Freedom of Mind
By
William Hamilton
Introduction
I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for the entire spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition. . . . We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world. --Evolution of the Brain, Creation of the Self, p. 241
What is freedom of mind? What is freedom? What is mind?
These are three profound questions that have occupied my mind for the majority of my adult life. My questions were not limited to these three. Like many children when learning about the universe for the first time I tried to imagine what was beyond the universe if anything. It stretches the mind. I wanted to know everything I could learn about the universe and how it worked. I learned much from the physical sciences, but there was more, much more.
I had experiences that went beyond the ordinary. I found others who had extraordinary experiences. There was another world beside the one our bodies were fond of, a world of sights and sounds as our familiar physical world, but seemingly unlimited in space and time. This world was occupied not so much by physical bodies as by something finer, swifter, more alert, a world inhabited by spirits, a world that was closer to our true selves.
I learned in church that spirits
existed and were immortal, but I learned in school that we were animals and
descended from lower forms of life and were mortal. How was it possible for me to learn two
disparate truths? It seemed to me that
one or the other had a basis in truth, but the two could not be reconciled with
logic. Then I found there were other
teachings not common in our western culture, teachings from the masters and
rishis of the
I studied many philosophies throughout my life from the time I was a teen. I also involved myself in one of the principal practices of self-improvement to come along in the twentieth century, one that seemed very advanced for its time, and one upon which much criticism was heaped as it was started by a science-fiction writer. His critics had determined that he just developed his religious philosophy as an extension of his science-fiction writings and as a mechanism to profit by selling this philosophy through the establishment of an organization. Such endeavors are usually referred to as “cults”. But despite faults and flaws, that science-fiction writer had some extraordinary insights and wrote prolifically in support of them.
I also studied psychology and
parapsychology as a college student in
In 1971 and again in 1977 I had extraordinary experiences that involved an acceleration of consciousness and I had even demonstrated remarkable displays of telepathy and psychokinesis as well as heightened ability to process information, a sudden jump in intellectual ability. This convinced me that we are much more than our body and its boundaries and limitations. It is as if we were infinite beings constrained by finite boundaries. I will recount relevant portions of these experiences in this thesis.
In recent years we have seen an explosion of interest in paranormal abilities, remote viewing, and remote influencing as well as a wave of new ideas about the brain, the mind, and consciousness. Building on all that I have learned and experienced I am writing this thesis to help establish the new science and perhaps offer a few ideas as to how we can take its theoretical underpinnings and research and develop practical techniques for improving our minds and our human condition.
We have been so conditioned by our environment that the entrainment and enslavement of our minds has been slowly accepted as the norm and any attempt to depart from the normal path has been treated with disdain, ridicule, or ostracizing the maverick explorer.
What is freedom, then? In my opinion, freedom is the ability to determine one’s being, one’s actions, and one’s choice or selection of ideas and reality. To have freedom of mind is to exercise one’s determinism, and not be constrained by force or idea.
Let us then embark on this voyage of discovery and find our freedom of mind.
-
In the first year of a new millennium (2001)
Freedom of Mind
By
William Hamilton
Table of Contents
1.
First Mind
2.
Questing
Mind
3.
Rhythms of Mind
4.
Entrapped
Mind
5.
Material
Mind
6.
Spiritual
Mind
7.
Modes of
Mind
8.
Powers of
Mind
9.
Cognitive
Mind
10.
Mad Mind
11.
Creative
Mind
12.
Cybernetic
Mind
13.
Enlightened
Mind
14.
Science of Mind
15.
Social Mind
16.
Species Mind
17.
Extraterrestrial Mind
18.
Universal Mind
1. First Mind
The dawning of the first mind is not an event found in fossil layers or in the depths of the subconscious.
The formation of the first primitive cell is said to have occurred billions of years ago. We do not know when the first mind arose as an interaction in a collection of specialized cells, but it is an accepted paradigm of science that the specialized neuronal cells of the brain rose from evolutionary forces and mind “emerged” from the activity present in billions of neurons. As evolution proceeded, the anterior end of the central nervous system became larger to accommodate sense organs. This anterior end of the central nervous system became the brain. The brain developed over time so that highly cephalized animals possessed large brains.
