[THEME MUSIC]
>> My name's Gregg Braden and
I'd like to welcome me to this
very special presentation
of "Missing Links",
the deep truth of our origin,
history, destiny, and fate.
In our last episode
we discovered
that the mysterious
fusion of ancient DNA
is what makes humans possible
and it's what sets us apart
from all other life.
We also discovered that
it was the precision,
the extraordinary functions and
the timing of this fusion, that
suggests something much more
than nature, natural evolution,
were involved.
Something else had to happen.
This is where the real science
ends because the answer to what
made that fusion happen cannot
be scientifically proven,
at least yet.
But what we do know
with absolute certainty
is that because of
our genetic makeup,
because that fusion happened
and we have human chromosome
number 2, we are endowed with
extraordinary capabilities
that we can awaken
when we choose,
when we want, on demand.
And in this episode we're going
to reveal those potentials
and discover what it is
to be fully enabled, fully
capacitated as a human.
So one of the key tenets of
Darwin's theory of evolution
was proposed by a colleague
of his, Alfred Wallace.
During the same
time, Wallace was
a supporter and a
researcher and a scientist.
He believed in the
theory of evolution,
and he actually
collaborated with Darwin
to create this theory.
And the tenant that
Alfred Wallace put forward
that has become a key facet
of evolutionary theory
is simply this--
nature only gives us the things
that we need when we need them.
In other words,
nature only gives us
the ability to warm our
bodies when we have cooler
temperatures that require that.
Or, nature only gives us the
ability to see in the dark
when we have no light
when we need that ability.
I'd like to read to you
precisely what Alfred Wallace
wrote, because it lays the
foundation for where we're
going to go and what the
discoveries are telling us
right now.
In his final chapter of the
book entitled "Contributions
to the Theory of
Natural Selection,"
it was published in
1870, Alfred Wallace
said this, quote, "Nature
never over-endows a species
beyond the needs of
everyday existence."
Nature never
over-endows a species
beyond the needs of
everyday existence,
and that's where the problem is.
The problem is, we
are all over-endowed.
We are over-endowed
as a species.
Here's your reason why.
We showed up, as we
said, 200,000 years ago.
And when we showed
up, we already
had the advanced features
that set us apart
from all other life intact.
We were fully enabled,
fully capacitated.
They didn't develop
slowly, gradually
over long periods of time.
For example, when we showed
up 200,000 years ago,
we had a brain that was
50% larger than our nearest
primate relatives
that we were supposed
to have evolved from
gradually, slowly
over long periods of time.
We had evolved speech.
We had advanced characteristics
of opposing digits-- thumb
and finger-- that allows us
to do all kinds of things.
We had complex
language, and we had
what is called an
extended neural network--
an advanced and
extended neural network.
That's where we're going
with this whole thing.
Our advanced, extended
neural network,
it gives us abilities that
no other form of life--
at least no other form of
life that we know of today
on Earth--
have.
We have them.
And when we begin
to embrace what
it is those features are
and what they tell us,
it opens the door to an entire
new realm of possibilities,
and what it means
to be fully enabled,
fully capacitated as
a human in this world.
So I'm going to begin with
a relatively new discovery.
It was made only in 1991.
It's a discovery that
involves the human heart.
Now this is interesting
unto itself because we--
our society-- have been
doing heart transplants
from one human to
another since the 1960s,
and they have been
relatively successful.
They don't happen
necessarily every day,
but there are an
average of maybe
5,000 heart transplants
per year in the world,
and they are
relatively successful.
And scientists attribute
that success to their belief
that we pretty much
know everything there
is to know about the heart.
And it's for that reason
that a discovery--
such as the one I'm
about to share with you,
made relatively late in 1991--
is now on the radar.
How could we have gone so
long without recognizing what
this discovery is telling us?
Well, the discovery itself
is that scientists now
recognize we have
within our hearts
about 40,000 specialized
cells concentrated
in a very precise
way in our hearts.
The specialized cells, they
are called sensory neurites.
Sensory neurites, that's
a very technical term.
It means they're essentially
brain-like cells,
but they're not in our brain.
They're in our heart.
And that they are in our heart,
concentrated in such a way,
that scientists now call
these cells in our heart
the little brain in the heart.
One of the things that
is so amazing to me
is the name of the man
who found the cells.
His last name's Armour.
Armour-- this is love in French.
So when I think
about karmic destiny
and maybe what this
man's karma was--
at the age of five years
old if someone asked him
what he was going to do
for a living he would say,
I'm going to make a
discovery of a heart.
