Guys - my mind just totally got blown! Have you seen this "My Stroke of Insight"?

[calimary]

All peace activists ought to look at this.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

UTTERLY remarkable!!!

Had to share this with you, so we have something uplifting to ruminate about in the midst of all the other muck of the moment.

Happy St. Pat's! May the Luck o' the Irish be with ya!

:patriot: :hug: :pals: :headbang:

[calimary]

1. Self-kick.

I did not write this. But I am awestruck by it.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Ted is a fantastic gathering of brilliant minds thanks

I haven't seen that part of the series.

Happy St. Paddy's day to you too.

[calimary]

3. First time I'd ever encountered it. A girlfriend sent it to me with many blessings.

I found it just frickin' remarkable!

We have SO MANY more important things to be about than the screeching madness surrounding us and demanding our attention at the moment. For example, they're massaging post-Spitzer sex addictions on frickin "Larry King." Yeah, THAT certainly is worth an hour of international cable time, isn't it?

I'm keeping this one close at hand. MOST thought-provoking!

[calimary]

4. I'm kicking this again.

We need a respite. We need something else to preoccupy our thoughts. Even if just for a few minutes. Perhaps this will help strengthen us with an expanded perspective when we return to chewing over the other stuff.

[C_U_L8R]

5. omigod that made me all weepy !!

I wasn't expecting that !!
How GOOD and POWERFUL !!!
sniff sniff

THANK YOU

Slainte & Erin Go Bama !

[calimary]

6. Really does take you someplace else, doesn't it?

She clearly got weepy over the remembering of it. It left me slackjawed over the mere thought of what she said, and the ultimate conclusion at which she arrived. I wasn't expecting that, either.

Glad you liked it.

:hug: We need to hang in there together and help each other arrive at this place - WITHOUT the physical calamity that went with it.

[chknltl]

7. Wow.... just wow

Thanks for sharing.

[calimary]

8. Really staggering, isn't it?

I'll be thinking about this for a long time.

Takes about 19 minutes to get all the way through it, but worth every second. TOTALLY engrossing and trippy! Glad you liked it, friend!

[chknltl]

13. For what it is worth:

I may have as a child experienced many of those things. I have heard and read that they were a product of the mind and they are common for folks having near death experiences. I was not, to my knowledge, having a near death experience on a weekly basis throughout my childhood! I prefer to believe that what I was experiencing was more akin to astral projection. Her detailed descriptions closely resemble those things I felt and heard and saw so frequently back in my childhood.

I have already passed this link along to friends of mine. I intend to further offer it to a group of other friends I have who are into spirituality, (I am very into spirituality). Thank you again for this. Oh and btw I am glad to see that you agreed on the significance of General Odam's speech in another thread. Monday has turned into quite the information day indeed!

[calimary]

19. Yeah, that one too.

I stockpile some of these for fodder for future columns. The Odom story is a good one.

Glad you enjoyed the link. It just seemed important to me to share this reminder that there ARE other things that we could be focusing on, in our position as presumptive leader of the world. What if we didn't JUST change presidents? Having the first black or the first woman president would represent a shedding of an old shell and emergence into a new era. What if we could do that - in an even more supercharged way? Supercharged isn't the correct word, really, but it's all my feeble little mind can come up with at the moment.

I want a ride like hers without the stroke. I want to melt into actual proof that we're better than this, that we can rise above this puny little picky, arrogant, snippy, superficial, greedy plane - into something greater. Something that we can touch and feel and swim in and fly in and steep ourselves in. Something concrete, even while it is also of the spiritual, or mental, or essential. Something else. Something beyond. Something greater. We're certainly capable of it as evolved beings (to at least some minimal extent, perhaps).

At any rate, let's glide together, 'eh? Don't we deserve something uplifting to wrap our weary, sad, disheartened, and turbulent brains around? Sounded like a glimpse of heaven on earth, to me.

[liberalmuse]

9. Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

I find stories about consciousness like this absolutely fascinating, and I really could use all the positive stuff I can get my hands on right now.

[calimary]

10. That's why I had to race over here and post it after watching it when my friend had

emailed it to me.

I knew people here would need some balm like this. I sure did!

Glad you liked it. I ust thought we all needed a respite and a GOOD kind of distraction - even if only for about 19 minutes. Kinda renders everything else as just so much bullshit, 'eh?

[Speck Tater]

11. What she said is exactly why I meditate.

It is exactly what the Buddha taught us how to achieve in our own lives.

I rest my case for Buddhism.

[calimary]

12. Hey, makes sense to me!

You just made me think of that scenein "Network" wherein Howard Beale has his Great Vision one night, that wakes him up from a fitful sleep. And he described it as being of "such loveliness" - maybe what the Hindus call prahna. Perhaps that's what it is.

But shit, what good is a religion that doesn't encourage you to go out and kill people?

