Enlightenment

[seren]

When I was 15, I had what I would call an enlightenment experience. I'm very aware that I call(ed) it that because I am a lifelong atheist. A believer may call it being touched by god, or somesuch.

It was what some buddhists call false enlightenment, that is, enlightenment that comes about through trauma. Someone died, and I was distraught. I was crying and asking again and again, why? I think this impossible question mirrors the zen koan (the famous "what is the sound of one hand clapping?"). I would go over and over this question "why", looping through the same thought patterns again and again and then suddenly- pop! I knew. Just for a split second. Only it was more than knowing, I felt it. It wasn't an answer as such, just a total reasurrance that everything was okay. Whole-body-and-mind peace.

What I want to know is: what IS that? Why is it a response to trauma? What was happening in my brain and why? I wonder is it the same process that whips people up at revivalist meetings and other intense religious rituals? Has there ever been brain-scanning of people using the koan method of meditation, or in enlightened states?

[seren]

Well you lot are no blimmin use at all. In the absence of any answers, I shall assume goddidit.

[Julia]

Patience, O falsely enlighted one. We are all engaged in meditation.

[smudge]

Well you lot are no blimmin use at all. In the absence of any answers, I shall assume goddidit.

Well you could be right....
Though I doubt it...!

When I was 15, I had what I would call an enlightenment experience. It wasn't an answer as such, just a total reasurrance that everything was okay. Whole-body-and-mind peace.

What I want to know is: what IS that? Why is it a response to trauma? What was happening in my brain and why?

I'm purely guessing but for what it's worth...
I am reading Stephen Pinker's 'How the mind works' at the moment. Pinker does a persuasive job of describing an evolutional basis for the mind. All I can suggest is perhaps when at our lowest point emotionally there is some kind of a safety net, some kind of chemical re-adjustment that gives us that pick me up to get up and get on with things...?
I had a similar experience while climbing a mountain in the Lake district a few years back. I'd been stressed up to my eyeballs and suddenly as I reached the top all my worries just seemed to melt away and I had a strange uplifting feeling. It was genuinely moving and gave me a new outlook on life. I'm certain it was more to do with getting things in perspective than anything else (what were my silly human worries in comparison with the incredible mountains etc). Certainly nothing magical or godly about it!

That all sounds a bit new age for a skeptics forum....but it's the best I can do for now....

[Tony Williams]

All I can suggest is perhaps when at our lowest point emotionally there is some kind of a safety net, some kind of chemical re-adjustment that gives us that pick me up to get up and get on with things...?

Or just accept them if they are inevitable.

I remember reading many decades ago about what happens to people who survive very long falls which they believe will be fatal (we are talking a minimum of 30 metres - and up to 6,000, like the WW2 Lancaster bomber gunner who jumped without his parachute rather than get burned alive). They go through three stages: the first is total panic, the second is a frantic riffling through the memories (yep, scenes from their past lives really do flash before them) then they reach stage 3, which they described as a state of euphoric calm. They really don't care any more, and don't even notice if they hit things on the way down. Presumably the brain is saturated with endorphins or something by then.