Mind Over Matter........

Is Ego Necessary??.....

2008-09-24T05:15:00.000-07:00

Ego causes most of the problems we face in dealing with others. Once we get rid of it, our true nature emerges, says John Bendix

To analyse the breakdown of an intimate relationship is a daunting task. Is it worth the effort? No one can answer this except the person caught up in such a circumstance. Even then, no one can be sure if their efforts will give them a better understanding of this complex dynamics. By delving into the connections that people have in their relationships, more mysteries than truths expose themselves. We start to realise the many different lines of communication that are available to each partner. Which ones are used and the manner in which they are used are open to each individual and hence the complexity. There is no formula to predict how a relationship may turn out. But certain truths did present themselves to me. By necessity, i researched all the available data and case histories that dealt with the ‘walk away wife’ phenomenon. I wanted all the information possible to try and figure out why my wife of 21 years wanted out of our marriage. Certain questions kept coming back to me. Did she fall out of love with me just like that? Was it depression, mid-life crisis, hormonal imbalances? Was i looking for reasons or just excuses to explain a sudden marriage break-up? My sons and i were at a loss to come to any cognitive reasons for such irrational events. Then the truth hit me. There were no real answers or solutions on the conscious level of the mind. I had to go beyond the mind of thoughts to the core of the problem, the ego. The ego that the mind creates in order to give it a means to confront the onslaught of the outside world. A world that it feels threatened by. Certainly, fear has its place in the dissolution of relationships, just as it does in most of our activities. I began to sense her fears. Fear of the future, of being inadequate, of time slipping by. I examined my fear of the future, of being alone, of divorce procedures, of isolation from my children or raising them alone. I realised that time, contributes greatly to fear. The past no longer exists except as bits of memory and the future is not here and is only an image in our mind of what might be. The only time that really exists is the present moment. There are as many ways to view the world as there are persons in it. The point of perspective is not how you view it but from where you view it. Through the evolution of the brain of modern man, the mind was created. A mind that is aware of its own thoughts. The mind is also in-charge of protecting the organism it inhabits. Working with the automatic system, which controls involuntary responses and functions, it creates defence mechanisms, which ensure the organism’s survival. To assist in the processing of the stimuli received from the senses and the responses to the outside world, the mind has created what is referred to as the ego. One that is geared to take on the onslaught of the world. It has a defensive nature that is constantly on alert for threats and attacks. The ego interprets the information presented to it by the senses and cognetively assesses them and through the mind, produces thought. These thoughts are then transformed, by the ego, into emotions. Emotions are the body’s response to thoughts. Our emotions arise out of these thoughts. The problems created in man’s responses to world are created by the ego going too far in its nature to perceive what is threatening to the organism and its self. It begins to believe it’s who we really are. A fallacy that creates untold damage to the world it inhabits. By believing itself to be who we are, it will also defend itself against all possible threats. Mental threats such as verbal assault can be viewed by the ego as possibly diminishing its foothold as the self. The thoughts created in response can create emotions such as hostility towards the person verbally attacking it. What real damage can the verbal assault have upon the organism? None, for it is a imagined threat but the ego does not differentiate between real and imagined and still feels threatened. These type of emotions are fed back to the ego who now puts itself on a higher level of threat alertness. A cycle has been created and induces the ego to perceive more and more stimuli as possible threats. That which we train our body and minds to do, can more easily be done. The world is now perceived to be a hostile entity with imagined threats all around us. All of us go through life at a level of threat alertness designed by our own egos. Some do not let such perceived threats dictate their responses while others are ready to take offence to the point of violence. It is the level of dysfunction that we allow the ego to obtain that determines our reactions. A runaway ego may even go to the state of mental paranoia. It is not what is said to us, felt, or thought about us that does harm, it is the ego’s reaction that creates the damage. The ego is in a constant state of self-enhancement to make itself feel more secure. It seeks to acquire more material goods, power, prestige, and so on. The emotional feelings, such as contentment, happiness, and fulfilment, that it receives in feedback from its acquisitions further push the ego to seek more. But just like drug addiction, this feeling is temporary. It is an insatiable thirst. The ego wants more at any cost. However, we can all do something to alleviate this dysfunction. But it cannot be done on the intellectual level. The mind is ill-equipped in this pursuit. By taking notice of how our mind and ego work, we can begin to function at a higher level. From the higher self, we begin to see the world as it really is without the judgmental nature of the mind interfering. The mind differentiates the world into groups with similar attributes, for that is one of its purposes. But the ego goes further and separates them. The higher self sees the world and its different features but does not considerate them as separate entities. It sees the connection that all things share. They are part of the whole all creation. The higher self sees itself as a part of this whole. This underlying truth transforms the way we interact with the world around us. This is the essence of compassion. The deep rooted sense that we are all connected. Who would do harm to someone or something that they know they are connected to or a part of ? My search for answers led me to see that the ego causes most of man’s problems in dealing with one another. When we dispense with the ego, our true nature is brought forth. (John Bendix is a spiritual writer based in the US)

Getting Rid Of Fear....

2008-09-14T20:52:00.000-07:00

Free your mind of fear-based emotions such as anger, hatred or jealousy to make place for love and creativity, says Owen Waters

True freedom is the ability to express who you are... ...through a natural flow of love and creativity. Freedom is first gained within your consciousness. Then, because your outer life always reflects that which is within, you gain freedom in all aspects of your life. Often, much of this potential flow of authentic life experience is reduced by inner blockages. These blockages of the natural flow of love and creativity are formed by the fearbased emotions that come with the challenges of human existence. Fear is the common factor underlying all disharmonious emotions. For example, fear of inadequacy can lead to jealousy and hatred, fear can generate an over-reaction of greed while fear of being overwhelmed by life’s challenges can lead to control issues. Each of us arrives in this world with a life plan, which includes personal and societal issues that we intend to work through during the lifetime. It also includes the location and surroundings of birth, as also the friends and associates that we are likely to meet as life unfolds. The personal and societal issues that we adopt in our lives are generally based upon the consciousness. For example, one issue being worked through these days is equality of the sexes. The old reality demanded separation of the power of the sexes into societies based on either matriarchy or patriarchy. The new reality, into which we are shifting, requires an equality of the sexes; an integration of that which was formerly separated into two. Every woman and every man is now playing some part in this massive societal adjustment towards equality of the sexes. As the purpose of the entire human experience is to work through and transform such issues, it is appropriate that we seek a solution to all of these fear-based issues. When enough people pass through the gateway into freedom of the spirit, then suddenly, the whole world will wonder why it hadn’t seen such an easy solution all along. Society is building up to a critical mass where consciousness will flip from ‘you versus me’ to ‘you and me’, a shift from competition to mutual cooperation. Every day, more and more people are making this shift to heart-powered consciousness. With a little inner work, these individual transitions to the new reality happen sooner and more easily. Inner work primarily means daily meditation. When you make meditation your number one priority each and every day, then you are putting in the time that it takes to transform those societal issues within yourself and to work through your own challenges. During meditation, you also connect to a wider range of your own consciousness. The deeper layers of your own consciousness can provide you with insights that literally catapult you out of issue-based blockages. As you allow these blockages to dissolve into the light of spiritual consciousness, you become free to express your true nature and follow your inner joy. Spiritual study helps adapt your mind to expanded views of reality. Some concepts in spiritual philosophy also help along this journey into freedom of the spirit. For example, love and fear seem to act like two opposite poles of our duality consciousness. From the viewpoint of unity, love is all there is and fear is an illusion that detracts from the natural flow of love through you. Love is a basic component of the consciousness that fills the universe. Love, therefore, is always available and ready to flow naturally through your heart. You don’t have to earn or demand it, just let it flow. Another key philosophy gaining freedom is “Live and let live”. When you allow other people to be the way they are, your energy is not absorbed in anyone’s futile dramas. Instead, you are able to use all of your energy to follow your joy and help make the world a better place. You can recognise, love, and accept the inner essence of every person you know, regardless of their outward behaviour or how much it may seem to need improvement. It is this unconditional love that heals the world, person by person, and there is no shortage of its supply. Acceptance of yourself is also vital. Accept who you are now, unimproved, with your current motivations and be thankful that you are exactly who you are. You planned to adopt a certain package of feelings and circumstances in your journey through life. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with you at any point along the journey. Things that appear to need improvement are challenges, not faults, so enjoy the ride and gain the most from the experiences that you came to explore. Thomas Edison carried out over 6,000 experiments before perfecting the first electric light bulb, but he never referred to any of those experiments as failures. Instead, he called each one a step closer to success. Freedom from fear-based emotions allows true, unconditional love to flow through your heart and true creativity to fill your mind as you pursue your deepest inner joy. When you see fear as the hollow illusion that it is and allow your heart to open to everyone, then your actions are influenced not by fear, but by your unconditional love for the people around you and, equally, for yourself. Unconditionally loving yourself means allowing yourself to develop loving relationships where mutual cooperation, not competition or contention, becomes your daily reality. People’s greatest fears melt away in the face of heart-powered, inner awareness. Your intuitive insight is your connection to the part of your mind that knows each situation, even before it occurs. When you listen to that still, small voice within, you know where you need to be and when. With intuitive insight, you will never become caught up in unfortunate events that are not of your making. For example, if an aircraft is destined to crash, you simply won’t be on it. If you need information to bring yourself back to health, you will know where to find the answers that are the best for you. Even the fear of loneliness will never cloud your heart because, with love in your heart, you will never be left wanting for good company. Love and insight will pour from your heart if you let them. Give yourself the gift of true freedom, the freedom to express who you are through a natural flow of love and creativity. (Owen Waters is the author of ‘The Shift: The Revolution in Human Consciousness’)

