--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" > <snip> > > I have a plausible, and for me satisfying theory of how pujas, > > meditations and chanting effects my mind. I do not have a > > theory that supports a trans personal effect on the world or > > the physical claims of yagyas done for specific physical > > effects. <snip> > > It was a > > cultural ceremony that had lots of psychological values and social > > values <snip> > We may all have different views of what is beyond the > empirically obvious. Some may hold there is nothing. I think > there are forces of nature, not necessarily anthropormorphic > entities. Its plausible to me that yagyas, as well as catholic > masses and mardi gras celebrations enliven such.
It strikes me that yagyas and religious and cultural celebrations, as well as healing-type rituals (such as the shamanic "soul retrieval" Robert Gimbel just posted a piece about, the laying on of hands, etc.), may all fall under the general heading of "attitude adjustments." (The experience of gratitude new morning goes on to suggest as an effect of a yagya would be an example.) And I suspect that "attitude adjustments" of this type can have more far-reaching, profound effects than may be immediately evident. One's attitude affects just about everything one does, the choices one makes, big and small, consciously and subconsciously. It seems to me entirely plausible that such an attitude adjustment could have a long, broad chain of effects, many of them small and indirect, that could ultimately converge on a "gross" physical effect--physical healing, the "lucky" avoidance of negative occurrences, greater prosperity, etc., etc.--for which the cause-and-effect chain is as if hidden. I don't think it matters much whether one attributes a positive outcome to some divine entity or to "laws of nature," rather than to a purely natural, if obscure, process. Actually, I should think it might *help* to believe it's out of one's own hands, so that one just lets the process happen without trying to consciously engineer it.
