Finding One's 'Self'

[Hans]

Damage to Brain Lobe Changes Personality, Study Finds

By Willow Lawson, ABC News



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May 8 , 2001 — Scientists have pinpointed a key area of the brain that appears to govern personality, including one's religious, social and political beliefs, and even style of dress, according to a new study. The section of the brain was isolated after studying a group of 72 people suffering from a rare degenerative disorder similar to Alzheimer's disease called frontotemporal dementia. Damage to the right frontal lobe of the brain by the disease creates radical changes in the identities of the patients, according to the study.

"We think of our 'self' — including our beliefs and values and even the way we dress — as something we determine, not just an anatomical process," Bruce Miller, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco and author of the study, said in a statement. "But this research shows that one area of the brain controls much of our sense of self, and damage to that area can dramatically change who we are."

Miller presents the findings today at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in Philadelphia. Miller began investigating the anatomy of the self after noticing that patients with frontotemporal dementia, which usually strikes people in their 50s, made dramatic changes in their life.

"One woman was a charming, dynamic real estate agent who went from wearing expensive designer apparel to choosing cheap clothing" Miller said. "Her preference for fine dining in French restaurants turned into a love of fast food." Another patient, a 40-year-old man, sold his business and moved from job to job.

"At home he went from being tight-fisted and short-tempered to relaxed and easy-going," Miller said. His views on sex had been conservative, but they became tolerant and experimental, Miller said.

Of the 72 individuals studied, seven patients had a dramatic change of self. Of that group, six had the most serious abnormalities in the brain's right frontal lobe. The seventh patient had problems elsewhere in the brain, but the most severe were in the right frontal lobe.

"This suggests that normal functioning of the right frontal lobe is necessary for people to maintain their sense of self," Miller said. Biological disorder not only affects behavior, but can destroy patterns of self awareness, he said.

Miller told The Associated Press that scientists didn't yet understand why the right frontal lobe is so important to the sense of self.

"This is a kind of mysterious area in the brain," he said. "The question is why in this non-language area do we see a loss of self concepts. And the answer is: We don't know."



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Tracing the Synapses of Spirituality

By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Staff Writer



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June 17th, 2001 — In Philadelphia, a researcher discovers areas of the brain that are activated during meditation. At two other universities in San Diego and North Carolina, doctors study how epilepsy and certain hallucinogenic drugs can produce religious epiphanies. And in Canada, a neuroscientist fits people with magnetized helmets that produce "spiritual" experiences for the secular.

The work is part of a broad new effort by scientists around the world to better understand religious experiences, measure them, and even reproduce them. Using powerful brain imaging technology, researchers are exploring what mystics call nirvana, and what Christians describe as a state of grace. Scientists are asking whether spirituality can be explained in terms of neural networks, neurotransmitters and brain chemistry.

What creates that transcendental feeling of being one with the universe? It could be the decreased activity in the brain's parietal lobe, which helps regulate the sense of self and physical orientation, research suggests. How does religion prompt divine feelings of love and compassion? Possibly because of changes in the frontal lobe, caused by heightened concentration during meditation. Why do many people have a profound sense that religion has changed their lives? Perhaps because spiritual practices activate the temporal lobe, which weights experiences with personal significance.

"The brain is set up in such a way as to have spiritual experiences and religious experiences," said Andrew Newberg, a Philadelphia scientist who authored the book "Why God Won't Go Away." "Unless there is a fundamental change in the brain, religion and spirituality will be here for a very long time. The brain is predisposed to having those experiences and that is why so many people believe in God."

The research may represent the bravest frontier of brain research. But depending on your religious beliefs, it may also be the last straw. For while Newberg and other scientists say they are trying to bridge the gap between science and religion, many believers are offended by the notion that God is a creation of the human brain, rather than the other way around.

"It reinforces atheistic assumptions and makes religion appear useless," said Nancey Murphy, a professor of Christian philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. "If you can explain religious experience purely as a brain phenomenon, you don't need the assumption of the existence of God."

Some scientists readily say the research proves there is no such thing as God. But many others argue that they are religious themselves, and that they are simply trying to understand how our minds produce a sense of spirituality.

Newberg, who was catapulted to center stage of the neuroscience-religion debate by his book and some recent experiments he conducted at the University of Pennsylvania with co-researcher Eugene D'Aquili, says he has a sense of his own spirituality, though he declined to say whether he believed in God because any answer would prompt people to question his agenda. "I'm really not trying to use science to prove that God exists or disprove God exists," he said.

Newberg's experiment consisted of taking brain scans of Tibetan Buddhist meditators as they sat immersed in contemplation. After giving them time to sink into a deep meditative trance, he injected them with a radioactive dye. Patterns of the dye's residues in the brain were later converted into images.

Newberg found that certain areas of the brain were altered during deep meditation. Predictably, these included areas in the front of the brain that are involved in concentration. But Newberg also found decreased activity in the parietal lobe, one of the parts of the brain that helps orient a person in three-dimensional space.

"When people have spiritual experiences they feel they become one with the universe and lose their sense of self," he said. "We think that may be because of what is happening in that area – if you block that area you lose that boundary between the self and the rest of the world. In doing so you ultimately wind up in a universal state."

Across the country, at the University of California in San Diego, other neuroscientists are studying why religious experiences seem to accompany epileptic seizures in some patients. At Duke University, psychiatrist Roy Mathew is studying hallucinogenic drugs that can produce mystical experiences and have long been used in certain religious traditions.

Could the flash of wisdom that came over Siddhartha Gautama – the Buddha – have been nothing more than his parietal lobe quieting down? Could the voices that Moses and Mohammed heard on remote mountain tops have been just a bunch of firing neurons – an illusion? Could Jesus's conversations with God have been a mental delusion?

Newberg won't go so far, but other proponents of the new brain science do. Michael Persinger, a professor of neuroscience at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, has been conducting experiments that fit a set of magnets to a helmet-like device. Persinger runs what amounts to a weak electromagnetic signal around the skulls of volunteers.

Four in five people, he said, report a "mystical experience, the feeling that there is a sentient being or entity standing behind or near" them. Some weep, some feel God has touched them, others become frightened and talk of demons and evil spirits.

"That's in the laboratory," said Persinger. "They know they are in the laboratory. Can you imagine what would happen if that happened late at night in a pew or mosque or synagogue?"

His research, said Persinger, showed that "religion is a property of the brain, only the brain and has little to do with what's out there."

Those who believe the new science disproves the existence of God say they are holding up a mirror to society about the destructive power of religion. They say that religious wars, fanaticism and intolerance spring from dogmatic beliefs that particular gods and faiths are unique, rather than facets of universal brain chemistry.

"It's irrational and dangerous when you see how religiosity affects us," said Matthew Alper, author of "The God Part of the Brain," a book about the neuroscience of belief. "During times of prosperity, we are contented. During times of depression, we go to war. When there isn't enough food to go around, we break into our spiritual tribes and use our gods as justification to kill one another."

While Persinger and Alper count themselves as atheists, many scientists studying the neurology of belief consider themselves deeply spiritual.

James Austin, a neurologist, began practicing Zen meditation during a visit to Japan. After years of practice, he found himself having to re-evaluate what his professional background had taught him.

