Tag: chakras
The Science of Gratitude: Benefits for Meditators, Health, and Sleep
As Thanksgiving approaches, it is the perfect time to explore how the simple act of giving thanks is vital for meditators. Science has spent two decades studying gratitude, discovering that noticing the good in life ripples through your mind, body, relationships, and even your longevity.
And it turns out that there are several benefits of gratitude for meditators.
How to Move On: Letting Go of Hurts and Hang-Ups
Someone wronged you. You feel hurt, bruised, and totally justified to hold onto anger. You’ve been treated with disrespect, ripped off, cheated, stepped on. You’re normal to crave justice.
There is a myriad of reasons we can feel wronged, some big and others small. It can be especially difficult to let go of anger if someone has hurt someone we love or someone unable to defend themselves. Whatever the reason, unforgiveness can feel like a gaping wound, a cut that won’t heal. When we wake up, we think about it. When we lay our heads on our pillows at night, we think about it. When happy moments present themselves, our happiness is tainted with anger, hurt, angst. Our anger may feel inescapable.
Have you been there? Most of us can relate to this feeling. But unfortunately, it punishes us more than it punishes the perpetrator. What we want our angst to accomplish is futile and we end up hurting ourselves.
Ancient Wisdom in a Modern Package
The practice of genuine meditation and yoga—specifically Sahaja Yoga, our original name used worldwide—traces its roots to ancient scriptures and discoveries dating back thousands of years.
Modern creations and concoctions of mind control techniques and trendy yoga poses can only take you so far. They exist largely because we either don’t care to explore our traditions, lack the time to discover them, or remain blissfully unaware of what our ancestors already perfected. And let’s be honest—there’s the irresistible lure of quick money from offering superficial benefits. (Hard to charge premium rates when students realize mastery takes decades, not a weekend retreat.) While most contemporary offerings provide some benefit, they lack the underlying depth and intricacy of traditional systems.
They largely exist to cater to the growing demand for yoga and meditation offerings. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) found in 2022 that the adoption of yoga has increased 3 times and meditation 2 times over the past 20 years. It also found that roughly 55 to 60 million people in the US practice some form of yoga or meditation. It’s easy to understand why the “average offering” out there has to make money to take advantage of this trend, almost no one cares about offering what’s real, ancient or authentic. Almost no one that is. Sahaja is an exception because we are committed to that very cause and mission and all our offerings have zero commercial intent.
The practice of Sahaja is infinitely intricate. Let’s discover some of these intricacies and explore how we can harness them in practical, tangible ways. Indeed, Sahaja offers ancient wisdom in a modern package.