Concept
Left and right brain
The two hemispheres as two ways of attending, after Iain McGilchrist. The left brain labels, divides and grasps one thing at a time, holding words and memory; the right brain takes everything in as one, holding meaning and expansion, and watches over like a guardian angel. He frames meditation as a journey from left to right.
Start with these
You Have a Left & Right Brain - Yogi Explains
Answers the claim that science debunked the split, then sets out the two ways of attending through Betty Edwards' drawing class and McGilchrist's chicken.
00:24Watch from here
Meaning in Deep Meditation and the No Ego Myth
Maps meditation stage by stage, from the left brain's words through spiritual light and the higher self download to absorption in the right brain.
05:27Watch from here
Radical Balance In the Deep Brain - Yogi Explains
A short Hakalau round done along with him, so a newcomer can feel the left brain's talking stop for a moment.
04:20Watch from hereWhere it comes up
09:05“That's how the right brain sees the world.”01:02“As I really go into my periphery, all the labels disappear, and that's how you know I'm getting out of the left brain and I'm actually beginning to contact the right brain.”00:24“So let's talk about the left and right brain.”02:26“Your left brain takes everything and it chops it up into a million pieces, but your right brain doesn't do that.”01:52“Your personality, everything that you think about, all of your memories, your life story, your hallucination of life itself, all of that is contained in the left brain.”03:04“And so what the left brain is doing for us, it's a huge service, and it is taking all of that raw data and trying to pick out what is important to you, and so it deletes, it distorts, and it generalizes that information, and it turns it into categories.”14:34“They're using the right side of the brain.”05:56“The left brain is designed to lean on the right brain, and if you don't do this in your life, you will have a lot more stress, a lot more distress in your life that you could have released and let go of because you were leaning on the higher self.”03:23“Right, that grasping nature is our left brain personality, and we were trying to get out of that and to access more of the right brain and the opening up and the letting go and the expansion, right?”02:04“And so the the left brain is set up to codify your whole world.”05:15“Well, the answer is actually really quite simple when you see it in line with the two hemispheres of the brain, right?”07:44“We're going from identification with the left brain into identification with the right brain, and that's the actual entering into the cave.”05:27“So what I'd like to show is that this entire spiritual experiment is a sort of journey from the left brain into the right brain.”05:11“So he's trying to reach out and grasp the spiritual eye, with what he has worked so far, which is the left brain.”03:53“What he's talking about is that the left brain is the servant, and the right brain is the master.”01:13“And to answer that, I would turn to Todd Murphy and his book *Spiritual Pathways*, where he puts forth the theory that certain parts of the brain are designed to work separately, and so they have a resistance between the two so that they can operate separately.”02:32“It's not what the left brain and the right brain does; it's how it does it.”01:11“So I want you to go back, and I want you to imagine the first time they opened the skull to take a look inside the brain and saw that there were two hemispheres.”02:39“And we're going towards the right brain.”02:50“It was just waiting for that last little critical factor of the left brain to momentarily let go and get out of the way, and boom, it comes right down.”08:41“Allow the weight, allow the left brain to lean on the right brain.”11:12“Of all of that philosophy, it will lead you into your left brain rather letting you accept and be in the right brain.”07:33“You can't win against the left brain with the left brain.”03:49“His consciousness has rolled up and started to touch the deep brain, and he becomes so clear because you're coming out of the fog of your left brain going into the right brain.”10:27“You build up this idea of what you think things are in your left brain.”07:02“And that eye is why I say that meditation is a very slow, deliberate movement from the left brain processes over to the right brain processes, and in that process, you are moving the I-maker, Ahamkara.”04:33“You're heading so deep into the right brain that you're losing time.”01:50“It's this ivory tower in your left brain, and it's it's a false mental architecture.”04:44“It's all very left brained, and that means it's all egoic, doesn't it?”07:40“So your left brain is coming in and judging your experience.”02:47“That's your left brain; it can only handle a just a minuscule amount of what is actually happening in your personal universe right now.”10:12“The right brain holds all the light, and so you're entering into that holder of light, and voila, we have a vision as we're passing to that side.”07:16“And when you do that, when you take it all in for a moment, just a hair of a hair sometimes, you're driving yourself