With so many expectations and obligations in our lives, it is a surprise we are not all insane. Dr. Brené Brown of the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work program is a shame resilience researcher, learning how people deal with issues like those above that can trigger feelings of shame, negatively impacting our relationships and ability to function. She has published three books covering the topic of shame and shame resilience. Dr. Brown has been gaining attention in recent years as she has appeared on CNN, NPR, PBS, and the internet video site TED. The topic may seem unusual, but the research has far-reaching implications, widely applicable beyond the social work field. Everyone experiences shame, and overcoming shame is necessary to function, instead of being held back and isolated by shame. Responding in a constructive, shame-minimizing way by working through shame issues is what Dr. Brown calls living in a more “whole-hearted” and “authentic” way.

Researching people

Social sciences have different methods of researching, and Dr. Brown used the grounded theory, a method which allows qualitative data, and inductive and deductive reasoning to gather data without having a hypothesis to start with. Using the grounded theory method, consensus from individual interviews was taken based on the language and terms they used to describe their experiences, “and maybe stories are just data with a soul,” posits Dr. Brown in her TED talk. Dr. Brown decided she wanted to study shame, and so she did so without any of her own theories to start. She just had the questions: What is shame and how does it work? According to Robert Hilliker, a licensed counselor, former student, and collaborator of Dr. Brown’s, she has gathered over 11,000 interviews with people, investigating their shame experiences and where applicable, their shame resilience.

Owning our own story can be hard, but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.

Dr. Brown found that some of the people she interviewed showed impressive resilience to shaming experiences. She focused in on these people and studied what made them resilient to the effects of shame. The people were dubbed, “the whole-hearted.”

How shame works

The positive side of shame research is that there are tools to combat the feeling and the experience of shame, and to make our everyday lives less like shame minefields and more like a day at the office, picking up the kids, going to the grocery store, and making friends along the way. Simple exchanges with fellow parents or children, with bosses or teachers, spouses, friends, and acquaintances can easily turn into huge triggers for shameful feelings. When a weak spot is hit, a mistake is made, an accident happens, or someone runs late, short exchanges can become terse and tense, full of hidden meaning and innuendo, implied or imagined incompetence and inadequacy.

Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky, but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy–the experiences that make us most vulnerable Whether a situation goes smoothly or blows up in someone’s face has a lot to do with his or her shame triggers, something everyone has. Detailed in I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power, social and family situations can become nightmares when our lives are ruled by shame. For people that cannot deal with their shame (everyone to some extent, according to Dr. Brown) the options are limited: numbing the feelings of shame and fear through addictions, attempting to become “invulnerable” through perfectionism, making the uncertain certain by becoming dogmatic, and pretending that our actions do not hurt others. But these negative actions do harm others, and they break down our connections to others.

How whole-heartedness works

Even more exciting than learning that shame is universal and awful was that there are strengths that can be cultivated to overcome shame. The title of Dr. Brown’s second book says it all: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. The main components of whole-hearted living were courage, compassion, and connection. Being authentic requires accepting ourselves for who we are and living that truthfully. “Owning our own story can be hard but not nearly as difficult spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy–the experiences that make us most vulnerable,” says Dr. Brown in her book.

There are so many ways to apply such a broadly useful set of concepts, especially for a person of faith. The “guideposts” in The Gifts of Imperfection evoke many concepts from holy books. “Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think” calls to mind the story of Prophet Noah, who everyone thought was crazy as he built an ark. The chapter on cultivating gratitude and joy clearly connects to faith. Dr. Brown’s perspective on gratitude is especially relevant to modern life: “For me and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is ‘I didn’t get enough sleep.’ … Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it …”

As I read this passage, it makes total sense to me why we’re a nation hungry for more joy: Because we’re starving from a lack of gratitude.

Opportunities for growth

Dr. Brown and counselor-protégé Robert Hilliker have developed a curriculum called Connections which covers many of the concepts from her books and research. They are also developing a certification program for counseling professionals such as social workers and clergy who would like training.

“Spiritual leadership has a responsibility to make faith communities safe and supportive … We actually train spiritual leaders in the curriculum,” says Hilliker. “[Shame resilience] would be a wonderful thing for faith book clubs to sort of rally around … Her work has really reached a tipping point where people are talking about shame, this very pervasive feeling that everybody has and few people deal with well,” he says. Such a common feeling that can be very debilitating may not be the most cheerful topic of conversation, but learning to deal with shame may be one of the most liberating acts in a person’s life. To learn more, please visit: http://www.connectionscertification.com/.

Dr. Brené Brown, from her website.

Defining Some Broad Terms

Shame is simply defined as the fear of disconnection, that a person will be rejected when he or she becomes vulnerable.

Courage from the Latin cor, originally (and by Brené Brown) meant to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.

Compassion, defined as deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it, starts with self-compassion according to the shame-resilience research.

Connection is defined as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.

Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.

Matter&Beyond: What was your motivation for writing the book, The Heart-Mind Connection?

Well, that book was a collaboration with Dr. Ting who is a Cardiovascular Surgeon and it was actually his idea. He’s a very enlightened surgeon in that he, over the years of training in a practice as a cardiac surgeon, came to realize that the experience of undergoing cardiac surgery certainly taxed the mind and that the interaction of mind and heart was extremely important for outcomes. If you’re a cardiac surgeon and your goal is to improve your patients’ lives it became very clear to Dr. Ting that in order for that to happen cardiac surgeons and cardiologists had to be mindful of the fact that patients needed to be emotionally and cognitively intact, and so he asked me to collaborate on this book, and the book focused on the interaction between mood states and cardiac states.

M&B: What is the nature of this interaction? Does the heart affect the mind or does the mind affect the heart?

It’s bidirectional. There is an interaction or there is a relationship between mood disorders such as depression, anxiety, anger, and hostility and the actual human heart. The connection between those mood disorders and cardiac function is extremely important. But then also if you go into the experience of having heart disease and you were fortunate enough not to have one of those mood disorders, the experience of having cardiac disease will put you at risk for developing mood disorders. So it’s bidirectional. You can start out with heart disease and wind up having your health complicated by mood problems, or you can start out with mood problems and have your health complicated by heart disease. There’s an unholy alliance between depression and anxiety on the one hand and heart disease on the other.

M&B: What happens, let’s say, if you are someone who has a history of a major depressive disorder? What happens to his or her heart?

Major depressive disorder is a condition characterized by certain clear-cut symptoms, and those symptoms include having a depressed mood everyday most of the day for two weeks or more that includes losing pleasure in life, something we call anhedonia, not being able to take pleasure in normal activities that would normally make you happy. Along with that is loss of interest in things, guilt, or feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and worthlessness, loss of energy, loss of concentration, loss of appetite, sometimes even leading to weight loss, not being able to move the way you’re used to. So it’s sometimes you just curl up in bed and this is something we call psychomotor retardation or withdrawal. On the other hand sometimes depression makes you agitated so you can’t sit still and you’re running around sort of ringing your hands and so on. And then the final symptom of major depression is suicidality or morbid thinking. Always focused on death or wanting to die. So that’s the common sort of a cluster of symptoms we see in major depression. Now, say you have no history of heart disease but you suffer from major depressive disorder. You increase your risk of developing heart disease by having this condition of depression. So your risk of having a heart attack for example goes up like 1-1/2 to 2 times what it would be in someone without depression.

