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Are mystical experiences formed by the mystic's cultural background and concepts, as "constructivists" maintain, or do mystics sometimes transcend language, belief, and culturally conditioned expectations? Do mystical experiences differ throughout the various religious traditions, as "pluralists" contend, or are they somehow ecumenical? The contributors to this collection scrutinize a common mystical experience, the "pure consciousness event"--the experience of being awake but devoid of intentional content--in order to answer these questions. Through the use of historical Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and Jewish mystical writings, as well as those of modern mystics, the contributors reveal the inconsistencies and inadequacies of current models, and make significant strides towards developing new models for the understanding of mystical phenomenon, in particular, and of human experience, in general.
Are mystical experiences formed by the mystic's cultural background and concepts, as ""constructivists"" maintain, or do mystics sometimes transcend language, belief, and culturally conditioned expectations? Do mystical experiences differ throughout the various religious traditions, as""pluralists"" contend, or are they somehow ecumenical? The contributors to this collection scrutinize a common mystical experience, the ""pure consciousness event""--The experience of being awake but devoid of intentional content--in order to answer these questions. Through the use of historical Hindu, Buddhist,
In an exploration of mystical texts from ancient India and China to medieval Europe and modern day America, Robert K. C. Forman, one of the leading voices in the study of mystical experiences, argues that the various levels of mysticism may not be shaped by culture, language, and background knowledge, but rather are a direct encounter with our very conscious core itself. Mysticism, Mind, Consciousness focuses on first-hand accounts of two distinct types of mystical experiences. Through examination of texts, recorded interviews, and courageous autobiographical experiences, the author describes not only the well-known "pure consciousness event" but also a new, hitherto uncharted "dualistic mystical state." He provides a thorough and readable depiction of just what mysticism feels like. These accounts, and the experiences to which they give voice, arise from the heart of living practices and have substance and detail far beyond virtually any others in the literature. The book also reexamines the philosophical issues that swirl around mysticism. In addition to examining modern day constructivist views, Forman argues that the doctrines of Kant, Husserl, and Brentano cannot be applied to mysticism. Instead he offers new philosophical insights, based on the work of Chinese philosopher of mind Paramartha. The book concludes with an examination of mind and consciousness, which shows that mysticism has a great deal to tell us about human experience and the nature of human knowledge far beyond mysticism itself.
An engaging and insightful journey into human consciousness. What if our goal had not been to land on Mars, but in pure consciousness? The experience of pure consciousness—what does it look like? What is the essence of human consciousness? In The Elephant and the Blind, influential philosopher Thomas Metzinger, one of the world's leading researchers on consciousness, brings together more than 500 experiential reports to offer the world's first comprehensive account of states of pure consciousness. Drawing on a large psychometric study of meditators in 57 countries, Metzinger focuses on “pure awareness” in meditation—the simplest form of experience there is—to illuminate the most fundamental aspects of how consciousness, the brain, and illusions of self all interact. Starting with an exploration of existential ease and ending on Bewusstseinskultur, a culture of consciousness, Metzinger explores the increasingly non-egoic experiences of silence, wakefulness, and clarity, of bodiless body-experience, ego-dissolution, and nondual awareness. From there, he assembles a big picture—the elephant in the parable, from which the book’s title comes—of what it would take to arrive at a minimal model explanation for conscious experience and create a genuine culture of consciousness. Freeing pure awareness from new-age gurus and old religions, The Elephant and the Blind combines personal reports of pure consciousness with incisive analysis to address the whole consciousness community, from neuroscientists to artists, and its accessibility echoes the author’s career-long commitment to widening access to philosophy itself.
Challenges the prevailing view that mystical experience is shaped by language and culture and argues that mystical experience is a direct encounter with consciousness itself.