away from the left brain into the right brain.”02:42“Now number two, when your eyes are darting around and moving all around, it means that we're very, very heavily into the left brain, and we want to let go of that.”09:04“We want to travel into the right brain.”06:19“I've got a right brain, I got a left brain, and the left brain is designed to lean on the right.”01:44“And even deeper than that, when you touch profoundly on the right brain, you exit your identification with all of the processes which you call yourself, my memory, the words that I use, the body that I use every day, the hallucination of the world that I live in.”11:08“Your left brain is the predator.”10:34“The locus of our focus is here, and then we head to the next level, and the next level, and the next level until we stretch ourselves farther and farther into the hugeness of the divine, and so we're going from left brain manifestation, go out and do it, to more and more and more of the right brain, encompassing everything, holding everything.”10:09“Yoga is a journey from that left brain into the expansiveness and the knowingness and the deep, profound intuition of the right brain.”08:04“The other way to describe this is that we are on a journey from the left brain to the right.”03:58“Because you're looking for it in the left brain, and it's something you have to come to intuitively, and that is a yogic process.”05:18“And your left brain sees the world from inside that tiny little figure of your body.”09:54“And the second kind of gratitude that I want to talk about is really the right brain.”08:18“The right brain is a multi processor.”12:09“The more we rely on the right, the right brain is heavier and bigger.”17:30“In the hierarchy of the brain, your personality is under the right brain.”15:25“But as we're going towards the right brain, we're going to disengage from the left brain, and that involvement of the mind and the energy is locked in the left brain, and we're unlocking it.”06:12“It drives you into the right brain, and in that moment you're not just enjoying an outward scene in the mundane world.”00:58“It was just beautiful because when we're in the left brain, we're grasping, grasping, grasping, and we need to use some of that left brain to do our practices.”04:29“The amazing thing when we go into Hakalau, when we go into our peripheral vision, it is a neurological driver for the right brain.”04:36“Silence is the right brain.”06:07“So through the Bible, what is being shared is a relationship between the left brain and the right brain.”01:31“The left brain is like a predator.”13:02“So that stretching is a dislocation of your internal software of the left brain, which maps the body and sends a signal to the brain that that's getting interrupted.”05:48“You're going into a profound connection with the right brain.”11:44“Because driving your car is absolutely a left brain process.”06:10“And in that short, brief bit of silence, you're using a little bit more of the right brain.”11:53“We're transferring from the left brain into the right brain, and that's how we experience the non-dual state.”19:29“That's time shrinking and it takes place because you're contacting the right brain, right?”13:37“So the left brain is like, well, I could do this and I could do that, and sometimes we just have to let go and just be, right?”16:18“When you live in the left brain, you're not really there.”07:37“So I think it's a very, very good answer for a lot of people, and there's so much truth inside of it because the way that the right brain works, it's actually referred to as a guardian.”08:49“But I want to talk a little bit about how we've got these non-dual processes on the right side of the brain.”13:43“Time is a process of the left brain.”12:17“The left brain is what we use during the day, and the right brain is constantly looking out for us.”07:56“Well, the left and right brain dichotomy explains that.”25:57“Because your your left brain is a linear processor, meaning it does one thing at a time, one after the other, only very straightforward, very linear.”11:35“All of that is because of the right brain and the way that it processes.”06:50“To put this in terms of your brain, your right brain sees everything as one.”05:51“We are identified with the left, and that makes all of the difference.”11:46“Just adopt the same attitude and expand, and that will help to induce the right brain.”20:16“The right brain sees everything as itself, everything, and so that includes the air around you.”08:23“So we start off with the left brain, and we go into the right brain.”05:34“The left brain is associated with the body and the personality.”07:45“All of our lives, we're either in the right brain or the left brain”16:38“Because your left brain is a sequential driver.”11:46“On Patreon, I've been writing about the four parts of the left brain that we are getting out of, and so as we get out of the body image and the body map, we begin to lose pieces of it, and so this is an interruption of the body image and the body map.”15:08“The right brain puts us outside and sees the whole story as one.”05:08“So you say the word "tree," T-R-E-E, and it's spelled out with your left brain, but the image of