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For the first time in history, the findings of scientists in the West strongly support, in many cases without meaning to, one of the most fundamental insights of the East: that the individual self is more akin to a fictional character than a real thing.
For the first time in history, the findings of scientists in the West strongly support, in many cases without meaning to, one of the most fundamental insights of the East: that the individual self is more akin to a fictional character than a real thing.
It's as if contemporary neuroscience and psychology are just now catching up with what Buddhist, Taoist, and Advaita Vedanta Hinduism have been teaching for over 2,500 years.
It's as if contemporary neuroscience and psychology are just now catching up with what Buddhist, Taoist, and Advaita Vedanta Hinduism have been teaching for over 2,500 years.
Mistaking the voice in our head for a thing and labeling it “me” brings us into conflict with the neuropsychological evidence that shows there is no such thing. This mistake—this illusory sense of self—is the primary cause of our mental suffering. What's more, I contend that it blocks access to the eternal, expansive thread of universal consciousness that is always available to us.
Mistaking the voice in our head for a thing and labeling it “me” brings us into conflict with the neuropsychological evidence that shows there is no such thing. This mistake—this illusory sense of self—is the primary cause of our mental suffering. What's more, I contend that it blocks access to the eternal, expansive thread of universal consciousness that is always available to us.
Taoist philosopher and author Wei Wu Wei when he writes, “Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself—and there isn't one.”2
Taoist philosopher and author Wei Wu Wei when he writes, “Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself—and there isn't one.”2
What we discuss here will show that specific studies in neuroscience and psychology strongly suggest what Eastern philosophies have been saying for millennia: namely that this idea of “me” or the “self” that most of us take for granted doesn't exist in the way that we think it does.
What we discuss here will show that specific studies in neuroscience and psychology strongly suggest what Eastern philosophies have been saying for millennia: namely that this idea of “me” or the “self” that most of us take for granted doesn't exist in the way that we think it does.
Ramachandran found that the left brain's role is one of beliefs and interpretation and that it had little regard for reality in making up its interpretations.
As in the studies of Gazzaniga, the left brain was simply making up a story about reality without any regard for the truth.
Misattributed arousal is the idea that when our nervous system is stimulated or excited—when our blood pressure goes up and our heart beats faster—the left-brain interpreter will make up a story about the origin of this arousal, and often that story is completely wrong.
After the tilting, and compared to control tests, male subjects found the female research assistant more attractive.
These studies strongly suggest that we live our lives under the direction of the interpreter, and for most of us the mind is a master we are not even aware of. We may become angry, offended, sexually aroused, happy, or fearful, and we do not question the authenticity of these thoughts and experiences. While it is clear that these experiences are happening to us, we somehow retain the idea that we are still in charge of it all.
We have already seen that this “I” can be wrong about so many things in the “outside” world, so is it possible then that the “I” is even wrong about the interpretation of itself? This is what Gazzaniga is getting at when he talks about “Our Fictional Self.”
Buddhism in particular, state unequivocally that the idea of self is a very convincing fiction. Further, they suggest that realizing and accepting that the self is a fiction can lead to the end of suffering.
Is it possible that the self we invest so much in is nothing more than a story to help explain our behaviors, the myriad events that go on in our lives, and our experiences in the world?
Our association of our true self with the constant voice in our head is an instance of mistaking the map (the voice) for the territory (who we really are). This error is one of the biggest reasons the illusion of self is so difficult to see.
In my opinion, when you mistake the voice in your head for who you really are, the tool is using you. Language creates a story, and this story—combined with our memories and the sense of a command center behind our forehead—creates an illusion of self that virtually everyone on the planet identifies with.
The root of the problem is that many of us do not see language as a representation of reality, but confuse it with reality itself.
But if you really look, while all of these things point to ways in which I can categorize myself, they don't actually answer the question, “who am I?” Is that because the “I” that I am looking for is more akin to the university or the country of Canada? Sure, the physical entity of my body and my brain is there, but the “I” attached to it only exists as a thought—and only when I think it.
when you realize that everyone's brain is constantly interpreting, in ways that are subjective and often inaccurate or completely incorrect, you might find yourself able to grasp this as “just my opinion” or “the way I see it” rather than “this is the way it is.”
By seeing patterns that are not there, the mind creates stories that aren't true, and as we've previously discussed, this can lead to unnecessary suffering, anxiety, and depression.
To be clear, saying the self is an illusion doesn't mean that it doesn't exist at all, but rather that it's akin to a mirage in the middle of the desert. The vision of the oasis is real, but the oasis itself isn't. In this same way, the image of the self is real, but when we look at the image, we find it is simply that, an image and nothing more.
