The Ancient Wisdom Teachers were men and women trained in scientific thinking. Their Teachings provided a road map to achieve healthy and balanced physical, emotional, and mental bodies as well as a way to reach the higher consciousness that is beyond the world of the three bodies. The instruments at their disposal, used to measure the effectiveness and results of certain practices, were their own highly developed psychic senses and their life experiences. They did not need MRI scanners; their senses functioned as scanning mechanisms. They could see, feel, smell, touch, and hear the effects of the Teaching in their own lives and in the life of their students! Interestingly, humanity took these guidelines as a matter of religious or spiritual faith until very recently. In the last 25 years or so, we have developed sophisticated machines that could see into our brains and map the changes that take place in our physical mechanism as a result of our physical, emotional, and mental lifestyles.

Take for instance the practice of meditation. Every spiritual discipline teaches some sort of meditation practice as the central theme of its system. Through meditation, we learn to discipline our physical, emotional, and mental bodies and slowly engage our mind to understand life from the level of causes. By so doing, we learn to distinguish the differences between the material life and the life of the non-material. In fact, we begin to appreciate the complexity of the non-material aspects of life and see to what extent our emotions, feelings, thoughts, expectations and such affect us every day in every part of our life. It is only when we consciously raise ourselves above the personality bodies (physical/emotional/mental) that we are able to make dramatic and systemic changes in our life. This is often called the process of building “soul consciousness” and comes about from the practice of serious, scientific meditation, which is the same as serious and deep thinking.

Scientific research is now providing compelling evidence that supports what the Wisdom Teachers presented to us for thousands of years! The research is showing that our brain can grow and be kept healthy through our life choices and practices, especially meditation. The emotion/mind/body connection is no longer an esoteric field; it is being studied seriously by leading Universities and medical professionals. (See below for interesting references).

In a recent lecture on Scientific Meditation, I discussed the basic form of meditation that will engage our mind in a deep and creative way. This kind of meditation is often called “seed thought” meditation. It is one of the most advanced and powerful mental training methods known. Taught by the Great Sage Patanjali, this kind of meditation trains us in clear thinking and slowly helps us develop the ability to link to the higher mind and higher spiritual bodies and levels of consciousness. In modern language, this is also called “critical thinking” or “scientific thinking” where our thought process is not hampered by habit, prejudice, personal agendas, ego, as well as illusions or expectations and so on. Rather, our thinking is guided by the process of discovering cause and effect in the material and non-material worlds.

In the YouTube clip attached below, you will see a brief introduction to four of the five steps of basic meditation. In the next few months, I will be presenting additional lectures on the topic of scientific meditation, parts of which will also be available on YouTube.

In brief, the Five Steps are:
1. Achieve a state of relaxation of physical, emotional, and mental bodies.
2. Disassociate from the three bodies and environment.
3. Think about a serious topic from a level of higher consciousness.
4. Write your thoughts and impressions.
5. Share the energy by sending blessings to others.

Enjoy!
Gita