Neurotheology: Is God “All in the
Brain?”
Tracing
the Synapses of Our Spirituality
The
Relationship Between the Brain and Religion
What is “Neurotheology?”
n
Using powerful brain
imaging technology, scientists are exploring spiritual experience.
n
Andrew Newberg uses a
SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) machine and injects a
radioactive tracer into the arm of Tibetan Buddhists meditating or Franciscan
Nuns praying.
n
Brain changes are
imaged on a computer
Spiritual Experience, computerized
n
Parietal lobe:
decreased neuro-synapses lead to a sense of oneness with the universe
n
Frontal lobe:
heightened concentration (meditation) blocks other neuronal input
n
Temporal lobe:
activates intense emotions such as awe or joy
n
Occipital lobe:
processes images that facilitate spiritual practices (candle, cross, etc.)
Religious Practices meet Brain-Wiring
n
Religious ceremonies
n
Rituals
n
Drumming
n
Chanting
n
Light
n
Prayer
n
Singing, etc.
Experiencing “God”
n
For a mystical experience to occur, brain regions
that orient you in space and mark the distinction between self and world must
go quiet
n
Key question: Does our brain wiring create the idea
of God or did God create our brain wiring?
n
Is “Religion” all in your head?
Experiencing God
n
What if the development of human religious life – a
journey that may span as long as 20,000 years, maybe longer, and includes the
development of the great world traditions – has been “merely” ongoing
conversations between overactive and evolving parts of the human brain?
The Implications: 4 Insights
•
The “evolutionary
perspective” – from the reptilian unconscious mind to universal-awareness;
Return to the Garden!
•
The universality of
spiritual awareness on the journey from ego-consciousness to
Self-realization/integration.
•
The importance of mind/
spiritual-training and emotional regulation.
•
Institutional
religions serve the evolution of consciousness and spiritual development
The Evolutionary Perspective
n
The brain as a computer for processing
(interpreting) information
n
The “Big Clue” running through the work of
physicists, biologists, and neuroscientists = “everything exchanges
information”
n
What program are we running to interpret the data of
life?
Amazing Implication!
n
Neurotheology says we CAN choose what program we
want to run on the “hard drive” of being.
n
Do we run fear, hatred, tribalism, “me against them”
program to interpret reality?
n
Do we run the love, compassion, interconnected program?
Amazing Implication, 2
n
What program we run radically changes our
interpretation of the information exchange that is life.
n
It has never been the circumstances in the
information exchange of life that limited human consciousness; it has been our interpretation
of those circumstances!
Evolutionary Perspective
n
Rudimentary
consciousness – 5 million years ago = forms of olfactory, auditory and visual
consciousness exist without actually being self-reflexive consciousness
n
Growth of the
neo-cortex – 3 times the size of a chimp (share 98.7% of genes);
self-consciousness develops = “awareness of our awareness of the world”
Evolutionary Perspective
n
This side of heaven, “man” has definitely made “God”
in his own image
n
“God is a concept by which we measure our pain.”
n
God is a concept by which we track the evolution of
human consciousness
n
In the presence of “God,” God vanishes.
What is God?
n
God as relational energy in the eternal information
exchange of Being
n
That in which we “live, move, and have our being”
yet it is NO-THING
n
Transcendent yet immanent at the same time
n
Empowers everything yet is NO THING, not matter, not
spirit – IT IS!
Implications, from the Neurotheology Perspective
n
Our emotions chronicle the information exchanges of
life
n
Pristine information exchanges “feel” like love,
bliss, joy, peace, being, etc.
n
The ego shapes emotions according to desire and
abhorrence
n
The brain can be trained to stop interpreting
emotions through the ego
Evolution of Consciousness
n
Julian Jaynes, mid-1970s, writes of the evolution of
consciousness
n
“Apart v. a part” consciousness = ego consciousness
interprets reality using a dualistic model = God becomes the longing to
be apart; anything against God becomes “the evil other.”
n
Darth Vader is “all in our head”
Evolution of Consciousness
n
People today have
different degrees of consciousness
n
Are spiritually adept
people running a “newer, more powerful consciousness intepreting program” on
the hard-drive (brain) of their mind?
n
Do poets, artists,
and philosophers use “more consciousness” in their interpretation of reality
and exchange of information than others?
