It’s common now days to find people who are aspiring to know themselves better and if we truly are motivated to know ourselves on a much deeper level then it’s vital that we have a basic understanding of our three brains. Modern science teaches us that we have one brain. Gnostic esotericism teaches that we in fact have three brains. The three brains are our sexual, instinctive, motor, emotional, and intellectual centers. During this lecture our primary focus is to understand how our three brains affect us psychologically. When studying ourselves, psychologically speaking, we discover that we have gone through most of our lives being tossed from one emotion to another, from one thought to another, from one impulse to another, without having any real awareness of what’s happening to us. For instance: we feel the impulse to be sexual, so we spend a lot of energy trying to find a partner or we watch pornography or some other type of means to satisfy our sexual, instinctive, impulsive desires. We also spend a lot of time and energy trying to escape from our thoughts and emotions. How? We forget ourselves by staring into a tv. Some of us indulge in intoxicants because we like the way they feel and we see them as a means of escape from our thoughts and emotions. We make the mistake of thinking they help us, because, through our experiences with intoxicants we find that they temporarily numb our suffering, but overtime, we discover that they make our situation much worse. Most of us have little to no self-control. Let’s ask ourselves why? Why do we have such little control over our impulses, emotions and thoughts? In order to find the answers we need to investigate ourselves. In spiritual psychology we have what we call the ego. Our own ego, “the me,” “the myself,” “the I,” is what needs to be studied. Our pride, lust, greed, anger, envy, gluttony, laziness, vanity, and all other types of selfishness and ignorance needs to be studied and comprehended. Why? Because we need to understand what exactly is pulling our strings from moment to moment. The ego is something that we created within ourselves, within our psyche, it is a multiplicity, and most of the time it has control of our three brains. Our egos utilize our sexual, instinctive, motor, emotional and intellectual centers in order to express themselves; in order to fulfill desires which lead one to attachment and suffering. If you doubt this, try closing your eyes for a moment and become aware of your thoughts, do you have control over what comes into your mind? How about when someone is yelling at you, do you have control over your emotions? How about your senses, do you have control over them when you’re around someone that you feel is attractive? Be honest and if this peaks your interest please continue reading!
When we study esoteric psychology we intellectually discover that we have three brains and when we are mindful, when we meditate, when we investigate ourselves we experience them. We find that each brain functions and operates independent of the others, and each one performs it’s own duties.
We have the Intellectual Brain, the Emotional Brain, and the Motor, Instinctual, Sexual Brain.. Each brain is also called a center.
The Intellectual brain is located within our cranium. This brain gives us the ability to reason, to think, to process phenomena intellectually.
Next we have the emotional brain. The emotional brain is located in the solar plexus; the area of our heart and grand sympathetic nervous system. This brain gives us the ability to feel emotions.
Next we have the Motor/Instinctive/Sexual brain. The motor center gives us the ability of movement, habits and actions relating to our physical body and it’s located in the upper part of the dorsal spine. We have the instinctual center, located in the lower part of the spine. The instinctual center gives us the ability to be impulsive. It is good to know that impulses are not functions of the consciousness. When we are impulsive we don’t have conscious awareness of what we’re doing, we are reactive; we react without conscious awareness. The instinctual center also gives us the fight or flight response. All of us here I’m sure have heard of the term “fight or flight.” Animals live by their instincts. They are also driven by emotions, but are very instinctive, they want to survive. When threatened they instinctively know whether they need to escape or stay and fight. You can see this by watching animals in their natural habitat. Next we have the sexual center, located in the sexual organs; ovaries in the female body and testicles within the male body.
Samael Aun Weor states in his book “the narrow way:
“Scientists know very well that the ovaries produce not only ova, they also generate a marvelous endocrine substance (estrogen), a very rich elixir that vitalizes the woman and makes her feminine. As an external secretion, the testicles have the ens seminnis (the Mercury of secret philosophy) that carries the spermatozoids collected hormonal incretion of the cortex of the testicles is the marvelous force that gives energy to the male and what makes him essentially masculine in the most complete sense of the word (testosterone).”
