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Ahmet F.Yuksel
– Hello, Professor. How are you? How are we getting along? As
you know we did not have the chance to meet lately. I am
thinking that the difficulties of the daily life and the
changes such as a new marriage/daily activities have made you
really tired.
 Prof.
Dr. M.Kerem Doksat-
Although I have been together with you only for a few times
there is no one else whom I love as much. Believe me that I
can hardly gather myself together after the changes that have
taken place in my life during the last two years.
Ahmet F.Yuksel-
I must admit sincerely that I am not searching for a specific
reason to love something. Moreover, I have not seen much a brain
like yours. As a matter of fact it would be more correct if I
say that there is only one.
Prof. Dr. M.Kerem Doksat
– Thank you very much for the compliment. I am only a traveller
among ideas who tries to carry in his brain and his heart both
the science and the belief without being fanatic in both
subjects.
Ahmet F.Yuksel-
I will ask you some questions about the functioning methods of
the brain. This subject is valuable for some people (not the
average man on the street) and they are eager and curious to
know how the brain works.
Now, with your permission I will
start asking:-
Could you give a brief summary
about the characteristics of the hippocampus and the amigdala.
Prof. Dr. M.Kerem Doksat-
Amigdala is the place where the evolutionary information is kept
together with the information obtained in the mother’s womb and
the impressions that belong to the first three years of life
(the preoedipal stage). In a way, it is the ‘’archaic memory
storage’’. It performs this function together with the lymbic
system in which it is found.
Ahmet F.Yuksel
–Does the hippocampus have any influence on the amigdala and the
lymbic system?
Prof.Dr.M.Kerem Doksat-
It has an indirect influence my friend!
Ahmet F.Yuksel-
How ?
Prof.Dr.M.Kerem Doksat-
It represses and filters the stimuli that come from the
amigdala and it connects them with the stimuli that come from
our inner world and makes up ‘’the working memory’’. This is
like the ‘’Random Access Memory’’ in the computer.
Ahmet F.Yuksel-
All right, then, can we train the amigdala? I would like to have
your opinion on this subject.
Prof. Dr. M.Kerem Doksat-
Yes, it is being trained by all the deep meditative
(contemplative) activities (transendence: mystical, artistic
experiences/lives, and states of ecstacy) as well as by some
special techniques and by some symbolic-allegorical thinking. In
other words it can be trained by all kinds of sufi (mystic)
contemplation and philosophizing. It is not possible to reach
that place tnrough the cortical logic.
The thousands of religious,
mystical, meditative disciplines in the whole world are the
practices which bombard this part of the brain and they in a
way regulate it. Among these are all kinds of dhikr, the
rituals, the states of trance etc.. Hz.Mohammed, Buddha, Lao
Tse had reached that place and they could taste the
evolutionary, in other words the whole knowledge and that was
the only one.
However, this truth cannot be
expressed by the words of the daily language.
It is impossible to convert the
words of Hallaj ‘’En-el Hakk’’ if I may say so ‘’Allah’’
(those who wish may call this as God, Yehova, The Inner Truth
etc.) into the language of the hippocampus and the upper
cortical language for speech. The experiences cannot be put into
words, but they can only be lived as pyschic states. The famous
neuro scientist Joseph has used the following heading in his
book : ’’Amigdala and the Lymbic System - The transmitter that
extends to God’’.
The heavy traumas and experiences
of horror effect the same regions in a negative way. For
example, in the illness named as the ‘’Stress Disorder Following
a Trauma’’, it has been shown that among the neurons in this
region there was a kind of electrical process, a sparkling, a
kindling. These people have sudden flashbacks of memory
about the trauma and exaggerated reactions to the stimuli that
remind the trauma and in time extreme emotional limitedness
develops develops. These are the negative influences.
Ahmet F.Yuksel-
As far as I can remember you have mentioned briefly the format
of the brain (by this I mean the amigdala) during a tv program
in the Haber Turk channel when you were speaking about a film.
Moreover, at that time some people thought that you accepted the
divine inspiration (wahey) as something delirious, because
most probably they could not understand the subject fully.
In that TV programme Mr. Yaþar
Nuri was also there. I have seen that you have complimented
Mr.Yaþar Nuri as a theologist, but he has a different type of
behaviour. He never goes into those dimensions and into the
path that leads to the essence. Do you have anything to say
regarding this point?
Prof. Dr. M. Kerem Doksat
- Actually, the presenter of the program in a way spoiled the
conversation. The film which we were talking about was the
Matrix, the strange film which was one of the first brain
washing tools of Evangelism that has now become a world wide
trouble.
When it comes to Mr.Yaþar Nuri,
unfortunately he loves to be the one and the only. Having too
little modesty is as harmful as having too much modesty.
In his education and formation my
late father (may he be blessed) has an important role and
Mr.Yaþar Nuri could get his degree as an associate professor by
means of this. If it had not been so, the narrow minded
teachers of theology would try to stop him. Unfortunately, in
the later years he did not call neither my mother nor me. He
always stayed away from my attempts of collaborating with him.
