Dr. R. Murali Krishna, M.D.
President, James L. Hall, Jr. Center for Mind, Body & Spirit President COO, INTEGRIS Mental Health Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
(Following is a write up by Dr. Muralikrishna explaining why doctors and Scientists the world over are time and again researching spirituality to obtain tangible results; to bridge Science and spirituality. )
For many people, spirituality underlies all that they do every moment. Every thought word or deed of theirs stems from the spiritual chords within. Spirituality is the ground in which they are rooted as they work at their job, parent their children, visit with friends or greet acquaintances. It may be an outwardly obvious action like volunteering in a spiritual organization or it maybe a quiet thing, an inner sense of peace and serenity, a trust in life, strength of conviction beyond mundane logic. No matter how it manifests, medical research says that harboring spirituality may bring a bonus: better health.
What is spirituality? It is about having a belief system that focuses on intangible elements or forces, that add vitality and meaning to our life and life's events. Plain believing in those intangible elements or forces is not enough, though. It is essential that the belief leads to personal experience of these intangible forces adding meaning to our life.
Spirituality is not a concept limited to any one religion or denomination. It is not even linked to worship in a church or temple, or belief in a certain God. Regardless of occupation, age, color or religious affiliation, anyone can discover spirituality and benefit from it.
Medical science is finding more and more evidence of those benefits. Every progressive medical study supports the notion that spirituality may have a positive effect on health. To be accurate, many of these studies look at people's participation in religious activities, not strictly spirituality. But from these studies, we have learned that regular attendees of religious services are likely to have lower blood pressure than those who attend these less frequently or not at all. We have seen that elderly people who regularly attend church have healthier immune system than those who don't. Another study found that people over 60 years of age, who attended church weekly or more often were significantly less likely in the previous year to have been admitted to the hospital.
These studies are scientifically valid, but still don't tell the whole story. Was it the spirituality inherent in their religion that kept these people healthier, or was it the social support they received by being part of a church community? Were they were healthier because the church helped them discover meaning in their lives, or because their religion or church community discouraged use of tobacco, alcohol or other drugs? Or was it simply that healthier people are able get up and go to church on a weekly basis, while people in poorer health remain at home?
While these studies are indicators of the benefits of spirituality, the stronger evidence comes from medical research into the power of prayer. There have been quite a number of studies in this area, of which one of the more intriguing works has been done by Mitchell Krucoff, M.D., and Suzanne Crater, N.P., at Duke University's Medical Center.
In their study, Krucoff and Crater looked at heart disease patients. The level of each patient's spirituality was determined through surveys and other assessment tools. Some patients received only standard medical therapy. Others received standard therapy along with therapies such as healing touch, stress relaxation and guided imagery. A final group of patients (who also received the standard therapy) were prayed for by diverse prayer groups - Carmelite nuns near Baltimore, Baptists in North Carolina, Buddhist monks in Paris and Nepal, etc. None of these people knew there were special praver groups saying prayers for their recovery.
Compared to the standard therapy group, the prayer group experienced a 50 percent reduction of every adverse outcome. Broken down even further, the results were equally interesting. Patients strongly rooted in a spiritual community did well, regardless of the therapy they received. Patients not rooted in a spiritual community had better outcomes when they were prayed for than when they were not. Patients who prayed on their own at least once a day or who felt spirituality was important in their daily lives, had better outcomes when receiving healing touch, stress relaxation and guided imagery than when receiving only standard therapy.
Praver is a spiritual practice. It is intangible. And vet we are learning that when you offer pravers, or even when others pray for you without your knowledge, there are health benefits.
How can you get in touch with your spirituality?
First, make a conscious effort to tune into spirituality. In the air all around you right now, there are signals from television stations. To you, they are intangible. You cannot hear, see or feel any of them - unless you turn on your television, a mechanism for tuning in the signals. For spirituality, too, you must have the capacity to tune in. You must have openness and willingness to look into seemingly intangible processes.
