CHAPTER I – WAITING AND WONDERING

CONFESSIONS OF A QUESTIONING PHILOSOPHER
CHAPTER I – WAITING AND WONDERING

Several years ago I published a philosophy book: God, Man, and the Universe – An Holistic Perspective. This was an Ebooks published in the Order Online Bookstore of my Website: www.drtauraso.com. Although the book took 20 years to write before final publication, no one, as yet, has ever ordered a copy. Perhaps someday someone will take the book out from Ebooks heaven and read it.

In this book I tried to discuss the Laws of the Greater Universe as they relate to our relationship with God, Man, and the Lesser Universe. The Lesser Universe I define as that physical entity composed of the billions of suns, planets, and celestial bodies; the Greater Universe being that entity composed of the Lesser Physical Universe, God, Man, and everything else which interact with each other.

Tonight as I lay on my office couch trying to go to sleep, I began to contemplate – as I do almost every night – the meaning of life and whether there is real interaction among all the entities mentioned above. Tonight, as in many other nights, I am asking for a revelation – not an hallucination – perhaps in the form of a beam of light. Then, I would know that it would be a miracle for in the middle of the night one – at least one of sound mind – would not expect a real beam of light!

So here I am waiting and wondering – the title of the Chapter – whether the beam of light will appear, and, if it does, wondering whether it would be real or an hallucination. Many individuals throughout the world and the ages have described visions. And being the scientist that I profess to be, I ask the question: “Is this a real external vision or is it something conjured from within the recesses of one’s subconscious mind, which I would define as somewhat of an hallucination. I have always thought that, as we experience events, these are stored as mental pictures and images somewhere within our subconscious mind/brain complex as bite or bytes of information in perhaps some digital form. And so we have this cauldron of byte soup. Once in awhile, something happens and these bytes take form as an independent picture which surfaces to our conscious mind. As we experience this new picture or thought, we need to wonder from where it came. If we think it came from without we may interpret it as an external vision. If we think it came from within we may consider it a dream. The two entities are quite different.

So if a revelation comes one evening, I would like to know whether it is a dream or vision because the dream is of my own creation, the vision being something from outside of me. And so I wait and wonder.

Tonight I was wondering about God. And since I have been given an intellect, it is within my nature to wonder about these things. Is God the ALL omnipotent and omniscient being which the religious preachers want us to believe. Was HE – and let us not quibble about the HE or the SHE – there BEFORE the Lesser Universe was created? Then one day, HE said “Let there be light,” and with that BIG BANG the Universe began the marvelous process of creation which continues to this day. Is this God a personal one. Does he know who we are; does he know who I am? And does HE care? Or has some other Avatar been assigned to oversee Planet earth to make sure the Laws of the Universe are followed. Perhaps by some standards he may not be doing a very good job. But then again he might.

Are happiness and unhappiness necessarily incongruous entities? Before answering we must define happiness. To me happiness is a state of well being where our dreams become our reality – that we are experiencing all our dreams in the here and now. Might St. Paul have been happy as his fellow Romans were chopping off his head because he knew that he had fulfilled Christ’s order to spread the faith? As St. Peter was dying being crucified upside down, was he also happy knowing that he had also fulfilled similar orders given to him? Was Jesus Christ happy dying on the cross knowing that his death was redeeming the sin of man? Pardon me if I am taking examples from the Bible but it is with holy individuals experiencing both entities simultaneously can we begin to delve into the question of happiness fulfilled.

Are my questions necessarily blasphemous? I do not think so. If we have been given an intellect, then, as I said, it is within our nature to question. If fact, we have a right, if not a duty, to question, respectfully. Otherwise, the gift of the intellect is thwarted. According to the Scholastic Philosophy of the Jesuits, to have been given a Natural Gift or Appetite, if we waste it, that would be a real shame. But to set the Appetite in motion and simultaneously putting something in place to prevent the Appetite from achieving its Natural End would be the definition of Sin.

Unfortunately, when we are happy we question little or nothing. It is when we are down and somewhat depressed that we ask the important questions. Less of the material is there to divert us from thinking about the meaning of life. On a personal note, since I have become financially destitute due to a very failed sale of a restaurant which was to give me financial security for many years, I have been questioning more. With each evening and often during the day I wait for that glimmer of hope and light and I wonder if it will ever come.

With each day I try to work hard, at least, hoping to cause some change and for things to happen. If it is true that “faith without works is dead,” then we must work towards a goal in order to reach the goal.

Some of the thoughts roaming through my mind this evening are those of mother Teresa. In her memoirs – memoirs she asked not to have been published – but who listened to the wishes of the dead anymore? – Mother Teresa complained that she worked so hard doing what she thought to be the work of God caring for the poor and unfortunate in Calcutta, but God never seemed to acknowledge this fact to her and that God was so distant from her that she wondered whether she was doing the right things in caring for the poor. Now we, and I, consider Mother Teresa an holy individual. If God has not appeared to the likes of her, why should I expect that he talk to me, more a sinner than a saint?

So I return to my couch continuing to wait and wonder. If the light does not appear tonight, I shall wait again tomorrow.

