Hi,
I'm new here and new to the cassiopaea work and i haven't finished reading all the material on the site. I'm only on the second wave, so if someone has already said something like this, forgive me, and i would love to have a link to the thread or the page!
5 or so years ago i chanted for some months with a group of buddhists who chant "Nam Yo Ho Rengue Quo". (I'm sure i haven't spelled that correctly.) The idea is to think about what you want while you chant. That in itself was interesting as far as getting down to the root of it and understand how we limit ourselves. Strangely (or so i thought at the time) this chanting thing really worked and it made me feel energized and awake too. The people in the group talked a lot about how sacred the chant is and used the word "lotus" a lot. I was curious about why it worked so i read about the effect chanting has on brainwaves and i also began to do some experimenting on my own. I quit chanting with the group and at home i started chanting other phrases. I kept the number of syllables the same and, because i lacked the creativity to come up with something that could be construed as sacred, i decided to simply chant words that expressed the very things i wanted. So i made up six-syllable phrases for some of the things i wanted. "My dream job come find me", for example was one. And since i lived in the city at the time, why not, i rode the stationary bike at the same time. It all worked. With the stationary bike it wasn't as powerful but it still worked. I got everything i wanted. Well, that and a hip injury from riding the bike too much. But it was worth it. It didn't matter what i was chanting and i didn't need to say something in a language i didn't understand or sit with my hands together in reverence. Now that i've listened to Laura's explanation about the vagus nerve, i realize it's more than just brain waves or perhaps that is somehow connected to vagus nerve stimulation. There is one bit that i am curious about but haven't bothered to experiment with. The practice includes visual focus on a "gohonzon" (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SGI_Gohonzon.jpg). And that focus does seem to make a difference somehow - the whole experience seems to be more powerful if i focus on it as opposed to just focusing on a spot on the wall, for example. I don't think it needs to be the gohonzon although i haven't bothered to experiment with looking at other things because when i look at it i see a woman archer from the back and she is standing in a doorway aiming her arrow, choosing from the matrix-like choices of realities scrolling vertically downwards on the other side of the doorway. I like that so much that i haven't wanted to mess with it. However i think that if i had a drawing of a woman archer as explained above, focusing on it would have the same result. I feel sure that simply maintaining the visual focus, especially on something that is an important reference for the person chanting, must round out the experience of chanting and it must all have to do with self-hypnosis in addition to whatever else.
Yesterday i was thinking about chanting "om" or "aum". I think that if i am chanting "om", i am essentially pipe-breathing (if i understand it correctly) because i would breath in with my nose, breath out with my mouth while making a sound and at the end of the breath close my mouth with the "m" in order to breath in again through the nose. That made me think of when i was young and i taught young children how to swim. I would tell them to breath out the whole time they were underwater but that didn't work very well because they would forget or panic while they were under. So i told them to hum and that they had to keep humming the whole time they were underwater. That made them laugh and it also worked. Looking back, i think that if i had told them to always hum Amazing Grace, they would forever have that song associated with swimming. Makes me wonder about the origin of the practice of chanting things like "om" or anything really.
Also, if you have ever listened to the weird_music/binaural_beats/guidance of Robert Monroe, you know that he stressed the importance of a short section at the beginning of each session where the listener does something quite similar to chanting "om". He called it "Resonant Tuning" and it's explained in the instructions like this:
During the breathing exercises, follow the pacing on the tape to the extent that it is comfortable for you. As the Resonant Tuning chant begins on the tape, continue the same breathing pattern, vocalizing with the “aaah,” “oooh,” and “uuum” sounds as you exhale. Set your own rhythm, your own pace. Use the sounds on the tape only as a guide. It is important that you actually make the sounds with your physical vocal cords. You will soon grow comfortable with this process and you may notice kinaesthetic responses as your body becomes aligned with resonant energy. As you inhale, imagine an infinity of sparkling, vibrant, vital energy around you. Pull it into all parts of your body and up into your head. Since energy continues to flow, allow the energy to move and swirl gently around in your head as you hold your breath. Exhale through your lips as if you were softly blowing out a candle, releasing any tired, stale energy out through your body and the bottoms of your feet. Breathing slightly deeper than you normally would is just as effective as explosive, championship breaths. Open your eyes as you inhale, and close them as you exhale. Coordinating your eye movement with your breathing is one way to become aware of your ability to control autonomic (automatic) behaviour. Typically, eye blinking and breathing are accomplished without the slightest thought on your part. Now, however, you will plant a seed that may grow into a full realization that you can assume voluntary control over these processes. In other words, you can recognize, change, and direct habitual behaviour and reflexes. Should you relax to the extent you seem to have lost contact with everything physical, simply breathe normally and open your eyes, or move the fingers of your right hand, and your entire body will respond and return to waking, physical consciousness.
All this to say that it would be funny if "sacred" chants were really just tools that people came up with to stimulate the vagus nerve or change brainwave frequencies and that later took on their own significance perhaps as a result of being part of some ritual or maybe being associated with feeling good. Anyway, if any of you have any other ideas about how and why chanting works, especially with visual focus added in, i'd very much like to hear them.
