I am not sure how this will be received by others. I don't want to experience a cessation of ideas and thoughts. Being able to quell my brain activity so that no thoughts or ideas remain is the opposite of enlightenment to me. I am proud that I am an intellectual, self-aware being. It separates me from the rest of the organisms in Nature. So why would I want to turn it all off?
I have experienced this a couple of times while meditating, I think turning off thoughts is a bad description. It is more like divorcing yourself from your thoughts. Your thoughts become just another something that is happening, like a sound, something not you but external to you. Once that happens enough times you get used to the weird feeling of observing yourself think and you notice that sometimes the thoughts just completely stop and there is nothing. You don't will it to happen it just suddenly does.
A lot of thinking is really useless, you worry about things you can't do anything about right now or just flit from thing to thing, it is pointless. When the flitting around thoughts stop you can use your mind more willfully, more like a tool.
I liken the brain to a mega-powerful but poorly put together computer. Why did I say this and what does it have to do with meditation?
The brain is a product of an Evolutionary process. Dawkins described Evolution best as "The Blind Watchmaker". Evolution leaves a lot of room for improvement. It is like a terrible engineer who only ever gets things right by sheer luck. Evolution is probably a pretty sloppy process. This is why I believe the brain, although amazingly-awesome, is poorly put together.
So what does any of this have to do with meditation? If you had a poorly constructed computer with lots of bugs in the software that crashed all the time, what would you do? You would probably frequently save your work and then reboot your computer. By rebooting your computer you prevent errors from propagating through the software and the operating system. I am going to extend this analogy to the human mind. Without periodically resetting our minds, more and more errors may begin to accumulate. Perhaps neural circuits begin to feedback endlessly on themselves in an escalating positive loop . Perhaps mediation is a way to dampen down mental activity, allowing the mind to reset.
It is just a crazy, bat-sh*t crazy idea. So don't take it too seriously.
And none of these poorly put together computers even have a glimmering of how to simulate themselves. Meanwhile the presumably even less poorly put together computers perform amazing feats in ocean air and on land.
In general, we feel like our body (brain included) and mind are the same thing. We want to go sleep but we keep worrying about work. We are trying to get focused on something but noises outside break our concentration. We need do to something but the fear paralyzes us. We feel an itch and we have to scratch it.
I think the best way to describe what these practices teach is a way to realize your mind is something else, and you can choose what to do with stimuli (external and internal) instead of just responding mechanically to it, or being dragged away by it.
This is what I've been taught about meditation anyway.
Turning off your own thoughts brings presence. From my own experience, there's not other way to achieve it than to deprioritize my own thoughts. It's not like I'm not myself again when I choose to start them back up.
It's not "cessation of ideas and thoughts", and the fact that the story gets it wrong could mean that science gets it wrong, which suggest science will never figure it out.
Have you considered the possibility that beta waves are not the best indicator of brain activity? A couple of pretty graphics with colors demonstrates only an interpretation of a certain signal -- whether or not a low signal means the brain is "shut off" is entirely up to interpretation.
No doubt! But sometimes a revolution in interpreting the results of experiments is necessary for advancement. While current brain activity measurements may show low values for the measured activity under certain states, that does not, by any means, suggest that the brain is not operating.
Why would you want to sleep? Presumably it's for the health benefits.
I do wonder, though, whether the more advanced practices are worth the time. The states described in the article sound a bit alarming rather than helpful.
I agree, who would want to stop thinking? Though I'm sure we'll be told by someone we "just don't understand" and that it's ambiguously deeper than that.
I hear that you are questioning whether other's desires to reach enlightenment is right for you or not. To answer that, I'm going to point out you made two you/blaming statements in your comment. Bear with me here, I'm not attacking you.
The first blaming statement is "who would want to stop thinking?". Logically this parses into asking a generalized question of whether there exists anyone at all who would want to 'stop thinking'. It seems obvious to me, based on personal observation, that I am someone that wants to "stop" my thinking process now and again.
Given I'm one person who desires this, your question then turns into this question: "why would kordless want to stop thinking". I can answer that quickly: I periodically enjoy damping the chatter that goes on non-stop in my brain while I'm awake. I get the most joy out of getting to a place where I'm thinking of nothing and just letting things be the way they are without my input. Now, the conclusion of that is that you might agree that I have the right to make this a rational choice, or you may not. The only way I could tell you meant one over the other is if you told me that already - which you did! The 'tell' was that you 'agree' with jostmey's statement that he "doesn't want to experience" it right before you ask the leading/blaming question.
For me, that indicates you don't agree with my choice to 'stop thinking'. And that is a blaming statement because it's my choice to make, not yours. :) A better way to put it would be "I'd like to understand why someone would want to stop thinking. I'm not sure I want it for myself and I have no data from anyone I know that helps me understand why I would." Or something along those lines. Those statements are more inline with being present and being receptive to other's thoughts.
The second blaming statement is "I'm sure we'll be told". That point is easier to make because clearly until someone says "trekky1700, you simply don't understand" (a blaming statement in and of itself) it won't be truthful statement. Even if they did that, they'd be wrong for doing it. Your blaming statement indicates you are expecting (simulating?) someone coming in and making their own blaming statements.
