YouTube - Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

This is amazing, because we CAN learn to control how our minds work. The same way areas of the brain related to musicality and muscle control are strengthened when someone practices the violin over a period of time, we can make ourselves more kind, compassionate, and HAPPY just by training our minds - "practicing" in things like love. Meditating to familiarize oneself with positive minds is the basic practice of Buddhism and has been done for centuries.

This reminded me somewhat of a Google Tech Talk that I didn't find on Current, so I posted it:

http://current.com/items/88887996_be_happier_and_change_the_shape_of_your_brain

I've been recommending a book by Jill Bolte Taylor called "My Stroke of Insight" to everyone I know. It's an amazing story, both uplifting and powerful on three levels: physical, emotional, and spiritual, but the spiritual aspect alone makes this the best book I've read all year.

How often do you get to hear a neuroscientist describe having a stroke, nearly dying and finding Nirvana, and then making a miraculous recovery so that she's back to teaching medical students!?!

I came away with a renewed sense of understanding, wonder and hopefulness about the capabilities of the human brain. I give "My Stroke of Insight" highest marks!

You can get the book for just $16.47 with free shipping from Amazon.
Url:http://www.amazon.com/My-Stroke-Insight-Scientists-Personal/dp/0670020745/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210709205&sr=8-4

I read "My Stroke of Insight" in one sitting - I couldn't put it down. I laughed. I cried. It was a fantastic book (I heard it's a NYTimes Bestseller and I can see why!), but I also think it will be the start of a new, transformative Movement! No one wants to have a stroke as Jill Bolte Taylor did, but her experience can teach us all how to live better lives. Her TED.com speech was one of the most incredibly moving, stimulating, wonderful videos I've ever seen. Her Oprah Soul Series interviews were fascinating. They should make a movie of her life so everyone sees it. This is the Real Deal and gives me hope for humanity.

I'm sorry but she has not discovered Nirvana. I think peole use words like 'nirvana', 'enlightenment' and 'inter-connectedness' to freely.

Please don't misinterpret these words, she has clearly found something very exciting and good, but it is not enlightenment. What happened to her was conditioned by a physical malfunction.

Nirvana is the unconditioned element. It does not arise and pass away. it cannot be brought about through a stroke, labotomy, meditation or any other activity, for it is ever-present.

Nirvana is not ultimate good, it is beyond both good and bad, right and wrong, indeed all opposites. Nirvana is beyond both mind and body, time and space, birth and death.

What she has discovered is what anyone who practises calming meditation finds. You can temporarily shut down the chatter of perpetual self confirmation and enjoy a real sense of unity and belonging.

However, the realisation of true and full enlightenment - non duality - is not temporary. What she offers is wonderful, but is not the final answer.

Thank You