September 16th, 2007 Fred McVittie
Although enlightenment cannot be reduced to the feelings associated with it, feelings which might include awe, a sense of connectedness, a dissolution of the ego etc, such feelings can be considered as pointers, indications that we are on the right road. Provided one stays aware that these feelings can be a distraction, and that the path to enlightenment continues beyond them, one should welcome them as encouraging landmarks.
Although it is sometimes thought that these sensations are unique, emerging only from spiritual practice and having nothing in common with the more routine feelings experienced in everyday life, this is not the case. It is better to consider the sensation of enlightenment as an amplification of the sensations associated with other experiences and cognitive activities. In particular, it can be regarded that there is a set of experiences which constitute an increasing intensity of feelings culminating in this sense of enlightened ‘unity of being’. A provisional list of these sensations would include: perception, ‘noticing’, recognition, pattern recognition, problem solving, ‘realisation’ and the feeling of ‘getting’ a joke or solving a riddle, the generation of a theory, and the various reaches of artistic creativity. It will be noted that this list, which is not meant to be exhaustive, includes states of mind which are completely unremarkable, and which we would not usually draw our attention. In including perception, it also includes processes of mind which we are unavailable to conscious scrutiny but which perhaps underpin or give content to that consciousness.
These processes have a number of features in common, and which determine them as conceptually connected (remembering that such conceptualisation inevitably involves the use of metaphor). Two shared features are particularly significant for our purposes: these are that all of them involve the bringing together of disparate elements into a unity, and the second is that this unity is conceived of as existing in a single, brightly-lit space. As we will see, these two features are necessarily connected but it may be useful to consider them independently.
Unity
The first feature they share is that of Unification. All of these concepts depend upon the bringing together of disparate elements into a larger unified whole, a singularity or gestalt which is apprehended in its entirety. The difference between the concepts is the extent to which this unification takes place.
enlightenment
creativity
theory (and mythologisation)
realisation
recognition
noticing
perception
The higher up the list one goes, the greater the degree of singularity one is attributing to experience, with the ultimate goal of enlightenment as one in which one experiences the universe, including oneself as a single undivided whole. At that level everything is brought together and there is no distinction between self and other, mind and body, conscious and unconscious; all is seamlessly unified into the singularity of One. Starting at the bottom however this bringing together of individual elements is much more routine. Perception involves the compilation of sense data, the information about the world provided by the senses, into manageable and meaningful phenomena. When we look at a tree for example, we do not observe the individual elements that make up the tree: the branches, bark, leaves, the sound of the wind rustling those leaves etc, and then consciously assemble this data into a unified whole. Rather, it is the whole tree which presents itself to consciousness, the assembly having taken place in the interstices of the brain using the normal processes of perception. This compilation of sensory impressions into complex gestalts is entirely automatic and non-conscious. In fact it is only by an effort of conscious will that we are able to prevent ourselves from performing this routine act of creative construction. If we wish to see the elements which make up the tree, or make up whatever other gestalt is presenting itself, then we have to consciously shift our attention to those elements. (Actually, it may be inaccurate to say that this perception is ‘presented’ to consciousness as if consciousness is a kind of empty stage waiting for the performance of the world. It might be more accurate to see such a ‘performance’ as constituting consciousness.)
It might be a subject of interest why the routine unification of sense-data seems to operate at particular scales. When we look out into the world why do our non-conscious unifying processes stop at the place they do? Why, when we look at a tree do we see a tree first rather than the leaves or the forest? It seems likely that, since cognition derives from the adaptive processes of evolution, then the unifying processes of perception would tend to converge on scales which best served that end. When one is looking for somewhere to hide from a predator there is clearly an adaptive advantage to be gained from seeing tree rather than leaves or forest. Or to bring the example indoors, why, when we look at a chair do we initially and effortlessly see a chair rather than a composite of rectangular shapes or a general piece of furniture? For that matter, why do we not see fragmented patterns of light and shade or particles of matter. Normal waking awareness is partly a process in which the disparate sense data of the world is brought together by non-conscious operations into appropriately-sized gestalts, this ‘appropriateness’ being determined by the affordances offered by these gestalts.
(It should be noted that the scale at which this unconscious unification happens is not only a product of evolutionary determinism but is also partly determined by cultural circumstances; different circumstances suggest different affordances from the environment. So, for example, whilst I might take a trip to the coast and see the ocean, a surfer might look in the same direction and see the wave.)
Perception of the kind I am indicating here is entirely unconscious and requires no effort of will and need produce no sense of awareness. To experience the unification of the sense data of the world at this level would be totally unremarkable. This is the kind of perception we have when we are ‘doing something else’. When we drive down the motorway singing along to the radio, or daydream while we walk the dog in the park, this unifying of perception is what stops us crashing into the armco or stepping off the path, or bumping our head on the low-lying branches of the trees.
On a neurological level, this process is referred to as ‘perceptual binding’ and involves the synchronised firing of networks of neurons. These networks code for different sense data: vertical lines, particular colours, edges, certain shapes etc. and the synchronisation unifies these individual data items into a coherent mental ‘image’ such that we do not see these data elements but only the results of their synchronisation, a chair for example.
Posted in Binding, Cognition, Consciousness, Enlightenment, Feeling, Light | No Comments »
