Discovering the “No-Self” Neuro-Circuit

Not too happy about your changing moods? Well, not to worry, your brain electrochemical, neuro-circuitry insures you will have them regardless of how many pills you consume as a means of altering the chemical composition of your synapses. Got some addictions playing out? Yep, circuits for that too. Wish you had more money? Brain circuitry insures that your “wish” continues, neuron after neuron, to be an “experience.” Not meeting your goals and aspirations? That’s okay because all your goals and aspirations are genetically and socially predetermined within a labyrinth of neuro-circuitry that spreads for miles throughout  the grey matter in the brain and that you began collecting since you first saw your “self” in a mirror.

Do you really think “you” ever had anything to do with you’re being “you”? 

If you said “yes” then rest assured there’s an electro-chemical circuit for that too.

“You” are nothing more than a web of neuro-circuits stimulated by electrochemical charges, which in turn are stimulated by the impact of experiencing a world seemingly outside your brain and which, in turn, stimulate further “firings” in the brain that you could not alter if your life depended on it. Your “subconscious mind” is nothing more than neurons firing off without the attending neural circuit of “awareness,” because awareness has its own neural circuit that doesn't bother with dumb sheit.

And let’s not forget the infamous “mirror neurons” which, not only fire off when you do something, but also when you observe someone else doing the same action. This is what allows the world to imprint upon your brain through tiny microscopic wires. This is how you are sculpted BY the world and not by your “self.” The “me” that you think you are had nothing to do with “you.”

But you reject the idea that you are nothing more than brain circuitry. You reject the concept that there is no “you” and only an amalgamation of mutually stimulating circuits firing off an experience of "I-ME," that really has no more substance other than billions of microscopic neurons that twist and turn within the cerebral cortex.

Well, not to worry, there’s a circuit for your “rejection” as well and, as long as you keep stimulating it through self-enhancing electrochemical impulses, it should last your whole life.

Do you realize that you are unconsciously constructing neural pathways each and every day? In fact, with each passing moment? Even while reading this, and asking yourself "why the hell am I reading this?" microscopic dendrites are branching out and connecting up with other neuronal circuits. You can't help it. That's what brains do.

Love your kids? Yep, that’s wired in. Enjoy your career? Good thing that enjoyment is dependent on brain circuitry, otherwise, it would suck. Not in “love” with your spouse anymore? It seems that circuit has been extinguished and losing that “loving feeling” is nothing more than the experience you get when you forget to pay the electric bill…no power. Wish you were more attractive or smart, funny, happy, contented, healthy, wealthy and wise? What’d ya think, you just thought all that up? Well, no, somebody else did and its name is “society” and society is wired deep into the contours of your brain’s neuro-circuits.

But at least you can stake the claim that you have a “self” that has a “spirit” and a “soul,” forgetting that every abstract concept you pay homage to is nothing more that neuro-circuitry associated with the linguistic centers of your brain. Electrons are fired off by a brain because a brain fails to understand itself and so requires concepts or linguistic (words) experiences. As long as Alzheimer's or a stroke does not infect you, and completely wipe out those centers, you can always look to your concepts to demand your rights and needs be met by others and to make sense of a nonsensical world. You can always complain to your spouse about how he/she is not meeting your needs, because without your specific brain circuitry you wouldn’t have any of those personal, self-actualizing needs. You wouldn’t need anything related to being a “self” or a unique individual. Just food, water, sex and shelter and you’d be one happy camper. But your brain is wired for much more….

