Work stress
In one of the most thoroughly designed studies of meditation ever published, full-time workers who used Sahaja Yoga meditation became much less stressed compared with more conventional approaches to relaxation or placebo, according to a paper published in the online journal, Evidence Based Complementary Medicine, a leading publication in its field.
A team of researchers at Sydney University’s Meditation Research Programme monitored stress levels of full-time Australian workers in Sydney’s Central Business District to determine the effectiveness of meditation in combating this widespread and expensive problem.
The 8-week clinical trial provides strong evidence that there are measurable, practical and clinically relevant effects that appear to be specific to Sahaja Yoga meditation.
The study divided volunteers into three groups. Those who used Sahaja Yoga meditation showed significant reduction in their stress levels compared with those who used other methods of meditation that didn’t involve thoughtless awareness.
This is one of only a few meditation studies in the world that clearly demonstrate an effect that is much greater than just placebo. Hence, it has broad and important implications for all levels of society.
Work stress is described by many experts as a modern epidemic. It costs the Australian economy $15 billion per year and the US economy more than $300 billion. It is a leading cause of work absenteeism, causing both mental health problems such as anxiety and physical problems such as heart disease. Sahaja Yoga is a simple, low-cost intervention that can help prevent these problems.
The strategies currently available to tackle work stress often have limited effectiveness. This is where this study is remarkably relevant. It shows that a simple, mental silence orientated meditation skill reduces stress significantly more than other, often more expensive, approaches to stress management.
Stress is not just limited to the workplace. In western countries, studies estimate that more than 70% of medical consultations feature stress as a major issue.
Read the original research publication here:
www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2011/960583/
Visit the Australian Meditation Research Programme’s website:
www.researchingmeditation.org <http://www.researchingmeditation.org>
(Photograph: englisharticles.info)
Shri Mataji
By integration, you get the power to do what you understand and you have the power to feel happy with what you understand.
So you come to a stage where you develop this Nirananda [joy]. And this Niranand you develop when you are absolutely the spirit. In the Nirananda state there is no duality left… It is one personality. That is, you are completely integrated and the joy is not any more dented. It is complete. It hasn’t got a happiness and a sorrow aspect, but is just joy.
The joy is not that you laugh loud. The joy is not that you are always smiling. It is the stillness, the quietude within yourself, the peace of your being, of your spirit that asserts itself into vibrations which you feel.
When you feel that peace, you feel like the light of the sun, the whole rays of that beauty spreading.
But first of all, we are curbed down by our own personal, selfish, stupid ideas. Throw them away. We have them because we are insecure, because we have wrong ideas. Throw them away. Just stand alone, one with God, and you will find all these fears were useless.
Shri Mataji, Delhi, 4 February 1983.
Sahaja Yoga Meditation workshops will be held throughout Australia in July 2011. Come along and experience the mental silence and peace that Sahaja Yoga Meditation can offer.
Topics include collective meditations, easy techniques for reducing stress, balancing and clearing sessions and tips on how to meditate at home.
Here are the workshop venues and details.
ACT – Scullin
Sunday 31st July,10.30am to 3.00pm
Sahaja Yoga Meditation Centre
77 Chewings Street, Scullin
No booking required.
Enquiries: (02) 6254 4986
Lunch provided. No cost.
NSW – Sydney (Note: new location)
Sunday 31st July, 12 noon to 4.00pm
(Doors open 11am for registration & live music)
Burwood Function Centre, 7-9 Burleigh St, Burwood Sydney
(2 mins from Burwood Station, off Belmore St.)
Free Council car park is opposite venue.
This venue includes a presentation, “Meditation for children and young people”, by Dr Ramesh Manocha.
Lunch NOT provided. Afternoon tea provided
$10 donation per person (see below under Costs**)
To book for Sydney go to www.sahajayoga.com.au/booking
NT – Darwin
Saturday 30th July, 1.00pm to 5.00pm
Community Room (near Target entrance)
Palmerston Shopping Centre
Temple Terrace, Palmerston
To book for Darwin, contact [email protected]
Refreshments provided. No cost.
QLD – Bundaberg and Hervey Bay
Sunday 31st July, 1.00pm to 4:00pm
Sahaja Yoga Meditation Centre
160 Mahoney-Dexters Road
Alloway, Bundaberg
To book for Bundaberg, contact [email protected] or call 07 4159 7887.
