Linda Egenes: Let’s begin with Focused Attention. What is the procedure for practicing this type of meditation, and what is its purpose?

Dr. Orme-Johnson: Focused Attention typically directs the meditator to concentrate on a single thing and to disallow the mind from wandering from it. The focus could be anything: a candle flame or the in-and-out cycle of breathing. The idea is to train your mind to hold its focus on one thing, even though it wants to jump around like a monkey. The goal of this practice is “to gain the ability to center the mind in the present moment.”

Brain imaging has identified the various brain areas associated with mind wandering, awareness of distraction, reorienting awareness, and sustained focus. Studies cited in the November 2014 issue of Scientific American suggest that practicing Focused Attention can improve the ability to focus.

Linda Egenes: What about the second category, Open Monitoring?

Dr. Orme-Johnson: During Open Monitoring, a person observes their thoughts and experiences appearing and disappearing and tries to maintain a nonjudgmental attitude towards them. The purpose of Open Monitoring is to develop an emotionally nonreactive response to thoughts and sensations that stream through your mind. By practicing nonjudgmental observation during meditation, the hope is that even outside of meditation, you will be able to catch yourself, to control your spontaneous, emotional reaction.

Neuroimaging studies suggest that Open Monitoring diminishes activity in areas of the brain involved in anxiety. Open Monitoring has been shown to help people deal with symptoms of depression and anxiety and improve sleep patterns, and it is being tested for its ability to help war vets with PTSD.

The term “Mindfulness” is another word for Open Monitoring. However, Mindfulness is also used more broadly to refer to programs involving several techniques, including Focused Attention, Open Monitoring, and Compassion meditations.

Dr. Fenwick then challenged Jean-Paul by showing us two EEG records, which looked quite similar to me, and demanded that he tell us which was TM. Jean-Paul looked thoughtfully at the EEG records for a long 30 seconds, then pointed to one of the records and said, “That one is TM.” He was right! I was relieved. Dr. Fenwick looked skeptical. Lucky guess, I thought to myself, but I knew that Jean-Paul had a deeper understanding of EEG and TM than I did.

It was encounters such as these with Dr. Fenwick that made us feel an urgent need for a more refined EEG measure than synchrony to irrefutably show the uniqueness of Transcendental Consciousness. Jean-Paul identified EEG synchrony by visual inspection of the EEG paper records. Now we needed something more precise. Enter Dr. Paul Levine.

There were articles that tried to explain the physiological and EEG characteristics of TM as some form of waking, dreaming, or sleep states of consciousness, or as an altered state, such as hypnosis, or as mere relaxation. Dr. Wallace had shown in his Scientific American article that TM is completely different from hypnosis, and numerous meta-analyses over the years have subsequently shown that TM has much more profound effects than relaxation techniques on reducing anxiety, alcohol, drug, and cigarette use, and blood pressure, and on increasing psychological health and self-actualization.

One study reported a preponderance of sleep during TM and suggested that the benefits of TM could be due to napping. Napping may be beneficial, but we found out later from a subject in that experiment that the researchers used ether to apply the EEG electrodes, which is why the meditators napped! Also, as we know from our TM instruction, sleep during meditation is natural if the body is fatigued. As Maharishi commented, however, sleep during TM is not Transcendental Consciousness.

On a tour of England with Maharishi in 1973, Jean-Paul and I visited Dr. Peter Fenwick, a neuropsychiatrist, in his EEG lab at the Maudsley Hospital in London. Dr. Fenwick said that what happens during TM is the same as what you see during sleep onset, nothing new. “No,” Jean-Paul replied, he could see the difference between the EEG of TM and sleep onset.

A Hero is someone who looks out for the benefits of others and is a kind, honest person who improves the situation of those around them. It has come to my attention that some people think that Odysseus is not a hero, which is a completely perplexing statement that is wrong in every single way. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “well Jackson, that’s a narrow minded point of view and I am too uninformed of your perspective to understand”: well, in order to understand my perspective, one must acknowledge that the majority of situations Odysseus was put into was a result of the Gods or some other force, not his own. While there were some instances in which Odysseus’ punishment was a direct result of his fatal characteristics, it can be concluded that Odysseus himself did more good for himself and those closest to him, and can be characterized as a hero. Throughout the course of the Odyssey, Odysseus makes both heroic decisions and fatal mistakes, yet is still one of the most well recognized heroes of Greek literature. Welcome to my Ted Talk.

