How to respond -
practical advice on what to do when attacked and anger flares
HOW TO CULTIVATE ENDURANCE
"When a wise man is being scolded, he thinks: "Abusive words do not arise simultaneously. When the first word is spoken, the second word has not arisen. When the second word is spoken, the first word has perished. As they do not arise simultaneously, what does scolding mean? They are merely sound of wind. Why should I be angry? I am an assemblage of the five aggregates. If the four mental aggregates are missing, scolding cannot be perceived. [Secondly] My body (the physical aggregate, or assembly of parts) is an assemblage as well. Any assemblage is changing unceasingly, thought after thought. Then who is object of scolding?
Scolding is nothing but the blowing of wind. There are two kinds of wind - external and internal. I do not get angry even at the external wind (produced by nature), much less the internal wind (produced by sentient beings). The reason for scolding me may be true or false. If I deserve the scolding, why should I be angry? If I do not deserve it, the scolding will return to the scolder. As it no longer concerns me, why should I get angry? To get angry is to do evil Why? Because my anger will drive me down one of three evil life-paths. There my suffering is a requital for my own doing. Therefore, I am the cause of all good and evil (requitals)."
...
"A wise man thinks: 'If the scolder is stronger than I, I should not get angry. Why not? Because if I get angry, he might take my life. (!) If he is weaker than I, I should also not get angry. Why not? Because he is no match for me. If I requite scolding with scolding, it is an insult to my body and voice. As an analogy, if someone gives poison to another as a requital, others will not be surprised. However, if he himself takes poison (as a requital to another), others will laugh at him. The same is true for me. If I get angry with another, I will be rebuked by the holy ones (smart guys) and undergo immense suffering in the future. Hence, even if my body is being hacked into pieces, I should not get angry. Instead I should observe the causes and conditions of my past karmas and cultivate loving kindness and compassion for all.
"When a wise man is being scolded, he thinks: "Abusive words do not arise simultaneously. When the first word is spoken, the second word has not arisen. When the second word is spoken, the first word has perished. As they do not arise simultaneously, what does scolding mean? They are merely sound of wind. Why should I be angry? I am an assemblage of the five aggregates. If the four mental aggregates are missing, scolding cannot be perceived. [Secondly] My body (the physical aggregate, or assembly of parts) is an assemblage as well. Any assemblage is changing unceasingly, thought after thought. Then who is object of scolding?
Scolding is nothing but the blowing of wind. There are two kinds of wind - external and internal. I do not get angry even at the external wind (produced by nature), much less the internal wind (produced by sentient beings). The reason for scolding me may be true or false. If I deserve the scolding, why should I be angry? If I do not deserve it, the scolding will return to the scolder. As it no longer concerns me, why should I get angry? To get angry is to do evil Why? Because my anger will drive me down one of three evil life-paths. There my suffering is a requital for my own doing. Therefore, I am the cause of all good and evil (requitals)."
...
"A wise man thinks: 'If the scolder is stronger than I, I should not get angry. Why not? Because if I get angry, he might take my life. (!) If he is weaker than I, I should also not get angry. Why not? Because he is no match for me. If I requite scolding with scolding, it is an insult to my body and voice. As an analogy, if someone gives poison to another as a requital, others will not be surprised. However, if he himself takes poison (as a requital to another), others will laugh at him. The same is true for me. If I get angry with another, I will be rebuked by the holy ones (smart guys) and undergo immense suffering in the future. Hence, even if my body is being hacked into pieces, I should not get angry. Instead I should observe the causes and conditions of my past karmas and cultivate loving kindness and compassion for all.
Source: Bodhisattva Precepts by Rulu
JANUARY 11, 2017
Meditation is a common practice of many extremely successful people, and with good reason: CEO Ray Dalio, for instance, has said he uses meditation to check his ego; Steve Rubin attributes his “laser-like focus” to the practice.
Related: Why Meditation Works and How it Benefits the Workplace
What exactly is meditation? And how has mastering it helped so many CEOs to master their business?
When you run a business, your most valuable asset is your mind. Any practice that involves relaxing that mind in order to regain control of it is meditation.
And that control was something I craved myself: As 2016 came to a close and I noticed that I was becoming more easily distracted and my writing had begun to suffer, I enrolled in a ten-day silent meditation course to help me kick off 2017 on a fresh note.
Before beginning this free course run entirely by donations from previous students, I surrendered my books, electronic devices and access to the internet to focus on studying the Vipassana meditative technique. Taught since the time of the Buddha, this technique has students observe their breath and bodily sensations in order to train their minds to be nonreactive.