It's in my name.
But this kind of
discovery is so powerful.
And what it is that he found--
these 40,000 cells in the human
heart--
because this isn't a metaphor.
This is literal.
These cells in our heart,
they learn independently
of cells in our brain, of
the neurons in our brain.
They think independently
of the cells in our brain.
They feel independently
of the cells in our brain.
So what we're finding
now is that we
have a form of intelligence
focused in the heart that
can function completely
separately from what
we typically know in the brain.
And as you'll see in a moment,
they can also be married.
They can be harmonized
with the human brain.
The heart and the brain may be
harmonized in a very precise
way to awaken these functions.
Before we get into
that, I just want
to share with you
some examples of how
real these cells and
their function really are.
It is very common for medical
doctors and scientists--
they would go to
conferences and they
would share with other
scientists and researchers
and doctors their experiences
in heart research,
or for the doctors
sometimes, heart transplants.
And it was common
for stories to arise
where a recipient
of a heart would--
a successful recipient of a
heart would begin to assume
different characteristics
of personality
and different qualities
of the way they thought
about themselves and
viewed life after the heart
transplant from what they had
before the heart transplant.
So one of the first
stories, for example,
it was a woman that
received the heart--
she knew it was from a male, and
typically the donor information
is not shared with
the recipient.
Typically, that information
is sealed in the courts.
It can be discovered.
And there are ways to
do it, as you'll see,
but it's not commonly done.
So the woman's transplant
was successful.
And when the doctor
came to check on her
and he asked her the question,
he said, how do you feel?
She said, I feel fine.
I feel great.
She says, I'm hungry.
And the doctor said, OK, I'll
have the hospital bring you
some food.
And she immediately--
she recoiled.
She says, I don't
want hospital food.
She had very specific kinds of
food that she was asking for.
And what makes
this interesting is
that there were types of
food that she had never
eaten in her life before
she received this heart.
Very specific kinds
of food, and there
was only one place where
this food could be found,
and that is at a fast food
restaurant that is called KFC.
KFC is the only food that
would satisfy the cravings
that she was having.
Well after she was
released from the hospital,
she wanted to find out
whose heart she had.
The records were
sealed, but she did
a little personal
investigative work,
and she went through
some obituary columns.
It was a small town.
She was able to go
back, and she found
that the heart she
had received was
from a man who had died
in a motorcycle accident.
And she was able to track
down-- through the obituary--
his family, his parents, and
go to talk to them to find out
about the man's life whose
heart was now in her body.
And during that
conversation what she found
is this man's
favorite diet was KFC.
And when doctors hear
things like that they say,
huh, isn't that a coincidence.
Isn't that interesting?
And then they go on to
the next transplant.
Well this has happened
time and time again
and it has been written
off as anecdotal,
that is until one particular
story changed everything.
This is a story that happened
in a small town in the Midwest.
It was a story of
an 8-year-old girl
who received the heart of
another little girl who
was only two years older,
a 10-year-old girl.
And the heart transplant
was successful.
And typically, this
is what happens.
The doctors will try to match
the heart from the donor
to the recipient
within a range of ages
so that a very
young person isn't
getting a huge
heart or the older
heart of a very older person.
So the young girl, she
received the heart.
The transplant was
successful, but something
happened almost immediately.
She began having a dream--
a reoccurring dream--
and it was a bad dream,
so we will call it a nightmare.
And she began having
this nightmare
over and over and over again.
It wasn't every
single night, but it
was multiple times a week.
It was common enough that
her doctor recognized
that something
else was going on.
And it was something that was
out of his realm of expertise,
so the doctor said,
I've done my job.
I've given you a new heart.
It is successful.
Now you can go live
your life, and I
think you need to speak with
someone else about the dreams
that you're experiencing.
So the doctor set her
up with a psychiatrist,
and the psychiatrist
recognized immediately
this wasn't a typical dream.
It had the characteristics
of a memory.
The question is, whose memory?
Whose memory was this little
girl having night after night?
So they brought in
a forensic artist
so that the girl could detail
to the artist all of the clues
in the memories that she
was having as she was
going through this dream.
And the dream is very
similar every single night.
So the artist came in and the
girl began recounting the dream
and here's what she said.
She said the dream
always begins at night
and she's in the woods.
She's in a forested
area, and she's
running very fast because
someone is chasing her.
A man, a big man,
is chasing her.
And she's running fast in
the dark, and she trips
and she falls on the earth.
And the man catches up with her
and he begins to assault her.
