" What all you can say about thought is what you have gathered from other sources" ~ UG

     

    In this audio clip (scroll down to the bottom), UG is laser-focused on the fuzzy topic of 'thought'. 

    What sets us apart from animals is the dominance of 'information' or 'knowledge' in each and every aspect of our daily life. Information is to social life as oxygen is to the biological life. Information is the backbone of our complex society. Take away information, there is nothing more to society, nothing more to culture.  

    In humans, information or knowledge is a matter of inheritance. It is what is passed on from generation to generation (referred to as the 'world mind' by UG). The cognitive apparatus (the hardware) that processes the information (the software) is built into our biology. Many sophisticated cortical and subcortical networks and modules are part of the cognitive apparatus. And the information gets downloaded and installed through societal programs like cultural conditioning, education, indoctrination etc. 

    In the world of computers, information is organized and processed in basic units of data called 'bits' (short for 'binary digits' - '1' or '0'). Similarly in humans 'thought' could be considered as the basic 'unit of information'. Of course, 'thought' is much more complex and sophisticated than mere 1's and 0's, it can take on a myriad forms including sound, taste, smell, touch, word, image etc. 

    All our thoughts or 'information units' are filtered, refined, categorized, assembled and reassembled into complex structures, into what we refer to as 'knowledge'. The accumulated or cumulative human knowledge over centuries upon centuries is simply inexhaustible. Knowledge fills and spills out from the world's libraries and in today's world, it floods the digital space or the internet.  

    In short, we humans are able to function or transact in the cultural environment thanks to the currency of 'thought', the primary medium of 'information exchange'. No wonder, our investment and belief in 'thought' is very deeply entrenched. In fact, every aspect of our mental life is just the play-acting of 'thought'.  

    To further get a handle on 'thought' and its nature, let us consider one of its most common avatars, the aspect of 'time'. 

    'Time' is nothing but a facet of thought. Unlike a sundial or clock that keeps track of 'calendar time', the 'psychological time' is 'experiential time', a subjective phenomenon. Unlike the mechanical clock, the psychological clock runs per vagaries of thoughts. Yes, 'thought' as pleasure or pain can impact the duration of an experience by either stretching or shortening the psychological 'time'. 

   " Thought is time, thought is space " ~ UG 

    'Thought' plays the record keeper. It is nothing but the memory or record or knowledge of events, of happenings and experiences. Thought has invented 'time' to 'bookmark', or sequence, or keep track of the 'flow of events'. Every experience, every event gets 'bookmarked' or 'timestamped' birthing an imaginary timeline turning 'thought' into a timekeeper. 

    We refer to thought as the 'past' when we invoke memory. Similarly, when we use memory to plan or achieve something ahead, we refer to it as the 'future'. 

    The flow of events alongside bookmarks makes for a narrative or biography. The 'autobiographical self' is nothing but a record of events or experiences of a lifetime replete with bookmarks or timestamps. 

    UG highlights that it is actually the flow of thoughts or the 'movement of knowledge' that fakes the 'I' or the 'self', yet another mischief of 'thought'.

    " The 'self' or 'I' is nothing but 'the movement of knowledge " ~UG

    For UG, the 'I' is just an illusion, a conjecture that 'appears' or 'pops up' whenever there is 'flow of thoughts' or 'churning of knowledge'. In other words, whenever there is a cognitive demand, say, we want to find out the cheapest available flight, knowledge is set into motion ('thinking') and the illusion of the 'I' ('thinker') just pops up. It is actually a deceptive sideshow, not very different from the illusion of cinema where fictional characters, the likes of Tom & Jerry or Mickey Mouse or Charlie Chaplin come alive in the rapid motion of still images. 

    All that we ever know (our knowledge) is essentially the objectification of our experiences or learnings or events. Thought is the primary 'objectification tool' that captures all phenomena for the purposes of storage and retrieval. This is how knowledge enables us to function sanely and intelligently in society. 

