"冥想瑜伽"印度盛行 有效预防心脏病

背景知识：在60年代，由于披头士中的George Harrison乔治哈里森的带领，许多合唱团对印度的音乐、乐器发生了兴趣。1964年，当Beatles的音乐横扫全美之际，George Harrison被印度乐器西塔琴Sitar深深吸引了。于是他跟随印度传统乐器大师Ravi Shankar(拉维香客)学习。他学习的成果，在Beatles的唱片Rubber Soul专辑中的Norwigean Wood一曲中首次与世人见面。因此而导致的学习狂潮，使得Ravi Shandan必须开班受徒，没多久，音乐界的人士开始热烈地Ragas,Tablas，Sarods等各式印度乐器了。披头合唱团的兴趣，从印度音乐扩展到印度的宗教和哲学，于是专程到印度跟随冥想大师Maharishi Mahesh Yogi学习冥想。

Transcendental Meditation, made popular by the Beatles during the flower power era of the 1960s, could cut heart attack rates by half, researchers claim. The mantra meditation, which involves repeating a sound repeatedly twice daily for up to 20 minutes, lowers death rates from heart attack and strokes. The relaxation technique was used by patients with heart disease during a nine year ?2.25million trial at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

McCartney在披头士于印度Rishikesh的Maharishi Mahesh瑜珈聚会所学习超凡冥想（Transcendental Meditation）时让“超凡冥想”在披头士1960年代如日中天的时期内流行起来，而研究者称学习披头士延续“超凡冥想”可以让心脏病发病率彻底减半！具体方法是：每两日一个周期，跟随着冥想音乐重复默念20分钟。而这种减轻心脏病以及中风的减压方法已经被应用在临床实验中，作用于威斯康辛医学院的病人，耗资225万英镑，试验为期9年。

Professor of Medicine Theodore Kotchen said: 'These findings are the strongest documented effects yet produced by a mind-body intervention on cardiovascular disease. 'The effect is as large or larger than major categories of drug treatment for cardiovascular disease. 'However, subjects were already taking standard medications and this effect was on top of that.'

威斯康辛医学院的教授说道：“研究证实冥想对于减轻心血管疾病对身体的危害具有极大作用，这种方法比起药物治疗还要见效。”有资料显示，因为音乐震动是能通过听觉影响人的心意或灵魂层面的深层次能量，触动情感能量之海的心潮澎湃。所以聆听和唱颂是瑜伽修行中开发心灵高层次能量的最好办法，实际也是最流行的瑜伽修行。音乐震动会通过耳朵进入我们心里，影响脉轮系统能量流动，就会触动身，心，灵的各个层面，当然我们聆听的内容是致关重要的，就是聆听的音震的能量层次有多高，还有我们有多专注，这些决定了能发觉到我们生命中哪种高级的能量。At a press conference two years ago before a concert to promote Transcendental Meditation, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney recalled their 1968 trip to India to learn meditation from the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. 'Over 40 years ago, we ended up in Rishikesh,' Starr said. 'That is where we hung out with Maharishi. We had met him a few months before in Wales. Since then, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, I have meditated. It’s a gift he gave me.' McCartney added: 'It’s one of the few things anyone has ever given to me that means so much to me. For us, it came at a time when we were looking for something to stabilise us at the end of the crazy Sixties.'

就在两年前，披头士成员为推广“超凡冥想”举行的音乐会前发布会会上，成员Ringo Starr 与Paul McCartney 回顾他们1968年去印度学习冥想时，感慨地说道：“40年前，我们在瑞诗凯诗（Rishikesh）-------印度最主要瑜伽静修圣地，最著名的朝圣中心之一，找到了自己。我们需要一种力量，一种让我们安静下来省视自己的力量来陪伴我们度过让我们疯狂的60年代。”