Controlling the Nadis and the Brain

The human brain is truly one of the most awesome and amazing of creations. Housed within the skull, it contains some 12 thousand million cells, and each of these cells has an estimated 5 hundred thousand possible interconnections; there may be even more that we do not know about.

When the mathematics are computed there are more possible interconnections in the brain than there are atoms in the universe. The brain has an almost infinite capacity, and all within the two kilograms or so of amorphous, pinkish grey brain matter with the consistency of jelly or cold oatmeal porridge. How this quivering, pulsating, jelly-like substance remembers, thinks, analyzes, feels, discriminates, intuits, decides, creates and directs all the countless functions of the body, integrating the whole so that we synchronize action, speech and thought, is something that each of us should contemplate daily.

Meditation on this miracle of creation, and any attempt to understand how the brain and mind function, can lead to an understanding of the total process of kundalini awakening. Indeed, many of our theories of how kundalini works are based on the brain, and this research can help us to better understand the basis for kundalini awakening, the nadis and chakras. This is because the brain, housing as it does the master control systems for the body within its unlimited circuitry, must contain the physical circuits for the nadis and chakras.

The brain is also the interface between the body and the mind. All sensory information travels to the brain via the gyanendriyas, the sense organs of knowledge, and is then fed into the mind, and all decisions in the mind are then translated into the body via the karmendriyas, the organs of action, in a continuous, synchronous, dynamic process. Thus within the workings of the brain we can see the workings of the nadis as described by yogis, and research is deepening our understanding of this. Yogic techniques utilize this knowledge to stimulate the body so as to achieve higher and better states of being.

The nadis in the brain

Important research from neuroscience has shown us that the brain fits into the dual nadi model of man’s personality as handed down to us by yoga. In a radical and last ditch attempt to cure severe, unremitting epilepsy, Roger Sperry and his associates divided the brains of their patients down the midline structure linking the two brain hemispheres, the corpus callosum. To their surprise, not only did the epileptics cease seizures, but they came up with startling new findings which are radically altering our neurophysiological understanding of how the brain works and are revolutionizing our whole concept of man. We have always known that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, and vice versa. Sperry’s findings, though still in the initial stages and requiring more research, show us that each side of the brain handles a completely opposite but complementary mode of consciousness. This finding is extremely important as it verifies the yogic viewpoint.

Yogis and scientists, using different terminology and different approaches, have come up with the same conclusions, that man is divided into two main modes of functioning. The circuits of the brain are based on ida and pingala, consciousness or knowledge, and action or physical energy. We see ida and pingaia at all three major levels of the nervous system :

1. Sensory-motor nervous system (SMS) : all electrical activity in the body moves in one of two directions, into the brain (afferent), ida, and out of the brain (efferent), pingala. Yogis called the sensory nerves which are governed by ida, gyanendriyas, and motor nerves, governed by pingala, karmendriyas. These nerves are concerned with perception of and activity in the world.

2. Autonomic nervous system (ANS) : the autonomic nervous system is divided into the outward directed, stress handling, energy utilizing, pingala dominant, sympathetic nervous system, or the inwardly directed, rest handling, energy conserving, ida dominant, parasympathetic nervous system. These two systems control and regulate all the automatic body processes: heart, blood pressure, respiration, digestion, liver and kidney and so on.

3. Central nervous system (CNS) : this consists of the brain and spinal cord and contains the controls for the SMS and ANS. The brain contains much more than this though, for it is a huge, ultimately complex computer, which stores and integrates information and puts our decisions into action in a superbly synchronized and orchestrated performance. Its functioning is definitely much more than its parts. Within the infinite circuitry of the brain resides more potential than we can realize in one lifetime, however, the techniques of yoga systematically clear and strengthen these circuits with regular practice.

This is what yogis have been telling us, that the circuitry for nadis and chakras exist within the CNS, along the spine and in the brain. If we can tap, purify, strengthen and reconnect these circuits via the various yogic techniques, we can totally transform our mind/ body complex. The basis for yogic techniques lies in the fact that there is a nadi/chakra system which can be seen, at the physical level, as being the sum total of the input and output of the various sections of the nervous system and the parts of the body which connect to it. This total body/mind complex functions on the power of the three basic types of energy- ida, pingala and sushumna. We can therefore begin to understand why so many yogic techniques are specifically aimed at balancing the ida/pingala flow and increasing our awareness of its fluctuations.