So, the sexual center relates to our sexual glands which give us the ability to create, reproduce, and grow. We have sexual power, we have the ability to create on many different levels but for a very long time now we’ve been abusing our sexual energy through many types of vices that are all applauded by humanity. But, it’s interesting to see how the human body changes over time, from being an infant, to a young child, and while we’re a young child, before we enter into puberty, our voices have a much higher pitch to them and as we go through puberty a transformation begins, our voices begin to change they get deeper and we begin to notice a change with our emotions, thoughts, instincts, impulses, and appetites. Something interesting to retrospect is how your thoughts, emotions and actions have changed throughout your life. Meditate on how you behaved as child, then as a teenager, and then as an adult. See how you’ve changed and why.
The intellectual brain is what separates us from the rest of the creatures who live here on planet earth with us. We are the only species of animal who has the ability to rationalize things. It is our intellect that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We can create thoughts, we can sit and think for hours and all of those thoughts are a creation within our minds.
The three brains are transformers of energy, how that energy is transformed depends upon whether we are conscious or asleep. If we are not self-observing and self-remembering, most of our emotions, thoughts, instincts, impulses, and actions usually cause suffering; we make mistakes. We may injure ourselves and others. For instance: we hear something being said about us, and from our point of view it seems negative and we become identified, we feel frustrated and anger flares up within us and at almost the speed of light we react without processing it first. Our egos of the instinctual brain take us into fight mode and what’s the outcome, suffering right? This is one of the many reasons why this quote by Samael Aun Weor is so important.
Samael Aun Weor in his lecture the ‘Fire Cult’ stated:
“We need to be alert and vigilant as a watchman during a time of war.”
This is a profound statement, read it again. If we’ve never experienced war then this statement may be difficult at first to comprehend, but there are many types of war; physical, and psychological. We also have an imagination right? During meditation we can visualize and imagine what’s being said in this statement, what Samael is describing. Physical war is chaos right? It is a type of hell on earth, very stressful, chaotic, lots of suffering. Same with psychological warfare. If you’re in the midst of a battle whether physical or psychological, sometimes both at the same time, and someone means you harm, than what do you do? You prepare yourself for whatever may come right? At any moment something could happen. So do you go to sleep, do you go to bed, or do you stand guard, ready for battle? Let me tell you, there are many types of wars, many types of battles, and we have one going on inside of us at almost every moment. You don’t have to go fight in physical war in order to understand this statement, because within all of us is conflict, resistance, a storm of contradictions, conflicting desires, and all of that chaos, all the emotions, and thoughts within us are the war that we need to become aware of. We find ourselves in a battle each time we desire something, each time we feel anger, lust, greed, selfishness, pride, envy, etc. As long as we have ego there will always be a battle within us and in order to win those battles we need to be alert and vigilant.
In the book “Intro to Gnosis” Samael Aun Weor states:
“One needs much peace and mental calm to solve a problem. An uneasy, battling, confused mind cannot solve any problem. Within and around us, thousands of conflict-forming contradictions exist. The state of contradiction engenders conflict, pain, moral misery, absurd actions, violence, murmuring, lies, gossip, etc.The state of contradiction can never bring us peace in life. The state of contradiction impedes the solution of problems. Mental contradiction creates conflicts and frustrates the solution of problems. We first need to solve the causes of the contradiction in order to end the conflicts. Only in this manner will peace arrive, and with it the solutions of the problems.”
