Spontaneous Evolution

— Swami Beyondananda

We all want to fix the world, whether we realize it or not. On a conscious level, many of us feel

inspired to save the planet for altruistic or ethical reasons. On an unconscious level, our efforts to serve as

Earth stewards are driven by a deeper, more fundamental behavioral programming known as the biological

imperative—the drive to survive. We inherently sense that if the planet goes down, so do we. So, armed with

good intentions, we survey the world and wonder, "Where do we begin?"

Terrorism, genocide, poverty, global warming, diseases, famine . . . stop already! Each new crisis

adds to a looming mountain of despair, and we can be easily overwhelmed by the urgency and magnitude of

the threats before us. We think, "I am just one person—one out of billions. What can I do about this mess?"

Combine the enormity of the mission with how small and helpless we imagine we are, and our good

intentions soon fly out the window.

Consciously or unconsciously, most of us accept our own powerlessness and frailty in a seemingly

out-of-control world. We perceive ourselves as mere mortals, just trying to make it through the day. People,

on presuming helplessness, frequently beseech God to solve their problems.

The image of a caring God deafened by a never-ending cacophony of pleas emanating from this

ailing planet was amusingly portrayed in the movie, Bruce Almighty, in which Jim Carrey’s character, Bruce,

took over God’s job. Paralyzed by the din of prayers playing endlessly in his mind, Bruce transformed the

prayers into Post-It notes only to become buried under a blizzard of sticky paper.

While many profess to live their lives by the Bible, the perception of powerlessness is so pervasive

that even the most faithful seem blind to the frequent references in the scriptures that extol our powers. For

example, the Bible offers specific instructions in regard to that looming mountain of despair: "If you have

faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move.

Nothing will be impossible for you."1 That’s a hard mustard seed to swallow. All we need is faith, and

nothing will be impossible for us? Yeah . . . right!

But, seriously, with these divine instructions at hand, we ask ourselves, "Is our presumed

powerlessness and frailty a true reflection of human abilities?" Advances in biology and physics offer an

amazing alternative—one that suggests our sense of disempowerment is the result of learned limitations.

Therefore, when we inquire, "What do we truly know about ourselves?" we are really asking, "What have

we learned about ourselves?"

In terms of our human evolution, civilization’s current "official" truth provider is materialistic

science. And according to the popular medical model, the human body is a biochemical machine controlled

by genes; whereas the human mind is an elusive epiphenomenon, that is, a secondary, incidental condition

derived from the mechanical functioning of the brain. That’s a fancy way of saying that the physical body is

real and the mind is a figment of the brain’s imagination.

Until recently, conventional medicine dismissed the role of the mind in the functioning of the body,

except for one pesky exception—the placebo effect, which demonstrates that the mind has the power to heal

the body when people hold a belief that a particular drug or procedure will effect a cure, even if the remedy

is actually a sugar pill with no known pharmaceutical value. Medical students learn that one third of all

illnesses heal via the magic of the placebo effect.2

With further education, these same students will come to dismiss the value of the mind in healing

because it doesn’t fit into the flow charts of the Newtonian paradigm. Unfortunately, as doctors, they will

unwittingly disempower their patients by not encouraging the healing power inherent in the mind.

We are further disempowered by our tacit acceptance of a major premise of Darwinian theory: the

notion that evolution is driven by an eternal struggle for survival. Programmed with this perception,

humanity finds itself locked in an ongoing battle to stay alive in a dog-eat-dog world. Tennyson poetically

described the reality of this bloody Darwinian nightmare as being a world "red in tooth and claw."3

Awash in a sea of stress hormones derived from our fear-activated adrenal glands, our internal

cellular community is unconsciously driven to continuously employ fight-or-flight behavior in order to

survive in a hostile environment. By day, we fight to make a living, and by night, we take flight from our

struggles via television, alcohol, drugs, or other forms of mass distraction.

