Whilst Narkissos points to a typical trap that many fall into - that of taking sides or pitting one side against another - I think the whole point Jill Bolte Taylor makes is our WHOLE brain is brilliantly capable of accessing all states - as so clearly demonstrated by her intellectual analysis of a transendental experience (the stroke that caused it is just one of countless ways to manifest the experience - what is important is her lucidity throughout the experience). For the sake of expedience we tend to refer to left brain or right brain, but I don't think for a second Jill BT is unconscious of the intricate complexities and synchronistic workings of the brain and the rest of our physiology.
For the sake of ease, let's call it left brain and right brain and not get caught up in whether one is 'better' than the other. I believe we can recognise that predominantly most of us reside in the logical, rational and 'left brain' aspects whilst all the time yearning for the symbiotic feeling of classic right brain experiences - love, oneness, orgasm, bliss, acceptance, non-attachment, expansiveness and surrender.
My take on it is that we are born predominantly residing in right brained. Babies feel at one with everything, feel no separation from mother. Children are highly sensitive and easily feel the emotions and energies of others. As we grow older the urge is to develop a separate identity and so begins our left brain development, finding sense and meaning of the world so we can define ourselves.
There is no right or wrong here. I just believe along the way we, as adults, tend to so strongly identify with our rational, separate aspect that we forget we have this other part of us that needs freedom and true expression. The right brain becomes 'wrong' (or 'right' depending on your spiritual views) and unconscious. So right brain experiences are marginilised and/or categorised - art, creativity, insanity, delusion, enlightenment, spirituality, fantasy, not 'real', real etc etc. All the while, most people are unconsciously (and not necessarily healthily) driven to satisfy the right brain through love, food, sex, religion, art and so on. We all satisfy the right brain healthily and unhealthily.
People who are predominantly and naturally more attuned to right brain actually have the hardest time fitting into society. At the furthest end of the spectrum, those who are so right brained have probably been the great spiritual 'masters' through mankind's history. Yet, if after viewing Jill BT's talk, you re-examine some of the teachings of these spiritual beings, you may reframe what they are saying when they say we are all 'this' - it is possible for each and every one of us. It is not outside us, it is inside us. As Awakened07 says, it is as simple as a biological brain function. How different human history might be if these 'masters' experience was given a different context, was understood more in the light of what Jill BT describes? I like to imagine that the concept of religion - the striving after these experiences - would be obsolete.
It is a second reality - because the brain is processing the same data in a powerfully different way. How amusing however that the left brain interpretation has claimed 'reality' as its own. I also wonder at the pureness of the data we are given to interpet considering that most of the data is a product of unconscious longing and then the left brain trying to make sense - 'reality' - of it :)
To me, realising the possibility that I have choice in each moment and that I can consciously choose right brained interpretation (rather than reacting from unconscious longing) means I can flow between each states. It is not choosing one over another - it is the ability to be so present and aware, I can see the big picture by approaching everything from both the left brain and right brain, choosing appropriate action. Knowing what might be the appropriate answer/response in one moment might be actually the wrong response in the next similar moment.
This is non-duality.
To realise non-duality one must be willing to explore both the known and the unknown (or unknowable) - to sit in the discomfort of not knowing and to feel the true power of knowing.
These states are very reproducible (and without drugs!) but are not meant to be turned on or off like a switch. It is a state of being where there is natural energy flow between everything.
I too believe humans are evolving.
I originally posted the link under Indigo Children because I was responding to Terry's heartfelt post on what it was like having a child with Asbergers. Whilst recognising the very real daily frustrations of living with someone like that (and allow room also for the frequent joys), I also feel it is important to learn from the awesome manifestation of someone's extreme experience of life and see how this can enhance our own understanding and way of being. Not to make their experience wrong, to try and make them 'fit' our reality, but to use it as a point of self-inquiry where I might recognise and evolve my own perception.
