Scientific Meditation
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Experience is a great teacher. Before you learn how to influence the electromagnetic energies in yourself and the world around you, you must first become aware of them. To do that, you need to learn to do scientific meditation.
Meditation has benefits almost too numerous to mention – it might well be the single most effective means that you have at your disposal to affect your wellbeing. A couple of years ago, Time magazine did a major article on meditation, noting that it was “no longer for people with crystals.” Meditation now has more than seventeen million practitioners in the US, people of every age, culture, faith and philosophy. Why? Because it delivers.
Researchers have identified a huge array of therapeutic benefits that derive from meditation. Dr. Dean Ornish’s combination of diet and meditation has had proven effect in reducing plaque in the arteries – diet alone doesn’t do it, but the combination of meditation and diet does. Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn has employed meditation effectively on cancer, immune problems, and many other types of chronic and debilitating health concerns. Studies show that meditation improves disease-resistance, circulation, vitality, and stamina. It is instrumental in the management of chronic pain. It is linked to lower blood pressure, higher immune system functioning, faster rates of recovery from a variety of illnesses, lower rates of the common cold, and so on. It relieves depression and anxiety, increases mental peace and acuity, and keeps stress in check. Its ability to cause expanded states of spiritual awareness and higher rates of intuitive perception is well-understood and well-documented by the great teachers of all world religions.
If you don’t already do so, you should meditate for any one or more of the above reasons. But I want you to meditate for another reason altogether, a purely scientific reason.
To understand the need to meditate from my perspective, you need to recall from the discussion in Article 2 how you perceive the shiny car (go back and read Article 2 if you haven’t already done so). You are able to “see” the shiny car because a light wave from the car hits a receptor nerve cell in your eye. At the same time, electrical energy is running from your brain into the same nerve in your eye. The two currents of energy meet in the eye and an electrical signal is sent to your brain. Only then do you “see” the shiny car.
Now, the light wave from the shiny car, as with all physical wavelengths of energy, has a particular amplitude – the height of a single wavelength. In our example, the light from the shiny car has a relatively high amplitude, something like this:
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The energy wave moving through your nervous system into the nerve of your eye has a much smaller amplitude, something like this:
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The amplitude of the light wave from the shiny car is easily registered in your nervous system because it is larger than the amplitude of the energy moving through the nerve of your eye. But the amplitude of electromagnetic energy waves is extremely small, something like this:
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Since the amplitude of the electromagnetic energy waves is smaller than the amplitude of the energy waves in your nervous system, you don’t perceive them because they are too subtle to register. If you want to perceive subtle electromagnetic energies with your senses, you have to calm the energy currents in your nerves so they become smaller in amplitude than the amplitude of the waves contained in electromagnetic energies. And a good scientific meditation method will do just that. It will so calm the energy waves in your nervous system that you will be able to pick up the subtle energy currents contained in the electromagnetic energies that exist in, around and back behind everything in existence (including your own body). It’s pretty simple actually.
Funny, your family dog has no trouble picking up subtle electromagnetic energies, but we humans have to use “a method” to get it. Fortunately, we have one: scientific meditation. If you meditate regularly you will be able to detect the presence of subtle electromagnetic energies directly through your senses, and you will be able to do it accurately and consistently. You probably do it a little bit right now, but you may have dismissed the sensations because they are subtle. Some people can sense a shift in the weather coming for example, way before there are changes in wind, temperature or barometric pressure. Farmers are extremely good at it, and so are sailors. When that happens, they are “reading” electromagnetic energies in the environment without even knowing it.
Not only can you perceive subtle electromagnetic energies with your physical senses, you can perceive them with your sixth sense – the intuitive awareness of your mind – that immediate, sure “knowing” of something that you could not possibly know based on logic or physical evidence alone. Everyone has the power of intuition, some people remarkably so. Maybe you had a premonition that your aunt, who had been in perfect health, was seriously ill, and the next day you get a phone call from your mother saying your aunt has been hospitalized. The fact is that everyone has intuitive ability – it is a natural function of the mind at higher states of awareness. It is simply under-developed in most people, and for obvious reasons: we live in a fast-paced, high stress environment that requires us to devote all our mental energy and attention to accomplishing things. Meditation will help you in this regard, by getting rid of the distractions that are confining your awareness. When you stop devoting your mental energy to the sensory world, you free up your mental energy to focus instead on the ocean of electromagnetic energy that is all around us. At that point, you will naturally gain intuitive awareness of subtle electromagnetic energies.
There are three levels of distraction that keep our mental awareness confined to the physical world. The first level consists of the outer distractions: traffic, IPods, radio, TV, the Xerox machine, the IRS, or even something positive like a wedding engagement party. The second level relates to bodily distractions: your stiff neck, your bad knee, your indigestion, etc. The third level of distraction comes from the thoughts and feelings in our own minds: that important deadline, the embarrassing situation at work, what to do about your mother who’s upset you didn’t show up at Thanksgiving, gotta’ plan that vacation, and don’t forget to pick up the dry cleaning. You simply can’t perceive subtle electromagnetic energies with all these distractions claiming your attention. This mental chatter is like the national symphony orchestra playing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, whereas the amplitude of electromagnetic energies is soft and subtle, like a wooden flute playing in the distance. There’s no way you can hear the flute while the orchestra is playing. A good scientific meditation method will silence this chatter and calm your mind. It will take you into stillness and help you achieve perfect mental focus and clarity, at which point intuitional awareness of electromagnetic energies will arise quite naturally.
