Does the Breakdown of the Brian Mean the Loss of Personality?

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Chris: Most people believe that the breakdown of the physical brain is the breakdown of the person. Having watched my mother suffer Alzheimer's, this is very real to me. It is also a very real situation for most other people. What do you feel about that?

Tony: The more we explore these questions, the more frequently I come back to this statement or recognition that everything around us is paradoxical. I believe that we fail to understand the nature of the universe unless we recognise its fundamental condition of being paradoxical.

I believe this also applies to what we see in terms of the link between the mind, the personality and body.

One way of looking at this situation is to use the analogy of a television set. Supposing some of the fine circuitry in a television becomes slightly damaged. For us looking at the television we would see a distorted image. Perhaps the sound quality would not be as good. Maybe the image flickers or is distorted in one way or another. To understand what is happening we might first believe that the signal being transmitted is at fault. That is, of course, a possibility. But if we ruled that out, then we would believe that there was some problem within the physical structure of the TV.

As you can see, this is quite an interesting example of the way we might look at a person who has suffered some form of brain injury or illness. Does their inability to express in the way we were used to mean that they as a person -- their signal -- is at fault? Or does it mean that there is simply a brain injury, meaning they cannot express themselves as fully as they did in the past?

My own sense of this is that the source of our personal awareness exists throughout time and space in the way that we can barely understand. But I am not suggesting at all that our waking awareness shares this condition. What we call self, our sense of self, is just a small part of the transmission that is really our total mind or being. So, of course brain damage depletes or even destroys that self most of us know. However, from the point of view I am explaining, that is just the signal, or part of the signal, that is being distorted or lost. The signal itself remains.

What our culture hasn't yet done is to find what that signal is. In other words we haven't yet really found out what consciousness is.

Earlier I was saying that what survives is the spirit. Well, scientifically we cannot yet identify something that records the experiences of human life and survives physical death. That isn't to say it doesn't exist. Science is shifting its boundaries all the time. So all we have is personal experience, and this is given us by people who have experienced the fundamental core of their mind or consciousness. This lies underneath or outside of thinking and feelings. The nearest I can personally describe it is in what was said about the mirror and the images we see in it. The images are the passing impressions of thoughts and emotions. The mirror is consciousness itself in which all the thoughts, sensations and feelings take place. We mistake the thoughts and feelings for our real self. Therefore we feel certain that we die when the body ends.

As an example of this, I remind you of what was said about Grof's experience when the dead Ladislav gave his name, telephone number and home address to one of Grof's patients, in order to tell his mother that he had survived death and was okay. (See: mention of Ladislav.)

The body of this sunflower will decay, but the life that gives it form will remain and produce other forms.

Chris: So you don't think the mind is dependent on the brain? Tony: Yes, the mind is dependent on the brain as far as expressing through the physical body and in the physical world is concerned. But I don't see that it is dependent upon the physical brain for its existence and survival. The mind does need the brain in order to gain experience of time and space, pain, and the many situations that arise from feeling ourselves isolated and alone in a physical body. Chris: You feel certain then, that the mind has an independent existence? Tony: Yes. And I believe we can see examples of this in other ways than thinking of Grof's communication with the dead. It has happened to me a number of times to have an awareness of things that related in no way to information in my brain. In such cases I believe that areas of our mind that we call the unconscious, reach out beyond anything our physical senses tell us, and gather information, or know through means of unity with other minds, things that we have no knowledge of through our body. This suggests that mind, while operating through the body, also has an independent life beyond it.

The Mind Reaches beyond the Body

My most impressive experience of this was during my first marriage. One morning Brenda woke and told me she had dreamt about the baby of two of our friends. The friends, who I will call Jane and Bob, were living about 200 miles from us. We knew Jane was pregnant, and about a week or so before the dream we had received a short letter saying their baby, a boy, had been born. We were not on the telephone at the time, so the letter was our only means of communication.

