The Science behind Mindfulness

If you drive to work, listening to an audio book while thinking about the edits
to be done to your draft post, then you are not practicing mindfulness. The
technique by which a person becomes intentionally aware of his thoughts and
actions is an important part of Buddhist spiritual practice and is one of the
steps of
Vipassana.
Besides giving insight into impermanence and thus reducing suffering,
mindfulness practice has also been found to have health benefits resulting in
Mindfulness
based stress reduction programs in hospitals around United States.

Neuroscience now is able to explain why mindfulness practice is able to produce
health benefits. On seeing an angry or fearful face, there is an increased
activity in a region of the brain called
amygdala
which are almond shaped bunch of neurons. This in turn activates a series of
biological systems designed to protect the body from danger. If the feeling was
labeled, for example, if you associate the word angry with an angry face, then
the activity in the amygdala reduced, but in turn increases the activity in
another part of the brain called right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.

“We found the more mindful you are, the more activation you have in the right
ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the less activation you have in the
amygdala,” Creswell said.“We also saw activation in widespread centers of the
prefrontal cortex for people who are high in mindfulness. This suggests people
who are more mindful bring all sorts of prefrontal resources to turn down the
amygdala. These findings may help explain the beneficial health effects of
mindfulness meditation, and suggest, for the first time, an underlying reason
why mindfulness meditation programs improve mood and health.

“The right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex can turn down the emotional
response you get when you feel angry,” he said. “This moves us forward in
beginning to understand the benefits of mindfulness meditation. For the first
time, we’re now applying scientific principles to try to understand how
mindfulness works. “This is such an exciting study because it brings together
the Buddha’s teachings — more than 2,500 years ago, he talked about the
benefits of labeling your experience — with modern neuroscience,” Creswell
said. “Now, for the first time since those teachings, we have shown there is
actually a neurological reason for doing mindfulness meditation. Our findings
are consistent with what mindfulness meditation teachers have taught for
thousands of
years.”[The
Science of Mindfulness Meditation]

Rage
Boy’s amygdala will be bursting out by now and unless he practices
mindfulness, his ventrolateral prefrontal cortex will shrink to the size of his
intellect.

Historical Fabrications

The discovery of the Gospel of Judas has not only given as an insight into the formation of present day Christianity, but has also exposed the non-spiritual techniques the Church Fathers have used to promote the Gospels they favoured.

Why do these conclusions continue to be drawn by biblical scholars, as if the canonical gospels are any more accurate (or “peerless”) theologies and histories than the non-canonical gospels? All these texts are theologies, and whether or not they are “peerless” depends upon where you are standing. None of our texts are histories, let alone accurate histories. And how much historical information we can actually reap out of any of them, and the procedures for doing so, are questions more problematic than not.

As for the accuracy of the Church Fathers’ descriptions. Their accuracy is not how I frame any discussion of a normative debate. The Church Fathers passed on false information, ill-informed interpretations, and fabricated stories in their struggle against those forms of Christianity that they hated. As the old saying goes, “All is fair in love and war.”

As scholars, it is our job to stop buying into the normative rhetoric, and figure out what was really going on on the ground. The Gospel of Judas helps us tremendously in this venture. We can see that it was not connected with Cain or the Cainites as some of the Church Father testimony suggests. It is written by Sethians, for whom Cain was an evil Archon! The evidence from the Gospel of Judas leads me to conclude that the Cainites were a fantasy of the Church Fathers, a result of their war to become the dominant form of Christianity.[Short Article on Gospel of Judas]

While Biblical scholars claim that the Bible is not history, the more Catholic than the Pope types like Max Muller have used the Bible to produce imaginary dates for the composition of the Vedas based on the creation of the world sometime in 4000 BC. Unfortunately those imaginary dates are still taken seriously.

Lifting the veil

Pratibha Patil, the virtual unknown, whom Sonia Gandhi picked up as the candidate for the President of India just to shut up Prakash Karat has established an albatross-neck relationship with the Congress Party. Her blame on the origins of the purdah system on Mughal invaders has created a new job position in the party for a Shane Warne level spin master. This statement by a candidate of a party which has been trying to white wash Indian history for the past half a century has upset all the secular fundamentalists.

The ultimate secular cuss word was used – pro-RSS. Her views were found to be similar to those of Hindu fanatics. Clueless newspapers like Deepika (Malayalam) said that Ms. Patil should not have made irresponsible statements (statements which affect vote bank) and provided the convincing argument that even the Congress spokesman disagreed with her, while in fact the Congress spokesman Param Navdeep said that it was an established fact that women were a target of aggression during the Mughal rule.

Eminent historians were immediately called into action by beaming the bat signal into the night sky.

Nandita Prasad Sahai, who teaches a course on the gender history of medieval India in JNU, says that there is
no consensus amongst historians about the precise period when purdah originated in Indian society.