I learned about all this via exposure to non violent communications (NVC), which has it's roots in Buddhism. It's also why I bothered to write all of it in the first place. Listening and hearing others is the most effective when you turn down the volume of your own brain!
I hope I didn't make any blaming statements in my comment. I still screw it up at times...but I mean well.
Are blaming statements inherently a problem? It seems quite intentional to imply that certain activities are negative. I see the second blaming statement in particular as a combination of harmless venting, and warning away anyone that would butt in to provide a shallow explanation that isn't backed by understanding.
Now back to the first statement, I'll go to an extreme to provide an example. I would feel contempt toward a person that prefers to sleep 23 hours of the day rather than spend some of that time on productive activities. It is their right to do so if they desire, but I would not be ashamed to judge such a behavior. Is there a downside to my blaming here?
As to meditation, it seems like the description of 'stop thinking' is misleading, which is the source of the confusion, and what leads to the blaming tone. But if I'm right about that, then no actual person is being blamed, only an accidental strawman. But that will take some clarification to figure out. So: when you 'stop thinking' how long does that state last, and how does it affect your thoughts afterward? Does it matter how long you spend in that state?
I believe the general idea is to allow choice in others. You don't have to agree with them, as that is your choice, but you should at least entertain their choice: hear them. Many things in our history were considered negative at first and were later adopted as the norm. I agree that venting is necessary, but understanding why you are venting is more important. Fears, interest, boredom, love. Those emotions drive us all, but few understand how they make us think.
There is no downside to your behavior in forming an opinion of another being. If someone is depressed, they have unresolved issues. If they choose this for themselves, well, that's their choice. If you perceive you can help them, it makes more sense you work on getting to the unresolved issues instead of telling them to do something they already know they shouldn't do - sleep 23 hours a day. Whether you want to dig into someone's nasty problems is up to you and your level of interest in the subject.
Yes, confusion frequently leads to blaming. I wasn't trying to indicate I was being blamed, and only used it as an example to prove a larger point: slowing or stopping your thinking opens you up to observation. Listening is a powerful thing.
I think there was a little confusion in there, I do practice meditation. It has been shown to provide valuable benefits.
What I suppose I didn't understand was why someone would want to achieve the cessation state, where they literally cease to exist. It sounds, simply from a clinical standpoint, like some kind of adverse symptom or effect on the brain being misinterpreted as a stage of something spiritual.
I can certainly see the meaning it might have to those who believe it's something more. But for those who don't hold these beliefs, it seems rather pointless. I guess the answer to my "blaming statement" would be "those who are spiritual and believe it is good would want to". To each their own, and while I don't share these beliefs, I needn't be so blunt when expressing differing opinions, I was out of line.
This is only vaguely scientific and that only in the beginning of the article. It then progressively reads more like some excited, clueless retelling of other people's psychotic-like experiences. I can't even begin to understand the parallel to set theory mentioned in the piece.
Yeah, the set theory bit was kinda bull shit. It's really nothing like set theory other than the word "contains". And the "Mathematicians have seen that far" sounds like typical snake oil selling.
Enlightenment is beyond words. It's not to be intellectualized. So I believe science will never truly understand enlightenment, because science is intellectualization. Besides there are several grades of enlightenment, don't think you meditate a few years and you get it.
As for meditation, although it is the best path for enlightenment, turns out there's alot of benefits for common people. When you bring your thoughts to a halt, your true mind manifests. The true mind is unimpeded - it is effortless - and this true mind allows you to solve your daily problems more easily. You shut off your "stupid" brain, and the true wisdom starts to manifest. You won't become a zombie; you will naturally discard your stupid habits and become better focused at whatever is that you do.
What this means is that throughout the day we are able to gain a better understanding of ourselves and our environment; we will become gradually less scattered (due to the meditation process) and we will focus on what is important to us, wheter its programming or science or anything else. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but I think it's a good basic description.
If science works the way we believe it does, then nothing is beyond intellectualization.
Either the world and everything in it is accessible to empirical observation and the formation and validation of models (i.e., hypothesis formulation and testing, theory development) or it is not.
If there are things that are inaccessible to this process, then there is magic beyond the veil.
Where is the veil?
Given accessibility as described above, then there are those things that we have learned to measure and those things we have to learn to measure. Neuroscience is busily taking things from the latter set and placing them, slowly in the former.
My family knows Har-Prakash Khalsa well, and while this work appears to rely heavily on anecdotal descriptions of this condition called 'cessation', his photographic work that he develops in tandem to his meditation practice is pretty impressive. I'm not sure if that ads anything to the discussion, but the pictures are nice to look at.
I do want to add that one of the frustrations that I've had with this type meditation work, specifically the Kundalini meditation practice that is the basis for this study, and that is that there's always a heavily structured pseudo-scientific process instructing a participant in the right ways of meditation.
There will be the different stages of the mind, or the different parts of the brain, all of which is simply taxonomic and not in any way related to anything scientific. So the learning of the 'ancient' or 'revered' system becomes the method to which true meditation can be achieved. Naturally this process, this method is nothing but fiction. Compelling perhaps, but still fiction.
Actually, you need the Laws of Nature's permission. Science is a human attempt to get at them. Showing that you can do something in spite of the current laws of science is how you make them evolve and progress.