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Ordering
The Blissful Brain
The Blissful Brain is published
by Gaia Thinking. For more information on how to order your
copy, please click
here.
Guardian
G2: Mind over matter by Andy Darling
"Neuroscientist Shanida Nataraja has
proven meditation does more than clear your head, it can put
both halves of your brain to work, improving your concentration,
memory, and decision-making...". To read more, please
click
here.
The
Times: Calm down dear by Angela Pertusini
"Claims by the neuroscientist Shanida
Nataraja regarding the benefits of meditation have been backed
up by rigourous scientific research and are explained in her
acclaimed book The Blissful Brain: Neuroscience and Proof
of the Power of Meditation". To read more, please click
here.
Just
this Day event: A Day of Silence and Stillness at St
Martin's in the Field on 23rd of November 2011
Shanida Nataraja will be participating in
this exciting event that aims to explore the power of silience
and stillness in our busy world. For more information, please
click
here or visit the Just
This Day website.
Mindfulness
in the Workplace: Brain based approaches to improving employee
resilience and productivity at Robinson College, Cambridge
on 10 February 2012
Shanida Nataraja will be speaking at this
day event that brings together leading experts in mindfulness
to discuss how it could help organisations improve productivity
& resiliance. Speakers include Professor Mark Williams, Michael
Chaskalson, Ruby Wax, Margaret Chapman, and more (for more
information, please see click
here.
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Experience
and Language
The
relaying of all experience is constrained by language. Let
us consider this in greater depth. Does the statement, “I
am happy”, actually convey the internal state you experience?
No. The state of mind that someone experiences when they are
“happy” is actually indescribable, and varies considerably
from person to person. It is therefore necessary to encode
the experience in the form of a symbol, the word “happy”.
As a result of life-long cultural conditioning, this symbol
conveys to others the kind of experience you are having. Without
this conditioning, the symbol becomes redundant. The same
statement, “I am happy”, spoken to someone with no knowledge
of the English language, conveys no information about the
experience, symbolic or otherwise. Similarly, let us consider
other ways of describing the experience of happiness. Even
the physical manifestations of an internal state of happiness
can be considered to be symbols of that state. Smiling, for
example, conveys to others the kind of experience you are
having, but still contains no precise information about the
experience itself, and its interpretation is once again culturally-dependent.
Furthermore, research into the neural basis of happiness has
revealed the importance of certain brain chemicals and structures.
However, a description of these neural processes also fails
to describe the nature of the experience itself. It is therefore
clear that the process of describing all experience is therefore
limited by language, and this limitation, although acknowledged
in mystical experiences and often used to discredit these
accounts, extends to our scientific observations as well.
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