 |
| How to activate dormant parts of brain by Yoga? |
By Pratik Pandey
“When the mind is silent, beyond weakness or non awareness, then it can enter into a world which is far beyond the mind, the highest end”
“When the mind is silent, beyond weakness or non awareness, then it can enter into a world which is far beyond the mind, the highest end”
~ Maitreya Upanishad
Human brain is the most complex mechanism in this world. Science is trying to delve deeper into it and find the hidden secrets, yet there is certainly a long way to go. We know very little about the nature of human brain and how it works. As you are reading it now, you might be wondering – What makes one a genius – this is something wrapped in the covers of mystery and most people are not aware about it. According to Yoga philosophy, all of us have the seed of being extraordinarily genius. We have most powerful mechanism of the world – human brain. But, we do not know how to activate it, how to ignite its dormant powers. Scientists estimate the processing power of an average brain to be about 100 million MIPS (Million computer Instructions Per Second). Which means the brain is like a 1,68,0000 MHz Pentium computer. And mind you, this is a very vague calculation.
Most of the human beings share quite similar structure and size of the brain. The most probing questions that arises here is – what makes one extra-ordinary and outshine others? Obviously, it is not biological factors as most of us have same sort of brain wirings. The biological models of the brain would have to include some 225,000,000,000,000,000 (225 million billion) interactions between cell types, neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, axonal branches and dendritic spines, and that doesn’t include the influences of dendritic geometry, or the approximately 1 trillion glial cells which may or may not be important for neural information processing. Because the brain is nonlinear, and because it is so much larger than all current computers, it seems likely that it functions in a completely different fashion and all the existing computers of the world combined together cannot match the capacity of a single human brain. Yoga gives us the key to activate this dormant capacity.
When the famous saint, Swami Vivekananda, was living in Chicago, USA, he used to go to the library, borrow large volumes of books, take them home and return them the next day. After some time the librarian became curious and asked him, "Why do you take out so many books when you can't possibly read them all in one day?" Swami Vivekananda replied that he read each and every page of every book. The librarian could not believe it, and so Swami Vivekananda asked her to test him. She opened a book, selected a page and paragraph, and asked him to tell her what was written there. Swami Vivekananda repeated the sentence exactly as it was written in the book, without looking at it. The librarian was astounded and did more tests. Each time Swami Vivekananda repeated the exact words written in the book.
Later the librarian discovered that Swami Vivekananda had a photographic memory. Whenever he wished, he could just recall - a book, a page, a sentence. That was the capacity of his brain and mind. Swami Vivekananda said many-a-times that it was not a unique ability he possessed and many Yogis could do the same with equal ease.
We do not perceive anything completely, i.e. usually we are not 100% present in the action. While listening to someone, while looking at something, while working or playing, several thoughts constantly tinker in the background. Yoga insists that this continuous flow of thoughts consumes most of our energy, captures vast amount of our active brain and works as a hindrance in activation of the dormant parts of our brain. “Effort or thought is a distraction from ‘what is’. The moment I accept ‘what is’ there is no struggle.” says J Krishnamurti, “When mind is quiet and sees ‘what is’ without any distortion, true understanding takes place instantly.” This is the key that a genius, a Yogi uses instinctively, while others miss altogether. A Yogi perceives the world as it is, without any layer of thought, and accesses the instant insight that invokes the spark of creativity.
There is a popular story that Newton was sitting under an apple tree one day. It was a pleasant day and he was in the mood to relax. An apple fell on his head, and he suddenly flash of the Universal Law of Gravitation. He discovered all the mathematical formulae to prove this assumption later. Let me tell you another intriguing, but true story about another great scientist. One day in 1895, a boy was gazing toward the sky and all of a sudden wondered what the universe would look like if he could travel on a beam of light. That sixteen year old boy was Albert Einstein and that one flash got him on the road to discover his Theory of Relativity.
Do you see a striking similarity between both of these incidents? All of us have witnessed such moments in our life. One of the most famous Hypnotists of all time Milton Erickson calls it a ‘creative moment’. Scientists say that we usually use only 10-12 percent of our brain at most. But during these creative moments, our entire brain becomes active and unconscious is no more dormant. Yoga is a scientific method to initially prolong these moments and make it a permanent state of your consciousness with the time. Yoga says - when you are free from any thought and just observing with a quiet mind, mind reaches to its full potential and gets the access to what Jung calls “collective unconscious”. Carl Jung says, “In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”
As our unconscious mind stores, categorizes and analyzes everything happened in our individual life, similarly the “collective unconscious” stores, categorizes and analyzes everything happened with humanity. So, when the surface of our brain has no activity of thought, we get access to collective unconscious that let us do wonders. The immense knowledge and wisdom of collective unconscious gives us great understanding, unbelievable creativity and insight into the secrets of universe. It makes great scientists, unparalleled painters, wonderful artists, and amazing musicians out of common men and women. This is the door to become a genius. But this door is locked, and to tap this unlimited potential and enter into it, one needs to unlock it using meditation.
Till the time we conceive ourselves as ‘doer’ and feel involved in activities, we cannot be an observer, and therefore we cannot get access to collective unconscious. An observation can only be objective when one is unattached. To do this is a practical problem and Yogis say the solution of this problem lies in meditation. Meditation is that key which can unlock the riches that are ours, but still out of our reach. Meditation helps us drop the efforts and see clearly ‘what is’.
Philosophy of Yoga says that everything is interdependent. As a small plant is dependent on the light of Sun, so is the situation of Sun. It is also somewhere dependent on that small plant. There is always a balance. If this balance is disturbed, things would start going awry. And this is the reason, Yogis say all of us are associated with each other. Meditation expands the consciousness and you may feel the same after a while.
As per Yoga, meditation is complete attention without any flickering. Meditation, if practiced properly, prolongs attention span and transforms the quality of perception. It sharpens your intellect and balances your emotions, which are very important traits for effective communication. There are several different methods of meditation, but their core is same. Be a witness to any object, inner or outer, in your consciousness. This object can be anything – a Mantra or Chakra or stream of thoughts. Just observe it by paying your full attention and do not force your mind at all. To know more about meditation and how it is performed, you may like to visit the “Meditation” section of my previous post – Improve Your Communication Skills with Yoga.
To understand meditation more clearly, we can imagine a seesaw. You must have seen children playing on it in the parks. To get things going, child on both sides depend on the other one. If even one of them is not there, the balance is broken and seesaw stops. Entire universe is like this only. Through meditation, when we understand clearly whatever we do is the outcome of the efforts of entire universe, and not our individual efforts, we cease to imagine ourselves as ‘doer’. Meditation shows us that we are a part of cosmic play that is going on every moment. And when we come to understand this simple truth that we are not doer, we become objective and we start observing things as they are, without any distortion, without any layer of thoughts and without any fancy of imagination. We clearly see ‘what is’ and awake the genius in us at that very moment.
PS. Get new updates/articles on Yoga and Vedanta
I write profound articles on spirituality, and on ancient sciences such as Yoga, Vedanta, Mantra and Tantra covering how you can transform your life with this timeless wisdom. You may want to subscribe my blog:
PS. Get new updates/articles on Yoga and Vedanta
I write profound articles on spirituality, and on ancient sciences such as Yoga, Vedanta, Mantra and Tantra covering how you can transform your life with this timeless wisdom. You may want to subscribe my blog:
