Framework for Enlightenment

A Framework for Enlightenment

This is the key page on the website. I want to provide a simple and unifying framework for Spiritual Enlightenment, as well as the answer to life, the universe and everything. A bold objective, and yet the following explanation will be quite simple. I am not promoting any religion or spiritual path, nor do I wish to engage in lengthy intellectual explanations that cannot easily be verified in practice.

What I am presenting is not new, and most of the argument is accepted scientific fact - I'll highlight the areas which deviate from this. This simple framework unifies most of the material on the other pages on this web site, and also leads on to answers to some of the strange behaviour that goes on between our fellow human beings around the globe.

The Brain

Brain parts

The above picture (courtesy of Deric Bownds ) shows the basic parts of the human brain. It is known from the development of the brain that there are three basic regions:

Reptilian brain - the oldest part, so named because it is the basic structure also found in reptiles, and it has been around for millions (if not hundreds of millions) of years. It is involved with controlling movement and autonomic functions and reacting to external stimuli.
Limbic - as evolution proceeded on planet Earth, mammals appeared with an additional brain structure. The limbic brain is associated with emotions, instinct, fight and flight, sex. Pleasure and pain. It includes the amygdala, hypothalamus and hippocampus.
Neocortex - found only in higher mammals and most highly developed in man. It is the conscious brain responsible for thought, reasoning, language and social interaction.

A great deal about the functioning of the brain is not known - check out Wikipedia for more detailed information about the brain and its various parts, including this Triune model.

Consciousness

Despite our great technological knowledge, consciousness is not well understood. We we are self-aware whilst we are awake, and this activity is matched by activity in the neocortex. However, all the time we are both awake and asleep there is unconscious (or subconscious) brain activity going on. I am referring to the many tasks necessary to maintain the body - temperature regulation, heart rate, digestion, etc. Activities generally described as controlled by the autonomic nervous system. When we sleep the subconscious brain keeps working, but this doesn't mean that the subconscious stops working when we are awake - it is operating all the time. The unconscious is not a well understood science, and research falls into the area of psychologists and psychiatrists, and people like Jung. Pre-programmed emotions exist in the subconscious and can result in unexpected behaviour, eg when we "snap".

Consciousness and subconscious is acknowledged by science, but I want to go one step further in the following table:

Consciousness	Neocortex	Wakeful state, awareness
Subconscious	Limbic brain	Below our normal state of awareness
Superconscious	Reptilian brain	Awareness of "everything"

This is a good summary of my entire framework, and the rest of this page (and my website) will be devoted to expanding and elucidating the ramifications of this simple model. I introduced the superconscious state because this is mentioned in the teachings from the ancient Hindu masters - persons who may be more "highly developed" than you or I. Science would currently classify both Limbic and Reptilian brain to the state of unconscious in the context of "lacking self-awareness". I also wish to separate the terms sleep and unconscious. When we are asleep we are not self-aware, and thus we call this unconscious. A lizard does not possess self-awareness (at least nothing like the self-awareness of humans), so is not self-conscious, but it goes through states of both wakefulness and sleep. A human being with brain damage can be no longer self-aware and similarly go through states of waking and sleeping - all the time under control of what is the subconscious brain.

In my theory, the subconscious - the area of the brain we are not aware of - separates us from the superconsciousness. The superconscious is awareness extending far beyond the confines of the body. The ancient masters have taught that such a state can be attained, but only through discipline and training - by following a spiritual path. The dark subconscious must be bridged before reaching the light of the superconscious.