After another morning of kundalini yoga with the amazing Jotipal Kaur from Golden Light in Frome, it left me wondering and philosophising. Lately I’ve been doing a lot research into the science of the mind and how our brain functions with thoughts and patterns that cause certain behaviors. Since as far as I can remember I have always wondered if there is more to my existence than the 2 dimensional world I seemed to experience. As I have got older It has been a pull between the realm of science and that ‘something more’.
A fact about our consciousness which is really interesting and opens up a whole host of possibility is that if our brain were to be disconnected from the right hemisphere, our left side would not miss it, we could still talk and think but we wouldn’t be able to describe the right hand side of someone else’s face. However we would not be aware that we could not see it and it would not appear a problem. This isn’t just a sensory issue, it is a significant change in our consciousness than runs much deeper. If we are not using our right brain to it’s full potential, what else are we not aware of?
God means so many things to different people. I have always struggled with placing identity with that ‘something more’, such as God, Angels, higher self, spirit etc. I have constantly questioned ‘What is it? Who? Why?’
Over the last couple of years I have been practicing kundalini yoga and my teacher has introduced some wonderful mantras that leave room for the mind to expand and ponder our existence. The mantras such as ‘sat nam’ have only just started making real sense to me and properly sink in. ‘Sat Nam’ meaning ‘truth is my identity’ only really made sense today as I questioned to myself, ‘why not the other way around?’ At that moment it all became clear and resonated in me like a truth i’d always known.
Laying in bed I couldn’t get a particular mantra out of my head, the ‘mal mantra’ and so I googled it. The translation for ‘sat nam’ within this mantra stated ‘truth is god’. Now I’d always known it as ‘truth is my identity’ so this made me question the difference in translation. So I look up the meaning of identity and low and behold the word shining out like a huge neon sign was ‘oneness’.
During my research into the science of the mind I found that there is no central conscious within us, for example when we are hungry all our different neurons and brain waves to do with consuming food all fire up at the same time in a parallel format as opposed to one inner conscious core controlling the thoughts and action. This had left a gap for me to wonder if there really was anything underlying existence. But scientifically we also know that we are all connected by the neurons in our brains that elctrochemically ‘speak’ to each other (as in one persons brain speaks to another not just internally), we also know that we are all made of the same stuff, energy.
So what we all have in common is our interconnectedness and our oneness. Our ability to influence the world and each other through self awareness and ‘becoming the core consciousness together’ that benefits the world and beyond, or not as the case may be, particularly in a collective who are not self aware.
From a scientific point of view we could say ‘ We are a global network of neurochemical reactions. And the self-amplifying cycle of acceptance and acknowledgement, sustained by the daily choices in our interactions, is the chain reaction that will ultimately define our collective ability to overcome imagined differences and look at life in the grand scheme of things.’
Or simply ‘Sat Nam’.
Let’s make sure our self awareness is heightened so that we can make choices that will benefit us and the world as a whole.
Jennifer Hall – The Life Buddy
Mal Mantra
Image courtesy of Victor Habbick at FreeDigitalPhotos.net