Edited from the History Channel's "Ancient Aliens." Some scientific research should remain unexplored. CERN is dangerous beyond belief, maniacal and motivated by unexplained impulses. Who is attempting to outdo Nature in its wisdom and slow but sure progress? There are still good people who trust in goodness. Think before blindly supporting war and corporatism, rushing us to our own enslavement. We are misled and misused in the name of science as we were previously in the name of religion.
It is absolutely possible that something happened before the "beginning" of our universe. “You often hear cosmologists say that the Big Bang is the moment when space and time began, [so] there’s no such thing before the Big Bang. The truth is the Big Bang is the moment where our understanding ends. We don’t know what happened before the Big Bang, but it’s absolutely possible that something did.”
So says Caltech theoretical physicist, Sean Carroll. Carroll’s proposal that there once was a realm of space and time that preceded our universe’s Big Bang is part of a cosmological model first toyed with by theoretical physicists, including Einstein, in the 1930s.
It is known as the Cyclic Model or Oscillatory Universe. A basic form of the theory posits that the universe we live in is one component of an interconnected dual system of bouncing universes.
The amazing natural wonders of Earth (Yosemite National Park)
The first begins with a Big Bang and expands for a period of time. Upon reaching some thermodynamic limit of expansion, it then experiences a “Big Crunch,” as the universe begins to shrink back toward a singularity. [In Buddhism one speaks of periods of world expansion and world contraction, with "world" referring to a manifold world-system.]
This force then propels the Big Bang of a second universe outward in the “opposite direction,” and the cycle continues back and forth perpetually. Within this framework, a Big Bang can therefore be defined as the event after a period of contraction and before a period of expansion.
Furthermore, our universe may be the first, sixth, billionth, or some infinite number universe to exist in this cycle. Let’s consider what exactly is meant by a universe... More
When Maha Brahma (the "Great Supreme") created one universe in the multiverse
Timelessness (akalika) in Buddhism
The Timeless Doctrine (UrbanDharma.org)
[Buddhist scholar, author, and former Sri Lankan Ambassador to the US, Dr. Ananda Guruge has] often wondered how Buddhism came to be called akalika, which means "timeless" -- that it exists for all time.
The more I see the changes that have taken place in Buddhist culture or religion, the more I see how it keeps on adjusting to the needs of different eras, populations, individuals, the more I see that it has been possible for the Buddha to evolve a message that would remain eternally fresh.
So if Buddhism has an application today, and if Buddhism has a place in modem life, it is because of that timeless relevance, emanating from a set of eternal values. To talk of a characteristic of being eternal is a very paradoxical way of presenting or describing a religion which has the principle doctrine of impermanence at the bottom of it.
The characteristic of timelessness comes from the fact that it had understood that everything continues -- but continues in a flux, in a process of continuing change and evolution. Thus Buddhism was able to adjust to different times and civilizations. We can therefore without any hesitation approach any aspect of Buddhism as something relevant and applicable to us today. More
And the answer is... First of all, there is a Buddhist physics? Yes, Buddhism teaches practical physics necessary for releasing the mind/heart from clinging to illusion and suffering.
And the answer is... Wait. Does an answer make sense without posing the original question? In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, we learned that THE ANSWER to "life, the universe, and everything" was "42." With that information in hand, we should have been happy. But we were not, because what exactly was the question?
Bodhi Dharma (above) found "zen" (jhana) after emptying his mind, just as Einstein noted that a solution cannot be found at the level of the problem. Hard at fun or fun at work, Einstein did not give up on solving the UFT equation. "Hard work" is no way to find something this elusive (The Masters of Enlightenment: Albert Einstein/Lowdensitylifestyle.com).
Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, and the founder of Raytheon worked very hard before Einstein died in search of the answer.
S = -MgC*dsb
This is a working equation (solution) for Einstein's Unified Field Theory. It should make about as much sense as E=MC2 or 42. Fortunately, it is explained in Sean David Morton's new book Sands of Time. We believe. And there are many reasons people should look to intuitive-futurists for mind-bending solutions that elude great mathematical geniuses. As the Buddha learned under the Bodhi Tree (and possibly Newton, Adam, and Eve under an apple tree), the answer does not come from muscling, pushing, straining, or "efforting." Instead, it comes from letting go.
WASHINGTON (RNS) - More than half of U.S. voters approve of God’s job performance, according to a new poll, making God more popular than all members of Congress.
Why are we here? It remains one of the most perplexing unexplained mysteries of the universe. But particle physicists are gaining more confidence in a result from an atom smashing experiment that could be a step toward providing an answer: We exist because the universe is full of matter and not the opposite, so-called antimatter. When the Big Bang occurred, equal parts of both should have been created and immediately annihilated each other, leaving nothing leftover to build the stars, planets, and us. More
During insight meditation the body becomes transparent and particles become visible in the mind door (Buddhist-images.co.uk)
Self, soul, ego, personality, "I" all refer to five functionally integrated components -- the physical and the psychological. The physical or material components of the self are the four characteristics of matter (called the Great Elements, mahabhuta). They further break down to what is called derived materiality* that make the sense organs, which are just configurations of the Four Great Elements. All of this is referred to as one group labelled "form."
Buddhist phenomenology, the "Five Aggregates of Clinging" (khandha)
UFO researcher Robert Hastings discussed declassified documents, as well as witness testimony that confirms UFO incursions at nuclear weapons sites, weapons laboratories, and bomb test sites. UFO activity accelerated after WWII, around the time that the testing and deploying of nuclear weapons began in America. Initially, the premise was that the unidentified craft were Soviet devices, though Hastings became convinced “we’re dealing with multiple races from multiple worlds.” He said he’s had contact with over 100 military employees who knew of UFO activity that occurred when they worked at various facilities between 1964 and 1996. 
