Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek AT IS EASY TO GET DISCOURAGED in today’s world. There are many human problems that dominate our headlines and preoccupy our minds. It can seem like the world is getting increasingly worse. There is no doubt that we need to change our ways or risk serious consequences.

I think, however, that all our troubles can turn around in an instant. All of the negativity we face is just a manifestation of our inner world, and just as a mood or a thought can change instantly, so can the world.

The important point is to look not at the temporary state of the world but at what is under the surface. If you believe that people truly desire peace, then there is no reason to despair.

Fortunately, your brain waves can respond to positive information quickly. The body, by contrast, may take quite a while to recover from poor nutrition, if it can recover at all. You have seen the brain’s resiliency if you have ever seen your mood change rapidly. You may have been having a terrible day and feeling very sullen, when all of a sudden some piece of positive information maybe an upbeat song, good news from a friend, a child’s smile turns everything around for vou. Part of the message of Brain Wave Vibration, however, is that you don’t have to wait for these special moments. It is remarkably simple to choose the quality of information entering your brain and to control the resulting health of your brain waves.

Young teenagers understand this instinctively, and thus they often seek to define themselves through associations with certain musical styles. Unfortunately, the music they seek is not always that which lifts them to higher states; more often they are drawn to music that resonates with their current state of consciousness. Just as they are drawn to other kids with similar levels of consciousness, they are drawn to music that resonates with their current brain wave patterns. In other words, a dark, angst-ridden teen is likely to be drawn to similarly themed music, where a more happy-go-lucky type might be more inclined to upbeat pop tunes. The same is also true for adults, even if somewhat less obviously.

Much of our mythology teaches us that life is about finding our way back to oneness. In Korean traditions, we have the story of Mago, an Earth spirit analogous to Mother Earth in Western society. At one point, humanity was in accord with Mago, and there was a state of perfect peace and harmony. Like in the biblical story of Eden, this paradise was eventually lost as people began to divide themselves.

According to the mythologies of many cultures, humanity once lived harmoniously only to lose this perfect existence. The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is a familiar example.

Seeking Oneness

When you consider the many different manifestations of spiritual experience in the world, it obviously does no good to debate which one is right. That has been the root of unbelievable amounts of suffering in the world. In fact, in the way I see spirituality, it is quite contradictory to differentiate in this way. It is best rather to focus on the concepts we have in common.

One thing is clear to me: the brain is indeed designed for spiritual experience. It is also clear that such experience does not come from thinking long and hard about the minutiae of theological issues. Rather, it comes from a quieting of the thinking mind so that one mav open up to the mysteries of experience.

To me, it is not a worthwhile question to debate the existence or nonexistence of God. One way or the other, the spiritual realm is beyond the power of the human mind to describe, and as soon as we attempt to put our experience of it into words, we have already shrunken it, regardless of how beautifully we speak.