"The Great Bell Chant" Meditation Video and My Fear of Satellite Maps

Omg. Omg. Omg.

I was getting really anxious this Sunday about not being able to finish a research paper for grad school on time because there was a nationwide blackout (power outage) the whole weekend and was about to go to National Bookstore to buy a new box of Mongol pencils so I can twist each of them in half and be calmed by the sound of cracking wood when I saw on Facebook (yes, I do my research on Facebook so don't ask another question) this video posted by my friend Eduard, who sometimes suffers from PMS despite being a boy. He posted that this video that he said calmed him down after being really worried and stressed out about something.

So I checked it out and found that several minutes into the video there are some Google Earth-looking shots of winding rivers and blue oceans and canyons and mountains. These scenes didn't exactly calm me down and instead scared the hell out of me because I have this really weird fear of satellite maps which went back to the era of 28-volume encyclopedias whose geography pages I would skip. This fear goes way back and although it's not really a problem for me, I looked it up and found out that there actually are a lot of people with the same affliction. It's just enlightening to learn that I'm not alone in what I fear.

So anyway, what I did was I didn't watch the video. I just listened to the sound of the Great Bell and the foreign language chanting/ music, and the *Dalai Lama's guiding voice that tells you to listen to the bell, which was really soothing if you were in the right mindset and if you're not slouching in your chair and checking your Facebook news feed.

I think the best way to listen to it is through headphones, with your eyes closed and your legs in the lotus position, and your back straightened, something like this:

(click image for an Omsome bigger version)

Actually I'm not sure if that is what you call a lotus position as I'm not a yoga freak and the nearest thing that I've ever done and will probably ever do for exercise is jogging once a week, and that's it. You can also try to stand and assume the Karate Kid poster position while listening to the audio.

If you're like me and a bunch of others who are deathly afraid of satellite maps and of images of vastness and nothingness, make sure you that you absolutely do NOT look at the video. Or maybe you can, with eyes squinted, ready to be shut tight when you see those shots of out-of-worldly stretches of desert or mountains or oceans. Just thinking about them makes me shudder. Seriously.

When you're done watching and/or listening to the video, do drop me a comment about your experience, okay? Please do not post any links of scary maps as I will unleash missiles of Mongol pencils into you if you do so. Thank you.

*Not really sure if it was the Dalai Lama. There's a 50-50 chance that it was Morgan Freeman with a Tibetan/Nepalese/Chinese mixed accent.