally destroyed by years of alcoholism, I these words of Sheen, and they gave me hope that I could get better:

Man is the pontiff of the universe, the ‘bridge builder’ between matter and spirit, suspended between one foundation on earth and the other in heaven.

Man has his feet in the mud of the earth, his wings in the skies.

There are two ways of knowing how good God is. One is never to lose Him; the other is to lose Him and find Him again.

I found Him again. And, as Sheen himself said, ‘Divinity is always where one least expects to find it.’ In my darkest hours, broken in body and spirit, separated from my family because of my drinking, and not knowing whether I would ever be able to continue in my chosen profession, these words of Sheen meant the most to me, and I read them over and over again:

The cross reveals that unless there is a Good Friday in our lives, there will never be an Easter Sunday. Unless there is a crown of thorns, there will never be the halo of light. Unless there is the scourged body, there will never be a glorified one. Death to the lower self is the condition of resurrection to the higher self. The world says to us, as it said to Him on the cross: ‘Come down, and we will believe!’ But if He came down, He never would have saved us. It is human to come down; it is divine to hang there.

‘Death to the lower self is the condition of resurrection to the higher self.’ That is the only thing I write about on this blog of mine. It is the only thing (I think) we need to know and understand … and most of all experience. It is the real miracle---to die to your lower, false self and to be resurrected into newness of life so as to become the living embodiment of that other ‘picture’ of you which the Eternal Thinker has in His Mind … namely, the person you ought to be and in Truth really are.

I will finish with Sheen’s traditional sign-off. God love you.

THE TIMELESS IN YOU---AND THE DEATH OF MATERIALISM

Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,

And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and

tomorrow is today's dream.

And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still

dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which

scattered the stars into space.

  ---Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet.

Kahlil Gibran [pictured right] speaks of the ‘timeless,’ but what is that? Well, there is a state of mind or consciousness that is timeless in the sense of being beyond time. This timeless state is more than a state of mind for in a very real sense it is a state of ‘no-mind’ or ‘no-mindedness.’ The mind dwells on nothing, stops on nothing. It just is. The mind has even gone beyond awareness---that is, awareness of ‘things’ as such---although there is an awareness of awareness itself. Gibran refers to this awareness as ‘that which sings and contemplates in you.’ It is the self-knowing mind out of which all things came, that which fashioned and brought matter into existence. It still does. The mind that is aware that it is aware is the self-knowing, creative mind. It observes, explores, but never stays or stops. Some call this ‘Presence’ the Eternal Now, and that is not a bad turn of phrase at all.

Time is a scale we have created to ‘divide’ the occurrence of happenings into so-called past, present, and future. At best it is not a thing in itself (like a flower or a bus is a thing) but rather a medium in which all things exist and have their being. Space and time---they're really one---are largely 'tools' of the mind, with time in particular being a most ‘relative’ construct. The truth is we live both in time and eternity.

Eternity is a big word. Christian preachers talk about eternity as if it were something we ‘enter’ when we die, but the truth is we are ‘in’ (that is, immersed) in eternity right now. In a sense, we live out our existence in both time and eternity. For the most part, the difference lies in the quality of life being experienced by us. For example, when we are anxiously waiting for the expected occurrence of some future event we are existing---note, I didn’t say living---in time. When we are bound up in attachments and addictions we are also existing in time. But when we are truly and fully present in the Now, then we are living---yes, living---in eternity. Wow! What a difference there is!

Life is ceaseless movement and constant flux even though in and of itself life is timeless and spaceless and unchanging. Unchanging, yet forever changing. Nothing moves yet nothing stands still. What a paradox! Everything---and I mean every thing---is contained within ‘the Now.’ All time is total and complete---that is, has its fulfilment---in the Now. There is an eternal quality about the Now, for the Now is forever new. What we somewhat ambiguously call ‘the present’ is simply that content---occurrences, both internal and external, in space-time---which presents itself before us in consciousness in and as the Now. That is why Gibran speaks about the present embracing the past, the so-called present, and the future. The Eternal Now is that ‘present’---yes, it's a problematic word---which is forever renewing and re-presenting itself in and as each new moment. This Eternity supersedes time itself. In other words, there is a ‘present’ beyond the ‘present,’ but if you try to 'chase' the next present you will fail. Everything is---here now! Life is eternal, and we are in eternity now. Few people know that. Few people are truly alive. Most lead ‘lives of quiet desperation’ (to use Thoreau’s turn of phrase).