    Thought is responsible for all the knowledge that we have gathered. Ironically, we have also amassed plenty of knowledge about 'thought' itself - the various aspects and definitions about thought given by philosophers and scientists etc. In other words, what we know about 'thought' is what we have gathered from others, from various sources. 

    In this audio clip, UG explicates that whenever we refer to 'experience' or 'knowledge' all that we are referring to is only about 'thought'. All our ideas or concepts are merely the permutations and combinations of thoughts. Fundamentally and essentially, there is nothing there apart from 'thought'. 

    " But when you want to look at thought, what is there is only 'what all you know about thought'.

    Otherwise, you can't look at thought. There is no 'thought' other than what is there, what you know (or your knowledge) about thought. This is all that I am saying. " ~ UG

   Thought is the only 'tool of inquiry' or the only 'instrument' we have. This limitation puts us in an awkward situation where we fail to see the absurdity and futility of 'deploying thought to know about thought'. We endlessly indulge in this frivolous mind game as long as we continue our pursuit or inquiry into thought.

   "So, if somebody asks a question, what is thought? Any answer you have is the answer that is put in there, the answers that others have given. And you have, by combinations and permutations of those ideations and meditations about thoughts, created your own thoughts, which you call your own.

    So, just like you see mixing up different colors, you create I don't know how many thousands of pastel colors we have. Basically, all of them can be reduced to only seven colors that you find in nature." ~ UG

    To conclude, here is a great quote from Mahesh Bhatt's book, the Taste of Death,

" Thinking is a poor alternative to acting. Your thinking is consuming all your energy. Act, don't think! " ~ UG

   Yes, thinking about 'thought' is self-abuse and a sheer waste of energy.

    ****  

    

Audio Clip

Audio Transcription

We are all the time talking about thought and thinking.

And if somebody asks you a question, which I am asking you a question, what is thought?

Have you ever looked at thought? Let alone controlling thought, let alone manipulating thought, let alone using that thought or achieving something - material or otherwise, you cannot look at your thought because you can't separate yourself from thought and look at it.

The illusion that you have is, the knowledge you have about thought, that is all that is there. There is no thought independent (of), apart from the knowledge you have about those thoughts, the definitions you have.

So, if somebody asks a question, what is thought? Any answer you have is the answer that is put in there, the answers that others have given. And you have, by combinations and permutations of those ideations and meditations about thoughts, created your own thoughts, which you call your own.

So just like you see mixing up different colors, you create I don't know how many thousands of pastel colors we have. Basically, all of them can be reduced to only seven colors that you find in nature.

So even the seven colors you see, they are not actually seven. Anyway, I don't want to go into that whole color scheme in nature and all that.

So, what you think you see is yours, is the combination and permutation of all those thoughts. Just the way you have created hundreds and hundreds of pastel colors, you have created your own ideas. That is what you call thinking.

    But when you want to look at thought, what is there is only what all you know about thought.

    Otherwise, you can't look at thought. There is no thought other than what is there, what you know (or your knowledge) about thought. This is all that I am saying.

So, when that is understood, you see the meaninglessness of the whole business of wanting to look at thought comes to an end. Because it is not possible. What is there is only what you know, the definitions given by others.

And out of those definitions, if you are very intelligent and clever enough, create your own definitions. That's all.

It is like any other object you have around you, there are so many objects. So when you look at it, you see the knowledge you have about that comes into your head.

So, there is an illusion that the thought is something different.

So, it is you that create the object. The object may be there, but the knowledge you have about that object is all that you know.

Apart from that knowledge and independent of that knowledge, free from that knowledge, you have no way of knowing anything about it. You have no way of directly experiencing anything.

We started with that. When I use the word directly does not mean that there is any other way of experiencing things.

That's the wrong word. Directly implies that there is some other way of experiencing things directly other than the way you are experiencing things.

So, the knowledge you have about it is all that is there, and that is what you are experiencing. Really, you don't know what it is.

In exactly the same way, when you want to know something about thought, experience thought, it is the same process that is in operation.

