Extract From "The Book of One" (Second Edition) by Dennis Waite
Dennis Waite hardly needs an introduction in the Advaita circles. He is very well known through the multitude of his books promoting and spreading the ancient Indian Thought of Non-Dualism. His encyclopedic Website is a highly reliable source of authentic Advaitic material. In addition, he encourages a catholic approach to the subject by publishing articles on Non-Dualism by diverse teachers and writers at his Website. The site is fast becoming a de facto "standard" in the compilation and presentation of Advaita philosophy.
I am very happy to open this Blog with his Essay titled "Scriptures" as the first Post in the year 2010. I thank him for readily consenting to contribute this Post in spite of pressing demands on his time.
SCRIPTURES
By Dennis Waite
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. -- Galileo Galilei
Gods, then, do not have any ultimate reality and religions may sometimes be misguided. Both of them have their utility, however, as a means of mental preparation and for helping to quell the demands of the ego and point us in the right direction, away from the material and external and toward the truth within. These limitations need to be appreciated. But what of the scriptures upon which religions are based? Whichever religion might be under consideration, it has to be acknowledged that writers of major scriptural texts have attempted to record important information for posterity. There are many reasons why such attempts might seem to fail. The historical context in which they were written is now often poorly understood. Truths are often couched in obscure terms or hidden in the depths of seeming irrelevancies (which were probably not irrelevant to the culture which originated them). Vague or ambiguous presentation may have been used because writers at that time were persecuted for attempting to communicate ideas considered heretical by the prevailing society. Translations, too, inevitably lose something in the process – often their essential meaning! And stories written down only after many generations have communicated them verbally, with varying degrees of artistic license, may not be altogether factual.
The Hindu Vedas, with their philosophical Upanishads, are said not to suffer from these problems. They are supposed to have been passed on verbatim from generation to generation since their original observation by realized Sages. Strictly speaking, they are said to be unauthored – apauruSheya in Sanskrit, literally ‘not coming from men’. The idea here is that the knowledge was given to man by God at the time of creation and passed down thereafter. But such statements need not confound us. The truths expressed in the Upanishads have been validated time and time again by successive Sages and they are there only to provide guidance and to act as an incentive for us to discover those same truths for ourselves – and in this lifetime, not the next! It is essential to know where we are trying to get to and it is always valuable to have some understanding of the processes by which we might reach that destination.
(I have to say that my preferred (reasonable) interpretation of the adjective ‘unauthored’ is that the words were originated by self-realized sages and subsequently passed on by word of mouth until such time as written materials became common. These sages, being self-realized, no longer identified themselves as body-minds, as named individuals, so they had no wish whatsoever to have their bodily-assigned names attached. They knew that what they were conveying was non-personal, eternal truth that has nothing to do with personality. The sole purpose was to pass on this knowledge so that other minds, initially believing in separation, might be enlightened. Such absolute truth is beyond authorship and hence is reasonably construed as ‘unauthored’).
A useful metaphor for understanding how the scriptures operate is that of a mirror. We are totally unable to see our own face without the aid of a mirror, no matter how good our eyes may be. In an analogous manner, no matter how clever and perceptive the mind might be, we can have no knowledge of our true self. We are always the witness, never the witnessed.
In order to find out about this Self, we need the equivalent of a mirror. Scriptures (and the guru who interprets them for us) provide this mirror.
Neither God nor Being nor any other word can define or explain the ineffable reality behind the word, so the only important question is whether the word is a help or a hindrance in enabling you to experience That toward which it points. -- Eckhart Tolle (Ref. 93)
As already mentioned, in Advaita, the scriptures (mainly Upanishads, together with the Bhagavad Gita) constitute one of the six pramANa-s or sources of knowledge – it was referred to as ‘testimony’. And we will see in the chapter on ‘The Limits of Knowledge’ that reality is defined as that which cannot be sublated by any new experience. (The word ‘sublate’ will be explained, too, if you haven’t encountered it before’.) Furthermore, any cognition is said to be valid if its content can never be sublated. As we know from experience, and will be discussed in the third section of the book, perception, inference etc. are all subject to later correction or modification as additional information comes to light. John Grimes, in his excellent book ‘Perspective on Language’ (Ref.140) summarizes this and concludes that scriptural knowledge is the only source that does not suffer in this way:
“Perception and all the other pramANa-s, except words as knowledge, produce cognitions which ultimately suffer sublation. Brahman, which is the content of the cognition produced by religious discourse, remains unsublated. Because Brahman is eternal, there is no possibility of Its sublation at some later time. Thus, the cognition which religious discourse gives rise to is valid.”
[Note: The above extract is from the extensively revised second edition of ‘The Book of One’ by Dennis Waite. It will be published in April 2010 by O-Books, ISBN 978-1846943478.
Visit http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/thebook/thebook.htm for further details and to read more extracts. The Book is available for advanced purchase from Amazon.]
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Saturday, December 26, 2009
CONVERSATIONS WITH A LIVING GAUDAPADA
FIRST A WELCOME:
Trey, Neil and Juhana and a FaceBook user are the new members to our Blog. A VERY HAPPY WELCOME TO ALL OF THEM. Trey has been kind to introduce the Blog at the FaceBook; I am grateful to him for this.
CONVERSATIONS WITH A LIVING GAUDAPADA:
As we end the year 2009 to snuggle cozily into the welcoming arms of 2010, thoughts on the Past, Present and Future do hover in our minds. We accumulate our experiences as memory. Our brains decipher certain inviolable patterns in those experiences. The patterns and their recurrence go to reinforce and solidify our belief in the reality of our experience.
Ancient Indian scriptures talk of three levels of ‘reality’ – (i) Absolute; (ii) Transactional and (iii) Dream. The Absolute Reality is the ultimate, unchanging Truth. Transactional reality is what we live with in our daily life. The ephemeral reality is the one we experience in a dream world.
Vedanta shouts from roof-tops: The dream and transactional experiences are equally FALSE and UNREAL. There is nothing like a past and future of things happening. Everything just happens in the NOW. There is NO thing other than Nowness, the Aliveness, the very Beingness. It is Alone. No second one is there. And that is Advaita.
That is the view from the Absolute Reality that Gaudapada gives us.
Venerable Gaudapada was a Great Sage of the 8th Century. He expounded the above philosophy of Ajativada (nothing is ever born), the true gist of Vedanta, in his classic Karika (commentary in verses) on Mandukya Upanishad. The Second Chapter of the Karika discusses the illusory nature of the world that we experience and the non-difference of dream and awake states of man. The Mandukya Upanishad and Karika hold these two states to be mere 'arisings' in the deep sleep state.
Quoting Gaudapada Karika:
A question arises then: who cognizes the illusory objects of dream and wakeful states, if the objects cognized in both the states are unreal? (Karika II – 11).
The 12th verse of the Chapter II goes to answer (Swami Nikhilananda’s translation, Advaita Ashrama, 1995):
“Atman, the self-luminous, through the power of his own Maya, imagines in himself by himself (all the objects that the subject experiences within or without). He alone is the cognizer of the objects (so created). That is the decision of the Vedanta.”
Gaudapada further explains that internally conceived things like thoughts, ideas etc. are no different from objects seen ‘out there’. He says in the 14th verse:
"Those that are cognized within only as long as the thought of them lasts, as well as those that are perceived by the senses and that conform to two points of time, are all mere imaginations. There is no other ground for differentiating the one from the other."
Swami Nikhilananda amplifying on the word “imaginations” writes as follows:
“That a thing exists independently of the perceiving mind is also an idea. …. Past, present and future are nothing but ideas present in the mind at the moment.”
Peter Dziuban provides us, like Gaudapada, the worldview from the stance of and as Absolute Reality. His teachings echo Gaudapada’s Ajativada.
We are fortunate that he explains with great clarity, irrefutable logic and inimitable expression our questions at his Blog: Reality Check.
I posed him the following question:
Though we seem to understand intellectually the non-dualism, how is it that a sense of ‘lack’ continues to haunt us?
I want to get to the root of this 'lack' - a lack not for any objective 'thing' but that gut feeling of "not satisficing".
One way is to see the 'lack' to be "ALL", the very Being. However, this looks to be a mere explanation.
Peter’s response is available at his Post of 23rd Dec 2009.
What Peter said, in brief (as I understood in my words) was:
1. Notice that "something" has cognised that sense of 'lack'.
2. Be that very "Cogniser" rather than claiming ownership for that sense of 'lack'.
3. The sense or gut feeling of 'lack' is time dependent (hence transitory) and therefore, sure to 'dissolve'.
4. The sense of 'lack' has its origin because of an 'assumed add-on s' i.e. some unspelt 'expectations' of a person in 'me' looking for 'object-oriented experience'.
Later Peter answered in three Posts of 25th Dec 2009, the following question of mine:
I do not find anywhere, either in the ancient Indian lore or in the modern non-dualism teachings, any body explaining the emergence of the wakeful state with all the phenomenal 'world' and its goings on.
Words like 'Maya', 'Leela' (play), 'Freedom', [Vibhuti, Karma, Cyclicity] etc. are used to explain how from that Immutable Oneness the first 'I-thought' is engendered to manifest later as the variegated manifold. But these are admittedly just explanatory fictions. Such explanations take all the mathematical precision and scientific regularity in the phenomenal 'world' as 'given'. They accept the inevitability of inexorable natural laws and never provide any clue as to why a law is the way it is.
[.....,] we see a 'signature' of dream state in a dreaming brain (REM sleep). How do you think the brain state would be when one is "abiding" as ALL, One, Consciousness, Brahman.
I would like to draw the attention of the readers of this Blog to the excellent Posts of Peter in reply to my query, a befitting way to end the year 2009.
[The possible state of the brain of a “realized” man (Jivanmukta) is obviously something he cannot comment. It would fall under Neuroscience. However, his surmise is that there would be no thinking activity, and little or no experience of sensations — so he speculates that those apparent related areas of brain activity would be greatly reduced or inactive. Meanwhile, in such states the body usually still appears to breathe, pump blood, etc. so it would seem that whatever brain activity is involved in these apparent functions would continue.
