the bond of the heart

from the Biology of Transcendence by Joseph Chiltern Pearce

"Our problem as an encultured people lies in the combination of our lack of individuality and our isolation from our heart.  Seekers of various goals gather in groups, thinking that through sheer number they will force the gates of wisdom, spirit, community.  But group mind can't  give community, no matter the numbers, and can only replicate its boundaried conditions.  Community arses in any situation for that individual who has broken from group ind into the bond of the heart"

hindbrain before forebrain

From the Biology of Transcendence by Joseph Chiltern Pearce:

'Our response has always been "Once I take care of these basic needs, I will attend the higher" which action creates needs unending and a shift into the hindbrain.  So we miss the best of both worlds,,.Our new mode of being has been give in our new neural structures...'

breathing the divine air

from The Biology of Transcendence by Joseph Chiltern Pearce p180
"In the years following this I had many experiences resonant with that major one, and these grew in depth and frequency.  But some part of me seemed to have been cut off and lost and I have never again known anything equal to the enormity of that greatest fusion when I was forty.  Later I was to read the remarks of Bernadette Roberts about "breathing the divine air" for weeks and the shock on having to come back into the ordinary world; she spoke unabashedly of finding this earth a living hell by contrast"

I can feel what she is getting at but also that its not the earth itself that is hell but the customary state of mind of the humans abiding on it that can make it that way compared with the paradise that is experienced by a different but suppressed part of us.  Also the phenomenon she describes supports the view that it would be wise to turn our attention to ways to sustain connection to cosmic consciousness and so  avoid this kind of trauma so often experienced by those who spontaneously or deliberately have these experiences.

longing

" our longing for closure to what has been an endless, open-ended search"
Joseph Chiltern Pearce

"If you are thirsty, the river comes to you.  If you are not thirsty, there is no river"
 Sat Prem

break from the madding crowd

"Our potential can't be utilised and our dilemma can't be resolved by either intellect or moral and ethical effort alone (if at all).  But we have within us this other link, the three-way connection among our emotional-cognitive brain, our prefrontal lobes, and our heart.  Here in this connection lies our hope and transcendence - if we can break from the madding crowd"

from The Biology of Transcendence by Joseph Chiltern Pearce

loose cannon left hemisphere

This great paragraph from Joseph Chiltern Pearce"s 'The Biology of Transcendence' explains part of our predicament wonderfully.

"While our emotional or old mammalian brain has rich connections to the right hemisphere of our third brain, direct connections between the emotional brain and the left hemisphere are sparse.  Herein the plot thickens and grows hazardous.  Having no efficient connections of its own, the left hemisphere's reaction to the rest of the three-brain system is largely through the right hemisphere, which has much stronger connections to the brain as a unit.
A think neural band called the corpus callosum bridges the brain's two hemispheres, and it is through this that the left hemisphere has access to the right and to the processes of the rest of the brain.  This neural connection allows the left hemisphere to take material from the right, retreat from the unified scene, ad operate on the material in isolation- dissecting it, analyzing it, and putting it back together in novel ways without regard to the checks and balances of the rest of the system and without concern over how this new creation will relate to the whole...through all this action, the left hemisphere maintains its dynamic interaction with the prefrontal cortex, from which creativity and novelty spring."