God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshiped alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel, according to an Oxford scholar. In 1967, Raphael Patai was the first historian to mention that the ancient Israelites worshiped both Yahweh and Asherah.
God's consort, Goddess of the Sea, mother of Baal, this Asherah figurine was discovered in Nahariyeh, Israel. King Mannasseh introduced Israel to her worship (2 Kings 21). The Hebrew word is often translated as "groves" in KJV (abu.nb.ca).
The theory has gained new prominence due to the research of Francesca Stavrakopoulou, who began her work at Oxford and is now a senior lecturer in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter. Information presented in Stavrakopoulou's books, lectures and journal papers has become the basis of a three-part documentary series, now airing in Europe, where she discusses the Yahweh-Asherah connection.
"You might know him as Yahweh, Allah, or God. But on this fact, Jews, Muslims, and Christians, the people of the great Abrahamic religions, are agreed: There is only one of Him," writes Stavrakopoulou in a statement released to the British media. "He is a solitary figure, a single, universal creator, not one God among many... or so we like to believe."
"After years of research specializing in the history and religion of Israel, however, I have come to a colorful and what could seem, to some, uncomfortable conclusion that God had a wife," she added.
Abrahamic religions violently turned on their Goddess (northernway.org)
Stavrakopoulou bases her theory on ancient texts, amulets, and figurines unearthed primarily in the ancient Canaanite coastal city called Ugarit, now modern-day Syria. All of these artifacts reveal that Asherah was a powerful fertility goddess.
Asherah's connection to Yahweh, according to Stavrakopoulou, is spelled out in both the Bible and an 8th century B.C. inscription on pottery found in the Sinai desert at a site called Kuntillet Ajrud.
"The inscription is a petition for a blessing," she shares. "Crucially, the inscription asks for a blessing from 'Yahweh and his Asherah.' Here was evidence that presented Yahweh and Asherah as a divine pair. And now a handful of similar inscriptions have since been found, all of which help to strengthen the case that the God of the Bible once had a wife."
Also significant, Stavrakopoulou believes, "is the Bible's admission that the goddess Asherah was worshiped in Yahweh's Temple in Jerusalem. In the Book of Kings, we're told that a statue of Asherah was housed in the temple and that female temple personnel wove ritual textiles for her." More>>
More on Discovery
Astronomers shed light on the Astronomers have discovered the "missing link" in the evolution of the universe following the Big Bang, it has been claimed.
For years scientists have known nothing about the "dark ages" of space -- a period between the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago and the [forma]tion of the first stars.
But Cambridge University researchers have now captured light emitted from a massive black hole to peer into this unknown portion of the history of the universe.
They discovered remnants of the first stars and evidence of the aftermath of an exploding star, which was 25 times larger than the sun.
Prof Max Pettini, of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, believes the discovery of these gases could help reveal the origins of the universe.
He said: "We have effectively been able to peer into the Dark Ages using the light emitted from a quasar.
"We discovered tiny amounts of elements present in the cloud in proportions that are very different from their relative proportions in normal stars today.
"Most significantly, the ratio of carbon to iron is 35 times greater than measured in the sun...." More>>
Illustration of the God particle, Higgs boson (dailygalaxy.com) (TOI) Has the Holy Grail of physics finally been found? The internet is abuzz with rumors that the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois, US, has found the Higgs boson — nicknamed the "God particle" — after Tommaso Dorigo, a physicist at the University of Padua in Italy wrote in his blog that there has been talk coming out of the Illinois laboratory that the Higgs has been discovered.
(AFP) This could give a whole new meaning to the phrase power dressing. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a cloth that can hear and emit noise. The team, led by MIT professor Yoel Fink, has reached "a new milestone on the path to functional fibers..." MIT said in a statement.
(NYT) Is the loss of language and culture connected to the extinction of plant and animal species in a globalized “epidemic of sameness”? Welcome to the “science of resilience” — an interdisciplinary study of the value of diversity in complex systems. In Seed magazine, Maywa Montenegro and Terry Glavin report on a growing effort to study the feedback loops of “linguistic, cultural, and biological extinction.”
Asteroid pictures: Battered world found in Lutetia
National Geographic) Asteroid 21 Lutetia is exposed, craters and all, in a picture captured Saturday by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft. Rosetta's close encounter with Lutetia revealed a battered world—a possible remnant from the birth of our solar system, astronomers say. To snap the above image, Rosetta swooped about 1,965 miles (3,162 kilometers) above Lutetia's surface. The image is the highest-resolution photo taken of the space rock, located more than 270 million miles (440 million kilometers) away from Earth, between Mars and Jupiter. (Watch a video of Rosetta's flyby.) More>>
("God particle" DailyGalaxy.com)
Tension mounted in the control rooms at CERN as scien-tists huddled around computer screens and fired protons through the 17-mile tunnel of the collider under-ground along the Swiss-French border. Then they celebrated. "The first technical challenge has been met," said a jubilant Robert Aymar, director-general of CERN, and went on:
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) scientists look at a computer screen during the switch on operation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the Cern's press center near Geneva. Particle physicists were jubilant on Wednesday after the long-awaited startup of a mega-machine designed to expose secrets of the cosmos passed its first tests with flying colors (AFP/Pool/Fabrice Coffrini).
The Eightfold Way: a classification of subatomic particles known as hadrons into groups on the basis of their symmetrical properties, the number of members of each group being 1, 8 (most frequently), 10, or 27.
Kalapa, artist's conceptionPa Auk Sayadaw introduces Four Elements Meditation