He looks her in the eyes
as he is assaulting her,
and he said very
specific words to her.
She recounted these words
to the forensic artist,
and then the man killed
her, took her life.
So the artist now has
an image or rendering--
from the girl's
memory in the dreams--
of the man that she
saw, and the artist now
has the words that the
man was speaking as he
was taking this girl's life.
It was a small town,
and this information
was put out to the authorities
in an all points bulletin,
and it wasn't long before
they found the man that
matched the description.
And when they brought him
in, under questioning,
very quickly he
broke down and he
admitted that he had
actually killed the girl.
He admitted taking her life.
And here's the key, when
the questioners-- when
the interrogators were
asking him the details,
he recounted the very words to
them that the young girl had
shared with the artist that were
revealed to her in her dream.
It was based on this evidence
that the man was accused.
He was tried.
He was convicted,
sentenced, and he is now
serving time for the
murder of this young girl.
And it is only possible
because the memory
of the girl who was
killed was preserved
in the cells of her
heart that are now
in the body of the
new recipient--
the younger girl-- and she was
able to share those memories
with the authorities.
And I'm sharing this story
with you for one reason--
that is how real the
memory is in our hearts.
It's not a metaphor.
It is a literal
storage of impressions,
of memories that we all have.
But the heart has
its own language.
The heart speaks
to us in a language
different than our
mind, and we communicate
with our heart in a language
very different from our mind.
So we know now that
these specialized cells,
these sensory neurites, they
serve three functions-- they
learn, they remember, and
they think independently
of the cells in our brain,
and they can also be tuned,
harmonized, to function together
with the cells in our brain.
So I'm going to
invite you now, think
about what I'm saying to you.
Two separate organs--
a heart and a brain--
but they share an
extended neural network
that's made possible by
the genetic fusion that
happened 200,000 plus years
ago that makes us who we are.
We typically-- in
our culture, we
are very accustomed
to our brain.
Sometimes we discount our heart.
And especially for males
in the Western culture,
we've been conditioned to
discount the intuition that
comes from our heart,
and we're going
to explore in these episodes.
Other cultures do
just the opposite.
There are cultures when the
young children are born--
such as the Kogi, for
example, in South America--
their emphasis as
young children is
on developing the thinking,
the feeling, and the memory
of the heart first
for a period of years,
and then they are
immersed in the world
with all of the
physical activity
to engage their thinking mind.
But they learn about
the world of their mind
through their
heart, where we are
conditioned to learn
about the heart
through the world of our mind.
I think it's fascinating.
And I'm not saying what is
right and wrong, good or bad.
They're just very,
very different ways
of embracing the
potential, and that's
where I'm going with all this.
This is why I'm
sharing this with you.
We have this potential, and it's
been with us from the moment
that we appeared.
It didn't develop
slowly, gradually
over long periods of time.
We are over-endowed
with this potential.
So, what does that mean?
What does it mean in our lives
to have this kind of potential?
Well, when we harmonize our
heart and our brain together,
that's what gives us
our super abilities.
We harmonize the
heart and the brain.
Again, two separate
organs sharing
a common neural network.
So the neurites in our heart
and the neurites in our brain,
all of a sudden we have
access to super information
processing.
We can think and solve problems
really, really quickly.
We have almost total recall.
You walk into a room--
and if you think about
this, this is true.
When you walk into the room
and you look at the room,
your eyes have seen it.
You may not have made
a conscious effort
to remember it,
but you have just
taken in all that information.
It's there.
Heart brain harmony
allows us to access
and to have total recall of
that kind of information.
This harmonizing, the
heart and the brain,
it opens the door as a
conduit to our subconscious.
A conduit to our subconscious.
We don't need to
go under hypnosis
or be in an altered state.
We can, but we don't have to,
because we have the ability
to trigger these
states for ourselves.
We are self-healing beings.
What kind of healing
am I talking about?
When we talk about
subconscious, why
would you want direct
access to your subconscious?
Well, the short answer to
a very long story is this.
From the time we're
in our mother's womb
until we're about
six years old, we
begin to absorb
from our environment
patterns of personality,
patterns of behavior
from our caregivers--
maybe our parents, maybe
our adopted parents,
maybe our aunts and
uncles or grandparents,
maybe our friends.
From the time we're
in the womb hearing
through our mothers
stomach until the time
we're about 6 years old,
we are in a brain state
that is like a sponge.
It's called a hypnogogic
trance, and we don't know
how to filter what's coming in.
So this is nature's
way of preparing
us to be in the world.
