Book summary notes: Super Brain by Deepak Chopra and Rudolph Tanzi
Unleash the Explosive power of your mind to maximize your health, happiness and spiritual well-being
Your brain contains roughly 100 billion nerve cells forming anywhere from a trillion to perhaps even a quadrillion connections called synapses.
Every day you act as a leader, inventor, teacher, and user of your brain, all at once.
As a leader, you hand out the day's orders to your brain.
As an inventor, you create new pathways and connections inside your brain that didn't exist yesterday.
As a teacher, you train your brain to learn new skills.
As a user, you are responsible for keeping your brain in good working order.
In these four roles lies the whole difference between the everyday brain—let’s dub it the baseline brain—and what we are calling super brain.
The difference is immense. Super brain stands for a fully aware creator in you using the brain to maximum advantage. Your brain is endlessly adaptable, and you could be performing your fourfold role - leader, inventor, teacher, and user - with far more fulfilling results than you now achieve.
As a leader, inventor, teacher and user of your brain, look at the lists below. Which ones you identify with?
Leader
BASELINE BRAIN
I don’t ask myself to behave very differently today than I did yesterday.
I am a creature of habit
I don’t stimulate my mind with new things very often.
I like familiarity. It’s the most comfortable way to live.
If I’m being honest, there’s boring repetition at home, work, and in my relationships.
SUPER BRAIN
I look upon every day as a new world.
I pay attention not to fall into bad habits, and if one sets in, I can break it fairly easily.
I like to improvise.
I abhor boredom, which to me means repetition.
I gravitate to new things in many areas of my life.
Inventor
BASELINE BRAIN
I can’t really say that I am growing as much as when I was younger.
If I learn a new skill, I take it only so far.
I am resistant to change and sometimes feel threatened by it.
I don’t reach beyond what I am already good at.
I spend a good deal of time on passive things like watching television.
SUPER BRAIN
I will keep evolving my whole lifetime.
If I learn a new skill, I take it as far as I can.
I adapt quickly to change.
If I’m not good at something when I first try it, that’s okay. I like the challenge.
I thrive on activity, with only a modicum of down time.
Teacher
BASELINE BRAIN
I’m pretty settled in how I approach my life.
I am wedded to my beliefs and opinions.
I leave it to others to be the experts.
I rarely watch educational television or attend public lectures.
It’s been a while since I felt really inspired.
SUPER BRAIN
I like reinventing myself.
I’ve recently changed a long-held belief or opinion.
There’s at least one thing I am an expert on.
I gravitate toward educational outlets on television or in local colleges.
I’m inspired by my life on a day-to-day basis.
User
BASELINE BRAIN
I have felt out of control recently in at least one area of my life.
My stress level is too high, but I put up with it.
I worry about depression or am depressed.
My life can go in a direction I don’t want it to.
My thoughts can be obsessive, scary, or anxious.
SUPER BRAIN
I feel comfortably in control.
I actively avoid stressful situations by walking away and letting go.
My mood is consistently good.
Despite unexpected events, my life is headed in the direction I want it to go.
I like the way my mind thinks.
Even though your brain doesn't come with an owner's manual, you can use it to follow a path of growth, achievement, personal satisfaction, and new skills. Our final destination is the enlightened brain, which goes beyond the four roles you play - you serve as the observer, the silent witness to everything the brain does.
For any brain to operate well, it needs stimulation. Super brain rests on the credo of connecting the mind and brain in a new way.
The super brain credo bridges two worlds, biology and experience. Biology is great at explaining physical processes, but it is totally inadequate at telling us about the meaning and purpose of our subjective experience. What does it feel like to be a discouraged child or a paralyzed stroke victim? The story begins with that question, and biology follows second. We need both worlds to understand ourselves. Otherwise, we fall into the biological fallacy, which holds that humans are controlled by their brains. Leaving aside countless arguments between various theories of mind and brain, the goal is clear: We want to use our brains, not have them use us.
We can summarize the relationship between the mind and brain in 10 principles:
HOW THE MIND RELATES TO THE BRAIN
The process always involves feedback loops. - the brain sends information to your body and accordingly, the body parts react.
These feedback loops are intelligent and adaptable.
The dynamics of the brain go in and out of balance but always favor overall balance, known as homeostasis. Processes run on automatic pilot, but if you
instruct them to run the way you want, will and desire will take over.
We use our brains to evolve and develop, guided by our intentions.
Self-reflection pushes us forward into unknown territory.
Many diverse areas of the brain are coordinated simultaneously.
We have the capacity to monitor many levels of awareness, even though our focus is generally confined to one level (i.e., waking, sleeping, or dreaming).
All qualities of the known world, such as sight, sound, texture, and taste, are created mysteriously by the interaction of mind and brain.
