Marya Mann : Blog : Nature, The Big LIe, & Recovery Of The Secret Brain

Nature, the Big LIe, & Recovery of the Secret Brain

Nature is extravagant in her creativity and has hard-wired into human beings a deep and abiding awareness of the beauty, dreaming, and essential wisdom of the universe. Few have described this extravagant beauty more poetically than Black Elk, the visionary Oglala Lakota medicine man who told his life story to John G. Neihardt in the 1932 book, Black Elk Speaks.

He beheld the universe and said, “Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice. You lived first, and you are older than all need, older than all prayer. All things belong to you — the two-leggeds, the four-leggeds, the wings of the air and all green things that live. You have set the powers of the four quarters to cross each other. The good road and the road of difficulties you have made to cross; and where they cross, the place is holy. Day in and day out, forever, you are the life of things.”

You can feel his palpable love for the blue green world, all creatures, and the Soul that permeates everything. Black Elk was one of those bright lights who used his Secret Brain.

But from the time Black Elk spoke those words in 1930 until now, humans have managed to exhibit a kind of abusive love complex that is strangling our Earth. Our oceans are drowning in plastics. We feed poisons to the rivers, meadows, and skies. We spend resources like there’s no tomorrow, insanely courting disaster.

After humans first ventured forth many hundreds of thousands of years ago, their restless curiosity led them to infiltrate every part of the globe, bringing our species to a position of world dominance that it has never relinquished.

——————————————————————————————————————————
“The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe.” — Michio Kaku
————————————————————————————-

Still, Nature has the ultimate power. Earth is 4.54 billion years old and spinning in a Universe of 2 trillion galaxies, while humans are barely learning to stand upright and serve the greater good. Nature has spawned 8.7 million species on our ancient Mother planet, carved the Grand Canyon and is still growing mile-high mountain peaks with snow and mist and sunshine that will take your breath away. Our blue-green planet was soaring along in the harmonious heavens long before humans even attempted to grow big brains, fashion teeth, and make tools and weapons.

In the last 200,000 or so years, the world’s 7.6 billion people, representing just 0.01% of all living things, have decimated it. Since the dawn of “civilization,” humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of the plants. On a planet that depends on biodiversity for its health, scientists estimate that 150-200 species of plants, insects, birds and mammals become extinct every 24 hours, much of it caused by humans. This is nearly 1,000 times the “natural” or “background” rate, greater than anything the world has experienced since the vanishing of the dinosaurs nearly 65 million years ago.

Why would humans continue to behave in ways that are destroying the Earth, our very home? Because we live in societies built on mixed messages and unconscious anxiety leading the traumatized brains. Or as Rick Hanson, Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, says, “We have a universal learning disability. We want peak performance in stone age conditions.”

———————————————————————————
“The brain is wider than the sky.” — Emily Dickinson
—————————————————————————————————

THE SECRET BRAIN

The secret brain keeps three billion pairs of DNA molecules humming along. It replaces 50 billion cells every few seconds. It writes poetry and sings lullabies, drives tractor-trailers, builds airplanes, makes meals, and animates thousands of miles of blood vessels, arteries, and capillaries moving every instant through our heart, head, and limbs.

We know it as the same source that stirs weather patterns, makes rivers, and sings lovely sounds. It’s the movement of the life wave, the indivisible unity, the essence of life, when we are in utter harmony within ourselves. You may think of it as the peace of Spirit, the mind, or the soul, and the answer is yes. The secret brain is the inner fusion of all of us, our wholeness, our ease in being, the exact opposite of disease. When the Secret Brain activates, a new way of feeling and thinking happens.

You find yourself unfolding, blooming like a flower, full of love and compassion. Giving and forgiving. When connected with this essence, we feel whole, healthy, loved, and complete. It’s an open secret, a kind of hidden or secret brain that fuses the semi-independent brains in the head, heart, and guts.

