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Copyright © Peter Fenwick
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Science, Spirituality and Unity
Peter Fenwick
Kings College Institute of Psychiatry
Southampton University
COLET HOUSE
A School
Many people in Colet have
reflected the wonderful
spiritual gifts it gives
Colet is unique in being a ‘free’
school where the students find
their own ways to creativity within
the rich culture it supports
Prof. Richard Guyatt (1914 – 2007)
. He was the youngest ever professor at the Royal
College of Art on appointment in 1948. He worked for
the College for 34 years, and also acted as consultant
designer to Wedgwood, and other British companies.
Guyatt created coins for the Royal Mint and designed
postage stamps for the Royal Mail. He was made
a CBE in 1969.
His obituary described him as “An Edwardian
gentleman, to whom the qualities of duty, fidelity,
truthfulness and manners were paramount.”
Sean Crampton
Sculptor
1918 - 1999
His obituary in the Guardian called him an
‘Artist forged by war and whose art
reflected interest in the spiritual, his
distinctive style owes much to his belief that
art is a talent that life is a gift…{Artists}
must discover the old heroic role of
mankind, and seek diligently after truth and
after beauty and after goodness.
Art and Books
Juliette and Peter Kindersley
Juliette Kindersley
Painter
Peter Kindersley
Book Empire Builder
Paul Robertson
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts he is also
now Visiting Professor in Music and Medicine
to the Peninsula Medical School and Visiting
Fellow of Green, Templeton, College, Oxford.
He is also a member of the European Cultural
Parliament and Associate of the Royal Society
of Medicine
Paul Robertson
Medici Quartet
Rupert Spira - Potter
The two phases of
The Study Society
When did it start?
Phase 1
Society for the Study of Normal Psychology
Gurdjieff
The 4th Way
Enneagram Ouspensky
Rigour and Logic - Knowledge
Gurdjieff’s Last Announcement
All the religious revelations failed to create the New Type of
Man needed to fill the enlarging gap. "Humanity is at a
standstill and from a standstill there is a straight path to
downfall and degeneration.... There is nothing that points to
evolution proceeding. On the contrary when we compare
humanity with a man we quite clearly see a growth of
personality at the cost of essence, that is, a growth of the
artificial, the unreal, and what is foreign, at the cost of the
natural, the real, and what is one's own.... Contemporary
culture requires automatons. And people are undoubtedly
losing their acquired habits of independence and turning into
automatons, into parts of machines.... Man is becoming a
willing slave. He no longer needs chains. He begins to grow
fond of his slavery, to be proud of it. And this is the most
terrible thing that can happen to a man."
Phase 2 – The Study Society
Meditation
Dr Roles
Rumi
HH
Advaita - Unity and Love
Final Message from
His Holiness 25 SEPT 1989
To develop the feeling of Atman is very important for the
Society. As much as the leaders develop, they make the
progress of the members possible.
Atman expresses itself as love, and with love arises the welfare
of others. All spiritual organisations can only be built upon love.
Dr. Roles had love in abundance, and organisations flourish
when love prevails between and through the leaders to all the
members, just as one sees the sap flowing through every part
of a plant………In every organisation there will be some
differences, but with love and generosity they can be washed
away. This approach will provide opportunity for development
of both leaders and the members.
Colet had at that time three
major paths
4th way
Advaita
Rumi
Advaita
Ouspensky
But one important area in
Colet teaching in the 21st
century has lacked
emphasis
It is Science although our
founders were prescient about its
importance
In the 1951 constitution
and the 1953 revision
The main object (of Colet) is stated to be:
for the purpose of promoting the scientific
study of normal man on the basis of current
advances in the physiology of the nervous
system and its functions by means of lectures,
research and observations by people from
their experience and interests in various walks
of life.
Science
• There is a need to integrate our current
scientific understanding in to the rich
teaching of our Colet heritage.
• There is also a need in Colet to integrate
modern scientific understanding of the
brain its functions and how these may
reflect the process of enlightenment.
All paths require
The training of attention
Training of Attention
in Colet
Movements
Meditation
Turning
Now lets look a little at
scientific discoveries
Empathy and
compassion meditation
McClelland 1998
Harvard
• Compared the effects on the immune
system of two groups of students, one
watching film of Mother Teresa healing,
the other watching a film of the Axis
powers in WW2.
• He found that experiencing feelings of
compassion and having compassionate
thoughts up-regulated the immune system.
Looking now directly at
compassionate meditation.
Do experiences of the divine
correlate with brain function?
Is there a Spiritual Brain?
Note again
These are correlations
Special Group
Carmelite Nuns
Neural correlates of a mystical
experience in Carmelite nuns.
