To some degree a pilgrimage lets you tap into a shared experience that allows you to identify with a very large group of people. But not just in your mind and with the folks of your church, in your current moment. But in a very embodied sense with all the people that came before you.

Thank you so much for writing this! As you said we need that focus on love and change our perspective of it drastically! Materialistic views on emotions like love is way too reductive. It misses the bigger picture and does not value the feeling and concious effort behind what it means to love! Science has its place and usefulness, but it cannot help people live happier and meaningful lives. Spirituality and its practices are key here!

not really. The human body doesn't have anti biotics. However nature has fungus penicilline is present in fungus .Everything we need would be all around us if we hadn't destroyed & 'tamed' nature, If we see some mold we delete it with bleach..

+Spiritual Anarchist: The human body has enough antiviral agents to cope with viruses and enough antibodies to cope with bacteria. So what more do we need? The interesting question is why we feel we have to supplement these natural defences. What has gone wrong? (Please refer to the videos of Bruce Skipton, a friend and colleague of Rupert Sheldrake's.)

*@@johnmartin2813 Well i agree with many of what you say. but disseases are *also natural ''.They are nature way to keep populations from overpopulating. However three simple inventions have changed the medical profession & thus humanities *overall lifespan radically .First two : Soap & Penicilline .Before the invention of soap, people died en mass trough blood poison & every fe hundred years a plague came along killing of more people in one year, then all our World wars together.( percentage wise offcourse) . Little wounds got infected.. Before the invention soap & later penicilline one in three three children died before the age of seven, 9 by the flu child diseases, or some infection. Inner infections like in the longs etc. where mostly lethal.. Especially for children & elderly people. The combination of the two (soap & penicilline ) is why families do not loose one in three children before the age of seven, 7 why women don't die in childbirth anymore, (. & why there are no plagues left. etc,etc ). The third invention is vaccination. The Spanish flu after W.W 1 killed more people then the War itself. . But Iet me keep it with the two first examples for now.

+Spiritual Anarchist: I suspect that soap has been around for much longer than you think it has. The Romans were great ones for cleanliness if I remember rightly.I suspect that stress has been a much greater factor in producing disease than anything else. And earlier ages were even more full of stress than ours. I don't know how healthy the monks and nuns were in their monasteries, or the hermits in the desert, but I suspect they were longer lived than most. Saadi, the 13th century sufi mystic poet, according to some accounts, lived to be over a hundred. The Jews thought it natural for a virtuous man or woman to live to be seventy or eighty. And we talk of biblical life spans. Firdausi, Hafiz, Attar, Omar Khayyam and Jami, all sufi mystic poets, who lived between the tenth and fifteenth centuries, survived well into their seventies and eighties. I take these people as my exemplars because they would have been more aware of the value of life than the general population. And therefore would have looked after themselves more carefully. (Remember the mass of men 'live lives of quiet desperation'. And do some very stupid things in terms of quality or quantity of life. Or are forced to by tyrants.)

**J@@johnmartin2813 The exceptional doesn't exclude the general. General live expectancy used to be low because many people died, not because people did not get old. soap i is invented & reinvented, Until the alkaloïde soap was used in it's medical capacity people died because dirt penetrated wounds. I think these thinks are obvious. No matter how enlightened a Sufi master may be, If he steps on a rusty nail he/she has a huge change of being a death Sufi master. We live i a world that takes health for granted. In the 'Millions of babes died for lack of proper care, millions survived infancy to become rickety, misformed, wretched children ' Yes wel live in a consumer age. Pharmaceutical mis-use, food misuse, etc,etc. I just *want to point to the middel road.even though the human body id fragile, but still we **managed to achieve a society where a child's death is not the norm anymore but an the exception. Now i a playing Devils advocate, Because I witnessed how for over ( thirty plus year?) *Many young healthy people came to India & step over the masse of disabled beggars & hungry children to donate hundreds of dollars to at the feet of the 'new sadthguru' or whomever , with a Swiss golden watch dangling on his arm,

I am not sure that those three bother to down vote charlatans like him self....

Not only Hindu. These practises are also entirely Christian, and certainly practised one way or another by the Holy Orthodox Church.

And what do you think is the source of the soul? Where are the soul's residing until they inhabit the body? Also where does the "stuff" of the body come from, or rather where did they come from initially? The first bodies....

@@shannonhingst4286 I think of it as Inside and Outside. Inside is the physical Universe, a resonating energetic Medium; the sphere of what we can percieve through any technological means. Outside is totally void of energy; the source of the soul. Does resonance need an energetic Medium? Or can resonance exist regardless and is shaped and inturn shapes as it meets an energetic Medium? Resonance meets the energetic boundary to varying degrees and creates ripples. The ripples collide, collapsing into standing waves and inteference patterns. The more complex the structure, the more complex the matter. I am in no way saying all this is right and true. Just ponderings in idle moments.

He got a double first at cambridge.

@@axeman2638 So have many other people. He hasn't done any "real" science since the 1980's, he is a fraud, a crook, a snake oil salesman.

@@poruatokin , what is "real science"? who decides? Sounds like you have the butthurts to me kid.

@@axeman2638 The inane logic of uneducated teenagers in their mother's basement escapes me. Why on earth would I be butthurt? Give me a good answer, go on, I am waiting. As for your question, real science : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method. The key point here is "tested through scientific method". This fucking idiot sheldrake doesn't know how to do real science, he "speculates".

