Chapter One

A Beginning

Perhaps the first question to ask is: "Why do we need to practice meditation or Yoga?" Sure, we've heard of all the amazing feats accomplished yogis are supposed to be able to do, but who really wants to hold his breath for days, or go without food and water, or for that matter, "read" other people's mind? (Most of us have enough trouble with our own mind without adding chatter from others.)

Meditation has been criticized as being in opposition to the "Protestant Work Ethic" upon which this country was founded. Some argue that if one relaxes the brain, Satan might take it over. It has been argued that meditation does no more than force one to relax and one should be able to do that throughout the day by simply not getting tense to start with.

Some sociologists and religious leaders also stress that Americans need frustrations and intense desires so they will constantly be making a better life, and that meditation is contrary to this basic need. Many corporate officials state that tension is good for their companies. People work harder if they are uptight, worried about their jobs, devoting their lives and energies to the company, and above all, pursuing the desire to step higher and higher into management and salary. They say it is natural for man to want more and more money, fame, glory and power.

Hatha Yoga has also been criticized as being almost un-American; it's not natural to tie our bodies into knots and to assume unnatural positions. Our bodies will naturally care for themselves. Forcing hormone secretions can upset our natural regulation. Traditionally, we have produced some of the finest athletes the world has ever known and Yoga could hardly improve upon that, and on and on. The other areas of Yoga such as Pranayama, Pratyahara, Jnana, Karma, Nadam, etc., are not well known to our society, or they, too, would have fallen under criticism. For instance: Yama Yoga says that one should not want other people's possessions or covet what another has. This is clearly un-American, since we have outlawed the last of the Ten Commandments, "...thou shalt not covet..." as being injurious to our GNP. How can our economy grow if Americans don't want more and don't want better things than their neighbors? Have we thinned out our readers yet? I imagine we have lost some. To many Americans the above arguments are very sound. If this book propounds something contrary, they will close it and get back to more useful and rewarding activities! We could tackle these arguments head-on, but let's forget them for a bit and look first at our own growth process, and at ourselves, from our Western scientific point of view. Perhaps we can then argue from a firmer base as the book unfolds.

Our own growth process? A child grows into adulthood. He casts away childish ways and learns to take his place in society. Is it really that simple? We can think of the admonition of Jesus who said: "...except ye become as a little child ..." We envy our children in their unsophisticated world, but consider it our duty to introduce them to our world and to train them in the ways of our society. But, when childish ways are cast away isn't something lost? Something that perhaps might be vital to inner happiness, peace and security? Let us try to reconstruct a childhood drama. See if you can dig far enough back into your own childhood to appreciate it. A child is walking down the street with his parents. He's running a little ahead in his eagerness to see and explore. Suddenly, a red gleam in the dirt near the street catches his eye. Bending over he picks up a beautiful gem. The red brilliance is breathtaking as it sparkles in the sunlight and flashes red against the green backdrop of grass and deep blue of the sky. The soul and mind of the child concentrate more and more on it 'til the rest of the world disappears into the magic of the gem. Then the parents catch up and see what their child is doing. Suddenly, with horror, one exclaims: "Throw that dirty glass away; it has germs all over it, don't ever pick up such things again!" The child is crushed with the awareness that he has displeased his parents and that his delight was in error and must he corrected.

We credit our children (and dogs) with an instinctive insight into people, but what happens? Consider a child being introduced to someone unknown to him. He exclaims, "Oh, I don't like him, Mommy!" Mommy says, "Sh-h-h ! He's your uncle!" Here the child learns that titles appear to be more important than basic likes or dislikes. Oh, this teaching of a child that titles are the important thing is very difficult indeed! But he does learn his lessons. You can play games with yourself on this point. Ask yourself the relative importance, character, or spirituality of a lawyer, doctor, or clergyman as opposed to an itinerant farm worker, ex-con, immigrant, college student, housewife, etc. Titles are very important, right?

Children can be taught almost anything. Some cultures actually have their children believing that dreams and visions are to be desired and encouraged; that a community is more important than any single person; or that wisdom comes from within, rather than from without. Our Western behavioral psychologists have come to the conclusion that everything we do, think, or relate to has been programmed into us by our heredity or environment. That is, you're a robot with a computer for a control that has been fully programmed by others! We tend to minimize the effects of our families, culture, religion, etc., on ourselves. We like to believe that we are self-made and independent from others; but our scientists show us differently! We can readily admit that our language is the results of our environment, and that our body features are the result of our heredity, but we want to believe that our thoughts and emotions are somehow representative of the real me.

