Thank you Dr. Bani Dayal Dhir for your very kind introduction. Good afternoon everybody. My greetings from the Dayalbagh community to all of you.

CODIFICATION OF ULTIMATE PHENOMENOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

                  अथ प्रेमसूत्रं व्याख्यास्याम:। सचिचदानन्दस्वरूपम चैतन्यम।।
                                                                                     (परम गुरु महाराज साहब)

The above is an aphorism of love composed by the Third Revered Leader of Radhasoami Faith, Param Guru Maharaj Sahab. [Other similar aphorisms of love follow] :

English translation is given underneath and you will be able to see their meaning.

I believe that this is a codification of the ultimate phenomenology of consciousness in the spiritual sense.

FOUNDING OF THE RADHASOAMI FAITH ON THE BASANT PANCHAMI DAY IN JANUARY 1861

A significant event that I wish to draw your attention to, in connection with the subject matter of my talk, is founding of the Radhasoami Faith on the Basant Panchami Day in January 1861, a little more than 152 years ago. This was Manifestation of the Supreme Being Almighty Lord Radhasoami in the form of the Sant Satguru i.e. Saint True Preceptor or Adept for the redemption of jivas i.e. living beings (Mark that it includes all living beings, not just humans). I only quote the first paragraph as translated from this proclamation.

Remember that love and faith is all that is being asked for in return. So it is really a Faith which rests on love and that is why we refer to the codification of its ultimate phenomenology, as aphorisms of love. There is second and third operative part of this proclamation, which I do not wish to burden you with. Those interested can certainly look up the Souvenir of Radhasoami Satsang brought out in its centenary celebration in 1961 by Radhasoami Satsang, Dayalbagh.

INTEGRATING PHENOMENOLOGY (INNER EXPERIENCE) WITH THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF NATURAL SCIENCES

Personally, my first public discourse dwelling on the subject matter of integrating phenomenology with epistemology of natural sciences can be traced back to the paper quoted here : Satsangi P.S. (2003), "Reality and Truth vis-a-v-sis Wisdom via Aparavidya (Natural Sciences) and Paravidya (Phenomenology : Experiential Science)". Over the years, it has developed into an "Omni-quantum theory for spiritual consciousness system modeling in cosmology" (Satsangi P.S., 2011, ?Cosmology of Consciousness : Towards Quantum-Theoretic Systems Modelling : Spirit-Mind-Brain Interactions?, Vision Talk, CONCENT 2011, Inaugural Workshop of the Centre for Consciousness Studies, DEI, Dayalbagh, Agra, October 1-2, 2011 (Souvenir-cum-Abstract Book), pp. 50-67). It is also part of the SPIRCON 2010  proceedings which is due for release, later this afternoon (Satsangi P.S., ?Cosmology from the twin vantage points of Radhasoami Faith and Systems Science?, Vision Talk, International Seminar on Religion of Saints (?Sants?) ? Radhasoami Faith, DEI, Dayalbagh, Agra, Nov. 2010 (also Chapter 23 of Expositions on Truth, Ultimate Reality and Supreme Being, Radhasoami Satsang Sabha, Dayalbagh, Agra, 2010, ISBN : 978-81-89288-60-0).

COMPARISON AND CONTRAST BETWEEN APPROACHES FOR INTEGRATING INNER EXPERIENCE WITH SCIENTIFIC METHODOLOGY
Rapport and Support from Price D. and Barrell J. : Inner Experience and Neuroscience, M.I.T. Press, 2012

Since Professor J. Barrell has already presented his monumental work along with Dr. D. Price on the subject matter of integrating Inner Experience with neuroscience or scientific methodology, and you have heard it from horse?s mouth, I would only like to say we have been greatly influenced by their approach on Inner Experience and Neuroscience which I happened to see recently in November 2012. So I would skip parts excerpted from the book, because you have listened directly to Prof. Barrell already on the subject. There are many aspects on which we agree.

They (Price and Barrell, 2012) have a couple of very interesting examples and I refer to second pain and associative thinking as particularly interesting aspects dealt with by them in their remarkable book.

There is indeed a telling quote from Dalai Lama which we could interestingly recall,

?Certainly physics designed the bombs; biology the germ warfare; chemistry the nerve gas; and so on, but it will be the unhealthy emotions of individuals that will trigger these horrors. These emotions can only be controlled, reshaped and re-channeled by technologies developed from successful inner science.? So it is important to integrate inner experience with scientific investigations and develop what one might call inner science or experiential science or phenomenological science.

