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consciousness from the rest of the world.
Professor Wheeler stated that the failure
to find the unified field theory in physics
is due to having written consciousness
out of the equation.
False assumption number 4 is also
with regard to physics, and it says that
the space between physical things is
empty. We now know that there is no
empty space. There are forms of energy
that occupy all space. We’ve been led to
believe that everything is separate from
everything else, and what we do in one
place has little or no impact on what
happens somewhere else. Now we know
that is not the case.
The last false assumption is perhaps
the most critical when it comes to the
changes we are being asked to make in
our world today. With regard to nature,
Darwin stated in his book On the
Origins of Species, that nature is based
upon what is called “survival of the
strongest.” Darwin was the first scientist
to attempt to answer the big questions
of the origins of life, beyond the realm
of the religious community and the
church. Because Darwin attempted to
answer these questions through the
emerging language of science, his ideas
were quickly embraced with very little
question, in the world at that time.
People say to me, “OK, Gregg, maybe
Darwin wasn’t quite right. And that
was over 150 years ago. What difference
could it possibly make in our modern
sophisticated technological world
today?” We live in the modern world of
the 21st century; that is true. We have
refined ideas, but the ideas were actually
developed in the late 1800’s and early
1900’s when Darwin’s ideas were very
popular. Possibly the best example of
the “Survival of the strongest” idea is
our global economy. Corporations are
based upon the idea of “Survival of the
strongest.” Our young people in school
more often than not are taught that it’s
all about getting the right answer on the
test, or about scoring the right point on
the field. The underlying belief is, we live
in the world that’s “dog eat dog”— a world
of scarcity, a world of lack, where there is
one pie and everyone must fight for their
slice. The problem is, the best science of
our time is telling us that nature is NOT
based upon “Survival of the strongest.”
While we may see expressions of that
in nature, they are response-specific
situations. The over-arching rule in
nature is that it is based upon a model of
cooperation and mutual aid.
There are two primary kinds
of competition: There is a form of
competition where one person or one
group benefits at the expense of another;
where a group or an individual exploit
the weaknesses of another. In nature,
that’s called violent competition. There’s
another form of competition, where a
group or an individual excels simply
because they have developed their
abilities to their highest expression. Over
four hundred studies were done in the
last 15 years that asked the same question:
what is the optimum amount of violent
competition in the environment? What
the studies found was, the optimum
amount of violent competition in ANY
situation is ZERO, in any environment
—in the workplace, in the classroom, on
the playing field. Competition always,
always, always is detrimental to the
individual and to the group. In 2008, the
prestigious journal New Scientist did an
essay encapsulating this work and the
new discoveries, emphasizing that what
we see in the wild is not every animal out
for itself, and if cooperation were to break
down, the results would be disastrous.
These new discoveries tell us the
bottom line is: we know that nature, the
real nature, is based on cooperation and
mutual aid, and that’s a very different
way of going about solving our problem
than competition and conflict. We are
witnessing the expression…the extremes
of these false assumptions, along with an
opportunity to embrace the best science
of our time. Can we marry that science
with our most cherished spiritual and
indigenous traditions to weave a new
wisdom that is greater than anything
that we have had in the past? This is the
essence of the book Deep Truth.
TA: You have journeyed to many
archeological sites, because you believe
the ancient past hold the keys to the
future. In what way?
GB: When I was in school, I was shown
charts of the history of the world. They all
said that our history began about 5,000
years ago in ancient Sumeria. Now, what
we are finding is this: there is a common
theme that runs through the advanced
civilizations of the world, prior to 5,000
years ago. In every instance with the
excavations, no evidence of war has been
found; no evidence of the need to defend
Gregg Braden playing an Andean flute
homes and cities against intruders—no
evidence of weapons, of walls, of moats.
No evidence of mass graves (that you
would expect at the end of large scale
wars) were ever found; none of the
mutilated bodies and severed limbs with
axes in skulls (that you would expect
to find after wars). As a scientist, I have
to say one of two things is happening
here: either 1) weapons exist, and they
haven’t been found, or 2) they don’t
exist because war is not human nature.
A growing number of historians and
anthropologists are beginning to write in
their papers that war is an aberration of
human experience. It’s a habit that began
5,000 years ago with the first evidence of
large scale war in the nation of Sumeria.
If war is a habit that was learned 5,000
years ago, the question is—can we
unlearn that habit? Archaeology itself—
the peer-reviewed science of civilization
—is now confirming human nature is
also based on a model of cooperation
and mutual aid.
TA: Why is it important for us to
understand that the global economic
collapse did not happen quickly or without
notice?
GB: I think Truly Alive readers are
well-informed and know that this is no
ordinary time in the history of the world.
But for many people in the mainstream,
it took people by surprise. In all honesty,
so many people’s lives are so full with
just trying to get through the day, trying
to get their kids to school, keep dinner
on the table, hold down their jobs, stay
healthy and have some semblance of a
social life; they just don’t spend a lot of
time delving into the intricacies of what
keeps our civilization on track. They
trust the people in control. They trust the
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