Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Quotes on Genetic Engineering and Respect for Life

The Supreme Court has ruled that genetic technology or engineering that deals with the manipulation of the bodies of living organisms is no different from any other technology that deals in the manipulation of matter.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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As far as the Supreme Court is concerned, a machine is a machine, a product is a product, an invention is an invention. There is no difference between a so-called living invention or a living machine and a nonliving machine or nonliving invention.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Researchers seeking the right to patent microorganisms testified before the Supreme Court that scientists cannot draw a line between the living and the nonliving. But contrary to such testimony, matter displays definite characteristics when life is present that it does not display when life is not present.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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However rudimentary the awareness of bacteria may be, it does exist. Bacteria also have a sense of self-awareness, as indicated by the fact that their observable activities seem to center on survival.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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Mankind doesn’t own the lower or higher species of life.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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The basis of ethical protest against genetic engineering on lower and higher species is respect. And the basis of our respect for living beings is our perception of a fundamental distinction between the living and the nonliving. We see life as special. Without that respect for the living, there is no basis for protesting the treatment of the living as if they were nonliving.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Discovering Your Real Identity

WHO ARE YOU? DISCOVERING YOUR REAL IDENTITY

What is your essence? Is it matter—a mere collection of material atoms and molecules? Or is it something else?

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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You are your body, right? You are chemical in essence ... right? At least, that’s what one of America’s most influential scientists claims:

I am a collection of water, calcium and organic molecules called Carl Sagan. You are a collection of almost identical molecules with a different collective label.*

Like Sagan, most people believe that they are their body. So if you ask them who they are, they think and respond in terms of bodily labels.

“I’m Susan. I’m blond, 29 years old, a mother, and still 36-24-36!”

“I’m Henry. I’m a white American male and proud of it!”

“I’m John. I’m a lawyer. I’m 40 years old and getting older every day.”

“I’m Alice. I’m a female student. I’m fat and I’m a Methodist.”

Name, race, age, sex, religion, nationality, occupation, height, weight, and so on—all these are bodily labels. Therefore if you consider your body to be yourself, you automatically identify yourself with such labels. If your body is fat and ugly, you think, “Woe is me! I am fat and ugly.” If your body is 60 years old and female, you think, ”I am a 60-year-old female.” If your body is black and beautiful, you think, “I am black and beautiful.”

But is the body really the self? Are you really your body?

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

*Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), p. 127.

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Many people believe that a person is the brain or some part of the brain. You may be one of them. If so, the following should boggle your mind:

Recent studies on the turnover of the molecular population within a given nerve cell have indicated that ... their macromolecular contingent is renewed about ten thousand times in a lifetime.*

In other words, the matter making up each brain cell is completely renewed every three days.

Your brain—that mass of matter which is contained in your skull today—is not the same brain that was in your skull last week.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

*Paul Weiss, “The Living System: Determinism Stratified,” in Arthur Koestler and J.R. Smythies, eds., Beyond Reductionism (London: Hutchinson, 1969), p. 13.


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2009 Science of Identity Foundation

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Subtle Coverings of Matter Over You - The Atma

As a yogi, you see the body that covers you—the pure atma or self—as being made of layers of material energy, from the subtle to the gross.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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The subtle layers of matter that first cover you—such as the mind, intelligence, and false ego—are like underclothes. Then, over the subtle material elements come the grosser material elements (going from the more subtle to the more gross), which cover you, the self, layer by layer. The layer of ether or sky covers over the mind, intelligence, and false ego; then the element air covers the element ether; the element fire then covers the element air; next the element water covers over the element fire; and finally the element earth covers over the element water. So in this way, you, the self, are covered by these eight primary subtle and gross layers of material energy. Thus, just as a man may have different layers of clothes over his naked body, the self also has eight layers of “clothes.”

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

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According to the science of yoga, you, the life particle are seated in the heart (but not inseparably—you can remove the physical heart, but you will not be removed with it). Your influence spreads throughout the body by means of this vast network of channels (nadis) that carry the life force to every cell of the body.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation


~ Jagad Guru (Jagad Guru Chris Butler)
© 2008 Science of Identity Foundation