I have been following this SAND organization for some time, and I think they do very good work in exploring the interaction of science and spirituality, particularly non-dual mystical spiritualities and traditions.

Starting tonight, October 19, through this Sunday, October 22, they are holding their annual conference, which can be livestreamed online. I recommend it for those who are interested in the dialogue between science and spirituality/religion, but particularly science and mysticism.

Here’s a taste of the topic of this year’s conference: Emergence.

“Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come into being.”

~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Quarks in an atom; molecules in water; cells in an organism; neurons in a brain; people in a city; grains of sand on a beach; stars in a galaxy.

When the many parts of a system interact, behaviors appear in the whole that were not present in the parts themselves.

And these “emergent” properties, allow us, to experience the world in its multiplicity and to taste reality.

Analysis and reductionism can only provide limited insight and cannot capture the essence of reality. Every apparent individual portion of life is connected to one another, from the smallest particle to the greatest galaxy.

We are all emergent properties of life and of one another. The natural expression of oneness is through multitudes.

A deeper sense of belonging, an exquisite sense of awe emerges when the mind dissolves the concept of separateness and starts seeing life as one interdependent whole.

And it’s in that total embrace, in that radical unity, that we can celebrate each individual particle as a unique emergent expression of life.

(Zaya and Maurizio Bennazo, founders and organizers of the Science and Non-Duality, SAND, organization and conference)