Of Body And Soul.......

2008-09-08T01:53:00.000-07:00

A spiritual approach to any pursuit, even as mundane as weight loss, may bring us to a deeper truth, says Trish Whynot

Since each of us is a physical and spiritual being at the same time, everything in our life has a physical and a spiritual aspect to it. Even those things that seem simply physical in nature, such as our bodies, are in truth also spiritual. It makes sense then that if we go deeply into our relationship with our physical self that we will soon find ourselves in the realm of spirit. At the root of everything lies our relationship with God. We find Him wherever we look, even when we look into our bodily self as we struggle with weight. A spiritual approach to any pursuit — even one as seemingly mundane as weight loss — always brings us to a deeper truth. Some people who have an aversion to God are drawn to this deeper truth, while others who profess to be spiritual are secretly avoiding the truth. We can be in denial of the existence of God or of truth, but that doesn’t diminish the existence of either. The crucial thing to realise is that the realm of spirit is the realm of truth. Here, we can’t pretend to be something that we are not — we can’t be in denial of our choices and the fruits they bear. Being brutally honest with ourselves is standing naked before God. As long as we stay hidden in our proverbial clothes or avoid the scale, the truth-teller, we can’t have a close relationship with our creator. God may denote the divine omnipresent energy that touches us every moment of the day. Going deep brings us closer to God because it allows us an opportunity to stand naked before him — open, honest and free of our proverbial clothes (the coverings that come between us and the truth, the various ways we avoid exposing our real selves). This is head-to-toe intimacy with God: naked on the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels. Removing our proverbial clothes is the first step toward total spiritual nakedness. Through meditation, we can invite God to bear witness. Here we can reveal the details of what happened (physical), how it felt (emotional), the story we told ourselves about the incident based on our past experience (mental), why we attracted the situation and exposure of that old wound for healing and growth (spiritual). Standing naked before God is inviting God to touch us — with wisdom, understanding, healing, joy. Let God offer healing where there were wounds and bring understanding where there was confusion. If seeking truth brings me closer to God, then avoiding truth separates me from Him. To continue with the allegory of weight gain, the guilt many people feel around weight gain is often really anger toward themselves—making them feel even worse about themselves. The guilty person can then either continue to avoid the scale (to avoid facing the truth). Feeling bad created the weight in the first place, and feeling worse just adds more weight. The person is literally weighed down with guilt. We are ready to face the scale when we are ready to own our choices and the results of those choices, forgive ourselves, have compassion, and make changes in how we live and cope. Let this issue become an opportunity to learn, heal and grow. Once the intention has been set to address the message brought forth by excess weight, identify and embrace the universe’s response to your request. Our prayers are always answered, but there is no shortcut to permanent transformation. Transformation requires effort and discipline. It is fulfilling and rewarding on every level from physical to spiritual. Let’s see Mrs X’s case: Physical truth: Mrs X’s most urgent truth was that she was making poor eating choices. Emotional truth: Acknowledging this truth led her to her next truth: that she eats for comfort when she is stressed. It was necessary for her to face the things that triggered her stress, allow herself to experience the stressful emotions she was escaping and learn to process them. Mental truth: This brought her to memories of verbal abuse that had stripped her of her self-esteem. Spiritual truth: Once we lifted the veil of shame and pain the belief had created, she saw the low self-esteem of her perpetrators and that she had been their scapegoat. The wound was exposed. She had been blamed for the worthlessness of others and had carried it as her own. She also saw that she was abusing herself with food. She had designated her body as her scapegoat. Standing naked before herself and God she requested love, forgiveness and healing. She saw the truth and was able to forgive her perpetrators for how their pain had come through them and onto her. She emerged more loved, and empowered with wisdom, understanding and compassion that she can thrive on. This is fulfillment at its best. When we let go of false beliefs about ourselves, space is opened in our hearts and minds for God to fill with love and truth. We no longer need extra sweets to make up for a lack of affection, fatty foods to cushion potential blows from abuse, or carbs to stifle our passion. We see our feelings as fuel for growth and healing and learn how to use them to experience God at work in our lives. Walking this path allows us to witness how our relationship with our world is divinely orchestrated based on our intentions rather than random and chaotic as we once thought. We can adopt new eating habits that nurture our new state of being. Once the real issues are addressed, eating healthily is easy and fun because there is no longer a purpose to unhealthy eating choices. And if we do find ourselves in some other struggle in the future, we know that it is just a heads-up from the universe, a signal that it is time to confront a truth that will bring us into even deeper intimacy with ourselves and God. When we make choices based on fear or shame, we are likely to avoid God, the source of truth and light, just as we avoid the scale. We don’t want him to see us; we flee from the truth as we avoid facing up to our own behaviour, whether it’s late night snacking or secret stashes of junk food. We tell ourselves we’ll talk to God when we are in a better place, just as we postpone pursuing our desires (buying that dress, seeking that relationship) until we lose a little weight. But avoiding the truth just prolongs our agony while it immobilises us. (Trish Whynot is a holistic counsellor in Middleton, US)

The Joy Of Effortless Living.....

