Category Archives: Mind / Body / Spirit

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Individuality, as the dictionary puts it, is the quality, or character, of a particular person, or thing, that distinguishes them from others of the same kind. The fact also is — being an individual means being uniquely you, one that includes your unique qualities, values, beliefs, also idiosyncrasies, and articulating them self-assuredly and […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR The mind isn’t sufficiently adept in understanding how it works, although it can through our experience understand the self, as also consciousness. It can, likewise, experience a state of ‘no-self’ and also ‘no-consciousness.’ This is because the mind can hold on to any condition it creates, or makes possible. When the mind thinks […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Plato was the first philosopher to resolve, or settle, a dualistic premise — the body-soul construct in ancient thought. He believed that the soul was immortal and distinct from the body, although he elevated the metaphysical ‘fencepost’ for its credence. He believed the soul was also perpetual. He suggested that the soul doesn’t […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Daniel Goleman, PhD, the noted psychologist and best-selling author, pioneered the concept of emotional intelligence [EI]. This bid fair to his ground-breaking book, by the same name. It was followed by his yet another landmark tome, Working with Emotional Intelligence. It set out a framework of EI that reflects how an individual’s potential […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Neuroscientists are probing our brain’s workings like never before, thanks to advanced scientific techniques. They have, in so doing, unravelled the long-hidden mysteries of brain physiology, including what happens during stress. Their new insights suggest that a predominance of stress hormones inhibits new brain cell growth, just as exact regions of the brain […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR When we think of awareness, or conscious receptiveness, most of us go through a state of perplexity. As we become attentive to our emotions, we also think as if we are subject to a plethora of warped emotive feelings. It takes time to understand such feelings — more so, to figure out what […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Just think of the amazing dynamics of your thinking processes — of how they function collectively. You will feel blessed. When you think further, you’ll also be enthused by the presence of nature’s finest cognitive gift — your sense of timing. You too are endowed with the gift of ‘timing’ your ‘strokes’ in […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR It is a matter of routine; also, clockwork. From the time we get up each morning until the time we go to bed each night, we are like a parched mop. We are constantly taking in far too much information than required, thanks to a glut, or never-ending tags of information out there. […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR We sense, we sight, we smell, we touch, we hear, we taste, and so on — and, yet, we don’t always bestow our mind’s eye, or ‘I,’ for such subtleties. This credo holds good for our feelings, or emotions — our fundamental constituent that makes us what we are. The paradox also is […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR The legendary philosopher Aristotle divided emotions between morally good and bad states. He extolled emotions, such as self-belief, elation and cordiality as ‘good’ and fear, envy and hatred as ‘bad.’ Ironically, the wisest of Greeks did not include eudaimonia, a distinctive form of happiness, which is synonymous with the modern concept of mind-body, […]