Enlightenment

Enlightenment and the Brain: A Scientific Commentary of the Teachings of Sri Kalki
by Christian Opitz

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 has made a form of energy transmission or diksha available that seems to rapidly awaken human brain functions to their true potential, maiing 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 diksha 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:

1. 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 glas 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....http://www.livinginjoy.com/en/library/91