CHAPTER 6

The Left Hemisphere Is a Binary Computer—Intellectual Center

We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world.

(Buddha. Dhammapada, 3)

The intellectual center, the brain’s left hemisphere, is always the last to know. It is the slowest of all the centers because its place in the human biological instrument does not require the survival-necessary speed of instinctive or moving center. Its function is to serve, remember, observe, solve technical problems in the present, and communicate with others. This is its place in the scheme of the body’s functions. However, due to the culture we were born into, which is not a wisdom culture but a culture of power and money, a material culture, the intellect has been placed upon the highest pedestal and worshipped because it can give me money and power, the two things most valued by my society. Our entire educational system is built upon the worship of the intellect as king; we educate the intellectual center and ignore all of the body’s other functions. We do not even recognize inspiration and intuition as real or of any value in the educational process. That is because they do not come from intellectual center, but are received from higher centers, from the Creator. Remember yourself weary Traveler.

In our culture the part of the neo-cortex which our educational system trains and programs is the memory function, which occupies roughly 10 percent of the neo-cortex. This is the slowest function in the neo-cortex because it requires the search and retrieval of stored data from the past. This search-and-retrieval process is linear, step-by-step, and is what we call thinking. This is different from inspiration, which gives me the whole picture all at once, which sees wholly and not in part, or as the Gospels say, “Not through a glass darkly, but face to face.” Some traditions call this memory function “formatory apparatus.”

It is programmed by our culture to be binary. That is, it breaks all incoming impressions into two parts: like-dislike// black-white//good-bad//me-not me, like that. So it is a warehouse to store data, or put more simply, it stores the past. And this warehouse has two large store rooms: Like and Dislike. Thus, every person, event, object, or experience I ever have is immediately split by the intellectual center into two opposing halves. It is fragmented, no longer whole. The same thing happens with the “self”—this collection of masks, games, lies, nervous ticks, neuroses, habits—which was created by the intellect in earliest childhood to protect me from the madness of the world as we know it: it divides the self into good-bad or like-dislike. What it has seen as having survival benefit it labels “good” and what does not serve or fit this category it labels “bad.” It does not matter if it is destructive, harmful, cruel, or crazy; as long as it once had survival value the intellect labels it “good” and continues to enact it as habit. And the rest of the self it judges, fights against, tries to “fix” and get rid of. One part of the self judges and makes war against another part: a self-divided. There are two classic definitions of insanity: one is repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result; the other is a self divided. The intellectual center is programmed starting at birth or before, to be a binary computer, not unitary or whole. It is programmed for madness. Most go through their whole life and are never aware of the way in which thought has come to dominate their entire life. They take it as normal and natural, the constant, obsessive brain-chatter, the never ending noise in their head. We are programmed in such a way by our culture and its resultant education, that we are convinced that thought must be the master of the house.

And because of the great emphasis and value placed upon “thought” in our culture, the intellectual center is asked to perform a task for which it is biologically and functionally incapable: run the life and be in charge of the human biological instrument. The fact is that thought is meant to be a faithful and loyal servant, not the master. To place thought in the position of master is to place upon it a burden which 1) it cannot carry; and 2) was never meant to carry. The result is that the thinking mechanism, the intellectual center, breaks down. It is driven crazy and programmed for madness. Thus, it is “on” constantly, it rarely stops, it chatters night and day, even when we sleep. And sooner or later, we come to see this condition not only as “normal” but as necessary to our survival.

Thought expends great energy and time in convincing us that thought is utterly necessary. The fact is that memory has only one ability and one interest: what we call thinking. That is the only thing it can do, and since it is asked to be master of the life and the body, it is terrified because it cannot carry such a burden. Thus all of its programs and functions become fear-based. Most of what the memory stores has fear as its basic component. Thus we live our lives in fear and this is mirrored in the culture which this mind has created: we live in the age of terror.

The mind’s main terror is that there are things which it does not know how to think about. Thought equates its absence, the absence of thought, with loss of control, and to thought, loss of control = death. Thought equates thinking with survival, as it was programmed to do—it is a binary computer after all, and can only think according to its programs. It is thus terrified of losing control = not thinking. The whole aim of intellectual center is control. And it obsesses about control because it sees that my life is out of its control and it cannot do what it is being asked to do. Brain scientists estimate that the brain receives something on the order of 2,000,000 bits of reality-information-bits/second. The thinking mind—memory—can process about 2,000 bits/second, or roughly .01 percent of what is present in any given moment. So on what basis does it decide which .01 percent to notice and process? Simple. It recognizes and processes only that information which validates its habits and beliefs. And since it is a fear-based mechanism, naturally it recognizes and processes that information which is fearful, even if there is no reason to fear it.

The result is that in every situation and relationship, thought is always thinking, judging, scheming, planning, and manipulating for control. Thought cannot love. It can only think. Thinking is not love; thinking about a person I love is not the same as loving that person. Thoughts are not actions. Love is not in the domain of thought. Love comes from outside of us, is holy, comes from on High. Love is God. Thus, the intellectual center cannot control love. Thus, it fears it. It fears what it cannot know and control. It cannot know and control God, which manifests as love in this reality. The mind fears love.

