Intro to Transcendental Meditation

The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917-2008) is known to have founded Transcendental Meditation or simply TM, inspired from his teacher and guru Swami Brahmananda Saraswati (who died 1953), and drawing upon the ancient Indian traditions of Vedic. He introduced the technique to the United States in the 1960s, where the British rock band the Beatles and other celebrities embraced the teachings adding to its popularity.

Transcendental Meditation is a meditation method that attempts to avoid distracting thoughts while promoting a state of relaxed awareness. Somewhat different from other types of meditation methods, TM teaches practitioners to stay focused on a mantra which is a specific phrase. The mantra is then repeated internally within one’s inner dialogue of their thoughts. Transcendental Meditation came to be taught and practiced as a non-spiritual nor religious path toward mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

The goal when meditating, is to “transcend” the regular thought process. It is replaced by a state of pure consciousness. In this state, the practitioner seeks to achieve perfect stillness, rest, order, stability, completely without of mental boundaries. This state of being is thought to lead to increased contentment, creativity and vitality.

From a physiological perspective, Transcendental Meditation can relax and revitalize the body and the mind by engaging the parasympathetic nervous system where stress and anxiety are reduced, blood pressure (hypertension) decreases, and changing the blood chemistry to help relieve depression.

A typical TM practice session might follow this progression:

Sit in a comfortable chair keeping the feet on the ground and hands in your lap. Legs and arms are uncrossed.
- Eyes are closed while taking a few deep breaths in order to relax the body.
- Repeat a mantra in your mind.
- When you recognize you’re having a thought, return to the mantra.
- After about 20 minutes, begin to move the fingers and toes, easing yourself back to the world.
- Open your eyes.
- Sit and relax for a few more minutes until ready to continue with your day.

References:

https://themindfool.com/transcendental-meditation-and-its-various-benefits/

Edlin, G. PhD, Golanty, E. Phd (2020), Health & Wellness, 13^th edition, Jones & Bartlett Learning

https://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/transcendental-meditation-benefits-technique

How to Practice Transcendental Meditation – DOPE YOGI

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I write often about topics that affect our health and well-being. Additionally, I teach and offer lecture about qigong, tai chi, baguazhang, and yoga.

For more info, contact Jim Moltzan at info@mindandbodyexercises.com, 407-234-0119 or through my site at http://www.mindandbodyexercises.com

Short Podcast Interview on Tai Chi & Qigong

Listen to my short podcast interview regarding mind & body exercises such as tai chi and its parents of qigong and ultimately yoga and Ayurveda.

https://tunein.com/search/?query=jim%20moltzan

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I write often about topics that affect our health and well-being. Additionally, I teach and offer lecture about qigong, tai chi, baguazhang, and yoga.

For more info, contact Jim Moltzan at info@mindandbodyexercises.com, 407-234-0119 or through my site at http://www.mindandbodyexercises.com

Music & Sound Can Affect Health

Mantras when practiced with transcendental meditation are repeated in our inner dialogue, but can be practiced with or without background music or sounds. I have some information that a few musically inclined qigong friends and I wrote about in a book we co-authored a few years ago. Whether it is singing bowls, drumming, chanting, or other musical instruments and sounds, it is basically the same concepts.

Masaru Emoto, in his book The Hidden Messages in Water, showed that music has a direct effect on water. By playing a certain piece of music, and then looking at water molecules under a high-powered microscope, he saw that when soothing music was played, the water organized itself with symmetry and beautiful designs. When turbid music was played, such as heavy metal, the water looked putrid and disorganized. The human body is 60 to 80 percent water. Music, whether positive or negative, has a profound effect on us. It can focus us, or it can distract us, it can make us happy or sad, bringing out a wide range of emotions.

Children exposed to music develop better listening skills. They do better in subjects such as math, language, and reading. Music also helps the brain’s plasticity and capacity to change and grow.

Studies have shown that when people have listened to music labeled “happy”, their creativity went up, and when your favorite song comes on unexpectedly, you get a small boost of dopamine. Numerous studies have also shown music can help with anxiety, depression, insomnia, ADHD, PTSD, and schizophrenia.

Music is uniquely human. Animals, with the occasional exception of some birds, can’t process music or feel rhythm in the same way that humans can. Studies have shown that when an animal is dancing to music, they are imitating the owner and not moving to the beat. Historically, music has played an important role in every culture.

Nearly 40,000 years ago, early humans used carved bones with animal skins over tree stumps to make basic instruments. Bone flutes have also been discovered and dated back to 40,000 to 80,000 years ago. Even the early Torah was set to music so people could remember it before they would write it down. People have always used music to remember things.

I have learned also that for thousands of years, chanting as a form of music has been used as a vehicle to create a deeper spiritual connection. The sound of OM, is said to be the universal sound that contains all other sounds. A study revealed that chanting the word OM triggered the area of the brain that is associated with calmness and a sense of inner peace. The syllable OM was found to trigger that more than any other syllable.

Om Mani Padme Hum
It has been said over the centuries that all of the teachings of the Buddha are contained in the simple mantra of Om Mani Padme Hum. This can be roughly translated as “The jewel of the lotus.” Below is a hidden 5 element meaning of the mantra, from the album “The 5 Elements of Om Mani Padme Hum”

Om: Wood element: rising, spring time, sprouting upwards. The color is green.

Ma: Fire element: rising and dispersing. Picture flames flickering and dancing. The color is red.

Ni: Earth element: centered and sweet. It does not rise or fall much, always returning to the center. The colors are yellow and gold.

