The Pittsburgh neighborhood in which the recent horrific mass shooting took place isn’t only the home of the Tree of Life synagogue. Squirrel Hill was also Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood, the place where he lived and ultimately chose to die in his own home.

Our experience of death obviously shapes the final moments of our own life. It also shapes the experience and remains in the memories of those around us. As an intensive care specialist for more than two decades, my colleagues and I do the best we can to provide high-quality end-of-life care.

Grief brought on by the loss of a spouse can cause inflammation that can lead to major depression, heart attack, and even premature death. For a new study, researchers examined the effect grief has on human health by conducting interviews with 99 people whose spouses had recently died. They also examined their blood.

The word mantra means ‘mind protection’ in Sanskrit. A mantra carries a vibration and frequency that extends beyond the simple meaning of its words. In the highest sense, mantras carry thought waves that can energize the prana through constant repetition and they can reach deep into the subconscious mind to access the collective consciousness. More simply, using mantra can help overcome mental chatter, and prepare the way for an expansion of consciousness.

Meditation by Orin and DaBen: I allow myself to relax and go within. I release thoughts of my outer world for now. I breathe in relaxation. I adjust my body until it feels comfortable. I let my thoughts...

Meditation for Busy People: Whenever you have time, just sit silently with closed eyes. It will help. It will help you to be more at ease with yourself.

This summer, during the FIFA World Cup, I went with some friends to watch a soccer game at the house in Turin of the Italian philosopher and former member of the EU parliament Gianni Vattimo. As soon as our team began to lose, Vattimo said: ‘Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you, the pope called me yesterday.’

Scientist and philosopher may argue to the end of time, but meanwhile the human soul thirsts, and psychologist, priest, and mystic have the temerity to suggest that there may be ways of approach to the ultimate mysteries other than laboratory observation and pure logic. For while scientist and logician dissect and analyze, the mystic looks for meaning in the whole.

Most of us do not remember our past lives, however it is possible to access some information through a guided past life session. People have different experiences in a past life session. A friend of mine found themselves speaking in a foreign language! Others may have flashbacks or wonder how they knew about something.

Mindfulness lessons for parents can help them manage their emotions and cope with stressful situations, but the lessons also benefit their kids, according to a new small study.

We live in a generation that has many distractions. Even when we try to be focused on the day—today—we’re affected by CPA—not certified public accounting but a syndrome I call “continuous partial attention.” We pay continuous partial attention in an effort not to miss anything—multitasking, surfing the Web, answering our cell phones—yet in the end, we gain nothing.

From medication to recreational and spiritual substances, drugs offer us respite from pain, open opportunities for mental exploration, and escape from – or into – altered psychological states. They are our most widely available formal and informal implements for tweaking our mental condition. Consider the cold beer after a hard day at work, the joint before putting the needle on the record, the midday espresso, the proverbial cigarette break,

As an academic - a researcher and senior lecturer at a university in the UK - people are often surprised by my unorthodox views on the nature of life, and of the world. For example, when I mention to colleagues that I’m open-minded about the possibility of some form of life after death, or that I believe in the possibility of paranormal phenomena such as telepathy or pre-cognition, they look at me as if I’ve told them I’m going to give up academia and become a truck driver.

You are made of energy that is constantly vibrating. This energy is changeable and transformative. It is amazing how our body, mind and soul has the ability to heal and change. Watching people change, heal and transform has been one of the most humbling and exciting experiences of my life.

Meditation needs great work. It is arduous, it is an uphill task. To remain non-meditative is easy in a way. You have not to do anything about it, you are already non-meditative, everybody is born non-meditative. But to become meditative really needs great courage, great determination, great patience, because to go beyond the mind is the most complicated phenomenon.

Blessing is a way of sending unconditional love, peace, healing, goodness to a person or a situation, or simply seeing them bathed in that love. Blessing isn’t associated with any religious denominations. It can be practiced by anyone, and I have an atheist friend who purchased my first edition of The Gentle Art of Blessing, and even gave copies away!

The heart chakra is where matter and spirit meet. It marks the halfway point, with three chakras below and three above. This is a very important chakra indeed, as it’s our center of love and connection. Here you move into a greater awareness and love flows from you. You are peaceful, joyful, and compassionate. Your actions are no longer self-serving but are motivated by helping others overcome suffering.

New research illuminates how some men and boys who are contemplating suicide are finding emotional support in an unexpected place: Reddit. Responses to those posts often contained gendered language of their own, like, “Hey, bro, I’ve been through that before,” or, “What’s bothering you, man?” Sometimes referred to as the “front page of the internet,” Reddit is a social news aggregation and discussion website that’s especially popular among young adult males.

If anything seems self-evident in human culture, it’s the widespread presence of religion. People do ‘religious’ stuff all the time; a commitment to gods, myths and rituals has been present in all societies. These practices and beliefs are diverse, to be sure, from Aztec human sacrifice to Christian baptism, but they appear to share a common essence. So what could compel the late Jonathan Zittell Smith, arguably the most influential scholar of religion of the past half-century, to declare in his bookImagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (1982) that ‘religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study’, and that it has ‘no independent existence apart from the academy’?

A story about the "Shining One" who explains the reason behind human cruelties and struggle: "Below me the hills and valleys were thick with humans, and the moon swung low that I might see what they did."

Where do we go between births? One can look at this a different way and see birth as a death—a dying to the world of light, a suppression of those memories. Which is our true home? Which is the real going out: our visits to earth or our visits to the world of light?

The awe-filled exclamation of Apple’s Steve Jobs — “Oh, wow! Oh, wow! Oh, wow!” — is an example of the intensified language we hear at the threshold and is true to the personality of the inspired innovator. Chaz Ebert, wife of celebrity critic Roger Ebert, shared a de­tailed account of her husband’s last words, in Esquire in 2013.

Tahlequah made headlines around the world as she carried the body of her dead calf at the surface of the water, sometimes on her head, sometimes in her mouth, for at least 10 days, in a heartbreaking “tour of grief”, as one of the foremost experts on her pod and her family, Ken Balcomb of the Whale Research Foundation, called it.