Happy Birthday, Dr. Setty! You are a voice of reason and compassion, and your wise balanced thoughts are inspirations. I have had two NDE's and can vouch to your understanding. The first occurred at the age of seven with my consciousness watching the appendectomy from above. When I was introduced to meditation & yoga in college in early 1970...and the Siddhis that accompanied my disciplined sadhana....everything made perfect sense. And the amazing truths in the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavan Gita all opened me to the truths inherent in prayer to that which is greater (which I call G-d). The second NDE occurred in my early 30s when my neck was broken in a horseback riding accident. Complete with a life review and given a choice to 'come back' or start over in another incarnation, I chose to return to this incarnation, knowing that I still had some dharma to complete. I am honored to have knowledge of your writings. Blessings to you!🙏💖
Happy Birthday and thank you for a stellar post. I worked at LGH when you were there. Hopefully you always knew this but you were so well regarded among the nursing staff. I had an NDE as a young adult and your writing captures beautifully the dichotomy of that experience and our western medical and cultural traditions. I have hope we are moving toward a time where that dichotomy and the deceptions around covid, 9/11, etc fall away and help usher in a time of greater awareness regarding consciousness. Your writing is cathartic and beautiful!
Excellent post. I firmly believe we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Death is not to be feared but merely a transition back to the spiritual realm. Reincarnation is definitely real and our spirits (or souls) incarnate numerous times to learn lessons on the earthly plane. To reach enlightenment (ie. stop incarnating) one must experience ego dissolution and realize the reason we are here is to be of service to others. All Are One and Love is the Answer.
Happy birthday and thank you for sharing your wisdom. First it is truely crazy , ''it is understandable why some would justify the sacrifice of more lives now to prevent the loss of others in the future. Is this sensible?'' Great story about the medicine woman and the smoke. There is wisdom beyond what our logical western minds can comprehend. I know that I am more than my physical body through experiences I have had. In my 20s I woke up in the middle of an operation. I had been bleeding eternally for several dqys due to extopic pregnancy. I was on the operating table and I saw the nurses and doctor. I thought it wonderous that I was awake in the middle of an operation but felt no pain. I tried to speak and say "hey I'm awake". Then I decended back into my body. Since then I have left my body through holotropic breathwork. During that session I went to visit a friend in a different city. That evening after the session I called my friend and told her what I saw while I was out of body visiting her. I could verify that I had actually gone to visit her. Also I have done remote viewing. I know consciousness is not contained within the body. There are many more things I could say, getting visits from my deceased ex-husband. Love does not die. Let us cultivate the love that lives on forever.
Humans' tendency toward a mechanistic view is one that I challenge regularly in my work. Mostly people find me because they are in physical pain or because they are seeking the purported benefits of pilates. I own a structural integration studio with my partner; Redcord, pilates, kettlebell, Rolfing, and vibrational sound therapies. During the first session we do an FMS (functional movement screen) and discuss what we see, and what we believe would be the best course of action for the client. During this session we also present the "mind-body connection" as a cliché of fallacy. This moment is often met with a degree of surprise, as one usually expects us to say something quite the opposite.
Our position is that the mind and body cannot merely be "connected"...because this implies that they could be disconnected - and that day is day of reckoning. The mind and body are one thing, with no separation and no distance between them. Your essay, and really your life's work, certainly present an interesting extension to this conversation. What we have observed over the course of our tenure (20 years for me, 30 for my partner), is that as space is created in the body, so also is it created in the mind.
As the body, so does the mind.
"Moreover, it invites us to consider the possibility that awareness continually exists without interruption but we are not always able to access our experiences retrospectively. We then commonly but inaccurately describe these events as “losses of consciousness”."
This calls to mind the work of Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score) for me. Memory of trauma encoded in the viscera as a means of survival is astounding. The mind's ability to compartmentalize, to sometimes "forget", so that the body can continue on is another example of the mystery of human existence. One that the mechanistic approach failed to explain for quite some time, and thus went unrecognized. Only recently have we seen true progress on the successful treatment of PTSD...now that there is "proof" of it in the body. Candace Pert and her work, documented in her book, Molecules of Emotion, offers much on this "new" science.
