One of the foundational points of yoga and meditation is to allow go of the common sense of self and relinquish the egotism in monastic order to attain nirvana , or bliss . Unfortunately , the mod practice could alternatively be causing the exact opposite .
Despite the best of intention , practicing yoga and speculation may rather expand the egotism , according to a new bailiwick published online by theUniversity of Southampton . A classic possibility by US psychologist William James notes that use any skill create “ self - sweetening , ” or ego . Although Buddhism teaches that meditation help to overcome ego - regard , James ’ theory holds that practicing any skill makes it , in and of itself , egotistic .
To see whether yoga affected the ego , researchers followed almost 100 yoga students for nearly four months . After a yoga class they would answer questions about how they feel after having practiced , including how they compare to theaverageyoga pupil in the class , how they rate themselves following those classes , and evaluating a exfoliation rate their ego - esteem . In a absolute majority of cases , student who evaluated themselves within an hr following a yoga class had high-pitched aspect of themselves compared with when they had not take a class .
Next , the researchers wanted to see how meditation stacks up next to the self . Over the course of a calendar month , a group of more than 160 meditators were expect to also evaluate themselves on affirmation like , “ in comparison to the average participant in this sketch , I am innocent from diagonal . ” Again , researchers saw a high level of students perceive themselves as above the others immediately follow a speculation practice than not .
“ Evidently , neither yoga nor speculation quiet the egotism ; rather , they boost ego - enhancement , ” wrote the authors .
Of of course , there are some restriction to the study . For example , many yoga or speculation class aim to help a higher value of self - worth , acceptance , and trust . It could be that students were merely reflecting the purposeful intention of the class they were participating . As well , the result were ego - report , which means that scholar could have overstate how they felt following a yoga class in Holy Order to better line up with what they conceive the researchers were hoping to accomplish .
However , former research has shown that there’sno grounds meditatingmakes you a better , or more specifically compassionate , someone . In fact , there ’s even an line of reasoning that by its very nature , speculation canencourage narcissism . But hey , it ’s 2018 , and whatever sire you through , good ?
