The Tibetan monks who surprised Harvard scientists

Herbert Benson was a cardiologist and famous professor of medicine at Harvard University. In 1967, he had been studying Eastern cultures for years, but at that time the subject still caused many apprehensions. That’s why, He waited until after midnight to sneak 36 Tibetan monks into his laboratory..

Benson wanted to see for himself how much myth and how much reality there was in what was said about Tibetan monks. In those times, Bruce Lee fascinated on the screens, but beyond that, transcendental meditators were talked about as people with superhuman characteristics. Benson was a scientist and couldn’t believe in anything that wasn’t proven by science..

What he discovered that night changed his life forever. Three years later he wrote a book that would become a great bestsellea: The relaxation response. Not only that, but it created a new trend in medicine in which it was asserted that faith is capable of healing and that the placebo effect has a very high therapeutic power.

The Benson Tibetan Monks

What Herbert Benson, and then himself and his team, found was that, indeed, the Tibetan monks had some capabilities that even went so far as to contradict some scientific statements.

For example, a group of those monks who practiced a yoga technique called g Tum-mo could reduce the temperature of their hands and feet by up to 17 degrees. To date there is no scientific explanation for this phenomenon, but that experiment and subsequent ones were reviewed in the Harvard Gazette.

It is said that Tibetan monks were able to raise their body temperature to the point of drying wet sheets with their body. This was not the only thing. Benson also found that advanced meditators of another technique called Sikkim also They were able to reduce the speed of their metabolism by up to 64%.

Some theoretical approaches

In the article Science and meditationwritten by Professor Ana María Krohne, from the Antonio Nariño University, it is said that To date there are around 500 studies on the physiological, psychological and sociological effects of transcendental meditation. inspired by the traditions of Tibetan monks.

He mentions that the first study on the matter was published by the journal Science in the 70s. In it, it is indicated that A state of consciousness different from those already known had been found in the monks..

Science talks about the states of wakefulness, dreaming, and deep sleep. Apparently, in the monks there was a fourth state that combines rest and alertness simultaneously.

In 1971, Daniel Goleman, the famous creator of the concept of multiple intelligences, wrote an article called Unstressed. In this postulate the existence of a fifth type of state of consciousness in which there is not only simultaneous rest and alertness, but also action.

Swami Rama

The theme of the superior abilities of Tibetan monks and other transcendent meditators It is one of those issues that always walk the thin line that separates fiction and reality.. Therefore, it is not unusual to find verified information, alongside many myths and legends. It is not always easy to distinguish one from the other.

One of the examples of this is the case of Swami Rama, author of Live with the teachers of the Himalayas. In this work, it is stated that there are Tibetan yogis and monks capable of remaining for several hours in total stillness, but who also levitate.

There is no evidence that that is true. What there is evidence of is the studies that the Menninger Foundation, in the United States, carried out on Swami Rama.

Doctors Elmer and Alyce Green were in charge of studying his apparent powers. In the results they released, they said that Rama was capable of producing the same dream brain waves during waking moments. Also that He had voluntarily managed to stop his heart from pumping for 17 seconds without it stopping beating..

Although these phenomena were recorded by the media at the time, little has been said about the topic afterward. In any case, The results of the studies were published in the work BEYOND BIO-FEEDBACK by Elmer and Alyce Green.

Perhaps all this is nothing more than a sophisticated and ingenious scam. Or, perhaps, the mind is absolutely wonderful and we are just beginning to discover it.

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