Tag Archives: brain

Q. 354 – Consciousness and reality

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Q: I have an odd question, a question that I am not even sure how to formulate, it concerns consciousness. Why does Advaita philosophy insist on calling the ultimate reality consciousness? The word consciousness implies intelligence and thought – how do we know that anything outside of brains is in any way conscious?  Does this mean that physical reality amounts to the “thoughts” of this consciousness? Can the transcendent consciousness send messages to an embodied consciousness? 

 I know that an advaitin will say that there is only a non-dual reality but I mean this (however unreal or relative a reality my individual reality may be from an ‘ultimate’ perspective’) in much the same way that, until you received this e-mail from me, you were not aware of any ‘message’ or meaning from me.

  If I see a figure in clouds or a face in some wood-grain, should I see this as information with meaning? Does the consciousness ‘behind’ or ‘underneath’ everything communicate meaning with physical events (pictures, or ‘my thoughts’ , or even ambiguous hand-writing!) the way we normally communicate meaning with words and concepts? In other words–if the entire universe is consciousness, can anything be truly mindless or meaningless? Continue reading →

Living In The Moment Eternally – 1

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Appayya Dikshitar - (1520-93)

Appayya Dikshitar – (1520-93)

We, the traditional Advaitins, are a prejudicial lot – aren’t we?  Appayya Dikshitar’s words uttered in delirium when his brain was under the influence of the hallucinogenic Datura seeds are for us a beautiful AtmArpaNastuti in praise of Lord Shiva. But the mutterings of some other ordinary mortal with a differently affected brain is mere meaningless chatter unworthy of any notice. Let us not forget that both are actions done under conditions of an altered brain. And in both cases, an external agency is responsible for causing the change in the brain.

It was UG who famously said once that whether it was Beethoven’s 9th Symphony or pulling the chain in the WC sounded the same to him.  Some of the Zen Masters used to respond to the simple questions like “What is the time now?” with an answer that the mountain was running or some such response – totally frivolous and meaningless on the face of it. But their effort was to draw our attention to the way our mind functions in assigning ‘meaning and significance’ (which are actually not there) ever caught up in a habituated pattern which we  normally fail to detect.

Over six years ago, I prepared a comparative statement of the characteristics of an ordinary person and a ‘Self-realized’ man. I used the information  collated from many sources  that I could lay my hands on in preparing this tabulated compilation — almost like what a Purchase Officer does with the quotations (s)he obtains. There were several reasons behind this exercise of mine. Continue reading →

Why do people talk so much about themselves?

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“The ability to communicate—with almost anyone, about almost anything—has played a central role in our species’ ability to not just survive, but flourish. If you’re like most people, your own thoughts and experiences may be your favorite topic of conversation.  On average, people spend 60 percent of conversations talking about themselves.

 

Why, in a world full of ideas to discover, develop, and discuss, do people spend the majority of their time talking about themselves? Recent research suggests a simple explanation: because it feels good.

In an initial fMRI experiment, researchers compared neural activation during self-disclosure to activation during other-focused communication. Three neural regions stood out. (See the figure at top left showing the brain  cut vertically in the middle – the forehead is to the left and the back of the head to the right in the picture).  Continue reading →

Morality in the Brain

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Year 2012 is coming to a close and we are getting ready for one more end-of-the-year celebrations. People are already in a festive mood – remembering friends, recalling  favors received and planning for reciprocation with gifts. As you shop and bring home the packets, you plan to embellish them with a hand-crafted insignia to show your extra care and love. So you take a pair of scissors in hand and begin to cut a piece of paper molding it into an attractive shape. Your child suddenly comments: “Why do you purse your lips when you are cutting the paper?”

Fig. 1: Homunculus – Brain Real Estate Devoted to Touch in the Primary Somatosensory Cortex

What? Pursed the lips? You were not even conscious of the face, forget the lips.You were so much lost in the job with all your attention focused on the fingers and the scissors, you were unaware of the tightness in your face. Why should the lips tense up? And you  don’t even know about it!

You may be a six footer weighing 60 – 70 Kg having seen half a century or more of summers (and winters); or may be a short and smart young man of  20.  The wetware weighing less than a Kg and half (about 3 pounds) sitting between your ears contains an encrypted miniature model of who you are. It has all the maps representing your past, your knowledge, your expertise, tastes, likes, dislikes – everything that describes what you call as your ‘personality.’ Continue reading →

Short questions and answers No. 2

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Here are a few more short Q & A’s which do not merit a separate post of their own: (Dennis’ answers, so don’t blame any of the other bloggers!)