We absorb these
patterns unconsciously
so that we learn how to
respond to the world.
Here's the deal.
If you were born into a
really healthy family that
had really healthy patterns
and healthy ways of dealing
with life, that's a great thing.
If you were not-- and I
know very few people who
can honestly say they
lived in a healthy family.
If we weren't,
then we're dealing
with patterns in
our relationships,
in our most intimate
relationships--
lovers, friends,
siblings, parents--
the relationship
with our bodies,
and our organs with our
bodies all linking back
to these subconscious
patterns that may not
be the healthiest patterns.
And it's through access
through the subconscious
that we can change those.
We can set new, healthy, vibrant
patterns, where we affirm life
by access to the subconscious.
So this is just one more
of the possibilities
when we could harmonize
the heart and the brain.
Harmonizing the
heart and the brain
gives us access to extraordinary
states of deep intuition.
Here's the key, deep
intuition on demand.
On demand.
I think we've all had the
experience of picking up
a telephone, for
example, to call someone,
and the other person
is already there.
There was a time in my life
where I was able to-- every
Sunday--
wherever I was in the world,
I would pick up the phone
and call my mom.
And we'd look forward to
our Sunday conversations.
It didn't happen every single
time, but it was common.
I would pick up the
phone to call my mom,
and she would already
be on the line.
Or I would pick up the phone
to dial my mom's number
and it was busy, and I
would hang up the phone
and it would ring because
she was calling me
that same instant in time.
And she used to get
a kick out of this.
My mom, she would
whisper on the phone
when we finally connected--
I mean, there's no one
listening-- she would whisper.
She'd say, see, you called
me when I called you
because we have ESP.
She says, we're psychic.
She used to love
to say that to me.
So when that happens--
now think about it.
When that happens, there has to
be a connection between the two
people that it's happening.
If I were on my way to the
telephone and I was diverted
even for an instant--
to get a glass of water,
to open up a window or
close a door for privacy--
even a nanosecond, I would
have missed the instant
that my mom was picking
up the phone, wherever she
was on the planet, to call me.
We wouldn't have had that.
When that connection
happens, that is intuition.
It is deep intuition.
However, it is spontaneous.
And I say that because
we didn't necessarily
do it intentionally.
How many times have you
been sitting at a stoplight
when the light was red and
you're waiting, waiting,
waiting for the
light to turn green.
And while you're
waiting you were
in an open state,
because you don't really
know when that
light's going to turn.
So you're kind of
not really thinking
about anything consciously,
and that openness
is the invitation for intuition.
That openness is the invitation.
All of a sudden, while you're
waiting for the light to turn,
you see this vision.
You understand
the nature of life
and the meaning of universe and
where your life is going to go.
And it's crystal clear, and
then the light turns green
and you start driving
and it all goes away.
And you say, where did that go?
How can I do that again?
Well I'm sharing these with
you because I think you
can relate to these examples.
They are spontaneous intuition.
They happen when they happen.
The key is-- and this is
where we find our power--
how can we trigger
those when we choose?
How can you tap into that
kind of information on demand
when you want to do so?
That is what harmonizing
the heart and the brain
is all about, and
that is only one more
of the powerful attributes
that are available to us
when we are able to harmonize
the heart and the brain.
These three examples I'm giving
you-- tapping the subconscious,
super learning, super
information processing,
deep intuition on demand--
these sort of form one
category of potential,
of human potential,
sometimes even relating
to the esoteric subconscious
and those kinds of things.
And if you're interested
in this but you're not
interested in those
kinds of things,
you still have benefit
from harmonizing
the heart and the brain.
Because even if you're
not into any of that,
your body interprets heart brain
harmony as healing, as love.
This is how we love our
bodies in a language
that our bodies recognize.
When we harmonize the
heart and the brain,
we set up a conversation
between the heart and the brain.
We're going to explore that
conversation a little bit more
in just a few minutes,
but that conversation
is what triggers over 1,300
biochemical reactions--
positive biochemical
reactions in our bodies.
Anti-aging hormones
kick into overdrive.
Powerful immune response
kicks into overdrive.
Cardiovascular benefits
kick into overdrive just
from this heart
brain communication.
So all of this becomes
possible, and more,
from harmonizing the
heart and the brain.
And one of the things I find
so fascinating is that our most
ancient and cherished--
once again--
spiritual traditions and
indigenous traditions,
they know this.
And they incorporate
this idea into many
of their traditions, their
ceremonies, their techniques,
even their prayers, but
they don't use science
to explain it.
This is what we're
going to do right now.
