A Sense of the Cosmos: The Encounter of Modern Science and Ancient Truth

by Jacob Needleman

Book Overview

"Demanding of the best in us while comprehending the pain and problems. So full of common sense." --Lawrence LeShan This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140190554
• ISBN13: 9780140190557
• Release Date: November 1988
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

What Science Needs to Be Spiritual

Love Needed for Science of Spirituality I've always equated Edgar Cayce with the scientific approach. That link may seem odd to folks who think of science as all numbers and stainless steel, but I think of science as a method of questioning. Religion, for example, confidently offers its answers while science is skeptical. In its doubting, science wants to stick its finger into the miracle to actually feel it. Galileo wants to peek into the telescope to see if the sun really does revolve around the earth while the Pope remains seated, content with the Bible's description of heaven. Science as it is practiced today, of course, is more like religion in that science has stopped questioning its assumptions. But I'm speaking about the spirit of science, the force in nature that is continually seeking to expand its consciousness. So why do I link Edgar Cayce with science? Because so often he requested that we ignore his words unless we have tested his suggestions, tried them out, and made them our own, so that we can speak from our experience rather than from his readings. When he says, "In the application comes the awareness," it means to me that thinking about living is different than actually living, and it is in the living that the thoughts about living really take on any value they may have to guide our living. Cayce's preaching about personal application as a form of scientific research receives support from the rather complex message in the book A Sense of the Cosmos: Scientific Knowledge and Spiritual Truth (Monkfish Book Publishing Company). The author, Jacob Needleman, is a well-known philosopher and someone who has addressed Edgar Cayce audiences. The book is his answer to the puzzle over the seeming failure of science to help us live life better. He ponders why it might be that even as science attempts, in the guise of transpersonal psychology, to discover the laws of life that will provide genuine human fulfillment, it seems to fall short of the mark. He applauds science's curiosity, its unquenchable thirst for better knowledge, but he notes that it lacks an important ingredient. Of the many ways he describes this missing component, my favorite is when he calls it "the knowledge of the heart." Intellectual knowledge is important, but in itself is insufficient to discover and live the sacred ideas reality has lying in wait for us. Religion has given us some handles on these ideas, and science is searching for its own handles. But he believes that both have neglected an important aspect of the human being as a phenomenon who processes ideas and uses them to interact with reality. It is the human body. Our instincts, feelings, the heart, and not the head, is our capability for experiencing values. Using the intellect alone, the scientistic human can not see values as an objective aspect of reality, but only as a subjective personal choice. On the other hand, the human being with head and heart integrated is indeed capable of both experiencing