Theos-Talk Archives (November 2001 Message tt00357)

There's an article, "Searching For the God Within," that appeared
in NEWSWEEK last January. It's been reprinted on the Internet in
several places. One of many that I found on google.com was:

<http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a6c9e7f5c72.htm>

The article makes a number of interesting points. One is that
there's an "orientation area" in the brain that finds "the
border between self and world." A Tibetan Buddhist, in meditation,
quiets down that center in the brain, as shown on a
"brain-imaging machine called SPECT."

I'm not surprised to read that there's a center in the
brain that is responsible for the sense of personal self.
Most functions of consciousness are represented in the
brain. There's an activity of mind that creates the notion
that there's an external, objective world which is apart from
one. That activity of mind is quieted and stopped in successful
meditation. The fact that there is a brain center that
corresponds to this type of awareness gives further emphasis
to this idea -- that there's a specific type of consciousness
related to self-awareness and personal boundaries.

A materialist might argue that consciousness is the
fortunate byproduct of the electro-chemical activity of
the brain. A spiritualist might argue that consciousness
comes from spirit and uses the brain as a receiving
instrument.

If the brain and our physical plane consciousness are
intimately intertwined, perhaps it's something different
than either view suggests. Awareness and brain activity
cycle together, the actions of each affecting the states
of the other. It's like a "chicken and egg" problem. Which
came first? The answer is the same to the brain/mind
problem as to the puzzle of the chicken and the egg.
They both came at the same time, from another source.
They are inseparable parts of the same process.

Both mind and brain arose together as part of a Monad's
urge to attain awareness on this plane, and represent
a particular form of experiencing, understanding, and
appreciating life in this world. Other experiences of
life, apart from the physical body, would require both
corresponding types of consciousness and some physical
(or astral) mechanism for expressing that consciousness.

-- Eldon