{"id":16107,"date":"2012-03-16T22:33:34","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T22:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drishtikone.com\/?p=16107"},"modified":"2022-11-01T15:46:52","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T20:46:52","slug":"are-animals-attracted-to-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/drishtikone\/2012\/03\/are-animals-attracted-to-meditation\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Animals attracted to Meditation?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><figure id=\"attachment_16108\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16108\" style=\"width: 240px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16108\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.patheos.com.S3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/sites\/356\/bella-240x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16108\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bella lying while I meditate<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Do Animals have a sense of energies that we humans cannot sense?\u00a0 As per many, animals have a sense of perception that humans can rarely have.<\/p>\n<p>Cats, Dogs, Snakes and even fish all have an enhanced sense of perception, specially of energy is amazing.<\/p>\n<p>That is why, I found it very interesting when our new dog, Bella, would come into my room when I started meditating and would lie down next to me.\u00a0 The Kriya \/ Meditation that I do is said to be a \u201cconsecration of the body\u201d to keep it in a certain state of energy so you can go through the day well.\u00a0 Since she joined me in my meditation, now Bella loves sitting and sleeping at the same place where I do my meditation.\u00a0 The energy created by the kriya may be soothing for her.\u00a0 Just as people love to go to a person who is always smiling and happy and one avoids people or groups which are gloomy.\u00a0 Both types of people \u2013 those who are always happy for no apparent reason, and those who are sad\u00a0 for no apparent reason and always whining about everything \u2013 have a certain energy and aura around them.<\/p>\n<p>When I posted the picture on the right on my FB, I got comments from various meditators who also had similar experiences:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Vijaya P.:<\/strong> Even my cat sits beside me the whole time I am doing my Sadhana<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison M talked of her experience at the Isha Center in Tennessee:<\/strong> at iii a little stray cat used to sit and gaze longingly through the glass door early mornings when we were doing Guru Pooja<\/p>\n<p><strong>Suzanne S:<\/strong> Every single day, my cat waits until I\u2019m done with my kriya, and the second she hears the OM chant, she\u2019s all over me crazy with affection.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Julia B.:<\/strong> My cat circles around me during cat pose, then sits quietly next to me during kriya. At the end, she often nudges me with her head just before I open my eyes -as if she knows that practice is almost complete<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stephen R talks about his dog\u2019s interest in his meditative practice:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u2026has done this same thing as Bella for years, I find even more beauty and affirmation in my practice from this. When he was a pup I used to do in a closet so he wouldn\u2019t \u2018trouble\u2019 me but when I heard him sniff under the door and then plop down right in front of it, I moved my practice back to the open room to see how he\u2019d do. Without trouble did the same thing<\/p>\n<p><strong>Somnath has an even more interesting experience where the dogs wanted to imitate the sound as well:<\/strong> I am happy that so many others share similar experience. Two starving abandoned stray pups were picked up by some of our boys outside our camp and resuscitated. They are growing up in the camp. One morning when I was practicing some Praanaayaam in the open with drawn-out \u201d AUM \u201d Sound, they sat quietly with full concentration near me and tried their best to imitate that Sound.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, this cannot be said to be a conclusive research inference that animals, specifically dogs and cats are attracted to meditative situations, but this is surely a good amount of interesting anecdotal sharing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Snakes and Meditative Energy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A few days back, actually, I did happen to talk to an Isha teacher, who discussed how during an advanced meditative program \u201cSamyama\u201d, the energies were so high that they would attract snakes.\u00a0 After one incident, when the walls of the hall had still not come up, the volunteers would keep a vigil the entire night while participants slept so no snake could enter!<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Sadhguru does talk about the perceptive sense of snakes in this video:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Oscar, the death predicting cat<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There is an interesting cat, named Oscar, who by 2010 had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/drishtikone\/handling-sorrow-terrible-death\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\" decorated-link\">accurately predicted<\/a> 50 deaths in a clinic in Rhode Island.\u00a0 Oscar now patrols the Dementia unit of the Steere House Hospice and the family member understand the significant role that he plays in the life\u2026. and indeed, Death of their loved ones.\u00a0 As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.steerehouse.org\/mediarelations\/oscar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\" decorated-link\">Steere House\u2019s website<\/a> describes, Oscar is an important part of the care giving \u2013 because of his uncanny (and until now unfailing) ability to identify approaching death for a patient.