By not immediately reacting to feelings of pain and pleasure, we not only toughen our minds and boost our sense of inner peace, we also broaden our perspective and capability to understand things a stressed out, self-absorbed mind would miss.
Below are some of the ways that meditation can change the way you run your business in the New Year.
Meditation keeps you disciplined.Most things in our life are outside of our control. We cannot control the world around us, or what other people say and do, but through meditation and hard work, we can control our own minds. A trained mind can be the best friend you’ve ever had, and with it, you can accomplish things you never thought possible.
During my first few days of the Vipassana meditation course, I found my mind racing nonstop, never giving me a moment of peace. Even closing my eyes for a few moments seemed painful, but our instructor, the late S. N. Goenka, was very encouraging in the daily lectures we watched on videotape.
“Patience and persistence is the secret to success,” he said -- a truism in both meditation and business. So I
Meditation is a common practice of many extremely successful people, and with good reason: CEO Ray Dalio, for instance, has said he uses meditation to check his ego; Steve Rubin attributes his “laser-like focus” to the practice.
Related: Why Meditation Works and How it Benefits the Workplace
What exactly is meditation? And how has mastering it helped so many CEOs to master their business?
When you run a business, your most valuable asset is your mind. Any practice that involves relaxing that mind in order to regain control of it is meditation.
And that control was something I craved myself: As 2016 came to a close and I noticed that I was becoming more easily distracted and my writing had begun to suffer, I enrolled in a ten-day silent meditation course to help me kick off 2017 on a fresh note.
Before beginning this free course run entirely by donations from previous students, I surrendered my books, electronic devices and access to the internet to focus on studying the Vipassana meditative technique. Taught since the time of the Buddha, this technique has students observe their breath and bodily sensations in order to train their minds to be nonreactive.
By not immediately reacting to feelings of pain and pleasure, we not only toughen our minds and boost our sense of inner peace, we also broaden our perspective and capability to understand things a stressed out, self-absorbed mind would miss.
Below are some of the ways that meditation can change the way you run your business in the New Year.
Meditation keeps you disciplined.Most things in our life are outside of our control. We cannot control the world around us, or what other people say and do, but through meditation and hard work, we can control our own minds. A trained mind can be the best friend you’ve ever had, and with it, you can accomplish things you never thought possible.
During my first few days of the Vipassana meditation course, I found my mind racing nonstop, never giving me a moment of peace. Even closing my eyes for a few moments seemed painful, but our instructor, the late S. N. Goenka, was very encouraging in the daily lectures we watched on videotape.
“Patience and persistence is the secret to success,” he said -- a truism in both meditation and business. So I
"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." Anais Nin |
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An exposition on Neuroplasticity: What it is and How it works
Beat Depression And Anxiety By Changing Your Brain
written by: Ms. Debbie Hampton
This is the second and third chapters of my book, Beat Depression And Anxiety By Changing Your Brain.
Chapter Two - How Your Brain Makes Your Story
At the most basic level, your world is created by your brain. Making sense of the world and its happenings is nothing more than your brains' interpretation of the signals it receives as you go about your days just doing what you do interacting with your environment. Sound a little out there? Let me explain.
Color is nothing more than cone cells in your retina being stimulated by light waves within a certain range of the spectrum. Because each of our brains are different, our perceptions of color are different. The sky is blue, right? No question. However, your blue is going to be different than my blue. Maybe even very different. Neither is right or wrong. Both are blue. Your blue is just as blue to you as my blue is to me. Both are merely our individual brains making sense of the same signals. The words you hear are nothing more than air pressure waves hitting tiny hairs in your ear which take on the meaning your brain gives them. The understanding your brain assigns them is subjectively colored.
Each of us experience the world uniquely because our brains interpret the events and stimuli we encounter differently due to our physical brain function, memories, beliefs, and attitudes about ourselves, others, and the world shaped by family, religion, school, culture, and life encounters. These influences are typically below your conscious awareness, but determine how you respond to the world, interact in relationships, and think of and talk to yourself. So, Mom and Dad, your sixth grade teacher, your best friend growing up and today, and your media intake all help paint your one-of-a-kind picture of reality.
Even your memory is subjective and colored by these subconscious shadows. Research has confirmed that our brains don't store everything verbatim like a computer and retrieve exact replicas. Our memories are re-creations. Your brain rebuilds a memory from a few key features and fills in the missing details based on associations and implicit and explicit knowledge. That's right! Your brain just makes it up, and you have no way of knowing what's recalled verbatim and what's constructed.
