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..:: Enlightenment
II / Science ::..
By
Alan Schneider
The
subject of this essay will be the revisioning of the
concept of Enlightenment – a subject so often mentioned in these
essays, and now to be clarified in a fresh interpretation for
Post-Postmodern Earth – a deeply divided and sectarian planet
increasingly filled with suffering, alienation, and confusion.
We can begin this process by
constructing a working definition of this term. Enlightenment in the
spiritual sense implies an opening of consciousness to an enhanced
perception of phenomena beyond the obvious material forms of physical
manifestation. Such Eastern terms as Samadhi (Sanskrit: to
blend), Satori (Pali: to understand), Bodhi (Sanskrit: to
know), and Nirvana (Pali: to blow out – i.e. dispel, release,
overcome) all suggest deeper levels of perception and comprehension that
exceed the conventional ones that float on the surface of daily
consciousness, and they are certainly accurate descriptions of at least
some features of Enlightenment, and the Enlightened condition.
Enlightenment occurs when we deeply investigate the conditions of this
life, searching at the most distant destinations of experience for the
subtlest messages and meanings to answer the questions: “Who am I?”,
“Where am I?”, and “Why am I here?”.
For most of us, Enlightenment
remains a fundamentally spiritual concern, occurring outside of the
framework of the science and technology that has created and defined the
world as we know it today through the physical senses. This is perhaps
unfortunate, particularly in consideration of the essential amorality
of science and technology, devoted as both are to the provision of
superficial creature comforts, often at the expense of insight and
compassion. This essay will attempt to suggest a scientific
basis for the Enlightenment process as a possible corrective to this
amoral level of perception, first by redefining the terms mentioned
above (most of which are thousands of years old, and originate in
cultures both physically distant, and esoteric in the extreme),
beginning with the representative example of Samadhi.
This expression is used in
the context of Yoga practice of one inflection or another – both
Kundalini and Hatha Yoga acknowledge the appropriate use of the term –
and it denotes the more or less complete attainment of a “blending” or
“combining” of sensory consciousness with highly “Ascended”
consciousness in a mental state of extreme ecstasy and bliss
(Sanskrit: Ananda), frequently accompanied by visual experiences
of intense light and colors, auditory ones of delightful and/or hypnotic
sounds, emotional ones of full and complete love and acceptance (i.e.
Agape love), and cognitive ones of direct and intimate contact (i.e.
blending) with a Supreme Consciousness apparently existing beyond
the sensory condition, and completely superseding it.
Now, to genuinely
understand this condition – the primary goal of Enlightenment after
all – we must begin with the consideration of the most scientific
systems of spiritual understanding known, the primary psychologies of
Freud and Jung, since all other subsequent scientific theories of
perception originated with these two systems. Let us initiate this
consideration now, returning to the states of utterly high
awareness such as Samadhi following this foundational discussion.
Prior to the medical work of
Freud, mental aberrations were either not recognized, or, in the more
extreme cases, were deeply feared and responded to with violent abuse
and social rejection of the most extreme kind – beatings,
imprisonment, torture, and exile. Although he certainly advanced some
theory that is questionable by modern standards, Freud is to be credited
with the courage to begin scientific inquiry into the root causes of
mental dysfunction, and the development of several effective and, most
importantly, humane, treatment modalities. However, his
terminology was incomprehensible to the lay person seeking to understand
his theories, ergo, we will simplify his basic system of thought now.
Freud conceived of three layers or phases of mental activity – the
physical/instinctual, which he referred to as the Id, the fully
conscious waking state, the Ego, and the social/moral
conditioning of the Superego. In most people, the Id is/was
largely unconscious – i.e. not perceived by the Ego during its
daily waking activities, largely due to the influence of the heavily
conditioned Superego, much of which was/is also unconscious and
automatic. So, we have a relatively small area of conscious awareness
bracketed by two very extensive regions, respectively of instinct
and social control, that still define the human condition to this
very day – a state of continuous internal conflict that, to
Freud, accounted for all minor and major mental dysfunction, which he
called neuroses and psychoses. Thus, our fundamental waking awareness
is the result of the pressures applied by physical instinct to our
social conditioning.