Ego-consciousness:
a virus in the brain/computer
Ego-consciousness “creates” a reality in which:
§
Humans are separate, competing individuals who must
struggle to gain power over others to survive
§
Leads to our sense of loneliness, guilt, anxiety,
insecurity, hatred, and fear
Ego-consciousness
n
Personal level: gives rise to insatiable desires for
pleasure, power, and possessions; “I, me, mine” is the world!
n
Social level: gives rise to violence, wars,
exploitation, racism, sexism, class-ism, social and economic injustice
Ego-consciousness
Ego = Ahamkara, a Sandskrit word with two roots:
• Aham
= “I am”
• Kara
= “to make”
• Ahamkara,
the ego, is your “I-maker”
• makes
you feel alone and separate in a huge uncaring universe
• distorts
all your relationships
Ego-consciousness
Your Small Self:
• An
egocentric mass of conditioned characteristics and responses
• Defense
mechanisms
• Your
“savings account” of emotional pain
• Stores
negative patterns of behavior that create “bad decisions”
The Small Self
n
Most of all, the small self (ego
consciousness) keeps you from being a part of life.
n
Right here, right now “life” is happening in the present
moment.
n
Most people “miss life” because their attention is
lost in the “long gone” past or “imaginary” future.
The “If onlies…”
I’d be happy if only…
n
I had more money
n
I was more physically attractive
n
I finish my BA & get out of Macomb!
n
I could get this (guy, girl, both) to like
me
n
I had another (beer, bong-hit, line,
cigarette, ice cream cone, etc., etc. etc….)
Universality of Spiritual Awareness
n
Neurotheology tells us that all human beings in all
cultures have the capability to cultivate and achieve spiritual awareness
n
“Religion” needs to stop being a virus infecting
the hard-drive of Being
n
The “call” to facilitate the evolution of
consciousness & spiritual awareness
Mind-Training: Returning to the Garden
n
“God” beckons; if you
want to change the world, “change your head.”
n
What neurotheology
ultimately implies is that we can focus on mind-training practices that further
the evolution of consciousness
n
Fully aware of Being;
with no fear, aloneness, apartness; FULLY ALIVE
n
Religion should
provide the “institutional structure for this evolutionary process!!!
Religion Serves the Evolution of Consciousness
n
“Religions” is the
institutional expression of spiritual insight
n
Institutional
religions must do what they are supposed to do!
n
Facilitate the
evolution of consciousness by facilitating mind/spiritual training
n
Stop obstructing the
process by presenting dogmas about “false dualisms”
Religion Facilitates Spiritual Awareness
• Human
religious activity represents the often desperate attempt to experientially
bridge the chasm between the intuitive sense of being a part of everything
that exists and the harsh day-to-day reality of apartness.
Religion: a “working”definition
• A
part = “whole-ly” – oneness, unity, at home, at peace, joyful, happy, love
•
Apart = ego-consciousness
• A
part of life
• Apart
from life
•
Both are “worldviews” = ways of seeing the world
Apartness = Ego Consciousnesss
n
Christianity = sin
n
Judaism = sin
n
Buddhism = tanha
n
Islam = shirk
n
Hinduism = karma/reincarnation/maya
n
Taoism = “missing the dot”
n
Hopi = kooaniskatsi
The Velcro Theory of Ego Consciousness
n
At birth, the ego is
like a light, luminescent ball of
Velcro, clear and uncluttered.
n
Human development
finds the “ball” rolling through various cultural, psycho-social, environmental
and emotional “fields”.
n
The “rolling ball”
naturally “collects” material that gives the ego a density, a sense of
apartness or separation from Being.
n
Religion, ideally, is
about “cleaning the ball” and
regaining a sense of being “united.”
A PART = Transcending Ego Consciousness
“Religion” demands transcendence!
n
A living relationship with the Divine (in
many religious forms)
n
A sense of interconnectedness (love?) with and for
all living beings
n
Compassion and caring, selflessly
n
Reverence and gratitude for life
n
A fearless humility