Ram Bomjon from Ratanapuri village, Bara district, Nepal, may be enlightened.

While some say he is the reincarnation of the Buddha, Ram himself has clearly stated he is not (Duhhh…like, dude, Siddhartha Gautama already reached nirvana, so, like, why would he be coming back here for another round?)

A couple of years ago, in 2006 and 2007, he gained a lot of media attention for spending months in meditation — supposedly without food or water. Unfortunately for Ram, the further he moved into the jungle to be alone and meditate, the more people followed to hang out with him, until thousands of visitors were making the trek to watch him sit all day in unmoving silence.

I vaguely remember the media bubble popping with rumors that he’d been proved a fake. Then I ran across this video investigation done by a crew from the Discovery Channel…

Let me see if I have this straight: a boy goes off to be alone and meditate. Strangers throw a party on whatever spot he retreats to in search of solitude. The world puts him on a pedestal, then denounces him as a charlatan.

I’m guessing Buddha Boy, who, after the media’s feeding frenzy disappeared into the jungle for a year and then reemerged briefly in 2008, is glad the world moved on. Actually, I’ll bet he doesn’t care whether the rest of us have moved on or not…the world is what it is.

Watch the documentary embedded below, or click this link: The Boy with Divine Powers.

Binaural beats are auditory brainstem responses that happen when opposite ears (perhaps yours!) hear sounds of slightly different frequency.

Just as your brain puts together two 2-dimensional signals from your eyes, then processes them to get a 3D stereo image, your brain also processes two separate auditory signals (one from each ear) and combines them into a super duper spatial auditory experience.

But a funny thing happens when your brain combines two steady but slightly different signals: it creates a pulsing beat equivalent to the difference of their frequencies. The best part, at least for curious surfers hunting yet another strange but safe way to alter their state of consciousness, is that brain waves gradually follow and eventually synchronize themselves with the frequency of the pulsing beat.

In short, if you want your brain waves operating at 5 Hz (a wave frequency typically associated with deep meditation) you put a 400 Hz signal in your left ear, and a 405 signal in your right ear, then sit back and let your brain assimilate and follow the binaural beat.

Brain Waves and States of Consciousness

Most states of consciousness have corresponding brain wave frequencies.

When your brain waves are in the beta range (15-40 Hz), you are in an alert, actively working state. For example, you’re on a TV game show answering a question that may net you $100,000 after taxes. Or, you’re breaking huddle on the 50 yard line, four points down with three seconds on the clock. Or, you’re giving a friend directions to your barbeque party over the phone. There are high and low levels of Beta, but in all of them, your brain is actively engaged.

When your brain is operating in the alpha range (9-14 Hz), you’re relaxed and reflective. Taking a quiet walk in the garden? Alpha. Just came home from work, opened a beer, hit the couch? Alpha.

The theta range (5-8 Hz) shows up during very deep relaxation and meditation. During theta, you’re on autopilot, and ideas seem to flow into your brain from nowhere. Even if you never assume a lotus position, you’re probably in a theta state more often than you’d think. How about the last time you arrived at work and didn’t remember the drive? That was theta. And remember when a great idea came to you while you were taking a shower or brushing your teeth? Yep…that was your brain on theta, too.

There’s also the delta range (1.5-4Hz) of brain waves which occur when you’re experiencing deep, dreamless sleep. This one, you probably don’t recall ;-)

Chasing Some Deep Relaxation

If your brain feels like it’s stuck in an anxious Beta state, and you’re having trouble shifting down into a more relaxing, meditative, alpha state of consciousness, put on your headphones or earbuds, and feed your brain some binaural beats: Infinite Bliss with Stereo Binaural Beats.

In the late 1950s, Nobel laureate Roger Sperry and Ronald Meyers discovered Split Brain Consciousness:

Initially they began experimenting with cats, and later proceeded to study monkeys. In 1961 the first human patient was subject to the split brain surgery.

The procedure worked well as a “cure” for patients who suffered from severe epilepsy and did not respond to anti-epileptic drugs. It was soon discovered that patients who had a commissurotomy had some interesting difficulties. Patients were not able to communicate information from one hemisphere to the other, almost as though they now had two separate brains.

Besides popularizing the word “commissurotomy,” Sperry and Meyers made evident that the human brain is actually a marriage of two separate brains — a left brain and a right brain — each capable of functioning alone, each with unique abilities. For example, the right brain excels at recognizing the human face and performing visual-motor tasks, but is a terrible reader. And the left brain has a knack for language and speech.

By the early 1960s, Roger Sperry was performing his most famous experiments into split brain consciousness with one of his students: Michael Gazzaniga.

In the following video, Alan Alda visits the research lab of Michael Gazzaniga, and discovers there’s nothing quite like seeing split brain consciousness in action:

Click the link to watch: Severed Corpus Callosum.

Or watch embedded below:

To date, Dick Cheney is the only person who has been able to watch Matt dance the world without smiling.

Watch embedded below, or click this link: Where the hell is Matt?.

Who the Hell is Matt?

