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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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What
is a Worldview?
A
worldview can be defined as a psychological lens or filter
that determines both the way in which we perceive the world
and our actions within it. It can be seen to comprise all
of our belief systems i.e. our accumulated knowledge and understanding
of “God, Life, the Universe, and Everything”. The concept
of a worldview can be used both at the level of an individual
(i.e. a personal worldview) and at the level of the human
species as a whole (i.e. a collective or consensus worldview).
All
change in the consensus worldview stems from personal experience.
There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that shows that a
single experience can completely transform an individual’s
personal worldview. In these cases, the experience is so profound,
such that it alone, without any external validation, can lead
to a permanent shift in perspective; a permanent re-focusing
of the psychological lens so to speak. Examples of such transformative
experiences include mystical experiences, near-death experiences,
severe trauma, and significant life events (e.g. marriage,
parenthood, divorce, and bereavement). In most cases, however,
our experiences are seemingly less profound, and therefore
validation is sought through comparison with the experiences
of other people. If a number of independent sources can support
the individual’s experience, the experience is considered
to warrant a change in the individual’s personal worldview.
Once a “critical mass” of individuals have had comparable
experiences, and have modified their personal worldviews accordingly,
these changes emerge within our collective view of reality.
Thus personal experience transforms the consensus worldview.
Our
society is constructed such that the individual does not need
to make any personal decisions about how to perceive or interact
with the world; we are instructed what to believe, how to
act, what are goals should be, and what to value through a
number of available worldviews or metanarratives. Each of
these metanarratives claims to provide an all-embracing and
unambiguous description of reality. As a scientist, for example,
you are taught only to believe in that which can be perceived,
repeatedly, through the five senses; to investigate nature
using a rigorous, controlled, and highly methodological approach;
and to value certain theories or so-called laws over others.
As a Buddhist, on the other hand, you are taught to believe
that everything perceived with the physical senses is impermanent;
to investigate the nature of the mind through introspection
and contemplative practices; and to value and therefore respect
all things equally. The freedom to choose one worldview over
another is a luxury afforded to a small minority; typically
those in the Western world. The large majority of the world
population do not have this freedom of choice. Instead, their
worldview is imposed on them by the society within which they
live and its dominant religions, and this worldview is continuously
reinforced by the beliefs of their immediate family and peers.
Often any deviation from this socially accepted worldview
is condemned, or at least “frowned upon”.
Social
knowledge (i.e. knowledge and experience of your peers and
authoritative figures) therefore plays an important role in
determining an individual and indeed a consensus worldview.
Craig Rusbult has identified a number of additional important
contributors to the formation of a worldview. He proposes
that worldviews are assembled from personal experience, social
knowledge, scientific knowledge and experience, historical
knowledge and experience, legal knowledge (i.e. eye witnesses
and forensic evidence), and spiritual knowledge (i.e. intuitive
insight). All of these elements collectively form our belief
system, and thus equal value should be assigned to each element.
Any one of these factors alone can therefore instigate a dramatic
shift in the worldview, and the most radical of these shifts
arise as a result of input from all of these different experiential
sources.
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