This topic can be a good study for Barrow Neurological Institute, Arizona, U.S.A. One of their Directors attended the Oct 2009 'Science and Non-dualism Conference' in San Rafael, California.
As no thinking can happen without stored information, it will also be interesting to see how memory will behave in a Jivanmukta. Our ancient scriptures say that vasana-s (past stored impressions) will become ineffective like burnt out seeds. Memory is still an active on going research topic in Neuroscience.
Information we have from Neuroscince on retention, loss or erasure of memory, abnormal memory of a savant brain and related issues will form the subject of a future Blog Post.]
WITH BEST WISHES FOR A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR
Trey, Neil and Juhana and a FaceBook user are the new members to our Blog. A VERY HAPPY WELCOME TO ALL OF THEM. Trey has been kind to introduce the Blog at the FaceBook; I am grateful to him for this.
CONVERSATIONS WITH A LIVING GAUDAPADA:
As we end the year 2009 to snuggle cozily into the welcoming arms of 2010, thoughts on the Past, Present and Future do hover in our minds. We accumulate our experiences as memory. Our brains decipher certain inviolable patterns in those experiences. The patterns and their recurrence go to reinforce and solidify our belief in the reality of our experience.
Ancient Indian scriptures talk of three levels of ‘reality’ – (i) Absolute; (ii) Transactional and (iii) Dream. The Absolute Reality is the ultimate, unchanging Truth. Transactional reality is what we live with in our daily life. The ephemeral reality is the one we experience in a dream world.
Vedanta shouts from roof-tops: The dream and transactional experiences are equally FALSE and UNREAL. There is nothing like a past and future of things happening. Everything just happens in the NOW. There is NO thing other than Nowness, the Aliveness, the very Beingness. It is Alone. No second one is there. And that is Advaita.
That is the view from the Absolute Reality that Gaudapada gives us.
Venerable Gaudapada was a Great Sage of the 8th Century. He expounded the above philosophy of Ajativada (nothing is ever born), the true gist of Vedanta, in his classic Karika (commentary in verses) on Mandukya Upanishad. The Second Chapter of the Karika discusses the illusory nature of the world that we experience and the non-difference of dream and awake states of man. The Mandukya Upanishad and Karika hold these two states to be mere 'arisings' in the deep sleep state.
Quoting Gaudapada Karika:
A question arises then: who cognizes the illusory objects of dream and wakeful states, if the objects cognized in both the states are unreal? (Karika II – 11).
The 12th verse of the Chapter II goes to answer (Swami Nikhilananda’s translation, Advaita Ashrama, 1995):
“Atman, the self-luminous, through the power of his own Maya, imagines in himself by himself (all the objects that the subject experiences within or without). He alone is the cognizer of the objects (so created). That is the decision of the Vedanta.”
Gaudapada further explains that internally conceived things like thoughts, ideas etc. are no different from objects seen ‘out there’. He says in the 14th verse:
"Those that are cognized within only as long as the thought of them lasts, as well as those that are perceived by the senses and that conform to two points of time, are all mere imaginations. There is no other ground for differentiating the one from the other."
Swami Nikhilananda amplifying on the word “imaginations” writes as follows:
“That a thing exists independently of the perceiving mind is also an idea. …. Past, present and future are nothing but ideas present in the mind at the moment.”
Peter Dziuban provides us, like Gaudapada, the worldview from the stance of and as Absolute Reality. His teachings echo Gaudapada’s Ajativada.
We are fortunate that he explains with great clarity, irrefutable logic and inimitable expression our questions at his Blog: Reality Check.
I posed him the following question:
Though we seem to understand intellectually the non-dualism, how is it that a sense of ‘lack’ continues to haunt us?
I want to get to the root of this 'lack' - a lack not for any objective 'thing' but that gut feeling of "not satisficing".
One way is to see the 'lack' to be "ALL", the very Being. However, this looks to be a mere explanation.
Peter’s response is available at his Post of 23rd Dec 2009.
What Peter said, in brief (as I understood in my words) was:
1. Notice that "something" has cognised that sense of 'lack'.
2. Be that very "Cogniser" rather than claiming ownership for that sense of 'lack'.
3. The sense or gut feeling of 'lack' is time dependent (hence transitory) and therefore, sure to 'dissolve'.
4. The sense of 'lack' has its origin because of an 'assumed add-on s' i.e. some unspelt 'expectations' of a person in 'me' looking for 'object-oriented experience'.
Later Peter answered in three Posts of 25th Dec 2009, the following question of mine:
I do not find anywhere, either in the ancient Indian lore or in the modern non-dualism teachings, any body explaining the emergence of the wakeful state with all the phenomenal 'world' and its goings on.
Words like 'Maya', 'Leela' (play), 'Freedom', [Vibhuti, Karma, Cyclicity] etc. are used to explain how from that Immutable Oneness the first 'I-thought' is engendered to manifest later as the variegated manifold. But these are admittedly just explanatory fictions. Such explanations take all the mathematical precision and scientific regularity in the phenomenal 'world' as 'given'. They accept the inevitability of inexorable natural laws and never provide any clue as to why a law is the way it is.
[.....,] we see a 'signature' of dream state in a dreaming brain (REM sleep). How do you think the brain state would be when one is "abiding" as ALL, One, Consciousness, Brahman.
I would like to draw the attention of the readers of this Blog to the excellent Posts of Peter in reply to my query, a befitting way to end the year 2009.
[The possible state of the brain of a “realized” man (Jivanmukta) is obviously something he cannot comment. It would fall under Neuroscience. However, his surmise is that there would be no thinking activity, and little or no experience of sensations — so he speculates that those apparent related areas of brain activity would be greatly reduced or inactive. Meanwhile, in such states the body usually still appears to breathe, pump blood, etc. so it would seem that whatever brain activity is involved in these apparent functions would continue.
This topic can be a good study for Barrow Neurological Institute, Arizona, U.S.A. One of their Directors attended the Oct 2009 'Science and Non-dualism Conference' in San Rafael, California.
As no thinking can happen without stored information, it will also be interesting to see how memory will behave in a Jivanmukta. Our ancient scriptures say that vasana-s (past stored impressions) will become ineffective like burnt out seeds. Memory is still an active on going research topic in Neuroscience.
Information we have from Neuroscince on retention, loss or erasure of memory, abnormal memory of a savant brain and related issues will form the subject of a future Blog Post.]
WITH BEST WISHES FOR A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR
Sunday, November 29, 2009
RE-ENGINEERING YOUR 'SELF'
HEARTY WELCOME:
I am happy to welcome Sivavasanta, Katie and Dr. Kirk Crist to our Blog. It is particualry noteworthy that Katie Davis chose to join us. She herself is a Non-Dualism teacher who spontaneously realized the Oneness of Brahman in 1986.
We look forward to their active participations/contributions.
BODY ILLUSION, BRAIN PLASTICITY, MEDITATION AND LIBERATION
"Re-engineering your 'self'" was the title of a Talk I gave a year ago. I sent a copy of about 40 supporting ppt slides to Jerry Katz at that time. He was quite appreciative of the material. I thank him very much for the encouragement.
The principal argument of my presentation was as follows:
Our usual sense of 'self' is quite fragile and illusory. Neuroscience as yet does not know how this sense of self is generated. Certain gateway nodes of neuronal networks in our brain processing autobiographical information can be understood to be the correlates of 'self'. But no specific part of the brain contains a spot for self. It was proposed by me that if a particular gateway node represents the 'self' node, there could be another gateway node which represents the feel of Oneness obliterating all perceived boundaries between 'me' and 'the other'. We could call it the "Universal Self" node.
For example, Dr. Jill B. Taylor, a neuroscientist graphically described her experience of losing the sense of individuating 'self' when the left hemisphere of her brain was damaged in 1996. She felt a universal Oneness when the right hemisphere of the brain alone was functioning.
Recent developments in Neuroscience have shown that our brain is not like a fixed pre-programmed printed circuit board. The neural connections are not rigid but highly labile. This is called by neuroscientists as the "plasticity of brain." In view of this, it is suggested that we can retrain our brain to process the perceptions to go through the Universal Self node instead of the usual self node gateway. Dr. Greg Goode would describe it as "Standing as Awareness."
Direct Path Advaitins tell us clearly that the 'collapse of the sense of separate self' is enlightenment. Many of them describe it as re-orientating, or a shift in, the way we perceive (i.e. without a 'me' as perceiver). This would obviously involve a clear understanding of the percepts, be thoroughly convinced about them to be no more than thoughts, sensations and perceptions in our brain (i.e. not any solid objects out there) and finally retraining the brain through practice in this worldview. Therefore, the re-engineering involved is a shift from the 'self' gateway node to the "Universal Self" node.
Even traditional Vedanta advocates Shravana (Gaining Knowledge), Manana (Reflection on what is learnt) and Nidhidhyasa (constant contemplation and remembering), corresponding to the three steps spelt above.
Bhagavad-Gita too lays considerable emphasis on Practice (Chapter VI Sloka 35; VIII-8; XII-9).
Practice evidently takes advantage of the plasticity of the brain.
Neuroscientific Findings:
We all experience our body to be part of ourselves. It is a fundamental aspect of self-awareness. But this sense of self can be easily altered by manipulating our perceptions. It is illustrated by the "Rubber Hand Illusion." In this experiment we feel that 'a rubber hand is our own, when our corresponding real hand is hidden, and both are touched synchronously for a few seconds' by a friend. Not only that, our brain starts disowning our own real hand. The body temperature in the real hand drops down! Can you believe it!!
Such perceptual phenomenon does not happen just for a limb. It can happen to your entire body as proved by Swedish scientists a year ago. You feel the body of a person or a mannequin standing in front as your body. Sort of "Parakaya pravesha" (entering some other's body)!
