Few days ago, I stumbled upon this very unique and interesting video. This is a talk by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor on her ‘Nirvana’ experience. In the morning of December 10 1996, Dr. Taylor had a brain stroke, a blood vessel in the left half of her brain exploded, and that’s when she experienced a great shift in awareness, she found Nirvana!
The way Dr. Taylor explains her experience is very similar to the way yogis and spiritualists explain their ‘enlightenment’ experience. Dr. Taylor says that we all can have such experience when we can switch off our ‘I and mine’ness, the sense of individuality, the thing more popularly called as ‘ego’. In almost all spiritual traditions, we are advised to renounce our selfish ego (or at least have conscious control over our ego) in order for our awareness to shift higher into more spiritual realms.
But it’s very unique to have a ‘brain scientist’ explain her ‘enlightenment’ experience. We know that there are two halves of the brain, left and the right. From what Dr. Taylor says, the left part of the brain is that which gives us the sense of individuality. The left part of the brain thinks sequentially, it’s the logical part of the brain, it’s that part of the brain which stores and analyses your past experiences and plans for the future. While the right side of the brain is what connects us to the universal consciousness, it’s the intuitive part of the brain, it’s all about the (present) moment, it’s all about Love, Peace and Joy. Dr. Taylor explains in the video how the dominant part of our brain controls our awareness.
Dr. Taylor says that we can willfully switch our awareness back and forth between the universal and individual consciousness when we can have control over the ego. She says that any of us can do this, and when when everyone living in the world can have this conscious control over themeselves, she pictures a “world filled with beautiful, peaceful, compassionate, loving people who knew that they could come to this space at any time.” A beautiful vision indeed!
Visit Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s website
John says:
Thank you for that. Jill Bolte Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight is one of the most incredible stories I’ve heard in a long time. Her TEDTalk video blew my mind wide open to new possibilities. On the one hand, there’s what she went through and how she emerged from it. On the other hand, there’s what she can teach all of us.
2 June 2008, 8:40 amI saw the 4 part Oprah interview on Oprah dot com Soul Series and I did learn a lot from that, but I’d like to find our more of how to do what Dr. Taylor did, without having a stroke of course!
Thin how many of us are living too much in the head, and not the heart. And of course, you can’t get more left brain than a Harvard Brain Scientist. Isn’t it ironic that she should be the one to have the stroke and transform from the quintessential left brainer into this “”seen the light”" disciple of finding inner peace?
I hope this movement keeps going. Maybe there will be My Stroke of Insight classes where we can practice what Jill Bolte Taylor is preaching.
Joyce says:
MY STROKE OF INSIGHT was ranked #5 in all books sold on Amazon today and #1 in Memoirs above even Barbara Walters’ memoir. Babs had been promoting her book for months in advance and Dr. Taylor’s book was self-published.
Then Oprah recommended it. There’s the Power of Now, and then there’s the Power of Oprah!!
“My Stroke of Insight” is out in Hardcover now for less than the old paperback edition. Amazon has it for 40% off.
2 June 2008, 1:19 pmWhat is ego? « srinig.com says:
[...] Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight [...]
20 June 2008, 12:39 pmNimi says:
I’m sorry but she has not discovered Nirvana. I think peole use words like ‘nirvana’, ‘enlightenment’ and ‘inter-connectedness’ to freely.
Please don’t misinterpret these sentiments, she has clearly found something very exciting and good, but it is not enlightenment. What happened to her was conditioned by a physical malfunction.
Nirvana is the unconditioned element. It is not an ‘experience’ at all. It does not arise and pass away. it cannot be brought about through a stroke, labotomy, meditation or any other activity. It is simply the realisation of the true nature of reality; the ever-present here and now.
Nirvana is not ultimate good, it is beyond both good and bad, right and wrong, indeed all opposites. Nirvana is beyond both mind and body, time and space, birth and death.
What she has discovered is what anyone who practises calming meditation finds. You can temporarily shut down the chatter of perpetual self confirmation and enjoy a real sense of unity and belonging. However, that ’sense’ is temporary and therefore needs to be constantly remade. How can that ever be permanent freedom from suffering?
However, the realisation of true and full enlightenment - non duality - is not temporary. It does not have to be remade, it is infinite and eternal peace through non-clining. What she offers is wonderful, but is not the final answer.
Thank You
6 July 2008, 7:51 pmSrini says:
Nimi, thanks for your insights.
That put things in perspective. Thank you.
6 July 2008, 8:19 pmabha says:
It definitely must be an incredible experience.
15 July 2008, 1:59 pmthanks to Jill for sharing it. we all are one. How we are in this world is something that probably is not of a very serious consequence.
if we are in every moment, the life is a song.
Srini says:
//we all are one//
15 July 2008, 3:53 pm