Left versus right

Scientific study of the hemispheres of the brain by Sperry, Myers, Gazzaniga, Bogen and later researchers, has shown us that the left side of the brain is usually concerned with speech, logic, analysis, time and linear function, whereas the right side is silent, dark, intuitive, feeling, spatial, holistic in function, and does not require linear, structured analysis for its knowledge, though how it does know is a mystery. The right side of the brain is the physical side of ida nadi, and the left brain, ofpingala. Thomas Hoover, a researcher comparing Zen with the latest neurological discoveries, sums up the situation when he states, ‘‘The hemisphere that speaks does not know; the hemisphere that knows does not speak."

A number of word opposites have been used to describe and help us understand the new view of brain function. Though the situation is not so simple, and each hemisphere must work in an integrated fashion, there is a definite trend to separate modes of function : Left Brain (Pingala) Right Brain (Ida) analysis understanding verbal spatial temporal “here and now” partial holistic explicit implicit argument experience intellect intuition logic emotion thinking feeling active passive

And we could also add light versus dark, conscious versus subconscious, talkative versus silent, solar versus lunar, positive versus negative, mathematics versus poetry, rational versus mystical, law versus art, objective versus subjective, digital versus analog, and many other adjectives to aid our understanding.

Emotions in the split brain

Research by Marcel Kinsbourne, neurobiologist and neuropsychologist, director of the Department of Behavioral Neurology at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center for Mental Retardation in Waltham, Massachusetts, throws light on brain functioning which points to the fact that the brain has two main modes of emotional activity. (1) He has found that the two halves of the brain support different emotional states. Research indicates that the left hemisphere governs happiness and positive feelings and the right brain governs sadness and negative feelings. In the abnormal situation, patients with right brain damage are often cheerful, elated and indifferent to their abnormal state. Left brain damage, on the other hand, can lead to a gloomy outlook on life and unjustified anger, guilt and despair. Most of us fluctuate from one state to another even in the normal situation, though not to the extremes found in brain damaged subjects. Still the experience of fluctuation can be distressing if we are not balanced and healthy. The fact that the left brain is associated with bright, cheerful thoughts and the right with sad and depressing thoughts, Kinsbourne theorizes, points to the conclusion that this dual action of the brain is designed to handle our likes (pingala) and dislikes (ida). The things we like are handled by the left brain, which focuses on and then approaches the object or situation. This fits in with our active mode, the concept of the externally directed pingala nadi. The things we dislike we try to avoid or withdraw from and we tend to be much more concerned with the overall picture in this situation. This is handled by the right brain and fits in with our receptive mode, introversion and ida nadi concept.

The necessity of the right brain

The brain has two major modes or systems which must work together and be

harmonized if we are not to lose the essentials of our human existence. The nadis must be balanced for optimal functioning, for sushumna to function, and for us to maximize our human elements and potential. Unfortunately, few of us are really balanced and most of us, especially men, tend towards the purely external, materialistic and technological pingala side rather than the subtle, intuitive, feeling ida side. When imbalance between the nadis is minor we may not even notice its effect, though it must manifest in our personality, behavior, relationships and so forth, in ways that are baffling to us, and which can make our lives miserable. What happens in the normal situation can be better understood when we look at an extreme example.

Howard Gardener and his colleagues studied people with severely damaged right brains (ida) and found that they become robot-like, minus their essential human understanding. (2) He has found that only when both hemispheres of the brain are working together can we appreciate the moral of a story, the measuring of a metaphor, words describing emotion, or the punch line of a joke.

Without the right brain we lose our understanding and take things very literally. For example, someone might say that he has a broken heart and the right brain damaged person will ask, “How did it break?” They see the explicit, the facts, but cannot understand what has been implied. These people also tell jokes at the wrong moment, their sentences become meaningless and they confabulate - make up things. The important points in their sentences are lost and are submerged or flattened, becoming part of the background. There is just a stream of words without meaning or purpose. They also accept the bizarre and argue with what should normally be accepted. It is obvious then that the right brain, which yogis called ida or the receptive mind, is vital in the appreciation of relationships, of seeing how the parts fit together as a whole, in understanding.

There is also evidence to show that the right brain is not only important for normal understanding, but also holds the key for intuition and higher experience. Eugene D’Aquili, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, feels that split brain research indicates that the circuits which underlie higher mental states, from flashes of inspiration to altered states of consciousness, lie within the right brain, ida, and are powered by the emotions. (3) D’Aquili has formulated a neurological description of “the intuitive perception of God” in which one sees reality as a unified whole, experiencing a feeling of oneness with the world. He feels it is a product of the parietal-occipital lobe on the right, “non-dominant” side of the brain which somehow takes over the brain’s functioning. Time is experienced as standing still and a sense of absolute and complete unity of self with the cosmos is felt. Both are features of right brain function and this experience is long lasting and totally transforms people’s lives so that they find new motivation and a healthier, more fulfilling perspective of their relationship with life.

