I
am safe and sound, good things come to me, they bring me peace
Bones,
muscles, movement; anxiety, elation, depression; everything, I give onto the
hands of peace
I
am free, I am free
On the surface quantum
mechanics and yoga are diverse concepts with no real relationship to one
another, but they are all centered on the idea of unity. In the film "What
the Bleep Do We Know?!" quantum mechanics is explored for its implications
that reality is much more intricate than it even appears to be with an infinite
number of layers of complexity and detail that must interact to create a coherent
reality. We live in a complicated world of cells, atoms, and the macroscopic
but we have a unity of these concepts to produce a sense of wholeness and unity
within ourselves and with the wider world. One of the biggest implication of
this intricacy is the idea that we are all inescapably connected to each other
and our entire reality. How we choose to see the world, how we choose to see
our past and future affects our perception and perhaps even time itself. The
speakers in the movie discussed scientific theories and experiments that are
showing how we are all contributors to the reality we experience and that of
others. This idea was especially advocated through the experiments on the
effects emotions and thoughts have on the structure of water. The film
advocated that labeling water with either positive or negative words directly
affected the crystalline structure of the water, positive words induced a
seemingly harmonious and artful structure where as negativity disrupted that
harmony and caused much more erratic and essentially stressed structure. This
principle was applied to the fact that our bodies are 70% water and that these
same principles of the effects of thought could take place within us. By
quantum mechanics our thoughts and ideas have more significance than we ever
thought before and we are accountable for their effects, we are important to
the whole of reality for our significance as conscious beings with the power to
change the world.
These same principles
have been essential to yoga throughout history. I have been a practicing yoga for
seven years now and in that time I have found that it's emotional and mental
benefits even outweigh the physical. Through the setting of intentions, use of
affirmations, meditations, and other emotional support in posture yoga has
always embraced the idea that each of us is important to the world be it with
our thoughts, actions, or attitudes and utilizes this in every aspect of the
practice. Intention and affirmations are used to center the mind and being on
the positive even in the most difficult postures. An example of posture affirmations
are listed above. Their purpose is to change how the mind views pain or stress
by focusing it on a positive idea. Even if the affirmation is nothing like the
actual feelings a yogi has in the poses these affirmations distract the mind
and allow one to sink into the practice and find peace and enjoyment despite
any perceived level of pain or stress. The basic idea is that by thinking
positively one can physically feel that peace, that thoughts affect our physical
state. Intentions expand on this idea to a statement about yourself for you to
keep with you even after the practice, primarily about your relation to the
wider world. This is a valuable activity because it extends that awareness of
the importance of our thoughts in our interactions with others and is a
reminder of our effect on others. Yoga is also very involved in removing the
emotional roadblocks in our own lives by physically excising them through
motion. Everything from our atoms to cells to muscles to thoughts to
interactions are connected and we can affect our thoughts through movement just
like we can affect our interactions through thought.
Both quantum mechanics
and yoga share the same fundamental ideas and principles even though their
creation was separated by thousands of years, yoga is thought to have begun as
early as the stone age and substantiated by 3000 B.C while quantum mechanics is
a 20th century scientific theory that is still developing. This is where my
primary question comes in. In our class discussions Lincoln briefly asked about
the connection between ancient Egyptian belief and current science and what
exactly that connection implies. Yoga is an ancient and well established practice
and seems to have already been aware of the very breakthroughs in the
implications of quantum mechanics that we are still discovering. How do we
rectify this seeming resurgence of ancient ideas? Do we brush the connections
off as backwards mysticism that could never compare to our science? Is it the
result of the circular time dreamed by Einstein? Is it information encoded in
our souls? Our DNA? Do we see the desire for knowledge about the wholeness of
creation and our unique importance to be an innate longing?