Odysseus can be classified as a hero due to his willingness to get his men back aboard his ship from the Lotus Eaters. When Odysseus and his men dock at the land of the Lotus Eaters, his men were quickly exposed to the Lotus fruit, and “lost all desire to return home, with their only wish being to linger with the Lotus eaters, grazing on Lotus”(107). Yet, Odysseus recognized this and brought them back to his ships, where he made them all rest and get back to their duties the next day, reminding them of why they had to go home and why they wanted to go home: exemplifying his genuine care for the lives and futures of his men, and bestows a certain wisdom that one has to endure pain in the present to experience a prosperous future. While Odysseus could have easily left his men to rot in the land of the Lotus eaters, he instead took his men back to fulfill their lives and futures back in Ithaca: once again exemplifying the genuine concern and good leadership that Odysseus displays throughout the course of the Odyssey. Odysseus displays his good leadership in that he single handedly prevented a numerous amount of his men from spending/wasting the rest of their lives on the land of the Lotus eaters.

Odysseus also displays his sharp intellect in his conflict with Polyphemus on the island of the Cyclops. Odysseus and his men are raiding the giant’s home when the giant comes back and traps them, eating several of Odysseus’ men in the process. In order to escape the wrath of Pilyphemus, Odysseus gets the giant drunk and doesn’t reveal his true identity to the menace of society: stating that his name was “nobody”. When Odysseus finally attacks the giant,  Polyphemus is caught off guard and needs assistance from his fellow giants: however, in his cry of help, Polyphemus states that “Nobody’s killing me now by fraud and not by force!” (224), which meant that the giant would not receive any help from his comrades. Odysseus single handedly won his conflict with Polyphemus due to his wits and quick decision making, saving himself and his crew from a certain gruesome death. Odysseus can be considered a hero because he single handedly guided his crew and himself in a situation that could have easily resulted in the death of every member of his crew, yet he guided himself and his crew to safety with ease and intellect. 

While the points that I have previously mentioned above highlight Odysseus’ godly leadership qualities, there are still some who believe that Odysseus is not the hero that the Odyssey portrays him to be. However, I can say with confidence that this statement is false and is blasphemous. For example, one might argue that Odysseus was to blame for letting his men slaughter the cattle of the sun, resulting in the deaths of all of his crew members and the destruction of his ship, and that this even happened because of his poor leadership qualities and restraint on his crew. Nevertheless, there is solid evidence as to why Odysseus is not responsible for his men’s slaughter of the cattle of the sun. For instance, when Odysseus and his men dock on the side of the island of Helios, Odysseus himself warns his men about the prophecy he received from Tiresias: stating that if they “come on a herd of cattle or fine flock of sheep, not one man among us, blind in his reckless ways, will slaughter an ox or ram.” (280). Odysseus himself warned his own men against killing any animals on the island of Helios, and tried to prevent them from indulging in their temptations to do so: yet they betrayed Odysseus’ trust anyway and killed the Cattle of Sun. Furthermore, some criticize Odysseus’ decision to go to sleep and leave his crew unsupervised: however, Odysseus himself did not go to sleep voluntarily but was rather put to sleep by the gods, which renders the argument that his influence for his men was weak, because he physically could not stop them from killing the cattle of the sun. Therefore, it can be concluded that the deaths of Odysseus’ crew was completely out of his control and does not demonstrate poor leadership skills on Odysseus’ end, but rather the lack of temptation his crew contained.

An article by Jeff Dolan debunks the true meaning of a hero, and states that every hero has flaws but at the end of the day, they are remembered for their accomplishments and brave actions, and not for their flaws. Every hero, from Achilles to Chris Bumstead all have special defining characteristics and have all undergone their own journeys to success, despite having numerous flaws in their characters. We see that Odysseus has two defining flaws of recklessness and hubris, represented in his call to Polyphemus, but at the end of the day, Odysseus is remembered in Greek literature for his cunningness and heroic journey back to Ithaca. In conclusion, Homer’s Odyssey displays both positive and negative human qualities through Odysseus, yet we still consider him a hero because he displays the qualities of a hero, yet is flawed and showcases human tendencies.

The Coronavirus pandemic is one that is known and experienced by all: mask wearing, constantly sanitizing your hands, and even sometimes quarantining for weeks on end, are all processes that have been normalized by this global pandemic that has struck our society for two years. However, as strict as the protocols may seem in the U.S, those living in China have experienced a much more severe containment of the virus: Draconian lockdowns. The word Draconian is derived from the ancient Greek politician Draco, who was known for his cruel “Draconian” laws and punishments to the people of Athens: as a result, Draco became synonymous with a law that is harsh and severe.