"We are now considering a real dilemma, not one based in hypotheticals or history where “the truth” has been dictated to us or revealed over the years. We basically have two paradigms to choose from. On the one hand there is no proof that our existence doesn’t continue after the death of our bodies. There also is ample indirect evidence that there is more to this life than this material body. We have the accounts of hundreds of people who have died, by our own standards of death, and returned to tell us we have been wrong about the whole thing. "
I think this speaks to the human need to explain - and to prove, within our paradigm of current understanding....examples of which we have seen abundantly recently. Your essay on Israel's 9-11 illuminated this particularly well. James Corbett's 5 min version is also a great synapsis (https://www.corbettreport.com/911-a-conspiracy-theory/).
Humans are able to perform incredible feats of thought gymnastics, to explain the path to outcomes which they have determined to be certain. In my summation, it is far more likely that humanity only understands a fraction of the factors at play in the grande organization of existence, than it is possible that we can draw a definitive conclusion about the vastness of consciousness, life, and death.
I only meant to comment briefly here and I have failed at that....
This is the 10 year anniversary of my father's death, and I found your thoughts incredibly synchronistic. My dad was a dermatologist and died after a 10 year battle with stage 4 melanoma. His first oncologist gave him 6 months to live following his diagnosis...
The life he lived in those 10 years not only far exceeded his prognosis, but gifted me a perspective for which I will always be grateful. The night after he passed, I had a dream so real that I cannot possible articulate with words. He came to me and I was overwhelmed with comfort. He was chuckling...laughing...and told me not to worry. Not to spend a moment being afraid, or consumed by the silliness of this experience on earth. Because it is but a blip...and will be laughable to think of all the energy and stress we spend here on things that do not matter.
This was "just a dream", of course. But t I knew in my gut that the experience was real. I'm solidly sure of it to this day. It reminds of accounts of spontaneous healing where there is always a report of knowing. A deep KNOWING that the disease was gone - before scans or tests. Knowing. Bernie Siegel's Love, Medicine, & Miracles documents this beautifully.
Thank you for your thoughts and insights, Dr. Setty, particularly on this 10 year anniversary of my dad's passing.
And happy birthday to you! The world is a better place because of people like you.
I am glad your mother had an alternative to birthing you, given the circumstances. My mother and I never got on so well after that first day of mine; Dad had taken a fishing trip, Moms doctor was on vacation too. I was delivered by an intern, and it wasn't simple. One leg came out first, and that leg had to be pushed back in so that both legs could exit....(was good at the splits as a youth at least!!). Given all that, Mom and I did our best. I think I came out trying to run away. My personality follows suit, I always approach things a bit 'backwards' and have deep intuition that I trust, that kept me from getting jabbed. Still, part of me will be apologizing to Mom forever for the difficulties. A midwife would have probably tried to turn me around manually, in the womb, I know they do that. Cool.
Happy Birthday, Dr. Setty! The story of the little girl who had been married to the man who didn't believe her until she recounted the story about the stolen money only they could know is enough proof for me. She is alive now. She was alive during the time she lived him. That is reincarnation. What other explanation is there?
The late Christopher Bernards, son of the late Walter Bernards, was a lifelong friend, and Walter was like a father to me. Both were anesthesiologists, devout Catholics, unafraid.
I would offer nothing new to the compendium here, as, in my (sic) thinking, consciousness is never not present, not independent of anything, and is nothing to get hung-up about.
I was thinking about something you wrote. Awareness may be continuous although lapses occur in the recognition of it. Is this accurate? Sleep is a good example. Most often, the moment sleep begins isn't known and then consciousness is experienced as dreaming. Also the sense of time is altered. Do you use awareness and consciousness as synonyms? Thank you for your posts.