But all the while, nagging questions lurk in the back of our minds: "Is there hope or relief? Will our

plight be better next week, next year or ever?"

Not likely. According to Darwinists, life and evolution are an eternal "struggle for survival."

As if that were not enough, defending ourselves against the bigger dogs in the world is only half the

battle. Internal enemies also threaten our survival. Germs, viruses, parasites, and, yes, even foods with such

sparkly names as Twinkies can easily foul our fragile bodies and sabotage our biology. Parents, teachers, and

doctors programmed us with the belief that our cells and organs are frail and vulnerable. Bodies readily

breakdown and are susceptible to sickness, disease, and genetic dysfunction. Consequently, we anxiously

anticipate the probability of disease and vigilantly search our bodies for a lump here, a discoloration there, or

any other abnormality that signals our impending doom.

In the face of heroic efforts needed to save our own lives, what chance do we have to save the world?

Confronted with current global crises, we understandably shrink back, overwhelmed with a feeling of

insignificance and paralysis—unable to influence the affairs of the world. It is far easier to be entertained by

reality TV than to actually participate in our own reality.

But consider the following:

Fire walking: For thousands of years, people of many different cultures and religions from all parts

of the world have practiced fire walking. A recent Guinness World Record for longest fire walk was set by

23-year-old Canadian Amanda Dennison in June 2005. Amanda walked 220 feet over coals that measured

1,600 to1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.4 Amanda didn’t jump or fly, which means her feet were in direct contact

with the glowing coals for the full 30 seconds it took her to complete the walk.

Many people attribute the ability to remain burn-free during such a walk to paranormal phenomena.

In contrast, physicists suggest that the presumed danger is an illusion, claiming the embers are not great

conductors of heat and that the walker’s feet have limited contact with the coals. Yet, very few scoffers have

actually removed their shoes and socks and traversed the glowing coals, and none have matched the feat of

Amanda’s feet. Besides, if the coals are really as benign as the physicists suggest, how do they account for

severe burns experienced by large numbers of "accidental tourists" on their firewalks?

Our friend, author and psychologist Dr. Lee Pulos, has invested considerable time studying the fire

walking phenomenon. One day, he bravely faced the fire himself. With his pants rolled up and his mind

clear, Lee walked the gauntlet of burning embers. Upon reaching the other side, he was delighted and

empowered to realize that his feet showed no sign of trauma. He was also totally surprised to discover upon

unrolling his pants, his cuffs detached along a scorch mark that encircled each leg.

Whether or not the mechanisms that allow fire walking are physical or metaphysical, one outcome is

consistent: those who expect the coals to burn them, get burned, and those who don’t, don’t. The belief of the

walker is the most important determinant. Those who successfully complete the firewalk experience,

firsthand, a key principle of quantum physics: the observer, in this case, the walker, creates the reality.

Meanwhile, on the extreme opposite of the climate spectrum, the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia walk

barefoot for days in snow and ice over a 15,000-foot mountain pass. In the 1920s, explorers Ernest

Schoedsack and Merian Cooper created the first feature length documentary, a brilliant award-winning

movie titled Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life. This historic film captured the annual migration of the

Bakhtiari, a race of nomads who had no prior contact with the modern world. Twice a year, as they have

done for a millennium, more than 50,000 people and a herd of half a million sheep, cows, and goats cross

rivers and glacier-covered mountains to reach green pastures.

To get their traveling city over the mountain pass, these hardy, barefooted people dig a roadway,

through the towering ice and snow that blankets the 14,000 foot high peak of Zard-Kuh (Yellow Mountain).

Good thing these people didn’t know they could catch a death of cold by being shoeless in the snow for

days!

The point is, whether the challenge is cold feet or "coaled feet," we humans are really not as frail as

we think we are.

Heavy Lifting: We are all familiar with weightlifting, in which muscled men and women pump iron.