The Lockdowns that China instituted around their nation defines exactly this: cities with millions of people are quarantined whenever an outbreak of COVID hits the urban centers, and the Chinese people are forced to stay in their homes, and not even allowed to exit their residencies to obtain groceries. This practice was noted to be extreme, yet it saw progress containing the virus, and the country eventually saw their number of covid cases drop down to about a 100 per day: for a country with billions of people, that number relatively equates to zero in compression to its population. However, more recently, the Omicron variant of the Virus has been spreading around many cities in China, forcing them to once again enforce the Draconian lockdowns. 

For example, in Xi’an, a chinese city that roughly contains 13 million peoples, a recent outbreak of the Omicron variant has the government enforcing the lockdown, leaving its streets barren and its businesses closed. Residents of the city are not even allowed to exit their residencies for essential errands, such as grocery shopping; as a result, food shortages have occurred as many people in Xi’an cannot buy new food supplies, and many have resorted to bartering within their own apartment complexes. The Chinese government does its best to hand out food parcels to the residents of Xi’an, but has yet to find an effective system that efficiently guarantees that 13 million people will be handed their food. Along with food shortages and businesses being closed, the city of Xi’an has also faced more humanitarian problems in its medical system. In order for citizens to be allowed entry into Xi’an hospitals, they must submit a Covid test that was taken in the last 48 hours of their appointment, and will only be allowed if they submitted this test. Of course, when a medical emergency occurs, there is not enough time to submit a Covid test to reserve an appointment for the hospital. Several Xi’an citizens in dire need of medical assistance had been denied entry into the Xi’an hospitals for not submitting a Covid test. This included a man who was suffering from a heart attack, who sadly passed away outside the hospital doors due to a lack of medical assistance. Such strict conditions for entry to a hospital for those in a medical entry could be argued to breach the basic codes of human rights, yet is one of the many problems that come with Xi’an’s Draconian lockdown. 

In addition to China’s domestic problems due to their Draconian approach to Covid, the lockdowns that have occurred in China impact the international economy; China, economically, is known for its cheap labor and numerous trading ports along its coasts, and with the integration of its draconian lockdowns, these ports and factories that manufacture $2.49 trillion worth of the world’s goods are suddenly shut down. This is extremely bad news, especially for mega corporations (such as Samsung), who have numerous factories set up in cities like Xi’an, and have been hit by millions of dollars by the closing of these factories. Other companies, such as Foxconn, which assembles the iPhone on behalf of Apple, have started to shift their factories from China to other countries like India and Malaysia; however, this decision also causes the company millions of dollars, and is an overall lose-lose situation for the many international companies who rely on China to produce their products.

All in all, China’s “Draconian” approach to dealing with the Covid-19 outbreaks have seen little success, and have contributed to the formation of more problems than solutions. The Draconian lockdowns are both negatively affecting the lives and economies in domestic China and those who live in first world countries whose companies rely heavily on China to manufacture their goods. From food shortages to extended periods of economic downturn, China’s Draconian lockdowns can only be characterized as a disaster that has ruptured the state of China and the international economy.

First the Bad News 

1. For most people, these stress chemicals, normally produced by the body to deal with stressful situations, are being produced every day, even when the situation is not life-threatening. You could be worrying about your job, finances, family, spouse, relationships, an upcoming test you have take, what someone thinks about your new haircut.

2. These stress chemicals are directly associated with higher levels of anxiety, depression, and illnesses ranging from the common cold and poor digestion to life-threatening heart attack, stroke, or higher risk for cancers.

Now the Good News Science Tells Us That TM Creates the Opposite of the Stress Response

The reason the Transcendental Meditation technique is so effective in reducing stress is that it produces just the opposite physiological effects of fight-or-flight by:

• Reducing breath rate
• Decreasing heart rate and sweaty palms
• Lowering blood pressure
• Decreasing cortisol by 30 percent
• Relaxing the muscles and strengthening the immune system

TM practice also reduces the mental components of stress, decreasing anxiety, anger, and depression.

 Forest Bathing. 

Japanese scientists have discovered that spending time in nature, which they call “Forest Bathing,” reduces stress. Researchers at Chiba University in Japan found that 40 minutes of walking in a cedar forest decreases cortisol.

Other researchers at the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo discovered that the wonderful aromatic scents of the forest contain compounds called phytoncides, which have healthy effects. Walking in the forest or staying in it overnight also increases white blood cells that support the immune system and lower the risk of cancer. Another study found that walking in the forest or a nature park lifts the spirits and can help reduce depression and anxiety. A 20-minute walk in the woods even helped kids with ADHD concentrate better.

