Sumangali.org: In The Spirit Of Serendipity

There was an earthquake in England last month. It was a small one, but our biggest in a quarter century, so it caused due commotion. It woke my friend in town, and in her half-sleep she thought the wind had got up and was buffeting her house.

It woke me too, I remembered later. “It’s just a train,” I told myself, but was troubled by how long it was, and how very silent. My semi-conscious decided it must be a ghost train, and (most disturbingly of all) I went back to sleep. Funny how the mind takes pains to account for unusual things, but only in familiar terms, however implausible.

I almost didn’t arrange a viewing for my current home when I was house hunting; on the map it’s practically on the railway. I think it was always meant to be mine though, and the trains have become my fond neighbours.

Rusted bunkers of coal squeak and trundle by, fringed with graffiti, open to all weather. InterCities slither past in festival colours. They all grind on the railway seam, and some send the houses shivering.

This time of year, like a migrant bird, a different visitor returns, chased by a plume of steam. Its breathing makes me smile and stop my work. Huff, huff, huff, more like a giant dog at play. The plume, bright white, tumbles by the window, and I must get up to watch. No one can remain uncharmed by a steam train.

All seem solemn in electric trains, whatever the class of their carriage. Heads are usually down in a book or paper, rarely peering through the window’s grime to wonder where they are. The trains hoot like they’ve heard a bawdy joke: high-looooow-high. They are hot inside. There’s lots of plastic, coloured grey so you can’t tell if it’s clean or not. The air is full of stale coffee and fragments of loud discussions on the phone. Thoughts are always fixed on the destination: What’s for supper? Where shall I meet you? I’ll be late, can you feed the cat?

Not so with steam trains, though they use the same tracks. The windows, invariably open, are full of faces, and madly waving hands. The carriages shine with dignity. The tables have lamps and lace. The driver sends their arrival ahead with a sweet sound, much longer than necessary, like one huge panpipe in the sky. I dare say he has a smile like his cargo, strong coaly hands and a blue cloth cap, but I never reach the window in time to see.

Dads and windswept youngsters, pensioners in walking gear, all beam alike. Where do they go? It seems they don’t much mind; the journey is the thing to them. Will they hide their faces in a paper come Monday morning, sprinting between cities on electric trains? Or are they an entirely different breed?

• More on the steam trains of North Yorkshire Moors Railway at nymr.co.uk. (Image from the same source)

MOZART IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

Mozart’s music lowers stress, heightens intelligence and relieves heart disease. It could even improve your eyesight, and doctors may soon prescribe it for epilepsy. According to Roger Dobson in The Independent, Mozart is a Medical Maestro:

“Mozart soothes the beating heart. A study at Oberwalliser Hospital in Switzerland on the effects of music on heart-rate variability in 23 adolescents showed that listening to music may be helpful in heart disease. The study showed that listening to Mozart or Bach resulted in reductions of heart rate and variability.” [source]

It seems the benefits are not only available to connoisseurs of classical music, indeed it’s not even necessary to be conscious of the music for it to work its magic. Proof comes from the Agricultural University of Athens where scientists played Eine Kleine Nachtmusik to carp for 30 minutes at a time. The fish grew more and showed fewer signs of stress.

You might not recognise the second portrait above, as it was only unearthed last week. It’s deemed the most important painting of the great composer, considered more accurate than the most well known (first above), painted 18 years after his death. [source: The Telegraph].

BILINGUALISM IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

Separation between countries in Europe is becoming increasingly passé. That has to be a good thing in itself, but it also means bilingualism is on the increase, maybe even for us reluctant Brits. Why is that so healthy?

“Researchers found that bilingual people are far better at retaining their mental abilities into old age than the majority, who speak only one language, in fact that they were less prone to problems such as Alzheimer’s disease in later life.” [source: Agence Bretagne Presse]

According to Omniglot.com, we use different facial muscles, not just when speaking different languages, but when using different accents. So, all us Brits reluctant to learn a language can practise our Scottish, Welsh, Irish, and English accents and we’ll at least give our faces a good workout, even if we lose our marbles earlier than anyone else in Europe.

