What Can Cognitive Science Tell Us About Haha and Tantric Yoga?

Ellen Goldberg
Department of Religious Studies
Queens School of Religion at Queens University
Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures, joys,
laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, grief and tears.
Hippocrates (fifth century)
1. Introduction
Cognitive scientists are generating a wealth of empirical data based on analytical
and applied research, and their efforts lend a new and vital theoretical approach to the
field of religious studies, but what can cognitive science tells us about haha and tantric
yoga? In this broadly framed paper, I briefly outline three critical points of mutual
intersection, namely, non-duality, the nature of consciousness, and the role of the
nervous system in yogic experience, and I suggest how a dialogue in these areas might
proceed. I argue that even though very little work has been done to date on this subject
(see Goldberg 2008), emerging cognitive theories offer scholars of religion potential
resources from which to reflect on the central haha and tantric yoga idea that iva and
aktior consciousness and mattermeet in the brain (sahasrra cakra).

2. Non-duality

Although science has been an ally of religion in India, this has not always been the
case in the West. One of the most challenging contributions of the cognitive revolution
is the displacement of deeply entrenched Cartesian categories of mind-body dualism.
By providing empirical evidence of the brains infrastructure using, for example,
sophisticated neuro-imaging technologies and micro-mapping strategies, cognitive
scientists have contributed to a radical breakdown and nearly complete rejection of the
hierarchical oppositions between mind and body based on Descartes (1596-1650) 17th
century view that human beings have a dual nature made of two incompatible
substances. Fixed oppositions between mind and body, matter and consciousness, and
the boundaries between inner and outer reality (such as subject and object) that
permeated traditional science and Western philosophy no longer seem tenable given
recent findings in cognitive science. They are being supplanted by persuasive theories
claiming a person has both consciousness, however inadequately and tentatively it is
currently defined, and corporealityand both are natural. Hence we see classic mindbody dualisms being recast in Western science and philosophy in increasingly
naturalistic and materialistic terms. The mind is no longer portrayed as the immaterial
substance Descartes once claimed it to beit is now firmly rooted in the evolutionary
biosphere of matter and thus subject to the vicissitudes of evolution and natural
selection.
Breaking out of fixed dualistic models by adopting an embodied approach is not
an issue for haha and tantric yoga where the notion of non-duality is central. Traditions
of haha and tantric yoga describe the nature of ultimate reality as advaita. In aiva yoga
lineages, the supreme god iva (purua, pure consciousness) and his consort akti
(prakti, matter) simultaneously represent interdependent and coexistent dimensions of

a unified reality (brahman). What becomes clear is that this belief in absolute wholeness
though called by many namesis intricately woven throughout the complex and
diverse philosophical, mythological, and iconographical religious traditions of India
dating back in some instances as far as the Vedas. In haha and tantric yoga, iva-akti
(also known as Ardhanrvara, see Goldberg 2002) conveys the normative
understanding of ultimate reality as well as the essence of the embodied self (tman).
As a potent symbol of the subtle transformation of human consciousness made
possible within Indian traditions of haha and tantric yoga, the iconography of
Ardhanrvara (or iva-akti) represents a powerful ideal that encodes a complex
homologous universe wherein the so-called pairs of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum),
such as active-passive, right-left, mind/body-consciousness, male-female, relativeabsolute, and ignorance and the cessation of ignorance, are concretized, to use R. N.
Misras (1989) term, in a codified language intended for the initiated, and then dissolved
or decoded in the subtle and ineffable states of wholeness realized in the higher stages
of yoga. This image bears witness to the subtle and ineffable state of consciousness
attained by adept practitioners in sabja (or samprjta samdhi), referred to by
Staneshwar Timalsina (2008) as cognitive non-duality. Thus its enactive or lived
expression lies not so much in iconographic images or in metaphysical treatises
(however significant they might be), but in the actual lives of adept yogis and yogins,
past and present.
As such, the profound therapeutic benefits that the lived experience of cognitive
non-duality (advaita) has in ever more pragmatic and empirical terms are of critical
importance to the dialogue between cognitive science and haha and tantric yoga.
Consider, for example, that cognitive scientists in the West have only recently