There is no ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. What is there is only the operation, the ‘flow of the knowledge’.

So, you cannot actually separate yourself from thought and look at it. So, when once such a question is thrown at you, what should happen is that giving all the answers has no meaning because all that is acquired thought. So that movement stops.

So, there is no need for you to answer the question. There is no need for you to know anything about it.

So, all that you know comes to a halt. Not literally. So, it has no momentum anymore. It slows down.

So, then it dawns upon you the meaninglessness of trying to answer that question, because it has really no answer at all. The answers that others have given are there.

So, you have nothing to say on that thing called thought, because what
all you can say (about thought) is what you have gathered from other sources, so you have no answer of your own.

" Mankind' is an extension of yourself. " ~ UG

    In this penetrating discussion (scroll down for the audio clip), UG lambasts our deep-rooted notion or belief in the 'collective' dismissing it as a mere abstraction, a 'mental construct'. 

    A 'collective' mentioned in this context could be a group or club or community or society, or statehood or nationhood, or even the all-encompassing 'idea' of mankind. 

    A 'collective', essentially, is a well-knit group of individuals sharing some common ideology or a set of goals or beliefs or values that bonds them together emotionally. The collective borrows its reality, solidity, legitimacy and identity through solidarity or allegiance and regular interaction of its members. Minus ideology or adherents, there will be no form or substance for a collective and it falls apart. 

    Then why is the idea of 'mankind' so important, so central to the social discourse or cultural narrative? 

    UG readily supplies the answer,

    "It (mankind) is the projection of your own demand for permanence. 

(But) there is no such thing as permanence at all. That's all that I'm pointing out." 

    We feel a deep sense of emptiness, inadequacy and uncertainty within and seek permanence externally in any form of 'collective' or 'community'. Here, culture or tradition plays a huge role in creating, promoting and facilitating the social environment for 'empty' individuals to come together and experience a sense of belonging or fulfilment.

    Interestingly, culture, to a great extent, is similar to the 'immortal gene' (made famous by Richard Dawkins) that exhibits tremendous 'staying power'. We know that the human gene (homo erectus) has continued to survive over the past two million years through reproduction and replication. 

    The 'selfish gene' achieves its 'immortality' by actively reproducing a host or vehicle or carrier for its own survival and continuity (" The body is immortal" ~ UG)

    Also, the gene cannot survive alone, it needs an environment or a 'collective' for its own maintenance and sustenance. The body or the host forms that 'collective'. Not only does the gene get reproduced but it is also replicated into as many copies as there are cells in the host. That's about thirty-six trillion copies in case of humans. (Source: How many cells are there in the human body? | New Scientist)

    Culture, just like the gene, propagates itself and survives through 'reproduction' and 'replication' in its psychological form as the 'social self'.   

    Culture engineers the 'social self' through a plethora of social algorithms including norms, beliefs, rituals, values, memes etc. and propagates itself through entire generations. Culture as the 'collective' then propagates itself through its votaries or proponents or adherents, all various avatars of the 'social self'. 

    As much as the culture needs the individual to play the host by being a believer or adherent, the individual too thirsts for the 'collective' or the social environment to escape being an 'island'. This is the meeting (mating) point of culture and the individual. The 'social self' is birthed when the individual is culturally programmed or indoctrinated. 

    The 'social self' is therefore nothing but the product of culture and is its replica or a copy. Much like the gene, culture makes multiple copies of the 'social self' by recruiting more and more followers or believers or members into its orbit.

    Humans come and go, physical bodies get recycled over and over, but the 'gene' as well as the 'meme' (culture) continue to survive and thrive, physically and culturally propagating through the progeny.

    Interestingly, UG explicates the mechanism of cultural indoctrination through what he calls, the 'world mind'. World mind or culture is the sum total of human 'knowledge and experience' accumulated over the centuries. Each of us siphon off our lot from this cumulative knowledge sourced from either parents or society or university or books or speeches. Yes, there is no escape from culture as long as we stay invested in society. All our thoughts are rooted in culture or the 'world mind'.

