The ACA Perspective

What is Applied Cosmic Anthropology

August 5, 2023

I've been teaching in the doctoral program on Applied Cosmic Anthropology (ACA) of the Asian Social Institute (ASI) since the early 1990s. In the process, I was able to come up with a working definition of what ACA means.

“Applied Cosmic Anthropology deals with the study of humanity (anthropology) from the perspective of the Cosmos (cosmology) utilizing a multidisciplinary approach with the view of transforming ourselves, our ecology, and our society (applied). It is cosmic in its perspective, multidisciplinary in its approach, and transformative in its goal”.

I have incorporated this definition in my books and YouTube presentations and discussed them extensively in class. Thanks for the inquiries.

1. Our Cosmic Origins, 2017

2. The Future of Humanity from the Perspective of Quantum Physics, 2018

3. My YouTube video, “The Cosmic Perspective", 2010

Introducing Cosmic Anthropology

March 13, 2010

I've been teaching this subject at the Asian Social Institute since the turn of the 21st century. In the process, I was able to put forward an alternative paradigm for looking at reality, both within and outside of us. I still find my theory on cosmic anthropology very much relevant today. It’s different from Anthropic Cosmology, introduced in 1973 by Australian physicist Brandon Carter in response to the Copernican principle that, according to him, demoted humanity from its privileged position within the Cosmos. While it can be advanced that the Cosmos is finely tuned for human existence, I suggest that the appearance of humanity in the universe makes the human species equal partner of the Cosmos. Humanity is not within or outside the Cosmos, but it is coequal with the Cosmos. The Cosmos embraces humanity and humanity envelops the Cosmos. The Cosmos is as much immanent and human as the human species is innately transcendent and cosmic. 

The photo below illustrates this

(1) The background is the Milky Way Galaxy of which our Solar System is part. The child at the center represents humanity being present in all the planets, stars, and galaxies.

(2) It shows the human face of the Cosmos, the place we call home. It seeks to bring home a message that we ought to treat our Planet Earth humanely, worthy of recognition and respect because we are products and creatures of the Cosmos.

(3) The Cosmos engulfs us, yet everything that is in us is in the Cosmos, including the forces that animate it. The Cosmos embraces us, so to say, in the same manner that we envelop the Cosmos. The Cosmos and us are one and the same. Humanity is entrusted with the responsibility fo continually protect, nourish, and sustain the health and life of the Cosmos.

(4) The Cosmos continues the process of creation through us. In the same way, the Cosmos continues to live and grow because of us.

(5) The Cosmos was created because of us. It knew we were coming and it prepared a smorgasbord of abundance for us that can last even if we will no longer be around. 

(6) The Cosmos mirrors us in the same manner that we are the perfect image of the Cosmos. What humanity is physically, mentally, psychically, and spiritually, the Cosmos is.

(7) Yet, we've been polluting our atmosphere with toxic wastes coming from fossil fuels, desecrating our forests, polluting our rivers, streams, and oceans with industrial wastes, in the process, killing those affected inhabitants mercilessly.

(8) We have done damage to our Cosmos. In retaliation, the Cosmos is fighting back against us at an even greater intensity, sending us floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, fires, earthquakes, threats of meteoric bombardments, deadly coronaviruses.

(9) And all these catastrophes are getting more fatal and frequent across the globe as days go by. Yes, what we have done to Nature has boomeranged on us. The Cosmos is violently waging war against us because, for so long, we have been hurting it and all the creatures in it.

(10) We need a new theory of cosmology (Cosmos) and a new theory of anthropology (Humanity). And we need to imbed it into our societal systems as our guide for governance and leadership.

(11) Viewing humanity from the cosmic perspective might still offer us a better alternative to transform ourselves, our society, and our environment.

(12) The cosmic perspective of viewing humanity entails going back to the ultimate beginning of all things, the time of the Big Bang, seeking explanations from that mysterious primordial atom that gave birth to all the forms and structures we see around us today.

(13) It necessitates going back even to the earlier beginnings of our life and existence for the purpose of searching explanations to such questions as:

-- Who or what are we?

-- Why do we exist at all?

-- What is our role in the entire cosmic design?

-- What is our future and destiny?

(14) Above all, it impels us to align ourselves--our thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and behavior--to the will and intent of the Cosmic Designer as well as to its laws and forces that direct and regulate our behavior.

(15) More and more individuals and institutions are now joining us towards total transformation through the lens of the Cosmos. It has been going on for the past decades now. It can no longer be stopped.

Come and join me in exploring humanity from the cosmic perspective, using quantum physics as a frame of reference. This is what the proposed cosmic anthropological model is all about. 

The Futility of Asking Questions and Looking for Answers

November 21, 2021

Events happening to us influence our ways of thinking, feeling, and behavior. They need to be considered in our ways of thinking, feeling, and behavior. The farther we are from the events happening around us, the less able are we to respond meaningfully to our most fundamental questions in life.

"Why am I here? What role am I to play? What is my mission right now? How about my future?"

Carl Jung continues to be idolized to this day:

"I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success of money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon. Their life has not sufficient content, sufficient meaning."

Deep concentration and focusing on the right questions most intently will lead us to discover the right answers, real quick and fast. That's why I trained myself to dig deeper into any event confronting my life by continually asking questions and searching for answers, until there are no more questions and answers.

But the more I meditated on this in silence and solitude, the more I came to gradually realize the futility of asking questions and looking for answers. For within me, there are neither questions to be answered nor answers to be questioned. Within me, asking for questions and looking for answers cease and disappear. There are no questions and answers within.

In a state of continuing meditation, a deeper realization springs to my mind that the content and meaning of my life is not filled with questions and answers, but something more meaningful and sublime. In fact, I now realize that questions and answers should not be raised at all.