If quantum mechanics has shown us anything---and it has shown us plenty---it has shown that consciousness or mind is fundamental, eternal and all-creative, and that what we call mass, together with what we refer to as matter, is derivative, being constructed wholly from the interactions between massless---yes, that’s right, massless---elementary particles. Those massless elementary particles constitute the ‘innerness’ of all physical things, even so-called inert matter. I am not referring to some omnipotent creator God prior to and 'above' (whatever that means) time. Quantum mechanics appears to provide no support for any such hypothesis or religious belief, but it does provide enormous support for the proposition that mind or consciousness is both fundamental and all-pervasive, that is, that mind or consciousness constitutes the fundamental undifferentiated nature of reality.

So-called matter is a derived aspect of a process of reality that is, in essence, insubstantial. That seems to be where the discoveries of quantum mechanics are leading us, and it is all very exciting. The philosophy of materialism (or 'physicalism'), in its traditional and uncompromising strictness, with its central notion of the existence of solid material stuff independent of mind, is now a very damaged philosophical and metaphysical position. One might even say ‘discredited’ or ‘demolished,’ but I am trying to be kind. You see, I am still an Andersonian realist when it comes to teaching the law and logic, especially when explaining to my students what are 'facts' (namely, occurrences in space-time) and how facts are related to other facts (that is, facts always exist in spatio-temporal situations). The findings of quantum mechanics do not disturb any of that. You see, I have slowly come to the view---everything comes slowly to me----that idealism and realism are not in conflict at all, indeed they need each other.

Be that as it may, classical materialism---together with classical ‘static’ physics in terms of three-dimensional substances---belongs to a pre-quantum world. Materialism asserts that all of reality is reducible to matter and its interactions. Really? Thanks to quantum mechanics we now know---yes, know---that the universe is a single gigantic field of energy and that so-called matter is a 'slowed down' form of energy. Some quantum physicists refer to this energy as 'light’ (cf the Biblical metaphor of God as light [1 Jn 1:5]), with the purest ‘form’ of this energy or light being wave forms of probability existing within an infinite field of probabilities. We are immersed in a world of largely indeterminate flux (‘mind stuff,’ or ‘dream stuff’ in the words of the Polish-American physicist Wojciech Zurek [pictured left]) consisting of seemingly endless possible actions and a quantum field of potentialities. 

That's not all. What emerges from that quantum field depends to a very large degree upon---consciousness! Yes, mind or consciousness is primary and fundamental, ‘the creator and governor of matter’ (in the words of that great English physicist of yesteryear Sir James Jeans). Consciousness is an essential quality or characteristic—if not the defining one---of the quantum field … at least in potentiality. That is, consciousness may well be the ‘thing’ (that is, process) that produces so-called material reality from the quantum ‘dream stuff’ of potentiality. No wonder the great New Thought teacher and writer of yesteryear Dr Emmet Fox wrote, ‘Life is a state of consciousness.’ He said:

I believe the whole of existence is a state of consciousness in the Mind of God, being re-created perhaps a billion times a second. We might compare it to the electric sign with moving lights. It seems as if the light were travelling around the sign but we know that is an illusion caused by the each bulb lighting up in turn for a fraction of a second---what we might call metaphysically ‘flashes of consciousness.’ The same thing is true with motion pictures. The actors seem to move, but actually the movies are a series of still pictures.

Needless to say, the 'MInd of God' to which Dr Fox refers is very different from the traditional concept of God. (Thank God for that!) 

There is an eternal motion---the Now---of which each of us is a part, that never stops … not even for a nanosecond. Each of us, at the quantum level, is a frequency of consciousness, and there is something very timeless yet veridical about that. And, as Gibran writes, the timeless in one person is the timeless in every other person and thing. It was ‘there’ even before the beginning of time, it was ‘there’ when it scattered the stars into space, and it will be ‘there’ long after you and I have ceased to exist as conscious centres of life’s self-awareness.

Live that truth as the awe-inspiring truth that it verily is.

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AUSTRALIA’S FIRST POSITIVE THINKER

‘The positive thinker repels disease:
the negative thinker invites infection.’ 

Who wrote that? Please read on.