By elegantly aligning the superconscious, conscious, and subconscious, the secret brain is a reliable source for guidance, witness, and support, you might even think of it as God, Saraswati, Allah, Wakan Tanka, or Ke Akua. I know this essence by many name and qualities, and I know in my heart if we weren’t so hung up on names and philosophies, we would embrace the truth that when this Secret Brain lights up in the minds and hearts of people, we are not perfect, but we do not harm other intentionally. The secret brain is a social brain. It operates best in good company, in a state of love, described in Rumi’s poetry so well:

“The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.“

If more people felt this wholeness, and used their whole brains, together with their secret brain, we would be living in a far better, happier, and more prosperous world. The only reason anyone wouldn’t choose this state is that they have, guess what? A brain dysfunction.

Optimal whole brain functioning is natural, but not as prevalent as we might like. It’s been hijacked by false beliefs and the violence and toxins those beliefs cause. The modern form of humans evolved somewhere around 200,000 years ago. For thousands of year, Earth-centered shamanic cultures developed with the understanding that Nature was a living, dreaming being, not a resource to be exploited. Many generations of our ancestors created beautiful rituals, ceremonies, arts, and sciences that fostered a sense of oneness with Nature. When agriculture and civilization as most of us know it emerged 8,000 -12,000 years ago, this continuum of oneness, began to dislocate. In the 1800s, industrialization started, and more separation from Nature ensued. While we’ve accomplished much in a short time, the negative effects of humans on Earth cannot be understated.

We’ve been able to survive in environments all over the globe, even harsh areas such as Antarctica in flood zones. But every year, everywhere, it seems, we topple forests and destroy water supplies, driving species into smaller areas. We’re destroying the Earth right underneath our feet.

All because of a brain dysfunction that comes from repeated and increasing stress and trauma to the human nervous system.

The secret brain is the awareness that we can use some parts of our brains to change and heal other parts, and then using that knowledge as a basis upon which to grow the healthiest brains possible. Awakening the connectivity of our secret brain inspires a more humane, gentle, and kind awareness in more people.

When the body, brain and mind are in a responsive mode, more of our needs are met, because we’re meeting our need for what the UC neuroscientist Dr. Hanson, calls, a “green zone,” a space of peace and contentment. “When there is a core sense of needs met – of fullness and balance – the brain defaults to its homeostatic resting state. The body conserves resources, recovers from stress, refuels, and repairs itself.

By harmonizing with this inner power and trusting it, our inner essence, can restore healthy brain functioning, help people recover from disease, invent new products, and tap into a continuum of spirits who love us and want the Earth experiment to succeed.

The secret brain is nothing less than a superpower. We can call on it in times of need, and we can give it many names. We can rely on this essence to strengthen and guide us every step of the way.

If you have guessed that the secret brain is the right brain, the heart brain, the gut brain, the limbic system, the insula, the vagus nerve, the parasympathetic nervous system, the heart brain, the gut brain, the subconscious, the unconscious, consciousness, the superconscious self, your light body, the Oversoul, or your visionary capacity, you are correct.

Imagine if people started using their secret brain, the harmonious unity of all their functioning parts, and you’ve imagined whole-brained, whole-hearted people in a wholesome world. “In terms of safety, satisfaction, and connection,” adds Dr. Hanson, “the mind is colored by a sense of peace, contentment, and love.”

We can train the brain and heal broken nervous systems by first giving the reptilian brain the safety, food, grounding, and comfort that it craves. Second, nourish the mammalian brain with food and soul. Third, play, explore, plan for the best, and invoke awe. Or in short, “Pet the lizard, feed the mouse, and hug the monkey.”

——————————————————————————————————-
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” — Voltaire
———————————————————————————————————————-

PERSUASIVE GUESSERS

The problem we face today is that our brains have been traumatized, misled, and ultimately hijacked by Persuasive Guessers, a term Kurt Vonnegut coined for all the so-called leaders who have manipulated us to the brink of extinction. Demagogues, corporate pirates, misogynists, war-mongers, and zealots, we know them by their fragile egos, aggressive outbursts, and zeal for wielding power over others, all at the expense of our full humanity.

Persuasive guessers don’t believe in a benevolent universe. They believe in survival of the biggest bully. They don’t believe in partnership or sharing love and kindness. They believe in domination and draining your energy to line their own pockets.

They make themselves wealthy by paralyzing our ability to think as fast as they spew lies and outlandish “alternative facts.”