recognized the efficacy of yoga (e.g., sana and meditation) in the treatment of various
medical disorders including clinical depression, hypertension, cardiovascular disease,
and stress reduction, to name just a few, and that the biological system, particularly the
endocrine, respiratory, cardiovascular and central nervous systems, benefits
tremendously from the mind-body interaction cultivated in various types of yoga
practice (see Opsina et al. 2007; Alter 2004; Kireet and Cornelissen 2004; McNamara 2001;
Fields 2001; Andresen 2000; and Gelhorn and Kiely 1972). The therapeutic benefit of
these practices was known to adept practitioners since ancient and medieval times (see,
for example, Hahayogapradpika 1:31; 2:27-28; 2:55, 58; Gheraa Samhita 1:18-19; 3:28;
Goldberg 2009; Fields 2001). However, cognitive scientists can now offer precise
strategies and technologies to map the biological mechanics of these practices by
applying ideas of non-duality to mind-body medicine.

2. The Nature of Consciousness

Although cognitive scientists in the West have made significant advances in
understanding the nature of human consciousness as a natural phenomenon, it still
presents a profound challenge. The work of Merlin Donald (2001, 1991) offers a voice of
reason in what sometimes seems a rather bleak and sterile debate that is dominated by
neo-Darwinian hardliners (see, for example, Dennett 1991) who reduce all mental
processes (consciousness) to brain states. Though known more for his work on
evolutionarguing that culture changes our functional cognitive architecture, there
are three central ideas that we can take from Donald as a useful starting point for
dialogue with haha and tantric yoga on the complex subject of consciousness.

First, it is important to note that Donald does not disagree with the reigning
neo-Darwinian materialist view of mind, he simply claims their data at this time is
incomplete and inconclusive insofar as they have been driven by a 1950s AI
(Artificial Intelligence) agenda that remains focused primarily on mechanistic and
computational models of mind, for example, attention, memory, sensation, and visual
imageryor what Donald calls the lower limits of consciousness (also known as
sensory-motor performance, 2001, 59, 27). This has led cognitive scientists to
premature and ultimately unsubstantiated conclusions (27). The brain, Donald
argues, behaves more like an analogue computer than the prevailing digital model (106,
178). The problem is, we know so little about how analogue computers actually work
and this metaphor continues to reinforce a mechanistic image for what is in actuality
an organic and evolving organ. For Donald, consciousness is neither
incidental (meaning mechanistic) nor simply an epiphenomenonit is our most
distinguishing trait and the single biggest determinant of what the brain does (5).
This I would argue resonates broadly with haha and tantric yogas notion of radical
monism and thus provides a more balanced model for comparative studies over and
above cognitive theories of mind based on disembodied computational and neural
network computer prototypes as a prevailing thesis.
Second, Donald offers a clinically rooted hypothesis of working memory called
intermediate-term awareness as a corrective to the dominant hardliner approach.
During years of clinical research Donald observed time-and-again the precise moment
when stroke patients emerged from comas and regained consciousness, defined here as
awareness (63). Considering evidence from ample case histories, Donald coined the
term intermediate timeframe of awareness to refer to this recurring phenomena. For
Donald, the networks and circuits located within the intermediate or background zone