Within us, many battles are undergone, and most of the time we are not aware of them. We feel emotion and we want to act on that emotion. We have a thought or a memory and without processing any of what comes to mind we react impulsively about whatever it may be. As we walk this path and perform the work we begin to understand how the ego utilizes our three brains, like a puppet master pulling our emotional, mental and motor-instinctual-sexual strings. We need to understand that the ego is us, it is a huge part of us, it is not something apart from us, it is all of our inner darkness, all the experiences from one life to another that were mistaken, it is an accumulation of abuses of energy, misguided decisions that lead to suffering on many levels, unsatisfied desires, animal degeneration, violence against divinity, it is our dark side and we can learn much about our inner shadow through observing our three brains and five centers. Our ego is a psychological multiplicity, conflicting desires, that seek pain, pleasure, riches, war, selfishness, etc. We gain an advantage over ourselves when we begin to comprehend this, because, we are beginning to be aware of what’s happening to us from moment to moment. Little by little, by being watchful and vigilant of our internal well-being, we begin to take back control of our three brains. A memory comes to mind. I won’t go into too much of the details but I feel sharing this with you may be helpful. Let’s just say that the memory helped bring something to my attention that needed to addressed, something that I had not been aware of, something that had not surfaced for a long time. During the experience I felt a great deal of inferior emotions, negative emotions, which were causing a great deal of suffering. Because of the pain I felt, my instincts instantly pushed me toward flight mode. Part of me wanted to avoid observing the experience, and without thought, but just from my reaction to what I was feeling, my instinct was to avoid the pain, by distracting myself with something else. We may not realize it but many of our daily actions are very instinctive and impulsive. So, this was all happening pretty fast and I decided to put the teachings to use which was to observe what’s happening to me and remember that my Being is with me, there’s nothing to fear. While observing, I became aware that my instinct was to avoid the situation, and then I felt the fear and pain, and then a became aware that I had thoughts that were telling me, “Don’t look at it, it’s painful.” My ego was fighting for control at the moment but by self-observing and self-remembering I became aware of what was happening and that process helped me to not become identified, meaning: I’m aware that my ego is motivating me through my centers to run from myself and I observe it while remembering that my Being is with me, right here and now; we can consciously figure this out. This was a battle! The battle was a chaotic storm, a hurricane of instincts, impulses, emotions and thoughts. Through the consistent conscious action of observing oneself, we become aware of what’s happening, we remain alert and after becoming aware, we do our best to remain calm so that we keep from causing harmful actions. If we don’t become identified with ourselves, then our painful experiences don’t get the better of us. If we remain impartial we keep from telling ourselves negative things, because if we fall into negativity, we forget ourselves, we become identified with negatives and that keeps us from understanding, from comprehension, from discovering the truth. Instead we simply meditate and watch the scene of events unfold, we remain aware of our three brains while observing the various scenes of our experience. We don’t become identified, meaning: we are aware of our emotions, our thoughts, but we don’t act on them, and we keep watching the experience. You see, if I would have run away or let myself be overcome by negative feelings and thoughts, then I would not have been able to comprehend the experience. I would not have understood anything and I would have circled back to it eventually. We circle back to things, we repeat things over and over again until we comprehend them. We do this during our daily life, in our dreams, astral experiences, daily thoughts, meditation, etc.
It is imperative that we learn how to keep from identification. Identification keeps us trapped in subjective reasoning and keeps us from self-discovery, gnosis, truth.
Samael Aun Weor states:
“If you have a very serious problem, do not become identified with the problem, do not become a problem yourself. Retreat to any healthy recreational place: a forest, or a park, or the home of a very close friend, etc. Listen to good music, and then, with your mind tranquil and calm, in perfect peace, try to comprehend the problem profoundly, remembering that the solution to every problem is within the problem itself. Remember that without peace you cannot do anything new. You need calm and peace to solve the problem that presents itself in your life.” – Introduction to Gnosis, Samael Aun Weor
We make whatever it is that we’re experiencing much worse by becoming identified with an emotion, thought, memory, experience, etc, because we forget ourselves. We want to remain observant, aware, vigilant, and alert.
Some of us are more emotional than others and tend to be more centered in our emotional brain, some of us are more instinctive, some are more centered within their motor brain, and some of us are more intellectual. If we are doing our best throughout the day to observe ourselves then we may discover which brain we tend to have our center of gravity in. Meaning, which brain we use more than the other.
Those of us who are more emotional tend to have a very emotional personality. We express ourselves with emotion, and there’s a lot of emotion behind each word, each action. We utilize our motor center in order to express the emotion that we feel.