USP'S (UNIQUE STRONG POINTS) OF DAYALBAGH MODEL

However, let me hasten to point out that there are some distinguishing features of our approach. There are a couple of vantage points (as already referred to earlier) from which we formulate our model and work on consciousness studies. One of these is phenomenology of Radhasoami Faith, and the other is systems approach, which I have been trained as a professional to adopt, all through my working career.

Apart from the twin vantage points from which I speak, let me refer to some other unique features of my unique model. I believe that Prof. Rocco Gennaro is also there in the audience and last year he published a book, Gennaro R. (2012), The Consciousness Paradox wherein he dealt with HOT brain thesis ? HOT standing for Higher Order Thought. He maintains that what makes a mental state conscious is that a suitable Higher Order Thought is directed at that mental state. Drawing upon this inspiration from his HOT-brain theory, I have proposed HOT Consciousness : SCANE correlates, where HOT-Consciousness stands not for Higher Order Thought, but Hierarchical Order Theory of Consciousness and the SCANE correlates stand for Spiritual, Cognitive And Neural-Environmental Correlates. (Notice that our joint paper, Satsangi P.S. and Sahni V. (2012), "Cosmic Consciousness Hierarchization : Analytic, Experimental and Experiential" was presented by my co-author Dr. Vishal Sahni at Toward a Science of Consciousness (TSC-2012), April 9-14, 2012, at Tucson in a concurrent session while I had stayed back here and addressed the Eastern Philosophy Forum at TSC-2012 at Tucson through video-conferencing from DEI, Dayalbagh).

In response to one of the questions posed to Dr. Barrell at the end of his talk, I would only like to mention that determinism or classicality and other issues are related with model building and there is nothing which prevents me from building a model of brain which is quantum-theoretic, so also a model of mind which is quantum-theoretic and then if you take the correlates on the basis of these models, it would be unjustified to call them as reductionist in approach. So it is a question of how we look at the model which simulates the reality. Nobody knows for sure whether brain is a quantum mechanics gadget or whatever, but it can certainly be modeled to our advantage through quantum-theoretic model, and once you do that, one could not accuse the modellers at least of reductionism. So it is a matter of approach and for the moment, we could take this as the view that instead of trying to settle score whether the Penrose-Hameroff approach or whether von-Neumann Stapp approach or some other approach is the right one to handle the consciousness paradox which Prof. Gennaro refers to, pragmatically speaking, each model has its own way of generating a solution for it, and in the absence of any conclusive evidence to nail down the truth, one could continue with all these co-existing models as the perceived reality or truth, depending on one?s preference.

A RUDIMENTARY MODELLING FRAMEWORK FOR MACROCOSM / MICROCOSM

This (Figure A) is the conceptual system model that we have, and I have put it up a number of times earlier too, but it becomes important to emphasize that you need to know where you are headed for. Your goals have to be clear. Just building hypothesis in dark as Price and Barrell recommend, I must say, with due respect to them, is groping in the dark, and if you are clear about the phenomenology, why should you grope in the dark. You could build a model for yourself and keeping that model in mind, you could certainly frame hypotheses and test them. If your model fails on the acid test of hypothesis / hypotheses, then you have to reshape the model. But so long as it stands to acid test of hypothesis, it survives. That is the approach we take and this gives us much more speed in preparing hypotheses. Thus we need to know what our conception of reality is like, based on the phenomenology. So spiritual phenomenology is at the centre stage in our scheme of things and according to this, on the left hand side, I have the macrocosmic model of the universe, while on the right hand side, I have the human microcosm. It turns out that according to Eastern Philosophy, the human microcosm is a perfect analog of the macrocosm. That is why, indeed, it is also justified to turn inward as a human being, and learn a lot more about macrocosm than is likely to be known by outer researches through the scientific approach, because no matter how much you try, you are going to be bound by physical reality. You are not going to get beyond physics, you are not going to get into the domain of Universal Mind, or the domain of Universal Spirit which is even further beyond that. Notice that the macrocosmic model that I have in mind has the three Grand Divisions of Creation. It has the largest domain of the Universal Spirit whose source or origin is the one and only Lord God of all Universe. We know this unique entity by the name of Radhasoami. There may be other beliefs and as our model shows, there is not just one centre of consciousness; in fact, in our model building, we have imagined there are 21 such centres of consciousness, or stages of consciousness, through which one can progress, seven each belonging to the three grand divisions of the macrocosm, namely the Region of Universal Spirit, Region of Universal Mind and Region of Universal Matter or Physical Universe. Scientists are by and large confined to the Physical Universe. Psychologists and others get into the domain of Region of Universal Mind also. But there are no so-called scientists looking at the outer world, who have made any worthwhile contributions to Region of Universal Spirit, so it has required the phenomenologists who have turned inwards to disseminate this knowledge about the Region of Universal Spirit, which is beyond the Region of Upanishads also. Upanishads describe the Region of Universal Matter and Universal Mind, but stop at the level of Para Brahman, beyond the three Brahmans. They do suggest that there is existence of creation beyond this but they do not describe it. So it is this region which the so-called Religion of Saints addresses, and it is the Region of Pure Spiritual phenomena ? it is not subject to any change, it is indeed truly eternal. In purely spiritual region, there is no question of birth and re-birth or cycle of birth and death, which, at least the Eastern Philosophy holds, plagues both the other regions. The Region of Universal Matter suffers much more from this change through Pralaya (Dissolution) than the Region of Universal Mind; however, the Region of Universal Mind also undergoes cycle of change, in the so-called Mahapralaya (Great Dissolution), where it would be destroyed and new Universal Mind regions will come up. There is a whole philosophy in Eastern thought or tradition (viz., the philosophy of Religion of Saints particularly Radhasoami Faith) in support of the Model. There are believed to be 84 subtle attention currents which are responsible for this cycle of birth and death in the two lower regions of Universal Mind and Universal Matter and these are made up of the three "Gunas" or qualities and five "Tattvas" or elements. The combination leads to these 84 subtle currents and this gives rise to cycle of birth and death, i.e. cycle of change. But since the Region of Pure Spirits, devoid of mind and body, is not subject to any such change, it is eternal and that is the largest region or grand division and houses the largest number of spirit entities.

