A Stroke of Insight

Below is a link to a video from a recent TED conference. TED is a meeting of select individuals - it stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and they generally discuss some very powerful ideas with brilliant speakers and then broadcast them on the internet. This particular one caught my attention because of its relevance to yoga and the mind. The speaker comes across with great emotion and commitment and more importantly she echoes what my yoga teachers strive to teach us in some fashion during classes.

Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain researcher here in Boston who suffered a stroke twelve years ago. The stroke disabled much of the left hemisphere of her brain. What's interesting is her description of what happens as this part of the mind gives up control, in her case unwillingly. Most people are familiar with the left/right brain discussion. The general sense is that the left brain is logical and the right more intuitive. She expands on that concept in the ways that I think anyone with an interest in the Self vs self dialog would find fascinating. Part of me has to ask - yogis, is this what we've been trying to do all along?

The actual lecture lasts about twenty minutes but I guarantee you'll be thinking about it far longer than that.

Jill Bolte Taylor talks about her stroke of insight