    'There is nothing about 'you' that is original' ~ UG. 

    Culture is therefore a psychological superimposition mandated upon us by the social environment. That I am an Indian or American or Russian or Chinese is very deep rooted and firmly entrenched. Through conditioning, culture ensures that we subscribe to a certain ideology that ties us to the collective or community. 

    Collective or culture is thus a 'social necessity' and the key ingredient of survival of the 'social self'. 

    For UG, we human entities are a wonderful expression of life endowed with extraordinary intelligence unparallelled in nature. He clearly draws a line between what is natural and what is artificial or cultural, 

    " Only thing that is valid and living there you see, (is) the 'natural anger' and 'lust' that is essential for the survival of the mechanism. 

    Those are the two things ('natural anger' and lust) that are there, that are part of the biological functioning of the living organism." ~ UG

    The primal emotions of anger, lust etc.  are genetically ingrained in the limbic or reptilian architecture of our brain. These primitive structures and their associated neural mechanisms are meticulously hardwired and integrated into our biology over millions and millions of years. They are put in place to ensure the survival and replication of the organism.  

    UG is careful here in his choice of words. He is talking of 'natural anger' that is physical or visceral as opposed to the 'psychological anger' rooted in thinking. Getting angry when someone slaps is different from getting angry when we lose money. 

    Similarly, physical fears or phobias are natural and associated with our physical survival - fear of fire, or fear of heights etc. while our psychological fears are rooted in thinking, ex. the fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of disease, fear of betrayal etc. 

    Finally, 'lust' is natural but 'pleasure' or 'want' is artificial or psychological.

    UG highlights that all psychological angers or fears or wants are a superimposition on what is natural,

    " Everything else is superimposed on them (natural anger, lust etc). The greed, the jealousy, the envy, the whole 'cultural nonsense'. All the human values are imposed on them. They have not touched anything 'there' (the original, primordial or natural state)" ~ UG  

    By birth we are biological entities, through culture we become psychological beasts. UG sums it up beautifully,

    There is such a thing as the 'world mind', the totality of man's thoughts, feelings and experiences passed on to us from generation to generation.

    You have to use that to experience yourself as an 'entity'. You know, what you call ‘you’ cannot be experienced without the help of that knowledge (the cumulative human thought).

    So, our very existence as an individual or existence as an entity depends upon that (culture).

    How can you separate yourself from that (world mind or the culture) and say, this is 'me' in that sense? 

     ****

Audio Clip

Audio Transcription

UG: After all, mankind is an extension of yourself. Mankind is an abstraction.

    Because you know that there is a permanence about you and the things around you, you project a thing called mankind and say that must live forever. 

So, what the hell you are interested in mankind? What for? 

It (mankind) is the projection of your own demand for permanence. There is no such thing as permanence at all. That's all that I'm pointing out. 

Q: Is there no function served by self-consciousness?

UG: The functions are created by your culture. You tell yourself that you are 'bored', that you are 'happy', that you are unhappy. What is there is only 'boredom', there is nobody who is bored. That's all that I am saying, boredom. 

    That's a sofa, that's a woman, that's a man, that's a microphone, that's a TV camera. 

    In exactly the same way you say you are happy, you are unhappy, you are miserable, you are greedy, you are this, that or the other.

    All that is cultural!

    Only thing that is valid and living there you see, (is) the natural anger, you see lust that is essential for the survival of the mechanism. Those are the two things that are there, that are part of the biological functioning of the living organism.

    Everything else is superimposed on them. The greed, the jealousy, the envy, the whole cultural nonsense. All the human values are imposed on them. They have not touched anything there. 

    There is such a thing as the 'world mind', the totality of man's thoughts, feelings and experiences passed on to us from generation to generation.

    You have to use that to experience yourself as an 'entity'. You know, what you call ‘you’ cannot be experienced without the help of that knowledge.

    So, our very existence as an individual or existence as an entity depends upon that (culture).

    How can you separate yourself from that (world mind or the culture) and say, this is 'me' in that sense. 

I say you have no freedom of action. When I say that, I am not saying that there is such a thing as fatality and all.

    You have freedom of action if you want to come here or you don't want to come here. That's all. Even there, I don't know how much freedom you have. There is a conflict, see, there also. 

****

" I was sick and tired. Nobody helped me. Nobody helped me." - UG

     " I don't know, (whether) you see (the truth of this).

     But what I am saying is 'how the body is functioning' freed from the stranglehold of 'what is put in there' (all the acquired knowledge).

     That's why I say, 'that shit' ( the acquired knowledge) was thrown out of me. Everything everybody said is a 'shit' there."

                                                                                                                                ~ UG

     The certainty, finality, intensity of UG's words in the audio clip (scroll below) is yet another pointer to the utter futility of all external help in our search for 'peace', 'permanence', 'happiness', 'enlightenment' etc.

     These words of daylight clarity resonated from the depths of an immense reality, the spring source of life, untouched by religiosity or spirituality or machinations of the human mind. During such outbursts, even the best of minds, scholars and intellectuals around UG went numb, silenced by the sincerity and truthfulness of his burning words. 

UG sometimes referred to 'knowledge' as 'garbage'. He was not referring here to the technical or transactional knowledge needed for livelihood and survival, but the burdensome cultural or spiritual knowledge imposed on us by society, passed on to us traditionally. This form of knowledge, a pure cultural inheritance, defines our value system constraining us and suffocating us in innumerable ways. 

Each and every one of us is on a unique journey in life majorly influenced by one's culture. Culture is all about what others said or did. Culture is the cumulative repository of all the recorded words or deeds of the worthies, leaders from across social or cultural or religious or political spheres of life from time immemorial. 

Cultural knowledge is tremendously powerful, impactful and hijacks our lives and dictates what we think or how we act. 

What singled out UG from the rest of the teachers was that he never pretended that he knew 'how to shake off' this stranglehold of knowledge or the burden of culture. He was brutally honest about his own shortcomings and the misadventures of his own search for reality. 

Naturally many friends who had attempted similar search and tasted the dangers of spiritual quest gravitated towards him, pulled by his irresistible simplicity and honesty, 

    "I ended up after all my search, (being a) misspent, misguided, misled man (who) found himself on a merry go round, going on and on and on and on. 

    I was sick and tired of it and I wanted to jump off (the merry go round). 

    But I didn't have the guts to jump off because I was frightened that I would break my limbs." 

                                                                                                                                ~UG 

    When the futility of the search 'hit' him, he gave up all his 'search' or 'seeking', 

    "There is no need to shop around. Then, I was thrown off the 'merry-go-round'(of seeking reality), got up and walked away. I didn't even look back."

 

    ~UG 

It took nearly half a century of endless search for answers before UG realised that 'there was no need for him (or anyone) to shop around for what does not really exist (any fabricated spiritual goal)'. By then he had lost his career, his money, his family and reputation. Nothing mattered to him anymore, everything had gone up in flames in the bonfire of 'search', burnt in intense hunger for reality. 

Then suddenly (and 'luckily') it so happened that UG found himself thrown off the 'merry go round' of needless search. He insisted, cautioned and emphasised that this was 'acausal', that it had no causality or relationship whatsoever to anything that he had ever done previously in his life.

    Each of us, for a variety of reasons, remain discontented, dissatisfied, unfulfilled, frustrated and restless, all the time. Our bottomless cup of self-fulfillment always remains empty. 

When wealth, success, power, comforts, relationships - all turn empty and meaningless, we begin to hunt for spiritual goals. We desperately look for any method or teacher that could help us achieve or attain spiritual goals that could put an end to the inner torment and turmoil. 

We turn into full time shoppers, running around like headless chicken in search of gurus and ashrams. UG's message that 'there is nothing to get' comes as a shock, a dampener to all spiritual chasers or seekers. 

