DR ADRIAN COOPER

<hr class="vertical-space1">
<h4>A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and author of three successful books, including Sacred Mountains:
 Ancient Wisdom and Modern Meanings, DR ADRIAN COOPER has been
 fascinated with wildlife and conservation since early childhood. Here he recounts some of the experiences of
 pilgrims traveling to wilderness environments, and how it helps them to grow naturally.</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1">
Wilderness environments have fed the human imagination since the dawn of history. Today,
 mountains, forests, mangroves and other challenging natural places are the focus for pilgrimage journeys for
 increasing numbers of people from all over the world. While traditional pilgrimage destinations such as Rome or
 Jerusalem may not always satisfy a pilgrim’s search for solitude and sanctuary, mountains and forests often do so in
 glorious abundance, with many surprises along the way.
Traditionally, sanctuaries have been thought of as simply places of reflection,
 meditation and prayer. However, in remote natural environments, that is only part of the story. On a mountain slope
 or deep in a forest, for example, pilgrims learn that rational knowledge of their new sanctuary is never enough.
 There is a need to seek more.
As humankind finds its way through this bewildering new millennium, the greatest
 challenge facing each individual is to find ways of becoming spiritually reconciled to the sacred inspirations
 within this planet’s last remaining wilderness environments.
For Harriot, a teacher from Seattle, Washington, her wilderness sanctuaries are most
 frequently discovered on Mount McKinley, often known by its Native American name of Denali. It is the highest peak
 in North America, and one of the most isolated mountains on Earth: 
 “I love to go hiking on Denali… I can tell you that it is my one and only true sanctuary. It’s where I go to find my
 deepest meditations; I can pray there like no other place. And it’s where I feel I can grow in the most natural and
 organic way.”
George, a software designer from London, UK, shares a very similar experience: 
 “Walking in the Scottish Highlands is my true sanctuary. It distances me physically and emotionally from all the
 hassle and hypocrisy of modern living. Out there I can breathe and feel restored. It’s a sanctuary that I crave for,
 and which I need in my deepest soul.”
There are also times when pilgrims reconcile their spiritual search with a personal
 scientific quest to understand local ecosystems, and to align them within their pilgrimage. This type of
 reconciliation between the spiritual and scientific aspects of wilderness sanctuaries is clearly described by
 Lucille, an artist from Rouen, France: 
 “For me, and a lot of my family and friends, there can never be a limit put on spiritual growth. We must always grow
 in any way we can. I love to learn about wildlife. I keep my own journal, which combines my mystical experiences
 with my notes about counting birds or sketching the grasses and other plants.”
In all these ways, wilderness environments offer pilgrims life-changing lessons in the
 sanctuaries they discovered. Consequently, these extraordinary individuals have learned to become more than who they
 were before their journeys began.
<hr class="vertical-space1">


<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by DR ADRIAN COOPER</h4>


<hr>

Sanctuaries in the wilderness

Dr Joe is a Doctor of Chiropractic, who trained in the fields of neuroscience and neuroplasticity, quantitative electroencephalogram (QEEG) measurements, epigenetics, mind-body medicine, and brain/heart coherence. As a researcher, lecturer, author, and corporate consultant, his interest lies in demystifying the mystical so that people have all the tools within their reach to make measurable changes in their lives. Dr Joe works on being the living example of everything he teaches. He also appreciates good food and wine, communing with nature, and being around highly creative people.

JOE-DISPENZA.jpg

DR JOE DISPENZA

<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<h4 style="text-align: justify">
 DR. JOE DISPENZA shares some thoughts
 on heart-brain coherence and moving from thinking to knowing through the
 instrument of perception we know as the heart.
</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 Since our human ancestors first began etching their histories upon cave
 walls and stone tablets, like a thread through the needle of time, the heart
 has appeared as a symbol to represent health, wisdom, intuition, guidance,
 and higher intelligence. The ancient Egyptians, who referred to the heart as
 ieb, believed the heart, rather than the brain, was the center of
 life and the source of human wisdom.We know that the heart, beyond its
 obvious role in sustaining life, is not simply a muscular pump that moves
 blood throughout our body but an organ capable of influencing feelings and
 emotions. The heart is a sensory organ that guides our decision-making
 ability as well as our understanding of ourselves and our place in the
 world. It’s a symbol that transcends time, place, and culture. It’s a
 commonly accepted premise that when we are connected to the heart’s inner
 knowing, we can tap into its wisdom as a source of love and higher
 guidance.


 Every thought you think produces corresponding chemistry equal to that
 thought, which in turn creates an emotion. Therefore, you are suggestible
 only to the thoughts equal to your emotional state. We now know that when
 our students are heart centered and feel more wholeness and oneness, they’re
 less separate from their dreams.


 When they feel gratitude, abundance, freedom, or love, all of those
 emotions welcome corresponding thoughts. Those heart-centered emotions open
 the door to the subconscious mind so that you can program your autonomic
 nervous system equal to the thoughts of your new future. We also know that
 if they live in the feeling of fear or lack but try to think they’re
 abundant, they can’t produce a measurable effect, because change can only
 happen when thoughts are in alignment with the emotional state of the body.
 They can think positively all they want, but without a corresponding feeling
 or emotion equal to that thought, the message cannot be felt or understood
 throughout the rest of the body.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

 Heart-centered emotions open the door 
 to the subconscious mind so that you can 
 program your autonomic nervous system 
 equal to the thoughts of your new future.
 


<hr />
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 So you could repeat the affirmation I am fearless until you’re
 blue in the face, but if it’s fear you’re actually feeling, the
 thought I am fearless never makes it past the brain stem, which
 means you’re not signaling the body and ANS into a new, specific destiny.
 The feeling is what produces the emotional charge (energy) to stimulate your
 ANS into a different destiny. Without the feeling, a disconnect remains
 between your brain and body – between the thought of health and the feeling
 of health – and you can’t embody that new state of being.


 It’s only when you change your energy that you can produce more consistent
 effects. If you sustain these elevated emotions on a daily basis, eventually
 your body, in its innate intelligence, begins to make relative genetic
 changes in the way I described earlier. That’s because the body believes
 that the emotion you are embracing is coming from an experience in your
 environment. So when you open your heart center, practice feeling an emotion
 before the experience occurs, and marry it with a clear intention, the body
 responds as if it’s in the future experience. That heart-mind coherence then
 influences your body chemistry and energy in a series of ways.


 If coherence between the heart and the brain can originate in the heart,
 and their synchronization results in optimal performance and health, then
 you should be taking time every day to focus on activating your heart
 center. By intentionally choosing to feel the elevated emotions of the heart
 rather than waiting for something outside of yourself to elicit those
 emotions, you become who you are truly meant to be – a heart-empowered
 individual. When you are living by the heart, you naturally choose love and
 innately demonstrate it through compassion and care for the well-being of
 yourself, others, and planet Earth. Through our partnership with HMI, our
 students have demonstrated that with practice, we can in fact produce,
 regulate, and sustain elevated feelings and emotions – independent of events
 in our external world.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <img
 alt="living-heart-centered2"
 class="has-img-center lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/living_heart_centered2_4e3c4efadc.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T04:59:49.344Z"
 />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 In our workshops around the world, through the practice of regulating heart
 rhythms to sustain elevated emotions, we teach our students how to generate
 heart and brain coherence. We then measure their abilities using HRV (heart
 rate variability) monitors. During guided meditations, we ask our students
 to surrender to the feelings of gratitude, joy, and love, and we encourage
 daily practice outside of our formal instruction, because when one chooses
 to practice sitting in a state of coherence, it becomes a habit.


 I hope that with enough practice, our students can replace old mental
 scripts of feeling unworthy, fearful, or insecure with more elevated states
 of being and fall deeply in love with their lives. We’ve seen enough of them
 demonstrate that it is indeed possible to produce positive, measurable,
 tangible effects in their lives simply by shifting the paradigm of their
 thoughts and feelings. These dedicated individuals return to their homes,
 where the positive effects they’ve produced in their own lives ripple out to
 positively affect their families and communities, continuously expanding
 their vibrational influence of harmony and coherence throughout the
 world.


 By repeatedly practicing the regulation of heightened emotional states, in
 time the constant feeling of elevated emotions creates a new emotional
 baseline. This baseline then begins to continuously influence a new set of
 thoughts equal to the heightened feelings. The summation of those novel
 thoughts creates a new level of mind, which then produces more corresponding
 emotions equal to those thoughts, further sustaining that baseline. When
 this feedback loop between the heart (body) and mind (brain) occurs, you are
 in an entirely new state of being – the consciousness of the unlimited mind
 and the energy of profound love and gratitude. The repetition of this
 process is what it means to recondition your body, rewire your brain, and
 reconfigure your biology equal to your new state of being. Now you are
 naturally, automatically, and regularly broadcasting a different
 electromagnetic signature of energy into the field. This is who you are, or
 who you have become.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <img
 alt="living-heart-centered3"
 class="has-img-center lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/living_heart_centered3_1f262dbb39.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T04:59:49.431Z"
 />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 Countless history books could be written through the lens of incoherent
 emotions. Whether the result is a Shakespearean tragedy, genocide, or a
 world war, survival emotions such as blame, hate, rage, competition, and
 retribution have resulted in an endless, unnecessary trail of pain,
 suffering, oppression, and death. The results have caused humans to live in
 opposition and conflict rather than in peace and harmony. This is a time in
 history when we can break that cycle. This is a pivotal moment in the story
 of humanity where ancient wisdom and modern science are intersecting to
 provide us with the technology and scientific understanding to learn not
 only how to more efficiently and effectively manage our emotions, but also
 what that means for our health, relationships, energy levels, and personal
 and collective evolution. It doesn’t require moving mountains – only
 changing our internal state of being. This allows us to alter the way we act
 with one another, replacing stressful situations with positive experiences
 that give us energy, fill our spirit, and leave us with a sense of
 wholeness, connection, and unity. The brain may think, but when you turn
 your heart into an instrument of perception, it knows.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 Excerpt reprinted with permission from
 Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon by
 Dr. Joe Dispenza. 
 It can be found online at
 <a
 style="color: #bf6b1d"
 href="http://hayhouse.com"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noopener noreferrer"
 >hayhouse.com</a
 >
 or
 <a
 style="color: #bf6b1d"
 href="http://amazon.com"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noopener noreferrer"
 >amazon.com</a
 >.

<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<hr />
<h4 style="text-align: center">Article by DR. JOE DISPENZA</h4>
<hr />

Living heart centered

Dr Nandi MD FACP is the creator and host of the medical lifestyle television show, ‘Ask Dr. Nandi’, available in syndication on the DISH Network and DirecTV, and in multiple countries around the world. Dr Nandi is also the Chief Health Editor at WXYZ (ABC) Detroit, USA, a practicing physician and a renowned international speaker.

parthanandi_pic.jpg

Dr Partha Nandi

<h4>DR PARTHA NANDI explores the relationship between a healthy lifestyle and how it affects the expression of our DNA and resulting health. He especially focuses on the benefits of Yoga and other traditions – both the meditative practices and the physical movement – in achieving a healthier life.</h4>
From a young age, I knew that I wanted to create a world full of Health Heroes. These are people who make their health a priority and commit to achieving greater health and happiness. Two of the best ways to achieve a healthier life are through movement and spirituality. Each is an important tool in our fight against disease and premature death.
Two of the most effective and fun ways to use these tools is through the practices of meditation and Yoga.
When you make them a part of your daily routine, you’re rewarded with improved physical and mental well-being. They not only transform and strengthen your body, but also sharpen and condition your mind.
This makes them powerful allies to any Health Hero committed to living a healthy and fulfilling life
And it gets better. In addition to the many health benefits that we already know about, new research is showing that these mind-body practices can actually change your genes.
<h4>MIND-BODY PRACTICES ARE CAUSING YOU TO CHANGE ON THE CELLULAR LEVEL</h4>
The way you live affects you right down to your genetic level. Your stress levels, social surroundings, nutritional habits, physical activity and overall lifestyle all contribute to how your genes express themselves, and how your cells respond to their changing environment.
How you cultivate your mind is no exception. New research findings show that the benefits of mind-body practices, including meditation and Yoga, actually begin on the cellular level. Through these practices, you have the ability and power to change your gene expression.
More specifically, meditation and Yoga can change how your DNA responds to stress. And considering that stress is a silent killer that creeps up on us and significantly elevates our risk of disease and premature death, this is especially exciting.
<h4>WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS?</h4>
When we’re exposed to a stressful situation, our ‘fight or flight’ response is triggered. This response increases the production of NF-kB, which regulates how our genes are expressed and causes dangerous inflammation on a cellular level. According to research published in Frontiers in Immunology, people who practice mind-body interventions like Yoga, meditation and Tai Chi have the opposite experience of the fight or flight response: there is a decrease in the production of NF-kB and a reversal of the inflammatory gene.
Basically, this means that meditation and Yoga don’t simply relax you, but also might actually have the ability to reverse molecular reactions to stress in your DNA that can lead to poor health, disease and depression.
<h4>YOU ARE NOT YOUR GENES</h4>

Let’s mention the obvious. You can’t control everything that happens to you. You’re going to deal with stress and health challenges. But when you take advantage of the power you do have, you give yourself every possible opportunity to live your best and healthiest life. And these new findings have created a shift, putting some newfound power into your hands.


<h4>USE YOUR POWER WISELY</h4>
Imagine how your life could change if you took advantage of every drop of power you have to transform your health – right down to the genetic level. How might committing to 10 to 20 minutes a day of meditation change your life? What would you do differently with improved health, less stress and anxiety, more focus and a greater sense of purpose? You’d probably be able to enjoy life in entirely new ways.

