Proof consciousness exists outside the brain. Given two years ago by Dr. Greyson of UVA, (interviewing him for the next edition of "Flipside") 90 mins of scientific (peer reviewed case studies) evidence the mind works just peachy when our noggin is switched off. In some cases better. Why does it matter? Think about it. And don't shoot the piano player. http://youtu.be/sPGZSC8odIU
As long as materialist scientists rule the allocation of funds for studying this sort of thing, we'll see materialist results. However, scientists like Dr Greyson, Dr Kelly ("Irreducible Mind") or Dr Beauregard ("Brain Wars") neuroscientists, psychiatrists, physicists are allowing the data to lead them in a new direction. Looking for funding outside the box of traditional sources is the way of the future. As Dr Greyson says in his talk, it was xerox founder Chester Carlson who funded his program at UVA. Tons of money gives people access to new ideas, and there are folks who want to help science find the light at the end of the tunnel. If you can, watch the entire talk - it's pretty MIND BLOWING.
Dr. Greyson is pretty much the foremost authority on near death experience, (NDE) and is the foremost scientist studying it. This talk is from his nearly 1000 cases. As he says in the talk:
"this evidence is not accepted or known by most American scientists – nevertheless it is there, and it is reliable and reproducible evidence – we have cases of people whose brains have been deteriorating for years suddenly think clearly on their deathbeds, people who function normally sometimes with high intelligence who have virtually no brain tissue, NDE experiencers who think more clearly than ever when their brains are not functioning, and we have very young children who can barely speak, who talk about their past lives with accurate details. These phenomena, all well investigated by modern scientific methodologies, and building upon decades or centuries of prior research, strongly suggest that under extreme circumstances, consciousness can be produced and can function without the intercession of the phsycial brain."
If you'd like to invest in the next edition of "Flipside" please click on this link: http://www.gofundme.com/FlipsideTheSequel
On another website (shetterly.blogspot.com) Rich Martini wrote that "Penn & Teller's account is laughable - starting with the premise that Buddhism is a religion and that the Dalai Lama is a God. Neither is the case. The Dalai Lama calls themselves a "non theistic religion" which the last time I looked means atheist. No belief involved. No belief in a higher power involved. No gods. Just an examination into the nature of reality." I found myself unable to comment on the setterly blogsite, so I'm commenting here.
ReplyDeleteFrom various Buddhists, we often hear that Buddhism is "nontheistic", or that Buddhism is "atheism". Atheism is commonly defined as the non-belief in an individual soul or a Universal Soul. I assert that Buddhism is NOT nontheistic, due to the Buddhist deification of the Buddha and a multitude of disembodied Buddhist deities and demons. Also, the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation assumes the existence of an individual soul that is capable of reincarnating. There can be no reincarnation without the existence of a soul that reincarnates.
True atheists reject the ideas of a soul, a Universal consciousness, and reincarnation; for the atheist, all phenomena are physical or material only, and consciousness is a phenomenon that is strictly limited to a physical body. If Buddhists were truly atheists, they would not indulge in 'action at a distance' practices such as prayer, ritualism, invoking the Buddha or Buddhist deities, or 'compassion meditation' - all of which are contrary to the atheist world-view.
When I was young, I described myself as a Hindu, until I realized that I do not believe in the Hindu deities (nor the Buddhist deities). Now I describe myself as a follower of the philosophies of Advaita or Yoga, in which no demigods, mythology, or ritualism are required. My thinking is very much like Buddhism, except that I recognize the Universal Consciousness as real - which the Buddhists deny. For me, nonviolence is essential, because the soul that inhabits every being is real and eternal. Nonviolence is the quintessential spiritual practice, because it recognizes and respects the transcendental Spirit in all beings.
- Gregory F. Fegel
Thanks for your comment Gregory.
ReplyDeleteIt's always bugged me that Penn & Teller used the Dalai Lama as part of their show "bullshit" and proceeded to repeat nonsense about him being consider a "god king" and all the other nonsense about him.
That being said, HHDL calls Buddhism a "non theistic religion." My point was that's a way of parsing words - belief in God, or belief in the ability of the self to attain enlightenment, not mutually exclusive.
I've been doing a bit of research into the afterlife (thru my book and film "Flipside") and what I'm finding is that humanity has spent a lot of energy trying to make definitions where they can't exist - akin to whether light is a particle or wave - it's both. And I think the same applies to God - does God exist or is God just what we're referring to as the "totality of the universe?" The research indicates its both. (7000 people under deep hypnosis and what they say about the universe - and it's consistent and replicable).
Which brings us to the Buddhist concept of the afterlife. The Tibetans base their beliefs on "the Tibetan book of the dead" and is akin to the Buddhist concept that between lives there is no finite self - that our essence or soul is like a "wisp of smoke" which seeks out a sex act, and incarnates based on karma. As I've pointed out to my Buddhist scholar friends - the Tibetan Book of the Dead was written by one individual who experienced that (thousands have written about it). But in the 7000 cases we can examine of people who had a similar journey ("Journey of Souls," "Flipside" etc) we find that between lives we are fully conscious of all of our previous lives, and we choose our next existence, not based on karma, but based on what energies we'd like to learn about and from. It's a fundamental disagreement with traditional tenets of Buddhism.
however, I'll add that in these reports, we don't find a "finite self" in the higher realms - we find a "higher self" that is always there, that only a portion of our energy comes into each incarnation (and never to animals by the way, they have their own realms, and we just incarnate on earth as humans - according to these reports) - but this higher self is always evolving, always learning, and hence goes from a young soul to an older soul - just at a different time rate. Again, it's not a belief or philosophy, I'm just reporting what the consensus is of these thousands of reports from between life hypnotherapy, and now from NDE accounts.
So I agree with you about universal consciousness - but the research (I'm doing) shows that there's a reason we aren't fully conscious here (at least its difficult to be so) because we choose to come here to be human after all, to learn lessons in compassion and love. And we couldn't learn them if everyone on the planet was in love with each other, could we?
The question then becomes - so why is this information coming out now? No one seems to know - but my best guess is that its because the planet needs to evolve, that we need to be aware that we come back here in order to leave some fresh air, water and earth for us to return to - if not for our children, but for ourselves. According to the research, there's a number of other places to reincarnate out there - in the universe or in other realms - but the consensus is that this is "the most fun one" - as one person put it "You can learn more from one day of tragedy on earth than you can from 5000 years on some other boring planet." thx for posting.
amazing!
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