The brain's neurons are differentiated to execute specific functions. All sensory perceptions reach nerve centers that are specific for a particular sensory modality. However, all attempts to localize the centre for consciousness have failed.
In an experiment, an electrode was implanted in the brain adjacent to the pleasure centre of a caged mouse. When a lever was pressed, a small current would be released which would stimulate the locus of neurons and the mouse experienced a sensation of pleasure.
When the mouse realized that pressing the lever was the cause of the wonderful sensation, he endeavored to keep pressing the lever tirelessly till he died of exhaustion.
Happiness is therefore just a matter of neurotransmitters stimulating specific areas resulting in momentary gratification — a chemical reaction in the brain.
Duality is a warp in perception. In reality these partitions do not exist. They are just notional values assigned by the perceptive apparatus. They are actually variations in the intensity of only one modality.
The experiment where light is made to pass through two slits to determine if light is a wave or particle form, pronounced that light simultaneously exists as wave and particle.
This presented the scientific community with a paradoxical conclusion hard to fathom, a daunting task for the perceptive apparatus which is limited to comprehending only one of two possibilities.
Science is based on reductionism. Science teaches one to classify, make subgroups, and analyze all events as cause and effect.
It programmes the brain to fragment, not assimilate. But observations in quantum physics show that subatomic particles behave in a way incomprehensible to classical Newtonian concepts. Similarly, dark and light, pleasure and pain, cannot have an either/or existence. It is our perception that triggers this dichotomy.
Events or people get classified by the intellect, which analyses the event, compares the event with its database or memory and delivers a threat or no-threat verdict.
This makes the subject interact with the environment. This interaction is primordial in nature, in-built for survival.
The categorisation of reality into subgroups such as pleasant or unpleasant, endea-vouring only pleasant situations to prevail, causes unhappiness.
Medically, when there is a threat perception, there is a rise in heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar, which keeps the individual in a state of combat with typical responses: fight, fright or flight.
If the threat perception apparatus keeps getting stimulated too frequently, then the body, instead of shifting gears, often compensates by raising these parameters permanently. This causes high incidence of hypertension and diabetes where stress is a definitive cause.
In the enlightened state, what changes is not the environment but the perception of the environment. Consciousness is just awareness. It is non-judgmental, with no reaction.
There is no classification. It is just a witness. When perception eliminates all fragmentation, one become conscious, aware. Then we no longer get exhausted — like the mouse did, trying to manipulate the pleasure-giving lever.
The writer, a neurosurgeon, is setting up Centre for Consciousness Studies.