Part 1. Man and Reality. Consciousness and Brain. Soul

In the name of Allah,

the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful!

This book will discuss issues related to man (human), his life and death, his structure and composition. These matters, in principle, will interest everyone, whether Muslim or not. Where did we come from? What is the meaning of life? Where are we going to? What is death, and is there life after death? And if so, what will happen there? How does a human being function? What is a soul, and what is a spirit? How does a person think? How does he get to know the world around him?

This first part will be an introductory one, and we need to be careful here because we will talk about some abstract aspects that (if I do my job right) will become clear in no time.

When we talk about a human, we already mean that there also is a non-human entity out in the world. There is a human, and there we have an external world, a reality in contrast to “human,” which he somehow relates to. The world goes through our consciousness. After sleeping, we wake up, returning to ourselves, just like some comfortable and cozy cocoon. Imagine standing in a tower, from which we can observe all reality from a certain standpoint. But what is that point?

So, for example, I wake up and see a window before me. I walk to that window and see a green flowering tree. If one truly seeks to scrutinize this fact, in terms of the relationship between our consciousness and reality, then the question immediately arises: does this tree really exist in the form that I am perceiving now, or is this just a figment of my mind?

Materialism states that an external stimulus activates our eye receptors, this sensation is transmitted to the nerves, goes through the nerves to the cerebral cortex, and there this electrical impulse somehow transforms into color. Therefore, according to this shallow theory, consciousness only reflects objective reality, which exists in itself.

Most people think so; this is our natural attitude. And later on, we will see that this natural attitude is correct, but on a completely different level. However, if we think about it at a physical level, it begins to crumble right before our eyes. What does “objective reality” mean, which my consciousness supposedly reflects? I see that the tree is green, but we know that dogs do not distinguish the color green at all, just as a color blind. Their world is black and white only. A person with schizophrenia will say this is not even a tree but an alien with tentacles, for example. A person under the influence of certain substances will see such detailed shades of color in the foliage of a tree that we cannot see. Which one of us reflects the objective reality? What is the truth behind this reality? Green, black, white, or any other color?

What is “reality” per se? Is the color green inherent to the tree mentioned above, or is it something that only one’s consciousness produces? If there is no “me,” will this tree remain green? According to modern physical concepts, the world is just a conglomeration of particles and waves. There is neither green, nor red, nor black. Green is simply a wavelength. And in this case, it turns out that the color green has nothing to do with reality. In reality, there are only waves of a certain length. Then why does our consciousness perceive colors at all, to begin with? How is this possible? A wave produces a specific discharge in the cerebral cortex. But what does green have to do with it? Why do we perceive this discharge as green?

And further: there is an external world consisting of physical “matter.” But what do our thoughts consist of? What does the color green in my mind consist of? Is it made of the same thing from which the tree is formed? Clearly not. There is no similarity between a tree and the thought of a tree; they are two completely different things. You can approach a tree, can touch it, can knock on it. However, you cannot approach a thought, touch it, knock on it, or cut it to pieces. So how can the dissimilar reflect the dissimilar?

In other words: our sensation, our “picture” of the green tree that we have in our head – is it an object of the physical realm so that you can measure or touch it? Is it a part of space and time? Is this “picture” described in terms of modern physics? Does it by itself consist of any particles or waves?..

This is not the case at all. My thoughts and the very images in my head are not objects of the physical world. The laws of physics do not describe them; they are not objects of physical matter.

How many “pictures” and images like this we have in our mind! It’s a whole infinite world: stars, galaxies, houses, feelings, calculations, theories, memories… Where is all this located? What place is it all exactly “stored” in? Where or when is it precisely? For example, I revived in my mind some memories from the past. I have restored all the details of how people looked, what I was thinking then…

Where is all this stored? Materialism will naively answer: simply in your brain. But how can it be stored in my brain? In what place or what form? In the form of cells, waves, sparks? Is the image of people and events encrypted in cells? How is this possible? I can even remember a place I passed a few years ago. We can resurrect any feeling we’ve experienced at a certain point in the past, like love, pleasure, pain, etc. Where exactly are these feelings stored? Recorded in brain cells? How can they even be recorded there? It makes no sense! And how much space would be required for storing this amount of information!

Nowadays, specific experiments have been done indicating that an individual can recall almost anything in his past under hypnosis, down to the smallest detail with all the nuances. For example, he can remember the number of cars he passed ten years ago and count the stones under his feet. This is an obvious indication that everything we’ve been through and seen and done is all stored somewhere. But where? Here in this little flesh box, we call “brain”? How can you fit the whole world there? And even more than the world we see before us because, in our minds, we can and do possess what is not in the external reality – for example, feelings, desires, dreams, etc.