M&B: Is it similar with anger and hostility?

Some people believe that if you’re an angry person or a hostile person, that also increases your risk of developing depression. Say you have depression and you unfortunately have a heart attack. If you remain depressed then your risk of having another cardiac event, another minor cardiac infarction or a cardiac arrhythmia would go up three and a half times what it would be if you weren’t depressed. So that means that this connection between the brain and the heart, between depression and cardiac disease are tremendously important in terms of public health. Because those two diseases are causing most of the disability that exists, by the year 2020, the World Health Organization predicts that heart disease will be number one and depression will be number two in the entire world. That includes the developed world, the industrialized countries as well as the developing low income countries around the world. So in terms of the book that we did we thought it was important because these two illnesses, first of all feed off each other and cause a lot of heartache in the population but they also are the most important diseases in public health.

M&B: The heartbeat change is associated with love or certain joy. What is the physiology behind that?

Let me preface it by saying that this is the age old philosophical question which Plato and Aristotle sort of debated. Love is an idea as Plato thought. So, is there sort of an idea of beauty and of love that exists outside of the materialistic world? Are we somehow plugging into that ideal world of love as material organisms? Or does it come as a result, as an epiphenomenon of the material world we’re living? Does it emerge from the biological material world that we’re living? That in a way becomes a philosophical question. As scientists when we see human behavior, there’s something that we do, and it’s called reverse engineering. Let’s look at the behavior or the experience of human love. Where does that come from? Let’s work backwards from human love to try to understand in a biological way where it came from. We are the ultimate mammalian life. We might start a little controversy about that and especially with the all wars that we fight, but be that as it may, we are these high level, high functioning mammals. Our infants are born [in need of] altruism, which means that they are absolutely helpless when they are born. So parenting for the human being is extraordinarily important for the continuity of our species, and so our infants are in total need of care.

M&B: Isn’t this the same for all the animals?

It’s different in reptiles. If you go to Borneo and you study the life of the Komodo dragon, you’ll find out that komodo pups know immediately what they have to do when they plop out of komodo mommy. They have to roll around in their own feces in order to throw mommy off the scent because mommy will look at them as food. So that’s their strategy for avoiding being eaten by mommy. They also know how to climb up trees to get away from mommy. So here the survival strategy of reptiles is not one of attachment; it’s one of separation. All psychiatry is tied up in that simple fact. There would be no psychiatry if we were reptiles. But because we’re mammals, there’s psychiatry because all of the disorders we have are really disorders of a dysfunction in parental and social attachment. Only mammals for example have a part of the brain called the paralimbic cortex. So reptiles have primitive limbic areas, they have hippocampus, they have amygdala, so they show fear, and they act when they’re threatened, etc. They’re outfitted with those structures which allow them to do those simple attachments-attachments to food and to sexual objects etc., but don’t allow them to do social attachments very well, and there’s some reptiles that are better at it than others. Crocodiles, for example. They do a version of taking care of their pups. Birds also take care of their nestlings very well, and crocodiles actually have brains that are more kind of on the bird-like end of the spectrum, allowing them to do a better job as reptiles taking care of their young and having something of a social life. Nothing to the extent that mammals do and you can look at a mammal brain, and you can see where this is taking place. So the anterior cingulate is an area of extreme importance for mammalian behavior.

M&B: This unique mammal feature, the limbic system and the paralimbic system; would you elaborate a little bit more on them?

I had the privilege of meeting back in 1990 Paul McClain, who is a famous neuroscientist who coined the term limbic system. He studied emotional parts of the brain in reptiles and in monkeys and in human beings. He talked about what he called the mammalian behavioral triad. There are three things that mammals do that reptiles don’t do very well. One is that all mammalian infants cry for their mothers in the same way, so every lamb baas for its mother the same way. Every human infant cries for its mother in the same way, that’s called a separation cry, and you can study it. So when you look at rats they have an ultrasonic isolation cry; you can study it, and you can deprive them of relationships and you’ll see the cry. That’s typically mammalian. Another feature is play, so mammals play, and that serves a social binding function. We play sports together; it serves a social binding function. Then the third thing is maternal nurturance which is extremely important, and mammals do that parental nurturance piece pretty well.

M&B: Are there any experiments that may illustrate the role of love?

There are a couple of experiments that Paul did and they are very illustrative. They get us back to a focus on love. So one experiment was to take hamsters and you can ablate, sort of take out the anterior cingulate. When you do, the hamster pup no longer cries for its mother when it’s separated and the hamster mother no longer responds when the hamster pup cries for her. You can also put morphine in that area, and get pretty much the same results. So you could put morphine in the hamster pup’s brain in the anterior cingulated, and the hamster pup will no longer cry for their mother, it distorts that bonding. And you can do that with squirrel monkeys too and you’ll get similar results.

M&B: Do the results apply to human beings as well? Could the use of morphine stop a healthy heart or brain from giving love or responding to love?

One of the real problems that we face in psychiatry is when we run across an addicted mother. What happens to the mother child relationship when the mother is addicted to heroin or to cocaine or to other drugs of abuse? The child gets neglected, the mother no longer responds to the needs of the child. So we see there’s even a reflection of those basic experiments in the human model when we’re talking about maternal-child relationships. So again that’s kind of circumstantial evidence where there’s reverse engineering, and mothers also have this phenomenal hormone, neuropeptide hormone, this again is exclusively mammalian, called oxytocin. So it’s used in pregnant women to get them ready to give birth, and so once a pregnant woman gives birth it’s responsible for milk production and so on. This is another example of this – if we think about maternal love, one of the requirements for maternal love is that there needs to be oxytocin involved. Oxytocin needs to allow that brain to have the experience of being connected and bonded to offspring.

M&B: The relation between the brain and the other organs such as the heart, is it really a top down relation where the brain commands, or is it a bottom-up relation where bodily sensors form the human brain?

What you’re referring to when you bring up this fact that the body sends markers up to the brain, and the brain takes note of that and becomes behaviorally engaged, that is absolutely true, and it’s something that Tony Damasio calls a somatic marker hypothesis of how the brain works. This is also something that William James postulated in the late 1800s-that emotion is a reflection of the body’s activity. Your heart racing or your stomach turning, emotion is secondary, it’s the brain trying to make sense of what the body is going through. What came first, the chicken or the egg, that kind of a problem. The fact is, the organism works as a unity and you need all of its component parts for it to work, and you really can’t tease a part, what came first and what came second.

M&B: From our physiology, it is evident that we are born to love.