Jung took things a large step
further, and postulated the existence beyond the personal Id, in a
region that he called the collective unconscious, of an
extensive, inborn system of primary mental forms that he referred to as
archetypal symbols, suggesting that these constituted the
universal foundation of consciousness surpassing mere instinct, and
accounting for the emergence of all subsequent social structure,
including the Superego. This accounted for the largely unconscious
nature of both the Id and the Superego – they originate in the
preformative collective unconscious, defined by the symbols existing
there. For Jung, this also accounted for their common occurrence across
cultures, a good case in point being the incest taboo, which is seen in
almost every culture of history, and the image of the serpent as the
carrier of the sexual energy referred to by Freud as libido, and
both Yoga and Jung as Kundalini. Between these two
individuals, we have a fairly complete picture of the dynamics of human
awareness, one that remains essentially valid today. Now let us
expand upon and continue to clarify these approaches in greater detail
and depth of meaning, utilizing an evolutionary model of development.
The physical edifice of the
human body, complete with its behavioral tendencies, whatever their
sources may be, is the culmination, at least on land, of the entire
process of evolution on Earth – with the possible exception of dolphins,
we know of no more advanced consciousness, and theirs remains a
fundamental mystery. This body is enervated and initially motivated by
simple instinctual drives from the point of birth until death that
simply occur without the need for explanation or comprehension, and
culminate in the reproduction of our species – a most effective process,
judging by the enormous human population on Earth today. These
instincts are known physically through the media of the senses and
emotions, the former registering on the surface of consciousness, and
the latter more subliminally – frequently beneath the surface of
perception – but both drive behavior from the primal state of physical
existence. Therefore, this is where our exploration of the human
condition and consciousness must continue. And when the Jungian
theories of collective experience are factored into the mix, things
become very complex, even at this basic level. If Jung is correct, as
I believe he is, then we are literally born in conflict with
ourselves, and must spend the rest of our lives struggling to resolve
this into as much inner peace and harmony as we can achieve, regardless
of what the external structure of our culture is like. Freud was also
aware of this conflicted condition, and it formed the basis of his final
work, Civilization and Its Discontents, in addition to his much
of his existing psychological theory.
Our existence does not occur
in a vacuum – we exist within the context of a physical environment from
which we are created and by which we are destroyed eventually – and this
environment is the first source of human conflict as we struggle with
each other for the acquisition of the physical resources needed for
ongoing survival. Taking into account the trends of evolution
throughout the history of the planet, our inherent species-wide personal
conflict is quite possibly the mirror of the historical planet-wide
conflict among all species – an inter-species struggle for survival in
which our inborn turmoil is a latent survival advantage over
other less sophisticated organisms. The inherent level of personal
agitation present in the human Psyche – the term given by Freud
(and Jung) to the total human consciousness – serves to spur us onward
through life, whether referenced as libido or Kundalini, this conflict
establishes the dynamic internal tension accounting for our
consciousness and awareness. This mysterious and fundamental psychic
force literally creates the foundation of knowing and being in
our sexually differentiated species, regardless of which particular sex
we may be – nothing is more essential to our nature than the
differentiation into male and female form, and subsequent male and
female behavior, both driven by libidinal turmoil.
Regardless of what we may
feel to be the circumstances of existence, the fact remains that all
information available to us comes directly from human sources of
communication – the written and spoken words of others, living and dead.
These messages may be attributed to any number of extrapersonal, or
extrahuman, sources, but the fact remains that they emerge from our
peers, having been present in living bodies at the time. Thus,
the body remains the foundation of conscious expression,
genetically divided into the primary sexes as its most salient primary
manifestation – whatever else we may be, we are almost always either
clearly male or clearly female organisms.
