Mindfulness: what we're capable of

What we're really capable of...

I’ve just reread a section of a book I’ve come to love and cherish. Meditation As Medicine: Activate the Power of Your Natural Healing Force by Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D., and Cameron Stauth. In the chapter on Mental Focus and the “Mind-Power Effect”, the authors detail a sampling of a multitude of reviewed studies on the effect of human intention upon our world. Surprisingly, the most provoking results came from experiments concerned with our psychic interactions with physical inanimate objects. These recounts are particularly unnerving for me because they grate against most of what we know and hint at an unknown that can barely be examined by scientific means as of yet. The experiments described in the book and future explorations inspired by them are going to “push the envelope” in novel ways and truly challenge our current conceptions.
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In one such experiment, researchers asked monks and other practitioners of various types of mindfulness techniques or mediation to attempt to affect the outcomes of a simple but completely encased random number generator. In different versions of the experiment, they asked the mindfulness practitioners to affect generators before, during, and after their programs were run. The recorded results are nothing short of amazing. Not only can humans affect the outcome of what we have manifested as a “random” number generator. We can even impact the generators’ outcomes after they have run their course. Our present outlook, and it’s comprising thoughts and intentions, can impact our future. Interviewees and CEOs rejoice!

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Let’s pause to integrate that. 

This series of scientific wonders, and several others like it, give life to the idea that the mind does have a tangible and possibly even measurable sway over matter, to some degree. The implications of these experiments for the practice of yoga thrill as well. If holding clarified intentions in a meditative state can have an effect on inanimate matter, what might we be capable of if we intended upon ourselves? There are numerous cultural and religious contexts that make this more “relevant” to our average human existence. Prayer, intuitive healing, baptism, bar mitzvah, and a number of other rites are some examples.
 
In much the same way, I judge yoga, and especially Kundalini yoga, are excellent technologies to approach the application of intention upon one’s being. Many actions can lead to integration, union, relinquishment, awareness. And there are many avenues and angles to any given goal or target. Patangali’s 8 Limbs of Yoga then become a roadmap of sorts for internal navigation. Such voyages may seem fruitless yet reap meaningful insight. For some, their callings beckon strongly, and when followed, guide us toward our deepest truths. The whispers that can set our minds at ease, our hearts to rest, and our spirit to flight, if we are ready to listen. 

When I let that idea sing, Zion emerges. Where heaven unfurls upon this plane, like a petal in a pond. Fragile at best but filling in its fleeting nature. I need to be in a world where I can get back to every fractured fragment of my soul just by following the flow of my breath. I dream to be in a plane that allows me to apply will to pour fluidly into action and breathe deeply into every beat of my heightened heart. I am most thankful for this magic in my life.

Thus Spake Maek
Nov. 26, 2020