April 25, 2014 The first comprehensive k-12 mindfulness handbook has been published.  It includes detailed in-classroom exercises, as well as the neuroscience of mindfulness and what looks like insightful ways of dealing with the ordinarily recalcitrant institution of public schooling. It will be quite interesting to see how this plays out (and the more it… Read More »

this post provides some background info I'll be using in the near future as I comment on Neeltje's book: "Psychic Education: A Workbook".  I'll be using some brain language, and it will be helpful to have some familiarity with this as you read the comments. ************ In “The Synthesis of Yoga”, in the section on… Read More »

PSYCHIC EDUCATION: A WORKBOOK Jan and I have been working for quite some time on presenting a view of the workings of the brain and nervous system that is consistent with Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga psychology.  I’m writing about this here on this blog because I think between on the one hand, the… Read More »

This is a letter by Sri Krishnaprem, the unique case of a British professor who became an Indian yogi and eventually a Guru in his own right. He had his ashram in Mirtola (Almora). The letter is addressed to Dilip Kumar Roy, a noted devotional singer, writer, and disciple of Sri Aurobindo. -------------- 28th January,… Read More »

  Some of the most enjoyable parts of writing the Yoga Psychology book involved weaving stories of the amazing exploits of various animals.  It was great fun putting together the story about the "waggle" dance.  When we were looking for information on intelligence in birds, stories seemed to start popping up here there and everywhere… Read More »

These are excerpts from the book, “Yoga Psychology and the Transformation of Consciousness: Seeing Through the Eyes of Infinity”.  For me, at this point (1-12-14) the most interesting thing about the following passages is the rather dramatic change in evolutionary biology in the 6 years since the book was first published. During the 5-6 years… Read More »

I recently (1-6-14) received a very interesting question about the introductory blog post on the evolution of consciousness (here: http://www.ipi.org.in/blogs/the-evolution-of-consciousness-introduction/ Here it is: “Reading the following paragraph “Hayward goes even further, speaking from a Vajrayana (Tantric Buddhist) perspective, saying that there is an initial nondual (without the apparently separate “I”) awareness which is the foundation… Read More »

GAINS (the Global Association for Interpersonal Neurobiology Studies) recently published an article on “Being Playful in  Left Brain World.”  It was beautifully written and inspired me to reflect on some of my own struggles with left-right integration. It started when I was 4 (well, not exactly, but I’ll get there).  My older sister and brother… Read More »

NOTE: this is the opening of the 2nd chapter of our Yoga Psychology book. This was an extremely interesting section to write. First, we set ourselves the task of writing about only those things that would be acceptable within the current scientific mainstream, while still trying to push the boundaries – at least somewhat.  One… Read More »

“Sharon” is a composite of several military veterans I’ve worked with as a clinical psychologist. We used Sharon’s story in our yoga psychology book (Yoga Psychology and the Transformation of Consciousness: Seeing Through the Eyes of Infinity”) as a way to illustrate in very practical, down to earth terms how what Sri Aurobindo calls the… Read More »