A YouTube talk by Vishen Lakhiani arguing that practicing forgiveness—toward others and oneself—can shift brain states and unlock benefits. He links forgiveness to access to altered brainwave states (alpha, theta, etc.), cites lab work that reverse-engineers monk brainwaves, and summarizes research claiming physical and mental health benefits. He also promotes a related masterclass mapping how to access these states.
Chapters
When was the last time you practiced forgiveness? When is the last time you forgave someone? Whether it was a taxi driver who took you for a wrong ride, or it was someone who broke your heart way in the past? I came across something recently that just blew me away. I was not expecting it. And it had to do with some research that scientists were doing on how to access altered states. So you see, most people in the world today, we function in what is called the beta level brain frequency, or it's the waking state, right? But today we know that our brains are far more complex than that. And there are different states of consciousness that you can access. Alpha, theta, gamma, delta. And then within these states of consciousness, there are different aspects to it, from alpha amplitude to theta, whole brain coherence. But when you access these states, they seem to give you access to unique ability. One of the most fascinating things that I found about altered states happened when I went to this lab. And there are actually multiple labs which are doing this. But what they do is they try to reverse engineer the brainwave states of monks. So they take these monks, they strap them to this equipment and it measures the monks brainwave state. And then they take ordinary folks, you get strapped to the equipment and they attempt to reverse engineer the brainwave states of monks. And they were trying to get you, as you're doing this equipment, to play around with all of these different mindfulness techniques, prayer, creative visualization, to see what got you at those states. What you're seeing here is some video of me getting my brain strapped up before I go into one of these chambers. And I know forgiveness can be challenging, I know forgiveness can be really difficult. But what I found when I was in those chambers with my brain hooked up, going through five days of forgiveness, is that it fundamentally shifted me. And don't forget, as you practice forgiveness rituals, that one of the biggest things in life that you often need to forgive is yourself. For wrong decisions you make made in the past. Many of us still beat ourselves up for past mistakes. So you start by forgiving others, by forgiving yourself, and forgiveness seems to release you. For example, scientists know that if you can access the alpha wave frequency at a conscious waking level, you tend to be more relaxed, you tend to be more chill. And in fact, when you're meditating, that's exactly what you're doing. So we've created this society, this culture where we train people that they are monophasic, that they have only one phase beta. But that's not real. You can access altered states and use these Altered states to do some really incredible things in the world. In fact, Steven Kotler wrote a book called Stealing Fire, which is about the altered state economy. And in that book he says that the altered state economy is now over a trillion dollars. And it ranges from Marines using technologies to get into steam, where they can focus better, to CEOs using these technologies to be able to magnify their impact, and ordinary people using these technologies to be able to get chill, meditate and get in the zone, right? And one of the scientists, he had a fascinating story. What he said is that there was this one lady in one of his chambers once, and she was showing a remarkable rise, a remarkable elevation in her state more and more towards that monk like reality. And he asked her, what are you doing? And she goes, well, I've been trying to forgive that bastard. And she was referring to her ex husband. She was basically forgiving her ex husband in her meditation. And it was causing her levels of what they call alpha amplitude, right, to spike, to go higher and higher and higher. So they started trying this with different people, including me. When you forgive, you're accessing new levels of consciousness. You're able to cause your alpha levels to go up, which means deeper and more profound meditation levels. But it's fascinating. Why is forgiveness doing this? I read about studies in Israel that showed that when you forgive people, when you forgive people who wronged you, you know, even way back in the past, you actually improve your endurance. Other studies show, and this was done at the University of Utrecht, that forgiveness can cause you to improve your vertical jump. Like, that's crazy, right? Especially if you're a basketball player. Go ahead and forgive your opponents. But what's going on there is that forgiveness seems to unlock something superhuman about ourselves. Science is showing that the results are crazy. Forgiveness seems to improve bad back. It seems to improve your heart health, it makes you sleep better, it gets people to emerge out of depression sooner. The science is absolutely stunning. Now, in my quest to understand altered states, to understand how to optimize human consciousness so people can do more, can live better, can maximize their productivity of work, Forgiveness is a key part of what I've been studying. So I go to these labs often. I develop my protocols for forgiveness and for other related states such as compassion. If you find these ideas interesting, I want to invite you to check out a masterclass I'm doing. It's about an hour and 10 minutes. But I'm going to explain to you how to tap into these states, what these states look like. You're going to be given a map so that you can see how you can go from state 1 to 2 to 3 to 4. And when you have this map, you accelerate your evolution into these states. If you find these ideas fascinating, go ahead and check out the masterclass. Have a journal, have a pen. And I can't wait to take you in an exploration of what's going on inside your head. I'll see you there.