This has been the story so far. We find the essential facts of this story and how it was developed in biology textbooks and variations of the story are given in the various papers, books, and articles written by evolutionary biologists.
The identity theory of mind holds that states and processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain. Therefore, the mind is the brain and the processes that go on in the mind are merely those processes that occur in the brain.
These processes are based on the architecture and functioning of billions of interconnected neurons. If we were to examine one neuron we would see a cell that appears to look like a linear segment of a twig called the axon, a long root with a splay of radiating tendrils known as a dendrite. The dendrites are not attached to the next neuron, but rather communicate across a gap known as a synapse.
All cells have a resting potential. The interior of neurons is negative and the exterior positive, and, like a capacitor this potential is a polarized charge. In the cell, the polarized charge is across the cell membrane. This resting potential has a very low value; in most cells it is close to –70 millivolts in value. Certain external stimuli reduce the charge across the plasma membrane. In each case, the facilitated diffusion of sodium into the cell reduces the resting potential at that spot on the cell creating an excitatory postsynaptic potential or EPSP.
If depolarization at a spot on the
cell reaches the threshold voltage, the reduced voltage now opens up hundreds
of sodium ion channels off the plasma membrane. During the millisecond that the
channels remain open, some 7000 sodium ions rush into the cell. The sudden
complete depolarization of the membrane opens up more of the voltage-gated
sodium channels in adjacent portions of the membrane. In this way, a wave of
depolarization sweeps along the cell. This is the action potential (In neurons,
the action potential is also called the nerve impulse.)
After the firing of the neuron, it
goes into a refractory state in the time following the first impulse for a
duration of .001-.002 seconds so that
the nerves conduct from 500 to 1000 impulses per second. The action potential is all-or-none. This means that unless the stimulus reaches a
specific value, the nerve will not fire, and if it exceeds a specific
threshold, it will not increase the amplitude of the depolarization wave.
Neurons are encapsulated in a
sheath. This myelin sheath acts like an
insulator that determines the strength of the stimulus that is required to
exceed the base threshold that fires the neuron. The destruction of this sheath is known as
multiple sclerosis.
There are basically two types of
neurons defined by their function. The
neurons that are receiving impulses (afferent) from stimulus coming from
outside the body are known as sensory neurons and those which transmit signals
(efferent) are known as motor neurons.
That percentage of the central nervous system that receives sensory
messages from the environment outside of the body will also receive messages
from inside the body. Some of these
internal messages are persistent and are experienced as pain and some are
experienced as pleasurable. Either set
of impulses is afferent impulses going to the brain, but are otherwise not
distinguished. One signal is not
modulated as a signal that spells “pain” to be differentiated from another
signal spelling “pleasure”. Yet these
combinations of signals elicit more action along motor neurons than signals
that we could say are “neutral”.
The neural network of the brain is
characterized by synaptic connections that form patterns. It is the arrangement of these synaptic
junctions that is said to be a significant repository of information or memory. By stimulating a set of neurons in the brain
vivid memories and sensations can be produced that convinces the scientific
investigator that memory and information is stored in neuronal clusters within
the brain. If the area where a set of
memories is “stored” is injured or destroyed, the brain is adaptive and backs
up the memories in other locations. An
alternative view of this is that memory is distributed throughout sectors of
the brain very much like a hologram is distributed over a film so that the
whole image can be recovered from a tiny area of the film. This redundant method of storage has survival
value and protects the hard-learned memories and information that the organism
has acquired through the various vicissitudes of life.
Mental processes include cognition,
memory, intuition, imagination, computation, estimation, and awareness and
consciousness. This does not exhaust the
list of mental processes or states, but is given here to show that many of
these mental processes are abstract concepts that Identity theory associates
with physical neuronal processes within the brain. These are well-accepted processes, but other
not-so-well-accepted processes have been identified and cataloged and some of
these are classed as “paranormal”. It is
these other processes and not traditional processes that have caused many to
question the Identity theory of Mind.
