Karma and synchronicity

Karma is an accepted fact of life here, even though not everyone comes from a spiritual tradition that espouses karma. It is central to the yogic understanding of the world. I have always liked the idea of karma, that for every action there is a reaction, but it was challenging to accept when I first got here. I was caught in the analytical frame of mind, and thinking about the scientific criteria for determining causation. Needless to say, this frame of mind was not working too well for me. The yoga philosophy that we are being taught has been passed along from teacher to student for thousands of years. I find it hard to believe that the teachings haven't gotten manipulated in some way. Remember that telephone game we played as kids? I would think it might work something like that, the message gets pretty mixed up as it is passed along the chain. But we are told that as the philosophy and teachings of yoga are passed down, they are not modified or changed, even as time changes, because the wisdom is eternal. Hmmm. Karma is an appealing idea but tough to wrap my mind around, especially when i think about it from a reductionist scientific point of view. You can't prove karma, particularly because, as we have been taught, the karma that we experience is most often a result of actions in previous lifetimes, not this one.

I had this cool feeling of synchronicity with the most recent speaker series, on the topic of neuroscience and religion, given that in a way I am here because of my brain injury, and they were talking about the brain!

I suppose its not really that much of a synchronicity, since the brain has been a really popular topic in the news lately. One thing that was a source of hope for my parents after my accident (and for me when I was aware of it) was that recent work that has shown the plasticity of the brain, or how you can teach an old brain new tricks. Every time you do something new, you create new connections in the brain. One of the scientists discussed the effects that spiritual practices can have. He said that the practice of meditation creates a lot of new neurological connections. I was busy building neurons after my accident with brain games and physical exercise, but I never practiced meditation or any mindfulness exercises  beyond yoga. So while I had been thinking of this yoga course as a form of brain rehab in a more abstract sense, now I know I am here literally building my brain!

One speaker was a philosopher who specializes in Advaita Vendanta, which is an ancient collection  of hindu texts from (I think) about 3000 BC. He made this interesting connection between the parietal lobe of the brain and the ancient sanscrit words for "self" and "other". The parietal lobe is the part of the brain responsible for our sense of embodied self and other (as in, I am here and you are there). In neuroscience, this is called "grasping". The sanscrit words for "self" and "other" in the Advaita Vedanta litterally mean "the grasper" and "the grasped". I think this was a bit of a stretch of the definition of association, but it was an interesting story nonetheless.

The two neuroscientists talked about the challenges of studying religion and the brain when there are not a lot of well defined terms. First of all, science takes the brain and the mind to be the same thing. Religious philosophies like yoga take them to be different. Second, neurological models are correlative, meaning that a person does X activity, and you see Y appear on the MRI scan. But phenomena like consciousness have no visible manifestation. Spiritual experiences result in a confluence of brain states that do not fit with any models. Apparently, even what scientists used to think they know appears to not be true. For example, we used to think that activities are localized in certain parts of the brain for certain functions. Actually, any behaviour affects the whole brain. Second, a meta analysis of MRI scans of the 'resting but awake' mode show that the mind is in fact always active, even in deep sleep and, to a certain extent, a coma. The mind is constantly cycling. So this is scientific evidence of the 'monkey mind'!! Imagine that! Overall, they highlighted the inadequacy of current methodologies, and even vocabulary, to study and describe these 

Another speaker told us about how psychologists have borrowed meditation and mindfulness techniques from yoga and buddhism, secularizing them and removing their deeper philosophical and spiritual significance, and they are still extremely effective therapies. I recognized a lot of the scientific namespace the therapies from the many systematic review titles I read over in my work for health evidence. The speaker told us that these studies are reducing these practices to parts that make up the whole, and they are likely missing something much deeper. The science is not explaining the experience, but explaining it away. 

The conclusion of the symposium was that scientists are in need of new methodologies for answering questions about religion and the brain, but also that science and spirituality need not be considered antagonistic, indeed they are complementary. 

This post turned into more of a review. Unfortunately I mainly just copied out some notes that I had taken, because I haven't really had the time to think about this more, even though I wanted to. I actually wrote this overt the course of 3 days, and as I am finishing it now I realize I forget most of it. In my next post I will write more about the workings of the ashram and how I am adjusting to the program. Good night!