By Nisha Manek, MD, FACP, FRCP (UK)
This dreadful pandemic has claimed the lives of two members of my extended family in London. On the heels of COVID-19, America is roiling with protests, and scenes of chaos and destruction dominate the TV news.
Something inside me has been set free. The beauty of life is its unpredictability. Unpredictability defies logic. We have no protocols in place for disasters such as these. My human calculations — the bedrock of science — cannot comprehend the whole dance of life. That which is there this moment, a human being, a structure, a form, may not be there the next moment. For me, this realization had a stabilizing effect, a point around which reality could re-gather.
The crux is this: How do you relate to the external conditions without losing your balance and inner integrity? These days, many people are looking to a higher power for comfort. A Pew Research Center survey in March found more than half of all U.S. adults (55%) say they have prayed for an end to the spread of coronavirus. But so have people who say they seldom or never pray and those who say they do not belong to any religion (15% and 24%, respectively).
Moreover, according to economist researchers at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Google searches for the topic “prayer” skyrocketed worldwide in step with the surge of emerging cases of Covid-19.
People pray for many reasons, including solace, guidance, petition, or protection. Prayer can also promote a feeling of connection — with a higher power, your surroundings, and other people. The research on prayer shows it has comparable benefits to meditation: It can calm your nervous system, quieting down your fight or flight response. According to the American Psychological Association, prayer takes the edge off, making you less reactive to negative emotions and less angry.
In 2005, the Journal of Behavioral Medicine published research comparing secular and spiritual forms of meditation. In spiritual meditation, you contemplate a scriptural text or words that describe a higher power (“God is love”). In secular meditation, you focus on your breath or a nonspiritual word. Participants in the group that did spiritual meditation had more significant decreases in anxiety and greater increases in self-efficacy, daily spiritual experiences, and existential well-being.
Scientists have no direct way to measure the existence of a higher power. In physics research, however, there is compelling data about the power of intention to bring coherence to our world. With intention, we create new information and orderliness. This powerful tool — intention — is how consciousness does things in our realm. Intentionality helped me relive guidance that brought back my inner freedom.
More than twelve years ago, during a visit to Sedona, Arizona, I listened to a CD by the medical doctor and spiritual teacher, Dr. David Hawkins. I was struck by his opening remark, which went something like this: “You cannot see it out there unless you see it within yourself.”
I cannot see it out there unless I see it within myself. All injustice, protest, violence, and anger out there are also contained in me. The whole spectrum of consciousness and its varied expressions are mine — from the lowest to the most sublime. We are life and living itself. Rather than living in injury and dissatisfaction, I choose to sit silently and turn it over to God. Surrender is a great spiritual tool.
This pandemic and now civil unrest have given us the chance to explore a different kind of response — something intimate and universal, akin to meditation. You can sit inside yourself for whatever amount of time you choose or can spare. The response of contemplating in quiet is the opposite of isolation. Great spiritual teachers embrace me. One senses the existence of Love amid the devastation, the mystery of life, and impending death — in other words, everything we need right now.
In June, I’m glad for verse two of Psalm 91. It never lets us down. Let it raise you up.
Psalm 91:2 ━ I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
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Dr. Nisha Manek
Dr. Nisha Manek is an integrative rheumatologist and an alumnus of Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. She is the author of Bridging Science and Spirit: The Genius of William A. Tiller’s Physics and the Promise of Information Medicine.
Visit her at www.nishamanekmd.com.