In the wake of the festival of lights and the introspective journey it has set me on, I am dedicating this week’s posts to my spiritual path: Heartfulness or Sahaj Marg.
Being a practitioner of Heartfulness meditation I advocate this path from experience. I steadfastly stand by the fact that this path has accelerated my self-awareness journey and transformed me. If I can change then anyone can change, that’s assured. The only catch being, I was and am willing to change, are you? If the answer is Yes, then I can offer no better gift to the reader.
Luckily now, a lot of research is available on the benefits of meditation. And this post is an attempt to bring to light the benefits of meditation as researched and documented. It may appeal to the questioning mind and lend more veracity to the path too. My Master says, having a curious mind is an advantage, rather than following any path blindly or because someone said so. It is good to do your own research and draw your own conclusions from your experience. On this path of Heartfulness meditation, the heart is your laboratory, you are the scientist, and the path is your experiment.
Heartfulness Meditation is tailor made to suit the practitioner and helps the person with whatever they are seeking to get out of the practice. As the ubiquitous concern today is stress, and related concerns, I will make this my starting point. Meditation helps us be stronger than the environment.
Handling stress can become a life skill. Meditation helps us tackle stress efficiently and helps us make stress our ally and turn stress to our advantage. Extreme stress puts us in a flight or fight mode, we want to escape the situation, or we need to fight the situation. When under stress the brain releases cortisol, that raises your heart rate. It modulates the adrenaline levels and resultantly it clouds your thinking.
In a study conducted by heartfulness practitioners using Psychometric measures of anxiety, perceived stress, well-being and mindfulness were carried out using Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), WHO-Well-being Index (WHO-WBI) and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), they came to a conclusion that Heartfulness meditation practice can improve our mental health. Further research is being conducted to help find if telomere length, which is shown to be affected by cortisol levels, is helped by meditation.
Kelly McGonigal (the Upside of Stress) – Her youtube talk is delightful, and not very long. I recommend the readers to please watch, as the remedies suggested are doable, and can be practiced.
Comments