The Biological Origin of Human Consciousness, Thoughts & Emotions

Odeh Turjman explores the biological basis of human consciousness, self-awareness, and emotions through neuroscience and personal experience.

Key Takeaways

Human self-awareness arises from brain simulations of facial and vocal identities via mirror neurons.
The sense of existence ('I am') is linked to inner self-talk and visual self-recognition processes.
Enlightenment or pure consciousness can be explained biologically without mystical interpretations.
Loss of ego-self and inner dialogue can lead to a state of pure self-awareness distinct from body and mind.
Mirror Neuron Systems play a crucial role in verbal and non-verbal communication and self-perception.

What the video covers

Odeh Turjman experienced a radical shift in self-consciousness in 2008, leading him to explore the biological origin of consciousness.
He challenges mystical interpretations of enlightenment by adopting a scientific approach based on neuroscience.
Turjman’s research focuses on the role of mirror neurons in creating the sense of self through internal simulation of face and voice.
He identifies two senses of 'I am' arising from vocal and facial mirror neuron systems that simulate inner self-talk and self-image.
His experience involved losing the usual ego-self and inner self-talk during a panic attack after stopping medication.
During this state, he observed a transparent, projected image of his face linked to self-awareness without active thinking.
Turjman connects these phenomena to the Mirror Neuron System, which supports verbal and non-verbal communication.
He argues that pure consciousness or enlightenment has a clear biological explanation rather than mystical origins.
The book 'Life Without A Self: Unraveling the Mystery of Existence' compiles his experiential insights and neuroscientific research.
He emphasizes that self-awareness is maintained through continuous internal simulation of facial and vocal identities.

Chapters

What is the main mystery of existence discussed in the video?

The mystery is the feeling of existence or self-awareness—how we experience that we exist, which Odeh Turjman explains as arising from brain simulations of our face and voice.

How did Odeh Turjman’s personal experience influence his research?

After a panic attack and stopping medication, he temporarily lost his ego-self and inner self-talk, which led him to investigate the biological basis of consciousness through neuroscience.

What role do mirror neurons play in human consciousness according to the video?

Mirror neurons create internal simulations of vocal and facial gestures, producing the dual senses of 'I am' that underpin self-awareness and inner self-talk.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

Hello everyone. We are with Odeh Turjman today, and we will be interviewing him about his book named "Life Without A Self: Unraveling the Mystery of Existence." So, Odeh is a composer, music educator, and researcher of neuroscience. In 2008, at the age of 47, Odeh underwent an unusual life-transforming event. What ensued was a radical shift in his way of living, but he resisted labeling it as enlightenment as defined in various scriptures. He instead adopted a scientific approach in an attempt to explain his experience. After six years of extensive reading and exhaustive self-analysis, Odeh's conclusions based on his experience and neuroscientific research resulted in two scientific papers: "On the Role of Mirror Neurons in the Sense of Self" and an updated and published version entitled "Enlightenment: Exploring the Neural Basis of Pure Consciousness." And afterwards, Odeh composed all these research papers and his experiences and turned them into a book named: "Life Without A Self: Unraveling the Mystery of Existence." So, Odeh, thank you so much for doing this interview today with us.

Speaker A

The name of your book looks really interesting, and it's promising as well. It promises to unravel the mystery of existence. I guess my first question is: What is the mystery of existence? What is the mystery in it?

Speaker A

Yeah, for me, the most important part when we talk about existence is not, you know, the world outside there. The feeling of existence, you know, that we exist. This is what people find hard to understand—where it comes from. But actually, what I found is that how we feel that we exist and this sense of existence is really a very basic thing coming from our brain simulating, internal simulation, of our face and voice. So, we are constantly hearing ourselves speaking through this inner self-talk and seeing our self watching. So both of these experiences give us a sense of existence. So, you know, usually they say we have only one sense of 'I am,' but actually we have two senses of 'I am' coming from these two processes. So I think this is the main finding.

Speaker A

This is a little bit complicated to me. Whatever you said, it's just so complicated I didn't understand. But I think it's about the feeling that I exist in this world, you mean. So we experience ourselves in some ways, and we call this existence. Is that correct?

Speaker A

Yes, all our activities are accompanied by this sense of 'I,' you know. There is a feeling that 'I' exist. There is an 'I,' and this is what I'm talking about. And actually, we have two identities, vocal and facial identities, because this is how we humans evolved to communicate through verbal and non-verbal communication, and basically through vocal and facial gestures, you see. So by imitating the others to learn verbal and non-verbal communication, our brain has unintentionally created the two identities, by mirroring the others, a vocal identity and a facial identity, my face and my voice, and it keeps simulating them all the time. So you hear yourself all the time. You see yourself all the time.

Speaker A

It's a self-awareness. That's what the feeling of existence is. You are aware of yourself because you hear yourself. You recognize this is me talking, internally, and you see yourself, although most people don't realize the other one because the mind is occupied with thinking. So you don't see this other image of your face being simulated all the time. So you're constantly aware of yourself by seeing your face, literally I mean.

