Great, Sceptic Watcher, your information of the research, thank you. It is quite hard for me to read it in English, but I am going to try.


Suenam, your short abstract of Nydahls consciouness is very helpful. To make a differential diagnosis recording to a psychosis or an altered state of awereness you need to know, that in the last one you can change deliberately between entrancement, extasy and normal state, you are able to dissolve your Self and to re-identify afterwards. I am in the same state as Nydahl is, so I know, what I am speaking about. Hopefully my brain is going to be researched in a study!

As I wrote here a few days ago:

"First is to say that he has like all other tantric masters an opened kundalini and an altered state of consciousness which shows a lack of core-personality with dissociations in his mind."

Exactly that seems to be one result of the research.

And now, Steve, the question is, wether those "enlightened" or "liberated" persons do have "siddhis", supernatural powers or not.
My researches and my experiences validate that, but the "fuzziness" makes it hard to examine in a science-oriented setting.

Let me quote the foreward of my lecture held on "The Emergence of a Multiple Personality through Misabuse of Trance and Hypnosis in Tantric-Tibetan Buddhism", which will be hopefully translated into English soon, where I shortly described the Bardo-state, which is exactly the state we speak about:


"When I wrote this lecture in 2008, my condition was still very problematic. I could not remember myself as the person I had been, because I suffered from a substantial, if not total loss of my short-term memory, an experience that many people have to pass through after repeated exposure to traumatic stress events. My ability to think abstractly was severely restricted. A great deal of what I wanted to say I had to copy word for word from source material in order to make myself understood.

Needless to say that this is exactly what the Tantric ritual of sacrificing women is all about: to change women into depersonalized zombies, empty vessels, for receiving transferences they should represent; in my specific case the transferences of the Vajrayogini, consequently my Bodhisattva-name was “Highest Wisdom”. During the inauguration of the newly opened Buddhist center in Berlin Ole Nydahl named me - or better the empty shell I was - “Dorje Phagmo” too, the Tibetan name of the Varayogini.

Now I know, the state I was pushed into was or still is the Bardo-state (I am by far not free from signs of it) which means according to Naropa: “The praxis of the six Yogas implies, caused by its extremely powerful and energetic emanations, thus its specific development of effects and especially its far-reaching consequences, a very high degree of meditative ability and spiritual knowledge.

(I did not have that at all. I liked to meditate but was much too lazy for the Nöndro-practise and all the other exercises like mantra-counting and so on. Why should someone tantalise themselves that much?)

The experiment to perform wholly or partly the six Yogas of Naropa - without any suitable basics as well as instructions and support - may be possible but can lead to severe and perhaps irreversible physical and psychic complications.” (Source: Wikipedia)

Leaving aside that I am not a devotee of any secret teachings at all, it was irresponsible, inhumane and criminal for Ole Nydahl and the so called Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje to involve me into such transference, without my consent.

As I already said on other occasions: They abuse people, above all women, as material for their own so called way of enlightenment.

Hit the road, Nydahl, you never come back!"

karam-mudra, thank you for joining this blog but I still cannot fully grasp what happened to you.
Is there any way you can demonstrate what Karmapa did to you?

from - [www.trimondi.de]

Quote

"Smiling” is the first form of communication with a woman which is taught in the lower tantras (the Kriya Tantra). The next tantric category which follows is the “look” (Carya Tantra), and then the “touch” (Yoga Tantra). Galland later reported in fascination what happened to her during the audience: “He [the Kundun] got up out of his chair, came over to me as I stood up, and took me firmly by the arms with a laugh. The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is irrepressibly cheerful. His touch surprised me. It was strong and energetic, like a black belt in aikido. The physical power in his hands belied the softness of his appearance. He put his forehead to mine, then pulled away smiling and stood there looking at me, his hands holding my shoulders. His look cut through all the words exchanged and warmed me. I sensed that I was learning the most about him and that I was being given the most by him, right then, Though wat it was could not be put into words. This was the real blessing” (Galland, 1990, p. 96).