<h4>BE A HEALTH HERO</h4>
I encourage you to take advantage of the ability to alter your genes for improved wellness. The game is now changed, and you have more possibilities than ever to transform your biology and heal your body. Take time every day to practice meditation, breathe deeply and commit to greater health and longevity.
Make healthy living a part of every day.
The light in me honors the light in you. Namaste.
Dr Nandi
<h6>Book link: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ask-Dr-Nandi-HealthHero-Well- Being/dp/1501156810/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid= 1504980266&amp;sr=81&amp;keywords=ask+dr+nandi" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.amazon.com/Ask-Dr-Nandi-HealthHero-Well- Being/dp/1501156810/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid= 1504980266&amp;sr=81&amp;keywords=ask+dr+nandi</a></h6>
<h6>In the August issue of Health Hero Magazine, we share the raw and inspiring story of how the power of meditation and Yoga changed the life of Health Hero, Nikki Panfil in ‘Healing Invisible Wounds With Yoga’ :
<a href="https://askdrnandi.com/health-hero-magazinehealing- invisible-wounds-with-yoga/." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://askdrnandi.com/health-hero-magazinehealing- invisible-wounds-with-yoga/.</a></h6>

<hr>

<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by PARTHA NANDI</h4>

<hr>

Yoga and meditation can change your genetics

<hr class="vertical-space1">
<h5>DR PARTHA NANDI encourages us all to make use of this new field in nutritional
 research: harnessing the power of food to change our genes and improve our health.</h5>
<hr class="vertical-space1">
From a young age, I knew that I wanted to create a world full of Health Heroes. These
 are the people who make their health a priority and commit to achieving greater health and happiness.
One of the best ways to achieve a healthier life is through good nutrition. Your
 nutritional choices play a big part in your overall health, and that’s why it is so important to nourish your body
 with healthy foods. Food is powerful. It can fight off depression, boost your mood and even help prevent cancer and
 other illnesses. Food is medicine, and when you use food this way, you’re committing to a beneficial lifestyle
 change.
This makes healthy nutrition an important tool in our fight against disease and obesity.
 It’s arguably a Health Hero’s most powerful ally in the quest for a long and healthy life because what we eat can
 actually change our genes and transform our biology.
<h4>NEW RESEARCH IS CHANGING THE GAME</h4>
Each day brings new evidence on how our life choices affect us right down to our genetic
 level. Our stress levels, social surroundings, physical activity and overall lifestyle all contribute to our gene
 expression – or how our cells respond to their changing environment.
What we eat is no exception. The nutrients in our food interact with our genes. The
 study of this interaction is known as nutrigenomics. It’s changing everything. Where we once thought we were
 powerless, we now have at least some control.
The ability of nutrition to affect our genes means that we’re no longer at the mercy of
 our DNA. This is especially exciting when it comes to fighting and preventing disease.
<h4>WE ARE NOT OUR GENES</h4>
Let’s mention the obvious. We can’t control everything that happens to us. We are going
 to face health challenges and adversity. But when we take advantage of the power we do have, we give ourselves every
 possible opportunity to live our best and healthiest life.
Nutrigenomics is creating a power shift, putting some newfound power into our hands.
 What does this mean? Think about inherited diseases like heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s.

If these, or other inherited diseases, run in your family, you’re not doomed to suffer.
 The fate of your health is not set in stone. If your mother is diabetic, it’s not a given that you’ll eventually
 become a diabetic.
Again, we don’t have absolute control. If that were the case, we’d all eat healthy food
 and never fall sick. However, what we choose to eat can significantly increase or reduce our risk of future illness.

<h4>USE YOUR POWER WISELY</h4>
Imagine how your life would change if you took advantage of every drop of power you have
 to transform your health, right down to the genetic level. Would you commit to making convenient and realistic
 nutritional changes? Would you feel less anxious or enjoy a greater sense of purpose knowing that you’re stepping up
 and taking action to improve your chances of a longer and healthier life? You might find yourself enjoying life more
 than ever before.
<h4>PRESCRIPTIONS FOR BETTER NUTRITION</h4>
Make the commitment to nourish your body with good nutrition every day. Even small,
 manageable changes will put you on the right path. Your doctor can make recommendations based on your unique
 requirements, but whole and natural foods, healthy fats, lean proteins, balance and moderation, are great places to
 start. The more you practice making good nutritional choices, the greater impact you’ll have on your health.
I encourage you to use food as medicine and take advantage of the power to alter your
 genes for improved wellness. The fate of your health is not set in stone. You have the ability to transform your
 biology and change your health journey. Be your own Health Hero by taking advantage of this and prioritizing your
 commitment to greater health and longevity.
The light in me honors the light in you. Namaste.
Dr Nandi
<h6>For more information, visit <a href="https://www.askdrnandi.com/">askdrnandi.com.</a></h6>
<h6>Inspired to learn more about the super powers of foods? Receive Dr Nandi’s Superfoods Cookbook for free <a
 href="https://askdrnandi.com/cookbook/">here.</a> 
 Dr Nandi’s shares in his Superfoods Cookbook the nutritional benefits of 10 of his favorite superfoods and
 some delicious recipes to start cooking with him today.</h6>
<hr class="vertical-space1">


<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by DR PARTHA NANDI</h4>


<hr>

Nutrigenomics

<hr class="vertical-space1">
<h4>In the first of a series of articles, DR PARTHA NANDI shares something of his own story and why he became so
 passionate about health.</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1">
<h4>MY LIFE CHANGING DECISION</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1">
<img class="lazyload img-float-right has-img-center-in-mobile"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Partha_Nandichildhoodphoto_2ce70cc16d.jpg">I
 nearly died when I was six years old. I was a normal kid running wild and having fun with my family and friends.
 Even at that young age, I had a real passion for life. I loved school, sports, music and practically anything that
 engaged my curiosity and creativity. Then one day, I started suffering from joint pain bad enough that I could no
 longer do the active things that I loved. Seemingly overnight, I went from a fearless kid running wild and free to
 one who had lost interest in everything. I didn’t even want to eat.
Fast forward through time and multiple visits to the doctor, when my mother insisted on
 finding a specialist. That’s when I finally met the man (and doctor) who I will never forget.
It turns out I had rheumatic fever, a potentially life threatening disease of the joints
 and heart. During my hospital stay, this unforgettable doctor saved my life with his knowledge, skill, strength and
 compassion. He was a superhero. My parents, the way they stepped up for me and cared for me, were superheroes. And I
 wanted to be just like them. They were my very first Health Heroes.
<h4>SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO BE YOUR OWN HERO</h4>
I was only six, but I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to save people who
 were sick and afraid. I wanted to make them strong so that they could be their own heroes. Forget the capes and
 x-ray vision. Having the power to be your own hero! This was exciting to me.
It’s what drives me to this day. I want to create a world full of Health Heroes. I want
 you to realize the power you have to take charge of your health and live your best life. That’s what being a Health
 Hero is all about. And you can do it! You can make your health a priority. It’s not selfish, and it’s not even
 difficult.
The moment you recognize that your health matters and you start to implement important
 life changes is the exact moment you start to become your own Health Hero. You just have to be willing to jump into
 the driver’s seat and take control.
You can’t control everything that happens to you. You’re going to face challenges and
 adversity. But you can take advantage of the power you do have so that you can live your best life. Make your health
 a priority. Be kind to yourself. Nurture yourself. Live the healthy, active and spiritual life you deserve. You can
 be your own hero! No cape or x-ray vision required.
Make healthy living a part of every day. 
 The light in me honors the light in you. 
 Namaste.
PS I’m releasing a book in September that I’ve been working hard (and passionately) to
 complete. I’m sharing with you my very best practices for living a healthier and happier life. I go deep
 into the five key areas on which you should focus in order to infuse your life with better health and nourish your
 soul with more joy. I hope to inspire you to become your own Health Hero. Just as my parents and one unforgettable
 doctor inspired me.
<h4 style="text-align: left;">PARTHA’S PRESCRIPTION</h4>
Recognize that your health is the most important thing. Give yourself permission to make
 your health a priority.
Advocate. Speak up and ask questions.
Don’t be afraid to have an in-depth discussion with your doctor. Be an active part of any
 decision making process. Whether for yourself, or someone you love, your involvement is key.
Become your own Health Hero.
Take action whenever and however you can. Make your health a priority so that you can
 enjoy a happier, healthier life!
<h6>For more information and to pre-order Dr Nandi’s new book, Ask Dr Nandi: 5 Steps to Becoming Your Own Health
 Hero, please visit https://askdrnandi.com/health-book/.</h6>


<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by DR PARTHA NANDI</h4>


<hr>

Health heroes

Dr. Athena is a Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies and teaches at the University of Toulouse. She has extensively studied Ancient Greek Philosophy, Epistemology and Consciousness, and has been instrumental in making Hellenic studies practical and applicable in everyday life.

Athena-Despoina-Potari.jpg

Dr. Athena Despoina Potari

<h4
 class="block-heading"
 id="h-dr-athena-despoina-potari-shares-her-insights-on-hellenism-the-ancient-civilization-of-the-mediterranean-the-cultural-cradle-of-western-civilization-and-the-birthplace-of-western-science-politics-democracy-and-philosophy-her-insights-reveal-that-the-hellenistic-tradition-is-also-a-spiritual-tradition-of-awakening-divine-devotion-purification-virtue-non-duality-and-self-realization-that-are-usually-associated-with-the-spiritual-traditions-of-the-east-she-shows-us-that-the-east-west-divide-is-our-illusion"
 >
 DR. ATHENA DESPOINA POTARI
 shares her insights on Hellenism, the ancient civilization of the
 Mediterranean, the cultural cradle of Western civilization, and the
 birthplace of Western science, politics, democracy, and philosophy.
 Her insights reveal that the Hellenistic tradition is also a spiritual
 tradition of awakening, divine devotion, purification, virtue,
 non-duality, and self-realization that are usually associated with the
 spiritual traditions of the East. She shows us that the East-West
 divide is our illusion.
 </h4>

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 In the Ancient Hellenic language, “El” stands for the Light of Being or
 spiritual Light. As its root-syllable expresses, (H)El-lenism is a
 worldview, a civilization, and a spiritual tradition which centers
 around the ontology and practice of Light. The sciences and philosophy
 are methodical routes towards self-liberation and the realization of
 Light. Focusing on the notions of Eros and universal consciousness,
 Hellenism is, in its very essence, a path of enlightenment.
 

 <h4 class="block-heading">
 Hellenism
 
 </h4>

 
 What most people know about Hellenism is that this ancient civilization,
 born in the heart of the Mediterranean, is the cultural cradle of
 Western civilization. Its heritage is marked by an impressive devotion
 to scientific research and the pioneering commitment to reason or Logos.
 All of the above justify its status as the birthplace of Western
 science, along with politics, democracy, and philosophy.
 

 
 What many people don’t know about Hellenism is that its tradition
 developed over thousands of years in an ongoing co-creative dialogue and
 exchange with the numerous Eastern traditions of the pre-Christian
 world. The Hellenic sages had strong ties with their Egyptian, Persian,
 Babylonian, Hindu, and Buddhist counterparts. For example, Pythagoras
 was educated in the revered esoteric schools of Egypt, where he served
 as a high priest for twenty-two years, then studied next to Persian magi
 in Babylon for another twelve years, before becoming a spiritual teacher
 in Greece and southern Italy.
 

 
 In addition, what is also not widely acknowledged is that Hellenism’s
 core concept of reason (Logos), so highly acclaimed in our modern
 discourses and political societies, has little to do with mind-based
 faculties or discursive abstraction resting upon the use of purely
 rational and linearly logical methods. Reason as Logos, in its original
 sense, refers to the essence or substance of consciousness that
 everything is made of, which permeates the entirety of cosmic creation
 (like the notion of atma).
 

 
 Epistemologically, it is a state of consciousness beyond discursive
 knowledge, where individual experience merges with the all-pervasive
 wisdom of being. Despite its linguistic affinity, Logos is at
 once the defiance, the transcendence as well as the culmination
 of logic. Its essential meaning is most conveniently described as
 universal consciousness revealed to us through and
 as non-dual, unified awareness.
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <hr />

 <h4 class="has-text-align-center block-heading">
 Reason as Logos, in its original sense, refers to the
 essence or substance of consciousness that everything is made of, which permeates the entirety of cosmic creation (like the
 notion of atma).
 </h4>

 <hr />

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <div class="block-image">
 <figure>
 <img
 alt="illusion-east-west2"
 
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/illusion_east_west2_e83b87dc2c.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-13T05:53:17.391Z"
 
 />
 </figure>
 </div>

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 A few intriguing repercussions follow. First, if Hellenism is the
 cultural and epistemic landmark demarcating the West from the East, then
 we have stumbled upon the very exciting realization that the myth of the
 West-East division is severely undermined once we start delving deeper
 into the root-tradition of the West.
 

 
 A closer study into the precepts and history of Hellenism reveals that
 whatever we think of as the cradle of Western civilization is integrally
 constituted by what we consider as the sine qua non of the East –
 spirituality and the possibility of awakening. The Hellenistic tradition
 is also a fascinating variation of the spiritual teachings of awakening,
 divine devotion, purification, virtue, non-duality and self-realization
 that we find in abundance in the East. With that understanding, the
 East-West divide collapses.
 

 
 Second, since Logos, as the realization of Being or universal
 consciousness, dwells at the heart of science (episteme) and
 philosophy, then the widely held view of philosophy as a rational,
 argumentative, armchair vocation, removed from direct experience,
 appears as an outdated caricature.
 

 
 Therefore, Hellenism is essentially a spiritual tradition like yoga,
 Advaita Vedanta, or any other practice of self-realization. Hellenic
 philosophy, which literally means “the state of falling in love with
 wisdom,” is an intimate, self-transformative, experiential path of
 awakening to the unity of all experience and the experience of that
 unity as the true Self.
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <div class="block-image">
 <figure>
 <img
 alt="illusion-east-west3"
 
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/illusion_east_west3_4fc0f10cd2.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-13T05:54:25.005Z"
 />
 </figure>
 </div>

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 “He who has been instructed thus far in the path of Eros, and
 who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when
 he reaches toward the end, he will suddenly come to
 view a nature of wondrous beauty: a nature which is
 everlasting; which is not born nor perishes, which does not grow nor
 decay, which neither waxes nor wanes; a beauty which is not beautiful
 from one point of view and ugly from another, nor sometimes beautiful
 and sometimes not, nor beautiful in relation to this and ugly
 in relation to that, nor beautiful here and ugly there, nor
 beautiful for some and ugly for others. Neither will this beauty appear
 to him in the likeness of a face or hands or any other bodily part; nor
 as any form of speech, or knowledge, or science, nor as existing in any
 other being, such as for example, in an animal, or in earth or in
 heaven, or in any other place; but only it, in itself, by
 itself, eternal singular being, absolute, separate, simple, and
 everlasting, and all other things beautiful (are so because they) in
 some way partake in it, such that when they come- to-be and perish away,
 that neither increases nor diminishes, nor changes and nothing
 happens to it. He who from these beautiful things, ascending in the path
 of true Eros, begins to perceive that beauty is not far from the end.
 This, my dear Socrates … is that life above all others which man should
 live.”
 