If it had not been so, the collaboration of a broad minded
academician of psychiatry and a broad minded academician of
theology would be very good and productive. However, he loves
‘’the one man show’’ and this is his choice.
When we come to the matter of
wahey (divine inspiration):-
As it is known, some very special
brains become ecstatic and they go into a deep state of trance
and transcendence that goes deep down to this region and as if
automatically some of them can compose music (like Mozart,
Beethoven, Dede Efendi and Itri), some can draw, paint (like
the great painters) or they can write poetry like many great
poets and folk poets. Also, some very very special gifted
brains who have been chosen have their share from the universal,
evolutionary whole knowledge and although it would be rather
symbolic and allegorical they attain a creativity which goes
beyond the centuries.
From the medical point these are
states of dissociation, but contrary to pathological and
destructive dissociations they are being characterized by the
creation of a masterpiece as if the divine creativity has been
reflected onto the individual. Therefore, I name these as
‘’associative dissociations’’.
At least think about Hz.Mohammad
who did not know how to read and write until he received the
command ‘’Ikrah/Read’’ ( I am sure that he has learned this
after he had received that order) and who said about the
Quran-al-Kerim ‘’These are not my words, but Allah’s
statements’’ and just think how the magnificence of the Quran
has made the Seven Love Poets believe! What a great thing
this is.
At the start of Yohanna’s bible
there is a similar expression:- ’’At the beginning there was
only the word... And God was the word’’. Thousands of pages can
be written just for solving the depth of the symbolism in
these two declarations and indeed they were written.
In short, the prophets
(represantatives) were also human beings and they too were
acting with their brains. What I am trying to do is to search
for the neuropsychiatric explanations of these phenomena by
means of the indispensable principal ‘’all the things that
happen in this universe have mechanisms which can be explained
by the laws of this universe’’. This field has always been
considered as a taboo and it has not been thought over nor
studied. The atheists and other concerned people have looked
down upon these phenomena either thinking of them as
epilepsy or simply by considering them as psychosis. Of
course, in order to be able to understand even the things that I
have said there needs to be serious accumulation of culture and
a broad horizon of vision and thoughts. Unfortunately, the
ordinary people do not understand these and when they understand
(please pardon me, but they understand the opposite).
My dear friend please, do not
forget a statement of my late father: ‘’The religion is not
the objective, but it is a means’’. The delicate border of
being a religious fanatic and being a man of hearts lies in this
statement.
If you ask me ‘’Who are looking at
the mattter from this point?’’, then I can give the names of
all who possess sufism (all the masters of sufism).
I will never forget the time when
I gave the draft of a book which I had prepared on this subject
to a young colleague. He had the necessary accumulation of
knowledge to understand these whose way of thinking was like
mine. After he finished reading it I asked his opinion about
the book. He was trying to be polite and he said ‘’Brother;
religion is a dogma and one shouldn’t go into such arguments or
explanations about religion’’ and this was all he could say and
nothing more.
Whereas, we need this very much.
Our intelellectuals are keeping away from the mosques and the
religion. Those who are filling up the mosques are becoming
more and more a crowd of religious fanatics and ignorant
people. In the west, the churches are loosing their
‘’clients’’ too. The intellectual people who are in need of
belief and some people who belong to the creme de la creme of
the society are being carried away by some new, false trends put
on stage by some charlatans or ill people. In order to kiss
the feet of a female guru who has come from India, the high
society people are paying thousands of dollars and taking part
in special rituals.
Ahmet F.Yuksel :
As a result of the experiments conducted on the brains of the
people who have beeen proved to be clinically dead it is very
likely that the hippocampus and the amigdala in the brain
(which are the first parts to become activated in the baby
brain) are also the regions whose activities last until the real
death of the brain.
What can be the scientific outcome
of this procees of being the first and the last to be effected
?’’
Prof. Dr. M.Kerem Doksat
During the experiences of
stress,plenty of adrenalin, nonadrenalin and steroid are being
secreted and these lead to the secretion of endoginous opiates
(the morphin like substances produced by the human body). These
substances have a pleasant effect and they relieve the pain.
When the individual confronts death which is a peak stress and
pressure factor, then great amounts of these substances are
being secreted. In such a situation as the cortical
consciousness starts to disappear there is an incredible state
of pleasure and ecstasy. It is often told that in such a
state one reaches a very bright light and watches both his body
and the people around from above. Many people who have returned
back to life from the point of death are telling nearly the
same things. These are all evolutionary adaptations developed by
the brain in order to increase the endurance of the organism to
such a life. In many people who have returned back to life
there is a change of behaviour. They are no longer afraid of
death and they try to live their lives fully. Most probably
death is a plesant and joyous event.
Actually, in order to have orgasm
some people hang themselves and they get saved from death at the
very last moment. This is a sexual divergence and this is named
as ‘’Asphyxomania’’.
Ahmet F.Yuksel
Dear Professor, I thank you for
the information you have given. Please, excuse me for having
taken so much of your precious time, please accept my
respects.
Prof. Dr. M.Kerem Doksat
You are most welcome my
dear friend and same to you.
Istanbul, May12th.2005
afyuksel@hotmail.com
sufafy@hotmail.com
http://sufizmveinsan.com
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