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Boo!
The mysticism is the pathway that is absolutely necessary to the realization of one's own Enlightenment. Sorry! Enlightenment simply cannot be realized via of the thinking mind. Again, this is not about a doctrine of belief in a god; it is about a direct spiritual experience which requires no validation, but which is verifiable nonetheless. The spiritual experience is not mandated to prove anything to anyone.
Once again, I need to correct you: the spiritual experience is not a personal interpretation of reality that is subject to distortion: it is an impersonal experience of a universal nature.
Study is not enough. It must be practiced for the results you admire to come to fruition. Study alone will only produce doctrine and belief, and we all know where those lead.
It is, but that is beside the point. You forgot that it was an illusion because your conditioned mind pulled you back into believing that it is real, because that is what you have been indoctrinated with, an indoctrination that is still hard-wired into your brain.
You have Buddhism confused with the Abrahamic religions, where a Cop administers punishment for bad behavior, and reward for good. Buddhism requires no such enforcer of Cosmic Law, as karma is automatic, like physics. You create negative vibes, and they come back to you, that's all. Same is true for good vibes. This has always been the case. Karma existed before Buddha ever came on the scene. All Buddha did was to understand it and teach how it functions out of great compassion for the suffering of others. Actually, the notion of karma was already inside Hinduism before the Buddha's appearance.
If you really understood, you would know that, as real as it all seems, it is just One Big Act, even down to the sub-atomic level. In fact, Beyondo, you yourself are part of it all, playing the part of The Learned Explainer. Trouble is, you haven't yet reached the point of realization where all explanations, via of Science, Analysis, Logic, Mathematics, and Reason, simply will not do.
As Watts tells us, it is much simpler than all that. Much, much simpler.
Suffering comes when one is taken in by the illusion, believing it to be real, and then acting upon that belief.
I say you are stuck in my version of Maya, you like the "blue pill". I on the other had looked for an option, not necessarily the means by which things happen but at least a workable solution. So how is this helpful? One: If I can demonstrate plausible approaches that are not conventional but do not disagree with experiment then others will follow and challenge the status quo. Two: Looking at things differently isn't a waste of time as many Buddhist and other eastern religious figures claim. Looking at nature for the inspiration of ideas is what science is all about, validation is what makes science different from religion. If I'm right then humanity hit the lotto! The challenge is in trying to validate it. In the end society is better off diversifying investigation rather than focusing on one solution that may never realize real results.
If, as you call it "my pet theory", is wrong, soo what. I haven't invested my entire life to it. I explore it as a hobby, an interesting past time of many options and activities I participate in. I can compare and scrutinize other theories and see the value in each one. But if Buddha is wrong, you've wasted an entire life ignoring good ideas...
More about the center of consciousness being somewhere other than the brain:
Kundalini is seen as an "energy" that usually resides "asleep" at the base of the spine. When this energy is "awakened" it rises slowly up the spinal canal to the top of the head. This may mark the beginning of a process of enlightenment.
"The kindling phenomenon speeds up the electrical loop system, which exists between the thalamus and the cortex. This extra supply of energy from lower centers causes a diffuse activation of the whole cortex reflected by increased synchronization and coherence of brain wave activity within all frequency bands. As the energy flows from the thalamus to the cortex and awakens latent or unused parts of the brain (especially in the frontal lobes) the whole brain begins to pulse as a unit generating coherent, high amplitude brain waves within a broad frequency spectrum. During rest maximum amplitude will be in the alpha band but during intense focus high amplitude beta and gamma waves will prevail, especially in the frontal area.
Kundalini and modern physics
Interestingly this mechanism can be related to modern physics. A ‘condensate’ is a substance whose molecules have a greater order and coherence than normal. In a ‘Bose-Einstein condensate’ the molecules not only have a high degree of order but they also overlap and the condensate behaves like a unit. Examples of ‘Bose-Einstein condensates’ in inorganic matter are superconductors and laser beams. However a scientist by the name Herbert Frohlich showed that by feeding extra energy to the cell walls of living tissue, the cells would line up in the most orderly, condensed way we know – the ‘Bose-Einstein condensate’ – and the cell walls would start acting as a unit.
Apparently, when the brain is supplied with an extra amount of high grade energy (Kundalini) it becomes a ‘Bose-Einstein condensate’. Thus following Kundalini awakening, the brain turns into a super-conductor with a focus like a laser beam."
"....science cannot prove that consciousness can survive death; however, research is underway right now that may provide scientific evidence that consciousness can exist outside of the body. ...science has a lot of explaining to do if tries to claim that consciousness does not survive death.
A good analogy of one current theory of consciousness assumes that consciousness is not localized in the skull. Assuming consciousness is like a television signal that exists in the air waves and is being processed by a television set (the brain) to produce images on the screen (brain chemistry) representing a television program (a near-death experience). Using this analogy, current scientific theories claim that the near-death experience is a product of the television set. In other words, the television program is a product of the television set. Using the analogy, this would be false because it is the television signal working with the television that produces the television program. Some scientific claims state that death is the end of consciousness - like shutting of the television set is the end of the television signal in the air waves. Using this analogy, you can see that such a statement is false. Shutting off the television does not affect the television signal in the air waves. Some of the top consciousness researchers believe this analogy fits, that is, consciousness is like the television signals in the air waves and that death is not the end of consciousness. Shutting off the television set does not affect the signal in the air waves."
Kundalini and the Brain
If anything gotnotgod this article references the "BoseEinstein condensate" that actually gives rise to the notions of A.I. In effect the network mapping analogy to BoseEinstein condensate allows for such systems to arise from materials that are not biological. This also gives more credence to my approach to a computational universe from interacting standing waves. Because the standing waves chaotically converge to patterns, these patterns can develop micro-computational systems that can have transition phase states similar to BoseEinstein condensate and therefore network to create more complex and layered abstractions that end up emulating quantum phenomena. Thanks for re-enforcing "my pet theory"!
Then A.I. should get there rather easily.