"It was decided for me by the experiences I had while meditating," said Austin, author of the book "Zen and the Brain" and now a philosophy scholar at the University of Idaho. "Some of them were quickenings, one was a major internal absorption – an intense hyper-awareness, empty endless space that was blacker than black and soundless and vacant of any sense of my physical bodily self. I felt deep bliss. I realized that nothing in my training or experience had prepared me to help me understand what was going on in my brain. It was a wake-up call for a neurologist."

Austin's spirituality doesn't involve a belief in God – it is more in line with practices associated with some streams of Hinduism and Buddhism. Both emphasize the importance of meditation and its power to make an individual loving and compassionate – most Buddhists are disinterested in whether God exists.

But theologians say such practices don't describe most people's religiousness in either eastern or western traditions.

"When these people talk of religious experience, they are talking of a meditative experience," said John Haught, a professor of theology at Georgetown University. "But religion is more than that. It involves commitments and suffering and struggle – it's not all meditative bliss. It also involves moments when you feel abandoned by God."

"Religion is visiting widows and orphans," he said. "It is symbolism and myth and story and much richer things. They have isolated one small aspect of religious experience and they are identifying that with the whole of religion."

Belief and faith, argue believers, are larger than the sum of their brain parts: "The brain is the hardware through which religion is experienced," said Daniel Batson, a University of Kansas psychologist who studies the effect of religion on people. "To say the brain produces religion is like saying a piano produces music."

At the Fuller Theological Seminary's school of psychology, Warren Brown, a cognitive neuropsychologist, said, "Sitting where I'm sitting and dealing with experts in theology and Christian religious practice, I just look at what these people know about religiousness and think they are not very sophisticated. They are sophisticated neuroscientists, but they are not scholars in the area of what is involved in various forms of religiousness."

At the heart of the critique of the new brain research is what one theologian at St. Louis University called the "nothing-butism" of some scientists – the notion that all phenomena could be understood by reducing them to basic units that could be measured.

"A kiss," said Michael McClymond, "is more than a mutually agreed-upon exchange of saliva, breath and germs."

And finally, say believers, if God existed and created the universe, wouldn't it make sense that he would install machinery in our brains that would make it possible to have mystical experiences?

"Neuroscientists are taking the viewpoints of physicists of the last century that everything is matter," said Mathew, the Duke psychiatrist. "I am open to the possibility that there is more to this than what meets the eye. I don't believe in the omnipotence of science or that we have a foolproof explanation."

[alyn]

It is interesting to read about scientists studying the intangibles of life. The active presence of intangible causes can only be measured/observed indirectly, or can be observed only by their affects/effects on some tangible event.

These scientists seem to be going through "mental gymnastics" in the above research and "leaping" to all kinds of conclusions in an effort to make the objective evidence of their observations/experiments "fit" their particular preconcieved perspectives about what the objective phenomena they're studying is all about.

Scientific investigation of material phenomena, in all of its sublimated forms, should seek to suspend all preconcieved conclusions and study the objective data collected in an experiment or natural observation of an event from this perspective. This is not easy to do, though, because all humans have some preconcieved beliefs about any objective phenomena. This is just the way that our cognitive abilities "work" to help us understand and function in our ever-changing environments. We assimilate new experiences based on our accumulated knowledge base of previous experiences and also accomadate new experiences that don't "fit" into our previous knowledge base. It seems, then, that it is easy to come to faulty conclusions when we try to accomodate objective events that do not "fit" our accumulated knowledge base.

Sometimes scientists insist that the truth of the matter is either "this" or "that" when, in reality, the truth of the matter is more like "this AND that" AND the "other", too, and how all these events effect/interact with each other within constantly changing/developing, myriad levels/spheres of existence. So, I most often conclude that I don't know very much at all, really. :)

Some of the above conclusions of the articles seem to repeat an old doctrine/philosophy that's been around for many centuries. Idealism, it is sometimes called. This is the philosophy that claims human beings create reality each moment with our minds and that nothing material really exists outside of our own minds. If this is so, I've often wondered, why does it hurts like the dickens when we run into a door or stub our toe on some part of all this "unreality" around us. ;)

Also, I recognize another old/new philosophy that says all human behavior/experience is solely the result of our various biological processes, or biologically determined is another term for this philosophy. Often, this philosophy claims that humans are biologically "wired" to be violent, or inherently "evil" by nature. The old "original sin" doctrine. The articles try to sound as if these old philosophies are brand new scientific "breakthroughs" proven by objective evidence, but I have heard these old arguments before in different contexts/words.

love to all, alyn

[Mark]

If tinkering with the brain, in a manner that will affect the way we experience things, makes religion a property of the brain, then adjusting "treble" and "bass" on my receiver is proof that a little man is living in my radio.

And that is all I have to say.

In Christ,

- Mark

[Kay Ann Ray]

Dear divine Folks,

Trying to consider the *reality* described by quantum physics, makes me feel a bit crazy; so, I'm afraid that I just don't try to understand it! But I do pray to gain insight and wisdom about spiritual concepts which still elude me.

Mark's blurb reminds me of another similar story; the astronaut returned to earth and claimed that there was no God, he had searched all the heavens and found none. The listener replied; searching space trying to find God is like taking a violin apart trying to find the music!

God bless you, each and every one! Let's keep up our good prayers for the angels to guide us in our plans and preparation for our 2003 DLF gathering. We know that love will serve us well in our efforts and desires to have a harmonious event.

Sincerely with love, your sister in Christ, Kathryn

[jankomil]

Inducement vs. cause: Clarity of thought

Thanks Hans for provoking. I myself do often to come to a really good debate by provoking people. I have written a concept of this message a few days ago. But I have been thinking and thinking what should my reply be.
I think that the following in the article is a too early conclusion: <“What creates [provokes/helps to create/causes] that transcendental feeling of being one with the universe? It could be the decreased activity in the brain's parietal lobe, which helps regulate the sense of self and physical orientation, research suggests.“> The answer is (at least in my opinion) that what is the brackets: [] is it only an inducement or is it really a cause? I remember it very well when we were taught in school that the First world war was not caused by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand but only induced by the assassination of the aforementioned. Inducement is only a small part of the whole cause.
<” Could the flash of wisdom that came over Siddhartha Gautama – the Buddha – have been nothing more than his parietal lobe quieting down? Could the voices that Moses and Mohammed heard on remote mountain tops have been just a bunch of firing neurons – an illusion? Could Jesus's conversations with God have been a mental delusion? ”> What about the clarity of thought! This is the central question! Illusion is not referred to a something as “the truth, the path and the life itself!”. If it were only a biological/bare physical phenomenon – where do this higher coherence/truths come from?
If we presuppose a very conservative, atheistic view – then only a mind of a human [or a being alike] should be able to grasp [do a induction] of a very specific physical phenomena. Otherwise you would get only garbage: but is right the opposite: you do not get the garbage, but the truths you would never think of. If you are familiar with the concept of a random function in computer science: it is usually a time define function – a processor cycle long random – you get only garbage out of it – but not a philosophy itself! // An atheist find itself in a corner and does not know how to proceed.
Just a quote now: <« LSD: When people have spiritual experience they feel they become one with the universe and lose their sense of self," he said. "We think that may be because of what is happening in that area – if you block[!!!] that area you lose that boundary between the self and the rest of the world. In doing so you ultimately wind up in a universal state."«> There is nothing contradictory in this statement itself. It only repeats how it is possible to get into the state where you are not aware – or at least now at the foremost aware of the state of separation.
But what comes out of a statement if you only change “block” to “unblock”: <” if you <unblock>[!!!] that area you lose that boundary between the self and the rest of the world. In doing so you ultimately wind up in a universal state."”>
Well, one could say, that the definition of block/unblock itself depends of one’s value system: it is bad to block, it is good to unblock. Because the life itself is a flow: blocking means to hinder life, unblocking means to unleash the life. To become the very best it can become. [Mind is the same as matter- something that possesses an inertia – not a life of/on itself]
And now to come to the topic of evil spirits that has been bothering me for such a long time: quote <Four in five people, he said, report a "mystical experience, the feeling that there is a sentient being or entity standing behind or near" them. Some weep, some feel God has touched them, others become frightened and talk of demons and evil spirits.>; the African tribes, are [at least in anthropological literature] reportedly to say that the are conducting the dancing and the feasts to come into touch with the spirits of the deceased that would guide them in their life. As their spiritual guides. They need beat. They need dance. Rhythm. Something that is repeating. Which switches off the mind. Like a hypnosis. And lets the spirit speak without a hindrance/ a filter. | You are attracted to the spirit your state of soul is alike: low, low, low. | This is in my opinion the source of the fear from spiritism. That the spirits you call are to be evil. Or at least on a low stage of developement.
And now to conclude: <”At two other universities in San Diego and North Carolina, doctors study how epilepsy and certain hallucinogenic drugs can produce religious epiphanies. And in Canada, a neuroscientist fits people with magnetized helmets that produce "spiritual" experiences for the secular.”> Well, go to the link http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/tw/Orgasm.htm where some people reveal how the consumed the so called element of Ormus and became…
Please do not disregard this message. Try & rethink. Answer
:> Jankomil

[Hans]

Dear Jankomil:

I have posted the above article as is, without any additions or changes by my side.

You are right, I did so in order to “provoke,” as this is at times a good method to stimulate an exchange of thoughts.

As to your expressions, “inducement or cause,” I remember that it was exactly when we were taught at school about the reasons which led to WWI, that the German terms “Ursache und Auslöser” (cause and trigger) were discussed. The WWI example is a very good one.

I will give you another example, perhaps more in line with the article. When you exert pressure on the eyeballs, you will see “light.” We have even the idiomatic expression in German, “to see stars”, that is, to have been hit hard (on the eye, or in a symbolic sense).

Some Indian “spiritual leaders” use this practice, that is, imposing their hands upon disciples and at the same time exerting some pressure on their eyes, letting them see “the divine light.”
What happens is simply that a mechanical irritation (pressure) of the retina “triggers” nervous impulses to be sent to the brain (very obvious in this case, as the optical nerve is not a nerve in fact, but a true extension of the brain, as is the eye. Both are ontogenetically direct parts of the brain), provoking the impression of “light” in the brain’s interpretation. Very similarly, “phantom pain” may be felt in the fingers of an amputated limb, simply because the brain interprets the nervous impulses (caused by cold, for example) as coming from the region which the respective nerve is supposed to supply, projecting the sensation of pain thereto, no matter if this region still exists or has already been lost.

Stimuli trigger programs, weak stimuli are interpreted as positive, strong stimuli are interpreted as negative, inverting the body’s (or mind’s!) reaction, perhaps as some mechanism of protection.

As to clarity of thought, the above articles actually try to give different answers to the question whether spiritual experiences originate in the brain as the result of biochemical processes, by stimulating or suppressing certain brain regions, or they originate elsewhere, “triggering” reactions in the brain, reactions which may be triggered differently (as in the example of the pressure against the eye), leading to similar results.
Is our brain a self-programming computer with some basic programs, or is it a computer with an integrated fax-modem, allowing it to access different spheres of information outside itself? This is the question. And then, is the brain the originator of the mind or is it simply a device the mind needs to manifest itself in this material world?

The question of good and bad is another difficult and profound issue.

Are there absolute values of good and evil, of right and wrong, etc.? Or is it better to say that such values are the product of our own personality, a personal “guideline” for orientation in this world? I would tend to agree with the second statement. There is no absolute good or evil, right or wrong. There is but one absolute value, Love. This I conclude from my studies of the Padgett messages and other sources. Love is the basic attribute of that entity we call God (and whose existence we cannot prove scientifically). It is, therefore, the only absolute and unchangeable value and the absolute and only guideline for our living. As a result, the spiritual “Law of Love” is called the law which fulfills everything. The relativity of expressions such as right and wrong, just and unjust, has been extensively proven by our many and fruitless debates, where at the end only our personal opinions came through, but no other true value except the undisputable value of love.

As to evil spirits, this question presupposes the existence of independent entities, living in a bodiless (in the physical meaning) state, and who are able to interact with, or to influence, our mind. I believe they do exist, and I believe that there are laws regulating such “mortal-spirit” interaction.
When we speak of levels of spiritual development, it is fundamental to know that spiritually higher entities always have the possibility to visit and exert influence on lower levels, but lower entities have no way of accessing higher levels.

So, an “evil” spirit can only influence individuals who live on a similar level, or on an even lower level. The question is, whether the spiritual level we occupy is stable and always the same, until we ascend to a higher plateau, or are we constantly changing in this respect? I tend to think that we are constantly changing, and so we speak of spiritual ups and downs in our life, or even during a single day. As a personal principle, I never try to contact spirits when I feel “down.” Also, whenever I contact spirits, it is only after prayer and after asking for protection, although I know a medium who never asks for protection and has never had a bad experience. You need not ask for protection when you feel spiritually high. Nothing can happen to you, as your high spirituality makes you inaccessible for low spirit influence. Even knowing this, I do pray for protection perhaps as an expression of my conviction that the only way to come closer to God is a total delivery of myself and my declaration of trust. Although He certainly knows of my attitude, I like to express this over and over again, just as when we love somebody, we like to express this ever again, even when the other person knows that we love him or her.

The question of our inner self, or ego, is a very complex one. I have pondered this for a long time, and I have come to the conclusion that we possess two egos, not in the sense of Jacques Lacan, namely, the “Je” and the “Moi”, or the true ego and the mirror ego. But it would lead too far to discuss this here in this post.

I am preparing a series of about seven articles on different (and provoking) questions, very loosely interconnected, which I plan to post to this board (and which may set it aflame, hopefully not flaming me :p ) in the near future. There, we will find opportunities for discussing more of these fundamental issues.

Thank you very much for your reaction, and may God bless you.

Hans

[jankomil]

First to the question of good and bad.
Hans, citing your words "Are there absolute values of good and evil, of right and wrong, etc.?" "There is no absolute good or evil, right or wrong." "There is but one absolute value, Love."
I don't know, but at least in my opinion there is absolute good and that is love. There is absolute Good and that is God. One might dismiss the notions of good and bad as being a only a naming convention - and that is the language itself - a convention how to name things. One might do that, but the language is useful regardless of its flaws. The point is that a language helps us to come to a "good" outcome - to communicate, to tell your feelings and to teach/learn. In order to come to some positive [good J]outcomes. The differentiation between good and bad [why does nobody say "between bad and good"]
A short intermezzo - according to Google there was the following number of hits: "good and bad" - 590,000 | "bad and good" - 17,900 | "gut und schlecht"* - 3,880 |"schlecht und gut" - 214) Good in the first place, bad on the second.
The lack of love could be referred to as something bad. For example, so called deadly sins: anger, greed, gluttony, haughtiness. I think there is an absolute criterion, that those things are worse [less positive, "more bad"] than those done with kindness. There is a absolute criterion: "Good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell". God is just. I am sincerely convinced that there is no anger in heaven.
Yes, of course, I am well aware of the limitations of simplified versions of distinguishing between good and bad. That the world is a stage of fighting between the forces of good and evil - so called "cosmic dualism" - Ahura Mazda vs. Ahriman as in Zoroastrism.
Yes, and the language can be improved ["switched to more good"]. New words invented, new phrases or by changing the meaning of already established words or phrases.
*
But a more interesting question is why does a man choose to be bad instead of good. To succumb to "the mirror ego" instead of choosing the "true ego". Why does one chose to be mean to other people instead of being kind? My best explanation /regardless of its persuasiveness/ is because of perversion. Sin is a perversion. Let me give you an example: when you are feeling down you feel better if you eat something tasty. You compensate the pain of your soul with the "well being" of your body. (¤Suppress. Repress. Freud.¤) It is the despair that twists your mind to accept sin as an option. You don't like your pain, so you start disliking yourself. You start feeling unworthy of other people's kindness and you start to push them away. || Maybe I cannot describe this well enough with words, but try to remember your mood when you wanted to suppress your sadness by eating a bar of chocolate. Or by exaggerating, or being workaholic. This is when you choose your "mirror ego". By praying, not with words, but by compassion for yourself, god and other people, you seem to lose your sin/perversion and your bliss increases.
*
|--------------------------------------|
-(¤As to clarity of thought, the above articles actually try to give different answers to the question whether spiritual experiences originate in the brain as the result of biochemical processes, by stimulating or suppressing certain brain regions, or they originate elsewhere, "triggering" reactions in the brain, reactions which may be triggered differently (as in the example of the pressure against the eye), leading to similar results. ¤)-
As it pertains to your comment above, I had something different in mind: how is it possible to quiet down a part of brain and at the same time become wiser? Do a lobotomy and become Einstein? If it were as stated in the above article [let me cite again] (¤" Could the flash of wisdom that came over Siddhartha Gautama - the Buddha - have been nothing more than his parietal lobe quieting down? Could the voices that Moses and Mohammed heard on remote mountain tops have been just a bunch of firing neurons - an illusion? Could Jesus's conversations with God have been a mental delusion? "¤) I find myself in a dilemma: how is it possible that by decreasing the level of functioning of part of one's brain to improve the working of their brain? According to the theory of evolution, or in a more modern version - the theory of a selfish gene [Dawkins]: what is functional should stay; what is dysfunctional should disappear [overall effect- blood disease vs. malaria]; what makes no harm nor a benefit should also stay (eg. the level of inactive DNA). Functional means that genes that find out a working/good/the best solution how to spread itself, normally meaning to establish an individual that has a great/greater chance to become of adult age and to have as many offspring.
(¤PAUSE¤) I've been thinking for ten minutes. Maybe I don't have a strong case. Let me sum up…
*
*
*
(¤"The brain is set up in such a way as to have spiritual experiences and religious experiences" "The brain is predisposed to having those experiences and that is why so many people believe in God." "It reinforces atheistic assumptions and makes religion appear useless"¤)
POINT A: "The brain is set up in such a way as to have spiritual experiences and religious experiences": the brain is set up such a way as to have spiritual experiences and religious experiences, but not to have it constantly. Is it only functional [spread genes] to have it experienced for only a few minutes by a small/-er amount of people?
POINT B: "The brain is predisposed to having those experiences and that is why so many people believe in God.": I would say just the opposite: Parietal lobe hinders spiritual experience. Brain have the possibility of having those experiences [might agree with ‘predisposition'], but [at least in my opinion/don't have statistics] most people do not have spiritual experience. But why do they believe in god anyway? Maybe because of fear and uncertainty? Cost-benefit Pascal's Dilemma? But I do not think that because of abundance of spiritual experience.
POINT C: "It reinforces atheistic assumptions and makes religion appear useless": my CORE ISSUE: a) what survived through the process of evolution it either useful or at least harmless. b) if it were only harmless [like the small of the back, which used to be a tail], some peoples could live without it. c) it could be a remainder from previous stages of development like the back of spine, which used to be a tail. So how well developed is the parietal lobe with our animal ancestors?
CONCLUSION: Parietal lobe has a function. And it is functional to hinder spiritual experience - to spread your genes in the best possible way.
*
DILEMMA: Supposedly a human body comes to a great wisdom, if it quiets down parietal lobe. Wisdom is functional. |Or is it a remainder from those days when hindering spiritual experience was functional? Or might be that is had some [functional J] function, other than hindering spiritual experience in other primates/mammals/vertebrates?
Or is it spiritual wisdom really not so functional?
A:Hey, but most people are religious [ok, somehow religious; religion is in decline]!
B:Yes, but what is useful is a religion/spiritual wisdom, but not so highly concentrated as with those, who quiet down their parietal lobe.
The original question was, how is it possible at all to come to "higher truths" by switching off [ok, quieting down] a part of your brain. The more a statement resembles truth, the more coherent it is. And the other way round: the more coherent a statement is, the more it resembles truth. BUT WHY SHOULD A SPECIES HAVE SOME IMPLANT HARDENING IT TO KNOW THE TRUTH? How should it help it to multiply [genes…]?
*
(¤PAUSE¤) I've read my contribution again, but I cannot find a [major] flaw.
Let the god's grace be with you,
Jankomil

[Mark]

Dear friends,

Jankomil wrote:

The original question was, how is it possible at all to come to "higher truths" by switching off [ok, quieting down] a part of your brain?

When our brain is turned off, either temporarily, or in death, we see a world not previously within our scope (or, at least, not to many). The shells fall off our eyes. In fact, our entire physical body appeared a shell, a mortail coil we happily shuffle off. The material eye obscures our spiritual vista just as much as the parietal lobe. But it would be a clear fallacy to conclude that, therefore, our material eyes were made for the purpose of hampering spiritual truths.

Wisdom and higher truths, whoever threw them in the mix with brain activity, should understand, of course, that the higher spiritual truths have nothing to do with the brain; nor even with the mind, for that matter. The material word, and thus the brain, and thus the "material" mind, as we may call it, simply has its limitations. Higher truths can be perceived by the person whose soul-perceptions have been awakened -- and such in a linear fashion. And those, on earth, who have realized the fact, know that truth is truly a matter of the soul.

Becoming "one" with the universe is, in scientic circles, often misunderstood as the ne plus ultra in religious experiences. But, in fact, the granularity of that "scientific" assertion is quite crude -- if not downright measured from ignorance. At best, that view describes a sort of Pantheism -- similar to the total effacement of self in certain types of Buddhism.

The brain may well play the occasional trick on us, either by accident or induced, so as to temporarily make use feel we lose our sense of self, but that makes the phenomenon hardly a true religious experience. In fact, quite the opposite; the Angels tell us over and over again, that the candle of our self does not grow dimmer over time -- ere burns all the brighter. We may grow in wisdom, and knowledge, and understanding of the universe. And to the extent that, were we able to see ourselves now as we will be in a million years, we would, no doubt, look upon ourselves as highly developed beings. But nothing like the traumatized, disoriented brain, having lost the boundaries of the mental projection of self.

Consequently, we seek not at-onement with the universe, but individual at-Onement with God.

In Christ,

- Mark

[Hans]

Dear Jankomil:

What is in harmony with Love, that we call “good.” It is Love which constitutes the guideline, it is Love which is the absolute value. Our notion of “good” and “bad” is just the expression of our evaluation of things.

Is it good to kill Saddam Hussein (knowing that this could save the lives of thousand sof people) or is it bad to kill anybody? When asking this question, you will receive the most diverse answers. Good and bad our determined by our personalities, these words do not express absolute values.
The lack of love is out of harmony with God’s Will. Lack of love is lack of absolute value, and therefore we may call it “bad.” Again, love is the value, love is the measure.

It is a good question what sin is. What does perversion mean? Again, we find expressions “colored” by a cultural context.
Is it a perversion to have several wives? The good old Biblical patriarchs had several wives, and “they walked with God.” Is it a perversion to kill enemies? They did so. Is it a perversion do deform little girls’ feet so that they look “beautiful?” Chinese would have told you that this was not a perversion. Is it a perversion to be homosexual? For Romans and Greek, this was quite natural. Is it a perversion to criticize and boycott one country (Cuba) fro violations of human rights, and to tolerate the same violations silently in another country (China), simply because it is a huge market? Obviously, the US government (and many others, too) would answer this question with “no.” You see, it all depends of our point of view and cultural context.
I would simplify matters. The perversion is to deviate our effort from God and to redirect them to the material world. This does not mean that we have to consider those efforts (as accumulating money, power, social status) as necessarily bad (good and bad are relative), but these efforts surely are not what God intends us to do. Are they sin? Again, what is sin? No matter if they are sin or not, these efforts mean to use our energies for purposes not intended by God. To live in this world but not to be of this world, this is the narrow path to follow. We must be active, of course, but when dedicating our (material) activity to God (that is, stripping it of our egoistic motives), then we do well. All the rest is “perversion”.

As to clarity of thought, spirituality does not mean intelligence. Wisdom is the result of spirituality, not of accumulated knowledge or reasoning. The example of Einstein does not appear to be very fitting.
The working of our brain is no gauge for our spirituality. Many highly spiritual people may not be very intelligent. Was Jesus extraordinarily intelligent? We don’t know. But it would not have been necessary. What he embodied, among others, was wisdom.
Your example of evolution is not very good in he context of spirituality. On the contrary, the more reckless one is, the better his chances to survive and to procreate. You can see this in the animal kingdom. The strongest animal eats first, leaving only the rests for the other members of his group. So, this animal can preserve its strength and dominion, until it will be expulsed, when old age weakens its physics. This is brutal, but very effective for the preservation of a species. Evolution always takes into consideration the whole species, not the individual.

Brain activity must be seen in the context of brain functioning. When you engage in different activities, different regions of your brain will be activated, and other regions will decrease their activity. Thos is a normal physiological procedure. When you read or watch something or run or meditate or sleep, you may determine different regions of high activity and low activity (“blocked”). This has nothing to do with the flow of life.
When you suffer from an allergy, and an increased histamine release increases capillary permeability, then you may take an antihistaminic drug, “blocking” histamine activity to get rid of the swelling and the itch. Does this “block” the flow of life?

As to the different points you enumerated, we must distinguish between scientific findings and their interpretation. In most cases, complex findings may allow different interpretations. So, when you do not agree with the interpretation of some scientist, you are entitled to do so. So are not the owners of ultimate knowledge or wisdom. And their interpretation may change next week.

The parietal lobe, forming part of the cerebrum, the upper part of the brain, is a rather recent product, which you will not find in lower animals. Our basic life functions are situated in older parts of the brain, so for example, respiration, blood pressure, etc. in the medulla oblongatum, or our equilibrium in the Purkinje cells of the cerebellum. The “cortex” has much to do with higher functions, such as our intelligence, memory, etc.

Question: Is wisdom a function of our brain?

You say religion is in decline. Are you sure? I would say it is not in decline. Only traditional churches are suffering from a decline, but people continue in their search (elsewhere), religious as ever, materialist as ever, it is a change of focus, not a change of quality. When young people don’t attend church services anymore, it is not because they are not religious; it is the “institutional offer” which they reject.

Much love,

Hans

[jankomil]

<B><U>Dear sisters and brothers!</U></B>

Well, first to the <B>question of »<I>Sin</I>« and »<I>Perversion</I>«</B>: maybe I expressed myself unclearly, but I did not want to go into cultural relativism. I just wanted to share with you how I feel, when I choose sin [an act not in accordance with Love] as opposed to the act out of Love. Well, ask yourselves why do you personally often choose to act without Love [“sin”, not act like a celestial]. [Bad vs. Good] Why do you choose to succumb to the mirror ego instead of choosing the true ego? I named this “the true perversion” of a man. My simpleminded answer is that a man in a bad condition wants to find a relief. And it’s the most easy thing to please your body, but it doesn’t last long. The second most easy is to please your mind – and it lasts longer. Last most easy [hardest ;) ] is to please your soul. And this should lassssst. //Unless one deliberately destroys her/his inner peace. // I do not assert that one should not take care of her/his body, but if the source of dissatisfaction is elsewhere, then there should also the “remedy” be. |||As an example I called upon you, to remember when you have last eaten something, when you were missing something. A bar of chocolate when you were nervous. Because you were bored. I thus call any exaggeration a sin. But by praying, not with words, but by compassion for yourself, God and other people, you seem to appease your mind and colonize your soul with bliss.

<B>Clarity. </B>To tell you the reason I started wanted to make a contribution: I was provoked by the passage in the original message: <I>>” Could the flash of wisdom that came over Siddhartha Gautama – the Buddha – have been nothing more than his parietal lobe quieting down? Could the voices that Moses and Mohammed heard on remote mountain tops have been just a bunch of firing neurons – an illusion? Could Jesus's conversations with God have been a mental delusion? ”< </I>
A few years ago I had the same problem. If there were no god or spirits, only material world, one would not be able to obtain some information about other people s/he never knew or places s/he never visited. But there is another point: it’s the clarity of thought – by this I meant wisdom. If it were only an illusion one would face a problem: illusion/delusion means something delirious. Or to put it otherwise – random [or as I put it in my reply: garbage]. But where does this deep wisdom come from?

Originally I thought that<I> >” An atheist find itself in a corner and does not know how to proceed.«< </I> But, no! In my second reply I rephrased what bugged me: <I> “how is it possible to quiet down a part of brain and at the same time become wiser? Do a lobotomy and become Einstein?«</I> [I agree with Hans, Albert was an intellectual, not a sage, but he's a symbol of someone whose brain works the best possible way]
If you read again from first (¤PAUSE¤) to the second (¤PAUSE¤). I think my conclusions are correct: a) »Parietal lobe has a function. And it is functional to hinder spiritual experience - to spread your genes in the best possible way.« b) our species has something that hinders it to know the truth.