In his book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Jonah Lehrer writes "Our memories are not like fiction. They are fiction." He compares memories to "a Xerox of a Xerox of a mimeograph of the original photograph."1 In your brain, a memory is made up of slight shifts in certain synapses firing in a specific sequence. Every time you recall a memory, the brain reconsolidates this process incorporating and filtering the thought through who you are and what you know at the time of remembering. Memory is an active and ongoing process, and according to Lehrer, "A memory is only as real as the last time you remembered it. The more you remember something, the less accurate the memory becomes."
Because of our differing brains, each one of us really does live in our own little world.Reality depends on what actually happens (objective) and how your brain makes sense of what happens (subjective). Although there are many commonalities across all of our realities, it cannot be assumed that anything is the same for everyone or even remotely close to it. Kind of freaky, right?
But, wait! Here lies the super power we all have. By purposefully effecting the variables determining your brain's interpretation of the world, you can change your brain and life for the better.
The key is to become conscious of and take control of your thoughts and mind. Remember that your brain factors in subconscious beliefs and attitudes about yourself, others, and the world when assigning meaning to incoming stimuli to create your reality. By becoming aware of your influences and consciously choosing which ones you buy into and allow to have impact, and intentionally inserting new ones, you can change your past and future and physically alter your brain.
Well, you can't literally change the past, of course. But by modifying your perspective and feelings about about prior events, you differ their significance in your present life which allows you to modify your thoughts, behaviors, and future. However your thoughts do literally change your brain's form and function. Pretty amazing, huh?! Let me tell you how.
Chapter Three - You're Not Stuck With The Brain You're Born With
Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't. Steve Maraboli
The good news is your brain makes physical changes based on the repetitive things you do and experiences you have. The bad news is your brain makes physical changes based on the repetitive things you do and experiences you have. This capability of the brain to change itself, known as neuroplasticity, works both for you and against you. Your brain is like Play-Doh minus the funky smell and is changeable and adaptable from cradle to grave. Neuroplasticity, a scientific truth of the last decade, is the ability of your brain to literally alter its physical structure and function through repeated thought, emotion, and activity.
It used to be believed that the adult brain was pretty much hard wired, but we now know that's not true. Not at all. Every single detail of which you are aware – sounds, sights, thoughts, feelings, and even that of which you aren't aware, unconscious mental and physical processes – can be directly mapped to neural activity in your brain which is constantly changing in response. What you pay attention to, think, feel, want, hope, and how you behave constantly sculpts your brain through experience-dependent neuroplasticity. The neurological explanation of how this happens gets pretty complicated, but the basic concept is simple: every minute of every day you're shaping your brain for better or worse.
In his book, Just One Thing: Developing A Buddha Brain One Simple Practice At A Time, Dr. Rick Hanson, neuropsychologist and Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, explains how neuroplasticity is accomplished:
1. Busy brain regions get more blood flow, since they need more oxygen and glucose.
2. The genes inside neurons get more or less active with the use of the neuron. For example, people who routinely relax have improved expression of genes that calm down stress reactions, making them more resilient.
3. Neural connections that are relatively inactive wither away; it's a kind of neural Darwinism, the survival of the busiest: use it or lose it.
4. "Neurons that fire together, wire together." This saying, from the work of Donald Hebb, means that synapses – the connections between neurons – get more sensitive, plus new neurons grow, producing thicker neural layers when fired repeatedly together.
Neuroplasticity is an example of thought changing matter which, although remarkable, is no big deal for your brain. You can just think about your hand raising, and it does which is both extraordinary and very ordinary at the same time. Neuroplasticity has allowed people who have had strokes and brain trauma to recover amazing functionality. Because of neuroplasticity, congenitally blind people's brains have figured out new ways to see, paralyzed limbs have become usable again, children with cerebral palsy have learned to move more smoothly, and children with autism have made cognitive strides once believed impossible. Experience-dependent neuroplasticity has also been harnessed to ease chronic pain, obsessive compulsiveness, worry, addictions, cravings, and depression. The examples go on and on.
There's a catch to neuroplasticity. It only happens when a person is paying attention and focusing on the input whether intentional or not. The same neuroplasticity that allows us to alter our brains and realities by implementing healthy, good-for-you habits conversely allows not-so-good habits to be unconsciously carved into our brains too. With directed attention, everyone has the ability to transform their brain and life for the better, but unfortunately, neuroplasticity is most often accomplished unconsciously etching bad habits into our brains. All bad habits, obsessions, and addictions are the result of neuroplastic change and can be reversed with the same process.
While self-directed neuroplasticity does work, it's not immediate or effortless and requires motivation, intention, and relentless, regular persistence. Research on neuroplasticity shows that intense focus is required to alter desired brain circuits and make new connections. Most neuroplastic change is incremental, not dramatic. Because neuroplasticity occurs for whatever's in your field of focused awareness, your attention is like a vacuum cleaner, sucking its contents into your brain. Directing your attention purposefully allows you to shape your brain and life over time.
