Happiness, as an indicator of subjective well-being, reflects emotional balance, contentment, and life satisfaction. Meditation practices have been associated with increased happiness and psychological well-being. Rajyoga Meditation, taught by the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, is a distinctive, open-eyed meditation technique emphasizing soul-consciousness, connection with the...
The present paper offers an interdisciplinary exploration of two profound concepts—Kundalini, a classical yogic description of latent spiritual energy, and Microvita, a theoretical construct proposed by philosopher Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar that postulates the existence of subtle entities bridging the psychic and physical realms. Though emerging from distinct intellectual traditions—ancient yogic...
You see, to meditate and transcend . . . is one way of achieving Cosmic Consciousness.The path of surrender is another way.The path of surrender starts by tuning the mind with the mind of the Master.Tuning the mind with the mind of the Master means: Whatever he likes, I begin to like.I begin to forgo my liking.If he wants me to go that way, I go that way, and having gone halfway, if he wants me...
Correction: Correction: Effectiveness and satisfaction of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for children on anxiety, depression, and internet addiction in adolescents: Study protocol for a randomized control trial.
Mantra meditation is widely recognized for enhancing cognition and autonomic regulation; however, its specific impact on cognitive load remains underexplored. Existing research often relies on subjective assessments or conventional electroencephalogram (EEG) spectral analysis, lacking objective, integrated evaluation frameworks. To address this gap, this study combines physiological signals...
Metadiscourse focuses on the interactional dimension of communication, what Sinclair (1981) called the 'interactive plane', and the coherence of interpersonal resources used to organise discourse (Hyland, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2010). In this vein, we have analysed a corpus of recorded guided meditations from lay and religious meditation contexts. We have searched for explicit signals instantiating...
This paper clarifies the experiential profile of depressive rumination, a form of repetitive and persistent negative thinking that is phenomenologically and aetiologically central in depression. Phenomenological analyses of depression have generally remained too high-level to account for this centrality. Drawing on first-person depression narratives and recent philosophy of psychiatry and...
Background: Buspirone shows a certain efficacy in patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), but its combination therapy with mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) remains unclear. To compare buspirone + MBCT versus buspirone alone for GAD in a retrospective cohort. Methods: According to the treatment regimens, patients were assigned to the experimental group (n = 50) to receive 120...
Abstract Mindfulness training (MT) and progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) are widely used stress-reduction practices, yet their neurochemical specificity remains almost unexplored. In a randomized, pre–post study, 30 healthy right-handed female speech-language therapy students were assigned to six weeks of MT or PMR. Short-echo time single-voxel H 1 -MRS (3T PRESS, TE ≈ 35 ms) and structural...
Humans can experience a rich array of conscious experience, including highly stable, positive, and refined states of non-ordinary perception that can be elicited through advanced meditation. Here, we present the first group-level, ultra-high-field (7T) fMRI study of jhana advanced concentration absorption meditation (ACAM-J). We combined local (regional homogeneity), mesoscale (connectivity...
Given the growing societal interest in how our environment influences time perception, in a world that is more volatile and going at a faster pace than ever, there is an increased need for the understanding of how attentional states and awareness impact time perception. In the current study we aimed at assessing the role of both internally and externally directed attention on temporal...
Research SquareNovember 11, 2025Hatice Pars, Merve Akay
preprint
Abstract Background: Nursing students are particularly vulnerable to psychological distress due to the combined demands of academic performance and clinical training. The COVID-19 pandemic has further intensified these stressors. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have shown promising results in reducing anxiety, stress, and emotional dysregulation in student populations. However, there is...
Mindfulness practice is often described as yielding a “quieter mind,” yet the specific cognitive mechanisms underlying this experience remain understudied. This research investigates how focused attention (FA) meditation influences automatic semantic processing through a series of conflict-based tasks (e.g., Stroop). In a between-groups design, participants were randomly assigned to either...
Purpose: Youth experiencing homelessness (YEH) are an underserved and difficult-to-reach population that experiences a disproportionate burden of trauma and stress compared to their housed peers. Prolonged trauma and stress can impact the development of negative emotions, reactive stress responses, and impulsive decision-making, which can lead to risk-taking behaviors. Growing research shows...
Homework is a key factor in the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions, yet there is no standardized method for measuring homework adherence, particularly in interventions targeting female sexual dysfunction (FSD). This study aimed to describe current methods used to assess homework adherence in research on mindfulness-based interventions for FSD. A descriptive secondary analysis was...
This paper explores how a mindfulness approach can support young children’s well-being in nursery schools. The research draws on a small-scale qualitative research project with four maintained nursery schools in the South of England. In total there were 33 participants including 5 early years professionals and 27 children aged between 3 and 4 years. An action research approach was adopted...
In this study, subject-independent (inter-subject), multiple-session electroencephalography (EEG) data classification was tested for loving-kindness meditation (LKM) and non-meditation. This is a novel study that extends our previous work on intra-subject, multiple-session classification. Here, two meditation techniques, LKM-Self and LKM-Other, were independently compared with non-meditation....
Measuring subjective experience during meditation remains methodologically challenging due to reliance on verbal self-reports for embodied phenomena. To address this, we developed the Meditation Pictographic Scale (MPS) using a first-person phenomenological approach. We developed and validated the MPS across four phases: (1) qualitative interviews to refine pictographic items; (2)...
Abstract Objectives Mindfulness practices mediated by immersive virtual reality (VR) have emerged as a novel mediator to deliver and potentially enhance mindfulness experiences and psychological well-being. Although psycho-technology is widely applied in clinical populations there remains a lack of methodological studies evaluating best practices for delivering such interventions to promote...
ReligionsNovember 9, 2025Phibul Choompolpaisal, Andrew Skilton
The present article is the product of ongoing research by the present authors into pre-reform meditation traditions in Siam. Historical and textual circumstances indicate that the Phra Lakkhaṇa Dhamma (lit., the honorable characteristics of Dhamma) the meditation manuscript under our study here, was copied during the reign of King Taksin (r.1767–1782), the founder of Thonburi, post-Ayutthaya...