Enlightenment and the Brain

A Scientific Commentary of the Teachings of Sri Bhagavan

Introduction

The state of enlightenment has been associated with a change of brain function in various spiritual traditions. Since August 2003, an organization that calls itself the Golden Age Foundation (later renamed Oneness University) has made a form of energy transmission or deeksha available that seems to rapidly awaken human brain functions to their true potential, making enlightenment and deep emotional healing very accessible for ordinary people.

Sri Bhagavan, the founder of the Golden Age Foundation, has given a demystified description of the enlightenment process that acknowledges the importance of a biological change in the brain. His statements about the changes induced in the brain through deeksha can be confirmed with the most advanced findings in physics and neuroscience. In the following, I would like to present a comparison between some of Sri Bhagavan's statements and my own findings in studying the brain through the means of physics and neurophysiology:

Disconnection of Activity in the Parietal Lobes
Sri Bhagavan describes a disconnection of activity in the parietal lobes as an essential event in the enlightenment process. The parietal lobes host what some neuroscientists call the orientation association area or OAA. The function of the OAA is to give us orientation in space. You may take it for granted that you can tie your shoelaces and walk through a door, but this is only possible due to furious neurological activity in the rear part of the parietal lobes. Brain damage to this area makes the smallest tasks like grabbing a glass of water impossible, because the injured brain cannot perceive a distinction between the hand, the glass and the space in between.

On the physical level, the ability to perceive boundaries and distinction is essential for our ability to carry out tasks. However in the human brain, the OAA is chronically overactive. This stimulates the amygdala-hippocampus connection, a pair of brain centers that is designed to give a sense of meaning to perceptions registered as important. If the OAA, which is designed to create a perception of distinction and separation to a useful degree, is hyperactive, the amygdala-hippocampus connection has no choice but to interpret this hyperactivity by assuming that separation has more reality than just on the level of physical objects like your hand and a glass.

The conclusion is that we are fundamentally, existentially separate from anything else. The sense of self, which the brain creates constantly in reaction to perception of what is perceived at "other" than self (the basic premise of object-relations theory in developmental pyschology) is then endowed with a sense of absolute, distinct separation of self from everything else.

Neuroscience has shown that in deep meditaton or prayer, the OAA in the parietal lobe is temporarily blocked from neurological input. This can give temporary states of vastly expanded consciousness, as the sense of separate self cannot find its usual boundaries and expands to find them. However, this is a temporary experience, dependent on altered brain function such as the suppression of neurological input to the OAA that a permanent abiding in oneness consciousness is almost impossible to attain in this way.

This echoes Sri Bhagavan's statement that enlightenment has to be given, it cannot be attained by self effort. The deekshas seem to induce a process of transformation in the parietal lobes that permanently changes their function to a natural level, where physical boundaries can be perceived but unnatural overactivity ceases. The amygdala-hippocampus would then have no more reason or stimulation to create the sense of an existentially separate self.

Activation of the Frontal Lobes
Sri Bhagavan says that activation of the Frontal Lobes is involved in God - Realization. The experience of enlightenment, of non-separation, does not necessarily coincide with the experience of a living God-presence. In Sri Bhagavan's teaching more than the deactivation of the overactivity in the parietal lobes is necessary to move from enlightenment to God-realization. He speaks about the activation of the frontal lobes as a necessary neurological change for God to come alive in the consciousness of a person.

The frontal lobes are associated with the individual will. Many mystical traditions speak about the merging of the individual will with the will of God as both a doorway to and result of God-realization. This however cannot happen if the frontal lobes are underactive. It is a universal law that anything incomplete in nature seeks its own completion. My own findings in neurophysiology (which deviate from official, university - sanctioned science) show that the frontal lobes of practically all people are chronically underactive. This means they simply do not have enough neurotransmitters and electrical energy to function anywhere near optimum.

On a subjective experience level, this is equal to a weakened self-will and an experience of dullness. Boredom is only possible with underactive frontal lobes. Dopamine, the essential neurotransmitter for frontal lobe activity, is necessary for feelings of enchantment with life and bliss, often described to accompany mystical union with God. Lack of dopamine will increase the person's urge to maintain their self-will and not let it merge with a greater reality, because something is felt as yet incomplete on the individual level. It is like dying: A person whose life feels complete and fulfilled usually has a much easier time to die when the time comes. A person who feels something is missing in life will often cling to life much more.

If the deekshas have the effect of activating the frontal lobes, this could give completion to the indiviual will, its fullest flowering. At the full flowering of the individual will, it would naturally merge with the greater reality of God. From this perspective, a "big ego" is actually nothing more than a compensation of a weak ego that seeks its own completion. But without full activation of the frontal lobes and dopamine saturation, the ego will never find its own completion and subsequent merge into God.

To judge a big ego and fixation on one's individual will as lower consciousness, as is done so often in spiritual teachings, is useless, because a weak self-will has a natural urge to fixate on the individual, no matter what our conscious intentions may be. The solution can only come about with an actual change on the physiological level, which liberates the individual will from its struggle against surrendering into a greater reality.

Enlightenment as a gift of Grace
Sri Bhagavan says that enlightenment has to be given, it is a gift of Grace. In the past 15 years, Dr. Hartmut MŸller from Germany developed a new paradigm of physics called Global Scaling. This exciting new expansion of quantum physics shows beyond doubt that consciousness is the most fundamental "substance" of the universe and that it contains an original design of everything in the universe, following an exact mathematical formula. The distance between planets, stars and whole galaxies, the distance between electrons and nucleons in every atom, the optimum ph for human blood, all this and everything else in the material universe follows the same mathematical structure.