Happy Birthday, Dr. Setty! You are a voice of reason and compassion, and your wise balanced thoughts are inspirations. I have had two NDE's and can vouch to your understanding. The first occurred at the age of seven with my consciousness watching the appendectomy from above. When I was introduced to meditation & yoga in college in early 1970...and the Siddhis that accompanied my disciplined sadhana....everything made perfect sense. And the amazing truths in the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavan Gita all opened me to the truths inherent in prayer to that which is greater (which I call G-d). The second NDE occurred in my early 30s when my neck was broken in a horseback riding accident. Complete with a life review and given a choice to 'come back' or start over in another incarnation, I chose to return to this incarnation, knowing that I still had some dharma to complete. I am honored to have knowledge of your writings. Blessings to you!🙏💖
Happy Birthday and thank you for a stellar post. I worked at LGH when you were there. Hopefully you always knew this but you were so well regarded among the nursing staff. I had an NDE as a young adult and your writing captures beautifully the dichotomy of that experience and our western medical and cultural traditions. I have hope we are moving toward a time where that dichotomy and the deceptions around covid, 9/11, etc fall away and help usher in a time of greater awareness regarding consciousness. Your writing is cathartic and beautiful!
It is your birthday but you gave us a gift, a fascinating exploration into so many unanswered questions. Thank you.
Excellent post. I firmly believe we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Death is not to be feared but merely a transition back to the spiritual realm. Reincarnation is definitely real and our spirits (or souls) incarnate numerous times to learn lessons on the earthly plane. To reach enlightenment (ie. stop incarnating) one must experience ego dissolution and realize the reason we are here is to be of service to others. All Are One and Love is the Answer.
Happy birthday and thank you for sharing your wisdom. First it is truely crazy , ''it is understandable why some would justify the sacrifice of more lives now to prevent the loss of others in the future. Is this sensible?'' Great story about the medicine woman and the smoke. There is wisdom beyond what our logical western minds can comprehend. I know that I am more than my physical body through experiences I have had. In my 20s I woke up in the middle of an operation. I had been bleeding eternally for several dqys due to extopic pregnancy. I was on the operating table and I saw the nurses and doctor. I thought it wonderous that I was awake in the middle of an operation but felt no pain. I tried to speak and say "hey I'm awake". Then I decended back into my body. Since then I have left my body through holotropic breathwork. During that session I went to visit a friend in a different city. That evening after the session I called my friend and told her what I saw while I was out of body visiting her. I could verify that I had actually gone to visit her. Also I have done remote viewing. I know consciousness is not contained within the body. There are many more things I could say, getting visits from my deceased ex-husband. Love does not die. Let us cultivate the love that lives on forever.
Happiest of birthdays, my brother! So glad to have you on the planet in these times!
This is a brilliant piece, Dr. Setty. Thank you.
Humans' tendency toward a mechanistic view is one that I challenge regularly in my work. Mostly people find me because they are in physical pain or because they are seeking the purported benefits of pilates. I own a structural integration studio with my partner; Redcord, pilates, kettlebell, Rolfing, and vibrational sound therapies. During the first session we do an FMS (functional movement screen) and discuss what we see, and what we believe would be the best course of action for the client. During this session we also present the "mind-body connection" as a cliché of fallacy. This moment is often met with a degree of surprise, as one usually expects us to say something quite the opposite.
Our position is that the mind and body cannot merely be "connected"...because this implies that they could be disconnected - and that day is day of reckoning. The mind and body are one thing, with no separation and no distance between them. Your essay, and really your life's work, certainly present an interesting extension to this conversation. What we have observed over the course of our tenure (20 years for me, 30 for my partner), is that as space is created in the body, so also is it created in the mind.
As the body, so does the mind.
"Moreover, it invites us to consider the possibility that awareness continually exists without interruption but we are not always able to access our experiences retrospectively. We then commonly but inaccurately describe these events as “losses of consciousness”."
This calls to mind the work of Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score) for me. Memory of trauma encoded in the viscera as a means of survival is astounding. The mind's ability to compartmentalize, to sometimes "forget", so that the body can continue on is another example of the mystery of human existence. One that the mechanistic approach failed to explain for quite some time, and thus went unrecognized. Only recently have we seen true progress on the successful treatment of PTSD...now that there is "proof" of it in the body. Candace Pert and her work, documented in her book, Molecules of Emotion, offers much on this "new" science.