It is very spiritual about this kind of understanding of love and connecting it back to the brain. How the heart becomes a reflection of what the brain is about, and also this need we have as human beings for connection. Spirituality really is this need we seem to have as human beings to be connected to something greater than ourselves. So we have this part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, which allows us to think into the future and when we think into the future, we gain security when we see a future of connectivity, of attachment. That becomes a workable definition of spirituality. So many of us feel connected to a higher power, to God or to nature, but that is also a common reflection of what people refer to as love, and again you can choose to understand its biological origins. The body will be connected up with that whole experience, so your heart will be connected up. If you’re feeling connected to God, or to the scene of an ocean, and you’re feeling connected to the universe, when you’re looking up at the stars, there will be a bodily sensation connected up with that experience, and that will become for you part of what you understand to be spirituality.

Quantum entanglement is an interesting phenomenon. Two or more quantum particles can be linked together in a special way; this makes them behave like one entity. A change in one of the constituent particles can instantly be observed in the other, independent of the distance between the particles. This phenomenon was called “entanglement” by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger. The basics of quantum entanglement (1) and quantum computers (2) are discussed in recent articles in The Fountain magazine. Some physicists (3, 4, 5) explain this phenomenon by suggesting that the two entangled particles are actually a single particle that can be observed from two different locations in the universe at the same time point, as if they have been created to appear as a pair. At the quantum level, the definitions of space and time become obscure. An atom can be in two distant locations at the same time, but this may not be the case for a paper clip. What about dozens or thousands of atoms? Where is the line between atoms and a paper clip?

Entanglement has already been experimented on atoms (6) and observed in biological systems at room temperatures. A recent study (7) found the first evidence of biological organisms showing strange quantum behaviors. Researchers from UC Berkeley believe that they have observed quantum entanglement occurring in photosynthesis. The possibility of using these molecules for quantum information processing at room temperature may open the doors for photosynthetic quantum computers. This finding could lead to solar cells that are more efficient than today’s photovoltaic cells.

Quantum entanglement has many areas of application, including secure encryption (8), ultra-fast quantum computers (9), ghost imaging (10), teleportation (11), and perhaps the most interesting one, telepathy (12). Telepathy is described as the transfer of thought or feeling from one person to another without using known channels of communication. Fredric W. H. Myers, founder of the Society for Psychical Research, coined the term, telepathy, in 1882 to replace the earlier expression thought-transference. Telepathy is one of the main branches of parapsychological research, and has been studied to try to detect, understand, and utilize phenomena (13). It is often accepted that there is a connection between telepathy and other paranormal phenomena, such as precognition, clairvoyance and empathy. The existence of telepathy has been confirmed through many scientific experiments (12). However there is no accepted mechanism that explains how telepathy works. It remains controversial and is not widely accepted by scientists.

It is always appealing to perceive a phenomenon as happening from nothing or without a cause, as often happens in movies or dreams. But is this realistic? There are many mechanisms, structures, and reactions we can observe in nature which cannot be understood with our current knowledge. One can quickly make a list of things that cannot be explained by science today. It is believed that there is a cause and effect relation, and a reasonable explanation for everything in this universe. Some will push this further to offer an incredible prize for an opposite claim. The JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation) has offered a one-million-dollar prize (14) to the person who can show (under proper experimental conditions) evidence of any paranormal or supernatural event. They will remove telepathy from the list of supernatural events if it can be achieved during a controlled experiment.

Some researchers claim that there is a connection between quantum theory and telepathy. One theory is that the human mind has abilities that influence and receive “quantum fluctuations” from other minds. Another theory explains this instantaneous communication with quantum entanglement. Gao Shen, at the Institute of Quantum Physics in Beijing, China, has conducted experiments (12) to understand this connection by monitoring synchronous EEG patterns between two hypothetically “entangled” minds.

There are many natural events in our daily life that might seem like telepathy. You might hear something from one of your friends or relatives, for example, that they can perceive a phenomenon like an injury or illness to a close person from a distance. Many people claim that they have this kind of experience, especially twins with one another, or mothers and children. Are all these people in close relationships-twins, couples, siblings, parent and child-also sharing quantum entangled particles?

Humans are not the only subjects that show telepathic properties. It has reported (15) that intact double-stranded DNA has an ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands. This recognition occurs between sequences of several hundred nucleotides without physical contact or the presence of proteins. The way they identify one another and combine chemically is not fully understood. This behavior can be observed in water that contains no proteins or other material that could interfere with the reaction. There needs to be some sort of communication, attraction or guidance between individual DNA strands to explain this behavior. Do these DNA strands communicate through entangled particles?

Could this telepathic behavior of DNA be the explanation of the power of extra sensory perception between people close to each other? Are we all entangled with one another with invisible bonds, existing since the time of Adam and Eve? Is it all because of the genetic inheritance in our DNA? Do our actions affect others, even if we have no direct connection or relation to them? Maybe all the living things and our lives in this universe are a part of a single mechanism, guided and connected in a special way we cannot understand with our current scientific knowledge.

Einstein pointed (16) out the illusion of separateness: “A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe’; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as someone separated from the rest’a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

All these intriguing features of the quantum world can promise new ways of communication, including telepathy. Recent developments in quantum physics, observing entanglement in atoms and biological systems, mysterious communication between DNA strands, and telepathic connection between humans are all pieces of an unsolved puzzle. When we think about how we perceive this world with our known physical senses, and how it might be with other unknown perspectives, we can then wonder what percentage of things in our universe we have not been able to see or know. There is a long way to go before understanding the universe with our limited perspectives and physical senses.

Acknowledgment: This article was produced in MERGEOUS (17), an online article and project development service for authors and publishers dedicated to the advancement of technologies in the merging realm of science and religion.

References

(1) S. Candaroglu, “Quantum Entanglement: Illusion or Reality?”. Fountain, Issue 61 January – February, 2008.

(2) O. D. Ikramoglu, “Quantum-Inspired World of Computers: Science or Fiction?”. Fountain, Issue 74, March – April, 2010.

(3) M. A. Nielsen and I. L. Chuang, Quantum Information and Quantum Computing (Cambridge U. Press, 2000).

(4) Ryszard Horodecki, Pawe Horodecki, Micha Horodecki, Karol Horodecki, Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 865-942 (2009).

(5) M. Genovese, Cosmology and entanglement, Adv. Sci. Lett. 2, 303-309 (2009).

(6) S. Olmschenk, D.N. Matsukevich, P. Maunz, D. Hayes, L. M. Duan, C. Monroe, “Quantum Teleportation Between Distant Matter Qubits”. Science, 323, 5913, 486-489, 2009.

(7) M. Sarovar, A. Ishizaki, G. R. Fleming, K. B. Whaley, “Quantum entanglement in photosynthetic light harvesting complexes”. arXiv:0905.3787v1 (quant-ph), 2009.

(8) H. K. Lo, and N. Lutkenhaus, “Quantum Cryptography: from Theory to Practice”. arXiv:quantph/0702202, 2007.