2008-09-08T01:48:00.000-07:00

Rajiv Vij

While attending the intermediate course of paragliding many years ago, i remember taking a short flight from the top of a 600-feet cliff and truly loving it. I recall marveling at the effortlessness of the 45-second flight – before gravity took over – and wondering how some of the experienced paragliders managed to stay up in the air for hours. As i learnt, it was their ability, like the migratory birds, to find progressive air thermals that allowed them to stay up and even travel long distances, sometimes up to a thousand kilometres. Were those long flights enervating for them? Never, they were always effortless and exhilarating, as they soared, in complete harmony with nature. Comparing that scenario to the way we live our lives, i often wonder why there is so much struggle to our existence. There appears to be this constant underlying stress all around us and the innumerable choices that we are surrounded with — products, services, careers, gadgets, leisure and so on — instead of empowering us, leave us feeling deprived. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could find a way to make our lives more effortless, balanced, and peaceful? A way to free ourselves from our daily dilemmas to creating a life where making choices were much easier, where we experienced minimal effort to move forward, and where we were fully supported by nature in all our pursuits. The key to this lies in gaining clarity about the purpose of our own existence. Why are we here and what are are we aiming to do? I do believe each one of us on earth is hugely gifted and has a special purpose — but do we take the time to discover it in ourselves; or are we just on a treadmill of activity going almost nowhere? Do you want to be more successful or do you want to make a more significant contribution? Do you want more money or greater happiness? What’s the role of family and friends in our life? What’s our commitment to community and environment? If you had to make a real choice, what’s that one thing that you would like your life to be about? On your deathbed, what is it that you would feel most proud about your life? I have reflected a lot on this and coached a number of people on this. Interestingly, some of the most powerful statements of purpose tend to revolve around an absolute and an inner goal — absolute in that they are not set relative to others and inner in that their progress is not measurable by external parameters of evaluation like career, money, fame, achievement. Examples would include statements like, “I want to be always happy”, or “want to lead a meaningful balanced life”, or “want to give back to society”, or “want to leave a legacy”. Many a times, they also include a component that is focused on others — “I want to be happy and want to make others around me happy”. As you think deeply about your purpose and begin to anchor your life around it, you may well be surprised with the wonderful direction your life may effortlessly begin to take. At a deeper level, we can comprehend the notion of purpose, and creating this joyful existence, in two dimensions — consider that we have two types of purpose in our lives. There’s the external purpose and then there’s the core purpose. The external purpose of living is the roles we choose in our lives — the roles at work and in our relationships; whether we want to be a business owner, an artist, a scientist, a tennis player, or a homemaker. Also, our role as a parent, as a child, and as a friend. Additionally, it includes our varied personal interests and pursuits. Often we build such strong identification with these roles that we lose perspective of our core purpose. That’s when the relentless pursuit of these external goals causes us to struggle and doesn’t seem to provide us with that illusory happiness, balance, and peace. What we really need then is a stronger alignment of our external goals with our true core purpose. The core purpose, it appears, may well be the same for all of us — to circle around undertaking the inner journey of self-realisation; to build greater selfawareness and deeper understanding of who we essentially are; to conquer our fears and anxieties and eventually to transcend ourselves. Once we make it the central theme of whatever we do, the notions of happiness, balance, and legacy are no longer illusory. As they say, “It does not matter what you do, but how you do it”. Once we embrace this purpose, it reflects in how we conduct ourselves in whatever we do – at work or in relationships. We are then less focused on how far we reach in achieving the external goals in life, but more on enjoying the inner journey of being on the right path. It provides us a higher meaning in everything. For a tennis player, it’s the difference between wanting to win a grand slam and being driven by the purpose of inspiring greatness among millions of fans and tennis players. For a writer, it could be between a desire to be famous and her purpose of helping innumerable readers experience their powerful inner emotions.

Knot just friends......

2008-08-03T23:10:00.000-07:00

Tying the knot with your best friend may sound unrealistic and filmy; After Hours tells you more about this wonderful relation

Shehzad Poonawalla

He keeps your deepest secrets. She laughs at your silly jokes. Both of you share each others joys and sorrows, triumphs and defeats. The idea that best friends can fall in love and make the relationship work is more common in reel than in real life. Look at Chandler and Monica in Friends or Sally and Harry in the When Harry Met Sally. Although this sounds romantic and mushy, is it realistic?
“Friendship perhaps is the best bond one can have but falling in love with your best friend can be a tricky proposition. You dont know if he loves you too and it involves the risk of ruining a good friendship,” says student Preeti Sahay. Entrepreneur Vishal Trivedi, who was dating his best friend says, “Being best friends with a girl and then dating her are completely different things. Suddenly you realise that you cannot be as open as before and the possessive streak comes in too.” Agreeing with Vishal, model Shriya Kishore says, “Any relationship requires maturity but more so in case of best friends, because you know intimate details about each others past. One has to be careful not to mention anything in the present relationship or you may end up hurting and losing both, your lover and your best friend.”
Jatin and Ushma Agarwal, are one of these, who have been best friends for fifteen years and are happily married now. Ushma and her twin Urvi met Jatin at an engineering college and soon the trio formed their own little group. While Jatin is the hardcore party animal who took each day as it came, Ushma was totally the opposite. In fact, Urvi and Jatin got along much better than they ever did. “But it was during Urvis wedding that we started feeling a void and really discovered each others friendship,” says Jatin. “Although, everyone else thought we were meant for each other, the idea of walking down the aisle with my best friend had never crossed my mind,” says Ushma.
But as time passed their friendship blossomed into love and in December 2006 they tied the knot. And have the equations changed since then? “Well, not really. We are still best friends who love each other. He loves adventure sports and music. I love fashion and family affairs. So we do a bit of everything,” says Ushma, who feels that the recent blockbuster Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na is quite similar to her story.
Being best buddies has been an advantage for the duo. They know everything about each other and find it easier to communicate. They just love each others company yet they are conscious about intruding on each others private space. And isnt it this compatibility between friends that everyone looks for in a relationship too? “It sure is. I wanted someone who would plan my future and take care of my home and who better to do it than my best friend.”

The Art Of Being Present.......

2008-07-21T02:48:00.000-07:00

There is an awakeness that comes from a clear mind, unobscured by wandering thoughts and preoccupations, and there is an awakeness that comes from a clear heart, willing to engage with life as gift and as an everunfolding revelation of the purpose of creation.
Such an awakened heart can’t respond indifferently to life because it sees the outstretched hand of the creator at every turn and in every particle of experience.
It cannot turn away from feeling, no matter what feelings may occur, because it perceives emotional depth as the great gift of individualized consciousness. This gift stirs the response of individualized life to the source of life as it displays itself in all living things.
To be awake and present is to take responsibility for noticing — for maintaining an intimate connection between the self that is, and the rest of the world that is. It is to know that within the domain of this relationship lies a profound revelation of the source of all within every gesture, every interaction, and every experience that takes place. It is to perceive the sacred in every moment.
In today’s overscheduled world, being continuously busy is sometimes a necessity but often a choice based on the drive for outer success, wealth, and the symbols of what is often taken to be a ‘life worth living’.
Being busy, as opposed to having time ‘on one’s hands’, is perceived by many as a testimony to a life that has merit, purpose, and meaning.
By contrast, idle hands — hands that remain receptive rather than active in relation to time, suggest that time is being wasted — that one could do more, achieve more, accomplish more. No matter if these hands are connected with one’s heart and with the heart of the world. For many, it is only the visible ‘doing’ of things that creates a sense of security and lets us know that time has meaning. The existence of a space of silence in which awareness can broaden is often not considered a gain. Nor is simply being here, responsive to the very air we breathe, considered a virtue.
Is it any wonder, then, that we, as a collective humanity, have forgotten the sacred art of being present, that we have placed ‘noticing’ on the back burner of experiential values. And what would we notice if we took the time to do so?
In order to answer this question, it is helpful to sit in one place, breathing quietly, eyes somewhat unfocused, listening, seeing, sensing. Though one can do this profitably in a bare room, it is easier, at first, to sit in an environment where there is just a little movement present. Now, close the eyes and pay attention to the other senses. Feel the comforting fabric of surrounding life as if it were an envelope or cocoon, gently cradling one’s essential self. Notice everything without discrimination, without opinion. Try to feel the intimacy of connection with what is.
Spending time for a few minutes each day being awake and noticing is a good way to begin the practice of being present. It is a good way to begin to expand one’s idea of what constitutes a meaningful life. And yet more than this is needed if one is to truly embrace what is, and to be ‘present in the present’. What is needed is the greater opening of the heart to the one self that exists within all.
This perception of unity and oneness has an opportunity to grow at any moment in which we interact with another soul. It is nourished by an absence of judgement and by a willingness to be open to the deeper levels of who that other might be. Such openness comes from a state of innocence and of childlike grace. It comes from knowing that the ‘other’ is part of the same ‘all that is’ as oneself, therefore of one heart, one breath, one life.
The gift of being present as it applies to relationships is that it brings love to every interaction, no matter how small or insignificant. It brings the divine into every perception, no matter how ordinary. And it brings gratitude into each moment as it unfolds.
As a sense of being present deepens and one’s capacity to notice flowers, the deep richness of life and of love can be found everywhere and separation nowhere. In this state, one senses only the one who lives within all. One feels the essence within every other. Here, consciousness can only affirm the greater life of which it is a part:
I am and you are. We are both of the stars and of the dust of the earth. We are both of the rocks and of the sandy shores. We are water and we are sky; we are earth, and we are air. We are the breath that life breathes through itself, in a single and continuous song of creation.
(Julie Redstone is a writer, teacher and founder of a spiritual centre for healing and transformation)

To Whom Do You Pray....

