Meditation

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity. 

-Voltaire

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I believe that meditation is the most powerful and accessible tool for us to grow as individuals and for humanity to prosper. Unfortunately people aren't doing it, perhaps because they have erroneous and confusing ideas about this practice, which in reality demands nothing more than a daily moment of time. 

As a person who's been meditating on a daily basis for the last 7 years, I can vouch for the gifts this practice has to offer. Gifts like insight, joy and love for all parts of the life experience. However, words are not enough to convey the essence, in order to realize/feel its potential one has to try it out. 

Sometimes people ask me how I meditate; positions, breathing techniques and miscellaneous eastern references are often mentioned. As a matter of fact meditation is just about as simple as it gets.

This is how I do it: I sit down on a cushion on the floor, in a comfortable lotus position and keep my spine straight. Then I close my eyes, breathe regularly and relax. Focusing on the breath keeps me in the moment. 

That's it. 

I sit like this for circa 10-15 minutes every morning before breakfast, and often one more time when I come home from work or before bed. The first years I listened to music (solfeggio frequencies), nowadays I prefer silence.  

The key to success is persistence, i.e. every day you can.  

What I just said has been said by others before me. The most accurate and striking description of the practice comes from someone calling himself Hatton. This material surfaced circa 1960. It is the foundation upon my meditation firmly rests on. 

[…] Proper meditation is of uppermost importance, and I should like to dwell for a moment on this subject, for proper meditation is most important in your growth. First of all, place yourself in a position that is proper for meditation. The best meditation can be had in a sitting position. Sit the body comfortably but erect, with both feet placed firmly before you. Keep the body and head erect and straight. Place the hands open and upward in the lap. Allow those racing thoughts to race. Do not try to force them to stop, but bring yourself into a relaxed feeling. Let your mind relax; do not try to control it, and you shall find these racing thoughts in time will slow, will become slower and slower until they eventually stop. And with practice, my friends, this time shall become shorter and shorter, and in due time you shall reach that state of stillness quickly, and in this state of stillness you become one with Creation and life begins to speak to you. In this stillness you can bring yourself in attunement with whatsoever you wish. In this still, very still quietness, all things can flow to you, for your mind is open and receptive to higher knowledge.

[…] Now to some of you it may seem that it is impossible for you to relax in this position, but I say to you, my friends, that is the only true relaxation. For when the body is in positions for which it was not intended, true relaxation does not come, you cannot be receptive. Much of the Universal Energies comes to you through the spine when you are in the physical and unless the spine is erect, they do not flow. You would be amazed when this art is mastered, at what you can do; how quickly you can attune yourself in this state to anything that you desire. […]

-Hatton, 15/6 -1959

In a later communication the necessity of daily practice gets addressed.

[...] In the first place, it is necessary to discipline one’s self, to some extent, and set aside a certain time each day for this practice and you will never become proficient at the art of meditation unless you practice consistently. It is not enough to practice this art once a week or once a month, or even every few days, but this should become a daily ritual. For unless you do this, your progress shall be slow in mastering the art. […]

-Hatton, 23/6 -1961

The first couple of months of meditation were challenging for me, but this was also at a time when I had much emotional baggage to sort through. It might be helpful to begin with shorter time periods, just remember that patience is a small price for wonder.

Mind Your Thoughts

Last fall an extraordinary man passed away. His name was Dr. Masaru Emoto and his field of research concerned to what extent consciousness can affect water molecules. This is what he did: he marked water bottles with different labels, some with a positively charged expression like "Thank you" or "I love you", some with a neutral one and the rest with a very negative message e.g. "I will kill you". After actively sending these thoughts to the respective bottle, he examined the molecular structures of the water.

The water from the positive canisters showed beautiful, geometric crystals whereas the negatively "charged" water looked broken and asymmetric in his microscope. His findings suggested that thought indeed has the ability to affect at least water. This led him to spend the rest of his life travelling around the globe, lecturing on the importance of meditation and love in a world that truly is more interconnected than the current scientific paradigm is willing to admit.

Water molecules and their state of being depending on their treatment. 

The effect of the musical pieces was probably positive due to the test conductors affection for them.

Naturally he took a lot of heat from the skeptic part of the scientific community, being accused of engaging in pseudoscience, a methodological question which according to himself might very well be true. Whether that's a reaction due to his humble Japanese mannerism or the fact that he just don't care I'll leave upon for speculation - perhaps it's beyond science after all. Of course The James Randi Foundation mocked him for refusing to undertake their bogus $1 million $ challenge - but their shenanigans is a topic for another post.

Dr. Masaru Emoto

As a counter move to all the naysayers, Dr. Emoto thought out an experiment that not only heavily suggests that he was right all along, but also can be replicated at home through minuscule means. The method is called The Rice Experiment and all you need is a couple of jars, cooked rice and a magic marker. What you do is you put the rice in two or three different jars, shut them tight and write a positive word on one of them and a negative on the other (plus an unmarked third if you wish). Then you wait. 

