In our daily lives, the misfortunes of others may trigger feelings of compassion, but we may not always act on them. We pass a beggar on the street without stopping to give him money. We avoid stopping to help a stranded motorist. Perhaps we’re in a hurry, perhaps we’re too focused on our own troubles, or perhaps we simply don’t want to engage with these individuals.

Whatever the excuse, we walk on, assuming that suppressing our compassion won’t cost us anything. But one recent study shows quite the opposite. Researchers found that after people suppress compassionate feelings, they lose a bit of their personal commitment to morality (Cameron & Payne, 2012).

We shop around for many things in our lives – cars, homes, clothes – pretty much everything we need.

And shopping is often a combination of things. It’s about looking at various options, many times trying each option out, deciding if the price justifies the value and so on. Sometimes shopping is driven by social status, peer pressure or suggestions and at other times, it is just plainly impulsive. For many, shopping is a pastime and active part of enjoying their lives.

Unfortunately, meditation doesn’t lend itself all that well to a typical shopping experience. Unlike other shopping experiences, we don’t benefit by shopping around and trying out multiple different techniques. Something like Sahaja meditation is very deep. With any technique, you need patience, perseverance of several weeks – sometimes even months – before you can explore the full benefits.

Here’s why we may feel the need to shop, but shouldn’t.

In The Emoji Movie, multi-expressional emoji Gene, who lives inside a teenager’s phone, finds himself unable to stick to just the one emotion assigned to him. He is determined to be a malfunction that must be deleted so he embarks upon a journey to become a normal “Meh” emoji like his parents. But Gene, the emoji who couldn’t help but express multiple emotions, may have been on the right track all along.

Emotion, it turns out, is far more nuanced than even human experts have historically assumed.

Have you ever noticed how Science Fiction leads the way in modern thinking? Fahrenheit 451 published in 1953 talked about portable audio—well before today’s earbuds that weren’t popular until 2000. And Jules Verne had revolutionary ideas in the 1800’s like From The Earth to the Moon, which in many ways predicted Apollo 11’s 1969 lunar landing.

One thing you may not have noticed is the Sci-Fi books and movies that embrace meditation as a means to tap into the energy-based plane to reach a higher level of existence.

By now, you’ve likely heard of the Kundalini energy and chakras. At Sahaja, we try to demystify these concepts as much as we can and explain how these things correlate with aspects of your life. Truthfully, meditation doesn’t have to be mystical or separate from real, normal living. Real meditation is actually quite the opposite, tightly integrated into practitioners’ everyday lives.

Our chakras are a system of inner energy centers at the core of our being and are at work each day. To give you an example, when we overeat, our Nabhi chakra becomes imbalanced. On a deeper level, when we strengthen our heart chakra, we get rid of our fears and insecurity.

Here is everything you need to know about the chakras in simple terms.