The greatest thing about the times that we are living in, is that there are great developments in science, especially in research into the structure of the brain, that help us to understand and put into context our beliefs on what spirituality is.
For, I found this article in LiveScience which validates the insight that the less me there is, the greater the transcendental experience.
Brick Johnstone and colleague Bret Glass of Missouri University studied brain-injured patients, looking for correlations between brain region performance and the subjects' self-reported spirituality. Among the more spiritual of the 26 subjects, the researchers pinpointed a less functional right parietal lobe, a physical state which may translate psychologically as decreased self-awareness and self-focus.
The right parietal lobe is responsible for defining "Me. It generates self-criticism and guides us through physical and social terrains by constantly updating our self-knowledge: my hand, my cocktail, my witty conversation skills, my new love interest.
The greatest silencing of the Me-centre of the brain is likely to happen in the deepest states of meditation or prayer, says Johnstone, it is then that the practitioners describe feeling seamless with the entire universe. The highest point of spiritual experience occurs when "Me" completely loses its definition.
Johnstone sums up, "If you look in the Torah, the Old Testament, the New Testament, in the Koran, a lot of Sufi writings, Buddhist writings, and Hindu writings, they all talk about selflessness".
Apply this to any spiritual guru and see if it works.
ReplyDeleteIf you give up self-awareness, you become one with the universe. Isn't it logically obvious?
If I give away by loaf of bread, I don't have any bread.
And why is the Me-centre bad? Why does it have to be given away?
The person who works on giving away his "Me" is actually concentrating excessively on 'Me', isn't it?
The greatest of saints, who give away me, are then recognised for being selfless. That selflessness is another form of 'Me'.
"And why is the Me-centre bad? Why does it have to be given away?"
ReplyDeleteFor this question, I don't have any answer that won't sound pretentious.
"The person who works on giving away his "Me" is actually concentrating excessively on 'Me', isn't it?"
With this statement, I agree.
"If you give up self-awareness, you become one with the universe. Isn't it logically obvious?"
I don't think self-awareness is something we can 'give' away. We can try to do it, but as long as self-awareness is there, it is not given away. The self is the ever present reality of our consciousness.
The more you try to lessen and get rid of 'me' thinking the more you will end with more 'me' thinking.
ReplyDeleteI don't think one can consciously get rid of 'me' thinking. It's by practice, not regimen, with conviction that one might unknowingly move away from 'me' thinking. It can't be done with a goal, not even that of achieving transcendental experience.
Is 'Me centric' wrong? No I don't think so as long as it doesn't violate other 'Me-centres'.
If you are to ask a saint, who is truly self less, whether he is selfless, he wouldn't say he is or he is not. He may just smile it away or just ask you to explore.
Tomorrow, if a research proclaims that swatting flies lights up a part of the brain, then it doesn't mean that swatting flies is a good activity.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly not every activity that fires the brain or livens it is essential.
'Crime' pumps oxygen to the brain and drugs can enhance thinking.
That's very good point Kartikey
ReplyDelete"Oh, the world tells you many-a-tale!
ReplyDeleteSings you love when it wants to wail."
"The self is the ever present reality of our consciousness."
Kartikey, Thanks for raising this issue.
ReplyDeleteIf there is anything I hate in blogs, it is that in most of them, it is "you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours".
So it feels really good to see you question what I say, and in fact, I would love to see you (or anyone for that matter) more aggressive- I am dying to see someone say, "You are a fool, you spew nonsense" and so on.
Because there is no point in saying something if someone else does not criticise you.
Coming back to the post, there are this thing I found noteworthy, that is why I put it here:
The scan finds that 'me-thinking' can be located at a particular area of the brain, and that the reduced activity in that region correlates with a higher incidence of transcendental experience.
Religions all over ask you to go beyond me-thinking to reach transcendental experience. So, I thought this explains it: you can't have transcendence without selflessness- BECAUSE THE BRAIN IN WIRED THAT WAY. May be that is why, purely through experience, religions all over the world have come to put selflessness before transcendence.
There are two points you raise, correct me if I am wrong about that...
One is whether selflessness is necessary at all, whether transcendence is so important...
(I can speak only personally, and do not claim to speak for any sort of group or anything- whatever i say is my opinion only and applies to me alone) The answer depends on what sort of a person you are. If you want it, okay. If you don't care for it, okay. There is no compulsion on anyone to give up their self or anything.
Some people are interested in religion, meditation and things like that. Just like some are interested in finance, money-making and so on (and some are interested in both, and they build big organisations- so even if I am anti-religion, pro-market, it ought to be good to see the Gurus driving Limos, after all, Adam Smith himself has stated, "Money is a matter of belief".)
So, if you are inclined to meditate, transcendence is good. If not, your happiness lies elsewhere.
And then the question, whether everything that happens in the brain is for good. Obviously not.
I feel you can't control what happens in the brain. Some people are schizophrenic, but however hard they try to do the right way of looking at life, the problem won't go away. Their brain is like that.
Some people are driven towards transcendence, that is all.
Actually I omitted some parts of the linked article.
What the researchers did was to look at people who had suffered brain damage, and then looking at the people with damage in the right parietal lobe, they found that they had less me-activity, and reported more transcendental experience. I still think it is a significant finding, even if turns out that transcendence is just another form of ego-trip.
And another thing I omitted was that the researchers said, the same thing happens when you look at a painting or some beautiful sculpture, or music or nature. People who are moved by nature, great music, painting have less activity in the me-centre of the brain, which is what happens with people who meditate and report transcendent experience.
Looking back, I realise I should have included this too, but that would have seemed to imply that I am accepting that a spiritual experience is as good as an aesthetic experience (which could well be true- the first time Sri Ramakrishna went into the Samadhi state was when as a child he walking through a field and overhead in the sky, he saw swans flying by- he saw something beautiful there, and he went into Samadhi. And Vivekananda says that when in his wanderings through wilderness he happened to see a gigantic structure of honeycombs, in such quantity that they seemed to cover the whole of a hillside, he went into trance).
Hope my answer is relevant to your comments.
Regards,