But then, you exclaim, “at least I have my consciousness! That is all mine.” But who is it that is conscious? What is this “I” that claims it is conscious? Is the “I” something completely distinct from the neuro-circuits in the brain? Distinct from electrochemical impulses that inform the body how to act and vice versa? What is an “I-me” but another brain circuit providing a brain-centered experience of an autonomous and separate existence? How many decades of parental, socio-cultural experiences impacted upon the brain, additionally influenced by genetic factors, did it take to manufacture neuro-circuitry that provides an experience of being a unique self? And if it actually was genetic predisposition and socio-cultural influences that formed “you,” how can that in anyway be uniquely “you”? What brain circuitry fires off neurons that provide the electrochemical mirage of an “I” experience? Can there actually be such a thing as an “I-me” if it is only conditioned neurocircuity? Does it matter that "you" are nothing but conditioned brain circuitry? Can you still get all jiggy with that?

And if all this brain circuitry (billions of neurons corresponding through miles of connecting axons and dendrites) is “you,” then why do you constantly reject your “self”? Why are you forever seeking to change your “self? If it’s your neuro-circuitry, why not accept it? Why constantly grit and grind over the things “you” do or don’t do? Why continue to claim that when  “I” do this it is “bad,” while doing this is “good”? If circuits inform you of what is good and bad, then why not simply accept both as “you,” since it’s your brain circuitry? And if your “self” is nothing more than a product of conditionally formulated brain circuits, why not just do away with it, if it causes such duress over doing that or not doing this?

Wouldn’t it be better if you could just trash that entire circuit, rather than struggle for years over past “bad” vs. past “good”? And if there were no “I-me” self circuit, would you even care about good and bad? Would those circuits expire along with the neurons that make up the self? But then, if that were so, who or what would be conscious? How many other circuits would be discontinued along with the brain circuit that gives you an electrochemical experience of a “self” that is “real"?

Is “consciousness” nothing more than a neuro-circuit electrochemically firing off an experience, that we call “consciousness," but is really nothing more than electrochemical charges in 3 lbs of fatty tissue? Ha! wouldn't that be a humdinger of a neural pathway to exist through?

Is what the Buddha supposedly said, “Events happen, deeds are done, consequences happen but there is no individual doer of any deed,” actually true? But “who” would know it was true? If the brain circuit that fires off subsequent to other circuits informing “I-Me” that “I-Me” is an actual experience, were discontinued, how would “you” attain Buddhist “enlightenment” or an experience of “non-duality”?

If the “I-me” circuit in the brain were discontinued, who or what would be meditating and achieving experiences of “higher consciousness” and believing in karma and ego transcendence? How could “you” believe in anything at all if you didn't have the circuitry to identify "you" as the believer?

But not to worry, because there is a circuit in your brain that demands that all of this be completely NOT understood and that you remain ignorant. A circuit that demands you ignore everything on this page as stupid and confusing drivel. A circuit in your brain that absolutely requires you disregard everything that does not conform to current circuitry that works to continually assure you that an “I-Me” does in fact exist and “you” are most certainly a real existing entity. A circuit that directs you to provide attention to scriptures and sutras that sing praises to the “I-ME” that has come to understand the sutras and scriptures. A circuit that gives you out of body experiences and allows you to see the Christ’s face permeated on a piece of burnt toast. A circuit that demands your complete ignorance as to how you are completely controlled by the brain that sits between two ears and atop a physical frame. A circuit that believes utter bullsheit as true, because believing otherwise would fire off too many uncomfortable dissonant neurons.

Follow the circuit to the circuit that electrochemically fires off neuro-circuits, influencing other circuits,  that proves you have NO choice, but gives you an experience of a “self” that makes important choices, and you will finally realize a “self” that…

…does NOT exist, has NEVER existed and cannot possibly EVER exist.

In every dual hemispheric brain there is a “self” and a “no self” circuit.
Apparently, only a few have ever made contact with the “no-self” circuit and this is most likely due to the intensity of the constant electro-chemical stimulation we provide to the “self.”

But, obviously, once located, nothing ever seems the same again.

But, make no mistake, even the "no-self" circuit is nothing more than an electrochemical experience of corresponding neurons.

It too, does NOT exist at all....

Artwork by Erica Herazo - "Inside the Brain"