Here is something to consider, where science and mysticysim come together. This is an excellent read on the brain and reality.
The reference in qoutation is "Why Won't God Go Away": Andrew Newberg,M.D.; Eugene D'Aquili, M.D. Ph.D., and Vince Rause; Chapter 3, Brain Architecture.
Everytime that the powers of the soul come into contact with created things, they recieve the created images and likenesses from the created thing and absorb them. In this way arises the soul's knowledge of created things. Created things cannot come closer to the soul than this, and the soul can only approach created things by the voluntary reception of images. And it is through the presence of the image that the soul approaches the created world, for the image is a thing that the soul creates with her own powers. Does the soul want to know the image of a stone-ahorse-a man? She forms an image.
-Meister Eckhart, "Mystiche Schriften"
quote in Mysticyism by Eveyn Underhill.
"The medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart lived hundreds of years before the science of neurology was born. Yet it seems he had intuitively grasped one of the fundamental priciples of the discipline: What we think of as reality is only a rendition of reality that is created in the brain.
Our modern understanding of the brain's perceptual powers bears him out. Nothing enters consciousness whole. There is no direct, objective experience of reality. All the things the mind perceives-all thoughts, feelings, hunches, memories, insights, desires, and revelations- have been assembled piece by piece by the processing powers of the brain from the swirl of neutral blips, sensory perceptions, and scattered cognitions dwelling in its structures and neural pathways.
The idea that our experience of reality-all our experiences, for that matter- are only "secondhand" depictions of what may or may not be objectively real, raises some profound questions about the most basic truths of human existence and the neurological nature of spiritual experience. For example, our experiment with Tibetan meditators and Franciscan nuns showed that the events they considered spiritual were, in fact, associated with observable neurolgical activity. In a reductionist sense, this could support the argument that religious experience is only imagined neurologically, that God is physically "all in your mind". But a full understanding of the way in which the brain and mind assemble and experience reality suggests a very different view.
Imagine, for instance, that you are the subject of a brain imaging study. As part of this study, you have been asked to eat a generous slice of homemade apple pie. As you enjoy the pie, the brain scans capture images of the neurological activity in the various processing areas of the brain where input from your senses is being turned into specific neural perceptions that add up to the experience of eating the pie: olafactory areas register the delightful aroma of apples and cinnamon, visual areas percieve the sight of the golden brown crust, centers perceive the complex mix of crunchy and gooey textures, and the rich, sweet, satisfying flavours are processed in the areas responsible for taste. The SPECT brain scan would show all this activity in the same way it revealed the brain activity of the Buddhists and the nuns, as blotches of bright colors on the scanner's computer screen. In a literal sense, the experience of eating the pie is all in your mind, but that doesn't mean the pie is not real, or that it is not delicious.
Similarly, tracing spiritual experience to neurological behaviour does not disprove its realness. If God does exist, for example, and if He appeared to you in some incarnation, you would have no way of experiencing His presence, except as part of a neurologically generated redition of reality. you would need auditory processing to hear His voice, visual processing to see His face, and cognitive processing to make sense of His image. Even if He spoke to you mystically, without words, you would need cognitive functions to comprehend His meaning, and input from the brain's emotional centers to fill you with rapture and awe. Neurology makes it clear: There's no other way for God to get into you head except through the brain's neural pathways.
Correspondingly, God cannot exist as a concept or as a reality anyplace else but your mind. In this sense, both spiritual experiences and experiences of a more ordinary material nature are made real to the mind in the very same way-through the processing powers of the brain and the cognitive functions of the mind. Whatever the ultimate nature of spiritual experience might be-whether it is in fact a perception of an actual spiritual reality, or merely and interpretation of sheer neuroogical function-all that is meaningful in human spirituality happens in the mind. in other words, the mind is mystical by default."
I do truly love science!
Reality has nothing to do with tangible proof, its what's in yer head laddie!
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You are a fortunate person indeed, if you can begin each day accepting the fact that during that day there will be ups and downs, good breaks and bad ones, disappointments, surprises, and unexpected turns of events.
When you have solved all the mysteries of life you long for death, for it is but another mystery of life.
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