of consciousness are the ones we tweak when we try to meditate, play sophisticated
games such as chess or sports such as cricket, engage in imaginative play, dance or learn
new things (52; see also Domasio 1994, 150). Our sense of cognitive integrity and selforientation as Donald shows lies within the intermediate zone of awareness, and its
primary function is self-governance, though cognitive scientists know very little
about this domain.
Here the critical point for dialogue with haha and tantric yoga is not so much
locating the neural correlates of this domainhowever important that might bebut
rather discovering how pervasive feelings of cognitive integrity and self-orientation
arise out of matter (what is typically referred to in cognitive science as the binding
problem). Although we know very little about this domain, Donald is persuaded that
intermediate awareness is older than humanity, more basic than either language or
symbolic thought, and is buried deep within the mammalian neural blueprint (67).
With increased understanding of this domain, we might find that it helps explain our
persistent quest for meaning. In a lengthy but important paragraph that I quote here in
full here, Donald writes:
We have been driven, generation after generation, to seek enlightenment, and we
continue to strive to raise or expand our own consciousness, to look for some means
chemical, disciplinary, meditative, whateverto extend awareness. Indeed, there have
been periods in human history (emphatically not this one!) when the need for
enlightened awareness has been one of the principal drivers of society, even the
economy. Even after one accounts for their enormous economic and political
importance, the cathedrals of medieval Europe were primarily an architectural means
for achieving a simultaneous, conscious experience of light, beauty, and infinity. They

were the one place in that world where one could focus consciously on what were
believed to be the loftiest and most important issues in life, a place for personal
integration and reflection. They may have been many other things as well but in their
highly contrived and symbolic design, they were virtual environments, conceived
toward a primarily cognitive end, to focus and nourish the conscious mind, toward
gaining an experience known as illumination. (27)
Here we could easily substitute the temples of India or meditation caves in the
Himalayas for Donalds example of the cathedrals of Europe, and while Donalds
observation is useful insofar as he raises another critical point for further dialogue with
haha and tantric yoga (for example, suggesting ways to cultivate the conscious mind
using intermediate awareness), he does not take his reference to religion or meditation
further. He leaves us with only a sketch of the domain of consciousness he claims is
responsible for mindfulness meditation and a possible hypothesis to understand why
humans aspire for a sense of unity or cognitive integrity. As he puts it, it is simply part
of our neural blueprint and thus intrinsic to our evolutionary, biological self. It is
written into our genetic structure. It is just that simple. He writes,
The conscious brain can never become aware of itself, and we should not allow
ourselves to be drawn into pointless debate about why the boundaries of awareness
shouldnt encompass the brains own activity. There is simply no direct awareness of the
brains activity and no possibility of achieving it. Brain activity is the end of the line. It
is the source, never the object, of direct experience. Asking why these strange ionic
ripples can make us aware of everything but themselves is pushing the question too far.
There are limits to science. For now we must accept thatthey just do. Brains that pulse

with certain patterns of electrical chemical activity are conscious. Why? They just are.
(178)
The third point we can take from Donald is that awareness has many grades (57).
We see a similar argument put forth in David Lewis-Williams and David Pearces (2005)
recent study in cognitive archeology entitled Inside the Neolithic Mind. The basis of their
argument echoes Donalds insofar as they also claim there is a spectrum of conscious
mental states. At one end of the spectrum we find the ordinary, alert mind responsible
for everyday problem solving and rational decision-making, and at the other end we
find varying degrees of introspection and absorption that Hindu and Buddhist yogis and
yogins call samdhi, nirodha (cessation), laya (absorption), and nya. In other words,
according to Lewis-Williams and Pearce, the human mind is quite capable of moving
across the various stages of this spectrum. All agree it is normal and natural. The
question, then, that Lewis-Williams and Pearce raise is not one of competency or
capacity, but rather one of value, that is to say, which end of the neurologicallygenerated spectrumreason or mysticismdoes a particular society value?
Tibetan Buddhism, for example, typically values the introspective or contemplative
end of the spectrum as we see from the remarkable murals painted and preserved on
the walls of the secret meditation chamber of the sixth to fourteenth Dalai Lama (Laird
2000). The murals capture the visionary images of the mahasiddhas or adept tantric yogis
and have been hidden under the Potala since 1697. The practices illustrated in these
murals belong to the school of the highest level of Tibetan Buddhist tantra called
dzogchen (or great perfection). Traditionally, these tantric yoga practices were kept
secret because, according to the fourteenth Dalai Lama, they can be misleading if they
are practiced without proper guidance (9). However, under the right circumstances