Videos of the above studies along with the virtual reality studies being carried out by Prof. Mel Slater are available at:
http://www.bodyinmind.com.au/mel-slater-on-inducing-illusory-ownership-of-a-virtual-body/
Meditation:
Various forms of meditation have been found to be quite efficient tools in bringing about a change in the texture and structure of the brain. Dr. P. B. Reiner reports on the work at Stanford and MIT in November 2009 as follows:
"Regular deep meditation changes the brain in positive ways. This type of meditation seems to be associated with gamma waves, the electromagnetic rhythm of neurons firing very rapidly in harmony.
Neuroscientists have pinpointed the cells responsible for producing these gamma rhythms and demonstrated a technology that can induce the brain-wave pattern in mice... In the future it might be possible to use this technology to reproduce some of the beneficial effects of meditation."
The Stanford and MIT scientists further say: "...it is worth remembering that both deep-brain stimulation, whereby implanted electrodes act as a kind of pacemaker in the brain, and transcranial magnetic stimulation, in which powerful magnetic fields are transmitted through the skull to affect brain activity, are rapidly moving from the lab to the clinic. Both these techniques represent relatively crude forms of brain stimulation."
Carnegie Mellon University scientists Timothy Keller and Marcel Just have uncovered in December 2009 the first evidence that intensive instruction to improve reading skills in young children causes the brain to physically rewire itself.
Dr. E. Phelps and her colleagues reported in Dec 2009 Nature "A drug free, non-invasive method for semi-permanently blocking the return of fear memories in humans" by training their brains. These works are still in development stage. Yet their research is significant towards erasure of fear memories.
A video of their work can be seen at:
http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/memory/
In this context, we may note that Bhagavad-Gita says that surmounting fears is an important step towards ‘liberation’.
(This Blog is actually Posted on 12 Dec 2009).
I am happy to welcome Sivavasanta, Katie and Dr. Kirk Crist to our Blog. It is particualry noteworthy that Katie Davis chose to join us. She herself is a Non-Dualism teacher who spontaneously realized the Oneness of Brahman in 1986.
We look forward to their active participations/contributions.
BODY ILLUSION, BRAIN PLASTICITY, MEDITATION AND LIBERATION
"Re-engineering your 'self'" was the title of a Talk I gave a year ago. I sent a copy of about 40 supporting ppt slides to Jerry Katz at that time. He was quite appreciative of the material. I thank him very much for the encouragement.
The principal argument of my presentation was as follows:
Our usual sense of 'self' is quite fragile and illusory. Neuroscience as yet does not know how this sense of self is generated. Certain gateway nodes of neuronal networks in our brain processing autobiographical information can be understood to be the correlates of 'self'. But no specific part of the brain contains a spot for self. It was proposed by me that if a particular gateway node represents the 'self' node, there could be another gateway node which represents the feel of Oneness obliterating all perceived boundaries between 'me' and 'the other'. We could call it the "Universal Self" node.
For example, Dr. Jill B. Taylor, a neuroscientist graphically described her experience of losing the sense of individuating 'self' when the left hemisphere of her brain was damaged in 1996. She felt a universal Oneness when the right hemisphere of the brain alone was functioning.
Recent developments in Neuroscience have shown that our brain is not like a fixed pre-programmed printed circuit board. The neural connections are not rigid but highly labile. This is called by neuroscientists as the "plasticity of brain." In view of this, it is suggested that we can retrain our brain to process the perceptions to go through the Universal Self node instead of the usual self node gateway. Dr. Greg Goode would describe it as "Standing as Awareness."
Direct Path Advaitins tell us clearly that the 'collapse of the sense of separate self' is enlightenment. Many of them describe it as re-orientating, or a shift in, the way we perceive (i.e. without a 'me' as perceiver). This would obviously involve a clear understanding of the percepts, be thoroughly convinced about them to be no more than thoughts, sensations and perceptions in our brain (i.e. not any solid objects out there) and finally retraining the brain through practice in this worldview. Therefore, the re-engineering involved is a shift from the 'self' gateway node to the "Universal Self" node.
Even traditional Vedanta advocates Shravana (Gaining Knowledge), Manana (Reflection on what is learnt) and Nidhidhyasa (constant contemplation and remembering), corresponding to the three steps spelt above.
Bhagavad-Gita too lays considerable emphasis on Practice (Chapter VI Sloka 35; VIII-8; XII-9).
Practice evidently takes advantage of the plasticity of the brain.
Neuroscientific Findings:
We all experience our body to be part of ourselves. It is a fundamental aspect of self-awareness. But this sense of self can be easily altered by manipulating our perceptions. It is illustrated by the "Rubber Hand Illusion." In this experiment we feel that 'a rubber hand is our own, when our corresponding real hand is hidden, and both are touched synchronously for a few seconds' by a friend. Not only that, our brain starts disowning our own real hand. The body temperature in the real hand drops down! Can you believe it!!
Such perceptual phenomenon does not happen just for a limb. It can happen to your entire body as proved by Swedish scientists a year ago. You feel the body of a person or a mannequin standing in front as your body. Sort of "Parakaya pravesha" (entering some other's body)!
Videos of the above studies along with the virtual reality studies being carried out by Prof. Mel Slater are available at:
http://www.bodyinmind.com.au/mel-slater-on-inducing-illusory-ownership-of-a-virtual-body/
Meditation:
Various forms of meditation have been found to be quite efficient tools in bringing about a change in the texture and structure of the brain. Dr. P. B. Reiner reports on the work at Stanford and MIT in November 2009 as follows:
"Regular deep meditation changes the brain in positive ways. This type of meditation seems to be associated with gamma waves, the electromagnetic rhythm of neurons firing very rapidly in harmony.
Neuroscientists have pinpointed the cells responsible for producing these gamma rhythms and demonstrated a technology that can induce the brain-wave pattern in mice... In the future it might be possible to use this technology to reproduce some of the beneficial effects of meditation."
The Stanford and MIT scientists further say: "...it is worth remembering that both deep-brain stimulation, whereby implanted electrodes act as a kind of pacemaker in the brain, and transcranial magnetic stimulation, in which powerful magnetic fields are transmitted through the skull to affect brain activity, are rapidly moving from the lab to the clinic. Both these techniques represent relatively crude forms of brain stimulation."
Carnegie Mellon University scientists Timothy Keller and Marcel Just have uncovered in December 2009 the first evidence that intensive instruction to improve reading skills in young children causes the brain to physically rewire itself.
Dr. E. Phelps and her colleagues reported in Dec 2009 Nature "A drug free, non-invasive method for semi-permanently blocking the return of fear memories in humans" by training their brains. These works are still in development stage. Yet their research is significant towards erasure of fear memories.
A video of their work can be seen at:
http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/memory/
In this context, we may note that Bhagavad-Gita says that surmounting fears is an important step towards ‘liberation’.
(This Blog is actually Posted on 12 Dec 2009).
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
CONSCIOUSNESS IN COMA
"I Screamed, But There Was Nothing to Hear"
FIRST A WELCOME:
I am happy to welcome to our Blog Mohan Suswaram and another member who gave only a link. I eagerly look forward to your inputs.
"I Screamed, But There Was Nothing to Hear"
Many times discussants on Advaita raise the question about Consciousness in a Coma patient.
It is true, we do not have a clearcut definition of coma to be able to discuss the state of consciousness under comatose condition. In our Post dated 27th Sept 2009, how a patient in a vegetative state could 'learn' was talked about.
Now we have the shocking report of a patient who was in coma for 23 years but had been conscious all the time!!
What a horrific misery he must have gone through. Unimaginable and heart wrenching even to think!
"For 23 years Rom Houben was imprisoned in his own body. He saw his doctors and nurses as they visited him during their daily rounds; he listened to the conversations of his carers; he heard his mother deliver the news to him that his father had died. But he could do nothing. He was unable to communicate with his doctors or family. He could not move his head or weep, he could only listen.........
"I screamed, but there was nothing to hear", he said, via his keyboard.
The Belgian former engineering student said he coped with being effectively trapped in his own body by meditating. ... Sometimes, he said, 'I was only my consciousness and nothing else'.......... 'Powerlessness. Utter powerlessness. At first I was angry, then I learned to live with it,' he tapped out on to the screen during an interview with the Belgian network last night, AP reported.."
The following is from The Guardian:
"In 1988 Jan Grzebski, a Polish railway worker, fell in front of a train and was diagnosed as being in a coma. In 2007, he "woke up" to learn the iron curtain had fallen and he had gained 11 grandchildren. Doctors discovered he had been conscious throughout.
Terry Wallis of Arkansas fell into a coma after a road accident in 1984. When he woke up 19 years later, his wife had gone off with another man, had three children and was embroiled in a legal battle over who was deemed his legal guardian. His mother was with him the day he woke up and a nurse asked: "Terry, who is that?" He opened his eyes and replied, "Mom".
In 1996 Patricia White Bull from Albuquerque, New Mexico, woke after 16 years in a persistent vegetative state, scaring the life out of a nurse who was tucking in her bedding by shouting, "Don't do that!". She had fallen unconscious during the birth of her fourth child.
Twenty years ago, Carrie Coons, an 86-year-old from New York, regained consciousness after a year in a coma. Only days before, a judge had granted her family's request for the removal of her feeding tube.
Mark Newton from Hertfordshire fell into a coma in 1996 after surfacing too quickly while diving. Doctors considered him brain dead and recommended turning off his life support. His mother resisted and he woke up after six months. He had been aware of what was happening around him, but could not communicate."
From Associated Press:
"A coma is a state of unconsciousness in which the eyes are closed and the patient cannot be roused. A vegetative state is a condition in which the eyes are open and can move, and the patient has periods of sleep and periods of wakefulness, but remains unconscious and cannot reason or respond.
"It makes you think. There is still a lot of work to be done" to better diagnose such disorders, said Caroline Schnakers of the Coma Science Group."
Consious Under Anesthesia:
Patients under anesthesia too may oftener be conscious, said Dr. Wong, a surgeon a couple of years ago. The patient cannot express because his/her muscles are paralysed/too relaxed and do not move under his/her command though he/she may be conscious.
