Mystical Brain
7.35
Ratings: 7.35/10 from 111 users.
Filmmaker Isabelle Raynauld offers up scientific research that suggests that mystical ecstasy is a transformative experience.
It could contribute to people's psychic and physical health, treat depression and speed up the healing process when combined with conventional medicine.
This documentary reveals the exploratory work of a team from the University of Montreal who seek to understand the states of grace experienced by mystics and those who meditate. In French with English subtitles.
Excellent start! If only conversations could just begin without the presupposition that Science and Religion disagree. We should focus on the things we all agree on, like being human.
“There are those who know, and those who don’t know. Those that know, don’t need to be told; and those that don’t know, can’t be told.” (or something like that )
- Joseph Campbell
I want to start bay saying that this was a tremendously interesting documentary in that it is indeed rarely seen in the history of Sciences, to see scientists studying mysticism, and so for the exact reasons stated in the doc -because spiritual experiences transcend the need to ''proove'' anything about it since to the subject, it is so profoundly felt and sometimes even deeply transformative in terms of behavior and cognition to the said subject.
But my question is this: given the context that we exist in, this marsh of political and ideological confusion and destruction of our environment, can we really hope that any major discovery in the field of self-reliant spirituality will be used in a healthy and viable way? With all the competition arising from economic strife, if we develop a science of spiritual states and practices, will be initiate an era of psychic war-mongering and "black magic''? This is just my feelings toward what could become very dangerous, as powerful a tool the control of access to these states can become, tool may be in a world run by ego and competition.
What next? Robots who compute their conscious processes on the same wave-length as those brains in spiritual states?
I believe indeed that meditation and transcendental states should remain in the field of philosophy, far away from technological means of reproduction and focus much more on what the french monk seemed to suggest: discipline of the mind and discipline of individual ethical living.
Dude. This is an awesome documentary. Loved it.
I don't understand this as it seems to me that the religious or mystical experience is experienced through love or our ability to get along with each other....which is a mystical state...I do not understand why they do not talk about this. In large part, that is why the mystical experience is experiential.
The fundamental problems that I have with all research into meditation and the religious experience:
1) There is no clear understanding of what a religious experience is. None of the researches have shown that they have done the research into the ancient literature of religions where religious experience is documented.
2) None of these subjects were allowed to record their subjective experience.
3) Without a clear understanding of what a religious experience is, there can be no screening of subjects for religious experiences.
4) Therefore none of these subjects were screened for religious experience.
5) These researches assumed that anyone who has engaged in meditation or other religious activities for several decades must be having religious experiences. However, my research shows that this is simply not true.
Brahmakumaris practise and teach a form of meditation that relaxes the mind and nurtures a healthy balance between our inner and outer worlds.
Dear Sir, I need your help. Namely, to assist me with advice on my buddhist path. I really hope you will receive this message. If you eventually read it,please reply and I will elaborate on my request.I am sorry for my poor english language skills,but it is simply not my native tongue. Sincerely / Daniel
To Daniel, I would also like to learn more about the Buddhist Path. If you would like to converse with a like minded individual and teach each other some things the other may not know please respond. Thank You!
Yes ofcourse Jessica, that would be lovely :) Where would you prefer to converse ? You can find me on Facebook - Daniel Raychev or my e-mail :no personal e-mails allowed
Hey Daniel and Jessica! (:
How are your journeys towards enlightenment going?
Reminds me of a Darren Brown experiment where he simulates how religious experiences can be evoked under the right conditions. Interesting how convinced people are that the Mind/Soul is separate from the Brain. Can our individual, unique souls (thoughts, emotions, attitudes, memories, beliefs) be explained by physical brain structures? Am I who I am because my amygdala happened to store a certain memory or a certain interaction? I feel a certain sense of spirituality when I study networks of neurons and how beautifully intricate our minds are, so for me, the brain and the soul could be one and the same. But i guess religious belief in the idea that human beings possess a transcendent "soul" which can be reunited with its divine Creator would encourage a separation of the two (i.e. if my brain is merely an animate object that will someday die, then it can't be my soul, because my soul has an afterlife). So I can understand a specific rift between neuroscience and religion, but not the same conflict between science and spirituality in a wider sense. Humanity seems just as connected and sacred and meaningful when seen as a planet of incredibly complex organisms- organisms that don't necessarily transcend their material existence.
whoa, this post just became an existential rant…my bad
Everything in this entire documentary can be incapsulated in the sufi dictum - "Who tastes not, knows not."
The filmed has ended, i jumped out of my chair to grab something to drink and i slipped on two different slippers. The right foot with right/foot slippers and the left foot with another kind-right/foot slippers.
I do like the analogy of the computer and the user: that one can take a computer apart, and try to discover what it does by its' integral hardware parts. Then the user can turn the computer on, and experience the software, and what it does, in relation to the hardware. The hardware can never tell you what the experience of the software gives. It ca only hint and be suggestive of its capabilities. Which is why, at the end of the video, the experience supercedes studying the mechanisms by which it comes through. (I would rather be the nun, than the scientist)
If anyone is interested in further reading on the topic, I've read and can recommend Religion Explained. It's a touch abstruse, but it covers a lot of ground.
I say this as someone with direct and prolonged experience of religious ecstasy, as a former Fundamentalist Christian I was 'healed' and 'prophesied' and witnessed all manner of things.
It was not transformative, but a very powerful delusion, the most powerful because it's built on all the illusions of childhood and all the attendant fears.
maybe its true
and by the way the old women looks clearly like tome cruise oO
2006 seriously ? looks like 1990. So boring and common documentary ^^
Jiva, you are confusing the cultural beliefs of those countries with that of Buddhism. As a former Buddhist monk, I can tell you emphatically that the Buddha did not teach anything that promoted a belief in any god or gods. The Buddha's teachings are entirely practical and non-superstitious. There is not a single statement in the Pali Canon that asks anyone to "believe" anything at all. Buddhism proper is something you DO with your life, NOT something you "believe". It is true that some people in the east mix their cultural beliefs with their practice of Buddhism and sometimes people lacking in education or lacking a genuine study of the Dhamma tend to be confused about what is the real Dhamma and what is a cultural belief or folk religion. And you are quite wrong about a "western conception" of Buddhism. In the east, Buddhism has undergone a 2500 year old process of being watered down with various cultural beliefs. Here in the west we have the great advantage of studying Buddhism for what it really is, and was meant to be -- without the the distractions and misunderstandings that come from all the cultural amenities and local folk religions. We have the Pali Canon, and it tells us what we need to know about the Dhamma as it was taught 2550 years ago. And Buddhist meditation properly practiced is simply a tool for understanding and seeing clearly ourselves and the nature of reality around us -- but only in a very real, tangible, and materialistic way (materialistic in the philosophical sense), and not at all in some silly hokey magical, superstitious way. However, be warned. There are flakes and pretenders, and those with overactive imaginations in every "religion", so be careful.