@@axeman2638 1. You haven't answered my question. 2. I see you have some pretentiousness there, your weak attempt to psychoanalyze me after three lines of a youtube comment is at about the same level of scientific integrity that sheldrake has. 3. Why on earth would you think I would share any personal information with you.

Have you also enjoyed his talks with Jiddu Krishnamurti and David Bohm they are very mind opening.

Experience has nothing to do with scientific evaluation. He is a charlatan preying on gullible and existentially anxious individuals by offering comforting ideas as knowledge. This is really sad...

@@nickolasgaspar9660 - You are obviously one who buys into the Big Bang, you believe the sun is a nuclear furnace, you look for Dark Matter under every rock, you believe that consciousness is a product of and resides only in one's head, and you know that the universe is matter based, and is a big accident. You believe in the religion of anthropogenic Global Warming, you are sure that Alien beings are only found in movies (and could never be with us right now, or YOU would know it), and you surely don't think that the Main Stream Media is intentionally lying to you (or you would detect it with your superior intellect). Sadly, you have been well trained by those who control and run this world. You are a perfect part of the their herd - you think and do as you are told, and you never question Peer Reviewed science since that would be sacrilege against your atheist god. Sadly (for you) In the very near future, your matter-based world is about to be shattered before your very eyes. You will hear about and see things that will not make sense to you. It will scare you to your very core. I am telling you this out of kindness so you can, at least prepare a bit by expecting a major paradigm shift in your shallow world that has no real answers to the difficult questions. You will never have the truth if you do not know what questions to ask, but then, when you know everything, why should there ever be any additional questions to which you don't already have the answers? Right? I'll give you a small hint at the magnitude of what you are about to learn. Over 200 million beings live on the moon, and they are not human. Oh you're laughing now, but I recommend that if you own a handgun, sell it right now so you are not tempted to escape the fear that will grip you when the truth comes out. And please remember that you were warned.

@@rblibit "You are obviously one who buys into the Big Bang, you believe the sun is a nuclear furnace, " -Yes, this is also known as scientific education. I don't just accept the "narrative" of those scientific frameworks, I am also informed of the observations supportive of those theories, the predictions and the technical applications made possible by their principles. Again...education. "you look for Dark Matter under every rock," -No Dark Matter is not some kind of a worm, Its an observable phenomenon which we can quantify but we currently can not identify the responsible causal mechanism of it. "you believe that consciousness is a product of and resides only in one's head" -conscious states are a product of specific brain states. We have Strong Correlations, we have meaningful descriptions, accurate predictions and technical applications that support this conclusion. A functioning brain is sufficient and necessary for the emergence of those specific brain states. We have identified the minimum area needed for that state to emerge (the Ascending Reticular Activating System) , we have the technology to read complex thoughts by just looking at brain scans and we can make diagnosis and operate or medicate a brain in order to improve our conscious states. All those things are impossible from all other magical explanations that are out there. "and you know that the universe is matter based," -I can only say that we have the methods and tools to observe , quantify and talk about the physical aspect of the universe and we can make zero claims about any other aspect of reality. "and is a big accident." We don't know that, as far as I can think...maybe this is what the Cosmos does....to produce universes. We can not talk about an "accident" because we are unable to make observations and calculate probabilities. "You believe in the religion of anthropogenic Global Warming" -I don't believe, I accept the best available data. I hold an educated position ...not a faith based denial The same "objections" were made by people like you about a global pandemic...now you are all served. "you are sure that Alien beings are only found in movies (and could never be with us right now, or YOU would know it)," -I don't know that. I can only say that ALL existential claims need to be supported by objective and sufficient evidence. I am open to facts. "and you surely don't think that the Main Stream Media is intentionally lying to you (or you would detect it with your superior intellect)." -I don't follow main stream media. "Sadly, you have been well trained by those who control and run this world." -No I am not a Theist and I reject cultural indoctrination that isn't supported by objective facts. You should do the same. Gullibility is a vice. -"You are a perfect part of the their herd - you think and do as you are told, and you never question Peer Reviewed science since that would be sacrilege against your atheist god." -You are using a technical application to post all those straw-man and reproduce all this ignorant bovine manure about science. You can not even live according to your beliefs dude...I bet you reject the relative nature of time but still use your GPS device. You need to follow your preaching...cherry picking is a fallacy. "You will hear about and see things that will not make sense to you. It will scare you to your very core. I am telling you this out of kindness so you can, at least prepare a bit by expecting a major paradigm shift in your shallow world that has no real answers to the difficult questions." -Sure...try to provide solid, objective sufficient evidence with those scary things... Without evidence all are just hot air mate. -"You will never have the truth if you do not know what questions to ask, but then, when you know everything, why should there ever be any additional questions to which you don't already have the answers?" -Nice deepities...can you offer evidence that confirm the truth value of your answer that you gave to those correct questions of yours? I guess not..just woo woo hot air and conspiracies about the scientific establishment. You don't even know that science is a method ..not a set of declarations by high priests....ignorance man. " Over 200 million beings live on the moon, and they are not human. Oh you're laughing now, but I recommend that if you own a handgun, sell it right now so you are not tempted to escape the fear that will grip you when the truth comes out. And please remember that you were warned." -No I am not laughing.....evidence????? Just provide the evidence mate...that simple.

@Mr Phillips you should never do that. That is a magical approach to a descriptive Naturalistic explanation of quantum mechanics.