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RNA and Deep Body Meditation

This short paper is a companion to the discussion I began in "The Phenomenology of the Implicate Order." Interested readers are directed to that paper, also located on the SSS website under the general heading of "Research."

Visualize the DNA comprising human genes as long strands of proteins, twisted in the famous double helix. Individual proteins appear as individual segments along the strands; the order of their appearance is the stuff of life. This order, this sequence shows up the unique characteristics of every smallest and largest detail of us. If these strands change, so must we change.

Some thinkers have considered the possibility of intentional change to DNA. Evolution then could take a direction under will. Yet, what wisdom directs what changes? We as yet do not understand the molecular biology sufficiently well to guide our manipulations of proteins along the DNA. The Human Genome Project promises a map. Medical science points the way to a growing number of genetic anomalies thought to produce disease. Researchers are able to manually remove and insert genetic material altering cell function and phenotypic expression. Still, we remain far short of comprehensive knowledge of where and what DNA changes will promote human evolution.

Yet, perhaps change as humans with love under will brings the necessary products to our DNA? Perhaps it is not to manually change a guanine protein for an adenine along the DNA strands, but rather to be more fully aware and love as more fully human? We might then allow the wisdom of the body to direct the molecular alchemy. If we change, so must these strands change.

The role of RNA has so far been missing from the considerations I have seen of willed, intentional change on this sub-cellular level. While the grand sweep of species evolution and the sheer power of DNA draw us like moths, can we hold back to a less dramatic but perhaps easier and less perilous path? RNA modulates and softens the loud messages of DNA. RNA translates the profound code of DNA into more immediate action. Can we access this action on the level of intention?

My experience suggests we can do this. For a period of nineteen months I injected a drug called interferon (alpha-2b) in amounts of three million units per dose three times each week. Interferon changes the RNA action processes. These changes from the original processes created a window of perception to the internal workings of the RNA.

The cells in my body were infected with the virus known as hepatitis C [HCV.] The sub-cellular effect of this and other viruses is to take over command of the RNA translation of DNA code. Very simply put, while the order of proteins on the DNA strand directs the RNA action to reproduce what is vital to the healthy cell and to the organism, the virus redirects the action in an infected cell to reproduce the virus. Copies upon copies of the now virally ordered protein strands accumulate in the cell until the cell wall bursts releasing the viral strands that can go on to infect formerly healthy cells.

Deep body meditation focussed on the RNA action quickly distilled for me a question: what is me, and what is not me? That is to say, if the RNA in my healthy cells was acting to reproduce elements of me, the virally controlled cellular RNA was acting to reproduce what was not me (but was instead the HCV.) Coming to this required that I know, or can recognize the difference. Is this believable?

Were it not for the interferon I would never have imagined it believable. Again, the interferon changes the RNA actions. It "interferes" with the RNA (hence the name.) It interferes with RNA in both the healthy cell and the infected cell. It interferes both with the reproduction of the strands of ordered proteins recognizable as me, and with the reproduction of the virally ordered strands. Moreover, the action of the drug is unique, and it feels unique on a deep body level.

The distillate from exploring my deep body feeling the unique effects of the interferon contained the messages allowing me to isolate the phenomenologic field of the RNA processes. As the changes made by the interferon were embedded in the field of RNA action, the messages showing change revealed something of the ground of the RNA processes themselves. That is to say, I could perceive and reflect on bodily sensations that were distinguishable as native, healthy RNA on one hand, or virally controlled RNA on the other. The distinction between the two revealed itself in the phenomenal ground turned-up by the unique sensation of the effect of interferon in my body.

The technique I used to turn the ground, to break the furrows showing up the unique sensations created by the interferon is analogous to the alchemical metaphor introduced in "The Phenomenology of the Implicate Order." My body was the two-chambered vessel of Indian alchemical lore. One chamber contained the raw sensation ingredients of interferon, the RNA processes, and the viral load. The other chamber collects the distillate of the alchemical process. The heat for the transformation came from the operations of psychosexual ecstasy, combusting the ingredients of sensation and moving the results through the throat connecting the two chambers of the vessel. I found that the distillate condensed in the form of the phenomena of my thoughts, or reflections remaining after the operation.

My reflections left me with two clearly different thought phenomena; one was of me, the other was not of me, but was instead of the virus. It became a relatively straightforward exercise to hold on to that part of the distillate that was of me, and to discard that part with a viral signature. I experienced the viral as spectacularly different from the human! My body is now free of the virus.

November 1999