The Art of Knowing

        Welcome...

        to the place...
        where images speak...
        And words take wing:
        Knowledge bubbles up
        From some place unseen.

        Where questions are asked,
        And answers appear
        In the form of images...
        With words you can hear.

        Many Quests have I been on
        For  knowledge that I seek.
        They begin with Quest-ions
        That I don't want to read
        About in books or hear from others:
        I'd rather look inside.

        For wherever lies a Quest-ion,

                        ...there the answer also lies.

                                                --Linda Rae, 2001

It is a common statement that the average human is using only 10% of their brain.  Mostly it is assumed that this is due to our current beginning stages of development as a species.  But what if this limited 10% has ruled our existence, our awareness, so completely that it has in fact created a learning system that self-perpetuates this limitation in future generations?  

Scientists say that the left hemisphere of our brain is said to be the seat of our linear thinking, analytic abilities etc.  It is here that we process information necessary for mathematics, language, and logic.  They tell us that our right hemisphere is used for spatial relationships, holistic awareness, etc.  This area of our brain is where our intuition lies, and our ability to create art, music, and poetry.  Spiritual teachers say the left hemisphere is the seat of our intellect, our ego, which is our identity as a individual, separate from everything else, whereas the right hemisphere (though perhaps ineptly identified) is our connection with the Oneness of everything.

In the U.S. public school system, heavy emphasis is placed on the training of the left hemisphere.  Language, mathematics and science are the key components.  These are seen as the fundamental necessities for each child to become "educated".  Creativity, on the other hand (or hemisphere) is often not funded at all (i.e., music, art, drama).  When it is funded, it is often doled out like a "kit", complete with left brain expectations of the outcome.  (i.e., "This is our art/music/drama project for the day. You will end up with a result that looks or sounds like this...")   In order to pass the project and subsequently the class, the student must comply to achieve the expected results.   How exactly, is this creativity?  Isn't creativity unique?   Individualistic?  Unexpected?  Haven't many of the greatest inventions and discoveries across time gone totally against the current grain?   A main emphasis of our public school system is memorization and regurgitation of "facts" (things people before us have thought).  Very little emphasis is placed on youth creating something new of their own.  This trains children to believe that others' thoughts are more important than their own creativity.  I believe that the emphasis on using the left hemisphere, memorization and doing things exactly as they are presented to us, expecting the exact same outcome, not only limits our creativity, but it actually alters our brain.   Why are we only using 10% of our brain?  Because we have been trained to do so! 

That small percentage of our population that is labeled "highly creative" or "genius" are considered "lucky", extraordinary, born with talent and ability that few can ever expect to achieve.  What if these are all assumptions that originate from that limited 10% of our brain that cannot conceive of that kind of creativity and ability?  What if these seemingly extra-ordinary people simply tapped into that wholeness of their being and experienced some things that could not be explained or contained by the left brain and therefore the traditional learning/teaching system?  Many of these so-called geniuses quit school early--perhaps to escape the limitations that were placed upon them.  Why are we not teaching with a paradigm/system that allows genius? 

My personal experience in activating my right hemisphere through visual art, poetry, music and dance while holding an intention to know something specific has brought me intuitive insights, chunks of knowledge on topics I have never studied before in any other way.  Some of the content of my insights I have been able to identify in fields of science such as cosmology, field theory, quantum physics, geometry, etc.  Sometimes the information has been difficult for me to transfer into linear language.  All of it has been way beyond what my intellect thought I knew.   This holistic knowing through the arts/right hemisphere is effortless.  There is no struggle, no difficulty in comprehending or remembering.   I do not have to think or memorize it.  I know it.

When it comes to learning, does it not make sense to allow our entire being, our whole capacity to be present, fully utilized?  Rather than using our left brain to memorize "facts", we can use our right brain in an effortless way to learn about any topic.  By accessing our creativity we let the imagination lead us to a place of knowing rather than to our habit of hard thinking.  The left brain is then harnessed to its suitable role of understanding.  By experiencing a topic through the wholeness of our being we tap into the realm of all potential, all possibility.  In this sort of direct experience we can receive chunks of information in one whole "aha" moment, about things we have never studied before in any other way.  Though it may sound complex, this way of knowing is very similar to our original way of being in the world.  By playing and direct experience we understood all kinds of things without someone else teaching us.  Our early childhood state of being new to the world, experiencing it directly through play and personal experience allowed our minds and the world around us to unfold in an effortless way.  Our most natural way of learning from the wholeness of our being allows us to know things we did not think we knew.



2008