Five isolated traditions describe one refusal-then-reception shift in consciousness

“The identities of Jacob and his assailant have long presented an exegetical quandary for interpreters examining the encounter at the Jabbok. Characterizing Elohim/ish is particularly complex, as evidenced by the sheer number of possibilities offered by scholars—a river demon, a specter of Esau, Yahweh in disguise, and even Jacob's own psyche. Moreover, Jacob himself is plagued by his dual nomenclature and by an ambivalent relationship to the land he has been promised.”

“The Kabbalistic mechanism where refused light returns to form the receiving vessel matches a standing wave — an outgoing wave meeting a boundary, reflecting, and the two together forming a fixed held pattern — more closely than it matches alternating current. AC needs an external driver setting a repeating frequency; the vessel-forming event has no frequency and happens once to establish a standing relationship, so the standing-wave picture fits where AC breaks down.”

“Neither money nor worldly possessions, neither science nor authority, will bring to you the sweet rest of paradise, at which you can arrive only by the noble knowledge of self.”

“We are born, physically, as pure beings of desire, seeking to fill our primal urges for nourishment, clothing, protection, and shelter; nature makes it so that the first instinct of a baby is to cry out to receive. This is imperative, because in order to survive, a baby needs to be 100% taken care of.”

“Baal HaSulam and Plotinus both describe a boundary where light meets a limit, but Kabbalah treats that refusing partition as the generative good (it lets a creature relate to the source without being erased), while Plotinus treats the same difference as the thing that must dissolve for union with the One. The mechanism matches; the goal is reversed.”

“Electric current is invisible in a bare wire and only becomes visible light when it meets the resistance of a bulb filament — energy made to manifest at the point of refusal. This is a tight match for the Kabbalistic screen (masach), where formless light only takes visible form by being refused, and the degree of resistance sets how much light is clothed into a vessel.”

“Recently, deep meditative states involving global dissolution of the sense of self have been suggested as a promising path for advancing such an investigation. To that end, we conducted a comprehensive phenomenological inquiry into meditative self-boundary alteration. The induced states were systematically characterized by changes in six experiential features including the sense of location, agency, first-person perspective, attention, body sensations, and affective valence, as well as their interaction with meditative technique and overall degree of dissolution. Notably, passive meditative gestures of “letting go”, which reduce attentional engagement and sense of agency, emerged as driving”

“This note attempts to shed light on the great purifying value of “spiritual darkness” for growth in holiness by way of a summary of some of the insights of the Church’s greatest mystical theologian, Saint John of the Cross.”

“Through the process of “forgetting”, one cleanses the obscured mind, returns to the true nature of life, and aligns with the cosmos, merging with the transformations of the universe. Ultimately, this leads to the attainment of the “state of self-forgetting”, where the mind, in its emptiness and clarity, observes all things and reveals the harmonious, beautiful world of wholeness.”

“Results indicate that meditation is associated with reduced activations in the default mode network relative to an active task in meditators compared to controls. Regions of the default mode showing a group by task interaction include the posterior cingulate/precuneus and anterior cingulate cortex. These findings replicate and extend prior work indicating that suppression of default mode processing may represent a central neural process in long-term meditation, and suggest that meditation leads to relatively reduced default mode processing beyond that observed during another active cognitive task.”

“Self-reflection and introspection are essential for a fulling life. The danger is in navigating the fine line between reflection and rumination. Reflection can lead to deeper self-awareness, greater resilience and enhanced emotional intelligence.”

“The thesis to be presented is that as long as one understands the `logic of not' from a dualistic, either-or egological standpoint, it remains contradictory, but in order to properly understand it, one must effect a perspectival shift from the dualistic, egological stance to a non-dualistic, non-egological stance.”

“Recently, deep meditative states involving global dissolution of the sense of self have been suggested as a promising path for advancing such an investigation. To that end, we conducted a comprehensive phenomenological inquiry into meditative self-boundary alteration. The induced states were systematically characterized by changes in six experiential features including the sense of location, agency, first-person perspective, attention, body sensations, and affective valence, as well as their interaction with meditative technique and overall degree of dissolution. Notably, passive meditative gestures of “letting go”, which reduce attentional engagement and sense of agency, emerged as driving”

“The effects of meditation on the brain can be broken up into two categories: state changes and trait changes, respectively alterations in brain activities during the act of meditating and changes that are the outcome of long-term practice.”