Learning, thinking, perception, and volition are studied continually by
psychologists in various venues to attempt to document what we have discovered
about the human mind and its externally tested behavior. However, it is almost impossible for the
psychologist to study the internal processes that do not make themselves
experimentally apparent.
It is the crux of the question in the
ongoing debate that mind and body have a relation to each other, but the
metaphysical aspects of this question have not yet been fully answered. It is possible that Identity theory is
incomplete in its description of mental functioning, especially when it
excludes a class of data derived from both experience and experiment, that data
derived from parapsychology. It is this
data together with some more conventional discoveries that now bring us to
question Identity theory and arrive at the supposition that there are “bugs” in
this brain theory.
The Human Brain has been studied
with evolving technology in ever-increasing detail over the last quarter
century or more. The Cerebrum is that
part of the human brain associated with higher functioning. The frontal lobes are associated with
thinking, conceptualizing, and planning.
The parietal lobes are associated with movement, orientation,
calculation, and recognition.
Pausing for a moment to reflect on
human movement, as familiar and as intimate to our life as it is, the causation
of movement, activating the muscular system, is one of the mysteries of life
that definitely distinguishes life from non-life. In his book, Quantum Evolution, microbiologist
James McFadden points out that living organisms do not move as other non-living
objects in the universe move and that this distinguishes living organisms. Objects are subject to physical and chemical
forces that cause their movement, but organisms initiate movement often
against external forces in the environment.
One might question if an artificial construction such as a robot or
android could be said to initiate movement based on its programming that would
be indistiquishable from human action. Human movement is an act of will, and
will is a mysterious act of mind. We
will examine the “will” factor as we proceed in our analysis of mind and brain.
The occipital lobes are associated
with visual processing and this raises other important questions on how mind
“sees” what the eyes see. We will find
it helpful to explore this subject with discoveries made in the field of
computer science and artificial intelligence to attempt to understand how the
brain can image the environmental field and the mind see it in every important
detail. Though I have studied physics
and psychology, my profession is information technology, and it is the
hybriding of these fields of learning that give us a better view of the mind
than we have ever had in specialized fields of study alone.
One of the difficulties encountered
is understanding how the brain presents a visual representation of something
the body sees with its eyes. How is the
image of a tree reproduced so the mind identifies it? How is that image recalled from memory? Why is the image from memory imperfect or
altered over time? The answer given in
current brain science is that the brain converts incoming sensations to codes
produced by neuronal firings. We will
examine this later and propose a new theory of mind that may answer most
questions when one examines the full range of mental experience.
The temporal lobes are associated
with sound and some aspects of memory.
The Cerebellum, the Limbic System and the underlying Reptilian Brain
Stem constitute older evolutionary developments of the brain, which most certainly
play a part in our biological functioning.
A primary function of our minds
necessary for perception, computation, orientation, and any functioning
whatsoever is memory. A computer without
memory is no longer a computer. It may
have an arithmetic-logic unit, but such a unit would be useless without memory,
as it would not have any data to compare or sum. Data is stored in memory. Human memory is complex and stores data in an
imperfect way in a number of formats.
Short-term memory acts like a buffer in a computer where data is
temporarily stored for immediate use or output.
When the data is needed over time for repetitions then it may become
part of long-term memory. Remembering a
new person’s name is an example of something that gets stored in short-term
memory and, with some of us, very short indeed.
Only after repetition and repeated encounters with the new person over
time does the name become part of our long-term memory.
There is a big difference learning a
name as opposed to learning to recognize someone’s face and features. Now recognition is a type of memory function
that occurs when one sees the face of a friend again and again and one
recognizes the friend almost instantly by subconscious feature-matching, but to
recall the face of the friend without the physical stimulus of the friend’s
presence is another matter. What color
are your friend’s eyes; their hair; what moles or birthmarks do you see on them
in your mind’s eye; and what is the sound of their voice? Can you easily recall all these
features? What about that shirt or
blouse your friend wears frequently?
What color is it? What patterns
are on it? Why does recall seem a little
more difficult than simple recognition?
Why do some people seem to have near-perfect recall, and others have
such poor recall?