It is quite evident that the reality of our consciousness is arranged quite differently than the reality of the external physical world. So how then can it reflect things? How can we relate to that? You can only relate to something you are similar to.

Thus, we come to two conclusions here. First: the theory that “human consciousness is a product of brain activity” is just a fairy tale. It is one of the quasi-scientific myths issued on behalf of “science” but has nothing to do with it. According to this myth, the brain stores thought, just as the liver stores bile. But you can see bile, you can touch it, while thoughts have nothing to do with the laws of our physical world. Thinking matter in a physical form simply does not exist. Thousands of studies have been carried out on this subject, billions of dollars have been spent – and all of them have led nowhere. No connection was found between consciousness and the brain. Consciousness exists and functions outside the brain and independently of the brain. 

And the second conclusion: it is impossible to perceive an entity that is not like you. My consciousness and soul perceive this reality only because they are both from the same dimension and realm. So, we conclude that “behind” this physical reality lies another, the true one, for which it is a holographic pattern and image.

Imagine a vast sea of the psyche the size of the universe – and our soul, as a part of this endlessly immense sea. Then we will begin to understand more about things. In their higher dimension, they are located in the cosmic soul. From there, everything is perceived by our individual soul. But since we are chained to the body, like a diver in his suit, we reduce them to a bodily image. Our brain is responsible for this process.

Thinking per se is not an act that takes place in our brain. Our brain is just an instrument, an apparatus of a sort, which carries out the physical transition of thought. Simply put, your brain is a system by which your thoughts are processed and filtered. Therefore, the existence of consciousness does not rely on the brain. The main task of the brain is not that of producing information but filtering and processing it and then digesting it. The use of certain substances and the implementation of specific procedures will eventuate to the blockage of your brain function, “turning off” the brain’s “filtering” in whole or in part. After that, a person can gain access to his true consciousness, which coincides with the cosmic one. This is one of the main aims of pantheistic paganism, which we will discuss later.

But for now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

In the 1960-70s, some extensive experiments were carried out with the so-called psychedelics, in which they saw substances that expand the mind, such as LSD or Mescaline. There are extensive scientific works on this matter, and even various fields of psychology stem from here, for example, Grof’s transpersonal psychology. So, in this works, based on hundreds and hundreds of carefully documented experiences of various individuals, the mind–extending effects are described, which are very similar to the so-called “mystical experience,” which we find in all pagan, non-Abrahamic religions.

Among this thorough literature work is a famous book called “Doors of Perception.” Its author is the English philosopher and writer Aldous Huxley, who spoke about his one-time experience of using Mescaline. This book had a significant impact on the culture of the second half of the 20th century.

He writes there, “I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation – the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence.” And he describes how the surrounding objects appeared before him in their true self (so to speak) – on the other side of our usual perception, as they really are. He describes the disappearance of the laws of space and time, how things in front of him began to be perceived in such intense, incredible colors and volumes, for which there is not even a name in the human language.

 Allow me to quote him. “Where the shadows fell on the canvas upholstery, stripes of a deep, but glowing, indigo alternated with stripes of an incandescence so intensely bright that, it was hard to believe that they could be made of anything but fire. For what seemed an immensely long time, I gazed, dumbly, without knowing, without wishing to know. At any other time, I would have seen a chair barred with alternate light and shade. Today, the precept had swallowed up the concept. I was so completely absorbed in looking, so thunderstruck, that I could not be aware of anything else. Garden furniture, laths, sunlight, shadow – these were no more than names and notions, mere verbalizations, for utilitarian or scientific purposes, after the event. The event was the succession of azure furnace-doors separated by gulfs of unfathomable gentian. It was inexpressibly wonderful; wonderful to the point, almost, of being terrifying. For a brief period, I had an inkling of what it must feel like to be mad. Schizophrenia has its heavens and its infernos, purgatories. I remember what an old friend, dead these many years, told me about his made wife. One day, in the early stages of the disease, when she still had her lucid intervals, he had gone to the hospital to talk to her about their children. She listened for a time, then cut him short. How could he bear to waste his time on a couple of absent children, when all that really mattered, here and now, was the unspeakable beauty of the pattern she made, in his brown tweed jacket, every time he moved his arm? Alas. The paradise of cleansed perception, of pure, on-sided contemplation, was not to endure.”

