Neuroscience and Karma

Author(s): Jethalal S Zaveri, Mahendramuni
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 24

PROLOGUE II
The Brain
0. The Enchanted Loom
The BRAIN'S commanding presence orders sensation, movement, thought and a lifetime of memory. The central nervous system, a maze of nerve fibres, links all areas of the body to cells in the fabric of the brain, as in a loom.
Within that "enchanted loom" romanticized the Nobel prize winning physiologist Sir Charles Sherrington, "millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern, though never an abiding one". Twenty-five centuries ago, Hippocrates, legendary father of medicine, declared "Not only our pleasure, our joy and our laughter but also our sorrow, pain, grief and tears arise from the brain; with it we think and understand, see and hear, and we discriminate between the ugly and the beautiful, between what is pleasant and what is unpleasant and between good and evil". In the sixth century B.C., Greek philosophers thought that the brain served as the organ of the mind and as the temple of the soul.
Object of mystery and superstition through most of history, human brain has revealed itself only in recent centuries. Modern technology enables neuroscientists to examine brain tissue for clues to nerveregeneration and sprouting of neural fibres. Brain-surgeon Roger Sperry concludes that "the Brain's consciousness encompassed and transcended its physical workings; in the human head, there are forces within forces within forces, as in no other cubic half-foot of the universe that we know." Through the eyes of science, let us have a glimpse of the working of the enchanted loom.
BRAINSCAPE-THE PORTRAIT OF THE BRAIN
1. Divisions and Parts of the Brain
Through the centuries, surveyors of the brain charted every cerebral (xvi)