What is the connection between oneness, meditation & religious values

Great Debates
1

I have been reading the God Gene and there is a chapter talking about meditation. Apparently under meditation buddhists tend to deactivate the parts of the brain that draw a distinction between self vs. non-self. This eventually leads to a perspective based on a sense on non-self and oneness with existence, a state of intense empathy. This outlook is also percieved by alot of people experiencing near death experiences (I’m not interested in debating whether NDEs are hallucinations or real, just that they involve the same sense of oneness & self/nonself breakdown that meditation brings) who experience life from others viewpoints and feel connected to all existence. Nuns meditating experienced this same experience of self/nonself breakdown according to the book.

The opposite of nonself is self, to contantly try to conquer, compete with and outmaneuver others and to set up a seperate life and identity that is at odds with the world and that even tries to conquer it and it’s inhabitants. To set up giant ambitions of your own. Many religions that I know of oppose this outlook. They oppose lust, greed, manipulative power mongering, pride, etc. If you look at the 7 deadly sins of christianity envy, greed, gluttony, sloth, pride, anger & lust they all (except for maybe sloth & gluttony) seem to be based on a fear of a person building too strong of a sense of identity. I want this, I want to screw her, I want others to follow my rules (anger), I want to be respected for following these rules (pride), etc.

I’m not sure how to word this. Is it feasable that one of the core values of religion is just to prevent the buildup of too strong of a sense of self and instead to build a sense of oneness with existence? Studies on buddhism have found that this oneness is tied into happiness and compassion, is this just a universal trait of humanity (breaking down self/nonself barriers) that religion plays upon? If so, why is it even there?

FTR, the book implied that a single dose of psilobycin can drastically increase the sense of connection to existence, even if it was taken 25 years ago. If so you’d assume more religions would have hallucinagens in their services.

2

Among other things, a strong sense of self makes it harder to manipulate and exploit you; since that is the purpose of religion in my eyes, I’m not surprised to see it promote the opposite.

I expect it makes it too obvious it’s all in their heads; I’ve heard of other drugs with religiousity-inducing effects, but they seem to remain obscure and unused, fortunately.

3

When I think of something that erases the lines between self and non-self, salvia divinorum comes to mind. No coincidence, then, that many if not most salvia users claim it allows them to know the divine.

4

If you want to read a really good book on this subject go to

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/061844663X/sr=8-1/qid=1146200269/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-4695005-8891165?_encoding=UTF8

I just finished this book. John Horgan takes the topic apart and analyzes it from an open, not quite skeptical point of view. He explains each school of thought simply and concisely and really lets you know what most of the renowned experts think on this topic.

Good luck.

  • Joe
5

Pretty Interesting. If I’m reading this correctly Buddhists through meditation seek to erase the lines between self and non self. That’s part of the purpose of their meditation.

I think that varies among religions and branches of religions. Some Christianity teaches that the self has to follow the rules and the self gets some heavenly reward. There isn’t really a focus of being one with everything. Other parts of Christianity includes folks who have experienced this feeling of oneness and focuses on love thy neighbor as thyself.

A friend of mine used to say that every choice boils down to a choice between love and power. I think that relates to your OP. Power would be the self trying to assert control , love is seeing our connection to the world and finding harmony in that connection.

It certainly seems like much of religious teaching and sprang from that sense of oneness. I think in most cases it’s not a purposeful use of that feeling. The great structured organized religions we see today are IMO an inappropriate response to that feeling.

One of my objections to organized religion is that rather than a sense of oneness they promote a sense of usness and themness. Through rigid dogma and the “We’re right and everybody else is wrong” kind of religion they remove their group from the world.

Furthermore I think it is possible to promote a strong sense of self and a sense of connection at the same time. That sense of oneness with others promotes great personal responsibility. You become more aware how your choices affect others.

6

Wesley Clark

Or, more accurately, it tends to deactivate the parts of the brain that cause one to focus on the individual self vs. the more inclusive senses of self. There is no non-self. Non-self does not exist.

The process is not unique to Buddhists (IANAB).

A person cannot cope with life without a localized individual sense of self, just as one cannot cope with life without a strong & viable short-term memory. But just as some people, upon smoking pot and thereby dulling their short-term memory, become better able to stand back and make observations over the course of a lifetime, drawing upon the lifespan memory that is now no longer being so drowned out by short-term memory signal, some people meditate in order to transcend the strong signal of localized individual-level sense of self in order to pay more attention to the broader & more inclusive senses of self.

Ain’t nothing inherently mystical or supernatural about it. If you’ve ever said “we” and meant it, you’ve known a sense of self that transcended the individual.

