Columbia-Corvinus Workshop on “Awakened Brain & Awakened Campus” – interview

On July 8, 2024, the Corvinus Business Ethics Center organized a joint workshop with Columbia University Spirituality, Mind, Body Institute on “Awakened Brain & Awakened Campus” at the Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies.  

Zoltan Oszkar Szanto, Dean of the Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies & Corvinus Vice-Rector for Research opened the workshop. Lisa Miller, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Columbia Spirituality, Mind, Body Institute presented a lecture on “The Neuroscience of Spirituality & The Awakened Campus Initiative” while Laszlo Zsolnai, Professor and Director of the Corvinus Business Ethics Center gave a talk on “The Awakened Brain in Business Education”. 

Lisa Miller is a foremost scientist on spirituality across the lifespan, with her work published in top journals including JAMA Psychiatry, American Journal of Psychiatry, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Her innovative research has focused on quantifiable effects of spirituality in health, resilience and thriving, and an overall sacred and joyful life. Her clinical and consultation work focuses on spiritual awareness and spiritual growth, for individuals, families, groups and organizations. Dr. Miller is the author of best selling books including “The Spiritual Child; The New Science of Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving” and “The Awakened Brain; The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life”. Lisa Miller is the Editor of The Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality, and Co-E

In this interview Lisa Miller speaks about her groundbreaking research in neuroscience and her collaboration with Corvinus. 

Can you summarize your major discovery, the Awakened Brain phenomenon and its importance for education? 

There is a strong body of scientific research in the last two decades that shows that just as humans are physical, cognitive and emotional beings, every one of us is born a naturally spiritual being. Through the lens of twin studies, it was revealed that every human capacity can be understood as being partly innate and partly environmentally formed, or all innate, all environmentally formed. Our intelligence is about 60% innate, our temperament is about half and half, and the capacity through which we experience spiritual life is 1/3 innate. Everyone on Earth, 8 billion people is born a naturally spiritual being. And yet 2/3 environmentally formed means that we are exquisitely sensitive to our environment, to our parents and grandparents, our faith community, or lack thereof, and the values of our schools.  

There are certain periods where we are particularly sensitive to the environment and those are times of growth spurts. Any innate human capacity has built into these windows of rapid development and change. One of the most important of these is actually the time of the university years. 18- to 25-year-olds are in a rapid growth spurt, a hardwired biologically body and mind and spirit all one together in a time of tremendous searching and wondering and deciding what is “me”. This is called spiritual individuation. There is nothing that happens in college that is more foundational to who we are than the exquisitely sensitive, highly impacted process of spiritual formation.  

Science has found the neural correlates of the natural spiritual capacity. It turns out that no matter what your religion may be, there is one human “spiritual brain” and everyone on Earth has it. We call it the “Awakened Brain”.  I do not  claim biological reductionism saying that somehow the brain makes spirituality, but rather that there is an incarnate home within us for spiritual awareness, a “docking station” for the transcendent relationship.  

The most important thing is what happens when we do strengthen the spiritual core, and it is a big problem when a university is silent on spiritual life, or even foreclosing of it. That is to the great peril of our students. The students are in a growth path, they are seeking, and it is a rapid formation. Epidemiological studies show that when there is a strong spiritual core, people are 80% less likely to become addicted to drugs and alcohol. People are 82% less likely to take their life when spiritual life is shared in a community. The number one problem of college  students is suicide. It is a very serious tragedy that plagues our society, but it has an antidote. We know from science that  the antidote is the strong spirituality. From 18 to 25, it is the job of the university to offer free expression, pluralistic exploration, and be knowledgeable about our universal spiritual nature.  

What is the Awakened Campus Initiative all about? 

It has been my great honor and my great thrill to be in collaboration with the Business Ethics Center at the Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies. It has been wonderful to collaboratively forming Awakened Campus Global. I was very honored when László Zsolnai reached out a number of years ago and initiated to do Awakened Campus Global, bringing people from Europe, India, North and South America to help university leaders and faculty who are interested in spirituality and the “whole person development” of student. There are many “mind-body” institutes across our global academic landscape, but there are very few which have taken the reins on “spiritual-mind-body”. The spiritual core turns out to be the hub of the wheel, the center of the whole person education. In the Awakened Campus Global Initiative we have scholars and leaders from all over the world looking at new pedagogy, looking at new ways of train the faculty, looking at new ways of formation of the student.  

How can spirituality be introduced to higher education?  

Awakened Campus Global looks at different pedagogical approaches to exploring spiritual life, to experiencing spiritual life, and to helping professors learn how to engage their own spiritual core in their professions. Awakened Campus Global looks at the pedagogical process, the cultural process, what is in the air and water of the university that moves past the outdated 20th century radical materialism of science.  

The Awakened Campus Global is a harbinger of what is to come. If you look at Generation Z in their walk, then you recognize that  they live a universal human experience. Generation Z dates who they love and they do not date based on the “zipped-up bio bodysuit”. Generation Z goes to business with who they want, they do not go to business based on the “zipped-up bio bodysuit”. Generation Z is trying to live a unitive reality and the only thing holding them back are outdated 20th century professors. I join with my colleagues and say we can change this. We can have an enlightened, foundationally spiritual, inclusive university.