Mr. Rom Houben's condition came to light through brain scanning. His case has only just been revealed in a scientific paper released by the man who 'saved' him, top neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys, says a report in Mail Online.
So we can reasonably say 'consciousness' exists even under comatose condition. Modern scanning techniques can tell us many things about the brain as the case of Mr. Houben proves. Can the scans help us understand the brain of a Jivanmukta?
[Neuronal Correlates:
Please see my Posts on Neuronal Correlates of a Jivanmukta. My argument, in short is as follows:
We perceive a world.
But neuroscience clearly shows through studies on illusions/magic etc. that we hardly perceive what really exists 'out there.'
In other words, there is a disconnect between the ‘reality out there’ and our perception. This means that the sensory apparatus (senses and the respective cortical neurons) are inadequate to show what "exactly" is 'out there.'
2. Our brain makes a “map” of the perceptions received from the senses and interpretation made by the sensory cortex. We are actually aware of that map formed in our head. We don't have a clue what "exactly" is out there.
This “map” in our head is obviously made up of ‘thoughts’ (generated by neuronal electrical pulses as waves), or thought-stuff - whether it is beautiful girl or an ugly duck or a river or a table, these are all represented as thoughts in brain. So the constituent of all so called perceived ‘objects’ is thought-stuff.
3. The thought itself is cognized by us because we have "consciousness." Or as philosophers put it, consciousness illuminates (shows up) the thoughts.
4. A ‘me’-thought acts as the ‘seer’ of the map in our head. This is the ego providing continuity in time, coherence to experience and ownership to knowledge. It gets generated based on autobiographical information.
5. Neuroscience is as yet unable to understand how "Consciousness" is engendered in us.
6. Non-dualists find a shift in their perception. Instead of seeing the 'map' of the world in their brain with ego at the center, they identify themselves with the illuminating Consciousness. And this shift happens within and to an individual.
7. Can this shift then not be a play or happenstance in the brain itself of a Non-dualist ?
8. I wish we could get some brain scans of a Jivanmukta to see if the autobiographical memory based I-thought (i.e. 'self') collapses in him/her to give place to a "Universal Self."]
Comments are welcome.
FIRST A WELCOME:
I am happy to welcome to our Blog Mohan Suswaram and another member who gave only a link. I eagerly look forward to your inputs.
"I Screamed, But There Was Nothing to Hear"
Many times discussants on Advaita raise the question about Consciousness in a Coma patient.
It is true, we do not have a clearcut definition of coma to be able to discuss the state of consciousness under comatose condition. In our Post dated 27th Sept 2009, how a patient in a vegetative state could 'learn' was talked about.
Now we have the shocking report of a patient who was in coma for 23 years but had been conscious all the time!!
What a horrific misery he must have gone through. Unimaginable and heart wrenching even to think!
"For 23 years Rom Houben was imprisoned in his own body. He saw his doctors and nurses as they visited him during their daily rounds; he listened to the conversations of his carers; he heard his mother deliver the news to him that his father had died. But he could do nothing. He was unable to communicate with his doctors or family. He could not move his head or weep, he could only listen.........
"I screamed, but there was nothing to hear", he said, via his keyboard.
The Belgian former engineering student said he coped with being effectively trapped in his own body by meditating. ... Sometimes, he said, 'I was only my consciousness and nothing else'.......... 'Powerlessness. Utter powerlessness. At first I was angry, then I learned to live with it,' he tapped out on to the screen during an interview with the Belgian network last night, AP reported.."
The following is from The Guardian:
"In 1988 Jan Grzebski, a Polish railway worker, fell in front of a train and was diagnosed as being in a coma. In 2007, he "woke up" to learn the iron curtain had fallen and he had gained 11 grandchildren. Doctors discovered he had been conscious throughout.
Terry Wallis of Arkansas fell into a coma after a road accident in 1984. When he woke up 19 years later, his wife had gone off with another man, had three children and was embroiled in a legal battle over who was deemed his legal guardian. His mother was with him the day he woke up and a nurse asked: "Terry, who is that?" He opened his eyes and replied, "Mom".
In 1996 Patricia White Bull from Albuquerque, New Mexico, woke after 16 years in a persistent vegetative state, scaring the life out of a nurse who was tucking in her bedding by shouting, "Don't do that!". She had fallen unconscious during the birth of her fourth child.
Twenty years ago, Carrie Coons, an 86-year-old from New York, regained consciousness after a year in a coma. Only days before, a judge had granted her family's request for the removal of her feeding tube.
Mark Newton from Hertfordshire fell into a coma in 1996 after surfacing too quickly while diving. Doctors considered him brain dead and recommended turning off his life support. His mother resisted and he woke up after six months. He had been aware of what was happening around him, but could not communicate."
From Associated Press:
"A coma is a state of unconsciousness in which the eyes are closed and the patient cannot be roused. A vegetative state is a condition in which the eyes are open and can move, and the patient has periods of sleep and periods of wakefulness, but remains unconscious and cannot reason or respond.
"It makes you think. There is still a lot of work to be done" to better diagnose such disorders, said Caroline Schnakers of the Coma Science Group."
Consious Under Anesthesia:
Patients under anesthesia too may oftener be conscious, said Dr. Wong, a surgeon a couple of years ago. The patient cannot express because his/her muscles are paralysed/too relaxed and do not move under his/her command though he/she may be conscious.
Mr. Rom Houben's condition came to light through brain scanning. His case has only just been revealed in a scientific paper released by the man who 'saved' him, top neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys, says a report in Mail Online.
So we can reasonably say 'consciousness' exists even under comatose condition. Modern scanning techniques can tell us many things about the brain as the case of Mr. Houben proves. Can the scans help us understand the brain of a Jivanmukta?
[Neuronal Correlates:
Please see my Posts on Neuronal Correlates of a Jivanmukta. My argument, in short is as follows:
We perceive a world.
But neuroscience clearly shows through studies on illusions/magic etc. that we hardly perceive what really exists 'out there.'
In other words, there is a disconnect between the ‘reality out there’ and our perception. This means that the sensory apparatus (senses and the respective cortical neurons) are inadequate to show what "exactly" is 'out there.'
2. Our brain makes a “map” of the perceptions received from the senses and interpretation made by the sensory cortex. We are actually aware of that map formed in our head. We don't have a clue what "exactly" is out there.
This “map” in our head is obviously made up of ‘thoughts’ (generated by neuronal electrical pulses as waves), or thought-stuff - whether it is beautiful girl or an ugly duck or a river or a table, these are all represented as thoughts in brain. So the constituent of all so called perceived ‘objects’ is thought-stuff.
3. The thought itself is cognized by us because we have "consciousness." Or as philosophers put it, consciousness illuminates (shows up) the thoughts.
4. A ‘me’-thought acts as the ‘seer’ of the map in our head. This is the ego providing continuity in time, coherence to experience and ownership to knowledge. It gets generated based on autobiographical information.
5. Neuroscience is as yet unable to understand how "Consciousness" is engendered in us.
6. Non-dualists find a shift in their perception. Instead of seeing the 'map' of the world in their brain with ego at the center, they identify themselves with the illuminating Consciousness. And this shift happens within and to an individual.
7. Can this shift then not be a play or happenstance in the brain itself of a Non-dualist ?
8. I wish we could get some brain scans of a Jivanmukta to see if the autobiographical memory based I-thought (i.e. 'self') collapses in him/her to give place to a "Universal Self."]
Comments are welcome.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
HOW MANY UNIVERSES MAKE A MULTIVERSE? – THE STORY OF BHETALA
First A WELCOME:
A Warm Welcome to The EMPEROR, Irene Harvey and Mark. We thank you for joining the Blog and look forward to your valuable contributions.
ONE UNIVERSE FOR EACH CREATURE!
We come across several instances in Yogavaasishta where the concept of multiverse (many universes) is exemplified. One such story is that of the enigmatic questions of Bhetala in Sarga 70, Book-I of Chapter: Nirvana.
Bhetala, the enlightened poltergeist, posed six questions to the King who was about to become Bhetala’s dinner with the promise that the King could save himself if he (the King) answered the questions correctly.
The first question was: What is that beginingless Star in whose illumination all the Universes appear as mere specks of dust?
The King replies poetically comparing the universe we live in to a fruit.
King: "Bhetala!
Think of the universe that we are all living in to be a humongous fruit.
There is a bough with thousands of those fruits.
There is a tree with thousands of such boughs.
There is a wood with thousands of such trees.
There is a mountain with thousands of such woods.
There is an island with thousands of such mountains.
There is a huge globe (mahi peetha) with thousands of such islands.
There is a huge star system with thousands of such globes.
There is a heavenly egg with thousands of such star systems.
There is a sea with thousands of such heavenly eggs.
There is an ocean with thousands of such seas.
Thousands of such oceans will be the waters in the stomach of a man.
That man’s name is Vishnu.
Another great man wears a necklace of a hundred thousand of Vishnus.
His name is Rudra.
Millions of Rudras shine in the form of hair-follicles on the body of a very great man. His name is Aditya (= one who has been there right from the beginning; sun).
He is none other than the Supreme Consciousness.
He illuminates all the universes of my gargantuan conception.
He is the Brahman with attributes.
He has also an absolute form that is much more fundamental.
The qualities of ‘doership’ and ‘experiencership’ which seem to exist in the Brahman with attributes do not at all affect the Absolute Brahman.
The star you are referring to is the Brahman with attributes."
Thus the King shows that Bhetala’s knowledge was as yet incomplete because Bhetala was still conceptualizing in terms of Brahman with attributes and not the attributeless (Nirguna) Brahman who is beyond. As long as one conceives of Brahman with attributes, worlds appear. Worlds cease and there is no "doer" or "experiencer" in attributeless Absolute Brahman.