On a recent trip to Tasmania I made a pilgrimage of sorts to Bruny Island, an island off the south-eastern coast of Tasmania, where, in a little cemetery at Lunawanna, are the mortal remains of a fascinating and highly eccentric woman who was a pioneer and veritable giant of New Thought in Australia. The name of this woman? The ‘Reverend Sister’ Veni Cooper-Mathieson (also known as Mrs Amanda Malvina Thorley-Gibson) [pictured left].

Sister Veni was born in Maitland, New South Wales, Australia, in 1867, and was initially engaged in newspaper work before embracing New Thought, spending three years (1906-09) in Great Britain and USA studying metaphysics. She died on Bruny Island, Tasmania, Australia, in 1943, aged 75. During her lifetime she founded several New Thought centres in various states of Australia, her pioneer work commencing in 1903. Sadly, she came to grief in Tasmania, the last Australia state in which she settled, when in May 1934 she was fined in the Hobart Police Court for 'practising as a physician.' She was a metaphysical healer, and many such healers ran afoul of the law in those days. After the rather nasty incident in court, Sr Veni appears to have kept a fairly quiet profile.

The twice-married Sr Veni was the archetypal New Thought leader of the day---itinerant speaker, teacher and writer, prolific self-publisher, self-proclaimed ‘healer’, and self-promoter extraordinaire. She taught that Australia was the ‘land of the dawning’ and advocated female emancipation (albeit in some rather odd ways---read on). 

Sr Veni cofounded the Australian New Thought Alliance (conferences held in 1916 and 1928), and also founded many other religious organizations including The Women’s White Cross Moral Reform Crusade (a society to promote celibacy among young women, there being a companion group for young men---not surprisingly not-so-successful), The Universal Truth Healing Fellowship, The Esoteric College and Home of Truth, The Bethany Healing Centre, The Church of Truth Universal (and Metaphysical College), The Truth-Seeker Publishing Company, The Universal Truth Publishing Co (of Australasia), and The Order of the Prince of Peace. 

I should also mention that for a few years during the 1920s, and (it seems) also around 1931, Sr Veni operated a home for unmarried mothers and their babies in Mount Victoria, New South Wales, for a time at the historic home of Closeburn House [pictured below].

Needless to say, all of the various entities and organizations founded by Sr Veni are long gone---although New Thought is still alive and well in numerous new incarnations. 

Some of Sr Veni's books include A Marriage of Souls: A Metaphysical Novel (1914), The Soul’s Immaculate Conception (1923), and The Universal HealthRestorer (1929). She also published and edited the Australian New Thought journals The Truth Seeker, The Healer, and The Revealer. All in all, she was a very busy woman—and she was no doubt sincere in her beliefs whatever others (and the law) may have thought of her.

Sr Veni had an interest in Rosicrucianism---often lecturing and writing on the subject---and she supported the English-born Australian occultist Frank Bennett in his attempt to found a lodge of the OrdoTempli Orientis in Sydney New South Wales, in 1915. (For better or for worse---the latter in my opinion---Aleister Crowley was the best-known member of the order.)

Consistent with New Thought teaching Sr Veni emphasized the innate divinity of every human being. ‘We are all Sparks of the One Eternal Flame, the Great Life Principle, which men call God.’ And what of Jesus? Well, he is ‘the revelator and demonstrator of Good or God in man … our Great Exemplar.’ She wrote that ‘if you are not prepared to go through the entire process [of spiritual transformation and psychological mutation] within your own souls, then the crucifixion of Jesus and the resurrection of Christ has no real meaning for you.’ She also wrote, ‘Mankind has worshipped the personal Jesus, and rejected the Universal Christ, which was individualized and so manifested in and through Jesus.’ I couldn’t agree more. The ‘Christ’ is not a person but a power, a potentiality, and a presence for good---in each of us. The sooner we stop worshipping the Jesus of the Churches, and start worshipping each other---well, the Good in each one of us---the sooner our world will improve for the better. Sr Veni expressed it well in her book A Marriage of Souls:

'Then, of course, all things are possible to us if we will but believe it. We shall have dominion and power over all things; indeed, the power is now latent within us, just as the full-grown man is lying hidden within the babe, only waiting to be developed and hence revealed. When we come to this stage of consciousness we naturally are able to do the works of a Son of God, just as His first-begotten, or eldest son, Jesus, did. He said we were His brethren, and that His Father was our Father, and that Truth is for all eternity and for all Humanity: not only for one people or one age; for God is no respecter of generations or nations any more than He is of persons, He is God of all the earth. This was so … for it came from the Source of all truth, the Spirit within every man that giveth understanding. …'

