Think Tank: Sages and Scientists 2016

[Dr. Jai Maharaj]

Profound presenters: For these days experts and seekers
turned the Four Season's ballroom into a philosophers'
sacred chamber

Hinduism Today Magazine, hinduismtoday.com
April-May-June 2017

THINK TANK

Sages & Scientists 2016:

Boldly addressing the big question: Who, or What, Am I?

IN SEPTEMBER OF 2016, HINDUISM TODAY attended the Chopra
Foundation's three-day Science and Sages Symposium in Los
Angeles, California, held at the prestigious Beverly
Wilshire Four Seasons hotel. Even at a cost of $1600 per
person, the room was filled with some 500 knowledge-hungry
teachers of yoga, wellness and art. The conference's
livestream peak had 250,000 people watching, with an
average of about 100,000 over the course of the three days.

Each day had a different theme and featured philosophers,
doctors, scientists, musicians, artists, physicists,
neurologists and astronomers. Each presenter had the stage
for about 20 minutes, and at the end of the set all
gathered for a panel discussion moderated by Deepak Chopra.

Day one's theme was "Cosmos, Physics and Consciousness: The
Deep Mystery of Existence." Our morning began with a one-
hour holographic HumaGram [sidebar left] presentation of
Dr. Chopra explaining a 5,000-year history of our
understanding of consciousness and where we stand today
with the hard problem—what is consciousness and how does it
relate to our perceived reality? Chopra and his presenters
are working to tie the two together with a monistic answer:
The universe and consciousness are the same.

Two presenters on dark matter, an incredibly dense topic
filled with unknowns, opened up the landscape for out-of-
box thought. Dark matter, along with dark energy, is
hypothesized to comprise around 95 to 98 percent of the
universe.

Topics for the afternoon included philosophy, awareness,
the akashic field and quantum physics. Along with Chopra,
Subhash Kak and Menas Kafatos related all of the
conference's teachings thus far to Hinduism, specifically
to Vedanta and Saivism.

On day two, Chopra and the other presenters took us through
wellness and understanding of both the Earth and ourselves,
themed "Nature, Well-being, Love and Spirit." Topics
included meditation, mental health, climate change,
neuroscience, microbiome health, genetics, epigenetics and
philosophy.

Cutting-edge information was presented by Rob Knight, a
professor working on microbiome discoveries—aka, "gut
health." The Center for Microbiome Innovation is
discovering the critical importance of the human gut and
how essential its balance of bacteria is for optimal
health. He shared some amazing therapies that use the
bodies' bacteria as alternatives to medicine.

Rudolph Tanzi of Harvard Medical School, co-author (with
Chopra) of Super Brain and Super Genes, presented his work
on brain health and his lab's new findings on Alzheimer's
disease.

Day three, "Technology and Creativity," was devoted to
showing how new technology can improve the quality of life.
The over-arching message was that soon much of society will
be using smart devices to enhance its day-to-day
activities. The presenters introduced meditation devices,
sleep aids, brainwave tuners and ideas for future tech
gizmos that we could wear as clothing. One panelist was
wearing about six devices across his body to show how small
and inconspicuous mobile devices are getting.

At the end we sat down with Chopra and asked, "What are you
and the whole movement bringing to humanity that's new,
that didn't exist in the Indian paradigm?"

Continues at:

https://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=5774

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj