Originally posted by jaywill
This is like saying that because I notice my watch dial shines in the dark the sun must be a big watch in the sky.
Tell me. I have received only pseudo humorous wisecracks up until now. When does one of you smart guys offer a serious reply? Question what you don't understand. Ridicule is not always the appropriate response for a thoughtful person.
Don’t mistake humor for a non-serious response—sometimes humor is used to see whether you (or I or anyone) can identify possible flaws in your position when “pricked” a bit. For example, the ruby-slippers response: you toss that out as crass sarcasm, but you might not see it that way if someone had used Krishna as an example (the methodology of the Hare Krishnas is nearly identical to the one you espouse here—a form of japa or mantra).
Below is a composite from a discussion Scottishinnz and I had on another thread, regarding such experiences. I would add that japa/mantra can be used to focus the mind toward a pre-decided image, which perhaps increases the chance that
that is the image that will be translated in any resulting mystical experience (and also disposes the person doing the japa/mantra to the kind of receptive mental state alluded to below). That is perhaps why nearly every religious tradition in the world recommends (among others) the methodology you are espousing...
(And, yes, I am one who has pursued this and has had such experiences—so my offering below also represents my personal conclusions.)
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Scottishinnz:
...it's my conjecture that (as you know) the human mind is very good at finding patterns, even when they don't exist. Most people go through bad times in their lives, when they wished things are very different to what they are. Some people have these experiences that you talk about, but I'd guess most don't. The difference is, the ones who talk about it are the self same people who DID have these "revelations".
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vistesd:
Bingo!
I’d like to expand with some of my own conjectures. In the following, I know that I am not using terms correctly, from the point of view of cognitive science; I don’t have the vocabulary. So I’m using terms like “right brain/left brain,” etc., just as handles for certain functional neurological complexes and brain stuff going on (well, “brain stuff”—that is a valid cognitive term, isn’t it? 😉 ).
Suppose in a moment of stress, or high relaxation, or a reactive relaxation immediately following stress, there is in the brain an increase of “right-brain” functioning that alters our perception in such a way that our focus broadens out. We have that sense of experiencing existence in a much more holistic, “larger” way. Things may seem ambiguous or disconnected or overwhelming... Then the “left-brain” functions begin to reassert themselves, trying to make rational/symbolic/linguistic “sense” of the experience. Suppose further that, at the same time and as part of the same process, the “left-brain” picks up a memory (remember, I’m speaking metaphorically here) of some religious nature—say, a mental image of Krishna (such an image may not be from our own religious background, or it may be). We might experience what’s going on in terms of any of our sensual brain functions: visual, auditory, even olfactory. (Emotional centers may also be triggered in this process.)
[As an analogy, in everyday experience our visual sense apparatus receives sensory stimuli, process along the appropriate neurological pathways, to be translated in the visual cortex into a visual image: and what we “see” is really that image, whether or not it is accurately reflective of the actual physical world—that’s roughly how I understand it anyway....]
The result is that we have a “religious experience” in which Krishna seems to appear, surrounded by the scent of incense, and speaks to us. And just like the ordinary visual images that we see, it seems to be external to ourselves. I call this process “immediate translation”—i.e., of an otherwise unintelligible experience into an intelligible one, as the brain attempts to form recognizable and “sensible” patterns.
This “mystical” experience need not have any supernatural connotations at all (e.g., in some Taoism or Zen). And although the general literature has traditionally referred to them as “mystical” experiences, even without the supernatural connotation, howardgee convinced me to pretty much drop that term from my vocabulary—or at least to use it very cautiously with the requisite caveats—because it seems to be almost universally perceived, outside that literature, as having to do with the supernatural.
And I think that even those folks who conclude that such an experience represents an actual “revelatory” event (for whatever reasons, valid or not—I don’t want to argue all that here), must, as a matter of intellectual integrity, admit that it might be something akin to what I’m trying to describe. I would say to someone who responds that their experience was just too powerful or profound for it to be anything but God (Krishna, Shiva, the Buddha, whatever), that they might have too paltry a notion of the power of their own brain. (After all, mirages are convincing just because they seem so “real.” )
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I think you’re right, too, Scott, that people who assign religious content to such experiences tend to seek community with others who also do so—Christians with Christians, Hindus with Hindus, Buddhists with Buddhists (although Zennists teach that all such experiences—say in meditation—should be discounted as
makyo, “bedeviling illusions;” and I agree). The common features of such experiences also allow them to discuss them across religions in interfaith dialogue.
The only thing I might disagree with you on is that I tend to think that most people have such experiences, at least in mild forms.
It is also possible that such experiences might
sometimes be connected to some pathology. Some cognitive scientists have attempted research to sort that out, but I don’t recall any of their criteria for differentiating (perhaps evidence, or lack thereof, of other pathological indications). I can’t offer any references; this is from some reading several years ago...
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To my understanding, the point of zen-type approaches to meditation is to get clear of the prejudicial patterns we may carry about in our heads without even realizing it (from our childhood enculturation—even nonverbal—socialization, indoctrination, etc.) in order to experience the phenomena of existence in terms of just those patterns (such as, again, those produced in the visual cortex in response to sensory data) that occur naturally. I don’t think it is (or ought to be) an attempt to get at some noumenal “thing-in-itself” behind the phenomenal world—it certainly is not to replace pre-imposed patterns with new ones that arise reactively as we try to undo the old ones. Does that make sense? (I’ve been grappling with this for a long time, and your post triggered a sort of “falling into place” of some of it, but I still lack a clear vocabulary...)
In meditation, as the old prejudicial patterns or formulae begin to slowly fall away, there is a reaction—as if the “left-brain” functions are so entangled by the habitual patterns (remember, I am not talking about the natural, neuro-biological ones), that any relaxing of them causes it to madly seek to impose something new to escape the unfamiliarity: e.g., as in my Krishna example.
There is a zen saying: “To seek the truth, first drop your opinions.” I think that kind of thing is what it’s getting at.
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If pawnokeyhole, or someone else who is involved in psychology or the other branches of cognitive science would correct either my terminology or the substance of the above, I would appreciate it.
EDIT: To remove the tooth-fairy reference--that was another thread, my bad.
A Simple Way to Experience Christ
23 Aug '06 08:45
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