ONE MIND:

HOW OUR INDIVIDUAL MIND IS PART

OF A GREATER CONSCIOUSNESS
AND WHY IT MATTERS
An interview with Larry Dossey, MD
1. What is your book about, and whats in it for me?
Its about the nature of our mind, and how it has no limits. Its about how we
are all literally of One Mind.
~
The One Mind includes all individual minds. It includes thoughts, emotions,
feelings, and cognition. The One Mind involves a vivid sense of connectedness and
unity with all sentient life, and a profound sense of love, caring, and compassion. It is
the over-arching principle that makes individual awareness possible.
~
In One Mind I show that our mind is not confined to our brain or body, as
weve been taught, but it extends infinitely outside them. Having no boundaries or
limits, individual minds merge with all other minds to form what I call the One Mind.
~
Whats in it for you? Why does this matter? Why should you bother?
People who tune in to the One Mind are more likely to be happier, healthier,
more creative, and wiser, for reasons I discuss in the book.
~
Abundant evidence shows that isolation is terrible for health, happiness, and
longevity. We are not designed to live apart.
A sense of being connected with all others and with all sentient life has been
recognized throughout human history as a source of immense joy and fulfillment.
Unity with others has always been a highly prized goal of the great wisdom
traditions.
This greater mind is boundless in time, therefore it is immortal and eternal.
It is a cure for the greatest of all diseases: the fear of total annihilation with physical
death.
The One Mind is also a source of great wisdom and creativity, because it
constitutes an infinite pool of information that we can learn to access, as many
famous artists and scientists have done throughout history.
~
How do we know the One Mind exists? There are two main ways. First,
people have experiences in which minds interact and share information at great
distances and outside the present. They could not do this if minds were isolated;
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they must be united and connected for these experiences to occur. Second, there are
hundreds of actual experiments that confirm these interactions. So: experience and
experiments show that our minds are connected in ways that go beyond
separateness.
~
So, basically this book is about the size of our mind whether it is small,
medium, large, or infinite in extent and why this is important for us as individuals
and also for the survival of our human species on Earth.
~
th
During the 20 century, we took the mind apart. Im putting it back together.
Weve been taught that our mind is fragmented, that it is divided into the
preconscious, the sub-conscious, the unconscious, the collective unconscious, the
superego, ego, and id. This book looks through the other end of the telescope. It
shows that our individual minds are part of a greater whole, a dimension of
consciousness that encompasses all minds past, present, and future, human as
well as non-human.
~
This realization is our best hope for our survival on Earth. Only by realizing,
at the deepest emotional level, our connections with one another and the Earth itself
can we summon the courage necessary to make the tough choices that are required
in order to survive. So, this book is also about staying alive saving the Earth and
our own skins.
Alice Walker said, Anything we love can be saved including, I suggest,
the earth itself, ourselves, our children, and generations yet unborn. The One Mind
facilitates our connectedness and oneness with all else, therefore our love for all
else. The One mind helps us re-sacralize the world.
~
Our oneness suggests that we should revise or upgrade the Golden Rule from
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you to Be kind to others because
in some sense they are you.
~
How do we know the One Mind exists? Hints of our One Mind are all around
us. From time to time, we all experience events that make sense only if we are
connected with one another mentally.
The love of a mother for her baby is a study in oneness, in which boundaries
and isolation are overcome. Anyone who has been deeply in love experiences the
same thing: a fusion of two people in which the concept of the other is set aside.
The recent explosion of interest in genealogy, the study of ones family origins, can
be seen as attempt to restore connections and a yearning for oneness.
Or consider the popularity of flash mobs, which did not exist until recently,
in which groups of people appear to emerge spontaneously to perform, sing, dance,
etc., and the happiness and delight in the crowds around them. Flash mobs are a
kind of celebration of unity and connectedness between people of all strata and
cultures.

