I am writing this in front of a space heater trying to figure out what would possess a person to live somewhere the temperatures drop to over 100 degrees colder than the human body!? Nope… got nothing!!! Except for perhaps we revert back to using our lizard brain and hunker down. Smart or not our lizard brain might actually be a good thing sometimes. We don’t necessarily need it for survival as much as we did but it still serves us well by providing fight, flight or freeze. (I guess that last one is what we’re doing now. Actually standing perfectly still or shutting down the brain and drifting can be quite comforting, in small increments, but frozen brain is a whole different deal.)

That was us back then, using only the most basic survival part of our brain. We speak of evolution but most of us still only use about ten percent of our entire brain! We know this and yet many continue to hang around in that ten percent instead of reaching for more. We talk about spiritual evolution quite a bit but how do we get our brains to catch up? Here’s the beauty of it…the more we stay in touch with and try to evolve in our spirituality, the more our brains evolve as well! Isn’t that great?!

Well it’s time for some brain evolution! It’s time to use more of our brain matter and in turn learn more about ourselves in the process. Some of you have already begun by doing one easy step called meditating. Yes, meditating helps to open up a different part of your brain just as other spiritual practices do, such as praying. There has been a great deal of testing in this area and much of the research shows that the more we spend time with spiritual aspects of our lives the more it opens up particular areas of the frontal lobes. When this part of the brain fires, it provides a feeling of oneness with all. When people completely concentrate on the spiritual their parietal lobes might nearly shut down. The parietal lobes are what give us a sense of self, separate from others. When this part of us shuts down we lose ourselves in a spiritual experience of complete oneness with each other and everything. At this point there are no religions or separations, boundaries are blurred and simply peace is left. No wonder there are so many people doing meditation today. It gets other areas of the brain active, the good stuff, and it feels great to be so connected!

But that isn’t all. Scientists the world over are making breakthroughs every day on how the brain continually becomes more and more active, in areas that have been typically dormant, when we get in touch with the spiritual in our lives. Those who have had near death experiences, and feel they have seen heaven or the Divine, have different brain activity and overall are much happier with their lives after the experience. Something opened in their brains that had been essentially dormant but once it opened many just continue to evolve spiritually and enjoy life so much more.

Many mystics all over the world have used some type of psychedelic drug to enter and maintain a “spiritual state” at one time or another. Most of them continue to be able to enter this state without the drugs. This makes it clear that the drugs only “jump-started” them into the spiritual state and that the drugs are no longer needed. Perhaps it was originally needed to get past the lizard brain? It is beginning to look like the state of meditation or prayer can do the same thing (maybe just not quite as quickly), and so even though the idea of the shamanic drugs might be appealing to some…it isn’t needed to get past the lizard brain and get more spiritually evolved.

Now, get out there and meditate! It isn’t just about the relaxing, strengthening, and helping to heal, it also expands brain evolution and can bring about psychic gifts quicker! It’s time to delve into the other parts of the brain and feel closer to the ALL!

I appreciate that you hung in with me till the end like we all keep hanging with our beautiful, but frigid state. Keep those noggins warm and have a wonderful new year!

j.s.