Using these self-evident
characteristics, it is possible to construct a grid of the physical
foundation of consciousness, featuring two lower quadrants of the
literal sex of the individual (male on the right, and female on the
left), and the psychological orientation of conscious expression
represented in the upper quadrants, again with the male on the right and
female on the left. This grid might appear as represented below:
female orientation x male orientation
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
female anatomy x male anatomy
It will be seen, upon giving
this simple diagram some thought, that it is quite possible for a given
individual to have, for example, a male primary anatomy coupled
with a female primary personal psychology, although the typical
relationship would be male-to-male. This does not imply the
well known Jungian designations of the anima and animus – the latent
female tendencies in men, and latent male tendencies in women – what is
postulated here is the fundamental behavioral orientation of the
person – i.e. masculinity or femininity – as the psychological
foundation of behavior. Under this classification system, a masculine
man would still have a latent feminine anima largely present
unconsciously and acting within his Psyche in that context.
Individuals with heavily skewed orientations (e.g. male body with
pronounced female behavioral traits) might conceivably, in fact,
demonstrate latent animus (male) tendencies in this scenario. This
system has the great strength of combining the psychological driver of
awareness (whether this is termed libido, or Kundalini, or perhaps
simply life-force) with the physical platform sustaining that
awareness in an utterly objective, sexually neutral matrix that allows
for any sexual orientation present in consciousness, while still
affirming the primary affect of sexual expression on that
consciousness.
If we then begin at this
stage with the physical body seen as the inevitable vehicle of primary
awareness and the libido as the driver of that awareness, we have a
fairly scientific foundation of consciousness. However attractive the
extended theories of manifestation propounded by various philosophies
may be, this is the concrete reality of our data processing –
whatever it means, the body is the common denominator
of all subsequent meaning. This brings us to the consideration of the
personal mind, as represented by the aforementioned Freudian ego. I
must assert here that this phase of the mental process is sustained by
the body, created by the libido, and modified by acculturation.
Although it superficially appears that there is an insurmountable
Mind-Body Problem (i.e. Cartesian dualism), and that my mind
simultaneously exists in the same brain which also holds a mental model
of that brain, the brain as the organ of cognition is
fundamental, while the mental construct of “the brain” remains
secondary, as does the mental construct of “the body”. Something
is writing this essay, experiencing the act of that writing, and
classifying that act, regardless of the cultural filter applied to the
classification. Life is objectively real, if subjectively
experienced.
The individual almost always develops and
exists within cultural contexts that tend to shape most or all of
behavior and belief throughout our existence. These include language,
lifestyle, personal appearance and behavior, occupation, and many other
features of material existence, including the belief that the material
existence as knowable through the physical senses is the only or most
primary one. And, although it does appear to be so, it is
nonetheless still possible to modify the experience of consciousness
through many means to create an awareness of an extensive array of
alternative expressions. From the viewpoint of science, these
techniques of modification amount to laboratory procedures in
awareness that can produce, at their most distant reaches, the
radically altered states of perception noted at the beginning of this
essay – Samadhi, Satori, and other expressions of full Enlightenment.
And once again, if we combine the common features of Freudian and
Jungian theory, we can advance further in the scientific understanding
of these altered states of awareness. Now, these may still be
particularly sophisticated cultural artifacts, but they remain examples
of the best tools available for the acquisition of scientific knowledge
– rational, clear-headed, experimentally grounded, and
intelligently constructed.
Essentially, Jung began where
Freud stopped, the latter being unwilling to risk the condemnation of
the medical establishment through suggesting that some significant
portion of the Psyche was manifest, or even originated, beyond
the body. This in no way invalidates Freudian theory – it simply
indicates the prevailing attitude at the time – in a word,
Mid-Victorian, and repressive in the extreme. And, although
Jung’s theories remain controversial to this day, they are simply too
important to summarily disregard. Why? Because if Freud was correct
in his apparent contention that “I” am restricted to “my” body, then “I”
die with that body completely, eliminating any possibility of an
afterlife or continuity of conscious of any kind. For this
reason, if no other, we should give Jung a fair hearing…
Where Freud maintained that
the Superego was the result solely of social training, Jung suggested
that the inborn patterns of the archetypes and resultant archetypal
symbols were heavily influential in what we chose as a species to
train into each other – perhaps even the majority influence present.
