standard formula is in Sanskrit tat

standard formula is in Sanskrit tat tvam asi, is the ground of

compassion upon which all true, that is to say unselfish,

virtue rests and whose expression is in every good deed.”5

I’m willing to bet that Wesley Autrey never read a scrap

of Campbell or Schopenhauer. He didn’t have to. And that’s

the point. When he sheltered Cameron Hollopeter in the path

of an oncoming train, he was defying all instincts for

perpetuating his genes. He was in the embrace of the One

Mind that binds us all, the unity so clearly glimpsed by

luminaries such as Campbell and Schopenhauer. At the

decisive moment, from the One-Mind perspective of

consciousness, Wesley Autrey was Cameron Hollopeter.



The Downed Chopper



I have long been fascinated by why the Wesley Autreys of

the world do what they do. This is not j ust philosophical

curiosity.

I served as a battalion surgeon in Vietnam in 1968 and

1969 in the boonies, beyond anything as fancy as the MASH

units popularized in the famous TV series. My world was a

sandbag- and barbed-wire-protected primitive aid station

with minimal equipment, and helicopter missions to aid

wounded troops. I was involved in several Autrey-like

moments in which I had to make an immediate decision about

putting my life on the line for young men in need.

One day in October 1969, a helicopter crashed not far


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from my forward battalion aid station. I ran to the crash site.

When I arrived, the upside-down chopper was ringed by a

group of soldiers standing at a safe distance because of the

expectation that it would explode. The pilot was still

conscious but was trapped in the wreckage, moaning in pain.

Without thinking, I began freeing the door of the inverted

aircraft, entered, and cut the seat belts trapping the pilot. One

of my medical crew j oined me, and we maneuvered the pilot

from the wreckage and carried him to safety. To this day the

smell of j et fuel pouring from the ruptured fuel tanks remains

a vivid memory, but fortunately the aircraft did not explode. I

started an I. V. on the pilot, gave him morphine for his pain,

and put him on a medevac helicopter that flew him to a

medical facility for further attention. This is j ust one of a

number of similar incidents that marked my time in the war.6

When I returned to the U. S., I was amazed on looking

back. Before going to Vietnam I swore I would never take

risks, out of respect for my family and those who cared about

me. But whenever instances like the crashed helicopter

arose, these resolutions evaporated like morning mist in the

j ungle. It was as if they never existed. There was no careful

deliberation during these decisive moments, no weighing of

consequences: j ust action.

I wondered why I did it. I never considered myself a risk

taker. As a physician, I was taught always to be in control to

the extent possible, to leave nothing to chance, to apply


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critical reasoning in every situation. What had happened?

I remember the day, about a year after my return from

Vietnam, when in random readings I stumbled onto

Schopenhauer ’s description—how at the crucial moment the

rescuer ’s consciousness fuses with that of the person in need,

how separateness dissolves and individuality is set aside,

how division is overcome and oneness becomes real. I knew

in a heartbeat that this was the explanation for my irrational,

risky behavior in the war zone. It was as if a veil had been

lifted. This was a revelation of adamantine clarity, an

epiphany about a troubling period in my life that I had not

been able to fathom. For me, in Vietnam the One Mind had

been made flesh. It was a priceless gift for which I still

tremble in gratitude.

Author Joseph Chilton Pearce, in his book Evolution s’

End, points out that the word sacrif ice, like the word

sacrament, means “to make whole.” Sacrifice, however, has

taken on negative connotations, such as slaughtering an

animal. But the original meaning of the word as wholeness is

captured in the experience of giving oneself to another. “To

become whole all parts must be left behind,” Pearce

observed, “for a whole is not the sum of its parts but a

different state entirely. [Meister] Eckhart spoke of ‘all named

obj ects’ being left behind when one enters that unknown. We

must go beyond the fragmentation of parts and leave the

world of diversity to discover the single unity from which all


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springs.”7

But how? Shankara, the 9th-century Indian philosopher,

wrote, “Disease is not cured by pronouncing the name of the

medicine, but by taking medicine. Deliverance is not

achieved by repeating the word ‘Brahman,’ but by directly

8

experiencing Brahman …” It is the same with the principle

of oneness. We can read every word of Schopenhauer,

Campbell, and a thousand other philosophers who have

expounded on this idea, but it will not become real without

experience. That is where events like Wesley Autrey’s enter.