Want to quit smoking? Interrupt the pattern habitually, and your brain will become your ally in the effort. Your brain can help you drop 10 pounds, end a drug addiction, stop biting your fingernails, quit worrying so much, put an end to living in fear, or stop negative self talk. You can put your mind to work for you in just about any area of your life. Because nothing in the brain is hard wired, you can alter your behavior regularly, and in time your brain will make physical changes to reinforce the new pattern. Change your brain; change your life. Neuroplasticity is the super power you were born with.
By adopting a brain healthy lifestyle and implementing practices to take control of your mind and thoughts, you can put neuroplasticity to work for you. Neuroplasticity does take time, persistence, and effort, but it does work and was key to my recovering from depression and a serious brain injury to find happiness and peace. Although the science of neuroplasticity is still relatively new with unknown limits, having a malleable brain opens up a world of possibilities for us as individuals and as a society. Neuroplasticity has major implications for every aspect of human nature and culture including medicine, psychiatry, psychology, relationships, education, and more.
The bottom line is that we have grossly underestimated what our brains can do and the huge role they play in shaping our realities, lives, and happiness. Put neuroplasticity to work for you today, and you can change your brain and life for the better.
written by: Ms. Debbie Hampton
written by: Ms. Debbie Hampton
This is the second and third chapters of my book, Beat Depression And Anxiety By Changing Your Brain.
Chapter Two - How Your Brain Makes Your Story
At the most basic level, your world is created by your brain. Making sense of the world and its happenings is nothing more than your brains' interpretation of the signals it receives as you go about your days just doing what you do interacting with your environment. Sound a little out there? Let me explain.
Color is nothing more than cone cells in your retina being stimulated by light waves within a certain range of the spectrum. Because each of our brains are different, our perceptions of color are different. The sky is blue, right? No question. However, your blue is going to be different than my blue. Maybe even very different. Neither is right or wrong. Both are blue. Your blue is just as blue to you as my blue is to me. Both are merely our individual brains making sense of the same signals. The words you hear are nothing more than air pressure waves hitting tiny hairs in your ear which take on the meaning your brain gives them. The understanding your brain assigns them is subjectively colored.
Each of us experience the world uniquely because our brains interpret the events and stimuli we encounter differently due to our physical brain function, memories, beliefs, and attitudes about ourselves, others, and the world shaped by family, religion, school, culture, and life encounters. These influences are typically below your conscious awareness, but determine how you respond to the world, interact in relationships, and think of and talk to yourself. So, Mom and Dad, your sixth grade teacher, your best friend growing up and today, and your media intake all help paint your one-of-a-kind picture of reality.
Even your memory is subjective and colored by these subconscious shadows. Research has confirmed that our brains don't store everything verbatim like a computer and retrieve exact replicas. Our memories are re-creations. Your brain rebuilds a memory from a few key features and fills in the missing details based on associations and implicit and explicit knowledge. That's right! Your brain just makes it up, and you have no way of knowing what's recalled verbatim and what's constructed.
In his book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Jonah Lehrer writes "Our memories are not like fiction. They are fiction." He compares memories to "a Xerox of a Xerox of a mimeograph of the original photograph."1 In your brain, a memory is made up of slight shifts in certain synapses firing in a specific sequence. Every time you recall a memory, the brain reconsolidates this process incorporating and filtering the thought through who you are and what you know at the time of remembering. Memory is an active and ongoing process, and according to Lehrer, "A memory is only as real as the last time you remembered it. The more you remember something, the less accurate the memory becomes."
Because of our differing brains, each one of us really does live in our own little world.Reality depends on what actually happens (objective) and how your brain makes sense of what happens (subjective). Although there are many commonalities across all of our realities, it cannot be assumed that anything is the same for everyone or even remotely close to it. Kind of freaky, right?
But, wait! Here lies the super power we all have. By purposefully effecting the variables determining your brain's interpretation of the world, you can change your brain and life for the better.
The key is to become conscious of and take control of your thoughts and mind. Remember that your brain factors in subconscious beliefs and attitudes about yourself, others, and the world when assigning meaning to incoming stimuli to create your reality. By becoming aware of your influences and consciously choosing which ones you buy into and allow to have impact, and intentionally inserting new ones, you can change your past and future and physically alter your brain.
Well, you can't literally change the past, of course. But by modifying your perspective and feelings about about prior events, you differ their significance in your present life which allows you to modify your thoughts, behaviors, and future. However your thoughts do literally change your brain's form and function. Pretty amazing, huh?! Let me tell you how.