(9) D. P. DiVincenzo, “Quantum Computation”. Science, 270, 5234, 255-261. doi:10.1126/science.270.5234.255, 1995.

(10) M. D’Angelo, Y.H. Kim, S.P. Kulik, Y. Shih, “Identifying entanglement using quantum ghost interference and imaging”, Physical review letters, 2004.

(11) D. Bouwmeester, J.W. Pan, K. Mattle, M. Eibl, H. Weinfurter, A. Zeilinger, “Experimental Quantum Teleportation”. Nature, 390, 6660, 575-579, 1997.

(12) S. Gao, “A Primary Quantum Model of Telepathy”. 2003. (Preprint)

(13) Wikipedia, Telepathy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telepathy.

(14) James Randi Educational Foundation, “One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge”, Available online http://www.randi.org/research/index.html

(15) G. S. Baldwin, N. J. Brooks, R. E. Robson, A. Wynveen, A. Goldar, S. Leikin, J. M. Seddon, and A. A. Kornyshev, “DNA Double Helices Recognize Mutual Sequence Homology in a Protein Free Environment”. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 112, 4, 1060-1064, 2008.

(16) Elise’s collection of favorite quotes, http://elise.com/quotes/

(17) Mergeous, Online article and project development service, http://www.mergeous.com/

“… there is a stable order in the world as well as a well-established connection, constant norms and fundamental laws. In this sense, the world is analogous to a clock or a well-designed machine. Every single wheel, every single screw, every single nail not only has a role in order of a machine and an impact in its final benefit but also positive consequences for all living beings, especially for humans.” (Signs of Miraculousness, Seven Heavens, p. 186)

There is a strong parallel between the general principles to be observed for a healthy social structure in a society and the necessary conditions that enable cells to make up a healthy tissue. The laws prevalent in the universe present amazing parallels since they derive from the same divine source. In order to have healthy development in societies, it is necessary to have healthy connections, reciprocal understanding, and correct information transfer between people. Similarly, having healthy cells, which can be considered as micro-societies, also depends on the cells’ continual use of complex signal connection networks and their maintenance of connections with their environments. In order to maintain a harmonious and healthy life in the cell, there must be dense information transfer (through chemical molecules) at all levels with neighbor cells. Thanks to the connection networks that start at their membranes, cells can recognize warnings coming to them and produce responses. Through such information networks, a continuous connection is established in living organisms, starting from their lowest level mechanisms (i.e. molecules in cells and organelles) to their highest level mechanisms (i.e. organs, systems, organisms, populations, ecosystems), in order to ensure a healthy and harmonious processes of development, reproduction, differentiation and aging. Organized as a tissue (micro-society), one of the most amazing features of cells is the way they behave in accord with the society they live in, rather than acting as individualistic beings. Cells behave in a way to make micro-societies possible. In cytology (study of cells), this feature is known as “contact inhibition” (i.e. maintenance of healthy and harmonious operation and development that is based on connection), and its damage may lead to cancer. Every cell is sensitively programmed to receive all signals, coming from inside and outside, and to manage the proper responses to them. Here, the question arises whether a lack or disorder of connection is caused by pathological conditions in cells or whether the emergence of pathological conditions is caused by connection problems. It is generally assumed that, molecular changes in the cell occur first (i.e. mutation) and then this mutation leads to abnormalities and connection problems at the levels of tissue, organ, and even organism. Damage to communication or connection and disorders in this system are a very important reason for the appearance of some pathological conditions (such as an abnormal increase of cells, cancer and death). Thus, diagnosis and treatment of many diseases today depends on knowledge of how biological communication and connection are harmoniously established.

Cells are designed to control their behavior through special signal molecules that can themselves function as stimulatory. For instance, using signal molecules, cells can establish colonies or biofilms. Moreover, plant cells, through channels known as plasmodesmata, maintain their connection with neighboring cells and trade certain materials. In the state of illness, the density (among cells) of signal molecules that are transferred in the plasmodesmata changes.

Hormones, reproduction factors and neurotransmitters are charged with ensuring transportation and communication at different levels. Cell and tissue elasticity and their adaptability are increased by this diversity in signal operations. Different ways are used to transmit signals into the cell depending upon the characteristics of the signals. For example, hydrophobic (water-avoiding) molecules like steroid hormone pass directly through the cell membrane and connect to their receptors in the cell. The receptors that are responsible for decoding genes stimulate the decoding of related genes. If a problem (mutation) occurs in the molecules that are responsible for transportation and communication, the transportation and communication breaks down and the cancer process is triggered. The existence of continuously reproducing cells in inappropriate times and places is an important symptom of cancer initiation. For example, in colon and rectum cancer, if a mutation occurs on the Ras protein, which is one of the signal proteins that takes the “Reproduce!” message from the cell membrane the cutting off of the GTP molecule, which is responsible for turning the signal molecule on and off, is blocked, and since the molecule stays permanently active a signal like “Reproduce!” is permanently sent inside the cell. Thus, the benefits of the medicines that are used in cancer treatment and that show their effects by hindering signals on the cell membrane level are observed in the non-existence of this mutation on Ras proteins. If the mutation happens the medicines mentioned above cannot be effective. Today, the presence of the mutation can be determined by a biopsy taken from the patient, thus, it has become possible to choose the type of therapy that will be most helpful to that person.

Communication inside the cell can be carried out through ion channels (such as sodium, potassium, and calcium). These channels in membrane behave selectively for every different ion. For example, while voltage-gated channels open and close according to electric charge ligand, (key)-gated (receptor) channels let ions transfer when ligands are tied up. Sodium and potassium ions and the molecular channels that these two passes are responsible for organizing the changes that effect the communication of nerves in the membrane potential. The calcium channel, on the other hand, plays an important role in muscle contraction, and biological incidents like the formation and deformation of bone.

In recent years, the proteins (matrix) that fill the vacancies among cells have been shown to be the main actor in the general control of communication between cells and in the integration of signals coming from their surroundings by hundreds of proofs. It has been pointed out that CCN proteins, which are one of the adaptors, as well as proteins with multiple modules that are responsible for the connection between cell membranes and matrix proteins have a regulatory role at different levels in the control of signal transfers in ion channels, cell differentiation, adherence of cells to each other, cell collapse, programmed cell-death, cartilage formation and the synthesis of new veins. The multi-dimensional and dynamic communication and connections mentioned above related to cells also apply to people. When individuals develop a healthy connection between their inner world and other people, a healthy society emerges. Every individual is granted these potential connection points, which make the existence of an individual possible. The development of a healthy person depends upon activating these connections, organizing them dynamically and keeping them active.

If we place human beings at the center of creation, the first connection that the individuals should make between their Creator and their ego (nafs) is called worship. The ego is both a help and a hindrance to the construction of this connection. The second connection, which is between individuals and their friends, is ensured by good morals, good conduct, and personal virtue. The construction of a healthy social life depends on how many people have good morals, good conduct and virtuous character in a society. If virtue is not accompanied by knowledge, it is highly unlikely that knowledge will raise an individual to a standard of human perfection.