that is to say, with proper initiation and instruction from an experienced guru or lama
they are capable of guiding the practitioner toward profound states of expanded
awareness or consciousness. Once this happens it is likely that the adept would
encounter many rather formulaic experiences referred to by Lewis-Williams and Pearce
as hypnogogia, including bliss, flying, spirals rainbow grids, and so on, as well as
heightened states of yogic awareness (samdhi) leading to states of complete absorption
(nyata). We also see similar references in the art, root texts and biographies of Hindu
adepts including the monumental construction of Buddhist and Hindu rock caves and
monasteries at Ajant and Ellor. They are a testament to and enduring record of the
value placed on the quest for enlightenment in Indian society as noted earlier by
Donald.

Figure 1. Mural on the wall of the meditation chamber of the Dalai Lama,
Llasa, Tibet

Figure 2. Mural on the wall of the meditation chamber of the Dalai Lama.
Llasa, Tibet.

3. The role of the nervous system

Broadly stated, cognitive scientists like Lewis-Williams and Pearce regard all
religious experience including mystical states as neurologically generated (285). This
statement would be obvious to Donald who also claims all phenomena we call mental
are caused by a tiny fraction of supercomplex living matter called nervous
systems (2001, 97). Since the goal of haha and tantric yoga practice is to nourish and
cultivate the life-animating energy or power (pra) within ones own body or, more
specifically, within the central nervous system, the view that religious experience is the

product of a living and changing human nervous system would not be earthshaking
news to haha yogis, yogins, and tantric adepts.
Not only are religious experiences neurologically embedded, so, too, our deepest
feelings of subjectivity and cognitive integrity are located within and caused by the
complex biochemical and organizational structure of the brain or central nervous
system. When we consider Owen Flanagans analogy that there are as many neurons in
the brain as there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy (2002, 36), we are at once struck by
the overwhelming complexity and neuronal potency involved in deciphering our
conscious and non-conscious states (36). The main problem facing cognitive scientists is
that most of the human brain still remains off limits and therefore it is extremely
difficult to study.
Research in cognitive neuroscience is nevertheless helping us to understand the
underlying structure of the nervous system, though there is still a long way to go. For
example, recent investigations using neuro-imaging technologies such as EEGs and PET
imaging are starting to describe meditation using the language of modern neuroanatomy. The basic idea is that the more phenomenological material is collected, the
more researchers will be able to map the mechanics of meditation, track the neural
correlates of such experiences, and explain the process using a naturalistic (that is to
say, scientific) framework. Given the potential plasticity and mutability of our brain and
neural systems such that we know experience changes the brain, cognitive
neuroscientists can begin to understand in anatomical terms the efficacy and
therapeutic benefits of the deep neurological states of consciousness on the nervous
and endocrine systems, immune function, hypertension, and anxiety related illnesses

(to name just a few), and describe how these experiences shape and determine healthy
brain structure and behavior.
Science, as Michael Shermer (1997) explains, is devoted to formulating and
testing naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena. It is a process for
systematically collecting and recording data about the physical world, then
categorizing and studying the collected data in an effort to infer the principles of
nature that best explain the observed phenomena (167). Science, as Albert Einstein puts
it, teaches us the correlation between factual evidence and general theories (Einstein,
quoted in Isaacson 2007, 6). That is all science is equipped to do. Science is not
equipped, as Shermer says, to evaluate supernatural explanations for our
observations or to pass judgment on the truth or falsity of supernatural explanations,
science leaves them to the domain of religion (167).
Clearly, I would argue that when stripped of all possible exoteric interpretation,
the enduring metaphor that remains in haha and tantric yoga is the human anatomy or,
more specifically, the central nervous system. Thus cognitive scientists can test and
offer naturalistic explanations. They can tell us what is going on neurologically inside
the siddhas mind-brain during deep states of meditative absorption, and they can
disseminate this information broadly for the benefit of others. In time, perhaps they
can also identify shared or common experiences across cultures and traditions. What
cognitive scientists cannot tell us however is how heightened states of consciousness
feel, how the quality (qualia) or affect of that deeply subjective meditation experience is
rendered from neuronal and electrochemical interactions in the body-mind, or why
meditation potentially eases individual human suffering (dukha). Science, as Shermer
noted, only studies what it can measure and monitor.