“Historian Kegan Paul traces the practice of the custom back to the Vedic period. And anthropologist Patricia Jeffrey says that seclusion and veiling of women was not unknown before the Muslim invasion. It appears that a social ideal recommending women to remain in seclusion to mark their complete loyalty towards their husband already existed,” she says.

“Most historians consider the Muslim invasion as a watershed when purdah is said to have become more widespread as a defensive reaction in troubled times among the Rajput royalty trying to protect their women. In fact, the case is unproven in the absence of statistical material that could establish a change in the extent of the practice of purdah . It seems plausible, however, that the practice became more widespread amongst the Rajput royalty in trying to imitate the custom of the new ruling classes,” says Sahai. [Experts lift veil off purdah origin]

Trying to push it back to the Vedic period is a nice JNU trick, but then facts disagree.

Some months ago, I recall a North Indian lady talking about the cultural differences she experienced when in South India. Visiting relatives posted in Kerala, she made a pilgrimage to the famed Shri Krishna shrine in Guruvayur. Upon entering the temple she devoutly covered her head — only to be sternly reprimanded by a priest who told her that this was against Hindu conventions.

The temple guardians at Guruvayur were quite right. I don’t know how many readers would have stepped into the National Museum in Delhi (sadly ignored by most visitors to the capital). The wealth of treasures in the museum is so great that it has actually spilled out into the lobby. One of the first pieces of sculpture you can see — before coming even to the ticket office — is a marvellous statue of the goddess Saraswati, from the Chauhan period as I recall.

The goddess of wisdom is portrayed without any covering on her head. So are depictions from thousands of years of Indian history, from the dawn of civilisation on the banks of the Sindhu through the Mauryas, the Guptas, and other dynasties. But as time passes — and you enter the galleries showing Rajput miniatures from later periods — the veil makes its appearance, until even Adishakti Parvati has her face partly covered.[The debate over Muslim separatism in the US]

While the Mughal era started in the 16th century, the Muslim invasion started much earlier with the invasion by Mahmud of Ghazni against the Rajput kingdoms and rich Hindu temples like Somnath, Varanasi and Dwaraka in the late 9th century. In the last quarter of the 12th century, Muhammad of Ghor established the Delhi Sultanate and sometimes the word Mughal rule is used incorrectly in a broader sense to include the Turkish and Afghan rulers as well.

One more attempt was made to push the date of the purdah system to pre-Muslim era by Vasha Joshi of Institute of Rajasthan Studies who suggested that the veil was prevalent in Rajasthan during the 11th century, much before the Delhi Sultanate. This remark was based on the existence of separate quarters for women called the jenani deorhi in medieval Chittorgarh fort which in no way implies the existence of the purdah system.

The Gandhara sculptures show women with band like head gear, but even that cannot be called the veil. Face covering was completely absent in India till the 11 -12th century and they are not present in the Ajanta paintings. Slowly the head covering starts appearing with the arrival of Muslims with a 1250-1275 book in Jaisalmer showing a woman covering the back of the head using the sari.

Pratibha Patil did nothing wrong, but stated a historical truth. Her only mistake was that she picked the wrong community to blame. Instead, if she had blamed the caste system or denounced Brahmins, it would have been accepted without debate that she was the person with the perfect secular credentials to be the President of India.

Tags: India, History, purdah, Rajput, Pratibha Patil

Lost Years of Jesus

While the story of Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection is known by everyone,
no one knows what he did between the ages of 12 and 30. The Bible is silent
about this period in his life and after the mention of Jesus as a 12 year old,
discussing the Hebrew Bible with the rabbis, he surfaces at the age of 30,
full of divinity and wisdom. The History Channel recently showed a
documentary titled,
The
Lost Years of Jesus which suggests that Jesus could have been in
India or England or Qumran or leading a revolution against the Romans in
the missing years.

The Jesus in India theory comes from author Holger Kersten who wrote a book
about the same. Though without proof the idea comes from the
observation that the teachings of Jesus are similar to Buddha who lived in
India, 500 years before Jesus. Since there was a trade route to India from the
Roman empire which passed through Palestine, it would have been possible for
Jesus to travel to India, learn Buddhism and go back to Palestine.

Glastonbury
in England has a legend connected to Joseph of Arimathea and according to one
tradition, Joseph was Jesus’ uncle and established the first church in
England. Joseph, involved in tin trade lived in the tin mine areas of England
and it is believed that Jesus came along with him. According to the legends,
after the death of Jesus, the
Holy
Grail (the cup and not the Dan Brown version) was buried in
Glastonbury by Joseph.

