Left-brain/Right-brain

When we experience a dissonance between the heart and the mind, between our right and left brain, it is described by the word “guilt”. God's original design was that the left brain should be a map, a guide, an index closely linked to the various areas of the right brain. The right brain is the seat of the heart (right brain literally controls the left side of the body where the physical heart is), emotions, desires, passion, mystery, intrigue – the fire of the soul. Sin seriously ruptured the close link, the symbiotic relationship between the two. It has been noted by Jim Wilder, an expert on the brain, that when the left and right parts of the brain are not in agreement about something, the disturbing feeling resulting from this dissonance is called guilt. As soon as the two are in agreement the result is peace.

There are two ways to get rid of the feeling of guilt. The feeling is the tension of discrepancy between left brain knowledge and beliefs and the right brain experience. Typically guilt occurs when we indulge in right brain pleasure that violates left brain rules and beliefs. The two sides launch into heated arguing and guilt is experienced. Repentance simply allows the right brain experience to align with left brain beliefs and the two are in unity and peace.

However, there are other scenarios. The left brain may have been taught false guidelines and rules. When the right brain lives life doing something that is by God's view not morally wrong but is viewed by the left brain as wrong according to tradition, culture etc., we experience what may be labeled as false guilt. In this case the real fault lies in the beliefs and rules, not in the experience, but the feeling of guilt and shame is still the same. The two sides are still arguing and there is no peace.

There are actually two resolution for guilt, not considering repression as a resolution. The first and best is to first check to see which side of the brain is truly at fault according to the Designer's guide instead of what has been programmed into the left brain. This is seldom done truly objectively. Most of the time this process is supposedly invoked it is really a cover for reinforcing culture and traditional norms rather that purely tapping into God's unaffected design for us. If God's truth is really allowed to be exposed many more instances of left-brain faulty standards would be revealed and much more heart-motivated actions would be vindicated.

The other resolution is more devious and subtle and in the very long term will prove to be only temporary. This is, when we experience guilt we choose to reassemble and manipulate our left brain belief systems until they agree with our experience. This is usually called explaining or excusing. Humanism is the result of this attempt and all modern psychology generally emerges from this.

The left brain is where facts, formulas, explanations and factual libraries that are retrievable on demand reside. It is where concepts, theoretical beliefs and doctrines are stored. The right brain is where relationships, sensory memories, emotions tied to events in the experiential memory banks are stored. It is where we thrill or hurt deeply. It is where the sparkle for our eyes is generated as well as the lust that leaks into our looks. Ultimately it is where God designed us to live from – our heart. This helps us to understand Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon better.

We were created in the image of a God who wanted creatures who could more accurately reflect the passion of His own heart more completely than any other beings in His creation. He designed humans to live with passion, joy, abandon, delirious excitement and with sparkle, zest and enthusiasm that far superseded anything yet seen in the universe. All this He embedded into the capabilities of the right brain primarily, entrusted to be a source, a channel, an extension of the same powerful emotions that could not be contained in His own heart. He designed humans to procreate with this same passion so that the human race, this outlet of expression of the passion of God, would be able to expand and grow and multiply as an ever-increasing capacity to express the infinite love bursting from His own uncontainable emotional reservoir.

Our left brains were designed to be a template, an index, a means of both understanding the right brain as well as a filter and a channel of input and regulation for the right brain. The left brain would be the primary seat for the safeguards, the filters, the formulas and equations, the logical, factual libraries for calculating reason and “level-headed” thinking. It was designed to be able to function somewhat independently if need be in a crisis if the right brain was temporarily off on an extreme emotional trip. But this ability would require training and mentoring by other balanced minds and many experiences of practice.

Since the right brain controls the blood supply to the left brain and will by default shut it down during trauma, it has to be trained, preferable at a very early age, to allow the left brain to remain online in a crisis and to trust its (hopefully) better judgment.

The great division in thought as to the ideal way to live falls along this very issue. Are we to live primarily from our right brain or our left? This has enormous implications in religion but is really seen in all philosophies of thought. Typically most answers are to a great extent strongly influenced primarily as a reaction to a demonstration of the opposite conclusion.

Those who observe “intellectuals” that shy away from emotion and shun passion are disgusted with the resulting atrophy of emotional capacity, enjoyment and expression, so they react by putting great focus on emotionalism and spend inordinate amounts of time and energy exploring and dwelling on their feelings, fears, pains and depression. Or they may amass all the exciting, positive, exhilarating ideas and techniques they can find and whip up themselves into artificial emotional highs and then call it God's presence. Many churches have followed this formula and can easily draw in large crowds hungry for emotional satisfaction.

Many others look on this scene with pious disdain and declare all the emotionalism to be shallow at best and out of touch with foundational truth. Consequently they build massive left-brain complicated explanations and expositions that require greater and greater mind capacity to even understand. They develop prestigious institutions of “higher learning” that invest greater and greater resources into refining, adding to, and fine-tuning the growing monster of intellectual knowledge. This system becomes highly stratified not only according to levels of individual amassment of condoned information but also by acquiescence to the strict rules of conformity to what is deemed important and what is snubbed as below the dignity of established acceptability.

A great deal of pride is woven all through this system and is generally legitimized by many rationalizations and pompous ceremonies. Human value is primarily determined by where one is placed in the strata with the upper echelons composed primarily of those who best hide their emotions and amass the most left-brain prowess. Those who cannot hide their right brain functions so well drop down the ladder and those who live with wild abandon and appear to just celebrate with not thought for what comes next are considered off the bottom of the ladder.

Obviously there are serious dangers at both extremes as well as everywhere in between. However, many of the dangers remain elusive to exposure because they lie in underlying assumptions that are never challenged. They have been embedded deep in the foundations of human thinking for so many generations they are assumed to be valid and necessary since we have built so much above them that is dependent on keeping these assumptions in place. It is very much like our world economic system today. If an alternative fuel to oil was really allowed to be developed easily or alternatives to drugs were allowed to operate freely the whole economic system could quickly collapse and political power would be in disarray. Primarily for the reason of control and the excuse of stability these underlying systems are highly protected from any serious challengers at any cost.

Back to the original line of thought near the beginning. I believe it is quite possible that God designed humans as a more complete expression of His emotional passionate characteristics than any being He had created up to this point. Because sin caused a major rupture in the symbiotic relationship between left and right, the same problem was created between us and God. Two primary results occurred, as previously noted, resulting in degenerating patterns and systems of living. One side invests heavily in sensory pleasure with less or more disregard for left-brain cautions, principles and safeguards. The other side overemphasizes rules, knowledge, and pride and slowly snuffs out the essence of being alive which is found only in freedom of the heart to feel and express and connect intimately and openly with other hearts.

Maybe in the new earth God is going to utilize humanity to imprint and map onto “His left-brain” creatures a more accurate index and understanding of “His right-brain” passion that can only be expressed through our unique capability.