So, the moment love enters the body as energy from on High, the memory divides it into two parts, fragments it. It is programmed to be binary, to work by association: comparison and contrast, as in: this is like these other things I have known (past) and stored, or this is not like things I have known (past) and stored. And since it is fear-based, it immediately, or very quickly thereafter, begins to place emphasis on what it does not like; it begins to make a list. And sooner or later, it begins to call in the past-due accounts from this list. The result? No relationship. Love dies. Love is a unity; the moment it is divided, it is no longer love.

The thinker (memory) likes to learn what it likes. It does not want to learn what it does not like. That is because the thinker, which is memory, is programmed to be binary. It is born and in its native state is unitary: that is, all of life is a unified field and that field is love. Thus, no need to categorize, name, list, sort, examine, judge, or label. But it is an electro-chemical computer and it has been programmed to be binary. It is a “like-dislike” machine. What it does not like, it will resist learning. This includes love.

Very quickly, you are going to see that much of the information which is gleaned from honest self observation, it does not like. Therefore it will resist such information, and have a hundred good reasons, excuses, justifications, and blaming for not believing it, not remembering it, and not acting upon it. Furthermore, the information gleaned from this book it is not going to want you to have, because much of it exposes the Wizard pulling the wires and running the smoke machine behind the curtain; that is, it exposes the inner workings of the intellectual center.

Thought gains its dominance and control by a simple device: not being observed. Please see the beauty of this understanding and how it can help you; try to intuit what this means without thinking about it. In other words, automatic pilot, mechanical behavior, repetitious habitual behavior is what thought demands. Why? Because the intellectual center does not have to think about it. It is hopelessly overloaded, being asked to be the master of the domain. It cannot stand up to the demand. Therefore, it wants everything to be predictable, controlled, and repetitious. It requires for its control that we do not pay attention to our lives. It requires us to act from old, stored, borrowed belief systems programmed into us by others, beliefs which it has never had to examine or think about at all; all of that work was done by others. To have to do this work itself would be fearful, might separate us from the herd which put those beliefs into us, and would require it going into unknown territory, which it fears.

To thought, the most terrifying thing of all is the unknown. Because if it is unknown, really unknown, thought cannot think about it. It can only think about what it knows, and what it knows is only what has already taken place = the past. Thought as we know it, not inspiration, can only operate on the past, or by projecting what it knows from the past, and imagining it taking place in the future. Thus, the electro-chemical, binary computer is a “past-future” machine. It is a “like-dislike,” “past-future” machine: binary.

Remember that the computer is very selective. If we receive upwards of 2,000,000 discrete bits of information per second, the computer can handle only about 2,000 or so. Thus it must reject roughly 1,998,000 bits of reality every second. On what basis does it decide to retain those 2,000 bits which it assimilates?

Simple. It selects only those bits which verify and validate its programmed perceptions of the world. And those perceptions are in the form of belief systems. If it believes that the world is a cold, unfriendly, fearful place, then it accepts and assimilates only that information which proves this belief to be true. Everything else it rejects or changes—makes it up—into agreement. If it believes, for example, I am no good (which is my computer’s ruling belief) or I am stupid, or ugly, or Iraq is evil, then it receives and assimilates only those bits which validate and verify this view of me or the world.

Memory is lazy; it does not want to do the impossible task to which it is assigned by ignorant education. So it takes everything for granted and is highly selective. Otherwise it would have to think about everything. This way, it can run on automatic pilot and spend most of its time doing what it loves to do most: fantasize. The brain’s left hemisphere spends most of its time in fantasy, dreaming. And the dreams it creates, it responds to as if they were real. It does not differentiate between its fantasies and reality. To the memory-unit, A=A=A and there is no B. To it, its fantasies are as real as any external phenomenon. And like a programmed robot, I respond to them, act upon them, believe in them, as if they were real. If it is programmed to emphasize only what is good, it labels itself an optimist; if it is programmed to emphasize only what is bad, then it calls itself a realist. Optimist-pessimist=binary; between these two extremes self observation creates a third force, a balancing or “reconciling” force, a “Middle Way” as Buddha called it.

Words Are Not Actions

I have known some,

especially in the university,

who thought that if they gave a fine talk

or wrote a long article for the journals,

this made them men of action.

The Indians knew better.

Before a warrior went into battle

he would not speak.

He went into the sweat lodge with others;

they drummed and sang and prayed.

Then for 3 days he went into solitude,

preparing his heart for his death.

When he came out, ready to ride,

his woman handed him axe and bow.

No word was spoken.

Some came back dead or badly wounded.

There was a big fire; all gathered

to hear the tales of battle.

The warriors laughed and laughed,

made jokes about each other,

told true stories that were so and not so.

They knew the wounds would heal,

knew the dead would be fed to the birds.

The Indians had a saying:

words fall down on the ground

like shit from the dogs;

deeds rise up in the sky

like the spirit leaving the body.

(Red Hawk. Sioux Dog Dance, 37)