Pad: Qi: sometimes referred to as the 6th energy. Similar to fire, this energy dances both upward and downward. The color is purple.

Me: Metal element: splitting and falling. The season is autumn, and there is grief in the metal element. The colors are white and silver.

Hum: Water element: flowing, building up and dispersing. The season is winter. The colors are blue and black.

Reference:

Leone M., Campbell J., Moltzan J., (2019), Journey Around the Sun

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I write often about topics that affect our health and well-being. Additionally, I teach and offer lecture about qigong, tai chi, baguazhang, and yoga. For more info, contact Jim Moltzan at info@mindandbodyexercises.com, 407-234-0119 or through my site at http://www.mindandbodyexercises.com

Conspiracy Mentality – huh, what is this?

Conspiracy mentality is a generalized belief that secret and powerful forces aspire to control or rule the world. A lack of control has been identified as one of the driving forces of conspiracy beliefs. When people fear a lack of control in their lives, they compensate for this deficiency by seeking patterns, even if these patterns are based on illusion. Events of a large magnitude warrant an explanation of comparable proportions. Studies conducted in both the USA and the UK showed the belief that Covid19 is a hoax or a stronger belief that the virus originated in a medical laboratory (Imhoff & Lamberty 2020).

A Neuroscientist Explains What Conspiracy Theories Do To Your Brain Video | Technology Networks

Conspiracy theories are not supported by sound evidence but rather are based on various thinking patterns that are known to be unreliable tools for tracking reality. True conspiracies are revealed through available evidence of actual and verifiable events, along with a healthy dose of skepticism. People might look to a particular conspiracy of scientists to explain a general scientific conclusion when it aligns with their political ideology, but not when the scientific consensus has no relevance to their own politics (Lewandowsky & Cook 2020).

Not all conspiracies are false theories, as many were actually true such as the US government poisoning alcohol during Prohibition, to discourage people from drinking booze, the CIA testing behavior modification using LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs on Americans in a top-secret experiment, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident of 1964, which was faked to encourage American support for the Vietnam War (Cahn 2021). Another proven conspiracy is The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, which speaks volumes of how America’s medical culture has used race as a way to wield power for its own personal gain (Lombardo, 2006). The list continues with “Operation Berkshire”: the international tobacco companies’ conspiracy, where the industry’s commercial interests were protected by both promoting controversy over smoking and disease and through strategies directed at reassuring smokers (Francey & Chapman 2000).

Or when the AMA got caught conspiring to “contain and eliminate the chiropractic profession. As reported in Marc Micozzi’s Fundamentals of Complementary, Alternative, and Integrative Medicine: A staunchly antichiropractic policy was pursued by the American Medical Association (AMA). In 1990 the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling in which the AMA was found liable for federal antitrust violations for having engaged in a conspiracy to “contain and eliminate” (the AMA’s own words) the chiropractic profession (Wilk v. AMA, 1990). The process that culminated in this landmark decision began in 1974 when a large packet of confidential AMA documents was provided anonymously to leaders of the American Chiropractic Association and the International Chiropractors Association. As a result of the ensuing Wilk v. AMA litigation, the AMA reversed its long-standing ban on interprofessional cooperation between medical doctors and chiropractors, agreed to publish the full findings of the court in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and paid an undisclosed sum, most of which was earmarked for chiropractic research. This ruling has not completely reversed the effects of organized medicine’s boycott, especially when it comes to application of the most effective and cost-effective treatments for common pain conditions.

Conspiracy mentality is interconnected to a feeling of lack of control to a perceived threat. When people feel more in control of their environment and decisions within it, they are more able to tolerate the seemingly constant ebb and flow of conspiracy theories. If people are educated to be aware of unsound reasoning found in most conspiracy theories, they have a better chance of not being influenced by such theories. When people are educated or prebunked, prior to their knowledge of a particular conspiracy, they can develop a resilience or awareness of the conspiratorial messages. Prebunking, also known as inoculation, consists of an explicit warning of an impending threat of being misled, and an objection to the misinformation’s arguments (Lewandowsky & Cook 2020).

Logic-based facts can help to explain misleading methods in unsound reasoning used in conspiracy theories. Educating skeptics about the logical misconceptions found in anti-vaccination conspiracies has been found to be effective by drawing attention to vaccination research that has been conducted by independent, publicly funded scientists who can discredit conspiracy theories about the pharmaceutical industry. Fact-based information can support that the conspiracy theory is false by communicating accurate data. Fact-based and logic-based inoculations have both been successful in prebunking other conspiracies such as some of those surrounding the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (Lewandowsky & Cook 2020).

References:

Imhoff, R. & Lamberty, P. (2020). A bioweapon or a hoax? The link between distinct conspiracy beliefs about the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak and pandemic behavior. Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Lewandowsky, S., & Cook, J. (2020). The Conspiracy Theory Handbook. http://sks.to/conspiracy (Links to an external site.)

Cahn, L. (2021, July 26). 12 Conspiracy Theories That Actually Turned Out to Be True. Reader’s Digest. https://www.rd.com/list/conspiracy-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-true/

Micozzi, Marc S.. Fundamentals of Complementary, Alternative, and Integrative Medicine – E-Book (p. 537). Elsevier Health Sciences. Kindle Edition

Lombardo, P. A., & Dorr, G. M. (2006). Eugenics, Medical Education, and the Public Health Service: Another Perspective on the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 291-316.

Francey, N., & Chapman, S. (2000). “Operation Berkshire”: the international tobacco companies’ conspiracy. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 321(7257), 371–374. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.321.7257.371

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