In the dream Brenda saw the baby and a voice from behind her told her the child was ill. Its illness, she was given to understand, was serious, and would need to be treated with a drug taken every day of the child's life. The reason for this illness and the drug use, she was told, was because in a past life the person now born as the baby had committed suicide using a drug.

I didn't take the dream seriously, thinking it was some sort of personally symbolic dream. But we couldn't seem to extract any personal meaning for Brenda, so just in case I sent an account of the dream to Jane and Bob. About a week later we had a letter from them saying that the letter and dream had crystallised their already existing anxiety about the baby. It had not been feeding well and was fretful. On taking it to the doctor nothing definite could be found but special tests were made in hospital. From these it was discovered the baby was dying. It lacked an enzyme which was needed to digest calcium. To compensate it was given a drug, which it has had to take every day of its life to make up for the lacking enzyme.

I don't think there can be any clearer example than that of the mind having some level of separate existence from the brain.

Having personally witnessed those events they are very real to me. But I do wonder at people who completely deny the possibility of what I have said. I wonder if there is some level of fear attached to it. In many cases there seems to be a complete denial in them, and there is always the suggestion that I, or other people like me, have made up such stories or have completely misinterpreted them in some way. All I know is that the child is still alive. He still takes his drug every day, and I wonder how they explain the fact that my wife stated all that information to me before the parents themselves knew what the problem with their child was.

In all this examination of whether there is awareness existing independently of the body, it is important to remember some fundamental things already said about our own present scientific philosophy. The first thing is that time and space were non-existent prior to the Big Bang. Secondly, Bell's Theorem points out that sub-atomic particles exist in a way that transcends time and space. Therefore, the fundamental particles of your own body exist beyond any limitations of time, space and the three dimensions we see as 'reality'. There is no better argument than this for the human spirit - an aspect of our nature that is not limited to time, space and death.

I have explored this more fully in The Brain Mind Split. Also, read Lynne McTaggarts book The Field for the latest researches regarding the fundamental level of existence, and how it absorbs and remembers all experience - in the UK - in the USA.

Chris: The other day I watched a program on the television in which a man was talking about his relationship with the recent Korean air crash. He said that he was a frequent air traveller, but before boarding that plane he heard a voice saying to him not to get on the plane. He said, "Look, I travel all the time. Why should I hear a voice like that? I think somebody was trying to tell me something." His explanation of it was that he felt there was some sort of guardian or person caring for him. So I feel this is another example of what you are saying

The Mystery of Parenthood

Chris: But moving on from that, I wanted to ask you what your ideas and feelings regarding parenthood are.

Tony: From about the age of 13 I had become very interested in the philosophies of Eastern and Western metaphysics. Such philosophies are full of teachings concerning reincarnation and karma. Some of the ideas presented were also about parenting and being involved in helping a being to incarnate in the body you help to form as parents.

As the years have passed my understanding and views about how, as a parent, we provide an opportunity and environment in which a spirit can incarnate have become more refined. Nevertheless, I still believe that as parents we are part of a continuum very few of us really are aware of. I believe the physical and psychological health of the parents is vital, and that we should not undertake parenthood lightly. I don't mean we should be deadly serious about it, but I do feel that we need to make sure we have the right atmosphere and environment for a child to be born into.

Because of my interest in this I have devoted quite a big area on my web site to reporting peoples dreams, impressions and experiences of readying themselves to receive and give birth to an incoming being. But of course, the birth is just the beginning of being parents. In some of my writings about this I have said that being a parent, especially if you are the mother, is one of the most demanding, fulfilling, challenging and rewarding experiences any of us can meet. Unfortunately, northern European and American attitudes to parenthood have moved into a strange artificial condition for many people. I see some mothers wanting to be independent of their babies almost from birth. Yet being parents is one of the most fundamental expressions of being alive. It extends and nurtures life. It is a doorway through which the future emerges. And it can also be a way of exploring one of the greatest mysteries of life - the emergence of a conscious personality from a tiny mammalian life form. I believe that the personality of a child is not innate in the physical body. Left alone without being cared for or spoken to, no personality would spontaneously bloom in the body of the child.

