WEBVTT

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Religious thinking has been a part of
the human experience from the beginning

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The question then becomes, why? Studies of children have shown that
we are born with this instinct for what's called substance dualism

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the idea that the body and the
mind, or soul, are separate

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If religious experience is a universal phenomenon, if it can be
traced about all time, then there must be some adaptive advantage

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Otherwise, it wouldn't exist. The problem is that the countless different answers that
have been given for why religion fail primarily because they're functionalist answers

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What religion does, not why religion exists. we are a point and we
are a wave we are magnificently distinct and unique and diverse

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and we are part of one field of life one sacred
consciousness so it turns out that every single

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one of us are all born with the neuro docking
station for awakened awareness together with my

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colleagues we looked at people who recovered from
depression through an awakening we could see that

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people who suffered the most really derived
profound support and even renewal when connecting

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to their higher power to God the universe whatever their word might be They were more likely to
perceive and reflect in a profoundly spiritual way And this tendency to see life on spiritual bedrock

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was mirrored by a thickening of the cortex, offering
some evidence that sustained spiritual life

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is neuroprotective against depression. And in
addition, when we looked at the awakened brain

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what we saw is that universally we are drawn into an experience
in which we are loved and held, guided, and never alone

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If you think about the past three, four hundred years of
human history, especially the history of the Western world

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we've had this explosion, some call it the age of
certainty, the explosion of scientific rationalism

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But we've had this explosion of knowledge
about how the world actually works

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Weight, height, gravitational pull, electromagnetic force.
And yet the same questions are still gnawing at the soul

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What's it mean? What are we doing here? This idea
somehow that faith and science are in opposition

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I've always found to be complete
insanity. Both are searching for the truth

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There is something in the way that our brains work more than just the
sum of our material parts. Is it possible that you have been on a quest

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that you already are walking a spiritual path