| The Blissful Brain: Neuroscience and Proof of the Power of Meditation (Gaia Thinking) | 
 enlarge | Author: Shanida Nataraja
Publisher: Gaia Books Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £3.25
You Save: £4.74 (59%)
New (23) Used (4) from £3.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 65494
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 1856752917
Dewey Decimal Number: 158
EAN: 9781856752916
ASIN: 1856752917
Publication Date: March 15, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A book I have been waiting for! April 27, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Dr Nataraja explains clearly for the non-scientist the reasons why meditation is so effective. She does so in an unbiased and objective manner respecting the value of all different ways of meditation. Her range of research is very impressive. It is very convincing! If you are meditating it increases your commitment and if you are not you can't wait to start.
If you have to beg, borrow or steal.... read this book April 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was an excellent read, clear and enlightening from both an academic and a spiritual point of view. Dr Nataraja has an uncanny way of making the subject both interesting and accessible to us mere mortals!!!
 Dubious science April 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book does have some interesting neurology but my concern is about how reliably it is reported when she makes some rather sweeping generalisations and is rather partial. As fundamentally we do not understand how consciousness is generated and much of neurological function is only explicable at the simplest level I feel she provides a sense of certainty where there is none. She presents highly controversial theories with no critique - acupuncture meridians detects through tracers, the quantum brain. She makes really crass errors - talking about 'under-developed invertebrate midbrains" - I think she means 'lower vertebrate' - but that is very poor language from an evolutionary perspective. She says the human brain has tripled in volume in the last 100,000 years which is nonsense. And anyone making these errors claiming a neurological understanding would either be very poorly read, highly uncritical of internet drivel as a likely source, or has a rubbish editor who is making errors on her behalf.
So I worry about how trustworthy her reporting of the research she cites actually is. And any book claining to be 'Scientific' using the word 'proof' for something as slippery as meditation to define goes against a proper scientific rigour in which all currently accepted claims remain yet to be disproven.
An excellent read! March 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this book without having heard of it and was amazed at how much I got from it. I have been interested in meditation for years and this book added to my own practice enormously as well as putting the whole discipline in perspective.
In particular I liked the section of bridging science and spirituality... Fantastic!!!! READ THIS BOOK!!
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