Dr. Einstein had always been uncomfortable with Quantum Theory which states that multiple states exist until a measurement collapses the system to give raise to a single observed event. Dr. Schrödinger who helped in the development of quantum mechanics was himself puzzled with the possibility of multiple states. He designed the well known thought experiment: The Schrodinger's Cat. As per Quantum theory, the cat would both be living and dead at the same time until one actually lifts the lid and observes it either to be dead or alive in the cage. Dr. Niels Bohr explained it saying that our 'consciousness' influences the decision whether the cat is dead or alive. Thus we would become a partner in the system instead of a distant observer.
Hugh Everett, a young physicist at that time tried to resolve this problem of uncertainty in Quantum theory by proposing a theory of multiple worlds. According to him the world goes on splitting into many worlds at every moment and we exist in one of those daughter worlds. That is to say, as Dr. Tegmark expalined, "You are in Universe A as you read this sentence. Now you are already in Universe B as you read this sentence." Or saying it differently, you could be a little baby in some other universe at the time you are reading this Blog in this universe and 500 years old or dead in a different universe! That means all possibilities co-exist at the same time! This theory did not get much support at that time.
However, developments in String Theory showed the mathematical possibility of the existence of multiple universes (multi-verse instead of uni-verse). The calculations indicated that there could be 10 raised to the power of 500 ( i.e. one followed by 500 zeroes) universes in existence with different physical laws. Dr. Susskind called it a "lnadscpae" of universes. We live in one such universe where the conditions are favorable to our type of life.
This week "Cosmologists Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin at Stanford University in California raised the provocative notion that the [number of universes] may depend on the human brain.
If observers are an integral part of the cosmic formula, then it may not matter how many universes exist - just how many a single observer can tell apart. If the observer is a person, that depends on how many bits of information the brain can process. "Based on the number of synapses in a typical brain, a human observer can register 10 to the power of 16," says Linde. That means humans can differentiate 10 to the power of 10 raised to the power 16 (10^10^16) universes."
While discussing the neural circuits involved in the formation of memories in flies, Dr. Gero Miesenböck of the University of Oxford said that "even simple organisms may turn out to have a ‘surprisingly rich mental life.’"
Recently Non-Dualist Rupert Spira observed: "In fact each person's thoughts, images, sensations and perceptions are entirely private and personal, even when we are sitting next to one another conversing in a room." He further clarified: "[T]here is no evidence of a world outside perception and perceptions themselves are not ‘shared.’ They cannot perceive one another. In other words there is not one world shared by six billion people but rather there are six billion simultaneous ‘worlds’ shared by one Consciousness. It is the mind that says six billion, whereas Consciousness sees only One." [emphasis by me.]
Thus each universe may just be an imagination of that creature as Yogavaasishta holds! And every creature lives in its iamginary world!!
A Warm Welcome to The EMPEROR, Irene Harvey and Mark. We thank you for joining the Blog and look forward to your valuable contributions.
ONE UNIVERSE FOR EACH CREATURE!
We come across several instances in Yogavaasishta where the concept of multiverse (many universes) is exemplified. One such story is that of the enigmatic questions of Bhetala in Sarga 70, Book-I of Chapter: Nirvana.
Bhetala, the enlightened poltergeist, posed six questions to the King who was about to become Bhetala’s dinner with the promise that the King could save himself if he (the King) answered the questions correctly.
The first question was: What is that beginingless Star in whose illumination all the Universes appear as mere specks of dust?
The King replies poetically comparing the universe we live in to a fruit.
King: "Bhetala!
Think of the universe that we are all living in to be a humongous fruit.
There is a bough with thousands of those fruits.
There is a tree with thousands of such boughs.
There is a wood with thousands of such trees.
There is a mountain with thousands of such woods.
There is an island with thousands of such mountains.
There is a huge globe (mahi peetha) with thousands of such islands.
There is a huge star system with thousands of such globes.
There is a heavenly egg with thousands of such star systems.
There is a sea with thousands of such heavenly eggs.
There is an ocean with thousands of such seas.
Thousands of such oceans will be the waters in the stomach of a man.
That man’s name is Vishnu.
Another great man wears a necklace of a hundred thousand of Vishnus.
His name is Rudra.
Millions of Rudras shine in the form of hair-follicles on the body of a very great man. His name is Aditya (= one who has been there right from the beginning; sun).
He is none other than the Supreme Consciousness.
He illuminates all the universes of my gargantuan conception.
He is the Brahman with attributes.
He has also an absolute form that is much more fundamental.
The qualities of ‘doership’ and ‘experiencership’ which seem to exist in the Brahman with attributes do not at all affect the Absolute Brahman.
The star you are referring to is the Brahman with attributes."
Thus the King shows that Bhetala’s knowledge was as yet incomplete because Bhetala was still conceptualizing in terms of Brahman with attributes and not the attributeless (Nirguna) Brahman who is beyond. As long as one conceives of Brahman with attributes, worlds appear. Worlds cease and there is no "doer" or "experiencer" in attributeless Absolute Brahman.
Dr. Einstein had always been uncomfortable with Quantum Theory which states that multiple states exist until a measurement collapses the system to give raise to a single observed event. Dr. Schrödinger who helped in the development of quantum mechanics was himself puzzled with the possibility of multiple states. He designed the well known thought experiment: The Schrodinger's Cat. As per Quantum theory, the cat would both be living and dead at the same time until one actually lifts the lid and observes it either to be dead or alive in the cage. Dr. Niels Bohr explained it saying that our 'consciousness' influences the decision whether the cat is dead or alive. Thus we would become a partner in the system instead of a distant observer.
Hugh Everett, a young physicist at that time tried to resolve this problem of uncertainty in Quantum theory by proposing a theory of multiple worlds. According to him the world goes on splitting into many worlds at every moment and we exist in one of those daughter worlds. That is to say, as Dr. Tegmark expalined, "You are in Universe A as you read this sentence. Now you are already in Universe B as you read this sentence." Or saying it differently, you could be a little baby in some other universe at the time you are reading this Blog in this universe and 500 years old or dead in a different universe! That means all possibilities co-exist at the same time! This theory did not get much support at that time.
However, developments in String Theory showed the mathematical possibility of the existence of multiple universes (multi-verse instead of uni-verse). The calculations indicated that there could be 10 raised to the power of 500 ( i.e. one followed by 500 zeroes) universes in existence with different physical laws. Dr. Susskind called it a "lnadscpae" of universes. We live in one such universe where the conditions are favorable to our type of life.
This week "Cosmologists Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin at Stanford University in California raised the provocative notion that the [number of universes] may depend on the human brain.
If observers are an integral part of the cosmic formula, then it may not matter how many universes exist - just how many a single observer can tell apart. If the observer is a person, that depends on how many bits of information the brain can process. "Based on the number of synapses in a typical brain, a human observer can register 10 to the power of 16," says Linde. That means humans can differentiate 10 to the power of 10 raised to the power 16 (10^10^16) universes."
While discussing the neural circuits involved in the formation of memories in flies, Dr. Gero Miesenböck of the University of Oxford said that "even simple organisms may turn out to have a ‘surprisingly rich mental life.’"
Recently Non-Dualist Rupert Spira observed: "In fact each person's thoughts, images, sensations and perceptions are entirely private and personal, even when we are sitting next to one another conversing in a room." He further clarified: "[T]here is no evidence of a world outside perception and perceptions themselves are not ‘shared.’ They cannot perceive one another. In other words there is not one world shared by six billion people but rather there are six billion simultaneous ‘worlds’ shared by one Consciousness. It is the mind that says six billion, whereas Consciousness sees only One." [emphasis by me.]
Thus each universe may just be an imagination of that creature as Yogavaasishta holds! And every creature lives in its iamginary world!!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
YOU CREATE YOUR OWN WORLD!
Recent Advances in Understanding the Working of Brain – Two TED Videos of about 15 mins
Neuroscience already debunked the existence of a 'self' (the small separate "me" we think we have inside us). It also established that there is a 'disconnect' between 'reality' out there and our 'perception.'
Your brain shows an interpretation of what is perceived depending on what it learnt in its past, the stored impressions. The brain even fills gaps in the information to show you what you need to know. Even the colors you see are not necessarily what exactly are out there. We know only what our brain ‘maps’ as what is out there rather than what exactly IS there!
Watch this entertaining and informative TED talk of Beau Lotto at:
http://www.ted.com/talks/beau_lotto_optical_illusions_show_how_we_see.html
Scientists are now able to tease out how the 100 billion neurons and their interconnections in the brain create a world for you. Dr. Henry Markram "uses complex models to precisely simulate the human brain top layers in 3D..... it has been edging up on some deep, contentious philosophical questions about the mind ."
You can have a peek at his work in the TED video at:
http://www.ted.com/talks/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_brain_s_secrets.html
Advaita philosophy tells in unequivocal terms that the perceived world is an illusion. The world we create is nothing more than a thought. It is merely a "castle in the air." We build the castle because of the force of our past impressions – the Vedantic term is vasanas. We trap ourselves in that bubble of a castle, our own creation. And being caught up in the imaginary world of ours is described as "bondage." You cannot even destroy this world because you cannot physically hammer to pieces a purely imaginary construction which is not really there. "Freedom" or "Moksha" is to jump out of it and just “Be.”
Will modern neuroscience take us nearer to the Truth that advaita has been telling us for millennia of years?
Neuroscience already debunked the existence of a 'self' (the small separate "me" we think we have inside us). It also established that there is a 'disconnect' between 'reality' out there and our 'perception.'
Your brain shows an interpretation of what is perceived depending on what it learnt in its past, the stored impressions. The brain even fills gaps in the information to show you what you need to know. Even the colors you see are not necessarily what exactly are out there. We know only what our brain ‘maps’ as what is out there rather than what exactly IS there!
Watch this entertaining and informative TED talk of Beau Lotto at:
http://www.ted.com/talks/beau_lotto_optical_illusions_show_how_we_see.html
Scientists are now able to tease out how the 100 billion neurons and their interconnections in the brain create a world for you. Dr. Henry Markram "uses complex models to precisely simulate the human brain top layers in 3D..... it has been edging up on some deep, contentious philosophical questions about the mind ."