 
 That is how Socrates’ teacher, Diotima, a female teacher, priestess, and
 well-known shaman of her time, summarizes the philosophical path – as a
 path of Eros, beauty, and goodness. In Greek, “kalos” means
 both beautiful and benevolent. Divinity, benevolence, and beauty
 coincide as one and the same thing (which is a no-thing) – they are the
 main qualities of Being itself.
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <div class="block-image">
 <figure>
 <img
 alt="illusion-east-west4"
 
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/illusion_east_west4_0c26dcd215.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-13T05:55:58.805Z"
 />
 </figure>
 </div>

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 The path of philosophy is a path of Eros and light.

 
 The quest of self-realization is essentially a love affair – a divine
 love affair (erotiki pedagogy). It is a relationship of Eros,
 where Eros means “merging,” and merging implies the dissolution of all
 separation, the vanishing of duality. This process involves an
 ever-increasing expansion of the radius of Eros, until that circle of
 love comes to include and encompass everything. The philosopher is
 patiently trained to be in love with everything, because the
 ultimate intimacy emerging from merging with everything is the
 realization of oneness. Through successive ascensions in the quality of
 Eros experienced, the end goal is reached suddenly, unexpectedly, in a
 lightning strike, and the spiritual seeker reaches “the view of the vast
 sea of beauty (the Good).”
 

 
 No words can really describe this experience: “We are talking about an
 inconceivable, indescribable beauty” (Republic, 509). Socrates’
 description reminds us of the notion of the Tao “that cannot be told,”
 “the nameless” that is “the beginning of heaven and earth.” The
 experience of this view is called “theoria” in Greek, what we
 nowadays call a “theory,” although the meaning is different.
 

 
 Theoria comes from “theon oro,” which means, I see
 (oro) the Divine (theon). Theoria means
 ascending to the view of the Divine, where the veil of ignorance drops
 and the cosmic play is revealed as it is – the miraculous, mysterious,
 ever indescribable play of oneness.
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <hr />

 <h4 class="has-text-align-center block-heading">
 Theoria means ascending to the view of the Divine, where the veil of ignorance drops and the cosmic play is revealed as it is – the miraculous, mysterious, ever
 indescribable play of oneness.
 </h4>

 <hr />

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <div class="block-image">
 <figure>
 <img
 alt="illusion-east-west5"
 
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/illusion_east_west5_71b475629b.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-13T05:57:42.954Z"
 />
 </figure>
 </div>

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 Nothing around changes, nothing is gained or lost, nothing happens, but
 this one event, which is really a “non-event,” a perspective, a view, is
 simply revealed.
 

 
 From that view, what I experience as a form of seeing is the stripping
 away of all knowledge, all science, all objects. The very self, its
 sensations, and the objects of its sensations, all dissolve into a “a
 vast ocean” of “singular being” which “always is” and which feels like
 an “ocean of pristine beauty.” This is the view or the experience of
 Being, the Good, Divinity itself.
 

 
 Aristotle refers to Divinity (God or First Principle) as Universal
 Consciousness, which is in a pure state of being aware of being aware of
 itself. It is the pure energy of self-awareness (noesis noiseos) (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1074Β 20-1075). He also identifies
 it as the prime cause or prime mover – that which perpetually sets
 everything in motion, in existence, in life. And why does “it” do so?
 What is the motivation or end goal behind Divinity’s activity as a prime
 mover setting into motion, thereby manifesting, existence?
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <hr />

 <h4 class="has-text-align-center block-heading">
 Eros is the thread that unites the outward movement of Being with the returning to its source; it is the thread of
 Unity between 
 One and All. It is the energy of universal consciousness.
 </h4>

 <hr />

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 Aristotle’s explanation is at once astonishing and completely mystical:
 The prime mover moves in order to be the beloved, in order to be the
 object of Eros (“os eromenon”). The teleology of consciousness
 is entirely erotic; it manifests the world in order to merge back into
 itself by self-realizing as pure love.
 

 
 The love affair of philosophy, as seeking knowledge, leads the devoted
 lover beyond knowledge, beyond science, beyond subject and object
 duality, to a view of Being as consciousness-aware-of-itself. The end of
 Eros is the view of and the merging within the vastness of Being. But
 then the end goal of Being manifesting itself is also Eros; the divine
 self-Eros of Divinity. Does the philosopher substantiate the teleology
 of cosmic manifestation? Is our urge for merging with oneness an
 expression of oneness’ urge for merging with – or returning to – itself?
 Or is perhaps our Eros for Being, Being’s Eros for itself, since we and
 it are one? Eros is the thread that unites the outward movement of Being
 with the returning to its source; it is the thread of Unity between One
 and All. It is the energy of universal consciousness.
 

 <hr />

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 This excerpt is printed with permission from the author. First
 published on April 21, 2021 at
 https://www.embodiedphilosophy.com/the-light-of-hellenism/.
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <hr />

 <h4 class="has-text-align-center block-heading">
 Illustrations by JASMEE MUDGAL
 </h4>

 <hr />

The illusion of East and West

Gorakh is a pathologist, director of a diagnostic service, and a Heartfulness practitioner and trainer. His interests include listening, storytelling, trekking, organic farming, and just being.

gorakh-parulkar.webp

Dr. Gorakh Parulkar

<h2 style="text-align:center;">UNDERSTANDING THE KNOTS</h2><h4 style="text-align:justify;">DR. GORAKH PARULKAR shares his ideas and insights on conflict resolution. He is a pathologist by profession, and director of the Gurukrupa Diagnostic Services, Harda. Here he compares psychological conflict with his work in pathology dealing with disease, and draws some interesting parallels.</h4>You might ask, “How is pathology related to conflict resolution?” Well, “pathology” is the combination of the words pathos and logos, the study of suffering. Isn’t that what conflict is all about? It is the source of so much suffering in our lives, whether physical, mental, in relationships, at home, or in the office. First, we have to understand what conflict is.Is it a disagreement? Yes, it is. When my colleague or spouse has an opinion that does not match mine, we are in disagreement. And if my insistence gets involved, then this disagreement can escalate to a conflict. But conflict is not just a psychological thing. In our bodies, there are many systems working simultaneously. As long as they are in harmony, supporting each other, we are healthy. But when they are in conflict (when one system becomes a problem for another), we have a disease.<h4 style="text-align:justify;">Disagreement to conflict</h4>The same thing happens in families and organizations. We may disagree, and it may develop into a conflict, but is it a fight? Not yet. We have various ways to resolve it. Unfortunately, and not uncommonly, we do fight. We go from a disagreement of what is right, to a conflict of who is right, to the idea that I have to prove myself right and the other person wrong, and then we fight.And is it not painful? Is it not the cause of so much suffering in our lives?Can we try to go beneath the surface, to see if there’s any way to stop the conflict from escalating? Can we take it another way, maybe agree to disagree, or come up with a solution that includes both points of view?<h4 style="text-align:justify;">Lord Buddha and the rope</h4>Lord Buddha traveled with his disciples from place to place, and they had a routine. Every morning he would sit with them and share his insights. One day, they saw Lord Buddha coming toward them with a rope in his hands.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/understanding_knots2_1580f5fd06.webp" alt="understanding-knots2.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_understanding_knots2_1580f5fd06.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_understanding_knots2_1580f5fd06.webp 1000w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/understanding_knots2_1580f5fd06.webp 2000w," sizes="100vw"></figure>He sat and asked his disciples, “What’s this?” &nbsp; They said “Lord, this is a rope.”&nbsp; Then he tied a knot and again asked them, “What is this now?”&nbsp; They answered, “Lord, this is a rope with a knot in it.” &nbsp; He tied another knot, then another knot, then he asked, “Is this the same rope I brought with me initially?”&nbsp; They were puzzled. “Yes, Lord. It is the same rope but it has three knots in it. It is not simple anymore.”&nbsp; So he said, “Suppose if I want to get it back to simplicity and plainness, how do I do that?”&nbsp; The disciples replied, “Undo the knots.”Then Lord Buddha started pulling the rope. The disciples knew that he was trying to teach them something. When he didn’t stop, one of the disciples said, “Lord, if you pull the rope, the knots will not open, they will only get tighter.” With a smile, Lord Buddha asked, “Then tell me, how do I open these knots?”&nbsp; The disciple said, “Lord, you need to release the tension, and then closely observe the knots to understand how they were tied in the first place. Then you will know how to open them.”In Heartfulness meditation, we just do that. We relax our minds and go within to see where the knots are. We try to understand the complexities and complications that have formed in our minds in the past, and once we understand how the knots are made we can unravel them, solving our conflicts.What happens if we don’t know how to do that? We make an effort. No one really likes to be in conflict. We all want to be at peace. We all want harmonious relationships. And we try our best. Sometimes, when those efforts don’t lead to much, then we start wondering, “Where is it that I’m going wrong? Are my efforts pulling the rope tighter?” Letting go and relaxing give us that quantum of time to go beyond the rush of emotions that sometimes happens in conflict.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/understanding_knots3_c228741f92.webp" alt="understanding-knots3.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_understanding_knots3_c228741f92.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_understanding_knots3_c228741f92.webp 1000w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/understanding_knots3_c228741f92.webp 2000w," sizes="100vw"></figure><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:82.18%;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/understanding_knots_chart_9e46938ecc.webp" alt="understanding-knots-chart.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_understanding_knots_chart_9e46938ecc.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_understanding_knots_chart_9e46938ecc.webp 800w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/understanding_knots_chart_9e46938ecc.webp 800w," sizes="100vw"></figure>If I know what things are really important in life, then I won’t want to compromise them. When I do compromise them for the sake of something else, am I not short changing myself? All we have to do is align our efforts to what is important. Isn’t that what conflict resolution is all about?&nbsp;

The art of conflict resolution

Jack teaches holistic education and contemplative education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He is the author/editor of 20 books including, The Holistic Curriculum, Love and Compassion: Exploring their Role in Education, and his recent memoir, A Holistic Educator’s Journey.

JACK-MILLER-web.jpg

Dr. Jack Miller

<h4>
DR. JACK MILLER
is a Professor with the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
at the Ontario Institute, University of Toronto, Canada. His interests
focus on holistic education and spirituality in education. Here he is
interviewed by
DR. RANJANI IYER
of the Heartfulness Institute about holistic education: What is it? How
can it be introduced into the curricula of schools? And what are the
benefits to students and teachers?
</h4>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


Q: Welcome, Professor Miller. A lot of your research and interests
 have centered on exploring holistic education and the various ways it
 can be implemented in the curriculum. Where does the term “holistic
 education” come from and when did it start?



JM: The term holistic education came into being in the1980s. There were two
crucial events that formalized the field. First, in 1988, Ron Miller
started a journal called the Holistic Education Review. Second,
my book, The Holistic Curriculum, was published in the same
year. And that was really the beginning of this as a field of inquiry.
“Holistic” comes from “Holism,” which is the theory that “parts of a
whole are in intimate interconnection, such that they cannot exist
independently of the whole, or cannot be understood without reference to
the whole (Oxford English Dictionary).”



One of the main features of holistic education is to see that we are not
separate. The first people who taught holistically were the indigenous
people, because they have always focused on how things are
interdependent.



I’ve been connected with the Equinox Holistic Alternative school in
Toronto since 2009. It’s a public school that took my book as a guide
for a holistic curriculum of connectedness.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div class="block-image">
<figure>
 <img
 decoding="async"
 width="700"
 height="788"
 alt="holistic_education_2-700x788"
 
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/holistic_education_2_700x788_f2c43a06fb.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T11:48:17.194Z"
 
 />
</figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


Q: What do you think are the advantages of holistic education versus
 a more traditional approach?



JM:
Students become more integrated. When they go to school, they don’t feel
peer pressure to act in a certain way. Holistic schools still must meet
the curriculum guidelines, but the students can also find themselves and
see themselves as whole human beings.



In the holistic curriculum, one principle is Balance, based on the Taoist model, the Tao Te Ching. It
involves the balance of two complementary energies, the Yin and the
Yang, which exist at all levels of the cosmos – the universe, the earth,
cultures, and within us. Our North American culture is very Yang, which
is rational and materialistic. In holistic education, we try to get a
balance in learning that has both Yin and Yang. When they’re in balance,
then there’s harmony and well-being.



Q: What strategies can we deploy in the delivery of holistic
 education?



JM:
The Inclusion idea in holistic education is that a
school should not stereotype children, and that they include in their
teaching strategies three basic approaches –
Transmission, Transaction, and Transformation.
Transmission is the one-way transmission of information to the student,
either from a teacher or from a text. Transaction is more interactive,
where students can think about problems, and interact with the teacher
and other students. There is more dialogue and problem solving.
Transformation recognizes the inner life, the soul of the child, which
needs to be nurtured through the arts, contemplative practices, and the
loving presence of the teacher. In the holistic classroom we use all
three approaches to reach the whole child.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div class="block-image">
<figure>
 <img
 decoding="async"
 width="700"
 height="788"
 alt="holistic_education_3-700x788"
 
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/holistic_education_3_700x788_107ac42832.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T11:49:05.750Z"
 />
</figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


Q: We’ve talked about how the holistic education model benefits
 students. Do you think it holds any benefits for teachers as
 well?



JM: It is important that teachers feel whole. If a teacher is in touch with
their whole being, including their soul, then that will radiate to the
students and ignite that inner place in the student. This deeper place
is the source of creativity and compassion.



Central to holistic education is that the student sees the
connectedness, that they’re in relationship with the Earth, with other
human beings, and with all forms of life. When this happens, students
can be well and whole.



A holistic, contemplative education includes being in touch with that
deeper part of ourselves by using various practices to nurture the soul,
the divine spark, our Buddha nature. These include meditation and
mindfulness practices, which allow us to experience that inner
connection at different levels, particularly the spiritual level. It is
also about love. When we are in that contemplative space, we can feel
the loving connection. It helps us to be more of a loving presence to
our students.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
A holistic, contemplative education includes being in touch
 with that deeper part of ourselves by using various practices to
 nurture the soul, the divine spark, our Buddha nature.

</h4>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


Q: As we’ve been talking, I notice that a lot of the theoretical
 framework around holistic education seems very similar to
 Heartfulness. Do you see any similarities between the two?



JM:
Yes. Both emphasize the importance of the heart and the soul. Both focus
on developing a deep acceptance of ourselves and our place in the
universe.



