Authored by Mukhopadhyay AK*,
Introduction
The world has been taking a new turn. Humanity has been crossing the threshold to emerge as Homo spiritualis! Spiritual quest of a large number of scientists has been taking the science beyond materialism; science with space time matter and visible energy. Galileo Commission of Scientific and Medical Network, UK has been working hard to extend the scope of science by extending its horizon, by pushing the envelope. The basic science has been climbing the ladder of cognition from automated cell signalling to the autonomous wisdom of a single cell. In cosmology and physics there is a movement from Einstein’s cosmological constant, zeropoint energy state, to the boundary of the universe followed by a transition from the universe to the multiverse. At this point of Time, the psychological facet of the science of divinity stays relevant. This piece of editorial is to lay down the foundational framework of such science which calls for multidisciplinary investigations, although has a lot related to the discipline of neuroscience associated with a movement from cortical consciousness towards supracortical consciousness.
Divinity is the property of the Divine. Ontology, axiology, phenomenology and epistemology are intertwined in this behavioural expression. Therefore, the process of making a science of divinity is difficult but not an improbable and is surely not impossible. To begin with, divinity is one of the rarest feelings and eventually is a profound precious experience, which while nurtured could be possibly described in Third Person’s perspectives although the feelings and experience always remain confined in the cage of First Person’s perspectives. With the desirable degree of cognitive and affective development of the human brain associated with the gain of unique psychomotor skill to have freedom from causal informational chain within the brain, it is possible to feel and experience this divinity within three dimensions of space and, therefore, the prospect of developing a few new theories for science out of this experience runs high. Theories which are sourced from such deep experiences have an organic course to evolve in science.
Description of the Feelings and the Experience
The experience of the divinity has three cardinal components; Transcendence, Peace and Alluring charm of an effulgent and resplendent, which is effectively soothing.
The experience begins on the background of a feeling of transcendence. What is this transcendence about? Transcendence of space, transcendence of time, transcendence of pleasure and pain, and even transcendence of causal (informational) chain! Following such transcendence, one still might be restless. One requires overcoming this restlessness and to remain calm in approaching this experience. Calmness arrives with the process of surrender to this optionless circumstance.
“If the cause is silent, and the time is still!
Nothingness in my life, emptiness under the heel.
A massless quantum I remain,
In the immortal, eternal and infinite domain.”
“Probabilities replace all certainties,
Antiparticle and particle becomes my kith and kin.
When I can’t do any more, let then Goal choose its means.
There, I surrender.............” (The Dynamic web of Supracortical Consciousness 1987;91)
With the gradual dominance of the cooling effect of surrender and sustained calmness, the feeling of peace begins to prevail. One starts experiencing peace. Peace, however, is not merely silence or stillness, emptiness or nothingness! Peace itself is, although, not the divinity but a major step forward towards this. Peace is breakable. The divinity is not! The silence of cause, stillness of time, nothingness of life and emptiness felt under the heel should be carried forward towards a second transcendence for experiencing divinity.
“Not all Silence is the absence of Cause
Not all Stillness is absence of Time.
Not all Emptiness is subatomic Void,
Not all Nothingness is absence of Rhyme!” (The Millennium Bridge 2000;118)
Divinity has the attractive charm of the Divine consisting of the silent call of the greater Cause, seduction of stillness into Eternity, luring of emptiness into the Infinite, all leading to the metamorphosis of nothingness into Ananda!
“There is Silence which broods Cause.
There is Stillness which generates Time with Pause.
There is Void from which the Universe is born!
Ananda shines when nothingness is torn.” (The Millennium Bridge 2000;118)
Ananda is refreshingly creative that induces regeneration and rejuvenation. Ananda initiates creation of new space and new time. Ananda is experienced profoundly while sharing the divinity with or transporting divinity to another subject.
Freedom and Entanglement
the experience of divinity an experience of freedom or entanglement? Divinity is an experience of freedom from all kinds of binding! Divinity is an experience of entanglement with the Divine. There are five levels of entanglement nested one within the other; quantum entanglement that signifies entanglement of matter, energy and signals, information entanglement in which living entities get informationally bound, entanglement of two or more self(s) as found between the lover and the beloved and between the Master and the disciple, entanglement of a number of units of lives as observed in between the members of a family, and at cellular level in a bacterial mat or in cellular aggregates as tissues. Divinity is an experience of transcendence of such entanglements but getting entangled in love, the love which is unconditional that resurrects the other four in appropriate occasion in a top-down manner!
Science, Religion, Spirituality and Divinity
Science investigates nature. Spirituality deals with the nature of consciousness. Mysticism is engagement with consciousness. Religion is based on gods, goddesses and prophets. Spirituality looks for the sources of such gods, goddesses and prophets. Divinity is the Source of all such gods, goddesses and prophets. In the unifying context of Science, Humanity and Spirit , God is the personification of the Source.