2008-07-15T22:42:00.001-07:00

Joshua Eric Bryel

This question is more important than most think. The answer will colour all your experience. Those who answer that they do not pray are mistaken, for they do not realize what prayer is and the extent and power of it has in their lives.
Classically, prayer is, in essence, an act of communication. One communicates one’s desires to, presumably, some source deity who has power over his life or pow er to help him. Prayer is also an act of com munion with the source for expression of gratitude and reverence, deemed neces sary or recommended by the source, and for the reception of guidance or other sorts of upliftment and inspiration.
Continuing to define prayer by asso ciated meanings, the word “communi cate” means to connect, to join, in effect to become one. In prayer, there is always a desire to be aligned with the source to which we pray. To align with one’s deity is deemed ultimately desirable, if not im mediately beneficial. In this age of spir itual renewal, we are constantly work ing to align and attune ourselves with an ideal or an energy or some sort of great spirit that will bless our lives, and which many consider to be our true self.
Yet without realizing the real nature and extent of the act of prayer, many of us are sabotaging just that goal.
In the many books and workshops available on spiritual practices and tech niques, prayer is often highly recom mended. There are many related prac tices that are defined as forms of prayer such as dancing, drumming, singing artworks, rituals, even writing a prayer on a piece of paper or cloth and hanging it in the breeze. There is also a practice described involving what is called “con stant prayer”, which sounds like quite challenge considering the requirements of everyday life. Yet it is precisely this form of prayer that is the subject of this article. Whether you realize it or not, you are in constant prayer.
As I said above, prayer is essentially communication, and in this soup of con sciousness we live in, our every thought
communicates to everyone and everything around us. It communicates our beliefs and desires and fears and loves and hates Nothing is private and nothing is hidden It is widely accepted in our age of renewal that the state of consciousness affects every element of life. Yet more to my point is the fact that just whom we are trying to communicate our desires to, con sciously or unconsciously, moment by mo ment, is not fully realized.
What I am getting at is the fact that whenever you try to please someone, and are for some ego-based reason not being true to yourself, you are literally pray ing to them, attuning to them, and try ing to become like them in order to please them and get their blessing – or at least be left in relative peace. The moment to moment content of our minds and hearts and the acts that result, are this prayer It never ends. What we are is a constant song of prayer, alignment and attune ment to someone, and usually it is to someone who can neither hear nor help
Why do people neglect this true source within? Because of the persisting idea of there being powers outside of them One has to decide that false is false and that there is no separation: that all pow er is united within, and all that appears around one is an extension of one’s be ing. We have held back out of fear. The idea of guilt and self-denial is founded on this fear, and the source of fear is the idea of separation, of some other power being able to affect us in a way we don’ prefer. Yet if you decide your conscious ness is the source and generator of your existence, and that your aligned con sciousness is the divine source, you will know you have all the power that can ever affect your experience.
Involved in the confusion are the il logic and conflicts of our egos, all based on the idea of separation. If attunement means oneness with the source, we can say that prayer is an act of becoming one Then why do we pray to those we stead fastly hold separate from us?
We pray for approval, for validation for permission, for forgiveness — all from outside “sources” that have no real pow er over us or to help.
Prayer must recognize oneness as fact, for to perceive separation is to cre ate it, and power to create is always pro jected in the idea of separation. Teach ings such as “Seek ye the kingdom of Heaven within” speak to us of the source being the divine light of our own true self Attunement to our limitless inner truth cannot but bring us all the happiness for which we have been praying.
“To thine own self be true, for it must follow as the night the day that thou can’st not then be false to any man.” The ulti mate of prayer is, therefore, the recogni tion of our oneness with divine will and with all love and power, and via this route with all those we perceived as separate.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’ be a victim and a master – and you can’ be a victim at all. This is the key to free dom through constant aligned prayer.

Morality is Natural....

2008-07-15T22:41:00.001-07:00

There are enough scientific studies to show that moral law is inborn in humans, not God-given, writes David E Comings

The idea that man needs God to tell us how to behave morally, to be kind and thoughtful towards our fellow man, to aid others without any promise of benefit to ourselves, is a central tenet of most religions. To emphasize the point, we are told that if we do not obey God’s moral law, we will spend an eternity in hell while if we do obey the moral code, we will spend an eternity of bliss in heaven.
Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health is the head of the Human Genome Project responsible for sequencing the three billion base pairs of the human genome. In 2007, this eminent scientist wrote a book titled ‘The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief ’. He recounts that in his early years as a scientist, he was an atheist but one day, he had an epiphany and came to believe that man could not be a moral animal without the aid of a god given moral law. As a result of this realization, he became of person of faith.
This epiphany blew me away because although he was a geneticist, he found the extensive genetic evidence that altruism was an inborn genetic trait unconvincing. He also believed that while the development of all other living organisms on earth was the result of Darwinian evolution, the evolution of man was special and was guided by the hand of God.
Surveys have shown that most scientists, especially those in the field of the biological and genetic sciences, are non-theists, partly because they so strongly believe that Darwinian evolution was responsible for the origin of the species, including man. As a fellow geneticist, I was surprised that this eminent scientist was both disavowing the decades of research into the genetics of altruism and proposing that humans were so unique that God was required to guide the evolution of humans. This was uncomfortably close to the tenants of the Intelligent Design creationists.
I wish to just address the issue of altruism as an inborn genetic trait. Altruism is defined as aiding another individual while incurring personal costs to oneself. For example, if I jump into a raging river to save my son from drowning, I place myself at risk of drowning. This behaviour of being kind and helpful to others is a central tenet to of Christian thought, the golden rule, con sisting of treating others, as you would like to be treated.
One of the best examples of al truism in the animal kingdom is the behaviour of sterile worker honey bees who sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the queen bee. Darwin was quite concerned about altruism, fear ing that it seemed to directly con tradict his theory of survival of the fittest, thus allowing better genes to be passed on to the next generation. Worker bees are sterile and thus, derive no direct benefit for their altruistic acts and cannot pass on their genes. Dar win’s solution to this apparent con tradiction of this theory was to sug gest that the survival benefit did not always have to apply to the individ ual — it could also apply to the rela tives of the individual. Thus, a ster ile worker bee helping the queen to survive would help guarantee the preservation of the genes of the whole family. This became known as the ‘kin selection’ theory. As if his general theory of the evolution of the species were not enough of a problem for religions to swallow, Darwin was now suggesting that selfsacrificial behaviour, generally considered only to be within the purview of religion, was also biologically controlled and could occur in animals was well as humans.
The controversial issues of the genetics and evolution of altruism were addressed by some of the most brilliant and famous mathematical geneticists of the 20th century, including JBS Haldane, Ronald Fisher and Sewell Wright. Wright provided the field of population genetics with the term r, referring to the degree of genetic relatedness between relatives. For example, fathers and sons and brothers and sisters share half of their genes in common producing an r = 1/2. Grandfathers and grandchildren share 1/4 of their genes in common producing an r = 1/4.
However, it was a naturalist and student of economics, William Hamilton, who in 1963 published the equation that provided a framework for understanding the genetics and evolution of altruism. Hamilton was both a naturalist and a student of economics. The latter provided him with an appreciation of cost-benefit analysis. Hamilton’s famous equa tion was r x b > c, where b is the ben efit accrued by the relatives for an altruistic act and c is the cost of the altruistic act. Thus, if a father saved his son from drowning, the odds that his son would be saved (benefit) must be twice the odds that the father would drown (cost) for the altruistic act to genetically benefit the family The rearranged equation would be b > 2c (the benefit must be greater than twice the cost).
Inherent in the equation is the fact that the closer the relationship be tween the individuals involved in the altruistic act, the higher the r, and thus the greater the benefit to the family. This process that Hamilton defined mathematically was termed “kin selection” for its implications for evolution and natural selection Examples of altruistic behaviour ad hering to Hamilton’s equation have been described in a wide range of an imals including mammals.
Subsequent work involving the concepts of reputation and punish ment in societies has expanded the role of altruism in humans to include unrelated individuals in both small and large groups. These studies sug gest a selective advantage for altru ism involving not only small kin ships, but also larger societal groups Brain imaging studies indicate that cooperative behaviours that benefit the group, can activate pleasurable reward pathways, thus making al truism a pleasurable act.
Combined, the aggregate of these studies suggests that man is a moral and mutually cooperating animal not because God dictated the laws of moral behaviour, but because the genes for such behaviour were se lected for and evolved over time These behaviours were advantageous to early societal groups and indi viduals and groups displaying such behaviours were more likely to sur vive than those who did not. Moral law is inborn, not God given.
(David E Comings, author of Did Man Create God?, is a physician, hu man geneticist and neuroscientist)