Second, you must become more aware of the readily observable effects of spirituality. Love is intangible, but you know it when you feel it. Hope is intangible, but it can profoundly and positively affect the course of a person's illness. Trust is intangible, but living out of a sense of trust can calm your anxieties, lower your blood pressure and help you feel inner peace and serenity. Love, hope and trust are components of
THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM with the research team at the INTEGRIS Mental Health Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA spirituality, and their effects are there for you to see and feel.
Third, live out your spirituality. It is said that God comes to us in the form of suffering human beings. Toward people you know who are in physical or emotional pain, practice kindness and compassion. Put yourself in their shoes, understand what they think and feel, and act accordingly.
Fourth, marvel at creation. A movie or television show might bore you if you watch it over and over, but watching a sunset or viewing a range of snow-covered mountains does not. Those are God's creations, not ours. When you wonder at the majesty and complexity of a mountain stream, flowers or stars, you are engaged in a very spiritual act.
As is the case with everyone, your life will have its share of difficulties. Through spirituality, you can increase the chances that you will come through them with health and hope intact.
Summer 2004
Scientists, researchers and doctors of the Integris ,Jim Thorpe Rehabilitation Center and the PET center of Oklahoma, USA administered various tests and analyzed the mystic phenomena on THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's neurological system. Following is the summary of the findings.
A Mind Matters Column™
The Mind of a Mystic
By R. Murali Krishna, M.D.
President, James L. Hall, Jr. Center for Mind, Body & Spirit President COO, INTEGRIS Mental Health, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Sri Nithyananda Swami is a trim, healthy looking young man with dark, shoulder-length hair. Handsome and polite, possessing an open manner and a wealth of curiosity, he could be any ordinary American college student.
The difference is that ordinary American college students do not wear orange robes and turbans, have not experienced spiritual enlightenment and are not regarded as a teacher, healer and mystic by millions of people in all corners of the world.
A mystic? The term is not a bad fit for 'Swami,' as he is known. Mystics, popular culture tells us, have direct communion with God. Through means not understood or measurable, mystics are thought to have access to ultimate realities or truths. Picture a mystic and you'll probably picture someone full of bliss, someone gifted with lofty thoughts and insights the rest of us do not possess. The very presence of a mystic is thought to bring peace and healing to others.
That's an apt description of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, a 27-year-old from South Bharat. He is approached by thousands of people a year seeking relief from diseases and ailments that conventional medical approaches have not cured. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's background lends him the air of a mystic, too. He left his home as a teen, visited ashrams across Bharat, immersed himself in philosophy, read extensively and mastered the art of meditation.
When THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM passed through Oklahoma City recently as one stop in his world travels, I asked him if he would let me use some of modern medicine's newest technology to peer into his brain while he meditated. My goal: to understand, measure and demystify what happens during the mystic phenomena. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, who believes that meditation has a scientific basis, happily agreed.
The procedures THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM went through were administered by some of Oklahoma City's finest and most experienced physicians, neuropsychologists and researchers: Drs. Fordyce, Ruwe and Higgins of the Jim Thorpe Rehabilitation Center Neuropsychology Department and Dr. Chacko of the PET Center of Oklahoma. These doctors were using technology they use with patients on a routine basis. When they look at images obtained by their technology, they know what's normal and what's not.
The results from testing THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM? Decidedly not normal.
Imaging Brain Activity
Our first look into THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's brain was achieved with the help of a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) device. Unlike traditional diagnostic techniques that produce images of the body's structure or anatomy, such as X-rays, CT scans or MRI. PET produces images of the function of the brain through the metabolic activity of cells. An analog of glucose is attached to a radioactive PET tracer. The PET scanner then images the metabolically active brain areas at any given time.
In the case of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. the drug was intended to identify highly active areas of the brain in an alert and conscious state, in the early stages of meditation and during deep meditation.
