Sat Bhir Singh Khalsa, Ph.D. Harvard Medical School

Had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Sat Bhir Singh Khalsa (SBK), Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Associate Neuroscientist, Division of Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital Sat Bhir Khalsa at a recent seminar arranged by Dr. Mark Greenberg. Mark is director of Penn State's Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development (http://www.prevention.psu.edu ), a friend in whose meditation group i have sat, and occasionally led, for a few years. SBK also works with the Kundalini Research Institute and the Kripalu Research Institute.

In talking to Dr. SBK (as he is affectionately called) after his talk, i asked him about "my state" of no thoughts and if there was any literature on the state/phenomena, any place he knew where i could get into an fMRI study, or any interest in any funding a study on the state. He was very open to the discussion, but stated that the state was "rare" and as such it was almost impossible to get a meaningful population for study.

He also said that the major governmental agencies are all focused on addressing issues with large societal implications, like obesity, type II diabetes, stress, crime, etc. which are viewed as "negative" situations. There is little interest, unfortunately, in "positive" opportunities like having dramatically fewer thoughts.

He said that as far as he knew, there were no credible research studies on the "no thought" state.

SBK did give an excellent talk on the ability of yoga, w/ or w/o meditation, to address a broad variety of societal ills. He had many, many research studies to support his discussion. A major finding was that "yoga" is being done in the U.S. largely by middle- and upper- class, relatively affluent white women, at the current time. Perhaps not surprising when one considers that the current postures used in most asana/posture routines in the U.S. were originated from Scandanavian and British exercise routines, many generated by women for women, and then imported by the Indians in the early 20th century and later exported to the U.S. as reported elsewhere in this blog.