[hwmnbn]

14. WOW!!... She manages to....

describe a religious experience, an acid trip, a meditative state, an out-of-body experience all in one. She brings the no-nonsense analytical perspective of a scientist to explain the higher consciousness latent in all of us.

I'm blown away also because my lifetime of searching and reading and experimenting, I could never distill into an 18 minute talk.

She is so clear and precise in describing our ultimate reality.

"We are not human beings sharing our spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings sharing our human experience"

[intheflow]

16. I think she's a boddisatva, not an angel.

Angels were never human. Boddisatva are beings who have attained Nirvana but stay behind to help enlighten others. That sounds literally like what she did. She found this transcendent place and gave her spirit up in joining everything, then awoke and was so inspired by what she experienced/learned that she fought to recover so she could get the message out.

But either way, angel or boddisatva, that was a remarkable video, and she is a remarkable woman.

[hwmnbn]

17. Yep, I didn't know the technical name...

She is just a brilliant beautiful being.

[calimary]

18. I never heard that description before (haven't studied these things as closely as

I probably should, but your discussion of the boddisatva sounds like that's what this woman has become.

Makes perfect sense. Truly stunning. I'm glad she fought back to share this accounting. Meant a great deal to me!

[calimary]

20. Yeah, I thought that was pretty neat that a powerful scientific mind like hers could

go through this and live to tell. That kind of witness is MOST credible, at least to me. She comes from a place of GREAT objectivity and credibility. And with none of the religioso mumbo-jumbo or "X-tianistas" crap that can be so divisive when it's not done correctly (as most of our self-anointed "messiahs" and "religious" leaders do it). This seemed pretty damned pure and authentic. Which is why I found it so striking.

Also, I just realized it's a gift to me - that I can use to say THANK-YOU, DU! DU's been awfully good to me over the years. I wouldn't have made such progress as a writer without having spent time exercising here.

[nashville_brook]

15. kick for later...

[calimary]

23. I'll kick for that!

[mod mom]

21. that was cool. thanks for sharing calimary!

[calimary]

25. Happy to do so. It changed my whole mood for the whole day.

Glad you enjoyed it.

[lonestarnot]

22. Peace.

[calimary]

26. To you, too!

:headbang:

[calimary]

24. Gonna kick this again - to keep it up where the late night/early morning crowd

can see it.

We all need some uplifting in these bleak times.

[Quantess]

27. Fascinating.

I was shocked to hear her difficulty getting to the phone and calling for help. Her descriptions were very vivid, which is remarkable, since she had a stroke on the left side and she can still express herself so well.

[calimary]

31. Yeah - her recollections were extremely detailed and credible.

Someone used to exercising her observational skills as a profession.

Really stunning! Staggeringly so.

[Quantess]

45. Learning about CVAs... infarctions and aneurysms was part of my college study

But even though I worked with post-stroke victims, and I've read about what happens during a stroke, I never heard detailed descriptions like hers.

I thought about it again today. She was 37, my age, when she had her massive stroke on the Left hemisphere. I'm sure it was terrifying.

[calimary]

48. No kidding, especially when you might think - "hey! I'm 37! This isn't even supposed to

be happening to someone my age yet. Doesn't fit the template!"

Just an amazing presence of mind she had through all this - being able to stay fairly focused even while her mind was flying all over the room...

[housewolf]

28. kick

Take the time & watch this video, it's worth it.

[calimary]

32. At first I thought - Hmm...19 minutes. But only a couple of moments into it, I was hooked.

And it only got better and better and more and more compelling.

[renate]

29. THANK YOU

That was phenomenal.

To those who haven't watched it yet--watch the whole thing, but the last 4 minutes are absolutely wonderful.

[calimary]

34. I thought it was simply stunning.

And the way she was so visibly moved, still, after all this time (and evidently she'd spent eight or so years recovering to this point) - that was utterly riveting. Unforgettable! Glad it touched you!

[Duppers]

30. what she experienced has NOTHING to do with RELIGION ....

or anything 'supernatural.' Although it could be called 'spiritual,' but that term will always be confused with something religious or supernatural.

I found many of the comments at the site most interesting. AND I've been where Dr. Taylor was during her stroke, only w/o having to have a stroke. Long ago, sadly, I lost the ability---and it is a cultivated ability. It was by far the most difficult thing I ever accomplished, and at that time--back in the 70's, I could find not one person who could relate to what I had experienced. But I knew I wasn't nuts.
How'd I first achieve this? After a number of yrs in therapy and after having read numerous self-help books on introspection, I had some concept of where I wanted to go AND I had some 'chemical assistance.' However, all of the people I knew who use/used/had used any plants or chemicals have not come close to being in that 'place' or had that knowledge. (I had no coach, only myself, my books, and my bong.) It was a 'place of being' that I learned to control with my conscious mind and, after awhile, it was definitely not dependent on my use of any plant or chemical assistance.