How Happy Are You?

2008-07-03T03:05:00.000-07:00

Being happy depends not so much on external circumstances as on your inner life, says Tony Wilkinson

Are you the happiest person you know? Not necessarily the luckiest, richest, or most successful, just the happiest?
If not, why not? Most people will reel off their current worries — the job, the kids, the car, the price of fish. I don’t mean to sweep these aside: problems need to be solved, if you can, or waited out until they disappear. But as far as living happily is concerned you have to face a crucial fact. If you can only live happily after all your problems are solved, you are never going to live happily, because when today’s problems are gone and forgotten, others will take their place. So either living happily is just impossible, or you have to do it in spite of your problems.
Being happy depends not so much on external circumstances as on your inner life. This means all your thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, emotions, desires, dreams — your entire mental and emotional scene. Happiness is about how you react inwardly to events, what you think and believe, how you feel, how problems affect you. It may sound obvious, but like many obvious things it’s something that is often forgotten when it matters most. We focus almost exclusively on our external lives, on getting and spending and having fun, and then wonder why we are not happy. But it’s when our inner lives are tranquil that we are happiest and we call this inner peace.
So how is inner peace to be achieved? Is it a question of religion, perhaps, or yoga? These can certainly help but only if they have a positive effect on your inner life. The difficulty is that inner life is based on patterns and habits — some you were born with, most you have acquired. You don’t choose, occasion by occasion, how you respond inside when something happens. This happens and you feel angry; that happens you feel sad; you pass the patisserie and you feel hungry; you hear a tune or smell a certain scent and it reminds you of a particular time or person? Things produce a response without you thinking about it or choosing how you feel, and they don’t necessarily leave you with inner peace. So the trick is to break the pattern. You can’t completely avoid problems, but you can change how you react to them by acquiring new habits that provoke peaceful inner responses. Training your inner life into different habits requires learning skills of thinking, feeling, and managing your beliefs and desires. These are very like the virtues many religions and philosophies advocate, but if you think of them as skills rather than virtues, you benefit from an important and liberating shift. Instead of “I must become a better person” you can think “I would live more happily if i worked on my skills”, so the change in attitude becomes a choice, not a duty. And to these remedial skills i’ve added an extra set of enjoyment skills, otherwise getting happier could turn out a very depressing affair.
This process is not something you can do overnight, it’s a whole new way of life, but the reward is what we all want most — happiness. There are five main skills you need to cultivate.
Mindfulness: Borrowed from Buddhism, this involves developing your ability to focus your thoughts in the present. The problem most of us have with thought is having too much of it — the worrying and nonstop mental chattering our minds are prone to. Mindfulness is a key inner skill because, as it gets stronger, it lets you focus on your own inner life and catch your habits in the act. Once you can see how you are ruled by them, the change you are seeking often happens of its own accord.
Compassion: Most religions rightly stress compassion. As well as being a virtue in its own right it is a practical skill that counteracts negative emotions like anger and hatred, which are terrible wreckers of happiness. Try it the next time someone annoys you: put yourself in their place and ask yourself what they might they be thinking or feeling to behave like that. Even bad people, let alone people who just mildly annoy you, often have a warped or mistaken view of the world which makes them do what they do. Wars are started and atrocities committed, for example, because someone decides that this is what their God wants. It doesn’t mean they should get away with their actions, in fact it may be necessary to take strong action to defend yourself.
Story skills: These are very useful for problems with your inner belief system, as they let you stand back and explore alternative versions of reality. Beliefs have great power over your life because a belief is something you take as fact. Start to think of your beliefs as stories, and it is easier to accept that other things might be true as well, or even instead. Even true stories only select the little bit of reality we are focusing on at the moment: no one story is the whole truth about any situation. From a different point of view we would see a different story, sometimes a whole different world. This is not about make believe, it’s about reframing situations to look at them from a different perspective.
Letting-go techniques: These are particularly helpful when we are unhappy not getting what we want. Generally, we are encouraged to keep wanting and to think that more will make us happier, whether it’s clothes or cars or even love. But wanting is a treadmill: as long as you have unsatisfied wants and desires you won’t be at peace, so to be happy you either have to satisfy all your desires, or let go of some of them. Letting-go skills also include forgiveness, which helps hugely if one of the things you think you want is revenge.
Enjoyment skills: This last group includes skills such as patience, humour and, especially, gratitude. You don’t have to be grateful to someone, it’s enough to cultivate gratitude for things. Our minds naturally scan the environment for dangers and resources, a useful mechanism when we were hunter-gatherers. But it can make us unnecessarily pessimistic — focusing on the 10% we lack rather than the 90% we have. Cultivating enjoyment skills will help redress the balance.
Acquiring all these skills takes time and effort. The important thing is to practise them until they operate without you thinking about them. Your practice routine will be very individual, because everyone needs to prioritise different skills depending on the specific issues that are holding them back from being happy, but keep the skills in mind and you will constantly find new ways to try them out.

Doorway to a new Life......

2008-07-02T01:13:00.000-07:00

E Raymond Rock

When everything is taken away from us, we become grounded in reality very quickly. A sage was once asked why he was so happy, he responded, “I have nothing left to lose!” Being grounded in reality happens in that split second when we know all is lost; a moment before the car crash, a moment after the diagnosis.
The reality we then face is quite different from the daydreams of our everyday illusions. The fanciful images that we had previously projected into our idyllic lives melt away when we come face-to-face with certain disaster. There is something we can learn here, because many times, the result of a traumatic experience is that we come out of it a changed person, and the changes are usually for the better. New vistas open up for us, and we find ourselves and our interests somehow strangely altered. We actually become happier. There are times in our lives when we do things and don’t know why, and although these things may appear foolish to our friends, we feel compelled to do them nonetheless. Sometimes these things involve letting go of something very dear to us, and we can hardly believe what we are doing. This can be a crushing experience, yet we do it. Just when things are going swimmingly, there is sometimes an underlying urge to cancel everything out.
In the East, a tradition exists where people pile all of their belongings into a boat, sail out to sea, and dump them every seven years. If one followed this tradition, think of how careful one might be in what one purchased!
In addition, how aggressive would we be in making money? Maybe we would forget about money and do what we love for a change. That would certainly produce some happiness. If our karma is good, however, so good that we are protected from disasters, we might need to become proactive in causing our own disasters—to help things along. Great men in the past have done just that; Christ lived as a homeless beggar; the Buddha left royalty behind to live in rags in the forest for six years, seeking
and finding enlightenment. Foolishness? Perhaps, but who has affected the history of the world more than these two men have?
In essence, what the Buddha and Christ were saying is that until the bottom drops out of your life, you will continue to love your life.
True happiness is that Reality we touch when all is lost. Money, love, family; these are all caught within the web of existence; and existence is nothing but stress compared to this Reality.
Existence has three characteristics, three laws of the universe, and they are that 1) everything changes. 2) life is stress. 3) no “self ” stands behind life. Reality, on the other hand, has never been born, will never die, does not come from a previous condition, and has the characteristics of eternity and unchanging ness. The three characteristics of existence are unassailable, and while we remain caught in them, we can never be truly happy although we try to convince ourselves otherwise.
Look into your own heart and see what is true. It is only when life is taken away for a brief moment, when we escape momentarily from existence and touch that reality that we cannot speak about, only then is true happiness possible. The miracle is that just touching this reality for a brief moment is enough to change our experience of life into one of happiness.
Everything that we think will make us happy, all that they tell us to accomplish, to be ambitious about, and to compete for, never does so for long. If none of this makes any sense to you, then you must continue seeking happiness in the things of the world.
If for some reason seeking happiness in the world does not work for you, in the long run, then there are things that you can do to ease yourself into a reality where happiness is assured.
By easing yourself into this reality, you are not required to give things up in a violent fashion; they fall away by themselves. If you ever become serious about real happiness, weary of temporary happiness slipping through your fingers time and again, then go after the missing element.
The missing element is emptiness, and there is a good way, a gradual way, and a certain way to bring this element into your life. Emptiness is the doorway to a new life, and the doorway to emptiness is meditation.

