The Spiritual Brain

reply to post by schrodingers dog


Now all of this makes me wonder if there is a surgical procedure that involves correcting all of this for people. Then I wonder if I can claim that I really need this procedure to lead a full life and get a tax exemption. Government funded zombie-ism. I am down with that.

Originally posted by soficrow
I'm thinking narcissism is the polar opposite of self-transcendence

I agree with that polarization of sadistic narcissism.

If the observer is able to project themselves into the observed brain, then doesn't that mean any dysfunction the observer renders of the observed brain may be actually be a dysfunction of the observer.

The only way to overcome such a battle is to declare there isn't a battle. Or, the only way to overcome such a dysfunction is to declare there is no dysfunction.

I am a very spiritual person. I have had out of body experiences through a practice called astral projection. I consider the experiences to be very real. I have heard voices in my head through meditation that are definitely not part of my imagination. What if the dysfunctional brain in a schizophrenic makes that person hear voices that are actually real, but the schizophrenic can't control them because of their dysfunctional brain. What I mean is that the schizophrenic is actually hearing real voices but doctors today don't understand they are real so they tell them that it's all in their head.
Maybe a "fully functional brain" is trapping humans in the physical reality while a dysfunctional brain is allowing humans to explore different parts of a real consciousness.

Jill Bolte Taylor comes to mind when I hear this. She is a brain scientist who had a stroke. She talks about her stoke from the perspective of a brain scientist. I think it's very interesting. Google her name and watch her videos.

reply to post by schrodingers dog

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.

This caught my attention because I know a lot of spirituality involves the excersise of this selflessness. Your mind comes off of what is going on around you and your full focus is on the prayer, or the worship or the task at hand. I'm not sure if this is a good description but I do know that getting the attention off of yourself is a big step.

Originally posted by booyakasha
Maybe a "fully functional brain" is trapping humans in the physical reality while a dysfunctional brain is allowing humans to explore different parts of a real consciousness.

Indeed, and I wished to comment along similar lines, so I'll agree while complying with verbosity requirments. Pondering this lately, it seems logical that reduction in certain hardware functions involving creation worldly self-identity would reveal an opening of a portal that the neural processes normally veil from awareness.

This is my sense garnered from personal experience, most notably that of removing the illusion of a something else experiencing consciousness by what seemed to be a temporary arresting of some function that causes a ghost of false self to be the one watching a true self and presents this false self as the self and presents the true self as phenomena, rather just a direct awareness of that true self, which in fact is consciousness (and the qualia).

It appears neuroscience may start to provide some empirical evidence for my intuitions. Yippe!

[edit on 2/12/2010 by EnlightenUp]

Will all due respect to Andrew Newberg -- these studies of spiritual brains rely on meditators who are not real yogi masters. A real yogi master relies on full lotus -- instead of Western mind yoga meditation.

So for the full lotus brain transformation -- it's the deep brain centers -- the pineal gland -- that is activated -- not just the cortex.

If the brain study isn't showing major pineal gland and thalamus activation then the brain being studied is not really "spiritual."

Unfortunately there are not that many full lotus masters and scientists do not know better to test them. I think the Meninger Foundation? -- did tests on Rama or somebody which was a rare full lotus test. Dr. Herbert Benson has done some similar tests of some full lotus yogis.

springforestqigong.com... -- check out the video testimonies of the healings done by this full lotus master.

I'm sorry but this sounds like more biased atheistic propaganda fluff attempting to support Dawkin's BS.....


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[edit on 12-2-2010 by Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

As far as their being a polar opposition between narcissism and self-transcendence, this may be the case. The thing is, most everyone I've ever encountered who talked about spirituality in real life I came to realize was in fact highly narcissistic. It would be nice to one day meet a real master of the self.

Originally posted by Watcher-In-The-Shadows
I'm sorry but this sounds like more biased atheistic propaganda fluff attempting to support Dawkin's BS.....

Perhaps some will proclaim it as such, others like yourself can of course interpret it as such ... though I am a little confused as why you would think that "self-transcendence" is restricted to the theist/atheist duality. Some, including myself, would suggest that spirituality and theism/atheism are often unrelated if not mutually exclusive. At least by my definition of 'spirituality' ... being that the term is rather abstract, that is perhaps why they chose the self-transcendence nomenclature.

[edit on 12 Feb 2010 by schrodingers dog]

Originally posted by Watcher-In-The-Shadows
I'm sorry but this sounds like more biased atheistic propaganda fluff attempting to support Dawkin's BS.....