Holistic education enables connections at various levels. Examples of
connections that are internal to the individual include
the thinking connections (intuitive and rational
thinking), and the body-mind connection – learning to
be at home in our bodies and loving our bodies. Yoga, Qi Gong and Tai
Chi help us get in touch with our bodies. Lastly, we have
soul or heart connections, which I mentioned earlier.



Then there are external connections, which include
subject, community, and Earth connections.
Subject connections focus on showing the relationship
between various domains of knowledge. Students can see how subjects are
connected. Next are community connections, where the
classroom and the school form a loving community. The idea is that
students are in this loving place where they’re learning and growing.
Finally, there are Earth connections, getting a sense
of our place on the Earth and caring for it. For example, in Japan and
South Korea, there is the school forest movement in which some schools
have a small forest on school grounds. The students care for the trees
and they can go there to sit and relax in a quiet outdoor space.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div class="block-image">
<figure>
 <img
 decoding="async"
 width="700"
 height="788"
 alt="holistic_education_4-700x788"
 
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/holistic_education_4_700x788_f05906f86e.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-10T11:50:24.586Z"
 />
</figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


I mentioned the importance of love. In my book,
Love and Compassion: Exploring their Role in Education, I
discuss eight forms of love,and how these dimensions of love have the
potential to improve education. The first is self-love, which is deeper than self-esteem and involves developing our
sense of who we are in relation to the universe. Then there’s
personal love and its different forms, including
friendship. There’s impartial love, which is the love
for all beings, which people like the Dalai Lama talk about. Another
important form is love of learning and developing
curiosity. Love of beauty is another form. Seeing
beauty in nature and in our lives is just such an important and
wonderful thing. Then there is non-violence. Martin
Luther King Jr. and Gandhi saw non-violence as a way of love in action.
Being present is another form of love. For example,
sometimes another person is so present to us that we feel loved. The
teacher’s presence is a vital to holistic education. And finally,
there’s cosmic love, where we feel connection
with the universe.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
Self-love, which is deeper than self-esteem and
 involves developing our sense of who we are in relation to
 the universe.

</h4>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


Q: Fascinating, thank you for sharing your thoughts to aspiring
 educators like myself, with your framework of inclusiveness and
 connectedness for holistic education. Do you have any final thoughts
 you’d like to share?



JM: Holistic education includes inquiry, as both science and spirituality
involve inquiry into the nature of things. While
science uses more formal ways of investigation, meditation is also a
form of inquiry – an inquiry into our body-mind experience. It’s very
important that spirituality is seen as an inquiry into who we are,
investigating our place on the Earth.


Finally, this work should be joyful and come from a place of joy.


Q: Thank you once again, for taking the time to share your work with
 us.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center" id="h-interview-by-dr-ranjani-iyer">
Interview by DR. RANJANI IYER
</h4>

<hr />

Balance, love, and inquiry: Holistic education

Dr. Doty is the author of Into The Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart (Avery, 2016) and is co-founder of the Center for Compassion &amp; Altruism Research &amp; Education (CCARE) at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA.

JamesDoty.jpg

Dr. James Doty

<h5>In Part 1, DR DOTY explored the evolutionary advantage of compassion in human beings and its relationship with our
 physiological responses. In Part 2, he takes us further into aspects of human behavior that relate to compassion and
 collective social issues. ...</h5>
<h5 class="text-center"><img class="has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/ritual_gold_1_992f055845.jpg?updated_at=2023-03-29T10:16:10.191Z"
 alt="stimulus-response-part-2" width="192" height="81" />
 In conversation with 
 Dr James R Doty
</h5>
JD: Another one of those
 collective social issues is this inherent desire to be tribal  in  nature, and  again, there is an evolutionary
 reason. We talked about hunter-gatherer tribes as our primary survival strategy and we know that people tend to
 gather or connect with others who look like them, act like them and share the same socio-economic status, culture,
 religion and color. Why? When you are with people who are like you, what happens? Your sense of fear, anxiety or
 threat diminishes.

<img class="w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/dr_doty_at_work_9cc8ea98b5.jpg?updated_at=2023-03-29T10:30:11.477Z"
 alt="drdoty_at_work" />

The problem is that this type of interaction can act as an echo chamber to reinforce
 negative behavior or a perception of fear or threat, which results in you being closed to the opinions of other
 people and groups. Or you may feel a desire to eliminate them because of this false notion that they are going to
 threaten your existence. It is often a self- fulfilling prophecy. This is a natural state of being, unfortunately;
 we know that it can be activated and we have seen this happen. You  alluded  to  the political environment, where
 you see groups stoking fear and anxiety to engage this primitive part of us that responds to fear or threat. This
 results in individuals identifying with groups that think or act like them in the false notion that this is
 protecting them.
<hr>
<h5 class="text-center">…in the context of our modern global society; 
 the reality is that what happens in one part of the world 
 can profoundly affect another part of the world.</h5>
<hr>
Politicians and others have used this reality for their own purposes for millennia. The
 problem is that it is not a long-term survival strategy, and it is certainly not a long-term solution in the context
 of our modern global society; the reality is that what happens in one part of the world can profoundly affect
 another part of the world. We are no longer in this position of small hunter-gatherer tribes where we can engage in
 conflict in small areas and have no big effect on the rest of the  world.
Frankly, our survival demands that we gain self-awareness of these issues. We need to
 understand this reality and also that, in fact, there are resources for all. If we change our behavior, look into
 ourselves, and understand the negative attributes that we have, and our biases toward others – we call these
 cognitive biases – it can actually lead to a society that works for everyone’s benefit, in which we care for those
 who look and act like us, our tribe if you will, and also care for others outside our close-knit group.
<hr>
<h5 class="text-center">
 Technology and digital technologies have had a very profound positive affect in many domains and allow us to live as
 we do today. That being said, what we do know is that for some individuals, as you point out, these types of
 technologies do not truly create a connection with others.
</h5>
<hr>
As an example if we took one week’s worth of the monies spent every year on military
 technology, we could provide education for tens of millions of children from kindergarten to year 12. And that is
 just one week. Imagine what we could do if we markedly decreased expenditure on military technology and armies! How
 many people could we feed? How many buildings could we build? How many people could we educate? This ultimately has
 to be the paradigm as we look toward the future.

Q: I am curious about the effect
 digital technology is having on human compassion. I am reading in studies that as people are looking at screens so
 much and interacting with machines more and more, they have a diminished capacity for empathy and more difficulty
 reading facial and emotional cues from others and recognizing their own emotions. What is your sense of how the new
 digital technologies are affecting human compassion?

JD: This is a two-edged sword.
 Technology and digital technologies have had a very profound positive affect in many domains and allow us to live as
 we do today. That being said, what we do know is that for some individuals, as you point out, these types of
 technologies do not truly create a connection with others. It is a reality that we as a species are profoundly
 social and when we do not connect with others we are lonely.

As an example, in the United States one quarter of people when they are suffering, hurt
 or are in pain, feel that they have no one to share that with or be comforted by. Also remember that we have an
 epidemic in the West of loneliness, isolation, anxiety, stress and depression. You simply have to look at whether it
 is digital technologies or modernity in regard to what has happened.

Two to three hundred years ago we lived in multi-generational environments and most
 people grew up in one part of the country. Often times their parents, grandparents, siblings and children all lived
 in close proximity, if not the same building.

They stayed in the same place for the entire length of their life and as a result each
 individual knew that they were part of a community and that community cared for and nurtured them. It accepted them
 for the good parts of themselves and also the bad parts and still loved them.

In modern society many of us do not have that type of environment. When growing up we
 often move from city to city, so there is no stability and acceptance in the interactions we have with others. As we
 become adults we move away to go to college and then have a job where we are separated from siblings and parents. We
 go to places where we know no one. And that creates an environment for many people of loneliness, despair and
 anxiety. When we include then the effects of digital technology, which can make this even worse, it can have a
 profound negative affect.

We also know that when a person is lonely or anxious this leads often times to
 rumination and makes the situation worse.

That being said, we also know that there are certain digital or artificial technologies
 that can have a positive benefit. Some of these are technologies that allow us to connect with people who are like
 us and share our interests, which is wonderful. Robots are being used to interact with people who are lonely or
 elderly and can potentially even perform aged care, if you will. There is evidence that we can develop a positive
 relationship with these artificial entities. But these artificial entities are artificial entities. They will never
 replace a human, even though in certain contexts they can be beneficial. So, it is a two-edged sword.

As we see the evolution of artificial intelligence and machine learning, this leads into
 another potentially very difficult issue, because who is behind all this?Who are the manipulators? If we examine the
 issues of free will, we appreciate that many of the actions we engage in are related to environmental cues on a
 subconscious level. We also understand now that we can be manipulated. And when there are terabytes of data on how
 individuals move, and we have the ability to collect and analyze immense amounts of information about an individual,
 it potentially means that the subconscious cues can be manipulated in very negative ways. These may have no negative
 effect on the savannah in Africa – in fact they were part of our survival mechanism – but in a modern environment we
 can be manipulated by a small group.

In some ways it is already happening; there is a whole field called Neuromarketing,
 which takes advantage of our biases and utilizes this knowledge to motivate us or manipulate us to buy things or do
 certain actions for the benefit of others. This has to be kept in mind, because if there are no safety checks it
 will lead to a small group of people being able to manipulate large segments of our society.

Q: I am very interested and
 concerned about what you are talking about. It’s remarkable that there is worldwide warrantless surveillance by
 governments and corporations collecting data and keeping track of people. It is well beyond what George Orwell
 imagined. It seems people don’t quite realize this is going on. With so much information generally, people seem
 overwhelmed and interested in one topic for an hour and then something else happens and they move on to the next
 item.

JD: That is probably a discussion
 we could engage in for a long time.

To be continued.

<h6>Dr James Doty is the author of Into The Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the
 Brain and the Secrets of the Heart (Avery, 2016) and is co-founder of the Center for Compassion &amp;
 Altruism Research &amp; Education (CCARE) at Stanford  University in Palo Alto, California, USA.</h6>
<h6>John Malkin is a journalist and musician living in Santa Cruz, California where he also hosts radio programs on Free
 Radio Santa Cruz and KZSC.</h6>
<hr>
<h4 class="text-center">Interviewed by JOHN MALKIN</h4>
<hr>

Between stimulus and response - part 2

<h3 style="text-align: center;"><img decoding="async" alt="qanda" class="lazyload mw-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/ritual_gold_73c6861fa0.jpg">In conversation with Dr James
 R. Doty</h3>

<hr class="vertical-space1">

<h4 style="text-align: justify;">In parts 1 and 2, DR DOTY explored the evolutionary advantage of compassion in human
 beings and its relationship with our physiological responses, and took us further into aspects of human behavior
 that relate to compassion and collective social issues. In part 3 he shares some cherished memories of how the
 compassion and unconditional giving of a remarkable woman gave him a helping hand up when he was a boy.</h4>

<hr class="vertical-space1">

Q: Tell me about the experience
 you had as a kid growing up with a father who drank a lot, where there was violence in the home; somewhat familiar
 territory for a lot of people growing up in America. And when you were in the 8th grade you happen to meet this
 woman named Ruth at a magic shop and she taught you meditation and concentration techniques. She said to you, “I
 know how to turn a flicker into a flame,” and “This will change your life.” Tell me about meeting her and how it
 changed your life.
JD: Yes. There is no question
 about that. As I discuss in detail in the book, I grew up in poverty, my father was an alcoholic and my mother had
 had a stroke and was partially paralyzed, chronically depressed and attempted suicide multiple times. Neither parent
 had gone to college. We were on public assistance and this is not the environment for a child that is typically
 associated with success in life.


<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">She was the kind of person we meet rarely, 
 whose presence radiates goodness and kindness. 
 Their smile is radiant and they embrace you 
 and you feel calm and comfortable in their presence. 
 She was that type of a person.</h5>


<hr>
Although I was intelligent and to some degree self-aware, that actually made the
 situation worse. I had the insight that I essentially had no ability to change the situation, no resources and no
 access to knowledge. I had a sense of despair and hopelessness. I was unhappy and angry. I was angry at my situation
 and at my parents.
So one day at the age of twelve I walked into a magic shop and there was a woman behind
 the counter. I describe her in the book as an Earth Mother type. I asked her about some of the things in the magic
 shop and she laughed and brought her head up to look at me, because she was reading a paperback at the time. She
 explained to me that she knew nothing about the magic in the store. She said it was her son’s store and she was
 simply sitting there while he ran an errand.
She was the kind of person we meet rarely, whose presence radiates goodness and
 kindness. Their smile is radiant and they embrace you and you feel calm and comfortable in their presence. She was
 that type of a person. She immediately sensed that perhaps I was troubled, and she paid attention to me and asked me
 some questions, which was unusual for a child in my position.
At the end of fifteen or twenty minutes of conversation, where she queried me about my
 background and interests and hopes and aspirations, she said to me, “I’m here for another six weeks and if you come
 every day I’ll teach you something that could change your life.” I wish I could tell you that I had some incredible
 insight that led me to show up, but the fact of the matter is that I had nothing else to do and she’d given me some
 cookies during our conversation. So I showed up.
Of course if we think about a situation like that&nbsp;today, where a person offers to
 spend an hour or&nbsp;two with you in a backroom – an adult with a child&nbsp;– it would be frowned upon and
 perceived as some sort of predatory-type behavior. Perhaps it was a more innocent time in 1968. Needless to say I
 did show up, and in the course of that interaction it was apparent retrospectively that this woman had significant
 knowledge of Eastern philosophical practices. She understood from her own experience that you can change your own
 brain. Although it wasn’t named at the time, what she was talking about was neuroplasticity.
So for the next six weeks, we spent an hour or two together every day in a back room,
 and she taught me what I describe as Ruth’s Tricks: one through four.
The first trick was relaxing the body. It was her
 understanding that many of us carry around the emotions that we have in our muscles and that this distracts us from
 being attentive. The first thing that she taught me was this concept of relaxing the body and learning attention and
 focus. She did this in ways that we now know as the typical practices associated with Buddhism or meditation or
 mindfulness practice. To really be a success, one has to be able to attend and focus and respond to emotional states
 and have insight into them. So that was the first thing that she taught me.