Why You Should Forgive.....

2008-07-02T00:59:00.000-07:00

Concepts of right and wrong are not based upon any specific truth, but upon the perception of the moment, says David Nlmes

Have you ever forgiven anyone? You may quickly say ‘Yes’, which indicates you still remember the issue, which means it is not totally forgotten...and so therefore, it is not truly forgiven. We say we forgive, but we rarely do. We ‘excuse’, we ‘permit’, we ‘look past’, we ‘understand’, we ‘learn to live with’, but we never really forgive. We simply exchange our dislike of an event with the hope of returning to more pleasant times.What then, would you have to do to forgive? Is it possible to forgive while not totally forgetting the problem that created the reason for forgiveness in the first place? How do you forgive? How do I forgive?
To understand why total forgiveness seems almost impossible, or at least, very difficult, we need to ask why we value the concept of forgiveness in the first place. We need to look at what motivates us to either run from it or embrace it depending upon which end of the problem we see ourselves in. Let’s tear apart the whole concept of forgiveness and look at it the way it is.
What triggers the need to forgive or to be forgiven? Having done something wrong, you will experience the sensation of guilt. It might not happen immediately and it may take some time, but once you have done something wrong, the door is open for you to eventually feel guilty about it. The understanding of guilt is totally necessary for you to be on either side of the forgiving exchange. Now, having embraced the concepts of doing a ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ thing and then associating them with guilt, this opens the door for multiple levels of forgiveness to exist. For example, once the wrong deed has occurred, an opportunity suddenly appears for somebody to forgive you, and you can also forgive yourself.
What triggers the sensation of guilt? Somewhere, we were taught that certain things were ‘right’ and certain things were ‘wrong’. Later, we then create connections to events we experience and use our past examples of right and wrong to inform us of whether our actions or the actions of the people around us are proper. In time, we can easily see who has done something wrong and we know they are guilty and should admit to their crime and admit they are guilty. This then opens the door for us to forgive them and for them to forgive themselves. Our society and many religious structures look upon guilt as a mighty and necessary force that is used to help us maintain an orderly society. It can be difficult seeing how our world could exist without us taking turns being either the receiver or the distributor of guilt. What else could possibly motivate anyone to change? What if you were taught about right and wrong, in error? Imagine being in a country where it is ‘wrong’ for a woman to show her face in public. Imagine a situation where it is ‘wrong’ to cross the boundary from one country to another when you are not welcome.
Imagine a moment where it is ‘wrong’ to kill another person. Imagine a moment where it is ‘wrong’ to purposely exceed the speed limit while driving. Imagine being in a country where it is ‘not wrong’ for a woman to show her face in public. Imagine a situation where it is ‘not wrong’ to cross the boundary from one country to another because you are welcome. Imagine a moment where it is ‘not wrong’ to kill another person who is attacking you. Imagine a moment where it is ‘not wrong’ to purposely exceed the speed limit while driving, so that lives may be saved.
These examples clearly show how something that is ‘wrong’ in one instance, is ‘not wrong’ in another instance, which means our concepts of right and wrong are not based upon any specific truth, but solely upon the perception of the moment. With this being the case, ‘being right’ or ‘being wrong’ are totally transient in the eye of the beholder and have no absolute state of being. Truth is eternal and unchangeable, so from an eternal and unchangeable spiritual point of view, this means the whole concept of right and wrong is not real and simply does not exist.
What if you never did anything wrong? If the concept of ‘right and wrong’ is not a solid spiritual truth, since they change with perception, then these concepts are neither seen, nor experienced and they aren’t true. When we say somebody is wrong we are viewing things from an extremely narrow and erroneous perception. So, if there is nothing ‘wrong’ with killing, should we just let the world run amok with violence and terror and do nothing to stop it? In a perfect world, you would not fear that you had to stop it, but likewise, in a perfect world, the concept of ‘wrong’ or ‘fear’ would not exist in the first place and no threats would be perceived. To understand the concept it would be helpful to see that all improper behaviour and events are mistakes that occur due to our perception of an act.
Instead of using the perception tainted variables of to judge ourselves and others, let’s instead look at improper events simply as ‘mistakes’. For example, if I were on a train to Philadelphia and happened to mention to a fellow passenger about how excited I was to be heading for Chicago, it would be obvious to this man that I had made a mistake and had gotten on the improper train. This does not make me bad. This does not require any sensation of guilt and this does not require forgiveness.
All this requires is that I get off that train and get on the proper train. When the fellow passenger informs me of my mistake, he has not judged me, but is simply informing me of an error I have made. Since I have done nothing wrong, there is no reason to associate guilt or fear with what he tells me. Being open for truth, I will not feel attacked and I will feel no need to defend my mistake. Instead, I will be happy and thankful to the passenger for helping me see and undo the mistake.
Truth frees because there is no judgment of any kind and it eliminates the need to be forgiven. Likewise, guilt binds because it is dependent upon judgment and it requires your need to be forgiven.
All concepts and origins of guilt, sin, right, wrong, etc, are of our own making and are based upon fear. Only our mistaken perceptions have created these concepts, which are e not true. They are simply errors of thinking.
To change your course, all you need to do is to be open to see where you may be mistaken and then and it will heal your perception of this world and of yourself. There is really nothing at all to forgive in the first place.

Walk In The Rain

2008-04-24T04:20:00.000-07:00

As we embrace the gentle rain and the small sprinklings of life, we prepare ourselves by learning the lessons the heavens give us at the perfect time, and place, says Marlene Buffa

The rain in our life brings opportunities for growth. Be still sad heart and cease repining; Behind the clouds the sun is shining, Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life a little rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary. — Longfellow
Whenever it rains, i am reminded of what my father always said. “You won’t get wet. Just run in between the raindrops, and you will be just fine.” I also think of that saying when life rains down hard on me and i wonder how to dodge the drops, then, too. Daddy’s gentle and humorous confidence that life always worked out for the best instilled in me the same optimism and joyful outlook on life.
When we realise that the inevitable rain showers come and go in our lives no matter how much we try to avoid the dampness of the moment, we find comfort and a sense of content understanding when we look behind the clouds of circumstance and know the sunshine of possibility never left our world.
Life lessons, like the rain in our lives, offer us both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. We recognise that life’s challenges, much like precipitation, bring opportunities for growth, but only when the soil of our consciousness absorbs the lesson.
If we put up umbrellas of protection from the majesty of life falling down on us, we negate the possibility of receiving new information and therefore, deny progression towards our greater good. Yet, if we look up to the sky and willingly allow the inevitable rain to reach us, we may indeed get wet in the torrent of blessings disguised as a dark cloud teaching us valuable lessons.
Only when we walk in the rain, with its glorious thunder and lighting and life-sustaining water, do we embrace the possibility of moving through it and accepting the blessings it brings. When it rains, it pours. I live in the desert southwest of the United States. When i first arrived, over 13 years ago, and the sunshine welcomed me over 300 days each year, i felt cheated if overcast skies darkened my mood. It took a while, but now i welcome the cloud cover, with anticipation that it may provide life-giving rain to our arid landscape. Many times, the high clouds, filled with water, unleash their cache of moisture into the atmosphere, and we still don’t get rainfall.
At times in our lives, we experience drought or downpour. We complacently go from day to day, enjoying our bliss. All the while, somewhere, the rain builds, but it avoids hitting us directly. We see the accumulation of problems and feel the residual effects of the gathering storm, but we don’t experience the outburst directly. And then, when the skies open up and problems pour down on us, we use different methods, like prayer or coping mechanisms, to assist us in redirecting the conflict away from us, for a better use. Like weather, does God give us an all or nothing presentation of life's challenges? Sometimes, it seems that way.
Unlike a waterfall, rain falls to earth in droplets. One little lesson at a time, we feel soaked in life’s education, yet we must remember what’s in between the drops themselves. My father’s gentle advice to run in between the drops meant that while we experience the downpour of life, the way to cross the street to a sunny side of positive outcome, is to take advantage of those brief moments and spaces in time — between the drops — and take a breath of air to assess what’s happening, then move on to the next challenge. He never claimed it wouldn’t rain, he just pointed out to mitigate the effects of the harshness of life, move deliberately and quickly from one challenge to the next.
The power lies between the drops. Eventually, the rain stops, and the sun peeks out again from behind the clouds of ordeal. Put away your umbrella. Whenever i tell my woes to my friend Ann, she gently reminds me that the situation i’m describing exists to teach me a lesson.
I can’t learn the lesson if i avoid it, i must walk through it. If we repeatedly put up umbrellas to block the lessons from touching our lives, we never experience the purpose of the education and we must suffer repeated exposure to the challenge.
Like the weather, we control very little of what rains down on us. When we divert or ignore the problems in our lives, they return with fervor, like the microburst, and flood our consciousness with such powerful lessons, we can’t turn deny the issues swirling at our feet, threatening our demise.
As we embrace the gentle rain and the small sprinklings of life happening from time to time, we prepare ourselves by learning slowly and completely the lessons the heavens give us at the perfect time and place, and in the perfect order. Rain, like life's ordeals, gives us nourishment, and is necessary for growth. Without the existence of the dark clouds and humidity, the sunshine in our lives may be taken for granted.
Celebrate your life between the dark clouds and wet air, and know if you move with speed and deliberation and learn from the storms in your life, the clouds eventually move on. Everything in life is temporary. Difficulties really do evaporate with time. Your true power is found between the trickles of misfortune, in the awareness of your ability to move from one challenge to the next.

Mirror your soul......

2008-04-14T01:50:00.000-07:00

If your reality is unsuitable, maybe what you feel and do is not suitable for your soul, says Alyssa A

Ireally tend to believe that people are creating their own reality. I’m sure that it’s what they do when they make their dreams come true. It’s not about bringing your whims to do the action, but to express yourself through your surrounding world, so it mirrors who you are, and the way you choose to be.
It’s not new that different people have different beliefs. Some people think they can direct their fate, and some believe that fate directs them. Some people receive inner guidance, feeling that it was given from above, and some are sure that it’s their own soul guiding them. So how do you think, is there anyone who’s in control of your life, or are you the only one who claims the right to be its master?
I really tend to believe that people are creating their own reality. I’m sure that it’s what they do when they make their dreams come true.
I still believe though that the Creator does the creating as well, but i just can’t see God and us as being something separate. I think if God was observing us, then the only thing s/he’d see would be the reflection of oneself.
But if you’re trying to see yourself being as great and loving as if you were no longer just a body and emotions, and to look at everything from the soul’s point of view, or from your Higher-Self’s perspective, you suddenly understand that you feel so tied up in your old and comfy perception of the world, that you can’t break free from your fears and worries whispered by your ego day by day. Your whole life you were doing things by the force of habit, and now, you woke up, but it’s not like you can change yourself in a wisp of light. Now it will be hard.
I, myself, as if i’ve never checked what’s going on in my head, once just realised that all my worries are about money, health, family problems, about who might die in my family and what pages of my life could be torn away. I felt that i don’t even understand who i truly am. I was just unable to realise myself, and that could make a person feel desperate, because if there’s no hint of self-realisation, there is no grasp for the life itself.
You know, it’s like there’s just no personal freedom. Like you’ve lost your right to be yourself. As if you suddenly realise that most of your thoughts are limited and not of your true nature at all; as if you’re thinking and speaking from your ego all the time, but don’t even comprehend where your soul is hiding.
If you’re trying to find the way back to your soul, and finally do something good, or start helping someone, you still don’t, because all your inner strives are devoted to fight away your ego, or to stop hurting others and not be driven by the anger if somebody plays with your emotions. I think that, if any sense of wisdom is present, nobody actually wants to hurt anyone, or feel guilty afterward. And nobody wants to be what people say or think about them.
How could anyone know your soul so well, and tell you everything about it? How could anyone steal your freedom of being yourself, and how could it be good to bring up the whole show of being such a remarkable personality, about which people will gossip, if the thing that makes you mad and broken is that you don’t really understand who you are, and that the things like burden of guilt, age, illness, or other pains may swipe away everything that you’ve ever been, and there would be nothing left; nothing remarkable.
So mostly all my struggles have been turned into a dream to be free and forget the limitations. Like when you see a plane in the sky, and your longing and desire for liberty is so strong, that you not just desperately want to be in there, but you wish to be the very moment of self-determination, the moment of choice. But dreams are dreams, and you don’t gain anything but sadness if they stay unfulfilled. The weird thing is that even if they don’t come true, you still can’t stop yourself from hoping that they will. As if the hope is a secret knowledge that everything is going to be all right.
And if your life is similar to lives of many, you might not even realise that there is something that is keeping you from giving up, even if your entire reality is based on irritation and frustration.
You know, many people actually hate their lives, because they do not see what they want to see around, and do not feel the way they might, if only everything was different. But if the only thing you see around is the kingdom of depression, it is not about the world, and not about the life, definitely. When somebody dies, life doesn’t stop.
It must be realised that if you have devoted your life to lies or pretence, if you’re choosing to stay bound when you are free, this is not about the life. You might think that you hate it, or that nothing good will ever happen to you because it’s just not worth happening, but it is you choosing what to feel at this moment of your life, and if it’s worth of being felt at all.
You can choose to fill your day with such things like necktie colour picking, considering the size of staples you need for your work, or just spending all the time in the kitchen. But you also may choose to wake up once in the morning with strong intention to start everything anew, as if there were no regrets in your life, as if nobody ever broke you before… You are choosing your words; you’re choosing your thoughts and moods. You’re choosing the life through which you will express yourself, and your entire reality is your own reflection. If your reality is unsuitable, maybe what you feel and do is not suitable for your soul, and to change it you got to see the world as if it was the part of your entire being.
You know, there is a mantrum that was said to be one of the most powerful, which is probably not surprising because it puts you facing the truth about yourself. The one that many choose not to recognise.
The mantrum is: “i love”
Strange, but even if you feel that you don’t love anything about your life, the world, or the people around you, you instantly understand what is it exactly that you love.
The places where you’ve never been, the things you always dreamed to do, the feelings you so wished to experience, the people you could’ve love, or the children you didn’t have. Even if you never had such things in your life, you still can’t keep yourself from loving th em, because they’re your dreams.

The Past Is Gone.......