Moreover, people often exchange thoughts, emotions, and even physical

sensations at a distance. This is particularly common between people who are
emotionally close. The classic example is a mother who just knows that her child
is in danger, even though far away as if the mother and child have a common
mind, a common consciousness.
Another example: People often acquire knowledge of things in ways that that
are inexplicable. For example, the great inventor Thomas Edison once said, I have
never created anything. I get impressions from the Universe at large and work them
out.Thoughts come from the outside.
Another example: Savants, who are often profoundly mentally handicapped,
cannot read, and are incapable of learning, demonstrate detailed information they
could not possibly have learned. Where does it come from? I suggest they connect
with a reservoir of wisdom that is the One Mind.
People frequently have detailed dreams of future events, to which I devoted
an entire book, The Power of Premonitions.
Near-death experiences are a portal to the One Mind. Around fifteen million
Americans have experienced an NDE. The hallmark of the experience is a sense of
oneness with all there is an awareness that is so profound that their life is
transformed after recovery.
I discuss a huge variety of experiences of this kind.
There simply is no way happenings such as these can be explained by the
conventional view that our mind is confined to our brain, that we acquire
information only through the physical senses, and that our minds are separate from
all other minds. Some larger view of consciousness is required what Im calling
the One Mind.
~

2. Where did you come up with this idea?

The concept of the One Mind has been around for a long time.
We can trace it back 3,000 years to the philosophy of ancient India, where it
was called the Akashic Records.
It is echoed in the Hindu concept of the union of the human and the divine:
tat tvam asi or thou art that.
The experience of the One Mind is called satori in Zen, samadhi in Yoga, fana
in Sufism, and Christ consciousness in Christianity.
Jesus said, Is it not writtenye are gods? And the kingdom of heaven is within.
Other terms include cosmic consciousness, illumination, awakening,
enlightenment, and so on.
~
The experience of the One Mind, however it is named, involves a direct
apprehension of the universe and all in it as being One, with no real dividing lines or
divisions in it. Everything is connected with everything else. Partition and separation

are illusions. This experience carries with it the sense that one has apprehended Truth,
the way things really are, accompanied by a feeling of compassion and love.
~
There are allusions to this understanding, this perception, in the New
Testament. St. Paul spoke of the peace of God that passes all understanding.
As mythologist Joseph Campbell put it, Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven
is within. Who is in heaven? God. This means, Campbell said, that God is within each
person infinite, boundless, immortal, one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American transcendentalist philosopher, called
the One-Mind concept the Over-soul.
Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist, called the One Mind the collective
unconscious.
William James, the founder of American psychology, was a proponent of a
single, collective, unitary mind.
~
Many great scientists in a variety of fields have endorsed the idea. It has
surfaced in modern physics in the writings of Nobel Prize winner Erwin Schrdinger,
whose wave equations lie at the heart of quantum physics. The eminent physicist
David Bohm also strongly supported the idea of a single, over-arching mind that
includes all individual minds.
~
So, the idea of the One Mind began millennia ago and persists to the present
day, and it is supported by some of the outstanding figures in modern science and
psychology, as well as untold numbers of creative artists.
3. If the idea of the One Mind is both ancient and current, why do we need
another book about it?
Up to now, the concept of the One Mind has rested mainly on philosophy,
spiritual insights, and reports of peoples personal experiences. Not anymore! We
have an abundance of empirical evidence pointing to the One Mind. But the evidence
is little known. So, we need an update of the One Mind, in which we bring together
the numerous threads of evidence for the idea.
4. What kind of evidence supports the idea of the One Mind?
There are basically two types of evidence. One is empirical evidence, which
includes actual experiments. Another type of evidence is experiential and personal
the reports of thousands of individuals that affirm what the experiments are
telling us. These two types of evidence reinforce each other.
5. How did you become interested in the One Mind?
I have had several experiences suggesting that my mind, my consciousness,
my awareness, is not limited to my individual brain and body or the present. Im not
unique; thousands of individuals have had similar experiences. But people are
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reluctant to talk about them for obvious reasons. Theres a social stigma in going
public with these experiences.
Early in my practice of internal medicine I had a series of precognitive
dreams dreams of future events that proved true in great detail. My patients
related similar experiences to me. So did nurses. After I began to write about these
events, my medical colleagues eventually began to open up and share their own
experiences with me.
During my early years as a physician, I stumbled across actual experiments
affirming the idea of linked, unified minds. This was rather shocking, as this
evidence never came up during my entire educational experience, from university
days through post-graduate medical training. I began to consider this one of the
best-kept secrets of modern medicine.
I was stunned to find that first-rate individuals some of our greatest
scientists and philosophers have come to the same conclusion I reached: that
there is a collective, single domain of consciousness that is a kind of umbrella to all
individual minds.
6. But theres a huge problem, isnt there? Currently, brain science as well as
psychology doesnt agree with you about the One Mind.
Not really.
It is not quite right to say that most scientists dont agree. For the most part,
they simply ignore the whole question and dont look at the evidence.
The fact is, an increasing number of leading scientists and psychologists
support this idea. For instance, one survey found that a majority of academic
scientists believe that extrasensory perception or ESP has already been proven or is
likely to be proved. ESP is an expression of minds without boundaries in space or
time. It is a short step from ESP to the One Mind. ESP is one way the One Mind
manifests in our lives.
7. Whats the big deal? What difference does it make whether I believe in the
One Mind or not?
(Repeat answer from #1)
The consequences are profound.
People who tune in to the One Mind are more likely to be happier, healthier,
more creative, and wiser than those who do not.
~
Abundant evidence shows that isolation is terrible for health and happiness.
We are not designed to live apart.
A sense of being united and connected with all others and with all sentient
life has been recognized throughout human history as a source of immense joy and
fulfillment.