So, what happened here? The effect of psychedelic substances was known to people for thousands of years: the Native Americans used the same Mescaline to see things beyond what the physical eye can. In general, in the pagan world and civilizations, people were constantly in a state “of the extended mind,” so to speak, it is no coincidence that ancient Greeks are called “the drunken civilization”… So, these substances simply turn off the filters of the brain.

I want to point out that I only referred to these descriptions and experiments simply as scientific facts that allow us to discover how our mind functions. The fact that I’m mentioning these quotes has nothing to do with my advocation of such experiments. On the contrary, later on, we will see why such things are strictly prohibited in the Abrahamic paradigm. We will see a profound metaphysical and also logical justification for this. But first things first…

For the time being, I will mention one of the dangers of such experiments. Now, where will you end up under the influence of such substances? In the upper light regions, merging with the brilliant colors, and a rainbow of bliss? It is not sure that you will end up there. As we have said before, the brain is a filter. It filters the experience of the multidimensional reality, depriving us of seeing things for what they actually are. But that’s not all. The brain does not only prevent us from seeing heaven; it also prevents us from falling into hell. It includes protective programs keeping us away from mental destruction. The brain keeps us in such a “normal” state, as programmed by the Almighty.

So, the brain does not produce any thought on its own; on the contrary, it curtails it and imposes certain filters upon it. This is how it actually functions.

After all, how and through what organs does a person perceive such diversity in reality, as Huxley described? One could say that his vision and other organs of perception are expanding. That is not the case here. Nothing happens to our sense of vision or hearing whatsoever. They simply cannot change their function physically. For example, we cannot see beyond the violet (ultraviolet) and below the red (infrared) spectrum. People are able to see waves only in a particular spectrum, not above that range. The second possible explanation could be that the brain, in excitement, adds something to ordinary experience. That is also not the case here. The brain doesn’t have the experience to add it here.

Therefore, we must make the only feasible conclusion. By disabling the brain’s barriers, a person can see the reality that is incomparably more extensive and immense than what we usually see. By turning off and disabling the filters and processes of the brain, one will be able to gain access to the experience of the true reality that our soul comes from. The reality that a person will see after death, in Barzakh, when one is no longer bound and limited by filters of the mortal physical body, and he will see heaven and hell for what they are…

And here we truly understand that, at this higher level, the old theory of perception as a reflection of reality is true. We are like a mirror reflecting reality. The question is, what reality? Our soul is a mirror reflecting the objective reality of the World Soul. The similar reflects the similar. 

A man came to Imam Ali (A) and asked him about soul – in Arabic nafs. The Imam said, “What soul are you asking me about?” He said, “Are there several souls?” The Imam said, “Indeed, there are several souls: nafs namiya nabatiya wa hyssiya heiwaniya – a growing vegetative soul (that is, a soul responsible for the growth and movement of the physical body), a sentient animal soul, wa natiqa qudsiya – and a speaking sacred soul (that is, a soul responsible for individual consciousness, speech, and thinking), wa ilyahiya kulliya malakutiya – and the divine, angelic, heavenly soul.”

“Divine” is not in the sense that God has a soul, but that this soul is at a higher level of reality… And “angelic” is not in the sense that angels have a soul with such properties, but in the sense that it belongs to the angelic realm, Malakut… And this is the universal, cosmic Soul, i.e., the universal consciousness, the universal psyche in which there are prototypes of all things. All things come from it, and our consciousness perceives them through it. Some hadiths connect this universal World Soul with the green light of the Throne of Allah because the Throne of Allah consists of four colors – white, yellow, green, and red, and each of them corresponds to a certain level of reality.

So, the brain is primarily a tool for cutting off, shaping, and filtering the sea of meanings in the Universal Soul, in the cosmic Nafs, so if there wasn’t this filter, this sea would inundate us. The individual mind is a filter, is a gate. And again, looking ahead, let us say that all these pagan manipulations with mantras, meditations, drugs, intoxication, music, etc. – all these thingslead to one goal: turning off the filters of the individual consciousness, so that the door to universal consciousness opens, and the worlds of meanings flood the human mind.

Reality is too excessive, incredibly excessive concerning us. We are tuned only to a certain frequency. Our consciousness is a “cosmic receiver.” Its function is not to shape reality but to limit it. Our brain is just a computer monitor, which provides information. The software it runs on is in a completely different center.

The first volume of Amin Ramin’s “Man in Islam” can be purchased on Amazon at this link.

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