CHOCOLATE IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

Yes, yes, I know, lots of fat and sugar and calories and often very garish packaging, but bear with me. We don’t want too many of those nasty free radicals radicalling around so freely do we? What we need is antioxidants then, just as your mother always told you:

“Eating dark chocolate could help control diabetes and blood pressure, Italian experts say.

Researchers found eating 100g of dark chocolate each day for 15 days lowered blood pressure in the 15 person-study.

The University of L’Aquila team also found the body’s ability to metabolise sugar - a problem for people with diabetes - was improved.

But eating the same quantities of white chocolate did not have an effect, the researchers said.

The team said an antioxidant called flavanol was responsible for the effect because it neutralised potentially cell-damaging substances known as oxygen free radicals, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported.” [source: BBC]

A lot of disclaimers follow in the article above, so of course we must read them and take them very seriously before consuming large quantities, or at least consult a good chocolatier. Don’t consult your doctor, they’ve got enough to do.

Montezuma’s organic is my latest favourite chocolate in the world, especially their Emperor Chilli bar (pictured). If you haven’t tried chilli chocolate, (and especially if you have), you might want to get some (more) at Montezuma’s. No garish packaging there, and it’s good for you. Chillies are full of vitamins A and C, they stimulate the heart, kidneys and nervous system. Don’t get me started… [source: BBC]

(Did I tell you the one about the diamond burglar armed only with a box of chocolates? Chocolate is not only good for your health, but can be good for your bank balance. Don’t try this at home. No, really.)

BLOGGING IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

According to blogging scientists at Eide Neurolearning, it’s official: blogging is healthy. That’s very good news for all you lovely people on the left who have visited here recently (forgive me for not adding links to you all). Let me return the favour by telling you why blogging is so good for you. The Eides say:

1. Blogs can promote critical and analytical thinking.
2. Blogging can be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking.
3. Blogs promote analogical thinking.
4. Blogging is a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information.
5. Blogging combines the best of solitary reflection and social interaction.

Maybe we shouldn’t spend all day at our desks though, according to The Independent:

“Scientists have claimed that it’s as risky as smoking, increases obesity, and that it could lead to deep vein thrombosis if you do it for too long. Yet 59 per cent of us do it every day at work. Sitting at a desk, it seems, can be hazardous to your health.”

So what’s the answer to maintaining physical well-being while keeping our brains healthy with blogging? Get out more? Not necessarily, you could take up Deskercise: steppers, Swiss balls and neck stretches. Yikes. Find out more here, it’s a very good article.

GIVING IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

The BBC released an article yesterday about the proven health benefits of giving to others, based on some recent Canadian research, in: Charity Makes You Feel Better. Giving to others makes you happier, and therefore healthier. It could even save your life:

“Those who spent the cash on others reported feeling happier at the end of the day than those who spent the money on themselves, no matter how much they had been given.

Dr Dunn said: ‘This study provides initial evidence that how people spend their money may be as important for their happiness as how much money they earn.’

‘And spending money on others might represent a more effective route to happiness than spending money on oneself.’

Dr George Fieldman, a psychologist at Buckinghamshire New University, said: ‘Giving to charity partly makes you feel better because you’re in a group. You are also perceived as being an altruist.’

‘On an individual level, if I give to you, you are less likely to attack me and more likely to be nice to me.’”

…and not just giving, but forgiving is especially wholesome:

“In one study, people who focused on a personal grudge had elevated blood pressure and heart rates, as well as increased muscle tension and feelings of being less in control. When asked to imagine forgiving the person who had hurt them, the participants said they felt more positive and relaxed and thus, the changes dissipated.” [source: Science Daily]

• While we’re on the subject, a very nice article also came out yesterday at Sri Chinmoy Inspiration: Harnessing the Power of Self-Giving
• Image: A favourite photo by Sharani Robins, who wrote a great post recently called Kindness and the Unexpected

SALT IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

Well, not all salt. According to a recent article in The Independent, if you put a sea fish into a table salt solution it will die. The sodium chloride most of us keep in a shaker on the dining table strains the heart and chivvies the blood-pressure, so too much of it will send us the same way. Unrefined rock salt, however, contains more than 84 different minerals.