Cognitive Faculty and the Experience of Divinity
Divinity is the outcome of an experience of the Divine. The representative of unconditional consciousness within the human systems is “self”. Divinity as an experience is an outcome of cognition of the unconditional consciousness by the systems-bound consciousness, the self. Repository of such experience, like all other experiences, is however “life”. Only a living organism, cognitively and attitudinally evolved, has the privilege to experience divinity. Consolidated and condensed experience of divinity when attempted for a transfer to another brain results in experience of Ananda. Ananda in third person’s perspective is the experience of ecstasy of the unity of Consciousness-Mother Nature that initiates creation of new information. When mind splits this new information, there is creation of new space and new time. The mind does not have any active role in having such experience. On the other hand, mind gets moulded, tuned to such experience of divinity. Mind is otherwise sterile without connection with consciousness. However, it is mind which participates in the outcome of such experience as found in creation of new space and new time. External signals and information also have little role in such experience. In its creative feat with consciousness during the experience of divinity, the mind realizes that what in popular sense is called Mantra is nothing but the specific information on the Divine.
Physics, Cosmology and Divinity
There is a popular belief-system that when Neil Armstrong walked on the surface of the moon, he experienced divinity in form of as if getting blessed by his mother! Edger Mitchell, the sixth man who walked on the moon, experienced almost similarly. Coming back to the earth, he established the Institute of Noetic Science in USA and had stressed on the physics of the zero-point energy (ZPE) state.
ZPE, the empty space, evokes an experience of emptiness under the heel. Experiencing ZPE itself signifies transcendence of matter, space and time. ZPE is the gateway to the further deeper experience. Passing across the domain of dark energy, dark matter, black hole and worm hole the climax is accomplished with the emergence of white hole. There are multiple universe(s), the multiverse, which are observed to form the largest intellectually comprehensible systems, “The Multiversity”. There is no canvas larger than “The Multiversity”. No entity, no organism, no information is an island in this systems of multiverse. The Source of this Multiversity is the divinity. From the viewpoint of physics and cosmology, we get another description of divinity.
Neuroscience of the Experience of Divinity
There exist higher dimensions of space but all human experiences happen in three dimensions of space. To receive the Grace, the brain has to be in the state of Grace. What is this state of the brain while the brain has been experiencing divinity?
While the brain processes information there are three major compartments; the horizontal compartments of the left brain and the right brain, the vertical compartments of the stairs in the neuraxis, such as brainstem, limbic brain and cortical brain and finally the local versus global compartments of systems-bound and systems-independent consciousness operating on the brain. The brain achieves the state of Grace when in terms of processing of information and responsivity, there is no hemispherical bias, absent stair-asynchrony and there is presence of absolute cosmocortical harmony.
With nil hemispherical bias, one achieves neurological purity, evoking a sense of equanimity. With vertical synchronization of the stairs of the neuraxis, there is achievement of neurological perfection evoking a sense of fearlessness. With cosmo-cortical synchrony there is within-brain neurological harmony evoking the sense of peace inside the brain. As said earlier, peace is the forerunner of the experience of divinity. The behavioural outcome of such brain state is found as Ananda, which is perceived when such brain is able to transmit the sense of equanimity, fearlessness, peace and alluring charm of divinity to another prepared brain! The receiving brain feels blessed.
At this state of Grace, the brain as an organ of community of hundred billion neurons and two to ten times that of glial cells, achieves four levels of integration in axiology; classical integration, quantum integration (the brain behaves as a macroquantum object), phenomenological integration (gains dexterity to handle any alteration of phenomenon) and integration to become transmissive organ of Mother Nature. In absence of these integrations, a schizophrenic drowns where an accomplished mystic easily swims. Following accomplishment of all integrations what follows is Supreme Consummation of the brain by the Divine.
Let me quote from my own writing.
“In the abyss of the deep blue, the sempiternal light is lit. The destined human cerebral cortex faces Infinity’s finite front. Hidden asymmetries in the external cosmos are complemented by reciprocal asymmetries in the neurobiology. In cyclic symmetry and in metric plane, the quivering limbs of the cosmic facet embrace the virgin vibration of the dreamy cords of the living biological corpse. The undying love of cosmic integration centre impregnates the passionate heart beat of biological integration centre” (Conquering the Brain, 1995:247).
“A vast quiescence swallows up all sounds in the voicelessness of utter bliss” (Sri Aurobindo in Savitri).
Ananda appears to be supracortical consciousness biologized at the level of the limbic nuclei (septal nuclei and two amygdala) that manifests through the entire synaptic networks creating new space and new time, when there is a movement of sharing or transporting the divinity to another subject.
This seems imperative for neuroscience to investigate (i) what all has been happening inside the brain during such experience of divinity, (ii) what all are happening in between the brain and the nature of cosmos and (iii) what are the happenings in the course of brain-to-brain transfer of divinity resulting in bliss.
Methodology
We need a reasonable number of subjects who claim to have experienced divinity and are ready to submit themselves for investigation. At least one person with experience of divinity be there in the group of investigators. Methodology includes wellformulated questionnaire, well-designed simple behavioural tests and neuroimaging.
The Outcome of the Experience of Divinity
The outcome of the experience of divinity is massive as observed in the cognitive, psychomotor and affective (attitudinal) transformation of the individual with neuro-cardiac entrainment and enactment. There is a creative outburst. The scientists draw out new theories and hypotheses; formulate new research questions in their respective discipline of expertise. Creative activity with psychomotor transformation leads to development of new simple indigenous technology. The profound attitudinal transformation leaves the footprints of such experience on environment and ecology, society (“collective and exterior”) and culture (“collective and interior”). It is possible to have with us a different kind of leader showing “inverted leadership”, who leads with his head, heart and guts!
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