the tree takes place in the right hippocampus, in the right brain.”05:46“All right, all the inputs from your five senses feed into your brain, and your left brain sees the world from where you are looking out, and the right brain takes all of that information and watches all of it from the outside.”12:40“And what happens is you leave the left hemisphere of the brain.”03:11“If you could see the entire yogic path in terms of your brain, we are moving from the left brain into the right brain, and to facilitate that, we use this resonant breathing, right?”03:11“So, unlike other parts of the brain that don't like to share, there's resistance between the left hippocampus and the right hippocampus, and that separation of powers is very important for the brain.”05:02“Which is your left brain, and you'll find that the meaning and that feeling evaporate, because you're on the wrong side of the brain.”50:28“Another thing that you might want to think about with ADHD is that we have a left brain, which is kind of like a predator.”01:21“The left brain is entirely sequential, so it's one thing at a time.”08:47“So another way that we could view this left side creative, cool, and right side hot and aggressive, is in the expression of the right brain, which is crossing into the body on the left side, and being creative, right?”02:24“And so when we're coming from the left brain, which is where our sense of self usually is, predominantly in the centers of language, in the centers of linear thinking, one thing after another, we're moving.”07:41“Vikshepa is is really a product of your left brain.”07:32“And so that's how your brain is divided.”02:18“You're using a dual driver, which is the right brain, rather than a single driver, which is the left brain.”01:34“So the left brain comes with its focus like this.”07:23“The answer that I came up with was that anytime you have balance between the two hemispheres of the brain, you get a very kind of electric and peaceful state.”07:46“So the left brain is primarily responsible for this for the internal sense of our self, our ego, right?”01:04“And meditation, we should be moving away from things into the right brain, which is everywhere, owns the universe.”01:18“See, right now, you and I are identified with the left brain.”00:28“Our lives are an interplay between the left brain and the right brain, and this this is essential to the disidentification process.”05:29“Remember, we're flipping from the the left brain, which is linguistic and sequential, to the right brain, which is pictorial and expansive.”01:34“It stills it for a little bit because the tongue and the left brain, the language center, are together, right?”01:35“And what it really comes down to is the left and right brain.”03:28“We're going to use the spatial perception of the right side of the brain as a neurological driver to drive us over from the left side of the brain to the right side of the brain.”04:38“There's a gap in the constant steamroller of your left brain.”05:17“And we go all the way into pure identification with the right brain, pure identification with everything, which is the samadhi, right?”16:05“That's the left brain.”08:11“It was creating this succession of layers in a soft, gentle, profound focus that draws you in because you're actually hitting the right brain, and it's actually beginning to suck you in when you use it again and again.”08:53“Left brain, you can't drive your car without your left brain.”09:44“This is not a left brain thing.”04:56“We start to contact the right brain correctly, and lo and behold, we get clarity.”04:47“Now I'm making a habit of left brain pushing and dullness, and people don't get that's the wrong habit for deep meditation.”06:19“No, no, I'm giving you the window straight into the right brain.”14:20“If you overly care about those mechanics of the kriya path, then you are fixated and you're in the left brain.”10:26“It's instead it's it's touching the right brain.”10:57“You're using your left brain, not the right brain.”03:06“We don't want to make it logical and complicated.”10:40“You will be stimulating your left brain, which is already stimulated.”07:36“The talking to happens because the higher self, through the deep right brain, is talking to you, your personality in the left brain, and that's how a dualistic experience takes place.”17:05“That's your left brain deceiving you when you say it has to be this way.”10:30“Just watching that begins to help you to understand this process of flow, and it helps you touch a bit of the right brain where you are the witness of what is happening, and that is going to open you to some of this possibility of getting deeply and transcendently inspired by the higher self.”08:26“And so you're just a little more wrapped up into your left brain at that moment.”03:00“As you get closer and closer to the right brain, you will touch on this kind of a state more and more often, and it might be very small.”04:45“You think you are all these processes in the left brain, and you unhook a little bit, and you find that you are absorbing into the space around you.”03:53“I'm going to grab onto my left brain, the yakety yak brain.”12:56“That's the left brain, and the processes of