Religion, Spirituality and Science – my perspective

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May I ask you where it was when you where a Buddhist monk TallyMan?
Did it last long enough to vow or something to be one of them?
Was it long ago?

Who am I
Another of the big questions is “Who am I”?
As a child it was clear to me that “my body” was where “I” lived. In other words I’m not the body. Remove my brain and put it into another body and the sense of “I” would be moved along with the brain. So am I the brain? What is the relation between the brain and the mind? Is there such a thing as a soul?

Science has provided a particularly valuable insight into the brain / mind / consciousness / soul debate that is well worth mentioning here. Some people have a severe form of epilepsy. This is like an electrical storm in the brain that can spread across the whole brain incapacitating the individual. The brain consists of two hemispheres with a narrow bundle of nerves connecting the two halves together (called the corpus callosum). To minimise the effects of epileptic attacks a number of people have had their corpus callosum completely severed. This surgery prevents an epileptic attack spreading to the other hemisphere. However, this drastic cutting of the brain into two halves has the effect of cutting the person into two! There are two streams of consciousness, each with its own personality, thought processes, memories and abilities that were stored in that half of the brain prior to the separation! One person has become two, each making their own decisions. Each “person” doesn’t know what the other is thinking about or knows. There are numerous articles on the subject. One link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain this of course raises big questions about what it means to be an individual. If a soul exists it implies a scalpel can cut it into two!

Investigation into the sense of self
So what is this sense of individuality - the feeling of “I”? Philosophers exchange lots of dry words on the subject but fail to leave anyone better informed. Similarly, scientists measure brain wave activity and can associate certain parts of the brain with certain aspects of mental functioning. While this is interesting it remains abstract. However, there is another more hands on way to investigate consciousness:

To give a little example, consider an apple. Philosophers could hold endless discussions about the merits of certain varieties of apples and their histories. Scientists can analyse apples and give you detailed information about their proteins, carbohydrates and mineral content. My personal investigation of an apple is to taste it. Neither philosophers nor scientists can convey to me what an apple tastes like.
There is no separate consciousness watching things. Consciousness and the thing perceived are like the two sides of a coin. Consciousness is always “of something” but never “by something”. It is not “my” consciousness, just consciousness. The idea of a separate individual “I” dissolves, it is just a fabrication, an abstraction of the mind.

Where does this observable feeling of “I” come from?
To communicate it is necessary to use words like “you”, “me” and “I”. Logically speculating now based on what I’ve perceived during deep meditation. I think this illusion of “I” is a normal function of the brain. It is a label that has evolved in the brain of humans – and probably most other animals.
Having a concept of self is a handy label for the brain to use to distinguish the particular human/animal it belongs to from other humans / animals or objects in the environment. Having an “I” label is useful for planning actions. “I” am hungry. “I” will go to the kitchen and “I” will get some food.
The brain has built up a massive number of rules on how to interact with other people and in particular circumstances. The common name given to the mass of rules is simply “personality”.

I don’t exist!
The bottom line is that there is no “I”; it is simply an abstraction created by the brain, a label. My real essence is consciousness itself. Your real essence is consciousness. The consciousness illuminates all the thoughts, feelings and emotions that occur in each brain. The accumulation of memories in the brain gives a storyline and a seeming continuity to idea of an “I” in each brain. Ever wonder why you were born as you? You weren’t! Consciousness makes each brain think it is the one and only “I”.

Hindus have a good analogy of this. Think of an ocean. At the bottom of this ocean are millions of jars, cups and other (open) vessels. The water flows freely in and out of these containers but it takes the shape of each container while inside. Consciousness is the ocean; each vessel is a person. Consciousness looks out of each individuals eyes and believes it is that particular person.

What is this consciousness? Is it an emergent property associated only with brains? I don’t know. Hindu’s say that this consciousness is God. Again I don’t know. The word “God” has been used and abused in so many different ways that it has no specific meaning for me.

Shift in perception
This awareness of the illusory nature of “I” has changed “my” perception of the world and everyone in it. There is often the feeling of not being separate from any other living beings on the planet. On the television news I see a Palestinian woman grieving over the death of her son, and I am that woman; the news article continues and there is a Jewish mother grieving over the loss of her soldier son, and I am that woman. My dog nudges my arm and looks at me longingly to be taken a walk, and I am that dog.

Jung adds the part of the psyche that makes his theory stand out from all others: the collective unconscious. You could call it your "psychic inheritance." It is the reservoir of our experiences as a species, a kind of knowledge we are all born with. And yet we can never be directly conscious of it. It influences all of our experiences and behaviors, most especially the emotional ones, but we only know about it indirectly, by looking at those influences.

There are some experiences that show the effects of the collective unconscious more clearly than others: The experiences of love at first sight, of deja vu (the feeling that you've been here before), and the immediate recognition of certain symbols and the meanings of certain myths, could all be understood as the sudden conjunction of our outer reality and the inner reality of the collective unconscious. Grander examples are the creative experiences shared by artists and musicians all over the world and in all times, or the spiritual experiences of mystics of all religions, or the parallels in dreams, fantasies, mythologies, fairy tales, and literature.

A nice example that has been greatly discussed recently is the near-death experience. It seems that many people, of many different cultural backgrounds, find that they have very similar recollections when they are brought back from a close encounter with death. They speak of leaving their bodies, seeing their bodies and the events surrounding them clearly, of being pulled through a long tunnel towards a bright light, of seeing deceased relatives or religious figures waiting for them, and of their disappointment at having to leave this happy scene to return to their bodies. Perhaps we are all "built" to experience death in this fashion.

AG, you can meditate while exercising or dancing.

Tallyman, what are your thoughts on the collective unconscious?

Tallyman, what are your thoughts on the collective unconscious?

It is not “my” consciousness, just consciousness.

AG, you can meditate while exercising or dancing.

The problem is that silencing my head would require an assassination.

Spiritual hallucinations which bring about faith in a specific outcome has been reported to create miracles. It is worthy of investigation.

http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/~bhidalgo/litreview.htm

In d'Aquili's model, religious experience is self-induced through meditation. Thus the process must begin with intense concentration that is mediated by the prefrontal cortex, especially the lateral convexity. He offers as support for his model data from Corby (1978) who did a study on a meditating subject with a self reported religious experience. The research showed large amounts of high amplitude alpha and theta waves during the religious experience especially in the prefrontal and parietal areas.

Arnold Mandell's research also provides an explanation for meditative states and their neuropsychological ability to induce religious or mystical states. He notes that meditation is speculated to silence serotonin cells and perhaps the reticular-septal circuit by removing sensory driving. d'Aquili's model lends support to this hypothesis, of serotonin inhibitory functions being suspended, by arguing that functional deafferantation caused by the conscious effort in the prefrontal cortex is responsible for allowing cells in the temporal lobe (the amygdala) to fire according to their own internal logic. By removing the regulatory input derived from the reticular formation passed along to sensory collaterals, the "inside world" dominates. This, he posits, will result in a loss of comparator function. He hypothesizes that with a lack of comparative function to provide a source of reference a sense of the "I" is lost. He further hypothesizes that this lost sense of the "I" and a loss of comparator functions will result in the dissolution of dualistic debates and conflicts. Feelings and perceptions of unity will take over.