For Example: Some of the best actors and artists are more of an emotional person. An actor, or an artist is usually centered in their emotions, but they utilize their intellect and motor center to create art or act out what they are feeling. Someone who’s a musician is most likely more of an emotional person as well, because they need to feel the music and they feel the music in the heart and solar plexus region. But in order to write music the emotional type of person utilizes their intellectual and motor centers. They express their emotion through the music they write, but they are utilizing their imagination, intellect, and motor functions in order to create, write and express their music. Athletes for example, have their center of gravity within the Motor center. They work out a lot, but in order to work out, they also have to utilize their intellectual brain in order to know what they’re doing. While being active in sports they may become emotional; losing or winning will usually cause emotions to surface. The intellectual type of person likes to think a lot, and they depend on their reasoning to solve problems. If we are the intellectual type, we still utilize our emotional brain and the motor/instinctual/sexual brain. Really, in order to express ourselves, we utilize all three brains and five centers. The intellectual type utilizes their thinking brain more often, but in order to function in life they still need the other brains. For instance: we utilize our intellectual brain when we think about something we wish to create, but in order to create what we’ve been thinking about we have to act, and we utilize the motor brain, because we have to move our hands to draw our plan, a blueprint, or if we want to write something like a story, or a book. In other words, the intellectual type utilizes their intellectual brain in order to think about what they want to create. During the thinking process they may feel emotions. The emotions are related to the thinking processes. Something we think about may conjure up and emotion of happiness or disappointment. But after we’ve concluded that we’re ready to create what we’ve thought about, in our mind, we utilize our hands to write or draw what we’ve been thinking and imagining onto paper which relates to our Motor center. The intellectual types are also are very slow in the way they do things, even if they appear to be moving fast, because the intellectual center is the slowest.
The three brains and five centers move at different speeds; the intellectual center is the slowest. The emotional center moves much faster than the intellect. The motor center moves even faster than the emotional center. The instinctive center moves faster than the motor center and the sexual center moves faster than the instinctive center. Now we understand that our sexual center is the fastest and because the sexual center is moving and responding so fast it’s very difficult for us to be aware of the egos related with the sexual center.
“The Egos related with the Sexual Center are moving at a velocity which is 120,000 times faster than the mind.” – the three brains and five centers, Glorian.org
Because the egos of the sexual center are moving so fast it makes it difficult for us to become aware of them before we impulsively act on them. “In other words the sexual impulse of attraction or repulsion happens faster than we are able to see.” This is why we need to learn to be vigilant and aware of what is going on within us. We need to become aware of how our three brains are functioning. For instance: Pay attention to what happens to you when you’re around someone of the opposite sex, that your attracted to for this or that reason. First, the sexual center gets put into activity by the egos related with this center. This happens so fast that we don’t know what’s happening until it’s too late, most of the time. Next our egos related to the instinctive center get put into activity and then our motor center gets put into activity, how? Our instincts are to look at areas of the opposite sex that we shouldn’t look at, why? Because our egos of lust related to these centers are motivating us to act, and then our emotions begin to take over; we feel the lust, and then thoughts of lust begin to surface within us. If we pay attention while these things are happening to us, we may become aware of the fact that our egos are utilizing all these centers, one after the other, to size people up. So in other words, our egos, are using our three brains to discover whether people are good enough for us according to our desires, tastes, and preferences; relating to lust. This type of mechanical interaction happens all the time to us. So what do we do? We study ourselves from moment to moment. We become our own Gnostic science project. You see, we have picked up bad habits throughout our lives and if we want to change, then we need to become aware of what’s happening. Every day, little by little, by being vigilant and aware, we discover our impulses, our bad habits, that are related with our egos and three brains. Performing this type of work helps us begin to discover how our egos utilize our three brains. We also need to learn to be ethical, to know right from wrong. If we have a difficult time controlling ourselves when we’re around the opposite sex, then we should make a conscious effort to look at someone from the neck up and meditate on why we have such little self-control. We need to learn to have honor and respect for the opposite sex. Some of us may think we have that already, perhaps on the outside we do, we may act like we do, but on the inside we don’t. You’ll discover this just by being aware of your three brains during daily activities, during meditation and through your dream experiences. But honestly, right now, we are to asleep to catch the egos related with our motor/instinctual/sexual brain, but if we are working day to day to discover our patterns and bad habits related with all three brains, we may eventually come to understand what’s happening; we discover patterns because our egos are mechanical. Our egos react mechanically, and we can eventually discover their patterns of activity. But we need to start somewhere right? So in the beginning we start by controlling the egos that manifest through the emotional brain and the intellectual brain. They are easier to discover. At our level, we have the ability to be more aware of our thoughts and our emotions. It’s not difficult to feel that we are angry or to become aware of our frustrated thoughts. Our egotistical thoughts and emotions are what we should work on first. When we observe ourselves we find that almost in every moment an ego is acting through our three brains. What’s important is to discover which brain the ego is utilizing. Is my anger coming from our mind or from our emotional center? The emotional brain right? Because we feel anger first. If we are self-observing, we will know where it’s coming from. This is important, because we want to know why we are thinking a certain way or feeling certain way. If we are not aware of our emotions and thoughts then, we may act poorly; we don’t want to cause suffering.