Matt Harding was a video game developer, originally from Westport, Connecticut, who ended up working for a game company in Brisbane, Australia.

After the popularity of shoot-em-up video games led to him working on a game called Destroy All Humans (no, this is a different game than the real-time game currently being played by George Bush and Dick Cheney), Matt decided to spend his savings and six months out of his life doing something more upbeat and positive, and so he set off to see the world.

Fate and synchronicity and chance led from one thing to another, as they often do in this particular dream, and the rest is viral video history.

Read More: where the hell is matt, matt harding

As mentioned in the previous post, brain experts are beginning to realize the right side of most normal people’s brains harbors genius, savant-like abilities. But, you were born with two very impressive brain hemispheres, and your left side is important too.

Let’s use George W. Bush as an example. To the right we see Bush, with both sides of his brain intact.

In this picture, Bush’s left side brain is controlling the right side of his face, and his right side brain controls the left side of his face. Your brain hemispheres control the opposite side of your face and body, too.

So, what would Bush be like if he only had a wonderful savant-like super talented right side brain, and vice versa?

The Godlike Right Brain

Meet Bush with two right side brains (actually, the right-brain controlled left side of his face and its mirror image.)

The right side brain is like God. When freed from the left hemisphere, it has almost miraculous savant-like abilities. It’s exceptional at imagining and creating (In the beginning…), processing spatial information (separating light from dark, water from land…), and seeing the big picture when faced with many shapes and sizes and complex interrelationships (all the little children of the world…)

And like God (I AM), the right side brain is always living in the present.

The down side is that Mr. Right Side Brain is pretty scatterbrained ( it might show up as a burning bush one day, a cloud the next, or just disappear and leave a crowd wandering in the desert for 40 years…) It stinks at organization, and it’s horrible at explaining itself verbally (Abraham, kill your son Isaac…but wait! No, not really…)

Frankly, the right side brain would rather keep dreaming big dreams and leave the details up to others (I gave you ten big ones on tablets; somebody else can write the New Testament…)

The Egocentric Left Brain

Now, meet Bush with two left side brains (the right side of his face, doubled.)

I’m not the first to suggest the left side brain is home of the ego. It’s even jealous of the right side brain, and proud of its own talent for language and verbal expression. If the right side brain paints a picture, the left side brain immediately slaps a name on it.

The left side brain is orderly, literal, articulate, and to the point. It tends to see everything in a linear way, past or future, black and white, good and evil, with no gray areas in between.

The down side? The egocentric left side brain doesn’t understand emotions. Emotions don’t make sense. Your puppy died? So, get another one. Problem solved. Now, back to balancing the checkbook…

The Perfect Human Brain

A lot of people say the dissident teacher Jesus was as close to a perfect human as anybody has ever come. Jesus supposedly attained Christ Consciousness. Jesus said he was the son of God, and the son of man. Maybe he was trying to tell us that he used both the godlike right and the egocentric left sides of his brain. Equally.

Perhaps to thrive in the world, we need to strike a balance between our godlike and egocentric brain halves.

Balancing Your Left and Right Side Brain

Most everybody has a dominant side of the brain. (Take this quiz to find out which side of your brain is dominant.)

Over 90% of Americans have the same dominant side of the brain. Care to guess which side it is? Here’s a clue: The left side of the brain is used for reading, writing, and basic arithmetic.

Add to this the fact that programs like No Child Left Behind require schools to spend even more time teaching Reading and Math — at the expense of already little-taught right-brain subjects like Art and Music — and the future culture of this country is looking even more egocentric brain imbalanced. If you think everybody is either with us or against us now, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

But there is something you can do about it; you can help restore balance, and you can start with your own brain.

Your left and right brain hemispheres are connected by a bridge called the corpus callosum. Like a muscle, it can be exercised and strengthened until it is physically larger, which will allow better communication and cooperation between your egocentric left brain and your godlike right brain. (If it’s any encouragement, Albert Einstein’s brain had a huge corpus callosum.)

Try this exercise on for size: visual brain-balancing exercise.

Look at the circles above. Cross your eyes until you see the third circle between the blue and red one. When your left brain is dominant, you’ll see the blue circle/verticle line. When your right brain is dominant, you’ll see the red circle/horizontal line.

Try to focus your eyes so that you see a cross, which means you’re seeing both circles equally, which means you’re using both sides of your brain at the same time, which not only induces a very pleasant meditative state, but also grows your corpus callosum by leaps and bounds.

Alternating Left and Right Brain Dominance

Another interesting tidbit is that your left and right side brains switch dominance all the time, every 90 minutes or so on average, but at times as often as every few seconds.

Yogis say you can tell which side of your brain is currently dominant: if you’re breathing more through your left nostril, it’s the right side, and vice versa. Because they tend to feel more peaceful and connected with the world when their right side brain is dominant, yogis practice breathing through their left nostril to help turn on their right side brain.

Nose Peace. Who’d a thunk it? ;-)

Read More: left side brain, right side brain, hemispheric dominance, corpus callosum, George W. Bush