Chapter Three - You're Not Stuck With The Brain You're Born With
Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't. Steve Maraboli
The good news is your brain makes physical changes based on the repetitive things you do and experiences you have. The bad news is your brain makes physical changes based on the repetitive things you do and experiences you have. This capability of the brain to change itself, known as neuroplasticity, works both for you and against you. Your brain is like Play-Doh minus the funky smell and is changeable and adaptable from cradle to grave. Neuroplasticity, a scientific truth of the last decade, is the ability of your brain to literally alter its physical structure and function through repeated thought, emotion, and activity.
It used to be believed that the adult brain was pretty much hard wired, but we now know that's not true. Not at all. Every single detail of which you are aware – sounds, sights, thoughts, feelings, and even that of which you aren't aware, unconscious mental and physical processes – can be directly mapped to neural activity in your brain which is constantly changing in response. What you pay attention to, think, feel, want, hope, and how you behave constantly sculpts your brain through experience-dependent neuroplasticity. The neurological explanation of how this happens gets pretty complicated, but the basic concept is simple: every minute of every day you're shaping your brain for better or worse.
In his book, Just One Thing: Developing A Buddha Brain One Simple Practice At A Time, Dr. Rick Hanson, neuropsychologist and Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, explains how neuroplasticity is accomplished:
1. Busy brain regions get more blood flow, since they need more oxygen and glucose.
2. The genes inside neurons get more or less active with the use of the neuron. For example, people who routinely relax have improved expression of genes that calm down stress reactions, making them more resilient.
3. Neural connections that are relatively inactive wither away; it's a kind of neural Darwinism, the survival of the busiest: use it or lose it.
4. "Neurons that fire together, wire together." This saying, from the work of Donald Hebb, means that synapses – the connections between neurons – get more sensitive, plus new neurons grow, producing thicker neural layers when fired repeatedly together.
Neuroplasticity is an example of thought changing matter which, although remarkable, is no big deal for your brain. You can just think about your hand raising, and it does which is both extraordinary and very ordinary at the same time. Neuroplasticity has allowed people who have had strokes and brain trauma to recover amazing functionality. Because of neuroplasticity, congenitally blind people's brains have figured out new ways to see, paralyzed limbs have become usable again, children with cerebral palsy have learned to move more smoothly, and children with autism have made cognitive strides once believed impossible. Experience-dependent neuroplasticity has also been harnessed to ease chronic pain, obsessive compulsiveness, worry, addictions, cravings, and depression. The examples go on and on.
There's a catch to neuroplasticity. It only happens when a person is paying attention and focusing on the input whether intentional or not. The same neuroplasticity that allows us to alter our brains and realities by implementing healthy, good-for-you habits conversely allows not-so-good habits to be unconsciously carved into our brains too. With directed attention, everyone has the ability to transform their brain and life for the better, but unfortunately, neuroplasticity is most often accomplished unconsciously etching bad habits into our brains. All bad habits, obsessions, and addictions are the result of neuroplastic change and can be reversed with the same process.
While self-directed neuroplasticity does work, it's not immediate or effortless and requires motivation, intention, and relentless, regular persistence. Research on neuroplasticity shows that intense focus is required to alter desired brain circuits and make new connections. Most neuroplastic change is incremental, not dramatic. Because neuroplasticity occurs for whatever's in your field of focused awareness, your attention is like a vacuum cleaner, sucking its contents into your brain. Directing your attention purposefully allows you to shape your brain and life over time.
Want to quit smoking? Interrupt the pattern habitually, and your brain will become your ally in the effort. Your brain can help you drop 10 pounds, end a drug addiction, stop biting your fingernails, quit worrying so much, put an end to living in fear, or stop negative self talk. You can put your mind to work for you in just about any area of your life. Because nothing in the brain is hard wired, you can alter your behavior regularly, and in time your brain will make physical changes to reinforce the new pattern. Change your brain; change your life. Neuroplasticity is the super power you were born with.
By adopting a brain healthy lifestyle and implementing practices to take control of your mind and thoughts, you can put neuroplasticity to work for you. Neuroplasticity does take time, persistence, and effort, but it does work and was key to my recovering from depression and a serious brain injury to find happiness and peace. Although the science of neuroplasticity is still relatively new with unknown limits, having a malleable brain opens up a world of possibilities for us as individuals and as a society. Neuroplasticity has major implications for every aspect of human nature and culture including medicine, psychiatry, psychology, relationships, education, and more.
