Meditation

Sometimes I get angry.  Sometimes my thoughts fire so rapidly that it's difficult calm my brain down.  Meditation has been the most useful tool in soothing this crazy head.  Not only does it relax me, but it gives me fresh perspectives on any problems I'm facing.  If something's bothering me and I can't figure out how to fix it, meditating helps me because it clears out the clutter of disorganized thinking.  It gets me in touch with a higher spiritual power that somehow knows what the wisest decision should be in any given situation.   

It's kind of like rebooting a computer after it crashes.  When the brain "crashes", we need to do the very same thing to restart it.  Most people take a break or a nap, but those who are more spiritually aware engage in the powerful practice of meditation. 

An additional benefit is that the more you meditate, the more you get in touch with that higher spiritual power in everyday life.  If you start out doing it every day, you'll soon be meditating less, because the mindfulness that results makes you more consistent in dealing with your problems calmly.  However, it's still worthwhile to practice daily, lest the clutter catches up with you and dethrones all the calmness you'd built. 

Meditation works by focusing on something that relaxes you and holds that thought in place for at least 10 minutes.  This helps the mind slow down and get "in tune" with the universe.  You can be laying down or sitting up, it doesn't matter.  Buddhist monks practice meditation in several lotus positions, which is more difficult to do, but (I've read) it does a better job connecting you with the spirit. 

The books have taught me several ways of doing it.  The method that works best for me is imagining a symbol like the yin-yang or seven chakras, and just focusing on that image until all thoughts disappear and the brain more or less stops functioning.  That is the ultimate objective of meditation: to get the brain to stop thinking.  That's why the environment must be silent, because any distractions will lead the mind astray, interrupting the practice.  Another way to do it is by letting your thoughts wander, like in a dream.  But I've found this doesn't work as effectively as restraining all thought. 

Nothing can make you feel more connected, peaceful, and ready to face your problems than meditation does.  Once you come out of it, you'll immediately feel a greater awareness with all that is around you.  You might even feel invincible, like nothing can stop you, but not in a competitive way, just as a receiver of life's problems.  If you feel like your spirit is broken, or like you are disconnected from the world, nothing will bring you back faster than doing meditation.  Discipline your mind today, and you'll reap the rewards tomorrow.

The Patriot Act

Thanks to 9/11, the U.S. has instated the Patriot Act, a mandate that allows the government to spy on its citizens without a court order.  Sending e-mails is no longer a private matter; the FBI now has the authorization to intercept everything we send electronically.  So don't e-mail grandma to thank her for the tasty cookies made of nitroglycerin she made you last weekend.  Write a letter the old-fashioned way instead.

The timing couldn't be worse for another aspect of this Act.  Now that I've started going to the library, they've made it legal for the FBI to monitor which library books we're checking out.  Books thought to inspire terrorist activity are flagged, marking anyone who checks them out as a possible terrorist.  

I think this is a huge overreaction to our most tragic national event.  It's nice to feel safe, but not at the expense of our liberties.  If I get flagged for checking out a book like The Communist Manifesto simply because I'm interested in economic theory, is that really appropriate for their profiling me as a terrorist?  It seems like a passive aggressive way to control people, and could lead to more dangerous things down the road if we aren't careful.

Microbes and the Derivates of Time

Everywhere you look, trillions of microbes are floating through the air, swimming through the water, rolling around in the dirt.  It's estimated that the total mass of microbes on Earth is 20 times more than all other life combined- astonishing when you consider they can't be seen with the naked eye.  Life seems to be ingrained in the very fabric of our planet, relentless in its variety. 

Imagine that you were magically transformed into the size of an amoeba.  A visitor such as yourself to the word of microbes would likely find it an alien environment.  The surreal images of these creatures would make it feel like being on a totally different planet.  All the strange shapes, sizes, colors, and movements of these critters offer such a vast array of originality that no one would possibly think they were still on planet Earth, unless they were a microbiologist. 

The most interesting thing about the realm of microbes is that they experience time differently from us.  They experience time slower than we do, just as time experienced by an atom is even slower than a microbe's perception.  Consciousness in relation to size has an inverse relationship to time; the larger the body of consciousness is, the faster time is perceived by it.  Microbes that are perceived to live for only 3 hours by us would be perceived to live 20 relative years by something as small as they are. 

Gravity is not the reason for this, because gravity doesn't operate on the quantum level, at least not the gravity we are familiar with.  Rather it's a lower order of gravity that operates in the quantum realm, governed by nuclear and electric forces.  This suborder of gravity allows time to defragment itself, depending on how small the observer is.  The same effect happens on universal levels, where the largest bodies in outer space experience time as an integral of all the time experienced by conscious beings inside it (put together as a sum), just like how its matter and energy has an integral relationship to its total. 

When you consider how an observer of the whole universe would experience time, all things unfold in the blink of an eye.  The universe as a collective consciousness is observing time so quickly that everything is happening all at once.  That's why time ceases to exist beyond the boundaries of space; there is no matter to provide it consciousness, and therefore no perception of time.