<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">What I had thought were impairments 
 to my ability to succeed, or limitations 
 of my possibilities, were suddenly removed. 
 And that was absolutely critical.</h5>


<hr>
The second trick was …

<hr class="vertical-space1">

<h4>Read the complete article in Volume 2, Issue&nbsp;2 
 </h4>
<h4><a href="//www.heartfulnessmagazine.com/subscribe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SUBSCRIBE &amp; DOWNLOAD</a></h4>

<hr class="vertical-space1">

<h5 style="text-align: center;"></h5>
<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Interviewed&nbsp;by&nbsp;JOHN MALKIN</h4>


<hr>
<span
 style="border-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font: bold 11px/20px 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: #bd081c no-repeat scroll 3px 50% / 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer;">Save

<span
 style="border-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font: bold 11px/20px 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: #bd081c no-repeat scroll 3px 50% / 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer;">Save

<span
 style="border-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font: bold 11px/20px 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: #bd081c no-repeat scroll 3px 50% / 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer;">Save

<span
 style="border-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font: bold 11px/20px 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: #bd081c no-repeat scroll 3px 50% / 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer;">Save

<span
 style="border-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font: bold 11px/20px 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: #bd081c no-repeat scroll 3px 50% / 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer;">Save

<span
 style="border-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font: bold 11px/20px 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: #bd081c no-repeat scroll 3px 50% / 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer;">Save

Between stimulus and response - part 3

<h3 class="text-center"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/ritual_gold_73c6861fa0.jpg?updated_at=2023-03-31T06:10:11.696Z" alt="qanda" class="mw-100"/>In conversation with DR JAMES R DOTY</h3>

&nbsp;
<h4 class="p1">In the earlier parts of this interview, DR DOTY explored the evolutionary advantage of compassion, aspects of human behavior that relate to compassion and collective social issues, and shared some cherished memories of the remarkable woman who gave him a helping hand up when he was a boy. In Part 4, Dr Doty talks about how he was able to develop compassion and its impact in his work as a neurosurgeon.</h4>
&nbsp;
Q: I’d like to hear about being a surgeon. It seems so foreign to me, to regularly have such tremendous responsibility for someone’s life. How has Mindfulness affected you as a brain surgeon, in being able to be calm in stressful situations?
JD: I’m a neurosurgeon and the nature of my job requires a high level of training and technological sophistication. Interestingly, though, what I tell our students and residents is that while that may be true, the successes that I have with patients are equally touched by caring and compassion. And this has nothing to do with using a scalpel. This has to do with being present for someone and being there for them. In so many situations this is profoundly helpful for individuals because it changes the dynamic.
When people come to a doctor or neurosurgeon, many times this is the most important thing happening to them or their family and to us it’s routine. And to dismiss it as such is really horrible. To be present even though we’re doing something routine and standard to us is very, very important because it leads to this sense of calmness and the sense that they’re really being cared for. Again it shifts them from engaging their sympathetic nervous system associated with fear and anxiousness to one of calmness, and this actually promotes wound healing and also improves their physiologic state. We know that certain types of stress, such as profound acute stress, can lead to sudden cardiac death. So those types of compassionate interactions are important.

<hr>
<h5 class="p1 text-center">When you have a sense of calm about yourself 
and what you’re doing, and you don’t panic under stress, 
you are able to do much, much better … 
it is the cultivation of positive emotional states 
that we can do with certain types of mental practices.</h5>

<hr>
Remember that a neurosurgeon’s training is seven years after medical school. In the context of what I do, and this has evolved over time, I try to function with a calmness and a lightness of spirit that allows me, when something bad happens, not to respond in a negative way. You hear of surgeons who throw instruments and blame others. First of all, my first response if anything happens is: until proven otherwise it’s my fault. This limits me screaming at people. And I don’t do that, of course. When you’re calm and you don’t engage your fear response when unexpected events occur, your executive control function in your frontal area works at its best and this is associated with clear decision making, creativity and being more productive.
When you have a sense of calm about yourself and what you’re doing, and you don’t panic under stress, you are able to do much, much better. This is true whether or not you are a neurosurgeon and in all parts of your life. Negative thoughts and negative emotional states don’t benefit anybody. And it is the cultivation of positive emotional states that we can do with certain types of mental practices.

&nbsp;
<h4>Read the complete article in <a style="color: #bf8f26;" href="//www.heartfulnessmagazine.com/category/volume2/volume2issue3/">Volume 2, Issue 3</a></h4>
<h4><a href="//www.heartfulnessmagazine.com/subscribe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SUBSCRIBE &amp; DOWNLOAD</a></h4>
<hr>
<h4 class="text-center">Interviewed by JOHN MALKIN</h4>

<hr>
<span style="border-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font: bold 11px/20px 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: #bd081c no-repeat scroll 3px 50% / 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer;">Save

<span style="border-radius: 2px; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font: bold 11px/20px 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #ffffff; background: #bd081c no-repeat scroll 3px 50% / 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer;">Save

Between stimulus and response - part 4

<hr class="vertical-space1">
<h4>DR JAMES R. DOTY addresses health care professionals on the capacities we all have as
 human beings to bring care and compassion to the field of medicine through the power of heart.</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1">
Caring for others is an extraordinary privilege that’s granted to very few, and
 sometimes we get lost with other aspects of medicine that actually aren’t related to caring. So I thank all of you
 who, by the nature of your profession, also care, because fundamentally that’s the core of what we really are and that
 very action, in and of itself, is what defines our humanity.
I am an atheist, actually, but I’ve had the joy of spending time with some of the
 greatest spiritual leaders in the world: Amma, Sri Sri Ravishankar, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Sadhguru, Eckhart
 Tolle and others. I have to tell you that the basis for who they are and, frankly, the fundamental basis for every
 religious and spiritual tradition is Heartfulness. This idea of opening our hearts, of having unconditional love,
 compassion and caring for others is really at the soul of who we are.
In the modern world we are very distracted. We are a species which probably has the
 greatest ability to remember the past and also perceive a future, and the very nature of those two qualities fights
 against our desire to be present. Our true nature is really to be present. And when we are present, it allows us to
 connect with everyone as they truly are. But this is a challenge in the modern world.
I just want to share with you a thing I do sometimes to be present. I built my house 3
 or 4 years ago and in the backyard there’s a hardscape made of concrete with large squares. Between the squares there
 are loose stones. 
 My wife said to me, “Why are you doing that? Every time someone comes over or the kids play, all these loose stones
 will get dislodged.” 
 I looked at her and said, “That’s okay.” 
 I’m a sort of perfectionist sometimes so she was very surprised and responded, “I can’t believe you’re saying
 that!” 
 I said, “Well, I’ll show you once it is done.”
The stones are always getting messed up, so when I come home every day, the first thing
 I do is to take control of my emotional reaction and then walk around and replace every stone. In some way, this
 impermanence makes me focus on the present and centers me to interact with my family again. It is similar to the
 purpose of creating sand mandalas in some traditions, where they spend days on these incredibly beautiful designs and,
 when they are done, they let go of them instantly.
I also have a modern sculpture of the Buddha in my backyard, and the interesting thing
 about this statue is that it is headless and it sits holding a glass persimmon. The sculpture reminds me not to get
 lost in my intellect but to focus on my heart, because that’s what often distracts us from our true selves. Also, a
 persimmon can be very hard and bitter initially, but if we are patient and thoughtful, the fruit becomes soft and
 sweet. When we reflect on this we understand that suffering, too, is actually a wonderful fruit that allows us to
 understand our true selves and our true potential as human beings.


<hr>
<h5 style="text-align: center;">Instead of being reactive, you now act with
 discernment 
 and are able to incorporate your memories, experiences 
 and things you’ve learned into decision-making. 
 When you’re not stressed or anxious or fearful, 
 you are much more creative and productive.
</h5>


<hr>
Over a period of time, the idea of compassion, Heartfulness and caring for others kept
 coming forth, and although I always tried to act with that intention I really wanted to do a deeper inquiry. So in
 2007-2008 I funded a variety of research projects with a group of neuroscientists and psychologists, to study these
 behaviors at a deeper level using the tools of neuroscience. It became clearly evident that compassion, Heartfulness,
 kindness and caring not only define who we are as a species, but they are fundamental to our health and well-being.

With the right intention, practices like Heartfulness and the Compassion Cultivation
 Training, conducted by us at Stanford University, stimulate the vagus nerve that connects to our heart. This results
 in engagement of the parasympathetic nervous system. When this system is engaged, blood pressure goes down, heart
 function improves, immune system is boosted, genes that are typically associated with the expression of inflammatory
 proteins are suppressed, and cortisol levels go down to normal.
Engaging your parasympathetic nervous system also allows the area of your brain that is
 associated with executive functions to be at its best. Instead of being reactive, you now act with discernment and are
 able to incorporate your memories, experiences and things you’ve learned into decision-making. When you’re not
 stressed or anxious or fearful, you are much more creative and productive.
Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who was imprisoned during the Holocaust, had understood
 what he calls the pause between a stimulus and a response. It’s in the pause that everything happens, because during
 that pause you understand the nature of reality and act with discernment. Practices that promote altruism and
 compassion allow for such essential pauses in our lives.
Thus it is evident that these practices not only benefit the individual, but also have a
 huge impact on a variety of domains. In the education system, they can improve attendance and academic performance. In
 the healthcare system where we have a crisis of stress, anxiety, burnout, these practices allow us to not be as
 reactive, to be more thoughtful, to calm ourselves, and to look at others and understand their suffering. In business,
 they can increase productivity and creativity by decreasing stress and anxiety. Studies show that this, in turn,
 increases the share value of the company. Incorporating these practices in the field of law and justice can decrease
 violence and recidivism, and shifts our attitude from policing against the law-breakers to reaching out to help them
 by recognizing that after all we are like each other.
I hope this has given you a brief understanding of the power we have within ourselves,
 the power to reach who we truly are, and the power to change every life around us.
<hr class="vertical-space1">
<h6 style="text-align: left;">Excerpts from the keynote talk given at the Continuing Medical Education conference at the
 Fremont Heartfulness Center, CA, USA, on 25 February 2017</h6>


<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article by DR JAMES R. DOTY</h4>


