Programming

I’ve been noticing the programs running in my brain. An example of what I mean is the act of learning a piece of music. You have to learn it intellectually, but to be able to play it you have to figure out a way to communicate with the part of your brain that controls your muscles and nerves, the fine motor program. It’s not the same program as the intellectual one. This program doesn’t understand that intellectual part of your brain. It doesn’t understand words. Otherwise you could just think “I want to be a concert pianist” and it would happen. But it doesn’t work that way. It only understands and responds to repetition of muscle groups. Perform an action enough times and that program will learn the action and allow you to perform it much more efficiently. Keep at it enough and you’re a concert pianist.

This isn’t the only subprogram. Maybe what we think of as our “personality” is nothing more than a program and who we really are is deeper, higher, broader, wider than any program. If you just let it go, the personality program will make decisions based on history. That could be good or bad depending on your history. It’s not that the program is bad, it’s your own personal program and should love it and take care of it. It’s just that if you let it run the show it will likely make decisions you’re not thrilled about. It’s doing the best it can. Ideally, we would run the program rather than have it run us.

When we chant and meditate it seems like we’re using repetition to communicate with the subprograms that make up our brain. We’re taking control and putting the programs on hold for just a little while so that they all understand who really is in charge here. I think that only when we get all the programs settled down do we begin to understand the subtle, earthshaking truth of who we really are.

I’m spending time exploring my brain. I’m trying to stand back and see what’s really going on here. You can do it; you can find an impartial perch on which to place your consciousness, a vantage point to observe the workings. You start to see patterns. You start to get a feel for how to control these things.