Fragrant Heart Blog

I came across an article on an amazing experiment done by Professor William Bruad at the Mind Science Foundation in San Atonio, Texas. He wanted to find out if someone could consciously or unconsciously influence not just another person’s mind but their body as well. He used red blood cells to see if they could be protected by human thought from swelling and bursting (an effect known as haemolysis) when placed in test tubes. A group of ordinary people with no specific training in this field were shown colour slides of healthy blood cells and asked to visualize them remaining healthy when they were put into solution in ten test tubes. Another ten test tubes were used as the control. The group of visualisers were put in a different room from the test tubes. They set about visualizing the blood cells staying healthy. By passing a light beam through the solution the rate of haemolysis could be measured. Results showed that the blood cells that were visualized as remaining healthy disintegrated much less quickly than those in the control tubes.

This experiment demonstrates quite remarkably and beyond doubt, that human thought, even at a distance used by people with no special training using visualization can actually influence living human blood cells.

Our thoughts are powerful. They create our reality and affect not only ourselves but others as well. If we are constantly thinking negative what affect is that having on us? What if we are thinking negative thoughts about someone else?

Throughout the day pause, take a few breaths, and say out loud, or silently with an open heart:

“May all beings be happy. May all beings be free. May all beings love.”

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Whatever technique you decide to use in your meditation practice it will follow this structure. It’s worth keeping in mind (!) as it helps to simplify what meditation is. It also takes the mystery out of meditation, and the concept that it is only for New Agers, or other weird nutters.

Meditation involves focused attention

First of all meditation involves focused attention. Some call it one pointed focus. This enables the mind to quieten. When thoughts come into the mind they are accepted and allowed to drift away, rather than pushed away with effort, or wilfulness. When you realize that you have been carried away by thoughts you gently and simply bring your attention back to your one pointed focus.

A technique is part of the structure

The most widely used practice focuses on the breath. On our website you can subscribe free of charge to Learn to Meditate In Five Days using the breath technique.

Remaining focused on the stimulus

It takes time for the mind to become still but persistence in bringing your attention back to the one pointed focus or stimulus enables the mind to quieten. When this happens both the mind and the body become calm, still, and peaceful.

Peacefulness is our natural state of mind

The natural state of the mind is that of stillness, and peacefulness. It is also referred to as a state of presence. Presence is simply being here, and now. It is beingness in its pure essence.

Peacefulness becomes a part of daily life

As meditation practice becomes part of daily life you will find that the inner peace that comes from meditation will enable you to become less reactive to the stresses and strains that you encounter.

I did a workout the other night with a chiropractor who has devised a series of structured and integrated exercises. He told us that ten years ago his belly was so fat he could barely see his toes. Once he started the exercises he felt really good but not only that he felt slim as well. From then on just visualizing himself slim, led to eating slim foods and doing things that slim people do. People began to tell him how great he looked, and he felt great despite still being overweight. That didn’t matter, it was how he was feeling and visualizing himself to be. Three months later he was slim and has stayed that way ever since.

His story reinforced for me the power of visualization that brings about changes in both our inner and outer lives.

Visualization is about imagining scenes in our minds. Some people see pictures and others simply become aware of thoughts and impressions that have to do with pictures rather than seeing the pictures themselves. How do you visualize? Shut your eyes now and visualize someone’s face to find out which method you use.

Visualization can help us achieve our goals

In real life our senses come together to give us a unified experience. In visualizing or imagining we can do this too. Not only can we ‘see’ but we can also imagine hearing, touching, tasting and smelling as we visualize. For example, visualizing being in nature we can feel the warmth of the sun on our skin, the smell of the flowers, the sounds of birds singing, or the taste of water from a clear mountain stream. When we add positive feelings like joy, happiness, peace or exuberance we create an even more powerful inner landscape. Visualizing can help us obtain desired goals by picturing ourselves actually achieving them.