Great film, but it should be made clear that when Buddhist monks are meditating, they are not entering a "God" experience. They are very much in accord with science in that they do not believe in a creator God, it is a very practical matter of (in calm abiding meditation, aka tranquility meditation) observing the mind (or breath, or space, or whatever the focal point is). There are other types of analytical meditation as well (cultivating compassion or loving-kindness for example), but both types are not a communion with God.
But certainly Buddhist belief in karma and rebirth could be considered beyond the realm of science, but one thing at a time....
what you are saying is a western conception of Budhism shich is purely based on selective textual readings interspersed with the sociologiacal backgrouds that most western adhererents come from - middle class liberals. Budhism as "practiced" is Sri Lanka, Tibet, Burma, Thailand etc is interxtricabbly linked with a myriad of Gods, syncretic tradaditions, nationalisms etc
having said that the concept of God in Abrahamic rloigiosn is diffrent from lets say Hindu ones. Idea of Brahman in a school of HInduism is Brahman is of the nature of truth, knowledge and infinity." Infinite positive qualities and states have their existence secured solely by virtue of Brahman's very reality. Brahman is a necessary reality, eternal (i.e., beyond the purview of temporality), fully independent, non-contingent, and the source and ground of all things. Brahman is both immanently present in the realm of materiality, interpenetrating the whole of reality as the sustaining essence that gives it structure, meaning and existential being, yet Brahman is simultaneously the transcendent origin of all things
As a yogi I will share my view. I have completed the functional path of meditative heat, I am fully established in the 8 jhanas, have experienced nirodha samapatti, and have reached the emanation body.
@Reda Neggaz
I admire your lack of doubt. I hope your certainty brings you peace.
@Ben Stelle
There are some very smart physicists who claim a mind is equal to a self-collapsing wave-function, the universe has a self-collapsing wave-function...which indeed could mean it has a mind. So depending on how you are defining god, it may be harder to say absolutely there isn't then you think. Depending on how you define, you can believe in a Spinoza god like Einstein and still be an atheist, just like you can believe in variations of a universal mind and still be an atheist.
Just because reda might have the details wrong, she might be hitting big targets and you would be damning her for doing that very thing. Just remember, we all have the details wrong.
@Azilda
Many meditations require thought, in fact there are samadhis of pure thought. It is for the beginner that thought is considered the enemy, as all thought for them is discursive. Once the silent thinker is brought under control, thought is critical. As Nagarjuna points out, wisdom is a greater enlightening factor then meditation. One acquires much of this wisdom through analysis.
Vedic logicians would take firm stance against your presumption god is solely a verb. No thoughtless meditation can verify your claims one way or another.
I think many would argue that the dichotomy between religious and spiritual is a superficial one at best and a false one at worst.
@ lakhotason
You may be skimping a bit on your phenomenological description, do you mean actually using the silent thinker to produce thoughts about your body, or do you mean that the part of the mind that moves awareness from one object to another doesn't ever bring the visceral map into focus? I doubt you mean you fully have removed the body from your awareness. Why? When one does this fully, one is in a samadhi and cannot walk or control the body at all. If you went into samadhi while walking, you would fall immediately. The Pons is fully impacted during samadhi, so even sleep walking-like behavior shouldn't be possible.
Even the formless jhanas still integrate the visceral map into the perceptual field.
Beyond this, I don't see the gain of avoiding the measuring of your visceral map. Gaining control over bodily fabrications is required to build a personal paradise, and one cannot do this without fully measuring one's visceral map (I have used tummo with kammamudra to achieve the 4 great blisses, a personal paradise is very reachable).
Walking meditation has it's uses, they wear much thin once one progresses past the lower insight cycles.
@Azilda
Depending on the meditation and the skill of the person, isolation might be required. Even if a person has completely rooted out attachment, the meditative level they possess still might require isolation. I can go into a lot more detail if your interested, but it essentially boils down to the mechanics of a mind as a dynamic system being influenced by other systems. Environmental decoherence causes the mind to congeal to a specific state or another, bleeding information. Other minds have similar influence. The mind has to self-measure to tune the system away from the environment. Eventually this tuning leads to a decoupling from the environment and the propensity for forced-congealing (congealing forces unfree behavior and nervous system responses). So freedom requires some initial periods of isolation; after this one should engulf everything in constant measurement. As at this level the great inner-inversion takes place and the best place to meditate becomes a crowded place.
As the great yogi Dharma Sangha has experienced the great inversion and now takes his meditative chair in front of many everyday and has for some years now. In his case, he was near but not fully there when the crowds started, so he had to tough through it and occasionally had to slip away for a few months.
Attachment has relatively little to do with this and is a defilement that influences motivational tendencies and thus only influences these mechanics spoken of in a rather indirect way. If one loses all attachment, one still must accomplish the perceptual fruitions.
@lakhotason
If your mind is totally detached from your brain, then no psychoactive chemical would have any effect, nor would brain chemistry influence you at all- nor would you have access to the information stream that the brain influences (5 senses). In fact, why isn't your mind just 'floating' away?
@brutusaurio
Well said, thank you for your contribution.
@lakhotason
Claiming that they would bore you is one thing, as this reflects your torpor and nothing more. Claiming they are not creative might be overstepping.
Contemplatives have often established themselves amongst the most creative philosophers and logicians. I spin poi and fire poi on a world-class level and no other motion artist has called me anything but creative.
From my experience it is ultimately something one OBSERVES. We don't do creativity, we observe it. There are plenty of other artists like Alex Grey that take this position as well.
@brutusaurio
I generally agree with what you are saying, once one reaches the body of emanation, the art of perception takes on a whole new meaning.
Not just stopping the silent thinker from bouncing too and fro, but the capacity to generate any fabrication. The material one gains to create art with is a world of illusion where one can manifest, see, and experience anything imaginable. In my opinion, controlled hallucination by far is the most interesting and exquisite type of art one can experience.
Generally if one does a silent mantra in one's mind, one can target the specific part of the mind in which the silent thinker 'resides', as one uses this tool to generate the mantra. One then can essentially command the silent thinker to generate silence. As one simply preps that function just like one would when doing mantra, yet instead of actually playing the mantra you play silence, essentially just leaving it prepped. This short circuits the silent thinker, which is the course part of the mind. One is then left with the part that (due to habituation) uncontrollably moves the attention from one place to another. One should strive then to search over and over for this mover-of-attention, as it is subtly detectable as a feeling and other then that is non-perceptible, the act of watching for it slowly ceases the mental twitching and one gains the ability to place and leave the mind at will. The mind will not move out of your control any longer. At this point one will have conquered the subtle mind.