<hr>

The power of heart

<hr><h4>In this excerpt from an interview done in August 2016, DR. JAMES DOTY speaks to JOHN MALKIN about the science of meditation, the evolutionary advantage of compassion, aspects of human behavior that relate to compassion and collective social issues, and his cherished memories of the remarkable woman who gave him a helping hand up when he was a boy.</h4>&nbsp;“It’s only when we focus on healing the wounds of the heart that there’s ever going to be peace in the world. All the science and technology are not going to do that.” Dr. James DotyQ: Tell us about the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) that you founded at Stanford University. Sometimes people think compassion is internal, vague and hard to describe, and that exploring compassion is a soft science. How are you studying compassion and altruism and what are you finding?JD: There’s been a lot of interest in how the brain responds or reacts to meditation and this research has been going on for the last three decades, initially led by Rick Hanson. But what is interesting to me, and remains interesting, is that what is at the core of many of these meditative practices is compassion: compassion for yourself certainly, and compassion for others.As I looked at this area, I realized that our survival is related to nurturing and caring for our offspring. And in the human species this involves caring not only for our offspring but for others as well. As a result of this requirement – that our offspring are nurtured for a decade and a half or more after birth, unlike other mammals that just run off into the forest after birth – our offspring require us to essentially teach them, while they mirror our behaviors, so that they will survive. Yet the cost of that to our species – to the parents or the mother – is huge with regard to time, resources and energy. Without that nurturing, caring and bonding, our offspring don’t survive. As a result, deeply ingrained or hardwired into our brains is a reward system based on us caring for others, primarily our offspring of our own species, but also caring for all beings. What happens is that the areas associated with reward increase their metabolism when we actually care for others. This is a deeply ingrained part of who we are, and what we are, as a species. As we evolved from the nuclear family in a hostile environment to hunter-gatherer tribes in a hostile environment, in groups of ten to fifty, this requirement that we alleviate suffering or care for and nurture others was even more important. Because if an individual in our tribe or our group was suffering, it meant that potentially they could not do their job. If they did not do their job it could put the whole group at risk. So our ability to read emotional states, micro facial expressions, body language, and even interpret smells, was critically important as we evolved as a species. Then when we domesticated animals and plants, this led to us having more time. But it’s interesting if you look at how society and religion have functioned; at the core is this absolute requirement for cooperation, caring and nurturing others. In fact it has been shown through a variety of studies that short-term ruthlessness cannot benefit a species. For a species to survive long-term requires the cooperation of the individuals in the group. Certainly this is central to the survival of the human species.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">What we know is that all of us are born&nbsp; with a certain genetic potential&nbsp; for those types of behaviors, but most of us don’t maximize or potentiate them with intention,&nbsp; because we don’t know how or&nbsp; we don’t appreciate how beneficial they can be.</h4><hr>In regard to the creation of the Center at Stanford, I was at a point in my life where I started thinking about these things. As a result, from that research and interest, I realized that understanding how the brain responds to these situations, and how compassion affects our physiology, is really critically important. As it turned out, there were a few people exploring this area. I then gathered an informal group of scientists at Stanford and we began some preliminary studies looking at some of these issues. Then it struck me that it would be wonderful to have the Dalai Lama come to Stanford to speak. That was in 2007 and as a result I ended up having a meeting with His Holiness. At the end of our conversation, the Dalai Lama agreed to come to Stanford and was so impressed with the work that he wanted to make a personal donation. It was the largest donation he had ever given to a non-Tibetan cause at that time. That was incredibly overwhelming and moving, and it set the stage for others to make donations to this work and ultimately to formally create a Center at Stanford.Q: It is beautiful how that came about and evolved over time. I suppose some people might say that humans are born either with compassion or not, or that certain groups of people have it or they don’t. I am guessing that you would say that compassion is something that can be cultivated quite systematically. Is that so?JD: I think that is exactly right, and your previous statement is also absolutely correct. Essentially, we are all born with a set of genes that define our attributes. But, that being said, many of us don’t utilize those attributes or maximally cultivate them. What I mean, as an example, is that there may be an individual who has significant genetic potential to be a long distance runner, but if he is never put into a situation to run long distances then that will never manifest. Frankly, the same is true with compassion and, in fact, happiness. What we know is that all of us are born with a certain genetic potential for those types of behaviors, but most of us don’t maximize or potentiate them with intention, because we don’t know how or we don’t appreciate how beneficial they can be.The other interesting aspect of gene expression is that we also know there are individuals, for example sociopaths, who are born with a disconnection in their brain that limits their ability to understand the emotional states of others. There are individuals who have gene receptors that limit their ability to respond to those transmitters associated with nurturing and caring, like oxytocin. This leads to individuals not responding the same way to a particular situation: a “normal” person would respond empathically whereas this person would not do so, or not at the same level. Genes do play a part but we also know that we can cultivate or maximize our potential for compassion by certain practices.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/between_stimulus_response2_5a43839dca.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T12:33:51.210Z" alt="between-stimulus-response2"><hr>Q: Tell me about the experience you had as a kid growing up with a father who drank a lot, where there was violence in the home; somewhat familiar territory for a lot of people growing up in America. And when you were in the 8th grade you happen to meet this woman named Ruth at a magic shop and she taught you meditation and concentration techniques.JD: I grew up in poverty, my father was an alcoholic, and my mother had had a stroke and was partially paralyzed, chronically depressed and had attempted suicide multiple times. Neither parent had gone to college. We were on public assistance and this is not the environment for a child that is typically associated with success.Although I was intelligent and to some degree self-aware, that actually made the situation worse. I had the insight that I essentially had no ability to change the situation, no resources and no access to knowledge. I had a sense of despair and hopelessness. I was unhappy and angry. I was angry at my situation and at my parents.So one day at the age of twelve I walked into a magic shop and there was a woman behind the counter. She was an Earth Mother type. I asked her about some of the things in the magic shop and she laughed and brought her head up to look at me, because she was reading a paperback at the time. She explained to me that she knew nothing about the magic in the store. She said it was her son’s store and she was simply sitting there while he ran an errand.She was the kind of person we meet rarely, whose presence radiates goodness and kindness. Their smile is radiant and they embrace you and you feel calm and comfortable in their presence. She immediately sensed that I was troubled, and she paid attention to me and asked me some questions, which was unusual for a child in my position.At the end of fifteen or twenty minutes of conversation, where she queried me about my background and interests and hopes and aspirations, she said to me, “I’m here for another six weeks and if you come every day I’ll teach you something that could change your life.” I wish I could tell you that I had some incredible insight that led me to show up, but the fact of the matter is that I had nothing else to do and she’d given me some cookies during our conversation. So I showed up.In the course of that interaction it was apparent retrospectively that this woman had significant knowledge of Eastern philosophical practices. She understood from her own experience that you can change your own brain. Although it wasn’t named at the time, what she was talking about was neuroplasticity.So for the next six weeks, we spent an hour or two together every day, and she taught me what I describe as “Ruth’s Tricks: one through four.”The first trick is to relax the body.Many of us carry around the emotions that we have in our muscles and that this distracts us from being attentive. The first thing she taught me was this concept of relaxing the body and learning attention and focus. She did this in ways that we now know as the typical practices associated with Buddhism or meditation or mindfulness. To really be a success, one has to be able to attend and focus and respond to emotional states and have insight into them.The second trick is to tame the mind.This is understanding the reality that there is a dialogue going on in one’s head that we often think represents us or is us, but in fact it’s simply a dialogue that is made up of all the words, feelings and baggage that we collect growing up. And for many of us this is negative. It is a dialogue that says you’re not good enough, smart enough, or talented enough to do x, y or z. It is self-limiting.She made me realize this reality and understand that this dialogue – she used the analogy of a radio station – was like being tuned to a particular radio station that wasn’t particularly helpful. She taught me the practice of being able to notice those words and let the words flow by without emotionally responding.What many of us forget is that when we hear these words or have this type of internal dialogue, it affects our peripheral physiology, often times in a very negative way by stimulating the sympathetic nervous system and all the deleterious effects of the low-level stress hormones. Then the mind shuts off to possibilities. I learned to sit with this without having that emotional response. And ultimately she taught me to actually change the dialogue so that it was not one of criticality but one of self-compassion and affirmation. In doing so, it changed how I saw the world. What I thought were impairments to my ability to succeed, or limitations of my possibilities, were suddenly removed. And that was absolutely critical.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/between_stimulus_response3_b356398732.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T12:33:51.104Z" alt="between-stimulus-response"><hr>The third trick is to open your heart.Frankly, at that age, I did not take it to heart as much as I should have. And understanding that the greatest gift we can give is not only being kind to ourselves, but being of service and kind to others. And to interact with others always with this idea that the mere presence of another is a wonderful thing and everybody has something that you can learn, and everyone can give love.The fourth trick is to cultivate clarity through visualization techniques and cultivate your intention.By doing so it allows you to do almost anything. That’s not to say that when you do this practice it is a straight line from point a to point b. To get to where you want to be there may be hills and valleys and detours, but ultimately, by utilizing these techniques, it places within your subconscious this incredibly strong motivation that you are moving in the direction to fulfill that desire. Even without your knowledge. Certainly that’s mitigated by the fact that these should be desires that benefit yourself and others and not work in a negative context.Those were the four lessons Ruth taught me that allowed me to go from the mindset of limited possibilities to unlimited possibilities.Q: It’s a beautiful story that moved me a lot.JD: Engaging in positive mental states, and the cultivation of compassion with intention, changes everything. When I finished my interaction with Ruth after six weeks my personal circumstance had not changed one iota … but everything changed. And the reason everything did change was that I went from having negative emotions associated with my situation to simple acceptance of my situation. I had a different type of mental state. My mental state changed to one of happiness, acceptance and gratitude. I was able to forgive those who had hurt or wronged me. I had no anger towards my father and mother, because I understood that they had their own struggles and were dealing with their own pain.I say that situations have no power. It is us who give them power. I was able to go back to my situation understanding this, having these insights, and when I changed my mental state and took away the anger, despair and hopelessness then the world changed in how it interacted with me.What has allowed me to have the success I have had is looking at the world with gratitude, practicing forgiveness, being compassionate to myself and others, recognizing the dignity of every person and practicing equanimity and humility. I understand that my purpose is to be of service to others, to embrace others and to give people unconditional love. That allows me to walk in the word and allows the world to embrace me.Q: I’m reminded in what you just said about the statement of Viktor Frankl that is something like:between the stimulus and the response there is a space and it’s in that space that we find freedom.JD: I think that is exactly right and Viktor Frankl is one of my heroes. He had this understanding that between stimulus and response is a pause and it is within this pause that everything occurs. And it is learning how to sit with this pause, and how sitting with that pause, if you have the right intention and you have self-awareness and you have practiced the things that we have spoken about, then your response is completely different.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Between stimulus and response is a pause and it is within this pause that everything occurs.</h4><hr>And it’s the response to things that changes everything. As an example, often times we are approached by people who are angry or upset about something, and our natural inclination is to give that back to them in the same fashion. Yet if we take a moment to pause and think about the reality, these negative emotions and behaviors have nothing to do with us. They are a response to a set of events that occurred perhaps before the person met with us; a negative interaction with a spouse, some negative information about something they cared about.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/between_stimulus_response4_93410768fc.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T12:33:51.336Z" alt="between-stimulus-response4"><hr>When we are able to pause, this decreases our reactive nature and we don’t go into a state of engagement of our sympathetic nervous system. As a result we are able to be much more thoughtful, clear-headed and creative, which leads to a better world. This is really the summation of all that we are talking about, when we talk about war, anger or negative effects on the environment; these are all conditions of the human heart.Throughout our lives many of us receive wounds of the heart. For most of us these heal quickly, but for some these wounds of the heart are deep. As a result, it is these wounds of the heart that are responsible for negative behaviors. It’s only when we focus on healing the wounds of the heart that there is ever going to be peace in the world. All the science and technology are not going to do that. It is when we go inside of ourselves and practice the things we were discussing, acting with an open heart – those are the only things that can heal these wounds.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Interviewed by JOHN MALKIN Illustrations by ARATI SHEDDE</h4><hr>

Between stimulus and response

Dr. Howell is a clinical psychologist and the founder of the Institute for Conscious Being, near Atlanta, USA. He is an Enneagram Authority and author of Becoming Conscious: The Enneagram Forgotten Passageway and his upcoming book, Know Your Soul.

Joseph-Howell.webp

Dr. Joseph Howell

<h4 style="text-align:justify;">DR. JOSEPH HOWELL is the founder of The Institute for Conscious Being in the US. During his keynote address at the Global Spirituality Mahotsav, he guided the audience through an exercise to help them find spiritual connection by connecting to their inner child.&nbsp;</h4>&nbsp;For a moment, if you will do this for me:Gently close your eyes and picture in your mind’s eye the home, the dwelling, the apartment, the house in which you spent the earliest part of your life. &nbsp;Now, look at that dwelling. You were one year old, two years old, three years old, maybe four. And as you look at it, look at the windows and the doors, look at the colors.&nbsp;Now, look at where you played the most. Was it on the grass, was it in a playground, was it in your private garden, was it in the common area of an apartment building?&nbsp;As you picture this in your mind, look at the little being who is you, playing in those places. Look at that beautiful little child with expressive eyes, with excitement, with tenderness, with vulnerability, with awe, with surprise, and only two wishes: to love and to be loved. Hold me and let me hold you. This little child with those beautiful eyes is sitting in the playground or the yard or the garden, full of hope for what life is to be. And the child radiates that hope.&nbsp;Sadly, that little child—our soul child—has to go under a crust because the demands and harshness and woundings of this world will not allow that precious innocence to survive in all its purity. So, by age five or six, sometimes seven, we have put on a layer of protection, and it is called the ego. We must have an ego. It gives us a way to move through the world. It gives us protection from the wounds that our little vulnerable self could not bear.&nbsp;And as that child grows, the ego grows with it, with you and me. At one point, we became a defensive personality that said to the world, “You can’t hurt me because I’m powerful, or because I’m okay, or because I’m right, or because I’m giving.” We decided what our ego-strategy was going to be.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/reconnecting_innerchild2_7c736705a1.webp" alt="reconnecting-innerchild2.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_reconnecting_innerchild2_7c736705a1.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_reconnecting_innerchild2_7c736705a1.webp 492w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/reconnecting_innerchild2_7c736705a1.webp 492w," sizes="100vw"></figure><hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Put your hearts together, and let them beat in coherence. Join with your soul so that your life can face any shock point, and do it with dignity and compassion, and holy strength and holy faith.</h4><hr>Then, by midlife, and for some of us sooner, there was a shock point. That shock point took us into a land of pain and suffering, because we realized that the ego never did have a way to successfully block the pain, suffering, shame, anger, and alienation.&nbsp;When we were teenagers, we were searching for an identity. Instead of going back to our soul child, we found our identity in groups. And now, so many are finding their identity in social media. What a false self we are presenting for our children to embrace.&nbsp;What is it that we can be if we are not the ego? Who is it that we can be that brings hope again, that brings love again, that brings light again? The answer is our soul. The soul now has a purpose, a meaning, and a way, with the ego’s help, to be protected, because the ego can now serve the purpose of the soul.&nbsp;So, I’d like to tell you how to find the qualities of your soul again. Well, in my tradition, the great teacher Jesus Christ said, “You cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless you become as a little child.”&nbsp;In my opinion, we have to return to our first identity, which is our true nature. That’s found in the little being you saw in that yard or playground just a few minutes ago.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/reconnecting_innerchild3_db4df0c3e8.webp" alt="reconnecting-innerchild3.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_reconnecting_innerchild3_db4df0c3e8.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_reconnecting_innerchild3_db4df0c3e8.webp 800w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/reconnecting_innerchild3_db4df0c3e8.webp 800w," sizes="100vw"></figure>&nbsp;Close your eyes again. I’d like for you to picture that child one more time. Look into her or his eyes. See the purity, the beauty, the willingness to love and be loved. Now feel the heart of that child. And now, if you will go to that child and sit by them, and put your arms around that little being. Put your hearts together, and let them beat in coherence. Join with your soul so that your life can face any shock point, and do it with dignity and compassion, and holy strength and holy faith.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Illustrations by LAKSHMI GADDAM</h4><hr>

Reconnect with your inner child 

Dr. Mehta is an Indian holistic health, well-being, wellness, and fitness guru. He is a TV and radio presenter and a columnist in various publications and websites. Mickey has written a number of books, including The Shoonyam Quotient, Lose Weight, Gain Shape, and Resurrect Your Being.

MickeyMehta.jpg

DR. MICKEY MEHTA

<h4><hr class="vertical-space1" /></h4>
<h4>
 In February 2020, MICKEY MEHTA shared his
 thoughts with MAMATA VENKAT at Kanha
 Shanti Vanam, the Heartfulness headquarters near Hyderabad, India, just before
 the pandemic hit. Mickey is known as India’s premier fitness guru, holistic
 health guru and corporate life coach. He has worked with the government, the
 army, the navy, the air force, and the Mumbai police. He has served many
 A-listers on their fitness journeys and is now associated with the Fit India
 Movement, partnering with the Government of India. He also does his regular
 rounds of workshops and consultations for the international corporate world.
 What keeps him motivated? Commitment to growth, introspection, and
 spirituality.
</h4>
<hr class="vertical-space1" />

 Q: Dr. Mehta, tell me a little bit more about your life and the steps that
 have brought you to where you are now.


 MM: I think the culmination of my entire
 fifty-eight years, sitting with you, giving this interview, has been like a
 flash – the entire thing. This is my journey from Harlem to Harvard. The
 journey, like a roller coaster, has been full of fun, joy, anxiety, pain –
 everything. It has been a mixed bag of ups and downs, upheavals, states of
 joy, moments of happiness, bliss, and, trust me, every bit of it has been fun
 in hindsight for the simple reason that we always grow out of it. For the
 simple reason that you get polished like a diamond. It is like what coal goes
 through. Steel has to be tempered, also, and goes through so much heat. And
 it’s not easy being coal, either. You need to be dug out. And there are
 processes before the coal becomes ready to use.


 Q: Everything worked out the way it was supposed to.


 MM:&nbsp;Yes. And who cares if it didn’t,
 as long as it happened.


 Q: My friends and I often talk about how things aren’t right or wrong, they
 just are.


 MM:&nbsp;They just are, because right and
 wrong becomes our perspective. Each perspective is so different. When the
 angle changes, the view changes completely. Like stupid people, we keep
 struggling to prove our point of view. And this struggle strains us, gives us
 pain, gives us stress. And the answer to that is Heartfulness.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 <img
 decoding="async"
 alt="Purpose-of-life2"
 class="w-100 lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Purpose_of_life2_c1176ee282.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T06:24:19.555Z"
 />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 Q: Was there an event in your life that, in the moment, felt “wrong,” but
 ended up being “right,” the best thing that could have possibly happened to
 you?


