Scientific research has proven that the brains of regular meditators function differently than those of non-meditators. For one thing, more information travels through the meditator's corpus callosum, uniting left and right hemispheres.For another thing, meditators recover more quickly from emotional upsets and startle reactions.
For more information on this topic, you can watch 17 minutes of a good documentary provided through Canadian Television:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3LtQH4Etjo
What is it about meditation that causes these effects?
The general process of meditation involves sitting quietly and stilling the mind through concentration. Various schools of meditation encourage concentration through a variety of techniques--attention to breathing, uttering a repeated mantra such as "Lord" or the word "om," focusing on the "third eye" between the eyebrows, or upon love and heartfelt connection beyond oneself. Any method that quiets the mind's chatter will do. Interior silence must be achieved. The goal is relaxation, a sense of perfect peace, a feeling of bliss, or union with God.
Quieting the mind's chatter during meditation achieves two things. First, it allows you to temporarily lay aside your meme bundle and briefly unite with your governing Unit of Consciousness Self; secondly, interior stillness provides the empty space needed to go beyond the boundary of your personal Unit of Consciousness (UC) to perceive the reassuring sheltering presence of the universal unit of consciousness. Spiritually oriented meditation techniques refer to this transcendence of personal identity as recognizing the essential Oneness of All, or as approaching the Throne of God.
Here's what I think happens to the nesting toroids during meditation:
This first drawing represents our nested universal space. (Please click here to review this concept if you need to.)
The red center represents the material universe; the white arrows represent proto-energy radiating into our universe; the beige is our governing UC; the yellow is the universal unit of consciousness, known as God.
During ordinary consciousness, our Self is engaged in the material-based world. According to Yoga philosophy and energy healers, an observable red current of life-giving energy (prana) runs upward from the base of the spine. Since our toroidal model indicates that matter and energy are generated from the center zero-point of the conscious universal field, our human bodies must occupy our personal UCs thusly:
This illustration represents the human chakra field drawing universal proto-energy (ananda) through chakra one at the base of the spine.
During ordinary, matter-bound consciousness, human awareness is entirely trapped within the mind's perceptions of the material universe. These matter-bound perceptions include both processed sensory stimuli(touch, taste, hearing, smell, sight) and thought ideations in the form of meme chords and karma. In this state, the Self's governing UC can only occasionally influence the "mud-up" mind. You could say that in the ordinary state, the matter-bound mortal is "out of phase" with his or her Self UC.
During meditation, the source from which the body draws energy shifts from chakra one at the base of the spine to chakra four--the heart. Yoga philosophy characterizes the heart as the door between the material and spiritual. When the mind is perfectly still, the heart swells with love and with joy. We propose that during meditation, the human goes "in phase" with pure consciousness, uninfluenced by perceptions of and opinions about the material world. This phase shift brings the mud-up mind into full contact with not only its own governing UC but, with practice and patience, the individualized UC resonates entirely in phase with the universal UC.
At that stage of advanced meditation, when one's personal identity unit of consciousness becomes one with the universal unit of consciousness, the seventh chakra at the crown of the skull channels unimpeded information and coherence directly through the "top" or aligned metaversal funnel. At the same time, the personal toroidal space is entirely in phase with the universal UC and "pressed" directly against the coherence boundary, stimulating an unparalleled sense of love ("Divine Love"). Also, universal proto-energy pours through the "spiritualized heart" at the core of the meditator, bringing an unrivaled sense of bliss to the meditator.
One technique meditators employ to achieve this advanced state of love, bliss, and awareness is to balance their ascending (chakra one) prana with their descending (chakra seven) spiritual energy (mud up, spirit down) so that they meet at the (chakra four) heart center. Perhaps this model's simple explanation may help with that endeavor.
I'm a regular meditator. Stilling the mind sometimes happens easliy and other times not. When the mind is still there is great peace and joy. When the mind will not still it is just the way it is with no resistance. For some reason I have a strong meme that is not affected by meditation. That meme is computer rage! I get so angy at my computer (not at people) when it doesn't respond the way it is supposed to. This doesn't happen often but strikes me as odd that meditation has not improved that negative meme. Any suggestions?
ReplyDeleteI have recently come to believe that there are malevolent forces in our world that are bent on frustrating us and filling us with despair and rage. These entities are called "archons" in Gnostic terminology. For each organized aggregation of technical achievement, there is an archon that rises like a pesky, demented unit of consciousness and attaches itself to all manifestations of that tech. In other words, there is a negative consciousness attached to PCs; an archon of personal computing, whose goal is to cause you pain and frustration. You can read about archons over on my new blog: https://newgnosticgospel.blogspot.com/2020/03/viral-zombies-archonic-disinformation.html
DeleteI, too, feel frustrated with programs that do not behave the way I expect them to. I know that, for me, those are times when I am in a hurry to accomplish the task, and I have no time to waste. Lately I have been telling myself on these occasions that I am not in control of the Universe, and that the Universe apparently has other plans for my time. This usually relaxes me and I either redo the task with less attachment for the outcome or abandon it for another day when I feel less pressured.
ReplyDeleteSo, why do you suppose you become so angry at the computer? Can you imagine something you could say to yourself that would defuse the situation? Because, your meditation has definitely enabled you to regain your composure quicker after an emotional experience that before you were a meditator. So what you need to do is identify the particular meme that enrages you, and then figure out a counter-statement--a neutralizing meme--of the meme that feeds the anger. You may not be able to stop the initial emotion, but you can certainly stop feeding the anger and return quickly to center. IMO
hi Cyd, I wonder if you have another reference about the video "mystical brain" because I can't see it here in Mexico, thank you very much, bye
ReplyDeleteThe complete documentary is no longer available for free. You can watch a portion of it at youtube. I posted the new url in the article above. You can still buy The Mystical Brain through amazon.com if you want to.
ReplyDeleteAnother way to neutralize the influence of a strong meme is to take a step upward, where the meme is seen as simply part of a larger meme that makes more sense. Do you understand what I mean? Or should I do some more explaining?
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ReplyDeleteSo what is meditation anyway?
It’s rest.
Here’s why. When you do only one thing at a time, whether it is walking on the beach and thinking of seagulls, focusing on a doorknob or a mantra, or just non-judgmentally aware, or being in the moment, your postural muscles relax, and this is accompanied by the release of endogenous opioids, which provides a natural high. This is why relaxation feels good.
Does this mean that teaching and practicing meditation is worthless? Quite the opposite. It just means that all rest is meditation and all meditation is rest, or in other words, you can’t rest unless you are in some way meditating!
A short explanation of this is here:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/291558160/Holmes-Meditation-and-Rest-The-American-Psychologist
And a longer one is here:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/284056765/The-Book-of-Rest-The-Odd-Psychology-of-Doing-Nothing
Thanks for reading this article and posting these links to your books. I'll download your book and give it a read.
ReplyDeleteYou can meditate anytime anywhere you don’t have to be on a relax mode, I actually do meditation better when I do my daily shores or high intensity cardio, the faster I move my neurological system slow down and puts my body on autopilot and permit my brain to go deeper into my thoughts just remember to control the breathing too !
ReplyDeleteTruthfully, this is also how I do it. My most meditative state is when I am walking the dog in the woods. This is when most of my breakthrough insights arise, as you can tell if you look at my Simple Explanation videos on youtube--mostly taken in the woods. It also means I am carrying a bag of dog poop more often than not during these satori states! ;-)
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