Human Spiritual Structure: Meaning and Consciousness
Notes in progress © 1998-2002 Alan McAllister  


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Meaning and Perception

The interpretation of perceptions depends on existing models, in which we often key on a few specific aspects of something in order to give it meaning (e.g. the red aces of spades are generally not seen). This involves the function of memory. This is probably a part of the reason that the writing and reading of kanji (chinese characters) are separate operations. The recognition of a character may depend on a few key points, which are sufficient to recognize it, but insufficient to draw it. The earliest such model, which may serve as a reference point for all others, is one's own body image. [SFF]

Part of the stability of perception comes from the interplay of meaning and emotion . Meaning can lead to a specific emotion (an attacking bear --> fear), but the emotional state in which a perception is interpreted tends to bias the interpretation. The current emotional state tends to perpetuate itself and spread out to other, often unrelated people and events. This is a main factor in projection (see above), in that one's own emotional state is seen reflected in others, and is particularly active when the actual cause is not part of the consciousawareness (for any of a multitude of possible reasons). This is a separate process from the tendency of ripening samskaras to draw people with similar samskaras.

Perception is related to change. It is hard to perceive something that is unchanging, we become "blind" to it. This is related to the brain's quest for stability, allowing it to tune out the constant background and focus on a few dynamic elements of determined importance. Thus perception is relational and dynamic, depending on what has just been perceived, as much as on the absolute characterization of the perception. The experience of taking a "warm" shower after bathing in cold ocean water also illustrates this point. When the body has turned blue, even the "cold" water feels warm or hot. This is also true for our sense of body position, or posture [SFF]. This dynamic aspect of conscious perception (meaning and interpretation added to the raw physical sense) insures that each of us has a purely personal, subjective, experience of the world around us.

Meaning and Body Image

The interpretation of perception may require a reference point, which Rosenfield suggests is the body, or rather one's sense of one's own body. Any sensation, or memory, will only have meaning in relation to one's self as reference point. He discusses the case of Madam I who retained all her senses, except for pain and for the location of her own body. I.e. the internal nervous sensors that locate the body and which register pain seemed to not function. The result was a loss of awareness of self (unless she was touching one part of her body with another part) and an apparently altered state of consciousness in which she could not recall familiar places or people, and those that were in front of her seemed "changed" and lacked any emotional charge. In an apparent effort to remedy this she would frequently touch herself, perhaps in an attempt to establish her own reality. Thus the disassociation of self and body resulted in a loss of memory, emotion, and the sense of familiarity when perceiving known objects or persons. It is suggested that the physical cause was a lesson in the limbic system. The psychological cause was apparently the violence of her husband. [SFF]

It may be argued that all meaning, or understanding, is self referential. It is only to the extent that we can relate something to our own self that it acquires meaning and becomes real. In this case, self includes previously integrated experiences. This is the bottom up formation of meaning or understanding. Access to the higher layers of mind (e.g. the atimanas) allows extensions of the understanding into new areas beyond the simple integration of past experience. However, even when people have had experiences of expanded consciousness, much of what they experience may tend to be lost as they return to their normal consciousness, as there is no basis for its understanding at this level. [SFF]

Rosenfield discusses the idea that we form a dynamic body-image which is the main reference point for all our perceptions. This is always changing, never really complete, and requires an effort to maintain and update. In persons suffering partial paralysis, it appears, that their whole relation to their paralyzed limb changes. O. Sacks reported losing all memory of his leg and of its use, it became something distant and alien. There was not only a loss of the leg from his self-image, but also a loss of emotional attachment to it. Moreover, with the only connection to a limb being that through the eyes, which seem to say that it is still there, while all the internal senses say that it is not, there is a conflict which may be resolved in the refusal to recognize the space where the limb is at all. With no reference point there is no space, and the mind/brain suppresses the visual perception of the related space as well. [SFF]

Continuity of Consciousness

Our normal conscious state has a sense of continuity to it. We generally feel, excepting the normal fluctuations of daily life, that we are the same person today as we were yesterday. This continuity is essential to the stability and coherence of a well formed ego, and is based on the models we form of ourselves and the external world. Continuity is based on the abstractions and concepts of long term memory, which are the key to providing context and meaning to events and objects.

