The fourth part of my audio book “The Ultimate book on Yoga” is now available. It is titled “Part 4 of The Ultimate Book on Yoga: How do Yoga postures work?”.
It is a one-hour long audio available in most stores and some libraries. You may not find it in amazon/audible though, since they don’t support parts.
If you have ever wondered how Yoga postures help in improvement of health, this is the book for you.
This book investigates into the reasons how Yoga postures enhance health. That would not only satisfy your curiosity but also helps you in performing these postures in the right way to reap the full potential of Yoga. So, please have a look, I mean lend an ear 😉. You will surely find some interesting things about this aspect of Yoga which you probably were never aware of.
As usual, use the link https://books2read.com/UltimateYoga to find this book in your favorite store. This link would take you to the first part of the series. Some stores may list the current part explicitly as a book in the series titled “The Ultimate book on Yoga”, some may show it as other related books. In some stores you may have to explicitly search for it using the title in the search box. I am sure that you will find this book very interesting and useful.
Now let us get back to our regular question answer session.
Today’s question is “Is Samadhi some form of brain malfunction?”
That is a tough question which can potentially shake the roots of many Yoga enthusiasts 😉 People who are determined to rubbish spiritual experiences and all types of spiritual practices keep quoting all sorts of ‘evidences’.
They argue that the experience that one goes through in advanced stages of meditation are nothing short of some weird happenings in the brain.
There are stories of how someone had ‘samadhi like experience’ as a result of some brain injury or some tumor in the brain. There are renowned neuroscientists who argue that Samadhi is some sort of epileptic condition and can be brought about by magnetic stimulation of some regions of the brain! The inference is that ‘there is nothing spiritual about it’!
It is like saying that whatever effect a good sumptuous meal can have on you, can be replicated by stimulating some brain centers. Does it mean that you don’t really need to go through the elaborate process of cooking a nice tasty meal, relish it bite by bite, when the same effect can be had by just stimulating some brain region?
First of all, having a good meal is not just about satisfying the hunger, nor it is entirely about having a nice feeling. There is lot more to it. The act of eating provides nutrition to the body, exercises the whole digestive system, may even have several totally unrelated aspects. It could have effects of boosting inter personal relations, a sense of togetherness and so on. None of these can be achieved just by stimulating some brain centers.
Similarly, getting into samadhi is not just limited to having that experience. It has more to do with how you reached that state, the entire process that you went through and finally the ‘after effect’ of prolonged and repetitive samadhi. I wonder whether all these can be simulated by just tickling some brain centers!
The core of the problem is wrong focus. We seem to have given too much importance to personal experiences rather than the totality of effects of meditative practices. Meditative practices are not just a one step process. They involve a series of transformations in the individual. As a result of these transformations, one undergoes the experience of samadhi. It is exactly like the satiety feeling after having a good food. That is important but that is not all.
Act of stimulating some brain centers or disorders of the brain or its malfunction may induce ‘samadhi like’ experience but those experiences are just ‘hanging in the air’. They are neither preceded by the transformation one goes through before one enters the Samadhi experiences, nor are they followed by the long-term consequences of meditative practices.
We need to focus more on the end results rather than subjective experiences. Of late many Gurus emphasize on subjective experiences. Getting ‘some high’ by practicing some mystic ‘technique’. If that is all that is there about Samadhi, then the opponents of spirituality such as some of these neuroscientist are well justified. They too can show the very same effect taken in isolation.
I would rather want to see samadhi more as a way of bringing about a transformation in the individual both at individual level as well as the way the individual views the existence as a whole. He does not get locked up with his individual experiences, but fits himself in the collective existence, as part of the whole or even as a whole beyond the boundaries of body and mind. Not as a flash of happening but as a continuous state even after the samadhi.
That has lot of ramifications in bolstering the collective existence. Just a mystic experience with no repercussions on totality of existence, is just that – an experience. It could well be induced by stimulating some brain centers or even by taking some drugs or stimulants. That should not be the goal of spiritual practices. We should focus on the end results and long-term consequences rather than on short term happenings. We should view spiritual practices as a way of bringing about complete transformation rather than attempting some short-term mystic experience.
I believe that meditation has potential to achieve that goal. That is irrespective of whether the assumptions and theories behind meditative practices are true or not. That is something far beyond what a mere tickling of the brain can achieve. Or some malfunction of the brain.
Neuroscientists and our Gurus have to focus on those issues rather than being myopic in their vision. Otherwise we would miss the wood for the trees.
A series discussing questions and answers on Yoga/Philosophy. © Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2020-21
Liked the logic with which you have explained that the procedure of attaining samadhi is more important than the experience itself.made a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteThank you Usha. A small correction though. It is not the procedure but the overall process that includes after effects both short time as well as long term.
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