Another theory is that simplicity of life and the concept of baptism all came
to Jesus while he and John the Baptist lived with
the Essenes. These Essenes
later moved to
Qumran due
to the fear of Romans, but they believed that they would be lead by a
leader called Messiha. While Jesus is portrayed as a peaceful man, there is
one instance in the Bible where
he
says, “I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword”. Also when Jesus
was arrested, one of his disciples took his sword and stuck down a slave of
the head priest. The theory suggested is that Jesus was a revolutionary
fighting the Romans and his revolutionary activities were left out from the
Bible since it would be difficult to circulate such a Bible in Roman Times.

The documentary, though telecast by the History Channel, is very speculative.
The Jesus in India theory is not taken seriously by most people and the Jesus
in England theory is also as the story says, “legend”. It is not even sure if
there was a person called Joseph of Arimathea for so far no one has been able
to find this place called Arimathea.

The documentary also mentions that what we know about Jesus is pure
speculation and comes not from historical documents, but from the Gospels.
Though there were many historians who were alive at that time who wrote
about events in Palestine, it is surprising that the no one mentioned about
this person.

Considering that the Gospels, both the canonical and the heretic like the
Gospel
of Judas were written with the aim of glorifying Jesus, the bias in it
would not be, let us say, minuscule. The Gospels were not first hand accounts,
but oral tradition written down much later. From the Gospels it cannot be
decided what is historical and what is not, for the authors of Gospels were
evangelists, not historians. The documentary which establishes the lack
of historical evidence for Jesus then goes on suggesting the
above theories based on legends and gospels, which was kind of
ironic.

Tags: Bible, Jesus, Christianity, Ancient History

An obstacle for Islamic Reform

Tawfik Ahmed, a former member of Jemaah Islamiya, blames non-Muslim Western intellectuals as obstacles in the path for reforming Islam in an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.

Politicians and scholars in the West have taken up the chant that Islamic extremism is caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict. This analysis cannot convince any rational person that the Islamist murder of over 150,000 innocent people in Algeria — which happened in the last few decades — or their slaying of hundreds of Buddhists in Thailand, or the brutal violence between Sunni and Shia in Iraq could have anything to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The tendency of many Westerners to restrict themselves to self-criticism further obstructs reformation in Islam. Americans demonstrate against the war in Iraq, yet decline to demonstrate against the terrorists who kidnap innocent people and behead them. Similarly, after the Madrid train bombings, millions of Spanish citizens demonstrated against their separatist organization, ETA. But once the demonstrators realized that Muslims were behind the terror attacks they suspended the demonstrations. This example sent a message to radical Islamists to continue their violent methods.

Western appeasement of their Muslim communities has exacerbated the problem. During the four-month period after the publication of the Muhammad cartoons in a Danish magazine, there were comparatively few violent demonstrations by Muslims. Within a few days of the Danish magazine’s formal apology, riots erupted throughout the world. The apology had been perceived by Islamists as weakness and concession.

Worst of all, perhaps, is the anti-Americanism among many Westerners. It is a resentment so strong, so deep-seated, so rooted in personal identity, that it has led many, consciously or unconsciously, to morally support America’s enemies.

Progressives need to realize that radical Islam is based on an antiliberal system. They need to awaken to the inhumane policies and practices of Islamists around the world. They need to realize that Islamism spells the death of liberal values. And they must not take for granted the respect for human rights and dignity that we experience in America, and indeed, the West, today. [The Trouble With Islam (Subscription reqd)]

Changing Views of Christianity

In Gore Vidal’s novel about the the Roman Emperor Julian, there is a scene where Bishop George of Cappadocia quizzes a young Julian on the difference between Homoiousios and Homoousios. Julian, the young philosopher correctly articulates that Homoiousios means that Jesus the son is of one substance with God the father while Homoousios means that the father and the son and the holy spirit are one and the same. In the Council of Nicaea held by the Roman Emperor Constantine differences like these were debated, one view point was accepted and the other was suppressed.

Another fundamental teaching of Christianity is that Jesus died for your sins and only by accepting Jesus as your personal savior, you can be absolved of all sins. Before the religion was designed by a committee, there were other competing ideologies about the death of Jesus and that has now surfaced thanks to the discovery of the Gospel of Judas. The Gospel of Judas consisting of 13 sheets of Coptic manuscripts dated between 220 and 340 A.D reveals that Judas was a friend of Jesus and is asked by Jesus to betray his identity. Though the author is unknown it is obvious that he had issues with the “Jesus died for the sins” concept in general.

But the Gospel of Judas challenges that view and suggests that the fundamental message of Jesus is that we come from God, created in God’s image; when we die and leave the visible world, we step into the infinite world of God, into the divine light, and we go into that glorious light with God. How that happens it doesn’t say, any more than Paul does when he talks about resurrection. But it’s a conviction that’s fundamental to this Gospel. And it’s a very different way to look at Christianity.[FINDING MY RELIGION]

While present followers of Christianity think that the death of Jesus was a kind of sacrifice, the author of the Gospel of Judas thinks other wise. According to him Jesus showed that he can face death with courage knowing that he is going back to God.