Speaker A

Interesting. So where did you find this information? Which kind of research did you do? And before that, why was existence, this matter you spoke of, a mystery before? And what was the thing that you found specifically by using which research papers or which experiences you went through to discover something?

Speaker A

Yes. So I started with my experiences. When you mentioned this date in 2008, I went through something where I lost my sense of self-consciousness, what they call this sense of ego-self, temporarily, and then it became discontinuous afterwards. So when this happened, what I noticed is that this inner self-talk stopped, you know, talking to myself. This was very obvious. This is the first thing that because this was gone, I lost self-consciousness. I am not aware of myself, as I know myself, my memories, my experience of the body, thoughts, feelings. Everything was gone when this inner self-voice stopped.

Speaker A

Is this kind of like passing out? What do you mean by losing the consciousness kind of experience? What kind of experience was it? What led to this, you mean, event?

Speaker A

Yes, yes. Yeah, as I described in the book, I was at that time taking some medication because I was struggling with panic attacks, and then I decided that I want to stop the medication. If this has happened to me as something temporary, then it must go. Why should I live the rest of my life with this kind of, you know, taking medication for such a thing? So I decided to stop taking the medication, and after a time I had this panic attack, a very strong one, but I decided not to take anything, not to do anything, just to surrender and whatever happens, happens. It was a very intense fear, you know, this panic attack, and then all of a sudden I felt that the fear was suddenly gone, and with the fear everything else.

Speaker A

I'm looking, I don't know who I am at that moment. I don't have any memories. I don't remember anything about me or my life. I looked at my body, I did not recognize my hands, legs. I saw something, but I didn't know what that is. So there were no feelings, nothing.

Speaker A

So that was like striking. But at the same time, I felt that I was still self-aware, but not as a body, not as a mind. No mind, no body, just self-awareness.

Speaker A

And then after some time, I noticed that what causes this self-awareness is that I can—because my mind is not occupied with thinking anymore, you know, visual images and talking and this, it was so like silent—then I started noticing that I can see an image of my face like projected in space in front of me. It's not like a colored image or like we see our face in a mirror. It's the same face. You recognize it as your own face, but it's a very transparent image. It's not colored. It's very transparent. Just doing, you know, like imitating the facial expressions, what I'm doing, and moving with the eye-gaze. Wherever I move my eyes, the image was moving with it. So it was like a mirror simulating my facial and eye-gaze.

Speaker A

And this is the first thing I tried to look in the internet, you know, to search for if there's anything as a biological mirror. Because this is what it seemed like, biological mirror. So, and then this started a whole journey of research in neuroscience because I found that there is something called the Mirror Neuron System. And several research papers say that there are more than one Mirror Neuron System, two actually in one particular research paper. One for the simulation, internal simulation, of vocal gestures, which is language and words, what we experience as an inner self-talk. And the other one is a Facial Mirror System.

Speaker A

So, from here I found that there is nothing mystical about this kind of experience because in spirituality they call it enlightenment and pure consciousness. But by discovering its biological basis, I found that now we have a very clear, at least for me, a clear explanation of what happens in such an experience. There is nothing mystical. There is nothing spiritual. It's just how our brain functions.

Speaker A

Okay, so I have some keywords here and some questions that I want to understand better. When you felt this experience, you weren't thinking at all, but you were somehow self-aware of yourself, right? So how exactly does this happen? If you don't have any thinking, you look at your hand, and what do you say to yourself? Do you say to yourself, "What is this?" Because if you say to yourself, "What is this?" then it becomes a thi-

Speaker A

when this happened what I noticed is that this inner self-talk stopped, you know talking to myself.

Speaker A

This was very obvious. This is the first thing that because this was gone, I lost self-consciousness. I am not aware of myself, as a I know myself, my memories, my experience of the body, thoughts feelings. Everything was gone when this inner self-voice stopped. Is this kind of like passing

Speaker A

out? What do you mean by losing the Consciousness kind of experience? What kind of experience was it?

Speaker A

What led to this, you mean, event? Yes, yes. Yeah, as I described in the book, I was at that time taking some medication because I was struggling with panic attacks and then I decided that I want to stop the medication. If this has happened to me

Speaker A

as something temporary, then it must go. Why should I live the rest of my life with this kind of, you know, taking medication for such a thing. So I decided to stop taking the medication and after a time I had this panic attack, very strong one, but I decided not

Speaker A

to take anything, not to do anything, just to surrender and whatever happens happens. It was a very intense fear, you know this panic attack, and then all of a sudden I felt that the fear was suddenly gone and with the fear everything else.

Speaker A

I'm looking, I don't know who I am at that moment. I don't have any memories. I don't remember anything about me or my life. I looked at my body, I did not recognize my hands, legs.

Speaker A

I saw something but I didn't know what that is. So there were no feelings, nothing.

Speaker A

So that was like striking. But at the same time I felt that I was still self-aware, but not as a body, not as a mind. No mind, no body, just self-awareness.