On the subject of sin, Sr Veni wrote, ‘Sin means “missing the mark” [IEJ: indeed it does] or falling short of the higher ideals of life which you have set up for yourself, and know to be your soul’s true goal. To do or be, less than you are able or capable of doing or being, is sin.’ That, too, sits very well with my Unitarianism. Sr Veni preached a ‘Fourfold Way to Life Eternal’---right feeling, right thinking, right speaking, and right acting. (Does that sound familiar?) Like all New Thoughters, she taught that ‘every thought is a living force.’ ‘When you think a thought, you give life to a created idea. You have used the essence that brings forth a Word; then the Word becomes flesh in the earth of your being. It must produce according to tis quality and character.’

In 1929 Sr Veni wrote and published The Universal Health Restorer. That book, written almost a quarter of a century before the publication of Norman Vincent Peale’s classic book The Power of Positive Thinking was published, contains the following piece of New Thought wisdom---‘The positive thinker repels disease: the negative thinker invites infection.’ 

There you have it---the power of positive thinking (well, the principle, if not that exact phrase which appears to be Dr Peale’s alone).

Rest in peace, Sister Veni. You were one of a kind.

Note. The November-December 2013 issue of New Dawn magazine features an interesting article by Walter Mason on Sister Veni Cooper-Mathieson. You can download a digital version of that magazine issue as well as other back issues of the magazine at the New Dawn website. 

THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH US!

For once, a relatively short post.

We all want to be happy, but most of us regularly engage in certain self-defeating behaviour (including self-sabotaging subconscious programming) that prevents us from being happy ... as well as from seeing things-as-they-really-are.

I recently came across this gem from the Indian mystic and spiritual leader Maharaj Charan Singh [pictured left]:

‘There is something wrong with us. We never want to be happy at the present moment. Either we are worried about what we have done or about what is going to happen to us. We don’t want to make the best use of the present moment. If we make this moment happy, our past automatically becomes happy, and we have no time to worry about the future. So we must take life as it comes and spend it happily. Every moment should be spent happily. …’

Dr Emmet Fox [pictured right], the famous New Thought minister, lecturer, and author, made a similar point when he wrote:

‘Has it ever occurred to you that the only time you ever have is the present moment? … What that means is that you can only live in the present. It means you can only act in the present. It means you can only experience in the present. Above all, it means that the only thing you have to heal is the present thought. … All that you can know is your present thought, and all that you can experience is the outer expression of all the thoughts and beliefs that you are holding at the present time. 

'What you call the past can only be your memory of the past. The seeming consequences of past events, be they good or bad, are still but the expression of your present state of mind (including, of course, the subconscious). What are all the future things that you may be planning, or things that you may be dreading? All this is still but a present state of mind. This is the real meaning of the traditional phrase, "The Eternal Now." The only joy you can experience is the joy you experience now. A happy memory is a present joy. The only pain you can experience is the pain of the present moment. Sad memories are present pain. Get the present moment right. …’

There is no 'way,' as such, to happiness; rather, happiness is the way. Things do not 'make' you happy. Happiness depends upon 'no-thing,' and 'no-thing-ness'---the latter being a munificent state of consciousness---is synonymous with happiness, peace of mind, and serenity. So, choose to be happy---now! (Yes, it is a choice.) In this very present moment. Make the most of the present moment---and make every moment count! If you do that properly, your past, as well as any fears you might hold about the future, will disappear---instantaneously! Forever! Make a decision to do only this---heal the present thought. Get that right. Get the present moment right.

That’s all you have to do. Simple, isn't it? Well, get to 'it.'

MINDFULNESS ACCORDING TO HERACLITUS

In an earlier post I discussed the ideas and teachings of the enigmatic Presocratic philosopher Heraclitus (c535--c475 BCE) [pictured], and sought to show how those ideas and teachings relate to the practice of mindfulness.

The Scottish-Australian philosopher John Anderson wrote of Heraclitus’ ‘wide awake approach to problems’, by which he meant that Heraclitus adopted and advocated a rigorously empirical and logical methodology in the pursuit of truth (that is, reality, or what is). Heraclitus was known as the ‘flux and fire’ philosopher. He wrote, ‘All things are flowing’, ‘There is nothing permanent except change,’ ‘No person ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and they're not the same person,’ and ‘The sun is new each day.’