@lakhotason
Are you referring to the technical skill? Or the style? I am not particularly impressed with any of the artists you listed. Each piece has no inherent value. This is why I was just reading the other day how one of their originals was picked up for 16 dollars at a goodwill. In this respect the art world is a bubble. The purpose of art is disputed amongst cultures, remember not to project the modern art culture as 'the correct' or 'the sole'.
Alex Grey and Luke Brown are both modern Buddhist artist who have channeled a lot of creativity and both have technical skill. Advanced Buddhists have transitioned to working with the medium of hallucination.
I disagree with your claim that to gauge happiness is to gauge something vague. Buddhists have worked out for thousands of years very specific permanent changes that can occur and do occur incrementally if one applies the proper perturbation. If I and another contemplative agree on which jargon to use, we both can come to a pretty solid conclusion about where the other person's mind is currently at. Both in terms of defilements and potentials, one can come to an accurate measure of the other persons capacity to be happy. Though elation and even bliss are not the gauges for any Buddhist school (nirvana is not an exalted state of bliss).
I have never heard a buddhist say that life is only about being content. No Buddhist philosophy says anything close to this. Advanced buddhism rejects many types of equanimity. Further equanimity without focus can result in one being a cough-potato and full of procrastination. All but the lowest of students are advised to keep suffering under reflexive control in order to master compassion.
Gotama taught dispassion in two forms. One to the students who were primarily interested in the reasonably quick route to self-liberation that could be applied from the bright-but-not-wise to the weak of mind. Gotama taught that by removing one's passions and taming one's mind with the concentration and insight jhanas, one could remove all of one's suffering in 1-2 weeks, if they were bright. The second form of dispassion Gotama spoke of relates to a fruition within the advanced paths, in which one becomes fully established in imagelessness. He is referring to the primary clear light, which is beyond dichotomies of passion or lack-of (passion is much to narrow for the clear-light).
I reject the idea of that all human emotions are 'just as' important. Is hate really important? It hate really just as important as empathy or compassion? Greed? This seems to go against common sense. Emotions do not get their value by virtue of them being emotions. Contemplating the common good seems to logically lead to the conclusion that many of humanities negative propensities should in fact not be embraced. Putting destructive emotions on a pedestal is pointless, we need to shake off our inherited animal weaknesses and embrace a mental evolution of sorts. Buddhists and other contemplatives have made significant progress in the discovery of such evolution.
The states I live in are too full to be split into categories such as passion or non, I spontaneously assist others. I spontaneously observe creativity. One can in fact have creativity without passion. You channel creativity using passion, others have cut out the middle-man. You do not do the flow state, you observe it.
@dewflirt
There is such thing as harmful meditation. Gotama pointed out that one can smash one's mind if one doesn't do it correctly. Osho lost the ability to speak for a period of time; the Dalia Lama spoke of a monk friend who did his own thing and failed to head a cautionary teaching concerning a certain point in one's progress. He failed to correct the mental imbalance of dullness and excitation, which is critical for the stage he was at. He admitted to Dalia Lama that it had made him dull and stupid.
Buddhism has acquired many lifetimes worth of knowledge on the subject, to reject 2500 years of progress might be a little arrogant on behalf of the contemplative.
That contemplative instead should learn the history of what has been done, what works, what works better, and what has failed miserably.
One can gain blind-spots to his own practice and not know what he is missing. Many people unfortunately spend 20 years of their life in the first jhana because they simply don't know better.
All practices are means to different ends, one has to know when one has reached a dead end, or one will spend much time traveling nowhere. It like reaching land by boat but continuing to row forward, a confused person might believe he is making progress, but really he is not. This person needs to use a different method of travel now, unfortunately most of us need to be told to get out of the boat.
Knowing the general rules and out of bounds of contemplative history and technical meditative progress is actually critical to make if even somewhat far in one's journey.
That being said, the more one actually makes significant progress the more one can do what one wants, as one knows how to play and what are the rules. Usually through meditative heat, the contemplative learns how all meditations actually work. One gains a serious intuition into how to generally reach fruitions...though even at this stage one will find him or herself corrected by a yogi a long time ago concerning a more effective variation on whatever technique one is applying.
There eagerness to due what is prescribed as the most effective per their level is a reflection of their humility and shouldn't be looked down upon.
The freedom gained from meditation correctly is far superior to a pseudo-disciplined mind oscillating randomly, for this oscillation is what is trapping most. The superior inner visions are only attained through very finely tuned meditation. The bardo trances are well worth it.
@lakhotason
Many Buddhists, myself included, believe that human life is a launching pad for an evolved state of consciousness that can transcend this life. Ultimately culminating in a suffering-free, god-like existence, in which one is completely uninhibited and can manifest as anything possible, including social-memory complexes. My experience with quantum theory, the bardo trances, and the body of emanation, tell me this is distinct possibility.
Sorry to burst your bubble my sweet child, personality and character are habits. When we are most honest with ourselves, we often find many of these habits have evolved as coping mechanisms. Once someone stops the psycho-babble and stops whispering to themselves all day one feels less inclined to play as many games. Having played on both sides of the court, I feel I am on the winning side, for I have personally found a superb freedom, part of this includes being free from all social games and habits.
Orwellian double-speak and the Buddha telling everyone to not trust a sutra, or a teacher, or even him is not even close to the same. 1984 (state of near total un-free control) and the (mahaparninirvana) most freedom possibly conceivable are so far apart I wonder where your common sense has gone. Are you free from your thoughts? Those Buddhists you are demeaning are, as freeing oneself from discursive thoughts comes rather early in the path.
@dewdirt
Some meditation do produce very consistent results, such as the insight jhanas, once they serve their purpose they are abandoned. Once the contemplative reaches samadhis, it's very different. Novelty is essentially constant, everything turns to a higher order.... Suchness is like all possibilities at once, pure truth.
I think it is the other way around, they are starting to wake up and you have been sleeping at the wheel the whole time. When we die we wake up again, and for most, it will be too free once again. When we fully experience ego-death during life, the mind starts a sacred program that the Buddhists have figured out more than any other. This program reveals a higher order of existence and a what appears to be direct access to sacred platonic information.
It is like a ancient city one stumbles in on while walking in the forest, one then can choose to conduct himself like a citizen and use the amenities the city has to offer.
It isn't a surprise that nearly every person that experiences the bardos turns to contemplative traditions.
