Center for Consciousness Center . Tucson . Arizona

The Fifth DEI EAST-WEST FORUM I-II

Announcement: East-West Forum 2016

pg1.pdf - jpg 2.pdf

2016 East West Forum

NEW REVISED PROGRAM **UPDATED

Abstracts

1 TSC 2016 East-West Forum Vision and Plenary Talks Abstracts with update

2 TSC 2016 East-West Forum Oral Presentation Abstracts

3 TSC 2016 East-West Forum Poster Presentation Abstracts

2016

“Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, Nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!”

(Rudyard Kipling (1889) : The Ballad of East and West)

The East-West Forum is now a familiar feature at the TSC series of conferences, starting with TSC 2012 at Tucson,

TSC 2013 at DEI, Dayalbagh, India, TSC 2014 at Tucson again, and TSC 2015 at Helsinki, Finland.

The Fifth East-West Forum at TSC 2016 will be yet another landmark integration effort as part of the TSC-series.

The above quote rather prophetically captures these momentous events, when not just two strong men from

East and West stand face to face, but in fact, two galaxies of strong men and women from East and West meet

at Tucson, Arizona (USA) and Dayalbagh, Agra (India) also through video-conferencing.

The 5th annual confluence of Eastern spiritual and Western scientific and philosophical approaches to consciousness, sponsored by the Dayalbagh Educational Institute (DEI) in Agra, India. Speakers will include P Sriramamurti, J Barrell, BD Dhir, R Gennaro, T Samphel, S Kak, J Hagelin, A Bandyopadhyay, P Pylkkanen, V Sahni, C Fields, S Hameroff, and Rev. Prof PS Satsangi.

Via teleconference, talks will alternate between Loews Ventana Canyon and the DEI campus in Agra, and conclude (Part II Monday afternoon) with a panel discussion.

Emeritus Chairs of the East-West Forum

East                                                 West

Revered Prof. P.S. Satsangi                                           Prof. Stuart Hameroff

Chairman, Advisory Committee on Education           Director, Centre for Consciousness Studies

Dayalbagh Educational Institutions, India                   University of Arizona, Dept of Anesthesiology USA

2016 Chairs

Prof. Anirban Bandyopadhyay, NIMS Japan                Prof. James Barrell, Univ. of West Georgia, USA

Prof. Subhash Kak, Oklahoma State Univ., USA        Prof. Rocco J. Gennaro, Univ. of Southern Indiana, USA

Prof. P. Sriramamurti, DEI, India                                     Dr. Chris Fields, Sonoma, California, USA

Dr. Bani Dayal Dhir, DEI, India                                          Prof. John Hagelin, Maharishi University, USA

Mr. Thubten Samphel, Tibet Policy Institute,               Prof. Paavo Pylkkanen, Univ. of Helsinki, Finland

Dharamshala, India

Forum Coordinator : Dr. Bani Dayal Dhir, Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed Univ.), India

Forum Coordinator and Organizer – Video-conferencing : Mr. Prem Prashant, Member, Divinity Forum (Dayalbagh / @DEI-location)

Forum Organizer : Dr. Vishal Sahni, Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed Univ.), India

DEI, DAYALBAGH AND THE EAST-WEST FORUM AT TSC SERIES

The tradition in the TSC series of conferences has been to hold meetings in alternate years at Tucson and every other year elsewhere in the world. Soon after visiting DEI in 2011 for Quantum-Nano School QANSAS 2011, Prof. Stuart Hameroff proposed to hold the TSC 2013 conference at DEI, and also invited participation on behalf of DEI in the then forthcoming TSC 2012 at Tucson, Arizona. At the end of the 2013 conference at DEI, when Prof. Hameroff returned to Arizona, he spontaneously described it as the time and place where the quantum theory and the eastern perspective and therefore, in a way, western science and eastern thought have begun to make sense and come together. The conference has been aptly renamed as ‘The Science of Consciousness’ from TSC 2016 onwards in tune with the growing acceptance of consciousness studies among the scientific community all over the world.

