contemplation and experiencing pure consciousness

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-14414-Columbus-Interfaith-Spirituality-Examiner~y2010m6d18-Spirituality-and-who-was-Guru-Arjan-Dev-Ji

continued from my examiner post: . . . .

The research subjects (How God Changes Your Brain by Newberg and Waldman) show that decreased activity in the parietal lobe, or area which governs the sense of self, and can lead to feelings of oneness or unity with the object/subject of contemplation. Newberg says in the case of Franciscan nuns it was closeness to God, for Buddhists it led to experiencing pure consciousness and for the Philadelphia construction worker research subject, an improvement in memory. Yo, Adrian! This is not unlike the feeling neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor reported following her stroke. She later recorded her perception of what happened as her left brain shut down. This led to feelings of absolute bliss as she experienced herself at a particle level, becoming completely one with all around her. http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

The authors of How God Changes Your Brain report that the loss of a sense of self is known in sports as ‘being in the zone’. One does not have to believe in a religious God figure to have a positive benefit from prayer/meditation! All this strongly suggests a different paradigm for who/what ‘God’ is than the old man on a throne who populates many cartoons. Newberg addresses that too-what our images of God do/mean from a perspective of neuroscience with breath-taking clarity. (More on that in future post). Newberg’s research ‘demonstrates that we have the power to consciously change our brains, and improve our neural functioning . . . (with) permanent changes in single neurons in a matter of days, and as other studies have shown, most forms of meditation will create subtle but significant changes in a couple of months.’ (photo of Taize prayer service by Damir Jelic, 2006)

While many evangelicals object to the intrusion of (Eastern- Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh) meditation practices into schools, the research actually proves that there was ‘decreased test anxiety, nervousness, self-doubt, and concentration loss’ simply by using a deep-breathing technique. Another NIH sponsored study found that African-American adolescents who were trained in a simple meditation (involving relaxation, breathing, and the repetition of a sound) showed a significant decline in ‘absenteeism, school rule infractions, and suspension days.’ p31 Many liturgies (music, chant, response, group prayer) can function in a similar way in religious settings apart from secular ones.
There is so much to learn from not only modern science, but comparative studies-the history of religious thought and practice, and our ancient and recent non-Western cultures that it behooves us to take off our horse blinders and remove our fingers from our ears in believing that practitioners of one denomination or another possess the only route to salvation and are the only ones with a lock on the vast mind/heart of God. It's about time the world's peoples take scientific findings such as these seriously, put down their arms, think a bit and create the conditions for love, peace, healing and learning across all platforms. Oh, yeah.

Check out this delightful You Tube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3YF0WfiqUo&feature=related