Healing of mind, body and soul is part and parcel of Divine Message

[Guest guest]

Dear believers of the Divine Message,

 

The healing of mind, body and soul is part and parcel of the Divine

Message to humanity. The topic below titled " Sahaja Yoga Meditation "

by Dr. Rai is but a few officially recognized trees that make up the

Divine Forest. These handful of trees have little scriptural backing

and are for those seeking a healthy life on Earth, not the promised

eternal life in Heaven. That is why no mention is made that those

wishing to heal must meditate on the founder, a prospect that many

find revolting and thus leave immediately. Who wants to meditate on a

subtle system teacher and follow strange rituals to cure themselves?

 

But the Divine Message does heal in mind, body and soul because it

has the backing and eschatological expectations of the Christian,

Muslim and Hindu holy scriptures. Only those who are taking part in

the Last Judgment and Resurrection announced by the Adi Shakti can

truly understand what i am talking about. That is why i am meditating

on the Divine Mother within myself. i did not become Her devotee

because of " Sahaja Yoga Meditation " by Dr. Rai, which reflects the

message of official websites. Most SYs do not see the Divine Forest

for these few officially recognized trees.

 

Jai Shri Mataji,

 

 

jagbir

 

 

 

Sahaja Yoga Meditation

 

About 15 years ago in India, a professor UC Rai accomplished some

pioneering work with a technique of meditation called Sahaja Yoga. He

was head of the department of physiology in a well-known Delhi

medical school. He himself had suffered serious angina attacks and

was surprised to find that this technique of meditation seemed to

alleviate his medical condition. Prof Rai, impressed by this personal

experience, sought to scientifically document the effects of this

technique. He set up a multifaceted research project. Part of this

was a study on the effects of Sahaja yoga meditation on chronic

illnesses such as epilepsy and asthma. Rai's research team showed

that regular practice of this technique reduced the frequency,

severity and duration of his patients' epileptic seizures, for

example. Moreover, when Rai taught another group a mimicking

exercise, which resembled but was actually not the real technique,

the same improvement did not occur!

 

Prof Rai saw that the therapeutic effects were real and reproducible

from one patient to the next. Some years later we, a handful of

health workers, came across Rai's work. The results in conditions

ranging from asthma to high blood pressure were very encouraging so

we decided to test this technique under scientific conditions here in

Australia. This was the beginning of the Meditation Research

Programme.

 

The Meditation Clinic

 

Our first goal was achieved when we established the meditation

clinic. The clinic was a non-profit service that offered instruction

in meditation to those patients who felt that this kind of lifestyle

adjustment would help them in their search for a cure or relief for

their illness. A wide variety of patients were sent to us with many

different problems; most of them chronic conditions for which there

was little to offer within the mainstream of medicine. Within a few

sessions of instruction most patients reported improvements. Some of

the toughest cases, to our amazement, remitted completely with

diligent practice of the technique.

 

We recalled the gentleman with Inflammatory Bowel Disease whose daily

regime of medication was only partially successful in controlling his

daily symptoms of stomach discomfort. With daily meditation he

improved dramatically to the point where he had no symptoms and no

flare-ups of his condition.

 

The chronic headache sufferer, another success story, came to the

clinic after several years of enduring a constant headache- after a

few weeks his headache was gone and his life had transformed

dramatically.

 

Neil: Taming The Brainstorm

 

So when Neil arrived in our clinic one day, we were not unnacustomed

to challenges. Neil was a young man of about twenty years of age when

his mother brought him to the meditation clinic at Blacktown, a

working class suburb in Sydney's outerwest.

 

2 years before he had contracted encephalitis, a viral infection of

his brain tissue which put him in hospital for several weeks, his

condition so critical at one stage that he was transferred into the

intensive care unit.

 

Although Neil did survive, the viral attack on his brain had left

subtle scars on this most sensitive of organs. It caused the neurons

to " short circuit " and produce overpowering waves of electrical

signals that spread across his entire brain. This " brainstorm "

resulted in severe epileptic seizures. Although the virus of Neil's

brain infection had gone it left behind permanent damage which

condemned him to a life of violent epilepsy that could strike at any

time.

 

Epilepsy is a well recognised complication of brain infection. In

this case it had taken a promising and talented student and turned

him into an invalid. Neil's fits were so frequent, sometimes up to

two or three times per day, that he could neither resume his

schooling nor keep a job. He was dependent on his parents for

everything and hence their lives too had become considerably

restricted by their son's illness.

 

Like the other patients we advised Neil that his response to the

technique would mostly be determined by his own motivation to

practice it regularly. We were not the healers in the clinic, rather

Neil was going to learn how to awaken an innate and spontaneous

healing power within himself. This energy would work inexorably

through his meditation to improve his physical, mental and spiritual

health.