"We are now considering a real dilemma, not one based in hypotheticals or history where “the truth” has been dictated to us or revealed over the years. We basically have two paradigms to choose from. On the one hand there is no proof that our existence doesn’t continue after the death of our bodies. There also is ample indirect evidence that there is more to this life than this material body. We have the accounts of hundreds of people who have died, by our own standards of death, and returned to tell us we have been wrong about the whole thing. "
I think this speaks to the human need to explain - and to prove, within our paradigm of current understanding....examples of which we have seen abundantly recently. Your essay on Israel's 9-11 illuminated this particularly well. James Corbett's 5 min version is also a great synapsis (https://www.corbettreport.com/911-a-conspiracy-theory/).
Humans are able to perform incredible feats of thought gymnastics, to explain the path to outcomes which they have determined to be certain. In my summation, it is far more likely that humanity only understands a fraction of the factors at play in the grande organization of existence, than it is possible that we can draw a definitive conclusion about the vastness of consciousness, life, and death.
I only meant to comment briefly here and I have failed at that....
This is the 10 year anniversary of my father's death, and I found your thoughts incredibly synchronistic. My dad was a dermatologist and died after a 10 year battle with stage 4 melanoma. His first oncologist gave him 6 months to live following his diagnosis...
The life he lived in those 10 years not only far exceeded his prognosis, but gifted me a perspective for which I will always be grateful. The night after he passed, I had a dream so real that I cannot possible articulate with words. He came to me and I was overwhelmed with comfort. He was chuckling...laughing...and told me not to worry. Not to spend a moment being afraid, or consumed by the silliness of this experience on earth. Because it is but a blip...and will be laughable to think of all the energy and stress we spend here on things that do not matter.
This was "just a dream", of course. But t I knew in my gut that the experience was real. I'm solidly sure of it to this day. It reminds of accounts of spontaneous healing where there is always a report of knowing. A deep KNOWING that the disease was gone - before scans or tests. Knowing. Bernie Siegel's Love, Medicine, & Miracles documents this beautifully.
Thank you for your thoughts and insights, Dr. Setty, particularly on this 10 year anniversary of my dad's passing.
And happy birthday to you! The world is a better place because of people like you.
I am glad your mother had an alternative to birthing you, given the circumstances. My mother and I never got on so well after that first day of mine; Dad had taken a fishing trip, Moms doctor was on vacation too. I was delivered by an intern, and it wasn't simple. One leg came out first, and that leg had to be pushed back in so that both legs could exit....(was good at the splits as a youth at least!!). Given all that, Mom and I did our best. I think I came out trying to run away. My personality follows suit, I always approach things a bit 'backwards' and have deep intuition that I trust, that kept me from getting jabbed. Still, part of me will be apologizing to Mom forever for the difficulties. A midwife would have probably tried to turn me around manually, in the womb, I know they do that. Cool.
Happy birthday!
"It is not the brain that generates consciousness, but consciousness receives a brain that it uses". (c. dulcan, neurologist doctor, professor)
Happy Birthday! Have A Glorious One!
Happy birthday beautiful man. So grateful for your gifts, your work and your friendship. 🙏❤️
Happy Birthday, Dr. Setty! The story of the little girl who had been married to the man who didn't believe her until she recounted the story about the stolen money only they could know is enough proof for me. She is alive now. She was alive during the time she lived him. That is reincarnation. What other explanation is there?
The late Christopher Bernards, son of the late Walter Bernards, was a lifelong friend, and Walter was like a father to me. Both were anesthesiologists, devout Catholics, unafraid.
I would offer nothing new to the compendium here, as, in my (sic) thinking, consciousness is never not present, not independent of anything, and is nothing to get hung-up about.
Happy birthday, be well!
I was thinking about something you wrote. Awareness may be continuous although lapses occur in the recognition of it. Is this accurate? Sleep is a good example. Most often, the moment sleep begins isn't known and then consciousness is experienced as dreaming. Also the sense of time is altered. Do you use awareness and consciousness as synonyms? Thank you for your posts.
Fascinating, lucid and -- fearless.
Thank you for your open mind and for helping to open mine..
wowwwwwwwwwwwwwww♥