I'm going to share with
you precisely what it
is that's happening, because
it's all about the neurons.
And then I'd like for us
to have the opportunity
to experience this heart
brain harmony together
in this episode.
So everything that we're talking
about, it's all about neurons.
Neurons in the brain, and
we're all familiar with those,
but now we're talking
about neurons in the heart.
So I'd like for you to see,
maybe for the first time, what
those neurons really look
like, how they function,
what they do, and what
they mean in your life
so that we can use
this idea and you
can have this mental
imagery as you move forward
and begin to connect your
heart and your brain.
So on your screen right
now what you're seeing
is a typical neuron
in the brain.
The large nodule is
the neuron itself,
and the branches that
come out are the neurites.
So any appendage on the neuron
is considered to be a neurite.
The neurites can
become a lot of things.
They can become axions, if
you're familiar with neurology.
They can become a lot
of different things,
but these are what the
neurites are all about.
The next image that you're
looking at right now--
this is really
exciting because these
are some of the first
images of the neurons,
but they're not in the brain.
They're in the human heart.
There is an organization,
a pioneering research
organization in
Northern California,
The Institute of HeartMath--
H-E-A-R-T, capital M-A-T-H,
but it's all one word--
and they are pioneers at
researching the human heart
in non-conventional ways,
based on rock solid science.
They've made these
images available to us
today so I can
share them with you.
So you're actually seeing the
neurons in the human heart.
And these are the
neurons that begin
to communicate
with other neurons
and form the network between
the heart and the brain
that enable the activities,
all the things that we just
talked about--
subconscious access,
super learning,
super information processing,
deep intuition on-demand,
all of those things.
I want you to see
how this happens,
so I'm going to share with
you a brief film clip.
In this little clip-- the
technology now is so awesome.
It allows us to see these
neurons not as still images,
but we can actually see
them functioning inside
of living tissue.
So what you're seeing
on the screen right now
is you're seeing
neurons in time lapse,
and you're seeing
from the neurons--
you're seeing the
neurites as they move out.
They're very social.
They want to hook up.
They want to connect.
So these neurites are
looking for other neurites
to hook up with because
they want to form a network.
They want to form a chain.
And when they do, like
you're seeing right now,
the red arrows on your screen
are showing these networks
connecting, as well
as disconnecting.
A passing thought.
This is what happens when
we have a passing thought.
There's a connection.
It's brief.
And then that
connection goes away.
So as we see these
images, I'm going
to invite you to think about
what this means in your life.
Because when these
neurons are growing,
they are growing in
response to something
that you are doing in your life.
The act.
The act of you striving
to become something
more in the next
moments of your life
than you were in
the last moments.
The act of you choosing
to learn something new--
to learn a new way
to play your guitar,
to play the piano, or a new
form of art or a new thinking,
in terms of solving a mathematic
problem, or a new book
or a new play or
a new sculpture.
It is the act of creativity.
The act of you triggering that
creativity within your will,
within your being.
That act, that is the
biological trigger that
sets into motion the
neurons that you have just
seen as they begin to grow
and seek out partnerships
and connections
with other neurons,
to match what it is that you
have just asked them to do.
When you ask your being to
solve a mathematic problem
and you say, well, I've
never done this kind of math
before, or when you ask yourself
to learn a new language--
maybe you're learning
French, or when
I was trying to learn Tibetan.
Tibetan is a very
difficult language for me
because it doesn't
relate to English
the way alphabets and
the way that we're
used to hearing words.
So when I began learning the
little Tibetan that I do know,
what I would do is I would
go through the motion.
It's called fake it
until you make it.
I would go through and say
the words phonetically.
They didn't mean
a lot to me, but I
would say them again and again.
Here's what happens.
What scientists have
found is that when
those neurons are growing--
you saw the time-lapse.
That time-lapse doesn't
happen in an hour or in a day.
It happens in about 72
hours or about three days.
Scientists tell us it takes
about three days for us
to grow a new neural network
that will allow us to embrace
the new things that we have
asked ourselves to embrace so
that we can become
better people,
ultimately create
a better world.
And we trigger the whole
thing consciously, at will,
on demand in a way that no
other form of life can do.
In our next episode
we'll continue
exploring these extraordinary
abilities and others--
super learning, deep
intuition on demand--
but we're also
going to experience
the actual techniques to awaken
these potentials in our lives.
So I want to thank you
for joining me today.
Be sure to tune in for our next
all new episode of "Missing
Links," the deep
truth of our origin,
history, destiny, and fate.
[THEME MUSIC]
