7/27/2019 1111 Brainless Yet Intelligent

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Published by VOICE (Vedic Oasis for Inspiration, Culture and Education) Page 1 of 1

ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), Pune, India

The Spiritual ScientistAn ezine for those who think!

Brainless Yet IntelligentQuestion:Isthereanypracticalscientificevidencethatthesoulandnotthebrain

isthesourceofconsciousness?

Answer: Yes, there is the sensationally incredible yet scientifically documentedevidenceofpeoplewhohavepracticallynobrainyethavenormalorevenabove

normalintelligence.

Isyourbrainreallynecessary?was the titleofanarticlepublished in theSciencemagazine in

1980 about thework of British pediatrician John Lorber. For several decades, researchers had

documentedanecdotal

cases

of

individuals

with

very

little

or

no

brain,

but

Lorber,

who

also

served

asamemberoftheNobelPrizecommittee,wasthe firstto investigatethemsystematicallyand

scientifically. He documented over 600 scans of people with the brain disorder called

hydrocephalusandbrokethemintofourgroups:

thosewithnearlynormalbrains.

thosewith5070%ofthecraniumfilledwithcerebrospinalfluid

thosewith7090%ofthecraniumfilledwithcerebrospinalfluid

thosewith95%ofthecranialcavityfilledwithcerebrospinalfluid.

Of the lastgroup,whowouldnormallybeexpected tobeseverely retarded,

halfhad

IQs

greater

than

100.

Heres

one

dramatic

example

reported

by

Lorber:"There'sayoungstudentatthisuniversity,whohasanIQof126,has

gaineda firstclasshonorsdegree inmathematics,and issociallycompletely

normal.Andyettheboyhasvirtuallynobrain...Whenwedidabrainscan,we

saw that instead of the normal 4.5centimeter thickness of brain tissue

betweentheventriclesandthecorticalsurface,therewasjustathinlayerofmantlemeasuringa

millimeterorso.Hiscranium is filledmainlywithcerebrospinal fluid."Andhe isjustoneamong

manycasesdocumentedallovertheworldofintelligentindividualswithlittleornobrain.

These cases are no doubt rare, but their rareness doesnt decrease their significance. Even if

theres

one

case

of

a

person

with

intelligence

and

consciousness

but

without

a

brain,

that

one

case

isenoughtodisprovethetheorythatconsciousnessisproducedbythebrain.

Vedic insightshelpusunderstand that consciousness is theenergyof the

soul.Normallythesoulchannelizesitsconsciousnessthroughthebraininto

the body and the external world. This consciousness perceived in the

materialbodyknownascittaanditisasteppeddownversionoftheoriginal

pureconsciousnessofthesoulknownascit.Bytheprocessesofpurification

andmeditationlikemantrameditation,wecanraiseourconsciousnessfrom

thecittatothecit level.Atthat levelofconsciousness,eachoneofuscan

directly, personally, experientially verify higher spiritual realities like the

spiritualworld

and

the

ultimate

spiritual

reality,

God.

Z