Both cognitive science and haha and tantric yoga make emphatic claims about
the non-dual nature of the body-mind. Bringing these disparate theories and traditions
into dialogue on key points of mutual intersection could help us better understand or at
least theorize using the language of modern scientific discourse the nature of non-dual
consciousness from the perspective of a living traditions repertoire of somatic
practices that heighten our awareness of it. It also is fair to say that an extensive
repertoire of somatic practices such as those offered by haha and tantric yoga is
missing in the West in spite of the preponderance of modern postural approaches to
yoga. In his critique of Maurice Merleau-Pontys notion of the inner body, Sundar
Sarukkai (2002) points out that there is an absence of a tradition of lived experience of
the inner body in the West (46). The Wests image of the body, he says, derives from a
purely biological model, it is a collection of organs, tissues, cells, blood vessels, it is
an X-rayed body (462). Nevertheless, the central argument in cognitive science that
consciousness (meaning awareness) is the product of a highly organized central
nervous system still has close connection and thus serves as useful point of comparison
with the embodied strategies and logic of haha and tantric yoga.
For example, the great yogis, yogins, and mahasiddhas understood all too well
that our bodies affect our experience of the world. If the adept is to attain some kind of
all-pervading unity with brahman or an innate recognition of iva-akti, this cannot be
done except from within a bodily experience of the world (Miller 2009, 11). In the
higher states of haha and tantric yoga referred to as sabja and nirbja samdhi, the adept
witnesses (darana) matter and consciousness in union (yoga) in the central nervous
system through a parallel physiology or subtle network of energy-infused channels
(ns) and centers (cakras) within the human body. Energy or the five vital breaths

(udna, pra, samna, apna, and vyna), variously referred to in haha and tantric yoga
as pra, akti, and kualin, circulates in the yoga and tantric body through an intricate
system of seventy-two thousand ns (channels). Three main nsthe i (left), the
pigal (right), and the suum (or central channel that runs along the interior of the
spinal column, also referred to as brahmmrga)are key to understanding this subtle
and esoteric (inner) physiology. With the assistance of advanced haha and tantric yoga
techniques (including the awakening of kualin, akticalana mudr, khecar mudr, vajrol
mudr, mbhav mudr and kevala kumbhaka, to name just a few) the practitioner
attempts to stimulate, harness, and unite the flow of vital energy from the left and right
channels at the brahmdvra (gate of brahm) and raise it (utth) forcefully (haha)
through the central channel and the six primary cakras into the cranial vault located in
the crown of the head (sahasrra cakra) or brain.
By emptying the flow of subtle energy from the peripheral channels into the
central channel (also called nyata n) and guiding it upwards into the crown cakra
located in the brain (sahasrra cakra), the adept yogi or yogin becomes aware of deeper
and more penetrating levels of non-dual consciousness. It is this realization, or what we
could call the binding (yoga) of iva (consciousness, purua) and akti (matter, energy,
prakti) that is said to occur over-and-over again in the lived bodies of self-actualized
adepts and mahasiddhas. This binding or unifying process identifies the underlying
assumption behind numerous homologies and meditation practices in haha and tantric
literature between the body of the adept (microcosm) and the ideal of universal nonduality (macrocosm) and, once again, reinforces the innate naturalness (that is to say,
physicality or materiality) of cognitive non-duality and non-cognitive non-duality to
continue Timalsinas use of the term. Although this speculative system of metaphysics