    " To me this is something which cannot be passed on. This certainty that 'there is nothing to get' is something which you are not interested in. You can't be interested in this."

                                                                                                                                     ~UG 

The wisdom to 'see' the utter futility of 'search' comes only after 'burning our fingers' a little, only after initially investing some real time and effort, only after some serious inquiry on our part. This is what UG called 'doing the homework'. 

Merely 'shopping and hopping' from one guru to another, from pillar to post, is not only a futile exercise but also a dangerous one given the umpteen traps and risks inherent in the spiritual realm. We could be easily misled, sidetracked and wasted, if we are gullible. 

Only real honesty on our part gives us the clarity to see and accept who we really are and what we are really after. Honesty is such a redeeming force. Honesty has the power to burn our falsehoods, to out all hidden intentions or motives, and liberate us from false pose or pretense. It is our honesty that ultimately exposes the façade and fakery of even the gurus. Honesty about ourselves gives us the strength or the courage to question the teaching or the teacher and call out the bluff.

Honesty unlocks the door to clarity and wisdom. Honesty is the hall mark of a real teacher. Jesus, Socrates, and the like stand tall in the annals of history for their daring honesty that cost their lives. 

So, any search or seeking for external help could surely mislead us. If we are lucky, we might realize this on our own after some sincere and honest 'homework', or perhaps we might bounce into a genuine article or a true guru who could help us see this for ourselves and restore our sanity and stability. 

A true teacher wants absolutely nothing from us, unburdens or frees us from himself by letting us discover our true strength and courage to walk alone.

****

 

Audio Clip

Audio Transcription

    I ended up, after all my search, misspent, misguided, misled man found himself on a merry go round, going on and on and on and on.

    I was sick and tired of it and I wanted to jump off.

But I didn't have the guts to jump off because I was frightened that I would break my limbs.

    You see, if you are frightened, you become stiff and you will certainly break your limbs.

    You have seen that animals falling from the high trees. They are like rubber dolls.
They fall, (but if) frightened, body becomes stiff, so you will certainly break your limbs.

The fear that I would break my limbs prevented me from jumping off.

I was sick and tired. Nobody helped me. Nobody helped me.

    Because what I wanted was something different.

    In a sense, what is it that I want?

    I don't want that. You see, the teaching falsified me. The teachings of all.

    Not that I never did any shopping. If you see one, you have seen them all.

If you see one ashram, you have seen all the ashrams. There is no need to shop around.

    So then I was thrown off the meery-go-round, got up and walked away. I didn't even look back.

How can I tell them (the seekers)? You jump off, nothing will happen, not a chance.I didn't have the guts to jump off.

How can I tell (others)? I did not know how I was even thrown off.  

So I have no interest in helping you to jump off the merry go round at all.

    So there is no way I can be of any help.

To me this is something which cannot be passed on. This certainty that 'there is nothing to get' is something which you are not interested in. You can't be interested in this.

    It is not something mysterious, mystifying, mystical nonsense. I was just lucky.

    That is all that I can use that word, lucky.

    But not in the sense in which you buy a lottery ticket and wait for 1 million francs dollars as the case may be. It is not that kind of a luck.

    Because I don't know what word to use. I say I'm just lucky.

Because everything everybody thought, felt and experienced before me was thrown out of my system.What I am left with, I have no way of knowing.

And what I am describing is if you are lucky to be free from everything everybody thought, felt and experienced before, what that living organism will express, you will never know. Never know at all.

I don't know, you see (the truth of this). But what I am saying is how the body is functioning freed from the stranglehold of what is put in there. That's why I say that shit was thrown out of me. Everything everybody said is a shit there. 

It is just coming. It is finished. What you are left with, you will never know.

There is no teaching because the teaching implies that you use something to bring about a change in you.

    I am telling that there is nothing to be changed there. Nothing to be changed there.

    So where is the need for a teaching? Teaching is something that you use to bring about a change.

    So there is a shoddy piece of goods they are selling, you see different brands of cigarettes and you sell your particular brand. I don't mean you.