Beauregard & Paquette 2006
Neuroscience Letters 405: 186–
190
Carmelite Nuns
• Fifteen Carmelite nuns. mean 49.93 yrs
• In the Carmelite order mean 19.27 yrs
• Aim to image Mystical union with God
– the sense of having touched the ultimate ground of
reality
– the experience of timelessness and spacelessness
– the sense of union with humankind and the universe
– feelings of positive affect, peace, joy and
unconditional love
•
•
Neural correlates of a mystical experience in Carmelite nuns.
M Beauregard V Paquette 2006 Neuroscience Letters 405: 186–190
the left dorsal ACC (BA 32)
reflected that aspect of
emotional awareness
during the Mystical condition.
the MOFC, ….this prefrontal
cortical region codes for
subjective pleasantness
the left brainstem was linked to the visceral
feelings of joy and unconditional love.
the right middle temporal activation
related to the subjective impression
of contacting a spiritual reality.
the left insular activation
the somatovisceral reactions
associated with the feelings
of joy and unconditional love.
the MOC and LG are implicated in visual mental imagery
The right SPL is involved in the spatial
perception of self. During the Mystical condition
they feel that something greater than the
subjects seemed to absorb them.
The caudate activations during the Mystical condition
were correlated with the feelings of joy and
unconditional love.
The right IPL is crucial to the
process of self/other distinction
The left IPL activation in the Mystical
condition related to an alteration of the
body schema.
Function of areas and
Spirituality
• R Temporal - contacting spiritual reality
• Caudate nucleus – positive emotions, joy and
unconditional love
• Left brainstem and insular - somatovisceral
changes feelings of joy and unconditional love
• MPFC conscious awareness of above feelings
• OFC, left dorsal ACC interoceptive emotional
signals during the Mystical condition.
• MOFC, codes for subjective pleasantness
• A net work of areas
MEDITATION - SUMMARY
• Attentional techniques alter DLPC activity
• This leads to changes in the self, world view,
attentional processing
• There is a modification of parietal sensory
systems and self image
• VMFC and AC systems are modified leading to
control and change in autonomic systems
• Frontal changes relate to the genesis of positive
mood
What effects on the brain does
meditation have?
Is brain size different with
meditation?
Does number of years meditating
affect brain size?
Investigation of mindfulness meditation
practitioners with voxel-based morphometry
Britta K. Hölzel,1 Ulrich Ott et al.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2008 March; 3(1): 55–61
20 meditators, 20 non-meditators
Increase
In
Brain Size
Greater gray matter concentration for meditators compared to
non-meditators (P < .001; )in the left inferior temporal gyrus ,
right anterior insula and right hippocampus (upper right
panel). colour bar indicates t-values
Increased Brain Size
The temporal lobe has been implicated in
religious activity and mystical experiences
(Saver and Rabin, 1997), which are
characterized by the feeling of deep pleasure
and the experience of insight into the unity of all
reality. ……similar experiences are reported by
meditators during deep stages of meditation
(Piron, 2001) and might be related to the
structural differences. However, this explanation
remains tentative ……..
What about correlations of
brain size with total hours of
meditation?
The OFC
Gray matter concentration at the medial orbitofrontal cortex
correlates with total hours of meditation training; color bar
indicates t-values.
The exploratory whole-brain regression analysis
revealed that gray matter concentration in the medial
OFC was positively correlated with the cumulated
hours of meditation training. The OFC plays a crucial
role in emotion regulation during which it is thought to
down-regulate activity of the amygdala. Thickness of
the medial OFC is directly correlated with extinction
retention after fear conditioning, suggesting that its size
might explain individual differences in the ability to
modulate fear. It is thus critical for the modification of
learned emotional responses. Greater gray matter
concentration in the medial OFC dependent on
meditation training might reflect the improved ability to
modify emotional responses
There is the beginning of a
neuroscience of spirituality
There are clear structures in the
brain which underlie spiritual
experience. But where is mind?
Penfield 1970’s
(The Mystery of the Mind.)
For myself, after a professional lifetime spent in
trying to discover how the brain accounts for the
mind, it comes as a surprise now to discover,
during this final examination of the evidence, that
the dualist hypothesis [separation of mind and
brain] seems the more reasonable of the two
possible explanations. . . . Mind comes into
action and goes out of action with the highest
brain-mechanism, it is true. But the mind has
energy. The form of that energy is different from
that of neuronal potentials that travel the
axone pathways. There I must leave it."
Penfield suggests that mind
may be outside the brain. But
Science has found there is NO
free will
Proximal causes are in the brain
and arise before we know about it.
The brain constructs our reality!
st
21
Now in the
century do we
have a better understanding of
how to travel the path to
enlightenment?
•
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Does it?
Require a long gradual time for spiritual
development and cleansing (many lives). or
Only a period of training. or
Is Precise understanding enough. or
You go nowhere, do nothing – its given!