You can have a peek at his work in the TED video at:
http://www.ted.com/talks/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_brain_s_secrets.html
Advaita philosophy tells in unequivocal terms that the perceived world is an illusion. The world we create is nothing more than a thought. It is merely a "castle in the air." We build the castle because of the force of our past impressions – the Vedantic term is vasanas. We trap ourselves in that bubble of a castle, our own creation. And being caught up in the imaginary world of ours is described as "bondage." You cannot even destroy this world because you cannot physically hammer to pieces a purely imaginary construction which is not really there. "Freedom" or "Moksha" is to jump out of it and just “Be.”
Will modern neuroscience take us nearer to the Truth that advaita has been telling us for millennia of years?
Thursday, October 1, 2009
“SEEING IS BELIEVING.” IS IT REALLY SO?
First a Welcome:
It is a pleasure to Welcome Satya and Girish Duvvuri to the Blog. We look forward to the inputs and inquisitive questions from these young minds.
Is What We Perceive Out There Solid And Substantial ?
If we look at the tree in the lawn or hear the screech of a car tyre on the road, we think there is a solid object out there.
The ancient Indian Sages doubted it. They said that what we see as the world is an illusion. It is like seeing water in a mirage or still worse it is like mistaking a rope to be a ‘snake.’ In fact there is or was never a snake in that place. The appearance of a snake was merely an assumption in twilight. It has always been a rope only.
Latest Neuroscientific research too tells us that we do not "see" really what is out there. Dr. S. L. Macnik and Dr. S. Martinez-Conde wrote in 2008:
"Whether we experience the feeling of "redness," the appearance of "squareness," or emotions such as love and hate, these are the results of the electrical activity of neurons in our brain."
It is so because our senses and nervous system extracts only certain info. from the natural world.
We hear fluctuations of air pressure not as waves but as sounds.
We see electromagnetic waves of different frequency as colors.
We perceive chemical compounds dissolved in air or water as smells or tastes.
Peter Dziuban in Chapter 13 of his book, "Consciousness Is All" graphically describes how mistaken we are in thinking that the world is made up of solid substance. Take for example that you "see" a red apple.
Quoting from his Book:
"How does the "mind" know anything about that apple — or even claim an apple is there in the first place?
The sensing "mind" experiences a specific visual sensation, which also could be called an appearance, or a mental image of the apple. That particular visual sensation of red color and roundish shape is one way the mind differentiates an apple from other items, such as a book or a hand. Simultaneously with this visual sensation, the mind experiences a particular tactile sensation of the apple; there is a feeling of weight and texture when holding it. Also simultaneously, there may be a sense of sound associated with an apple, such as crunching when a bite is taken. There also is a sensation of taste, and a scent.
Each of the five senses contributes its particular "aspect" of the apple to the mind. As a result of all the sensations it experiences, the mind instantly says to itself, "An apple is here."
Now look again.
A question long pondered by philosophers concerns the nature of the substance of this whole apple experience. Exactly what kind of substance is one dealing with here?
The entire and only basis on which the mind would say an apple is present, is by way of the senses. Absolutely everything the mind would know about the apple is thanks to a visual sensation, a sensation of touch or feel, a sound, a taste and smell. The mind’s entire "evidence" is sensations.
Now ask yourself, what makes up the apple itself — that supposedly is giving off this sensory experience to the mind?
Really stop a moment. Ask yourself what the apple itself consists of, apart from those five sensations.
When you try to think of what an apple is, entirely apart from those five sensations — what happens?
You can’t think of anything.
And why can’t you think of anything besides the sensations?
Because there isn’t anything.
There are only the sensations!
There are not the sensations of an apple and an apple! Sensations are the entire and only "substance." There is no apple that is a standalone physical object "out there," with its own substance, in addition to the sensations experienced by the mind. The "apple" would be entirely mental — consisting one hundred percent of sensations only.
Go ahead. First take away those five sensations. Then see if you still can come up with an "apple." Poof! The "apple" is non-existent. The "apple" as a separate, solid object didn’t go anywhere. It never was out there as a separate object in the first place!
The mind’s experiencing of sensations results in what is called an apple, but never is there a separate item "out there." All there would be is a series of images, feelings, tastes, sounds and smells — experienced entirely by the mind.
There is nothing else there."
We think we see something when there is actually something else or nothing is there. That is the reason why we get fooled by a lot of magic tricks.
Macnik and Martinez-Conde’s article on "Attention and awareness in stage magic: turning tricks into research" contains many links to magic shows. Their article is at:
http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nrn2473.html
Prof. R. Wiseman, a Neuropsychologist and himself a Magician gives many hilarious examples of how our mind deceives us. His site:
http://www.quirkology.com/
http://www.richardwiseman.com/
These web sites are quite enjoyable to elders as well as youngsters.
It is a pleasure to Welcome Satya and Girish Duvvuri to the Blog. We look forward to the inputs and inquisitive questions from these young minds.
Is What We Perceive Out There Solid And Substantial ?
If we look at the tree in the lawn or hear the screech of a car tyre on the road, we think there is a solid object out there.
The ancient Indian Sages doubted it. They said that what we see as the world is an illusion. It is like seeing water in a mirage or still worse it is like mistaking a rope to be a ‘snake.’ In fact there is or was never a snake in that place. The appearance of a snake was merely an assumption in twilight. It has always been a rope only.
Latest Neuroscientific research too tells us that we do not "see" really what is out there. Dr. S. L. Macnik and Dr. S. Martinez-Conde wrote in 2008:
"Whether we experience the feeling of "redness," the appearance of "squareness," or emotions such as love and hate, these are the results of the electrical activity of neurons in our brain."
It is so because our senses and nervous system extracts only certain info. from the natural world.
We hear fluctuations of air pressure not as waves but as sounds.
We see electromagnetic waves of different frequency as colors.
We perceive chemical compounds dissolved in air or water as smells or tastes.
Peter Dziuban in Chapter 13 of his book, "Consciousness Is All" graphically describes how mistaken we are in thinking that the world is made up of solid substance. Take for example that you "see" a red apple.
Quoting from his Book:
"How does the "mind" know anything about that apple — or even claim an apple is there in the first place?
The sensing "mind" experiences a specific visual sensation, which also could be called an appearance, or a mental image of the apple. That particular visual sensation of red color and roundish shape is one way the mind differentiates an apple from other items, such as a book or a hand. Simultaneously with this visual sensation, the mind experiences a particular tactile sensation of the apple; there is a feeling of weight and texture when holding it. Also simultaneously, there may be a sense of sound associated with an apple, such as crunching when a bite is taken. There also is a sensation of taste, and a scent.
Each of the five senses contributes its particular "aspect" of the apple to the mind. As a result of all the sensations it experiences, the mind instantly says to itself, "An apple is here."
Now look again.
A question long pondered by philosophers concerns the nature of the substance of this whole apple experience. Exactly what kind of substance is one dealing with here?
The entire and only basis on which the mind would say an apple is present, is by way of the senses. Absolutely everything the mind would know about the apple is thanks to a visual sensation, a sensation of touch or feel, a sound, a taste and smell. The mind’s entire "evidence" is sensations.
Now ask yourself, what makes up the apple itself — that supposedly is giving off this sensory experience to the mind?
Really stop a moment. Ask yourself what the apple itself consists of, apart from those five sensations.
When you try to think of what an apple is, entirely apart from those five sensations — what happens?
You can’t think of anything.
And why can’t you think of anything besides the sensations?
Because there isn’t anything.
There are only the sensations!
There are not the sensations of an apple and an apple! Sensations are the entire and only "substance." There is no apple that is a standalone physical object "out there," with its own substance, in addition to the sensations experienced by the mind. The "apple" would be entirely mental — consisting one hundred percent of sensations only.
Go ahead. First take away those five sensations. Then see if you still can come up with an "apple." Poof! The "apple" is non-existent. The "apple" as a separate, solid object didn’t go anywhere. It never was out there as a separate object in the first place!
The mind’s experiencing of sensations results in what is called an apple, but never is there a separate item "out there." All there would be is a series of images, feelings, tastes, sounds and smells — experienced entirely by the mind.
There is nothing else there."
We think we see something when there is actually something else or nothing is there. That is the reason why we get fooled by a lot of magic tricks.
Macnik and Martinez-Conde’s article on "Attention and awareness in stage magic: turning tricks into research" contains many links to magic shows. Their article is at:
http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nrn2473.html
Prof. R. Wiseman, a Neuropsychologist and himself a Magician gives many hilarious examples of how our mind deceives us. His site:
http://www.quirkology.com/
http://www.richardwiseman.com/
These web sites are quite enjoyable to elders as well as youngsters.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
ON FEAR, HYPNOSIS, CONSCIOUSNESS AND BRAIN
WELCOME:
At the outset, a Hearty Welocme to Mr. Rafael Stoneman, Ms Cathy Ginter and 'Emptynessdancing' to the Blog. I look forward to their thoughtful contributions / comments.
ATTACHMENT, FEAR AND ANGER:
Bhagavad-Gita Chapter IV, Verse 10 provides an important key for attaining Oneness with the Supreme Consciousness through Self-Knowledge. The Sloka says: "Many have attained Beingness in "Me" (= Consciousness) having freed (themselves) from Attachment, Fear and Anger and staying absorbed in Consciousness."
Attachment (likes and dislikes), Fear and Anger are the innate emotions acquired by an organism in evoution to help in its self-protection and survival. These traits are reflected in the more primitive parts of the brain, chiefly the neural circuits known as the 'limbic system'. If the limbic system is damaged, an animal loses the capability to express these emotions. A person less prone to anger, fear and attachment will obviously be in a much happier state. Recently an interesting case of a patient with damage to these components is reported by Dr. J. Feinstein et al.
Roger lost almost his entire "limbic system" due to viral infection. What happened to Roger's mind when his brain suffered such injury?