Speaker A

And then after sometime, I noticed that what causes this self-awareness is that I can - because my mind is not occupied with thinking anymore, you know visual images and talking and this, it was so like silent - then I started noticing that I can see an image of my face like

Speaker A

projected in space in front of me. It's not like a colored image or like we see our face in a mirror. It's the same face. You recognize it as your own face, but it's very transparent image. It's not colored. It's very transparent. Just doing, you know, like imitating the

Speaker A

facial expressions, what I'm doing, and moving with the eye-gaze. Wherever I move my eyes, the image was moving with it. So it was like a mirror simulating my facial and eye-gaze.

Speaker A

And this is the first thing I tried to look in the internet, you know, to search for if there's anything as a biological mirror. Because this is what it seemed like, biological mirror. So, and then this started a whole journey of research in Neuroscience because I found that

Speaker A

there is something called the Mirror Neuron System. And several research papers say that there are more than one Mirror Neuron System, two actually in one particular research paper. One for the simulation, internal simulation, of vocal gestures, which is language and

Speaker A

words, what we experience as an inner self-talk. And the other one is a Facial Mirror System.

Speaker A

So, from here I found that there is nothing mystical about this kind of experience because in spirituality they call it Enlightenment and Pure Consciousness.

Speaker A

But by discovering its biological basis, I found that now we have a very clear, at least for me, a clear explanation of what happens in such an experience. There is nothing mystical. There is nothing spiritual. It's just how our brain functions. Okay, so I have some keywords

Speaker A

here and some questions that I want to understand it better. When you felt this experience, you weren't thinking at all, but you were somehow self-aware of yourself, right? So how this exactly happens? If you don't have any thinking, you look at your hand and what do you say

Speaker A

to yourself? Do you say to yourself what is this? Because if you say to yourself what is this then, it becomes a thinking. If there is no thinking, what do you mean by self-awareness? Yes, so like I said, we have two senses of self-awareness. One that comes with

Speaker A

thinking and the inner self-talk, and the other ones with the mirroring of our facial gestures. But let's talk about the one you're mentioning now, which is related to the body experience and recognizing things. So actually, when I looked I didn't have any questions,

Speaker A

just was amazed looking, but I don't know what I was looking at. I didn't ask myself: what is this? you see. And I tried to explain - so like you're right about it, if there is no thinking, the ego self is not there, then how do you know that you were in that

Speaker A

state where there were no thoughts? How can you talk about a thoughtless state without using thought? you see - So my explanation is that, and this is what happened also with me from my experience, is that Self-consciousness is not gone permanently. It becomes

Speaker A

discontinuous. That is if such an event happens in this strong sense, it goes for some time, a short time, and then it comes back. But then it also stops and comes back. So it becomes discontinuous, coming and going coming and coming. From that time on, this is what's happening

Speaker A

with me. So my explanation is that, and also I found support in my research in science, is that there are two like levels of memory. The first one is the sensory memory, very basic, where sensory perceptions are stored for a short time in that in that memory, okay. And then, as

Speaker A

humans, what happens is that there is another level where the brain recalls the word we have learned, or label, about what has been perceived, you see. For example, if I see like a three now, at the first level only a picture, an image, of the tree is stored in memory, sensory memory.

Speaker A

Then the brain recalls the word 'tree' and when it recalls the word tree, it recalls with it the multisensory memories, long-term memories. Whatever you have learned about it, it's color like I said, the smell, touch, your feeling about it. So it's a multisensory

Speaker A

experience. What you have learned. So, what happens in that situation I'm talking about is that the second level stops. There is no translation into words and long-term memories. So whatever you see, you know the the image of looking at my hand, is stored in

Speaker A

memory, you see. But there is no...I don't know what it is. There is no question. Now when the memory is back and the self is back, then it recalls this and said: there was this moment where I looked

Speaker A

at my hand I could not recognize it. So it happens afterwards, you see. But if it's permanent, you will not know that something happened to you because you will be lost forever, you see. No self anymore, no thoughts, no feelings. You will not exist anymore. So can we say you experienced a situation

Speaker A

that people experience while they are in a unconscious state, for example when they pass out for example, or when like they give anesthesia to us before the surgery so we lose our Consciousness and go into different kind of

Speaker A

state and do not remember anything, we don't feel any pain, blah blah. So can we say you experienced something really similar or maybe same situation, but your senses were on, like you were able to see, you were able to smell, you were able to do everything, but you were

Speaker A

in a state, mentally, that happens in those other situations. What I'm talking about here is that sensory perceptions are working normally. Like you said, you see, you smell, you touch and even you can speak because you don't need memory to speak. Even there is a case about a

Speaker A

musician who lost memory and could recall only - I forgot his name you know it's very famous this story - only the last I think 30 seconds. That's all he can recall and then they are wiped out and start over again and again. So the longest memory he can have for 30 seconds and then it's gone.

Speaker A

Now he's a musician and when he played the piano, he could play the whole piece, okay, and then when when it stopped, everything was gone, you see. So there is some kind of like we are programmed. Even in the absence of thinking and long-term memories, some some things are

Speaker A

conditioned that they don't need any consciousness or self-consciousness. We can just execute them without need for self-consciousness. Many things are like that.

Speaker A

So you still can function, but you you have no sense of self, you see. There is a sense of self but I mean not the usual one not the ego, the thinking self. And there is no experience of a

Speaker A

body because there is something biological still there, but you don't recognize it as a body, and even as your body, no. It's gone in this sense as an experience.