This research indicates that unless we begin to take more notice of and develop the right brain, we cannot partake inthe experience of higher consciousness. According to yogis, the right and left brain, ida and pingala, must be balanced for such experience to take place.

The necessity for balance

Most of us fluctuate according to our inner biological rhythms, moving from left to right brain, right to left nostril, active to receptive mode, every 90 to 180 minutes. These biological rhythms are well documented though their actual role and significance is not well understood and understanding of how things fit together is still in its infancy. From the yogic point of view this rhythmic, or in the case of disease, arrhythmic swing, indicates that we are unbalanced and that one mode, one side of our nature is constantly becoming predominant. We rarely experience the more desirable state in which both sides become equal and balanced. According to yoga, when both the sad and happy hemispheres are balanced for a certain length of time, a new state arises which unites logic and intuition, transforms our emotions and enables us to power a greater range of neurological activity. We have to understand the necessity for attaining equilibrium and that the resultant state is a better and more pleasant and puissant experience. Einstein is an example of a natural yogi who used both sides of his brain. Meditating on what it would be like to ride on a ray of light, he had a sudden and powerful flash of intuition, piercing insight into the mysteries of the universe, indicating right brain function, and was able to harness his left brain to construct a theory of energy and matter conversion which totally revolutionized science and replaced the several hundred year old paradigm of Newton. Einstein stated, “The real thing is intuition. A thought comes and I may try to express it in words afterwards.” Yogis would say that Einstein had not only experienced the awakening of Shakti in his nadis, but that this initial awakening had also led to activation of a chakra. This powerful experience transformed and enriched not only his life, but many other lives as well. Perhaps the best known example of non-analytical creative genius is that of Leonardo da Vinci who in 1490 invented a spring-driven car, a helicopter, as well as many other things which came into common usage centuries after his time. His achievements extend into many more fields, and apparently he used his right brain intuition to create an idea, because most of his work is in the form of drawings and visual images rather than in written words. Of course, there are times when we only require the left brain, for example, while doing a mathematical equation, working on a factory production line, or implementing management policy. However, these things quickly become boring if the right brain is not being used, and such monotonous, repetitious activity can lead to atrophy of our right brain capacities, and even to disease situations, because such a lifestyle lacks creativity and is meaningless for us. It is minus the right brain’s capacity to see meaning in the things we do.

There comes a time when we must bring intuition into our lives, though this does not mean that because we use intuition we will become another Einstein. Intuition is as commonplace and necessary as eating and breathing. If our lives are to be happy and creative we must bring it into action more. Most situations, in fact, demand it for their proper outcome even though we do not realize it. Even simple situations require intuition, for example, knowing when to shift gears in a car, knowing when a cake in the oven is baked, knowing when it is the right time to say something nice to a friend, or how much strength is required to turn a screw. We have to feel what is required using our right brain. There is no book and no one who can give us this information. There can be no linear-structured analysis of what must be a non-verbal, intuitive knowledge that springs from within, the intuitive flash has no time dimension and defies logic. Within less than a second a total picture can be presented to our mind, the key to unlocking the mysteries of sciences is gained and the seeds for hours and years of inspired work and research may be planted.

For many people intuition is an unknown and unknowable commodity. Years of unhealthy living, lack of direction, purpose and meaning, consistent overstimulation of our sensory nerves, leading to dulling of our senses and an inability to find contentment and satisfaction, plus unresolved, ongoing mental tension and anxiety (unhealthy ida), added to lack of exercise, sedentary lifestyle and overeating (unhealthy pingala), all contribute to damaging the intuitive apparatus in the right side of the brain and may even damage the logical, reasoning capacity of the left side. We may find it very difficult if not impossible to repair and reinstitute function by the normal methods of medicine and psychotherapy. Though yoga possesses the techniques by which we can rebalance, reintegrate, regenerate and rejuvenate our body/mind complex by bringing about balance in the nadis, even then it may be too late for some people.