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In time, staff at the nursing home began to rely on Oscar as an \u201cearly warning system,\u201d announcing to those present that it was time to notify family and increase hospice services for those close to death. For his service to his patients, a local Hospice organization even awarded Oscar with their annual \u201cHospice Champion\u201d award. When Dr. Dosa\u2019s essay was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Oscar\u2019s story made international headlines. For several days, \u201cOscar the cat\u201d was the most widely searched term on several web search engines.<\/p>\n<p>These days, Oscar continues to patrol the halls of Steere House\u2019s third floor dementia unit.\u00a0 Though at times, he has been caught sleeping on the job, Oscar continues to hold vigils for departing patients\u2013mostly to the delight of family members struggling to deal with the death of their loved ones. He continues to be mentioned routinely in obituaries and during funeral services.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Here is an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMp078108\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\" decorated-link\">interesting account<\/a> of one of Oscar\u2019s identification of someone close to death.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Oscar takes no notice of the woman and leaps up onto the bed. He surveys Mrs. T. She is clearly in the terminal phase of illness, and her breathing is labored. Oscar\u2019s examination is interrupted by a nurse, who walks in to ask the daughter whether Mrs. T. is uncomfortable and needs more morphine. The daughter shakes her head, and the nurse retreats. Oscar returns to his work. He sniffs the air, gives Mrs. T. one final look, then jumps off the bed and quickly leaves the room. Not today.<\/p>\n<p>Making his way back up the hallway, Oscar arrives at Room 313. The door is open, and he proceeds inside. Mrs. K. is resting peacefully in her bed, her breathing steady but shallow. She is surrounded by photographs of her grandchildren and one from her wedding day. Despite these keepsakes, she is alone. Oscar jumps onto her bed and again sniffs the air. He pauses to consider the situation, and then turns around twice before curling up beside Mrs. K.<\/p>\n<p>One hour passes. Oscar waits. A nurse walks into the room to check on her patient. She pauses to note Oscar\u2019s presence. Concerned, she hurriedly leaves the room and returns to her desk. She grabs Mrs. K.\u2019s chart off the medical-records rack and begins to make phone calls.<\/p>\n<p>Within a half hour the family starts to arrive. Chairs are brought into the room, where the relatives begin their vigil. The priest is called to deliver last rites. And still, Oscar has not budged, instead purring and gently nuzzling Mrs. K. A young grandson asks his mother, \u201cWhat is the cat doing here?\u201d The mother, fighting back tears, tells him, \u201cHe is here to help Grandma get to heaven.\u201d Thirty minutes later, Mrs. K. takes her last earthly breath. With this, Oscar sits up, looks around, then departs the room so quietly that the grieving family barely notices<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>What does it say about the Human Life and Experience<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What is it that we call as \u201cLife\u201d?\u00a0 All that is experience through our 5 senses, right?\u00a0 The sounds, the touches, the taste, the sights, and the smells \u2013 all of them combine together to create an experience for us.\u00a0 These experiences accumulate for us and come to us as the experience of life.<\/p>\n<p>Now, think of it \u2013 in terms of every one of those senses, we are so far behind the dogs, cats, snakes and other animals that we would be almost an amoeba-like compared to their abilities!\u00a0 Except for the ability to think \u2013 which is built on a very low sense of perception anyways, we are able to outsmart all these animals.<\/p>\n<p>The only things worth their while in human is the intellect and ability to move the various body parts in a more balanced manner.\u00a0 The ability to reason, to distinguish and to change is the intellect and it enhances what we do with the body.<\/p>\n<p>Sages and Enlightened Beings have learnt to go beyond the physical limitations of the 5 senses \u2013 which are so obvious compared to even a dog \u2013 and experience a more complete life.\u00a0 This is not some \u201chocus-pocus\u201d.\u00a0 We know that humans are able to acquire exceptional ability to perceive.\u00a0 If we could perceive more sharply that what a normal human does, while keeping our intellect intact (or improving it) and also enhancing the ability to use the body \u2013 then our entire experience of life will be even more fulfilling!<\/p>\n<p>Learn about\u00a0<a class=\" decorated-link decorated-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/hinduism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hinduism<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\" decorated-link decorated-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/sikhism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sikhism<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\" decorated-link decorated-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/buddhism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Buddhism<\/a>, and more in\u00a0<a class=\" decorated-link decorated-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Patheos\u2019 Library.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do Animals have a sense of energies that we humans cannot sense?\u00a0 As per many, animals have a sense of perception that humans can rarely have. Cats, Dogs, Snakes and even fish all have an enhanced sense of perception, specially of energy is amazing. That is why, I found it very interesting when our new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1517,"featured_media":16108,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,69],"tags":[1076,1750,2216,2578,3000,3277],"class_list":["post-16107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal","category-spirituality","tag-dog","tag-isha","tag-meditation","tag-oscar","tag-sadhguru","tag-steere-house"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are Animals attracted to Meditation?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Do Animals have a sense of energies that we humans cannot sense?\u00a0 As per many, animals have a sense of perception that humans can rarely have. 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