Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc.

408 Tamarack Drive

Waterloo, ON

N2L 4G6

Web Site

www.spiritualeducation.org

Blog Site

www.theigloo.org

Look for blog entitled

Globalization of Human Mind

Phone

                (519) 884-2351

Fax

                (519) 884-1594

E-Mail
info@spiritualeducation.org

Directors

Dr. Shiv Talwar

Dr. James Leslie

Dr. Raj Dubey

Dr. H. K. Kesavan

Course

Meditation for Better Living

Theory and Practice

Course Faculty

Dr. Shiv Talwar & Guests

Course Schedule

Course is given in 36 or fewer hours to suit individual group needs.

Course Venue

Venue to suit individual group needs.

Capabilities enhanced with regular meditation:

·         Attention

v      The very root of judgment, character and will

v      Enhancing this faculty is education par excellence

·         Sense Withdrawal

v      Cognitive control is significantly enhanced.

·         Thought and Cognition

Deep calm in meditation slows the flow of incessant thought permitting:

v      Calm ad clear awareness

v      Relief from thought identification

v      Thought recognition and substitution

v      Awareness of depths of psyche usually obscured by thought

·         Lucidity

v      Clarity of awareness maintained continually

v      Ever present wakefulness

v      Lucidity becomes a permanent trait

·         Emotional Intelligence

Emotional rebalancing with:

v      Ability to distinguish the vital from trivia

v      Freedom from negative emotions

v      Cultivation of positive emotions

v      Reduced anxiety, hostility and depression

v      Unconditional love, compassion, and joy

·         Equanimity

Experience provocative stimuli with minimal psychological disturbance

v      Serenity

v      Balanced outlook

v      Even mindedness

·         Moral Maturity

v      Instruction in morality show limited gains

v      Moral maturity is required for meditation

v      Moral maturity is enhanced by meditation

v      Sensitivity to the price of immorality

v      Reduced immoral urges

Meditation for Better Living

Theory and Practice

Course Description

Human beings are endowed with the capability to routinely resolve many ordinary issues of daily existence. Some issues, however, require special effort. Meditation helps resolve these extraordinary issues of life using one’s inner resources alone.

Meditation works because there is hidden treasure in the core of our being. Meditation is the art of accessing this treasure.

Some issues of life, related to the physical world, are in the objective domain and can generally be resolved focusing one’s intellectual abilities on the object. Other issues, however, are in the transcendental domain and they cannot be fully resolved using the human intellect alone. Meditation provides an integrated approach towards both the objective and the transcendental issues.

The process of meditation, also known as contemplation, begins with stilling of the mind and freeing it from its usual distractions and relaxing it from its usual tensions. Such a preparation enables the mind to focus sharply on an object of intense love, interest or concern, resulting first in its understanding at an intellectual level and then in an intimate intuitional level.

There are different meditative traditions. This course teaches major traditions using an integrated and harmonized approach.

Learning Objectives

Understanding

Participants in this course will be able to understand the following in relation to the practice of meditation:

1.       The underlying psychology, philosophy and meta-physics

2.       Role of relaxation and preparatory exercises

3.       Obstacles to overcome with the progress of meditation

4.       Different internal states with the progress of meditation

5.       Transformative effects of meditation

6.       Worldview(s) of the leading practitioners of meditation

7.       An integrated understanding of major meditative traditions

Skills

Successful participation in the course enables the participants to:

1.       Use mind body connection to elicit a relaxation response

2.       Develop breath awareness and deep diaphragmatic breathing

3.       Perform preparatory breathing and physical exercises

4.       Maintain a meditative session for 30 minutes

Morality, Ethics and Values

Accomplished practitioners of meditation worldwide arrive at a conclusion of a unity underlying all beings leading to the ethic, “Good is what makes for unity and oneness; and evil what makes for separateness and division”. Practice of meditation helps in living this ethic.

Recognition of Practical Benefits

Participation in this course prepares the participants to avail of the potential practical benefits of regular meditation. Family and society benefit as well, though their benefit is indirect. Meditation actualizes one’s full potential. The following list enumerates some of the major benefits that can be expected to accrue:

1.       Health Maintenance:  Breathing and physical exercises required for achieving undisturbed focus help in health maintenance for the practitioner.

2.       Stress Management: A stressful mind cannot focus, hence mind body exercises to elicit a relaxation response.

3.       Relationship Management:  Meditation promotes reflection which helps in sorting the trivial from the vital in human relationships.

4.       Development of Life Perspectives:  Reflective meditation develops enlightened perspectives about materiality and life, eliminating dilemmas that pull us apart and solving life issues arising out of human dilemmas and dualities.

5.       Development of Ethical Lifestyles:  Meditation helps us discover and understand the underlying unity of all beings and helps in celebrating differences in the light of this unity.

6.       Enhancement of Learning Experience:  Teachers can only teach; learning is of the nature of reflection and meditation and it is totally a self driven activity. Meditative learning is the most intimate form of understanding achievable.

7.       Material and Business Management:  Meditation develops the ability to focus, which helps in research, business development, product development, social development and innumerable other life pursuits.

8.       Spiritual Growth:  Regular meditation constantly develops our inner abilities developing us spiritually as spirit is defined as essence underlying physicality.

Who should take this course?

This course would be of benefit to anyone, regardless of age or education, who wants to achieve her/his potential to the maximum.  Meditation involves inward orientation and those who need to understand the role that meditation can play in their lives will greatly benefit from the course.

Faculty

Shiv Talwar is the faculty assigned for this course. He is assisted by Dr. Raj Dubey of SHEN and external invited guests from different traditions.

Shiv Talwar is the honorary founding president of Spiritual Heritage Education Network Inc. (SHEN), an organization dedicated to formal education in the spiritual heritage of humankind with a view to help build one human family in the wider world community.

After a successful career of over 35 years in engineering education first in India and then in Canada, Shiv Talwar took early retirement from Conestoga College of Applied Arts and Technology, Kitchener, Ontario in 1996 to start SHEN.

Shiv was educated in Civil Engineering. He has a B. Sc. from the Punjab University in India, an M.S. from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, and a Ph. D. from the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

Shiv has been deeply interested in the role meditative traditions of humankind can play in unifying humanity by helping us discover and live by our shared essence. Towards this end, Shiv has engaged in a deep study of the subject. In addition, he has actively sought and received instruction from expert sources both within and outside of Canada.