Skeptics, fetal nirvana & more...

[Giri]

On Mon, 15 Jul 1996, M Suresh wrote:

>   the actual functioning of the brain, except finding out areas associated
>   with some functions. Nothing is known about the mysterious WILL of which
>   the brain seems to be but an instrument, and which distunguishes us from
>   machines.
>
>   Recently in SRH someone gave info that a person produced the brain waves
>   of deep sleep when he was actually awake.

        Actually, Rama (rbalasub@) and I talked about this on
soc.religion.hindu. The subject was Swami Rama who was able to produce
the delta waves characteristic of deep sleep while being awake. In an
another experiment, he was able to change the brain waves of other
persons by merely touching them. The studies can be read in detail in
books like 'Yoga and psychotherapy' and 'The awakened mind'. Similarly,
electromagnetic energies around the chakras has been proved by
Christopher Hills (see Supersensonics).
        A crucial breakthrough is not just measuring the delta waves
while being awake, which is called the yoga-nidra in yogic terminology.
It is well known that sleep can be controlled. For example, most of us
(over 90%) dream atleast three times a night during a 6-8 sleep period.
Most of the dreams are forgotten while waking up but would be remembered
if the person was woken up before he/she moves  from the dream state (REM
sleep, alpha state) to the deep sleep (NREM sleep, delta state). REM
refers to the rapid eye movement which occurs during dreaming. Excellent
yogis cut down major portions of dream sleep, and need only deep sleep,
thus not sleeping more than 3 hours a day. Few examples are Leonardo
Vinci, Napoleon, Gandhiji.
        However even in deep sleep or in yoga-nidra, the brain is
functioning to produce delta waves, thus NOT proving that you are not the
mind. The Menninger foundation which conducts a lot of experiments in this
area says that proving the dependence of consciousness and the central
nervous system is crucial. Yoga says that consciousness is not the product
of the central nervous system, which what most scientists would laugh at.
Some modern scientists have gone as far to say 'Give me a central nervous
system, I will show you consciousness.' Yoga points out that the central
nervous system is only a wire while the consciousness is the electricity
and hence not dependent on the wire.
        To prove that consciousness is independent of the nervous system
is simple. Just measure the activity of the cortical portion of the brain
(which should be a flat line in EEG) of a person in turiya (fourth
state). It would directly show that both are independent of each other
scientifically (the last couple of sentences are paraphrased from the
above book). Proving things like pushing metal spikes across the biceps
and showing no pain, no bleeding etc as done by Jack Schwartz of the
Menninger Foundation proves little to scientists since it just proves that
the body may be efficiently controlled by other methods than traditional
medicines.
        However, even proving that consciousness exists independent of the
nervous system, brain, mind etc is like proving there is a treasure
beneath the Atlantic ocean. Some don't have the resources, and many don't
have the willingness to investigate such a state for themselves because
controlling the senses completely is as tough as diving deep in the ocean.
Those who are desirious of attaining this state anyway, would not depend
on the scientific proof before proceeding on every step but would rather
simply believe a Guru who says the sugar is sweet instead of spending
years trying to analyze the structure of glucose.
        While science may not be able to prove/disprove the existence of
God, it can reasonably prove the existence of higher states of consciousness,
and in fact, in the long run, find the underlying connection between the
three seemingly distinct consciousness : waking, dreaming, deep sleep.

Namaste.