To quote Mark now <I><«When our brain is turned off, either temporarily, or in death, we see a world not previously within our scope (or, at least, not to many). The shells fall off our eyes. In fact, our entire physical body appeared a shell, a mortal coil we happily shuffle off. The material eye obscures our spiritual vista just as much as the parietal lobe. But it would be a clear fallacy to conclude that, therefore, our material eyes were made for the purpose of hampering spiritual truths.«< </I>
I don't know if it is such a clear fallacy to conclude that our material eyes are not made to help hampering spiritual truths. Most people do not see spirits or places in spiritual world, not even in hell. A lot of people do not even believe in spirits and [consequently] in life after death. Because they trust only what they see and what the feel! /But most of folks participating in this forum believe that there are spirits!!! Do they believe their own eyes? Or are »our material eyes /really/ made for the purpose of hampering spiritual truths«?

Hans is quite right when is saying that brain activity depends on what you do. And parietal lobe [according to the article] “helps regulate the sense of self and physical orientation...”, or otherwise is “one of the parts of the brain that helps orient a person in three-dimensional space.”. If you talk to spirits or have visions you don’t have to navigate 3D. But how’s during sleep? Dreams? Is it hard to quiet down the parietal lobe? Is it much harder than to (de)activate your brain centre for listening, watching, walking… If it is, then our body presents an obstacle to get in touch with spiritual truths. If not, then why all this fuss? It makes perfect sense, that when one sits down, the level of activity in the centre(s) for walking should drop. [By the way, is there any other way to get in touch with spiritual truths other than quieting parietal lobe?]

<I>>Hans: »Your example of evolution is not very good in he context of spirituality«<</I>
Yes, this has no relevance with the evolution of souls. As I read chanelled messages, all souls have their source directly in God and a soul cannot have its own offspring that would inherit its attributes. But its relevant to the point that we bear bodies, which are a result of this process. A process, which is »brutal, but very effective for the preservation of a species«. A process, in which »the more reckless one is, the better his chances to survive and to procreate«.
God created our soul. He might have a) also created our bodies; b) directed evolution of human body; c) was just a bare witness. But regardless of these three options He has chosen to implant a soul into a body. To make a point – He certainly would not have implanted »the crown creation« into something what He had deemed inappropriate.
There is an interaction between body and a soul. A soul can be a slave of a body, or it can rule with with its wisdom [Plato did a very good clasification of people according to the power of impluses versus the wisdom of soul in his Republic.]

Have I convinced you that “our material eyes [are] made for the purpose of hampering spiritual truths«?
Well, yes – what's the purpose of being a mortal? [I'll leave this question for you to answer]
Or in the same line of argument: [quote Mark again] <I>>« and thus the "material" mind, as we may call it, simply has its limitations.«<</I> Or is »our material mind made for the purpose of hampering spiritual truths«?

Much love to my sisters and brothers,
Jankomil

[Mark]

Dear Jankomil,

As to why the material world exists, your guess is as good as mine. We know we receive a spirit body at incarnation, and thus establish individuality. I believe Jesus once said the rest of our existence here is a mere "byproduct" thereof.

We simple do not know. And it seems the Angels are not all that much informed on the matter, either. God really keeps quite a bit of information to Himself -- for good reasons, no doubt.

Could there be a grander purpose behind our existence here? Perhaps.

Even if not intentional, our being on earth may well prove beneficial, even in a spiritual sense. For one, this is, and ever will be, the only mixed sphere you will ever live in! Never hereafter will we be thrown in a melting-pot like this again. Since, therefore, we cannot take others for granted, being "forced" to make the determinination between chaff and grain may well hasten our soul to the awakening of its spiritual capacity. So, be not too quick to dismiss the usefulness of, temporarily, living in a mixed sphere.

I remember a nice episode of Star Trek, DS9. The shapeshifter, Odo, helped a newborn shapeshifter grow up. The "baby" was just a gelatinous, amorphous substance, lying still in a Petri-dish, and would not make much progress; or very little. When Ode himself was born, his teacher had used external stimuli to force him to take shape, and thus have him learn about his true nature. Ode had always thought that was immoral. But later on agreed it seemed the only way to have the newling make any significant progress.

Of course, that was just a story. But a instructive one, at that. Just as our brain develops best when stimulated, it is not unreasonable to assume that, in like manner, our material encasing, which may, at first glance, seem a hindrance to our spiritual development, is actually an excellent catalyst to the awakening of our spiritual nature.

For the record, I do not adhere to the theory that God gives us suffering for the learning. For God does no such thing. But that is not to say that a nice byproduct of the "byproduct" of becoming individualized, is the quickening of our spiritual nature.

Another pet-thought of mine, and equally unsubstantiated, is the idea I have that man basically "chose" his material nature. That is, that through the normal workings of God's Laws, man, pulling away from his spiritual nature, actually, literally solidified his material existence, if I may express it so. We do know that our first parents were also of the material, but much more "ethereal" in material density, and required no food, for instance. After the fall, this was no longer the case, and, as far as I can tell, man's dependence of, and roots in, the material became much more pronounced.

Anyway, all my musings despite, the truth is, beyond the reasons of establishing individuality, we simply do not know why we are here. Or, at least, I do not.

In Christ,

- Mark

[Thomas]

Very interesting thoughts, Mark. I´ve pondered the same thing and realized that living in a mixed sphere as well as being incased in a dense body is a very unique experience. And I guess the best thing we can do is to try and enjoy the ride, and think that whenever we feel down from being "stuck" here, we will never come back once we leave.

I wasn´t quite aware that our first parents didn´t have to eat, but think I recall it now. Does that mean our bodies and digestive organs were in fact constructed to accommodate a fallen state?

Although I think it´s safe to say that we know a lot more about the meaning and point of this life than most people, I acknowledge that I don´t actually understand why it is necessary with a long life in a dense body just to become individualized. I think it would be nice with some elaboration on this matter from above...(as well as 20 other issues :) ). Until then your "speculations" sound sensible as a tentative theory.

:-)

-Thomas

[Hans]

Dear Jankomil:
You wrote:
Why do you choose to succumb to the mirror ego instead of choosing the true ego? I named this “the true perversion” of a man.
Do we choose? At a certain stage in infancy, we simply develop this ego as a normal step in mental evolution.
I am not an expert in Lacan’s psychoanalysis, but when you said that “a man in a bad condition wants to find a relief. And it’s the most easy thing to please your body, but it doesn’t last long,” then I would answer: the question is not what a man does when he is in a bad condition, but WHY he is in a bad condition. It may also be too simple to take the action of “pleasing one’s body” as some kind of relief. Very often, this apparent “pleasing” is nothing more than self punishment. For example, many an obese person simply eats too much, because as a child, he or she was forced to eat, and considered this as some kind of punishment. Later, whenever he or she feels guilty of having failed, s/he tries to punish him/herself – by eating. It is indeed very complicated. The experts on this field do not agree with each other and do not know everything on the respect, and I am even more ignorant, of course. I think David Lampron could contribute valuable insights concerning this topic.
Does the soul ever feel bad? I understand that our soul sends out longings, which may go to the Father, when we manage to calm our material mind and give some scope of action to our souls. This is in fact the nature of spirituality. But in most cases, these longings, amidst the turmoil of the material mind, are interpreted as longings for a new Mercedes Benz, and never make their way to the Father. When we cannot satisfy this “interpreted” desire, or when we do satisfy it and find out that the resulting joy is of short duration, then we feel bad, frustrated. But who feels bad? Our material ego, our material mind. We may starve our souls, but I don’t know if the soul feels bad or simply increases its urging longings, and then the material mind feels bad, because it is incapable of satisfying such longings.