Just who is me? Who am I? You might try a game that consists of listing who you think you are. You will find as you play the game, that you listed some attribute, trait or name which you later deleted as not being you. Suppose you start with your given name (it's the first thing we use to identify me). But suppose your name has changed? Suppose you were named something else? Are you still you? How about your occupation? Where you live? Name of parents? Personality traits? Physical dimensions, such as: height, weight, color of eyes, etc.? Try the game and you might find it rewarding to find that anything you can identify with yourself is not the real inner me! Your definition must include the self-awareness in your dreams, when you are in some unknown place with unknown people, or in a fever, under drugs, or how you reacted when you were younger.

You might try another game and see how many outer me's there are. Most of us recognize that the outer me is different with different groups of people or in different places. Are you the same outer me to your children or parents as you are to your friends, your boss, your lover? The more astute of us recognize this and call it role-playing. It does seem uncontrollable. We may dislike ourselves in one or more situations when we are playing a role with which we do not feel comfortable. There may be one group that seems to force you to be a clown, while in another you are forced to be over-bearing, philosophical and all-wise. Likewise, there are situations where the outer me is frightened, timid, bold, angry, hurt, loving, temperamental, etc.

To bypass a lot of psychological definitions, let's use an Eastern term for this inner me that you are trying to find and call it the "atman"; we'll call the outer me the physical body and brain, or "body" for short. Doing this, recognize that what the behavioral psychologists are talking about as being a robot, is the body! The atman is something else again, but so hazy, indefinable and immeasurable that it is really outside of the realms of science; therefore many scientists deny that such a thing exists. The picture is getting gloomy indeed, and it's going to get ever gloomier before we start to reverse it. We are now going to argue, with the aid of our Western science, that you only use half of your brain (at best). Again, our programming or training teaches us to use only half of our brain, or to utilize only half of our capability.

For a long time, doctors felt that the right side of the brain was somewhat of a spare. The brain has two main hemispheres, the right and the left. When a patient suffered an injury to the left side, he was unable to speak or move; whereas with right hemisphere brain damage, patients could, in many cases, return to a normal, healthy life. It became obvious that the left side of the brain controlled speech and normal thought processes. It is the side that allows us to communicate, reason, and cope with our modern world. Necessary indeed! What about the right hemisphere? Here damage resulted in a lack of space perception. The patient had problems relating to where things were supposed to be in familiar surroundings. This did not seem to matter because he could quickly learn what things were near or far away. In familiar surroundings the problem seemed almost inconsequential. Space perception is not a necessary sense in our society. One learns to judge distance by perceived sizes. Since chairs are a certain size, elephants and mice fixed in size, we have few problems in this area. We can perceive space even in photographs and other two dimensional portrayals. But societies which rely directly on space perception rather than relative size cannot perceive depth in a photograph. True, it was finally noticed that artistic abilities were lost with right side brain damage. But again, in our society, this cannot be considered a very important loss, since who considers an artist to be a normal human being anyway.

We still might be considering the right hemisphere of the brain as worthless except that a number of events to contradict this happened within our society: the drug culture, Humanistic Psychology, Transcendental Meditation, Transpersonal Psychology, and the advent of Eastern philosophy and practices. The drug culture hit our society with a thump of such severity that we are now only beginning to recover. The drug culture showed convincingly enough that there were states of the mind that were completely beyond our capabilities to describe; states that we had formerly dismissed as mental aberrations associated with psychotics, the mentally deranged, or religious lunatics. Not only were these states indescribable, but they were enjoyable, and further, could lead to a reformation of the concept of "I" and of the physical world. Our society became shocked, scared and apprehensive! Our whole society, including our outwardly professed religions, emphatically believed and taught that human fulfillment lay in the outer world. To find that even greater rewards lay in turning within oneself presented such a threat to cherished concepts of self, religion, government, etc., that we did, in fact, become paranoid. Our "armed clergy" (as Alan Watts would have said) were mobilized, and new laws passed to seek out people who had had such experiences and lock them up so as not to further contaminate our created world. Meanwhile, our own sacred science of psychology was undergoing change. A few radicals were studying the superior man rather than the average man, which had been so painstakingly studied by the behaviorists. In studying superior types (such as: creative people, social leaders, writers, artists, etc.) an interesting observation occurred. It seemed that superior-type people could, to some degree, overcome the programming they had received. Rather than being prompted to act or react by what was happening around them, they could respond from what went on within them! This concept was radical indeed, because it was sugge sting that somehow man had a "will," an internal awareness that was beyond conditioning by the world! It was true that this "will" did not appear often, and for the most part, even superior men were programmed. Yet, the fact that it appeared at all suggested that the model of man might be much more complex than we had realized!