Exercise. Even five minutes of regular participation in aerobic exercise decreases overall levels of tension, elevates and stabilizes mood, improves sleep, and improves self-esteem. Exercise, as well as acupuncture, massage therapy, and breathing deeply, can cause your body to produce endorphins, a natural painkiller, which may improve the ability to sleep and manage stress.

The American Psychological Association also recommends the following things to help manage stress:

Take a break from the stressor. Give yourself permission to step away from stressful situations to do something else, which create a new perspective to feel less overwhelmed.

Smile and laugh. People often hold a lot of the stress in their faces, so laughing and smiling can help relieve some of that tension and improve the situation.

In Jane, sees, the flower, seeing is the link, the verb. Seeing can be considered an act of love. It brings the flower and Jane together. There are innumerable situations, however, where the link does not seem to be positive. In John, feels, pain, we cannot say that John is connected to pain and therefore he somehow loves pain.Not liking, hating, being afraid of, and other similar phrases are negative feelings. They can be seen as the negative or lower level in the spectrum of connectedness. Nonetheless, they are ways to connect and be connected. It is indifference and ignorance that isolate and separate, leading to entropy and dissolution. Creation is a process of coming together. The supreme value of coming together, upholding and supporting each other, is true love. In infinite love there is unbounded appreciation.

Seeing can be considered an act of love. When all of Creation, everything we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste, glows with beauty, our thoughts and our feelings turn toward the source of all that intelligence and beauty, which people in all cultures have equated with God—again, in whatever way one may conceive of Him (Almighty Father) or Her (Divine Mother). Those who do not personalize “The Source of All,” who are agnostic or atheist, could also find in the paradigm presented in this book an elucidation of the awe of recognizing that, somehow, order and beauty exist and can be experienced. It is the ultimate verb, the supreme link, the unbounded process.

It is a state in which the steady persistence of the Pure Consciousness characteristic of Cosmic Consciousness continues as one’s inmost, subjective reality, and alongside it, perception of all of objective reality begins to be transformed into something glorious. Again, the reality of what is there does not change; one’s perception changes to incorporate more of the truth. To an ever-increasing degree, the individual sees the perfect orderliness of the whole range of life and living, and the perfection of what is felt to be the Divine nature, in all the objects that appear to be “not-Self”—in other words, the whole field of relative creation.

The refinement of perception catalyzes the growth of love.

The refinement of perception catalyzes the growth of love. When we see something or someone who is beautiful—a glorious sunset, a shimmering jewel, or a drop of water catching the light in myriad colors; or when we hear beautiful music, understand an equation in an “aha” moment, or grasp a fact about nature that reveals the astounding orderliness underlying all things—our hearts just naturally swell with appreciative love. It’s a normal, wonderful human experience.

Love is a force that links, binds, and puts together similar as well as dissimilar and even potentially contradictory things—values, ideas, and people. In our model of Observer, Observing, and Observed (Subject, Process, and Object; Knower, Knowing, and Known; or Subject, Verb, and Object), love in its broadest meaning is the verb. It is the process. It is the link that puts together the subject with the object. There are innumerable ways two entities can be connected, bound, or linked to each other.

An individual’s evolution from this stage onward involves increasing refinement of perception toward the ability to perceive Singularity or wholeness in the objects of perception as well as in oneself, to raise the objects of perception to the same infinite value as the subject. This is accomplished by elevating what we might call the “perceiving ability” of the Observer, through refining the process of observation. This is a very beautiful and rewarding phase of growth, in which the richness and splendor of the subtler realms of nature and creation begin to be perceived and enjoyed, and a sixth state of Consciousness unfolds.

Studies have shown that very many people, at some time in their lives, have enjoyed wondrous moments like this description by the nineteenth-century English poet William Wordsworth, when “meadow, grove, and stream, / The earth, and every common sight, / To me did seem/ Appareled in celestial light.” The most recent findings available from Pew Research Center show 49 percent of Americans say they have had such experiences.

These few lines of Wordsworth reveal much of the essence of what TM Founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi called Glorified Cosmic Consciousness or God Consciousness, in which perception of the subtle levels of nature becomes increasingly possible and real. If and when these glimpses give way to a lasting mode of being—perception of the deep beauty of creation along with inner awareness of Self at all times—this new and further elevated state of Consciousness is born.