This (Figure B) is another part of the model inspired by systems approach to make use of not only the model schematic based on certain fundamental axiom and fundamental postulates on component modeling and interconnection of the components in the system, but this gives rise to the method of solving these various quantitative relationships, or at least, qualitative relationships ?quantified? in a fuzzy sense, if not numerically. So in this particular case, since we use quantum theoretic model, this classical approach is still applicable, because on observation, all quantum phenomena reduce to classical state and therefore it becomes a classical solution. Once you have taken observation and you wish to verify your observations, then it is only the ?classical? model which would come to the fore.

There are aphorisms to the tune that Yatha Sachkhande Tatha Brahmande [As in Purely Spiritual Region, so in Region of Universal Mind], Yatha Brahmande Tatha Pinde [As in Region of Universal Mind, so in Region of Universal Matter or Physical Universe]; and Yatha Samasthi Srishti Tatha Manav Vyashti Srishti [As in Macrocosm, so in Human Microcosm], which all say that as in Pure Spiritual Region, so also in Region of Universal Mind, as in Region of Universal Mind, so also in the Region of Universal Matter; and as in Macrocosm, so also in Human Microcosm. So, essentially, what the scriptures say is that these are all reflections of what takes place in the Region of Pure Spiritual form. Accordingly, that is the real model while the rest of the creation follows in its image. We have visualized what we call resonance operated switches in our schematic. I will get back to it. We notice here (Figure A) that in this model presentation, we have potential sources and we have quantum force field. (In the earlier version of the model (M. Sahab (1960) : Discourses on Radhasoami Faith), there used to be classical force field conceptualization, but since the advent of quantum theory, we define it to be quantum force field and lately we now find, as you also heard from Prof. Hagelin yesterday, that the basic quantum theory model would not do. In fact, there is no duality in the Region of Pure Spirits, devoid of mind and body, because the duality between mind and body and spirit and mind are what respectively characterize the Region of Universal Matter and the Region of Universal Mind in the last two grand divisions of creation but not the first one which is the grand division of pure spirits. So we have suitably modified and suggested it to be the Omni-quantum spiritual force field [Satsangi P.S., 2010] which has the requisite duality in the bottom two regions, but has no uncertainty in the top Region of pure Spirits which is characterized by special duality viz. ?duality at will?. It is not a duality to which a spirit is subjected because of uncertainty. Spirits may choose to stand apart from the Creator or the Primal Source of consciousness as a "devotee" to witness and worship the Supreme Grandeur of the Lord Almighty (the repository of all consciousness in the Grand Cosmos). A spirit-entity could do so in the Region of Pure Spirit. However, alternatively, a spirit-entity could choose to remain merged with the Creator and be part of the creator oneself; that is, the choice of unity with Creational Source is of course there. So it is ?duality at will? and therefore because of want of any appropriate terminology, I have referred to the original force-field as omni-quantum force field. God does not play dice, He plays bat and ball straight and square and therefore there is no duality in the Heisenberg-sense and there is complete certainty in what Lord Almighty (the creational source) does. But anyway to carry conviction with the scientists, the approach suggested by Price and Barrell (2012) for integrating inner experience with neuroscience is fine indeed.

