Tibetan Monks Surprised Scientists
Herbert Benson was a cardiologist and a famous professor of medicine at Harvard University. In 1967, he studied oriental cultures but, at that time, the subject still gave rise to many apprehensions.
One night, he waited until midnight to infiltrate 36 Tibetan monks in his laboratory. Benson wanted to check for himself whether the myths around Tibetan monks were true.
At the time, transcendent meditators were seen as people with superhuman characteristics. Benson was a scientist and he only believed what science proved.
What he discovered that night changed his life forever. Three years later, he wrote a book that would become a big bestseller: The Relaxation Response. This gave rise to the emergence of a new current in medicine according to which faith is able to heal and the placebo effect has a very high therapeutic power.
Benson’s Tibetan monks
Herbert Benson discovered with his team that Tibetan monks had abilities that even contradicted some scientific claims.
For example, a group of monks practicing a yoga technique called toumo were able to lower the temperature of their hands and feet to 17 degrees. So far there is no scientific explanation, but this experiment and the following ones have been reviewed in the Harvard Gazette.
Another example: the Tibetan monks were able, by increasing their body temperature, to dry damp sheets. And that’s not all: Benson also found that advanced meditators in another technique called Sikkim were also able to slow their metabolism down to 64%.
Some theoretical approaches
In the Science and Meditation article written by Professor Ana Maria Krohne of Antonio Nariño University, it is said that, so far, there are around 500 studies on the physiological, psychological and sociological effects of inspired transcendental meditation. traditions of the Tibetan monks.
She mentions that the first study in this regard was published by the journal Science in the 1970s. In this study, it is indicated that the state of consciousness of the monks was different from the states already known.
Science speaks of wakefulness, dreaming, and deep sleep. In monks, it is possible to identify a fourth state which combines rest and alert simultaneously.
In 1971, Daniel Goleman, the famous creator of the concept of multiple intelligences, wrote an article called Unstressing . In this article, he discusses the existence of a fifth type of state of consciousness that combines rest, vigilance and action simultaneously.
Swami Rama
The question of the superior capacities of Tibetan monks and other transcendent meditators is one of those questions which always crosses the thin line between fiction and reality. It is then not uncommon to find well-founded information, as well as many myths and legends. It is not always easy to distinguish the true from the false.
The case of Swami Rama, the author of Living with Himalayan Teachers , is an example. In this work, he indicates that there are yogis and Tibetan monks who are able to remain for several hours in total calm and to levitate. There is no evidence that this is true. Studies have been done by the Menninger Foundation in the United States on Swami Rama.
Doctors Elmer and Alyce Green were tasked with studying his apparent powers. The published results say that Rama was able to produce the same brain waves from sleep when awake. And also, that he had managed to voluntarily stop the pumping of his heart, without it ceasing to beat, for 17 seconds.
Although these phenomena were recorded by the media at the time, little was said about them after that. Regardless, the results of the studies were published in BEYOND BIO-FEEDBACK by Elmer and Alyce Green.
Maybe this is all nothing but a sophisticated and ingenious scam. Or maybe the mind is absolutely wonderful and we are only just beginning to find out.
Our thoughts Dancing is not just a party night fun. It is also a sport that moves our body and frees our mind.