After a couple of weeks you'll notice that the rice in the positive jar will be in better shape than the one in the negative one, at least this is the idea of the experiment. As the goal is to prove that intention can alter matter, it is of utmost importance that the containers are placed so that you have a clear view of them; and that you indeed take a moment everyday to send loving thoughts to the positive jar and vice versa to the other.

I've found quite a lot of documented Rice Experiments from random people on the internet. With impressive results. I'll let them speak for themselves.

A year ago my girlfriend and I tried this at home. She was highly skeptical so I suggested we made it a bit more interesting by betting on the results, if it worked she had to buy me dinner, and if it didn't, the other way around. Here's how it looked like after approximately 3 weeks:

"Kärlek" is the Swedish word for "Love", "Hat" meaning "Hate". We had Chinese food if you must know.

Even though most sites that writes about this are positive, there are debunkers out there, however many of them try to explain away the experiment without even conducting it, like this blog post from FoodRetro. Here's a post from Sciencereporting explaining why it isn't scientific and how one could go about to conduct a vastly more complex test that misses the whole point of the original one. These are all on the first page when you google "Rice experiment".

The first page that will pop up is a post by Carrie Poppy, an author for skeptical CSI (Comitee for Skeptical Inquiry). She actually goes through with the experiment; and subsequently attempts to discredit it with irrelevant comparisons and a flim-flam jar that draws attention from the fact that the negative rice actually did rot quicker than the rice in the other jars.

The canisters from Carrie Poppy's try.

"Well, he was the only one to mold, though the top of the rice in his jar ended up being the most exposed to air of all four samples." is her comment on the negative jar. Instead of discarding her experiment she ends her post with "I can’t help but wonder if the well-meaning re-creators of this experiment on the internet didn’t help their rice along, exposing the neglected or hated rice to more air, [...]".

So, do it again but this time make sure they are all tightly shut?

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In the end no one has ever claimed that the Rice Experiment is a scientifically adequate way to measure something, of course it isn't. But seeing as it worked for me and countless others the effect of something inexplicable could very well be showing itself through this test.

Considering the profound implications hinted, everybody should try this - because the more positive results we can collect, the more undeniable it gets (assuming most results will be positive). Or perhaps it's just impossible to objectively conduct an experiment like this at home when even the hardcore skeptics "unintentionally" favors the positive rice?

Just try it, ok.

Ashtar Galactic Command speaking

Recently when enjoying an after work beer with a colleague of mine, the topic of UFOs arose. Even though he hadn't done any research into the subject, he was convinced that mundane explanations i.e. weather balloons, Venus, delirium etc. sufficiently could account for the phenomena. I took it all with ease, because when it comes to these matters this is by far the most common response you'll get.

I do however find it perplexing, that the main reason for the dismissiveness almost always stems from failed expectations. ”Why don't they land on the White House lawn (and hold a Press Conference)?” is the classic question which presupposes that an otherwordly intelligence, would they find their way here, obviously would chose a suitable metropole for landing and make itself known on a global scale.


(Apparently, it all comes down to a curious question of communication.)


The problem here lies in what we take for granted. Even if another intelligence could and also wished to communicate with us, the circumstances for this to occur are seldom discussed. Perhaps we overlook our own part in this as well; after all, communication requires two active parties. 

Personally I'm very fond of the idea that communication may be proceeded only under circumstances which leaves room for doubt, thus leaving our free will intact. Needless to say, the idea of information coming through human sources, for example psychic and channeled data, indeed appeals to me. Fascinating material are to be found from mentioned sources. As long as one watchfully pay attention to what's actually being presented as well as the environment surrounding its source, it's not very difficult to defend the intellect against the all too common nonsense. 

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One of my favourite cases featuring information through doubtful means is known as the Southern Television broadcast interruption. On the 26th of November, 1977, the audio signal of an English news broadcast was hijacked by someone calling himself Vrillon, a representative of the Intergalactic Federation: Ashtar Galactic Command. Only the sound was interrupted, which means that the video broadcast kept rolling as Vrillons enigmatic voice conveyd a 6-minute-message of New Age-nature.

Nevermind the gray, the guy to the right seem to be the more accurate depiction of the Messenger.

Considering that the radio waves were transmitted through air, they were also vulnerable for interception, although an advance transmitter nearby as well as a great deal of expertise must've been necessary to pull it off. Not surprisingly the incident was therefore quickly dismissed as a hoax, lacking any conceivable alternative explanation.

Up until today, a suspect has never been identified. Taking into account the considerable amount of time that has passed since this happened, it's also unlikely that we'll ever find someone accountable for this. Hence the mystery remains. 

Regardless of the true origin of the monologue, I would like to suggest that the actual content of the message is what's actually important here. Looking beyond the distracting (and creepy) circumstances, one should soon recognize that profound wisdom is being shared. 

Timeless words of love.

What greater message could one convey ...