Esoteric Schools follow natural law
Salmon Returning
Health Warning
HALT
Do NOT believe what I say – TEST it out for yourself
Now lets start with Advaita
5th
nd Sheath
He has to
Dissolve the
FIVE sheaths
for
enlightenment
23rdst Sheath
Sheath
th
4
Calmness
1VitalSheath
Force
Sheath
Thinking
&
Buddhi
Peace
Body
is and
not
Animates
Collecting
Survives
Information
Love
YOU
Manas
BLISS
The Buddha and Meditation
• Siddhartha “joined another teacher who had
reached the meditative plane of neither
perception or non-perception. Siddhartha
achieved this. He left once again... (as he)
found that they led to no clear conclusions……
This did not lead to dispassion or the ending of
desire, or to an awakening. They were merely
temporarily abiding in the present moment.
The practitioner returns to his normal
mental condition, little altered.” John Crook
5th Sheath
Siddhartha found a new form of
Calmness
Meditation which lead by the use
Peace
of attention and observation
Love of the mind.
to the purification
BLISS
This later became Zen Meditation
Eastern concepts are difficult
for a Western mind
eg. Diamond Sutra
Heart Sutra
OPEN
SECRET
The Positive Way
He describes the path from
everyday consciousness to
that of enlightenment and
what is called
‘Bare Awareness’
It might be worth just looking
briefly at these new ideas.
Levels of consciousness
Proto – consciousness (non-reflective)
Subject object consciousness
Cosmic consciousness
Subject object consciousness
Subject
Phenomenal
World
Object
Subject object consciousness
Kant
The
Thing in itself
The THING for us
Phenomenal
World
Subject
My Thoughts.
My Actions
My Memories
Time
Past/Future
Subject object
Towards
Unity consciousness
Kant
The
Thing in itself
Subject
Phenomenal
World
PresentObject
Moment Only
My Thoughts.
Time
Thoughts
Past/Future
My Actions
Actions
Memories
My Memories
Change occurs
Towards Unity consciousness
Bare
Awareness
Love
Noumenal
Phenomenal
World
World
PresentObject
Moment Only
Thoughts
Actions
Change occurs
Can we change our
neurophysiology so that we
can see the Divine and
experience Bare Awareness
Zen says you can by
training attention.
But how?
Training Attention
in Colet
Movements
Meditation
Turning
Attention
Ego Centred
(Subserves voluntary
top-down attentional
Selection)
Dorsal Stream
Zen
Receptive
attention
(Alocentric)
Ventral stream
Mindfulness training modifies
subsystems of attention
AMISHI P. JHA, JASON KROMPINGER, AND MICHAEL J. BAIME
Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 2007, 7 (2), 109-119
Attention
KENSHO
Ego centred
Dorsal Stream
Receptive
attention
Ventral stream
Retreats - development and
Participation in the mind based stress
reduction course improved the ability to emergence of receptive attentional
skills. which improved exogenous
control ego centred attention
alerting-related process.
Selfless Insight - Kensho
What does the phrase, selfless insight, mean
in terms of functional anatomy? Selfless
implies that the dorsal parietofrontal pathways
of the action-orientated Self are
deactivated. This contributes to the dissolution
of the personal sense of the I-MeMine. Insight implies that the ventral, temperofrontal, other-referential pathways are liberated
into seeing all things as THEY really are. Both
phenomena occur simultaneously.
(James Austin)
Zen Master Huang-po (850 AD)
A perception, sudden as blinking, that
subject and object are one, will lead
to a deeply mysterious wordless
understanding; and by this
understanding will you awaken to the
truth of Zen
What does it feel like to
experience this state of
consciousness
Rupert Spira
© Peter Fenwick
Meet John Crook
A Zen Master
John Crook
© Peter Fenwick
In Summary
Those on the path show
compassion and love
The ‘Paths’ all lead to unity, compassion and love
What should a school manifest
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True to its history, but open to change
Must be a Unity
Freedom from belief
Compassion and love – care for each other
“Don’t express negative emotions”
Classes
You come to school to work - good courses
Manifestation of school values in life
Good social interaction – good company
The Study Society
A School for Life
Leads you forward
Competition – Suggestions emailed to the office
A strap line 10 words Maximum
HH – When there is change
energy is released.
Do NOT let this run negatively but
use it creatively
"What is important for us now?“
HH Replies
Physically, you devote yourself to universal service,
considering yourself everyone’s servant.
Devotionally, be magnanimous and give importance
to the Supreme Power, keeping in mind its
unlimited benevolence.
Intellectually, you identify your Self as One with
Param-Atman, who witnesses every thing and is in
all the forms you see.
In essentials, unity;
In doubtful things, liberty;
In all
all things,
things,charity.
Love
St. Augustine
THE END
Or the growing of the green
shoots and the return of the
salmon