Something else that’s important is learning how to balance our three brains. If we are the intellectual type of person than we may have a tendency to overthink. We may use to much of our intellectual energy. We may read too much, we may spend all of our time trying to solve every issue we face intellectually. We may lose sleep because we can’t stop thinking. We may become forgetful when we’ve used up all of our intellectual energy, “where did I put my car keys, my purse, wallet, did I turn the oven off? We imbalance ourselves when we depend on our intellect for everything. Another way the intellectual type imbalances themselves is by avoiding their emotions. The emotions that they ignore build up and eventually come out without self-control. If we are an emotional type of person, we see everything through an emotion and ignore facts, which causes us to make mistakes. For instance: If we only depend on how we feel emotionally about everything, such as, “this feels good emotionally so I’m going to keep doing this or that feel’s bad emotionally so I’m going to avoid that,” we don’t think about the consequences and we end up creating attachments and habits that cause suffering (craving and aversion). This type of behavior causes an imbalance within us. We can see it everywhere, people (us) who get caught up in politics and hear something and without thinking for themselves they respond with emotion to what they heard or seen. Those of us who are centered in our emotional brain need to learn how to think about the emotion their feeling and the intellectual person needs to observe the emotion that they are feeling without thought but with their consciousness. The consciousness gives us the ability to be aware and to observe our three brains without having to think or feel. Really in both cases we need to utilize the consciousness. We can’t solve all our issues with our emotions or intellect. We need the consciousness. Utilizing our consciousness is how we come to comprehend and not theorize or guess. Another example we can discuss is someone who is rooted in their Motor center as we explained earlier, like an athlete. Athletes have a tendency to use to much of their physical energy. They may put too much wear and tear on their body. For instance: An NFL player dedicates a lot of their young life strengthening their muscles, running, and putting their body through a great deal of physical stress. When they participate in a football game, what do they do? They run, jump and hit each other with their bodies and what is the result of their actions? Pain and suffering at a young age. Surgeries on various parts of their bodies. Many who retire from the sport have physical conditions that impair their motor functions, and not only that, all that time they spent focusing their attention on their body helped them become imbalanced in other areas of their lives. Their intellectual and emotional relationship with themselves and others may be lacking because their primary focus was to become the best athlete. So, it’s important for us to become aware of these factors and learn to balance the energies relating to our three brains. We utilize energy in order to think, we use energy in order to feel, in order to move and in order to create. The three brains are like a machine or a computer that needs energy in order to function properly.
Samael Aun Weor stated:
“The balanced and harmonious function of the three brains results in the saving of vital values and, as a logical consequence the prolongation of life. The basis of a fundamental education lies in the intelligent cultivation of the three brains. In the ancient mysteries of Babylon, Greece, India, Persia, Egypt, etc., students received direct, integral information for their three brains by means of precepts, dances, music, etc., intelligently combined. At that time, students did not abuse the thinking brain, since they knew how to intelligently use their three brains in a balanced way.” - Fundamentals of Gnostic Education, Samael Aun Weor
We’ve discussed quite a bit about the ways in which we imbalance ourselves, but there are ways that we can help balance ourselves.
