Saturday, August 23, 2008

The left lobe



Jill Bolte Taylor was a neuroscientist working at Harvard’s brain research center when she experienced nirvana. Dr. Taylor says the right, creative lobe can be used to foster contentment. But she did it by having a stroke. On Dec. 10, 1996, Dr. Taylor, then 37, woke up in her apartment near Boston with a piercing pain behind her eye. A blood vessel in her brain had popped. Within minutes, her left lobe — the source of ego, analysis, judgment and context — began to fail her. Oddly, it felt great.



The left lobe of the brain is necessary for many important functions, including the ability to use verbal language; however, the interior monologue that most of us have running continuously in the left brain, and which is the basis of the ego, can make life joyless and limited.

The Kundalini, the energy awakened in the process of Sahaja Yoga, lifts the awareness out of both the left and right hemispheres and into the limbic area of the brain, without damaging its physical structure, and the capacity for language or analytical thought, unlike Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke.

You can watch a video of Bolte Taylor talking about her egolessness experience here:

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