 MM:&nbsp;As we said, there are no right
 and wrong moments. Nevertheless, if I were to choose some moments in life: I
 was supposed to be a car mechanic, a steward, and a security guy. Instead, I
 chose to get into fitness, martial arts, nutrition, Yoga, body building,
 swimming, meditation – deep into meditation and spirituality – in the last few
 decades. Now I am championing the cause of age reversal, challenging ailments,
 and bringing about success stories with terminally-ill people, adding lots of
 life force into them with the laws of nature.


 This has been a thirty-eight-year journey. I’m all of fifty eight. I still
 believe that I started just yesterday. And it is fun. It is exciting every
 day.


 Q: What initially led you to fitness?


 MM:&nbsp;Emulating my cousins doing
 exercise. Going home and working out. Seeing them do martial arts. Emulating
 them quietly in a corner. Sweating it out; a pool of sweat in the room. And I
 used to carry a lot of water to drink, and my mom and sister used to think
 that I was taking that water and throwing it on the floor to show how much I
 had sweated. But that wasn’t the case. I literally sweated.


 I have seriously given my blood, bone marrow, and sweat to this. And I think
 it ain’t enough yet. There’s lots more to come. We haven’t yet started.


 Q: Do you think that getting into fitness early on in your life taught you
 a work ethic, diligence, and perseverance in every other arena in your
 life?


 MM:&nbsp;Perseverance. Diligence. Sense of
 commitment. Sense of responsibility. I think fitness, health, wellness, and
 well-being gives you perfect discipline. It puts you on the path of evolution.
 So we have all the Ashtangas of Yoga –
 Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi
 – as opposed to the forces of entropy, which kill you.


 So time, matter, space, life, motion, mass, causation and effect, gravity.
 Right from the point of time that you were a speck of life on the rim of a
 volcano, a few million years back, to the point of becoming a superconscious
 human being.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<img
 decoding="async"
 alt="Purpose-of-life3"
 
 class="w-100 lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Purpose_of_life3_a9efe999fa.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T06:27:51.594Z"
/>
<hr class="vertical-space1" />
When animals stood upright, as chimpanzees, the forces of life went upwards to
the brain, and the brain opened up.


 So humans became sensitive, humans became poets, humans became writers. Humans
 invented the wheel, invented fire. Humans knew what love is. And they settled
 from being nomads. They became sensitive. They refined. They evolved. And from
 cannibals, they became very refined persons. So they grew spiritually. A human
 became a Krishna. A human became a Buddha. A human became a Mohammad. A human
 became a Christ. Humans on the ladder of evolution have the potential to rise
 above gods and fall below animals. Humans can choose to go upward or downward,
 but the ladder is the same.


 And of course, humans became so many Devis: Saraswati Devi, Durga Devi,
 Lakshmi Devi, countless Devis. And I certainly endorse the importance of the
 feminine within spirituality. The valley who knows how to receive. The valley
 who knows how to surrender. The valley who can seduce with absolute subtlety,
 no aggression and no violence. The valley which is biologically stronger,
 emotionally, mentally stronger, psychically stronger – who knows how to give,
 knows how to forgive, knows how to bless, knows how to create, and certainly
 knows how to destroy.


 Q: It sounds like spirituality is a large part of who you are.


 MM:&nbsp;Yes. Philosophy and spirituality
 have been the main state of my being, having understood Patanjali’s Yoga
 Sutras, having understood Vairagaya, having understood
 Santara, which are about the laws of attachment and letting go in
 life, surrendering to life – icchamrityu, iccha jivan, iccha siddhi –
 and now learning more about the Seven Sins of pride, anger, lust, envy,
 gluttony, avarice and sloth. We succumb to them.


 How do we evolve out of that? After almost four decades of meditation, I
 understand that Heartfulness is a very good discipline of meditation, which
 makes a lot of sense.


 Q: How has the Heartfulness practice positively impacted your life?


 MM:&nbsp;It has brought me one good
 indicator in life: When we carry a lot of grudges, a lot of resentments in our
 heart, we can clean them and replace them with love and compassion. Remove the
 junk, empty the junk, and fill yourself up with love and compassion. Let go,
 let go, let go, breathe out, breathe out, breathe out. Settle, settle, settle.
 Get set like yogurt. Just settle, settle, settle. Yogurt karma.


 And you keep evolving. As you settle deep down inside, as you stay rooted, you
 start fruiting, as well.


 Q: If you could take a 30,000-foot view of your life, and you could take
 one lesson that you could share with any young adults who are trying to
 figure out what they want to do with the rest of their life, what would you
 tell them?


 MM:&nbsp;The only purpose of this life is
 to evolve, and once you evolve you realize the purpose of life. And try to
 understand that when nature reached its highest creativity, when God reached
 highest creativity, human beings were born. And when human beings reach their
 highest creativity, God is again born.


 So don’t be complacent with life. You are God in seed form. Start nurturing
 that seed. Wait for your blossoming. Wait for your fruiting. Become fragrant,
 Become sweet. Get rooted, get fruited.


 My message to people is this: The excellence of fitness, health, wellness and
 well-being is the ladder of evolution. Get energized. Get maximized. Get
 optimized. Get supersized. Get revolutionized. Get eternalized. Get
 internalized. Get hypnotized. Get mesmerized. Get regularized. Get
 revitalized. Get specialized. Get initialized.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />
<img
 decoding="async"
 alt="Purpose-of-life4"
 
 class="w-100 lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Purpose_of_life4_f1cd9d4a67.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T06:31:02.017Z"
/>
<hr class="vertical-space1" />


<hr />

<h4 style="text-align: center">
 Interviewed by MAMATA VENKAT Illustrations by GAYATRI PACHPANDE
</h4>

<hr />

The purpose of life

DR. R.S. Bhogal

Rollin is a scientist, psychophysiologist, Executive Vice President and Director of Research at HeartMath Institute, member of the Global Coherence Steering committee, and project coordinator of GCI's Global Coherence Monitoring System. He is a professor at Florida Atlantic University.

Rollin-mccraty.jpg

Dr. Rollin McCraty

<hr class="vertical-space1">



<h4>
 In December 2022, DR.
 ROLLIN McCRATY, Director of Research at the Heart Math Institute, gave an online presentation at the
 international Heartfulness conference, “An Integrative Approach to Health and Well-being,” at Kanha Shanti
 Vanam. Here we share some highlights from his talk.</h4>



<hr class="vertical-space1">



<h4>What Is
 coherence?</h4>



Most people have an intuitive understanding of coherence, but in the scientific community it’s a term and a
 concept used in every branch of science, from the macro to the micro scale. We use it to describe the behavior
 of the parts of a complex system. In a coherent system, those parts have to be communicating and talking to each
 other so there’s connectedness. It’s inherent to the concept of coherence, and it’s really a measure of the
 harmonious order of how all the parts of a system are working together.



A coherent system implies stability and energy efficiency. Another key concept of coherence is that in any system
 – whether it’s a human being, or any other scale we want to look at– there’s a greater wholeness than you can
 derive from the sum of the parts. This is why we chose to use this term in our research so many years ago.



Our research focuses on three primary domains: personal, social, and global. For the personal, we have spent many
 years looking at the coherence within our bodies, especially between the heart and brain. Socially, we can
 define the coherence of a group, whether that’s a family, a work team, a leadership team, or even a community. I
 won’t have a lot of time to go into global coherence, but I’ll give you a teaser.



<h4>The heart profoundly
 affects brain function</h4>



It probably isn’t a surprise to you that the heart sends far more information to the brain than the brain sends
 to the heart, but it is a big surprise for a lot of people in our medical communities in the Western
 world. It is not a new finding – it has been known since the late 1800s: in fact it’s basic anatomy.



<hr class="vertical-space1">


<img alt="the-science-of-heart-coherence"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/science_heart_coherence2_901cc64c37.jpg"
 class="lazyload has-img-center" />



<hr class="vertical-space1">



<hr>



<h4 class="text-center">There
 are neural channels by which the heart and brain communicate, but the
 heart also communicates with the brain hormonally, energetically, through the pressure waves it
 generates that affect every cell and synchronizes all the cells in the body.</h4>



<hr>



<hr class="vertical-space1">



In the 1970s, there were some major discoveries that really shifted the paradigm in the field of
 psychophysiology. It was discovered that the neural traffic that the heart sends to the brain has profound
 effects on brain function. Two terms were introduced back then. The first is “cortical inhibition,” where the
 cortex or higher parts of <ins>t</ins>he brain are inhibited when the heart is sending certain types of
 messages. The other term is “cortical facilitation,” which was introduced to describe the global effects that
 the activity of the heart has on the brain. Since then, we have a much deeper understanding of the mechanisms
 and how this all works.



The activity of the heart also has a lot to do with creating our emotional experience. The brain is largely
 interpreting the message that’s being sent to it from the heart, and I think that is why we intuitively and
 innately know when we fall in love with someone. We don’t say, “I love you with all of my brain,” right? We say,
 “I love you with all of my heart,” and there’s a deep physiological reason for that.



<hr class="vertical-space1">



<hr>



<h4 class="text-center">The
 activity of the heart has a lot to do with creating our emotional experience.
 The brain is largely interpreting the message that’s being sent to it from the heart.</h4>



<hr>



<hr class="vertical-space1">



What they didn’t know back then was that the heart has its own intrinsic nervous system, which has been nicknamed
 “the heart brain” in the field of neural cardiology. The neural structures in the heart have now been proven to
 have short-term memory, long-term memory, neuroplasticity, neurogenesis – all of the functions of a functional
 brain. There are neural channels by which the heart and brain communicate, so the heart also communicates with
 the brain hormonally, and energetically, through the pressure and electromagnetic waves it generates that
 affects every cell and synchronizes all the cells in the body.



Zeroing in on the primary neural pathways, we have the vagus nerves, which are the two nerves that travel up
 through the front of the body. They are the primary pathways of the para sympathitic branch of the autonomic
 nervous system. They are very large nerves, with thousands of neural fibers, and 90% of those fibers are
 carrying information from the body to the brain. The majority of those afferent or ascending neural pathways are
 coming from the heart and the cardiovascular system, far more than any other system in the body. There are also
 ascending (afferent) neural pathways in the sympathetic branch, so it’s a very complex two-way traffic between
 the heart and the brain.



All of the neural connections coming down from the brain connect into the intrinsic cardiac nervous system, the
 heart brain, and then within the heart there are another 40,000 to 50,000 sensory neurons that are sensing
 things like rhythm, pressure, and about 80% of these neurons are sensing biochemistry.



If you were going to put in a system to detect what’s going on in the blood, to monitor hormones,
 neurotransmitters and so on, where would you put it? The heart makes obvious sense, so that all of the
 information is fed into the heart brain, and then up to the brain in different neural patterns.



The intrinsic cardiac nervous system can and does override the neural signals coming down from the brain, and at
 a functional level a heart has its own type of intelligence. In fact, in the papers from the 70s and 80s, people
 were talking about the heart as though it had a mind of its own before they knew about the intrinsic cardiac
 nervous system.



<h4>Heart rate
 variability</h4>



One of the tools that gives us a window into the dynamic communication between the heart and brain, and the
 activity within our autonomic nervous system, is heart rate variability. At a high level, we can measure the
 amount of variability a person has, and it reflects their health status, their capacity to self-regulate, and
 self-regulate thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.



Our ability to adapt is directly tied to our heartrate variability (HRV). Too little variability reflects a deep
 depletion within the nervous system. One of the leading reasons for that is chronic stress, and the second
 leading cause is pathology, e.g. diabetes, metabolic syndrome, etc. It also reflects inadequate function of the
 various levels of our self-regulatory system.



<hr class="vertical-space1">


<img alt="the-science-of-heart-coherence"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/science_heart_coherence3_fc25af5621.jpg"
 class="lazyload has-img-center" />



<hr class="vertical-space1">



<hr>



<h4 class="text-center">The
 intrinsic cardiac nervous system can and does override the neural signals coming
 down from the brain, and at a functional level a heart has its own type of intelligence.</h4>



<hr>



<hr class="vertical-space1">



So people who have behavioral management issues such as anger issues or panic attacks, often have low HRV. The
 time intervals between each consecutive pair of heartbeats is always changing. A small amount of variability is
 not a condition we want to see because it reflects system depletion, and is highly predictive of future health
 problems. In fact, low HRV for our age shows up oftentimes several years before the onset of cancer, diabetes,
 and so on, so it has a huge use in clinical assessment.



I want to go a little bit deeper. This graph is from a paper we published in the American Journal of Cardiology
 back in the mid 90s that was the first to show that the most reflective measure of our emotional state is the
 pattern of our heart rhythms, our heart rate variability. So on the left side we can see a jagged, chaotic
 rhythm, which is the rhythm that we have when we’re experiencing feelings like impatience, frustration, worry,
 or anxiety. If we get angry it’s way more chaotic. This quite literally reflects a desynchronization in the
 neural activity in our higher brain systems and within our nervous system. This is actually the type of a rhythm
 or pattern that’s been associated with cortical inhibition, where the brain doesn’t work very well.


<img alt="the-science-of-heart-coherence"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/science_heart_coherence4_ver2_700x343_d71cddd0af.jpg"
 class="lazyload has-img-center" />



The graph on the right shows the same person after they used a technique called heart-focused breathing (we’ve
 developed various different techniques to shift into that coherent rhythm).This rhythm naturally emerges when
 people experience heartfelt feelings like appreciation, gratitude, compassion, love. These types of emotions
 naturally shift us into what we now call coherent rhythm and that’s associated with cortical facilitation.



There’s a lot going on in that coherent state within our body, and it is a measure of the increasing
 synchronization in our higher brain and within our nervous system. It has a lot of benefits. Coherence is not
 the same thing as relaxation. When we’re in a coherent state (and more than 400 independent studies have
 confirmed this), there area broad range of health benefits like lower blood pressure, increased hormonal
 balance, faster recovery from heart disease and diabetes, better outcomes in education, and the list goes on.




We can teach people how to shift into that state very quickly, and we especially want to create those shifts in
 the moments when people are in challenging situations and want their mental faculties to work well.



To be continued.



To watch the full talk, go to <a
 href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm6MDe_ZwFc">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm6MDe_ZwFc</a>.