Why did I give 'it' up? It hurt to be so alone with my new found knowledge/ability/gift. I felt as if I were alone on another planet....or as if I were the only person speaking a special language on this planet. Absolutely no one could relate to me at that time. No one. Not my therapist and especially not my husband. I let my wonderful gift slip away for many reasons.
Then came my CFIDS which took more away from me, including some of my cognitive abilities.
However, I retain all the compassion/compassionate knowledge I found in the experiences. That's why I am a liberal, a democrat, and a defender of the underdogs of the world and of all gay rights. My experiences changed my heart!
Anywho, that's my story.

Here are some of the comments I like:

>>
...Modern Scientists talk about unbiased attitude in research but become biased when it comes to what Dr. Taylor is talking and what yoga has been talking for over 5000 years. Right and Left brain Integration can take place consciously by higher practices of Yoga if done regularly .

======

Norman Bearrentine – March 17 2008
Many people have written about various ways of achieving something like Dr. Taylor’s stroke experience: drugs, meditation, accidents, etc. While it is unclear how much left-brained/right-brained communication is involved in all these variations, it does seem the case that the linguistic systems at least, are off-line. I lump all these together as “nonlinguistic perception,” and that being the case, it’s impossible to talk about them while they’re happening. Once the language systems are back online, everyone who’s had such an experience faces the same dilemma: how to describe nonlinguistic experience linguistically. It seems to be the case that one’s description of this kind of perception is based upon whatever cultural context one finds oneself in on emergence. Once one reacquires the use of language, people from Eastern religious traditions usually talk about “enlightenment,” while people from Western religious traditions usually talk about “union with God.”


===========

Maureen Hoffmann – March 17 2008
Consciousness and waking up to our inter-connectedness have nothing to do with religion. Having the tremendous courage to live a life of compassion, selflessness, and cultivation of wisdom, require the path of a warrior.
Jill speaks of the possibility of an enlightened society and connecting with a vividness of being. Those who rely solely on what scientists tell them are sadly mistaken in their perspective. (or what science can NOW explain)
On the contrary to the comment below, having an experience that taps into our basic goodness and perfection is the furthest thing from clinging to this life of "I". The primary act of fearlessness is dropping the "I". We must be willing to be vulnerable and drop our aggression.

>>

I am thrilled and excited that more people are awakening. But I do not see this enlightenment state as an either-or thing, as many of the commenters describe it. It is a unification of the left and right hemispheres, without letting our left ones constantly silence our right ones. It's the best way to live.

Please read more of the comments at the site.

Thanks so much for posting this, calimary.

[calimary]

35. It's nice to see this is being discussed - actively here, and obviously also elsewhere.

The friend who emailed me this originally also forwarded it to about 15 other friends of hers. I intend to do likewise myself. But I wanted to bring it here to give everyone a respite from the sturm & drang of what has gone on through primary season. Emotions are SO tightly-wound and SO tense! Like I don't recall things being in a long time! We need a break here! After the season, after seven-and-some years (or longer for those of us still smarting over the way the Clintons were hounded by hate radio and the gullible media during the '90's), or hell - after last week.

And besides, with the ascendancy of the Obama and Clinton campaigns as the last two standing, first black candidate for President and first female candidate for President, we've had at least some dialogue in public, the media, and in the blogosphere about what it would signify, what it would say about America to the rest of the world if we were to make the historic leap and install one of these two firsts in the Oval Office. There would be a globally-acknowledged signal that we've grown up a little and knew enough not to repeat and even worsen the damage of the last two terms by being foolish enough to put another republi-CON in charge. It's a serious and historic step forward for us to make as a country considering what's come before. Certainly it would show the world that we have at least enough horse sense to shift gears and try something different. What if we took the idea of evolution, and growing up as a nation, all the way up to this level?

Why not REALLY grow up?

[HCE SuiGeneris]

33. So absolutely enthralling and energizing!

Thank you very much for this. :hug:

[calimary]

37. Good! I think we all need this - and the reminder that there are bigger things

out there, more transcendent, more uplifting.

Glad you liked it.

[hwmnbn]

36. Another morning kick...

Last night I went to sleep with this experience on my mind.

[calimary]

47. It does stick in the mind and make it do jumping jacks.

I went to bed last night thinking about it, too. Would I ever have such presence of mind?

[fascisthunter]

38. Very Cool.....

Autodesk, maker of Maya. Great program! Studied 3d animation for a couple years.

[bonito]

39. Awesome, mind blowing, a must view

The observer becoming the observed, beautiful. Thanks!

[hootinholler]

40. Rec it while we still can!

An utterly amazing insight. This clicks so many things into perspective.

-Hoot

[SalviaBlue]

41. Thanks for post this!! K&R

[bonito]

42. Kick

[Disturbed]

43. Thank you.

:yourock:

[bonito]

44. I'm honored

:blush:

[sammythecat]

46. Wow. Very powerful.

I just finished watching it. Not sure what exactly to make of it just yet. Very, very, thought provoking.

Thanks for that.

[bonito]

49. Kick

At a last attempt for wider viewing for this OP.