This greater mind is also boundless in time, therefore it is immortal and

eternal. It is a cure for the greatest of all diseases: the fear of total annihilation with
physical death.
The One Mind is also a source of great wisdom and creativity, because it is an
infinite pool of information that we can learn to access, as many famous artists and
scientists have done throughout history.
~
Currently, were taught that our consciousness is produced by the brain and
is limited to the physical brain and body. This means that when we die, our mind,
our consciousness, is annihilated. Nothing about our consciousness survives.
The One Mind is a wholly different view. Its premise is that our
consciousness transcends the physical brain, body, and the present. The evidence
overwhelmingly suggests that our mind is nonlocal in space and time. Nonlocal is
just a fancy word for infinite. If something about our mind is infinite in space and
time, then it is omnipresent in space and time and therefore immortal. Although the
brain and body will perish, consciousness endures because of its nonlocal nature.
Therefore the One Mind redefines death. With the One Mind, immortality is
back on the table.
So the concept of the One Mind is not trivial. Its about our origin and destiny.
Its about survival, which many people consider the greatest issue of all.
~
The One Mind concept also says we are intimately connected with every
living thing that has any degree of mind or consciousness which I believe
includes all living creatures to some degree. This makes possible a sense of
relatedness and sharing that goes beyond the merely human. Our relations
include all life on earth. This makes possible a degree of emotional connectedness
that can spur us to the kind of action that is required for our survival as a species on
this planet.
A new ethic and a sense of urgency arise. Just as a parent chooses to protect
his or her own children, we sense, through the One Mind, that we must protect our
relations with whom we share consciousness, which includes all of life on earth.
~
The new ethic makes it possible to expand and revise the Golden Rule. We no
longer say, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Now we say, Be
compassionate to others because in some sense they are you.
~
As novelist Alice Walker said, Anything we love can be saved. The One
Mind makes it more likely we will love the Earth deeply enough to save it, which
really means saving ourselves and our descendants.
8. There are several sections in your book about animals. Are they part of the
One Mind?