<hr class="vertical-space1">



<hr>



<h4 class="text-center">Illustrations by ANANYA PATEL</h4>



<hr>



<hr class="vertical-space1">

The science of heart coherence

We truly are all connected

<h4 style="text-align:justify;">DR. ROLLIN MCCRATY shares the science of the synchronicity between the heart and mind and, when they are in sync, how the love that is created can positively connect us to each other and everything in the world.</h4>&nbsp;It’s a great honor to be here. I’m not going to stand here and try to tell you anything you haven’t already heard or that you don’t already know, but I am going to tell you the same thing in a different language, the language of science.&nbsp;I have been a long-term meditator myself, and I learned about the heart. But if I’m really honest, it was more like a metaphor for emotions; for me it was all about the brain. I even got a degree in Consciousness Studies. Then I had the great fortune to meet the Founder of HeartMath, Doc Childre, and I was introduced to the real Heart, the deeper heart, which it is really all about.&nbsp;I was fortunate to help him found The HeartMath Institute, and a few years later he invited me to found The HeartMath Research Center. He said we have to do rigorous scientific research. The language of science is the new language for many people in the world, and if we’re going to introduce them to getting their hearts and brains in sync, we need that work.&nbsp;So, over the last 30 years, we made a lot of scientific discoveries that validate what we already believed to be true. We started by looking at how emotions affect the body, the physiology. We were measuring brainwaves and hearts in the lab. And what we found back when we started this (at that time, nobody was looking at what happens in our bodies when we love, when we appreciate, it was all about stress, depression, and anxiety), was that when people had heartfelt feelings of love, compassion, kindness, something magical happened. Their heartbeats, the rhythms of the heart, dramatically changed.Today we know this as an optimal state, a state where the mind, emotions, the heart all come into synchronization. We call it heart coherence. There are over 500 studies that show when people are in a heart coherent state, it lifts and benefits almost everything: our health, our performance in sports, etc., but especially our ability to access our inner intuitive guidance.&nbsp;The beautiful thing about the heart and heart coherence is it’s neutral. It’s something we all have. And whenever we’re feeling love, compassion, and kindness, we shift into a heart coherent state. It doesn’t matter how we get there, what technique or practice we do. It increases the measurable synchronization between the rhythms of the brain and the rhythms of the heart.&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/time_for_love_to_go_viral2_cc837f4577.webp" alt="time-for-love-to-go-viral2.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_time_for_love_to_go_viral2_cc837f4577.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_time_for_love_to_go_viral2_cc837f4577.webp 554w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/time_for_love_to_go_viral2_cc837f4577.webp 554w," sizes="100vw"></figure><hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">The big gift is access to our intuition, our inner guidance.</h4><hr>The big gift is access to our intuition, our inner guidance. This is something we have tested in the lab, and even we were surprised. The takeaway is that the heart can know the future; it all starts in the heart. The heart is the first to get the information. It sends a measurably different signal to the brain, and then there is a brain response, and only then is there a body response to felt emotion.&nbsp;The heart has access to a field of information that is not bound by time and space. I would suggest we have two hearts: the physical heart and the energetic heart, which has been called the spiritual heart in so many spiritual and religious traditions. The energetic heart is the bridge that connects the larger part of our self—our soul, our spirit. It translates that down into the physical world of our bodies. The energetic heart is how we connect with our larger self, our higher self. That’s the real us. As we learn to become more heart coherent, that pathway opens. Becoming more heart-coherent can facilitate anything we do, and any practice we want to take up.&nbsp;The next adventure in our research was to understand scientifically how the heart connects us with others. Our heart doesn’t just stop at the skin. We are broadcasting radiating fields, magnetic fields produced by the heart. We were able to show that those fields carry information about how we feel. When we’re in a coherent state, which we get into naturally when we’re loving and appreciative, it connects us with others in a measurable way. Hearts literally synchronize when we come together in the heart.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">When we’re in a coherent state, which we get into naturally when we’re loving and appreciative, it connects us with others in a measurable way.&nbsp;</h4><hr><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/time_for_love_to_go_viral3_f939f2f819.webp" alt="time-for-love-to-go-viral3.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_time_for_love_to_go_viral3_f939f2f819.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_time_for_love_to_go_viral3_f939f2f819.webp 554w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/time_for_love_to_go_viral3_f939f2f819.webp 554w," sizes="100vw"></figure><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/time_for_love_to_go_viral4_359bf0fa71.webp" alt="time-for-love-to-go-viral4.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_time_for_love_to_go_viral4_359bf0fa71.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_time_for_love_to_go_viral4_359bf0fa71.webp 554w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/time_for_love_to_go_viral4_359bf0fa71.webp 554w," sizes="100vw"></figure>&nbsp;And that opens a new type of communication where we hear each other deeply. Even when we don’t agree, we still have the heart level connection. It’s the key to how we build social coherence, how we learn to get along with others, even when our minds might not disagree.&nbsp;<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">The heart really is what is connecting us across dimensions, with the higher self, with others, and with yourself.</h4><hr>The next major step in the research path was understanding how our hearts not only connect us with our higher self and with others, but with the Earth itself. When we measured the heart-coherent rhythm, a rhythm of about ten seconds (we have new technologies that can measure it), we started asking questions like, “How do mothers know their children are in harm’s way when they’re on the other side of the planet?” “What’s connecting us? There has to be something making that connection.”&nbsp;We all live within the magnetic fields of the Earth, the North Pole, the South Pole, the fields of Earth. We discovered that the fields vibrate at the same frequency as the coherent human heart rhythm. When we’re in that heart coherent state, through resonance we connect with the fields of the Earth. We’re all connected too. We’re finding that the interconnected fields of the Earth not only connect us to each other, but with nature, with trees and animals. The heart really is what is connecting us across dimensions, with the higher self, with others, and with yourself.&nbsp;Once we really understood that, we said, “How can we teach this to others? How can we make coherence easy?” So we developed technologies to help us do that. They are inexpensive technologies that allow you to see your heart rhythm in real time. I’m thrilled to say they are being introduced into many schools in the US and other countries, allowing kids to learn this at an early age. I personally think there is no greater gift we can give our children than learning how to sync our hearts and brains so they have that skill for life.&nbsp;When we look at the global field, we have new technologies that can measure it. When we come together at events like this, we get into that coherent state. In other words, we add love and compassion, and we intentionally radiate that into the field environment, the Earth. Love is by far the most powerful energy or frequency bringing coherence into the planetary field. We can measure this. And I’m honored to say that the Heartfulness Institute is one of our partners on this project. We have a lot of these devices here, now, measuring what we’re doing to affect the field.&nbsp;I hope it has been useful to share some science with you. What does this all point to? My parting invitation is: it’s time for love to go viral. It’s what is going to shift the frequency of the planet, it’s what is going to lift the baseline of humanity into our next level of consciousness, where the heart and brain are truly in sync, in a joint partnership.From a talk given at the Global Spirituality Mahotsav, March 14 to 17, 2024, at Kanha Shanti Vanam<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Illustrations by JASMEE MUDGAL</h4><hr>

It’s time for love to go viral 

Sara is an Associate Researcher in the Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant Professor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School. The focus of her research is on the neural mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of yoga and meditation, both in clinical settings and in healthy individuals.

Sara Lazar.webp

Dr. Sara Lazar

&nbsp;<h4>Dr. SARA LAZAR is an Associate Researcher in the Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant Professor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School. The focus of her research is on the neural mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of yoga and meditation, both in clinical settings and in healthy individuals. Here she speaks about how meditation impacts the brain.</h4>I want to start with a definition of Mindfulness, derived by Jon Kabat-Zinn: purposely paying attention to experiences in the present moment in a non-judgmental way. There is a cartoon that describes it beautifully – one woman is walking in nature, completely oblivious to what’s around her. She’s thinking about the bills, meals, kids, chores, and is not at all aware of her present experience. Another woman is completely tuned in to her surroundings, noticing the trees, the sunlight, perhaps the feel of the warmth of the sun on her face. That’s what Mindfulness is – awareness of the present moment. Neither one of them is meditating. Mindfulness can be done anytime, anywhere.Anyone can kick a ball. If I ask you to kick a ball down a field and put it through the goalposts, you can do that. But if I put you on that same field with some professional soccer players, and tell you, “Okay, kick the ball down the field into the posts,” that’s much more difficult.The same thing is true with Mindfulness – anyone can do it, but it’s hard to remember to do it when you’re in the middle of stuff. Just as professional athletes practice their sport so they can play more effectively, we meditate so that we can be more mindful throughout the day. We build that skill.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Mindfulness is purposely paying attention&nbsp; to experiences in the present moment&nbsp; in a non-judgmental way… Mindfulness can be done anytime, anywhere.</h4><hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/neuroscience_meditation2_0a207a5139.jpg">&nbsp;People have difficulty with the last part of the definition – the non-judgmental. I prefer the word equanimity, because we’re not saying, “Oh, yeah, whatever.” It’s not indifference. We care but we’re not reactive.There have been thousands of studies demonstrating the benefits of meditation, both for self-reported stress and for biomarkers of stress, like cortisol and inflammation. I’d like to focus on how effective meditation is in reducing symptoms of depression, anxiety, pain, and insomnia. They are standalone conditions, and they are also associated with many other conditions. If someone has a history of heart disease, diabetes, or a stroke, they’ll often have depression, anxiety, pain, or insomnia too.Importantly, as the Buddha taught, the first goal is spiritual transformation, but there’s more and more evidence that meditation’s good for both reducing symptoms and increasing well-being. People report being happier and more satisfied with life. There are many clinical programs now based on meditation; and the people who do them say, “This practice has changed my life.” That’s what happened to me. I had a sports injury, and started doing yoga as a form of physical therapy. After a few weeks, it completely changed me; I was more relaxed, no longer bothered by the little things that affected me before. My brain had changed. That’s why I started doing this research, to try to understand how yoga and meditation work.<h4>Reduction in Stress</h4>We took people who were going through an eight week secular meditation course called Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction. Compared to the controls, the people in the meditation group had more gray matter in several brain regions after just eight weeks of practice. Those regions were the posterior cingulate, the supra marginal gyrus, and the hippocampus. The posterior cingulate is involved in self-related processes, “How is this relevant to me?” The supra marginal gyrus is involved in perspective taking, and it’s a key component of empathy and directing attention–“Do I pay attention to the inner world or the outer world?” The hippocampus is involved in memory.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/neuroscience_meditation3_478c8127db.jpg"><hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Just as professional athletes practice their sport&nbsp; so they can play more effectively,&nbsp; we meditate so that we can be more mindful&nbsp; throughout the day. We build that skill.</h4><hr>These three regions together make up the Default Mode Network. “Default” because if you put someone in an MRI scanner and they’re not doing anything in particular, these regions reliably always turn on, along with two others. When you ask the person to do a task, these three regions turn off. The ideas they put together create the sense of self. These regions were altered by meditation practice.The posterior cingulate and the hippocampus are destroyed with Alzheimer’s disease. With Alzheimer’s you forget your life and who you are, where as in meditation you’re very present and centered. And these are the regions in which we find changes with just eight weeks of meditation.Another region that changed was the brainstem, which is involved in regulating the release of neurotransmitters, including serotonin and dopamine, which are very important for mood. These changes correlated with changes in well-being: the more this region changed, the happier and more satisfied people felt. People reported that they were more satisfied with their job, their neighbors, their home, their family, etc. It suggests that there was a change in how they perceived the world.The amygdala also changed; the amygdala is involved in fear and anxiety, and negative emotions in general. We found that this region became smaller, and the more it decreased, the more stress reduction people reported in just eight weeks. There wasn’t a lot changing in these people’s lives, and yet they were reporting less stress. The neurobiological reason why stress reduced was because the parts of the brain involved in stress were changing.<h4>Pain</h4>There are two components to pain – one is the actual physical sensation of burning, stabbing, pulsing, throbbing, tingling, and the other is the emotional component, “Ouch, that hurts, I don’t like it.” They are controlled by two different parts of the brain that are independent of one another. We also know that there are a lot of ways to control pain, including distraction, expectation, and placebo. All three look more or less the same in the brain.Normally, when you stub your toe or burn your finger, the signal goes to the spinal cord, and up the spinal cord to the brain. Then the network that includes the insula and the sensory cortex evaluates the sensory component of it. The emotional component is then activated to say, “I don’t like it.” For these three forms of pain control, the front of the brain, the executive control, shuts down the signal – the signal comes in, but it doesn’t go up, so you don’t feel the sensations. If you have chronic pain, but you watch a good movie, or you have a good conversation, you forget your pain. That’s what happens with distraction, you simply don’t feel the pain. But once that interesting conversation or the movie ends, pow, your pain is back. It’s amazing what the brain can do to shut down the system and stop the signal from coming up.&nbsp;<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/neuroscience_meditation4_81dc54fde7.jpg">&nbsp;Now, the question we asked was: what about meditation? We recruited a few long-term meditation practitioners and some people who had never meditated for the control group. We put them in the MRI scanner, and applied a very mild electric shock to their hand for forty seconds. We did this in a normal phase and then in a mindful phase. They would be randomly shocked a few times without knowing when it was going to happen. At the end, the subjects had to rate both the intensity and the unpleasantness of their experience. For the control group, there was no difference in intensity between the normal phase and the meditation phase, and this was also true for the Mindfulness practitioners. With unpleasantness, the control group experienced no difference, but there was a very significant decrease in unpleasantness for the Mindfulness practitioners. Although it was just as intense, it didn’t bother them. They were really feeling it, open to it; they were not shutting it down. They were paying attention to it. We see here, neurobiologically, a really beautiful example of equanimity.&nbsp;<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/neuroscience_meditation5_ea90672913.jpg">&nbsp;After that study, several other researchers did similar studies. They found that the connections between the front of the brain and the sensory cortex were less coupled in the meditation practitioners than the control groups, so that they were better able to decouple their reaction to the pain from the intensity of the pain.Also, very importantly, that uncoupling was related to the number of years of meditation practice. The more they had practiced, the better they were at separating the “I don’t like it, make it stop” region from the throbbing, painful stabbing, burning sensation. They could separate their emotions from the physical sensations.This demonstrates how meditation works – it’s a slow, gradual process that changes the brain. This has long lasting consequences for how we experience the world.Sylvia Boorstein once said, “Life is painful, suffering is optional.” It’s true that we’ll all experience pain at some point in our life, but we can control how we respond to that pain.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">“Meditation is not evasion,&nbsp; it is a serene encounter with reality.” —Thich Nhat Hahn</h4><hr>From a talk given at the international Heartfulness conference, “An Integrative Approach to Health and Well-being,” at Kanha Shanti Vanam on December 16, 2022.&nbsp;<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Illustrations by ANANYA PATEL</h4><hr>&nbsp;

Home› Contributors