As the traditional
salutation of yoga, as a way to acknowledge both yourself, those around you,
and the rest of the universe:
Namaste
Sara,
ReplyDeleteI also noticed the parallels between the movie's message about intentions and common practices in yoga. I have no problem acknowledging that our thoughts probably have an enormous effect on our physical bodies, but I would like to note that the movie's main evidence for this argument -- the experiments by Masaru Emoto on water crystals -- have been pretty thoroughly discounted by the scientific community. This isn't just a case of people rejecting what they don't want to believe, but rather that the experimenter just didn't follow any kind of scientific method.
I got most of my information from http://is-masaru-emoto-for-real.com/ (which sounds sketchy, but cites actual interviews with Dr. Emoto, and appears to be reputable). They claim that in a "Maui News interview, Dr. Emoto specifically stated, “I do not require any blind tests on any samples,” but rather he believes that “the researcher’s aesthetic sense and character is the most important aspect when taking crystal photographs.”" Dr. Emoto would often expose hundreds of samples of water to music or words, but only published one or two particularly striking examples from each data set. While these flaws in his setup don't prove that water molecules aren't influenced by thought, these experiments are a terrible basis for argument.
There is much more concrete evidence out there for yoga's positive effects on the body, but it's difficult to tell whether these effects come from the mental or physical components of the practice. Personally, I don't think that our minds and bodies are as separate as we tend to believe in Western society, but I've seen too much pseudoscience to confidently proclaim this as fact. We talk about how science is an "elitist" group, and Lincoln especially seemed to paint this as a negative aspect to the scientific community, but all of the jargon and tedious scientific methodology exists for a reason - to prevent our biases from overwhelming our search for truth, as much as possible.
I think it’s useful to point out that yoga has been transformed and misconstrued by Western society. Yoga, though exact roots and origins may be unknown, has played an important role in different religions for thousands of years. Finding scientific evidence for its health benefits is like trying to write a scientific paper on why Jesus rose from the dead. There is some evidence out there, some of it dubious; but many faithful insist that the “miracles” or scientific data points to such a conclusion. Could it ever be proved beyond a reasonable doubt? Maybe not, but the point of the miracles is faith—not science.
DeleteSara said, “Do we see the desire for knowledge about the wholeness of creation and our unique importance to be an innate longing?” I would say yes. Einstein searched to be closer to God, and he sought that intellectually. As far as our thoughts actually changing the outcome of a science experiment, I would have to agree with Alli because I’ve been wishing and wishing for good data for two years; but I haven’t had anything worthwhile to publish an entire paper. Thinking positively does allow us to change the world, but every significant change comes through hard work and takes time to develop. Over time we change the world, not simply with one thought we thought only one time. What I think you are referring to is two different frameworks, or modes of thought if you will, in which we see recurring motifs. Perhaps it is the same framework applied in two different ways when it comes to quantum mechanics and yoga, but the actual content within the framework is much, much different in each.
Below are a few references that proved useful to me in this discussion:
http://www.hafsite.org/media/pr/yoga-hindu-origins
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall05/levy/history.html
Fun fact: One of my conservative Catholic friends warned me to be careful and reconsider doing yoga since it involved worship of ancient pagan gods.
DeleteSo Cat funny that you mention that your Catholic Friends warned you against practicing Yoga. The same thing also occurred to me during high school. One of my required classes explored different religions and also Cults. Yoga is considered by some to be a Cult, which I thought was super strange, because I had only ever heard of the health benefits and not of the worshipping of pagan Gods. Some people do still use it to worship Gods and everything, but we also discussed in this class how it can heighten your beliefs even if they are not worshipping pagan gods. Now back to Sara's Question about whether or not this is encoded in our DNA/Souls and that similar concepts just keep occurring (I know it was discussed earlier that the fundamentals are different, but I can see where Sara sees the parallels) I think that like is was mentioned in class briefly human nature searches for connections to make it feel comfortable to us, to explain it to the universe. So this idea I think is in our souls and in our DNA so I think that both Yoga and Quantum MEchanics are both generations trying to make sense of the world. People even use ancient practices like yoga to help explain things today maybe not in the sense of pagan gods but in how the body and mind can relate.
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