Mind, not the brain, is the origin of consciousness.
Only consciousness can understand consciousness. No mechanical explanation, working from facts about the brain, suffices.
The brain is unique among all bodily organs in being able to evolve personally, here and now. The adult brain is evolving when a person learns to manage anger, fly a jet, or develop compassion.
In the balance of mind and brain, most people are too quick to blame the brain. What they should be looking at is habit, behavior, attention, enthusiasm, and focus, all of which are primarily mental. Once you stop paying attention and give up on learning new things, you give memory no encouragement.
A MINDFUL MEMORY PROGRAM
Be passionate about your life and the experiences you fill it with.
Enthusiastically learn new things.
Pay attention to the things you will need to remember later.
Most memory lapses are actually learning lapses.
Actively retrieve older memories; rely less on memory crutches like lists.
Expect to keep your memory intact. Resist lower expectations from people who rationalize memory loss as “normal.”
Don’t blame or fear occasional lapses.
If a memory doesn’t come immediately, don’t brush it off as lost. Be patient and take the extra seconds for the brain’s retrieval system to work. Focus on things or people you associate with the lost memory, and you will likely recall it. All memories are associated with other earlier ones. This is the basis of learning.
Be wide-ranging in your mental activities. Doing a crossword puzzle uses a different part of the memory system than remembering what groceries you need, and both are different from learning a new language or recalling the faces of people just met. Actively exercise all aspects of memory, not just the ones that come most easily.
Four functions of your brain:
Instinctive: The instinctive brain provides the natural impulses of the physical
body that drive self-preservation, such as hunger, thirst, and sexuality.
Emotional
Intellectual
Intuitive
ESSENTIAL POINTS: YOUR INSTINCTIVE BRAIN
See that instincts are a necessary part of your life.
Be patient with fear and anger, but don’t indulge them.
Don’t try to argue yourself out of your impulses and drives.
Don’t repress thoughts and feelings out of guilt.
Be aware of fear and desire. Awareness helps to balance them.
Just because you feel impulsive, don’t always act on impulse. Higher parts of the brain must be consulted, too.
ESSENTIAL POINTS: YOUR EMOTIONAL BRAIN
Let feelings come and go. Coming and going are spontaneous.
Don’t hold on to negative feelings by justifying why you are right and someone else is wrong.
Look at your emotional weak points. Do you fall in love too easily, lose your temper too fast, become afraid of trivial risks?
Start to observe your weaknesses when they come up.
Ask if you really need to be having the reaction you are having. If the answer is no,the unwanted feelings will begin to go back into balance.
ESSENTIAL POINTS: YOUR INTELLECTUAL BRAIN
Intellect stands for the mind’s most recent evolutionary phase.
Intellect never operates in isolation but is blended with emotions and instinct.
Intellect helps you to rationally deal with your fears and desires.
Responding to the world implies being responsible for the world.
Rational thought becomes destructive when it forgets its responsibilities. (Hence the rise of atomic weapons, the destruction of the ecosystem, etc.)
ESSENTIAL POINTS: YOUR INTUITIVE BRAIN
Intuition can be trusted.
“Feeling” your way through life brings good results.
Snap judgments are accurate because intuition doesn’t need processing by the higher brain.
Reason is slower than intuition, but we often use it to justify intuition, because we have been taught that reason is superior.
The intuitive brain has no limits that are foreseeable—everything depends on what the mind wants the brain to do.
WHERE THE BRAIN IS GROWING
HOW TO BECOME PART OF THE NEXT EVOLUTIONARY LEAP
Don’t promote conflict in any area of your life.
Make peace when you can. When you can’t, walk away.
Value compassion.
Choose empathy over blame or derision.
Try not to always feel that you are right.
Make a friend who is the opposite of you.
Be generous of spirit.
Wean yourself off materialism in favor of inner fulfillment.
Perform one act of service every day—there is always something you can give.
Show genuine concern when someone else is in trouble. Don’t ignore signs of unhappiness.
Oppose us-versus-them thinking.
If you are in business, practice capitalism with a conscience, giving ethical
concerns as much weight as profits.
HOW ANXIETY BECOMES STICKY
The same worry keeps returning. Repetition makes the fear response stick in the brain
To end the influence of repetition, awareness must come into play, by consciously thinking thoughts like the following:
I’m doing it again.
I feel bad when I worry.
I need to stop at this moment.
The future is unknown. Worrying about it is pointless.
I’m doing myself no good.
The fear is convincing. When you believe in the voice of fear, it takes over.
When the mind is leading the brain out of anxiety, it has thoughts like the following:
Nothing bad is happening to me. I can handle the situation.
Worst-case scenarios are extremely unlikely to occur. This isn’t one.
