Medley

For chronically ill patients with major depression, an approach to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) that incorporates patients' religious beliefs is at least as effective as conventional CBT, suggests a study in the April issue of The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

“Integrating religious clients” beliefs into CBT does not appear to significantly reduce its effectiveness, especially in religious clients," write Dr. Harold Koenig of Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C., and colleagues. They believe that this approach might help to make psychotherapy more acceptable to religious patients with depression and chronic illness.

Edi Bilimoria – UK

The Master Analogy: Its Fatal Flaws

The author, an excellent pianist, playing the grand-piano

Let us first cite an actual example before moving on to consider medical and philosophical issues and finally a summary of the main arguments that entirely repudiate the master analogy.

Source: Elsevier

While dementia patients can often suffer from depression and declining physical and mental ability, exercise has been shown to help improve both their physical and psychological wellbeing. Researchers at Teesside University in the U.K. investigated how combining cognitive activities and elements of yoga, tai chi, qigong and meditation with routine physical exercise affected dementia patients. They found that a holistic exercise program focusing on both mind and body can help improve quality of life for dementia patients. Their findings are published in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies.

Leo Babauta – USA

A simplicity manifesto in the Age of Distraction: Part 10

Why letting go can be difficult

While it might seem appealing to give up distractions and let go of the addiction to information, email or news, it’s not always easy. It’s definitely easier said than done.

It’s similar to the problem of letting go of possessions — often we have sentimental or emotional attachment to possessions, or worry that we’ll need them later or be less secure without the possessions. Clearing out clutter isn’t always easy, because of these emotional hurdles.

Respect and reverence for nature underlies many Hindu practices and rituals. Yet, many Hindu places of worship face huge environmental problems.

Hindu texts and scriptures are full of references to the worship of the divine in nature. And they continue to be relevant today. Millions of Hindus recite Sanskrit mantras daily that revere their rivers, mountains, trees and animals. Many also follow, for religious reasons, a vegetarian diet and oppose the institutionalized killing of animals for human consumption. The Earth, depicted as a Goddess or “Devi”, is worshipped in many Hindu rituals. For instance, before the foundation of a building is dug, a priest is invited to perform the “Bhoomi (earth) Pooja” to seek forgiveness from mother earth for violating her. To many Hindus, the concept of environmental protection is not separate from religious teaching. That’s seen in several local practices among rural Hindu communities such as the Bishnois and the Bhils to protect forests and water sources. Despite the deep-rooted reverence for nature in Hinduism, there’s no disputing that many Hindu places of worship – from pilgrimage sites high up in the Himalayas to the Ganges river system – face major environmental challenges.

Padmanabhan Krishna – India

The author, P. Krishna

Several persons, both in India and abroad, have expressed an interest in starting a `Krishnamurti School ' in their town. Since Krishnaji did not specify any particular technique of education, the question arises, “What are the essentials of a Krishnamurti School?” It is not easy to answer that question and one needs to inquire deeply into this. Through this article I wish to share a few thoughts with those who feel interested in education. To me, a Krishnamurti school represents an experiment in right living, without anyone dictating to anyone else what that means and without accepting any formula, any prescription, any authority that must be followed unquestioningly. It means to live rightly, not just accept the answer from someone else and try to practice it or repeat it. Unless we learn to live rightly, we cannot teach the children to live rightly; therefore it is our first and highest responsibility to find out what it means to live rightly. One can learn if one begins with saying,” I do not know but I am going to find out.” Then one can learn along with the student – not merely hand down words by way of teaching. So that is the first thing – not to have one's mind filled with conclusions, with answers, with certainties and not to attach too great an importance to one's own opinion, one's own view-point. To doubt it, question it and be willing to learn at all times; never to be so sure that one cannot even listen to another or consider a different point of view. That is being receptive and not just tolerant.

Edi Bilimoria – UK

The author

It should be clear to anyone who can think that whereas the brain does display some of the mechanical functions and characteristics of a digital computer, then to declare as the majority of mainstream neuroscientists do that the brain is nothing but a ‘wet’ computerⁱ is patently ludicrous (as ludicrous as saying that just because a concert pianist displays some characteristics of an office typist – the use of fingers on a keyboard – that a pianist and a typist, are one and the same thing, or a piano and a typewriter are the same instrument because they both have keyboard.) For a start, it is minds and brains that created and produced computers, not the other way round. The product stands hierarchically on a lower plane than the producer of the product. Brains therefore must stand hierarchically at a higher level of sophistication and subtlety than computers. The fallaciousness of equating the brain with just a computer has been pointed out in no uncertain terms by some of the world’s greatest philosophers, psychologists, as well as scientists, such as David Gelernter, professor of computer science at Yale University. In his article, appropriately titled The Closing of the Scientific Mind,ⁱⁱ he demolishes what he appropriately calls the ‘master analogy’ unquestionably accepted by the vast majority of mainstream scientists that minds are to brains as software is to computers; to put it another way, the mind is the software of the brain.