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#2153 -
Correction: In issue #2148,
I stated that Guy Smith was a pseudonym. I have
been informed by the publisher that that is the
authors' real name. It is not a pseudonym. I apologize to
the author and publisher for the error. Please see the corrected
review at http://nonduality.com/hl2148.htm.
This issue features a book review
by W. Andrew Arnold of Why God Won't Go Away: Brain
Science and the Biology of Belief. "The book
ultimately asks: 'Could it be that the brain has evolved the
ability to transcend material existence, and experience a higher
plane of being that actually exists?'”
There is also a book review by Jerry Katz of
Dancing with the Void, by Sunyata. Meeting
Sunyata through his books is an encounter
with silence.
Finally there is a selection from a blog on homelessness.
For some people, homelessness is a choice, not a necessity.
They live in their cars, campers, or vans and bask in the freedom
that lifestyle offers. (If this repels you, please consider
reading the article anyway.)
Book Review: Why God Won't
Go Away
W. Andrew Arnold
http://www.scheadlines.com/article.asp?colid=2136
Brain Science and the Biology of Belief.
By Andrew Newberg
M.D. & Eugene D’Aquili . M.D. Ph.D 1
“Why God Won’t Go Away” is a
book by Andrew Newberg, M.D., an assistant professor in Penn’s
Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. Newberg performed
brain imaging on Tibetan monks and
Franciscan nuns while engaged in deep mediation and prayer,
respectively. Although the book asks
many questions, the book ultimately asks: “Could it be that
the brain has evolved the ability to
transcend material existence, and experience a higher plane of
being that actually exists?”
(emphasis added).
First, the book demonstrates how the various
parts of the brain interact to form generic belief. To
illustrate, it uses a very simple example of a hunter who
believes that he has heard a leopard in
the brush. Arguing that survival is more important than truth to
the hunter (and his genes),
Newberg demonstrates how belief is different from knowing. Humans
have a strong tendency to form
beliefs based upon experience and information, which is
fundamental. Stated another way, the
neuroscience of belief: “Uncertainty causes anxiety, and
anxiety must be resolved.” And from the
most mundane matters to the most important, humans are hardwired
to form beliefs about reality.
The book reaches some interesting
conclusions, many of which require some degree of interpretation.
Most significantly, the results of studies support a hypothesis
that our brains have evolved the
ability to have “mystical” experiences. Mystical
experience is defined as “nothing more or less
than an uplifting sense of genuine spiritual union with something
larger than the self.” However,
the book does emphasize that some mystical experiences are more
intense than others as Newberg
demonstrates the neural pathways that are engaged in a cycle of
brain activity, which deepens the
experience each time around this neural loop.
Newberg surveys descriptions across a wide
range of religious beliefs and finds that there are
moments of enlightenment, salvation, the presence of God, or
bliss, which are described in
strikingly similar ways. Each of these experiences involves the
perception that there is a Reality
or Being that transcends material existence, and used the same
brain processes to achieve such an
experience. The book states that this process is not always the
result of deliberate effort, but
can occur in a variety of ways.
Brain imaging of the monks and nuns observed
a pattern of changes in the brain. Part of the
findings are that a “dampening of flow of neural input”
(shutting down your mind, emptying your
mind) affects many brain structures, and particularly those that
involved in the orientation of the
self, particularly in regards/relative to its spatial
environment. The interpretation of the data
was that by blocking information to this self-orientation center,
a person loses the sense of
separation and experiences a feeling of unity or a joining with a
Absolute Reality or God.
The book also contains discussions about how
rituals can help deepen religious experience and help
folks achieve mystical experiences, although deep spiritual
experiences are relatively rare. Also,
the book notes that the neural pathways involved in the
experience of sexual orgasm are similar to
the neural pathways at work in the mystical experience. It seems
that two very basic human
instincts are in some way linked; but the author stresses that
the two experiences are not the
same, with the spiritual experience involving the “higher”
parts of the brain.
The author cautions against misinterpreting
the confirmation of bio-chemical and neurological
explanations for what we feel and experience in relations to God
or a Higher Reality. Newburg
challenges the tendency to dismiss these physical manifestations
as cause and not merely effect. He
reminds us that all our perceptions exist in the mind, and that
just because we can observe the
brain function of a man frightened by a leopard obviously does
not lead us to conclude that the
leopard was not real. The book finds more than ample reason to
trust our experience of the
spiritual world to the same extent as we trust our experiences of
the physical world.