The third essential, the individual’s healthy connection with their surroundings is established through the “ecological dimension of ego,” which is sensitive to the external world. It is very difficult for people whose dimension of ego, which is sensitive to ecological problems and the environment, has not developed to keep the environment clean and take precautions against pollution. The fourth connection that individuals should establish is the connection with their internal world (heart-consciousness, transcendental ego, real self). “O Man! Know yourself first!” and, “The one that knows himself knows his God,” are expressions pointing out the importance of this connection.

For individuals, groups, and societies to have a healthy life as well as to maintain their health at all levels depends on activating these four connections, in other words, establishing coordination and harmony among them and then maintaining this state. When one ignores one of the connections or some of them, or when the coordination between these connections is defective, troubles and illnesses at various levels emerge. Hence, the links that a healthy individual establishes may include those in civil society organizations, and through these further networked and reciprocal communications. Like our cells, which maintain their connection with their environment and neighboring cells via the “contact inhibition” mechanism so that we feel healthy, for people to become healthy at personal and societal level, individuals should actively join civil society organizations and service-centered communities that can enable activation of these four connections and ensure harmony and coordination among them. The Islamic scholar, Bediüzzaman Said Nursi paid special attention to connection in the letters he wrote to his students (the Kastamonu letters) and highlighted it as a point of progress that should be reached:

Since, in today’s world, saving people’s belief for the sake of God is a very important mission that is above everything; since quantity is not very significant compared to quality; since transient and changing political worlds are trivial compared to everlasting, constant, stable services in the name of God-they should not be even compared; they can never be objectives; therefore, we should be satisfied with valuable positions that are granted in the circle of Risale-i Nur. Instead of having extremely well-thoughts about other people or seeing them at high positions superfluously, we need to have extreme loyalty and steadfastness, and utmost connection and sincerity. We should have progress on these points.

Hamza Aydin has a PhD in bio-medicine. He is a freelance writer from Izmir, Turkey.

The heart is the home of God; purify it from whatever is other than Him
So that the All-Merciful may descend into His palace at night.

The word “Qalb” (heart) has two meanings. One denotes the body’s most vital organ, which is located on the left side of the chest. With respect to its structure and tissue, the heart is different from all other bodily parts: it has two auricles and two ventricles, is the origin of all arteries and veins, works by itself, like a motor, and, like a suction pump, moves blood through the system.

In Sufi terminology, the spiritual heart is the center of all emotions and (intellectual and spiritual) faculties, such as perception, consciousness, the senses, reasoning, and willpower. Sufis call it the “human truth”; philosophers call it the “speaking selfhood.” An individual’s real nature is found in the heart. With respect to this intellectual and spiritual aspect of existence, one is able to know, perceive, and understand. Spirit is the essence and inner dimension of this faculty; the biological spirit or the soul is its mount.

It is one’s heart that God addresses and it is this that undertakes responsibilities, suffers punishment or is rewarded, is elevated through true guidance or debased through deviation, and is honored or humiliated. The heart is also the “polished mirror” in which Divine knowledge is reflected.

The heart both perceives and is perceived. The believer uses it to penetrate his or her soul, corporeal existence and mind, for it is like the eye of the spirit. Insight may be regarded as its faculty of sight, reason as its spirit, and will as its inner dynamics.

The heart or spiritual intellect, if we may so call it, has an intrinsic connection with its biological counterpart. The nature of this connection has been discussed by philosophers and Muslim sages for centuries. Of whatever nature this connection may be, it is beyond doubt that there is a close connection between the biological heart and the “spiritual” one, which is a Divine faculty, the center of true humanity, and the source of all human feelings and emotions.

In the Qur’an, religious sciences, morals, literature, and Sufism, the word “heart” signifies the spiritual heart. Belief, knowledge and love of God, and spiritual delight are the objectives to be won through this Divine faculty. The heart is a luminous, precious ore with two aspects, one looking to the spiritual world and the other to the corporeal, material world. If an individual’s corporeal existence or physical body is directed by the spirit, the heart conveys to the body the spiritual effusions or the gifts it receives through the world of the spirit, and enables the body to breathe with peace and tranquility.

As stated above, God considers one’s heart. He treats men and women according to the quality of their hearts, as the heart is the stronghold of many elements vital to the believer’s spiritual life and humanity: reason, knowledge, knowledge of God, intention, belief, wisdom, and nearness to God Almighty. If the heart is alive, all of these elements and faculties are alive; if the heart is diseased, it is difficult for the elements and faculties mentioned to remain sound. The truthful and confirmed one, upon him be peace and blessings, declared: There is a fleshy part in the body. If it is healthy, then the whole of the body is healthy. If it is corrupted, then all the body is corrupted. Beware! That part is the heart. This saying shows the importance of the heart for one’s spiritual health.

The heart has another aspect or function, one that is actually more important than those already mentioned: The heart has points of reliance and the seeking of help ingrained in it, as well as in human nature, by which the heart enables the individual to perceive God as the All-Helping and All-Maintaining. That is, the heart always reminds one of God in terms of need, seeking help and protection. This is vividly expressed in a narrated Prophetic Tradition, which Ibrahim Haqqi relates as follows:

God said: “Neither the heavens nor the earth can contain Me.”

He is known and recognized as a “Treasure” hidden in the heart by the heart itself.

The individual’s body is the physical dimension of his or her existence, while one’s heart constitutes its spiritual dimension. For this reason, the heart is the direct, eloquent, most articulate, splendid, and truthful tongue of the knowledge of God. Therefore, it is regarded as more valuable and honored than the Ka‘ba, and accepted as the only exponent of the sublime truth expressed by the whole of creation to make God known.

The heart also is a fortress in which one can maintain sound reasoning and thinking, as well as a healthy spirit and body. As all human feelings and emotions take shelter and seek protection in this fortress, the heart must be protected and kept safe from infection. If the heart is infected, it will be very difficult to restore it; if it dies, it is almost impossible to revive it. The Qur’an, by advising us to pray: Our Lord! Do not cause our hearts to swerve after You have guided us (Al Imran 3:7), and our master, upon him be peace and blessings, by his supplication: O God, O Converter of hearts! Establish our hearts firmly on Your religion, remind us of the absolute need to preserve the heart.

Just as the heart can function as a bridge by which all good and blessings may reach the believer, it can also become a means by which Satanic and carnal temptations and vices can enter. When set on God and guided by Him, the heart resembles a projector that diffuses light to even the furthest, remotest, and darkest corners of the body. If it is commanded by the (inherently evil) self, it can become a target for Satan’s poisonous arrows. The heart is the native home of belief, worship, and perfect virtue; a river gushing with inspiration and radiation arising from the relationships among God, humanity, and the universe. Unfortunately, innumerable adversaries seek to destroy this home, to block this river or divert its course: hardness of heart (losing the ability to feel and believe), unbelief, conceit, arrogance, worldly ambition, greed, excessive lust, heedlessness, selfishness, and attachment to status.