This exercise in recall brings forth
another question. How does the brain
store an image? A computer is designed
by humans to solve the problem of storing images by using the computer’s basic
unit of memory: the bit. Bit is a jargon
word that is a shortened version of “binary digit”. Mathematicians have long recognized that it
only takes two digits to represent any fundamental piece of data, zero and
one. The zero traditionally represents a
state of a switch meaning “off”. The
switch is off. The one represents a
switch being “on”. This is handy as
there are two states of electricity in a circuit: the “on” state when the
circuit is electrified, and the “off” state when it is not. For magnetism, the “on” state is when a
magnetic domain is aligned by a magnetic field, and the “off” state is when it
is not. However, neurons do not behave
in the same fashion and electrical charges or magnetic domains. A neuron is activated and conducts an
electrical action potential, but the polarized state is not maintained by the
neuron, but simply passed along to the next neuron in the chain.
In a computer, a number of bits in
computer memory are translated into a pixel on a video display monitor where
hundreds or thousands of these pixels in on/off states reconstruct an image
from computer memory. The number of bits per pixel, which determines the number
of shades of gray or variations of color that can be displayed by a computer
monitor, can vary from a pixel depth of 16 bits which can display 65,536 different
colors to a monitor with a pixel depth of 24 bits which can display 16,777,216
colors. How does the brain store the
memory of a face, access that memory, and display it so that you and I can
recall the faces of our friends or even recognize the faces of our friends and
know that a stranger is a stranger?
We know that specific traces of
memory cannot be localized in the brain.
Any specific memory seems to be spread out over whole areas of the brain
so that it is the pattern of neurons stimulated by perception that aids us in
recognition, but how these memories are stored isn’t clear at all, and, various
researchers have proposed different schemes, even holographic memory
storage. Without delving into all these
neuronal theories, it is suffice to say at this point, that some researchers
are even considering the idea that memories may not be stored in the brain at
all!
That leads us to a major fork in the
road: the intrasomatic theory of mind as accepted by neuroscience, or a new
extrasomatic theory of mind as suggested by ancient philosophy and new research
into parapsychological phenomena. Is the
mind in the brain and in the body as many scientists have come to believe or is
the brain and body actually inside the mind?
As crazy as this last suggestions sounds, it might just be a step closer
to the truth as we will contemplate some of the new thinking in the realm of
quantum physics and quantum biology as well as ancient knowledge and new
experiences as reported in Near-Death studies, Out-of-body experiences, and
past-life recall. We will also examine
the ability of the mind to affect material reality and how this upsets the old
materialist’s apple cart.
If
we postulate that the mind is not in or part of the body and that the body and
brain are immersed in a mind or mind field, that mind and consciousness are
more fundamental than body and brain, that they precede the evolution of
physical structure, then we might be labeled as scientifically heretical, but
are we?
Perhaps if we examine the many facets of
mind that have been known throughout history and many cultures, we could arrive
at a point of view that is both ancient and new at the same time, that mind is
non-physical, non-local, and the agent of life and action. This will lead us to see that the native
state of mind is freedom, determination, and causation.
2. Questing Mind
Along the path to the evolution of intelligence in primates, we find that animals show curiosity. Let us look at an animal that is said to be a close kin to humans, the Chimpanzee.
John Downer in his book, 'Supernatural: the Unseen Powers of Animals,
writes:
"If
a chimpanzee is in pain or feels unwell it searches the rainforest for a cure,
seeking the same leaves and herbs that are used as remedies by the local
people. Like them it treats bacterial and fungal infections with leaves from
the Aspilia plant and
uses other plants to treat stomach upsets or rid the body of parasitic worms.
Chimpanzees and the local people even use the same primitive herbal form of
birth control, inducing abortions, with Combretum and Ziziphus
leaves . . . Other primates, including baboons, lemurs and vervet monkeys, also
share many of the same medicines as East African tribes, using plants such as
acacias, smilax and hibiscus to cure a range of ills. When baboons are
suffering from diarrhoea they treat themselves with the leaves of the
This example is cited as evidence of
chimp intelligence, but it is not presented as evidence of chimpanzee
consciousness, a factor that is difficult to assess, but exists in our
developing thesis that consciousness is the root of the physical and biological
processes of the universe.