How, then, can this matter be tested? How can it be measured? And,
most importantly, what does it mean to humanity?
An answer to these questions
is that the matter remains subjective, and so must the garnering
of evidence supporting it – the information cannot be obtained through
objective means, but it can nonetheless still be obtained. How?
Through the practice of trance induction, effectively sending the
ego into a “sleep” state, and thereby permitting the residue remaining
in consciousness that is otherwise drowned out by the ego tasking of our
waking routines to emerge into direct perception, often very vividly.
At least in this way the contents of the unconscious can be observed,
and may even be subject to some degree of quantification, although this
will still be a subjective estimate on the part of the observer. I
have participated in several experiments over the years in which the
participants were asked to numerically rank the valence of many
different perceptual phenomena, and the results were always very
disparate – thus, it would seem that beauty (as any other perception)
remains in the eye of the beholder! Apparently, there are brain wave
measurement experiments that are substantially more objective, but there
is still a catch to these as well – the increase in cortical activity
being measured is still referenced with regard to the participant’s
subjective reaction to the stimulus present. So, we must conclude
that the psychological “Tower of Babel” – our individual human focus of
conscious perception – remains in affect for the time being…
This does not, however,
invalidate the technique of the first person documentary –the
ethnography – as a most valuable, if imperfect, investigative
tool. This technique, when coupled with the subject’s social dialog
of the trance experience as directly recorded and reported, is a
powerful descriptive methodology, and very useful indeed. I have even
heard of such testimony being polygraphed to verify its authenticity,
again with limited reliability, however, due to the inexact nature of
the measurements taken and the ability of certain people to manipulate
the procedure. Yogis, in particular, are capable of completely
defeating this type of test, routinely causing the machine to register
false positives and negatives with great delight. But, the ethnography
is a lengthy procedure spanning weeks, months, or years, and
incorporating the test of time in the process – perhaps the most
difficult test of them all to manipulate or defeat.
When this method is used in
the context of trance investigation, the initial images and perceptions
reported are invariably Jungian archetypal symbols of certain basic
types known by psychiatry to be recurrent in human consciousness – the
Hero, the Shadow, the Great Mother, the Great Father, the Warrior, the
Judge, the Dragon, the Serpent, and many others encompass such themes
emergent from the unconscious while in trance – a full listing is far to
extensive to even consider giving here – there are at least hundreds of
such images composing the Psyche present at even the initial stage of
trance, and there are several such stages to experience as the
individual becomes more adept at entering and remaining in the
condition. The universality of these images (Joseph Campbell’s famous
book The Hero with a Thousand Faces speaks to this phenomenon as
an example here of just one archetypal symbol) was the foundation
of Jung’s Theory of the Collective Unconscious, and he himself traced
the practice of Kundalini Yoga through a least five stages of
successively deeper trance as an academic example using the Hindu
Chakras as primary archetypal symbols. Yoga practitioners claim there
are at least seven such stages, (as described by the Chakras) and
perhaps as many as twelve, if the Hebrew Cabala and its primary image of
the Tree of Life is considered, and Buddhist meditation practice has
referred to many more, in the form of the multitude of the Bodhisattvas,
and the Thousand Faces of the Meditating Buddha. Possibly
everything has an archetypal correspondent.
Although he himself had not
achieved the higher (deeper?) stages of trance as a result of his
rigorous scientific training – this would have required him to
positively certify that his experience had transcended his body and
sensory apparatus, a “scientific impossibility” – Jung was still
familiar with ethnographic reportage of such events, and customarily did
not attempt to refute them. In particular, his postulate of the
Self as the origin of all Psychic events (and therefore every human
experience) points to such an epistemology of consciousness. The many
fantastic achievements of the Hindu Yogis and Pundits – the Siddhis,
or supernatural powers – seem to defy rational explanation and point to
the incredible extent of these latent within humanity. Now, the
question remains whether these trance oriented and actuated facilities
also indicate the capability for transcendence of the physical death of
the organism so feared by the ego, and this consideration will comprise
the balance of this essay. Indeed, death is the ultimate test of
consciousness, life, and faith.