This original design is such that everything operates on the least level of stress and the maximum level of effciency at all times. An atom is at all moments attuned to the source intelligence via a syntropic field. These syntropic fields allow an atom to always "know" how to function with the least amount of stress and maximum efficiency. Human beings seem to be the only manifested forms of creation that have to some degree lost their attunement to these syntropic fields of life and unity. Once this loss has produced some changes in the brain of the individual person, to re-attune oneself with the syntropic fields of unity is extremely difficult, because we do not know any longer what these fields are. We then create all kinds of mythologies, religions, scientific theories etc. about life to fill the void. A person with an overactive OAA in the parietal lobes and an uneractive frontal lobe will seek enlightenment from the experience of separation.

All spiritual striving and seeking is in some sense part of the problem, because it occurs as a reaction to the loss of attunement with the syntropic fields of unity. If our seeking is based in the problem, it is unlikely that it will end in the solution. If the attunement to the syntropic fields of unity can simply be given, it is indeed possible that enlightenment can happen for everyone.

The original design of the human brain is to perceive unity as the intrinsic reality of life. This original design is latent, but it needs a naturally functioning brain to be anchored in human consciousness. If the deekshas attune the brain of a person to the syntropic fields of optimum brain functioning, the individual consciousness would soon realize its seamlessness with Unity.

Enlightenment as a biological and genetic phenomenon
Sri Bhagavan says that enlightenment is a biological and genetic phenomenon. Traditional spirituality often assigns a very low status to the importance of the body. It is often seen as just a vessel for consciousness, a shirt that the soul is wearing. Modern physics shows that Sri Bhagavan's view is much more in alignement with what we know about the nature of matter. A distinct dividing line between matter and energy and spirit is illusory.

Based on the brilliant vortex model of the atom that was formulated by Lord Kelvin in 1867, we can see that every atom has the size of the entire universe and the material objects we perceive are only the densest aspects of atoms. Matter is the result of an energetic continuum of vortexes of energy taking on increasing density. As Max Planck described in 1910, in this process of energy codensation, matter fluctuates billions of times per second between being matter and being a formless pre-material energy. From this perspective, it makes sense to assume that spiritual transformation has to be anchored on the physical level. When it reaches the densest level of manifestation, all other levels are automatically taken care of, because matter is not at all devoid of the higher dimenions of creation. On the contrary, matter appears so dense, because it includes all the other levels. So when the material or biological level is enlightened, everything else is included.

On the genetic level, it is interesting to note that human DNA is 173 centimeters long. Only 3 cm carry active genetic information. Modern biochemistry is puzzled at this seeming wastefulness of nature and calls the inactive parts of the DNA introns, useless waste material. This is a very questionable assumption, as nature does not produce waste anywhere. The introns are in my opinion (again I deviate from official science) equal to the latent spiritual potential of the human being.

It is my contention that the deekshas flood the inert parts of the DNA with photons, thus activating them. Photons are nature's bridge between subtle energy and matter. Photonresonance is the process by which information from the subtle realms is distributed from the DNA throughout the cell. The 3 cm of usually active DNA material carry information needed for mere survival, but when the rest of the DNA molecule becomes active (able to use photonresonance), we can move far beyond mere survival to awaken to our full potential.

The Ancient Mind
Sri Bhagavan says that the Collective Mind or Ancient Mind determines our individual state of Mind. In the 1950s, Dr. Hans Selye, endocrinologist of the University of Montreal, showed that the brain of every normal person is in a chronic state of survival stress that would only be appropriate in an acutely life threatening situation. This stress response is something we have adapted to so deeply that we do not perceive it anymore as particularly stressfull. However, in this stress response state, we are bound to be highly conditioned by our environment and the collective unconscious.

Brain research shows that stress response patterns cause a dominance of high-frequency beta waves in the brain. While in beta, the brain is only capable of primitve stimulus - response patterns that we largely adopt from our environment and the collective human consciousness and real change is next to impossible. Beta is also the state of the least self-healing ability of the body. Spiritual practice can to some degree relax the stress response of the brain and allow more decelerated alpha, theta and delta waves. However, research shows that individual spiritual practice is far less effective than a given attunement with syntropic fields of life and unity.

At the trackerschool of Tom Brown jr., the world's leading expert in wilderness skills, a neuroloscientist examined the effects of spending time in a pure wilderness. His findings where truly stunning: While it takes a novice usually well over a year of dedicated mediation practice to sustain an alpha state for a few hours, people who never meditated in their lives could sustain deep alpha for hours after only 48 hours in pure wilderness. Since nature is attuned to syntropic fields of life, it will entrain the human brain to its own syntropic fields much faster than when an un-attuned brain seeks its attunement through effort.

It is my contention that in individual practice, too much of the energy with which the seeker practices comes from the ancient mind of struggle and lack, again, the search is based too much in the problem and not in the solution. This seems to be as close to a scientific validation for the need of Grace as there can be.

Conclusion
Many scientists and spiritual leaders have called for a marriage of science and spirituality. After modern science was founded in the 17th century as a reaction to centuries of blind faith, for about two hundred years scientists tried to confirm the objectivist-mechanistic world view of Descartes and Newton. This search finally merged into the staggering discoveries of quantum physics in the early 20th century, which showed that mystics had described reality quite accurately for millenia. What has been missing so far was a system of spiritual transformation that delivers scientific, precise and repeatable results.

It is my contention, from scientific investigation, personal experience and anecdotal evidence, that the work of Sri Bhagavan is the first spiritual system to deliver such results, possibly on a global scale.