"The knower and the known are one. God and I, we are one in knowledge."

For millennia, mystics have reported transcendent experiences, experiences of being one with God. These are reported as timeless, infinite, blissful, being one with everything, ultimately indescribable.

Recent experiments at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School indicate that there is a neurobiological basis for these experiences. SPECT (single positron emission computed tomography) scans of meditators when they are at the peak of their meditative experience, clearly show sharply reduced activity in a particular area of the brain, which the researchers have dubbed the "orientation association area". This area of the brain is responsible for creating the mental sensation of having a physical self, and for orientating that "self" in space. The reduction in activity in this area provides the sense of union with all that is.

The researchers, Andrew Newberg, MD, and Eugene D'Aquili, MD, PhD, have a very interesting point of view on jihad, as reported in their book (co-authored by Vince Rause), Why God Won't Go Away, Brain Science and the Biology of Belief:

"History suggests that religious intolerance is primarily a cultural phenomenon, based in ignorance, fear, xenophobic prejudice, and ethnocentric chauvinism. We believe, however, that intolerance is rooted in something deeper than mere narrow-mindedness; we believe it is based in the same transcendent experiences that foster belief in the absolute supremacy of personalized, partisan gods.

"Transcendent states... exist along a continuum of progressively higher levels of unitary being that ultimately leads to the point at which unity becomes absolute. In the state of absolute unity, there are no competing versions of the truth; there is only truth itself, so conflicting beliefs, or conflicts of any kind for that matter, are not even possible.

"If however, a mystic falls short of absolute unity... the subjective awareness would survive, and the mystic would interpret the experience as an ineffable union between the self and some mystical other."

"Like all advanced unitary states, this mysterious union would have a profound sense of realness; the mystic would viscerally feel that he or she had stood in the presence of absolute reality. A Christian might call this truth Jesus, a Muslim might invoke the name al-Lah, in primal cultures it might be interpreted as some powerful spirit of nature, but in every case it is experienced as a spiritual truth that stands apart from and above all the others.

"We've seen that the "discovery" of such truth through mystical experience, provides believers with a powerful sense of control over the otherwise uncontrollable whims of fate. The presence of a powerful spiritual ally convinces believers that their lives are a part of some comprehensible plan, that goodness rules the world, and even that death can ultimately be conquered.

"What makes these beliefs more than hollow dreams is the fact that the God that stands behind them has been verified, through a direct mystical encounter, as literal, absolute truth. Any challenge to the authenticity of that truth, therefore, is an attack not only upon ideas about God, but also upon the deeper, neurobiologically endorsed assurances that make God real. If God is not real, neither is our most powerful source of hope and redemption. There can be only one absolute truth; it is a matter of existential survival. All others are threats of the most fundamental kind, and they must be exposed as impostors. In other words, the presumption of "exclusive" truth, upon which religious intolerance is based, may rise out of incomplete states of neurobiological transcendence."

All the more reason to keep meditating!

In love and light,

Hollis

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