@lakhotason
If you are saying being celibate is creepy, this is due to some projection. The Dalia Lama has admitted he is no Yogi MANY times and has said publicly MANY times he is NOT enlightened. He isn't being humble, he is being very literal, his meditative experience is rather lacking. The Dalia Lama has been very busy for the past who-knows-how-many-decades and simply has had no time for a woman, and it is getting a little late for that. The man has chosen to take on many responsibilities and has honored those through very complicated times. In Tibet, most yogis go back and forth between celibacy and partnered sexuality.
The Dalia Lama's tradition uses sex and sexual energy coupled with meditative heat to achieve various enlightened fruitions.
@dewflirt
The idea is, if meta-living is truly possible, it should be possible with the bare minimum or when one is lacking. Further, if one is removed from distractions, often one can accomplish faster. There reaches a point when a yogi's strength is such that partaking in the superficial enjoyments no longer provides any obstacles. We are talking about absolute freedom being the goal here. Often if the yogi has developed control over mental and bodily fabrications, he chooses not to partake in many due to his capacity to generate much more exhilarating and novel experiences and pleasures. Suffering has it's uses, such as for generating compassion when the yogi hasn't achieved the bodhi heart fruition using bodhicitta and meditative heat.
@brian rose
The worlds traditions actually disagreed, even within Buddhism there is plenty of disagreement. What is and isn't enlightenment is something Buddhists and Hindus disagree about completely. Hindus believe concentration samadhis are enlightenment, Buddhists do not, as samadhis temporarily suppresses the defilements and this is not rooting them out. Nirvana is a loose term that means different things to different Buddhist schools. What is a worthy goal in one is completely disregarded and avoided in another. Self-liberation for example is disregarded for liberation for the sake of others. Not the same liberation at all, for example, as the former has nothing directly to do with compassion, while the latter is about becoming compassion incarnate and nothing but, even giving up buddhahood. There are others with the aim of gaining the ability to generate paradise with the intent of other minds taking abode within.
@Blucrossbreeder
The tibetan book of the dead doesn't say we are an atman. It hesitates to even say we are a mind-stream. It does say you are devoid of any self-nature, it does say they our minds are an emptiness indivisible from radiance and awareness. That when we die, in reality all manifestation and appearances are of our own minds nature. We are something more complicated then an atman, some type of great non-self. Not a single entity as it is clearly discernible as a multiplicity but not existing inherently as a multiplicity as all is interdependent and of a single 'essence' or savor.
@lakhotason
It is easier to simply call oneself a Buddhist, contemplative, or enlightened but the claim doesn't make it so.
@brian rose
Obviously there a line to the Lao Tzu statement, or else it is self-refuting. The Buddha didn't lapse into a state of unknowing simply because he was teaching. Lower enlightenments could be viewed as variations of a permanent self-measuring flow state. The mastery you are referring to concludes once one goes to the subtlest level of training, the bardo trances are well beyond mastering fear. The great liberation by hearing found in the tibetan book of dead for example refers to these trances...not some hagiographical text. Even many Buddhists have their doubts until the bardo trances, from experience I have to confer to you the truth from my experience that when one reaches this point, a distinct axiomatic change takes place concerning the nature of reality and our place in it.
@lakhotason
Once again, there is art without passion. Creativity can be observed without passion.
@dewflirt
Arhats can lose the capacity for love, Bodhisattvas generally never part from it. It is a personal choice as love directed at any being requires attachment. The other method of generating love involves using meditative heat to literally warm the heart, which can used to generate the fabrications associated with the feelings of love- this is a directionless love.
@lakhotason
Buddhism has over 650,000 texts, not creative? Look 'not to the enlightened ones to do the work'? That is more texts then all religions and a good portion of all philosophy combined. Talk about a lot of work... Modern Philosophy says Nagarjuna has pushed metaphysics and linguistics to a razor's edge.
To say they never question seems to ignore the ENTIRE history of buddhism (literally the entire 2500 years of progression). Which grew out of disagreement and tactful debate. Either you intend on misrepresenting buddhism or you know VERY little about it.
To say there is little difference between buddhism and 'the lakhota way' misrepresents Buddhism as holding a specific belief, which is not the case. There is are major debates about nearly everything in buddhism , to say it all equals Y which happens to be equivalent to lakhota way is entirely false. Or even that Buddhism as a whole 'closely' equals Y which happens to be equivalent to lakota would also be false under this premise.
You are using the No true Scotsman logical fallacy when saying no truly creative person avoids 'paying the price'. I am a creative person who has avoided paying the price. I observe creativity through dispassion not passion.
You also say that creativity cant be defined AFTER you defined it as requiring passion.
You honestly seem to know very little about Buddhism and should be careful preaching from a place of authority. You act like you have spent some time studying yet you make silly and downright incorrect statements, to the extent of even being rude about its practitioners.
I must stress that your comments reflect not even an intro level of understanding, this combination could come off as arrogance.
@Azilda
Your friend a tried 'dry insight' retreat which is tough for any beginner monks, every bit of resistance would be been there with all other early monks too. He does have what it takes, the retreat doesn't reflect poorly on his potential at all...Especially if made it through the retreat!
I wish fallacy-shattering peace to all of you.
What a participation for a first comment on SeeUat Videos!
I am pleased to read someone of similar experience as the monk in the video, i am tempted to say, in person.
Yes my friend does have what it takes, as we all do. It is the first reaction of the mind to oppose tranquility and stillness.
When you write: "As at this level the great inner-inversion takes place and the best place to meditate becomes a crowded place." & "Dharma Sangha has experienced the great inversion and now takes his meditative chair in front of many everyday".
To be contemplative while being active within the crowd, no matter who fills it, what actions are performed, which situation is encountered, within any location... would be the end result.
I would like to mention an artist who has done amazing work, she is Canadian but takes her art all over the world. Autumn Skye Morrison, i believe you would enjoy seeing the expression of passion she has for life, womanhood, peace, nature.....
Thank you.
az
Well now, you must have typers cramp! I will probably come across as a petulant child but I can live with that. I am glad you have found a way to a peace that excites you but it is not for me. From my point of view, yours is a practised peace and I am a person that prefers a little wilderness. I don't want to filter life's ups and down, I like to revel in them, in the wild woolyness of people. Your way is too tame for me and that feeling alone and this mindset is probably enough to make your path un-walkable for my stomping hooves. I do my thinking on the run! Delicious comment/essay/meditation. :)
Your comment is #111...sounds like a good fast reply....on the run before 112 rolls over.
Typers cramp....lol
az
Too bad the quality of the video is low.