Speaker A

So no long-term memories. You don't know who you are. You cannot recall anything. So in such a state, you cannot, for example, understand speech because understanding somebody speaking you need the words. You need the Echo-Mirror System to echo the words

Speaker A

in your head and recall the multisensory memories, otherwise you hear somebody speaking but it's noise. You don't know what they are talking. So in such a state you'll not understand speech, or plan for the future because planning needs to recall what you know,

Speaker A

past memories, and build on them, start from there. But if there are no long-term memories, no words, you cannot plan. You cannot like I said experience having a body. No self. You cannot understand speech.

Speaker A

But you can function in some other way. Like I said sensory perceptions are fine. You can eat, you can do many things. what you have learned to do automatically without needing what you call thinking and the long-term memories.

Speaker A

It reminded me the difference between cache memory and main memory in computer systems computing as well. Maybe they're designed in the same way. Cache memory is CPU and it's integrated directly into this chip and provides high speed random access to the latest kind of things.

Speaker A

Yea, you're right. Even how we organize our folders on the computer, this is how we're like imitating, how our memory works. Because you create a folder, you give it a label, a name, you see, and in that folder you find different videos, audio,

Speaker A

different experiences stored in there. So if you have a file but you have no label for the file, you have no way of recalling it. It's there stored in the computer, but you cannot recall it. So the same with our memories. They are encoded and recalled through the

Speaker A

labels. What are the labels? The words that we learn about our experiences, to associate with the experience. So no word, no memory. You cannot recall it. The memory will be there in the brain. What happened with me is that I did not lose the long-term memories

Speaker A

permanently. They are there. But the brain cannot recall them. So what were you able to understand at that point? Was there anything familiar in this like discontinuous moment that you lose your Consciousness but yet have self-awareness? You were looking

Speaker A

at your hand you weren't recognize what this is, but you were able to recognize there is an exist you and this is your body. And when you look at your surroundings, were you able to understand you are in a like in a place, square- shaped place, probably a house, somebody's

Speaker A

house, you don't know whose house is this, like what was the Consciousness? Was it like a state, an experience that alien sent into our world and wasn't able to understand what's going on at all, or was that in other like stuff in the cash memory that you are talking about? Yeah

Speaker A

I think because like I said the memory will not be erased, you see. It's there. It's how the brain functions, you know. How it recalls things. So just the long-term memories, the words and long-term memories are absent. So it cannot recall them. So that second level of processing is absent.

Speaker A

But the first level is still functioning. So what happens at the first level is that, for example, if you look at the house, okay, if it's your house you'll not know it's your house but there is a visual recognition of the house, you see. There's a sense of familiarity, like you know it.

Speaker A

But you don't know what it is. You don't know that it's a house, that it's your house, but there is a sense of familiarity, yes. Why? Because the brain already has stored the image of the house as something familiar. It's familiar. It's not something new, strange, but you don't know

Speaker A

what it is. You cannot say this is my house, okay. So do you think this experience is much of a link with the thing that some people refers as Enlightenment. I think there's a lot of confusion about Enlightenment, you see, because it's within the spiritual world

Speaker A

and spiritual literature and it's dealt with in this way. And this like does not provide the opportunity to understand what what it really is. So I like to call it the "discontinuous state" and also I like another term that I heard also, it's called the "Natural State".

Speaker A

So it's closer what I'm describing to you can call the Natural State. Now Natural State is similar in some ways to what they describe in Enlightenment.

Speaker A

But the way you look at it and understand it, it's through physical, biological means. You don't need, there's no like I said any mystical or spiritual thing about it.

Speaker A

So for example, in what they call Enlightenment, they describe something similar is that there are, you know, they call it the silent mind state or no-mind State, because the thoughts become silent inside. But what they talk about is direct perception.

Speaker A

And this is what I'm describing in how memory works is that at the sensory memory level, first level of processing, there is no like interpretation in the sense of words and long-term memories. It's just recognition of the image itself, or, if

Speaker A

it's a sound, recognizing the sound by recalling the image associated with the sound, for example. That's all. No words, no long-term memories. You don't know more than that.

Speaker A

But this is not direct perception even, you see. To call it direct perception it's because there is no real understanding of the brain. And this is what I also try to to explain, you know, from Neuroscience, is that even what they call Direct Perception, without any

Speaker A

thinking, without any thought,, the brain needs, for example, about 100 milliseconds to process a visual image, you see, for example like I said a flying bird. It processes different aspects: its movement, colors, shape and then integrate these three things in one visual perception. And then

Speaker A

there's an awareness of the bird, not self-consciousness, sensory awareness. Just that there is this thing flying there, okay. So 100 milliseconds it's not a direct perception.

Speaker A

By the time your brain captures the image, just the image without words without thinking, the bird has already moved. I see, okay. Your brain does not process it in the same time leap that bird passes by, basically. So, these are the kind of misinterpretations.