Next Transcendental Meditation (TM ) hit the United States with an impact and legitimacy that made meditation a household word. TM demonstrated that it was possible to improve oneself by essentially turning the conscious mind off. One could argue that tensions could be alleviated by simple resting or relaxing. But what about some of the other effects, such as: increased learning abilities, increased motor response, etc., and above all, why was it so pleasant to do. Why did people want to meditate? How could sitting, without thinking, be pleasurable? To our materialistic culture such questions were almost heretical. With all of the above furor going on, it was natural that some scientists would finally investigate the yogis. After all, they had been arguing to the world for thousands of years that man's pleasures and controls lay within the body and not in the outer world. Some of the first measurements were astounding. Yogis could control their pulse, blood pressure, breathing, and apparently their state of mind as evidenced by brain wave measurements. Perhaps, just perhaps, what the yogis, the religious book, and the "Insane," had been preaching for years, might be true.

To meet and study this challenge a new field, Transpersonal Psychology, arose. This new science is starting with pretty ragged ranks in comparison to the more established sciences. The ranks consist of practitioners of Eastern techniques, "holy men," drug researchers, clergymen, as well as trained psychologists. Here is a new science that found itself concerned with altered states of mind, the religious experience, enhanced states of awareness, ESP, "super" mind, the creative states, intuition, inner bliss, God-awareness, and many of the other states of mind that our society had long ago rejected as being "sick" or deranged. I listed creativity as undesirable, which might at first sound contrary to what you have been taught. But the fact is (as most creative people find out) our society does not want creative people. They mainly rock the boat and are unpredictable. We are a structured society with definite lines of authority and responsibility. A boss is responsible for carrying out orders from above ... not for innovating. He is judged by his abilities to accomplish assigned tasks, and consequently all those people who work for him must likewise stick to the master plan. I managed to become an executive in a large corporation by essentially covering up my creativity and acting out the role of a dedicated company man. In general, our organizations are too complex, with too many interactions for any one individual to be individualistic or creative. When a corporation says that they want a creative person, what they really desire is one who has resources and capabilities to carry out an assignment with a minimum of supervisory support or attention and certainly with no boat rocking or upsetting job goals or work organization. Well, back to our two brain halves. With the new changing concepts of the human being and its capabilities, further work was carried out on the function of the two halves of the brain. Most of the work is based on: studies of people who had brain damage in one half, those who had the commun ication channels between the two brains severed, and brainwave studies in patients or subjects with both halves intact.

An interpretation and presentation of the findings is given in the following Table 1. The model lists dichotomized traits, one for each half of the brain. The first entry on the left hemisphere is "rational" as opposed to "irrational" of the right. The left hemispheres operates in the mode of thinking we consider rational following normal rules of the thinking, such as: inductive and deductive reasoning, cause and effect, sequencing of events, etc. The right hemisphere has a mode of operation which cannot be described by our society, and hence becomes irrational. Most people have had the experience of suddenly having, out of the blue, a clear picture or answer to a problem, or what action should be undertaken. Most times this sudden illumination is found to be logically unsupportable, yet we have the impression that it is right, a gut feeling, an inspiration, etc.; surprisingly enough it is generally right.

The left side is more concerned with the outer-world and, hence is more outer-directed toward the relationship of yourself to your environment, the people around you, correct social responses, etc. However, the right side is primarily inner-directed. The important considerations are more the inner feelings, impressions and insights. This gives rise to a problem associated with the right side, which is, it has trouble responding outward. An artist, for instance, may have the clearest inner vision of what he wants to paint or express; but, this is only expressible in art forms and never in words. The left side of the brain is the only side capable of speech which requires being able to serialize thoughts into connective words to express. The right side with its capability of only seeing the whole is incapable of breaking it down into pieces and putting the pieces in correct order to convey speech. Similarly, mathematics is unknown to the right side except as mathematics relates to an expression of interactions or relationships that the right side can perceive. For instance, many of the concepts of modern physics are expressed in complex mathematics which can only be understood by the right side of the brain, since the left side is incapable of seeing the complex simultaneous interactions at once. The reader can continue comparing the listing of the characteristics of each side of the brain to obtain an idea of the two different functions. A little thinking should convince the reader that the left-sided functions are very much needed in our society and that the right functions are seldom considered to be required. Hence, the earlier conclusions that the right side of the brain was of no value.