 

Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

 

[edit on 12-2-2010 by Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

I seem to suffer from the condition of calculoentropotheosophia since I find trancendent realizations to be preceeded by some sort of exposure to mathematical subjects and objects.

calculus - a pebble: reckon/count by means of a pebble; calculate
en - in
trope - a turning
theos - god
sophy - knowledge

Originally posted by unityemissions
As far as their being a polar opposition between narcissism and self-transcendence, this may be the case. The thing is, most everyone I've ever encountered who talked about spirituality in real life I came to realize was in fact highly narcissistic. It would be nice to one day meet a real master of the self.

"As I am not a master, as I am not a slave" -- Lincoln

One never needs to master anything.

Great thread SD, S&F for you, well since I am very spiritual and see with my third eye plus have had three up close UFO sightings guess I'm nuts, all I can say is that I am in good company.

Bipolar is a term I don't like either, my ex was manic depressive, guess he's bipolar now because it sounds better, not buying that, as far as I am concerned he is still manic depressive..

I dont believe being spiritual is a good thing..(it is but it isnt.. lot of real depressing things you see.)

Me comparative to others I know..

Them:
Money hungry, lack of thought, dont like to explore, dont like to learn, watches tv, isnt attuned with themselves or nature, and on and on..

Myself I love being in nature makes me happy, calm and peaceful, I can give a crap about money(real dislike), I try to find everything out there is to know about religion(s) and everything else, I love seeing the earth do cool and interesting thing..

Thats only a few I dont want to write a book.. The bad side to this is I feel bad and really down because people are not what they are supposed to be potentially. It bothers me that people look at me like i am crazy because i dont like the tv or I despise money, or whatever else.

I feel sorry for these people because they are limiting themselves on very little material things, it bothers me that people dont care about each other, it really sucks when people just dont interact like they should.

All this is not good for an abnormal person I guess spiritually intuned, its like I don't even belong in a place like this, when I picked my life i think i hit the wrong button cause this place is a real letdown on how society treats each other...

There is alot of good about this place also like i said, the earth is a really cool art canvas she gets to show all the time, whether it be a cool sunset or destroying a town, its always an amazing scene. Anyway i dont know where I am going wit this...

Just sometimes I think people need to turn off thier tvs for a month and stop being so materialistic and go outside and hang out for a while....

[edit on 3/11/2010 by ThichHeaded]

[edit on 3/11/2010 by ThichHeaded]

reply to post by ThichHeaded


Good post ThichHeaded, I am in agreement with you, I am long past the materialistic age, I only have what I need now, turned off my TV a long time ago for the most part.......

Ya I dont like tv I barely watch it also, maybe like 2 hrs a week for weather or major event in the world.. I occupy myself with other things to fill my time.. Learning, taking picures, whatever.

reply to post by schrodingers dog

Again, rather a mouthful, but basically if you're spiritual you share the same dysfunctional brain as a schizophrenic!

I would basically say that if we think about something, we usually discuss it with our self in a little abstract thing I like to call the realm of thought. What puzzles me is this. Thought is something that cannot be measured. The waves that certain thoughts produce can be measured, which does prove that a thought gives off a frequency, but cannot measure the actual thought. Only the individual inside of natural reality and outside of physical reality can perceive only their thoughts. No one else s.

That would put it in a realm of no proof in the physical universe. It is taken for granted that it is real because it falls into the natural universe. Some would argue that a change in frequency is proof itself. I would argue that everything we see, hear, touch, smell, feel, taste, and think is just a change in frequency.

We have all these so called Doctor's of Psychology who try to figure out how the mind works using their own opinion of their thought to explain why people are the way they are. We are the way we are because of change. Something changes in your life, it changes your perspective by just a fraction. Something else changes in our lives and the perspective changes again. Whatever you want to call a change in perspective, it happens through the five senses. There are limitations to these vehicles that we call bodies. They die. Death, no matter your view on it, cannot be denied as the ultimate change for these bodies.

The question of whether there is life after death can be answered by the simple fact that death is of the physical universe. It is a change. From the physical to the natural. Do we keep our mind? Well it is already in natural universe just waiting on us.

Now if they want to associate 97.5% of the worlds population, from a 2000 poll, with dysfunction, then I would say that the from statistical analysis that would reverse the consensus.



Just my 2 cents.

Star and Flag. Excellent post and I have enjoyed it tremendously.
www.religioustolerance.org...



[edit on 12-3-2010 by Conclusion]

[edit on 12-3-2010 by Conclusion]

[edit on 12-3-2010 by Conclusion]

Yeah the pineal gland goes beyond these brain readings -- it's too bad all these Western studies don't have good subjects to study -- still this is a pretty cool documentary on the attempt -

Mystical Brain:

www.nfb.ca...