Yes.
Several experiments show that we can interact mentally with animals at a
distance, beyond the reach of the physical senses. One example is British biologist
Rupert Sheldrake, whose experiments with dogs show that when their owners are
returning home there is conscious link between the human and the animal at a
distance.
Other mammals, birds, and fish also demonstrate an ability to process
information at a distance and outside the present.
Many ethologists, experts in animal behavior, have marveled at the way
groups of animals herds, flocks of birds, schools of fish demonstrate group
behavior and coordinated decision making that is very difficult to explain without
invoking a kind of group mind operating simultaneously between all the members of
the group. Ordinary sensory communication via sight and hearing just doesnt add
up.
9. Youre a physician. Does this have anything to do with your interest in the
One Mind?
Yes, definitely.
During my early career as an internist, I experienced several events that
turned my views of consciousness upside down and inside out. I found these
experiences unnerving.
I was a typical believer that mind and brain were essentially the same. But
when I began experiencing precognitive dreams, gaining information from the
future before the event happened, I began to question the dogma that says these
events cant happen. It wasnt just me; my patients, as well as nurses and other
doctors, shared similar experiences with me.
~
In the late 1980s, experiments began to be published in medical journals
assessing the impact of healing intentions and prayers on the clinical course of
patients in distant hospitals and coronary care units. Similar experiments were
done non-humans and with organs and cells. These experiments strongly implied
that our mind is not confined to our brain. Our intentions, thoughts, and wishes can
reach out beyond the body and make a difference in the world out there.
~
Several evaluations of this field have been published, called systematic or
meta-analyses. This is a way of combining the results of many studies in order to
take an overall look at a particular field . Many of these analyses have been
published in peer-reviewed journals. Most of them are positive, indicating that
these effects are real. Still, they have not penetrated our awareness as they should.
~
It is vital to realize and this is almost always ignored by skeptics that
scores of these experiments deal with effects not just in humans but in animals,
plants, microbes, and even chemical reactions. Why important? Skeptics generally
say that if a person responds to, say, the healing intentions of a distant individual, it
is merely a placebo effect the result of positive thinking, suggestion, or
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expectation. But if an animal, plant, microbes, or biochemical reactions are affected,

the distant effect cannot be dismissed as a placebo even because, as far as we know,
animals, plants, microbes, and chemicals dont think positively. They dont have
placebo responses. So these non-human studies strongly suggest that the remote,
distant, consciousness-mediated healing effects and similar nonlocal phenomena
are real, and that we are not fooling ourselves.
~
These various experiments point toward the One Mind. They show that
some aspect of our consciousness operates outside the human brain and body, and
cannot be confined or limited, but is nonlocal or limitless. And if limitless, the mind
has no boundaries and must come together with all other minds.
~
Other studies called presentiment experiments or experiments in
anticipatory awareness, show that we can acquire information from the future,
before an event even happens.
~
Putting this evidence together, a nonlocal picture of consciousness emerges,
which means that our minds are not localized or confined to particular points in
space or time. And if our minds are unbounded, they must in some dimension come
together to form a single mind, a single entity: the One Mind.
10. This sounds pretty radical, dont you think?
I used to think so, but not anymore.
New ideas in science, art, music, math, education, etc. often sound
radical.This is especially true where consciousness is concerned. As one skeptical
scientist said about nonlocal, unbounded consciousness, This is the sort of thing I
would not believe, even if it were true.
~
Physicist Max Planck, the main founder of quantum physics, faced this
resistance. He said that the older generation of scientists would die off and younger,
more open-minded individuals would take their place. Plancks view has been
paraphrased as, Science changes funeral by funeral.
~
Radical change in any field is nearly always resisted. Think of the resistance
to modern art. It is still easier for most people to like Michaelangelo and
Rembrandt than Picasso or Jackson Pollock.
~
Its the same way in science.
But new views of consciousness have continually arisen historically. In the
twentieth century we saw a flurry of new ideas about consciousness the
unconscious, the pre-conscious, the sub-conscious, and the collective unconscious.
The One Mind is a version of the collective conscious, which was glimpsed by the
great psychologist Carl Jung, psychologist William James, and many others.
But we have something Jung and James did not have: a great deal of
empirical evidence supporting the idea.
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11. You begin your book with the story of Wesley Autrey, an African-American
who saved the life of a young white man from certain death in the New York
subway. What does that have to do with the One Mind?
Wesley Autrey, 50, a black construction worker and Navy veteran, saw a
young man fall onto the subway tracks in Manhattan while having a seizure in
January 2007. He instantly jumped onto the tracks and tried to lift him onto the
platform, but could not do so in time. As a train approached, Autrey shoved him into
the slight depression between the rails and covered him with his own body. The
train could not stop in time and several cars passed over the two men before it could
be brought to a halt. Autrey was nearly beheaded; he had grease stains from the
trains undercarriage on his cap.
and the One Mind?
The reasoning goes back to my experience as a battalion surgeon in the
boonies in Vietnam in 1968-1969, where I was involved in an experience similar to
Autreys, which I describe in the book. Briefly, I rescued a helicopter pilot from his
crashed chopper, when everyone believed it would explode. Fortunately it did not. I
experienced other similar events in Vietnam,
I was disturbed and confused by these happenings. I had sworn that I would
never take unnecessary chances before going to Vietnam. I began to doubt my sanity.
Why would I, or anyone else, risk his or her life to save a perfect stranger? It
goes against the premise of evolutionary biology, which maintains that our most
basic drive is to preserve our genes or those of our close kin, not risk our life to save
a total stranger.
I eventually came across an explanation by the German philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer, described by mythologist Joseph Campbell. Schopenhauer believed
that at the decisive moment the rescuer identifies so completely with the rescued
person that their minds have literally fused; they have become a single mind. Their
mental union is so complete that the rescuer is not rescuing someone else, he is
essentially rescuing himself. I felt deeply that this explanation described my own
experiences in Vietnam.
~
In researching my book, I accumulated a number of life-saving stories. They
are not just human-to-human events, but they also involve humans rescuing animals,
animals rescuing humans, and animals rescuing animals every possible
combination.
So what is going on? Whats the pattern? I think Schopenhauer nailed it:
there is a fusion of apparently separate, individual minds into a single, collective
consciousness. In these instances something larger than individuality takes hold:
the One Mind is bridging and uniting individual minds, pushing separation aside in
favor of unity and oneness.