The balanced view

Most of us fluctuate from one side of our brain to the other in well documented 90 minute cycles of rest (ida) and activity (pingala). A study by Raymond Klein and Roseanne Armitage of the Department of Psychology at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia found that performance of tasks involving left and right brain activity comes in 90 to 100 minute cycles. (4) For 90 minutes, subjects could do well on right brain tasks and then switch over to doing well in left brain related tasks. This also corresponds with the 90 minute fluctuation in nostril dominance and points to agreement with the yogic theory that there is an intimate relationship between the breath and the brain and their cyclical activity. If we are unhealthy then our brain cycles may become abnormal in rhythm, duration, quality of function, or in some other way. Our whole life is disturbed and this situation actually occurs much more than any of us, even medical science, has previously realized. Yogis diagnosed dysfunction of brain rhythm by examining the flow of air in the nostrils. Yogis have repeatedly asserted that there is a strong link between not just the nostrils and the brain but between the eyes and ears and all body organs. Of course, today we know from our anatomy and physiology that this is so, however, yogis were saying the same thing thousands of years ago. In meditative experience they could feel the flows of energy in the nerves moving into and out of the brain and the rest of the body. They were able to perceive even more subtle levels of their being because they invented techniques which developed a great deal of sensitivity and strength. These techniques also allowed them to assert control over the nadis, the brain and all body processes.

Shambhavi mudra and trataka are two of the most powerful techniques of kundalini yoga, designed to awaken ajna chakra by balancing ida and pingala. If this is so, and if the nadis described by yogis are in the brain, then it means that yogic techniques can balance the brain hemispheres. Research from split brains is revealing that this is so. We know that in normal people, pictures appearing on the left side of our viewing field and sound in the left ear, both transmitted to the right brain, are less agreeable than when they are presented to the other side, according to Kinsbourne. Other research shows us that when we are gloomy we tend to gaze to the left, affecting the right hemisphere, whereas happiness causes the opposite to occur. (5)

This research indicates a definite relationship between eye position and hemispheric dominance. It also indicates that shambhavi mudra and trataka balance brain hemisphere activity because the eyes are held steady at the center of the forehead, crossed in shambhavi and straight ahead in trataka. Even when we practise these techniques we may feel a very powerful stimulation and pressure within the center of the head, ajna chakra activation, and the subjective experience is that of simultaneous extroversion and introversion. Shambhavi is the more powerful technique and induces an almost immediate effect. Centralized focusing of awareness appears to affect both nadis simultaneously.

Balanced breathing

Even more conclusive evidence of yoga’s ability to control the nadis in the brain has emerged in relation to our ability to control the brain via the nostrils. David Shannahoff- Khalso of the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences in the USA has shown that even a simple breathing exercise can enable us to alter short term brain hemisphere dominance at will. (6) Whereas the previous research has been implied and theoretical, this study shows a definite relationship between brain activity, the nasal cycle and our capacity to control our personality.

Shannahoff-Khalso found that when one nostril has dominant air flow the opposite hemisphere of the brain is dominant. Forceful breathing through the more congested nostril awakens the less dominant hemisphere. This is an extremely important finding. The EEG responses consistently showed a relationship between nasal airflow and brain hemisphere dominance for all four types of brain waves, beta, alpha, theta and delta. Shannahoff-Khalso states that, “The nose is an instrument for altering cortical activity.” (7) He suspects that the nasal cycle is also linked to the basic rest/activity cycle, which includes within the sleep cycle, the rapid eye movement (REM) phase and the non- REM phase, because right nostril/left hemisphere dominance corresponds to phases of increased activity (pingala), and left nostril/right hemisphere dominance corresponds to rest phases (ida). This research verifies what yogis have been telling us and will require more experimentation to repeat the findings and reveal the ramifications in terms of medicine, psychology and our lives in general. It also reveals that buried within the brain are undreamed of capabilities and potentials which can transform our lives if we can tap them. While scientists search for wonder drugs, external stimuli to probe the deeper aspects of man, yoga provides a concise and precise theoretical framework, within the nadi/chakra system, for a deeper understanding of the total human range of existence and the techniques by which to manipulate our internal environment, to stimulate internal secretions and to maintain balance, optimal health and higher awareness.

1. Kinsbourne, M., “Sad Hemisphere, Happy Hemisphere”, Psychology Today, May
3. Gardener, H., “How the Split Brain Gets a Joke”, Psychology Today, Feb. 1981.
4. Black, M., “Brain Flash: The Physiology of Inspiration”, Science Digest, August,
6. Ingber, D., “Brain Breathing”, Science Digest, June, 1981.
7. Kinsbourne, op. cit.
8. “Breathing Cycles Linked to Hemisphere Dominance”, Brain Mind Bulletin, 8 (3), Jan. 3, 1983.
9. Ibid.