Yoga for Attaining the State of Mindfulness

Mental peace, inner peace, and spiritual enlightenment are often emphasized in ancient scriptures for the holistic development of man. Every culture and religion of the world teaches, preaches, and practices these virtues for a vertical development of love and restating the brotherhood in society. Yoga and Mindfulness are two prominent and popular practices to achieve the good values and virtues. These two practices are dissected by philosophers, researchers, and physicians to the threshold only to conclude that the effects are inevitably gainful. This chapter brings together yoga and mindfulness on same page to show their complementary relationship. Here are mentioned few challenges and issues that both the practices have to face often.

Transforming social norms to improve girl-child health and well-being: a realist evaluation of the Girls’ Holistic Development program in rural Senegal

Background Early adolescence is a critical period where social norms, attitudes, and behaviors around gender equality form. Social norms influence adolescent choices and behaviors and are reinforced by caregivers and community members, affecting girls’ reproductive health and educational opportunities. Understanding how to shift these often-interconnected norms to delay child marriage, pregnancy and keep girls in school requires understanding of the structure and dynamics of family and community systems. The Senegalese and American non-governmental organization, the Grandmothers Project—Change through Culture, seeks to address these intertwined factors through innovative community change strategies that build on the specific structure and values of West African collectivist cultures. Methods The Girls’ Holistic Development approach in rural Vélingara, Senegal posits that by increasing recognition, knowledge and empowerment of elder community women and reinforcing intergenerational communication and decision-making, community members including girls will support and advocate on behalf of girls’ interests and desires. We assessed the Girls Holistic Development approach using Realist Evaluation with a mixed-method, quasi-experimental design with a comparison population. We examined differences in intergenerational communication, decision-making and descriptive and injunctive norms related to early marriage, pregnancy and schooling. Results After 18 months, intergenerational communication was more likely, grandmothers felt more valued in their communities, adolescent girls felt more supported with improved agency, and norms were shifting to support delayed marriage and pregnancy and keeping girls in school. Grandmothers in intervention villages were statistically significantly more likely to be perceived as influential decision-makers by both VYA girls and caregivers for marriage and schooling decisions compared to girls and caregivers in comparison villages. Conclusions This realist evaluation demonstrated shift in social norms, particularly for VYA girls, in intervention villages favoring delaying girls’ marriage, preventing early pregnancy and keeping girls in school along with increased support for and action by grandmothers to support girls and their well-being related to these same outcomes. These shifts represent greater community social cohesion on girl-child issues. This research helps explain the linkage between social norms and girls’ reproductive health and education outcomes and demonstrates that normative shifts can lead to behavior change via collective community action mechanisms.

Consumer Behavior Towards Delicatessen Products and Branding Influence

It is a fact that branding is a tool for the business to get stronger and also embrace sustainability, which can apply to the delicatessen product market. In addition, the demand of delicatessen products has increased as new trends emerged. Greek businesses have successfully entered the market, advertising the superiority of delicatessen products. The aim of this paper is to provide better understanding of consumer behaviour towards delicatessen products. This is achieved through the views of market experts and a research on consumers investigating how branding influences them. The findings show that there are differences between market experts' opinions and consumers' preferences, which can contribute to the holistic development of the delicatessen market. Finally, this study may provide a basis for a survey of a larger sample of delicatessen firms nationwide and contributes important knowledge to enhance further development in the delicatessen sector and in the management and marketing approach of the market of Thessaloniki.

Challenges of Equal Church Policies on Rural Pastors and Congregants: The Case of Three Classical Pentecostal Churches in Ghana

Classical Pentecostal Churches in Ghana have various policies to guide their operations such as; administrative structure, functions of various office holders, their terms of office, activities guidelines and many more. Using the qualitative research approach, the paper finds out challenges faced by rural Classical Pentecostal Pastors, families, and congregants in Ghana with regards to policy generalization, which often fails to address some specific challenges of rural folks. Based on results from interviews conducted, this paper offers various recommendations which if adopted would help minimize the challenges of marginalization faced by pastors, their families and the church congregants to the enhancement of their holistic development. Keywords: Equality, Equity, Policies, Generalization, Rural Pastors

Rabbani Political Leadership for Sustainable Development: A Case Study in Terengganu, Malaysia

The objective of the current study was to clarify the role of ‘Rabbani’ to establish a balance of sustainable development in Terengganu political leadership, Malaysia. We propose Rabbani political leadership as a task of bridging the understanding of sustainable development in harmony that may influence followers to manage the development in political workplace. It then explores the underlying reason for the mobilisation of sustainable social development. This study classified as a fieldwork study based in Terengganu, Malaysia. The obtained data were analysed systematically according to selected themes. The argument constructed into the following stages, namely an overview of Islamic principles in setting an identity of Islam as the way of life, proposing unity as the foundation of a harmonious life in which the whole life system as a response to having a holistic development as a catalyst of progress. This study was able to benefit the local community of Terengganu and also amongst the rulers and politicians in order to understand and applying the value of Rabbani political leadership quality for the sake of better social lifestyle. Rabbani political leadership in the state of Terengganu could be one of the models that cover three types of political leadership work ethics in Islamic principles namely; building identity that Islam is the way of life; proposing unity ass the foundation of a harmonious life; and a holistic development as a catalyst of progress. Received: 24 March 2021 / Accepted: 8 July 2021 / Published: 5 September 2021

The Contemporary Transformation of Educational Mechanism for Knowledge Innovation-Dialogue on Finland's Education and China's General Education

In Finland» the knowledge-in fusing education has been transforming toward the practical-contextual education. The practical-contextual education is the combination of knowledge innovation and education genesis» which motivates the education of specialized knowledge and endows it the energy of knowledge innovation and education genesis» cxpccially while it is facing the chanllcngcs from the electronic information age. The key conditions for the success of Finland system of education arc the two, the pedagogial ideas of holistic development of humanity» and the rcpcscts for teachers in the whole society. On the basis of this, the practical-contextual education with freedom is different from any other pragmatistic education which always view education as some sorts of tools. In comtcmporary China, the construction of innovation system is the crucial direction for modernization» however» it can not be confined in instrumental rationality and the research of specialized fields» it should be expanded as the refomation of social instution and the building of eluture on which the innovation system can rely. General education that provides the cultuaral cultivation and the cognitive structure of liberal creativity for the education of specialized areas» is the crucial considcrarion for the transformation from instrumental rationality to holistic development of people. At the same time»it contains the fundamental motivation for the innovation in the future China.