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Saturday, October 11, 2008

Triune brain: Its link with evolution, spirituality

Man continues to evolve, as per to the evolutionary consciousness theory, through carrying in our psyche, traces of the whole consciousness of our evolution, all previous births and their experiences stored as Ojas, a Sanskrit word meaning 'vigour'..
"WESTERN philosophy mostly wants to find truth in word constructs as opposed to direct experience. I find most Eastern philosophy that I have encountered to be more intimately connected with the evolutionary progress of the mental state of the person and it is often necessary to first have a specific spiritual experience before the words pointing to it makes sense. It seems that in the East, religion and philosophy has been partners, more focused on the personal experiential content of a person’s awareness’ approach and this is perhaps were the West in general and on the surface has gone astray. Religion and philosophy have become dire enemies in some arenas."
Mousehop: "My take on it is that during the course of evolution, we developed the ability of recognising patterns because it was useful in survival. Pattern recognition, then, activates our reward centres and pleases us. But, with the development of consciousness, something changed. The reward comes through the limbic system, which is the centre of emotion, but, the stimuli activating the reward are not processed the same way, or even at the same time, in the forebrain, where the consciousness is housed.
So, our conscious thoughts have creatively invented excuses for feeling good about pattern recognition ever since. It’s a work in progress. But, at least we agree that Immanuel Kant made a few mistakes. And, you’ve convinced me to give meditation another shot."
Man continues to evolve, according to the evolutionary consciousness theory, through carrying in our psyche, traces of the whole consciousness of our evolution, all previous births and their experiences stored as Ojas, a Sanskrit word meaning ’vigour’, or the sap of life energy. This evolution is a natural process, though slow, requiring many births. For an accelerated evolutionary growth, the Ojas can be activated through a special yoga process of Kundalini jagaran, which is, awakening of the coiled serpent-like structure (also a triune) situated at the base of the spine called the Muladhara, the root base of Man.
There are processes to reach to super-consciousness by making this energy to manifest and rise through five other barriers, or the chakras known as energy centres – namely, Svadisthana, Manipura, Anahata, Vishuddha and Agya, the command centre. It is a vast subject, each with a specific role on the mental sphere and its relationship with spiritual powers. It is remarkably scientific and may require another post for a fuller understanding.
Let us try and understand some elementary scientific observations/explanations on the subject, which brings us the concept of the triune brain. Reincarnation, being a go-between, is not the object of the present discussion. Mousehop, being of scientific bent of mind, I must answer in a language that he understands.
The triune brain consists of three aspects – firstly, the brain stem and the cerebellum together, which is of utmost necessity as the basis for survival of the primate forms – humans or not – possibly not, is not yet ascertainable as of today. The second is the Limbic system, comprising amygdala, hypothalamus and the hippocampus – along with the necessity for survival, identity of the self and instinctive memory too, became a requirement for a later, but somewhat higher form of the evolutionary continuity in lower mammals.
The third of the triune brain is known as the cerebral cortex responsible for thought, reasoning and their expression in speech. Human beings come in this category and the interactive processes of these three phases as a unit, determines human behaviour. Another interesting fact is that each of these three phases originated at separate points in the process of evolution and therefore prior to one’s evolving into human form. This then, became the basis for the scientific concept of rebirth, because had it not been so, man could not have been born in the third and the highest form, accidentally. And, this gives current to the strong possibility of births being a continual chain in the scheme of evolutionary progress, which the East had already regarded as an established fact since thousands of years ago. For lack of proof, it does remain a hypothesis still, but, there are many serious researches currently on because of the phenomenon’s being a logical possibility.
I therefore, agree with Mousehop that our conscious thoughts have creatively invented excuses for feeling good about pattern recognition, but, with a further observation that consciousness, of which we are so blissfully unaware, has hardly any awareness of the duality of good or bad. This is the essential difference between the view points of the East and the West and I leave it for you to reflect, which of the two is existential?

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