I'm new here and new to the cassiopaea work and i haven't finished reading all the material on the site. I'm only on the second wave, so if someone has already said something like this, forgive me, and i would love to have a link to the thread or the page!
5 or so years ago i chanted for some months with a group of buddhists who chant "Nam Yo Ho Rengue Quo". (I'm sure i haven't spelled that correctly.) The idea is to think about what you want while you chant. That in itself was interesting as far as getting down to the root of it and understand how we limit ourselves. Strangely (or so i thought at the time) this chanting thing really worked and it made me feel energized and awake too. The people in the group talked a lot about how sacred the chant is and used the word "lotus" a lot. I was curious about why it worked so i read about the effect chanting has on brainwaves and i also began to do some experimenting on my own. I quit chanting with the group and at home i started chanting other phrases. I kept the number of syllables the same and, because i lacked the creativity to come up with something that could be construed as sacred, i decided to simply chant words that expressed the very things i wanted. So i made up six-syllable phrases for some of the things i wanted. "My dream job come find me", for example was one. And since i lived in the city at the time, why not, i rode the stationary bike at the same time. It all worked. With the stationary bike it wasn't as powerful but it still worked. I got everything i wanted. Well, that and a hip injury from riding the bike too much. But it was worth it. It didn't matter what i was chanting and i didn't need to say something in a language i didn't understand or sit with my hands together in reverence. Now that i've listened to Laura's explanation about the vagus nerve, i realize it's more than just brain waves or perhaps that is somehow connected to vagus nerve stimulation. There is one bit that i am curious about but haven't bothered to experiment with. The practice includes visual focus on a "gohonzon" (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SGI_Gohonzon.jpg). And that focus does seem to make a difference somehow - the whole experience seems to be more powerful if i focus on it as opposed to just focusing on a spot on the wall, for example. I don't think it needs to be the gohonzon although i haven't bothered to experiment with looking at other things because when i look at it i see a woman archer from the back and she is standing in a doorway aiming her arrow, choosing from the matrix-like choices of realities scrolling vertically downwards on the other side of the doorway. I like that so much that i haven't wanted to mess with it. However i think that if i had a drawing of a woman archer as explained above, focusing on it would have the same result. I feel sure that simply maintaining the visual focus, especially on something that is an important reference for the person chanting, must round out the experience of chanting and it must all have to do with self-hypnosis in addition to whatever else.
Yesterday i was thinking about chanting "om" or "aum". I think that if i am chanting "om", i am essentially pipe-breathing (if i understand it correctly) because i would breath in with my nose, breath out with my mouth while making a sound and at the end of the breath close my mouth with the "m" in order to breath in again through the nose. That made me think of when i was young and i taught young children how to swim. I would tell them to breath out the whole time they were underwater but that didn't work very well because they would forget or panic while they were under. So i told them to hum and that they had to keep humming the whole time they were underwater. That made them laugh and it also worked. Looking back, i think that if i had told them to always hum Amazing Grace, they would forever have that song associated with swimming. Makes me wonder about the origin of the practice of chanting things like "om" or anything really.
Also, if you have ever listened to the weird_music/binaural_beats/guidance of Robert Monroe, you know that he stressed the importance of a short section at the beginning of each session where the listener does something quite similar to chanting "om". He called it "Resonant Tuning" and it's explained in the instructions like this:
During the breathing exercises, follow the pacing on the tape to the extent that it is comfortable for you. As the Resonant Tuning chant begins on the tape, continue the same breathing pattern, vocalizing with the “aaah,” “oooh,” and “uuum” sounds as you exhale. Set your own rhythm, your own pace. Use the sounds on the tape only as a guide. It is important that you actually make the sounds with your physical vocal cords. You will soon grow comfortable with this process and you may notice kinaesthetic responses as your body becomes aligned with resonant energy. As you inhale, imagine an infinity of sparkling, vibrant, vital energy around you. Pull it into all parts of your body and up into your head. Since energy continues to flow, allow the energy to move and swirl gently around in your head as you hold your breath. Exhale through your lips as if you were softly blowing out a candle, releasing any tired, stale energy out through your body and the bottoms of your feet. Breathing slightly deeper than you normally would is just as effective as explosive, championship breaths. Open your eyes as you inhale, and close them as you exhale. Coordinating your eye movement with your breathing is one way to become aware of your ability to control autonomic (automatic) behaviour. Typically, eye blinking and breathing are accomplished without the slightest thought on your part. Now, however, you will plant a seed that may grow into a full realization that you can assume voluntary control over these processes. In other words, you can recognize, change, and direct habitual behaviour and reflexes. Should you relax to the extent you seem to have lost contact with everything physical, simply breathe normally and open your eyes, or move the fingers of your right hand, and your entire body will respond and return to waking, physical consciousness.
All this to say that it would be funny if "sacred" chants were really just tools that people came up with to stimulate the vagus nerve or change brainwave frequencies and that later took on their own significance perhaps as a result of being part of some ritual or maybe being associated with feeling good. Anyway, if any of you have any other ideas about how and why chanting works, especially with visual focus added in, i'd very much like to hear them.
