Muslims have the highest life satisfaction: They have a feeling of 'oneness' that trumps Christians, Buddhists and yogis, study suggests

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

Interesting article. What are your thoughts on this?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6908769/Muslims-highest-life-satisfaction-thanks-feeling-oneness.html

 

Quote

Muslim people feel the most satisfied with their lives because they feel more 'oneness,' or connection than people of other faiths, a new study suggests. 
 

Measuring life satisfaction is about as close to quantifying 'happiness' as we've been able to get thus far, and a German psychologist's new study suggests that a feeling of 'oneness' predicts overall contentment. 
 

And when the researchers divided their 67,562 survey respondents by religion, Muslims felt the greatest sense of oneness. 
 

Research from a number of disciplines, including religion, philosophy and psychology have suggested that varying types of connectedness lead to an over-arching sense of well-being. 
 

What is happiness, and how do we get it? It's one of the 'big questions' of psychology. 

We don't know, we won't know and it probably wouldn't be universally applicable even if we did. 
 

But Dr Ed Deiner, a professor emeritus of psychology the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is famous in academic circles for managing to make a scale for happiness - or the 'Satisfaction with Life Scale' (SWLS). 

 

Dr Deiner's scale consists of five questions that are meant to surmise how subjectively satisfied someone is with their life as a whole. 

 

Each question gets a ranking for how strongly the participant disagrees or agrees, on a scale of one to seven. 

 

The higher you score, the more satisfied with your life you are (supposedly).

 

A number of studies, including a 2016 Pew Research Center survey, have suggested that people who describe themselves as 'highly religious' are more likely to say they are 'very happy' with life. 

 

The vast majority (95 percent) of these highly happy Americans were Christians: Protestant, Catholic or Mormon. 

 

But spirituality - regardless of affiliation with a specific religion - is also closely linked to life satisfaction, well-being and, in cancer patients, optimism.

 

Psychologists have landed on the idea of 'oneness' as the common thread running through spiritual people of all faiths. 
 

The so-called 'father of psychoanalysis,' Sigmund Freud thought that all humans craved to return to the 'oneness' of being in their mother's womb, connected in every way to her. 

 

More contemporary psychologists have also put forth oneness as a personality trait that distinguishes people who seek and make more connections with others, the environment and their notion of a higher power or God. 

 

And all of these concepts of oneness seem to correlate with greater life satisfaction, which, in turn, is linked to better mental and physical health outcomes. 

 

Researchers at the University of Mannheim in Germany wanted to parse out how oneness affected life satisfaction across religions.

 

So, they surveyed over 67,000 non-students (using student samples is thought to limit and skew data on feelings of 'oneness' and self-reported life satisfaction) of unclear nationalities about their religious affiliations and used crafted questions to assess how connected and fulfilled these adults felt. 

 

Among all groups, Muslims were most likely to believe that they were connected to something larger than themselves, according to the new study, published in the journal of the American Psychological Association.

 

Second to Muslims, Christians that considered themselves neither Catholics nor Protestants reported the greatest average oneness beliefs, followed by Buddhists and Hindus. 

 

Atheists felt the least connected to others or a higher power. 

 

What's more, the mathematical model the researchers devised confirmed a strong link between oneness and life satisfaction. 
 

'[The results] clearly indicate that the causal direction of the association between oneness beliefs and life satisfaction is in line with the assumptions derived from the literature: oneness beliefs are a significant determinant of life satisfaction over time, whereas there is no reversed effect of life satisfaction on oneness beliefs,' study author Dr Laura Marie Edinger-Schons, a University of Mannheim psychologist, wrote.

 

'It would be of high interest to test whether individual differences in oneness beliefs predict differences in real adaptation, for example, coping with stressful life events.' 

 

Buddhism's goal is Nirvana - which is, in fact, reached by dispelling suffering, which the religion considers to have its roots in the craving for attachment. 
 

Hinduism's core belief is in truth.

 

But the single most important tenet in Islam is that of 'Tawhid,' the belief in the 'invisible oneness concept of monotheism,' or of one unifying god. 