In people who have lost functionality in their hippocampus their ability to form new long term memories fades, and they become amnesic. As long as there is a thread to follow they may hold things in mind, but once distracted they forget again. [AM] This form of living in the moment is related to, but quite different, from the states of consciousness sought by the spiritual aspirant. In the later the consciousness is withdrawn from the past and future and focused in the present by the effort of conscious will, rather than through the inability to access them. [AHM]

Language and Meaning

This aspect of mind, is largely a function of the manomaya kosa, the subconscious analytic mind. It is based on, grows out of the sense perceptions of the kamamaya kosa, the conscious mind, and may be aided by the intuitive imagery of the atminanas kosa, the unconscious mind. Flashes of insight etc. come from this level, while the filling in of detail ect. is carried out by the subconscious. [AHM]

The development of language parallels the growing understanding and use of relationships and categories (generalized names). Relationships to self come before relationships between others, etc. Blind children show different patterns due to a different set of relational tools. A blind child has a more difficult time with relationships between others, but develops a sense of past and present earlier (only after catching the rolled ball, can he/she know it was rolled). Language also depends on having a model to copy. Without contact with other people it does not develop, and without contact with adults, only a less evolved and less well defined language develops, and after puberty this development stops. It will take a second "generation" of children to develop a truly grammatical language, abstracted from that of their older fellows. This is seen in the experiences of deaf children not exposed to adults using sign language, and in the evolution of creole languages from pidgin (in the second generation). This is seen as evidence for the processes of abstraction in the brain, rather than any built in linguistic networks. It is seen as a model of the evolution of language in the human species. [SFF]

Consciousness is seen as the result of self-referential categorization, which is also at the heart of memory and language. While this process may develop rules over time, it is the process rather than the specific rules that reflects the actual workings of the brain. [SFF]

The loss of the ability to use certain words in brain damaged patients is not a loss of specific words memories, but the disruption of processes of language or those that evaluate perception. Abstraction and the formation of categories is said to require language. One may perceive that two colors are quiet different or similar at an early age, but only later do the categories of "colors" form, and they are language and culture dependent. The formation of these categories requires the ability to understand relationships. They start with simple groups and relationships and compound upon each other. [SFF]

When we are "lost" in the immediate, we are on automatic, and tend to be unconscious (at least of what we are doing). This is similar to the state of many psychotics. However, for most people, when the need arises they can readily pop up a level or two, into a larger context or frame, in which meaning is provided, even when there has been a distinct discontinuity at the concrete level. We are then said to be more conscious. The psychotic, on the other hand, becomes disoriented, confused, anxious and possibly hostile, when faced with a discontinuity, because they cannot pull back (up) enough to find a context that is not discontinuous. [SFF]

Names

Words may be simple labels, or they may be "names" which carry meaning, i.e. relationship and category. This is a higher level of language and thought, abstracted, or derived, from the level of discrete, raw perception , and is intimately bound up with memory. The inability to use words as more than labels, to have a sense of their "meaning" may be related to the inability to self-reference the category that the word represents, e.g. colors. Disruptions of the ability to relate to aspects of ones body image may therefore affect language and the use of words, just as they affect the sense of one's body or various types of memory. [SFF]

The Hierarchy of Maps and Models

There is a hierarchy of models, and of meaning. The most basic are rarely conscious, having to do with recognition of features in images or touch or sound, e.g. edges or lines etc. These are integrated into qualities, then objects, then groups of objects etc. At a higher level, we have whole topics, or subjects, e.g. baseball, car maintenance, baking, guitar playing, massage, etc. Each with its own "world view", "language", facts, skills, etc. When these larger scale models, or maps, overlap and seem to flow together without a break, they form a seemingly integrated and whole sense of self. But at times there are boundaries which don't match exactly, where there are discontinuities. The mind then has to either move to a new level where the boundary can be seen to be the result of the different maps, where they can be integrated, or it may chose to ignore them. In many cases this is easy, in particular if the maps involve different sets of activities and people, in other cases the discontinuities may be more jarring, and are covered over with elaborate mental constructions (in the extreme, neurosis), or simply suppressed and kept out of conscious awareness. [AHM]

It seems that in most cases, at all levels there is a dynamic flux of "models", or conceptual constructions, both in the nature of the construction itself (e.g. what is a "tree"), and in the relationships between all the different "mental objects". There is probably a wide variation in the fluidity, dynamism, and flux in different peoples minds, or even in different areas of the same mind, or at different phases of life. In some cases there may be a great deal of rigidity, often in response to external conditions or pressures, or in response to internal stresses, trauma, etc. This is similar to the "hard, strong" feeling of kyo energy that covers up, protects, and actual weakness or injury. [AHM]

On the other hand, up to a certain point the more fluid the constructions, the more adaptable and creative the mind. However, there is probably a balance, in that when the fluidity is increased too much, it can all come unglued, and any sense of reference, or integrity may be lost. When the mind is stressed, either by an external perception or event, or internalized flaws and inconsistencies, it is hard to remain at a given level of integration. It may either go down, falling apart, by retreating from the effort of integration (there is a strong fear of this in us which helps to resist change), or it can go upwards, to higher levels of integration, ultimately dissolving (rather than falling apart) into the intuition of the atimanas. [AHM]

