Frequently asked questions
What is meditation?
Meditation is both an ancient spiritual path and a modern psychological tool—a bridge between the timeless wisdom of contemplative traditions and the evidence-based insights of contemporary science.
Across the ages, cultures have turned inward in search of clarity, compassion, and awakening. In Buddhism, practices like vipassana (insight meditation) and metta bhavana (loving-kindness) are used to cultivate mindfulness, compassion, and the direct realization of impermanence and interdependence. Hindu yogic traditions offer dhyana, a stage of deep meditative absorption, as part of the eightfold path of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. In Tibetan Buddhism, Tonglen and Mahamudra explore compassion and awareness beyond concepts. Meanwhile, Sufi mystics use breath and remembrance (dhikr) to dissolve the ego in divine love, and Christian contemplatives engage in centering prayer to rest in the presence of God. Even in Daoist internal alchemy and Zen’s minimalist zazen, meditation is a return to what is already present: the stillness beneath thought.
Modern neuroscience echoes what sages have long known. Research shows that regular meditation reshapes the brain. Practices like mindfulness meditation (popularized through MBSR—Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) enhance emotional regulation, reduce stress, and improve focus by strengthening the prefrontal cortex and reducing activity in the amygdala. Loving-kindness meditation has been shown to increase feelings of empathy and positive affect, while transcendental meditation has been associated with reduced anxiety and blood pressure. Even brief periods of breath-based awareness can calm the nervous system, shifting the body from fight-or-flight into rest-and-digest.
Yet beyond the measurable benefits lies something subtler: the softening of identity, the rediscovery of connection, the felt sense that consciousness is not bound by thought. Meditation, in all its forms, invites us to sit still in a changing world and remember what does not change.
What is yoga
Yoga, often misunderstood as merely a system of physical postures, is in fact a profound tradition of psycho-spiritual development that stretches back over 2,500 years. Its origins lie deep within the spiritual soil of ancient India, where it emerged as a disciplined path toward inner freedom. While the Western world commonly associates yoga with asanas (physical postures), the historical roots of yoga reveal a multidimensional system for transforming consciousness. The earliest references to yoga appear in the Vedas, the sacred hymns of early Indian civilization.
However, it is in the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita that we find yoga articulated as a method of self-realization—combining devotion (bhakti), action (karma), and knowledge (jnana). The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (circa 2nd century BCE), a foundational text, systematized yoga into the eight-limbed path (ashtanga yoga), outlining practices ranging from ethical living to deep meditative absorption. Yoga later evolved through the tantric and hatha traditions, emphasizing the awakening of kundalini energy and the subtle body through postures, breathwork (pranayama), and meditative focus. What ancient yogis described in metaphor—the taming of the “monkey mind,” the balancing of “vital winds,” and the stilling of consciousness—modern neuroscience is beginning to measure.
Yoga and the Brain: A Neurological Perspective Recent research confirms that yoga is not just a spiritual or physical discipline—it is a powerful tool for rewiring the brain. Functional MRI (fMRI) studies show that regular yoga practice strengthens the prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for attention, decision-making, and self-regulation. At the same time, it dampens activity in the amygdala, a brain region involved in stress and fear responses. This shift contributes to lower anxiety levels and increased emotional resilience.
Breath-based practices (pranayama), integral to traditional yoga, have been shown to regulate the autonomic nervous system, reducing sympathetic arousal (the fight-or-flight response) and enhancing parasympathetic activation (rest-and-digest). This can lead to lowered heart rate, improved digestion, and a sense of calm—benefits echoed in the ancient yogic emphasis on inner equilibrium.
Meditative components of yoga—such as focused attention and open awareness—enhance neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt and rewire. Long-term practitioners often show increased gray matter volume in the hippocampus (linked to memory and learning) and reduced age-related cortical thinning.
Yoga also engages the default mode network (DMN), a network of brain regions associated with self-referential thought. Practices that quiet the DMN—such as mindfulness and meditative absorption—may reduce rumination, support present-moment awareness, and foster a felt sense of unity, long described in yogic texts as samadhi or oneness.