“‘These mineral salts are identical to the elements of which our bodies have been built and were originally found in the primal ocean from where life originated,’ argues Dr Barbara Hendel, researcher and co-author of Water & Salt, The Essence of Life….

Without mineral salts, says Dr Hendel, there would be no movement, memory or thought and your heart wouldn’t beat….

Mineral salts, she says, are healthy because they give your body the variety of mineral ions needed to balance its functions, remain healthy and heal. These healing properties have long been recognised in central Europe. At Wieliczka in Poland, a hospital has been carved in a salt mountain. Asthmatics and patients with lung disease and allergies find that breathing air in the saline underground chambers helps improve symptoms in 90 per cent of cases. ” [source]

You can find out more about Himalayan rock salt at Indus Salz. They even make it into table lamps. Wizard! Must have.

INDIGO IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

According to the ancient code of Feng Shui, different colours affect us very differently, and indigo is noted for its healing properties. So are green and blue.

“Yellow is a happy color that promotes creativity and vitality. Use it in a kitchen or office. Green is a healing and calming color. It is great for living rooms or bedrooms. It renews and keeps us in balance. Blue is also a healing color as well as a mentally relaxing color. Add blue to a room when someone is sick. Blue will keep the room’s occupants calm. Indigo is not only relaxing but is also to keep good health in your home.” [source: Essortment.com]

Colour therapy is a well-established art. Everything you ever wanted to know about the science of colours can be found at ColourTherapyHealing.com, where we find that indigo is calming and good for studying. It also helps heighten intuition.

But what of the spiritual significance of colours? Kedar Misani has recently completed a beautiful and informative series of videos on the subject. It’s based on spiritual master Sri Chinmoy’s book Colour Kingdom, where indigo is found to signify unity. That seems to be a good note to end on; if bilingualism and self-giving are good for the health, then unity certainly must be. You can enjoy the videos and find out more at Sri Chinmoy TV.

By far my greatest fear when I was younger was one of deep water. I suppose as fears go that’s quite a rational one. It was perpetuated by Jaws—a movie surely unavoidable by anyone alive in the late 1970s. At the time, Jaws served as confirmation that fear of the sea was absolutely justified and almost constituted common sense. Those who ventured beyond the shallow end of a pool I crowned in my mind as heroes, and as veritable demigods those who would dive head first from a board. Those who would wade out far enough to lose their footing in the ocean however, I labeled as reckless dolts who did not properly value the life they had been given.

When harboured and reinforced for twenty years, even the most rational fear can reach irrational proportions and formidable strength. It seemed God had to carefully engineer an opportunity for its final dismantling, starting with a phone call from a friend—out of the blue so to speak. My friend had planned and paid for a scuba diving holiday in the Caribbean with a partner who had since gone off in a huff about something, so would I go instead? Many excuses came to mind, but you can imagine that none of them would be very convincing faced with such an offer. I accepted, viewing it gravely as a service, and nervously hoping more specific and robust excuses would present themselves when faced with the ocean itself.

It was with much trepidation and considerable self-transcendence that I completed my training and gained my diving license, graduating from the shallow end to the deep end of a pool somewhere in Alabama, then to the murkier regions of a former quarry. I would use up my air in half the time of my peers due to my anxiety, but by that time I had resolved to face The Deep once and for all, and I would not be deterred by any amount of cajoling.

