Why should I mediate when I could spend that time doing absolutely anything else? How can a silent mind be productive? What does Joe Dispenza do when he’s not being an alien?
These were the questions on my mind when I left his seminar at The Melbourne Convention Centre last week. He had a certain typology of movements that made me think of tentacles and pincers. He’d clear his throat, say something profound about the brain, and, beckoning to the crowd with spaghetti arms that seemed slightly out of focus as though unsure if they’d decided to completely materialise in this reality or not, he’d drop a knee, let his glutes disengage, buckling like a coy deer, and for a moment he could appear to be made of something other than what I was made of – basically blood and guts and matter. Joe seemed to be comprised mostly of light energy.
I’ve got friends that know more about him than me, and I was pre-warned about ‘light beings’ and other supernatural happenings, which I’m totally down for. I’ve also had a notion for some time that the human race is being monitored by extra-terrestrials, and when things get stagnant down here, the aliens will intervene. Exhibit A: Jesus H. Christ. Exhibit B: Elvis A. Presley. Exhibit C: The Old Lady Who Lived Next Door To Me Growing Up. All clearly not of this world. You can add Dr Joe (a title he’d given himself) to this list.
In a sentence: Joe Dispenza uses meditation to tap into the latent potentials of the universe to create better lives for anyone who wants to try it. Check out his website here.
He believes we fashion our destinies through the power of attraction; via a dedicated practice of visualising an ideal future, we can draw that reality toward us.
The body is chemical (hormones and neurotransmitters), but we live in a subtle field of “electrical energy” as per Quantum Physics, where things are constantly communicating below the veil of matter, repelling and attracting, attracting and repelling.
Thoughts are the language of the mind, and in essence seem to be electrical. This means only thoughts can directly influence this field of energy, or potentials, or future outcomes. If you can dream it – if you can put enough electrical clout behind it – then this strand of thought from the field of potentials may coagulate into your current reality.
Dr Joe says, ‘Matter can’t change matter’, a similar proposition to Einstein, who said, ‘Problems cannot be solved by the same mindset that created them’, but thought, your thoughts, the things you think about yourself, what you’re capable of, and what you’re not capable of, will influence your story more than anything genetic or any future cast upon you by another.
Dr Joe has all kinds of stories about people manifesting a good time through changing the way they think. Meditation is the tool he uses. Not the kind where you’re lying down with the sheets up around your chin, or the kind where you’re listening to Norah Jones, or the kind where you end up asleep. Joe’s brand of meditation is about intention and visualisation.
He implores focus and dedication, sitting upright and alert, best adhered to with his audio track in the background, a sonic exploration of wobbly echoes and deep space sounds, his American twang floating out from the purple dark, drenched in reverb, saying prophetic and strange things. Listen here.
Meditation is about plugging into the energetic field and making magic happen with reality bending thoughts. And … it’s an ongoing practice.
The big hurdle is suffering. The brain loves it. Or more precisely, the brain loves the known, and this is where it wants to remain. 95% of our day is unconscious patterning, stupid little inane things, strings and strings of them, connecting waking to sleeping, shading in the middle area with lots of this suffering. The unknown is where we find new potentials and new ways of living.
So, you’re mediating. You’re not under the sheets, you’re not falling asleep. You’re alert and ready. But as you begin to transcend and move into the unknown, your brain senses a disruption in homeostasis and begins to ramp up the suffering to bring you back down. Suddenly you’re flooded with anxious thoughts: things to do, all those bills, people who are out to get you – and your transcendence hits an iceberg like the one that struck Rose and Jack’s budding romance on one cold night in the North Atlantic. This is normal. Anxiety is a basic human function, something like an instinct in the animal world, and without it you’d stick your tongue in a toaster and trust your enemies when they invite you over for dinner.
Dr Joe calls the brain an artefact of the past, but really the whole body is. It’s an expression of where you’ve been, a solution of the thoughts you’ve had based on all those countless external experiences—your perceived experience of the world. Perceived is the word we want to zoom in on.
Your pre-frontal cortex (the front of your brain, the uniquely human part of the brain), is the thinking and perceiving factory. It sends a signal to the Limbic/Emotional centre of the brain and calibrates an appropriate chemical for the experience. The thought becomes a feeling – electrical becomes chemical.
We’re basically turning nothing (‘nothing’ really means something is too subtle for our senses to discern), into something we can see/taste/touch/feel/hear in this reality. This thought becomes a neuropeptide that signals a protein that alters gene expression. ‘This is science,’ Joe was sure to inform us, just in case the captivated audience at The Melbourne Convention Centre was beginning to lose faith. ‘This isn’t mysticism or voodoo. I’m speaking the language of the modern world.’ I like that he said this. He’d been confronted on it before, no doubt. You can’t choose to believe the science that works for you and ignore the rest. If you’re invested in the ideology, you have to go all in. The same tests apply.
I’ve recently committed myself to meditating with intent. There are things I want for myself, things that probably won’t happen in my current head space. I’m good at making myself suffer for no good reason. I’m working on it and I advise you to do the same. One of these intentions is that more people read this blog—and look you’re here. Hello.
