Recent research has shown that genes are subject to apparent changes that result from each life situation or event
Recent research has shown that genes are subject to apparent changes that result from each life situation or event. These genetic changes range from immediate to intermediate and long-term. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) shows that daily events affect human body circuitry and its many systems – immune system, limbic-hypothalamic coordinating system, the production of neuropeptides, neurotransmitters and hormones, the autonomic nervous system and central nervous system, digestion and elimination, in fact the whole human enchilada – each moment.
It has long been known (though still not widely accepted) that we possess a generalized adaptive system that keeps us going by a complex of systems that are monitoring and feedbacking in order to coordinate body-mind reactions that are appropriate to meet the challenge of each moment. This adaptation keeps us functioning within a strictly defined range of environmental parameters, such as temperature, pressure, oxygen level, etc. (Hans Selye, Canadian endocrinologist; The Stress of Life 1956, Stress Without Distress 1974). This generalized adaptive response maintains homeostasis; it is evolution’s refined circuitry for survival.
Life however is wider, deeper and broader than survival and homeostasis. Noted French physiologist Claude Bernard long ago declared that life depends on the organisms’ capacity to keep their inner milieu in a steady state of constancy. Homeostatic responses are hard-wired stereotypical biological reactions to danger and stress and, as such, are limited by biology’s evolutionary survival programs inherited in, and transmitted by, our genes. Selye himself was fascinated by the significance of the human stress reaction not only on disease, “but indeed on all human activities.”
A creative response to life, because it is intentional, can bypass stereotypical, conditioned reactions and initiate spontaneous new ways to meet the challenge. Spontaneous, intuitive, creative responses to life events enable a wider range of options, options that provoke growth rather than simply maintaining the old, stereotypical ways of behavior. Creative ways of meeting a challenge has been shown to activate synaptic responses that would otherwise remain dormant during automatic reactions. Stress, creatively encountered, stimulates the central nervous system to grow. The creative response turns on neurogenetic lights that otherwise would remain dormant and dark.
Research has further shown that stress can initiate adaptive gene mutations (Marina Chicurel, independent researcher, 2001). It is also becoming accepted that “entirely normal everyday expression (not mutation!) of immediate early genes, behavioral state-related genes, and activity-dependent genes are associated with modulations in behavioral states, memory, emotions, learning and dreaming, and by implication, the psychological transformations characteristic of problem-solving, identity formation, and new developments in human consciousness.” (Ernest L. Rossi, 2002; The Psychobiology of Gene Expression, Pp 266).
This gives a whole new basis of understanding to Osho’s Dynamic Meditation: light your fire of awareness, intentionally fuel the flames with your issues, feelings, emotions, memories and beliefs, then watch how Dynamic is changing you from your genes outwards.
www.oshodontics.com – Copyright © 2010 Devageet
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