Curtis, Always neatsokeeno to jaw witcha. Always feels like were sipping a beer somewhere.
The excitation from a photon has been measured in the lab -- though it must be said that it takes up to six of them to get the retina to "believe that it actually happened," since the rods and cones do give false signals from time to time. Once the retina has, um, "counted" the photons, then it sends a signal up to the brain, and the person says, "I saw a flash of a speck of light." If survival of the fittest is considered, it would seem that the automated husbanding of "good genes," would have found survival value in having sensitivities to other very tiny impacts from magnetism, gravity, and other forms of radiation. Just holding your palm very near your face will show that by varying that distance by even a tiny amount will change how "hot" you feel the hand is; you can see you have a very sensitive heat detection system and that that ability, if amped, could be as if an infrared "camera" thingie. And we all have great noses that easily detect chemicals -- witness how every building entered has a precise smell, or how whole big hunks of memory can be triggered by an odor. That to me shows the brain is "hair triggered," if it can somehow recognize a chemical and then BAM it goes straight to a memory of grandma or whatever. How many molecules does it take to get one to say, "Who farted?" Not many, right? LSD shows that incredibly tiny amounts of chemical can affect the trillions of cells of one's body in powerful ways, and we know that the body manufactures a huge spectrum of chemicals -- most of which we but dimly know what the body does with -- and to me this means that there are bio-pathways for the brain -- via mental acts of control -- that can be used to encourage and to "favor" certain body/mind chemistries. Perhaps the recitation of the mantra creates a precise chemical that has not even yet been recognized in the lab. We know that "bad news" can instantly change our mind from happy to sad or angry or whatever, and this can only be because the mind urged the manufacturing of certain chemicals. And it's not just an emotional shift, cuz one's whole body can "be of a vibe" -- typically expressed as, say, "the wind went out of my sails," and the body feels as if it is wrung dry of energy. Since the body is set up to be absolutely delicate about chemistry and since we know the mind affects chemistry and vice versa, it doesn't seem to be a very big leap to say that "attention is a powerful action." "What you put your attention on grows." -- I believe that in many ways. Sooooooo, if the mind can be lead to states of lesser excitation as easily as it can be lead to excitation (there are many techniques of "calming the body,") then when that status is achieved, is it not easy to say, "Hey, since it's so quiet 'down here," I now can 'pick up on' these quantum processes and be triggered thereby." These processes are seldom clearly seen, because of the plentitude of other processes normally operative during waking. If I show you a dot on the horizon, you may feel it has but little power, but if I just say, "That red striped shirt -- that's your Dad coming, right?" then suddenly that dot's meaning has chemical shifting value. Isn't it valid to say that perceptions of the mind when it is "being quiet," can equally be "dot like" and assigned meanings that lead to massive excitations? And can't we expect that one dot will excite one way and another another way -- just as Dad's shirt can differ from other shirts that have different impact thereby? If so, then I submit that: the "nature of silence" as it is metaphorically embodied by a lesser state of excitation, is a "set of processes," that set is something that can be dwelt with, studied experientially and mindfully, and "researched" enough to show attributes that are not seen in normal life, and that those attributes of silence can be as calibrating and holistic and as impacting as LSD. In short, dwelling in silence can be powerful -- negatively or positively -- but powerful. Like we've been warned -- the unenlightened but well practiced siddha can make a hut in the jungle, even somehow get the moon to appear in its window, but the siddha is at risk of thinking "what if a tiger comes?" -- and voila, the tiger dines on haunch of yogi. This is why I say "attributes of silence" can be either positive or negative. And maybe this is a reason to have a good mantra -- maybe a mantra attunes the "research" just as a red sheet of cellophane can tint a view.....and such tinting necessarily makes invisible any objects of that exact hue. Just so, maybe the mantra protects us from suddenly thinking "tiger" when one is "down there." Heh, maybe the mantra is pure evil and with that tint all the bad stuff is blinkered from the view. I love this idea!!!! How ironic if true, eh? As much time as either of us has spent in the chair, and as much as we have been convinced thereby that "something good is happening," I don't think we have much of a hands-on intellectual grasp of the tiny stuff's structures. Certainly, if silence -- whatever that is -- is to be a set of processes of the brain, then it has to have, say, aspects that allow it to maintain itself despite the tilting energies of its environment, and that "maintenance value" could be one example of what I'm trying to label "structure of silence." What would be the impact of one's viewing that process's ability to maintain sovereignty? Wouldn't that be yet another dot on the horizon that can affect psychology? I'm not, by the way, saying that when the mind of a yogi is "down there" that there is a "conceptualizing about silence." Just as my body can walk without having to have a mental experience "talking me through it step by step," I know that I can learn without the intellect -- a very satisfying concept that, eh? Thus, I say it's possible to learn a lot my mere dwelling with an experience even if the intellect is not engaged. So there. That's my first run at trying to put into words why I trust that silence can be therapeutic. And, note that I didn't use the word God for that "set of processes" called silence. Edg