2008-04-14T01:45:00.000-07:00

If you feel remorseful about something you have said or done, you should learn to forgive yourself, says Jeff Maziarek

Stop for a moment right now and think of something that happened in your past that you still carry some regrets about. Perhaps it’s a botched relationship, a job that you lost, a business that failed or a business you failed to start, an accident you either caused or one that affected you. You can also complete this exercise by thinking back to something pleasant that you experienced, such as falling in love, getting a promotion, or having a wonderful time on vacation.
Whether what you experienced was positive or negative, as you get in touch with that event or set of circumstances, realise that what you are doing in effect, is timetravelling within your own mind as you search through your bank of memories.
The truth is that the past is merely an illusion, as it is only what your mind is able to selectively remember. Moreover, the longer something remains in the mind, the more it changes and the less it reflects what may have actually occurred. The bottom line is that all you really have is your perception of what happened, and it is not necessarily clear, since the lens you are looking through may actually be clouded by the emotions associated with that memory.
In addition, as referenced above, your memories tend to change over time, and therefore may not accurately reflect your original perception. Despite this, the average person spends a great deal of time in this illusionary world of the past, either feeling guilty, regretful or angry, or reminiscing about the socalled “good old days.”
If you find yourself feeling remorseful about something you have said or done, or regretting something you feel you should have done, what you must do is learn to forgive yourself. By this i mean that you literally need to look at yourself in the mirror and say with conviction, “I forgive you for the mistake(s) you made, since i now know that you were simply doing the best that you were capable of doing at that time.” It is likewise important for you to acknowledge that everything that ultimately did occur was a necessary part of your soul’s growth.
What you also need to do when you are feeling guilty isn’t necessarily to apologise to whoever you hurt or disappointed, but instead to acknowledge your commitment to never repeating the behaviour again. You shouldn’t make an apology for something if you feel compelled, rather, it is more important to feel that you have actually learned from your mistake. If you feel angry about something
that occurred to you in the past, stop and internally remind yourself that according to the principle of cause and effect it was you who initiated the cause, either consciously or unconsciously, that led to the effect that incited your anger. By adhering to this view you effectively prevent yourself from becoming a powerless victim of circumstances.
While it can be very challenging to adopt this perspective, once you do it becomes nearly impossible to get angry at anyone for more than just a brief moment. Instead, you learn to look for the deeper meaning or a lesson behind each of the troublesome situations that you encounter, and learn to silently honour those individuals who can ‘pull your strings’, for they are serving as valuable teachers. Moreover, make an effort to remember that these annoying individuals are providing you with valuable opportunities to practice remaining centred in the midst of turmoil.
If you tend to reminisce about good times or relationships you have experienced in the past, you must understand that these types of thoughts also keep you from fully experiencing the present moment. Ideally, what you need to do is to develop the ability to completely experience whatever it is you’re experiencing at any given time, and then leave it behind.
In fact, don't carry over good experiences from the past either. Learn what it means to experience something fully, then drop it and move on to the next moment, uninfluenced by the previous one. You’d be travelling with such little baggage that you could pass through the eye of a needle. You’d know what eternal life is, because eternal life is now, in the timeless now.
Although this may seem like novel advice, it is quite practical, because many of us have a tendency to, as Henry David Thoreau once said, “loiter in winter when it is already spring.” If you are a person that is inclined to focus on good times in the past, please understand that all you are doing by 'time-travelling' in this way is wasting thought and feeling energy that could be used in far more constructive ways.
The past only has an impact on the present when you continue to waste your powerful thought and feeling energies on something that no longer exists at all, other than in your own mind. Whatever it was that happened is finished now, and no matter how uncomfortable it was for you, you need to come to the understanding that at some level you chose it, and that it helped to build your character and make you a stronger individual.
Whenever you do find yourself wondering why something turned out the way it did, i suggest calling to mind the old adage: ‘God does work in mysterious ways’. The truth is, you really don’t know the big picture. So, even though you might be inclined to feel sad about a certain event in your past, make the decision to accept the realisation that there is a higher order to things, and that something good will eventually come of it.
Before closing this article, i want to share with you a thought-provoking analogy i have heard Wayne Dyer uses often. The analogy is this: when you believe that the past has a significant, if not irreversible effect on your life today, it is just like saying that when a boat moves across the water, it is being propelled by the wake behind it.
Naturally this is ridiculous, because everyone knows that the wake is the result of the boat’s forward movement through the water and nothing else. The reality is, your past doesn’t drive your boat in the present moment, you do!

TIME TO MOVE ON.........

2008-04-14T01:38:00.000-07:00

It was the perfect thing to do at the perfect time when it was inspired to be done. When it has finished serving its purpose, it is the perfect time for it to end, says Enoch Tan

There are times when what used to be a thriving business, environment or relationship is no longer as alive as before. You find that the people that are involved are starting to drift away as they lose interest in keeping it going.
Even you yourself find that your heart is no longer in it. Yet you still put energy into it because it will soon be gone if nobody tries to preserve it. But what makes you think that God wants you to preserve it? Maybe he wants it to be destroyed, so that he can create something new.
You know what God wants you to do by the things he inspires you to create. There was something great that you were once inspired into creating. You have a lot of joy and fulfilment creating and experiencing it. But now you no longer feel the same way as before.
Try as you might, you just no longer feel the inspiration that was there. You think that since God had led you to create it in the first place, he must want you to continue doing it. You try to revive the passion but that seems to take a lot of energy.
The truth is that it was good for that moment, but a new moment has come and so it is time for a new thing. Something may have been great when it started and continued to be so for a certain period of time, but when the time comes where it seems to die out, it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t worth undertaking in the first place since it didn’t last forever.
It was the perfect thing to do at the perfect time when it was inspired to be done. When it has finished serving its purpose, it is the perfect time for it to end.
Nothing really goes away completely, it merely changes form. The effect of a previous work or experience will continue to be part of a new work or experience. Had it not been done in the first place, it would not existed to impact the new work in profound and significant ways.
There is nothing that is wasted or in vain. Any work that was done at a time when it was inspired to be created would have its place in influencing the universal scheme of things in eternity and everything else that is connected to it.
Since you know that God leads you by your heart’s desire, why are you hanging on to the relationship or the work that your heart is no longer in? It is because you are afraid to lose what you have. The truth is you are not losing anything at all.
God wants you to move on to the next experience that will be even better than the one before. Let go of the relationship or business that you no longer desire to be a part of. Let go of the old to make way for the new. Learn to let go and you will always be abundant.
In every moment you are in, always allow yourself to be naturally driven in your actions. When you choose to be inspired or inspirit, you will always be guided as to when to do what. If you find yourself trying to keep something going when you are no longer inspired to do so, then you are trying to drive the process, rather than letting yourself be driven.
Whenever that happens, you know it’s not going to work because it’s not what God wants. Let things happen ‘through you’ rather than making things happen.
When you act according to what you are most inspired to do in every moment, you are also allowing things to happen in divine order. The ordinary order of things that the world has in mind is to follow through from one step to what is logically the next until completion.
But when you follow spirit instead of ordinary logic, people may think you are disorderly and not doing things properly. When you follow spirit, you are following a higher logic where things are done not in the usual form of order but in divine order.
Spirit may give you an idea to create a product and so you act on the inspired idea and finish creating the product. According to ordinary order of things, the next logical step is to market it and sell it to the world.
But if you are not inspired to do the next step because you feel like creating something else instead, then that’s what spirit is guiding you towards. Spirit has guided you to create it for the moment and then to put it aside and do something else. It is probably not the right timing to release it yet.
Therefore by obeying spirit, you leave it on a shelf and go work on something else. To the world, it may seem that you are leaving something half done which is not exactly the characteristic of someone who is successful.
But let some time go by, maybe even years later and then you are inspired to take the product you previously created and release it to the world. That is when it becomes a mega success because it was the right timing. That is how acting in divine order and timing produces the best results.
You could also have chosen to force yourself to follow through on the ordinary order of things even though you are not inspired to do so just because you think that is the way it has to be done.
But when you do it that way, you end up wondering why it turns out to be a flop and start to wonder whether you were really inspired to create it in the first place. Even when you are guided to release it at that time, the results may come much later in divine order and timing.
So trust and obey spirit in every moment. It will show you the path to happiness.

2007-12-01T09:32:00.001-08:00

new posts coming soon.........