Meditation and the sense of We

Meditation and the sense of We
David Amerland 

Connecting by disconnecting.

#meditation   #brainfunction  

Originally shared by David Amerland

We Are A Superorganism

Our finely-tuned bodies, our ability to digest food and provide nutrients and energy for our magnificent brains are the result of colonies of microbes, bacteria and other cellular organisms working closely together. https://goo.gl/KLDh8j.

There are many different implications to this but the most important one (for today’s post, at least) lies in the brain and the sense of identity (http://goo.gl/dSKMmJ). We go through life, looking out at the world through our eyes and usually saying “I”, believing that there is a single being living inside our skins that thinks and acts and does things. 

In reality our identity is the result of the metadata arising out of the sum of the connections of the lower strata of us. The reptilian brain feeds into the limbic brain that feeds into the neocortex. Each of those submit not the detailed functions they perform but the net outcome of the sum total of their connections. This is not unlike cognitive computing software. We are not given access to the complex calculations that take place when Google Now suggests that a route that is longer may be the shortest one in a particular context, we are just given the result. 

Similarly, our emotions and sensory impressions collated as we move through the world are distilled in concentrated information that swims to the surface in our neocortex. We then feel “in tune” or “out of sorts” with the world, The sense of unity we feel as an “I” or “me” is actually the label the Entity that is us slaps on itself in order to successfully process the information it has to process and be effective in its passage through the world. 

When we are drunk, ill or deep in meditation, the connections that create the cohesive sense of self are disrupted. When we get drunk the brain is poisoned, its activity to neutrally synch all its different layers is compromised as it finds itself under attack. The result is that we lose sight of who we are and, depending on what it is that really makes us, us, we can become destructively violent or morbidly morose. When we are ill, the body is under attack. With resources focused on keeping the illness at bay the energy required to maintain the cohesion of our identity is compromised and we can then feel disconnected from the world, detached. Falling through its cracks.

Meditation removes the outward purpose of our existence. Bereft of external stimulus and input the mind suddenly finds itself twiddling its cognitive thumbs. When there is no action we need to take the inaction allows surplus energy to accumulate and focus itself elsewhere. We then become aware of the symphony that creates the tune we’ve become. We hear the drums and feel the wind instruments and see the strings being plucked. 

The point is that when internally, really the “I” is only a handy illusion and really we are only, ever “we”, how can it be anything less externally, when we know that alone, in the world, we will fail and fall? 

See what happens when I have too much time to think in airplanes? Have an awesome Friday!