“Beginning with the Desert Fathers of 3rd Century Egypt, continuing through the developed monasticism of the Middle Ages, and branching into various orders within both Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, the Christian Contemplative Tradition includes various forms of meditative or semi-meditative practice including Lectio Divina, Imaginative Prayer, the Examen, Psalmody, Repetitious Prayer”

“If John of the Cross's order (understanding quiets first, then memory, then will) is universal, experienced practitioners across apophatic Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, and Kabbalistic paths should independently report the same subjective sequence. If the order varies by tradition (e.g., bhakti paths emptying will first), the five-tradition convergence still holds at the level of mechanism but the entry-order is tradition-specific. Either finding sharpens the convergence claim.”

“Tranquility and stillness of mind, as described in the Buddhist Nikāyas, are believed to reflect a natural settling of thoughts and emotions, in which there is stability of attention, sensory clarity, and equanimity of affect and behavior. This state is believed to develop through systematic mental training involving a combination of concentration, nonconceptual observation, and discernment.”

“The Diamond Sūtra (Sanskrit: Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra) is a Mahāyāna Buddhist sutra from the genre of Prajñāpāramitā ('perfection of wisdom') sutras. The title relies on the power of the vajra (diamond or thunderbolt, but also an abstract term for a powerful weapon) to cut things as a metaphor for the type of wisdom that cuts and shatters illusions to get to ultimate reality.”

“Contemplative practices include a set of activities that quiet the striving mind, cultivate awareness, develop conscious attention modulation capabilities, promote presence, connect the individual to something larger than their own life, and develop and sustain an experience of being known/seen, safe, soothed, and secure. In all three cohorts, we found statistically significant (p< 0.05) positive associations between CPB and well-being, both overall and with all of the constituent domains of well-being, comparable to or stronger than the relationship with physical activity across most well-being outcomes.”

“It is better to think of Christ's “emptying” of Himself as a laying aside of the privileges that were His in heaven. Rather than stay on His throne in heaven, Jesus “made himself nothing” (as the NIV translates Philippians 2:7). The kenosis was a self-renunciation, not an emptying Himself of deity.”

“John of the Cross and Baal HaSulam both describe the end of the inner shift as motion coming to rest in a filled stillness, not as a discharge — so 'close the circuit' and 'stop seeking' are not opposites here. They diverge on the root appetite: Baal HaSulam's finished vessel keeps its hunger and turns receiving into giving, while John's finished soul has its yearnings put to rest.”

“The effects of meditation on the brain can be broken up into two categories: state changes and trait changes, respectively alterations in brain activities during the act of meditating and changes that are the outcome of long-term practice.”

“It is best known for being active when a person is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest, such as during daydreaming and mind-wandering. It can also be active during detailed thoughts related to external task performance. Other times that the DMN is active include when the individual is thinking about others, thinking about themselves, remembering the past, and planning for the future. The DMN creates a coherent "internal narrative" central to the construction of a sense of self.”

“Experiences of spiritual awakening, whether gradual or sudden, intentionally induced or spontaneous, typically evoke an ineffable sense of deep inner knowing, understanding, "remembering," or "unveiling" of one's true nature, as well as experiences of peace and equanimity, bliss, ecstasy and aliveness, feelings of awe, sacredness, gratitude and reverence, and of abundant, unconditional love”

“Mark Twain, in his travel novel Innocents Abroad (1839), records a characteristically ironic description of the "tomb of Adam" in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.”

“Taking his lead from his reading of Plato, Plotinus developed a complex spiritual cosmology involving three foundational elements: the One, the Intelligence, and the Soul. It is from the productive unity of these three Beings that all existence emanates, according to Plotinus. The principal of emanation is not simply causal, but also contemplative.”

“Tranquility and stillness of mind, as described in the Buddhist Nikāyas, are believed to reflect a natural settling of thoughts and emotions, in which there is stability of attention, sensory clarity, and equanimity of affect and behavior. This state is believed to develop through systematic mental training involving a combination of concentration, nonconceptual observation, and discernment.”

“Rumination involves repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences. The repetitive, negative aspect of rumination can contribute to the development of depression or anxiety and can worsen existing conditions.”