I am not alone. I can turn for help if I need it.
My anxiety is just a feeling.
Does this feeling make sense?
Things are okay, and I am okay, right now.
The fear stirs a memory. What you fear resembles something bad in your past, which brings back the old response.
Bringing awareness to the stickiness of memory requires new thoughts like the following:
I’m acting like a child.
This feeling is how I felt a long time ago.
What could I feel now that fits the situation better?
I can view my memories like a movie without buying into the story they tell.
All that I’m scared of is a memory.
What’s actually in front of me?
Fear leads to silence. From shame or guilt you don’t speak your fear, so it festers.
To get to the point where you can find such a mature confidante, you need to cultivate thoughts like the following:
I don’t want to live with my guilt.
Silence is making it worse.
No matter how long I wait, my anxiety isn’t going away on its own.
There is someone who has been where I am. Not everyone will feel as bad about me as I do. There even might be someone who wants to sympathize.
The truth has the power to set me free.
Fear feels bad, and you shove the pain out of sight. But repressed feelings endure. What you resist, persists.
We don’t seek someone who then turns out to judge us: we seek them out because we know they will judge us. So you must prepare the ground first, with thoughts like the following:
I know I’m hiding something, and it hurts.
It’s scary to come clean, but that’s how I will heal.
I want to be unburdened.
Being haunted makes me too anxious.
Fear is crippling. You feel too weak to do anything about it.
In order to get over your fear of being anxious, you need to cultivate thoughts like the following:
I am not going to die, no matter how scary this is.
I need to face my exaggerated sense of danger.
Since I know I can survive, I can risk not running away from my fear.
I can face fear and still do things that scare me.
The more I face fear, the more control I gain over it.
When I am really in control once more, my fear will vanish.
Anytime things go badly wrong, ask yourself three questions, all of which are geared to turn the mind’s disarray into an orderly process that the brain can follow and organize physically.
DO ASK
1. Is this a problem I should fix, put up with, or walk away from?
2. Whom can I consult who has solved the same problem successfully?
3. How can I reach deeper into myself for solutions?
Fortunately, the power to go beyond suffering has always existed; it is your birthright. To have even a speck of consciousness is to be connected to the infinite consciousness that supports evolution, creativity, and intelligence. None of these things is accidental or a privilege handed out to the lucky few. When you ask to be connected to a higher reality, the connection is made.
GLIMPSES OF HIGHER REALITY
You feel watched over and protected.
You feel cared for.
You recognize blessings in your life that feel like acts of grace.
You feel gratitude for being alive.
Nature fills you with wonder and awe.
You have had some experience of seeing or sensing a subtle light.
A divine presence has touched you personally.
You’ve experienced moments of pure ecstasy.
Miracles seem possible.
You sense a higher purpose in your life. Nothing has been accidental.
How close is higher reality? To use a metaphor, imagine that you are caught in a net. All nets have holes, so find one, and jump through it. Higher reality will be there waiting for you.
MOVING TOWARD LASTING HAPPINESS
DO
Give of yourself. Take care of others, and care for them.
Work at something you love.
Set worthy long-range goals that will take years to achieve.
Be open-minded.
Have emotional resilience.
Learn from the past, and then put it behind you. Live for the present.
Plan for the future without anxiety, fear, or dread.
Develop close, warm social bonds.
DON’T
Hitch your happiness to external rewards.
Postpone being happy until sometime in the future.
Expect someone else to make you happy.
Equate happiness with momentary pleasure.
Pursue more and more stimulation.
Allow your emotions to become habitual and stuck.
Close yourself off from new experiences.
Ignore the signals of inner tension and conflict.
Dwell on the past or live in fear of the future.
SEVEN DEGREES OF ENLIGHTENMENT
Inner calm and detachment increase—you can be centered in the midst of outer activity.
Feeling connected grows—you feel less alone, more bonded with others.
Empathy deepens—you can sense what others are feeling, and you care about them.
Clarity dawns—you are less confused and conflicted.
Awareness becomes more acute—you get better at knowing what’s real and who is genuine.
Truth reveals itself—you no longer buy into conventional beliefs and prejudices.
You are less swayed by outside opinions.
Bliss grows in your life—you love more deeply.
MOVING FROM HOPE TO FAITH TO KNOWLEDGE
Step 1: Realize that your life is meant to progress.
Step 2: Reflect on how good it is to truly know something rather than just hoping and believing. Don’t settle for less.
Step 3: Write down your dilemma. Make three separate lists, for the things you hope are true, the things you believe are true, and the things you know are true.
Step 4: Ask yourself why you know the things you know.
Step 5: Apply what you know to those areas where you have doubts, where only hope and belief exist today.