From this moment on, the entire metaphysical standpoint of the author is transformed. The revolutionary dark Kali becomes an obedient “sky walker” (dakini), the radical feminist becomes a pliant “wisdom consort” of Tantric Buddhism. With whatever means, the Dalai Lama succeeded in making a devout Buddhist of the committed follower of the great goddess. From now on, Galland begins to visualize herself along tantric lines as Tara. She interprets the legend in which the goddess offers to help her tear-father, Avalokiteshvara (Tara arose from one of the Bodhisattva’s tears), lead all suffering beings on the right path, as her personal mission.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2011 05:19AM by suenam.

Hi Alexander,

no, I stop it now and leave you alone with my hard to grasp experiences. They are mostly secret transferences and I wrote a lot about them here.

I am more interested in discussions about altered states of awereness. May be there will be a few!

Karam Mudra, so as far as I understand you have received the most secret transferences but you felt abused by it because you weren't ready for that transfer. Or because it took place without your conscious consent. Is that correct?
Is it about the transfer itself or about how Ole or Karmapa have used that transfer?

Hi Karam-Mudra.

Thanks for your response regarding validating psychic phenomena. I prefer to err on the side of caution regarding such claims. Until I've seen a ghost and can show it's existence to others then I must assume that the ghost exists only in my imagination. James Randy, a well known sceptic on all things paranormal, has offered a $1 million prize to anyone who can bend a metal bar with the power of the mind alone, without touching it. No one has been able to claim the prize for over 20 years or more, although many 'genuine psychics' have tried.

As for altered states of awareness, I'm not sure what place this has in Buddhism. I thought the goal was to understand the 'true' nature of the mind rather than induce altered states of awareness/consciousness. You can go into any town centre any night of the week and see people in altered states of awareness or consciousness as a result of alcohol or drugs.

I have often speculated whether meditation just alters brain chemistry. If it does then we may as well just take a cocktail of chemicals to feel blissed out rather than sit on cushions all day. I suppose meditation might have the benefit of permanently altering brain chemistry as opposed to taking toxins into the body. But if meditation does just alter brain chemistry then you can forget all the claims about absolute reality as we are just exchanging one dream for another.

Steve

Alexander,
what you said first is right I was not ready for the transferences, normally you need a long training and the support of a teacher to handle the phenomena of the Bardo-state or an opened kundalini. That is one part of the abuse.

The other one is that the transfer itself is misabusing. In the tibetan tradition they use the energies of women for they own stages of enlightenment and then they are both, man and woman in one person, the secret consort has become dispensanble. That`s why I asked: Where have all the consorts gone?


Steve, I like you to be sceptical and do not argue anymore.

But the altered state of awareness you find in Nydahls brain-scan is a permanent one, it does not depend on alkohol and drugs.
Yes, of course, meditation is a changing of the chemistry in the brain. What else shouldt it be? It is not philosophy or ethik or an idea, but experience, which is measurable in physiological data. In the enlightened state you have the experience the world is a dream, you are dreaming, when you are awake and you are awake when you are dreaming. It is a quite funny state. The hinduistic and buddhist philosphies are based on those experiences.
What do you think, Buddha went through?

May be this link could be interesting for you:

[downthecrookedpath-meditation-gurus.blogspot.com]

Electroencephalography, EEG, which is the testing Nydahl underwent, does not measure altered states of awareness, permanent or not. Neither does it prove a permanently changed chemistry in the brain--it records the flow of electrical activity along the scalp (see below)--a flow that is recognised to be in constant flux and change unless the person is clinically brain-dead.

It can be inferred that this recording of electrical activity means many things but no honest scientist will state what can be inferred from one subjects EEG results and few indeed will make pronouncements based on a study of several hundred or thousand--because it is recognised that the variation between individuals is huge and that 'normal' is a very tentative baseline.