The Roman Emperor Constantine thought that if there was no set creed, the religion would not survive over time. So some doctrines were accepted and some were rejected and were never heard again. Apparently the Emperor had not heard about how Hinduism survived with diverse doctrines all existing within the same umbrella.

Evangelicals who come to sinners like to you and me think they are doing us a favor by offering to save our souls. The next time one of those conversion fanatics come to save your soul, tell them about the Gospel of Judas. If they still want to save your soul, tell them you do it the old fashioned way by creating a word document called “Soul” and press Ctrl-S.

Buddha Statue in Sarnath

The Hindu: Tallest Buddha statue coming up in Sarnath

“At least 20- 25 artisans are working on this statue for over three years…. it will take three to four more years to complete. Right now, we are through with the stomach, feet and the face. Two or three months will be taken for the finishing work,” said Jyoti Singh Khushwaha, the contactor undertaking the construction of the statue.

Workers at the site said the statue would use over 635 blocks of sandstone and would be made in the Gandharva style, which laid great significance to it. The Buddha attained enlightenment at the age of 35 in Bodh Gaya in Bihar and finally departed from the world at the age of 80 in Kushinagar. Situated 10 kilometres away from Varanasi, Sarnath is the place where the Buddha is believed to have delivered his first sermon in 500 B.C. The place has a number of stupas (hemispherical domes) and monasteries. In the early days of Buddhism, stupas were built to honour important events including Buddha’s enlightenment

I hope he meant Gandhara style.

Technorati tags: Buddhism, Sarnath

Train your mind, Change your brain

There was a study done some three years back on the effect of meditation on the brain and it was observed that during meditation the brains of monks showed increase in brain waves called gamma waves during compassion meditation. There is a new book called Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain by Sharon Begley which has more details on the research in this area.

The question asked by the Dalai Lama was “Can mind shape brain matter” and the answer provided by neuroscientists was that physical states give rise to mental states and not the other way around. Now there is evidence that it can happen the other way as well.

Prof. Davidson then used fMRI imaging to detect which regions of the monks’ and novices’ brains became active during compassion meditation. The brains of all the subjects showed activity in regions that monitor one’s emotions, plan movements, and generate positive feelings such as happiness. Regions that keep track of what is self and what is other became quieter, as if during compassion meditation the subjects opened their minds and hearts to others.

More interesting were the differences between the monks and the novices. The monks had much greater activation in brain regions called the right insula and caudate, a network that underlies empathy and maternal love. They also had stronger connections from the frontal regions to the emotion regions, which is the pathway by which higher thought can control emotions.

In each case, monks with the most hours of meditation showed the most dramatic brain changes. That was a strong hint that mental training makes it easier for the brain to turn on circuits that underlie compassion and empathy.

“This positive state is a skill that can be trained,” Prof. Davidson says. “Our findings clearly indicate that meditation can change the function of the brain in an enduring way.”[How Thinking Can Change the Brain]

Avoiding Stampedes

In 2003, during the Kumbh Mela in Nasik 39 pilgrims were killed and 59 injured. In 2005 there was a stampede among a large number of Hindu worshippers on their way to to the Mandhara Devi shrine near Mumbai and 258 people were killed. This stampede is a big problem in Saudi Arabia too and in Janurary last year 345 pilgrims were killed as pilgrims rushed to complete the stoning ritual. To prevent this from happening again, the Saudis have enforced certain rules for crowd control which can be used by us as well.

A Saudi team recently returned from a crowd management workshop in Munich where they learned how to apply German experience in managing the tens of thousands of soccer fans during the last World Cup to the crowds of pilgrims at Jamrat. “We’ll apply what we have learned from Germany at Jamarat during this Haj season,” said Dr. Fadhil Othman of the Haj Research Institute, who participated in the workshop. The Saudi team watched how the Germans controlled large crowds of soccer fans rushing to an area of television screens to watch World Cup matches.

Police stopped people going to the area when 75 percent capacity was reached. They also made sure that there was adequate space in between people to move around freely without any pushing or pulling. “Another important thing we learned is that pilgrims should move in one direction and nobody should be allowed to move in the opposite direction,” he said while speaking about Jamrat crowd control strategy. [Advanced Strategy Adopted for Jamarat Crowd Control]

Thus said Manmohan Singh

India’s alleged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says

“We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources,” Singh said. [PM’s priority: Muslim development]

So now just because you pray to one God you get preferential treatment. Isn’t that wonderful. Sandeep has an excellent analysis of these clowns running the UPA.