12. You say that the One Mind is crucial in confronting the great challenges we
humans face. What do you mean?
Our problems are enormous: global climate change, environmental
degradation, pollution, overpopulation, water scarcity, hunger and food insecurity,
endless wars, religious strife, degradation and acidification of our oceans, on and on.
Nearly all these problems are caused by individuals who represent a particular
culture, race, tribe, country, or religion, who are competing with other individuals of
different views. We cannot see beyond our individual self, our tribe, our religion, our
culture. All of these problems are compounded by greed and selfishness. Put
another way: we are fragmented, and we are destroying our planets life-support
systems.
It is going to be difficult or impossible to confront these problems
intelligently without dealing with our fragmentation and sense of separateness. We
need a profound shift in our sense of how we are related to one another. I believe
this shift is possible by re-imagining how we connect with others through our
consciousness. The us-against-them competitive model is not going to see us
through. A shift to a One-Mind perspective may be our best alternative a sense of
unity that is experienced at our deepest emotional levels.
~
A dramatic example of this shift is the Overview Effect experienced by
astronauts and cosmonauts returning to Earth. They sense profoundly that our
planet is an integral whole. The customary edges and borders are not fundamental.
Our disagreements and divisions as seen as petty, arbitrary, and utterly wrong. This
shift in perception can be life-changing for the astronaut. An example is Edgar
Mitchell, the lunar module pilot of Apollo 14.
If we genuinely believe we are of One Mind with all others, our existential
premises shift. Our resentment and hatred of the other diminish. Not only is our
attitude toward other humans transformed, but toward the earth and all its
creatures as well.
~
As Alice Walker said, Anything we love can be saved.
~
In the One Mind, the Golden Rule is transformed from the self-oriented Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you, to Be compassionate toward
others because in some sense they are you.
13. OK, the One Mind is important. How do we access it?
Good news! Its easier than you think.
Almost certainly: You already know the One Mind, but dont know that you
know! Weve forgotten this knowing, and our goal is to awaken to it.
Our membership in the One Mind already exists. Were already a part of it. It
is not something we have to engineer, acquire, generate, or manufacture no
10