Notes

1. Bukhari, Iman, 39; Muslim, Musaqat, 107.
2. Tirmidhi, Qadar, 7; Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 6 vols. (Beirut, 1969), 6:302.

The rational attempt to combine philosophy and wisdom and the refutation of this possibility by human experience must have been matters that preoccupied Nursi’s thought for a long time. This must have prompted him to review his philosophical position and, consequently, reconsider the established view among Islamic philosophers that philosophy and wisdom are connected in an inclusive way, like siblings or in an associative way, like friends.

It is at this point in his life that the “New Said”² appeared. He shed his old philosophical guise and put on a new one, the robe of wisdom. Here we see the demise of Said the philosopher and the birth of the New Said. This radical transformation in the life of Said Nursi has two aspects; one critical and the other constructive. In this article, we will discuss the critical aspect. Said Nursi’s revolution and the criticism of the connection between philosophy and wisdom.

The critical aspect of this transformation can be seen in Nursi’s preoccupation with the criticism of the combination between philosophy and wisdom in its inclusive and associative forms. This was a triple criticism: logical, moral, and figural. This is not to be wondered at, because basically the sage does not stop at the logical criticism of views as does the philosopher. He goes beyond to the moral criticism of views, since he does not regard these views as abstract, but as linked to praxis and would thus re-evaluate them in accordance with their practical effects. He then goes a step further and examines the views from the point of view of their aesthetic value, thus producing a figural criticism.

We can start by showing how Nursi exercised such a triple criticism on the first connection between philosophy and wisdom (i.e., an inclusive connection). In the writings of Nursi, this inclusive connection is built on two basic principles: ¹) The Principle of Founding Tradition on Reason: this stipulates that tradition (i.e., transferred religious knowledge) should be interpreted on the basis of reason when it appears that it (i.e., tradition) contradicts reason. ²) The Principle of Using Reason in Tradition: this stipulates that rational concepts are means to the explanation of the facts of the tradition.

1. The criticism of the inclusive connection between philosophy and wisdom

a) Logical criticism: Said Nursi holds the view that the founding of tradition on reason, on which the inclusive connection is based, is a baseless option because reason is no less in need of foundation than tradition. Such a foundation cannot come by way of reason itself as long as this reason consists one of “that which is circulating among the people”³ and is not a new kind of reason of which philosophy has no knowledge.⁴ Moreover, this principle leads to the interpretation of tradition in a manner that becomes distorted as the reason known among people does not have the scope, objectivity, or freedom that are required for the understanding of tradition.⁵

Nursi also believes that the principle of using the concepts of reason to explain the meanings of tradition, on which the first kind of connection between philosophy and wisdom is based, does not exalt tradition but, rather, denigrates it by creating the impression that the rational bases are deeper and more stable than the bases of tradition. Moreover, reason is useless in defeating opponents, because it remains confined to warding off objections in an abstract rational way acceptable by the opponents. Reason does not, however, rise to presenting the facts of tradition in a manner that combines the heart and the mind and which could characterize these truths.⁶ It may, indeed, lead to the full distortion of these truths.⁷

b) Moral criticism: Nursi stresses that the adoption by the philosopher of the foundation of tradition on reason makes the heart ache with ills that are surmounted by arrogance as the philosopher creates a criterion for measuring the Revelation with his defective and limited mind, that is, speech with boundless perfection.⁸ He also stresses that the use of philosophical concepts in Qur’anic studies-particularly natural and metaphysical ones-leads those who do so to the deification of nature and the abandonment of the deification of the Creator.

c) Figural criticism: For Nursi, the philosopher who advocates an inclusive connection between philosophy and wisdom is like one who is walking through a tunnel or one who is seeking shelter in a cave,⁹ thus becoming a ghost who is invisible though his identity is known and his traces can be seen. He ends by suffocating in this tunnel before completing the journey. The standing of such a person, as defined in the Qur’an – the essence of wisdom – is that of the misguided.¹⁰

Hence, Nursi thinks that the two philosophers whom he frequently mentions, Al Farabi and Ibn Sina, are among those who are misguided,¹¹ because they advocated an inclusive link between philosophy and wisdom; a view similar to the sophistry of the Christians. Ibn Sina went further than Al Farabi¹² in enacting that view. Since Nursi was deceived by their cunning and believed that their view was true, he himself was on the verge of becoming misguided like them, but for the shining of God’s name Al-Hakim (the All-Wise) to guide him and correct his thoughts and deeds.

Acting on the principle of the inclusive connection between philosophy and wisdom leads a person to become weak in faith and argument, to cling to appearances, to become conceited and misguided.

We turn now to the second mode of connection between philosophy and wisdom, the associative one, to see how Nursi exercised his triple criticism. This mode, as we said, is based on three principles: astonishment, questioning, and proof-finding.

The criticism of the associative connection between philosophy and wisdom.

a) Logical criticism: Regarding the principle of philosophical astonishment,¹³ what actually happens is that philosophy does not act upon a sense of the wondrous and miraculous, but rather on that of the strange and anomalous.¹⁴ There is a wide gap between the two feelings. The first stems from the perfection of creation in things, while the second emanates from the imperfection in those things. Most of philosophical knowledge is built on what is familiar and ordinary. However, when it speculates on what is miraculous or supernatural, philosophy still takes the familiar (maruf) as its basis.

As for the principle of philosophical questioning,¹³ it is uncontrolled in its objectives concerning beings, thus falling into confusion and dissipation in every direction. Such an approach does not attain the required answers, leading the questioner to excessive perplexity or even great torment.¹⁵

Concerning the principle of philosophical proof-finding,¹³ the proof is a series of propositions under perpetual threat of invalidation. If we wish to ward off that threat, we have to supply proof for each of these propositions through another series of propositions that are, in turn, open to invalidation and so on. We have barely warded off invalidation from one series of propositions when we have to bring many others to it, and this process continues incessantly.¹⁶

b) Moral criticism: Since philosophical astonishment fundamentally is a sense of the strange and is never a sense of wonder, it leads the philosopher to two pitfalls: One is “blocking off the extrapolation of lessons”; if philosophy does not wonder at the ordinary and familiar, then it does not enable the philosopher to extrapolate lessons and wisdom from what is ordinary and familiar. The other pitfall is “opening the path to the denial of God”; if philosophy throws a veil of familiarity on things, it prevents the realization of divine power and the acceptance of its infinite graces.