A meaningful East-West dialogue seems feasible as has been increasingly evident from TSC-2012 through TSC-2015. To meet these challenges, the landmark Fifth East-West Forum at TSC-2016 is intended to be a place where one presents key ideas from both approaches, and where these ideas can interact in the spirit of constructive mutual criticism, evaluation and enrichment. It appears plausible to evolve a science of inner experience (which is repeatable and verifiable) by attempting to integrate Eastern and Western scientific approaches and philosophy by verifying inner spiritual phenomenology of consciousness through well-established scientific epistemology, including three important stages of observation (awareness), report (description) and analysis (understanding) (Price and Barrell, 2012) while also availing of modern techniques of fMRI and MEG scans in capturing repeatable physiological / physical parameters of neural correlates accompanying inner spiritual experience during meditational practices. The scientific approach to understand the nature of consciousness revolves around the study of human brain. Neurobiological studies that compare the nervous system of different species have accorded highest place to the humans on account of various factors that include a highly developed cortical area comprising of approximately 100 billion neurons, that are intrinsically connected to form a highly complex network. Quantum theories of consciousness are based on mathematical abstraction and Penrose-Hameroff Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) Theory is one of the most promising ones. Invoking higher and higher level of unified quantum field theory, with correspondingly subtler and subtler particle size of fine grained geometry will lead to a significant jump in the level of fineness (fine-grained quantum geometry) which should enable us to access, at least in the abstract world of mathematics and physics, the primary ultimate source of consciousness in the whole Universe.

Dayalbagh and DEI are closely associated with Radhasoami philosophy, which centers upon a type of meditation practice arising from the spiritual philosophy of Eastern Saints known as "Surat Shabda Yoga". Shabda is referring to a spiritual current which can be perceived in meditation as inner light and particularly unstruck rhythmic sound. Yoga is referring to the uniting of our real essence (soul) through an inner listening with focused mental and spiritual concentration (surat) upon an inner sound (Shabda) which, it is maintained, emanates from Radhasoami the Supreme Being representing the macrocosm i.e. unity. It is therefore taught as the unchanging and primordial technique for uniting the soul with the Supreme Being via the sound-current of Shabda in order to experience oneness with macrocosmic consciousness at multiple levels. India is in many ways still a spiritual society and the Radhasoami philosophy (based on 'Saar Bachan') has a consistency with other extant spiritual meditational practices of the world (to name a few, Buddhism (Buddhavacana), Jainism (Agamas), Christianity (Bible), Islam (Koran), Sufism (e.g. the Masnavi of Maulana Rumi), Sikhism (Guru Granth Sahab) and Hinduism (as represented by Vedas, Upanishads and Gita). In contrast, much of Western scientific and philosophical study of consciousness takes place in a secularized setting. All are encouraged to participate so as to provide as meaningful a dialogue as possible.

Organized by:

DEI, Dayalbagh For further details, refer to www.dei.ac.in

Sponsors:

Centre for Consciousness Studies, Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed Univ.) India

Center for Consciousness Studies, University of Arizona, USA

DEI 1 and DEI 2

includes Monday evening option - For DEI India Based only

FEES: CALL IN, WIRE TRANSFER ONLY

DEI - India based

After March 5

General Registration to the TSC Conference for DEI India based people is:

Standard: $350

Students: $250

attending Monday's DEI full day Forum, Tuesday and Wed poster session

US/Europe based DEI Alumni and others not in India

attending Monday and other conference days are considered general registrants

After March 5

Regular Conference Rates Apply

Standard $575

Student $450

DEI Workshop only - this is only geared to locals attending

the Monday East-West Forum only

$250

contact the TSC Manager for instructions

center@u.arizona.edu

TSC 2015 East-West Forum Panel, Helsinki

TSC 2013 Conference, Agra

TSC 2012 Conference, Tucson

Mission

People