An old Buddhist saying runs
“If I die before I die, then I do not die when I die.”
In many ways this cryptic slogan epitomizes Buddhism – the goal of
Satori and the achievement of the condition of Nirvana (pure non-dual
consciousness) both entail the death of the ego, i.e. the end of all
subjective personal experience, attained through the dedicated
meditation and austerity of the Noble Eight Fold Path prescribed by
Buddha himself as the only real curative for the “problem” of sensory
existence. There is such a profound state of peace and repose present
in Satori that it eclipses even the Bliss of Samadhi, and, at least
according to the Buddha, anyone who is willing to make the necessary
personal sacrifices can attain Satori in this lifetime through simple
Mindfulness Meditation practice. In this state of pure non-dual
consciousness, death does not matter to us, because the
subjective ego that so feared it is gone, along with the
objective process of “death” that the ego had framed as an inverse
desire object – a fear object. No subjects means no objects – I
have effectively died before I die – and yet consciousness
without objects continues, although there are no referents for this
mode of being – it simply must be experienced to be known – there is no
other way.
The highest states of
awareness mentioned at the beginning of this essay all require this
negation of the ego – something that Freud and Jung (not to mention
several of their many successors in the psychological venue) could not
even imagine, because that would have necessitated the absence of an
“imaginer” and an imagined condition! Without the acculturated
filter of the ego acting on consciousness, we are free beings – with it
to even the slightest extent, we are enslaved by our beliefs and
conditioning and will make very little progress past that point. The
great genius of the Buddha was that he was able to psychologically
travel so far beyond his mind that he saw that mind for the death trap
it was, and realized what had to be done to save us all from
ourselves. As impossible as this seems, this life is doomed for
everyone unless we release every-thing and embrace no-things
as the ultimate Truth of Consciousness. We can only conquer the
Void by becoming the Void – by throwing ourselves into it in love
and trust.
The Buddha felt that the
Heart Chakra Opened in Selfless Love and Compassion was the genuinely
highest state attainable by the human consciousness, and that all of the
Chakras beyond this level represented egoism in one form or another, and
were doomed to collapse through self deception eventually for that
reason, the attainment of Samadhi notwithstanding. Only the very purest
Gurus could remain in Samadhi indefinitely, but Buddha taught that
anyone having any kind of life or life obstacles could still attain the
Open Heart and be of service to their fellow human beings – in reality
the greatest human accomplishment. For Buddha, our personal Karma was
not an obstacle, but an opportunity for spiritual achievement and
transcendence. And Christ also said again and again that “The Kingdom
of Heaven is Within You, and All Around You” – literally present
everywhere but at “you” as the boundary layer of experience – the ego –
the particle focus of illusion blinding us to the wave of Grace that
could be ours if we would but walk far enough away from the material
condition of the senses. This journey is the great hope of spiritual
involvement – not that we will live indefinitely in our present form,
but that we will transcend the need for form at all in the
Enlightened understanding of Divine Love as the cause of existence in an
eternal here and now.
This remains a personal
conscious transformation that we must make on our own – at a certain
point within human experience the strictly scientific method of inquiry
can take us no further, and there we must make a Leap of Faith into the
unknown as the price of additional progress. Perhaps we are simply
still so limited in our ability to understand our condition that we must
abandon understanding – that is, cognitive thought – in favor of
the emotional, feeling processing of information and impressions of the
world. Apparently the Buddha discovered that, at the extremity of
negation, when every other form and condition had been lost –
functionally in death – Love still remained as the
universal force behind Creation, a Truth that Christ knew as well, and
offered to us then and now through the Gift of His Grace – the truest
spiritual science…
- With Love, Alan -
(Copyright 2010, by Alan Schneider)
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