no doubt poses a great challenge to modern medical research in the West, it

nevertheless illuminates a powerful indigenous paradigm of healing and health (past
and present) within Indian traditions (Goldberg 2009; Fields 2001). Thus yogis and
yogins perform rigorous somatic techniques that include postures, as well as
withdrawing the senses, quiescence, arresting the breath, mantras, mudrs, bandhas, and
so on, as a way to cultivate and open these vital energy channels. As a result, the adept
could well experience many of the embodied signs preserved on the murals of the
meditation chamber of the Dalai Lama or referred to by Lewis-Williams and Pearce
luminosity, mirage, flying, smoke, spirals, rainbow lights, ecstasy, etc., en route to
recognizing the innate nature of the so-called non-dual mind. What literature on yoga
offers is empirical evidence that neural patterns can be influenced voluntarily. Heart
rate, blood pressure and rhythmic breathing, for example, are affected by muscular
activitythis brain-body or mind-body interaction is well documented. Yoga recognizes
this and, as we see, cognitive science is beginning to as well.
5. Conclusion
In conclusion, I have shown that although haha and tantric traditions do
typically conceive the subtle human mind-body quite differently from cognitive
science, there are at least three critical points of mutual intersection for discussion:
non-duality; the nature of consciousness; and, the role of the central nervous system in
religious experience. The goal of haha and tantric yoga is the attainment of ivahood
this involves training the corporeal elements of mind and body because matter and
consciousness (iva and akti) meet in the brain or sahasrra cakra. The techniques
described in the root literature invigorate the subtle systems of cakras and ns within
the body and enable the unimpeded flow of energy though the physical and subtle

anatomy thus inducing various neurological experiences and deep states of meditative
absorption and introspection. Yogis such as Padmasambhava recognize this as the
magical display of the mind (Laird 2000). Cognitive science and haha and tantric yoga
agree that neural connectivity is implicated in holistic experience. Thus dialogical
exchange between these disparate traditions and theories is needed to facilitate a new
science of consciousness that maps, as Donald suggests, our inner cognitive spaces in
much more detail (2001, 90). Until we do this, our search to understand non-dual states
of consciousness will be flawed and remain incomplete.

Bibliography
Alter, Joseph, S. 2004. Yoga in Modern India: The Body Between Science and Philosophy.
Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
Andresen, Jensine. 2000. Meditation Meets Behavioral Medicine: The Story of
Experimental Research in Medicine. Journal of Consciousness. 7: 17-76.
----------. 2001. Introduction: Towards a Cognitive Science of Religion. In Religion in
Mind: Cognitive Perspectives on Religious Belief, Ritual, and Experience, ed. Jensine
Andresen, 1-44. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Chalmers, David J. 2002. Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings.
Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
Dennett, Daniel C. 1991. Consciousness Explained. New York: Little, Brown.
Domasio, Antonio. 1994. Descartes Error. New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons.
Donald, Merlin. 1991. Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and
Cognition. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Fields, Gregory P. 2001. Religious Thearpeutics: Body and Health in Yoga, yurveda, and
Tantra. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Owen Flanagan. 2002. The Problem of the Soul. New York: Basic Books.
-------. 2001. A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness. New York: W. W. Norton
& Company.

Gelhorn, E., and W. F. Kiely. 1972. Mystical States of Consciousness: Neurophysio-logical

and Clinical Aspects. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 154: 399-405.
Gheraa Samhit. 1980. Sanskrit text, with English translation by S. C. Vasu, 1914-15.
Reprint, Delhi: Oriental Books.
Goldberg, Ellen. 2009. Medieval Hahayoga Sdhana: An Indigenous South Asian
Biotherapeutic Model for Health, Healing and Longevity in Acta Orientalia 70,
93-109.
-------. 2008. Cognitive Science in Studying Hinduism: Key Concepts and Methods. Edited
by Sushil
-------. 2002. The Lord Who Is Half Woman: Ardhanrvara in Indian and Feminist Perspective.
Albany: The State Univ. of New York Press.Mittal and Gene Thursby. 59-71.
London: Routledge.
Hahayogapradpika. 1972. Sanskrit text, with commentary, and translation. Madras:
Adyar Library and Research Center.
Isaacson, Walter. 2007. Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Joshi, Kireet, and Matthijs Cornelissen. 2004. Consciousness, Indian Psychology and Yoga.
Vol. 11, No. 3, History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization
Series. Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilization.
Koch, Christof. 2004. The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach. Englewood,
Colorado: Roberts and Company.
Laird, Thomas. 2000. The Dalai Lamas Secret Temple: Tantric Wall Paintings from Tibet. New
York: Thames & Hudson.
Lewis-Williams, David and David Pearce. 2005. Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness,
Cosmos and the Realm of the Gods. New York: Thames & Hudson.
McNamara, Patrick. 2001. Religion and the Frontal Lobes. In Religion in Mind: Cognitive
Perspectives on Religious Belief, Ritual, and Experience, ed. Jensine Andresen, 237-56.
Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Miller, James. 2009. Ecology, Aesthetics and Daoist Cultivation. Unpublished paper.
Misra, R. N. 1989. Indian ilpa Tradition, ipi and Aesthetics: A Study of
Correspondence, in Shastric Traditions in Indian Arts, vol. 1. Edited by anna Libera
Dahmen-Dallapiccola. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden.

