In this age of swift advancements in brain imaging and research, science is uncovering more of the simple functioning mechanisms of the brain/mind and body. Science is dancing on the edge of validating the impersonal nature of awareness that Jesus the Christ, the Buddha, and Lao Tsu appeared to point towards.
The paradoxical teachings of the ancient sages now make logical sense as science and medicine have begun to show there is no evidence for a fixed, permanent, separate self. Dr. Sunil Pandya, a neurosurgeon and thinker on medical ethics, summarizes the scientific aspects of the mysterious mind as a “virtual entity, one that reflects the workings of the neural networks, chemical, and hormonal systems in the body and brain and forming important and extensive, complex linkages between the different parts of the brain.”
Many others, including neuropsychologist Dr. Rick Hanson, and neurologist Dr. Richard Mendius, scientifically describe the illusory nature of a fixed, permanent, separate self in the book The Practical Neuroscience of Buddha’s Brain. These behavioral and brain specialists compare the separate self to a unicorn, a truly fictional character, “as the brain strings together moments of selfing and subjectivity into an illusion of homogenous coherence and continuity.” Dr. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, also clearly and scientifically demonstrates the reality we think we see is not the reality we believe it to be.
The echoes of the ancient oneness teachings of Wu Hsin, Jesus the Christ, Lao Tsu, Upanishads, and the Buddha, are new again as they steer us towards an impersonal consciousness and the illusory nature of the mind and the personal self.
anita