assembly required. We just have to become aware of it. We have to get out of the
way, so the realization comes through.
That can happen in a great many ways. Some people are just born with this
awareness advanced souls who come into life knowing their larger connections.
Unexpected events can pave the way. We can spontaneously experience an
epiphany a sudden, unexpected knowing of how we fit in, usually accompanied
by a sense of joy, meaning, and purpose in life. Millions of people have described
this expanded awareness following a near-death experience.
People may also experience a powerful telepathic, clairvoyant, or
precognitive event that demonstrates they are more than their brain, and that their
consciousness can operate outside the here and now. These happenings are often
accompanied by a an epiphany, of having touched what is real.
We can invite this awareness through meditation or some other
contemplative type of spiritual work, in which we learn to set our ego and sense of
self aside and permit a larger, more expansive awareness to bubble up from our
unconscious mind an awareness thats always been there, but which weve not
allowed to surface.
Exposure to the beauty of nature and immersion in wild places has always
been important for me a kind of short-cut to whats important in life. For decades,
my wife and I have spent weeks in the wilderness, removed from civilization a
kind of spiritual ritual away from the trappings, distractions, and noise of daily life.
All these processes have this in common: the dominant sense of self, of ego,
is transcended in favor of an expanded notion of who we are.
Every section in the book is an example of how we can become aware of our
participation in the One Mind. For instance, the chapter Dream Pathways reveals
how people often enter this awareness through detailed dreams of far-off or future
events, which jolts them into realizing their consciousness is not stuck in their brain
or the present moment. The chapter Telesomatic Events, in which people share
similar physical symptoms and feelings with a distant person, is also a doorway to
One-Mind awareness. Sections on children who remember previous lives is
another; so too are the chapters on remote viewing, near-death experiences, shared
death experiences, communication with the deceased, presentiment effects, and so
on throughout the entire book.
~
But when all is said and done, you dont have to do anything to experience
the One Mind. It does us; we dont do it.
~
Most people who come to this realization dont have a dazzling, spectacular
experience. They simply grow gradually into the realization of connectedness. It
simply appears as a natural process, an awareness that is part of our psychological
and spiritual maturation, the result of staying alive, growing older, and learning. It
becomes part of who we are.
~
For many, the old-fashioned way works best: turn off your smart phone, sit
down, be quiet, and pay attention. To what? To whatever comes through. Call this
process meditation, contemplation, or simply getting quiet. The point is to turn
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down the chatter that crowds out everything else in our waking life. Let your inner
wisdom surface. You may be surprised to discover what you already know.
The Four Rules of Life (of author/teacher Angeles ) are helpful: (1) Show up,
(2) Pay attention, (3) Tell the truth, and (4) Dont be attached to results.
~
The Law of Reversed Effort works here: the harder you try, the more it
eludes you. So set an intention, open up, invite the wisdom to enter, and go with the
flow.
Opening up and setting an intention are not completely passive. Gods
wind is always blowing, but first you must raise your sails.
14. Then why is it so difficult to be aware of the reality of the One Mind?
Bad learning.
We are victims of a collective hypnosis, a cultural trance that has convinced
us that the One Mind cannot possibly be true.
~
Our culture emphasizes the importance and uniqueness of the individual
pulling our selves up by our own bootstraps. This has an isolating effect that blinds
us to the ways in which we are connected with everyone and everything.
~
Another reason is that we are wired biologically to focus on our separateness
and individuality the survival of our genes or those of our kin. This makes it
more difficult to acknowledge our unity with one another but not impossible.
In fact, the ways in which we encounter the One Mind are so numerous and
varied that it quite easy to be aware of our membership in it but only if we can
break the trance.
So our goal is to break the hypnotic spell of the cult of the individual.
~
Its not that individuality is bad, but that it is limited. It can also be
destructive if pushed too far, as our species is discovering.
~
A coin has more than one side. Our task is to honor both sides of the coin
our individuality and our unity.
Some people think it has to be one or the other side of the coin; both sides
cant be valid. But both sides are valid, and we must honor our physical
individuality and separateness along with our oneness and unity of consciousness.
~
So, we are not trying to banish or de-throne our individuality but honor it, as
our situation requires. But our individuality is not all we are, and we must keep our
individuality in perspective and prevent it from blinding us toward the unitary
aspect of our individual minds, our One Mind.
~
Individuality and the self can be overdone. As Ravi Ravindra, the physicist
and theologian, says, what we should strive for is not freedom for our self, but