 

The research done in India on epilepsy showed that patients who

practised the technique consistently experienced reductions in the

amount and severity of the fits that they were experiencing. This

also gave us confidence that Neil could, if he really wanted to, use

this technique to his benefit.

 

Neil learned the Sahaja Yoga technique quickly and practiced it

diligently. The first changes we noticed were in Neil's face. His

eyes lost their usual dullness, they looked clear and bright. When we

first saw this 19 year old boy he looked like an old man, hunched

over, his face drawn with dark rings under his eyes. Now he started

to look young again and the dark shadow that seemed to hang over him

had gone. After a few weeks he would even come to the class with a

smile where usually there was only a frown. Neil's progress was

obvious to us and it was not too much of a surprise to hear that his

fits were reducing in frequency.

 

After several weeks his mother came to the clinic to invite us for

dinner: Neil had not had a major fit in four weeks, they were

planning to go away for the weekend and for the first time in many

years life was starting to look normal for them!

 

Successful cases like Neil's and many of the other patients were

inspiring for us all but it would not be enough for us to convince a

skeptical medical profession. Medical practitioners want scientific

data. So after more than two years of the meditation clinic we had

enough confidence and had gathered sufficient evidence to embark on a

proper attempt to scientifically evaluate the benefits of this

process.

 

Asthma Research

 

It so happened that Prof Rai had also looked at the effect of

meditation on asthma during his investigation into the Sahaja Yoga

effect. So we decided to use his results along with our accumulated

experience at the meditation clinic as a basis for an asthma trial

here in Australia.

 

In consultation with a number of respected Asthma researchers a

strategy was devised to compare the effect of meditation against a

simple relaxation technique: We wanted to know whether there really

was something unique about this process or if it was simply like any

other relaxation technique. Our plan involved selecting a large group

of people with severe asthma whose condition did not properly respond

even to maximum levels of medication. These people were divided into

two groups. One group received regular instruction in Sahaja Yoga

Meditation while the other group was taught a popular relaxation

technique. Bothe before and then after about 16 sessions the patients

were assessed and the two groups compared to see if there was a

difference between the two techniques. The Royal Australian College

of General Practitioners funded the project and after18 months it was

completed.

 

We were stunned by the results! Most of us expected that there would

be little difference, on average, between the groups. So when we saw

that the performance of the meditation group was between 50% and 150%

better than the relaxation group we were very impressed. Some of the

tests showed us that the meditation not only improved symptoms but

even modified the disease process itself! This effect was not seen at

all in the relaxation group.

 

David: A Breath of Fresh Air

 

There were many remarkable individual stories within the Asthma

project. One of them is David's: We recalled him as typical 42 year

old " Aussie Battler " . He had suffered asthma since infancy and it had

had greatly frustrated both his career and sporting ambitions. When

we assessed him prior to his entry to the trial his asthma was in the

severest of categories. Simply blowing into the spirometer, a machine

used to test lung capacity, caused his asthma to worsen! After

sixteen weeks of meditation, which he took to like fish to water, he

returned for reassessment.

 

At the lung function laboratory we saw a changed man : David's lung

function had increased, his symptoms reduced massively and the

standard tests that initially placed him in the severest of asthma

categories now indicated that his asthma was now one of the mildest!

David told us that his asthma had improved so much that he was

sleeping through the night rather than being woken with symptoms, he

was playing sport and had saved more than $1500 in medication

expenses since he started the programme!

 

How Does it Work?

 

How does meditation bring about these sometimes astounding effects?

The " Sahaja Yoga Hypothesis " is that meditation triggers a process

within a complex set of nerves that governs the function of al the

organs of our body, called the " Autonomic Nervous System " . Imbalance

within this system, says the hypothesis, is the cause of both

physical and psychological illness. The process of meditation

rebalances this system thereby allowing our natural healing processes

to revitalise and rejuvenate diseased organs.

 

Ancient Tradition of The Kundalini

 

The ancient yoga tradition explains the inner healing process in

terms of seven subtle energy centres (called chakras) that exist

within our body. Each of these centres governs a specific set of

organs, aspects of our psychology and spirituality. Imbalanced

function of these centres results in abnormal function of any aspect

of our being (physical, mental or spiritual) that relates to the

imbalanced centre.

 

Meditation is said to be a specific process that involves the

awakening of an innate, nurturing energy called " Kundalini " . The

awakening if the Kundalini causes it to rise from its position of

slumber in the sacrum bone, pierce through each of the chakras

causing each of them to come into a state of balance and alignment (a

little like a string threading through a series of beads). In this

way the chakras are rejuvenated and nourished by the Kundalini's

ascent.