Q: Nisargadatta says : Delve deeply into the sense ‘I am’ and you surely discover that the perceiving centre is universal, as universal as the light that illumines the world. All that happens in the universe happens to you, the silent witness. On the other hand, whatever is done, is done by you, the universal and inexhaustible energy.

My question in two parts:

 1. If my awareness is the absolute one and there is no other – then yours does not exist?

 2. If they both exist as the Absolute but are separately perceived by two minds why am I not aware of your experience as well as my own?

 So far as I can see, without reliance on solipsism, non-duality/Vedanta must posit a reality where the Absolute is being “dipped into” by separate minds? Continue reading →

‘SELF-CONTROL’ AND THE BRAIN

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We have Sankara exhorting us in Vivekachudamani:  “The first step to Liberation is the extreme aversion to all perishable things, then follow calmness, self-control, forbearance, and the utter relinquishment of all work enjoined in the Scriptures.” And a little later he added:  “He who is free from the terrible snare of the hankering after sense-objects, so very difficult to get rid of, is alone fit for Liberation, and none else even though he be versed in all the six Shastras.”

“Mind control is self-control,” said the highly revered Swami Krishnananda of Divine Life Society. And self-control is the way to awakening, he added.

Fig 1. Endocrine Glands

Six passions of the mind called Arishadvargas were depicted as the internal enemies of the man on the path to attaining moksha (liberation). These correspond to the hormones produced at the six major nerve plexuses as shown in the figures 1 and 2 and Table 1.

Fig 2. Nerve Plexuses

Psychologist Piercarlo Valdesolo writes “The power to resist temptation has been extolled by philosophers, psychologists, teachers, coaches, and mothers.” And then he adds, “Of course, this assumes that our natural urges are a thing to be resisted – that there is a devil inside, luring you to cheat, offend, err, and annoy. New research has begun to question this assumption.”

Continue reading →

ANESTHESIA, DEEP SLEEP, DEATH AND CONSCIOUSNESS – Part 3/3

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[Part 1/3         Part 2/3]

To eff the ineffable:

We travelled the depths of Non-duality in Part 2/3.

As Jeff would put it, “I am realized, you are not” is a silly game. There’s no one – none – that’s not Brahman. You are already realized! So relax.

And let’s know what the brainy brain-scientists say consciousness is.

What consciousness is and how the brain produces it (if it does), is still one of the great challenges to science. Until a few decades ago, science was averse to dabble into this subject for lack of adequate investigative tools (both conceptual and instrumental). “Today consciousness research has become a passion for many scientists.”

But what is consciousness? It’s like asking what life is or what energy is. You know it when you see it. We say that “a brain that is fully awake and constructing experiences is fully conscious.” The thalamus, a sort of hub located deep in the brain for information flows from the senses to the upper reaches of the brain is crucial for consciousness. A person turns into a vegetative state if the thalamus is damaged or the information flows are inhibited. This does not mean that thalamus produces consciousness; it may just show that one is conscious – much like a thermometer which doesn’t actually make the heat, but tells you how hot it is.

Dr.Giulio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and his colleagues are studying

States of consciousness (After L. Saunders, 2012)

brains that are deeply asleep, under anesthesia or in comas to understand consciousness. As shown in the figure at the right, “awareness typically tracks with wakefulness — especially in normal states of consciousness. People in coma or under general anesthesia score low on both measures, appearing asleep with no signs of awareness. Sometimes, wakefulness and awareness become uncoupled, Continue reading →

Where lies the “Person” of our personality?

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A queer accident happened about four years ago in 2008.

A long iron rod pierced through the chest of a 25 year old young man in a driving mishap.  Fortunately, the person had access to one of the top hospitals in New Delhi, India. Thanks to the developments in the surgical techniques, he survived the accident, was out of the hospital in a couple of weeks with a sound body and mind. He was Mr. S. Dutta, a software engineer. Neither his expertise nor his personality was affected by the accident. He retained his memories, his knowledge and skills and his temperament also did not change. In effect he continued to be the same person as before the gruesome accident.

S. Dutta, 18 July 2008

Wind backward 160 years. Continue reading →

Mind Reifies Or Deifies

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Mind occupies a significant place in the teaching of Vedanta philosophy.

All the talk of liberation pertains to the mind only.  Maîtri Upanishad (VI-34-11) holds mind to be central for the liberation or bondage of human beings.  amRitabindu Upanishad (mantra 2) makes it further clear stating that “the mind engrossed in objects of senses leads to bondage but the same mind free from attachment to objects leads to liberation.”

But what is this mind?

Continue reading →