The following is an 18-minute Ted Talk given by Jill Bolte Taylor in February 2008. Taylor is a brain scientist and the author of the New York Times bestseller My Stroke of Insight.

In this talk, Taylor tells us the story of how her stroke helped her understand the difference in how the right and left hemispheres of the brain function independently from each other. She also goes on to explain the massive implications of her discovery on the nature of the human being. Through her stoke, Taylor discovered a level of existence that has been denied by science – an existence that cannot be bound by the physical.

To end her talk, she says, “…who are we? We are the life-force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here, right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere, where we are. I am the life force of the universe…Or, I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere, where I become a single individual, a solid. Separate from the flow, separate from you. These are the “we” inside of me. Which would you choose?”

Editor’s Note: We recommend that you watch the whole video to appreciate the unique lesson that Taylor wants to impart to us.

In so many articles, we have repeated how science is showing us that we are all part of one fabric of life. Taylor’s experience is as concrete as it gets: reality is not what we think it is. On one hand, is the belief in a purely physical world. On the other, is the world of the interconnected and the transcendent. In the middle of these two levels of existence is the human being.

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