I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. So spoke Christ in Revelation 21:6. Although the verse is framed in temporal terms, the suggestion is that of eternity. But what of us? Are we eternal? Were we recruited from a swirling pool of souls, without beginning and without end, and installed into a material body some time before birth? Does our consciousness arise progressively as we are woven together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13)? Although many faiths and traditions profess views on such things, the Bible remains largely silent on the matter. What we do know is that once we were small and now we are grown, and that growth consists in more than just physical dimensions. Each of us develop along similar lines, being to one extent or another “normal”. The fact that some diverge from the normal developmental path shows that we are not all the same, and that our experience of reality may differ greatly from that of another. We are, however, all human and subject to the same basic gene stock, and from that template our bones, muscles, sinews, nerves and organs take shape.
Coincident with this we grow into people. We accumulate likes and dislikes, experience laughter and tears, learn words and movements. That this would be time consuming is reasonable as we are getting used to being alive, learning what it’s like to have senses and a body, discovering what control we have over our limbs and the external world. We could liken this process of development to a coming into focus, a gradual revealing or a dawning from darkness into light. This is the origin of the term Enlightenment which has been defined as “insight or awakening to the true nature of reality”. As the years go by we pass through many stages of development on this journey of enlightenment, each of which corresponds with a perspective on reality or a level of conscious awareness.
It might be suggested that prior to birth our state is identical to that at death, and that research into near death experiences might shine a light on this nascent phase of existence. Near death experiences are often accompanied by out of body experiences, during which the subject is able to view themselves from an external perspective. This was the outcome for Tony Cicoria, an Orthopaedic Surgeon from Upstate New York, who described how his perception of consciousness during this episode was perfectly normal, and yet he was able to watch people trying to resuscitate his unconscious body. His consciousness was situated in a location in space past which people were walking, and he could direct his vision towards them and follow them with his eyes as they moved past. Experiences such as this have caused people to muse about the true location of consciousness. Is it really situated in the brain? What is the nature of the link between the brain and consciousness and is it possible that our bodies are operated from a remote location?
On further reflection we might notice that this distinction between the body and consciousness is an anomaly. Our consciousness is affected by what happens to our body. We drink too much coffee and are unable to fall asleep. We are scheduled for an operation and are rendered unconscious by the general anaesthetic. We ingest a substance and enter an altered state of consciousness. So, whether out of body experiences provide evidence for the existence of a separate “me” or not, we must admit that our general participation in the here and now is neuro-chemical in nature.
The infant at birth is a sensorimotor organism which possesses neither linguistic ability or an appreciation of time. They have no sense of the subjective dimension but exists in a sensoriphysical space. As Piaget put it, “The self is here material”. As time progresses they learn that they are separate from the physical world, still later that they are emotionally differentiated from those around them, including their mother. These mark the first three stages of personal development as defined by Margaret Mahler, Melanie Klein and others. Stage three is the first which allows for introspection, the ability to sense and identify internal physical and emotional states.
I have vivid memories of two such discoveries, at this stage of development, memories that were given weight by the novelty of the experience. Being carried by my mother at around eight years old I noticed a strange pleasing inner glow as I laid my head on her shoulder. I was familiar with many emotional states common to a child, all of which seemed unremarkable, but this caught my attention. I had become accustomed to musing about the strangeness of existence, about life, consciousness and the material world. Where did they come from and what was their true nature? Societies throughout time who shared this childlike world view also created cultural narratives to explain these things. The First Nations of Haida Gwaii possess a rich mythology with fantastic accounts of the origin of all things. The Mesopotamians of the Euphrates and Tigris basin had their own. The Egyptians another. But going back to that pleasing sensation, how could that be explained? There seemed to be nothing I could draw on from my experience that could begin to account for such a perception. What was the objective difference between that glow and pain, or sadness? I was grasping at air, trying to hold the unsubstantial, attempting to nail spirit to the wall.
It was a losing proposition. Little did I know that philosophers and scientists, from the time of the Greeks, had been grappling with the same problem. But like this eight year old child they had been unable to construct a satisfactory explanation. The nature of consciousness is still a mystery, unexplained even by the most advanced research techniques and models of neural function. To a child, however, beliefs concerning conscious awareness have yet to solidify. Being raised in an agricultural environment I was accustomed to talking to beings that lacked the ability to understand English. Horses, cows and chickens were my companions, as were the ever present gaggle of family pets. I even remember having a deep discussion with a petit palomino pony about the possibility of life on Mars.
Add to that the presence in the news of stories describing the benefits of talking to your plants and my imagination really took flight. I talked to African Violets, Dahlias and Horse Chestnut trees. If they were big enough to hug I’d hug them! What I was reconstructing were beliefs held by ancient cultures. Belief in the spirits that inhabited plants, the earth and water. I even had a few pet rocks! Aspects of this thinking were persistent. Even at eighteen years old I believed that my Austin Mini possessed conscious awareness. It did, after all, have electrons flowing through it’s frame. It came alive at the turn of a key and performed tasks as directed, why wouldn’t it be conscious? It all seems so illogical now, but such is the thinking of the agrarian world view. (While those with the rational world view of twenty first century Western culture may scoff at these ideas, there is a growing body of scientific evidence that plants have a form of awareness with at least some of the features possessed by mammals.)
On another occasion, about a year later, I was playing on the floor of my bedroom when my attention fell on a corner of my bedspread which flowed from the bed and lay diagonally across the carpet. The sun was beaming through the window warming the environment and bringing out the rich greens, blues and highlights of the wool fabric. I was transfixed by the sensation of warmth and coziness instilled by the sight. The sensation was similar to the glow brought on by my mother’s touch, but it was even more intense. My reaction was of confusion and fear. Now that I had two instances of a subjective experience with similar qualities, however, I was convinced that the first was not an anomaly, but an aspect of conscious awareness that might be reproducible. It was certainly desirable to be in that state, but I had no idea how one might create the conditions for its genesis.
While the collective musings of humanity may have come up with no explanation for why, objectively speaking, something might feel good or bad, we do understand the neuro-chemical prerequisites to such an experience, and it all has to do with a signalling molecule called Dopamine. It’s not that Dopamine itself creates the conditions for such transcendent experiences, but it does cause electrical signals to propagate through the incentive and reward system, a part of the brain that governs much of human behaviour. It is this electrical activity that constitutes the physical manifestation of the transcendent state.