 

So, it's perhaps no surprise that Muslims feel greatest sense of oneness. 

 

It's difficult to quantify how the spiritual sense of 'oneness' and connection changes our brains and bodies, but we do know that strong social connections encourage everything from longevity to better immune systems, greater empathy and less anxiety and depression. 

 

And perhaps a sense of spiritual connectedness comes with the same.  

'This study broadens the knowledge on the psychology of religion, revealing not only the average level of oneness beliefs in the different religious groups but also exploring the effect of these beliefs on life satisfaction while controlling for the effect of religious affiliation,' the researchers wrote.  

 

Edited February 16 by -ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-

[Nungali]

Depends on the Muslim and the area .  I would say a lot of Muslims in Turkey feel the way the article states .

 

Maybe not so much in Central Asia  and a bit further south . Many of them want to throw the whole thing out and see it as a source of continual trouble , politics, oppression and war . There where some calls to get back to their indigenous religion .

 

But as usual , this might not be any fault with Islam, itself , but more a localized , long term political misuse of religion ?

 

 

https://theconversation.com/how-big-a-threat-is-islamic-state-in-central-asia-54424

 

[Cobie]

48 minutes ago, Nungali said:

https://theconversation.com/how-big-a-threat-is-islamic-state-in-central-asia-54424

Your article is from 2016. The United Nations estimates Islamic State currently only has about 10,000 fighters. 

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/with-explosions-iran-islamic-state-attempts-comeback-2024-01-05/  

To put this in perspective, almost a quarter of the world population is Muslim i.e. almost 2 billion ( 2,000,000,000 ).

 

Edited February 16 by Cobie

[idiot_stimpy]

Quote

Be still

Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity

Eternity embraces the all-possible

The all-possible leads to a vision of oneness

A vision of oneness brings about universal love

Universal love supports the great truth of Nature

The great truth of Nature is Tao

 

Oneness, Love, Truth points back to the Tao.

[Master Logray]

4 hours ago, Nungali said:

Depends on the Muslim and the area .  I would say a lot of Muslims in Turkey feel the way the article states .

 

Maybe not so much in Central Asia  and a bit further south . Many of them want to throw the whole thing out and see it as a source of continual trouble , politics, oppression and war . There where some calls to get back to their indigenous religion .

 

But as usual , this might not be any fault with Islam, itself , but more a localized , long term political misuse of religion ?

 

 

https://theconversation.com/how-big-a-threat-is-islamic-state-in-central-asia-54424

 

 

Area / location comes first.  Muslim arises from desert people.   They sure value connecting to others.  In Asia where it is historically packed more than sardines, people value free space and less "connections".  It is why meditation has been phenomenonal from India to Japan.

[Nungali]

6 hours ago, Cobie said:

Your article is from 2016. The United Nations estimates Islamic State currently only has about 10,000 fighters. 

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/with-explosions-iran-islamic-state-attempts-comeback-2024-01-05/  

To put this in perspective, almost a quarter of the world population is Muslim i.e. almost 2 billion ( 2,000,000,000 ).

 

 

I already put it in perspective Cobie  ;

 

6 hours ago, Nungali said:

Depends on the Muslim and the area .  I would say a lot of Muslims in Turkey feel the way the article states .

 

Maybe not so much in Central Asia  and a bit further south . Many of them want to throw the whole thing out and see it as a source of continual trouble , politics, oppression and war . There where some calls to get back to their indigenous religion .

 

But as usual , this might not be any fault with Islam, itself , but more a localized , long term political misuse of religion ?

 

 

https://theconversation.com/how-big-a-threat-is-islamic-state-in-central-asia-54424

 

 

Edited February 17 by Nungali

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

5 hours ago, Master Logray said:

 

Area / location comes first.  Muslim arises from desert people.   They sure value connecting to others.  In Asia where it is historically packed more than sardines, people value free space and less "connections".  It is why meditation has been phenomenonal from India to Japan.

 

But what about Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei? They are Muslim and also have local meditation practices

[Master Logray]

3 minutes ago, -ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ- said:

 

But what about Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei? They are Muslim and also have local meditation practices

 

If most of the Arabs, Persia, Muslim India have very limited meditational activities.   Then South East Asia's meditation practices would be indigenous or imported from India/China/Tibet?