It is the factor we call curiosity
that has driven humans to look for answers to his needs and beyond. This curiosity turns into a quest for
knowledge, a quest for truth, and a quest for answers that exceeds the mere
need for survival. The questing mind is
the philosophical mind, the one capable of posing questions and hypotheses.
While curiosity alone is not the
only driver of mental evolution, it plays a significant part in human
affairs. It is curiosity, which
motivates a youth to seek answers in science or religion. Curiosity may be mild or strong enough to
effect a mental change of state.
Curiosity may turn into a quest for knowledge and once that knowledge is
attained lead the seeker on an ever-increasing intelligent awareness of life
and the universe. This journey has no
end in sight and seems to extend beyond our awareness of limits and final
objectives.
We can conjecture that primitive
humans were attracted to natural phenomena.
When observing lightning striking a tree and starting a fire, early
humans were probably filled with mixed emotions. No doubt such a fire from the sky was a
source of fear and apprehension, but also stimulated curiosity. It was important to the survival of early
humans to be wary of phenomena that could render such destruction. Curiosity, then, is essential to overcoming
fears and pursuing knowledge in order to further survival. Learning more about lightning and where it
strikes and how it starts fires was the first step toward knowledge that aided
humans in their efforts to survive and eventually led to wisdom. The wisdom is eventually couched in phrases
communicated from generation to generation in order to pass on the good advice
to avoid standing in open fields, pools of water, or anywhere that one stands a
good chance of becoming a lightning rod.
Curiosity led the first natural
philosophers to observe and examine nature with more attention in order to
formulate general principles. Aristotle
was a natural philosopher who became well known as he made his thinking a
matter of record. Though Aristotle
observed and formulated hypotheses concerning nature, the tendency to
experiment with nature so as to isolate independent variables and observe
results was still part of a future methodology that has become from formal and
that today we call “science”.
While fears of natural phenomena and
the uncontrollable fury of storms and lightning may have led humans to consider
supernatural forces and contributed to the formation of religious beliefs, it
was an attempt to study these forces in a systematic way that led humans to
develop science.
Current thinking among scientists,
especially neuroscientists such as Christof Koch or Francis Crick believe that
consciousness resides in clusters of neurons in the brain and define whom we
think of as ourselves. This parochial
view already presumes apriori that consciousness is the epiphenomena of a
physical process in the brain and not something that transcends that
process. For a scientist to think
outside the brain box would surely damage careers.
Jeffrey Satinover’s book on The Quantum Brain gives us a new
perspective on the role of quantum mechanics in brain function and the
existence and action of free will. The
book Quantum Evolution by John Joe McFadden even goes so far as to
postulate mind as a field that interacts with the brain. The new ideas coming from discussions of a
Quantum Mind form only a part of a larger thesis that I will explore in this
book and that is the thesis that mind is part of a larger picture, that of
cosmic evolution.
Aware of this, we will continue our
journey, examining ideas developed in the fields of philosophy, religion, and
science toward an understanding of consciousness and the real nature of the
mind.
3. Rhythms of Mind
Understanding the physical mind is only a stepping-stone in our reach to understand the Mind of man.
The mind has thoughts and rhythms. As long as we sense the world, the world will have our attention, and through attention we become entrained by the rhythms and electromagnetic vibrations of the world. An example of the entrainment caused by vibration is when an observer may be looking over lights in the distance. Steady sources of light do not rivet our attention as it sweeps across the field of view. However, if a flashing or strobing light is visible in the distance, it will catch and rivet our attention. If the rhythm of the flashing light approximates our brain wave frequencies at the time, the likelihood of entrainment increases.
Without entrainment, the attention would wander, and the focus required to learn and remember would be absent. It seems like entrainment follows a cause and effect path from the environment to the brain, but it might involve both as it is the adaptability of the brain and its frequencies to lock in on a signal from the environment.
Entrainment is a tool used by hypnotist to induce a hypnotic state in subjects. The repetitive use of words or sounds, or the motion of a pendulum is used to bring the subject’s attention to a sharp focus. The ability to focus enhances a person’s mental processes and may be related to the person’s ability to perform on intelligence tests.