The bottom line is that we have grossly underestimated what our brains can do and the huge role they play in shaping our realities, lives, and happiness. Put neuroplasticity to work for you today, and you can change your brain and life for the better.
written by: Ms. Debbie Hampton
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS NEWS
Swami Atmananda Udasin
|
CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NATURE OF SPIRITUAL AWAKENING |
This is the prayer of the Swami's own Master.
The Universal Prayer of a Himalayan Master * *
O Lord, Thou are absolute Existence, absolute Awareness,
absolute Bliss, absolute Power, absolute Light,
absolute Life, and absolute Love.
*
People call Thee by different names.
They call Thee Om, Ishwara, Krishna, Christ, Hari, Rama,
Allah, Buddha, Mahavira, Shiva, Adonai,
Waheguru, Indra, Mother Bhagawati, and so on and so forth.
*
A rose called by any other name still remains a rose,
Though called by different people by different names,
Thou art, O Lord, I am sure, one and the same Supreme Being,
the One without a second.
*
My thousand, thousand salutations unto Thee!
This prayer, included with permission in Master, Swami, Nun, Sinner, Swinger, ONE by Mark Sawyer, can be found atwww.ajatananda.org , the website of Swami Atmananda Udasin's ashram.
Itzhak Bentov - From Atom to Cosmos Part 1/10
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Segment of the vido to the left in which Sharona Muir talks about Itzhak Bentov's theory of Sympathetic Vibrations.
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Path of Freedom - A Film
Teachers say we as homo-sapiens must earn the right to be called "Human Beings"
Watch and Listen to inmates at Rhode Island men's prison speak and demonstrate meditative consciousness.
- In the harsh environment of a Rhode Island men’s prison, fifty inmates are transforming their lives through the practice of mindfulness meditation. The program is the work of former inmate Fleet Maull, who visits with convicted felons to share his strategies for surviving on the inside. This film offers a rare glimpse into the inner lives of men who are reaching for peace and forgiveness, and some form of freedom behind bars.
Jiddu Krishnamurti and Chogyam Trungpa Discuss What Meditation Really Is
Their decision leads to Witnessing as the True Meditation
BRILLIANT - Physicist John Haglin interviewed by Russell Brand
CONSCIOUS PURPOSE DRIVEN BUSINESS -
MORE MOTIVATING THAN MONETARY REWARD?? Yay! Yay! Yay!
check it out!!
Just for fun ~ Rainn Wilson Shares his Spiritual Journey (the guy may not be as creepy as we thought!)
"How I deal with Mental Breakdowns" by Jayme at Rayne's World
This lady, after being "in the system" for a while no longe believes in "Mental Illness" per se. She looks at it differently.
While we are not endorsing her view (some people might need some intervention) The Center's viewpoint is that EVERYBODY can benefit from this outlook. Check it out.
This piece is written by Jayme, at Rayne’s World.
Here is a direct link to this article as republished and easy to find : http://beyondmeds.com/2009/01/25/how-i-deal-with-mental-breakdowns/
The crux of the article is as follows ~~
"So what do I do when those symptoms occur that I described above?
I embrace them. I honor them for what they are and I feel them for all they are worth. If I am depressed, I feel the depression as if I were being paid to describe to someone what depression is like. I describe it as I am feeling it. I don’t try to distract myself from it the way everyone advises me to do. I hear things like “Take a walk, call a friend, go out with friends, exercise, do anything except feel the depression, you are only dwelling on it and it will make things worse, and for godssake don’t isolate!” I used to feel so guilty for not being able to follow their advice. Not anymore! I will dwell on my depression. I will isolate. I will remove myself from all of society and I will treat myself to whatever my heart desires. That usually means isolating and wallowing in depression and crying my heart out for no reason. There is movement in crying! There is healing. I cry as deeply as my body will allow, and the exhaustion that follows is the most healing experience of all. And “healing” does not mean that the depression is over. It may be around for a while, and that is okay. It is not something that needs to be healed. Depression is simply another human experience, and by god, I am going to experience it!"
Again, here is a direct link to this article as republished and easy to find : http://beyondmeds.com/2009/01/25/how-i-deal-with-mental-breakdowns/
Here is a direct link to this article as republished and easy to find : http://beyondmeds.com/2009/01/25/how-i-deal-with-mental-breakdowns/
The crux of the article is as follows ~~
"So what do I do when those symptoms occur that I described above?
