Who is Ken Wilber? He is a meditator, author, and apparent self-promoter rooted in Western science. Ken has no "heart," now we find he has no brain either! Ken can stop his brainwaves at will. That is, while hooked up to a personal EEG machine, Ken enters various meditative states, one of which is a type of "thoughtless," "sign-less," "image-less," or "formless" state.
It is not the famous Buddhist meditative state known as cessation (nirodha samapatti) but what he calls (in more traditional Hindu terms) nirvikalpa samadhi. Its correlate is that his brainwaves come almost to complete rest, as clearly recorded on his portable electroencephalograph (EEG) machine.
(This video is discussed in One Taste, April 10 entry.) We asked Ken to do a short 10-minute commentary on these various meditative states and the corresponding brainwave patterns that are shown on the EEG machine in the video. Ken enters four meditative states (nirvikalpa closed eyes, nirvikalpa open eyes, sahaj, and mantra-savikalpa), each of which has a very distinctive brainwave pattern.
In his commentary, Ken emphasizes that the patterns shown on this machine may or may not be typical, but they do emphasize that profound states of consciousness can be evoked at will. And these show an immediate correlation to brainwave patterns.
If nothing else, seeing someone's brainwaves flat line in about four seconds is something not easily forgotten! It also explains why we once heard Ken's girlfriend say, upon delivering news that she thought might not be well received: "Now, um, honey, make your brainwaves go to zero...."
More seriously, as Ken often says, "If you want to know God, you've got to get your brain out of the way first. It's just one big stupid filter." — IntegralNaked