7

I sort of disagree; I think they promote a sense of oneness all right - oneness with them, and only them.

Now here I agree with you. One thing that bothers me about discussions like this, is that a sense of self or selfishness is often considered inherently bad. I disagree; as I said earlier, submerging your self in a group is just asking to be exploited. On the other hand, me-against-the-world selfishness isn’t healthy either.

8

A somewhat related tangent…

A perception of “oneness” is also attributable to Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, a pet-fascination of mine. My cat (Dexter) is an epileptic, and he immediately turns into the BIGGEST purring loveball once the violent seizures have passed, very reminiscent of some testimonials I’ve encountered of people who have TLE. Here is an old thread of mine about it, wherein I attempted to debate (with posters more pious then myself) claims made about certain key historical and religious figures possibly suffering from TLE, and whether or not a medical explanation for their perspectives detracts at all from the significance of what those individuals had to say.

I’m constantly referring to Dexter as a Kitty Prophet. He is the most ‘zen’ animal I’ve ever met, and who’s love knows no bounds to such an extent that even inanimate objects are fair game for the lovin’.

9

[QUOTE]

Yeah, That’s just a rephrase of what I said. Some Church of Christs taught that all other Christian denominations were wrong and they were the only ones actually following the Bible and the only ones going to heaven. It’s as sickening as it is stupid.

The loss of self spoken of in the OP and taught in Buddhism is more of all people everywhere or even all creation kind of oneness. A far cry from the narrow minded “we’re God’s favorites” crap taught by some.

…sound of a thud as dan feints…

:smiley:

Yep choosing to belong to a group doesn’t mean you have to surrender your brain to be a member. I’m a big fan of take what you want and leave the rest. I’m also a fan of the strong motivated individual as long as it isn’t an extremely self centered individualism. We can’t always avoid others being hurt as we make our choices, but we can be sensitive and compassionate to others as we make them.

10

I like that subject too, but I’ve always heard it is just the right temporal lobe that is responsible for religious perceptions. I read a study that I can’t find about the right temporal lobe being activated by external fields and 80% of people experiencing religious feelings due to it. The athiests felt them too, but considered them to be more like drug side effects than a connection to god. Here is another good article.

http://www.templeton.org/brainmindemergence/press-newsweek20010507.asp

11

Mohammed was an epileptic too

http://users.skynet.be/sky50779/mohammed.htm

So were Martin Luther and St Paul

http://www.epilepsiemuseum.de/alt/paulusen.html

I’ve heard Moses had it too, but I can’t find any articles on it.

12

(I keep forgetting that you are in Nashville too.) Your words are so fine.

Wesley, goodness! Your questions have certainly changed in the last couple of years! You knock me out. Have you tried meditating? I took that up after the “experience” that I had. From time to time some interesting things happened that I think relate to your questions a little. I was never able to return to the same level of unity recognition/euphoria again, however.

** Joe Grutzik**, welcome to the Straight Dope!

13

No. I don’t see that “connectedness to everything” is part of any western religion.
Even after death, all ghosts and angels are discrete and self-contained.

14

Wesley, in Buddhist teaching, one follows moral codes as taught by Gautama Buddha, and his following teachers, in order to enhance the meditation practice. here is a nice link of explaination of The Eightfold Path of Buddhism, which is the moral code.( In previewing, I see this page does not link directly, but use the sidebar Eightfold Path, a nice clear explaination, so I won’t search for another link) Nice quote from Professor Einstein on the cover page, though.

Basically, for Buddhist practice, you come to understand The Four Noble Truths (sigh, same as above, use the sidebar to link) a basis for the Buddhist system, and then follow the moral precepts in order to not complicate one’s mind, then use meditation techniques to further quiet the mind in order to reach a point of clarity.

Sounds so simple, but hard to achieve because the way the human mind works is so chattering and grasping. As we’ve talked about in other threads, there are many methods of reaching that state of mind in various cultures, but meditation seems to be the easiest way to get to that mental state, if one takes the time.

A good read is MindScience; An East-West Dialogue , the result of a Harvard conference held some years back with HH The Dalai Lama and western neuroscientists, discussing Buddhist techniques of honing mind with western scientific thought.

There are Christian meditative traditions; really ,the whole monastic tradition was originally to allow practitioners to be apart from the world, not susceptible to the day to day distractions, and calm their minds to reach a state of unity with “God”, or a state of non-duality.

So, for your OP, as far as my knowledge goes, it’s not that the decimation of ego/self that’s the goal; rather, the ego/self is a false obscuration of a better state of mind, with less pain, and by uncomplicating the yammering, life becomes lighter and easier.