"Roger's IQ is above average; his speech and language abilities are excellent; his vision and hearing are normal, although he has no sense of taste or smell. His short term (working) memory, attention, and reasoning abilities are unimpaired. His motor abilities are fine - he is reportedly an excellent bowler. [However,] he is unable to remember anything that has happened since the infection, which was 28 years ago..... Roger's personality and emotional life seems to have been changed by the infection as well, but in a rather fortunate way:
Roger appears remarkably unconcerned by his condition. He hardly ever complains and, in general, shows little worry for anything in life. Both of his parents and his sister fervently claim that Roger is always happy. Moreover, based on his family’s report, Roger is paradoxically happier now than he was before his brain damage. ... His premorbid disposition of being somewhat reserved and introverted has shifted to being outgoing and extroverted... Most conversations with Roger involve animated speech that is replete with prosody, gesture, and, often times, laughing. He readily displays signs of positive emotion including happiness, amusement, interest, and excitement. As previously noted, Roger’s positive mood has remained essentially unchanged over nearly three decades.
Another case is that of a lady referred to as "SM." Her amygdala (an important part located in the medial temporal lobes) known to process strong negative emotions, such as anger and fear, and considered to be the seat of emotion in the brain was damaged. Dr. R. Adolphs and his coleague noticed that SM was "very outgoing and is almost too friendly, to the point of "violating" what others might perceive as their own personal space. She is extremely friendly, and she wants to approach people more than normal."
HYPNOSIS:
(Excerpts from Science News, October, 2009)
"Using the latest neuroimaging tools, scientists are getting a look at what goes on in the hypnotized brain. The findings are mesmerizing. When hypnotized people act on a hypnotic suggestion, they really do see, hear and feel differently, such research shows."
"New research at the University of Geneva suggests that hypnosis alters neural activity by rerouting some of the usual connections between brain regions. Such neurological detours don’t happen when subjects merely imagine a scenario."
"David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford University School of Medicine says: "Ten to 15 percent of adults are 'highly hypnotizable,' meaning they can experience dramatic changes in perception with hypnosis. A person’s ability to become hypnotized is unrelated to intelligence, compliancy or gullibility, but may be linked to an ability to become deeply absorbed in activities such as reading, listening to music or daydreaming."
" In 2005, scientists at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City used functional MRI to show how hypnotic suggestions can override "automatic" processes in the brain. The fMRI results were also striking. Highly hypnotizable participants showed less activity in a brain area called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is active when people are trying to sort out conflicting information from different sources."
"In the June 25 issue of Neuron, Yann Cojan of the University of Geneva and colleagues report: Hypnotized people who are told that their left hand is paralyzed show brain patterns that differ from those who aren't hypnotized and from those who aren't hypnotized but are told to pretend their left hand is paralyzed. Under hypnosis, neurons in the brain’s motor cortex fired up as usual to prepare for the task. But when instructed to use the left, or “paralyzed” hand, the motor cortex failed to send signals to motor execution regions. Instead, it directed its signals to another brain region, the precuneus. The precuneus is a sort of center for self-consciousness. ... By rerouting motor signals to the precuneus, hypnosis appeared to decouple the typical relationship between brain areas that generate the signals for hand movement and the areas that carry out such movements. Subjects who were not hypnotized and were asked to fake paralysis showed no such disconnect between these regions."
SEAT OF CONSIOUSNESS IN BRAIN:
"Consciousness" is still an Achiless heel or a Holy Grail in Neuroscience. There is no agreed definition even for the word consciousness. However, it may be quite safe to say one thing. The word "Consciousness" as used in the Bhgavad-Gita verse quoted at the beginning of this Post and the "consciousness" that science is probing may not be the same.
Medicos have their own working definition for consciousness, though it is difficult even for them to categorize who is truly in a vegetative state when it comes to edge cases. A recent report by Dr. T. Bekinschtein and others showed how a patient supposed to be in a vegetative state has exhibited a remarkable capacity "to learn." By repeated training, the patient began to respond to a tone before blowing puffs of air on to his eyes. Some others are, of course, skeptical of the results and think it could be a Pavlovian conditioning.
In the meanwhile, anesthesiologists have scored a point. They seem to have found a "spot" for consciousness in the brain. Prof. Marshall Devor and Ruth Abulafia described this month (September 2009) their discovery of an area of the brain that participates in the control of "alert status."
"Loss of response to painful stimuli and loss of consciousness are the most striking characteristics of surgical anesthesia and anesthesia-like states, such as concussion, reversible coma, and syncope (fainting). These states also exhibit behavioral suppression, loss of muscle tone, a shift to the sleep-like "delta-wave" EEG pattern, and depressed brain metabolism."
"A small group of neurons near the base of the brain, in the mesopontine tegmentum, has executive control over the alert status of the entire cerebrum and spinal cord, and can generate loss of pain sensation, postural collapse and loss of consciousness through specific neural circuitry."
They described it as "center of consciousness" at least in the laboratory rats that they experimented with.
At the outset, a Hearty Welocme to Mr. Rafael Stoneman, Ms Cathy Ginter and 'Emptynessdancing' to the Blog. I look forward to their thoughtful contributions / comments.
ATTACHMENT, FEAR AND ANGER:
Bhagavad-Gita Chapter IV, Verse 10 provides an important key for attaining Oneness with the Supreme Consciousness through Self-Knowledge. The Sloka says: "Many have attained Beingness in "Me" (= Consciousness) having freed (themselves) from Attachment, Fear and Anger and staying absorbed in Consciousness."
Attachment (likes and dislikes), Fear and Anger are the innate emotions acquired by an organism in evoution to help in its self-protection and survival. These traits are reflected in the more primitive parts of the brain, chiefly the neural circuits known as the 'limbic system'. If the limbic system is damaged, an animal loses the capability to express these emotions. A person less prone to anger, fear and attachment will obviously be in a much happier state. Recently an interesting case of a patient with damage to these components is reported by Dr. J. Feinstein et al.
Roger lost almost his entire "limbic system" due to viral infection. What happened to Roger's mind when his brain suffered such injury?
"Roger's IQ is above average; his speech and language abilities are excellent; his vision and hearing are normal, although he has no sense of taste or smell. His short term (working) memory, attention, and reasoning abilities are unimpaired. His motor abilities are fine - he is reportedly an excellent bowler. [However,] he is unable to remember anything that has happened since the infection, which was 28 years ago..... Roger's personality and emotional life seems to have been changed by the infection as well, but in a rather fortunate way:
Roger appears remarkably unconcerned by his condition. He hardly ever complains and, in general, shows little worry for anything in life. Both of his parents and his sister fervently claim that Roger is always happy. Moreover, based on his family’s report, Roger is paradoxically happier now than he was before his brain damage. ... His premorbid disposition of being somewhat reserved and introverted has shifted to being outgoing and extroverted... Most conversations with Roger involve animated speech that is replete with prosody, gesture, and, often times, laughing. He readily displays signs of positive emotion including happiness, amusement, interest, and excitement. As previously noted, Roger’s positive mood has remained essentially unchanged over nearly three decades.
Another case is that of a lady referred to as "SM." Her amygdala (an important part located in the medial temporal lobes) known to process strong negative emotions, such as anger and fear, and considered to be the seat of emotion in the brain was damaged. Dr. R. Adolphs and his coleague noticed that SM was "very outgoing and is almost too friendly, to the point of "violating" what others might perceive as their own personal space. She is extremely friendly, and she wants to approach people more than normal."
HYPNOSIS:
(Excerpts from Science News, October, 2009)
"Using the latest neuroimaging tools, scientists are getting a look at what goes on in the hypnotized brain. The findings are mesmerizing. When hypnotized people act on a hypnotic suggestion, they really do see, hear and feel differently, such research shows."
"New research at the University of Geneva suggests that hypnosis alters neural activity by rerouting some of the usual connections between brain regions. Such neurological detours don’t happen when subjects merely imagine a scenario."
"David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford University School of Medicine says: "Ten to 15 percent of adults are 'highly hypnotizable,' meaning they can experience dramatic changes in perception with hypnosis. A person’s ability to become hypnotized is unrelated to intelligence, compliancy or gullibility, but may be linked to an ability to become deeply absorbed in activities such as reading, listening to music or daydreaming."
" In 2005, scientists at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City used functional MRI to show how hypnotic suggestions can override "automatic" processes in the brain. The fMRI results were also striking. Highly hypnotizable participants showed less activity in a brain area called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is active when people are trying to sort out conflicting information from different sources."
"In the June 25 issue of Neuron, Yann Cojan of the University of Geneva and colleagues report: Hypnotized people who are told that their left hand is paralyzed show brain patterns that differ from those who aren't hypnotized and from those who aren't hypnotized but are told to pretend their left hand is paralyzed. Under hypnosis, neurons in the brain’s motor cortex fired up as usual to prepare for the task. But when instructed to use the left, or “paralyzed” hand, the motor cortex failed to send signals to motor execution regions. Instead, it directed its signals to another brain region, the precuneus. The precuneus is a sort of center for self-consciousness. ... By rerouting motor signals to the precuneus, hypnosis appeared to decouple the typical relationship between brain areas that generate the signals for hand movement and the areas that carry out such movements. Subjects who were not hypnotized and were asked to fake paralysis showed no such disconnect between these regions."
SEAT OF CONSIOUSNESS IN BRAIN:
"Consciousness" is still an Achiless heel or a Holy Grail in Neuroscience. There is no agreed definition even for the word consciousness. However, it may be quite safe to say one thing. The word "Consciousness" as used in the Bhgavad-Gita verse quoted at the beginning of this Post and the "consciousness" that science is probing may not be the same.
Medicos have their own working definition for consciousness, though it is difficult even for them to categorize who is truly in a vegetative state when it comes to edge cases. A recent report by Dr. T. Bekinschtein and others showed how a patient supposed to be in a vegetative state has exhibited a remarkable capacity "to learn." By repeated training, the patient began to respond to a tone before blowing puffs of air on to his eyes. Some others are, of course, skeptical of the results and think it could be a Pavlovian conditioning.