You can choose to watch it in 480p, which is quite good.
The middle ground in your opinion is possibly high ground to the one occupying it.
Especially with art....how do you rate it. When people like Joan Miro who does a bunch of paintings looking like kid's stuff that sells for millions.
az
Whoa. You're the one that said there is no middle ground. Go back and look if you don't believe me.
It isn't "monkish" to be able to walk twenty miles. It takes walking every day up and down hills and through valleys. Again my point is that it takes work.
It's monkish to walk 20 miles without the slightest thought of your body.
az
Good point. I don't know how that happens. But it ain't monkish. I'm far from being a monk.
It is monkish in the way of letting go of the perception of the reality that surrounds one. You don't come accross as a monk one bit, so don't worry. But then again; do you shave your head? lol
A good friend of mine went to a Vipassana 10 day retreat. He is a computer engineer. The first thing he did when he got out, was to park his car and write a message that said: I don't have what it takes to be a monk.
Made me laugh.
az
'Detachment' itself becomes pathological unless one is totally living away from any human contact. 'Detached' people drive others crazy.
Simply replace 'detached' with 'hiding' to get the idea.
Empathy and warmth are traits that make others lives worth living.
To willingly seek detachment from the rest of the human race is to willingly absolve any innate responsibility towards others.
Life can be excruciatingly hurtful at times and detachment from our EMOTIONAL PAIN is sometimes necessary in order to survive.
NB:If you want power over others, live life out constantly detached and sit back and wait for others to seek your hidden self.It works.
Living in the here and now is not detachment. One can sweep a floor and become very creative - but I myself find housework a necessary chore that eats up my 'real' recreational/enjoyment time.
Meditation, prayer are great ways to learn the art of focusing and to self soothe. These are the times detachment from the outside world is imperative, but not the desired goal unless one is a monk.
Monks and nuns and yogis are great because they are symbols of peace and serenity. They live separately from the mainstream of society and generally don't involve themselves in fields of science, technology, economics etc etc - nor do they have relationships or bring children into the world - because all of these would involve 'attachment' to something involving the material world.
Passion is the difference between a surgeon 'calling it in' at 5am and a surgeon battling hard for a further 2 hours to save the life of a total stranger.
Creativity is merely accidental without passion. Peace and NO WAR won't happen without passion. Don't tell me Gandhi was 'detached'.xx
I have to disagree concerning passion. A surgeon would be said to have compassion to save a strangers life and he may very well be passionate about his work and he can also be creative. But it is compassion that drives him to save the life of a stranger - not passion.
Creativity isn't accidental. It requires hard work to make it look easy. I may be a damn fine sketch artist by genetic accident but to truly achieve creativity requires extremely hard work and years of trying with nothing to show. This is when passion comes in. Nothing but passion will keep me going. Therein lies the difference.
Incidentally, if you study Ghandi's complete life you will have a different picture of the man. He was a Sgt. Major in the army and what he wished and advised the British to do to the South Africans was anything but peaceful.
In my opinion
Creativity can be expressed in every action if one is passionate about the simplicity of life.
Passion can be expressed in any work of art but a work of art can be made solely for financial gain. In other words it can come from the brain, not from the heart (absence of controlled thoughts).
It is also my opinion that whatever we write here denotes our own understanding of passion. There is no right or wrong. How can one understand the level of passion of a monk, when being a monk is possibly the worst way to live in that person's understanding.
az
You are not the brain, or the heart , but you are real. You have awareness but in truth you are not anything that can be weight. But you know you are there same as you always.
Now Ill tell you a big one, you are nothing ! NO THING !!
BUT.... You are aware ! ... You know it and I know it too.
You do not have a soul, You are a Soul.
Those Hindi's know alot about it, the why's and the wherefores, the Buddhist in their "Book of the Dead" speak of You as the 'Atman', and say we have been on this Journey a very very long time.
You can read about it and I assure you, you will be miles ahead of these good meaning Scientists.
I wish you a pleasant journey
"Limits of the God experience", that did it for me. A typical scientific out look on spirituality. It's like an oxymoron...God/Science. First of all the brain has nothing to do with it. Our being comes from the area of the heart. The brain is nothing more than a computer. It only does what it is told. That's why scientist like studying the brain so much, when they see something, quantum wise they change it, the brain is easy to manipulate. Scientist love to manipulate things, like doctors it makes them feel like the gods they try to define. Soon, we will, as a species evolve beyond this primitive attitudes.
The brain has everything to do with it. The brain is responsible for our thoughts, decisions, actions, emotions, all of our experiences are interpreted and even created by the brain. The heart only keeps the blood flowing in our veins, because it's told to do so, by the brain.
Your stupidity is amazing. It rivals the anger I feel right now because of the statement "our beings comes form the heart" the heart is an organ without which you are still you and can still survive.
What has your good done for people?
Medicine? Food? Education? HELL NO! HE SITS ON A CLOUD PLAYING WITH HIMSELF.
this should have talked more about the different things people can do with their brains during religious experiences. msg me if you know of another video
Yes I do understand but still they are creepy. The Dalai Lama, meditating person that he is, has never been with a woman. Think about that and explain to me how enlightened he can possibly be.
You do make me chuckle sometimes :) poor dalai lama, missing out on one of the best reasons to be human. All those experiences lost to him. I wonder how old he was when he was taken to the monastery ? Why is it thought that you can reach a spiritual goal by depriving your physical self of all life's little pleasures. Suffering would surely only lead to melancholy, where is the ecstasy in that? Maybe he gets a kick from abstinence :)
Beats me. Perhaps you and I can have a talk with the man. Let's see what he has to say after the experience. Bet he has a different outlook. Put that in your MRI!
Precisely. What good is it to be human if you're not human? To what end does the meditation serve? I find these people almost creepy for they seem to be devoid of any character or personality. Shades of 1984 in my opinion.
It's so routine for them I don't know what the purpose could be. It's just a practiced state, like sleeping away a long journey instead of travelling.
It seems like half of the scientist in the world are working to make life better for people by curing disease and finding ways to improve and prolong life. The other half seems determined to wipe it out one way or the other. I wonder which side will win.
Scientists aren't responsible for what society wishes to do with their work. It is disingenuous to blame scientists for what society does.
Good approach to health in general. Spirituality or meditation don't have necessarily to be linked with religion. God is a word that has changed its original meaning as time goes by, that's why I'm going to avoid that word.
Meditation is a kind of sport, you exercise your brain (and your soul, I believe). The happiness of the nun and the buddhist monk is obvious, and I want to have what they have (maybe someday).
A belief can be comforting, but only if you experience it, it can transform you.
Great doc.