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

7 minutes ago, Master Logray said:

If most of the Arabs, Persia, Muslim India have very limited meditational activities.   

I wouldn’t say there are very limited meditational activities. Salat could be compared to qigong, repeated zikr could be compared to mantras, fasting during Ramadan, not to mention the many Sufi practices. 
 

South East Asia’s practices would be a combination of indigenous and imported (both Eastern and Abrahamic).

[Zoya]

I fear my comment may be seen as prejudiced, so as much as I would like to state my opinion, I'll have to abstain from that.

I will say though, that it is easy to be satisfied with little when you're taught to only accept little.

 

 

[snowymountains]

2 hours ago, -ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ- said:

I wouldn’t say there are very limited meditational activities. Salat could be compared to qigong, repeated zikr could be compared to mantras, fasting during Ramadan, not to mention the many Sufi practices. 
 

South East Asia’s practices would be a combination of indigenous and imported (both Eastern and Abrahamic).

 

For the equivalents of mindfulness, meditation on the breath, Insight meditation, open awareness meditations would these be exclusively Sufi practices or they exist elsewhere too? ( Always within the context of Muslim practices ) 

[blue eyed snake]

have not seen the data and the research-method, not very interested tbh.

But its very easy to create a self-fullfilling prophecy with a research method that leans on  query's only

 

meaning, when you first teach people something and then later you ask em about that something the only thing that gets out is whether the teaching method had good results.

 

Not wanting to hurt any moslim reading this, really not.

This is a most general statement.

[Master Logray]

4 hours ago, -ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ- said:

I wouldn’t say there are very limited meditational activities. Salat could be compared to qigong, repeated zikr could be compared to mantras, fasting during Ramadan, not to mention the many Sufi practices. 
 

South East Asia’s practices would be a combination of indigenous and imported (both Eastern and Abrahamic).

 

 

We would better restrict definition meditation to higher end more elaborate systems.   Meditation is a form of idleness or silence which all humanity observes.   Repeated movements with a certain ways of breathing is again too simple to be developed everywhere over the ages.   Most of the people pray and chant and sing in different religions.  These are para-meditation practices.   Even marathon runners get into trance.  But we should not call them meditation as the major objective is not meditation itself. 

 

The desert people should have a better grasp as they had nothing to do in a desert and looking at the clear sky in the evenings - at least in the old days.   But interestingly the areas around Himalayas seem to have a better touch and were able to organize these activities into complicated and vast systems.  

 

I only recently discover Zikr.   It is so great. 

 

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

3 hours ago, Master Logray said:

The desert people should have a better grasp as they had nothing to do in a desert and looking at the clear sky in the evenings - at least in the old days.  

Haha good point! Maybe they didn’t need a stillness practice as most of their life was stillness. 
 

6 hours ago, snowymountains said:

For the equivalents of mindfulness, meditation on the breath, Insight meditation, open awareness meditations would these be exclusively Sufi practices or they exist elsewhere too? ( Always within the context of Muslim practices ) 

 

To be honest they would be Sufi practices, not mainstream Sunni or Shia

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

3 hours ago, Master Logray said:

Repeated movements with a certain ways of breathing is again too simple to be developed everywhere over the ages.  

I do believe that something has been lost over the years with the movements during salat, or maybe some instructions are being withheld. Many of the movements and positions are similar to qigong. Ramadan is coming up and I will start praying daily again so maybe I will experiment with abdominal breathing during salat and see what happens.

[Elysium]

Are you refering to the daily prayer or is it to prayer to Muhammad when you say Salat?

Edited February 17 by Elysium

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

8 minutes ago, Elysium said:

Are you refering to the daily prayer or is it to prayer to Muhaad when you say Salat?

Daily prayer. Some people say namaz but in Indonesia we mostly say salat or sholat.

[snowymountains]

24 minutes ago, -ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ- said:

Daily prayer. Some people say namaz but in Indonesia we mostly say salat or sholat.