(See Animal Children). Any personality that does develop is an amazing weaving of parental and social relationships, interlaced with the quality and hereditary traits carried in the body. Nature and nurture work together within the framework of infinite possibilities. (See The Nature Nurture Debate).

Parenting is like a work of art, and the canvas you work with, while not a complete blank has an incredible range of possibilities. As can been seen from studies of poor parenting, and nurturing parenting, you can raise a stunted criminal personality, or a gifted radiant person. Some parts of the art need much work. It might involve some pain and struggle. But great art is never done without a full engagement of the artist. So we need to bring to our parenthood all our creative skills. You need to use your wisdom and discernment. I believe one should not let failures turn us from creating what can be a great painting.

But looking at parenting from the light of personal transformation, being a parent is a spiritual path. Strangely I have never seen this mentioned in books on mysticism, yoga or the inner life. Nevertheless parenthood has all the disciplines of great spiritual endeavour. (See definition of the word spiritual). In the incredibly intimate relationship between mother and baby, or parents and baby, you meet the mystery of LIFE face to face. In various spiritual disciplines or belief systems this is stated in a variety of ways. In Christianity it appears as, "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me." In other words you are dealing with an expression of the divine in dealing with your child. In helping your child to discover its own depths and potential, you are helping Life to discover itself.

Perhaps the greatest preparation for this approach to parenthood is for you to have opened your life to the influence of your own Core or Spiritual influence. This amounts to an attempt to live your life with fuller awareness of how who you are and what you do interacts with the depths and heights of life around you, within you, and beyond your present knowledge.

As parents we do not simply help create a body for a being who has never existed before. We are a doorway for the spirit to enter on another stage of an eternal journey into discovering its wonder and place in the scheme of things. If we are open to it, we may consciously take part in this. My own experience of this was when I dreamt that a being wanted to enter into my wife. It asked me to have sex with my wife to form a body for it. We did this and I then dreamt my wife was pregnant with a son. See Knowing the Baby Before it is Born

Art by Carlos Caban of Mexico

One of the most powerful things to recognise about parenthood however, is the connection between the emerging identity that we as parents care for, and language. In some of my explorations of the unconscious I at times met the experience of being in my mother's womb. I discovered that my identity is rooted in the integrity I felt in the womb. This integrity was a physical thing, a sense of the cells and organs of my body existing as an individual organism. The integrity arose out of the process in me of defending myself as an organism against any disrupting influence such as infections. But onto that integrity as it stretched into my early years, something strange, wonderful, frighteningly powerful was added – language. I believe that language is the software of the brain. It is a software package that radically alters the state of awareness existing previous to its installation. Without language there is no self-awareness. With it an unlimited series of concepts are formed, including the words ‘I’ – ‘Me’ – ‘Myself’ – ‘Mine’ – ‘You’. Around those concepts, those words, develops or emerges, the amazing phenomenon of self-awareness. When I stand on the shoreline of the ocean of language, and gaze over it, all I can manage to say is, “Dear God!” or “Wow!” Its immensity, its impact, is so immeasurable, so astounding, that it is beyond proper description. I have called it a software package because there are so many languages, and because each language brings us a different way of perceiving experience, and involves us in different cultural values. Each language is, in fact, a treasure house of a particular culture, its attitudes, its history and its connection with other races and languages.

But the important point I am arriving at in regard to parenting a child is that because a baby who is not taught language does not develop self awareness, does not become a person, it is important to realise that the person it does become is largely conditioned by language too. The promise a baby has in becoming a human being, is shaped almost entirely by what is passed on to it by its parents, teachers and culture. This is an incredibly important point in considering the evolution of mind or personality. The new born baby, if raised by a wolf mother, becomes a wolf. It does not become a human person. If it is raised by a bear it becomes a bear. If it is raised by an ignorant and brutal mother and culture it becomes an ignorant and brutal person. If it is raised with love and nourished emotionally and intellectually, it becomes someone capable of love and high intelligence.

