Theos-Talk Archives (June 1996 Message tl00344)

Don:

The subject that you bring up is both informative and useful,
as well as potentially misleading...

First, as I understand it, all the seven (or twelve)
principles are correlated. Something that happens in
one of them affects all the rest. There is, while we're
embodied, some changes reflected in the physical body for
any inner state or experience.

By a study of various brain states and their correlations
with states of consciousness, we learn more about the
inner man. We can see traces of experiences had deep
within, when we examine the brain of a slumbering person.

We basically keep coming back to the brain/mind
controversy. Some people will insist that the mind is
a byproduct of the brain's operation. Others will find
the mind quite independent, and consider it as part of
the being's life energies. The second viewpoint would
consider that subtle essence of life as the force which
organizes the physical body, causing a higher form of
order to exist while being behind it, and bringing about
death when it departs.

How do we know that there is *something more*? By an
inner connection to the higher part of ourselves, by
a conscious awareness of that part of us that
transcends our mortal body of flesh, that transcends
our external personality. This comes ultimate through
self-knowledge, arrived at by various spiritual
practices including meditation.

A belief that there is more to life than the physical
world may be reinforced by OOBE's, but typical OOBE's
are another form of sensory experience of the world,
and not direct self-knowledge. And as with Mueckler
we have an example where that belief, based upon
paranormal experiences, has been held, then dropped
away, leaving someone bereft of inner awareness.

It would be nice to read a description of the various
brain states and the corresponding states of
consciousness. Do you have a paper, or could you
write up a few notes on them for theos-l?

-- Eldon