ANALYTICAL MODEL (Fig. A) VERIFICATION

Let me just highlight one other aspect of analytical verification of hierarchization of cosmic consciousness. This model (Fig. A) has been justified analytically by Satsangi and Sahni (2012) at Tucson at TSC 2012 by making use of Analytical Hierarchy Process of Operations Research methodology [Saaty, T.L. : ISBN 0-9620317-6-3] and it can also be derived as suggested here on the right hand side of Figure A, (as also pointed out in my presentation to the Eastern Philosophy Forum at TSC 2012), by making use of the contextual relationship R of Interpretive Structural Modelling [Warfield, 1982]. Accordingly, it has been doubly integrated with scientific methodologies through consensus building approaches which Prof. Barrell spoke of. No doubt, we need to build consensus about the underlying hierarchization of cosmic consciousness. So we have a group of meditational participants as co-investigators who are knowledgeable about the spiritual phenomenology and it is through consensus-building we have come up with analytical verification of the model structure of Figure A.

I also refer to one other person who might be in the audience, viz., Dr. Chris Fields. His recent paper on "A model theoretic representation of environmentally induced superselection, or einselection" published in the International Journal of General Systems (Fields C., 2012) shows logically that observer independent environmentally induced super-selection (as a plausible explanation of the measurement paradox in a quantum theoretic model) is a myth and does not produce classicality as believed by some.

SPIRITUAL PSYCHO-PHYSICAL DYNAMICS

There are several research groups working in psycho-physical-dynamics as mentioned by Prof. Barrell (Price and Barrell, 2012), but I think ours is amongst a few who work on spiritual psycho-physical dynamics. In other words, we believe that the observer is the spirit, not the mind and the observed system is the one which contains both the material world as well as the psychological world, or cognitive world. So both mind and body are modeled through quantum mechanics, or quantum field theory and then we address the question of agreement with the spiritual phenomenology. So, that is why, we consider this as spiritual-psycho-physical dynamics. The observer is spirit only and it is separated from the observed system which is the rest of the Universe. Thus, it is observer?s phenomenology which matters. So, the observer gives his inner experience and that is to be interpreted and tested through building of hypotheses in the light of the model which one may have in mind I believe that such a conceptual model ought to be there because otherwise one is not getting anywhere purposively. While science would seem to favour keeping things open, science and the western society would also seem to prefer clarity with regard to goals and objectives of any scientific investigation. So your goals must be well-defined, otherwise how would you ever reach your goals if you do not know where you want to go. Thus, you must know where you are going and how to get there.

This is what precisely distinguishes the Radhasoami Faith in the Religion of Saints. The Proclamation that I brought to your notice, right from day one  of the founding of Radhasoami faith, endows the Faith with the clear definition of the object in view in terms of a hierarchy of consciousness centres ranging from the lowest to the highest degree together with the prescription of practical measures for attaining them. The principal devotional method is the Surat Shabda Yoga, the path of uniting the spirit with the sound current. Ultimately, at the level of the pure spirit, instead of the 84 subtle currents which prevail in the lower grand divisions of creation dominated by mind and matter, we are left with just the two pure spiritual currents. Essentially, these also merge into one united spiritual current Radhasoami, but the one which is going outward or downward, is known as the spirit current and on its return path to the original source at the apex, it is known as sound current, which is directed towards its successively next higher source in the hierarchy. So that is how the circuit from the original consciousness source to the various spiritual consciousness-centres in the hierarchy and back is completed. At the beginning of creation, they started as two distinct spiritual currents, one outward and downward flowing spirit-current and the other inward or upward flowing sound-current, seeking out the multiple levels of consciousness-centres and ultimately its original reservoir of all consciousness in the Grand Cosmos known as Radhasoami. In our scriptures of Radhasoami Faith [M. Sahab (1960) : Discourses on Radhasoami Faith], Radha is the one which characterizes the great spiritual current which, initially flowed out of the original source of consciousness, viz. Soami (the ultimate repository of all consciousness) at the genesis of creation.

CHARACTERISTIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND ASSOCIATED FREQUENCY

This is as good a point as any other to raise a certain pertinent comment from my side regarding the work of Professors Price and Barrell (2012), which is great but still the emphasis on now and the present is far too much. I believe there is ?cumulative? consciousness, that is, consciousness of an entity is not just the present momentary level of consciousness attained by an entity but it is the highest ?characteristic? consciousness attained as of that moment, which you may tap for prompting or guiding you whether consciously or unconsciously. It is not all the time that you are in explicit communion with that highest consciousness attained by you, but that is the one which you have achieved and that is the one which potentially prompts you through intuition (whether conscious or unconscious). It is therefore, the ?cumulative? consciousness, as it were, which characterizes your frequency, say characteristic frequency or natural frequency, which, if I may say so, is the dominant resonant frequency which you generate as a spirit-source representing the ?cumulative? consciousness of the ?co-investigator participant? as of the moment of recording the neural map. In fact, if our supposition is correct, that initially all the spirits were with the Lord, God-Almighty, then any spirit shorn of its mind and body is the one and same as the Lord?s spirit and therefore, it has the highest consciousness of the Supreme Being. But it is because of being alloyed with the covers of mind and body, that it is not able to exhibit the dominance at resonance at that supreme frequency. It shows lower frequency. Spanda Shastra of Kashmir Shaivism and the string theory which Prof. Hagelin spoke of all refer to these individual consciousness traits with the characteristic frequencies, but I think they need a clarification as offered here based on internal experience or spiritual phenomenology of the narrating co-investigator. Ultimately, the frequency is the one and the same for all spirit forces as that of its creator or primeval source. Once they get shorn of the body and mind, their frequency will elevate itself to the highest consciousness level. Accordingly, it is the ?cumulative? consciousness which counts, not the momentary current consciousness or present-moment consciousness. My narration of phenomenology will collect information on consciousness cumulatively as of the present moment through questions of the kind raised by Prof. Barrell or recommended by Price and Barrell (2012). While I do emphasize phenomenology, I do emphasize phenomenology as of present moment of observation, that is, it has to be a ?cumulative? one as of present moment. Perhaps, in western world, you don?t believe in rebirth and things like that, which maybe one of the reasons why ?present? is all that matters, but, as explained here, one is elevating one?s consciousness through the various cycles of birth and death one is undergoing and it is when one succeeds in reaching the highest consciousness, that one merges with the ultimate source and there is no further cycle of birth and death that one undergoes. So that is the Ultimate consciousness state. Thus, everybody is rising to that potential level. It might take ?time? to reach that full potential. So, one needs a conceptual model to have this kind of visualization and then verify it. There is nothing in our model building and experimentation, (which we have also done extensively (Satsangi P.S. and Sahni V. (NSC 2007; NSC 2008; TSC 2012)), which suggests anything to the contrary and I would now give you certain examples of the recent measurements we have taken using the latest equipment for sensitive measurements of magnetic field in mapping the brain through the Magneto-Encephalo-Gram (MEG) rather than recording the Electro-Encepahlo-Gram (EEG). We favour MEG because it entails a protocol which does not disturb the meditationist. The sensor-helmet does not have to sit on the head of the subject meditationist. The helmet for taking neural signature in MEG could be positioned a little away from the head of the meditationist. Its many sensors would pick up the appropriate signals. In fact that is the reason why I refer to it not as neuro-correlates but neuro-environmental correlates, which would pick up the magnetic field or electro-magnetic field or electric field in the brain or its nearby environment, without making much difference in objective and results or conclusion. You would get the same results more or less. We have verified the pattern through a number of experimentations over several years. However, we believe the measurement techniques ought to be non-invasive type, non-intrusive type, which would not disturb the meditationist in the least, allowing each to reach his true potential without distortion or noise. This precaution is not ordinarily taken in the neuro science experiments recorded in literature. One reason is, as rightly pointed out by Price and Barrell (2012), that the subject on which these tests are conducted are different from the investigators themselves. Price and Barrell (2012) make them co-investigators, which is the right approach. You, therefore consult them, you take the phenomenology from them in first-person approach, and then of course you use methods (third-person approach) which are acceptable in science to test the various hypotheses you build through consensus, and if proved right, then you have supporting evidence for further hypothesis and model-testing. I have already pointed out a few significant points where we differ in our approach and as of now we have not found any evidence to discard our approach in favour of some other. So, while we have continued to imbibe the richness of thoughts, based on their worth over the years, we hold our ground so long as its unique strong points (USP's) are not disproved, i.e. so long as our underlying system model does not fail. When it fails, we would modify it. So this is the gist of what I want to say about our distinctive unique approach for integrating inner experience with scientific methodologies.