The results of the PET scan tests were stunning. To begin with, the activity in the frontal lobes of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's brain were significantly heightened, even in early meditation stages. The level of activity was higher than would be seen in the average human brain under any conditions.
When we then asked THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM to go into the deepest meditation state, there were two more remarkable findings.
First, the dominant hemisphere of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's brain was more than 90 percent shut down. It was as if THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's brain had packed up and gone on vacation. It was quiet and still, completely at peace ... and THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM had made it so at will. A second amazing aspect of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's deep meditation was that the lower portion of his mesial frontal areas lighted up in a very significant way. This area roughly corresponds to the reputed location of the mystical "Third Eye."
When we later asked THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM what he was doing when the mesial frontal areas lighted up, he said he was opening his third eye.
Associated with both cosmic and inner knowledge and thought to be a place of clarity and peace, the Third Eye is considered by many to be the seat of the soul. Were we seeing an indication that deep meditation can open an area of the brain responsible for communicating with the divine, looking deep into the mysteries of self or creation? I believe the PET scan revealed what I call the brain's "D-spot." Whether you consider the "D"
in D-spot to stand for delight, the divine or even dopamine, the chemical through which our bodies experience pleasure, initial indications are that meditation can stimulate it.
Measuring Brainwaves
The second procedure we used to look into THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's brain is known as Quantitative Electroencephalography, or QEEG. QEEG measures electrical patterns in the brain, patterns commonly referred to as brainwaves.
There are four bandwidths of brainwaves, each different in speed and each associated with a different state of mind.
For instance, beta brainwaves are small and fast and linked with an awake, alert state of mind. Alpha brainwaves are slower and larger and are connected to feelings of well-being. Theta waves represent a state of consciousness between that is close to sleep, a stage in which there is a sense of calmness and serenity without active thought.
In a day's time, most people will experience all four types of brainwaves. The progression from one bandwidth to another, though, is not so easily in their control.
From THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's QEEG, though, we can see that he has complete control over his brainwaves. When in deep meditation, his brain smoothly shifted from one state to another, like a talented pianist plaving the scales. There was no hesitation and no retreating, just continuous, fluid shifts from one type of brainwave to the next. Because the QEEG represents the five brainwave bandwidths as colors, it was as we were watching THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM float from color to color within a rainbow.
Conclusions
The brain is the body's most complex organ, containing more than 100 billion neurons, each of them in chemical and electrical conversation with up to 10,000 other neurons. Its sheer capacity to process information is astonishing.
Remarkably, that complexity presents little difficulty for THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM in managing his brain activity. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's mind - his thoughts, emotions and intellect - control his brain. He can, in a very fluid, easy way, shift his brain function and alter his brainwaves.
More than answering questions, the voyage we took into the mind of a mystic brings intriguing questions for study:
Are there techniques we can learn and teach that will bring balance and peace into people's lives? Can we invoke a healing response or accelerate healing through specific training? Can we learn techniques that will allow us to control pain or alter the course of a disease? Can we learn to activate what I call our D-spot, thus putting us in instant connection to delight or the divine?
The results from our study of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM are new pages in our world's growing book of research on the brain. There continue to be indications that the human mind may be able to choose to heal the body. We're now looking at the possibility of people learning and acquiring these healing capabilities, an event of immense benefit for humankind. The potential for altering the rates and progression of many diseases - heart disease, cancer, arthritis, alcoholism and many others - is beginning to look achievable.
THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM is a bridge between the invisible, ancient world of mysticism and the modern, visible world of science and discovery. As brain research continues on a widespread basis, and as we appropriately bring the phenomena of mysticism into the realm of science for further study, we are taking strides on a path of hope and health.
Following are images from the PET SCAN:
Time of injection: Non meditative - awake - eyes closed Findings: Relative normal uptake FDG Rt & Lt Cerebral Cortex. Red arrows: show continued uptake Sup temporal cortext/Operculum & relative decrease in mesial frontal uptake.
Pictures of electrode placement