Loving-Kindness Revisited
I believe that is everyone practiced the loving-kindness exercise every day, we would be living in a different world. How many times have we come across those that are so selfish and self-centered that it goes beyond the point of frustration? I have actually felt sorry for these people, because they have no idea of how much of a loving, peaceful life they are missing out on. What a way to make our own health backfire on us. It is a vicious circle that never ends until we begin to do mental workouts. Just as the physical body benefits from exercise, the mind benefits from mental workouts. There is a difference between the two, however. There is a limit on how far the body can become fit, but no such limit exists for the mind....we can exercise it into infinity.
Consider this: scientific studies have shown that mental fitness and training the mind can enhance the pre-frontal cortex and positively affect the body's physiology, the immune, endocrine, and hormonal systems, increase gamma waves. Mental workouts through contemplative practice can actually create structural change to the brain, and make the body impervious to disease states, and bring health, wholeness and happiness to the person. All it takes is to make time a few minutes or more every day to practice.
I believe that erring on the side of caution, keeping the mental workout within certain boundaries, will in-the-end have psychospiritual benefits...As Grof states, a person could have an altered state of consciousness during normal waking hours (2005). This would not be a psychospiritual ideal for me. Thus, I do not see the capability of mental workouts as being infinite. As transpersonal psychology develops, becoming more accepted in the mainstream, health and wellness practitioners will learn what reasonable limits could maybe be placed on mental workouts.
ReplyDeleteGrof, S. (2005). Psychology of the future: Lessons from modern consciousness research. In M. Schlitz and T. Amorok with M. S. Micozzi (Eds.), Consciousness and healing: Integral approaches to mind-body medicine (248-266). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone.