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Owing to its benefits on various cognitive aspects, one’s emotions, and well-being, meditation has drawn interest from several researchers and common public alike. We have different meditation practices associated with many cultures and traditions across the globe. Current literature suggests significant changes in the neural activity among the different practices of meditation, as each of these practices contributes to distinct physiological and psychological effects. Although this is the case, we want to find out if there is an underlying commonality among all these different practices. Thus, we ask the following questions related to different practices of meditation, the traditional goal of meditation and its significance—what is the central purpose of meditation? Do traditions define the final goal of all the practices of meditation? Are the purpose and goal of these practices different or is there a common goal to be attained through all these distinct practices? Embracing the traditional perspective, through this paper, we want to emphasize that, although these techniques and practices may appear different on the periphery, eventually, they seem to subject one to the same experience at the end, a natural meditative state (discussed in various spiritual traditions as the goal of meditation). In view of future studies on different meditation practices and also those exploring this subjective state, we offer some interesting ideas based on the traditional insights into meditation. In this context, we would also like to make a few comments on the way contemporary researchers view different practices of meditation.

No individual exists without exhibiting prosociality in one or another situation during their lifetime. The argument however, is to what extent? Does it arise spontaneously, out of true empathy and compassion for others, or it is goal-oriented with some hidden motive? Here, our primary intention is to convey that, though various meditation-based interventions can be utilized for different purposes like cultivating prosocial behaviors such as compassion, empathy etc., one’s underlying motive and intent seems to play a crucial role in an individual’s development. Most of the studies exploring prosociality, in the context of meditation, usually do not consider the role of hidden or underlying motivation in one’s prosocial expression. By considering an example of how mindfulness may sometimes lead to the wrong consequences, we try to analyze why it is important to include the aspect of inner motivation in future studies exploring the effects of meditation on prosociality. We also propose that while practicing meditation one may need traditional assistance and ethical/moral teachings in addition to those merely isolated techniques.

Microorganisms demonstrate conscious-like intelligent behaviour, and this form of consciousness may have emerged from a quantum mediated mechanism as observed in cytoskeletal structures like the microtubules present in nerve cells which apparently have the architecture to quantum compute. This paper hypothesises the emergence of proto-consciousness in primitive cytoskeletal systems found in the microbial kingdoms of archaea, bacteria and eukarya. To explain this, we make use of the Subject-Object Model (SOM) of consciousness which evaluates the rise of the degree of consciousness to conscious behaviour in these systems supporting the hypothesis of emergence and propagation of conscious behaviour during the pre-Cambrian part of Earth's evolutionary history. Consciousness as proto-consciousness or sentience computed via primitive cytoskeletal structures substantiates as a driver for the intelligence observed in the microbial world during this period ranging from single-cellular to collective intelligence as a means to adapt and survive. The growth in complexity of intelligence, cytoskeletal system and adaptive behaviours are key to evolution, and thus supports the progression of the Lamarckian theory of evolution driven by quantum mediated proto-consciousness to consciousness as described in the SOM of consciousness.

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