                   THE SPLIT BRAIN

The left-sided functions or characteristics are headed as being Behavioristic after Behavioral Psychology that studied these functions in great depth. The right-sided functions are headed Humanistic Psychology or those characteristics that are not considered governing basic behavior, but rather the state of being. Now, how are the two halves of the split brain developed? The example of the child with a piece of red glass is a good starting point. When the child became absorbed in the reflections from the glass, the analytical side obviously turned off because the child was not asking for the origin of the glass, its composition, the actual wavelength, spectra of the reflected light, or etc. The child was becoming one with the light rays, feeling an emotion, seeing art forms and becoming acutely aware. The parents' response forced the child immediately into left- sided thinking by having to accept cause and effects (dirty, germs and possible injury), and to learn to ignore and not respond to external stimuli.

There is another aspect of our training of the mind that is highly detrimental. When we raise children, we unknowingly set up conflicts between the two halves of the brain and force the child to reject the functioning of the right side. A good example would be when a child is told: "Come here for punishment!" The left side gets the command through the words to go forward, yet the right side perceives danger, disgrace and pain. Gradually, the child learns that he must disregard the right side of the brain or perhaps the punishment would be even more severe. Consider one of the many types of situations that children run into when what the voice says is in opposition to what he can perceive about the situation. For instance: a parent who is choked up with anger and trying to behave the way he thinks a parent should, will say: "Of course I am not mad at you, I love you!" The child learns to reject the right side understanding of the situation and accept the left side understanding of the words. This, of course, carries on into adulthood. How many of us reject flattery even though we know that it is flattery? Unfortunately, we reject the concept that it is flattery and feel that it is our due reward and recognition!

Most of our education is geared to the left hemisphere. We are taught by repetition, repetition, repetition, memorizing, or actions with feedback to tell us how we did. For instance: in learning to drive a car we are first confounded with all the things that seem required to be done in starting a car with a conventional shift. It is only after repeating the task a number of times and hearing the gears grind or feeling the car lunge that we finally become programmed to coordinate our senses, mind and muscles all together to respond. Similarly, when we learn to speak, we hear the repetition of words in context of what they refer to, over and over, until the mind learns the association. So, the left side of the brain learns or is programmed by repetition or habituation. There is a similarity to hypnotism where the hypnotist permits programming to occur by getting the mind's attention, then repeating the programming over and over until the mind responds. Another aspect of the left brain is that its abilities improve with usage. It is as if once programmed, the program tapes or the internal commands appear to become less distinct unless used frequently.

Since the functioning of the right hemisphere has only recently been discovered, it is still early to be able to describe training techniques that are verified by our science. As of this writing, the University of California at Berkeley is sponsoring seminars to explore this very area. Nonetheless, we can make some conclusions based on knowledge of the learning process of the left side and also by training techniques from cultures that do develop the right side. Another clue is from recent studies into brain waves of disturbed patients before and after meditation. One obvious training aid would be simply to use the right side of the brain more and more. It is interesting that most studies of creativity in men notice that when attempting to solve a problem or to come up with a new idea that the best process appears to be to program the brain with all of the related knowledge pertinent to the problem. In other words, if one has to solve or create a new device (say in mechanics), for instance a new type of mechanical motion, the creative person first reviews similar mechanical motion devices and perhaps studies up on existing theories. Then he tries to solve his problem. If he can make no headway, he stops thinking about it! He waits for the answer to pop up (which it might most anywhere, anytime).

I believe that there is another facet, though, to being creative. This is the subconscious or perhaps conscious programming that tells the right side of the brain to work on the problem, and that an answer is expected. (This would also follow good Yoga techniques.) So here is an interesting case of using the right side by not consciously using it! Very creative people appear to use a more direct contact with the right side of the brain. As some creative people have expressed it, "I become the problem, and being the problem, I can then best determine the answer!" So, if our man with the mechanical motion problem would simply become the motion he desires, he could see what forces are required and when. In this case, he might find himself first being pulleys and belts, then gears, cams, lever arms, etc. He then feels what is going on. This is direct use of the right side of the brain! Similarly, creative artists first mentally construct the picture they wish to paint, mentally shifting dimensions, colors, objects, etc., until the desired product is obtained. Most of us, though, have trouble becoming a set of gears or picturing a complete picture, so how do we use the right side of the brain? One experimenter believes that the answer lies in first meditating. Brain wave studies show that after meditating there is more uniformity of brain waves throughout both hemispheres, and that both halves of the brain seem to communicate better together. The real answer to how to develop the right side of the brain, or more particularly, how to use both sides together under control, is really what most of this book is about ... so read on as we approach the problem from Yoga tradition!

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