Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe by ;Bob Berman MD Robert Lanza Read Free Book Online Page A

blessedly autonomous operations of the heart and kidneys, a lever-pulling “me” is in charge of the brain’s workings. Libet concluded that the sense of personal free will arises solely from a habitual retrospective perspective of the ongoing flow of brain events.
    What, then, do we make of all this? First, that we are truly free to enjoy the unfolding of life, including our own lives, unencumbered by the acquired, often guilt-ridden sense of control, and the obsessive need to avoid messing up. We can relax, because we’ll automatically perform anyway.
    Second, and more to the point of this book and chapter, modern knowledge of the brain shows that what appears “out there” is actually occurring within our own minds, with visual and tactile experiences located not in some external disconnected location that we have grown accustomed to regarding as being distant from ourselves. Looking around, we see only our own mind or, perhaps, it’s better put that there is no true disconnect between external and internal. Instead, we can label all cognition as an amalgam of our experiential selves and whatever energy field may pervade the cosmos. To avoid such awkward phrasing, we’ll allude to it by simply calling it awareness or consciousness . With this in mind (no pun intended), we’ll see how any “theory of everything” must incorporate this biocentrism—or else be a train on a track to nowhere.
    To sum up:
    First Principle of Biocentrism: What we perceive as reality is a process that involves our consciousness.
    Second Principle of Biocentrism: Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different sides of the same coin and cannot be separated.

6
    BUBBLES IN TIME
    T ime’s existence cannot be found between the tick and the tock of a clock. It is the language of life and, as such, is most powerfully felt in the context of human experience.
    My father had just pushed her aside. Then he struck Bubbles again.
    My father was an old-school Italian with archaic ideas about child-rearing, so it is difficult now for me to write a record of this episode from so long ago. The indignity Bubbles suffered that day (not an isolated event) was so shameful that, four decades later, I still remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday.
    The affection I shared with Beverly—“Bubbles”—was a strong one, for being my older sister, she had always felt that it was her job to protect me. It touches me painfully even now to look back into the days of my childhood.
    I can remember the morning of what was as cold a New England day as you would ever want to feel at your toes’ ends. I was standing at the school bus stop at my usual time, with my little mittens and
lunchbox, when one of the older neighborhood boys pushed me to the ground. What exactly happened I can’t recall. I don’t profess to have been wholly innocent. But there I was on the sidewalk—helpless, looking up. “Let me go,” I sobbed. “Let me up.”
    I was still on the ground—and very cold and hurt—when, lifting my eyes, I saw Bubbles running up the street. When she reached the bus stop, she gave this older boy a look that I could see created instant fear for his own safety. I feel indebted to her for that alone. “You touch my little brother ever again,” she said, “and I’ll punch your face in.”
    I had always been a favorite of hers, I suppose; in fact, the earliest remembrance I have of my childhood was with her, in her playdoctor’s office. “You’re a little unwell,” she said, handing me a cup of sand. “It’s medicine. Drink this and you’ll feel better.” This I did, and as I started to drink it, Bubbles cried out “No!” and then gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing it herself. (Afterward, it occurred to me that it was only make-believe, and that I ought not have done this, but at the time it all seemed quite real.)
    It is difficult for me to believe that it was me, and not her, who went on to