But have you noticed. The monk and the nun are not very creative. They seem to me to be somewhat boring.
Maybe the're boring from our piont of view, but it doesn't matter, the're happy. And I think they are much more creative than it seems.
My approach is: If you control your brain, you control everything. If you control your brain, why can't you stop thinking if you want to? I mean, when something happended to you in the past, and you can't do anything about it.
If I could stop thinking silly things pressing a button (things that don't sort out anything), I'd be more creative, wouldn't I? because this way I'd use my brain more effectively.
Yup the monkey will chatter and no matter what you tried, it wouldn't stop blabbering, sometimes its interesting, mostly its the same old deal.
...and there is no way you know, to get away from it....
but I assure you, there is a way
...lets call it Yourway.......... its yourway because its Yourlife
and since it is your monkey you can find a way to shut it up so you can have a breather.
I heard of a practice that believes, 8 secs is all it takes to reach smoothsailing, if you get my drift.
I totally know what you mean. But it's pretty hard to be alert and keep the monkey quiet, I mean for a long time and everyday. I used to..., but I've got out of the habit.
What is that practice about?
I think that creativity is more of a synesthesia type thing than any result of meditation. It's a way of seeing things through descriptive metaphors. I don't think creativity has anything to do with mental or spiritual health. Actually, quite the opposite.
You must be liking this Az. It's in your native language.
I worked at the ONF building for a while, cooking for a cinema crew...a bunch of cool people!
az
I do a thing called walking meditation. I'm able to walk 20 miles or so without the slightest thought of my body.
Would be interesting to test your level of detachment but i suppose walking with a cask, a battery pack and a computer strapped to your body would hinder the experience.
My guess is, it is the same for people here, a silent meditation is a silent meditation unobserved by others. Whatever level they are able to obtain, i can imagine the aloneness and tranquility can only deepen that state.
az
My mind is without a doubt detached from my brain. My backpack is in the range of 35-55 lbs. depending. Yet I know my body is paying hell at times and my mind is entirely indifferent. It seems as if my body is just a means to an end - nothing more.
Az...detachment? not me, am never detached, especially when walking in the wilds of BC, always looking for (big) up to 10 foot tall Grizzlies, mountain lions, wolverines, and 12 foot tall Sasquatch.
Hell even rabid squirrels, you never know? Somehow never scared of wolves, snakes or spiders though. Used to live in rattlesnake country. lol
Can you do it when you are sitting or not walking? I'm really insterested
Only when I'm walking which is when I want to do it. But let me make a comment about what I mean when I say boring. I have never seen anything that a Buddhist does that approaches the level of say a Van Gogh, or Picasso, or Jackson Pollack. Surely we don't wish to gauge our lives on something as vague as happiness.
What I wish to say is that life is more than being content. All human emotions are as just as important as being happy. I suppose what is missing in these people is passion. What is life without passion?
You itching to be walking Lak? I'll get my sewing out, we can go together :)
Walking is what I do best. But just an aside here. The first full day of Spring and what do I awake to? Ten inches of snow fell overnight. Loved walking in it but what the f--k happened to to my sunshine.
We have your sunshine 'til the weekend. Last 15 minutes of this were good, don't know if they were boring or just had too many boundaries in place for their meditation. They had limitations. They kept it in line with their beliefs which to my mind would stop their minds from flowing freely. Not sure I liked the 'on purpose-ness' of it. More like concentrating hard and making it look easy. But I suppose that is only to be expected with the people involved. Should have had some ordinary people in there too. I wonder how they would compare to the love competitors.
Ever seen a Tibetan sand mandala?
Sure I have seen pictures. But what is allowed is prescribed, the very antithesis of creativity.
I have (in little Lhasa)Dharamshala, Mcleodganj India. Talk about creativity, patience, and dedication.
And all that brushed away into the wind, no other goal than the present.
az
the state of nirvana or emptiness is not a state of contentedness that is juxtaposed to sadness. It is separate from jubilation and despair.
What it comes down to is having a stable mind that is not influenced and held hostage by its external environment.
P.S. You may recall that Steve Jobs was a Buddhist. To have inner peace does not mean you no longer venture into the external world, and achieve; it simply means that you are not attached to or dependent upon your achievements or sense of self.
By all accounts I've read Steve Jobs was an a$$hole and a bully. So much for "inner peace".
As far as the rest of what you contend, I haven't seen it yet and I live in a town full of so-called enlightened people.
There's a lot of charlatans out there, no doubt.
Anyone who feels the need to show you how "Enlightened" they are simply has their head wrapped in a bunch of beliefs.
There's an apt quote for this:
"Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know." -Lao Tzu
Of course, here I am speaking about all this stuff. Needless to say I'm no enlightened guy. We really don't even need these religions anymore. Modern psychology affirms, in much clearer detail, what these religions had to speculate on.
Basically, people are animals. Animals desire things that tend to increase their success at reproduction, and avoid things that will decrease the ability to reproduce. Over time, the Limbic System developed, and things to be avoided began to have visceral "feelings" this is where our emotions come from. Desirable things developed good feelings. All mammals have Limbic Systems. So we have it built into us to cave in to desires and fear or dread both imaginary and real "threats."
What these various religions all say is that because of our fairly (but not exclusively) unique ability to be aware of having a "Self" (Looking in the mirror and saying "Hey! Thats me!"} is a rare phenomenon that only humans, orangutans, dolphins, chimpanzees, elephants, and ravens share.
Instead of being held hostage to your emotions and whimsical wants and fears you can free yourself from that cycle. Its not some mystical, lifelong journey. These stories had to be epic like The Odyssey was because most things were passed down orally.
Really Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is everything you need to know. Self-Actualization at the top is the Enlightenment, Heaven, Brahma, Tao, etc that most religions aspire to attain. People experience it temporarily in moments of "flow" where you lose yourself, and everything seems to simply happen. Enlightenment would just be a more permanent state of flow... but that requires the lose of ego/identity.
You can do any task with passion, even sweeping the floor or talking to your children. Not only "art" is made with passion.
Yet there is no art without passion.
Of course Art entails Passion, but Passion doesn't necessarily entail Art.
I think i can see where you are both going with this. In a way you are both right as you are both saying the same thing in your own way. I believe art can be found in all actions. Making bread is art, building a house is art, raking a garden is art as much as a painting, a photograph, a dress or a tiled floor is art. I agree with brutusaurio passion can exist in the silence of watching, it can exist in the immobility of a being while feeling the within.
Passion is directly expressed through art but passion can also be felt without any physical result.
az
But don't forget I'm talking in the context of creativity not just passion. You can bake bread or sweep the floor or rake a garden with or without passion but art requires passion. Creativity requires passion.