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freedom from our self to give up the excessive attachments, wants, greed,
selfishness, etc.
15. But doesnt this risk losing our sense of self in the One Mind?
Im not advocating totally abandoning our sense of individuality and self.
~
I emphasize the need for a dual identity that honors both our individuality as
well as our collective unity with one another in the One Mind.
~
This is an example of what physicist Niels Bohr called complementarity the
coming together of apparent opposites to produce a more accurate picture of the
whole.
~
There is a saying in the field of transpersonal psychology: In order to
transcend the ego, you must first have one. In order to go beyond the self, you must
first be one.
Its a paradox, but its valid.
Its like men acknowledging a feminine side, and women acknowledging a
masculine side. Thats a healthy complementarity. Problems arise when one side is
ignored.
16. What are your favorite sections in One Mind?
Probably the sections on Twins and Telesomatic Events.
~
I am an identical twin, and my twin brother and I have had One-Mind
experiences all our life. Im also married to a twin; Barbara and her fraternal twin
have had similar experiences. This is an area where the One Mind really gets
personal for me.
~
Around 30 percent of identical twins report vivid experiences in which they
simultaneously and at a distance have the same thoughts and even the same
physical symptoms as their twin so-called telesomatic events. This is some of
the most dramatic evidence that we are connected through space and time at the
level of consciousness.
17. Whats the most far-out stuff in One Mind?
I used to think the whole premise of the One Mind is far out, but no longer.
Now I think it is ordinary and ho-hum.
~
The problem is that we have become practically hypnotized culturally to
think that we are isolated individuals, connected with each other only through our
see-touch-hear-feel senses. Were taught that our mind is locked into our brain; it
doesnt go wandering through space and time to unite with other minds.
13

Actually, thats the far-out view. Its far out because evidence shows it isnt
true. The ordinary situation is One-Mind unity and connectedness. Weve turned
reality upside down.
~
So, One Mind is not far out at all. Once we get comfortable with the basic idea
and open up to the ways in which our unity reveals itself, well wonder how we
could ever have swallowed the conventional view that were merely individuals who
are isolated in a sea of others.
18. Youre written extensively in previous books about healing and
spirituality. Whats their connection with the One Mind?
The healing experiments Ive written about extensively are entry points to
the One Mind.
They reveal that our compassionate intentions can influence what happens
out there. These studies reveal a nonlocal feature of our consciousness that it
can function outside the brain, at a distance, to change the state of the physical
world, in this instance the clinical condition of someone in need. Healing
experiments reveal an unbounded, unlimited side of the mind and if unbounded,
minds must come together in some dimension to unite as a single mind.
~
There is a major overlap of spirituality and the One Mind. Spirituality
involves a sense of connectedness with something greater than the individual self or
ego, whatever term we use God, Goddess, the Divine, Allah, Universe, etc. That is
why One-Mind experiences are often experienced as epiphanies, awakening, or
enlightenment that sudden awareness that, as the Hindu aphorism says, tat
tvam asi, or thou art that. These experiences involve an awakening to our
intrinsic divinity, the god within, our innate infinitude, our citizenship in the One
Mind. In other words, Youre it!
19. This sounds blasphemous: humans becoming God.
Not really.
The evidence does show that we possess qualities via the One Mind that we
have traditionally attributed to the Divine, such as infinitude in space and time.
Thats not the same as being God.
~
A metaphor that helps clarify this relationship is that of a drop of water
within the larger ocean. The single drop of ocean water has the same composition
as the ocean itself, but it is profoundly different in terms of power and quantity. Its
the same, but different.
Just so, the relationship of the human and the Absolute or Divine.
20. You mention creativity often in One Mind. Whats the connection?
The connection is profound.
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The literature on creativity shows that creative breakthroughs often occur