Since philosophical questioning is an uncontrolled process, it leads to two things, both of which are fatal deprivations. One is “that it loses the mystery of the oneness of God.” Raising too many questions without guiding objectives or satisfactory answers betrays the fact that the question is deprived from the mystery of the oneness of God. Were the philosopher aware of that mystery, his questions would revolve on set goals and he would attain the answers to them within the framework of those goals that are derived from the oneness of God.¹⁷ The second is “the loss of the feeling of happiness”, because the philosopher, failing to find answers to his various questions or to achieve responses for his various demands, will find himself in great misery.¹⁸

Since philosophical proof-finding is a chain of propositions that is open to invalidation, it leads to two things, both of which are great evils. One is “clinging to the created causes rather than Creator.” Philosophy confines its evidence-seeking to created beings rather than the Almighty Creator or, as Nursi puts it, philosophy examines at these beings as names and not as particles.¹⁹ Inevitably, such an approach leads the philosopher to the worship of natural causes.²⁰ Second, is “clinging to the self alone.” Just as the philosophizing person examines beings in their natural causes, he also looks at himself in the same way; i.e. as an object,²¹ thus falling into self-worship.²²

c) Figural Criticism: For Nursi, the philosopher who advocates an association between philosophy and wisdom is like one who walks in a vast desert, subjected to terrors on every side, such as the fury of the sea, the danger of storms, or the darkness of the sky. These will scatter his dismembered body along the road and his condition will be like that assigned in the Qur’an to those on whom God’s anger descends.²³

If we compare this figural criticism of the associative mode with the previous figural criticism of the inclusive mode, we will find that those who advocate figural criticism are worse off than those who propound the latter. The fact that the former walks on the face of the earth or under the sky – the symbol of Revelation – and the sun – the symbol of light – indicates that his challenge of the divinity of the All- Wise is far greater than the arrogance of the other philosopher who only seeks a path under the ground, where there is no sun and no sky. Also, the fact that the associative advocate”s dismembered body is thrown by the sea onto the side of the road indicates that his deed is like that of a Pharaoh and he, therefore, deserves the same fate in dying and becoming a lesson to others.²⁴ The other philosopher, the advocate of the inclusive mode, is only seen as a ghost. Hence, his body will not be left behind for people as a lesson, but only his traces will serve that function. Consequently, the great peripatetic philosopher, who is only sparingly mentioned by Nursi, Ibn Rushd, is counted by him among those who are an object of God”s wrath,²⁵ because he advocated an associative mode between philosophy and wisdom and acted accordingly. In this, Ibn Rushd became a renegade, like the rebelling Jews.²⁶ Nursi was also deceived by Ibn Rushd’s cunning and held his opinion to be true. Thus, he also was in danger of being exposed to God”s wrath but for the name of God the Merciful (Al Rahim) shining on him to guide him to the Straight Path. Acting on the principle of association between philosophy and wisdom leads to a person”s losing insight and awareness and failing to admit God”s graces. Such a person will neither be happy, nor saved.

* This is an abridged version of Prof Abdel Rahman’s article which was published in Hira (issues 3 and 4, 2006), a quarterly magazine in Arabic (www.hiramagazine.com).

Notes

1. . This study institutes a basic move in terminology: the word ‘philosophy’ is used to designate the knowledge posited by man, thus speaking of ‘human philosophy,’ but not employing the term ‘Qur’anic philosophy.’ On the other hand the term ‘wisdom’ is used here to designate knowledge revealed by God.
2. . Nursi was actively involved in the social and political life before World War I. After the war he perceived that a religious revival was possible only through an intellectual enlightenment using sciences and spiritual illumination through faith, worship, and good morality. He later called this change of perception as the transition from the Old Said to New Said.
3. . We find this description in the following passage: ‘I saw God”s laws as mountains hanging from the sky. Anyone who clings even to a part thereof will ascend and be happy. I say that anyone who goes against those laws, relying on the mind circulating among men in an attempt to reach the paths of heavens through earthly means, is a fool like the Pharaoh who wanted his minister Haman to build him a tower (of clay to reach the sky).’, The Arab Nuri Mathnawi, p. 165.
4. . He says: ‘It is an established principle that if reason and tradition contradict one another, reason would be deemed the basis and the tradition would be interpreted accordingly. But for this to proceed, the reason should be a genuine one.’ The Polishing Stone of Islam, p. 29.
5. . He says: ‘Know you philosophizing person who upholds reason over tradition and who accordingly interprets the tradition that you distort the tradition as your mind, made rotten by vanity and the immersion in philosophical matters, was not capacious enough for the tradition… Your mind is your shackle and by tradition you are transported.’ The Arab Nuri Mathnawi, p. 190.
6. . He says: ‘In this way, they do not manage to give the true image of Islam conforming to that form of action. They graft the tree of Islam with the twigs of wisdom, which they think deep-rooted, as if they are thus strengthening Islam. But triumphing over the enemies through this mode of action is not of much weight. Also this mode implies some denigration of Islam. Therefore, I abandoned this method and actually demonstrated that Islam”s foundations are so profound and well-established that the deepest bases of philosophy cannot reach them, but must always remain superficial in comparison to them.’ Writings, pp. 569-570.
7. . The Polishing Stone of Islam, p. 35-36.
8. . He says: ‘How ignorant is he who grew vain with the philosophical arts rendering them the criterion for the sacred studies of the Qur’an.’ The Arab Nuri Mathnawi, p. 77. Elsewhere, he says: ‘I have witnessed the growth of the philosophical science in the growth of sickness and seen the growth of sickness in the increase of rational science. For the moral illnesses are conducive to rational sciences just as the latter breed illnesses of the heart.’ Ibid., p. 158.
9. . The symbol of the ‘cave’ in Said Nursi The Sage has the converse significance of the ‘cave’ in Plato and the ‘vault’ in Descartes. For Plato, those who descend into the cave are the ignorant who know only the shadow of things, compared to the philosopher who knows the essences of things themselves (The Republic. Book Seven) For Descartes, they are the blind people who live in utter darkness, compared to the philosopher who lives in bright light (An Essay in Method. Part Six). For Nursi, on the other hand, the one who seeks shelter in a cave is the philosopher himself, whom Plato deems as the truly knowledgeable person, and whom Descartes holds to be the truly insightful person.
10. . He says: ‘Thus, the first path is that of the misguided, described in the Qur’an as the ‘stray’. This is the path of those who fell to the idea of Nature and adopted the ideas of naturalists…’ Words, p. 650.
11. . He says: ‘This earth is “nature” and “natural philosophy”. The tunnel is the path taken by the people of philosophy with their ideas in a bid to reach the truth. The footprints I saw were those of famous philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. The voices I heard were those of cunning ones like Ibn Sina and Al Farabi… Yes, I found sayings and tenets by Ibn Sina in several places, but these voices totally ceased; in a sense he could not make progress. He suffocated.’ Words, p. 648.
12. . Signs of Miraculousness, p. 36.
13. . The ground for the view of associative connection between philosophy and wisdom is the belief that philosophy acts on three principles that are not found in wisdom: One, the Principle of Astonishment: the philosophical act has its origin in the feeling of astonishment vis A vis the effects left on the psyche or the things on the horizon. Two, the Principle of Questioning: the philosopher poses one series of questions after another series, looking for answers to them. Three, the Principle of Proof-finding: in proving its tenets, philosophy relies on intellectual evidence that may attain the highest degree of certainty.
14. . He says: ‘The philosophy reached by man veils the miracles of divine might and the marvels of the Almighty”s mercy by the curtain of uniformities, causing a failure to see the signs of (God”s) oneness under these regularities and these great blessings. It does not show them nor indicate them. However, if philosophy perceives some special peculiarities that depart from custom, it directs its attention and concern to them.’ Annexes, p. 358
15. . He says: ‘If that mind becomes confounded in the mire of misguidance and the denial of God, it becomes an instrument of torture and a cause for disturbance in its combination of the sad pains of the past and the terrible fears of the future.’, Illuminations, p. 19.
16. . He says: ‘The difference between my path in the distilling of benefit from the Qur’an and the method of thinkers and philosophers is that I dig wherever I am and water comes out. They, on the other hand, insist on laying pipes and ducts to bring the water from afar. They build long chains and ladders to the Throne above to bring down the water of life. As they rely on these causes, they have to place millions of proof-keepers all along these lengthy roads to preserve them from the destructiveness of the devils of illusions.’ The Arab Nuri Mathnawi, p. 170.
17. . He says: ‘With the secret of the oneness of God, the sealed secret of the perplexing questions is uncovered. From whence comes the flood of existing beings and the train of creatures? Whither is fate? Why did they come and what are they doing…’, Illuminations, p. 14.
18. . He says: ‘But for the oneness of God, man would have been the most wretched of creatures, the lowest of beings, the weakest of animals, and the saddest and most tortured and pained of sentiments. Illuminations, p. 18.
19. . He says: ‘The Qur’anic view of beings makes them like particles; i.e. they express a meaning that resides elsewhere. They express the epiphany of the Best Names and the Supreme Attributes of the Great Creator that are manifested in beings. On the other hand, the dead look of – materialistic – philosophy mostly views the beings as names [whose meaning resides in them] and its foot thereby slips into the slough of nature.’ Annexes, p. 90.
20. . He says: ‘As for philosophy, it looks at existing beings from the point of view of their aspects that regard their entities and their causes.’ The Arab Nuri Mathnawi, p. 77.
21. . Words, p. 646.
22. . He says: ‘The misguided people of this age ride on the “ego” that roams with them in the valleys of loss. The righteous people cannot serve the Truth except by abandoning the ego. Even if they are right and correct in their use of the ego, they have to leave it behind so that they will not look like the others, because then they would be, like them, suspected of self-worship.’ Writings, p. 549.
23. . He says: ‘The second path alluded to – ‘those who are the objects of God”s anger’ – is that of those who worship causes and consider that creation and creating are the acts of intermediaries, which alone, in their view, are effective. They want to reach the Truth of truths and God, the Exalted, through mind and thought alone like the peripatetic sages.’ Words, p. 650.
24. . This an illusion to the Qur’anic verse: ‘Today we save your body alone to make you a sign for those who come after us. Many are heedless of our signs.’ The Sura Yunus, verse 29.
25. . Nursi avoids mentioning Ibn Rushd by name – contrary to what he did with Al Arabi and Ibn Sina – but he refers to him by referring to the quality he was famous for; i.e. as ‘the Cynic’, since he is the greatest exegete of Aristotle. We do not wish to go into the reasons that led him to such circumspection here. It is enough to say that he may have done so in kindness to Ibn Rushd and as a gesture of politeness to his contemporary followers.
26. . The Signs of Miraculousness, p. 36.