[en.wikipedia.org]

'Electroencephalography (EEG) is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp. EEG measures voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current flows within the neurons of the brain. In clinical contexts, EEG refers to the recording of the brain's spontaneous electrical activity over a short period of time, usually 20–40 minutes, as recorded from multiple electrodes placed on the scalp. In neurology, the main diagnostic application of EEG is in the case of epilepsy, as epileptic activity can create clear abnormalities on a standard EEG study. A secondary clinical use of EEG is in the diagnosis of coma, encephalopathies, and brain death. EEG used to be a first-line method for the diagnosis of tumors, stroke and other focal brain disorders, but this use has decreased with the advent of anatomical imaging techniques with high (<1 mm) spatial resolution like as MRI and CT. Despite limited spatial resolution, EEG continues to be a valuable tool for research and diagnosis, especially when millisecond-range temporal resolution (not possible with CT or MRI) is required.'

The scientific study of neurological events is far more interesting than the individual interpretations of a snapshot of the electrical activity of one particular brain at one second in time--unless that brain happens to be your own.

I am a fan of meditation myself but fail to see the point of it if it results in people who are no longer able to think and reach a workable provisional conclusion for themselves.

Karam-Mudra, I think that you were badly used by the people who have been pretending that these EEG's mean anything other than a record of electrical activity along the scalp. We all have that and Nydahl's party trick is the result of a behavioural repetition which forges new neural pathways in the brain.
Any repetitive behaviour does that.
It isn't proof of siddhis or supernatural powers.

A footballer who practices regularly is doing exactly the same thing--which will show up as a variation in the EEG. He will also be a lot more skilled at ball-control than I will ever be, not having the slightest interest in playing football.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2011 05:22AM by Stoic.

Quote of the research:
[cdasr.mclean.harvard.edu]


Although
higher brain functions in general involve extended
and distributed neuronal networks, they
show clearly organized topographical, spatial patterns
ŽMesulam, 1990.. Our results add to a
growing body of evidence suggesting that altered
states of consciousness are associated with different
patterns of brain activation depending on
the content of consciousness. Recent PET studies
have started elucidating the neural substrates associated
with meditative and hypnotic states ŽLou
et al., 1999; Maquet et al., 1999; Rainville et al.,
1999; Kosslyn et al., 2000.. For instance, meditative
states characterized by detached attention
Žloss of conscious control and enhancement of
sensory quality. but focusing on different contents-
elicited content-specific activation Žbody
sensations: parietal and superior frontal activation;
visual imagery: occipital and parietal activa-
tion; Lou et al., 1999..
The different meditations were consciously
self-induced, volitionally generated by the subject
without systematic input of external origin. The
visualizing and verbalizing meditations with their
clearly different right posterior and left central
gamma sources might well reflect mechanisms of
imagery of visual and linguistic nature, respectively.
On the other hand, the two meditations
which concerned the experience of the self are
not obviously related to perceptual Žor motoric.
modalities, while their EEG gamma band source
localizations differed from each other and from
the visualizing and verbalizing meditations.

Stoic, I do not need Wikipedia, there are much more interesting researches today. But if those results are party-tricks in your eyes, ok.

There is a method of eye gazing called 'tratakam' in the Hindu tantric traditions.

[books.google.com]

Note the description here that it is supposed to help develop a focused mind.

If the DL and other high lamas and rinpoches were trained to use methods of tratakam to develop mind focusing while learning their visualization exercises, this skill would then have been transferable later on when learning to fix soulful penetrating gaze upon already adoring disciples.

Remember, many come to see these lamas with heads full of mythology implanted by decades of story telling about Tibet. The DL is very much aware that Westerners have already been socialized to imagine the Himalayas as a Place of Answers, so he would know how to step into and exploit expectations we already have of him.

This does NOT mean we are 'asking for it' or asking to be enthralled. Its that many of us already see him as a power figure before meeting him and can be easily influenced.

Remember too, it takes heavy investment in time and money to go to India to see the DL. So a person would be telling themselves that the visit has to be worth it.

Imagine the cognitive dissonance if one were to go all the way to Dharamsala, see the Dalai Lama and think, 'This guy is giving me the fucking creeps'

Imagine admitting this to oneself.

Imagine telling friends this and having them throw shit fits.' How can YOU SAY THAT about the Dalai Lama???'


Look up tratakam and the various exercises mentioned by suenam. The Indians and Tibetans know about trance long before Anton Mesmer.