The unconscious mind is the key to powerful visualization

What makes visualization so powerful is that we are able to connect with our unconscious mind. This part of the mind holds and stores memory. Not only that but it influences our emotions, attitudes, likes and dislikes. We may think that the conscious mind which we have access to is in charge, but consider how much of our lives are being played out through our unconscious thoughts and beliefs. For example, a person may have a core belief that he is not good enough. It doesn’t matter if he has a good job, a nice home and a loving spouse, he still doesn’t feel good enough about himself. This belief will undermine that person who may become a workaholic, over eat, or drink to relieve his anxieties and have affairs to try to prove his worth.

Visualize and change your thoughts and beliefs

You may have heard the old adage, “seeing is believing”. Well, consider that it is really the other way round, “believing is seeing.” If you believe in something strongly enough, if you visualize it with mental pictures and call your senses into play that’s what will show up in your life. Because you are the creator of your reality make what shows up in your what you want.

Taking the first step

Browse our website for many and varied guided meditations and visualizations to help you to move into accessing your unconscious mind to release its possibly infinite potential.

Where are you twenty-four hours of the day? Hopefully in your body, although in a society that puts so much emphasis on consumerism and television, the chances of always being present in your body, in the present moment, may be slight. Drugs, alcohol, and food taken in excess, or anything else done excessively, even exercise; can take us away from listening to, and being aware of our bodies. I read about a triathlon competitor whose goal is to win gold at the Beijing Olympics. His schedule is highly strenuous. He said that all he did was to train, eat and sleep and he was continuously exhausted and pushing himself to the limits. What is his body telling him? He has a major goal and is prepared to ignore the signals his body is giving him. I wonder what the long-term effects of that will be. If we aren’t listening to our bodies and what they are trying to tell us, we end up in a state of imbalance, which leads to dis-ease.

Being aware of the breath keeps us in our bodies

In a lot of meditation techniques the point of focus is the breath. The breath is a reliable indicator of how we are functioning in our lives. Right now pay attention to the breath. How are you breathing? Deeply or shallowly? Do you sometimes forget to breathe for long periods of time? Which parts of your body are the most tense right now? Could you take the breath to those parts of your body and release the tension you are holding there by just breathing in and out of those areas?

Learn to Meditate over Five Days

In Learn to Meditate over Five Days the one pointed focus is the breath. Watching the breath as it comes and goes, gives you the opportunity to neither coerce nor control the breath, but simply let it be. If you have taken the opportunity to subscribe to these free Learn to Meditate lessons on our website, you may now be finding that you are breathing much more freely and easily, not just in your meditation practice but in your daily living as well. You may find that you catch yourself breathing shallowly when you’re tense or uptight. Taking some full deep and clearing breaths will help you to re-centre. Being aware of the breath throughout the day helps you to stay calm, alert, relaxed and focused. Being aware of the breath, being in your body is definitely a good place to be.

Losing that knowing of being valuable

I came across this quote from M. Scott Peck and reflected on it for some time. For all of us who have in one way or another grown up emotionally, physically, mentally or spiritually abused, either by parents or those who take on the role of caregivers such as teachers, feeling ourselves to be a valuable person is not always easy. Yes, we can feel of value if we are giving to others or meeting others’ needs in some way. I’m talking more about the feeling of intrinsic value of oneself without having to do anything but just be you. Calling back the parts of ourselves we gave away at an early age to be loved and accepted is the journey of self-growth and understanding. As we do this we can experience old feelings of sadness, anger, shame and guilt.

Dealing with your Emotions

If you have begun a consistent daily meditation practice you may find at times that emotions and feelings that you have suppressed like anger and sadness will come to the surface. Allowing and accepting them, experiencing the sensations in your body that are associated with these negative feelings and emotions, and being there with them until they change into something else is all part of the healing process with ongoing meditation.

Meditation reinforces that you are valuable

Meditation will help you retrieve the knowing that you are a valuable person if you lost that at some point in your life. Meditation is also a way of taking care of you. A meditation practice will give you an innate knowing that you are valuable, not in any sort of egotistical way, but that you are here on earth with your part to play. Meditation is a form of self-discipline because you need to show up each day to your practice, but it is also a form of self-caring. Taking care of yourself is essential to being happy and peaceful. You will find as time goes on that “self-discipline is self-caring”.