>
> --- In shriadishakti@yahoogroups.com, ashishcool tandon
> <ashishcooltandon@y...> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Jagbir,
> >
> > JSMJ,
> >
> > Experiencing the Loving Mother through innocent
> > children has been a honour and a privilige. I have
> > read every word with great reverence.
> >
> > I have often longed to read more but unfortunately you
> > have not updated the visits to the Kingdom of God.
> >

--- In shriadishakti@yahoogroups.com, "jagbir singh"
<adishakti_org@y...> wrote:
>
> Today morning i was updating some files and decided to confirm yet
> again what has been cross-examined numerous times over the years.
> At about 7.30 am 10-year-old Lalita was asked about the Light:
>
>
> Question: What is above Shri Mataji's head?
>
> Lalita: The Light.
>
> Question: Can you look at it for a long time?
>
> Lalita: Yes, you can look at it.
>
> Question: Does it not blind you?
>
> Lalita: It doesn't blind me.
>
> Question: Is it different from the sun you see on Earth?
>
> Lalita: Yes.
>
> Question: Why?
>
> Lalita: It's smaller.
>
> Question: Anything else?
>
> Lalita: It doesn't blind you. What else ...... It's brighter. OK?
>
> myself: Thank you Lalita.
>
>
> This Light is always above the Great Divine Mother, and this Spirit
> of God Almighty resides within the Sahasraras of all humans. Unlike
> Her incarnation on Earth as Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, now an aging
> octogenarian, She is eternally youthful and of unsurpassable
> beauty. Kash, Arwinder and Lalita have always maintained that they
> have never seen any woman as beautiful as Shri Maha-Devi who is
> truly the Great Primordial Goddess. (Shri Saraswati, Laxshmi and
> Kali are also extremely beautiful but none are comparable with the
> Maha-Devi.)
>
> "The Devi Gita, or Song of the Goddess, presents a grand vision of
> the universe created, pervaded, and protected by a supremely
> powerful, all-knowing, and wholly compassionate divine female. She
> is Maha-Devi, the Great Goddess, wielding all power (Shakti) in the
> universe. Yet power is not just an attribute of the Goddess; she is
> power or Shakti itself. To her most devoted followers, known as
> Shaktas (worshippers of the supreme Shakti), she is the auspicious
> Mother of the World, ever anxious for the welfare of her children.
> Unlike the ferocious Hindu goddesses such as Kali and Durga, the
> World Mother of the Devi Gita is beautiful and benign, although
> some of her lesser manifestations may take on terrible forms. And
> unlike some other beneficent female divinities as Parvati and
> Lakshmi, she is subject to no male consort. Subject to none, she is
> the Shakti of all." (The Devi Gita, pg. 1)
>
> It is the last sentence that is most profound and true: "Subject to
> none, she is the Shakti of all." Unlike Shri Shiva, Krishna,
> Brahma, Rama, Vishnu with their female consorts, neither Kash,
> Arwinder or Lalita have ever seen the Great Divine Mother with any
> companion. She alone sits on the Timeless Throne with the Eternal
> Light above Her at all times. All the greatest gods, prophets, and
> messengers bow down in humble reverence and homage before
> meditating on Her. Each and every soul in the Spirit World also
> meditate on Her at all times. There is nothing higher or supreme to
> the Shakti in heaven or earth!
>
> Jai Shri Mataji,
>
>
> jagbir
>

Is God All in the Mind?
A review by Michael Shermer


Why God Won't Go Away Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
Andrew Newberg, Eugene D'Aquili, and Vince Rause
Ballantine, New York, 2001. 234 pp. $24.95, C$37.95. ISBN: 0-345-
44033-1.


About ten years ago, when I began to research why people believe in
God, I asked a colleague in a religious studies program to recommend
the latest path-breaking scientific work in this area. "William
James's 1890 Varieties of Religious Experience," he responded
sardonically. In his opinion, he explained, the field was largely
moribund.

That perception was an exaggeration, of course, but his point was
that with the exception of a handful of psychologists teaching at
theological seminaries, mainstream social and cognitive scientists
had largely ignored the question. The situation has changed
dramatically in the past decade, as the renewed debate on the
relation between science and religion has exploded onto the cultural
landscape and scientists from a variety of fields have entered the
fray. Why God Won't Go Away presents an interpretation developed by
Andrew Newberg and Eugene D'Aquili, physicians at the University of
Pennsylvania. Newberg holds joint appointments in radiology and
religious studies, and D'Aquili, now deceased, was a professor of
psychiatry. Co-author Vince Rause is a free-lance writer. Their
breezy and speculative book was written for general readers, but it
provides enough new material, especially on the neurophysiology of
mystical experiences, to hold the interest of professional scientists.

God won't go away, the authors argue, because the religious impulse
is rooted in the biology of the brain. When Buddhist monks meditate
and Franciscan nuns pray, for example, single photon emission
computed tomography scans of their brains indicate strikingly low
activity in the posterior superior parietal lobe. The authors dub
this bundle of neurons the orientation association area (OAA). The
area's primary function is to orient the body in physical space;
people with damage to this area have a hard time negotiating their
way around their surroundings. When the OAA is up and running
smoothly, there is a sharp distinction between self and non-self.
When the OAA is in sleep mode--as in deep meditation and prayer--that
division breaks down and, consequently, the lines between reality and
fantasy are blurred. Is this what happens to monks who feel a oneness
with the universe or with nuns who feel the presence of God?

Yes, say the authors. They claim to have "uncovered solid evidence
that the mystical experiences of [their] subjects--the altered states
of mind they described as the absorption of the self into something
larger--were not the result of emotional mistakes or simple wishful
thinking, but were associated instead with a series of observable
neurological events." Although this is an odd distinction to make,
the authors maintain it throughout the book. They recognize that a
skeptic might explain "all spiritual longings and experiences,
including the universal human yearning to connect with something
divine," as delusions that stem from misfiring brain cells. Indeed, I
am one such skeptic, but I fail to see the difference (outside a
minor linguistic distinction) between a delusion and a decrease in
OAA activity. Delusion is simply a description of what happens when
the OAA shuts down and the brain loses the ability to distinguish
self from non-self. It's still all in the brain. Unless, of course,
one believes these neurologically triggered mystical experiences
actually serve as a conduit to a real spiritual world where God (or
what the authors call "Absolute Unitary Being") resides. That is, in
fact, what they believe: "our research has left us no choice but to
conclude that the mystics may be on to something, that the mind's
machinery of transcendence may in fact be a window through which we
can glimpse the ultimate realness of something that is truly divine."
Thankfully they are honest enough to admit that this conclusion "is a
terrifically unscientific idea" and that to accept it "we must
second-guess all our assumptions about material reality."

Gopal Gopinathrao
Postdoc Fellow,
Nandi Lab Cancer Research Lab
491 LSA UC Berkeley,
CA 94720
P:510-642-4712
F:510-642-5741

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