Life is entrained to many natural rhythms. Circadian rhythms are common to all life on earth. In its diurnal rotation of 24 clock hours, the rhythms of the body have entrained their pattern. Anything from hormone secretions to jet lag are responses to the body’s entrainment to circadian rhythms. Altering one’s velocity with respect to the earth produces a slight discordance, which acts to right itself. We experience this when we travel by jet across time zones and seek to adjust to a new entrainment. We do not know whether to sleep or eat, rest or remain active as the new daily cycle asserts itself on our physiology.
One of the principal features used to examine what is going on in the mind and brain are its waves that arise from each hemisphere. These brainwaves have been categorized according to a range of frequencies and are associated with levels of consciousness.
The fast frequency brainwave ranging
from 15 to 40 cycles per second is known as Beta. Beta frequencies are predominant in conscious
activities, especially when engaged in dialogue. Alpha frequencies are slower, from about 7.5
cycles to 14. People at rest or
meditating may display these slower frequencies. The Alpha waves also have a higher
amplitude. Lower still are theta
waves. Theta waves may run from 4 to 7.5
cycles per second. Theta may show up
during deep reverie or in hypnogogic or hypnopomic states that occur just
before and after sleep. Delta waves are
the slowest brainwaves and may range from 0.5 to 4 cycles per second. These occur when a person experiences
dreamless sleep. A zero frequency
brainwave state would indicate that the brain is dead or flatlined. A new faster frequency brainwave above 40
cycles per second has been given the name gamma. New evidence has emerged of
brainwave states above the highest recognized brainwave frequencies of Beta (30
Hz). Higher-than Beta frequencies are called Gamma. These Gamma brainwaves
resonate around 40 Hz and are associated with the brain function which
holographically synthesizes all the bits of individual data from various areas
of the brain and fuses them all together in a higher perspective.
|
Delta |
0.1-3
Hz |
deep
sleep, lucid dreaming, increased immune functions, hypnosis |
|
Theta |
3-8 Hz |
deep
relaxation, meditation, increased memory, focus, creativity, lucid dreaming,
hypnagogic state |
|
Alpha |
8-12 Hz |
light
relaxation, "super learning", positive thinking |
|
Low
Beta |
12-15
Hz |
relaxed
focus, improved attentive abilities |
|
Midrange
Beta |
15-18
Hz |
increase
mental ability, focus, alertness, IQ |
|
High
Beta |
above
18 Hz |
fully
awake, normal state of alertness, stress and anxiety |
|
Gamma |
40 Hz |
associated
with information-rich task processing and high-level information processing |
In 1926, a German psychiatrist, named
Hans Berger was the first to use an Electroencephalagraph to record human brain
waves. When measuring the brain waves of
his daughter when she was doing mental arithmetic he found the activity increased
when she was trying to multiply difficult numbers.
The EEG has
been used since then to measure brainwave activity in the outer cortex of the
brain. The electrodes do not pick up
activity in the subcortical areas of the brain. A Magneto Encephalogram is a
newer technology that measures magnetic brainwaves and may detect waves from
deeper areas of the brain.
The
most sensitive device now used is called the SQUID (Semi-Quantum Interference
Device) which measures magnetic brain waves and amplifies these waves for
computer analysis.
These are
some of the tools used to study the changing states of the mind as reflected in
brainwave activity. It is the control of
these states of mind that reflect in the EEG or MEG recordings that suggest
means to alter our consciousness that are important to our study of the mind
and its interaction with the body and environment.
The control of mind states through
meditation or biofeedback can be referred to as psychotechnologies.
Many of the rhythms of the mind are
entrained by the rhythms that the body has adapted from its evolutionary cycles
in the terrestrial environment. The
amazing thing is that we can impose our will, our intention, and change the
brainwave frequencies and even cohere the waveforms in each hemisphere of the
brain. When these states of brain
activity are reached, the potential for effecting change in the environment
seems to increase. This may be
indirectly toward a focus of effort in the accomplishment of specific tasks
that we aim to complete or even directly by influencing the movement of
objects, the psychokinetic effect.
Through concentration on a complex
problem, the mind itself may undergo a metamorphosis where it seems to function
in a super-normal mode and is able to integrate diverse patterns.