I embrace them. I honor them for what they are and I feel them for all they are worth. If I am depressed, I feel the depression as if I were being paid to describe to someone what depression is like. I describe it as I am feeling it. I don’t try to distract myself from it the way everyone advises me to do. I hear things like “Take a walk, call a friend, go out with friends, exercise, do anything except feel the depression, you are only dwelling on it and it will make things worse, and for godssake don’t isolate!” I used to feel so guilty for not being able to follow their advice. Not anymore! I will dwell on my depression. I will isolate. I will remove myself from all of society and I will treat myself to whatever my heart desires. That usually means isolating and wallowing in depression and crying my heart out for no reason. There is movement in crying! There is healing. I cry as deeply as my body will allow, and the exhaustion that follows is the most healing experience of all. And “healing” does not mean that the depression is over. It may be around for a while, and that is okay. It is not something that needs to be healed. Depression is simply another human experience, and by god, I am going to experience it!"
Again, here is a direct link to this article as republished and easy to find : http://beyondmeds.com/2009/01/25/how-i-deal-with-mental-breakdowns/
Hey! No lawyer jokes, please!
MINDFULNESS IN LAW PROGRAM
In furtherance of its commitment to preparing students at the highest levels of academic excellence and legal expertise while providing the tools to maintain a fulfilling work-life balance, Miami Law has established the country’s first Mindfulness in Law Program.
Led by Scott Rogers, a nationally recognized mindfulness teacher and creator of the acclaimed Jurisight program for teaching mindfulness to legal professionals, Miami Law offers students a unique collection of classes, workshops, seminars, and spaces, and More!! that integrate mindfulness into the law school experience.
Mindfulness programs have been offered to Miami Law students and the Miami Law community since 2008. Miami Law students are eligible to participate in all programs without cost, throughout their law school careers.
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Below, See the Best Video Ever!! (So far...)
Love to see more like this - Talk about "Transformational Entertainment" !!
Auras and Shaktipat
WHAT IS THE “AURA”?
RFI, and the presumption of the existence of the Aura, is based upon the principle that all mental activity is electromagnetic. While some medical theorists argue that mental activity is chemical, because of the chemical neurotransmitters involved, the fact is that neurotransmitters are created only when electrical impulses induce a voltage in a neuron that exceeds its firing threshold. In addition, EEG (electroencephalogram) technology shows that mental activity can be effectively
analyzed and monitored entirely by electromagnetic principles.
In electrical engineering, it is an established principle that all electrical currents produce
surrounding electromagnetic fields. Accordingly, our psychological and emotional activities are
sent throughout the body as electrical impulses, radiating electromagnetic fields outside the body,
which are characteristic of the mental activity that generated them. Indeed, even the mere
movement of atoms will produce a quantifiable electromagnetic field. This is most clearly
observed in the case of charged radioisotopes, but even neutral atoms and molecules will emit a
field through valence motion of the charged substructure particles. As proven by Russian Tesla
technology experiments in the 1950s, this phenomenon causes prokaryotic organisms to produce
an external electromagnetic field, which consists of the combined radiations from millions of
molecules in the biological body.
Sympathetic resonance is a harmonic phenomenon wherein a formerly passive string or vibratory body responds to external vibrations to which it has a harmonic likeness. The classic example is demonstrated with two similar tuning-forks of which one is mounted on a wooden box. If the other one is struck and then placed on the box, then muted, the un-struck mounted fork will be heard. In similar fashion, strings will respond to the external vibrations of a tuning-fork when sufficient harmonic relations exist between the respective vibratory modes. A unison or octave will provoke the largest response as there is maximum likeness in vibratory motion. Other links through shared resonances occur at the fifth and third though with less effect.
Wikipedia says, "Shaktipat or Śaktipāta (Sanskrit, from sakti - "(psychic) energy" - and pāta, "to fall")[1] refers in Hinduism to the conferring of spiritual "energy" upon one person by another. Shaktipat can be transmitted with a sacred word or mantra, or by a look, thought or touch - the last usually to the ajna chakra or third eye of the recipient.Saktipat is considered an act of grace (anugraha) on the part of the guru or the divine. Its reception cannot be forced though the recipient must be open to such an influx since it also cannot be imposed by force.[2] The very consciousness of the god or guru is held to enter into the Self of the disciple"
Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) commented that to understand the phenomenon it was necessary to understand that all that exists is energy and that "the way of consciousness is exactly the way of a river - it goes downwards, following the path of gravitation". "When the master touches the disciple's third eye, if the disciple is available - and that is a great if, which rarely happens - then suddenly a flow of warmth, life, consciousness starts hitting the point which for specific reasons we have called the third eye. It is the point that, if it opens, makes you a seer. Then you can see things about yourself, about others more clearly, more transparently - and your whole life will start changing with this new vision."
