WHY MEDITATE? THE LEFT AND RIGHT BRAIN DIVIDE

The mind is split up into two very powerful computers. The conscious mind governs our logical and mathematical thinking as well as language. The unconscious mind deals with the matters involving imagination, emotion and spatial thought. The unconscious is better at seeing the bigger picture - it can draw parallels between things which seem very different. It can make connections.

There is a connection between the two sides of the brain - the corpus collosum. This though can only process information from one at a time. Therefore the left brain tends to get overall control of our decision making. We are stuck in the world of the unconscious.

Training at school tends to educate out of us the right brain functions. Children start school very creative yet the longer they stay at school the less imaginative they become. In their early childhood the child learns painting and thinks in a very right minded way.

We all say that children say the funniest things. That’s because they think with the right mind much more. The right mind can make brilliant perceptive observation - drawing parallels between very complex things. The left brain is more logical and ordered.

Because the unconscious tends to make wild and speculative connections it can make a real fool out of us. So that is why we tend to turn it off. However a strong imagination is not such a bad thing.

So the older we are the more cautious we become. Caution is the home of the left brain because it needs logical and ordered thinking. It is sometimes better to get things mostly right rather than take wild risks. The right brain is much more wild and speculative in its thoughts. It understands the language of dreams. When we see a beautiful lake with the sun glistening magically we see the connection to the our emotions constantly moving magically and creatively in our calm and peaceful world.

So what can we do to make ourselves more right minded. One way is to meditate. That allows us to cut off the conscious mind. Deprived of the sensory data that it thrives on the conscious gets bored and turns off. This allows us to enter the mind of our unconscious.