A vow of silence (mauna) has one main focus — to awaken awareness. Cultivating awareness, means being in the present moment at all times and experiencing each and every action with full consciousness.

If you are drinking a coffee, you don’t drink the coffee while reading a newspaper, all the while your mind is thinking about what tasks the day holds for you. You drink the coffee and are conscious that you are picking up the cup. You lift it to your lips, you feel the sensation of taste, you put the cup back down and your mind is fully in the present moment and the task at hand. By living in the present, you increase your awareness. It is like switching off your auto pilot and removing yourself from routine life.

A vow of silence further enhances this awareness and gives you the shake you need, to finally break the mold. Known as a spiritual awakening or state of enlightenment.

1. You Change the Definition Of Yourself

Without others we have no definition of ourselves. We determine who we are by the perception of others. When you take a vow of silence, you can no longer prepare your response and react to the circumstance. When you can no longer think and talk your way through situations, you have no choice but to let go of your societal mask.

This mask is the “you” that you were told you were. The role that you play, in the game you were playing.

2. You Enhance Your Perception

Your senses become overflowed with energy. This energy was chewed up by thinking and speaking and so when they open up, they take on a new tremendous intensity.

Sunsets will appear more vivid, flowers become enchanting, and the whole world comes alive. The stars look brighter and your connection is deepened, as you delve into your miraculous and spontaneous sense of being. Continue reading →

This article was originally written and posted at/by Collective Evolution.  Posted here with their permission.

Did you know that we can change our biology simply by what we believe to be true? The placebo effect is defined as the measurable, observable, or felt improvement in health or behaviour not attributable to a medication or invasive treatment that has been administered. It suggests that one can treat various ailments by using the mind to heal. For example, if two people have a head ache and one takes tylenol while the other is given a pill that contains nothing (sugar), both could report that the pill was successful and the headache is gone.

The difference is, the one that was given the pill which contained nothing still believed that they were given a tylenol that would alleviate their headache. In doing so,  their headache was cured because of what they believed to be true. This has happened on numerous occasions, many studies have shown that the placebo effect is real and highly effective.

The placebo practice is known, but widely dismissed in medicine. The placebo effect should be a major topic of study in medical schools. Unfortunately drug companies study patients who respond to the placebo effect with the goal of eliminating them from early clinical trials. It bothers pharmaceutical manufacturers that in most of their clinical trials the placebos prove to be just as effective as their chemical ridden drugs. Examining the placebo effect would give rise to a whole new category under science, which would probably be consciousness.

This is why it’s not examined thoroughly, the power of our perception and its ability to create our reality and even change our biology would open the door to a multitude of other questions, possibilities and potentialities for the human race. These potentialities would most likely wipe out many industries on the planet, from health all the way down to energy. These concepts are also heavily examined and illustrated by quantum physics.

The placebo effect should be the subject of major, funded research efforts. If medical researchers could figure out how to leverage the placebo effect, they would hand doctors an efficient,energy-based, side effect-free tool to treat disease.

Energy healers say they already have such tools, but I am a scientist, and I believe the more we know about science of the placebo, the better we’ll be able to use it in clinical settings – Bruce Lipton, Ph.D (3)

A Baylor School of Medicine study, published in 2002 in the New England Journal of Medicine, (1) looked at surgery for patients with severe and debilitating knee pain. Continue reading →