You and Qb1T have mentioned the sand mandala. If you go to the doc "Biosphere" and go to the part of the Tibetan monks, you'll see something that will explain what I'm trying to point out. At one point there are some boy monks being trained. And what are they doing? They are copying "art" on to graph paper. This is what I mean by prescribed. They aren't creating anything. They become little more than technicians.
Remember I'm talking in the context of creativity.
You understood me perfectly.
I think we (lakhotason and I) needed a moderator in this matter.
Thanks
But sweeping the floor doesn't require passion. You can be passionate about sweeping or not. Personally I'd rather just sweep the floor and get it over with.
What I'm trying to say is in the context of creativity which requires passion.
I agree, but you understand my point of view?
You can apply passion to whatever you want, even to the simplest things
No, I do understand you but I'm talking about CREATIVITY and passion. You can apply passion to anything but I am only, or trying to at least, bring the discussion back to the subject of creativity, for my statement was that these people are not very creative and certainly not very passionate.
Why do you say the're not very creative and passionate, because they are monks and nuns and they pray or something like that?
Why aren't they very creative, because they haven't painted the "Sunflowers" or "El Guernica" or published a book?
Creativity occurs when someone creates something new and valuable. It depends on what you consider as valuable.
And what is new and valuable here? Why are they stuck somewhere in past centuries? Why do they continue to put children in monasteries? How are they different from religions? Why is it they do not experience the totality of being human? What is it they create?
To know you would have to go immerse yourself in that culture fully with abandon.
Until you do that, you can only be a critic of a life you consider meaningless.
az
My Dear, take my screen name and drop the last three letters. I've immersed myself in that culture til I was up to my eyeballs in it. In the end I saw it for what it is. I've earned the right to be a critic. I could write a very thick book about it.
Exactly what have you done to be a proponent?
This is not about History, Religion, Church,... This is about people as individuals.
Let's change a little bit. I'm going to tell you a joke (please don't laugh too loud): "I'm on a seafood diet, when I see food, I eat it".
Even making up a joke can be creative. Of course not this one.
Even a nun can be good at jokes or anything else.
Oh I agree. Nuns, Buddhist monks, Baptist preachers, etc can be quite humorous. Its just that I see these types are unable, or more likely, unwilling, to break out of a set pattern. They never question. I understand your point of them being individuals yet I believe them to be subverting that individualism to dogmatism.
I'm with you on this one Lak :)
Well that makes you a distinct minority. But I do gather some comfort from it.
Staring at two walls that should be white by now, not feeling at all passionate about the 10 litres of matt emulsion sitting before me. Also feeling very not passionate about the ache in my shoulder after 2 hours of cutting in. I am a minority of 1 right now, being the only member of the household with a brush in hand :(
When there is work to be done do not look for those who are "enlightened". How come it always works out that way? Good luck and you have my sympathy.
The room will be enlightened but I will be dull!
Well then paint yourself and let the room be dull!
I'm going to put The Mighty Sparrow on and dance like a kid, dullness be damned! I will do it with passion.
Paint everyone that isn't helping. Husband, lover, children.
Sweeping a floor can be done with a passion for simple life.
Raking a sandy surface was done in a very creative way by the Japanese, it started with a passion for the beauty of simplicity and order.
az
Do you wish to sweep a floor with passion? Whatever trips your trigger. As for me that is where this whole ideology falls flat on its face. Life is full of mundane chores and to affect passion in each is nothing less than specious.
I can sweep a floor creatively. I have mowed a lawn in a creative way many times. I like the marks the mower makes. I see just about every "chores" i do as an exercise. That includes doing dishes, folding clothes, painting walls, shovelling snow (one sport i like in the winter) and many many more. When you start looking at the time you put towards action in a different way, passion for doing anything can be felt.
And then sometimes emotions take over, that's when you get pissed off for having to do something, bored....ect.
az
Creativity isn't passion, it is driven by passion. It's in you to create and you are passionate about it. That is why you mow creatively :)
If i lived near by, i'd come and help you, i am a great painter...and i do enjoy it a lot. I once painted a kitchen with a friend for my birthday...of course we were drinking a little wine with that and her two young daughters were dancing in the living room.
az
Is that what you wish to mow the lawn creatively? I doubt it is creative. Perhaps not mowing the lawn and planting wildflowers instead would be more creative.
To me the frame i see out of my eyes (the reality), is a painting. The vision of what comes towards me (what i see) are like snapshots of framed paintings. When i mow the lawn, i see the marks of the mower as a way to paint the grass with lines and i play with that.
When i plant a garden, it is to me not so much ...what i will eat in many months, it is first a painting i do with a patch of dirt.
I've explained on an other doc, that i play with life all the time...and i do. I am not asking that you believe me, i am just saying.
az
Now I have to call buulsh*t on one thing you've said. When you plant a garden you await what will grow.
Have you ever planted a large garden? The compost process, the digging, the soil preparation, the planning of the plot, the planting, the watering, looking at the first sprouts coming through the ground, the thinning, the mulching, weeding...so much to do before you can even think about the harvest.
I use shite but not from bull....chicken, horse, or even guano.
Of course you await the harvest but the harvest is not so much on your mind when you start. The process is the way as in anything.
It's must be the same for you, when you go take photographs, you don't think of the exhibition, you think of the process.
az
Do you think that nature needs us to know how to compost? Look into the wilderness which is where we came from.
When I take photographs I'm only taking pictures of what is there and thankful that I have a camera.
You and I just see the world in different ways.
If you want to compost for a garden, you do have to know how to proceed. There is a way to make a bunch of grasses, food scraps, leaves and the likes turn into dirt quickly.
So when you take photograph, "you're only taking pictures" and not concentrating on seeing the photographs later or showing them. When i garden i do the same.
az
I do have a garden. 400 sq/ft raised bed 24 inches deep. Every bit of soil is compost and sand. And I, along with nature, did the composting. I also have a plum tree, a pear tree, and an apple tree. Last summer I also added raspberries along the fence.
As vague as happiness. I wonder if they are happy or if they just think what they feel is happiness. I see what your saying, they have filled in the potholes on the path of life. Controlled the highs and lows and levelled themselves. Passion can't come from that, it needs unbridled emotion. Level yourself enough and everything becomes the same, nothing more important than anything else. Sweet, if you think along the lines of ants lives having as much value as those of people. Though you could flip it, and then the life of a human becomes as worthless as that of an insect. Some people think that anyway which makes me wonder if they are lacking love. And on and on, a double helix of thoughts and never the twain shall meet :)
Exactly. There's a certain "deadness" within these people, a sort of "Stepford Wives" demeanor.
