Date Line June 30, 2007

Now here is a piece of insight. Brain researchers have finally gotten a handle on why meditation works.

The brain has emotional centers which are calmed through a process which identifies the emotion. If you name it, it is yours to control. In the process of meditation, emotions are identified, they are labeled, a name is given to them – poor

Rumpelstiltskin.

Rumpelstiltskin. Remember him? It was just a matter of naming him and he would vanish; and his claim on the child with him.

Name the emotion, identify it, and the emotional center calms. Remove the unknown; identify the source of the noise, and the fear it instill diminishes to the point of non-relevancy.

We know Freud. Old Sigmund and his couch taught us that people who talk about their feelings have more control over them. It is said that we do not know why this is true.

Psychologists, Priests, or any seeking University tenure researching the esoterically narrow realms of human behavior might not know. It is possible that white tower occupants are too secluded from the real world to know what the children of the nursery are taught

Discover the name of the dwarf, tell him he is Rumpelstiltskin; or have your mommy tell you that the noise is the wind, the shadow a branch, and the fear eases away.

Put a name to an unknown, make it known and the fear which is intended to keep you safe need not continue. Ancient responses to very real dangers, fear of an unidentified, which can threaten or kill, is a survival mechanism. Name that fear, and it falls into its proper perspective.

We fear the real, can control the imaginary, and can dismiss what we can place into a past, present, or future, context.

Meditation is one process by which emotions can find context. It is our conscious tool for the handling of day to day problems. Sleep is our unconscious tool.

In sleep, the mind goes into deep rest and then pulls to the surface in what is known as REM sleep. REM, Rapid Eye Movement, is named for the physical trait which allows the outsider to know the sleeper is dreaming.

The body, the eyes, "look" at what is seen in the dream; and the eyes track the action with the concurrent effect that the pupal marks a trail across the closed eyelid.

Awake in meditation, or asleep in REM, we allow our mind to process information. Strangely, we also sleep when we watch television. Oh! We might be awake and recalling the show, laughing, or crying, pondering events as the script unfolds; but, for our mind, the passive activity is akin to sleep.

The TV serves as REM, with the difference that it imparts its story rather than allow us to invent a tale from what we experienced during the day.

What researchers will eventually put together, but which is really already widely known, television, passive entertainment with a story line, must still be processed. The fantasy becomes intertwined with reality and our rationality shifts accordingly.

The fantasy of passive fiction, well written, can alter the thoughts of a society. Take reality, place it in a fantasy, a mythological, context, and the fantasy becomes truth.

The politician, the would be leader, who can tap the fantasy reality is the one who gains power or the rational realist. Reality is context.

Identify the source of the fear, and the fear vanishes; even a lie about the source can alter the reality based reaction. A cord of recognition is struck by a catch phrase, by a buzzword, by an unfounded yet irrefutable claim, and the lie becomes the truth which destroys.

A simple survival mechanism; controlled by its owner or another, the very simplicity by which it can be subverted becomes a threat to survival of the individual, the lineage, tribe, clan, nation, species.

_____________________________________________________