Table 2 represents the exercise which was presented at the Eastern Philosophy Forum at TSC 2012. The leftmost column lists the famous five mystic words ? Niranjan, Om, Rarang, Soham, Sat and at the end, the original mystic name Radhasoami, from which they all arose. The middle column lists the various alternative centres or stages of consciousness to be attained or achieved as higher and higher states of consciousness. In fact, the highest state is at the bottom such that the progressively increasing hierarchy of consciousness is directed from top downwards, as per list in Table 2. Note that Table 2 does not refer to consciousness of the material region. In Religion of Saints (Radhasoami Faith), it is not taken as part of the Surat Shabda Yoga Abhyas (the meditational practice for uniting spirit current with the sound current), that is the sound practice in short, which we recommend. In other words, the sound practice, ?Surat-Shabda Yoga Abhyas? starts with the upper level (i.e. Region of Brahman) of Brahmand, skipping even the lower level (i.e. "And" of Brahmand). The "sound practice" starts with the seat of the spirit in the physical body and takes it through the three Brahmans (in the upper region of ?Brahmand?) at Sahasdal Kamal, Trikuti and Sunna with the mystic word Niranjan representing the first Brahman, Om the second Brahman, Rarang the third Brahman and further on there is the Para Brahman and even further beyond are the Soham Purush, Sat Purush and Radhasoami (of the Pure Spiritual Region). In between, there are a few other stages, but these (foregoing ones) are the important landmarks to highlight. The middle column lists the alternative states or stages or centres of consciousness to be reached while the last column lists the necessary and sufficient conditions or factors in the form of ?Anahad Nad? i.e. unstruck celestial sound accompanying the original mystic word or stage-by-stage characteristic mystic words (as already explained). These factors have been identified by consensus reached among ?experiencing? participants through Analytical Hierarchy Process. This is how we arrived at the hierarchization of the consciousness levels in the large macro-cosmos and also the micro-human-cosmos. The accompanying Anahad Nad (unstruck celestial sounds) listed in the last column of Table 2 are mere simulations, in terms of similar sounds familiar in physical world. Beyond the Sat Lok in the highest 3 conscious centres of the cosmos, there is no musical instrument in the physical world with which they may be identified. Accordingly, for the apex Radhasoami region, the analogous instrument is indescribable. The only way we identify it is that the original mystic name Radhasoami resounds there and also that this stage follows beyond the other stages of listening to the unmistakable snake charmer?s lute at Sat Lok and other higher Lokas ('stages or centres') in succession and it is a sort of very highly spiritual melodious orchestra that plays there, but there is no analogous instrument in the physical world with which it matches. Accordingly, I cannot name it, or simulate it and reproduce it here. However, the other characteristic sounds are fairly well reproduced and simulated upto the stage of snake charmer?s lute at Sat Lok. There is no problem in identifying them. There are people practicing ?Surat-Shabda Yoga?, but without the inner experience of realizing Sat Lok as a first-person experience, who wonder whether it is Veena, the string instrument which plays at Sat Lok or it is the snake charmer?s lute. Based on my personal first-hand inner experiences, I can emphatically answer that it is definitely snake charmer?s lute; (in fact, Veena plays at Sunna, a centre of lower order of consciousness). Of course, there is the accompanying qualia or personification of consciousness (?r~ fpr~ vkuUn?/span>). Let me now forge ahead with my presentation.

PROGRESSIVELY REFINING SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH

Over the years, we have refined our experimental procedures. We had started with very simple circuits such as, tuned circuits, filter circuits and we did not have elaborate procedures for shielding noise, nor did we have very highly sensitive instrumentation. So, we moved further and we now make use of SQUID, that is Superconducting Quantum Interference Device, which is a highly sensitive magnetometer and we use the adequately shielded enclosures so that the noise, magnetic noise in particular, does not disturb the proceedings inside.

It is in the aforesaid context that alongwith our participating co-investigators (with inner spiritual experience) we went to Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) at Kalpakkam in early November 2012, since at that time we did not have our own facility of SQUID in a properly shielded chamber. We conducted relevant scientific experiments with third-person objectivity for acquiring neural maps (or neural-environmental correlates) on individual meditationists as well as during group meditation sessions in simulated prayer meetings, availing of the sophisticated SQUID-based MEG facility with adequate shielding at IGCAR. These recent results with sophisticated instrumentation and shielding as well as our earlier results with simple contrived devices have all consistently shown that some of the frequencies of interest in spiritual meditation were 4.5 Hz, 76 Hz, 108 Hz and 126 Hz. These frequencies have shown up as frequencies at which resonance takes place during meditation through spiritual practices of Radhasoami Faith. Lately, we have acquired our own facilities of Magneto-Encephalo-Graphy (MEG) in the Consciousness Studies Centre of DEI and accordingly we should be able to speed up our experiments considerably for scientific verification and hypothesis-testing. Now let me show samples of these sophisticated measurements for scientific verification of spiritual phenomenology. This is the 40 channel helmet (Figure 2) for recording neuro-environmental correlates in the form of MEG which IGCAR Kalpakkam used such that these channels which are highlighted pick up the parietal lobe signals believed to be of interest primarily in our spiritual meditation sessions. In fact, these do match the observations as derived from the designated signal streams (as highlighted).