In the meanwhile, anesthesiologists have scored a point. They seem to have found a "spot" for consciousness in the brain. Prof. Marshall Devor and Ruth Abulafia described this month (September 2009) their discovery of an area of the brain that participates in the control of "alert status."
"Loss of response to painful stimuli and loss of consciousness are the most striking characteristics of surgical anesthesia and anesthesia-like states, such as concussion, reversible coma, and syncope (fainting). These states also exhibit behavioral suppression, loss of muscle tone, a shift to the sleep-like "delta-wave" EEG pattern, and depressed brain metabolism."
"A small group of neurons near the base of the brain, in the mesopontine tegmentum, has executive control over the alert status of the entire cerebrum and spinal cord, and can generate loss of pain sensation, postural collapse and loss of consciousness through specific neural circuitry."
They described it as "center of consciousness" at least in the laboratory rats that they experimented with.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
NONDUALITY AND COMPASSION
(aka FEEDING THE STARVING CHILD)
A Post titled "Nonduality and Compassion" subtitled as above appeared at:
http://nonduality.com/hl3645.htm
Background: Nondualist Jeff Foster talked in an earlier writing of his about an African girl starving with hunger that he saw on a TV show and how the scene changed as the channels were flipped. A question was then raised: (in Jeff's words reproduced from the NDHighlights # 3645)
"Jeff, in your latest piece of writing you talk about seeing a starving African girl on the TV. But how can that be Oneness? I mean, it's okay for you to say that, you're not starving, after all. But she is. Couldn't "Oneness" just be a concept you're using to push away or deny the reality of living in this world? A way for you to cope with the harsh realities of existence and suffering?"
Jeff continued a long response ending with the sentence:
"Feed her, damn it. What else is there to do, when there is no longer anything to defend?"
A rejoinder to this appears at : [NDhighlights] #3663 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009.
The rejoinder is reproduced below:
"I have reasons to believe that the first Question that Jeff referred to regarding the hunger of the African girl was the one posed by me, though understandably he did not mention names. He acknowledges it to be a great question. And thanks for that.
And what does come out at the end of all that long-winded blow hot blow cold response about the hunger?
A frustration that clearly stands out glaringly in our face as apparent from the two interrogatives in additon to the the swearing words in the ultimate sentence of his.
And just before venting the frustration, he says, "Feed her."
Can anything be more naive? Was it not our very beginning question? Is not the "feeding" the very problem in the world? Have we not come back to square one?!
Whether it is the roach running to save its life from the lizard on the wall over there or a pack of panthers chasing a bison cruelly biting into the delicate parts of its butt in the forest, it is all about "feeding." The prey-predator struggle, the cunning methods of aggression of the predator, the camouflage of the prey to save itself, the violence of the killer and the guaranteed misery for the victim are all about "feeding."
Humans continued this evolutionarily ingrained nature of biological systems to appease their dependence on food with their own covert and overt tricks of exploitation and victimization.
The non-exclusivity or all-inclusivity of Advaita hardly eliminates any of these dependencies and the inevitable violence beyond numbing certain qualia / reactions. That is why it appears to me that Advaita eliminates the "sufferer" rather than "suffering" per se.
When the "sufferer" ends but the body organism continues to live, he/she becomes a Jivanmukta. His/her body, apparent or otherwise, needs oxygen, food, water etc., though he/she sees a Oneness and the snake-like illusiory appearance of the world has ceased [for him/her]. It should really be quite revealing if we can investigate how the neuronal networks in the brain of a Jivanmukta function."
Readers may kindly send a copy of their Comment also to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
A Post titled "Nonduality and Compassion" subtitled as above appeared at:
http://nonduality.com/hl3645.htm
Background: Nondualist Jeff Foster talked in an earlier writing of his about an African girl starving with hunger that he saw on a TV show and how the scene changed as the channels were flipped. A question was then raised: (in Jeff's words reproduced from the NDHighlights # 3645)
"Jeff, in your latest piece of writing you talk about seeing a starving African girl on the TV. But how can that be Oneness? I mean, it's okay for you to say that, you're not starving, after all. But she is. Couldn't "Oneness" just be a concept you're using to push away or deny the reality of living in this world? A way for you to cope with the harsh realities of existence and suffering?"
Jeff continued a long response ending with the sentence:
"Feed her, damn it. What else is there to do, when there is no longer anything to defend?"
A rejoinder to this appears at : [NDhighlights] #3663 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009.
The rejoinder is reproduced below:
"I have reasons to believe that the first Question that Jeff referred to regarding the hunger of the African girl was the one posed by me, though understandably he did not mention names. He acknowledges it to be a great question. And thanks for that.
And what does come out at the end of all that long-winded blow hot blow cold response about the hunger?
A frustration that clearly stands out glaringly in our face as apparent from the two interrogatives in additon to the the swearing words in the ultimate sentence of his.
And just before venting the frustration, he says, "Feed her."
Can anything be more naive? Was it not our very beginning question? Is not the "feeding" the very problem in the world? Have we not come back to square one?!
Whether it is the roach running to save its life from the lizard on the wall over there or a pack of panthers chasing a bison cruelly biting into the delicate parts of its butt in the forest, it is all about "feeding." The prey-predator struggle, the cunning methods of aggression of the predator, the camouflage of the prey to save itself, the violence of the killer and the guaranteed misery for the victim are all about "feeding."
Humans continued this evolutionarily ingrained nature of biological systems to appease their dependence on food with their own covert and overt tricks of exploitation and victimization.
The non-exclusivity or all-inclusivity of Advaita hardly eliminates any of these dependencies and the inevitable violence beyond numbing certain qualia / reactions. That is why it appears to me that Advaita eliminates the "sufferer" rather than "suffering" per se.
When the "sufferer" ends but the body organism continues to live, he/she becomes a Jivanmukta. His/her body, apparent or otherwise, needs oxygen, food, water etc., though he/she sees a Oneness and the snake-like illusiory appearance of the world has ceased [for him/her]. It should really be quite revealing if we can investigate how the neuronal networks in the brain of a Jivanmukta function."
Readers may kindly send a copy of their Comment also to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
EVOLUTION OF RELIGION
Is Religion A Conspirancy?
First a Welcome:
I am pleased to welcome Mr. Anjanna to the Blog. He raised some interesting questions on the Post "Nothing is Ever Born." I have given my resposne in the Comments section and look forward to his continued contribution.
(The length of my repsonse is over 1170 words long and can almost be treated as Advaita 101)
*****
Dr. M. Shermer wrote a brief article on "Why People Believe in Conspiracies" in the September issue of Scientific American. One of the readers observed that religion was perhaps the oldest conspiracy.
Consciousness is one word captured by philosophers and monopolized by the religious lot to the extent that scientists remained for a long time reluctant even to touch any thing that has to do with consciousness. Science is now teasing out consciousness slowly and hesitantly because of the baggage the word has accumulated in history.
The two words Consciousness and Conspiracy are in fact derived from the same root as explained in detail by Dr. A. Zeman.
Dr. Pascal Boyer published a book, "Religion Explained" a few years ago. It had the subtitle: The Evolutionary Foundations of Religious Belief. Of late many universities are carrying out research on the Evoluion of Religion.
The points raised by Dr. Shermer with regard to conspiaracy are quite relevant in the context of religious evolution too. An extrat from his article is given below:
"Why do people believe in highly improbable conspiracies? In previous columns I have provided partial answers, citing patternicity (the tendency to find meaningful patterns in random noise) and agenticity (the bent to believe the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents). Conspiracy theories connect the dots of random events into meaningful patterns and then infuse those patterns with intentional agency. Add to those propensities the confirmation bias (which seeks and finds confirmatory evidence for what we already believe) and the hindsight bias (which tailors after-the-fact explanations to what we already know happened), and we have the foundation for conspiratorial cognition."
To the above I will add "Endowment Effect" which was initially proposed by Chicago economists. I think it has a powerful psychological role in sustaining religious belief. Man does not like to give up anything he has (perhaps including his memetic infections) and hence continues with unfalsifiable belief structures in the name of religion.
First a Welcome:
I am pleased to welcome Mr. Anjanna to the Blog. He raised some interesting questions on the Post "Nothing is Ever Born." I have given my resposne in the Comments section and look forward to his continued contribution.
(The length of my repsonse is over 1170 words long and can almost be treated as Advaita 101)
*****
Dr. M. Shermer wrote a brief article on "Why People Believe in Conspiracies" in the September issue of Scientific American. One of the readers observed that religion was perhaps the oldest conspiracy.
Consciousness is one word captured by philosophers and monopolized by the religious lot to the extent that scientists remained for a long time reluctant even to touch any thing that has to do with consciousness. Science is now teasing out consciousness slowly and hesitantly because of the baggage the word has accumulated in history.
The two words Consciousness and Conspiracy are in fact derived from the same root as explained in detail by Dr. A. Zeman.
Dr. Pascal Boyer published a book, "Religion Explained" a few years ago. It had the subtitle: The Evolutionary Foundations of Religious Belief. Of late many universities are carrying out research on the Evoluion of Religion.
The points raised by Dr. Shermer with regard to conspiaracy are quite relevant in the context of religious evolution too. An extrat from his article is given below:
"Why do people believe in highly improbable conspiracies? In previous columns I have provided partial answers, citing patternicity (the tendency to find meaningful patterns in random noise) and agenticity (the bent to believe the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents). Conspiracy theories connect the dots of random events into meaningful patterns and then infuse those patterns with intentional agency. Add to those propensities the confirmation bias (which seeks and finds confirmatory evidence for what we already believe) and the hindsight bias (which tailors after-the-fact explanations to what we already know happened), and we have the foundation for conspiratorial cognition."
To the above I will add "Endowment Effect" which was initially proposed by Chicago economists. I think it has a powerful psychological role in sustaining religious belief. Man does not like to give up anything he has (perhaps including his memetic infections) and hence continues with unfalsifiable belief structures in the name of religion.
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