meditation are meant to get you out of the left brain, out of the sympathetic stressful system, out of that.”07:00“He's touching profoundly on the right brain, and when he does, he enters into an absorption.”09:15“I'm creating a story in my left brain, and that will actually detract from the actual being present and noticing what is happening and creating that biofeedback loop over and over and over again, taking you deeper and deeper.”12:03“It crosses over and begins to touch the right brain, the knowing of the the porthole of knowing in the right brain”03:31“The left brain is extremely linear.”05:40“It's absolutely wonderful for getting deep into the right brain.”08:58“You're moving into the right brain, and you're vacating your old command post in the left brain, which is the place that receives all of those signals, and so the body dims from your awareness, and you might feel some of these wonderful freeze sensations.”01:58“And so we're using our left brain to create HRV resonance.”17:12“Your right brain is going to light up like a Christmas tree, and the left brain of all the words, words, words is going to take a nice little nap.”16:20“They didn't really listen, but I had already encountered a lot of my right brain, right?”11:39“We're overcoming the left brain, we're washing it out with bliss, and then there's nowhere left to go but up into the divine, into the higher self, into the right brain.”18:24“I'm not trying to grab the whole thing because that will create strain in the left brain.”07:29“We go, oh, that's a sunrise, and you're in the left brain.”06:03“We are letting go of the left brain, little tiny personality problems and story, and progressing to the right brain, identifying more and more with silence, with peace, with expansion.”19:13“First, we create resonance with the breath and the heart, and then we create resonance between the left brain and the right brain.”11:11“It means that you're letting go of the left portions of your brain, which are involved with your personality and the story of your life and your subconscious.”08:14“I like to say that the Samadhis they kind of reformat your left brain.”10:03“You cannot escape your own left and right brain, and you cannot escape earth, water, fire, wind, ether, everywhere you go.”19:17“You're in the left brain, and you're giving yourself a dictate from the left brain.”04:39“So as we accomplish that, the the bliss and the hormones, it helps to wash out the left brain.”05:04“And it gives it's a neurological driver, and it begins to send me into the right brain.”13:13“Which is the left brain, right?”10:29“The right brain sees everything as one, not this and this and this and this.”11:06“And we get locked in the story, and the story is in the left brain, and there's no way to process the emotion when you are stuck in the story.”07:50“I'm going to lean on a force which is inside of me, that true guru, that right side of the brain where we can perceive these things.”12:45“It's the most profound thing, and you have to let go of the left brain processes in order to step into that right brain.”14:36“I'm gonna I'm gonna access a little bit of my right brain by looking at one point and then opening up my peripheral vision, and I just feel so quiet in that state, right?”03:25“You're coming out of the left brain and into the right brain, and when that happens, the words die.”10:29“We're using both the left and the right brain together.”09:09“If we only have the foveal, and you try and really concentrate on something, well, now you're moving so far into the left brain, you've become the predator, and you are breaking down the system of one foot in front of the other because the principle of relaxation is gone.”00:34“Now, sitting very still in meditation is usually a little bit difficult because we have a tendency in our left brain we want to go, we want to do, we want to get out.”09:04“But in meditation, we would like to give a little bit of precedent to the right brain.”12:56“And so we're opening up, which is more of the right brain, rather than being like this, which is the left brain, right?”06:13“I'm going to beat it down, and that's what we don't do, because it's very aggressive, and it's the wrong side of the brain.”01:43“And she chose that she wanted to come back for her family and her friends, which really shows that we don't just want the right hemisphere of the brain; we actually need both.”05:45“So a lot of times we come into meditation and we have this kind of focus, but that's the left brain kind of focus, and it will only take you so far.”10:06“And you can see as you speed it up, conscious mind can't process all of it, and so the right hemisphere begins to take over.”03:28“That's left brain.”02:49“You're affecting the left brain by stretching out the tongue.”03:40“That will get rid of that nagging left brain that just won't leave you alone, right?”08:21“This is where we begin, and inducing that will help you get past the left brain and the linguistic mind.”03:17“That strong neural connection between the tongue and the left brain.”00:55“All of this creates, if you will, a kind of Gordian knot of neural connections between the tongue and the left frontal lobe of the brain.”