 

As the Kundalini reaches the brain and the chakras within it mental

tensions are neutralised. An inner state of mental calm is

established. This inner silence becomes a source of peace within us,

a fortress that shields us form the stresses of daily life, makes us

more creative, productive and satisfied with ourselves.

 

Meditation and the Eastern View of Stress

 

Meditation is an eastern tool that offers western doctors a new way

of looking at health. The role of stress in disease is well

recognised by modern medical researchers but, despite the progress

that has been made in this field, there remains some very fundamental

yet unanswered questions. One of those question is " What exactly is

stress? " . Few of us can easily come up with a good definition

of " stress " yet, while we don't know exactly what it is, we

intuitively recognise that it is a factor that affects almost every

aspect of our lives!

 

The Eastern explanation of " stress " is probably one of the most

commonsense and practically useful. While you read this see if you

can " look inside " and apply this perspective to yourself. Stress,

says the Eastern perspective, is the by-product of thought. If we

examine the nature of the thoughts that each of us experiences from

moment to moment we will find that they all relate to one of two

broad categories: (l) events that have occurred in the past or (2)

events that we anticipate will occur in the future. Whether the event

was an argument with a friend yesterday (past), an unpaid bill

(future), a deeply troubling childhood experience that has become

part of our subconscious (past) or anxiety about the share market

(future) we will find that all of these troubling thoughts, and the

resulting stress that they cause us, to have arisen from only the

past or future!

 

Take the exercise a little further. If the vast majority, if not all,

our thoughts emanate from events in the past or future, is it

possible to think about the absolute present moment? Most of us will

admit that while we can think about events in the past (even a few

moments ago) or events scheduled in the future (even milliseconds in

the future) it is impossible to actually think about the present

moment which we are continuously experiencing and is ever changing.

 

Now think about the stress that we all experience from time to time.

Despite the huge variety of situations that " stress " us they all have

one thing in common: we have to think about the events before they

can reduce our sense of wellbeing. In other words thought is itself

the final common pathway by which all events create stress within us!

 

The past, comprised of events that have already occurred, no longer

exists. Similarly the future, comprised of events that have yet to

occur and are therefore undetermined, does not yet exist. However,

paradoxically, we human beings exist only in the present. The mind

(and its thoughts), since it is comprised only of stuff from the past

or future, is therefore not real and so the stress that it generates

is also not real!

 

If we are beings that exist in the present, we realise that the

stress and angst of life emanate from a mind which is the product of

past/future, we acknowledge also that the antidote for the mental

illusions that cause stress is to reign in our attention and focus it

on the present moment. There remains a further question: Is it

possible?

 

While for most of us focusing on the absolute present moment is

virtually impossible it is this razor's-edge of thoughtless awareness

that the Easterner seeks to cultivate and sustain in meditation. The

vast inner silence of the thoughtless state leaves the mind

uncluttered by mental preconception or past experiences. By existing

in that space-between-the thoughts one is neither enslaved to one's

past nor confined to a predetermined future. The inner silence of

meditation thus creates a naturally stress-free inner environment.

 

Examples of Living in the Moment

 

Yes it is and most of us encounter living examples of it regularly!

 

Observe closely the next small child you encounter. They have no

worried lines on their faces, are almost always playing and enjoying

themselves, rarely complain about bills, jobs, chores, etc. If one

happens to have an unpleasant experience it is quickly forgotten and

life goes on. They are naturally balanced, living in the present,

stress free beings. None of us have seen a toddler hold a grudge,

worry about the next meal or even think about what they did yesterday

or will do tomorrow. They are so focused on the present moment that

they are entirely spontaneous, unpretentious and usually very happy.

They are in a constant state of effortless meditation.

 

Living in the moment is not, however, a regression to immaturity. It

is an evolutionary step in which we return to our childlike innocence

and simplicity but in full awareness of ourselves, our place in

society and moral role and responsibility.

 

How does one tap into and sustain a connection with the present

moment? How does one escape the brainstorm of mental stress that we

all experience ?

 

Conclusion

 

The research data so far and our experience at the clinic is

compelling evidence. We would all agree that more research needs to

be done to try to understand how this " Sahaja Yoga effect " occurs.

Does it work via the Autonomic Nervous System? Is it really the

result of an ancient residual energy that exists within each of us

called Kundalini? Is it possible bring together the most ancient of

traditions with modern science? The research programme will continue

to delve into these important questions. For the reader suffice to

say that Sahaja Yoga meditation offers a genuine method by which each

of us can tame the brainstorm, realise a state of peace and

tranquility and begin to heal our body, mind and spirit.

 

Dr Ramesh Manocha

 

e-mail: R.Manocha

 

http://www.cancersupportwa.org.au/Spotlight/archive.htm