Such efforts require intense bodybuilding and, perhaps, some steroids on the side. In one form of the sport

called total weightlifting, burly male world record holders lift in the range of 700 to 800 pounds and female

titlists average around 450 to 500 pounds.

While these accomplishments are phenomenal, many other reports exist of untrained, unathletic

people showing even more amazing feats of strength. To save her trapped son, Angela Cavallo lifted a 1964

Chevrolet and held it up for five minutes while neighbors arrived, reset a jack, and rescued her unconscious

boy.5 Similarly, a construction worker lifted a 3,000-pound helicopter that had crashed into a drainage ditch,

trapping his buddy under water. In this feat captured on video, the man held the aircraft aloft while others

pulled his friend from beneath the wreckage.

To dismiss these feats as the consequence of an adrenaline rush misses the point. Adrenaline or not,

how can an untrained average man or woman lift and hold a half ton or more for an extended duration?

These stories are remarkable because neither Ms. Cavallo nor the construction worker could have

performed such acts of superhuman strength under normal circumstances. The idea of lifting a car or

helicopter is unimaginable. But with the life of their child or friend hanging in the balance, these people

unconsciously suspended their limiting beliefs and focused their intention on the foremost belief at that

moment: I must save this life!

Drinking Poison: Every day we bathe our bodies with antibacterial soaps and scrub our homes with

potent antibiotic cleansers. Thus, we protect ourselves from ever-present deadly germs in our environment.

To remind us how susceptible we are to invasive organisms, television ads exhort that we cleanse our world

with Lysol and rinse our mouths with Listerine . . . or is it the other way around? The Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention along with the media continuously inform us of the impending dangers of the latest

flu, HIV, and plagues transported by mosquitoes, birds, and swine.

Why do these prognostications worry us? Because we have been programmed to believe our body’s

defenses are weak, ripe for invasion by foreign substances.

If Nature’s threats weren’t bad enough, we must also protect ourselves from byproducts of human

civilization. Manufactured poisons and massive amounts of excreted pharmaceuticals are toxifying the

environment. Of course poisons, toxins and germs can kill us—we all know that. But then there are those

who don’t believe in this reality—and live to tell about it.

In an article integrating genetics and epidemiology in Science magazine, microbiologist V.J. DiRita

wrote, "Modern epidemiology is rooted in the work of John Snow, an English physician whose careful study

of cholera victims led him to discover the waterborne nature of this disease. Cholera also played a part in the

foundation of modern bacteriology—40 years after Snow’s seminal discovery, Robert Koch developed the

germ theory of disease following his identification of the comma-shaped bacterium Vibrio cholerae as the

agent that causes cholera. Koch’s theory was not without its detractors, one of whom was so convinced that

V. cholerae was not the cause of cholera that he drank a glass of it to prove that it was harmless. For

unexplained reasons he remained symptom-free, but nevertheless incorrect."6

Here’s a man who, in 1884, so challenged the accepted medical opinion, that to prove his point, he

drank a glass of cholera, yet remained symptom-free. Not to be outdone, the professionals claimed he was

the one who was wrong!

We love this story because the most telling part is that science dismissed this man’s daring

experiment without bothering to investigate the reason for his apparent immunity, which was very likely his

unshakable belief that he was right. It was far easier for the scientists to treat him as an irksome exception

than to change the rules they created. In science however, an exception simply represents something that is

not yet known or understood. In fact, some of the most important advances in the history of science were

directly derived from studies on anomalous exceptions.

Now take the insight from the cholera story and integrate it with this amazing report: Rural eastern

Kentucky, Tennessee, and parts of Virginia and North Carolina are home to devout fundamentalists known

as the Free Pentecostal Holiness Church. In a state of religious ecstasy, congregants demonstrate God’s

protection through their ability to safely handle poisonous rattlesnakes and copperheads. Even though many

of these individuals get bitten, they do not show expected symptoms of toxic poisoning. The snake routine is

only the opening act. Really devout congregants take the notion of Divine protection one giant step further.