You wrote:
But there is another point: it’s the clarity of thought – by this I meant wisdom. If it were only an illusion one would face a problem: illusion/delusion means something delirious. Or to put it otherwise – random [or as I put it in my reply: garbage]. But where does this deep wisdom come from?
If we lived in illusion, then what we consider wisdom would also be illusion. This reasoning leads nowhere. I don’t believe that we live in illusion. We live in partial ignorance and in a (natural) state where we oversimplify things for practical reasons. The problem is that many (most) people take those oversimplified “facts” as reality, when they are nothing more than our conception of partial aspects of reality.

You stated:
I think my conclusions are correct: a) »Parietal lobe has a function. And it is functional to hinder spiritual experience - to spread your genes in the best possible way.« b) our species has something that hinders it to know the truth.
Before engaging in a discussion on the parietal lobe, I looked up its functions:
The parietal lobes can be divided into two functional regions. One involves sensation and perception and the other is concerned with integrating sensory input, primarily with the visual system. The first function integrates sensory information to form a single perception (cognition). The second function constructs a spatial coordinate system to represent the world around us. Individuals with damage to the parietal lobes often show striking deficits, such as abnormalities in body image and spatial relations (Kandel, Schwartz & Jessel, 1991).
Damage to the left parietal lobe can result in what is called "Gerstmann's Syndrome." It includes right-left confusion, difficulty with writing (agraphia) and difficulty with mathematics (acalculia). It can also produce disorders of language (aphasia) and the inability to perceive objects normally (agnosia).
Damage to the right parietal lobe can result in neglecting part of the body or space (contralateral neglect), which can impair many self-care skills such as dressing and washing. Right side damage can also cause difficulty in making things (constructional apraxia), denial of deficits (anosagnosia) and drawing ability.
Bi-lateral damage (large lesions to both sides) can cause "Balint's Syndrome," a visual attention and motor syndrome. This is characterized by the inability to voluntarily control the gaze (ocular apraxia), inability to integrate components of a visual scene (simultanagnosia), and the inability to accurately reach for an object with visual guidance (optic ataxia) (Westmoreland et al., 1994).
Special deficits (primarily to memory and personality) can occur if there is damage to the area between the parietal and temporal lobes.
Left parietal-temporal lesions can effect verbal memory and the ability to recall strings of digits (Warrington & Weiskrantz, 1977). The right parietal-temporal lobe is concerned with non-verbal memory.
Right parietal-temporal lesions can produce significant changes in personality.

There are many affects of damage to the parietal lobe that are not yet known to us now. I will report about the ones that I found. Individuals with damage to the parietal lobes often show-striking deficits, such as abnormalities in body image and spatial relations. Damage to the parietal lobe can result in the inability to attend to more than one object at a time. It can also cause anomia, inability to name an object, agraphia the inability to locate the words for writing. Two other devastating effects of damage to the parietal lobe are Apraxia the lack of awareness of certain body parts and/or surrounding space and difficulties with eye and hand coordination. Apraxia can also lead to difficulties in self-care because the patient doesn't distinguish a certain part or area of the body.
The parietal lobe has two sides. Damage to a certain side has a different effect than damage to the opposite or both sides. Damage to the left parietal lobe can result in what is called "Gerstmann's Syndrome." It includes right-left confusion. Damage to the right parietal lobe can result in neglecting part of the body or space, contralateral neglect, which can impair many self-care skills such as dressing and washing. Right side damage can also cause difficulty in making things, constructional apraxia, and denial of deficits, anosagnosia, and drawing ability. Bi-lateral damage, large lesions to both sides, can cause "Balint's Syndrome," a visual attention and motor syndrome. This is characterized by the inability to voluntarily control the gaze, ocular apraxia. It also causes the inability to integrate components of a visual scene, simultanagnosia, and to accurately reach for an object with visual guidance, optic ataxia. Special deficits, primarily to memory and personality, can occur if there is damage to the area between the parietal and temporal lobes. Left parietal-temporal lesions can effect verbal memory and the ability to recall strings of digits. Right parietal-temporal lesions can produce significant changes in personality.
So, the parietal lobe has many functions. It is not a “means to cut us off from spiritual experience.” Actually, we can have such experiences, and as a result, the parietal lobe’s activity decreases (as some other brain regions may increase or decrease their activity when we read a book, listen to music, or have sex). I cannot see nature’s (God’s) intention to hamper our way towards Truth.

You asked:
Have I convinced you that “our material eyes [are] made for the purpose of hampering spiritual truths«?
No, you have not. I don’t know why we have to lead a material life here on earth. Jesus said that the only reason was to achieve “individuality”. This begs the question: If souls are not individuals before incarnation, then what are they? I can understand that God is not an individual, as He bestows His own Substance (and with it, His Love, Mind, etc.) on millions of people, He “divides Himself” constantly. But our souls before incarnation? Well, this would be the topic of another discussion.
The problem of the death of newborn children, or babies before they were even born or before they reached some age where they could have taken really willful and important decisions, makes us question the meaning of life. If there is so much meaning to it, what use had that life which ended so prematurely? Here it is where the reincarnation theory holds a strong point. Personally, I don’t believe in reincarnation. So I must assume that our material life is, in principle, of very little importance. So, why are we here? I simply don’t know.
But if we believe that God wants us to find our way to Him and to become one with Him, then such an obstacle, which obviously He would have implanted into our brain, seems pretty weird and counterproductive.
The material mind is necessary for our living an “animal” life, because, in the bottom, physically, we are animals. It is an instrument we may use or abuse. We may drink for living, and we may intoxicate us daily with liquor. The action of drinking is free of value, it is neutral, it is our use we give to this function which determines “value”. Similarly, I believe, things stand with respect to the material mind.
Much love,
Hans
P.S. Will I ever manage to write shorter posts? :confused:

[Hans]

Dear Mark:

I was surprised when reading your post. How do we know that our first parents had no need to eat? How do we know that their bodies were more "ethereal?"

I know that this si what may be interpreted according to the Padgett messages, but is not the subject of "the creation of man" one of the weakest and most confusing point in all of Padgett's?

I had no time to look it up, but I believe to remember that ther was at least one other message stating that the human bodies were the result of natural evolution, animal bodies, wherein God implanted souls, in a form of "instantaneous creation." That is, the bodies, animal bodies were already there, not created on the spot, and the act of creation was, in fact, the first and only act of soul implantation into a mature and already existing individual (animal), so I understand.