I’m still working on it.

15

It’s unfortunate that this is part of Jesus teaching that is largely ignored by Christianity.

16

Joe Grutzik, I’ve ordered a copy of the Horgan book. I read everything about it and from it that I could at Amazon and it intrigues me. I’ve been interested in the subject for about twenty years. A good skeptical look – as long as it is openminded – is exactly what I’m looking for.

I’ve always found Persinger’s work interesting for that reason.

17

elelle,

I’ve spent many years meditating. I got pretty good at it. Good enough at least to experience a point of clarity. After a while though, I began to realize that meditation was taking me away from life and living - being alive and being human. Two hours meditating is two hours I don’t get to experience how utterly amazing it is to interact in intelligent dialog, play soccer with my daughter or just walk under a tree in the wind.

I no longer have a problem with ego/self – Let me clarify, I know that it may be the source of guilt, jealousy, anger, etc… but I have found that once the emotional mechanisms are understood your reactions can be mitigated. The mitigation is a constant battle but I no longer feel bad about feeling bad about it.

What I try to do is take advantage of the good/healthy parts of a strongly defined self (creativity, ambition, fulfillment) and mitigate the downsides. In that way you can have more life while you’re alive. That’s the idea anyway.

My quest is to find better ways of thinking. Not just not thinking, not just understanding but as Buddhism and Christianity are belief systems that guide your thoughts I like to practice with thought systems that enable your mind in new ways.

Any thoughts?

  • Joe
18

What thought systems do you use?

I’ve heard my step-son speak of a “memory palace.” I think that it was something he read about while he was at St. John’s Annapolis. I was interested, but he thought that the text would be too academic for me to grasp and he was probably right. (I have difficult concentrating.) Are you familiar with the concept?

19

I think it’s a mistake to say “religion is all this” or “religion is all that.”

Religion originated from shamans, mystics, and mushroom-eaters. Their explorations in non-ordinary reality were found to be overall beneficial to human society—for reasons stated in the OP. Others who didn’t share the experience at least listened to accounts of it and tried to learn from hearing about it, or taking up practices meant to mimic it or recall it, if not actually reproduce it.

Eventually those who were interested in the experience but didn’t necessarily have it themselves grew large enough that they formed organizations to talk about it and try to derive social benefit from it. The most prominent members of these organizations found they had more power than most people had ever dreamed of. Some chose to use the power wisely for the benefit of the community, others took the opportunity to aggrandize themselves.

The original shamans are like the American aviators who flew across the Pacific and landed in Vanuatu. They had functional aircraft and landing strips. The locals who witnessed this found benefit in the phenomenon, as Americans brought food and other consumer goods to the islands. When the war was over and the Americans went home, some Vanuatuans sought to perpetuate the phenomenon by building landing strips to encourage John Frum to come back and bring more cargo.

The shamans really had the ability to “fly” (explore nonordinary states), while their followers had to be content with a cargo cult that only mimicked the accomplishments of the shamans.

These “cargo cults” are the origin of most of what we call “religion.” Most people trooping into a church on Sunday… or a synagogue on Saturday or a mosque on Friday… do not expect to have a nonordinary experience and might well be frightened if they did. The direct connection to the origin of religion has been lost; mimickry firmly stuck in ordinary reality has been substituted.

And yet… there are Pentacostals, Hasidim, and Sufis who do use these religions to access nonordinary states. The original shamanic experience has not been lost entirely, only obscured. I believe that if a religion becomes too cut off from the experience of nonordinary reality, the spring of living water, it will dry up and die. In a stable church or other religious organization, the formal structure serves as an external container for the mystical experience happening within, but keeps it under control, using it for its own ends of either power or social service.

And yet the priests, mullas, etc. who run the religious organizations distrust the mystical experience, because a person who can access that on their own will have no need for priests or mullas any longer, and the ecclesiastical authorities would lose their power. So at times you find religious authorities discouraging or even forbidding their “flock” to access mystical states.

I agree with the OP that removing the boundaries to the self is important for human well-being, and that this is the reason religions hold such a strong position throughout human cultures. But there is always a tension between the two phenomena in religions, individual or collective experience of nonordinary consciousness (essentially anarchic) vs. political control.

20

We have no proof of that; all the evidence I’ve ever heard of says that religion is harmful to society.

Oh ? And you have proof their “mystical insights” were any more profound than those of some Christian fanatic who rolls on the floor and speaks in tongues ?

Taking drugs is taking drugs.

And you have evidence that it was ever about anything but power and exploitation ?

Or. . . it could be because the religious have always made a point of killing unbelievers.