I had to be pushed off the boat on my first adventure in the open sea. With all that outer paraphernalia and inner baggage, the physical and mental strength to do it myself had to be developed over time. I was enraptured though, from the very first moment. The harsh sun, the growl and fumes of the boat engine, the nauseous movement of the waves, the weight of the equipment, were all replaced by purity and gentleness on the other side of the ocean’s skin. Fear turned to awe as I entered a world where I did not belong, but which had ample room to house me. How humbling to be at the mercy of such a body of vastness, floating in a medium of which the human body is largely composed, but which alone would not sustain it for more than a few seconds. Up to then such tranquility was unknown to me, but seemed a perfect natural state. My breathing became slower even than it was on land, and I used less air then even than my peers.

There was no sound then except that breath: the husky drawing in, and the chink of exhalation, releasing plumes of amorphous bubbles. Colours were completely new; their hue and luminosity changed constantly, with a freedom alien to the flat shades known to land. Freedom of movement in all directions was also new and brought boundless fun, though my own mammalian efforts took me nowhere in comparison to the sleek agility of sea creatures. Stillness was a favourite practice, controlling the posture and breath to hover inches from the seabed. Movement without effort was the crowning joy, drifting with the tide over coral gardens, tiny fish hovering and darting, as would bees over blooms.

The creatures seemed to look on us as bumbling enigmas. They showed no irritation by our presence, neither fear, as they knew any lazy flinch of theirs would easily outsmart us. Some were notoriously intelligent, and many seemed positively hospitable, even taking time from apparently busy schedules to play games. The beauty, power, and harmony of that vast and strange environment have etched themselves on my mind and heart. I can still see a flock of eagle rays emerging into view, their massive wings forming slow, graceful arcs suspended in a saline cathedral. I can still catch the cheeky glance of grouper snatching chunks of raw fish from my pocket. I can still feel the specific majesty of depths beyond 100ft. I’d have imagined the form of a shark in those depths would have caused me to expire from sheer fright a few weeks before. In reality its beauty disarmed me, and I saw only the grace and efficiency of movement. The perfection of that creation brought tears to my eyes. In The Deep, to my surprise, I seemed to meet the Creator in myriad beguiling guises.

I have visited other oceans since, but I no longer hanker for sub-aquatic charms. Perhaps it is the growing sense that such peace and beauty are in-built, requiring only the key of meditation for their discovery. An ever-deepening Deep seems accessible without need of a license or expensive airfares, without the use of weights, wetsuits, and cumbersome canisters, and without the job of conquering fear.

Image: Prashphutita Greco at Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries

While I’m on the subject of life-saving miracles, the BBC reported this week that it’s not just humans who take an interest in whale conservation. A bottlenose dolphin, known in her local neighbourhood as Moko, is taking it as seriously as any dolphin can.

Mr Smith and his team of humans were getting nowhere fast in their attempt to save a pair of beached whales from the north east coast of New Zealand. Moko sped to the rescue just in time (maybe in a waterproof cape), uttered a few carefully chosen instructions to the whales (maybe in a Whalish accent), and they made it safely home in time for tea (or maybe a krill tisane).

“I don’t speak whale and I don’t speak dolphin,” Mr Smith told the BBC, “but there was obviously something that went on because the two whales changed their attitude from being quite distressed to following the dolphin quite willingly and directly along the beach and straight out to sea.”

He added: “The dolphin did what we had failed to do. It was all over in a matter of minutes.” [original article]

Tales of dolphins saving humans go back to ancient Greece. It was Plutarch, the Greek moralist and biographer, who said, “To the dolphin alone, beyond all other, nature has granted what the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage.” [source]

The best-known dolphin legends feature them forming a ring to protect surfers from sharks, or guiding stray swimmers back to shore. Incredibly dolphins extend their instinct for self-preservation to just about any species (except sharks), and seem to employ it with effortless brilliance.