out of the blue, with little connection with logic or analysis. This happens in all
areas science, art, music, mathematics, etc. The creator, inventor, or artist often
feels connected with something outside herself a source of awareness that is far
greater than ones individual mind.
~
Thomas Edison, Americas great inventor, summed this up, saying, "People
say I have created things. I have never created anything. I get impressions from the
Universe at large and work them out, but I am only a plate on a record or a receiving
apparatus what you will. Thoughts are really impressions that we get from
outside." (source: Neil Baldwin, Edison: Inventing the Century. NY: Hyperion;
1995:376.)
The eminent German physicist and philosopher Baron Carl Friedrich von
Weizscker agreed: [In any great discovery] we find the often disturbing and
happy experience: It is not I; I have not done this. Still, in a certain way it is I yet
not the ego buta more comprehensive self. (source: C. F. von Weizscker.
Introduction. Gopi Krishna. The Biological Basis of Religion and Genius. New York,
NY: Harper and Row; 1972: 35-36.)
Edisons impressions from the Universe at large and von Weizsckers
more comprehensive self point to the One Mind, an infinite source of wisdom and
information.
21. Its the Internet age. There are an estimated six billion cell phones on
earth, almost one per person. People are more connected than ever before.
Why are you emphasizing connectedness and unity through the One Mind?
Arent we connected already?
Im talking about a different kind of connectedness.
~
There is evidence that the more time young people spend on personal
electronic devices, the more lonely they feel. A sense of desperation is often
involved when people spend hours a day online; they crave connection but, not
finding it, they increase the dose, like a drug addict.
Internet addiction has become a fact. Internet rescue camps now exist in
some countries to wean people from this frenetic behavior.
~
Of course, electronic connectivity can be quite wonderful, but it can also be a
faux unity that offers more than it can deliver. It does not convey the sort of psychospiritual satisfaction that comes with One-Mind awareness the joy, fulfillment,
and empowerment that come from the discovery of ones inner divinity and
membership in the community of consciousness that is our birthright.
22. What difference in your own life has awareness of the One Mind made?
Awareness of the One Mind has contributed enormously to my peace,
tranquility, joy, and creativity.
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~
You see, Im an introvert by nature, inclined toward aloneness. Awareness of
my place in the One Mind has helped me overcome my innate tendency for isolation.
I feel Ive found a more authentic place in the Universe. Its rather like coming home
and realizing that you never left. Its a sense of belonging, of finding your natural fit
in the great scheme of things.
The great human dread of death goes out the window. As a physician, this is
important to me, because I believe the fear of death and annihilation has caused
more suffering throughout human history than all the physical diseases combined.
The One Mind reduces that fear and the suffering that goes with it. Why? The One
Mind mandates immortality by way of our infinitude in space and time.
One-Mind awareness has affected the way I relate to other people. Ive
become much less competitive, more giving, more supportive, more understanding
of other peoples difficulties and problems, and more interactive with others. (I still
have a way to go!)
One-Mind awareness helps me see how I can make a difference. In todays
world, we can feel overwhelmed by the challenges we face. What difference can my
efforts as a single individual possibly make? The One Mind increases our sense of
adequacy and what is possible, because through it we have access to all wisdom and
knowledge, and we can act in concert with others. We realize we dont need to know
and do everything individually, because we are a part of the Great Connect. We are
never alone. We are an infinite team, not a lone wolf. The pressure eases. A
lightness of mind and spirit arises, and perhaps a sense of humor. Now that is
different!

Twenty Question-One Mind

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