The left brain has created this illusion of self by noticing a pattern of categorical differences between you and others and combining those observations with memory, preferences, and the perspective of the “pilot,” who seems to be steering the ship of the brain and body. Our definition of self depends in part on our difference from others. There is no “me” without “not me.”
The trick is to become less identified with your thoughts, to not take them so seriously, to see them as “happenings” rather than “the way things really are.”
Being in the zone is very similar to what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has called flow, using this term to describe the experience that someone has while being totally absorbed in the doing of something. He defines flow as: “Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz.
Consider the following quote from the Advaita Vedanta master Nisargadatta Maharaj: “In your world, the unspoken has no existence. In mine the words and their contents have no being. . . . My world is real, while yours is made of dreams.” To live in a world of abstractions—based on language, concepts, beliefs, patterns, labels—is to live in a dream world rather than reality.
tried to explain that most stress is the result of taking fictitious stories too seriously, but he was having a hard time separating the story (left-brain interpreting) from the reality (right-brain witnessing).
The only thing “out there” was a bunch of little boys running around kicking a ball, and everything else made up our story about it. In the reality of the right brain, there are no winners or losers, no teams or championships, there is just being and doing.
In this way, the story is always an illusion; it only exists in the mind—and only when we are in the process of telling it in words or thoughts. Perhaps you can see that this is true not only of the story but also of the storyteller, the self, which is another very convincing illusion and exists only when someone is thinking about it.
In one of the most powerful books showing the importance of meaning in the human condition, Man's Search for Meaning, psychiatrist Viktor Frankl describes his experiences in the Nazi death camps during WWII.4 He begins with a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Frankl contended that an inmate's sense of meaning and purpose was a factor in his or her ability to survive in the camps. Frankl concluded that meaning is more important than happiness and called his form of therapy logotherapy because logos translates as “meaning.”
My sleep was reduced to far less than half of what it had previously been. My moment-to-moment existence was outwardly miserable in many ways. Yet I wouldn't trade being a parent for anything in the world, then or now.
You could put together and take apart gears and dials, but might never know what a watch is or does. It is the same with the universe—the narrow window of interpretive consciousness is only aware of one thing at a time and totally in the dark about the glue that binds it all together. Seeking a true understanding of a clock—or of the universe—is like reading the previous passage on flying a kite: it requires something more than the individual parts.
the right brain is a form of consciousness that does not rely on words. According to Eastern philosophical schools, not relying on words is a wonderful way to be—and might well decrease the suffering of humankind.
this is intuition in a nutshell: the right brain senses information that isn't available to the left-brain interpreter and sends it over in the form of what is described as an inspiration or gut feeling that the left brain can't quite put into words and so it has reached the end of its ability to understand how it knows what it knows.
In the absolute acceptance of all emotions, they no longer have control over you because you have given up trying to control them. Perhaps a more accurate way to say this is that the interpretive mind has given up trying to control emotions, and in this way it is no longer attempting to be master.
Being grateful is a choice that brings us away from the left-brain interpreter and into better alignment with the powers of the right brain.
In a final anecdote from the animal world, a chicken became known as “Miracle Mike” in the mid twentieth century after it survived an attempted beheading on the chopping block. Although the only thing left above the neck was the brain stem and one ear, the chicken was kept alive by his owner who, seeing his resiliency, decided to spare the chicken and put food and water directly into his neck via an eyedropper. Mike lived for another two years with no head, otherwise walked and behaved normally, and even toured with a circus. In Mike's case, it would seem impossible to argue that its
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I ask two students to sit in chairs, one right behind the other, with both students facing the same direction. Student A is in the back, facing Student B's back. I then have both students either close their eyes or don a blindfold. As the experimenter, I take Student A's right hand with my right and guide their index finger to tap the nose of Student B, who is seated in front of them. At the same time, I also use my left hand to tap on student A's nose. I control the tapping so that they are in perfect synchrony. Consider the message being sent to Student A's brain: my hand is two feet in
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you may already be playing the game in exactly this way. Maybe you meditate, practice mindfulness, and feel very spiritually grounded when you do, and later the ego comes back online and is frustrated to find out that you've run out of coffee. You take a yoga class and feel great, but curse the person that left a scratch on your car when you leave to go home.
In the same way that a glass of water is exponentially more satisfying after a five-mile hike in the desert, the experience of feeling the interconnectedness of everything is more fulfilling after the illusion of separation. This is the fun of the game. This is the fun of waking up.
