Evolving Beyond Thought: Updating Your Brain's Software

Evolving Beyond Thought: Updating Your Brain's Software

Author: Gary Weber

Publisher:

Published: 2018-02-24

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9781979723770

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The seemingly insoluble problems of our species at the current time is our inability to successfully cope with the complexities of our massively-complex, highly-integrated society using our outdated software programs created when we were hunter-gatherers. This book outlines the problem areas with our current software, how to address them, demonstrates tools to facilitate this change and then gives a demonstration of how the process unfolds in a dialogue with a successful practitioner of the process and its improved software.The first section of the book focuses on a systematic approach to working directly on the problems with the current operating system (OS) and its programs. The process begins by removing our current, outdated OS "I" (focused on the "I") and evaluating the success of the removal. An updated OS "mini-me" (less focused on the "I") is then installed from several trusted and reliable sources. Next, the most problematic programs are removed or significantly modified. The second section provides a powerful tool to support this process, seemingly exactly tailored to it, the Ribhu Gita. Sections devoted to "Am 'I' these thoughts?", "What is this mind?", "Am 'I' this body?", "What problems arise from this belief (that 'I' am this body)?", "What am 'I'?" and then "What are the benefits of this knowledge of the Self?". This text was a/the favorite of my main teacher, Ramana Maharshi, and aligns perfectly with his "direct path" of self-inquiry for nondual awakening. It is powerful to read and to chant.The third section demonstrates that this self-inquiry and letting-go-of-attachments process works in the "real" world with a "real" job. Through dialogue with someone going through the process over a significant length of time it shows how the process actually unfolds. The fourth section focuses on the most problematic, strongly-held, and tenacious of the programs in the current OS "I", the issues of "free will", control and predetermination. This is the stronghold of the egoic/I structure. Selected comments, questions and answers from blogposts on the issue address resistances, objections, and problems that arise.


Happiness Beyond Thought

Happiness Beyond Thought

Author: Gary Weber

Publisher:

Published: 2007-04

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9780595418565

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Praise for Happiness Beyond Thought "Husband, father, scientist, military officer, and senior executive in industry and academia, Gary Weber has led a full and successful worldly life. Throughout all of this, Gary has relentlessly pursued a path of practice and inquiry in order to understand life and achieve enlightenment. It is rare to find one who has reached this goal, and rarer still to find such a one who has been so immersed in worldly life. With this book, Gary has successfully integrated his profound realization with traditional non-dualistic teachings, as well as insights from Zen Buddhism and modern brain research, into a practical path that uses Yoga's time-tested practices of asana, pranayama, chanting and meditation to illumine a path to enlightenment for the modern reader." -Gary Kraftsow, author of Yoga for Wellness and Yoga for Transformation "Gary Weber offers a treasure chest of practices for the serious practitioner seeking liberation. On your own journey towards awakening, savor these simple, easy to follow practices culled from Weber's study with his primary teacher Ramana Maharshi, his on-going exploration of Zen meditation practice, and the life-enhancing results of his experiments on the laboratory floor of his yoga mat." -Amy Weintraub, author of Yoga for Depression


Into the Stillness

Into the Stillness

Author: Gary Weber

Publisher: New Harbinger Publications

Published: 2015-05-18

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1626257426

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At once extraordinarily wide-ranging and sharply focused, Into the Stillness offers several deceptively simple and informal conversations about life, existence, and identity in one book. This is an important book. Don’t be misled by the casually graceful repartee and lightness of touch. Without dogma, without heavy shoulds and should nots, authors Gary Weber and Richard Doyle point toward something eternal, framed in our twenty-first-century understanding of neuroscience, spirituality, and something that arises from, and returns to, the Stillness and the Silence. In Into the Stillness, Weber and Doyle offer a practical investigation and guidance toward “the sweetest, fullest, most loving, caring, and manifesting experience that anyone could ever wish for.” Chapter headings include “Using dialogue for awakening,” “Can you ‘do nothing’ and awaken?”, “Why do we fear emptiness, silence, and stillness?”, and “Functioning without thoughts: sex, psychedelics, and non-duality.” As a journey, this collection of dialogues is inspiring, shifting, and full of little moments of insight that will linger for a long time afterward.


Beyond the Brain

Beyond the Brain

Author: Stanislav Grof

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1985-01-01

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13: 9780873959537

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Beyond the Brain seriously challenges the existing neurophysiological models of the brain. After three decades of extensive research on those non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by psychedelic drugs and by other means, Grof concludes that our present scientific world view is as inadequate as many of its historical predecessors. In this pioneering work, he proposes a new model of the human psyche that takes account of his findings. Grof includes in his model the recollective level, or the reliving of emotionally relevant memories, a level at which the Freudian framework can be useful. Beyond that is perinatal level in which the human unconscious may be activated to a reliving of biological birth and confrontation with death. How birth experience influences an individual's later development is a central focus of the book. The most serious challenge to contemporary psycho-analytic theory comes from a delineation of the transpersonal level, or the expansion of consciousness beyond the boundaries of time and space. Grof makes a bold argument that understanding of the perinatal and transpersonal levels changes much of how we view both mental illness and mental health. His reinterpretation of some of the most agonizing aspects of human behavior proves thought provoking for both laypersons and professional therapists.