On the other hand, Newberg states that to
the degree he concludes the experiences of a unity or
wholeness or communion with a transcendent God are “real,”
he believes the results of the study
also confirms a commonality of spiritual experiences across the
spectrum of religious beliefs. He
believes the incarnations of God found in various religions’
reduce God to a concept, which is
something less than transcendent. This sentiment was best
captured by the poem of C.S. Lewis quoted
in the book:
Footnote to All Prayers
He whom I bow
to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name,
murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and
embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be
the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word,
all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a
folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying,
self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet
thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself
divert
Our arrows, aimed unskillfully,
beyond desert;
And all men are idolaters, crying
unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them
at their word.
Take not, O
Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
Unbroken speech our limping
metaphor translate.
It is the belief of the author (and one which I personally
ascribe to) that the incarnations of God
are metaphorical interpretations of the same spiritual reality,
and that there is a danger of the
masks constructed to personalize God will interfere with gaining
a deeper understanding of the
something much larger and mysterious. However, the author sees
metaphorical interpretations
everywhere, and concludes that “all knowledge is
metaphorical,” including science. It is a very
interesting view.
In the end the author finds that there is
“a strong case that there is more to human existence than
sheer material existence.” The book concludes by finding
that our minds naturally are drawn by our
intuition to a deeper reality;, and as long as our minds are
capable of experiencing this deeper
reality, the belief in God will not go away.
_________________________________________________________________
1. Eugene D’Aquili was involved in the
research at the heart of the book but passed away before the
book was written. Accordingly, the references to statements
contained in the book are attributed to
Andrew Newberg.
Dancing with the Void, by
Sunyata. Edited by Betty Camhi and Gurubaksh
Rai.
Ordering and further info: http://www.bluedove.com/new_repr/descrip/DanWit.html
One afternoon 1998, I was walking along
Though I know Sunyata only through books and through brief
discussions with Betty Camhi, who is the book's editor and who
was a friend of Sunyata, I feel close to him, if that's
possible. I can understand what editor Betty Camhi says in the
Preface to Dancing with the Void: "After listening over
a period of several years to ... questions and answers, I found
myself becoming less interested in the verbal exchange and more
interested in the silence and radiance that was emanating from
this 'rare born mystic.' He had a healing presence."
But that's not the book I'm reviewing.
I'm reviewing Dancing with the Void, which is
another book by Sunyata and co-edited by Betty Camhi, who
co-edited the first book. This book is longer and better
organized, but not necessarily a better or lesser introduction to
the nature of Sunyata himself. In this book, as in the first one,
you experience the silence of Sunyata. The silence comes through
in the photographs (what first draw me to him) and his words.
This book includes a biography by one of the editors, and several
chapters telling of the people Sunyata personally knew: Tagore,
Gandhi, Nehru, Ramana Maharshi, and others. Nearly half the book
is biographical or autobiographical. The rest of the book
consists of chapters on other people and topics: Albert
Schweitzer, Milarepa, Kabir, Carl Jung, Gautama Buddha,
Mysticism, Suffering, Awakening. The topics of sex, music, art,
and death are covered within various chapters.
Throughout this book, on every page, there is the simple
utterance of truth. The people and the various topics are very
interesting, but secondary. In the spirituality racket it doesn't
matter what we talk about because all topics are like the wide
end of a funnel, expansive and open to all kinds of discussion,
but very soon narrowing to the point at hand, which is the
realization of "this." There is a series of such
funnels in this book and the topics are certainly there to be
enjoyed, studied, contemplated, experienced, savored.
Sunyata, Emmanuel Sorensen, was born in
Question: Why are you here?
Sunyata: Because the Alan Watts Society financed me here.
Question: Why did you do that? What would you teach?
Sunyata: I told them I had nothing to teach and they said,
"That's why we wanty you." Aha! How nice! So I am the
Silence behind all this noise.
Question: Did you want to come to
S: I had no wish to go anywhere. The body wask 84 and perfectly
fulfilled, content that I would go to heaven rather than
Q: How did you get on in
S: My utter simplicity was an asset there. And my adaptability. I
could be at home anywhere.
Q: How did you come to choose
S: I didn't choose
...
Q: How did you come to this Silence?
S: I was born so. And that was what the great sage in
Though the chapters in the book do not actually take the form
of letters, one chapter is presented as a letter. The title of
the chapter is Suffering. It consists of a long letter from
Daniel, a patient in the mental ward of an army hospital. Daniel
had been in communication with Sunyata, uses Sunyata's
terminology, and understands Sunyata's statements of truth, but
the suffering is great. Daniel writes to Sunyata:
"I am in a state of anxiety -- my anguish unbearable. It
is not mental depression, but just anxiety, fearful and
blinkered, perhaps. Breath is choked, a heavy weight lies on the
heart, the pain is both physical and mental. What is the meaning
of this overwhelming pain? Why? Wherefore? How to escape it? How
to live through it?
...
"Surely, suffering is the characteristic of human life. But
in a hospital, in a prison and in a mental home, this suffering
is starkly uncovered and undisguised and strikes one right in the
face."
These are long letters. In part, Sunyata replies: "Weep
and cry -- Dan, accept and dissolve. Let the due suffering
overwhelm ego and ego-ridden mind. You will emerge. You are
invincible. Sin, Karma, Self, God, etc., are all words, words,
words, concepts and abstractions, until they happen to us and
often painfully. The sin is ignorance, unawareness, blinkers and
ego blindness, so don't harbor, develop or nourish a sin-complex
or guilt complex. Karma, prenatal, pre-ego and ego-made, must be
accepted as a fact in living. It can be atoned -- and we need not
accumulate any more prarabdha. By our attitude and
integral awareness, it is accepted, atoned and transcended. So
let's drop our cumbersome conceit of agency, says Wuji."
Dancing with the Void is a gift of healing, wholeness, reality, silence. There is a side story told in Betty Camhi's preface. This book would never have been born if it were not for a highly improbable meeting between Betty and the man who was entrusted with writings that became this book. That meeting was apparently mediated or grace-given by Ammachi. Betty's Preface ornaments this book with a light entirely its own, one which makes us laugh at non-separateness simplicity of everything. I recommend a meeting with Sunyata.
-- book review by Jerry Katz
~ ~ ~
Dancing with the Void, by Sunyata. Edited
by Betty Camhi and Gurubaksh Rai.
Ordering and further info: http://www.bluedove.com/new_repr/descrip/DanWit.html
For some people, homelessness is a choice, not a
necessity. They live in their cars, campers, or vans and bask in
the freedom that lifestyle offers. It's not an easy life, but for
some it is preferable to working long hours at jobs they don't
like and paying rent, mortgage, upkeep on residences, and
paying other prices for things they don't want anyway. I've never
lived that way and do not recommend it, but it is an alternative
that mentally healthy, nice people sometimes choose. Living on
the margins of society often opens a person to nondual
realization because it affords a perspective from which
it can easily be seen that social barriers and boundaries are
artificial and people are a product of their thoughts. For
example, reading this paragraph, do the fences formed by your own
thoughts seem compromised? Perhaps consider what Sunyata
said when asked how he got by living in India: "My utter
simplicity was an asset there. And my adaptability. I could be at
home anywhere." I offer that the mainstream fears simplicity
and the kind of lifestyle that naturally arises out of it, such
as homelessness, or being poor, or living alone in sad rooms. It
may ultimately be the healthiest thing, but the American
mainstream seems to hate it. --Jerry Katz (note: I did not write
the following article. It is from a blog.)
WAKE UP! You are frittering your LIFE away on FEAR!
http://guide2homelessness.blogspot.com/2004/10/staying-warm.html
Is it wrong that all your blogs seem to be luring me to a
life of homelessness? I read these things and I think:
You could have a nice life with no bills! It is so enticing. I
have lots of bills, but I make enough to cover them AND save for
retirement, but it means I have to work 50-70 hours a week, half
a day on weekends. And I am worried all the time about whether I
will work again after my last job, and I owe on my mortgage and
my mother's mortgage. I lost half my savings in the market
plunge, and it took me twenty years to save that much. So, I HAD
to work again. I was still working, and I like my work, but the
option of not working was no longer a choice for me. The worry
about bills and debts is constant and chronic, and keeps me up at
night, and makes me depressed during the day. I have a nice car,
a nice house, a great job, and still, I have all the same
feelings you do. This is a terrible way to live. And isn’t
it strange that it doesn’t matter whether you’re
homeless or not? Having things and a job does not make life
easier AT ALL. I once even had a gorgeous 2 story home near the
ocean that was designed and built all for me. It was “Zen
Modern”. The whole idea was to have nature indoors and out,
and have a sense of peace. It was wonderful and impressive,
everyone used to say, “You should get this into
Architectural Digest.” After a year of living there, I
decided to sell it. The number of people it took to keep the
place up was ridiculous. The constant work it needed was
mind-boggling. I realized I was responsible for a small workforce
that I needed to direct almost every day as to what needed to be
done to keep the Zen Palace MAINTAINED. It was too much. So I
sold it. Everyone else was so disappointed. They loved the house.
And, yes, it was lovely, but the whole ZEN thing was a horrible
lie. It was the most labor intensive house I had ever owned. This
is the thing people don’t realize: How things look from the
outside is never what you think. People thought living in my zen
home would be peaceful and fulfilling. I thought being homeless
would be the most horrible thing that could ever happen to me.
And it is that VERY FEAR that has driven my entire life and
career. I never thought, “I need to be rich so I don’t
have to live in a modest ranch home in