Long-term practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation show altered functional connectivity of the striatum, a brain region involved in cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes. During meditation, compared to their own resting state, meditators had altered connectivity between the striatum and parietal, sensorimotor, and cerebellar regions. In resting state, meditators had reduced connectivity between the left accumbens and the mid cingulate compared to non-meditators, and this reduction correlated with better performance on a task measuring interference inhibition. The striatum may play a key role in meditation by shifting attention, self-referencing, and bodily sensations, and long-term practice may produce lasting changes in striatal connectivity.
Praying to a God perceived as immanent (inside oneself) versus transcendent (outside oneself) activates different brain regions. In a comparison of brain scans, Christians praying to a transcendent God showed thalamus activation, whereas practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation praying to an immanent God showed thalamus deactivation. The thalamus relays sensory information, so its deactivation during immanent prayer likely reflects reduced attention to external stimuli to focus inward, while its activation during transcendent prayer may support a perceived dialogue with an external divine presence.
Praying during Sahaja Yoga Meditation deactivates the bilateral thalamus and reduces activity in frontal brain regions, including the medial prefrontal cortex, compared to secular speech tasks. These neural patterns suggest that prayer in this tradition involves inner concentration and diminished social judgment or mentalizing, distinguishing it from Christian praying practices that engage social cognition. The study scanned sixteen experienced Sahaja Yoga Meditation practitioners using functional MRI while they performed formalized and improvised prayers and matched secular tasks.