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Medical benefits of Spontaneous Meditation ~ Sahaja Yoga

The psychological benefits of thoughtless awareness through Sahaja Yoga Meditation

For millennia it has been known that meditation cannot be deemed to be authentic if it does not lead to the experience of the fourth or Turiya state. This means 'thoughtlessness' or thoughtless awareness, as opposed to the other 3 states: awake, asleep and deep sleep. Meditation refers to an state where the thinking mind is relaxed and silenced so that the gap between thoughts is progressively widened. When in meditation we enter this gap between two thoughts, we enter a space of absolute presence, of present silence, of thoughtless awareness. This meditation state is fundamentally different to the normal thinking state, where the content of our thoughts is always either the future or the past, but never the present. Stress is caused by the thinking brain, either through thinking excessively about past experiences or worries about the future.

 

The physiological benefits of thoughtless awareness through Sahaja Yoga

At a physiological level, the state of thoughtless awareness has been shown to have numerous beneficial effects, especially on the parasympathetic and limbic systems. According to traditional yoga, there are seven energy centers in the body called Chakras, which correspond to the seven nerve plexuses: the pelvic autonomic plexus (Mooladhara Chakra), the aortic plexus (Swadhistana Chakra), the coeliac plexus (Nabhi Chakra), the cardiac plexus (Heart Chakra), the cervical plexus (Vishuddhi Chakra), and the optic chiasma (Agnya Chakra): The seventh energy centre is the limbic system of the brain, which consists of seven nerve nuclei which contains and integrates the control centers of the other six energy centers. In the limbic system all of the six Chakras form this final integrative Chakra, the Sahasrara Chakra. Every Chakra thus has its corresponding alternative location at a particular location in the brain, which controls that particular energy center. Every one of these energy centers looks after the physical organs surrounding it, but is also responsible for the psychological processes which are connected to particular body organs. By using yoga mediation to energize this subtle system, which links both psychological and physiological properties, the body, brain and the mind become closely integrated.
This view of bi-directional interrelationships between body and mind is very different to the still prevalent Cartesian dualism of body and mind in our traditional western medicine, and can help to overcome conventional problems in defining the relationship between psychological and physiological processes. Physical damage to one of the Chakras in the body can have an effect on the controlling center of that Chakra in the brain (leading to concomitant psychological effects). These psychological problems can thereupon lead to psychosomatic disorders, which will manifest themselves in particular via those physical organs which are being controlled by the relevant regions of the brain. Therefore, in yoga, body and mind are one, and are connected by this subtle energy system, which consists of many feedback loops between body energy centers and the energy centers of the brain. At the microscopic level, almost every receptor of every single cell in the body or the brain is folded in seven spanning loops. This particular characteristic of all receptor types has again been postulated to be related to the seven energy centers in the body, reflecting mini-Chakras at the cell level. Sahaja Yoga (SY) meditation thus claims to activate the parasympathetic-limbic pathway that relaxes body and mind. According to this traditional yoga, the sympathetic nervous system is divided into a right-sided channel, which is predominantly coordinated by the left prefrontal part of the brain, and a left-sided sympathetic nervous system which is coordinated by the right hemispheric posterior parts of the brain . In our day to day lives we usually oscillate between these two 'functions of action' (activation of left prefrontal systems for action/thinking/future-planning/fight) and 'functions of inhibition' or retrieval (activating more posterior parts of the right hemisphere of the brain for inhibitory functions/memory/depression/flight). This division of the sympathetic nervous system into 'fight and flight' mechanisms, with its different representation in the two sides of the cerebral hemispheres, is
fundamentally in line with evidence from modern western neuroscience. In meditation, the parasympathetic nervous system is being activated, which, unlike the body-activating sympathetic nervous system, is responsible for bodily nourishment and recuperative functions, such as resting and restoration. The parasympathetic-limbic activation achieved through the meditation relaxes us by bringing us "into the center": the two opposing sympathetic functions are therefore synthesized into perfect balance and harmony with each other, giving us a more balanced personality.

The therapeutic effect of SY meditation on disease processes

The therapeutic effect of SY meditation on disease processes Several studies are being currently undertaken in Australia, Russia, India and the UK to show the therapeutic effect of SY on several physiological and mental diseases and disorders. The studies so far published have shown that :
1) Epilepsy: Several months of Sahaja yoga meditation reduces the number and the duration of epileptic attacks in patients with epilepsy. It has also been shown to improve the clinical electro-encephalographic pattern of epileptic brain activation (Rai, 1993, Panjwani et al., 1995, Usha, 1991, Gupta et al., 1991 (link
to Gupta), Yardi et al., 2001)
2) Asthma: Patients with asthma and with hypertension have been shown to significantly improve with SY meditation. The improvement relate to a significant reduction in the number of acute asthma attacks and an improvement in\ their lung function (Manocha et al., 2000, Rai, 1993, Chugh, 1997).
3) Depression: A study in the UK has shown that several months of SY meditation significantly reduced the depressive symptoms in patients with major depression, as opposed to control patients treated only with behavioral therapy (link to paper: Morgan et al., 2001).
4) Drug abuse: Sahaja Yoga meditation has been shown to have impressive effects on reducing drug consumption in 501 drug abusers treated for a year with Sahaja Yoga meditation at the University of Vienna. 97% of chronic drug consumers stopped taking drugs, 42% after the first week of meditation, 32% after the first months. (Hackl, 1995).
5) Diabetes and Menopause: As yet unpublished studies from Melbourne University in Australia have shown beneficial effects of Sahaja Yoga meditation on diabetes and menopause. Details will be available in the future.

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