These life-and-death moments in which we completely ally

our existence with that of someone else make real the

principle that binds all things into unity. These experiences

are more persuasive than any spoken or written words.

Following these episodes, we can throw away the books,

sermons, and teachings—because now we know.

If you decide to live dangerously on purpose, with the

express intention of awakening to this awareness, forget it;

you probably won’t be successful and may perish in the

process. The humbling fact is that the awareness of oneness

most often catches us by surprise, not in perilous situations

but in the most mundane settings—listening to music,

watching a sunset, hearing a baby’s laugh, preparing a meal,

or simply doing nothing. The spectrum of trigger experiences

is spectacularly varied, and anyone seeking to find a formula

that might guarantee the experience will be disappointed.


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This is the domain where the Law of Reversed Effort kicks

in, where paradox reigns. Thus the Buddhist observation:



It is only when you hunt for it that you lose it;

You cannot take hold of it, but equally you cannot get

rid of it,

And while you can do neither, it goes on its own way.

You remain silent and it speaks; you speak, and it is

dumb …9



When we identify so completely with someone that the

distinctions between self and other are overcome, we have

entered the domain of the One Mind. This prepares us for

actions we would not even consider in our self-oriented,

everyday frame of mind. Our future depends on our

willingness to take this larger view. Today it is not j ust

persons on subway tracks or downed chopper pilots who

need our help, but our entire world and all in it. Entry into

the One Mind makes this task thinkable. And possible.


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CHAPTER 2



THE PATRON SAINT OF THE ONE

MIND



rwin Schrödinger, the Austrian physicist, was one of the

Emost brilliant scientific minds of the 20th century. In

1933 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery

of wave mechanics, which lies at the heart of quantum

physics.

Schrödinger believed in the One Mind. As he put it,

“Mind is by its very nature a singulare tantum. I should say:

1

the overall number of minds is j ust one.” How did

Schrödinger ’s vision of the One Mind originate? It is

difficult to pinpoint all the vectors that go into the formation

of anyone’s personal philosophy, but surely the waning

months of World War I and its immediate aftermath were

pivotal for Schrödinger, as Walter Moore, Schrödinger ’s

able biographer, described.2



Starving, Sick, and Brilliant


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In January 1918, as the Great War ground to a bloody halt

after 16 million deaths, Austria’s army was starving and in

tatters. The situation in Vienna, where the Schrödinger family

lived, was grim. The family business was destroyed, and the

Schrödingers faced serious financial difficulties for the first

time. Schrödinger ’s maternal grandmother had been so

involved in the peace movement that she had been arrested

and convicted of treason. His mother was recovering from a

maj or operation for breast cancer the previous year and was

still weak and in pain. Schrödinger, who was 31 years old

and unmarried at the time, had health problems of his own. In

August 1918 he was diagnosed with inflammation in the apex

of one lung. This was almost certainly tuberculosis, for the

disease was epidemic among the weakened, malnourished

urban population. (In the 1920s Schrödinger would stay

several times at a sanatorium in Arosa, Switzerland, where

he discovered his wave equation for which he was award the

Nobel Prize. He would die of tuberculosis in Vienna at the

age of 73.) Food was in such short supply that the family

often ate at a community soup kitchen.

In the winter of 1918– 19, with the war at an end, things

got worse. Food supplies from Hungary were cut off, and the

importation of coal from Czechoslovakia was stopped.

Thousands of Viennese were starving and freezing. Beggars

filled the streets, and maimed ex-soldiers with decorations

pinned to their rags were everywhere. Women begged for