• TABLE OF CONTENTS
  • One Must Run One’s Life by a Spiritual Plan by Swami Veda Bharati
  • Swami Veda Visits Taiwan
  • TED^x-Taipei 2011 Transcript
  • Intimacy by Swami Nitya
  • A Sufi - Yogi Dialog by Swami Chetan Bharari
  • Joyful Living with Yoga in Tokyo
  • Peter Fabian Receives His E-RYT 500 By Maryon Maass
  • Children’s Yoga Camp 2010
  • The Human Being Is Born Out of Selfless Love
  • 5th Keningau Annual Retreat
  • Mind Your Mind by Mehrad Nazari, Ph.D.
  • Great Spiritual Inspiration
  • An Ode
  • Offerings
  • Yoga Congress 2011
  • Upcoming Worldwide Events in Asia, Europe and North America
  • Full Moon Meditation Dates
  • Location of SRSG on the Globe
• AHYMSIN NEWSLETTERS ARCHIVE

Mind Your Mind

by Mehrad Nazari, Ph.D.

On the way to teach a class, I was pondering, what angle should I teach about Raja Yoga (the mental yoga) today?  The answer came through loud and clear. Our brain is a computer, our mind is the software and our consciousness is the software engineer. This software could be designed to make or break the computer. It could be of credit or discredit to its host.

Daniel Siegel, author of The Mindful Brain writes: "The cortex is the outer part of the brain, enlarged in mammals. It enables us to mediate the more complex processes such as perception, planning and attention. With many lobes carrying out different functions, there are varied ways of describing complex capacity of this region, which is not highly developed at birth and thus very open to being shaped by experience."

What is interesting is that our brain is not being shaped by our environment or interactions, rather, by our perception, our interpretation and experience of them. In order not to have a distorted view, we must clean and fine-tune our instrument through meditation. This will allow the light of Atman to shine through the mental body (manomaya kosha).

Professor V.S. Ramachandram in his new book The Tell-Tale Brain shares that Indian and Buddhist mystics assert that there is no essential difference between self and other, and that true enlightenment comes from the compassion that dissolves this barrier. I used to think this was just well intentioned mumbo-jumbo, but a neuron has been discovered that doesn't know the difference between self and other.

Are our brains uniquely hardwired for empathy and compassion?

Editor’s note: Mehrad Nazari, Ph.D., teaches yoga along with his wife, Michele Hébert, in California, USA. This is their website: http://www.rajayogis.net/. Mehrad and Michele Mehrad are arranging a satsang with Swami Veda in the La Jolla area of California for 13th August. Contact: http://www.rajayogis.net/contact

This and other events are listed on the Ahymsin "Upcoming Events" page as well.