Opsina, Maria B. et al. 2007. Meditation Practice for Health: The State of Research. AHRQ
Publication No. 07-E010. Rockville, Md: Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality. www. Ahrq.gov.
Pearce, David and David Lewis-Williams. 2005. Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness,
Cosmos and the Realm of the Gods. New York: Thames & Hudson.

Shermer, Michael. 1997. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and
Other Confusions of Our Time. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Singleton, Mark. 2010. Yoga Body. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sarrukkai, Sundar. 2002. Inside/Outside: Merleau-Ponty/Yoga in Philosophy East and
West, 52: 4, 459-478.
Timalsina, Staneshwar. 2008. Consciousness in Indian Philosophy: The Advaita Docrtine of
Awareness Only. New York: Routledge.

Endnotes

1. The body or physical substance called res externa, and the soul, rational mind,
consciousness or non-physical substance called res cogitans.
2. Cognitive philosopher David Chalmers has revived an argument worth noting
here in favor of dualism by suggesting that consciousness cannot be an emergent or
physical property of the brain. See Chalmers 2002.
3. Timalsina refers the more advanced states such as nirbja or asamprjata
samdhi as non-cognitive non-duality (2008).
4. Donald claims the focus in cognitive science on front-end phenomena is wrong,
utterly wrong. As we will see further on, he is more concerned with what he calls
the wider background or larger landscape of awareness (47).
Here I would point out that Donald is probably referencing a mindfulness
meditation model or stage of sabja samdhi rather than a model of consciousness
based on non-cognitive nonduality or nibja samdhi.
5. In 1994, Domasio said this was one of the least studied aspects of the brain. He
refers to it as nonmapped (151).
6. See, for example, the work of Christof Koch 2004.
7. Donald also points out that consciousness, though never itself a single thing,
allows us to track a path from the embodied self all the way to the domain of
meaning (88). Consciousness is embodied in our sense of physical self-familiarity.
Autobiographical or episodic memorythe feeling that we own our experiences
and the sense of extended selShood that we experience within the intermediate zone
of awareness are deep cultural universals. We are not, as Donald observes,
disconnected from our pasts. Consciousness is not merely passive, epiphenomenal,

or fragmentary as the materialists would have us believe. Rather, as Donald writes,

this is an ideal of existence that most people aspire to, even if they dont achieve it.
This sense of conscious power to control ones imaginary life, this striving for
personal integrity in awareness is the accepted standard by which all else in the
human cognitive universe is normally judged (88).
8. For example, EEGs to measure the amplitude and rhythm of brain waves during
meditation and PET scans to determine metabolic function as well as the brains
electrical signals during highly subjective meditative states, particularly in the
thalamus, amygdala, and left and right frontal lobes. See, for example, Swami
Kuvalayanandas pioneer experiments discussed in Alter 2004 and Singleton 2010.
Also see Joshi and Cornelissen 2004.
9. The three bodies are referred to in the root literature as sthla (physical, material
body), ukma (subtle, yoga body) and para arra (subtle most or divine body).