ATM is currently one of the most attractive technologies in the digital data communications field. In ATM, information is transmitted in short fixed-length blocks that are called cells (Figure 1). An ATM cell consists of a header and a data field that carries the actual information-either video, voice or data. The cell header contains a label denoting the routing address.

Not only was ATM created to overcome the difficulties in existing transfer methods but also to allow the creation of a Broadband Integrated Service Digital Network (B-ISDN).

Transmission speeds up to the physical limits (e.g., 622.05 Mbps signaling rate nowadays) are achievable with ATM. By contrast, there are limitations to the upgrading possible, with the most popular traditional Local Area Network (LAN) topologies (e.g., Ethernet and Token Ring), to higher bandwidth, which means incapacity to support current and of course future real-time applications.

Although the connection-oriented ATM was initially designed for Wide Area Networks (WANs), its unique features including flexibility, scalability, high transfer capacity and support for multimedia applications, also fired the imagination of the LAN vendors in the early 1990s. Since ATM is suitable for both LANs and WANs, historical separation of traditional LANs that are connectionless and WANs that are connection-oriented will eventually disappear. This will form a universal platform for data communications as well as replace the conventional LAN topologies. With full deployment of ATM in design, manufacturing and maintenance of the future networks, the overall costs will be relatively smaller.

The traditional LANs use a shared media-access (e.g. bus) method. That means all stations of the network have to share one transmission medium and have to contend for access. The limitations of shared media-access method are overcome by the ATM’s new approach of switching systems based on central media-access management (Figure 2). Since each user has a dedicated connection to one of the ATM switch ports, users no longer need to contend for access as opposed to the legacy LANs. Moreover ATM LAN users are provided WAN services through another port on the LAN switch. On the other side, the traditional LANs have no direct wide-area capabilities-they must depend on a separate piece of equipment to convert the LAN rates and protocols into WAN-compatible format.

Problems that arise in transmission through the current networks of voice, video and data simultaneously (or in real-time) could well be prevented by using ATM.

With its low-cost networking and technology ATM will soon provide scientist and engineers greater global freedom to exchange data, images (e.g., medical imaging applications) and models in real-time. Beyond the physical boundaries of classrooms, students (especially disabled) will be able to be part of a class and interact with others just as though they were there using high-speed and reliable ATM networks.

GLOSSARY

B-ISDN: A high-speed (above 1.544 Mbps signaling rate) network standard that grew from traditional narrowband ISDN.

Connection-oriented: A network (e.g., WANs) that establishes, either permanently or on a call-by-call basis, a specific circuit path for transmission.

Connectionless: A network (e.g., legacy LANs) in which no particular path is established for the transfer of information.

Ethernet: A LAN using 10 Mbps signaling rate.

LAN: High-speed network connecting personal computers, printers, and other data equipment within an office or campus.

Mbps: Mega bit per second

Token Ring: A LAN using 4 or 16 Mbps signaling rate.

WAN: High-speed network connecting communications equipment nationally and internationally.

References

• PARULKAR G. M.: ‘Local ATM Networks’, IEEE Network March 1993, p.S-9.
• VENIERIS I. S., ANGELOPOULOS J. D. & STASSINOPOULOS G. I.:
• ‘Efficient Use of Protocol Stacks for LAN/MAN-ATM Interworking’, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications October 1993, 11(8) p.1160-1170,.
• KIM B.G. & WANG P.: ‘ATM Network: Goals and Challenges’, Communications of the ACM February 199538 (2), pp. 39-44.
• The ATM Forum: http:/ /www.atmforum.com/