Lunch provided. Donations welcomed.
QLD – Cairns
Sunday 31st July, 2.30pm to 5.30pm
Marlin Coast Neighbourhood Centre
2 Reed Road, Trinity Park
To book for Cairns, contact 07 4032 1860.
Afternoon tea provided. No cost.
QLD – Wamuran
Saturday 30th July, 2.00pm to 5.00pm
Sahaja Yoga Meditation Centre
95 McClintock Road
Wamuran (60mins north of Brisbane)
To book for Wamuran, contact [email protected] or call 07 5496 6716.
Refreshments provided. No cost.
SA – Adelaide
Saturday 30th July, 2.00pm to 5.00pm
Klemzig Primary School,
2 Hay Street
Klemzig, Adelaide
To book for Adelaide, contact: [email protected] or call 0417 806 336.
Refreshments provided. No cost.
TAS – Hobart
Sunday 31st July, 10.00am to 2.00pm
Sahaja Yoga Meditation Centre
85 Tanundal Street
Howrah, Hobart
To book for Hobart, contact: [email protected] or call 03 6245 1476.
Lunch provided. No cost.
VIC – Melbourne
Saturday 30th July, 11.00am to 4.00pm
Sahaja Yoga Meditation Centre
229 Warrigal Road,
Cheltenham, Melbourne
To book for Melbourne, contact [email protected] or call (03) 9585 1208.
Lunch provided. $10 donation per person (see below under Costs**).
WA – Gidgegannup
Sunday 30th July, 3.00pm to 5.00pm Sahaja Yoga Meditation Gidgegannup Centre
1216 O’Brien Rd, Gidgegannup (40kms NE of Perth)
To book for Gidgegannup, contact: 1300 724 252
Lunch provided. No cost.
**Costs: Our workshops are provided free by experienced volunteers, as a non-profit community service. The larger Melbourne and Sydney venues accept a $10 donation at the door towards venue hire, refreshments, workshop materials, equipment hire and upkeep.
For more information about the workshops go to www.sahajayoga.com.au/workshops.
Can’t make our workshop? Free weekly meditation classes are also available around Australia. To find a class near you go to www.sahajayoga.com.au/meetings.
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
Purity is your Mother’s name [1]. You know that my name is purity. And this purity is such that it purifies everything. It just purifies. The purity should be such that it should purify; otherwise that purity has no meaning.
For example, a soap purifies, but you don’t purify the soap … Water is the purifier. Water purifies us physically. And also all our poisons are driven out of our liver by water. Water is a very great element in removing all problems [2]. You use water for so many things. You know how it works out.
So this Lakshmi [3], which is purification, was born out of water. That’s why she was called as Mary [4]. And I’m also called Nira [5], meaning “born out of water”.
So one has to understand … that we inculcate purity. We should not cheat ourselves. It is easy to cheat, but we should inculcate purity within ourselves as a matter of our own maturity, as our own decoration, as our own beauty and not just because it’s a laborious thing or it is a very hard thing. It is not like that. It should be achieved with great pleasure and happiness…
We like to have a bath or to be clean and to be presentable. In the same way, we should try to clean our thoughts. Just by paying attention to them, we can clean them. Thoughts must be made clean. First of all, why have thoughts at all? But even if you have, have clean and pure thoughts. Even if you have to have, don’t have thoughts full of arrogance, aggression or of fear…
Our purification of our mind comes through certain methods of understanding. First of the understandings one has to have is that we are born in a family, born in a society … So all these fixations have put into us a certain amount of impurities, which may give us ego, superego. Anything it might give us. So to keep it pure and simple, take to the water element [5] as much as you can. It helps both ways. It helps the ego. It helps the superego. Take to the water element. And that is what Lakshmi is…
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Diwali Puja, 1981
Notes:
1. Shri Mataji’s name, “Nirmala”, means “pure”.
2. The element of water is used in simple cleansing practices in Sahaja Yoga.
3. The Goddess, Lakshmi, is worshipped at the time of Diwali Puja. Lakshmi was born out of the sea.
4. The name, “Mary”, comes from the Latin word for sea.
5. “Nira” comes from Shri Mataji’s name, “Nirmala”.