However, there is still something that is not said here. It is that as a human baby we are potentially anything, and being raised as a human being might be as limiting to our potential as being raised a wolf would be in regard to our potential to learn language. This may sound a silly idea, but if the baby were raised by a being superior to humans, the likelihood is that the baby would become more than we commonly experience as a human. In a fictional way, Robert Heinlein explores this in his book Stranger in a Strange Land. What I feel is really the greatest thing to pass on to a parent is for me to say - Give much thought to language and how it shapes your view of and experience of the world and each other. Then pass on what you learn in the way you teach your child language.

Meeting the Gods

Chris: You once told me that you had met a god. What do you mean by that?

Tony: It was while I was teaching in Japan. I had met a woman, S., who had a wonderfully inquisitive mind, and asked so many questions. We spent quite some time together, and on that particular day had walked to the top of a small mountain in the evening. The mountain wasn't very high, but some of the hills in Japan are steeply sloped, and look like miniature mountains.

The mountain was forested with bamboos - a bamboo jungle in fact - with a pathway leading to the top. There were temples on the lower slopes and some shrines.

There was a light drizzle, and we sat huddled up on the top of that oriental mountain, talking about the strange mystery that life is. We talked until it was late and quite dark. Then, we walked down the mountain single file through the bamboo jungle. We came upon a small clearing in which we knew there were two upright stone monuments. But as we came to it we both felt the impact of an enormous energy or presence. To me, it seemed almost as if it were buzzing, like standing near high voltage electricity wires. We stopped, close together. S. reached out for my hand, and we stood experiencing but not seeing, something immense over and around the stones. I felt as if I had been privileged to stumble upon a jungle clearing in which a god dwelt, and it was around such the ancients built temples. We felt, without saying anything to each other, that this was a jungle god of life and death, related to the forces of the earth and the decay and growth of vegetation and life amidst the trees.

Later, in writing down my experience I wrote - As I stood and felt the impact of this eternal yet decaying spirit of life, I understood that in some way it was created out of the energies of nature by the collective life experience and veneration of generations of Japanese men and women. It was the essence of their experience in regard to death and eternity, collected through the long years of human life in the jungles of Asia. To touch this god with consciousness as we were doing was to have the honour of sharing the collective wisdom of the Japanese spirit. This god had been formed by the meditations of many people, woven into the forces of nature, into the being of this god. See God of the Jungle

Chris: Have you encountered other beings like that?

Tony: Well, I have already mentioned a little about my meetings with Christ, who appears to me to be a much vaster and cosmic being. (See Meetings with Christ). But I have, while exploring the inner world of experience beyond the physical senses, encountered other such beings. I don't think this is unusual. I believe anybody who keeps delving into the vastness of their mind or consciousness, will meet such beings.

If you have not experienced such a meeting with god-like beings, I think it is necessary for me to explain my understanding of what happens. In writing about this I said that before the experience itself, there is usually a sense of massive expansion of my field of awareness and flowering of mental/emotional energy and flow of associations. This is frequently painful at some level of my being, as if I'm being stretched, and previous boundaries burst. Also I have no doubt that what I experience is culturally determined. If I were a Hindu, I would most likely have a meeting with Krishna. Nevertheless, I still believe my awareness meets, or touches, or is confronted by, a transcendent force or principle of some sort. It is a principle that can bring major changes into ones perspectives, ones direction, and even health. As with almost any other experience, the impressions one is receiving are translated into some sort of imagery and feelings that are understandable in connection with the limited framework of language, the thinking that arises from it, and the visual impressions we gain of what we take to be an external world. In other words we give shape and quality to what are probably formless impressions or experiences.

The pilgrim bursting through to the vision of other realities.

Coming back to explaining my meetings with other extraordinary beings, one of the early experiences was in connection with what I call angels. I was at the time exploring a dream with my wife, and so was in quite an open and feeling state. Suddenly I became aware of two beings above me and slightly to my left. As I have explained elsewhere, this kind of awareness is very much like a waking dream. What is experienced is very real and not at all like a daydream or fantasy. The experience tends to have a powerful and spontaneous life of its own -- a sort of autonomy with which one interacts.