Speaker A

That's why the label Enlightenment has many misconceptions, because they try to put it in some like mystical, spiritual world. So this is one thing, for example. You understand that there is no direct perception even in the absence of thinking. You find, realize, that what

Speaker A

they call the Pure Self-Awareness, or the feeling of Presence, 'I Am', that stays there after thinking is gone, after the ego is gone, it's not a pure Consciousness. It's not an eternal thing. It is this visual mirroring process I was talking about. There is a simulation of the

Speaker A

self-face that continues because these are two separate systems in the brain. If the inner voice and self-talk stops, the other system is not affected because it's it has another job, which is mirroring of the face. So they have no relation. So when this is gone, this one goes on.

Speaker A

So what happens in this state is that, now, there is no experience of a body, because the body, the thoughts, the feelings, perception of space, time are all experienced through the inner self-talk and the long-term memories that come with it, which we learn through language. So when this stops,

Speaker A

you lose all of these. No body. No like I said thoughts, emotions. No experience of space and time.

Speaker A

But still that self-awareness from the mirroring of the self-face is going on. So what happens, you feel self-aware as somebody looking, watching, because it is a mirroring of your face, you can recognize it. And it's moving with the eyes, so it gives the impression of a watcher, of somebody

Speaker A

observing, looking. But this watcher is bodyless, thoughtless, emotionless, timeless, you see, spaceless. And this is what created the sense of oh wow this is pure consciousness, eternal consciousness. This is our true eternal nature. We are this pure...you see where the mess started.

Speaker A

So they are right about how they described it . This is what you feel really in that state. But they didn't know where this other self-awareness that stayed there came from, you see, this feeling of Presence. Where does it come from? How did you see yourself in front of you,

Speaker A

observing yourself in this thoughtless state? Did you actually see yourself? Yes, we all do, but we don't notice it because this is how we humans communicated before the evolution of language, through facial gestures and eye-gaze, pointing to each other and to things. Eye-gaze and facial expression were how we survived before the

Speaker A

evolution of language. So there is a mirror system that helps you learn these and imitate the others. So it's still there functioning in us, but now it's not obvious because it has been taken over by the other system, which is now more dominant, which is thinking, you see.

Speaker A

And with thinking all these thoughts, images. So it's obscured. It's there. So most people experience it as a feeling of presence, okay. Very few people saw it visually.

Speaker A

So this phenomenon can be experienced either visually, literally seeing your face as happened with me and some other mystics that I read about okay, or as a feeling of Presence.

Speaker A

You feel that you exist, I am, but you don't know where this feeling is coming from.

Speaker A

It has some visual feeling to it. That's why they call it Watcher, Observer. It's a visual description, but you don't see it literally, you see. Because of other things, they are like more present and They surround our head and we are not able to see these like things going on behind in our heads.

Speaker A

Yes. So why do you think people want to chase something called Enlightenment from the first place? Why do we wanna get rid of our thoughts? Or do we all? Or is this something we should do? Is this something should we chase? Because in my life I'm a spiritual person and I was

Speaker A

experiencing this a little bit and I was trying to get into this more but what is the purpose of it?

Speaker A

You know for me as somebody who hasn't chased it, maybe I don't have the right answer. It just happened to me by accident.

Speaker A

I was trying to get rid of fear and this is what happened. So I was not seeking it. But Enlightenment is linked to the end of suffering, you see, and people generally suffer. And suffering comes mostly not from the life conditions, the physical daily life, it's from the inner

Speaker A

self-talk and the emotions that come with it . You know it's like turbulence inside most of the time. So the idea if you have like a silent mind, then this will be gone.

Speaker A

You will be at peace. You will not suffer anymore. So I think this is it. But when they understand what it is, I don't think they will seek it in the same way they are doing now. First of all it has

Speaker A

to be discontinuous because if it's permanent - you know some spiritual teachers talk about permanent state of Pure Consciousness and I think this is not accurate, you see. Because if it's permanent, like I said you cannot understand language. You cannot plan.

Speaker A

You cannot experience anything, even the taste of food. You don't know what you're eating., you see. Smelling, you don't know what you are smelling. There's no experience of anything at all.

Speaker A

But at the same time look at them, all of them you know, all the so-called spiritual teachers, they all understand speech. They can plan. They can interact with people.

Speaker A

Have experiences. So they were not in a state of Enlightenment they were talking about, you know as a permanent state of what they call Pure Consciousness. So this is one thing When people understand no it's not what you are told. You will

Speaker A

lose all of these things. And if you're lucky and it becomes discontinuous, also it creates a problem. So my question is: is this discontinuous state still happens to you? Do you still lose your consciousness times to time? Yes, yes. Okay. If there is no stimulation

Speaker A

for something that needs words and the recall of memories then it stops. It's not there.

Speaker A

So that's how it functions. That's I think how we all function. The problem is that, what I found is that if a brain system is overstimulated, it becomes autonomous. And we when we grow up, language is something very important. So we learn to imitate and repeat

Speaker A

words to ourselves. And because this system, which is the mirror system responsible for inner speech and mirroring of others language, is overstimulated it becomes autonomous. So we keep talking to ourselves even when it's not needed. Why do you need to recall a word

Speaker A

every time you look at, for example, a cup. You know it's a cup but it's automatic.