    I see your own particular brand of cigarettes free from nicotine. That's all that you can do, varieties of cigarettes. But I am interested in nicotine. And I fall for your brand of cigarettes because you are telling me it is nicotine free. 

I don't mean sir. I mean this body functioning in exactly the same way. There may be some differences, genetic differences. We don't want to go into that, you see, that is not of any importance at all.

****

 

UG & Consciousness - An Introduction (Full Article available as PDF Download)

The Holy Grail of Science: Consciousness

Cognitive Scientist is someone who is devoted to the pursuit of 'consciousness', trying to fathom its biological roots (or the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC)) within the dense brain tissue of 86 billion neurons. 

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary domain and cognitive scientists come from any of the major disciplines of science or humanities. They include neuroscientists, neurologists, molecular biologists, computer scientists, mathematicians, sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, linguists, anthropologists etc. trying to decipher 'consciousness', the holy grail of modern science.

The big question for these scientists is, "What is the 'biology of consciousness'? Or what is the 'biology of experience'? In other words, what is the reality behind experience of the 'redness' of the rose, or 'coldness' of ice, or the 'bitterness' of neem etc.?

Any gadget, any instrument or device, any software or algorithm, any mathematical or computational theory, any AI model, any test or experiment, in short, any trick in the world that could give away a clue to the challenging phenomenon of consciousness is being intensely pursued by researchers at advanced laboratories around the globe.

This is a completely scientific undertaking unlike the religious or spiritual quest that is about 'what is the 'agency' of experience?' The spiritual seeker, unlike the scientist, asks questions bordering on the mystical or the mysterious, 'Who is the 'experiencer'? Is there a 'soul' or 'spirit'? What is the 'entity' that is 'experiencing'?

It is sacrilege for the scientist to think of any 'agent' or 'experiencer' or 'ghost in the machine'. The scientist, therefore, seeks answers strictly within the boundaries of scientific possibility or explanation. For him or her, the answer should lie in simple and pure physical reality, the be-all and end-all of science.

     

            Physical reality, remember, is not just about 'matter' but also of 'energy' with its underlying quantum world of atomic and subatomic particles or waves. Reality remains an intriguing and inexplicable challenge to both scientists and philosophers. Matter and energy form different expressions of the self-same reality, two sides of the same coin as Einstein established masterfully in the expression E = mc2, where 'E' is energy, 'm' is mass (matter) and 'c', the speed of light.

            After somewhat establishing the correlates of 'energy and matter', the scientists are now determined to go after yet another formidable challenge , 'consciousness and its reality'.

            David Chalmers, the Australian philosopher has termed 'consciousness' as the 'hard problem' of cognitive science, and rightly so.

" The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect...

 

It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to such a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does." (1990)

 

— David Chalmers (1990)

    The 'soft problem', of cognitive science, on the other hand, is related to the functions or roles of various modules within the cortical and subcortical structures of the brain and their interrelations or interactions. This is considered 'soft' as it is relatively easier to establish these 'observable' phenomena either scientifically or clinically. No wonder, enormous progress has already been made in many of these areas.

         Thanks to brain science, we now know many facts about the brain modules. For example, we know where our 'language' modules are located. The left half of the brain (cerebral cortex) houses the two key speech modules - one, the Broca's area responsible for formation of a sentence and two, the Warnicke's area responsible for production of actual speech. Both these areas have to coordinate in order to produce the final speech coming through our vocal cords. (The-lobes-of- the-brain-diagram/)

        Incidentally, the 'rational mind' or the 'human intellect' or the 'thought processor' or the 'knowledge cruncher', call it what you may, doing all the 'heavy lifting' including problem solving, reading, writing, math, logic, reasoning, analysis, dialectic thinking or any cognitive task to do with survival in our sophisticated society or cultural environment is linked to the left half of the brain wherein the language and speech processing modules are located.