In testifying that God protects them, they drink toxic doses of strychnine without exhibiting harmful effects.7

Spontaneous remission: Every day, thousands of patients are told, "All the tests are back and the

scans concur . . . I am sorry; there is nothing else we can do. It is time for you to go home and get your

affairs in order because the end is near." For most patients with terminal diseases, such as cancer, this is how

their final act plays out. However, there are those with terminal illnesses who express a more unusual and

happier option—spontaneous remission. One day they are terminally ill, the next day they are not. Unable to

explain this puzzling yet recurrent reality, conventional doctors in such cases prefer to conclude that their

diagnoses were simply incorrect—in spite of what the tests and scans revealed.

According to Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, author of Coyote Medicine, spontaneous remission is often

accompanied by a "change of story."8 Many empower themselves with the intention that they—against all

odds—are able to choose a different fate. Others simply let go of their old way of life with its inherent

stresses, figuring they may as well relax and enjoy what time they have left. Somewhere in the act of fully

living out their lives, their unattended diseases vanish. This is the ultimate example of the power of the

placebo effect, where taking a sugar pill is not even needed!

Now here’s an utterly crazy idea. Instead of investing all of our money into the search for elusive

cancer-prevention genes and what are perceived to be magic bullets that cure without the downside of

harmful side effects, wouldn’t it make sense to also dedicate serious energy to research the phenomenon of

spontaneous remission and other dramatic, non-invasive medical reversals associated with the placebo

effect? But because pharmaceutical companies haven’t come up with a way to package or affix a price tag to

placebo-mediated healing, they have no motivation to study this innate healing mechanism.

All who participate in walking across coals, drinking poison, lifting cars, or expressing spontaneous

remissions share one trait—an unshakable belief they will succeed in their mission.

We do not use the word belief lightly. In this book, belief is not a trait that can be measured on a

scale from 0 to 100 percent. For example, drinking strychnine is not a game for the "I think I believe" crowd.

Belief resembles pregnancy; you’re either pregnant or you’re not. The hardest part about the belief game is

that you either believe something or you don’t—there is no middle ground.

Even though many physicists might say they believe lit coals are not really hot, they are not apt to

shovel the briquettes out of their Weber grill and practice firewalking on them. While you may hold a belief

in God, is it powerful enough to believe God will protect you if you drink poison? Put another way, how

would you like your strychnine—stirred or shaken? We suggest before you answer that question you have

zero percent doubt. Even if you have up to a whopping 99.9 percent belief in God, you might want to forego

the strychnine and settle for iced tea.

If you consider the extraordinary examples cited above as exceptions, we agree. However, even if

they are exceptions that cannot be explained by conventional science, people experience them all of the time.

Even if we don’t have the science to explain what they did, theirs are experiences of conventional human

beings. As a human being yourself, you could likely do the same things as well as, or even better, if only you

had belief. Sound familiar?

And while these stories are exceptional, remember that the exception of today can easily become the

accepted science of tomorrow.

One final compelling example of the mind’s power over biology can be gleaned from the mysterious

dysfunction commonly referred to as multiple personality disorder, more officiously known as Dissociative

Identity Disorder (DID). A person with DID actually loses his or her own ego identity and takes on the

unique personality and behavioral traits of a completely different person.

How could this be? Well, it’s like listening to a radio station in your car and, as you travel, the station

becomes staticky and fades out as a different station on the same frequency grows stronger. This can be

jarring if, for example, you are cruising with The Beach Boys and, a couple of choppy moments later, you

find yourself in the midst of a fire-and-brimstone, Bible-thumpin’ revival. Or, for that matter, what if you’re

enjoying Mozart and the Stones suddenly roll in?

Neurologically, multiple personalities resemble radio-controlled biological robots whose "station

identification" uncontrollably fades from one ego identity to another. The unique behavior and personality

expressed by each ego can be as vastly different as folk music is from acid rock.

