Saturday, January 7, 2012

It's all in the mind

The past and the future are created in the brain. The present moment is also created in the brain. Thoughts, ideas, beliefs, values, views, emotions, hunches, dreams, the observing self, practically everything is created in the brain, I believe.

The outside world is also a creation in the brain. You see something. Light waves are detected in the back of the eyes where they are transformed into nerve signals. The nerve signals then travels into your brain where they are processed and an image is formed. This image is not the real world. It’s an image of the real world, a representation of the real world. What you see is not the whole picture.

The idea that consciousness, or the observer of all this, is not created in the brain is of course also a belief. If you claim that your consciousness is not created in your brain, then you have to produce at least some form of evidence for this idea; otherwise it’s just an idea, a belief, a hypothesis- created in your brain.

Maybe the brain is like a radio receiver that receives consciousness waves from outer space. You may be right. But, how did you come to this conclusion? Do you have any proof for this statement? Do you have personal experience? Have you read about it or heard about it. Is it a guru, a priest or a scientist that have provided the information?

I can’t prove that the observing self is created in the brain and you can’t prove that the observing self is not created in the brain; none of us knows anything about these things. It’s important, I think, to realize that we don’t know anything about the metaphysical reality. It’s also important to realize that we don’t know much about the physical reality either.

Many people with a spiritual outlook on life cannot accept the idea that the thinking mind, the observing self, love and hate, heart and soul, are created in the brain. To me is the brain an amazingly mysterious thing. Life is an amazing mystery. Everything is an amazing mystery - even if I don’t live on after death.

It’s not that important, as I see it, where consciousness stems from. The division between a material and a spiritual world is a construct in the thinking mind. What is important is how we live our lives.

The problem I have with my belief that the true self is created in the brain and that it will not live on after death is that it makes suffering meaningless. Many people have to suffer so much. To many people is life nothing but suffering, physical pain, loss, injustice, anger, resentment…

It just can’t be that creation is evil. It just can’t be that people and animals have to suffer so much for no reason.

Suffering is the reason why people become religious. The problem is that all religions are corrupt and dishonest. People with hidden agendas use religion as a way to control the minds of other people. Most people are gullible. This is a huge problem.

It’s time now for a new religion, without right-wing views attached, without doctrines and clergy, without gurus, mullahs and leaders.

5 comments:

:Doreen said...

Pim van Lommel, has done scientific experiments...

http://youtu.be/YOeLJCdHojU

:Doreen said...

the thing is this... I exist... why do I need to prove this?... it is clear. Self-realization happens, and it only happens to "each individual"... it has nothing to do with proof...lol... not possible to explain with words and concepts to satisfy the brain/mind... the mystery is that it unfolds, we can never know 'why' with the mind... the heart has it's own intelligence (see, The Heart's Code by Paul Pearsall, PhD.)... In my experience, once the self-realization occurs, heart awareness is clear

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Pim van Lommel’s book ‘Consciousness beyond life’ is one of the most interesting books I have read. Yes, he has scientifically investigated patients with cardiac arrest. However, patients who are resuscitated after a cardiac arrest have not returned from the dead. They have been close to death. They have had a near death experience.

Dr. von Lommel discovered that some patients with a flat EKG and a flat EEG had memories from this moment. Mental activity was evidently going on even though they were clinically dead.

However, other research shows that there is surge of brain wave activity moments before death.

I don’t know how to interpret these findings. Maybe the EEG wasn’t flat, after all, in Pim van Lommel’s patients.

news.discovery.com/human/near-death-brain.html