There's an extraordinary article in the Guardian today called Surgery that made me smile, in which Parkinson's sufferer, David Beresford, describes how Deep Brain Stimulation, a method of electrical activation of the prefrontal cortex (like a pacemaker for the brain) had some unintended consequences: it made him smile more, laugh more, and feel happier.
This raises the issue (again) as to whether emotions are "just" biochemical, or if there is still a role for a non-material "mind". But I'd just like to point out that this area of the brain is close to what yoga calls the brow chakra (ajna), also known as the "third eye" in other mystical traditions. It's associated with insight.
Now let me share an experience I had several years ago during a Holotropic Breathwork session. After a grueling few hours, clearing a lot of old confusion and emotional baggage, I was sitting upright in a meditation posture. Internally, I was experiencing what seemed to be a very rapid energy exchange between a point in the middle of my brain and a point at the top of my head, as if they were connected by a line of light. It seemed as if the brow chakra (me) was in seamless, wordless, lightening-speed communication with the crown chakra (God).
Only then did I become aware that I was smiling--a big, unconscious grin. I wasn't aware of being happy, nor was I "thinking" about anything pleasant. I was just absorbed in communion with the Divine, from brow to crown and back again, and the natural consequence of this seemed to be ... a smile.
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