         Thanks to the 'cultural conditioning' including our upbringing and education, the left brain (or the thinking brain) seems to be more dominant, the one calling the shots rather than the right brain (or the empathising brain), says the Scottish scientist Dr. Iain McGilchrist. He also adds,

"A way of thinking which is reductive, mechanistic has taken us over, we behave like people who have right hemisphere damage." 

— Iain McGilchrist (The Divided Brain)

"The left hemisphere's goal is to enable us to manipulate things (narrow outlook), whereas the goal of the right hemisphere is to relate to things and understand them as a whole (holistic outlook).

 

Two ways of thinking that are both needed but are fundamentally at the same time incompatible."

 

— Iain McGilchrist (CBC Radio)

Now, where does UG come into all this?

           Ironically, the brain science has made enormous progress through findings or takeaways derived from neurological disorders or tragic accidents resulting in brain damage. Disease or damage has come across as more revelatory about the workings or complexities of the brain than the study of a normal, healthy brain.

        Cognitive science has attempted to find the biological basis for many inexplicable phenomena like the OBE (out of the body experience), RHI (rubber hand illusion) or 'phantom limbs' (experiencing pain in the amputated limb) or 'xenomelia'('foreign limb syndrome' or refusal to see your hand as yours but belonging to someone else) and other disorders falling under the broad spectrum of 'subjective experiences'.

        UG's uncanny insights and observations about the intriguing phenomena like mind, experience, consciousness etc. force us to revisit, rethink or reevaluate our understanding of phenomenological realities.

        The case of UG is extraordinary and unique and he challenges many of our scientific and philosophical assumptions especially with regard to 'subjective experience'. His many observations and also his state of biological functioning (the Natural State) offers some powerful counterfactuals, contradicting many phenomenological facts that we unquestioningly assume or accept as true.

         UG's uncanny ability and authority to articulate and elucidate the 'matters of mind' is well known. This has everything to do with his 'death and resurrection' (he called it the 'calamity') on his 49th birthday. You could visit the Mystique of Enlightenment online to read UG describing his 'calamity' in his own words.

         The freakish death 'event', amongst other things, seemed to be a psychological 'reset' that wiped out the 'psychological identity' called 'UG'. His physiology including all of the sense organs underwent tremendous changes and began to function with great vigour and heightened sensitivity.

        It is important to note here that this was purely the physical organism falling into its primal natural rhythm or resonance of its own. We must remember that the event did not result in any pathological consequences or complications for UG.

        More importantly, post 'death and resurrection', UG continued to remain in pink of physical and psychological health, all through the remaining four decades of his earthly sojourn, with absolutely no hint of any condition suggesting disorders like autism, dementia etc. No suggestion of delusion either.

        'Calamity', in no way, affected UG's social life or his seasonal worldwide travels. Hale and hearty, bubbling with vim, vigour and vitality, he was a real human dynamo till his demise at the ripe age of 89.

        His final act was to invite his close friends from across the globe, to bid them goodbye. He passed away quietly in Vallecrosia, Italy on the 22nd of March 2007. His most trusted lieutenant, the Bollywood filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt was by his side to ensure that the final parting remained a low-key, anonymous non-event as per the wishes of the diseased.

        'Calamity' had flushed away the 'acquired conditioning' or the 'cultural roots', releasing UG from the clutches of 'human thought' (the cumulative experience and knowledge of humanity over centuries), unleashing the life energy to express itself fully and naturally. He used to refer to it as the 'Natural State' and emphasised that it is the primal state of every human being freed from the clutches of 'cultural conditioning'. UG maintained that Thought is your enemy.

        Thought has two different facets - the functional and the sentimental.

     Driving a car, cooking a meal, fixing a computer, performing day-to-day commercial, technical transactions are all functional aspects. Here, thought plays a beneficial role.

And, embracing a perverted ideology, following a cult, pursuing self-serving agenda could all prove divisive and destructive. Here 'thought becomes our enemy.'

NOTE: To read the full article visit online flipbook at this link: 

UG & Consciousness - An Introduction

Or as a PDF downloadable file: UG & Cognitive Science -An Intro