Is it intelligence or just a natural benevolence? According to Douglas Adams in his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, they are much wiser than we are… but then he also insisted mice are secretly ruling the world. Even when I was hooked on the series at age 10, I wasn’t entirely convinced by that. Let’s see what the Ultimate Guide to Dolphins has to say instead:

Dolphins have large brains for their bodies — in fact, a bottlenose dolphin is second only to humans in the ratio of brain size to body size. Researchers have also pointed to the parallels in the organization of dolphin and primate brains as more evidence of high intelligence in dolphins. Some have gone so far as to suggest that dolphins actually have a language that humans simply cannot comprehend.

But others say that in our enthusiasm to anthropomorphize dolphins, we give them powers they just don’t possess. A closer look suggests that much of the dolphin’s large brain is taken up with echolocation and handling acoustical information — processes at which they excel. But dolphins tend to rank at about the level of elephants in “intelligence” tests and haven’t shown any unusual talent at problem solving.

So what is that unique quality that fascinates and charms us, if we cannot truly call it intelligence? In his book The Animal Kingdom, Sri Chinmoy calls it sagacity.

Dolphin : Sagacity
Dolphin, my dolphin,
Your advanced sagacity
Denies your inferiority
To forest animals.
You make man feel that your consciousness
Borders upon the extremity of human life
With ceaseless strife.

—Sri Chinmoy
From The Animal Kingdom

sagacity (su’gasitee)
1. [n] the trait of forming opinions by distinguishing and evaluating
2. [n] the ability to make good judgments

The names of the two saved whales are not known, and Moko’s instructions have not been translated, but whatever she said, it seemed to the whales a very good judgment indeed.

It was an ordinary day in Ningbo, China, but an extraordinary miracle took place in a muddy 5-metre ditch.

Was it really a miracle, or simply the wise employment of a meditation technique? Maybe a combination of the two.

The Times reports:

“Wang Jianxin was working at a construction site in the booming city. The job that day for the 52-year-old worker was to dig a five-metre ditch…

“Without warning, a wall of the ditch collapsed, burying Mr Wang under a huge pile of earth. Like most construction workers in China, he had little in the way of protective equipment except for his tough plastic safety helmet. It was to be enough to save his life.” [original article]

The peak of his hat trapped a small amount of air in front of his face, which doctors said would usually have been enough to keep someone alive for five minutes. It was two hours before he was rescued. Mr Wang survived by practising Buddhist meditation techniques to stay calm, and minimise his use of oxygen.

There are countless legends from India of yogis, (obviously very advanced in their meditation practice) allowing themselves to be buried alive, and surviving for weeks or even years. I’m not about to discuss the verity of such stories, (let alone their questionable spiritual worth), but if a construction worker can survive for 2 hours on 5 minutes’ worth of oxygen, who’s to say those legends aren’t true? Just when you think you know what’s possible in this world, and what’s not…

“Be not afraid of the impossible.
Be brave!
God is always ready to help you
Conquer the impossible.”
—Sri Chinmoy
Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees #19030

• Image: Kedar Misani at Sri Chinmoy Centre Gallery
• You too can learn to meditate here

Do you ever wonder why we have to sleep? I’ve always thought that spending a third of my life unconscious is a spectacular waste of time. But of course I must be mistaken, otherwise God wouldn’t have made us like this.

Not only does sleep give the body a break and a chance to recover, sleep gives us a chance to dream.

But…

Why Do We Dream?

The Dream World, is it really so Heavenly, or just an escape from reality like watching too much TV? Were my own dreams to come true, at least the few I remember, my waking life would probably be less interesting than usual, and maybe a bit more stressful.

So what’s the big deal about dreams? Apparently, even if they’re ordinary, they prevent psychosis. So sleep is obviously a wise investment rather than an indulgent squandering of time.

“In a recent sleep study, students who were awakened at the beginning of each dream, but still allowed their 8 hours of sleep, all experienced difficulty in concentration, irritability, hallucinations, and signs of psychosis after only 3 days.”