Drawing on neuroscientific research and metacognitive theory, this groundbreaking volume examines the theoretical implications that are elicited when neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) are identified. The relationship between consciousness and the brain has concerned philosophers for centuries, yet a tacit assumption in much empirically minded consciousness research seems to be that if we can only develop a map of correlations, no further questions remain to be asked. Beyond Neural Correlates of Consciousness starts where others stop, by asking what these correlations may tell us about the nature of consciousness. The book contains chapters considering the upshots of finding the neural correlates of consciousness in light of the most prominent contemporary theories in the field. This illuminates the theoretical consequences of succeeding in the quest for the neural correlates of consciousness from the perspective of global workspace theory, higher-order thought theory, local recurrency theory, and REFCON models, in addition to considering how this quest is shaped by different conscious phenomena, such as dreaming, altered states of consciousness, and different levels of consciousness. This insightful text features sophisticated theories that goes beyond correlational inferences and neural mapping, and will be of interest to students and researchers of consciousness, particularly those interested in interpreting neural correlates.
A guide to the transformative power of Buddhist psychology—for meditators and mental health professionals, Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. You have within you unlimited capacities for extraordinary love, for joy, for communion with life, and for unshakable freedom—and here is how to awaken them. In The Wise Heart, celebrated author and psychologist Jack Kornfield offers the most accessible, comprehensive, and illuminating guide to Buddhist psychology ever published in the West. Here is a vision of radiant human dignity, a journey to the highest expression of human possibility—and a practical path for realizing it in our own lives.
About the Book The problem of explanatory gap in the phenomenal consciousness has risen in the Western philosophy mainly because the consciousness itself and its manifestations or reflections are treated separately. Whereas, according to the Vedānta school of India, the phenomenal consciousness is merely manifestations of self-consciousness which is embodied in the human beings. In this approach, the phenomenal consciousness and self-consciousness are one and the same thing because the former depends upon the latter. Hence, there is no explanatory gap in the phenomenal consciousness. Similar is the case with the mind–body problem which exists in the Western philosophy mainly because the mind is treated as synonymous with consciousness. This book solves the above problems on the basis of the Indian philosophy and existential philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. In both the philosophies, there is no explanatory gap in the phenomenal consciousness and the mind–body problem. About the Author V.N. Misra, PhD, retired from Indian Economic Service (IES), has worked as Economic Advisor in different ministries of Government of India. He had several consultancy assignments with the ADB, FAO, World Bank and IFPRI. Dr Misra has also to his credit more than forty research papers published in reputed journals in the field of agricultural policy and development, labour, employment, rural poverty, etc. He has also co-authored (with V.S. Vyas and D.S. Tyagi) a book, Significance of New Technology for Small Farmers. Dr Misra’s study on Terms of Trade is a published work. He has now shifted his interest from economics to philosophy and has recently published two books: Science of Consciousness: A Synthesis of Vedānta and Buddhism and Saṁsāra and Nirvāṇa: A Unifying Vision.
This book is the sequel to Robert Forman's well-received collection, The Problem of Pure Consciousness (Oxford, 1990). The essays in the earlier volume argued that some mystical experiences do not seem to be formed or shaped by the language system--a thesis that stands in sharp contradistinction to deconstruction in general and to the "constructivist" school of mysticism in particular, which holds that all mysticism is the product of a cultural and linguistic process. In The Innate Capacity, Forman and his colleagues put forward a hypothesis about the formative causes of these "pure consciousness" experiences. All of the contributors agree that mysticism is the result of an innate human capacity, rather than a learned, socially conditioned and constructive process. The innate capacity is understood in several different ways. Many perceive it as an expression of human consciousness per se, awareness itself. Some hold that consciousness should be understood as a built-in link to some hidden, transcendent aspect of the world, and that a mystical experience is the experience of that inherent connectedness. Another thesis that appears frequently is that mystics realize this innate capacity through a process of releasing the hold of the ego and the conceptual system. The contributors here look at mystical experience as it is manifested in a variety of religious and cultural settings, including Hindu Yoga, Buddhism, Sufism, and medieval Christianity. Taken together, the essays constitute an important contribution to the ongoing debate about the nature of human consciousness and mystical experience and its relation to the social and cultural contexts in which it appears.