They are killing the natural world— or trying to. War is a huge player in their fossil-fuel addiction in that it enables Disaster Capitalism to feed on itself. (Disaster Capitalism is the subject of an eye-opening 2007 book, {The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism} by Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein.)

Persuasive Guessers don’t like people who are curious, mindful, ethical, and willing to discern the differences between the truth, personal truth, opinion, and perspective. By repressing the truth of authentic pain, we avoid becoming conscious of its causes and lessons. Many would rather avoid the pain of the truth, not knowing that the insecurity of living outside the truth is far more painful.

When someone chooses to avoid the truth, that’s their business, but we can’t avoid the pain that the U.S. Government is inflicting around the world. Nor can we ignore its relevance in our very own backyards, and in our hearts.

There is no way we can continue to let it go on. What does the shift in consciousness and action look like? What will move military might away from violence and degradation of our environment, and toward service to families, helping communities, and protecting Nature?

By asking the questions, we invite Nature to transform our pain into a harmonized facet of our wholeness, our diamond-like radiance of light. The poisons of ignorance, greed, and aversion fall away like dust motes from the mirror of our clear mind. The secret brain inspires new miracles, the antidotes: wisdom, generosity, and compassion.

————————————————————————————————
“Our task must be to free ourselves … by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
– Albert Einstein
—————————————————-

TRUTH, PAIN, AND COMPASSION

First, Let’s begin with the truth. We think that the truth is what we perceive, or what we believe, or a statement we make. This is the ordinary sense of the truth. When we work on ourselves through meditation, yoga, service, relationships, and visionary experiences, we realize that finding the truth is focusing on what is actually there. We find out our actual beliefs, which are often unconscious. Through mindful living, we begin to see ourselves and others just as we are, without judgement.

In a safe space, we can detect hidden motivations and conflicted patterns stemming from trying to protect ourselves. We see false personality patterns as the defenses they are, and thank them for protecting us, and let them go so will be free to be true to our real selves, our essence. We release them, forgive ourselves, and forgive others for any part played in all the wrongs done to us.

We see the truth of our essence underneath the pain, behind the false personality patterns that were formed to protect us from the pain of the truth. Separation from the truth causes us pain, but we build defenses against the truth of our feelings anyway– the anger protecting sadness, or mild platitudes protecting anger. Then we identify with the defenses instead of our essence, at least until we learn to identify and observe the defenses which leads to more inner peace and well-being.

In yoga and meditation, we have a chance to observe those defenses in a light-hearted way. We can heat the body and melt tensions, or we can cry, laugh, pray, or have an orgasm and wash the tensions away. The important thing is that underneath the tensions, we find the perceived deficiencies and false programming overlaying our true essence, and when we go deeper inside ourselves, we find our natural being which is not deficient at all.

Distorted perceptions imprinted in our unconscious by careless caretakers, schools, and society, before we reached the age of reason, may unconsciously activate and skew your adult thinking. Here is the best blessing: you are the master of your universe. You are the light of the sun! You are in charge of your charge, your radiance of electromagnetic energy.

We may have felt that we were weak, but that it was not okay to be weak, and so we created a lie in the form of a belief that we were strong. So, it will be difficult to ever admit to the feeling of weakness, but it is important to feel our authentic feelings — even if it’s weakness — to engage compassion. If we don’t ever allow ourselves to feel hurt, we can’t fully feel compassion That’s how our organism functions; there’s a reciprocal relationship between truth, pain, and compassion.

So why do we avoid the truth of global warming and the role the U. S. Military plays in it? We fear it will bring us suffering. But the fact is, it is not the truth which actually brings suffering, but the lies.

To avoid confusion, let me point out that the work of reprogramming unconscious false beliefs through practices like PSYCH-K and Quantum Healing often involve choosing to believe and think things that are not YET true. That’s not an unconscious lie; that’s setting a powerful intention with the superconscious mind that shifts our reality. By making new connections in the subconscious, we allow for more truth and empowerment to emerge.

While we all have to clear up the personal blind spots caused by lies we accepted as truth when we were younger, there is one huge blind spot in the eyes of unwell but influential human beings.