Even "normal" people may at times experience sudden shocks or disruptions in their world that are so severe that they have trouble rising to a level that is not disrupted. We can see the sense of self, or world model, as being layered, with each layer being broader, more integrated, and more comprehensive, than the one below it. The lower layers are also more immediate, or concrete, more discrete, closer to the raw perceptions, where there is no continuity and all events are isolated. At higher levels there is more continuity and less discontinuity, but a strong unexpected event may produce a discontinuity rising through many levels. The deep of the discontinuity may in fact be a measure of its strength. Our awareness can move from level to level, and in general will attempt to rise to a level in which events may be experienced in a continuous fashion. However, there are varying limits to the depth and breadth of each self, and in some events these may be reached before the discontinuity is bridged. This is a traumatic experience, and may be met with denial, suppression, and various mental gymnastics in an attempt to "remove" the discontinuity at a lower level. [AHM]

In other cases the shock may induce us to rise to a higher level, to integrate our experience in a new way and thereby expand our consciousness. This is the heart of tantric sadhana. Clash and cohesion. Many of the various clearing techniques have the goal of revisiting past events and bringing them back into consciousness in a controlled setting, with support and safety, allow the person to rise to a new level, which they had failed to do originally. In many cases this is possible due to the growth of the self in the meantime. The greater the expansion of the self, the greater the discontinuity it can handle. There may be junctures at which the distinction between lateral growth and rising to a higher level may be confused. [AHM]

While western psychological models deal with the construction of an increasingly larger and complete ego self, the yogic traditions see the process as moving on to higher levels of mind, in part due to the willingness to abandon, leave behind, or transcend, the small ego self. This discussion shows clearly, however, the need for forming a coherent ego, before it is transcended. The dissolution of the ego, is not that of the psychotic, who descends back to the lower levels before ego formation, though it may appear as such externally, but rather one in which the sadhaka has risen to levels above it. [AHM]

Languages are even larger maps, which may correspond to cultures, and world views. In large languages, like English, however, there may be many sub areas that are not fully integrated. The mental world of physics, and that of shiatsu, may both be expressed in English, but with quite different vocabularies. In fact this is a source of much miscommunication, when the same word is used by two persons based in different maps. The old saying "being on the same page". One way of viewing all sorts of personal growth, both that of over coming "problems of the mind" and that of the "growth of the spirit", is that it all involves the working of the boundaries, the integration of maps (large and small), rising above the discontinuities, becoming ever more aware of the unity of existence. There are many methodologies, analytic study, or intuitive exploration, or direct clairvoyant perception. [AHM]

Large Scale Meaning

I feel a need for coherence in my life, to have the pieces fit in place, to make a coherent whole. When I am in a certain "mode", such as working on a paper, or reading a book, or teaching a yoga class, or going to class at Psychic Horizons, then there is a limited world that is fairly coherent and in which I can feel comfortable. There are unlikely to be an surprises outside of a certain range of possibility. I can even switch from one to the other without too much difficulty, and to some extent can blend them into a larger whole. This is the most comfortable, when all the pieces of my life, including family and friends are perceived as a global harmony and unity.

However when there are too many transitions, or when there begin to be conflicts between the various parts, in terms of time allocation, or goals and direction, then I am less happy, more prone to fears, uncertainties etc. There is an especially uneasy time after a long period of being intensely into one mode or another, i.e. when there has been a single focused theme, as in a certain research project, or preparation for a meeting or trip, or Christmas etc. Once this "goal" has been reached, there is a disquieting sense of being lost, which is often compounded by being tired, and the siren call of all the other modes that may have been on hold, or shorted during the period of intense focus.

There is also the urge, or desire to have people, places, processes, stay relatively constant in my life. In part this is because if most of them are unchanging, then one can "handle" more of them. If one aspect starts to change rapidly then it takes more attention and energy to follow the changes and to adjust to them. When many aspects are all changing at once, then it becomes overwhelming, chaotic, unpredictable and uncontrollable. The rate at which everything in the world around us changes is a strong stress on all people in the modern world. The amount of change that we are required to handle keeps increasing at what seems like an often alarming rate.

When I read about the focus of the Tourette's person, or the response to music of the amnesiac, then I sense a kindred spirit, the longing for a tune or rhythm that will hold my world together, allow it to be whole and comfortable. The doing never seems to be a problem, but the drifting, and uncertainty in between the doing is difficult to relax with. It is almost exactly the response to being in a small boat. When it is underway, and powering through the waves, there is little unease, but if it is drifting on the waves, not powered or anchored, then the stomach protests. Even underway, if the waves become chaotic or unpredictable, there can be trouble, compounded by fear if the situation seems really dangerous. By the uncertainty is the worst, a sort of psychic mal de mer.

The question now is how to find one's Self among all the modes, all the roles that I've learned to play, all the different scripts and plays that I am acting in? Most importantly can I learn to relax amid the chaos, to let go the need to understand it all, to see where I'm going, and to trust that I am guided and supported no matter which way the winds blow or the waves toss? Is it the challenge to move a level above the expanding ego, to find the actor behind all the roles? Does this mean letting all the roles go? at least for a while? In finding and being one's Self will the need to play any role disappear? or will the guidance as to which role to play be forth coming?

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Last updated April 24, 1998. AHM.
© Alan McAllister

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