Heraclitus also famously said, ‘Let us not conjecture at random about the greatest things. We must follow the common.’ In other words, if we would know the conditions of existence we must look for that which is ‘common’ to all things. This means, among other things, that we should reject supernatural, occult and all other unobservable explanations of the otherwise observable conditions of existence. ‘The things that can be seen, heard and learned are what I prize most,’ he writes. Indeed, Heraclitus eschewed all notions of the occult and the supernatural. He wrote, ‘this world [or world-order] did none of the gods or humans make; but it always was and is and shall be: an ever-living fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures.’ Note, especially, those words 'was and is and shall be.' The world is, was, and ever will be what is is now. There is only the now. That is why it is often referred to as being the 'eternal now.' That is the logos of Heraclitus. And what of time? 'Time is a child playing draughts; the kingdom is a child's.'

Such is the cosmology of Heraclitus and the other exalted thinkers of his day. How ancient, and yet how very modern! Everything---and I mean literally every thing---is in a constant state of flux. ‘A thing rests by changing,’ he wrote. ‘Everything flows and nothing abides, everything yields and nothing remains permanent.’ Whatever lives does so by the destruction of something else. Things wax and wane, and come and go. We, too. We come, and in a very short time we vanish from view. We go. Only life itself, in the form of change and the eternal now, remains. In the words of Heraclitus, 'all things are steered through all things.'

Here’s another gem from Heraclitus in the form of some not-so-new New Thought. It highlights the importance of keeping your thoughts pure and noble, for as you think so you are:

The soul is dyed the colour of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny---it is the light that guides your way.

Heraclitus also wrote that most people are ‘asleep,’ so to speak. Even in their waking moments most people are far from ‘awake,’ that is, mindfulness. Yes, many people ‘live’ their whole lives that way. One may as well be dead. There is little difference between the two states. Here’s what Heraclitus wrote:

Men are as forgetful and heedless

in their waking moments

of what is going on around them

as they are during their sleep.

Fools, although they hear,

are like deaf;

to them the adage applies

that whenever they are present

they are absent.

One should not act or speak

as if he were asleep.

The waking have one world in common;

sleepers have each a private world of his own.

Whatever we see when awake is death,

when asleep, dreams.

How true all that is! All too often we go through the day ‘forgetful’ and ‘heedless,’ unaware of what is happening and going on around us. It is as if we were asleep---or worse, dead. Heraclitus calls such people ‘fools,’ for ‘whenever you are present / you are absent.’ In truth, we can hardly be said to be ‘present,’ for that requires an awareness of awareness---that is, an awareness or mindfulness of the content of one’s consciousness from one moment to the next. 

Here's some more good advice from Heraclitus on the subject of mindfulness, which Heraclitus refers to as the 'ground of being' ('God' according to the 20th century Christian existentialist theologian Paul Tillich):

Since mindfulness, of all things,

is the ground of being,
to speak one's true mind,
and to keep things known
in common, serves all being,
just as laws made clear
uphold the city,
yet with greater strength.
Of all pronouncements of the law
the one source is the Word
whereby we choose what helps
true mindfulness prevail. 

When we do not practise mindfulness in our daily lives we are, ‘whatever we see when awake is death,’ writes Heraclitus. Yes, death! Because whatever was the action---internal or external---of the then present but now gone moment has died on us. Yes, died on us. It is like watching a motion picture film; the picture is moving, but what is being screened is not happening now. It’s in the past.

Heraclitus also wrote that we do not learn what we should, largely because we go through life mindlessly. ‘Many do not understand such things as they encounter, nor do they learn by their experience, but they think they do.’ So, how are we to learn? Certainly not from books. ‘Knowing many things doesn’t teach insight,’ wrote Heraclitus. Insight comes only from awareness and observation---that is, mindfulness. That’s why it’s called ‘insight meditation.’ Heraclitus also urged people to ‘look within,’ saying, ‘I searched into myself,’ and ‘Those who love wisdom must investigate many things.’

Don’t spend your whole life as if you were asleep---or dead. Wake up! Live with awareness. Live with attention. Watch. Observe. Learn by your experience. Live!

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