Samaeal Aun Weor states:
“We can also control inferior emotions by means of superior emotions. We do it in two ways: first, we relax the body (motor center) and to place our mind (intellectual center) in quiet and silence. Second: we can appeal to a superior emotion. It might do much good for us in those moments to listen to a symphony of Beethoven, or Mozart’s Magic Flute, to submerge ourselves filled with profound emotion into a deep meditation. It is necessary to eliminate the inferior emotions by means of the superior emotions; this is possible”
Listening to classical music can help us feel superior emotions and help us balance ourselves. There are many activities that will help balance our three brains, that stimulate superior emotions and thoughts. Some other ways we may stimulate superior emotions or thoughts which come from our Being is by going out into nature. We can go into a garden, a park, or out into the forest. When we enter into these places, the energy is different, less heavy. Our physical senses may become heightened and more focused. When you see a beautiful tree, you may feel admiration for it; a feeling of love. We see its size, the branches and all of its leaves or needles depending what type of tree it is. We smell it’s fragrance and take in its aroma. We may feel inspired to touch it, in order to connect with it. We look up at its magnificence and feel a superior emotion that is indescribable. We may receive a superior thought that helps us understand something about the tree. We may receive the same superior emotional and intellectual responses within us by looking upon a flower or by meditating out in nature. When we perform these activities, we may become more connected with nature and with our Being. We also may feel superior emotions by painting or being artistic. While imagining the art we become inspired to create it and while painting we feel joy about what we’re creating.
“We must learn to paint, but to paint. We must pour upon the canvas our noblest feelings, that which is pure.” – The Doctrine of Fire, Samael Aun Weor,
Writing about something that we care about, or helping someone in need may also stimulate the superior emotional and intellectual centers. Inferior emotions and thoughts come from our ego; which relate to our pride, anger, lust, jealousy, selfishness, contempt, laziness, fear, etc., and those that are superior come from our Being such as: humility, love, joy, happiness for others, compassion, empathy, generosity, diligence, etc.
Hopefully we have a better understanding of what the three brains and five centers are and how they function. The point of this lecture is to help you become aware of what is going on inside of you. We have psychological aggregates (egos) that utilize our three brains in order to fulfill desires and our desires are repetitive; this means we can catch them, become aware of them. This is the battle, this is the Holy War. We want harmony, we all want serenity right? Balancing our three brains, being vigilant and aware of our five centers is another piece of the puzzle, a mystery that we are solving that will help us conquer ourselves. One of our goals with this work is to achieve psychological equilibrium, meaning, we eventually want a balanced and harmonious response within our three brains relating to everything we face in our daily life. In order to achieve this, we need to study, we need to work on ourselves. It’s vital that we become aware of our thoughts, emotions, impulses and actions. It’s important that we become aware of ourselves when we feel a certain way, when we think a certain way, and when we act a certain way. It’s important to be aware of an ego that is utilizing one of our centers; to observe it and do our best to discover what’s happening. Remember what Samael stated: “We need to be alert and vigilant as a watchman during a time of war.” This is the war, and we are the watchmen of our own psychological battles. The war is psychological and all the battles are against our own egotistical selves. Get motivated, we can do it, but it takes work and much effort.
Samael Aun Weor stated:
“Remember that without peace you cannot do anything new. You need calm and peace to solve a problem that presents itself in your life. We need to discover what causes the conflict. The time has arrived to comprehend in depth the contradictions which we have within, because that is the principle factor of discord and conflict. Knowing in depth the cause of the conflict, we do away with the conflict: peace is the result.” – Introduction to Gnosis, Samael Aun Weor
We have emotional conflicts, we have mental conflicts and we have motor, instinctual, sexual conflicts and we solve them when we are peaceful, serene, and patient. We cannot solve our issues if we are not balanced and aware of ourselves. If we feel an ego of anger we become aware of it and observe it. If we become identified with the emotion then we need to take some time to calm down and remember our Being.
“May all Beings be happy!”
“May all Beings be joyful!”
“May all Beings be at peace!”
Inverential Peace!
Further your studies and never give up on yourself!
Imagery from Glorian.org
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