Speaker A

The word cup comes in the brain and then the memory of what you know about the cup.

Speaker A

So even very basic simple things. So that's the problem. That's why people are seeking how to be free from the mind, how to be enlightened. Because they think they will put an end to this autonomous process. Okay, but as you mentioned

Speaker A

Maybe the Enlightenment is not the thing we imagine. If you close off your mind, what is the difference between killing yourself and getting into Enlightenment state? You know in a society like we're living in today, if you're enlightened in the sense they talk about as a permanent loss of thinking, you will

Speaker A

not be able to function in the world anymore. Simply you know. You have to find somebody to take care of you. Like I said the basic things you will do them, you see, but you cannot have some long-term, for example, plans, or dreaming, or

Speaker A

desires. Even if you have a desire it will be terminated the next moment. It will end.

Speaker A

So you cannot maintain anything. You cannot function, you see. You need somebody to take care of you. But when it's discontinuous, you find this balance, you see, using thinking when you can to do whatever you can to survive and when it's not needed it stops on its own.

Speaker A

So the problem is when we see something, our brain always recalls the meaning of it. Brain always creates, or maybe not brain, maybe us. I don't know the difference between mind, body, soul and We, 'I'. Like who is who? and it's good to think like oh my brain, my mind

Speaker A

creates these thoughts, but then you discriminate yourself from the mind and then it becomes a little bit like mixed situation. You know when you understand how they are related physically, biologically, there will be no confusion, okay. So what is mind?

Speaker A

because you have this mind-body problem, brain-mind, that these are two different things. That is if you like open a brain, you will not find the experience there. You will not find the mind. So the mind is non-matter. All this kind of talk it's, for me,

Speaker A

it's nonsense, because what is mind? Mind is the, how we experience the mind, is the inner self-talk and the memories that come with it, you see, including the emotions. This all one multi-sensory experience, this is what you call mind. So it's really the functioning of the

Speaker A

brain because there is a mirror in the brain that simulates the word when you're a child and then it keeps repeating them, and another system that recalls the memories associated with the words.

Speaker A

When you learn them, you learn them in a multisensory experience. So it captures that and keeps on recalling it. So there is no mind separate from the brain. It's this process that the brain does. This is what you call mind, first of all. The body is also not separate. Why? Because

Speaker A

if this inner self-talk stops, the body disappears. So the body is also a functioning of the brain, and a functioning not biological functioning. You learn it through language. How do you learn to experience your body? By learning literally about it when you're child. This is

Speaker A

your hand. This is your leg. This is your nose, your eyes, you see. And all the time, like you keep recalling when you look at the cup like I said, the same you do with your body. Every time you

Speaker A

look at your hand, the word 'hand 'has to come and the multisensory memories, the knowledge, you have about the hand has to come in order to experience that this is your hand and you're having a body. So when this knowledge is not there, the body also disappears. So they are all

Speaker A

function of the brain through the use of language. This is how we learn. So what you call mind, what you call body is the consequence of language and these are done by processes in the brain. So it's all the brain, and the brain also as a part of the body, the whole body, you see.

Speaker A

And emotions are not separate from thoughts, you see, If there is no thought, there is no emotion.

Speaker A

This is what maybe people don't realize. They think that these are two things, the body feels something, the brain may be thinking about something, or you could feel an emotion without a thought accompanying it. It's not possible.

Speaker A

What about pain though because body feels pain. So mind creates feeling of self-awareness of the body, therefore, we can say mind creates the body.

Speaker A

But there is also a physical existence of the body and it can also feel and get damaged if you harm it, since it has a physical appearance and you can still feel this pain in your body.

Speaker A

You can feel but you cannot experience, you see. You experience only through recalling the words.

Speaker A

Without the words, there may be pain but you will not know that there is pain, that you are in pain.

Speaker A

So there could be a sense, but it wouldn't necessarily have to be a pain, and you wouldn't like feel it's something I'm suffering right now. It's just a sense. There's no suffering. There is pain, a sensation of pain because for the body it's important. It's a signal to act, to do something

Speaker A

about it, okay. But there will be no experience of pain. No suffering. Like I think it's in the book that you may be screaming in pain but you will not know it. The body may be screaming, but there is no You and there is no experience of pain. So what about the emotions?

Speaker A

Let's go back to them. The emotions it's the same. How do you know that you are sad, for example, now, if you have this feeling? You have learned to experience it, to recognize it. Because as a child, if you were crying because you fell down or because somebody took

Speaker A

your toy or any of these cases, then a grown-up, you know father mother I don't know who, comes to you and say: "why are you sad?" Okay. So the word sad now is related to the sensation, physical sensation, you are feeling and the whole experience you're having now, including

Speaker A

the physical sensation of the body, okay. From then on, every time this sensation arises, the word sadness, sad, comes and with 'sad' the whole multisensory memories, and then you experience it as an emotion, okay. So it should have gone in one second, now it will become continuous

Speaker A

through thinking. Because now you have recalled the memories and you can experience it and why? and so on, and how can I get rid of it? Yeah. It just becomes a continuous problem in your life you mean. It has gone long time, you see. It's because you label

Speaker A

it though, because the experience was there and there was like pain, sadness, whatever it might be that in a sense we label it. But then when you say this is sadness then you give kind of more power into the experience itself. Maybe that was one time thing...Not more power in the experience.