The Biblical saying of Adam having lived so many hundred years, and Seth so many and... and..., pertains to the same realm of symbolisms as do the forbidden "fruit" and the "talking snake." The loss of life-span symbolizes the loss of perfection.

Much love,

Hans

(This time, the post turned out shorter :D)

[Mark]

Dear Hans,

I based my thinking, primarily, on the following passage from Vol. II, "Aman, first parent, reveals his temptation and fall"

"We continued to live in the same place as formerly, but no more could we be satisfied with the spiritual food that had supplied our wants and enabled us to subdue the appetites which formed a part of our physical being. The physical then asserted itself and the spiritual became subjected to it, and we became as mortals now are, and had to find our substance in mother earth. We were compelled to till the soil and earn our living by work."

Like I said, I sensed Adam as saying here, between the lines, that man indeed became physically pronounced, both in will and dependence upon the material. It is not rock-solid; nor did I present it as such. But Adam says three interesting things: "no more could we be satisfied with the spiritual food" + "and had to find our substance in mother earth". The latter indicating that before, apparently, this was not necessary. Plus: "The physical then asserted itself and the spiritual became subjected to it". That could be interpreted several ways. In fact, the whole passage could. But sometimes it is just fun to think out-loud a bit.

In Christ,

- Mark

[InkyWhip]

With respect to seeing with "material eyes", and the purpose, or
usefulness of physical incarnation, I have held, for some time, a
viewpoint that is opposite to that expressed by those who think
that the material is opposed to the spiritual.

I prefer to see the material as the projection of, or 'shadow', if
you will, of the spiritual. It is two-dimensional rather than three,
and monochrome, rather than rich in color. Still, the outline of the
shadow is determined by that which projects it; i.e. the laws of
the spirit are, to some degree, reflected in the physical world, and
finding them is something that becomes more and more possible
as we learn and grow and mature (both as individuals, and as
the collected knowledge available to a society).

It would seem that the initial association of the soul with a body
achieves the minimal necessary degree of individualization, which
is apparently related to the establishment or recognition of
boundaries to the soul's being. This is most easily achieved when
the association of the soul with a spatially bounded physical
being.

But such a process is actually achieved prior to birth within the
womb. (Side note: my guides actually alerted me to the time when
this process occurred a couple weeks ago for my son! :D )

However, following this time, and birth, there is a good deal of
potential growth psycologically and spiritually. One of the things
that my psych. noted during my couple years of group therapy
was that the ability to recognize similarities, especially abstract
similarities requires a greater degree of development than the
ability to differentiate. Therefore, understanding the higher
meaning of parables and metaphors from Jesus and others is
something that bypasses some.

There are things that are a part of life that potentially waken us
to what God is like, and give us opportunities to love that do not
exist in the spirit world. One is being a parent, and an active part
of both the entry of a soul into individualized existence, as well
as a guide and example in the physical world.

I think a great deal of God's spiritual truths are projected here,
it is a matter of developing one's soul attributes as we are here,
so that we are more aware of them as spiritual truths, and can
more adeptly point the parallels in the physical world.

Makes me wonder how many parables and metaphors etc. have
been lost from Jesus' teachings while he was physical simply
because those who followed were unable to understand them,
or altered and adulterated them. :( To restore such knowledge,
and further encourage people to seek God is, I think, part of our
mission and purpose here.

:cool:

Incarnadine

[Amada Reza]

Dear Inky,

I support your "shadow" theory, understanding that our spiritual life and the laws that govern it supercede that of the physical. It is difficult for a mortal to discern these more finely attenuated influences, which I feel are no less than God's Love at work "behind the scenes."

Yes, may we all restore spiritual knowledge to the world by exercising our higher consciousness through the manifestation of Christ Love.

Blessings to you,

Amy

[doug]

Nicely put, Inky! It's sometimes so difficult for us to conceive of the earth life as being a good idea on God's part, since we have managed to so totally lose track of the initial purpose. The concept of the material being in opposition to the spiritual seems to run in the great majority of religions throughout history -- how audacious for us to say that they were all wrong...

And on a side note, congratulations! :p

Since parenting is one of the "main events" of our earth life, you can rest assured that there will be some major spiritual significances in the next few years of your life..

enjoy! :D

[Mark]

Since, indeed, parenting is one of the "main events" of our earth life, and opportunity which no longer exists in the spheres, it is too bad God would not allow all His children this experience. Yes, I know, this world is not perfect; but, dangit, I hate being God's "collateral" damage.

- Mark

[doug]

For those who may not get the chance to be physical parents, there is perhaps consolation in knowing that they are in good company: Jesus also didn't have children while on earth.

But I dare say that he has probably "parented" quite a few souls, nonetheless...

[Thomas]

Originally posted by Mark
Since, indeed, parenting is one of the "main events" of our earth life, and opportunity which no longer exists in the spheres, it is too bad God would not allow all His children this experience. Yes, I know, this world is not perfect; but, dangit, I hate being God's "collateral" damage.

- Mark

In the spheres there are other opportunities that do not exist down here. Though you long for a family here and it is a legitimate longing, may it also stem from a wish for spiritual belonging - to God and fellow souls of your sphere?
And when such needs get satisfied, here or eventually there, your present dissatisfaction will perhaps cease, and no longer will there be disappointment about not having biological children on earth. By the way, I have the impression that they scream and cry a lot. :-) Personally I consider it a blessing that I do not have to be a father, like "everybody else", but of course our desires differ.

Further I know there is one Great Thing you're not missing out on, as opposed to many people, and it is more important. Also, as Doug pointed out, the greatest parent we've had here did not have children in a biological sense.

Did this cheer you up or make things worse? :-)

-Thomas

[Digitaria]

Hi All,

Feel like jumping in. I have not read everything that was written, but I wanted to make comment on brain damage or areas of the brain concerned with behaviour.

I watched this programme about dogs and how they were 100000 years older than mankind. They checked the females mycondrial dna and well it was all true. So dogs are really mankinds best friend. Anyway the programme went on to domesticate the silver fox just over 10 generations. As wild animals they had programming in the brain to react to the fear response when approached, especially by humans. For ten generations they were bred in captivity. Only those which did not show fear and the wild aspect of their genetics were allowed to breed. They after only 10 generations looked different they had a new white mark upon their heads. Their chemical make-up released as hormones and triggered from the brain had changed. They were no longer acting like fox's, they were behaving and playing like dogs. They had become domesticated like us and and the successful homo-sapiens. So to go back to the original article which provoked this thought, I would say that brain damage and likes and dislikes could be likened to the wild and the domestic in us.

We could also add the spiritual twist and say that we can act within our animal nature or our Soul nature. With the attitude that only the strong will survive we choose mates that our not only attractive but which may have more of the wild aspect within the personality. Or like the criminal gene which is responsible for behaviour risk taking ect. Our choice of partner in effect determines whether it is survival we are looking for spirtual evolution. My partner "D" is very gentle, however I am not, either is my daughter. See for yourself what that means. Had monitored breeding been introduced and only gentle people were allowed to reproduce we would either have a global nation of pansies or we would become more spiritual and soulfull.

I could say more but I will leave this for further topic of debate.
I found this string very interesting and would like to say Hi to everyone including Jankomil.

Much Love
Digitaria