 

Is prayer ( any form really , don't know anything about the Muslim prayers ) done as a form of transcendental meditation in any of the practices ?

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

1 hour ago, snowymountains said:

 

Is prayer ( any form really , don't know anything about the Muslim prayers ) done as a form of transcendental meditation in any of the practices ?

As far as I know zikr would be the closest, where you repeat certain words or phrases like a mantra over and over again. They can be said out loud or in your head. Not sure of any which are purely silent but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were any in some Sufi sects. 
 

The most famous zikr would be the ones done by the whirling dervishes of Turkey, where they spin around while repeating certain prayers in their head. I would be very surprised if you haven’t heard of this one. 
 

@Elysium might be able to talk about this!
 

 

Edited February 17 by -ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-

[snowymountains]

1 minute ago, -ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ- said:

As far as I know zikr would be the closest, where you repeat certain words or phrases like a mantra over and over again. They can be said out loud or in your head. Not sure of any which are purely silent but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were any in some Sufi sects. 
 

The most famous zikr would be the ones done by the whirling dervishes of Turkey, where they spin around while repeating certain prayers in their head. I would be very surprised if you haven’t heard of this one. 
 

 

 

Thank you!

 

I have heard of dervishes, thought it was niche though, not a widespread practice - and tbh always wondered how they manage to do it physically, as in not getting dizzy and not falling ( I would in their shoes 😁 )

[steve]

22 hours ago, -ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ- said:

Interesting article. What are your thoughts on this?

 

 

I think it's worth looking at the survey/scale itself and think about whether this seems to be a valid way of measuring the happiness of populations. Also worth considering the population surveyed to see who is actually being evaluated. This survery looks specifically Muslims living in Germany. I wonder how this would compare for example to women living in Somalia or Pakistan... Difficult to extrapolate the results to populations outside of Germany or Europe as living conditions elsewhere are quite a bit different.

 

Here is more info on the Satisfaction With Life Scale that was used to generate the data.

https://novopsych.com.au/assessments/well-being/satisfaction-with-life-scale-swls/

 

[steve]

27 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

I have heard of dervishes, thought it was niche though, not a widespread practice - and tbh always wondered how they manage to do it physically, as in not getting dizzy and not falling ( I would in their shoes 😁 )

 

The whirling is done with the head still relative to the body and the eyes unfocused, similar to the resting state of the eyes among those who meditate with the eyes open. This lack of focus blurs the background and reduces the sense of external movement, helping to reduce dizziness. 

[Nungali]

9 hours ago, Zoya said:

I fear my comment may be seen as prejudiced, so as much as I would like to state my opinion, I'll have to abstain from that.

I will say though, that it is easy to be satisfied with little when you're taught to only accept little.

 

 

 

I would change  your 'accept'  to 'expect'  ;   then 'any bonus is a boon '  .

[Nungali]

6 hours ago, Master Logray said:

 

 

We would better restrict definition meditation to higher end more elaborate systems.   Meditation is a form of idleness or silence which all humanity observes.   Repeated movements with a certain ways of breathing is again too simple to be developed everywhere over the ages.   Most of the people pray and chant and sing in different religions.  These are para-meditation practices.   Even marathon runners get into trance.  But we should not call them meditation as the major objective is not meditation itself. 

 

The desert people should have a better grasp as they had nothing to do in a desert and looking at the clear sky in the evenings - at least in the old days.   But interestingly the areas around Himalayas seem to have a better touch and were able to organize these activities into complicated and vast systems.  

 

I only recently discover Zikr.   It is so great. 

 

 

 .  

 

I am starting to wonder about you .

[Nungali]

59 minutes ago, -ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ- said:

As far as I know zikr would be the closest, where you repeat certain words or phrases like a mantra over and over again. They can be said out loud or in your head. Not sure of any which are purely silent but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were any in some Sufi sects. 
 

The most famous zikr would be the ones done by the whirling dervishes of Turkey, where they spin around while repeating certain prayers in their head. I would be very surprised if you haven’t heard of this one. 
 

@Elysium might be able to talk about this!
 

 

 

 

Hey !  Whats with the colored robes .... I have only ever noticed that dance done in white robes before .