It’s been a while. And I’m ready to return. Back to the scene of opinion sharing. There is so much on my mind, my soul, and my body…
“the brain” is commonly the topic these days, whether it’s a phone call to my mom, a discussion that is filling the full hour of a private yoga session I’m teaching, or a side bar prior to debauchery at a music festival; all are my best chances to attempt to explain the classification of duties that each hemisphere of the brain provides.
I’m completely floored by the topic. It’s the next level to me. In the same way as I feel that dance is the next level of freedom in movement, this moment I am presented to a new level of evolution of my mind. Talking about it is like an active approach to understanding my two brains, and their individual contributions to my experience of life.
Here’s the break down:
the right hemisphere is:
- the side of the brain that is thought of as the creative side;
- the hemisphere that is responsible for all our senses of the present moment… all of it, all that we hear, all that we see, all that we taste, all that we smell, all that we touch and all that connects with us through the senses;
- a constant receiver and expresser of energy.
It’s interesting to me that the general concept of creativity is aligned with all feeling. Something to consider: what we feel is what we express – that what we bring out of ourselves into the world. What a useful exercise in itself to understand!
Sensations and emotions team-up for the image of ‘expression’.
the left hemisphere is:
- the information center;
- the carrier of all opinions that we have;
- the chatter in our heads
- operating in language; whether it’s English, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, math, or any system of rules.
It is a constant separatist of energy into individual items of existence.
To define what that means, imagine that all that is seen through your eyes is blurry-colored, as in one color fusing into another that fuses into another and so on: like a water color painting.
This IS how we truly see the world until the left hemisphere begins to operate (which for the most of us is 100% of our life experience). As soon as the left hemisphere begins to operate, it instantly sharpens the image, giving the blurriness a shape and turning this light of colors into a common language with a meaning that a computer screen would understand – like television settings, only sophisticated to levels far beyond.
Where I get intrigued is here: our understanding of the process of experiencing, tells us there is one mind. In fact, there is a constant layering occurring. The right brain and left brain contributes to each other, collaborates with each other, dominates each other, supports each other and pulls away from each other continuously and nearly simultaneously.
This is how I have seen creativity for some time: it is the collaboration between system (left brain)) with the ability to intelligently break through it, while expressing beyond language (right brain) yet using that language, all at the same time. The constant layering is begging to confuse but it’s the confusion that opens up the state of thoughtlessness where meditation is.
To use a yoga system analogy, the Iyengar system goes so deep into technical alignment, that at some point in the process, the left brain can’t keep up with the rights hemisphere’s sensual experience. At that point, it is creating a gap in thoughts, maybe only for a moment, but that moment of thoughtlessness is meditation. It is just that moment of thoughtlessness where you would be completely in being (as opposed to thinking).
Dance, or Ashtanga vinyasa do a similar duty with a different path. Through repetition of movement until it’s completely programmed into the body, there’s no thinking needed (left brain). Because there is no thinking needed, it creates an uncommon space for thoughts to cease. Not that they always will, but the opportunity becomes heightened when breath focus and visual focus limit external stimuli. It’s like putting a stop to the ticker of thoughts that parade though our heads like the CNN ticker shares news that only by chance has anything to do with what’s going on in the show airing.
Another great example of a practice that follows the principles of flow is running. Yet the constant stimuli from music and sights increases the difficulty to further to a depth of peace.
What a vivid exploration! The deeper that western culture goes into office jobs, and number crunching, deeply entering the left hemisphere, the closer to atrophy we collectively bring our right hemisphere to. Moving into the right side is a version of giving up control, of surrendering. It almost feels like a betrayal to the controlling leader on the left side.
As a cry out for help, our present experience when heavily guided by the thinking mind-tendencies creates insanity, which feeds a ‘healthy’ pharmaceutical industry, and not to mention, alcohol, drugs and other products that numb our senses.
By numbing our emotion’s cry for attention (feelings/right brain), we allow the left brain to take control again. There is this constant fight between the left and the right side for a space to safely lose control. But, to safely lose control is a modern luxury; extreme sports have come into technological existence, due to the systemizing of the world, the balancing act that is nature…
What I realize now is that although the “thinking” left hemisphere is the controlling leader, it’s the “feeling” right hemisphere that has the power to move the world, to connect to a deeper knowledge. It is the right hemisphere that is the part of ourselves that has the deepest knowledge, deeper than any piece of information could ever make us privy to. It is the side that reads light and vibration, the subconscious that is intuitive. Not only does it read energy, but according to it, all that exists is energy, including the thoughts that are made up by the left hemisphere. Nothing but energy and everything is energy…
So if you’re still following and if you are not, here’s the insight - the right brain is so amazingly evolved, that the left brain could never understand its experiences fully. Yet we live in a global zeitgeist that has surrendered to the left hemisphere’s accumulative resources, which are disconnected with the holistic experience the right brain can provide. As such, strong walls have been created between the two that shut out the trust in the right hemisphere’s depth of experience. It is the left hemisphere’s feed of a survival mechanism, so we can feel safe, by adhering to that which we can seemingly understand.
One thing, no matter the belief system one is aligned with, that is a ubiquitous, is the understanding that no one really knows. All of life always comes down to a mystery, of a faith in a greater power, whether its labeled by ones left brain (all labeling is a left hemisphere duty) as nature, or as a god, or whatever it is you see the world as, it’s your right hemisphere that reads and translates the mystery, while the left, perpetually desires to explain it. Re-read that before you read this:
It‘s the egotistical left brain that would ever claim to know anything, the right has no agenda nothing to prove: it just is, it just does.
Copyright © Lawrence-Jacob Milman, 2009. All rights reserved. The reproduction or transmission of all or part of the work, whether by photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means or otherwise, without the written permission of the owner, is prohibited. Any unauthorised use or act in relation to the work appearing on this website will result in both civil and criminal liability.