“To be continued tomorrow”

nicola michael ©. Tauraso, M.D.)
Director, Tauraso Medical Clinic
7051 Poole Jones Road
Frederick, MD 21702
301-682-8717
Web site: www.drtauraso.com
Blog site: http://www.drtauraso.com/blog/index.htm
Email: drtauraso@drtauraso.com

GOD, MAN, AND THE UNIVERSE; an Ebook

GOD, MAN, AND THE UNIVERSE

The following is an excerpt from the FOREWORD of my book: “God, Man, And The Universe -An Holistic Perspective - A philosophy book describing how the Universe operates applying the Principles of Holism.”

This book has been in preparation for over 20 years. It is available as an EBOOK on our ORDER ONLINE link of our web site: www.drtauraso.com. In it we try to answer the questions of “What we must do and do we have a choice in the affairs of life.

“FOREWORD

The word holistic is being used today by many in the health field. There is much controversy over whether it should be spelled with an h as in holistic or with a wh as in wholistic. There is confusion as to whether holism embodies the body, mind, and spirit, and to whether it is reasonable also to include emotion.
It would appear at times that our Western separatist view of life and the world allows us to be great dissectors but interferes with our abilities to conceive of synthesizing and unifying concepts of health, man's nature, and our relationship with the rest of the world. We tend to emphasize the differences among people - a tendency which fosters a drawing apart and isolationism - rather than emphasizing the similarities which tend to bring individuals closer together working toward common goals for mankind.
There are those who believe that the holistic approach to health is something new and exciting; others view it as a revival of something very old to man's culture.
The derivation of the word and concept of holism was very well described by Dr. Richard H. Svihus in a paper entitled "The Dimensions of Wellness: The Holistic Viewpoint," delivered at the founding meeting of the American Holistic Medical Association, Denver, Colorado, May 1978 and published in American Holistic Medicine, volume 1, pages 19 to 25, February 1979. Quoting from Dr. Svihus.

The words "holistic" and "holism" first appear to have been used by Jan Smuts in his book,Holism and Evolution, published in 1926. Jan Smuts served as a general in the British army and as prime minister of South Africa. In his book, he describes an evolutionary concept in which Holism underlies the synthetic tendency in the universe." Entities growing, developing, and evolving become at some complete in their nature, so that their wholeness becomes greater than the mere sum of their parts. They then move to new levels of being -- new "wholes" -- brought about by the creative forces within, which he calls holism.
The whole-making tendency in evolution, according to Smuts, is nothing but the gradual development and stratification of a progressive series of wholes, stretching from the inorganic beginnings to the highest levels of spiritual creation.
Wholeness, healing, holiness--all expressions and ideas and ideas springing from the same root in language as in experience--lie on the rugged upward path of the universe.

If we were to apply this concept to matters pertaining to health, and if we acknowledged the fact that we have a triune nature of body, mind, and spirit, then we are total individuals only when our body-self, mind-self, and spirit-self are unified to work in harmony with each other.
All too often individuals are dis-coordinated. Their body, mind, and spirit aspects function as separate schizophrenic entities working against each other.
Holistic means to be holy, to function as a whole I. When this ideal state is reached, we experience a new energy which appears to be greater than what might be expected from a mere sum of the three parts.
The word holistic (this is, with an h) is derived from the Greek; wholistic (with an wh) is derived from the Anglo-Saxon. Yet holistic is usually used by physicians, nurses, and other health-care professionals; Wholistic is employed more by ministers, counsellors, and non-medical health care professionals. But, our aim here is to emphasize the similarities, not the differences. Both words mean the same thing, regardless of derivation and who uses the words.
There is a rather sad point to this commentary. There are developing segments of our population - sad to say that they exist mainly in some Christian communities - who are teaching that those who are associated with the holistic and/or New Age movements are demonic and represent anit-Christ philosophies. During the course of this book, I hope to present philosophical evidence that this prejudicial attitude is not only anti-Christian, it is against the teachings of all great religious teachers, and against basic, inherent, and immutable Laws of the Universe.
The purpose of this book is to go beyond looking at man alone. We will explore the greater spiritual nature of man, desiring to understand how we relate to God and the rest of the Universe. From an holistic perspective we will dissemble to assemble, analyze to synthesize, dissect to recreate, separate to unify. To view man holistically is to go beyond the confines of man's body, mind, and spirit to the larger cosmic view of man as part of an infinite whole Universe.
This book explores the laws which govern optimum physical, mental, and spiritual health and those that govern the realms of consciousness and reality. Scientists are accumulating much data to substantiate the theory of relativity. As one heavenly body exerts its influence upon another, how do the laws which govern the Universe influence man, the highest form of incarnate being on planet Earth? How does man influence other creatures, environmental situations, planet Earth, and other heavenly bodies? What is our responsibility to establish order within ourselves, and maintain the Order of the Universe?
We would like to consider ourselves free. But, are we really free? We will probe for the answer to this question as we explore the relationship of God, Man and the Universe -- An Holistic Perspective.”

nicola michael c. Tauraso, M.D.
Director, Tauraso Medical Clinic
www.drtauraso.com.