Building a Second Brain

Building a Second Brain

Author: Tiago Forte

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2022-06-14

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1982167386

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"Building a second brain is getting things done for the digital age. It's a ... productivity method for consuming, synthesizing, and remembering the vast amount of information we take in, allowing us to become more effective and creative and harness the unprecedented amount of technology we have at our disposal"--


The God-Shaped Brain

The God-Shaped Brain

Author: Timothy R. Jennings

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2017-04-18

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0830892354

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What you believe about God actually changes your brain. Psychiatrist Tim Jennings unveils how our brains and bodies thrive when we have a healthy understanding of who God is. This expanded edition now includes a study guide to help you discover how neuroscience and Scripture come together to bring healing and transformation to our lives.


The Science of Positivity

The Science of Positivity

Author: Loretta Graziano Breuning

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2016-12-02

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1440599653

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The Science of Positivity teaches you how cynical thought habits are formed, and how you can rewire yourself to go beyond them.


Livewired

Livewired

Author: David Eagleman

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2020-08-25

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0307907503

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"Eagleman renders the secrets of the brain’s adaptability into a truly compelling page-turner.” —Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner “Livewired reads wonderfully like what a book would be if it were written by Oliver Sacks and William Gibson, sitting on Carl Sagan’s front lawn.” —The Wall Street Journal What does drug withdrawal have in common with a broken heart? Why is the enemy of memory not time but other memories? How can a blind person learn to see with her tongue, or a deaf person learn to hear with his skin? Why did many people in the 1980s mistakenly perceive book pages to be slightly red in color? Why is the world’s best archer armless? Might we someday control a robot with our thoughts, just as we do our fingers and toes? Why do we dream at night, and what does that have to do with the rotation of the Earth? The answers to these questions are right behind our eyes. The greatest technology we have ever discovered on our planet is the three-pound organ carried in the vault of the skull. This book is not simply about what the brain is; it is about what it does. The magic of the brain is not found in the parts it’s made of but in the way those parts unceasingly reweave themselves in an electric, living fabric. In Livewired, you will surf the leading edge of neuroscience atop the anecdotes and metaphors that have made David Eagleman one of the best scientific translators of our generation. Covering decades of research to the present day, Livewired also presents new discoveries from Eagleman’s own laboratory, from synesthesia to dreaming to wearable neurotech devices that revolutionize how we think about the senses.


You Are Not Your Brain

You Are Not Your Brain

Author: Jeffrey Schwartz MD

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-06-05

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1583334831

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Two neuroscience experts explain how their 4-Step Method can help identify negative thoughts and change bad habits for good. A leading neuroplasticity researcher and the coauthor of the groundbreaking books Brain Lock and The Mind and the Brain, Jeffrey M. Schwartz has spent his career studying the human brain. He pioneered the first mindfulness-based treatment program for people suffering from OCD, teaching patients how to achieve long-term relief from their compulsions. Schwartz works with psychiatrist Rebecca Gladding to refine a program that successfully explains how the brain works and why we often feel besieged by overactive brain circuits (i.e. bad habits, social anxieties, etc.) the key to making life changes that you want—to make your brain work for you—is to consciously choose to “starve” these circuits of focused attention, thereby decreasing their influence and strength. You Are Not Your Brain carefully outlines their program, showing readers how to identify negative impulses, channel them through the power of focused attention, and ultimately lead more fulfilling and empowered lives.


Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain

Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain

Author: Sharon Begley

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2008-11-12

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0307492087

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Cutting-edge science and the ancient wisdom of Buddhism have come together to reveal that, contrary to popular belief, we have the power to literally change our brains by changing our minds. Recent pioneering experiments in neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to change in response to experience—reveal that the brain is capable of altering its structure and function, and even of generating new neurons, a power we retain well into old age. The brain can adapt, heal, renew itself after trauma, compensate for disabilities, rewire itself to overcome dyslexia, and break cycles of depression and OCD. And as scientists are learning from studies performed on Buddhist monks, it is not only the outside world that can change the brain, so can the mind and, in particular, focused attention through the classic Buddhist practice of mindfulness. With her gift for making science accessible, meaningful, and compelling, science writer Sharon Begley illuminates a profound shift in our understanding of how the brain and the mind interact and takes us to the leading edge of a revolution in what it means to be human. Praise for Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain “There are two great things about this book. One is that it shows us how nothing about our brains is set in stone. The other is that it is written by Sharon Begley, one of the best science writers around. Begley is superb at framing the latest facts within the larger context of the field. This is a terrific book.”—Robert M. Sapolsky, author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers “Excellent . . . elegant and lucid prose . . . an open mind here will be rewarded.”—Discover “A strong dose of hope along with a strong does of science and Buddhist thought.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune