“A day without laughter is a day wasted.” ~ Charlie Chaplin
Laughter Yoga is based on a scientific fact that the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter. One gets the same physiological and psychological benefits
What is life without laughter? We get so caught up in our self-inflicted reality, that we forget the simple joys of life. Laughter is the best medicine, as its the perfect way to de-stress and overcome some of the difficult times in life. Don’t we all love the company of funny, humorous people? Here’s the reason why, having a good laugh makes you feel light, its like a magic potion for the body, mind and the soul.
Madan Kataria, an Indian physician, while writing an article ‘Laughter – The Best Medicine’ for a health journal, discovered many scientific studies showing the proven benefits of Laughter on the Human mind and body. So to find out for himself, he along with few friends got together and cracked jokes to laugh every morning, until, of course they ran out of jokes.
Then Kataria found out that our body cannot differentiate between pretend and genuine laughter, so the group pretended to laugh, initially. The make believe laughter quickly turned into real laughter – this was contagious. This gave rise to Laughter Yoga in 1995.
Laughter Yoga combines laughter exercises and yoga breathing with rhythmic clapping and chanting of Ho Ho Ha Ha Ha in unison, which turns into real laughter. Today there are several laughter clubs in India and around the world, where people – senior citizens, housewives, corporates, children or anyone – get together in a garden or any open space and laugh away to glory.
It has been proved that while laughing the human brain secretes the ‘feel good’ hormone endorphins and there by reducing the levels of cortisol – a stress hormone responsible for more than 70-80 percent of illnesses.
Why should you laugh everyday?
It strengthens your immune system
Eliminate aches and pains
Improves blood circulation
Good for the heart, and lowers blood pressure
Increases oxygen level in your body
It will reduce depression and anxiety in your life
Reduces symptoms of allergies, asthma, arthritis and helps in chronic illnesses like cancer
Develop positive outlook
Children laugh up to 300 to 400 times a day whereas adults laugh only 15 times a day. That’s because children laugh at the smallest of things, while we adults laugh only on a particular occasion due to our inability to truly live in the present moment.
Humans were designed to laugh. It lifts our spirits with a happy high that makes us feel good and improves our behavior towards others.
A single exercise routine which reduces physical, mental and emotional stress simultaneously and brings an emotional balance. When our life is so stressful, laughter can help to a great extent. I recollect someone making fun of this idea of people laughing aloud early morning, some might find it amusing, but it would be a great idea to join the club instead!
(This therapy might not suit every patient and every disease. Please check with a therapist if Laughter Yoga is suitable for your condition)
You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. ~ Buddha
Kalaripayattu is a form of martial art that is native to the state of Kerala in Southern India. Originating way back in 1,000 B.C, it is believed to be one of the oldest methods of Asian martial arts, and is the basis for many martial arts practices in Asia and around the world including Kung Fu.
The trainers of Kalaripayattu are called Kalaris. It is one form of martial art that aims to separate the ego from the soul where one becomes valiant and experiences the joy of being on a spiritual path.
It gives one a psycho-spiritual experience that’s transformative to the being. The philosophy and poetry of this form of art is based on the concept of synchronising the mind with the body.
The practice of this art form involves four progressive stages of training – Physical-mental exercises (Melthari), Wooden weapons (Kolthari), Metal weapons (Ankathari), and Unarmed combat (Verumkaiprayogam). Martial art has never been just about kicking and physical fitness, it also means exploring and knowing your own body. Kalaripayattu is founded on a set of cultural assumptions about the body-mind relationship, health, and well-being that are similar to the assumptions underlying yoga and Ayurveda.
It involves the art of knowing and activating 107 energy points in the body, which are used for correcting the body’s energy. It aims to make the practitioner not just a warrior, but also a self-healer, and the one who can also help others with his knowledge of healing powers.
Kalaripayyatu involves a special kind of body-healing massage called “Kalari”. The Kalari massage helps patients suffering from ailments like Rheumatism, Paralysis, Back pain, Blood pressure, muscular problems, asthma, agitation, depression etc. Massage improves the self-defense mechanism of the body and increase immunity from environmental changes, giving one poise and will power.
Kalari massage works on the principle of applying pressure where there is a high concentration of life energy in the body. It includes the techniques of balancing the chakras, resulting in infusion of the divine universal energy (Sky, Wind, Fire, Water and Earth) within the body (Prana). The benefits of Kalari massage are life-changing and mind-enhancing.
Meditation and Yoga.
Modern urban lifestyle makes one forget that the body is capable of doing so much more if treated holistically. We have heard of the phrase that your body is your temple, but seldom do we take this statement seriously. Most of the time you shuffle between the lives you want to live and the life you have to or must live.
Teachers of Kalaripayattu are found in many regions around the world. Depending on one’s interest, you can either focus on the physical and self defense aspects or explore the spiritual aspect of Kalaripayattu that includes meditation, massage and traditional curative practices.
Like Lucius Annaeus Seneca puts it, “The wish for healing has always been half of health.”
“Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
Mindfulness meditation has been around for literally thousands of years, and there’s a reason for that: it works. Through science we’re starting to get a better understanding of why it is so beneficial. Everyday more research is drawing a clearer link between meditation and human health.
Meditative Tranquility
Its effect on our mind body and soul is undeniable. People as diverse as David Lynch and the Dalai Lama have praised the benefits of mindful meditation, asserting that it can increase attention, combat stress, boost overall health, and even foster compassion.
With that in mind, here are five interesting health benefits of mindful meditation.
1.) Stress & pain relief:
“What we have to learn in both meditation and in life is to be free of attachment to the good experiences and free of aversion to the negative ones.”~ Sogyal Rinpoche
A new study in the journal Health Psychology shows an association between increased mindfulness and decreased levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Another study conducted by Wake Forest Baptist University found that meditation could reduce pain intensity by 40% and pain unpleasantness by 57%, compared to morphine which only shows pain reduction of 25%.
As such, it lowers anxiety and depression by helping us feel, more than think, about that which conflicts us psychologically. Anybody who has practiced mindful meditation long enough understands that meditation beats almost all other methods of stress relief, except maybe physical exercise.
This is because being present with that which stresses us out turns the tables on the push-pull power dynamic between our daily troubles and our ability to withstand them. In the quiet spaces between our thoughts, stress itself becomes a thing for us to embrace and understand as opposed to a thing that controls us and dictates our happiness.
2.) Increased Gray Matter & Neuroplasticity:
“It is likely that the observed larger hippocampal volumes may account for meditators’ singular abilities and habits to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability, and engage in mindful behavior,” ~ Eileen Luders
Breathe in; Breathe out: Focus!
We don’t have to be Yogis to reap the health benefits of mindful meditation. It turns out that our brains are being molded in profoundly beneficial ways by daily meditation practices. In 2008 a team of researchers from UCLA compared the brains of long-term meditators with those of control subjects.
In the brains of the meditators, they found larger volumes of gray matter in the right orbito-frontal cortex and the right hippocampus, regions thought to be implicated in emotion and response control.
Sustained meditation can also lead to something called neuroplasticity, which is defined as changes in neural connections and synapses, both structurally and functionally, which are due to changes in behavior and environment.
Research by University of Wisconsin, neuroscientist Richard Davidson on Tibetan Buddhist monks has shown that experienced meditators exhibit high levels of gamma wave activity that seem to reflect the impact of meditation on attention and synchrony of high-frequency oscillations that probably play an important role in connectivity among widespread circuitry in the brain.
3.) Increased Focus:
“Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It’s a way of entering into the quiet that’s already there – buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.” ~ Deepak Chopra
Have you ever wonder why meditation can make you feel more aware of yourself, others, and your environment, giving you that awesome sense of Zen? How we begin to notice details and textures that we never noticed before? How everyday life becomes clearer, sharper, and at the same time more spacious?
According to a study in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, it’s because meditation helps the brain to have better control over processing pain and emotions, specifically through the control of cortical alpha rhythms, which leads to focused engagement, body awareness, self-awareness, and the regulation of attention.
It even makes music sound better! According to a study in the journal Psychology of Music, meditation improves our focus, thus helping us to truly enjoy and experience what we’re listening to. Indeed, from Beethoven to Bon Jovi, Bach to Beck, mindful meditation seems to improve our enjoyment of music. Perhaps this is what Nietzsche was referring to when he wrote, “Without music, life would be a mistake.”
4.) Increased Empathy:
“I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut
“The flowering of love is meditation.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
Spiritual traditions have suggested for years that mediation may boost our ability for compassion, but there has never been any scientific proof – until now. It turns out that the benefits of mindful meditation can be accessed by non-meditators as well. This is because meditation can actually make us better people and improve our compassion for others.
According to a study in the journal Psychological Science, researchers from Northeastern University found that meditation is linked with more virtuous behavior. “The truly surprising aspect of this finding,” researcher David DeSteno said, “is that meditation made people willing to act virtuous – to help another who was suffering – even in the face of a norm not to do so.”
Couple these findings with the discovery of mirror neurons, which constitutes our powerful system of empathy, and we see exactly how influential we can be as social creatures. When we see another person suffering, we can feel their suffering as if it is our own.
When we’re able to think more deeply about what others are going through, it can lead to some profound learning. “Mirror neurons,” writes Lea Winerman, “are a type of brain cell that respond equally when we perform an action and when we witness someone else perform the same action.” Daily Mindful meditation on these neural correlates of empathy could have a profound effect on our evolution as social animals.
5.) Better Sleep
“Sleep is unconscious meditation. Meditation is conscious sleep. In sleep we get limited energy. In meditation we get abundant energy.” ~ Anil Kumar Singh
At the end of the day, I can end up just totally wacky, because I’ve made mountains out of molehills. With meditation, I can keep them as molehills.” – Ringo Starr
Have you ever wondered why you seem to sleep better when you consistently practice mindful meditation?
According to a 2013 University of Utah study, mindfulness meditation can not only help us better control our emotions and moods, but it can also help us sleep better.
Study researcher Holly Rau said in a statement, “People who reported higher levels of mindfulness described better control over their emotions and behaviors during the day. In addition, higher mindfulness was associated with lower activation at bedtime, which could have benefits for sleep quality and future ability to manage stress.”
Meditation practices were also reported to regulate cortisol and catecholamine, and increase melatonin levels. Meditation increases melatonin concentration by slowing its metabolism in the pineal gland.
Diurnal melatonin levels were found to be significantly higher in Vipassana meditators than non-meditators, concluding that meditation practices could enhance melatonin levels and hence quality of sleep. Perhaps this is what the Dalai Lama was referring to when he said, “Sleep is the best meditation.”
Isn’t that fascinating, make sure you take a few minutes each day to enjoy these benefits of mindful meditation!
“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
We all have a hero buried somewhere within us. For most of us this hero lies dormant, expressionless and cut off from the world. To connect with it is to begin the difficult path toward individuation and self-actualization.
We, the hero initiates, discover our hidden hero through an inward journey broken up into four stages. This article covers the fourth stage: the encounter with the Inner Shadow.
Hidden Shadow
As we grow into full initiation with our heroic self, we become more vigilant with our inner power. The further we grow into individuation, the more profound our soul becomes; the more profound our soul, the mightier our light; but the mightier our light, the more vast our shadow.
“One of the least discussed issues of individuation,” writes Clarissa Pinkola Estes, “is that as one shines light into the dark of the psyche as strongly as one can, the shadows, where the light is not, grow even darker.”
The shadow is a major part of our inner state, typically dwelling in our subconscious. It is a culmination of our deepest fears, shames, regrets, and judgments, as well as our greatest power, our hidden beauty, and our sacred self.
Those who are always tenderly wrestling and negotiating with their own shadow are the ones who are able to bring these hidden dimensions to light. They wrestle with their deepest fear in order to transform it into higher courage.
They struggle with their shame and regret in order to transform them into prestige and serenity. They negotiate with their anger in order to transform it into strength. Most important of all, those who daily grapple with their innermost darkness become the brightest beacons of hope for other people. Like mighty lighthouses of soul, they shine brightest in the dark.
“Angry people want you to see how powerful they are,” said Chief Red Eagle. “Loving people want you to see how powerful you are.”
When we bottle up our emotions, suppress our anger, repress our pain, or avoid our shame, we become unbalanced and angry. But by simply being present with our anger, pain, and shame, and by meditating on the Root, Sacral, and Solar Plexus chakras, we transform ourselves. One of the most powerful actions we can take to intervene in a stormy world is to face our own storm.
That way we are able to stand up and bare our soul for others. Cultivating our shadow teaches us how to become a shining light despite an almost overwhelming darkness. Surfaced Souls shine like diamonds in dark times.
Their light throws off mighty sparks, causing other souls to become lit. This is the result of embodying our inner darkness. This is the power of the self-actualized shadow.
We live in a time of frightening separation and terrifying dissociation. The disenchanted cosmos is the shadow of the modern egocentric mind, which has culminated in unsustainable economic systems that create massive islands of waste and refuse, and the destruction of entire ecosystems.
As Victor Hugo said, “Sacrificing the earth for paradise is giving up the substance for the shadow.” Let’s not give up our substance for the shadow.
