What about the effect on your health? This is a very interesting study by doctor Ramesh Manocha from Australia and he tested 350 Sahaja yoga meditators and he compared them to a mixed group who practiced all sorts of meditation, hatha yoga, mindfulness meditation, and so on and the Australian norm. And the norm consisted of thousands of people. what he found is that Sahaja yoga meditators were better in the general health, in their social function and in their mental health. They weren’t better in their physical function but that’s because Sahaja yoga is not sport. Then he tested what is it what makes them better. So, he tested is it the hours they meditate, is it how many meetings they attend and nothing was related to the benefits, other than one thing. And that was the frequency of the mental silence. So this is what works. and here you see the national average, here you see people who meditate but they only become thoughtless less than once per month, they have no benefit, here are the ones who are thoughtless once or twice per month-no benefit, but here are the ones who are once or twice thoughtless. And you see they are significantly better in their mental health than the national average. Here are the ones who are once or twice per day thoughtless, they are also much better, and the ones who are thoughtless several times several times per day, they just have an amazing mental health, as you can see here. So, in conclusion, it’s the state of mental silent which works, nothing else. But what this means also, that means if you meditate, you have to find a meditation through which you achieve mental silence. Otherwise, you have no benefits.
He found exactly the same on general health. This is physical and mental health, they are exactly the same. This is the average. These are people who are thoughtless several times per day, significant improvement of their general health and so on. Then here, the same, if you meditate for years and you never go thoughtless, you may also not have benefits, so you have to try a bit harder to get there. Then he mentioned exactly the same on a questionnaire which picks up anxiety and depression in the population. What he found is that yogis are significantly less distressed on this questionnaire so they’re far less likely to be anxious and depressed. Again, the benefits were associated with the frequency of the thoughtless awareness. Here you can see those who are several times per day thoughtless. They are in the very low risk category. These people will never become depressed or anxious. And then it goes down, so the less often you achieve thoughtless awareness, the less protected you are against depression and anxiety.
This is a study by Simon Golocheikine where he looked at the personality of yogis versus personality of non-yogis. He found that meditators are significantly less depressed, significantly less neurotic, have less paranoid thoughts, less anxious and less difficulties in identifying and expressing emotions. These are the long-term effects.
In conclusion, Sahaja yoga meditation has a significant effect on your health but the benefits are associated with the state of mental silence. So, that’s the key thing and that’s what you should be aiming for. The more often, the better.
Now, what are the effects on the illness..
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