I came back to the beginning of this thread to see how it all started. What you write here is actually a very "monkish" way of going about life except they seem to have found a way to do it for longer than 20 miles. What are we to know? As the monk says, if you become an olympic athelete of meditation may be you are no longer meditating, it becomes a way of being.
I am not sure what you mean by me being a proponent? I don't judge what a monk can or cannot feel, all i am saying is that as humans there are many ways to feel passion and creativity, and they may feel it in the way we cannot understand unless we live those same experience. Having immersed yourself in Lakhota ways says nothing about the way nuns and buddhist think or feel. In a way may be it doesn't say much about how a certain Lakhota person feels it for himself either.
You write: "Creativity isn't accidental. It requires hard work to make it look easy." Creativity is a flow, even 2 yrs old have it without any training.
You write: "Why do they continue to put children in monasteries?" Why do we continue to put our kids starting before kindergarden in a school system that doesn't seem to work? Perhaps what they have learned, they want their kids to know.
You write: "Walking is what I do best. But just an aside here. The first full day of Spring and what do I awake to? Ten inches of snow fell overnight. Loved walking in it but what the f--k happened to to my sunshine." Perhaps a monk would never think where's my sunshine (knowing the sun is still there behind) but be in awe with the coming of an other snowy day. Who knows?
For Buddhists passion et emotion are two different things. You can have passion while not letting your emotions control. In our culture those two are entangled.
I don't need to agree with you or disagree. I see that for you IT IS this way and i respect that. It would be strange if you claimed the opposite of what you feel as being you.
I write perhaps because i cannot know for them but i can judge what i don't know.
Not sure why you would use My dear...thank you!
az
Damn Az that's a lot to reply to. Is it ok to respond a little at a time?
I used "My Dear" because of my upbringing. It's polite and you deserve politeness. I am Southern above all else.
I am going to get some greens at the COOP, rain walking. Will be back later.
az
what about Damn Az?...lol
I mean goddamn. What the hell, give a poor country boy like me only one thing at a time to think about.
Immersing yourself in the " Lakhota Way" is the very same thing as the Buddhist. I won't go into it in detail but trust me, there is little difference.
You're the one that said I criticize without knowledge and I asked what have you done? What is it that you have done to to give you insight that I have?
Very same thing? How do you know? Nothing is the very same thing as an other thing. It can have similarities but no sameness.
First i have spent a bit of time in the north of India and observed and questionned buddhists. I have travelled on my own a lot and have acquire a personal way to see life from that experience. I have lived alone secluded in cabins and houses for months at a time (often times doing art) and have acquired a personal way to see life from those experience.
I don't claim to know what "a" or many buddhists feel. I have come to my own conclusion about creativity and passion. I am not trying to convince you that your ideas are wrong, i am just saying there are different ways to be that we do not "under stand" unless we live it ourself.
az
I do know it is the very same thing. I'm not denigrating your experiences. But just because there are different ways to look at things doesn't mean those different ways hold water. I disagree with you about that. You and I tend to disagree about most things. There is nothing wrong with that.
Spirituality tends to bore me while it tends to enliven you. Fair enough, I don't have sleepless nights over that. We disagree which is really more interesting than if we kissed each other's ass.
Not sure about that...bottom part...lol
az
We may disagree with a lot but at least for once we stayed on the topic of the doc!
az
That's a new thing.
Creativity is a flow? How do you know that? Name one creative person that hasn't put in the "work" to be creative. No those who are truly creative pay the price.
What is being truly creative? What is not being truly creative?
Didn't know there was no middle gound to that.
az
I don't know what is truly creative. If anyone can define creative then it would not be creative. It's beyond definition. You know what I'm saying. At least give me that.
There's my bitch about creativity. Far too many people try to occupy the middle ground, which is a whole lot of nothing.
About the snow. Hell yes I wanted my sunshine back but you neglect to understand that I was out in the snow. Walking about, enjoying it, taking pictures.
What i was saying is that the core of buddhism is to drop the emotion of bad or good or of preference.
az
But there is bad and there is good.
But why do that? There is good and bad. It's a matter of degree.
Because we put our children in a bad system it's acceptable for Buddhists to put their children in monasteries? Ok if that's your argument. Neither makes sense to me yet I'm not the one claiming to be enlightened.
Bravo ONF/NFB...
The buddhist monk who participate in the study makes a whole lot of sense, they call him the "olympic athlete of meditation". It makes sense to say that practicing a skill will land you to be a pro at that skill. If meditation is the skill of looking at life in a different and peacefull way then becoming a pro at it can only have good repercussion on the world at large.
The last guy starts by: a spiritual approached life with a certain awe...... he does not say a religious approached life.
GOD, when you meditate is the absence of thinking which shows that GOD has nothing to do with belonging to any religions or to a specimen GOD, it belongs to life, to the feeling of connection with the unkonwn. It is not a noun but a verb.
I think the crowd of "spiritual" people who are not religious is growing and my guess would be that most of them are very interested in science because science itself is becoming interested in them too.
Although i have heard over and over that science is not interest in a God concept, many scientists are showing this opinion to be false. It is said at one point in the doc: "Scientists are highly conservative individuals that will run in a flock, run in a pack and they are influenced by a conservative central tendency and that's the same as the granting agency. So if you really want to pursue really important concept you'll never be supported by your contemporary society or collegues by definition".
I would add to that: They will only gain support by doing those research despite the lack of support. It is when the public shows interest for those research that the science flock will more and more pay attention.
az
All current scientific knowledge began as unaccepted hypotheses'. The reason science works is because human emotion and bias cannot, in the long run, effect scientific understanding because its based on empirical evidence. It may at times take extended periods of time for enough evidence to be collected to revolutionize understanding, but there's no cabal in science that decides what is and is not "true."
There is no god. Plain and simple.
Have you checked?
Read Azilda's comment a bit more closely, and you'll recognize the line that god is a verb, not a noun. In other words, this whole God thing isn't a man or force in the sky, but an experience. The word God has so much baggage that the words Nirvana, Enlightenment, or Emptiness may be more acceptable to your psyche, but all the world's mystics are talking about the same experience. Whether you want to call it God (as a verb, remember) or Nirvana is your choice. Just don't confuse the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.
I should note that I'm an athiest in the conventional sense, so I'm defending Azilda out of understanding, not loyalty to an in group that I get my identity from.
Very interesting informations, Thanks, i am a big fan of this wonderful site, about the subject of that documentary, i think ishwara or god or allah exists and don't need proof, the question is are we existing really or we are a just perception by universal consciousness which is ishwara or god or allah.