In essence there is a
psychocybernetic feedback loop between the mind, action, and the environment
which changes both the state of the mind and condition of the environment. It is possible that this loop can operate
outside of the human nervous system and produce psychokinetic phenomena. Since I have both witnessed and experienced
PK phenomena it becomes a subject of continuing interest.
4. Entrapped Mind
a : the action or process of entrapping b : the condition of being entrapped
The native state of a being is freedom, unentanglement, yet through desire, curiosity and interest beings are entrapped much as an animal is lured into a trap.
One of the experiences that we all seem to share as humans is entrapment. This seems opposite of that experience we call freedom. We are surrounded by limitations, some of which seem to serve our purpose and others that thwart our purpose.
When I was growing up as a teenager I experienced entrapment to a small degree in that I felt coerced to attend Catholic mass and Catholic training during a time when I was exercising my freedom to inquire about life. It seemed to me that Catholic life was too restrictive and replete with excessive dogma to satisfy my yearnings and curiosity. I seriously wanted to know about God, yet what I learned when I attended my sixth grade parochial school class did not seem to be in accord with reason. I asked a question about the doctrine of the Trinity. How could God be three persons, and yet be one. The answer from a visiting priest was that it was not given to us to understand these ideas within mortal life and that this mystery would be revealed to me after death. I was also concerned that something mysterious I possessed called a “soul” would ascend to the pearly gates after death, but I wanted to know where “I” went!
I also felt somewhat entrapped in public school as I raised questions that scouted the outside perimeter of orthodox science. I did not have to wait long to discover that science was circumscribed by a forbidden zone just as religion appeared to be. The hypothesis of planetary formation when I was in the 8th grade was the stellar collision hypothesis which conveyed the idea that another star passed near to our sun and by gravitational tidal action pulled out material that formed the planets. Our solar system was an accident of nature and probably a rare development. In light of recent discoveries, this quaint hypothesis now seems absurd and so goes progress in science where yesterday’s ideas seem absurd and the current paradigm seems to make sense. However, who is to say what reigning idea will give way next to a new paradigm and a new model of the universe?
If we believe, as many here in the West believe, that we are merely human bodies and our sense of self comes from neuronal processes in the brain, then we will be forever trapped by this belief and the promise of freedom becomes illusory. If, like indicated in the philosophies of the East, we are immortal spirits inhabiting a human body, then by achieving spiritual enlightenment, we can achieve freedom for nothing can trap a spirit except an idea, especially one that one agrees to.
A wonderful passage from the
Bhagavad-Gita comes to mind as
“There is no existence for that which is unreal; there is no non-existence for that which is real. And the correct conclusion about both is perceived by those who perceive the truth. Know that to be indestructible which pervades all this; the destruction of that inexhaustible principle none can bring about. These bodies that pertain to the embodied self which is eternal, indestructible, and indefinable, are said to be perishable; therefore do engage in battle, O descendant of Bharata! He who thinks it to be the killer and he who thinks it to be killed, both know nothing. The self kills not, and the self is not killed. It is not born, nor does it ever die, nor, having existed, does it exist no more. Unborn, everlasting, unchangeable, and primeval, the self is not killed when the body is killed.”
And thus guided by this wisdom we see that no person can come to harm, nor die, nor be injured in anyway. Only the body suffers injury and death, but what is true of the body is not true of the spirit. Spirit exists apart from space, energy, and time and thus is not subject to its vicissitudes. How am I so convinced of this when educated in Western schools, when indoctrinated in the Western culture of sickness, disease, and death? It is not only from relearning the nature of man and the universe, but of having a direct experience exterior from the enclosure of my body, alive in spirit and perceiving and knowing the truth of existence. I am far from being a solitary case that has had such an experience or finding that it is not I that am a slave to life in this universe, but instead a Master who has entrapped himself in the world of matter and energy and has been so convinced by belief that I am the effect of all this energy and matter that I had to awaken to a real life in spirit and realize that the entrapment in this play of life is as real as an illusion when one is absorbed in a movie. There have been many attempts to clarify the goal of life and our tru