The chief propagandist for the Nazi regime called it the Big Lie.

“The brutal truth is, we’re scarcely ‘educating’ children at all. Even if you overlook the guilt, fear, bigotry, and dangerous anti-intellectual flapdoodle being funneled into young brains by schools on the religious right, what we’re doing is training kids to be cogs in the wheels of commerce.” — Tom Robbins

THE BIG LIE

The Big Lie looks something like this: We need to have hate, inequality, and wars because humans have always had them, and so why not let our reptilian brain stems run the show? Why not get the money, attention, oil, and material pleasure we want? Why not revel in uninhibited opportunism? Even if it withers the soul, destroys the planet, and causes millions of people to suffer and die, at least we’ll have made a mark?

Joseph Goebbels, the tenacious agitator who played on the fears of the unemployed masses during the Great Depression in Germany, was a gifted Persuasive Guesser. He put it this way, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

He played on the national psyche and would paralyze opponents with his venom, slander and insinuation, and because he loathed humanity as a whole, including himself, he felt no shame, guilt, or compassion. His powers of persuasion were used to disseminate the Big Lie for fame, glory, and profit. But happiness eluded him, as it disappears from the lives of anyone who separates from their essence and has no access to the secret brain.

We can never be happy by perpetuating falsehoods, because the essence is lost in the cover-ups. Hidden under the veneer of a soulless materialism, people like Goebbels and the Orange Menace, they dominate but can never belong. They crave crowds but can never self-reflect. They lie easily, avoid suffering at all costs, and have no empathy or compassion.

That’s not success. That’s a personality disorder, a sociopathology. War, domination, and the enslavement of others are a sociopath’s response to suffering, leading to destruction and ultimately, self-destruction.

The soulful jazz historian Albert Murray says that during slavery in the U. S. — an atrocity from which we haven’t fully recovered — the suicide rate per capita among slave owners was much higher than the suicide rate among slaves. Murray thinks this was because slaves had a way of coping with pain, suffering, and depression, which their white owners did not: they could shoo away Old Man Suicide by dancing, moving around, playing washboards, and singing the Blues.

That’s the Secret Brain at work. Murray says the Blues won’t send depression clear out of a house, but good music can drive away the demons from any room where it’s played or listened to. Everyone loves jazz, but around the world, everyone hates the U. S. war machine and the arrogance that preserves it.

War determines not who is right, but who is left behind. The opposite of war is not simply a lack of gun violence and bombs and hate killings. It is conscious creativity. So how do we restore creativity to a world on fire?

To change our minds is to know and empower our best intentions through the secret brain, thus balancing inner and outer worlds so that our true purpose in life, in Olelo Hawaii, our kuleana, becomes the path of least resistance.

With this integration, we can actually tackle the climate emergency, prevent wars, and save our ailing planet.

Next time: SOUL SOLUTIONS

————————————————————————-

EVOLUTIONARY YOGA FLOW CLASSES

MONDAYS @ 5:00 – 6:30 PM
KEALAKEKUA’S NEW THOUGHT CENTER OF HAWAII

Despite all the challenges, it is still a beautiful world! Know the joy of your True Nature. When you know who you really are, unconditional love centers you in your heart. Your natural radiance glows and your will, compassion, and active intelligence arise like a refreshing summer breeze. With asana, pranayama, chanting, Tibetan bowls, & heavenly mystical meditations.

Where: New Thought Center – 81-6587 Mamalahoa Hwy, C302 Pualani Terrace. Light-Filled Space overlooking Kealakekua Bay
http://www.maryamann.com/calendar/month-view/

PLAN AHEAD! NEW WEEKLY EVOLUTIONARY FLOW CLASS STARTING SOON!

I feel so honored to be invited to teach Yoga at Paleaku Peace Gardens, one of the most sacred spaces in the world. New classes begin in August and will run on Fridays, 9:30 – 11 am. Other classes offered at the Gardens are Yoga Flow with Hooda on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Tai Chi Tao with Jin An Wong, and meditation, movement, and seminars, tea ceremonies, and teachings by revered Tibetan Rinpoches. More details coming soon!