Speaker A

You create the experience. There was an experience. The child was crying, but do you mean like maybe it wasn't crying because of the sadness, it was just crying? There's a difference between crying and feeling this physical sensation of like stress and tension because of

Speaker A

what happened, and experiencing it as pain or as sadness or as, you see. Without the words, you don't know you are in that state, you see. It is there and it is acting, but you will not know that you are in that state. There is no You and there is no experience of what

Speaker A

is going on. So what is the harm of labeling things then, because the child was already experiencing this frustration, stress, whatever it might be. No, that's the thing. It was not experiencing until it learned the word. Before that there is no experience. It's just

Speaker A

like anything. If you smile, if you cry, if you feel this, if you hurt yourself, it's all the same, you see. There is no experience. There is no preference for one thing over the other. It's just states, physical states happening. If they create long-term damage, they will

Speaker A

sustain, or be prolonged. If not, they will go in an instance and so on. But there is no experience. The child doesn't know and will not seek to do something about it.

Speaker A

Unless you learn that it is this, you see. Then you experience it, and with the experience comes what you know about it, what shall you do about it, what you want, what you need and so on.

Speaker A

And this also applies to love. The topic that I wanted to speak today, precisely, but Odeh wanted to go with more general, take a more general approach. And let's go back to love, yes. What about love? Yeah, because to talk about love, you have to start from the place we started, you see.

Speaker A

To see the root cause of everything, the physical, where it comes from. Then you will understand what it is, and if you have to deal with it, how to deal with it. But if you don't understand what it is, it will be difficult. So love, you know people try to deal with love as something

Speaker A

different from the other emotions, or something that is desired like I said, or something they seek even as a solution for their problems, solution for your separateness. Because of the sense of self, you feel separate from life, from the people

Speaker A

around you. There is me and there is the other. So through love, you try to re-establish this connection, feel that you are not separate, that you belong, that we are one, you see, But the kind of love that people experience does not solve this problem.

Speaker A

What creates the separateness again? What is that we feel, that we lack of? Not lack, physically. There is a process inside, a physical process, that gives you a sense like we said of existence, of 'I', because you hear yourself talking all the time. You recognize this as 'I am

Speaker A

speaking', this is 'I'. And you see yourself, or feel it as a feeling of Presence, and also another 'I'.

Speaker A

So you feel that you exist because of these two identities. You recognize that my voice is different from the other person's voice. My face is different from the other person's face. So you have your own identity, physical identity. This is the source of the 'I', okay. And this creates

Speaker A

a separateness, because there is 'I' and there is the other. What is the other? Another voice, another face. And on that, you build what you call the social part of the self. What is the social? What you have learned. Your, for example, preferences, personality,

Speaker A

desires. All what you have gained through social interaction. This will not be possible to be experienced as a self without the 'I'. So the 'I' is the basis. It's a physical process. It is your two identities and with those identities you build a whole social aspect around it.

Speaker A

from your own interaction, you see. Okay, so we seek for love for that reason. So you feel separate because you are physically separate, from this inner process because it's continuous. So you want to reconnect like I said, to re-establish a relationship to minimize

Speaker A

this feeling of separateness, of being lonely, of being not one with the world around you.

Speaker A

But it will not work, because this feeling of love is coming from the same place, you see. How did you learn about love? The same way. You looked at movies, other people talking about it. This is what they call love, you see. So by giving it a name, you start experiencing

Speaker A

it like the other. There's no difference between how you experience love and sadness, or love and anger. The same. The same way. The same process, okay. But you say I like this one and I don't like the other one. I don't want to be angry because anger causes you problems in your

Speaker A

relationships, with the society, but love it's desirable. It gives me, you interpret it as a good feeling, okay. But physically, basically, they are the same and they are processed in the same way. So they come from this feeling of separateness, from this feeling of Self, okay. That's why I say

Speaker A

that love is selfish in its nature, you see. When you say to somebody I love you, okay, where does this feeling come from? It's because of what the other person makes you feel. You love yourself and it's a reflection of your love or wanting to love yourself even. Yes.

Speaker A

Because you don't want to feel separate from others and then maybe changing your partner, the person you're with, also comes from the same place. Because if it's it doesn't fit into the thing you see in the movies or in the label that you had in your mind about relationships, then it

Speaker A

doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel something desirable anymore. Yes. Actually what you you love is the feeling that this relationship gives you, not the other person, you see. That's why when a problem happens and the other person is like now

Speaker A

something changed, is not giving you the same kind of feeling, you say I don't love you anymore, you see. So it's not about the other person because otherwise if they have changed, you should keep loving them no matter what they do, no matter what state they are in, no matter what

Speaker A

problem happens. If there is real genuine love in a sense, that is comes from another place not selfish, then it should stay there. But it goes, you see. Because what you like, what you're interested in, everybody you know, not the other person, the feeling that I have from

Speaker A

this, that I get from this relationship. If this feeling is not there anymore, then I don't want that person, please go. Some says they love their partners without any expectation and I think it's never 100 percent never expectation, but you can lower your expectations. But what I think

Speaker A

is when you wake up someday and see your partner is completely changed in in ways, becomes really rude to other people, or looks down on you in some ways, or does not treat you out, would you still be able to love that person? And then when I think about this more, then I understand love is

Speaker A

not something unrelated with the expectations or it's just an image and you always evaluate that image whether you are able to love that person or not kind of if it makes sense.

