Tag Archives: reality

ANESTHESIA, DEEP SLEEP, DEATH AND CONSCIOUSNESS – Part 2/3

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[Part 1/3      Part 3/3]

Before going into a consideration of Deep Sleep, once again a small detour.

Dennis raised in an e-mail the question of Sleepwalking. Where would it fit in the Model?

Some people amble around in sleep and even hurt themselves.  A few persons could commit heinous crimes in the state of somnambulism.  A well-known case is that of Kenneth Park in 1987 when he strangulated his father-in-law and killed his mother-in-law. However, he was let out by the court on the ground that he was sleepwalking when he harmed and killed people.  A similar case of acquittal also occurred in 1846. Apparently the body of the sleepwalkers is active but the mind seems to be asleep.

Neuroscientifically speaking, in the case of sleepwalking, the motor cortex of the brain is functional whereas the frontal lobe vested with executive functions is at rest. This means that a part of the mind (that propels the body to act) is active while the part responsible for reasoning and self-control is asleep. Continue reading →

Discrimination

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Spiritual seekers should be able to distinguish the essential from inessential in order not to waste time and energy with inessentials on their journey. Hence, the ability to discriminate is basic.

What exactly is it that helps us discriminate? Our senses inform us about the fact that a zebra is something other than a fish. The fact that the feeling of joy is something other than the thought that triggers that joy, is already a more subtle difference. However, both differentiations, indeed any differentiation, is made by using the function in our mind responsible for it, the buddhi. Continue reading →

How did ‘I’ come to deceive itself? (Q. 304)

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Q: How did ‘I’, the all knowing, all loving, all powerful, the absolute & infinite blissful ONE, without a second, come to deceive itself, and place itself in this illusion of illusions? How or why did the Ultimate Reality have this come to pass? (Sept 2010)

A: The spirit of your question is unanswerable – it is effectively asking why there is Self-ignorance and this is said to be anirvachanIya – inexplicable. From the standpoint of absolute reality, of course, there is no deception because there is no creation; and there is no illusion because there are no persons to be deluded. There is only brahman – satyam j~nAnam anantam as the taittirIya upaniShad says, limitless consciousness. It is only from the perspective of this apparently limited entity, the mind of the person, that there seems to be a problem. Once the truth is realized, it is also seen that there is no problem because everything is brahman – sarvaM khalvidam brahma.