If you already have a good meditation method, by all means use it. If you don’t, try the following simple meditation approach – it’s been scientifically researched, it’s easy, and it works. Begin by sitting in a comfortable position with back, neck and head reasonably and comfortably aligned – don’t slump over, but otherwise no special position is required. Lie down if you prefer, but be aware it’s easy to fall asleep in a prone position and don’t let yourself doze off. Now close your eyes. Behind closed lids, lift your eyes comfortably upward, as if you are looking at a far off mountain summit. The reason for this is grounded in neuro-scientific research. Studies show that when the eyes are lifted up behind closed lids, we humans tend to enjoy calmness of mind. When the eyes are level behind closed lids, that sends a signal to the brain to engage in a barrage of analytical thought that will have your mind dancing from one topic to another. When the eyes are lowered behind closed lids, it sends a signal to your brain that it’s time to sleep. So try to keep your eyes comfortably raised behind closed lids while meditating. You’ll get better results.
Now begin to sense your breath flowing in and out. Do not control your breath, just follow it. What does the breath do? It flows in, pauses, flows out, then pauses again. Just watch your breath flow for a few moments, trying not to let any other thoughts distract you. Next, for the entire length of the outbreath, silently say to yourself the sound “Om,” like the word home with the “h” sound removed. Yes, that’s right, Om. You may already be using this technique and you know it works. If you haven’t tried it, maybe it’s because you think it’s too mystical, too eastern, or too religious. If that is your attitude, please be aware that the sound Om has been scientifically evaluated for its effect on calming the nervous system, and it works. If you hook someone up to an electro-encephalograph (EEG) and measure their brain waves while they are silently chanting Om, you would observe their brainwaves smooth out. If this sound bothers you for some reason you can select another sound, but it won’t have the research behind it to back up its effectiveness, and it probably won’t give you the results you’re looking for.
Practice for a few minutes, sensing the breath and silently chanting Om during the outbreath. After doing this for a while you will find that your attention will drift off into a thought, a feeling, a fantasy, or memory. When that happens just gently refocus your attention onto your method: sensing the breath and chanting Om on the outbreath. As often as you drift off, refocus. Don’t get agitated with yourself – this type of experience is very common in early attempts to meditate. Early meditation time is often spent re-training the mind into a state of calmness. It takes some consistent effort, but gradually, with daily practice of this technique for fifteen minutes, you will drift off less and less until your mind becomes very calm, free of the mental chatter that drives us all nuts from time to time.
Understand what’s going on during initial efforts to meditate. Imagine that your mind, the way you experience it now, is like a glass jar filled with mud and water. Shake the jar up and notice all the whirling specks – the static of myriad thoughts and feelings that usually occupy our attention. With daily meditation, the water calms and all the specks – your thoughts and feelings – settle to the bottom of the jar. Then you’re left with a calm, clear, deeply relaxed mind. What a relief! What peace of mind. And when you get there, you will have calmed all the electrical static in the brain and nervous system. So practice this technique each day, preferably in the morning, for just fifteen minutes. Stay with the technique until you are able to achieve calmness. When you start to get good at it, experiment with increasing the amount of time you spend in meditation.
With a clear, calm mind and a calm nervous system, you will start becoming aware of the subtle electromagnetic energies that flow in and around the box. Just fifteen minutes of daily meditation will increase your awareness and start moving your perception out of the box. Try the following exercise to increase your awareness even more. If you do this exercise right after you’ve meditated for fifteen minutes, you will be surprised with the results.
Decide to take some time out for yourself. Go for a walk outside and notice what you see around you. Remember that it is just the effect of your sensory receptor cells and brain, reacting to electromagnetic waves of energy to project a 3-D image. Allow yourself to sense the environment very deeply. Notice how you start to see in a new way, how it all feels a bit different. Do the same thing with what you hear. Notice the sounds of your neighborhood and how familiar they seem. Then realize they’re just waves of electromagnetic energy. Then go back to their familiarity. Go back and forth like this a few times. After that, go inside and bite into a delicious apple or some food you enjoy. Notice the flavor. Realize it’s not what you thought it was. It’s your interpretation of electromagnetic energy that’s coming in contact with your sensory nerves. Notice the thoughts and feelings that you hold around favorite food, a familiar lounge chair, treasured photographs, that special TV show – all superficial physical expressions of that same electromagnetic energy, yet things that give you a life within the box. Then go up to your child, spouse or parent. Look at them. Hold them in your arms. Realize that the body that you see and touch is just your nervous system’s response to patterns of electromagnetic energy. Wonder who and what you’re really looking at. Sense the depth that is back behind the physical illusion – there is limitless depth there. Then go sit down in awe and ponder the situation. You will begin to see with new eyes.
Later I will show you how to operate mental laws that will allow you to sense precisely what is going on behind the physical illusion, and influence it in a way that will let you reshape any and all aspects of life within the box.
