Reference: The Human-Centric Fixation
This is an interesting lecture that tries to establish what happens in the mind during the process of enlightenment. However, in my view, there is a lot more that we do not understand.
Listen to the segment especially from 43:05 to 45:40. It is fascinating!
The key point that neuroscientist and author Todd Murphy makes is that
The sense of self comes from the activation of the same area of the brain as hallucination.
Professor Murphy draws the conclusion that the sense of Self is a hallucination. “It is not something intrinsic to your being. It is something created… The self is a hallucination. It is a constant, functional ongoing illusion… it’s function is to unite everything that happens to us internally and externally into a single core that the rest of our system can identify with…”
Buddha acknowledged the presence of self, but he declared that self is always changing and that there is nothing at the core of self that is permanent.
Professor Murphy goes on to say that
You as an individual cannot reincarnate.
“If you take birth into another body and build up a new body-mind complex you will create the neuro-substrates for this process once again and go on existing without having to have it to be carried from one life to the next.”
But we do wonder about the innate genius that some people display. Mozart is a great example. There also seems to be memories that do not seem to belong to this life, and the full recall and purging of which does bring relief to many afflictions.
According to Buddhist thought, “When this physical body is no more capable of functioning, energies do not die with it, but continue to take some other shape or form, which we call another life… Physical and mental energies which constitute the so-called being have within themselves the power to take a new form, and grow gradually and gather force to the full.” ~ What the Buddha Taught (1959) by Walpola Rahula.
So, there is no permanent soul, but there are physical and mental energies that continue beyond the death of the body and the soul.
This is pretty much the view taken on this blog. The question then becomes, “What is the nature of physical and mental energies that take up the form of the body and the soul respectively?”
On this point the research on this blog starts with: Universe and Awareness.
On enlightenment, it seems that the person breaks through the confinement of a narrow self and starts to view the reality from the viewpoint of reality itself.
Maybe the flows in the brain become more balanced as a result.
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Comments
…how about ‘starts to view from Source itself’? …the ‘reality’ of this viewing is in
direct connection with the quality of this viewing…when this quality is Source-
quality, when e.g. viewing into another’s eyes one sees ‘Source’, it is a non-dual
viewing-experience… when this viewing is accompanied by e.g. a thought and
the viewing is done through that, it adds to that viewing experience…e.g. Source
creating and using the eyes of the human body has that experience on top of
the direct perception, which, when attention is focused on it, may hide the direct
Source-to-Source (Oneness) experience (which is the ‘true’ ‘reality’ ).
…this ‘true’ ‘reality’ may be on-and-off, depending on what is added to the
quality of viewing…
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I do not understand what you mean by “Source”.
To me Reality is what it is. It may be considered to be the source.
This Reality may be filtered through constructs such as “Self” and become altered reality.
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The ‘experience’ of ‘Source’ is…. ……out of it a very pure energy flows…this energy-flow is that ‘animates’ the ‘body’….the ‘body’ is of ‘particles
of light’. There is no ‘Self’ (this is the experience here).
I like your article and reflected to that which ‘ i ‘ have experience of. I write ‘ i ‘,
instead ‘viewing’ is a better concept. ‘Source’ cannot be ‘understood’. ‘you’
just ‘stop’ for an instant and . Cannot write it better.
i read your other article too. ‘source’ and ‘reality’ are the same ‘coin’. Source
creates everything.
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Thanks for your appreciation of this article. You are correct in looking at Reality being a source of itself only if we take Reality as a whole (see 2 below).
(1) Any ‘source’ like cause is something relative. Whatever is considered ‘source’ may have its own source. This can be go on endlessly.
(2) In my experience there is no absolute Source or Cause. What may come closest to being considered Absolute Source is THE Universe. The Univese is its own source because there is nothing else besides it.
(3) According to my understanding awareness has the form of light. Light has the essence of awareness. Therefore, awareness and light are the same phenomenon.
(4) Body is evolved out of awareness-light. There is no other ‘source’.
(5) What animates the body is its particular configuration. Death occurs when that configuration ceases to hold together.
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Thank you Vin! I am going to contribute on when i feel i can. I like from your above points the use of ‘in my experience’.
What you write ‘The Universe is its own source’ makes sense…if you read kata’s
com where he writes about the ‘eye, eye….’, reading that i had, for a flash of a
second the experience that it is all ‘source”eye’.
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That is correct. It is reality (the universe) looking at itself.
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Here are some comments on this subject that I recently made on Geir’s blog:
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To me, it is not just Scientologists, but everyone, who needs to be regarded with deep respect because everyone is the manifestation of that wonderful awareness and light, which is hard to fathom.
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From Wikipedia, “The aim of zazen is just sitting, that is, suspending all judgmental thinking and letting words, ideas, images and thoughts pass by without getting involved in them.”
This is one of the prerequisites for enlightenment (letting the inner awareness control the mind). The other two are described below.
Summary of Patanjali Yoga Sutra 2:01 to 2;04:
Yoga is a system to remove afflictions and inconsistencies and achieve the ideal state of one’s nature. The technology consists of strict discipline, devotion to study of self, and letting inner awareness control the mind. The key afflictions are I-feeling, attachment, aversion and clinging to life. The source of these afflictions is the ignorance of reality. These afflictions could be dormant, attenuated, intermittent or fully manifested.
It is interesting to note that “obsession to survive” is an aberration per Yoga.
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From Wikipedia, “The correct mental attitude for zazen according to Dōgen is one of effortless non-striving, this is because for Dōgen, enlightenment is already always present.”
Well, the basic nature is always there just like pure H2O is always there in dirty water. Enlightenment is achieved only when all that dirt is removed.
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A moment of clarity is just that – a moment of clarity. This is what katageek is referring to as enlightenment.
But the final enlightenment per Patanjali Yoga Sutra involves removal of all afflictions, inconsistencies and samskaras.
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I have no idea what Katageek means by “non-emotional Dharma”.
My understanding of Dharma is as follows:
Dharma is the basic nature of something. For example, the dharma of light is awareness.
The fundamentals of this universe rest on awareness and motion. Motion is the outward form of awareness. so I refer to this phenomenon as “awareness-motion.”
Everything in this universe has evolved from “awareness-motion.” Evolution is “awareness-motion” becoming more and more complex.
Awareness is the spiritual component. Motion is the physical component. They are knitted into each other as “awareness-motion.”
Thus, spirit and matter are not separate.
A physical object is simply complex motion. Dharma is the complex awareness knitted into that object expressed as its basic properties.
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An atom is made up of “awareness-motion.”
There are no separate particles in an atom. It is just layers of motion.
These layers of motion break off into differnt particles when the atom is bombarded.
The awareness (dharma) component of the atom is expressed by the Periodic Table.
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“On enlightenment, it seems that the person breaks through the confinement of a narrow self and starts to view the reality from the viewpoint of reality itself.”
A good scientist like Einstein always takes the viewpoint of “Reality” (or the viewpoint of the Universe) in looking at the physical universe. But he is looking at only part of the Universe.
When one is able to maintain the viewpoint of the Universe toward the Universe of ‘awareness-motion” and not just toward the motion aspect of the universe (physical universe), then one is truly enlightened.
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It is interesting that, after making the above comments on Geir’s Blog, I got put under moderation by Geir on his blog.
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