Who Are You?

The areas of the back of the brain that the researchers studied are those that help us understand where we are spatially in relation to the world around us — so maybe what we interpret as spirituality is actually just an artifact of wiring.

It could be argued that part of being a "spiritual person" is understanding one's place in the world (e.g., that you're not God). So, in a loose sense, such type of thinking is spatial - and hardly an "artifact" of wiring.

I'm inclined to agree. The state of mind I think of as spiritual has a very large spatial component, as you said, sensing the larger whole and one's place in it.

Taking part of my brain out is nurturing, right?

My experience has been somewhat contradictory to this. A close relative, a PhD in yoga and currently a senior faculty in a yoga university, was diagnosed with a tumor near the brain stem. An initial operation was done. Since the tumor recurred a second surgery was done in which more than 350 gms of brain matter was removed from the back of the brain. Before all this, the person was into advanced spiritual practices like Kundalini yoga and such. I closely monitor this person as advised by the medical team. What I notice is a pronounced increase in Ego consciousness, increase in religious rituals, loss of short term memory and a very short fuse all of which point to a reduction in true spirituality at least as far as Hinduism goes.

From what my patients told me and also my colleagues in the hospital where I used to work, it seems that it is good to have protection in our brain from spiritual experiences,

Some of patients I talked with had a lot of experiences during the time of clinical death, So I would only guess that when: "tumors removed from the back of the brain report a greater feeling of self-transcendence or spirituality afterward," the reason for such thing can be some sort of block in the back of the brain hindering ( protecting ) us from experiencing spiritual worlds around us being removed.

Anyone who has ever studied experiences of people who were clinically dead ( no EEG no EKG activity) must come to conclusion that our awareness or self can exist independent of the state of the brain - as many testimonies of the people who have described exactly what was happening during their death leaving and seeing their body, going in the other rooms in hospital where their body never was, a blind person ( whose ayes got destroyed by accident) describing exactly things and colors in the room and people there while dead out of his body he could see clearly , people seeing what was on the roof of the hospital and so on,

you can see this at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5186211187154170413#

or if you search for Lazarus Phenomena.

My mother has also experienced this during the war when she was dead.

But the patients in our hospital used to start to see in to the spiritual worlds even when they were dying but were still conscious and could talk.

Often they would describe horrible demons coming to them and only sometimes angels or Jesus, so it seems that there is some sort of protection hindering us from such views .( this describes also Dr. Richard Kent in his book The Final Frontier - Beyond the Final Frontier, or Dr Maurice Rawlings, Specialist Cardiologist at the Diagnostic Centre, who also wrote in his book that those hell experiences are so horrible that such are most often suppressed from conscious memory within a day or days - reason why people wrongly think that nice experiences are more frequent)

Myself I was out of my body during the meditation but it was a horrible experience and I could not come back to my body ( first when I shouted to Jesus for help, I was sort of sucked back again) Somebody told us that we did not have right guidance, but we had Mahatmas from India guiding us, yet such things would happen. In another hospital from our town doctors reported that they have several patients with " meditation psychosis" and do not know how to treat them, and some of them are just not moving or reacting any more, they only stay as dead for years ( I assume that would happen to me also). So for sure it is a good thing to have such a protection in back of our brain.

The thing you describe is not the same as what I would call a "spiritual" state of mind. The condition I am thinking of is a state of prayer, and a sense of unity with the larger body of life, so spatial in some sense.

What you describe, I would call "hallucinations".

So then, all righty then!

Soul and Mind, are the issue.

Guest says that the Soul, exists independent of the Mind.

Guest says evidence is from the dead who have been brought back to life.

What if we made a computer that was indestructible?, and then just turned it off?

My computer is a mind that is not aware of itself.

I can turn it off.

When I was dead to the world, I was dead, and neither in heaven or hell, but just dead to the world.

The difference between a vision and a hallucination is that a vision is a spiritual event, whereas a hallucination is just madness.

Neither means either is evidence of life beyond death.

Do what you can to make life and death good while living.

You write: Neither means either is evidence of life beyond death.

perhaps not, but it is evidence that our self awaernees or our mind is not dependent upon activity of the brain or body.

It was clear evidence that if you look on

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5186211187154170413#

or if you search for Lazarus Phenomena.

You will find that people could see objects and what was happening in rooms where their body never was, or objects on the roof which other people did not see, while EEG was comleatly flat - no brain activity what so ever, or that blind man with destroyed ayes who could see and exactly describe what was happening what colors were where and so on while he was dead.

Logicaly it is nonsence to despise such clear proofs as halucinations.

In any sort of scintific resurch you would be ashamed to dismiss such a proof.

Perhaps the brain is simply a very refined receiver,like a TV or radio, and our true existence is really somewhere outside of our bodies.Reality could be the ultimate holographic(Holygraphic?) experience.When we die, we leave the program behind,and an actor leaves the stage.Perhaps sometimes, he looks back as the curtain is drawn, and decides to play a little longer.

Or not.

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."(The Bard)