Is the Novasutras movement for you?

You’re smart. You often notice that things aren’t quite right with the way you and the people around you live today. Maybe you are longing for community to help meaning and purpose to grow in your life. Perhaps you’ve heard about the scientific studies showing that people in religious communities, and people who practice meditation regularly, are happier and healthier (see references below).

Maybe you’ve even tried joining a church, a temple, a sangha. But these never seem to fill your need for connection, or perhaps they expect too much adherence to tradition, without a lot of room for critical thinking or creativity. Perhaps the notion of bowing to some revealed injunctions, or ‘believing’ established doctrine, required you to stop questioning in a way that felt wrong to you. Or maybe you just could never get comfortable with some appointed authority figure telling you what to do. Also, you may have noticed that you weren’t really having a lot of fun. Perhaps you were driven by obligation, the idea that you were there to ‘work’ on your spiritual and mental health, like an ecclesiastical gym membership.

Novasutras practice serves to question, and often overturn, the outdated and ultimately unhelpful aspects of these ancient traditions. We keep the good stuff: social fulfillment, a path to find deep purpose, support for your spiritual journey. We compost the bad stuff: rigid adherence to received dogma, illogical conundrums of ethics, denial of science and reason, an insistence on ‘faith’ in something that you haven’t yet experienced yourself and for which no one can provide evidence supporting its existence.

From this rich new soil, we can grow what anthropology, psychology, neurobiology, and medical science show are actually good for you: opportunities to express compassion and help others in community; celebratory rituals that offer opportunities for revelry, fun and (when you find yourself ready) ecstasy; and support for a personal meditation practice. We co-create doctrines and practices, relying on the same principles of careful study, peer-review, flexibility and constant revision that allow us to build knowledge through science.

• Meditation: A simple, fast way to reduce stress
• 20 Scientific Reasons to Start Meditating Today
• What the Science Says About the Effectiveness of Meditation
• Spirituality May Help People Live Longer: People who regularly attend religious services appear to have better health 
• Religious faith may reduce stress, helping believers live longer
• “Church Attendance, Allostatic Load and Mortality in Middle-Aged Adults,” in PLoS One, 2017

or watch

• Meditation studies and info video playlist
• Novasutras meditation video playlist