PRELIMINARY COGNITIVE EVALUATION OF PRACTICE OF POPULAR YOGA AND MEDITATION ON CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH PSYCHOLOGICAL TOOLS

?          Tool 1 : Consciousness Quotient Inventory (CQI) : By Brazdau (2012)

(Acknowledgement : Dr. Sona Ahuja Khurana)

?          Tool 2 : Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI)

(Acknowledgement : Dr. Sona Ahuja Khurana)

?          Tool 3 : Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Test

(Acknowledgements : Prof. Surila Agarwala and Mrs. Prem Pyari)

We have three sets of subjects as stratified samples, viz., those who are pre-initiates, those who are first initiates, and those who are both first and second initiates (of Radhasoami Faith) among the participants undergoing Yoga classes both in control group as well as experimental group for evaluation of consciousness in two phases of Yoga classes. The results are scheduled for presentation by research colleagues as acknowledged above in concurrent sessions of TSC-2013. I would only make a point here that the researchers of the MBTI test (Prof. Surila Agarwala and Mrs. Prem Pyari) seem to be unduly worried by the apparent minor reductions in intuition levels in both the cases of mid-test phase compared to pre-test and post-test phase compared to pre-test of the popular Yoga classes and Meditation as this appeared to be counter-intuitive. However, this apparent anomaly is neither significant at 1% level nor at even 5% level and therefore this discordant conclusion is unreliable anyway. One therefore needs to repeat these tests and investigate further before drawing a conclusion with acceptable level of confidence. Tests have also been done on Exceptional Experiences Questionnaires and Near Death Experiences Questionnaire but these are not extensive ones and await further analysis.

MEG DATA SETS FOR GROUP MEDITATION SESSIONS

(Third Person Scientific Observation)

Table 3 records phase-wise MEG data sets of summative decibel gains for Group Meditation Sessions on Nov. 7, 2012 during simulated prayer meeting presided over by Adept (Code Name  O), which as a group measure the consciousness by way of the summative response of the meditation group. This is also somewhat unique exercise for our research group at Dayalbagh. Group meditation sessions are not so common and not usually monitored through EEG or MEG data sets.

Table 3 : Phasewise MEG Data-Sets of Summative Decibel Gains at designated spiritual frequencies in Group Meditation Session (November 7, 2012)

No doubt, there is considerable scope for further meaningful scientific analysis of MEG data sets compiled for Group-Meditation Sessions particularly with regard to phenomenon of resonance.

ULTIMATE ACID TEST OF CONSCIOUSNESS

First-Person Inner Experience Of Spiritual Phenomenology Through "Surat-Shabda-Yoga" (i.e. Meditational Practice of Uniting Spirit Current with Sound Current)

As practitioners of Radhasoami Faith (Religion of Saints), this is what we are ourselves engaged in and, as already reiterated, since our focus is cumulative consciousness as of now (present moment), we seek answers to questions as given in Questionnaire Q.

We have oath of secrecy in our faith (Radhasoami Faith) prohibiting members of the Faith from sharing inner experiences, but the Mentor or Adept is exempt from this oath and meditationists may confide in him as they do in other religions (e.g. confession). Accordingly, the identity of meditationists has been masked by the Mentor / Adept under an assigned Code Name before disclosing the first-person inner experience of spiritual phenomenology for scientific research investigations. As a Mentor or Adept, I have exercised the privilege of sharing inner experiences under the assigned code name without disclosing the individual personal identity.

Furthermore, as an Adept or Preceptor myself, I have the privilege to document my own experiences for the benefit of the scientific as well as spiritual community. Accordingly, first of all, I give my own experience of spiritual phenomenology. Though I bear code name O, but as a special privilege as an Adept, I declare that it is my phenomenology.

Now this is something which I have not found documented even by my predecessors in Radhasoami Faith. However, I have experienced it and experienced it progressively from day one (May 18, 2003) right since being publicly acclaimed as the Adept of Radhasoami Satsang, Dayalbagh, on succeeding the last Adept about a decade back. I vividly recall that it was when I rose to acknowledge the Acclamation as Adept by way of consensus, that I experienced the surge of massive flow of inner consciousness current which flooded me with spiritual intuition, as it were. Accordingly, I was not at all at a loss to say what I needed to. This is the kind of support that an Adept gets. This is what is meant by having the ?hotline of communication? with an elevated level of consciousness. In other words, the Adept is always in communion with that elevated level of consciousness and whenever he needs support, he gets consciousness of that level immediately to answer any questions spontaneously. In fact, I might have no clue to what is being asked of me, but when the question is posed, I should be able to answer it from the repository of knowledge or consciousness available with the level from which my presiding deity comes. So that is the belief system in spiritual phenomenology. Similarly, it is common place that the first initiates do get the refulgent picture of their Mentor or Adept at the seat of the spirit or higher centres of consciousness to which they have gained access, when they perform meditation. This word Radhasoami, i.e. the original mystic word, resounds internally and that would take me through all the higher stages that I have mentioned in the sound clip (Table 2) brought to you as a simulation. I have undergone requisite inner experience and I can verify those stages. However, once I cross the intermediate stages and reach the highest stage, I may directly reach that stage and may not have to pass through the intermediate stages necessarily explicitly. Thus, it takes only a moment, as it were, to make the internal communication line hot with my source of consciousness. It does not take long. So all these successive sounds one goes through if one had not heard them earlier for a sustained period of time. Once one is endowed with this status of wearing the mantle of the successor adept, then one must have that elevated level of consciousness. In a way, that elevated consciousness is given to you, rather than being earned by you. This encapsulates some of my unique inner spiritual experiences as an Adept or Preceptor of Radhasoami Faith.