While almost all attention has been placed on the psychiatric characteristics of persons affected with

DID, there are also some surprising physiological consequences that accompany ego change.9 Each of the

alternate personalities has a unique electroencephalogram (EEG) profile, which is a biomarker equivalent to

a neurological fingerprint. Simply put, each individual persona comes with its own unique brain

programming. Incredible as that may seem, many persons with multiple personalities change eye color in the

short interval it takes to transition from one ego to the next. Some have scars in one personality that

inexplicably disappear as another personality emerges. Many exhibit allergies and sensitivities in one

personality but not in another. How is this possible?

DID individuals might help us answer that question because they are the poster children for a

burgeoning new field of science called psychoneuroimmunology, which, in people-speak, means the science

(—ology) of how the mind (psycho—) controls the brain (—neuro—), which in turn controls the immune

system (—immun—).10

The paradigm-shattering implications of this new science are simply this: while the immune system is

the guardian of our internal environment, the mind controls the immune system, which means the mind

shapes the character of our health. While DID represents a dysfunction, it undeniably reveals the fact that

programs in our mind control our health and well-being as well as our diseases and our ability to overcome

those diseases.

Now you might be saying, "What? Beliefs control our biology? Mind over matter? Think positive

thoughts? Is this more of that New Age fluff?" Certainly not! As we launch into a discussion of new-edge

science you will see that the fluff stops here.

What does science say about this mind over matter stuff? The answer depends upon which science

you ask.

The science of conventional medicine tries to reassure us that none of the phenomena we just

described actually exists. That’s because today’s biology textbooks and mass media describe the body and its

component cells as machines made of biochemical building blocks.

This perception has programmed the general public to accept the belief in genetic determinism, which

is the notion that genes control physical and behavioral traits. This sad interpretation is that our fate is

inextricably linked to ancestral characteristics determined by genetic blueprints derived from our parents and

their parents and their parent’s parents, ad infinitum. This causes people to believe that they are victims of

heredity.

Fortunately, the Human Genome Project (HGP) has pulled the rug out from under conventional

science’s beliefs concerning genetic control. This is ironic because it set out to prove the opposite. According

to conventional belief, the complexity of a human should require vastly more genes than are found in a

simple organism. Surprisingly, the HGP discovered that humans have nearly the same number of genes as

lowly animals, a finding that inadvertently reveals a fundamental myth-perception underlying genetic

determinism.11 Science’s pet dogma has long outlived its usefulness and needs to be mercifully put to sleep.

So, if genes do not control life . . . (pause to formulate a mind-blowing question) . . . what does?

The answer is: we do!

Evolving new-edge science reveals that our power to control our lives originates from our minds and

is not preprogrammed in our genes.12

This is great news. The power for change is within us! However, to activate the amazing power of

mind over genes we must reconsider our fundamental beliefs—our perceptions and misperceptions—of life.

Our first serious misperception occurs when we gaze into the mirror and see ourselves as singular,

individual entities. In reality, each of us is a community of 50 trillion cells. While this number is easy to say,

it is almost unfathomable. The total number of cells in a human body is greater than the total number of

humans on 7,000 Earths!

Nearly every cell in your body has all of the functions present in the entire human body, which means

that every cell has its own nervous, digestive, respiratory, musculoskeletal, reproductive, and even immune

systems. Because these cells represent the equivalent of a miniature human being, conversely, every human

is the equivalent of a colossal cell!

As we will come to see, our mind represents a government that coordinates and integrates the

functions of the body’s massive cellular civilization. In the same manner that decisions by a human

government regulate its citizens, our mind shapes the character of our cellular community.

Insights into the nature of the mind, how it influences us, and where it lives, offer an opportunity for

us to fully realize our true powers. An awareness of this knowledge allows us to actively participate in the

unfolding of our individual lives as well as contribute to the evolution of our collective world.