So says Listverse.com (a very cool and very interesting site) in Top 10 Amazing Facts About Dreams. Among those amazing facts are the revelations that:

• Everybody has dreams but that we forget 90% of them. “Within 5 minutes of waking, half of your dream is forgotten. Within 10, 90% is gone.” Those who claim not to have dreams are probably just better at sleeping: “If you are awakened out of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, you are more likely to remember your dream.”
• Blind people dream “People who become blind after birth can see images in their dreams. People who are born blind do not see any images, but have dreams equally vivid involving their other senses of sound, smell, touch and emotion.”
• Not everyone dreams in colour
• If you’re snoring you’re not dreaming. [Neither are you reading.]

ZZZzzzzzzzz

The average person spends a total of 6 years dreaming, according to Discover Magazine in 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Sleep. It’s obviously time well spent, even if they’re not very interesting dreams, and these facts are much more interesting than most of my dreams:

• The surgical procedure to cure chronic snoring is called uvulopalatopharyngoplasty.
• Counting sheep doesn’t work: According to research at Oxford University “The mental activity is so boring that other problems and concerns inevitably surface.”
• Oversleeping (like undersleeping) could permanently damage your health: ”A six-year study of a million adults showed that people who get only six to seven hours of sleep a night have a lower death rate than those who get eight hours.” [Unfortunately it doesn't say why, and this was probably the most interesting fact of all.]
• Fear of sleep is called somniphobia [maybe a more rational fear than you'd think, given the research above.]

Do Animals Dream?

Well I know the answer to this where dogs are concerned. One dog in my family has very active dreams that (like my own) seem quite similar to waking life. Going by the paw twitches and muffled yelps they apparently involve chasing, digging and asking (not very politely) for food etc.

According to Islandnet:

“Yes, animals dream. Researchers Dr. Matthew Wilson and Kenway Louie at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology selected four lucky rats. They implanted micro-electrodes into the hippocampus, the region of the brain associated with memory. Then they monitored the firing patterns of the neurons hooked up to micro-electrodes.

The patterns were the same whether the rat was dreaming about running around on a track or actually running around on a track. In fact, by just looking at the patterns, the scientists could tell whether the creature was dreaming about running or just sitting around. So why do animals dream? Probably to re-live and learn from experience.”

Which Plane Did You Catch?

As for humans, everyone I know likes to talk about their dreams, whether they’re funny, strange, scary, uplifting or full of symbols. Are they really symbolic? Can they instruct or inspire us, or are they just nonsense?

Sri Chinmoy gives a spiritual viewpoint in his book The Journey of Silver Dreams

”There are seven higher worlds and seven lower worlds. When we have dreams coming from the lower worlds, the subconscious worlds—or you can say, inconscient worlds—we have to feel that these dreams have no value. They cannot change our nature. They cannot inspire us. They cannot give us any hope for our future fulfilment. When we get a dream from the vital plane, we will see that the dream will be constant movement. It will be like a battlefield where everything is breaking and smashing and people are being killed. These dreams cannot help us at all in our spiritual life. The best thing we can do is forget them. If the dream comes from the mental plane, there will be some poise—not full poise, but a little poise, a little calm and quiet there. If it comes from the psychic plane, we will feel affection, sweetness, compassion and concern for the things or persons we are seeing. And if it comes from the soul’s plane, it will be all Light, Delight and Peace.”
—Sri Chinmoy

CREDITS

• Image 1: Flaming June by JWW Waterhouse: absolutely the finest fine artist, ever (polite disagreements welcome in the comments section below).
• Image 2: I don’t much care for cats, but I’m incurably addicted to Cute Overload (sorry, I know, I know) where I found this seemingly harmless variety.
• Title: Inspired by a spate of Shakespearean titles over at Thousandeye, a healthy habit always to be encouraged. This one is perhaps not as inspiring as it sounds, spoken by Hamlet in his most famous soliquoy. He contemplates the sleep of death as a solution to his problems, but then dreads the dreams that might come with it. Indeed, anyone would dread the dreams of such a troubled man. Not much of a bedtime story, but a cracking good plot nonetheless.
• You: Credit is amply due to anyone who got this far in the post.