THIRD PERSON MEG NEURO-ENVIRONMENTAL CORRELATES

OF CODE NAME 'O'

Figure O1 shows an illustrative neuro-environmental correlate of microcosm of Code Name 'O' in the form of MEG Data-set as recorded on Nov. 6, 2012 at IGCAR, Kalpakkam. Two resonance peaks are marked at frequencies of 108 Hz and 126 Hz, with the peak at 108 Hz frequency of spiritual meditation as being at a lower decibel than the peak at 126 Hz. Accordingly, 126 Hz is identified as the characteristic or dominant frequency of Code Name 'O' as of Nov. 6, 2012. Code Name 'O' may therefore be said to be characterized spiritually by the natural frequency of 126 Hz as evidenced by Figure O1.

This is another similar MEG Data-set of Code Name 'O' as represented by Figure O2 which once again identifies 126 Hz as the natural frequency or characteristic dominant frequency of Code Name 'O'.

Figure O3 shows the phenomenon of persistence of resonant frequencies of 108 Hz and 126 Hz beyond the duration of spiritual meditation session of Code Name 'O'.

Besides the frequencies of individual meditation session under Code-Name 'O', there are several other cases of MEG-data sets with their accompanying spiritual phenomenologies which we have recorded at IGCAR. However, for the sake of brevity, we discuss briefly only Code Names 'V' and 'B'  with excerpts of their phenomenology.

Code Name 'V'

The accompanying spiritual phenomenology of Code Name V together with its corresponding neural correlate in the form of MEG Data-set of Fig. V1 follows.

As seen from Fig. V1, there are two frequencies of resonance. However, the dominant one is at a lower frequency of 76 Hz with the higher dB gain which has been duly attained. The higher resonant frequency of 108 Hz is the one which the subject person is striving to reach at the higher level of consciousness, but has not quite made it, since  it is not the dominant resonant frequency yet. The current dominant resonant frequency  for Code Name 'V' is 76 Hz, characterized by a relatively high level of attainment of consciousness, but there is further higher level of consciousness corresponding to 108 Hz which may be attained in due course when it emerges as the dominant resonant frequency.

Code Name 'B'

As yet another illustrative sample, excerpts of Spiritual Phenomenology together with accompanying Neural Correlates in the form of MEG Data set of Figure B1 follow.

Fug. B1 shows the MEG-plots of subject Code Name 'B' with the characteristic resonant frequency at 4.5 Hz which may be the first stage of consciousness in the Religion of Saints where the subject experiences internally the sound of bell and conch. Thus, we are able to make such tentative correlations which need further supporting evidence for meaningful scientific conclusions.

With larger samples of subject Code names, tentative hypotheses may be drawn, tested thoroughly and then asserted.

CONCLUSION

In view of time-constraint, let me conclude the presentation by mentioning once again that the Dayalbagh vision is toward integrating first-person spiritual-cognitive-material phenomenology as experienced by meditationists practicing the art of "Surat-Shabda-Yoga" (uniting spirit current of meditationists with the universal sound current) at various levels of their spiritual progress through hierarchy of progressively higher states of consciousness, on one hand, with the third person neuro-physical-environmental-cognitive correlates of individual meditationists in the form of MEG data-sets, on the other hand.

It is intended to carry out statistical analysis of psychological test-results through scientific methodology of psycho-physics (Price and Barrel 2012, Satsangi TSC 2013), besides carrying out Cognitive Evaluation somewhat along the lines as referred to briefly in an earlier section in the context of popular Yoga and Meditation using appropriate psychological tools, in conjunction with the neural correlates of the unique spiritual phenomenology illustrated in the foregoing sections for meditationist-coinvestigators practicing the art of "Surat-Shabda Yoga" of Radhasoami Faith (Religion of Saints). [We do realize we have a long way to go before carrying a measure of scientific conviction].

Thank you very much.

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