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Calcutta News.Net Tuesday 12th June, 2012 (IANS)

Sahaja Yoga founded by Mata Nirmala Devi, that is gaining greater acceptance worldwide for calming the mind and busting stress, contributes to promoting mental and physical health, according to a new study conducted in Australia.

The essence of Sahaja Yoga, described as mental silence, is much more than mere tranquillity, having several dimensions, including medically beneficial ones, Ramesh Manocha, senior lecturer of psychiatry at the University of Sydney Medical School, told IANS from Australia.

"We found that the health and well-being profile of people who had meditated for at least two years was significantly higher in the majority of health and well-being categories when compared to the (general) population," says Manocha.

Manocha was referring to his latest study on Sahaja Yoga, which focussed on meditation as mental silence, involving more than 348 people, conducted with colleagues Deborah Black and Leigh Wilson at the Sydney Medical School.

Fifty-two percent of the volunteers experienced mental silence "several times per day or more" while 32 percent were experiencing it "once or twice per day", according to Manocha, who is at the forefront of research into meditative disciplines.

"Our survey also demonstrated that practitioners had not only better mental and physical health but also a consistent relationship between health, especially mental health, and self-reported experience of mental silence," says Manocha.

Elaborating on mental silence, Manocha says: "As one learns to slow down the thoughts, the practitioner will start to perceive a small gap between each thought. With practice and by applying specific techniques, the meditator can widen the gap so that he experiences a thought or two and then a space of silence and then another thought or two."

"In this way, the gap between thoughts can be widened until there are long moments of no thoughts. Ultimately, the thoughts stop completely and the meditator remains fully alert and aware, but experiencing no thinking activity. This is 'mind emptiness' or mental silence of Sahaja Yoga," he said.

Link:
Sahaja Yoga confers good health, busts stress: Australian study