Recently there have been groundbreaking studies on the brain and spiritual experience.
In her book, The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life, Dr. Lisa Miller shares three key findings on how and why the brain thrives on deep spiritual experiences. Then she shares one conclusion that is surprising the scientific community, but is old news in the spiritual world.
Finding #1: The part of the brain responsible for mental rumination gets very busy when we are stressed or depressed, feeding the unhelpful stories in our heads about ourselves and our lives. But in the midst of a deep spiritual experience, the brain shuts down this network that drives this anxious, mental rumination.
Finding #2: While the rumination dials get turned down, creative and curious brain-function dials get turned up. The brain opens to wider perceptions in the world around us, and to mental breakthroughs.
Finding #3: There’s also, and this is a game-changer, an activation in the part of the brain that feels intimate connection and sense of belonging. Love and caring naturally arise in this spiritually attuned brain.
The Surprising Conclusion (for this scientific world): We have a brain that is wired to become spiritually aligned. When this happens, our typical sense of separateness gives way to experiences of connection and the sacred. We reverence life.
When we drop out of our ruminating, judging mind, we drop into a mind that is at ease and generous. We not only just feel better - we feel a deeper connection with daily and life and with a transcendent reality.
When we have a deep spiritual experience, our attention fundamentally shifts. We feel a deep, hard-to-describe sense of belonging and trust. The self that often fees so small now feels held by a greater Oneness.
Again, while we may not have had the the neurological details, spiritual people of all times have known this experience. It’s not new. But it’s one more example of science catching up with spiritual wisdom, and hopefully it becomes an invitation for skeptics to let go of resistance and trust their spiritual brains.
It’s also a great prompt for our own contemplation:
When have you disrupted your cycles of rumination by shifting to a spiritual thought or experience?
How might your make this “spiritual disruption” a more regular practice in your life?
What spiritual experiences have opened your perceptions and led you to mental breakthroughs?
Where have you felt - or wanted to feel - connection and belonging, transcendence and union recently?
My hope is that Sojourners Institute can be a resource for you as you explore these questions, and as you nurture your spiritual brain. And as always, feel free to leave a comment here or send me a message sharing what you discover!