The figures were both male, and were extraordinary. I found them quite frightening because their very presence filled me with a kind of knowing about their existence. I knew them to be what I called the living dead. In other words they were human beings who had not only died physically, but had also died, or surrendered themselves totally in a psychological way. My fear arose because I understood that what we call spiritual growth took one along that path. I was frightened because I could see and know very directly in the presence of these beings that all the things I held dear to me as a human being, such as my sexual life, my desires to achieve something worthwhile and become known, my reaching out for physical objects and my desire for them, had all died in these beings.

Yet I could also see in these beings that the death of their personal ego desires and ambitions had led them to become more than human. I could see that they were transparent beings through whom poured wonderful energies of love and power the like of which I had not witnessed in anybody I had previously met. They shone with and radiated light and love from beyond them.

There is a great deal more to say about these beings but I want to describe a little of some of the other beings that I met. But a fuller description of my meeting with these living dead can be found at Angels.

The Star Beings

In January of 2003 I had an amazing dream. In it I was walking home at night in the countryside, and I looked up at the night sky, and saw with wonder that huge stylised figures made of thousands of stars danced across the sky from horizon to horizon.

It took me a long time to enter deeply into this dream, but when I did I met what I have called the Star Beings.

Because I have explained these beings and what the communications between us were more fully elsewhere, I will simply say that I recognised them as what ancient cultures have called the gods. But they were in no way like the strange portrayals of the ancient gods we see in films and drama; powerful caricatures of human beings with amazing powers. These beings did not have human form with crazy quirks, angers and desire for power that humans have. I experienced them as the spectrum of fundamental forces and energies that work together to create the universe.

However, these forces that usually we take as somehow inanimate or without awareness, like the force of gravity or the energy pouring out of the sun, I experienced as having awareness and intelligence. I knew them as existing in the water we drink and the air we breathe. I knew them as our real parents, of whose body we take into us to exist. I knew them as the beings we are constantly hurting through our destructive relationship with nature. They explained to me that we have not yet fulfilled our role, a role that placed us as the custodians of life on Earth. They also told me that the time of the Lion and the Bull are coming.

The message I receive from the ancient beings, the Star Beings, is that the time of the Bull and the Lion is approaching. This is simply a cycle just as summer and winter are cycles. And I was shown that the lion represents what we can call the carnivore. The carnivore lives off the weak or the sick. It pulls down what is old or decrepit. In the terms of the Star Beings it represents processes or forces that pull down those things in society and in the world that are ailing, that are weak, that are not flowing with the energy of life. This force pulls down what is sick -- the degenerative parts of society and of the world.

The bull, as in the ancient Mediterranean world, represents the Earth Shaker. In its most physical sense it depicts earthquakes. But it is really about forces that shake the world making weak structures crumble. So the lion and the bull together suggest incredibly powerful forces acting upon society and the world. Things, social and personal attitudes and ways of life, business practices, national and political structures that do not have a good foundation, things that are degenerate, diseased or weak will be gradually cleansed. In a way, what is weak shakes itself to bits through its own internal energy. It self destructs because it is not connected with life giving forces.

I have explained my meeting with the Star Beings more fully in Visions in the River of Dreams.

The last being I would like to describe is something I called Shaper. Again, standing before this being, meeting it, was like confronting a being so vast, so beyond my own limitations, that I felt primitive and awkward.

One way of describing Shaper is to call it an archetype, a primal energy or process in the human psyche, and therefore in the cosmos. Shaper held within itself the true form of everything. It was a source from which the shape and functions of our body arose. It was the influence that, if our true form was in some way altered by illness or damage, our true shape could be found again. If, through birth or other influences, we no longer expressed the true beauty of our form and functions, the influence of Shaper could return us to our true self. Any diversions from that true form, that wholeness, Shaper said had arisen by mistakes either in our own life, or from the past. These were not called sins, but mistakes. There seemed to be a world of difference between the two meanings.

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