Let’s transform the shadow into substance. We need heroes now more than ever. We need beacons of hope to shine their light through the darkness. We need mighty bonfires to flare up and connect the disconnected.
We, the hero initiates, have become those heroes. Through our encounter with our inner herald, our inner mentor, our inner trickster, and now our inner shadow, we have now become spiritual warriors of the first order.
Like Hattori Hanzo said in the movie Kill Bill: “If on your journey, you should encounter God, God will be cut.”
Our mind is a powerful tool. You can either get lost in the quagmire of thoughts, which is the quality of the mind, or you can pull the reins and take control of the mind.
As Osho said, “The mind is a beautiful servant, a dangerous master.”
Once your thoughts are organised, your mind is organized.
By understanding the workings of the mind, you can observe the flow of thoughts and subsequently take steps to discipline the mind. An insight into the fluctuations of ‘Markata’ – the monkey mind – in Yoga, can help us to harness the power of the monkey mind, and to realise the hidden potentials of the mind.
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras on the Nature of the Mind
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” ~ Plutarch.
Maharshi Patanjali systematized and organized the techniques of Yoga in his work, the ‘Yoga Sutras’. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras comprises 195 sentences, where he gives methods of liberation, according to one’s capabilities, to overcome the pain of the material world.
One of his initial sutras, “Yoga Citta Vritti Nirodhah,” which means “Yoga is controlling the fluctuations of the mind.” He goes on to describe the types of mind and how to identify them.
Below are the five states of the mind according to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
1) Kshipta (Restless/ wandering)
It is a state of mind where the mind is like a pendulum, swaying from one side to the other, unable to conclude. The qualities of a Kshipta mind are constant craving for excitement, power, and authority. It wants to be praised and acknowledged. There is an insatiable need to remain in power.
This also leads to anxiety; everything around appears unsettled, because the attention is constantly fluctuating.
One experiences this state of mind due to the collision of thoughts. Through intense envy or malice, such a mind can be in a state of concentration for some time, but that is not the yogic kind of concentration. It is the lowest state of the mind to be in.
2) Mudha (Infatuated, Forgetful)
One goes through this condition when one is extremely angry or is experiencing series of emotions. It’s a kind of distraction that takes birth because of attachment, hatred or greediness. The flow of energy in the mind is blocked. The mind is dull and forgetful. One has to work on de-cluttering and rebooting oneself.
Know your mind.
3) Vikshipta (Distracted mind)
In this state, the mind is distracted, occasionally steady but it’s easily drawn here and there. One is dealing with a compromised sense of self. The mind is experiencing parallel and conflicting chain of thoughts.
Vacaspati Misra, an Indian philosopher who founded one of the main Advaita Vedanta schools, says in his book “Tattva vaisaradi” that it’s a condition of the mind brought by a disease, disinclination or gluttony.
This is one of the extremely negative conditions of the mind. And one should not be dwelling in this mental state at all as it clogs the mind and poisons the thought process with pessimism. The Vikshipta mind can be easily influenced and manipulated. A person faces self-doubt, agony and fear in this state where the internal and external worlds are constantly clashing.
One needs to take essential steps to purify this state of mind. Introspection and knowledge of self are two sole factors that help the mind in the cleansing process.
4) Ekagra (Focus, One-pointed)
Ekagra means that the mind has achieved one-pointed concentration and the person is fully present in the moment, unaffected by any external factors. Unlike in Vikshipta, concentration is not forced as it comes effortlessly and naturally. In this state of mind, one can connect with their higher spiritual self, as the mind is deeply focused and is able to choose the peaceful path.
In this condition, one has thorough knowledge of reality and has control over the mind and its’ string of thoughts. The mind is peaceful and full of energy. It is on its desired spiritual path.
5) Niruddha (Final epiphany/ Arrested)
The Niruddha mind is in complete stillness and goes through series of epiphanies. When the mind is mastered and regulated, it is devoid of thought patterns. One learns to rise above the self and becomes spiritually intelligent. It is the most desired state of mind. It is calm and still. Thoughts are just like watching passers-by from the gallery.
The breath is in control and the mind is on its journey to explore its magnificence. This state of mind is generally achieved through meditation and deep contemplation.
To achieve the Niruddha state of mind, one must master the ability to control the flow of thoughts and overcome all the obstacles. Awareness of the state of mind can help to lead your way out of chaos. It’s in the stillness that you can feel your mind and knowing that you are completely alive through self-knowledge. Like the Buddha said, “We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”