Speaker A

It's all about me. How I feel. What this person makes me feel. This is the whole point.

Speaker A

So if this feeling has changed because this person has become like you said rude or is not appreciating me anymore or something happened that I don't feel the same feeling, then the person is also gone with the feeling and sometimes that's why it turns into hate even,

Speaker A

you see. So from love to hate. That's why I say love and hate are two sides of the same thing, you see. They are not opposites. In your book, you say what you call Love Is no different from hate. Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. love is violent because

Speaker A

hate is already embedded in it. It is only a matter of time before love reveals its other face. It's kind of like bold thing to say, but also there is some truth in it. I also was thinking, what do you think about the love that mothers feel to their child? Where does this come

Speaker A

from? And do you think it's because... Is it a love that is a creation of yours?

Speaker A

So what I feel is it's kind of more noble love in a sense what God would feel to its child because he she created this child. So it's kind of different type of love? But what I wonder is, is there any type of love that is like selfless and can be? And what is this

Speaker A

type of love that mother feels to their child? Okay. So in a selfless state, I mean selfless not psychological, selfless is that when this self-experience physically stops, you cannot experience any emotions or any feelings, including love, any kind of love.

Speaker A

So if we talk about the mother's love, it's not different, I'm sorry maybe this is not what people would like to hear, but it's not different from the other kinds of Love. Why? because the mother recognizes the child as my child. There's a separation there. There is me and there

Speaker A

is my child, okay. Now there is a mixture there because there is still this part from nature, from genes maybe you know that there is this relationship. But not love, you see. Love is experienced, even between a mother and a child, in the same way you experience everything else

Speaker A

because it's born out of this sense of separation, it's is born out of what you have learned, language and to call it and name it and the memories about it and what a mother should be.

Speaker A

Because, you know, you find some mothers blame themselves that "I don't feel anything towards my child". She feels something wrong with her, you see, because the norm is that as a mother you should feel this way. This his is how... But this is an experience you learn and something

Speaker A

in you that you don't have this feeling. So? But, you see, you feel guilty. You feel something wrong with you. But no. Even the mothers that love their children are not different from those who don't love their children. It's born from the same place. In nature, you know, how love expresses

Speaker A

itself it's different. It's not out of this feeling or emotion. It's different. How it shows itself in the nature? Is there anything as love in a sense that we label it in nature. No, no. It's just I think more like protection, care. Maybe you can call

Speaker A

it care, as a survival you know, because if the child does not survive, then the whole species will be gone. So it's genetic. It's part of the survival mechanism to take care. We don't have that anymore. Everything is through thinking for us. Yeah. From there I actually want to go into some

Speaker A

another deep conversation, but maybe we can do it in a later time. It's about feeling the empathy towards other people and feeling this Oneness. And toward that feeling, with that feeling, we experiencing this like pure love state or a state that you care about other individuals

Speaker A

and you see them or maybe all other living beings as a part of yourself ideally and then therefore it's just a big big love that you feel towards everything, including yourself.

Speaker A

So I want to talk about if this can like happen? and yeah maybe not the enlightenment, but this path could be the path that we seek to like experience?

Speaker A

So yeah. You can give me a little bit, like little information what do you think about it and then we can close off. You know, when I was reading research in neuroscience and they discovered the mirror neuron systems, one of the things they described this mirror system is that this is the

Speaker A

system responsible for empathy, you see. Because if you can mirror the other's pain, that's how you empathize with them. But actually they are wrong about it because how the mirror system functions is not direct mirroring. We don't directly mirror what the other person is feeling.

Speaker A

What we mirror is our own experiences and memories we have about what we are perceiving.

Speaker A

So, for example, if the person you're watching is your enemy and he or she is in pain, you will not be empathetic with them. Why? If it is direct mirroring, you should be empathetic whether he's an enemy or not. But this is not the case because we use

Speaker A

thinking to empathize. Okay. They are all born from the same place. Without thinking, in the absence of thinking, there is no Oneness in the sense that they talk about in spirituality.

Speaker A

When thinking is not there, you start physically feeding the other people around you, even if they are not saying anything. You become so sensitive to their state, physical states.

Speaker A

Not what they are expressing and you're not thinking about it. No, not in that sense. More of a physical feeling, of what they are going through physically. The meeting will close off now so I just want to thank you so much for this interview. Thank you for your

Speaker A

time. It was a great joy to speaking with you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, really I appreciate it.

Topics:consciousnessself-awarenessmirror neuronsneuroscienceenlightenmentpure consciousnessego-selfinner self-talkfacial identityvocal identity

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