However he continued; "I have not used the method of shaktipat for six years because I felt there were some flaws in it. First, the disciple has to be in a lower state than the master -- which I don't like. Nobody is lower here; nobody is higher. The disciple has to be just a receiver. He cannot contribute anything to it. He becomes dependent also, because only when the master touches him does he feel full of energy, full of joy, but not otherwise. Secondly, the very idea of surrender is basically difficult, and to ask for total surrender is to ask for the impossible. We should think in human terms. We are dealing with human beings, we should not ask something which they cannot do. And when they cannot do something and are condemned, they start feeling guilty that they are not open, that they are not totally surrendered, that there are doubts in their mind.[8]
Tips to practice Ramana Maharshi's Self Inquiry
I've heard of self inquiry - how do I do it?
The following contains 4 valuable recommendations to share with those who embark on the remarkable path of Sri Ramana Maharshi's Self Inquiry (also written "Self Enquiry", in Sanskrit: "Atma Vichara"). Those who are not familiar with the Self Inquiry technique can learn about ithere.
(1)
Do it softly, effortlessly, let the I-thought reveal itself, don't push, no effort, peacefully. Effort happens to only do the opposite: it obscures the "I feeling" from your observation with mental noise.
(2)
The "I-thought" is just a name trying to depict this feeling of I that has always accompanied you. It can also be called I-feeling, I-sense. Use whatever label you feel at ease with. It's simply an intimate feeling of I. As you have the mental image representing someone else when you are thinking of him/her, referencing him/her, or being with him/her, you have the same type of mental image within your mind that represents yourself. At the beginning, you might wonder "what the hell do they talk about?" but when you spot it for the first time, and you will, I promise you, wow, you will immediately recognize it as something that has always and constantly been with you intimately in your stream of consciousness, always, hidden there at the bottom of everything. It has presence, it has energy, it has a footmark, it has a "smell", once you spot it consciously, you will find it very easy to track it again, you passed the hard stage of self inquiry.
(3)
At some point, when the "I-thought" is clearly perceived as an object apart of you, the one who senses it, ask yourself softly, calmly, silently: who is the "I" who watches this "I-thought" object? Do not try to analyze or rationally answer the question, just follow the pointer in the feeling that is instantly invoked by the question to feel the new "subject", the new "I" who perceives the previous "I" as an object. Do not hurry to make this move, you will feel when it is time to make the shift. Do it with time over and over again but please, do it softly...
(4)
Each time you observe an "I thought" you break your identification with this "I", you disconnect from this "I" as being part of you. This is the magic of observing (as you cannot observe yourself - if you observe something then it is not you...). Therefore, doing over and over the process in (3) you peal from yourself, from stage to stage, more "I" shadows, from gross "I"s to more subtle "I"s. At some point, after doing the back shifts to the observing "I" over and over as explained in (3), you will find yourself spontaneously abiding in some tranquil center, a reduced observing subject, a minimized "I" in which you could cease observing and just be, just abide in the subject, in the "I Am", not caring or being annoyed by any mental object including any "I thoughts". As a matter of fact, you will notice at this point that no "I thought", no feeling of "I" as an object is presently sensed. You have reached the point of abiding in the self. Just be there. Do not force it or try to articulate how to make it permanent. Just be there. After some time, the mind will take over again, this is natural, do not be frustrated. Return to the practice of (3) over and over. And again, do it softly with no stress or expectations. With practice, you will find it much easier to abide in this state of "I Am" and for longer periods, sometimes directly without even passing through the back shifts of "I"s as described in (3).
Remember: no effort, no expectations, no hurry...
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Fun - Talent Kali Das sings a spiritual comedy about comparing Gurus.....
"Please don't call me spiritual..."
Intelligent discussion (and site) to explore what spirituality means and what it doesn't mean.
http://bit.ly/IERrAf
http://bit.ly/IERrAf
David Lynch and His Foundation
Schoolkids and prisoners, workaholics and spiritual people. Society is benefitting from David's foundation.
http://bit.ly/f5msKQ
Death - Ways to act around someone whos dying - Dealing with Death
10 Apps to Propel our Spiritual Practice.
Doesn't everybody tell us that digital preoccupation is bad for you?
Something good!! (I'm going to add them to my kids' phones!)
http://bit.ly/wotgfc
Something good!! (I'm going to add them to my kids' phones!)
http://bit.ly/wotgfc
REMEMBER:
If everything is in control, you aren't going fast enough. ~ Mario Andretti
Rick Archer of BATGAP says, "We are sense organs of the infinite." ooooo
By PARVATI SHALLOW CBS NEWS January 15, 2015, 5:33 AM
Mindfulness meditation melts away work-related stress
Meditation increases brain size! Harvard Science
This article includes a nice description of what they call "insight meditation," the act of simply noticing.
http://hvrd.me/cuLheo
http://hvrd.me/cuLheo